I never even PRETENDED I wasn't going to like the live action movie, and seeing everyone in the ir fandom get really reluctantly excited about it now that the trailer is out and it's like 100% utterly and completely ir is extremely validating tbh. Anyway, THAT HIGH FIVE KILLED ME, so i wrote a fic about it, thank you and good the fuck bye. See you all when the live action drops and I inevitably have even more Feelings TM.

The Little Things

by hashtagartistlife

"Did you see that?! That was pretty much perfect, yeah? High-five, Rukia!"

"High— high five?"

She looks bemused, maybe even a little concerned— that telltale furrow between her brows deepening as she tries to work out what sort of newfangled living world invention a high-five could possibly be— and it's times like this that Ichigo remembers her words, that she is at least ten times older than he is, and starts to believe her.

In approximately a month of unbelievable occurrences, right after the other, Rukia's age had perhaps been the most unbelievable of them all. She barely looks like the highschooler that she's posing as, sometimes, let alone a hundred and fifty-something, but it's unmistakable in moments like these when she's staring blankly at his upheld palm, her own hands resolutely by her side. The high from his clean-cut victory (a first-ever textbook-standard hollow slaying; approach from behind, cleave straight through the skull, make sure to shatter the mask) falters a little, and even though he knows she's being sincere, he has to ask, he just has to:

"Wait— are you serious? You don't know what a high-five is?"

She scowls at that and looks over his shoulder. "No, I do not know. Just like I did not know what a microwave was, or what calculus was, or what those stupid little cardboard cartons you call juiceboxes were—"

"Ok, ok, I get it. Um. That's fine, whatever. I'll just— I'll teach you."

He grabs one of her hands before his brain can quite catch up and be embarrassed about what he's doing, and brings it up just above her shoulder. He uncurls her fingers and straightens her palm out; steps back to survey his handiwork. Rukia just looks up at him with those wide eyes of hers, and before she can take her hand back or ask if he's lost his mind, Ichigo grins, quick and light, and smacks his palm into hers with a satisfying clap. She flinches back from the impact, and braces for a second one that does not come. She looks at him quizzically.

"That's… it?"

"Yeah. That's a high-five."

"I see." Rukia lowers her hands gingerly, staring at it as though it was a separate entity to her. "Is there a… purpose to it?"

"It's celebratory. You do it after someone's achieved something, it's a way of sharing the excitement of success."

"Humans are so odd."

He snorts. "Says the 150 year old dead lady."

He sheathes his sword and looks back her her expectantly, only to find her with her eyebrows knitted together, still staring at her palms.

"I do not like this," she mutters, and Ichigo realises then that what he said might have been, kind of, maybe, just a tiny bit offensive.

"Oh. Uh, shit. Listen, Rukia, you know that was a joke—"

"No, no, not that. You think I care that I am 150 years old? By shinigami standards, I am barely into my adulthood. No, I do not like this…. not knowing. There was nothing about any of this in any of the Shinigami manuals. No instructions to follow, no protocol to apply. I thought— I thought that I was prepared for this, that I was ready— more than ready. Only to find out I still lack so much—"

Ichigo interrupts in exasperation. "Rukia, it's just a high-five."

"Perhaps, but I have been here a month already and I am still not familiar with your customs—"

Ichigo plants his sword down in the ground between them, sheath and all. "Shit. Okay. Listen. A month? I've only been shinigami for a month, Rukia. Today was the first time I managed to hit a hollow from behind, without any mistakes. A whole month, and today was the first time. You were beating my ass without even looking literally just last week! You can't learn everything in a goddamn month. Stop beating yourself up over a high-five, yeah?"

She looks away from her hands, to the ground where his sword is planted, and a smile tugs the corner of her lips. "So you admit you lost that bout last week?"

"I admit to nothing," he says flatly. "But did you just admit that despite being 150 you're essentially barely legal? You tried to bribe me into getting plum wine for you last week!"

"How was I to know human customs were different?" she says archly. "And I admitted nothing!"

"I'm never deferring to you as a responsible adult ever again."

"As if you ever deferred to me in the first place."

"That clearly just goes to show how excellent my judgement is." He swings back into his body, practiced by now; his joints line up with nary a creak and it only takes him a few seconds to orient himself again. Next to him, Rukia is back to appraising his every move.

"You've gotten very good at this. Try to sync your head first next time, you get less nausea that way."

"Was that a compliment I heard, there?" He shakes his head to clear the last vestiges of dizziness, and accepts her hand up. "Might be the first in a month."

"Oh? Would that be cause for a high-five, then?"

He barks out a surprised laugh. "S'pose, yeah. High five?"

This is why he has such a hard time believing her age, he thinks; sometimes, Rukia lights up, with the kind of pure enjoyment you can only see in a child. He raises a hand, palm up, and matches her grin; Rukia leans forward on tiptoes, and lightly hits her hand to his.

.

.

.

.

(Ichigo goes sprawling in soul form ten feet behind his body at the contact. Both of them look at Rukia's outstretched hand, which still has her red glove on it.

"Are high-fives meant to do that?" Rukia asks.

"No."

"Oh." She pauses. "Oops.")

(By the way, I AM still working on all my multichapter fics, cyclical included. I'm just also trying to graduate at the same time, ty for ur understanding nd patience)