Written for a tumblr prompt + pairing meme. The prompt was 'is there a reason you're naked in my bed?'.

Shinigami Don't Understand What Laundry Is

by hashtagartistlife

Kurosaki Ichigo, nineteen years old, Shinigami substitute, has survived countless dangers that would have offed a lesser man than him by now. The undead equivalent of a large medieval country's defense force being out for his blood? Check. A supergenius megalomaniac who wants to take over the world grooming him for battle his entire life? Check. A literally omniscient immortal dude designating him public enemy number one to his entire army? Check.

After all this, it would be kind of a letdown to go to the netherworld thanks to something as mundane as a heart attack. Nevertheless, the heart attack he has after what he thought would be a routine sweep for hollows on a balmy summer night is the closest he ever gets to being dead in his nineteen years of life, and that's saying something seeing as how he actually died once.

The cause? A certain tiny undead not-his-girlfriend, goddammit. Ichigo pinches the bridge of his nose and lets out a slow, controlled breath.

"Is there," he asks, his tone low and tight, "a reason why you're naked in my bed?"

Kuchiki Rukia sniffs and somehow manages to look superior, like she's not STARK NAKED in SOMEONE ELSE'S BED right now. "There is an explanation."

"An explanation." Ichigo closes his eyes. He's not sure he wants to hear this explanation.

"Yes." He doesn't know how she does it—that maddening Kuchiki inflection in her voice that suggests absolute power over the situation even though, oh, one might be COMPLETELY WITHOUT CLOTHES and AT THE MERCY OF SOMEONE WHO IS CURRENTLY ARMED AND DANGEROUS. He wonders if this is something that's innate to her and her adopted brother, or if all Kuchiki have a mandatory 'how to sound better than everyone else around you' course upon their birth or adoption into the family. He's hedging his bets on the latter, mostly because he's heard stories from his dad about teenage Byakuya, and god what he wouldn't give to be able to meet the guy himself. And now he's rambling, because he's trying to tear his mind away from the distraction that is NAKED KUCHIKI RUKIA IN HIS BED. IN. HIS. BED.

"Am I gonna hear this explanation or will I die of old age before you come up with an acceptable excuse for this?"

Rukia sniffs again and Ichigo has an unholy urge to strangle her. Unfortunately, laying his hands on her body isn't a viable option right now. "I ran out of clothes to wear, and the set I was wearing was dirty, so I thought I'd just wash them and put them back on. I'm waiting for the dryer to finish, then I can slip out of this body into my shinigami form, gather my clothes, and come back and wear them. I thought it was a good plan that would cause minimal hassle for you. I see now that you're far too uncouth for any thoughts of gratitude to pass your mind, though. I should have known."

"You're telling me laundry is the reason you're not wearing any clothes right now?" Ichigo says, and his voice cracks from the strain. This is too fucking much. He's had it up to here. God, hasn't he done enough? Didn't he save the world from annihilation, like, three times? Didn't he maintain his grades all throughout that? Didn't he get into that good university and that med degree and wasn't he a good person who helped old ladies across the road? What the hell has he done to deserve Kuchiki Rukia in his life, messing it up with her inability to understand simple human things like juice boxes and clothes and laundry?

"Your inability to keep a supply of my clothes in your room is the reason I'm not wearing any clothes right now!" Rukia counters crossly. "I told you, Ichigo, if you'd just keep a couple of my human world dresses in your closet, you wouldn't need to take me shopping every time I come visit—"

"And I've told you, how exactly will that look to my housemates? We're not in Karakura anymore, Rukia! I can't keep a girl's clothes in my wardrobe without my housemates thinking something's up—"

"Like what, precisely?" Rukia asks archly. "Like that you have a girlfriend? Good god, Ichigo, some people would think of that as a feather in their cap, not something to be avoided at all costs! Or is it them thinking that I'm your girlfriend you take objection to?"

Ichigo splutters. "I—that's not what I—of course not! You're not the objection, I just—"

Rukia just snorts and draws the covers up closer around her neck. Unfortunately, the movement draws his attention to the curves of her body just underneath his thin summer blanket, and a wave of heat that has nothing to do with the current July humidity sweeps through him. He doesn't just lose his train of thought; it's ejected spectacularly from his mind on an emergency spring-booster seat and he finishes his sentence with an eloquent gargle of syllables that don't in any way, shape or form resemble a word.

"When you're done staring," she says dryly, "you could make yourself useful and fetch my clothes, maybe."

Higher functioning slams back into his brain and he turns his head away from the bed so fast he might've sprained something. "Y—yeah, alright, so! Say I believe that ridiculous story about laundry! Why the fuck did you decide my bed was an appropriate place to stay while your clothes were in the wash?"

"Would you have preferred I hopped into one of your housemates' beds?"

Hichigo very nearly jumps out there and then, snarling about Rukia in any other bed apart from his (Ichigo is trying not to analyse why Hichigo's taken to calling Rukia Queen lately); as it is, Ichigo's had a lot of practice at controlling homicidal tendencies and manages to quash him down. He'll think about why he had that violent a reaction later. But for now— "Obviously not, but why didn't you just put some of my clothes on and wait around?"

Rukia raises an eyebrow. "I wouldn't do that to you," she says piously, "I can't just take your clothes without permission, Ichigo! That would be wrong. After all, it's not like we're dating or anything, right?"

She continues with a sly half-lidded look at him that makes him want to run out of the room and dunk his head in an ice bucket. "And besides, if it's the suggestiveness of the thing you're worried about, I'd think that me wearing your clothes and me in your bed is about the same thing anyway, no?"

Shit. Shit. He was kind of half-joking about the ice bucket before, but now he's actually on the verge of tearing out of the room to the kitchen, where he can lock himself up in the fridge for all eternity. So Kuchiki Rukia knows exactly how suggestive her being naked in his bed is, and she's done it anyway, and Ichigo doesn't entirely know how to process this information, especially now that his higher functioning has once again bid bye-bye and exited the building. A strangled sound escapes his throat that might've been something like 'As if someone even tinier than my sisters wearing my clothes would be in any way suggestive', but it's unconvincing as hell, not the least because it's incomprehensible. Mostly because that 'someone even tinier than his sisters' is actually in his bed right now and he's finding it incredibly, incredibly suggestive. Ichigo wants to straight-up die. Is it possible to die from embarrassment? From unresolved sexual tension? From frustration and confusion and an overload of information that doesn't make any sense?

Rukia interrupts his denial fest with a delicate snort and gets up from the bed, thankfully (a small corner in his mind is disappointed, but it's all good, Ichigo's mostly yelled that part down) with his blankets still wrapped firmly around her. "Whatever, fool. I think I heard the dryer go off, my clothes will be ready. And since you look like you're about to have an aneurysm, I guess I'll have to fetch my clothes myself. Move out of my way."

He actually shunpo-es to the door to get there before her. "What the hell do you think you're doing?" he hisses, grabbing ahold of her shoulders, "You can't just—just walk out of my room looking like that!"

Rukia shrugs him off—the blanket dips a little lower in the process and Ichigo is royally fucked. Figuratively. Not literally. (He should be so lucky.) "Well you clearly weren't going to help so as usual I figured I'd have to do everything myself—"

"Just. Stay. In. My. Bed." He grits through his teeth, before picking her up (over the blankets! Over! The! Blankets! Let it be known that he did not so much as touch an inch of bare skin) and throwing her back down onto the mattress. Rukia lands in a pile of disheveled fabric and limbs, her short hair going everywhere, and Ichigo tries real hard not to think of how it makes her look like she's just been ravished. He also fails real hard at this.

She looks up at him through the mess of short dark strands with a mischievous glint in her eyes. "Well, didn't know you had it in you, Ichigo! Though frankly, I think you should take me out to dinner first, girl's gotta have some standards, you know—"

He doesn't even reply to that, because honestly, he set himself up for that one. He simply chooses to wheel around and walk out of his room, grabbing his laundry basket on the way. Just before he closes the door, however, Rukia calls after him with one last parting shot:

"Don't forget to grab my underwear, too! They're the Chappy ones!"

Ichigo slams the door shut in her laughing face and tries not to cry.

His neighbor peeks his head out of his room. "Dude, you wanna, like, maybe not advertise the fact that you're banging your girlfriend so loudly—"

"We are not fucking dating!"

"—never taking your advice again, Matsumoto, I'm pretty sure I almost killed him and I'd really rather not stand on the Sokyouku again for accidental manslaughter of the savior of the world—"

"—are you serious? That's some ironclad control on the boy, I'm impressed—"

"Well, he does have a murderous hollow as his zanpakutou spirit, I'd say he's practiced at keeping his urges in check—"

"—shit, forgot about that one, but still—how the hell does he resist you, stark naked, tied up in strategic places in ribbon with your best 'I'm yours' expression—"

"… alright, so I might not have executed this exactly as you instructed me—"

"WHAT?! Kuchiki, you're as hopeless as him, no WONDER my plan didn't work—"

"—look, Matsumoto, I am not about to slather myself in—what the hell was it you suggested? Cream and honey in front of him before he can even get the words 'date' and 'Kuchiki Rukia' strung together in his head without combusting—"

"—alright, alright, but hear me out on this next plan, strawberry-themed negligee—"

"—Bye, Matsumoto."

After all that, he ends up kissing her on an ordinary Tuesday morning, when she visits him straight after a mission to Hueco Mundo. There is sand in her hair and bags under her eyes and nothing special about the tatty desert cape and worn shihakusho she's wrapped up in, but she doesn't think he notices at all when he absently kisses her hello as though they'd been doing it for centuries. It's short and sweet – a 'welcome back' kiss, like a husband might give a wife that had been away—but when he realises what he's done, he does not panic as she thought he might do. Instead, a trace of a blush winds its way across his cheeks—but his eyes are steady on hers, with the hint of an amused question in their amber depths. Why haven't we been doing this before?

Well, hell if Rukia knows. They burst out into laughter together, but it's cut short when their eyes meet again and he pulls her towards him—harder this time, more forceful, with more intent in his touch than there had been before.

Rukia doesn't return to the Seireitei until dawn of the next day.

This is obviously set after the conclusion of the Thousand Year Blood War arc. Ichigo defeats Ywhach and is going to university in the human world. While I am a firm believer of 'Ichigo and Rukia are pretty much a done deal rn and when this arc finishes they'll just have the mutual understanding that they are A Thing and there won't be any dramas regarding this matter' (you can message me for why *I* think this is the most in-character interpretation of them so far), it's still valid and really fun to write Ichigo being a blushy blushy mess around Rukia! Hence this fic. I hope you enjoyed reading!