disclaimer: disclaimed.
dedication: hi Annie.
notes: I should be asleep right now.

title: incandescence
summary: Nobody ever really expects these kind of things. — Ichigo/Rukia.

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Ichigo left the bathroom in a gush of steam. It had been such a cold day—and his mother had always said that the best medicine for such a cold day was a long, hot shower.

And Ichigo was honestly inclined to agree.

He meandered to his bedroom, towel wrapped loosely around his waist. The house was quiet, for once—his family must have been out, and Rukia, too. Thank god. Privacy wasn't a word in the collective Kurosaki household vocabulary, and so any moment of it that Ichigo could find, he grabbed and refused to let go.

It was empty.

Probably.

There was no telling what sort of humiliation Goat-Chin might have left in his bedroom as a trap. It was better to tread lightly.

He clutched at his towel, just in case.

(Really, there was no telling.)

He headed for his closet, and opened the door.

And was greeted by five-feet-nothing of screaming girl.

"JESUS SHIT, RUKIA—!"

"OH MY—ICHIGO—CLOTHES! KNOCK—YOU—CLOSE THE DOOR—!"

Sheer horror had him slamming the door closed. Silence, blessed silence.

But only for like a second.

"ARE YOU DECENT?" she screeched through the door.

"NO, KEEP THE DAMN DOOR CLOSED," he roared back, and searched frantically for pants.

But there were no pants to be found. Not even in the laundry. All his pants were shoved on one side of his closet, where Yuzu still insisted they go even though she knew Rukia was living in there.

"Oh god," Ichigo moaned.

"What? WHAT?"

He had to be rational about this. "Rukia. Rukia. Cover your eyes. I need pants."

"What."

"Just—" he said, and opened the door. There was a moment where he was terrified she was going to do something thoroughly cruel. Like kick him. Or bash him over the head with something blunt and heavy. Or something equally violent and pain-inducing. That was sort of how Rukia was.

But she didn't.

She mostly just stared at him, wide-eyed. Completely frozen.

Ichigo took some solace in this.

He reached for his pants.

"Ichigo?"

"Huh?"

"Your… um. Your towel. It's. Um."

Ichigo didn't look down. He manoeuvered around her; he was trying his very hardest not to touch her, and make every that much worse. "What?"

"Your towel. Would you deal with it, please?!" she snarled. She stared very hard at the wall.

Ichigo blinked down.

"Oh, motherfucker—"

His towel had slipped.

fin.