Chapter Text
When class ended the day after his mom had been avenged, Ichigo left with Rukia, Tatsuki, and Orihime, as per usual.
Orihime was chatting absently about a dream she’d had the day before involving sumo wrestlers, robots, and pie – or pi, Ichigo wasn’t terribly sure and didn’t think knowing which would make any part of the conversation make any more sense so he wasn’t asking – when he noticed that Ishida was skulking ahead of them at the school gates.
For a moment, he almost passed him by without comment.
“So, when you coming over for dinner, Ishida?”
Orihime giggled, “Did Kurosaki-kun ask you on a date, Ishida-kun?”
In unison, Ichigo and Ishida sputtered indignantly, “No!!! Why would you-?!” “No! He’s a guy!! I’m not-!”
Tatsuki just raised her eyebrows at their bright red faces, “We know Ichigo’s a guy, Ishida. And that matters why?”
Ishida sputtered wordlessly, and Ichigo rushed to correct her before this went on any longer.
She’d already had it out once this year with a third-year who’d taken offense at Chizuru boldly flirting with women not because she really didn’t take a hint to back off, but because she was flirting with women. Instead of apologizing for decking the guy, she’d spent hours writing out a pamphlet that she could recite off the top of her head about how heterosexual relationships weren’t the end-all-be-all and it was just small-minded to hate on people for love.
He’d said nothing then about how she might have had a crush on Orihime, and was pre-emptively making her position clear, which had only resulted in Chizuru hitting on her periodically as well. More so since Kon had shown up and that whole scene when she’d mildly over-reacted to him using his body.
“He’s my cousin. My mom and his dad are some sort of distant cousins according to Goat Face, but he’s family now.”
Ishida narrowed his eyes, glasses flashing as he pushed them, “Why are you saying that like you’re some sort of yakuza and I’ve been adopted in?!”
In unison, all three girls made soft exclamations that roughly translated as you fool/you dumbass/poor sod doesn’t know. Tatsuki extended a hand out and caught his shoulder, looking him directly in the eye, “You have. Accept it. You now number among the Kurosaki clan. Goat Face-banchou now has seven children claimed under his name.”
Rukia blinked, counting off on her fingers who said ‘seven children’ were. Throwing up five fingers, stalling, starting over, getting to six, starting over, and working her way up to five again.
“What’s with this pity!? I’m- No!”
Throwing up his hands and rapidly back-pedaling out of Tatsuki’s grip, completely missing how she let him throw off her grip when even Ichigo regularly had trouble, Ishida stomped off, muttering how he refused to call some yankee punk cheating him out of first rank, ‘brother’.
Rukia’s head popped up as she realized she could be counted among the seven, “I’m not a child! I am-!” Ichigo slapped his hand over her mouth before she started talking about the Soul Society, even if the other two were in the know – it still made her sound crazy when she did this in broad daylight, and they were still within a block of the school.
Showing her maturity gained over ‘ten of his lifetimes’, Rukia kicked him in the shin, and as he hopped around on one foot, she started running.
Tatsuki sighed, looking at Orihime as if commiserating how she’d gotten messed up in this madness, “I mean, it’s not much of a joke – I’m fairly certain that if my father hadn’t been willing to sue Goat Face after he tried to add me into the Kurosaki family registry eight years ago, he’d be blubbering on about having three daughters and two sons since he seems set on formally adopting Kon in, and the paperwork’s being processed to make it official that he has two sons.”
However, Ichigo didn’t hear any of that, as he quickly recovered from Rukia’s kick and chased after her, barking out, “You’re so dead, Kuchiki!”