Bleach Fan Fiction ❯ At Least Friends ❯ One-Shot

[ P - Pre-Teen ]

A/N: My first Bleach fic, so sorry if the characters are a bit OOC. No plot really, just Ichigo confronting his feelings.

This is by far my favorite pairing - I love reading about these two. They're so cute together, and so compatible too. I don't know why, but I really hate IchigoxRukia. Not that I have anything against het pairings, in fact I kinda like RenjixRukia although not as much as this RenjixIchigo. Shrug. Well, I'm rambling now. On with it.

Disclaimers: I don't own Bleach. (I would be making so much damn money if I did.)

Read and review please.

Ichigo sighed. He was tired. Tired of the countless hollows, tired of endless school days, and mostly, tired of his perpetual but secret obsession with 6th division shinigami lieutenant Abarai Renji. Another sigh broke free as he thought about the last one, but he didn't dwell on it.

His communicator went off, alerting him of another hollow in the vicinity. Well, mused Ichigo as he quickly pressed the badge to his chest to release his soul and jump out of his window, at least the hollows were useful to stop thinking about that damn spiky haired bastard.

“Yo, Ichigo.”

Okay, so going off to fight hollows probably wasn't the brightest idea when you were trying to avoid a shinigami. Renji was standing next to a large space that seemed to signify where the hollow had been - there was varying degrees of destruction to attest to that.

“You're late, Ichigo,” Renji drawled.

“Shut up,” came Ichigo's automatic response. “Well, if everything's finished here, I'll just go back home.”

With that, Ichigo turned and started to vault off, but froze at the sound of Renji's quiet question. “Ne Ichigo, are you avoiding me?”

“No.” Ichigo was proud. There was barely any hesitation before saying that single word, and it came out rather convincingly truthful, if he had to say so himself. He took another step in the direction of his home.

Renji was suddenly right in front him. Damn his shunpo. But Ichigo couldn't think about that now, not with Renji only a foot away and snarling. “You're not good at lying, Ichigo. I know you have. Rukia's noticed, and so has Urahara-san. What the hell is wrong? I thought we were friends, Kurosaki Ichigo!” Renji was nearly yelling at the end.

“W-we are.”

Ichigo's response seemed to halt Renji. It was a moment before he could continue, and his voice sounded oddly broken, “Then what happened?”

Ichigo's searched desperately in his mind for something to tell Renji, anything to show that it wasn't his fault. But before he could come up with a single good excuse, Renji shocked the hell out of him: “Is it because I like you? I told Rukia not to tell you, but I guess she went ahead and did it anyway. Damn that girl, thinking that she always knows what's good for me… Ichigo, are you alright?”

“Y-you… like me?!” Ichigo finally blurted out.

Renji suddenly found the clouds extremely interesting while his cheeks seemed to turn as red as his hair. “Ha, well I guess you didn't know. But yeah, Ichigo, I do. Sorry if you don't swing that way, but I was thinking it would be nice to stay friends. I won't make a move on you if you don't want me to, it's just… Well you're a brat sometimes, but you're kinda cool too. I—mmph!”

Renji got cut off as Ichigo suddenly launched himself at the red haired shinigami and proceeded to kiss him thoroughly if inexpertly[1]. If this is a dream, Ichigo thought, please let me not wake up anytime soon. Maybe never would be nice.

When they both finally had to part for air, they broke apart only far enough to stare at one another. A wary grin was stretched across Renji's face as though he expected that some trick had been pulled, while a dazed wondrous grin adorned Ichigo's.

“Ichigo, are you serious?” Renji could have smacked himself at the awkward question, but it had to be asked. He couldn't take it if he had gotten his hopes up for nothing.

“Baka,” Ichigo laughed, while slipping his hand into the Renji's. “Let's go get our gigai and get some ice cream.”

Renji couldn't help the wide smirk that spread across his face as he was tugged along by the shinigami substitute. He couldn't help but tease, “Are we going to get strawberry? Strawberry for my strawberry [2], you know.”

“Shut up, Renji.”

-End-

[1] Hey Ichigo's only what, fifteen? He doesn't have any sexual experience! (Or at least I don't think he does.)

[2] Ichigo sounds like strawberry in Japanese.