I came up with this today, it rained for twenty minutes today, the most and longest it had rained in two months. I was standing out in it today I thought of this scenario in my head and had to write it down, sorry if you don't like it but its what I wanted to write today.

DISCLAIMER: Surprisingly I don't own Bleach….huh…maybe that's why I have student loans.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Different

Rain, he hated the rain, it oozed down your neck and soaked your clothes, it was a horrible mistake of nature on his opinion. The only thing he hated worse than the rain was finding and killing hollows in the rain, especially if it was five thirty in the morning on a Saturday.

"One Saturday is all I ask." He shook his head and water droplets sprayed off into the already soggy morning. Staring at his feet he plodded home, sword over shoulder, orange hair slopping into his eyes. "I need a haircut, I'll ask Yuzu later." He let his mind wander as he walked toward his home and bed and it was the sound of humming and a splash of red that pulled him out of his own world and back to the present.

Head tilted up, arms limp at her sides, and her clothes and hair plastered to her body a girl stood out in the rain humming and smiling with her eyes closed.

Being invisible to normal people has its perks, for one you don't get seen walking around town in a strange outfit, carrying a rather large sword. Other reasons would include but not be limited to the fact that they couldn't see you as you stared at them standing in the rain. He came closer to her and recognized that she was the girl that had moved in two doors down from his own home.

Quiet was how Yuzu and Karin had described her when they had come back from delivering some cookies Yuzu had made to welcome her to the town.

"She didn't talk much, just smiled a lot and told us thank you for welcoming her." Karin didn't have much interest in her, but Yuzu had been worried that there was something wrong with her. She had begged Ichigo to go with her to check on her again, but he had been so busy lately that he hadn't had time to go with her, and Yuzu was to shy to go by herself.

He went closer to her and she let her head fall back to its normal forward facing appearance with her eyes still closed. He wasn't sure if that was a reaction to him being so close or if in a more likely conclusion that she had just gotten tired of tilting her head up. He wasn't sure why he was this close to her, but it was as if his curiosity of why she seemed to love the rain so much outweighed his own dislike of it, and if he looked at her close enough the answer would write itself out on her skin.

Looking around again to make sure no one who could see him was around he turned back to her and looked at her again, through the droplets on her cheeks he could see she had freckles, and that she was not Japanese, probably why she didn't talk much. A piece of her hair was plastered to her cheek on one side, and a droplet of water dangled off of her nose and every minute or two she would lick her lips to get the moisture off of them. He stood up and scratched the back of his head, he couldn't understand why she would be out here this early in the morning standing in the rain humming to herself. He sighed and let his hand fall back to his side with a slap of wet fabric.

She opened her eyes at that moment and he stood stock still as she looked right at him and tilted her head to the side and frowned. "Hello." She wrinkled her nose and smiled at his shock, wiping the piece of hair off of her face.

He didn't say anything to her, didn't move, hardly breathed as she stood there and stared at him. "Okay." She closed her eyes again but the rain was down to a drizzle now and she frowned before opening her eyes again, but he was gone. Jumping onto the roof as soon as she had closed her eyes he had escaped her unsettling perception of him standing in front of her. "I'm sorry, if I…offended you." She seemed to stop and think between her words, a sign that he was right. "Your sister… she brought me cookies…correct? They were good." She looked around to see where he had gone and shrugged, maybe she needed to practice her speaking more, perhaps she had said something wrong.

"The rain, why do you like it?" He said it in English, he figured he would make it easy for her to speak and understand, he was almost fluent in the language, it had been a bit of a hobby in school and at home before his life had changed. He was still on the roof, he figured he shouldn't let her see him dressed like this incase she told people about it. She was quiet as she looked up to the roof where he was hiding and shrugged. "There was never much rain where I grew up, it was always dry and hot." she wiped the water from her eyelashes and wrinkled her nose again.

"Do you not like it?" she seemed concerned, and slightly offended at his lack of love for the wet and cold. Blinking she waited for him to answer her, the sun was coming up, she would have to go back inside soon, or risk the neighbors labeling her as that strange girl who stood in the rain.

He sighed and wiped his hair back from his eyes and stared at her, the strange girl who stood in the rain, he wasn't sure if he wanted Yuzu hanging around her, no matter how normal she seemed. "It's complicated and not really right to discuss with strangers." He waited for her to answer him but when he looked back over the edge she was opening her door to go inside. She was wringing the water out of her red skirt and short hair, kicking her sandals to the side as she looked over her shoulder to the now awake street. "Tell Yuzu that she can visit whenever she likes, and thank her for the cookies." She closed the door behind her and left him outside to ponder over the conversation that they had just had.

Climbing into his window several minutes later and back into his dry body to sleep for another hour before his sister came to wake him up for breakfast, he realized that he had not asked her name, and she hadn't asked for his, and that she hadn't seemed the least bit disturbed that he had been examining her so closely while she stood still in the pouring rain, like a plant opening its leaves and petals to accept the water, like her life depended on it.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Thank you for reading this, I don't know if I should continue or not, your feedback would be much appreciated. But I know that people are lazy and don't like to review, I'll give you a cookie…