I don't own Bleach.
Edited: July 20, 2015
While It Rains
IchiRuki
Ichigo's bus was running late ... Which was not unusual. But still annoying.
University was out for the summer; officially now. It hadn't felt that way eight hours ago. After all, Ichigo had still had to go to work, run by the grocery store to get ingredients for Yuzu's dinner and at some point he'd somehow managed to stub his pinky toe (it had happened right before his last final exam and had been exceedingly painful.) Ichigo didn't consider any of those things to be where summer began; it would be entirely too depressing to call watching an elderly man buy denture cleaner summer vacation.
Now was summer. No school work, no errands, this was summer. And summer would kick off with Yuzu's fantastic cooking.
Except that the fucking bus was running late ... Like really late.
Ichigo sighed, extended his arm to pull back his dress shirt just enough to get a glance at his watch. Quarter after seven. He adjusted his umbrella and glanced at the sky from under it. He was about to leave the station – considering hailing a cab – when a small woman came running to the bus stop. Ichigo glanced her way, and then reevaluated his statement. "Small" indicated some semblance to average. This girl looked like a high school student who'd stopped growing in middle school. She was also soaking wet, without an umbrella, and although her direct line of path seemed to be to the cover of the bus stop's (poorly sheltered) bench, she found none there. A sigh followed the realization. Ichigo watched as she flopped down on the soggy bench anyway. During all of this she managed a type of grace and refinement that betrayed her obviously more matured age. Despite himself, and his sour mood, Ichigo couldn't help but chuckle. The woman looked up and glared at him. She was looking thoroughly put upon.
"What's with the laughing fruit head?" She bit. Her voice was deeper than Ichigo expected, still feminine, but with a certain husk Ichigo was embarrassed to admit he found sexy. It caught him off guard ... so did her abrupt rudeness. Ichigo's smirk fell. And her eyes. Plum-colored eyes. They were big and deep and infinite. Those surprised him, too. Not a teenager's eyes ... What the hell.
"Fruit head?" He responded lamely, confused almost, except Kurosaki Ichigo wasn't often confused. "You're one to talk, shorty." It was a lame response, he knew, but his hair had always been a touchy subject. He watched in hidden awe as the woman's eyes narrowed to slits. She stood up and Ichigo wondered if his obituary was going to appear in the paper tomorrow. "Local university student, Kurosaki Ichigo, 21, dies Friday evening after being attacked by four foot asylum escapee." Ichigo was assessing the ways in which she would most likely kill them, but it was unnecessary. She didn't seem to be in the murdering mood; instead she kicked him. Rather hard in the shin. He leapt back in surprise more than pain.
"Bitch!" He yelled. She crossed her arms under her chest (it was a small chest, somehow Ichigo found he liked it more than some of the bigger chests he'd seen in his life) and glared harder.
"You have no right to make such accusations!" She shouted. It was an odd sentence.
"What accusations? I was stating the obvious!" He growled back, rubbing his shin, he could tell she was about to say something else so he cut in before she could. "Besides," he said childishly, "you started it." The woman halted. Looked at him hard for about ten seconds, and then, slowly, a smile crossed her features.
"'You started it?'" She echoed. "What are you? Five?" Her tone went from predatory to playful, not the mocking type, either. Just that generally amused kind of playful tone comfortable people use. The kind Yuzu used when she was making a joke. Then the woman chuckled, a contagious thing that wrapped around Ichigo so that he was, too.
"It sounded better in my head," Ichigo admitted when they stopped, standing silently in the rain again.
"Isn't that always how it goes?" The woman said, the smile transforming into a smirk. So many emotions so freely running across her face made Ichigo think she must have been a dangerous person in a different situation. He smirked, watching the rain roll across her cheek with interest, then down the column of her neck. It disappeared somewhere past the neckline of her sundress. An inappropriate choice of attire given that the forecast had been for rain the entire week.
Ichigo moved to stand next to her, putting the umbrella between them. She sent him a questioning glance which he responded to with a grin, and the two went to not talking.
This is all weird, Ichigo thought. The short woman beside him and he had only talked for a minute, forty-eight seconds of which had consisted of bickering, and without any verbal communication at all they'd gone to sharing his umbrella. Ichigo was not a particularly social person; this was a strange situation.
"Kuchiki Rukia," the woman announced suddenly.
"What?" Ichigo asked, glancing down, she was staring ahead studiously, her arms were crossed again and her brow was furrowed pensively, as if she were thinking.
"My name is Kuchiki Rukia, I work up the street."
"Oh." Ichigo stated. "I'm Kurosaki Ichigo, I go to school at the university." Rukia turned to him then a playful smile, small as it was, crossed her lips.
"I know," she said, her eyes flashed with something like mischief. "You intern under my brother." She got a kind pleasure out of the confusion, realization and shock that obscured his (as far as she could tell) normal scowl.
The bus drove up at that moment, saving Ichigo from commenting on the fact that he'd seen this woman on several different occasions, none of which had she ever shown any other emotion other than boredom.
"That's your bus isn't it?" She grinned, hitting him lightly on the chest with the back of her hand. Ichigo scowled at the bus.
"Yeah," he muttered, glancing back at her. "It isn't yours?" He asked, she shook her head.
"No, mine's the next one."
Ichigo thought briefly, an idea striking him. A clever idea he thought, he smirked.
"I'll trade you then, how about your number for my umbrella?" His smirk was arrogant and determined. A weird combination. Rukia gave him a smile of her own.
"Deal." She said, pulling a notepad out of her bag, she scribbled quickly on it, and handed it over. Ichigo grinned, giving her his umbrella.
"See you ... midget."
"Later, strawberry." She waved as he stepped on the bus.
As Ichigo sat down he glanced down at the slip, her digits were written on a pink post-it, little rabbits did somersaults as a boarder, he couldn't stop from laughing, which earned him some weird glances from other passengers.
"Ichi-nii!" Yuzu cheered, meeting him at the front door of his childhood home. "Oh no! Ichi-nii, you're soaking wet, where's your umbrella?" She ran out to him, towel in hand, and pushed him forcefully up the stairs and inside, throwing the towel over his shoulders as she did so. Ichigo chuckled.
"I traded it." He stated, dodging a kick from his father, still smiling.
Requested by AmethystSunrise 28 on dA. Quick and unedited, I may come back to it to make it grammatically correct. ^^; Enjoy, reviews are always loved.