Interlude - Ichigo

[tasogaretaichou]

Growling slightly under his breath, Ichigo paused in the midst of flipping a page of his textbook at the loud attempted musical knock that reverberated against the door. The multitude of short and long raps did nothing to amuse him and everything to start up that niggling headache between his eyes. Only one person he knew knocked like that -- well, one person besides his father -- and he did NOT want to deal with the noisy, annoying blonde and his idiotic inventions.

Clenching his eyes shut, the tall shinigami pressed fingertips to his temples and mentally willed the offensive visitor away from the door. All to no avail, as Matt simply let himself in with an overly cheery greeting, plopping down on Ichigo's bed with a wave.

"Hey! What's up?"

What he received in return was an icy glare as Ichigo snarled back at him.

"Brannigan. What do you want?"

Completely unperturbed by his friend's disposition, Matt smiled, idly snagging a book and flipping through it.

"Oh nothing much. Just saying hi."

Flopping down on his back, he thumbed through the text, frowning slightly.

"How's your girlfriend in Japan? Hear from her yet this week? I want to meet her, you know, she must be pretty cool since you talk about her all the time."

Ok, now he was going to hurt the other man. Headache twinging as he turned to shoot Matt a glare that would have melted lead, he resisted the urge to throw the rather heavy paperweight on his desk at the towheaded man.

"One, Rukia is NOT my girlfriend. She's my... look, she's not my girlfriend, so drop it. Two, the hell is it any of your business anyway?"

Matt shrugged, flipping another page before sitting up and tossing the text aside.

"Oh, can I borrow your notes for pharmacology? I can't find mine and I REALLY don't want to have to ask Angela, you know she's pissed at me because I wouldn't let her cheat off me last test."

Ichigo neglected to point out that the REAL reason why Matt's seat-mate was pissed off had less to do with test answers and more to do with the fact that the blonde pestered her all through class about his inventions and his idiotic theories.

"No, get your own notes."

Matt's face took on a horrified, martyred look, the sort that reminded Ichigo of Keigo when he was lamenting how all his friends had made plans that didn't include him. Grinding his teeth, fist clenching around the pencil, he listened to the whines and pleas for a moment before standing up, chair scraping back from the desk.

"FINE! You can borrow the damned notes, just shut the hell up!"

Turning to rummage on his bookshelf, he didn't see the triumphantly pleased grin on Matt's face, or the way the blonde subtly slid a piece of paper from Ichigo's desk into his pocket.