Disclaimer: I don't own Bleach.
She couldn't really say when it started, it just sort of happened. One day she was sitting around the house, practically screaming because apparently it was a vacation week for hollows and she had nothing to do. And the next she was calling him everyday, even for a couple minutes; just to hear his voice.
And so here she was, the famous Rukia Kuchiki, staring at her phone hard enough to light it on fire, waiting for a dumb human boy to call. How low had she fallen?
Ring! Ring! Ring!
Rukia practically fell off of Ichigo's bed (she had inherited his room after he left) and grappled desperately for the phone, as if to get it before the ringing disappeared and the phone showed no record of a missed call (it had been doing that a lot lately, and Urahara said that there was nothing wrong with it. Although he had been smirking when he said it…).
"Hello!" She almost shrieked.
"Jeez, you don't have to yell. I'm right here, Rukia." Kami, Rukia could swear that her whole body just melted.
"Sorry," she grunted.
"Phone's not 'being nice' again?" She could practically hear him smirking.
"I would kick you right now…if you weren't, like, a bajillion miles away." Jeez, just saying that depressed her.
"Bajillion isn't a word Rukia."
"Is now." She put on her 'Kuchiki Face' as Ichigo had dubbed it.
"You're making the face now aren't you?" He knew her too well, not that she was ever going to admit that.
"No!"
"You are."
"Am not!"
"Are too."
"I am not! You can't even see!" Hah! Beat that Ichigo.
"I don't have to, I can tell. Known you too long Rukia." Rukia fought desperately to keep down her blush, even though he couldn't see.
"So how was another day of reaping without me?" The 118th to be exact… not that she was counting.
"Boring. Your's?"
"Same ol' same old." He sounded exhausted.
"Tired?"
"A little." He didn't bother with half-truths or lies so much anymore, she saw right through them. "Got a paper due tomorrow. Haven't even started." He chuckled, as if he was proud of it. Rukia knew he was embarrassed.
"Well, your taking, like, eighty courses." She snorted, he was very academically oriented, even more then she was in the Shinigami Academy.
"Not really. Just what I missed during the War." Rukia felt a pang blaze through her chest. Even before the War she had felt a little guilty… okay really guilty that she had made him a Shinigami. That he had to shoulder the responsibilities of both the dead and his own life. Sometimes, she felt like she wanted to take all of it back, make him human, really human, again.
"Stop feeling guilty." Rukia frowned.
"You know this 'knowing me' crap is kind of getting old."
Ichigo laughed, "Too bad."
"Don't you have a paper to write?" Rukia could almost see him deflate.
"Ugh, don't remind me." She smirked. Victory, as always.
"So how's my old room holding up under your Chappy obsession?"
Rukia snorted, "Please Ichigo, your dull room looks so much better with Chappy's adorable face on it."
"Yeah, yeah. So you keep saying. When do I get to see my new nightmare?" Rukia blushed, they'd been sending pictures back and forth with the phone camera Rukia had. But she hadn't sent him a picture of his room, no matter how much he'd asked.
One day, despite her many promises, she realized that she didn't want to decorate Ichigo's room. She wanted it exactly the way he left it. Exactly. What scared her was that she still wasn't really sure why.
"When I say so." She grinned.
"Oh," she could just see him rolling his eyes at her, "is that so?"
"Yep!"
"You're impossible."
"So why do you try?" She asked in her innocent girl voice, the one she knew he hated.
"Sometimes I wonder that myself Rukia," Ichigo sighed.
"I miss you." Rukia blurted out. Shit, she thought.
There was a long silence, then—
"I… I miss you too." Rukia felt her chest expand with a warm feeling, the same one she got when he did something really sweet.
"Rukia?"
"Yeah."
"Don't start thinking that I'm getting soft."
Rukia scoffed, "I would never—"
"Don't bullshit me Rukia."
Ah, well, a relationship like theirs was never meant for drastic changes anyway.