Title: Ship Is Going Down
Author: Lys
Characters/Pairing: Kurosaki Ichigo/Asano Keigo, some Kurosaki Karin
Rating/Warnings: PG, OMGWTFUST
bleach_15 Theme: #5, One Summer
Status: One-shot, complete, word count 1435


1,000 words of unresolved sexual tension.



It was the summer that they’d been accepted into senior high school that Keigo and his friends had found themselves short on money and long on time, daunted by the idea of over a month of vacation before forced adjustment to a new social setting.

Keigo suggested a trip to the beach once a week, to stay in touch and to at least dot the boredom and the summer homework with all-too-brief periods of Good Times. Everyone had initially agreed to the idea, but slowly the small group dwindled into an even smaller group; a group that consisted of two, which really meant a pair. A couple. A twosome.

This was where the real problem began.

Tatsuki informed Keigo that she really did need to practice during the afternoons, and Mizuiro took a vacation to Okinawa with an 18 year old girl with bad hair that Keigo generally had a negative opinion of. This left Ichigo, Keigo’s dour and tangerine-haired friend, and Keigo himself. The situation being as it was, Keigo showed up at the front door of the Kurosaki Clinic on his lonesome and rung the doorbell. It pin-ponned at him gleefully. It was 6 AM.

Kurosaki Isshin opened the door, ushering Keigo into the house. Yuzu, as per usual, asked Keigo if he’d like anything to drink as Ichigo came down the stairs, scratching at some itch near the waistband of his black swimming trunks, smooth muscles sliding into them. The trail of red pubic hair running down from his naval stood out against the stark darkness (and why didn’t Keigo possess such a fine marker of male maturity, anyway? It was unfair.).

Yes, Yuzu, Keigo thought, he would like a tall glass of Kurosaki Ichigo.

“What?” Ichigo grunted. Keigo realized what he was doing and coughed politely, shaking the stuffed swimming duffel over his shoulder.

“You ready to head out?”

Ichigo disappeared around the stairs for a moment, coming back with his own bag. He was followed by his black-haired sister. Karin gave Keigo a horrifyingly accurate personal version of Ichigo’s own dour stare, blue eyes focused on the brunette’s face. “I guess. Mind if Karin comes along?”

The tone of Ichigo’s voice clearly communicated between friends, ‘You will say yes or she and my father will never forgive us in a hobojillion years.’

“I don’t see why not,” Keigo said, niggling feelings of both relief and regret chewing at the back of his mind. “My sister’s coming along, anyway. She’s the only one old enough to drive.”

--//--//--

By the time the small group arrived at the seaside, it was time for lunch. Keigo’s sister found the earliest opportunity presented to her to go ‘Man Shopping, Solo’, leaving Keigo along with the Kurosaki Kyodai (as it were). They sat under a sturdy old beach tree, listening to the breeze rattle the dry leaves, avoiding the eventuality of walking across hot, omnipresent sand. Keigo peered across the picnic table, nibbling at his yakisoba pan as Ichigo dug unceremoniously into the decently-sized bento Yuzu'd packed him before they left. He shoveled more rice into his mouth with his chopsticks. Keigo’s eyebrow twitched. There was a single, white piece of short-grained rice stuck to Ichigo’s lower lip.

Karin kicked Keigo in the shin with her foam sandle, snatching away his attention. “You’re staring,” she hissed.

Ichigo glared at both of them in irritation. He set his bento down on the table, slid his sandals off and stood. “Welp,” he announced to his beach partners, “I’m gonna go see what the water’s like.”

“A braver man than I,” Karin muttered sarcastically. Keigo stood to follow the redhead, carefully and daintily bouncing his way down to water’s edge, avoiding beach-towels, sandcastles and small children.

The children swerved to avoid Ichigo.

Ichigo sauntered.

“Are you made of the monster under the bed or engine coolant or something?” Keigo cocked his well-formed eyebrow at Ichigo’s back, glad to finally be at the water’s edge. He toed nervously at a small, incoming wave.

“Nope,” Ichigo said crankily (which was how Ichigo said most everything), “I have nerves of steel.” Ichigo was already in to a depth of his thighs, staring back at Keigo with water rushing up behind him, soaking his trunks slowly. Keigo wasn’t aware that black could become a darker shade of black, but the trunks illustrated it rather elegantly. Keigo waded in, glad when they were finally out far enough to float, sinking beneath the water to their shoulders. It meant that Ichigo’s well-shaped karate-chest was distorted by the eternal physics of light through a liquid.

Keigo rubbed his lips with the back of his forearm, salt seeping in between them.

--//--//--

By the time evening rolled around, all involved parties were beginning to look unattractively pruney (aside from Keigo’s sister, who had somehow managed to completely avoid the ocean part of the beach equation), and dinner was more a necessity than a polite suggestion. Back at the picnic table, Ichigo was having his way with another bento possessing the exact same gusto evidenced earlier in the day, chopsticks beating out a decent rythym on the dark-lacquered wood. Keigo plucked out the plum center out of his onigiri, flicking it into the air. It was scooped up by a passing gull. Keigo gave the gull his best, hoping at least Mr. Seagull enjoyed the filth.

“I,” Ichigo said, pausing to swallow his own brand of tsukemono, which he had been busily masticating, “really have to piss.” He passed the bento to his sister, standing and hooking his thumbs in his trunks, heading in the general direction of the showers with an inhuman sort of nonchalance one only achieved by actually not giving a shit.

“Gross,” Karin said, nose wrinkled. “Thanks for sharing.”

Keigo stared after Ichigo’s form, eyes drawing across the strong, wide back. That boy was big, for a fifteen year old. He sighed, dinner having been forgotten in his hands. Keigo briefly considered chasing after Ichigo before a scratchy voice ‘ahem’d from somewhere behind his shoulder. Keigo turned to glance at Karin, who was sitting in the middle of the picnic table, shoveling Ichigo’s dinner into her own mouth with a surly look about her.

“You were staring. Again.”

“Whatever,” Keigo said, superiority on his face. In a show of immense maturity, he stuck his tongue out at his best friend’s baby sister.

--//--//--

Karin had, cleverly, bagged shotgun in the tiny red Nissan when it was time to leave; with great foresight, sliding into the front seat as the others argued who got it. This seating arrangement left Ichigo and Keigo sharing the small backseat, Ichigo’s knees pressed just barely against the back of the driver’s-side seat. Ichigo’s duffel sat between them, providing a physical barrier that Keigo found, under the Ichigo-is-still-shirtless-and-generally-partially-nude circumstances, comforting. Reaching forward to ruffle his sister’s black hair, Ichigo’s bicep brushed against Keigo’s nipple under the thin, white t-shirt he was wearing.

Keigo put immediate effort into trying not to notice, blush rising immediately to his face. He realized he was blushing after a second and blushed more, face and ears bright.

Ichigo gave him an unreadable look, and Keigo giggled nervously.

“You’ve got sunburn,” Ichigo observed.

“Probably,” Keigo said, lying with a good alibi. He stared down at his pale, freckled arms. Ichigo turned away from him, looking down into his duffel with concentration. He eventually pulled out a container of blue gel and set it in his lap, moving to grab Keigo’s shirt. Keigo jerked, eyes wide.

“Don’t be a baby, arms up,” Ichigo reproached him.

“’M not bein' a baby,” Keigo refuted (in such a way as to make patently aware that he was not pouting).

“You are,” Ichigo said, giving up on his gentle approach to disrobing and simply yanking Keigo’s t-shirt forcibly over his floppy-haired head. The rough cotton rubbed against the sunburn that Keigo, unsurprisingly, actually had across his back and shoulders.

“Gyar!” went Keigo, sucking in a sharp breath at the instant pain. His eyes watered in such a way that made him feel rather pathetic.

“Idiot,” the other boy griped, reaching for and uncapping the bottle of blue gel. He squeezed a hilarious amount of it into his palm, setting the bottle aside and clapping his hands together. “Moron. Why didn’t you put any sunscreen on?”

Keigo shrugged sadly, already understanding he should have known better. He was half-German and the ozone layer was burning up. He was an idiot and a moron. Ichigo sighed long-sufferingly beside him, Karin staring backwards through the gap between the seat and the headrest, silent.

“Lean the fuck over.”

What sweet new hell this was, Keigo’s brain wailed. Ichigo brought both strong hands up, smoothing them over Keigo’s slim shoulders and back, covering them with the stinging gel and kneading the muscles there with acute care.