Title: Low-Down Dirty Thief (Bookmark)
Author: Lys
Characters/Pairing: Kon, Ichigo (this chapter)
Rating/Warnings: R for language, violence and general content.
Status: Bookmark 3/10, 1623 words.

01: Bookmark
02: I Tell Ya What, Man

a/n: meh. short chapter, but necessary. the next two will be longer, but sadly no hanky-panky until part five.



Ichigo found the first piece of evidence two days prior to current, having plucked a pair of his favorite, well-worn blue-jeans from a laundry basket, fresh off of the hanging line and recently folded with great care by Yuzu’s small hands. He had a strange urge to wear them that day, as they smelled of hydrangeas and The Neighborhood and just a tiny bit of strawberries. Ichigo had dragged the pleasantly sun-warmed fabric across his face once, before snapping the jeans unfolded and sliding them on, one leg at a time. He dug through one of his wardrobe drawers for a suitable shirt to wear, finally choosing bright purple, because hydrangeas made him feel like it was a day for a purple t-shirt.

“Brother,” Yuzu said, walking into his room as he was shoving his head through the allocated hole in the t-shirt. “Is this yours?”

“Knock much?” Ichigo grumbled, before knitting his brow and staring at the piece of square fabric his sister was carrying around. He didn’t recognize it specifically from anywhere.

“That,” he decided, “is a really ugly shade of green.” It seemed to satisfy Yuzu’s curiosity without Ichigo actually having to confirm or deny ownership, and she fled from his room, leaving the seafoam handkerchief with Ichigo. It sat on Ichigo’s desk for two hours, unassuming yet somehow tugging at the back of his mind.

He could have sworn he’d seen the hankie somewhere before.

It was then that Ichigo found the second piece of the puzzle, reaching behind to readjust the thin fabric of a back-pocket which had ridden up while he was walking, bunching uncomfortably. Ichigo had, like any other person in the situation, expected to find a bit of lint or a yen piece. Instead, he found something altogether different.

The sharp edge of the plastic sliced his finger as he pulled it out of his pocket to look at it, bleeding like a paper-cut. He switched hands, sticking the bleeding digit into his mouth as he turned the mystery item over in his hand, trying to read the label on the translucent pouch.

“Dammit.”

~*~*~

Ichigo put what was bothering him off for another day, having considered all of his options and come to the conclusion that, all things considered, once you had decided what something cannot be (Kurosaki Isshin having a new girlfriend, Mizuiro fitting into Ichigo's pants), the only thing that it could possibly be was whatever was left without an alibi. Having finally gathered himself enough to have the conversation that was hanging in the air above him, depressing, like a personal rain-cloud in a cartoon, Ichigo climbed the stairs slowly with deliberate steps. He opened the door to his room and closed it behind him, locking at it silently.

The yellow and brown plush lay on Ichigo’s bed, unmoving. Ichigo cleared his throat, the usual Ichigo's Bedroom signal for ‘all’s clear on the western front.’

Kon stirred slightly on the bed, staring at Ichigo with unblinking, scratched eyes. Ichigo cut straight to the kill, holding the handkerchief out in front of him, clutched between thumb and forefinger. The plush didn’t seem to react.

“Recognize this?” Ichigo wiggled it.

“No,” Kon said irritably, felt face glowering back at Ichigo nebulously. “And I don’t care about it, either.”

Fuck this, Ichigo thought. He was not going to have a serious conversation about very personal topics while Kon had a ridiculous emotional advantage, especially not if it meant having a talk about sex with a damn stuffed animal. Snatching the wooden charm from his beltloop, Ichigo launched himself at Kon with practiced accuracy. The gikongan popped out of the felt mouth, rolling across the floor. Ichigo snatched it up and tossed it into his mouth, forcing the dry, uncomfortable thing down with a swallow. Ichigo’s body fell to the floor in front of him, vision momentarily doubled as his soul seperated from his own back.

Kon stared up at him, not yet having recovered from the sudden switch in physical being, eyes glazed. Ichigo was unmoved. Shaking his head, Kon eyed Ichigo defensively, irises small, not nearly as full of bravado and pomp as he'd been stuffed into the plush body.

“What about the thing in your pocket,” Ichigo demanded of his friend in a stronger voice, nodding his head at the pockets on Kon’s rear-end. Kon gave him a pathetic, dumbfounded sort of look before tucking his hand into the pocket of Ichigo’s jeans. Kon’s face fell in realization and Ichigo glared openly.

Red-fucking-handed.

Kon was at the window on the other side of the room before Ichigo had a chance to react, the mod-soul's animal-like flight response in full swing. Kon managed to unlatch the window with shaking hands and threw himself from it, Ichigo hot on his heels, thoughts racing. He ran to the window, watching Kon land effortlessly on the crunchy late-summer grass twenty-five feet below the window. Ichigo snarled nonsensical, angry things after Kon, ducking to fit Zangetsu through the small window-frame as well as was possible.

By the time Ichigo regained his balance on the ground, knees shaking, Kon was already halfway down the street. Unsurprisingly.

Ichigo shot after Kon, not in the mood for this kind of bullshit. “Stop chasing me!” Kon hissed at him, expression equally outraged.

“No!”

Ichigo could hear Kon growling as he dodged innocent bystanders who shrieked or muttered, weaving in and out of playing children and dog-walkers with minimal effort, inhumanly speedy, slowly gathering a crowd.

“What if somebody recognizes me?”

This, Ichigo hadn’t considered (being sixteen years old, emotionally hurt and pissed the hell off). He was about to hesitate in his chase, finding some incredibly un-funny irony in the entire situation, when Kon made a sudden dive through a patch of trees and bushes in an unkempt yard.

Swearing a blue streak, Ichigo followed him, silk hakama ripping on a particularly nasty branch.

“Slow the fuck down!”

Kon turned to face Ichigo while running, face worried, mouth opening as if to say something. Seconds later Kon disappeared from Ichigo's vision with a loud shout of pain. The fluffy white socks Ichigo was wearing when he was in the house were not doing their job off of the cement and pavement and Kon took a hard spill into some gnarled tree roots. Ichigo felt more than a little vindicated by Kon's yelps of physical pain.

Catching up at last, hard of breath, Ichigo threw himself on top of the other boy, pinning Kon down by the shoulders and the back of his tight neck. He shoved Kon's face into the dirt, rubbing it in, careful to avoid the legs he knew he should be keeping his distance from. Kon tried to jerk himself off of the ground, scratching and making noises like a scared rabbit. Ichigo snarled over his head, face red with anger. He ground one knee into the small of Kon's back.

"Give!" It was the unfinished chase from that day in the schoolyard, a lifetime ago.

Kon gained a small amount of purchase with his toes, griping at a root until it tore raggedly from the ground, air filling with the fresh musk of soil. Ichigo ripped his zanpakuto from his back, adrenaline high, physically threatening to bring the handle down on the crown of Kon's head.

"Give!" It was every issue they had with one another that they never brought up.

Ichigo jerked Kon's shoulder with the hand that was still pinning it roughly against the earth.

"Give!" It was two days of anger and hurt building on uncertainty, left to his own mental and emotional devices by Kon's secrecy.

Kon stopped struggling immediately.

Ichigo shook violently, chest rising and falling, Zangetsu vibrating in his grasp. Slowly, Kon turned his head to face Ichigo over his free shoulder. Blood leaked into one eye from a large patch of brush-burn on Kon's wide, smooth forehead, dirt turned to muddy smears on his cheek and nose-bridge.

"Ichigo!" The voice was desperate, followed by a harsh, thick sob.

Kon stared up at Ichigo, tears streaming down his face, watery mucus leaking unattractively out of his nose and over his upper lip like a two year old in the middle of a fit. "I messed up, Ichigo!"

Ichigo suddenly felt like a heel, circumstances be damned. He faltered, suddenly acknowledging the fact that he just beat the shit out of one of his best friends in somebody's backyard. His own eyes prickled at him warningly.

"I messed up really bad!"

Ichigo stood and let go of Kon, who remained laying in the soft earth, sobbing quietly. He turned away. He couldn't look at his own face shouting up at him anymore, mouth wide and teeth clenched, filthy and achingly earnest.

"I'm so sorry, Ichigo!"

Ichigo wiped his eyes with his forearm before Kon could have the chance to see his own disarming wetness. The anger of moments previous was sapped, leaving Ichigo raw. He sighed, sound rattling in the ribcage that was dry from the effort of chasing the strength-modified Kon on foot.

“I don’t—, actually, you know what, Kon? I don’t give a shit anymore. I don’t even want to know what the hell happened. Tell me why you did it and we'll forget this all happened for now?”

“I just wanted to feel like I had a life.”

Ichigo was mad because he'd lost his theoretical male virginity in some mysterious, unspecified fashion (which, Ichigo being admittedly disinterested in that sort of thing, considered anything beyond kissing), in the body that theoretically belonged to Ichigo but which Ichigo had not currently even been occupying.

He would never have even known, if it hadn't been for the handkerchief and the personal lubricant. It seemed stupid, in retrospect.

"If I get a rash on my dick, I will kill you."

Ichigo hooked Zangetsu across his back, iron weight cold and comforting. He held a hand out to Kon, scowl on his face.

“Let’s go back home and get cleaned up.”




*meh is totally a valid author's note.