Chapter Text
Ichigo’s alarm goes off at 6.30am sharp, blaring its shrill shriek. With a loud groan, he rolls over in bed and slaps a palm repeatedly over the screeching device until it shuts up.
Fuck Mondays.
It takes him two minutes to roll out of bed and into the bathroom; another minute to stare bleakly at his reflection in the mirror before he finally wakes up enough to brush his teeth, pee and change.
He’s pulling on his lab coat when he remembers that he hasn’t watered his plants in over a week now and sets out for the balcony. It’s a good thing he has time for things like this—he always wakes up two hours before he has to report to the hospital, since as a resident the hospital likes to work him to the bone and he needs some quiet time in the mornings before he has to deal with difficult patients and nurses alike. It means he doesn't sleep more than four hours a night, but it's fine. Probably.
It’s as he approaches his balcony that he notices there’s a dark mass on the ground that isn’t just a shadow—did a large bird die on his balcony? He heard about that happening with Chad just last month. “Oh, fuck,” Ichigo mutters under his breath. He doesn’t have the energy to deal with dead birds right now. He approaches the door and slides it open—
—and lets out a short burst of a scream and stumbles back as he looks at the sprawled figure on his balcony.
“Are you dead?” he whisper-screeches at the body on the floor. “Oh my god. I killed someone? Did I go Jekyll-Hyde on some poor soul? Oh my god.” He pats his pockets for his cell phone & sighs in relief when the bump greets him. Worse comes to worst, he can still call the police… (And what, turn himself in? His brain shrieks at him. Ichigo ignores it.)
He approaches the figure cautiously and pokes at it with his foot. It’s a person, small in stature, dwarfed by a thick black cloak. He doesn’t see blood, so at least there’s that. “Hey. Are you alive?”
Nothing.
He kicks at it again, a little harder this time.
The figure shifts, and groans, and the hood falls back just enough to reveal full lips, dark eyelashes contrasted with pale skin. Ichigo hurriedly takes a step back and grabs for his watering can, brandishing it like a weapon.
“What the…” the person—girl, Ichigo’s mind supplies helpfully—mutters. She looks up and the hood falls completely from her head, revealing silky black tresses and startling purple eyes. That can’t be natural. Unless she’s wearing purple circle lenses. Oh god, is he dealing with a weeab—
“Where am I?” the girl asks in a soft, lilting voice, eyes narrowed at him like he's at fault for this.
“More like who are you!” Ichigo shoots back, almost hysterically. “What the fuck are you doing on my balcony? How did you even get here? I’m eighteen floors up!”
The girl frowns, and then sighs after a brief pause, rubbing at her head. “I see,” she mutters under her breath. “What a foolish act on my part. Nii-sama will be…” she stops herself, looks up at him through thick eyelashes, and blinks. “It’s a long story, but I’ll explain.”
-
“So let me get this straight,” Ichigo says, sitting across from the girl, who’s seated on the floor at his coffee table while he sits on his couch. She introduced herself as Rukia and sat down properly at the table before launching into her explanation, complete with terrible self-portraits and drawings of the different plane, though when he had said as much she had threatened to give him a concussion ("How're you going to do that? Gonna kick me in the shin? Ow, you little midget bitch!"). “You’re a sleep fairy from another plane, and you were sent here to conduct your normal rounds of putting people to sleep, but then while trying to put me to sleep, you accidentally blessed yourself and fell asleep on my balcony.”
“Exactly!” she looks pleased that he understood so quickly. He smiles brightly at her, teeth bared in a mockery of happiness.
He nods his head thoughtfully, hand on his chin. “Yes, yes, that makes perfect sense—“
He stands up abruptly and knocks over a cup of tea and some paperwork as he does so. “To an idiot, maybe!" he roars. She looks startled for a split second, eyes widening a little, before she schools her expression back into its mask of impassivity. "As if I’d believe that bullshit!” Ichigo hollers, pointing at her. “Tell me what the fuck you were doing on my balcony right now before I call the police!”
“I just told you!” she says angrily, standing up to her full height of maybe four feet nine. Her pretty eyes flash with anger, and her lips are pursed in frustration. He straightens for extra measure, and towers over her teeny figure, mouth pressed into a scowl.
“Listen,” Ichigo snarls. “I have to report to the hospital in—“ he checks his watch, “—fucking 15 minutes. Tell me how the fuck you managed to get yourself on the eighteenth floor and on my balcony in 5 minutes or I’ll call the police.”
“That won’t be necessary,” Rukia says coldly, fists clenching at her sides, and the next thing Ichigo knows is total darkness.