Someone's Fingerless Orange Glove
You pull an orange glove out of the trash bag, and Gran whistles. “You got buff-boy!”
“What did you call me?” Kensei growls, leaping to his feet.
“She was kidding,” the other three Visored chorus.
You glower at Kensei. Your history was not… pleasant. You fought whenever you could, and it was because of him you’d cut your hair—during a fight it had gotten in your eyes, and Kensei had floored you. You’d taken a pair of scissors to it after that. After a few moments of tense glaring, you say, “Wanna take this outside, Muguruma?”
“Sounds good to me,” he answers, brushing past you. He isn’t rough, although you can tell he would have liked to have knocked you down.
The moment you’re outside, you and Kensei square off. Life with a family of shamans has left you quite capable of dealing with Hollows, and you figure a semi-Hollowfied Visored shouldn’t be much of a problem. Swiping your hair out of your eyes, you launch yourself at Kensei.
You slam into him like a ton of bricks and hurl a punch that cracks home. Kensei skids back a foot and hurls you off him, smashing you against the ground. As you get up, his foot connects with your stomach and your feet leave the ground, but you catch yourself on the way down. As Kensei comes in close for another blow, you crash your shoulder into his stomach, driving the air out of him and tackling him to the grit. Sand stings your eyes as you and Muguruma squirm, wrestle, howl, and brawl. He flips you onto your back and you cock your fist back just enough to knock him off, then scramble to your feet and leap on him.
“I hate you, Muguruma!”
“I hate you more, ________!”
“Argh!” You let loose a shout of frustration as Kensei manages to get you down again, and you kick around wildly to get him off. In the briefest instant, you find yourselves eye to eye. You’re both panting, bruised, and covered in dust.
Kensei turns his head slightly and drops a kiss on your waiting lips, then immediately turns bright red and jumps off you like you caught fire.
Getting up, you stare at him. “Did you just kiss me?”
Kensei, horribly red, rubs the back of his neck, looking everywhere but at you.
You roll your eyes, walk up to him, and plant one on him he won’t forget anytime soon—hot, wild, and just as ferocious as your fight moments ago. You run a hand up his shirt, surprising him, dragging a lazy finger across sinfully carved abs. Meanwhile, your mouth does possibly illegal things to his, licking, nipping, teasing—and Kensei, still tomato-colored and more than a little taken aback, tries his best not to faint from the heat of it all.
You drag him to the ground, pulling him on top of you, still attached at the mouth as Kensei, one hand tangled in your hand and the other on your thigh, finally begins to kiss back.
After a few moments of almost frenzied kissing, you break apart and stare at each other in the time-honored tradition of “Ten Minutes in Heaven” participants everywhere.
“I don’t even like you,” you mutter.
“Me neither,” Kensei says wonderingly.
“Maybe you’re both just stupid,” Gran’s voice suggests from inside the warehouse. You both glower at the door, which discreetly shuts once again.
You kiss him again, laying your head in the crook of his neck. His pulse is strong and erratic, beating unevenly against your cheek. “Maybe she’s right, though.” You look into his brown eyes and Kensei itches his eyebrow piercing nervously.
“What do you mean?”
“Maybe we are just stupid.” You draw him back to your lips, your kisses soft and unbelievably sweet, considering you were trying to bust this guy not five minutes ago. “I think I’m in love with you, Muguruma.”
Nudging your mouth open, Kensei slips his tongue in, stroking the polished line of your teeth and the warmth of your own tongue. “I don’t care if we’re stupid or not. I think I might just love you too, you infuriating witch.” He chuckles when you pinch his bicep.
“’Infuriating witch’, huh?”
“You turn me inside out. Who else but a witch could do that?” Kensei asks, obviously trying to be funny.
“You drive me crazy,” you respond, cupping the back of his neck and kissing him again. “I haven’t seen you since you left for Rukongai… before you were a Visored.”
“I know. Wanna know what’s funny? You’re the last thing I thought of—before the Hollow took over, I mean. I thought of you, and I was angry because we’d never finish our fight.”
You smile faintly and sit up, leaning on Kensei’s warm shoulder. “I was furious when they said you were gone. I felt like we had so much unfinished business… Maybe this was it?”
“Ha, I doubt it. We hated each other’s guts.” He drops a kiss on the top of your head. “Never thought I’d do that.”
“I never thought I’d let you.” You tug up the waist of his shirt and expose his tattoo—“69”, although it isn’t half as risqué as it seems. It comes from his last name and his old division. “I guess we can’t go around whacking each other anymore.”
“I’d…. I’d… er… rather not hurt you, to tell the truth.”
“How do you know you’ll hurt me?” You look back at him, eyes narrowed.
“Well, with the whole Visored thing—“
You slug him. “I’ll show you hurt!”
“Hey! Wait! I don’t want to fight--!”
Gran peeps out the door just in time to see you chase Kensei into the sunset. “Match made in heaven,” she says with a dreamy sigh.
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