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Their first fight had been started over an empty tea cup.
It was exam season in their final year at the Academy, and as usual Jūshirō had spent the majority of his time preparing while Shunsui procrastinated and drank as normal. Jūshirō never did well when he didn’t get enough sleep, it only took one sleepless night to make him irritable and short-tempered, which added to the stress of exams and planning life after graduation.
The tension between them had been palpable for a couple of days, but they’d learned to give each other a wide berth. Jūshirō spent most of his time at the library, and as long at Shunsui was alone in their dorm when he retuned he couldn’t have cared less about what Shunsui did while he was alone.
The night before the advanced kidō exam Jūshirō was holed up in the library well past any reasonable hour before he’d finally trudged back to the dorm, ready to get a couple hours sleep before getting back to some last-minute studying before the exam. Because of the complexity of the content, the teacher had agreed to allow each study a cheat sheet that they could write anything they wanted on, to take into the exam. Dropping his bag onto the floor next to his desk, Jūshirō had stopped dead when he’d seen the state of his cheat sheet. What was once a page’s worth of neat and legible writing, was now a series of ink smudges and multi-coloured blotches.
Balling his fists, he’d stormed over to the door to Shunsui’s room and had banged his fist against the frame, nearly breaking it in the process. After a moment of eerie calm, Jūshirō heard the undeniable sounds of Shunsui dragging his feet across the floor, and then the door slid open, revealing a half-naked, and very sleepy Shunsui.
“What happened to my notes?” Jūshirō asked, trying his best to keep his tone level.
Shunsui scratched the back of his head, looking genuinely confused. “What notes?”
“On the desk!” Jūshirō snapped. “I left my cheat sheet for the kidō exam on my desk and it’s ruined!”
Jūshirō saw the exact moment that realization dawned in Shunsui’s eyes. “Oh…I spilt tea on it.”
Jūshirō blinked slowly, “You what?”
Shunsui grinned sheepishly, “I tripped on the rug and I accidentally spilled tea on it. You’ve been studying for weeks, Ukitake. Don’t worry! You’ll do great tomorrow!”
Jūshirō wasn’t sure what exactly came over him, but the next thing he knew he’d pinned Shunsui to the ground and was in the process of punching his best friend square in the jaw. He hadn’t counted how many punches he got in before he felt himself thrown off of Shunsui and into the adjacent wall, his head hitting the wall with a resounding thud.
“What the hell Jūshirō?!” Shunsui yelled at him, from the spot on the ground he’d been pinned against.
“You’re so full of shit!” Jūshirō yelled back. “If you want to fail your way through school that’s up to you, but you have no right to jeopardize my future!”
He’d barely managed to finish the sentence before he’d launched himself at Shunsui again. All the frustration and stress of the past couple of weeks fueled him on as he sparred with Shunsui, each blow a tangible release for his pent-up emotions. Not that Shunsui hadn’t landed a few good punches as well; they were both at the top of the class and were pretty evenly matched.
Neither had realized that people were filling the dorm room until two strong pairs of arms tore them apart and held them back firmly when they would have gone after each other again.
“Enough!” The undeniable baritone of Yamamoto’s voice caused everyone in the room to halt.
Jūshirō’s chest heaved from the fighting he’d just gone through and he tried to catch his breath. He felt a small amount of satisfaction when he saw that Shunsui looked a little worse for the wear as well.
Yamamoto took one look at the both of them before grabbing them by the backs of their necks and shoving them out of the door. Jūshirō knew better than to resist as he was pushed through the halls to Yamamoto’s office. At least he had some clothing on, Shunsui was still naked from the waist up.
When they got into the office, Yamamoto left them at the entrance and disappeared into the back, coming back moment later with a haori for Shunsui. Wiping the corned of his mouth with the back of his hand, Jūshirō took up the appropriate seiza position in front of Yamamoto’s desk.
“Now,” Yamamoto started off gruffly. “What’s going on that you two woke up half the Academy in the middle of the night.”
“He attacked me!” Shunsui shouted, the look he gave to Jūshirō was one of betrayal.
“Oh please,” Jūshirō snorted. “You destroyed my notes! They were on my desk, you didn’t even have to do anything and yet you managed to spill tea over everything!”
“It was an accident!”
“Oh yeah, you must have felt so bad that the minute you’d done it, you decided the best course of action was to go to bed!”
“Enough!” Yamamoto’s fist came down hard on the desk in accentuation to his words, causing both Jūshirō and Shunsui to startle.
“Listen to me, you pair of idiots,” Yamamoto growled. “Shunsui, learn to own up to your actions. You’ll never been a member of the Gotei 13 if you can’t learn to act like a man. Jūshirō – it’s unacceptable to attack a classmate over something so trivial.”
Yamamoto took a break to assess to two students in front of him. Both of which had wisely decided to remain silent and let him finish.
“If you two are lucky you’re going to have long and successful careers as members of the Gotei 13. Which means you’re going to step on each other’s toes quiet a few times over the rest of your lives. Man up, talk it out, and let it go. Am I understood?”
Yamamoto’s tone left no room for argument, and reluctantly both students murmured their acknowledgement before being dismissed.
The walk back to their dorm was tense and quiet. Everyone had cleared out of the hallways, so there was nothing else to focus on.
“You split my lip,” Shunsui said a little over half-way into the trip.
“You deserved it,” Jūshirō grumbled, still unwilling to let the situation go entirely.
“Oh come on, Ukitake! Sure I deserved the first punch, but I didn’t deserve the complete ass-whooping you handed to me.”
Jūshirō smirked, “You beat me up too, you know.”
“Of course. I wasn’t going to let you kick my ass without at least getting in a few good punches.”
Jūshirō shook his head. “I’m sorry,” he finally said.
Shunsui ran a hand through his hair, “No I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to ruin your notes. I didn’t realize what they were.”
Jūshirō sighed, “Well it doesn’t matter now anyways.”
Shunsui shrugged, “Well the night is still young, we could try and get another one made.”
Jūshirō laughed, “It’s the middle of the night. No…I’m tired. I think I’m just going to go to bed.”
That fight had been the first of many, however, neither forgot what Yamamoto had taught them that night, and they always tried to work it out before it came to blows. As they grew older, there was less and less to fight about, and on the rare occasions when they told that story, it always resulted in surprised faces. Secretly, it was a memory that they both treasured, a memory of a time long gone, with loved ones that were long dead.
After that night, Shunsui never spilled another cup of tea in the dorm, and Jūshirō never left his notes open on the desk again either.