You're Gay?!

Thank you for all the lovely reviews, they help so much! I love all the ideas you all have, too! I try to incorporate as many as possible into the story. Oh, and sorry about the symbols. Damn them! I have no idea what happened, maybe because I am using OpenOffice instead of Word. I'll try to make it not do that this time, but no guarantee. I got this one out so fast this time because I got inspired, at work, while cleaning dog crap. Why, I don't know. But here you go!

Chapter 5: Confessions

“What about me?” asked Rukia in a sweet voice as she floated in Ichigo's still open bedroom window, dressed in her shinigami garb, moving as silently as death itself. Both men jerked their heads up and Ichigo swung around so fast he nearly fell on his back. Rukia landed on the bed and looked carefully at Ichigo and Yumichika. Both men were looking rather white, almost as if they had just seen a ghost. This is highly suspicious, she thought. However, before she could question the men about their pasty faces and knee jerk reactions, Ichigo suddenly regained his voice.

“RUKIA!” He shouted, yes shouted at her, while pointing very rudely. “I thought you left for Soul Society for a week! Why are you here?!” He looked like he was about to hyperventilate, his face was strawberry red and his cheeks all puffed out.

“Whoa, Ichigo, calm down. I was going to Soul Society, but then I remembered that I forgot my blanket! I can't sleep without my blanket you know!” And she grinned at the boys as she hopped off the bed and glided over to the closet door which she slid open and then proceeded to rummage around inside the closet. Meanwhile Yumichika and Ichigo exchanged worried glances. They knew she was going to question them about why they had been talking about her and what they had said. Frankly, Yumichika was beginning to fear for his life, or at least, his sanity. Sure, in Soul Society stuff like sexual orientation wasn't really kept a secret and pretty much everyone knew about Rukia and the others, but he also knew that Rukia had purposefully kept this a secret from Ichigo after noticing that he was slightly homophobic. The black haired shinigami was seriously starting to consider finding Inoue Orihime now and having her stand by for the emergency medical treatment he was sure he would need when Rukia was done with him. He was about to slip out of his seat and disappear when they suddenly heard a triumphant cry from the closet.

“Ha! Found it!” And Rukia turned around to face the two petrified men with a snuggly looking blue blanket grasped in her hands and held tightly to her chest, a rapturous look on her face. Her audience's mouths dropped open as they stared at the blanket. For printed all over this cuddly blanket were fluffy little white bunnies hopping around or sleeping, even hugging one another. “Ah, I can not sleep without this blanket, these cute little bunnies make me soooo happy!” And she sighed in delight, burying her head in the cutesy blanket. For one brief moment Yumichika thought he was off the hook as she seemed so taken up in her blanket loving, but then she pulled a Rukia trade mark move and snapped her head up sharply and glared at Yumichika. “So,” she began suspiciously, “What were saying about me Yumichika?”

Yumichika looked nervously from the left to the right and then looked sheepishly back at Rukia. “I, um, was just telling Ichigo some things he didn't know about certain people. It wasn't anything big, really, practically everyone knows already as it is. No need to get violent or anything!” and Yumichika waved his hands about in front of his face in a placating gesture, his eyes looking a little bit wild.

Rukia's glare turned harder. “Ayasegawa Yumichika! What in the name of all three realms did you tell that boy?!”

The petite shinigami seemed to Yumichika's eyes to grow several feet in height as she uttered this sentence and he shrank back in his chair and mumbled, “I only told him that you and Matsumoto were bi.”

There was a moment of deafening silence and then Rukia descended on Yumichika in all her fury, using her blanket, which she had twisted up in a split second, to flay at Yumichika's head. “The HELL, Yumichika?! I though we agreed not to tell the strawberry that! And then you just go blurting it out?! He probably hates me now, you ass!!!” At the end of each sentence she gave the poor shinigami a
particularly hard slap with her blanket-whip. “You poor, poor excuse for a friend! You traitorous little rat! To think I trusted you!!! The rabid little bunnies will eat your soul!!!” And here she trailed off into a string of choice swear words and curses that really don't bear repeating.

Ichigo, meanwhile, just sat cowering in a corner on his bed. No way in hell that he was going up against an angered Rukia to help out Yumichika. Nope, the dude was on his own, big time! He watched in horrid fascination as Rukia consistently and expertly snapped her whip on each side of Yumichika's flawless face. The man himself looked like he was nearly in tears. Ichigo thought he could just barely make out the desperate words, “no, not my face, my beautiful, perfect face! No!” through the sounds of Rukia's screams and the smack of the whip. Then, suddenly, just as quickly as she had started the onslaught, Rukia stopped. She quit swinging the blanket-whip and quit screaming her head off. Instead, she put both hands on her hips, the blanket swinging at her side from one clenched fist, and glared at Yumichika. “I am not staying here to see what his reaction to this news is. I'm leaving. I'm already late and they are going to be mad at me. So, fix this mess and he better not act awkward around me the next time we meet or else you are in for a world of hurt much worse than this. Oh yes,” she cackled evilly, “much worse than this! AND, I will NOT spare your flawless face and hair that you take so much pride in. So, fix it, boy! I'll see you both in a week!” She gave Ichigo a very pointed look as well and then swept out of the room, through the window, blanket still clutched tightly in her hand, heading for Soul Society with all the pomp and majesty of a queen heading back to her castle after having roundly scolded the peasants.

Ichigo and Yumichika sat there in stunned silence for a few minutes just staring out the window that the angry woman had disappeared out of. Neither of them really knew what to do or say at that moment. The whole thing had been like a horrible dream or a really bad storm that comes on quickly, makes a ton of damage, and then leaves as if it never happened in the first place. After a moment, however, they both slowly turned to look at each other.

“Dude,” Ichigo whispered, breaking the silence first. “That was scary! But wow, I really didn't expect Rukia to be bi, but I guess I can see it if I look closely. You know, I had a crush on her in the beginning,” and he grinned, “but then I kind of realized she doesn't think of me that way and also, man, she can be scary sometimes!”

Yumichika was busy combing down his crazily messed up hair with his hands and making little fussing noises, but he was listening to Ichigo with part of his mind. Whew, he thought, then that means there won't be another reason for me to get beaten up. At least Ichigo won't mind that she is bi and won't treat her differently. Out loud he said, “Hmm...Ichigo, it seems that you are becoming more accepting of this whole idea of gayness. Am I right?” He gave his hair one last pat and then tilted his head to look quizzically at Ichigo.

Ichigo blushed a bit and looked off somewhere behind Yumichika. “Yeah, well, maybe.” he mumbled. “I mean, it isn't so bad, and all those people, minus Urahara, are normal, nice people. I guess I've just been prejudiced. Or scared. I mean, I've never really been attracted to girls all that much. Tatsuki was my friend as a kid, and Rukia was a little crush I had, but I've never really been ATTRACTED to girls, if you know what I mean. Of course, I've never really been attracted to guys either, so maybe I'm just asexual, but now, I'm not so sure I'll be as quick to rule out that I might be bi. Doesn't sound like it's such a bad thing, and if Rukia's bi and she's such an awesome person then I don't really have to be scared of being bi, do I?”

Yumichika listened calmly, although with a bit of surprise at Ichigo's bit of twisted logic that ended up as a confession. Well, sure he had been bent on getting Ichigo to admit that he was gay, but he really hadn't seen it happening this quickly. So maybe going through the pain and humiliation of being attacked by Rukia was worth it in the end! But of course he would never tell her that! When Ichigo was finished talking Yumichika smiled and said, “No reason to be scared of being bi, or gay, or really anything that society sees as different. It just means it's you and you have to accept what makes you 'you' or else you can never really start to live. So, I'm proud of you Ichigo! Congratulations!” He clapped his hands and fairly beamed at Ichigo.

“Whoa, dude, now don't go telling everybody yet! It's one thing to admit it to you and myself and a whole other thing to go tell the whole wide world and all my friends. Let's keep this under wraps for now, 'kay?” And Ichigo looked anxiously at Yumichika, waiting for his promise that he wouldn't tell anyone else.

Yumichika sighed. Always one step back, he thought. Oh well. “I promise, Ichigo, I won't tell anyone else until you are ready to tell them. Now, I'm tired, it's late and I want to sleep.” He yawned, stood up, stretched and started talking his clothes off.

Ichigo let out a sound that resembled a yelp and leapt off the bed. “Do that somewhere else man! For the love of sanity! And you are sleeping in the closet!” With that, Ichigo stomped off to the bathroom to change, grabbing a shirt on his way out. When he got back from the bathroom he was shocked to find Yumichika sitting in the middle of his bed with nothing but boxers on, one knee propped up and his arm draped over it, the other leg bent under his raised one and his other hand holding himself up. He just stood there in his shirt and boxers and gaped. “I thought I told you you were sleeping in the closet, like Rukia does!” he bellowed.

“Ichi dear, that is all nice and lovely for the small and short Rukia, but I am a man, Ichi dear, and I cannot fit in that closet. So, I just thought I'd sleep with you!” Here Yumichika smiled rather happily.

Ichigo opened his mouth, shut it, glanced at the closet and then back at Yumichika and finally sighed, his shoulders slumping in defeat. “Alright, you can sleep in the bed with me, but if you touch me I WILL KILL YOU!!!” He glared daggers at Yumi from under tousled orange hair. Yumichika almost swooned. The boy didn't know how fucking HOT he was!

“Thank you, Ichigo,” Yumichika nearly purred, “I promise to keep my hands off of you in your sleep.”

“Good,” Ichigo growled as he climbed into the bed on the side nearest the wall, slunk under the covers and yanked them up to his chin as Yumichika slid off them to climb underneath them with Ichigo. The orange haired teen promptly rolled over on his side with his back facing Yumichika and snuggled up with the wall. The dark haired shinigami grinned as he lay underneath the covers and stared at the boy's back. Oh yes, he would get that hot piece of man meat to himself one of these days. Oh yes!

There was a grunt from Ichigo's side of the bed and then Yumichika heard, “Tomorrow you finish telling me who else is gay. 'Night Yumi.”

Yumichika grinned again. “'Night Ichi.”


Hope everyone enjoyed this chapter. It's not moving too fast, is it?