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Finally, after what feels like decades, Ichigo finally finds one candle in his entire house to give light to his tiny room. Rukia, in the meantime, has been staring out the window, towards the darkness that has taken over Karakura.
There are rarely ever power outages in his town, but whenever they do occur, they usually blackout the entire city at once. Ichigo expects this one to be a bit longer than usual, since it was obviously a surprise to everyone.
He makes his way over to the window and promptly slides it open, letting the cool air seep in slowly. Rukia crosses her arms beside him, looking around the room.
“Is that really all the candles you have?” she asks quietly, standing up from the bed. “Just one?”
He sighs. “I guess so. We never really cared to get any. Plus…it’s really hard to find anything considering how dark it is right now.”
Rukia simply huffs, grabbing the candle holder and placing it on his desk. “Well it’ll have to do.”
He has his eyes out on the city, wondering where exactly his dad and sisters are right now. They had gone to get groceries only minutes before the power outage occurred. And knowing his dad, he would probably try to buy the necessities even when it was pitch black across the whole freaking town. Who knows when they’ll be back?
He rubs the back of his neck as he faces Rukia. “Well we can’t do homework in the dark,” he says, walking over to her. “We can’t watch TV or read either…so what do you want to do?”
Sleep is the first thing that pops up in his head, and he very much feels like doing so. But there are still hollows to kill, and the town is a little bit more vulnerable tonight.
And not only that, but there's a mischievous look on her face, which is a warning sign, a red alert, and a huge DANGER signal in his mind. “Let’s play a game!” she says, clapping her hands.
“No.” He replies almost immediately after.
“Idiot, you don’t get a say in this.”
Before he can even fight back, she marches over to his desk and sits atop it, and gestures for him to sit in the chair beside her. He inwardly grumbles and makes his way over to her. He’ll go along with this, but only until the lights come back on.
He won’t admit that he’s a little interested in what she has in mind.
“Okay, whatever. What game, then?” He asks.
She smirks. “Truth or dare.”
Never mind. He’s not interested anymore. Not at all. “No, Rukia.”
“Please! We have nothing better to do!”
“I’d rather kill hollows than do this.”
She gives him a look. “Do you really?”
To that, he doesn’t answer.
“Right, that’s what I thought. Now,” she smiles again. “How do we play this truth or dare?”
Ichigo groans, hands thrown in the air. “Why would you suggest to play a game YOU DON’T EVEN KNOW HOW TO PLAY.”
“Because the girls at school talk about it, and I want to try it out.” He watches her cross her arms, then cross her legs, like a prim and proper girl does.
Except she’s not prim and proper. She’s Rukia, who’s sitting on his desk, her school uniform still on, and he suddenly doesn’t want to think about the fact that she’s sitting on his desk in her school uniform.
“Fine.” He grumbles, leaning back in his chair. “You usually play this game with more than two people—“
“But there’s only two of us!”
“I know, so I’ll just…” Make up rules then, he thinks. “Let’s just play it like this. We ask each other ‘truth or dare’ and you have to pick either or. Only one choice.”
She nods, obviously deep in thought, and he sighs.
“So say I ask you that and you say truth. I have to ask you something and you have to answer it honestly. And you can’t back out of it.”
“What if I don’t want to answer it?” She pouts.
“You’re the one that wants to play.” He glares at her.
“Okay, okay. What about if I say dare?”
“Then I have to dare you to do something. And again, you can’t back out of it.”
“How vile! What if you dare me to kill someone!”
“I’m not…” Ichigo can only close his eyes and calmly take a breath. “I’m not going to do that.”
“I hope not!”
“Rukia… can we just get this over with?” He twists the candle holder impatiently.
“Yes, let us begin. I’m going first.” She leans towards him, and he has to resist leaning back. “Truth or dare?”
He ponders over this. Who knows what the hell she’s going to do? “Truth.”
She smiles. “Are you a virgin?”
Are you fucking kidding me.
Ichigo runs a hand down his face slowly, trying not to snap at the girl sitting before him. Ever so reluctantly, he barely speaks out an answer. “…Yes.” He says painfully. “But you. Already. Knew that.”
She giggles. “I know.”
This was going to a long night.
“You’re supposed to ask questions you don’t know the answer to!”
“Well, that’s kind of hard,” She purses her lips. “We already know almost everything about each other…”
That, he can’t argue with.
“Well, are you a virgin?” He asks.
“Yes!” Now it’s her turn to blush. “But you knew that, too, you buffoon!”
Her words turns out to be undeniably true, as neither of them can really think of anything to ask the other. They already know each other inside out. He knew all about her shinigami life, her ever-wonderful brother, her demons in the past. She knew his lively family, his school life, his powerful and reigning powers that seem to grow stronger everyday. What more was there to know?
After an excruciatingly long time of trying to think of questions, Ichigo gives up. “I really don’t think this game of yours will work.”
“Not if I can help it!” The scary look in her eyes is back, but this time, he doesn’t even have the energy to glare at her again. “Why don’t we just change up the game?”
“And how so?”
“We’ve been asking each other truths,” she sets her chin down on her hand, “and no dares at all. So instead of ‘truth or dare,’ how about we just play ‘dare?’”
“Or we could go to sleep.”
“Dare, it is!”
And then begins that part of the game. Ichigo is somehow roped into this terrible game, all because of that insufferable girl. Why does this 4’8” woman have so much power over him? When did he ask for this? He doesn’t remember ever wishing for a small midget to come and take over his world like this. Seriously.
A collection of (stupid, stupid) dares happen, and he really doesn’t know what to say for himself. Rukia dares him to crack an egg on his face, kick the wall with his big toe ten times as hard as he can, and eat an entire watermelon in five minutes. The easiest one was the watermelon, and that’s saying a lot about him. And Rukia, the little witch.
But he gets in his fair share of dares on her as well. Ichigo dares her to try to touch the ceiling without powers or his bed (and she almost falls over, but he catches her), yell out the window “MY NAME IS RUKIA AND ICHIGO IS WAY COOLER THAN ME” (which he flat out laughs at, she hits him), and punch her stuffed bunny Chappy (and she does so, with tears in her eyes).
And even after all that, they still run out of things to do. There’s only so much when the power is out and no one has yet to come home.
They now sit beside each other on the floor of his room, both leaning against his bed. The candle that’s been their only light is slowly dying, but they’ve both seemingly decided not to acknowledge that.
“I can’t think of another one.” She huffs, pushing her head against his bedsheets.
“Me either.” He replies, staring at the clock. It’s almost eleven, and the lights haven’t come back yet. It’s been three hours.
It somehow seems even darker now, with only one single light to illuminate Rukia’s features, showing him where she was.
“Say, what are the usual dares that people do?” She asks, turning to face him.
He doesn’t think too hard. “It’s meant to be played with a lot of people, so they usually tend to be someone doing something to another person.” He suddenly blushes, shifting his eyes away from her. She notices. “I think… the most common one is daring a person to kiss another player.”
Her eyebrows shoot upwards, and her voice takes a playful tone. “Oh? Have you ever had to do that?”
Ichigo scowls. “I don’t play these games myself, dummy. They’re in the movies and TV shows and what not.”
“How do they word it, then?”
He looks at her a moment, a little confused. “Um… I don’t know. I guess like, ‘I dare you to kiss the prettiest girl or the cutest guy in the room, or whatever.” He scrunches his brows. “Why are you even asking this?”
He doesn’t get an answer. Instead, he gets her lips pressed against his, a little soft but powerful all the same. For a second, he doesn’t move out of shock. She notices and starts to pull away, but he quickly doesn’t let her, grabbing her cheek softly and kissing her back with energy now. They stay pressed against each other, an intensity that only grows stronger.
Neither of them even notice that the candle has gone out, fully sheathing them in darkness.
She pulls away after what seems like an eternity, a redness in her cheeks blooming. He opens his eyes and simply stares at her in awe, completely thrown back by what just happened. Like a truth that neither of them knew yet.
“That was the last dare.” She breathes heavily, a sound he focuses on in the pitch black.
A moment later, the lights finally turn back on.
Karakura is no longer dark.
His dad and sisters finally arrive not even ten minutes after the power outage ceases, arms full of useless groceries and smiles full of knowing. Ichigo has a slight thought clinging in his head that his doofus of a father might have left them alone on purpose. Nevertheless, the duo helps them stock up the kitchen, and he’s just glad that the lights are finally back.
He tries really, really hard not to think about what happened in the dark, but it just won’t go away, especially when Rukia’s eyes meet his over the chaos of his family.
And after everybody has settled in and gone to bed, he corners her in his room.
“Tell me one last truth.” He sits on the bed beside her, looking at her intensely. “Did you plan for this to happen?”
No answer.
“You know the rules. Don’t back out.”
“We’re still playing?” She asks innocently (which is actually not innocent, the way he sees it).
“Yes. Did you plan this?”
The knowing smile on her face says it all. “Maybe I did.”
All he can do is look at her in shock.
“Come on now, Ichigo. At least you got to kiss the prettiest girl in the room."
"You were the only girl in the room."
She laughs. "You're not denying it."
This time, he smiles. "No, I'm not."
In the end, he can’t even be mad at her for making him stub his toe ten times.