you stopped the rain.

day 17: jealousy

rating: T

Rukia finds a kitten at the zoo. The kitten is orange and tiny and pathetic, so naturally Rukia turns to Ichigo with wide, pleading eyes, and says, “I’m naming him Ichigo.”

“That’s ridiculous,” Ichigo tells her, completely unenthused with the idea of adding another responsibility to their already-full plates. He’s begun his first year of residency at the university hospital, and Rukia has started up a local daycare. At least, that’s what he tells her. None of his resistance to taking the kitten home comes from its newly-anointed name. He swears.

“How do you even know it’s a boy?” Ichigo grumbles, later, when the two of them are covered in cat scratches and soap from battling the kitten in the bath.

The kitten has already forgotten the entire ordeal and is grooming itself on their bed. Rukia takes the creature and flips it over. “Balls,” she points out.

Ichigo sighs.

Ichigo goes in for his shift the next day, and when he returns, exhausted from the inhumane work hours of the hospital, comes home to find at least seven packages blocking the doorway.

“Ow!” he says, stubbing his toe on one of them. They’re heavy. “What the hell is this crap, Rukia?”

The kitten—which Ichigo refuses to call by his actual name—peers its head out from the living room and gives Ichigo a happy meow.

“We needed kitten supplies!” comes Rukia’s sing-song voice as she waltzes in from the kitchen. She hands Ichigo a bowl of cut fruit, then picks up the kitten and holds him to her chest. “See you upstairs.” Then she leaves Ichigo, with the bowl of fruit, no kitten, and goes up to their bedroom.

Rukia is definitely awake when Ichigo finishes showering and crawls into bed. He lets out an exhausted sigh and turns to his side, ready to snuggle his wife and forget about the toils of the day, but quickly learns that Rukia is thoroughly occupied with taking videos of the kitten pouncing on her hair ribbon.

“So cute,” Rukia giggles. “You are so cute. I love you sooo much.” She gives the kitten her finger to play with (maul with his tiny kitten teeth). “I am going to feed you and brush you and kiss you and play with you and you are going to come everywhere with me—”

“Ugh,” Ichigo groans, slapping Rukia’s shoulder to get her attention. “Pipe down, will you?”

Rukia scoops up the kitten and rolls to face him, a grin splitting her face from ear to ear. “Hi,” she says to him.

The kitten waddles over to him. Ichigo relents and gives his little orange head a reluctant tickle. “Hi,” Ichigo grumbles, glaring at the creature as it tries to attack his finger. “Are you done ignoring me?”

“Awww,” Rukia teases. She can’t help but stifle a laugh. “Is someone jealous?”

“I am not,” Ichigo snaps, but he doesn’t refuse Rukia’s embrace as she moves closer to him and molds her soft, familiar body into his.

“Mhm,” she murmurs reassuringly into his collarbone. “I believe you.”

“I’m not,” Ichigo whispers back, insistently.

They fall asleep like that, with the kitten curled up between them.