A/N: Tête-à-tête: Without the intrusion of a third person; in intimate privacy; talk.

Ha, I love that word! XD Had trouble with the title, so, um, yeah. Also, please excuse the lame synopsis that came along with it XD -cue flying bricks-

Midwinter's Night Tête-à-tête

Ichigo was reading A Midsummer's Night Dream in bed with the main lights switched off and the bed light turned on. Rukia was snuggling under the covers beside him— something that he noticed happened a lot during winters or rainy nights. He hardly ever minded—at least, if he did, he never expressed his thoughts. And as an unspoken rule, Ichigo would always lay closer to the edge of the bed, during these nights, and Rukia would lay quietly beside him.

Tonight was no exception.

She was still and silent as she stared deeply to the ceiling above her, thoughts and flashbacks of today zooming across her mind, like reels of film zipping all around her. None of the film stayed still long enough for her to catch and watch; all of them were zipping past her in a blur of merged colours and fusion of sound. Except for one. One flashback had been flying round and round her head, its reel of film twisting, coiling and curling around her mind for the whole day, bothering her with the one question she wanted to ask. She caught it.

"Ichigo?" she whispered. She didn't really understand why she was whispering, but it seemed to suit the atmosphere at that time— late at night as the snowflakes softly floated down to earth outside.

He rumbled a reply, not taking his eyes off the Shakespearean work. She took it as a prompt for her to continue— at least he was acknowledging her call. Rukia turned in bed and pulled the blanket over her shoulders.

"What does 'sleep with' mean to you humans?"

His attention was caught and his eyes caught hers. "What?" he reiterated dumbly.

" 'Sleep with', what does it mean?"

He shifted his weight to his right and moved away from her just slightly. His eyebrows creased even more and his lips formed that same frown when he struggled with yesterday's trigonometry questions. He looked uncomfortable with that question, and that piqued her curiosity much more.

"Why?"

"Because I want to know," she said. He frowned at her even more—not accepting that answer. She sighed in dissatisfaction—she knew if she didn't tell him truthfully, she would never get an answer. "Fine. Mieru was asking me whether I had 'slept with' someone before or not."

To her surprise, he put away his book and asked her instead, "And what was your answer?"

She raised an eyebrow, as if signalling he was a dense idiot for asking such a simple question. In a sense, she wasn't signalling.

"Of course," was her reply.

Even more to her surprise, he reacted exactly like Inoue, Tatsuki, Ryo and Mieru during recess. Large shocked eyes, mouth hanging slightly open, eyebrows rose with surprise, and the standard, "Eh?"

She rolled her eyes. She had tired herself of that same reaction after seeing that reaction from four people already. Rukia pulled her arms on top of the blanket and prodded him painfully on the arm. "Well? If your reaction was like that, then I must have misinterpreted the phrase. Tell me!"

He had that uncomfortable look on again. "It simply means to… um, do it with someone." His eyes looked away as he said this words and his heart desperately hoped that she could understand something as vague as that. Because he, as sure as hell, was not going to explain what does it mean.

He exhaled a breath of relief when she said, "Oh." She glanced at him and nodded knowingly. "That explains why the girls were shocked just now. Thank you, Ichigo." She turned her back towards him and closed her eyes.

"Oi," he called out, grasping her shoulder. He turned her around and made her faced him. She thought she saw a flash of green behind his amber eyes. "Have you really?"

"What? Slept with someone? I told you: yes." She pulled her shoulders from his grasp. His expression was hard and somehow that prompted her to say something. "Renji," she said.

Then that same flash of green zipped behind his eyes. Honestly, to Rukia, it was all too amusing. For someone who infinitely has just about one type of expression all the time (anger, irritation, annoyance.), this sudden rapid change of expressions was like a game! Ha!

"And Taro and also Sora and Rei-chan."

Ichigo's current expression: Confused.

Rukia laughed. This could go on all night, and she'll never get tired of it! "Rukongai, idiot! You can't expect me to just share the sleeping mat with only Renji! That's just plain callous. Everyone had to share."

He raised an eyebrow, and mentally (also subconsciously) laughed in relief, for some reason. He realized that what she meant and what he thought she meant was two very, very different things. He kicked himself mentally.

You idiot.

He didn't say anything for a while, and neither did she. After five pages, he turned to her and poked her unmoving head underneath the blankets gently. "Are you asleep?"

The head shook. "Thinking of things," she said.

"Oh?" For some reason, his book suddenly became dull in comparison to her voice. He bookmarked his book and placed it on the windowsill. "What about?"

She poked her head away from the warmth of the blanket and nuzzled into the pillow. "Stuff." Rukia turned and faced the ceiling. She was fiddling with the hem of the blanket.

"You know…" she finally said, "We had this thing we did during sleeping time back at Rukongai. Sora would whisper good night to her brother and Taro would pass it on to the person next to him… and on it went until that message reached me at the end of the sleeping mat."

Ichigo leaned on his elbow as he watched her talk in the semi-darkness. Her eyes had a distant look and her lips held a small smile as she continued, "And I'll whisper the wish to Renji and the chain continues until Sora gets the wish. And only then we would go to sleep."

She caught the brief smile he gave. "We didn't though—Renji and me. We would talk and laugh and plot on whose water jug we would steal the next morning." He didn't know why, but his hand was playing with her hair. She noticed, but did not pull away.

Rukongai was tough— with the lack of clean water, insufficient food supplies, the imminent threat of an incurable illness, and the overpopulation issues. But she had her housemates, if she could call them that, and they made everything just a tiny bit better. And in Rukongai, a tiny bit is a huge leap for anything.

He spoke next, "They're like siblings of yours."

Sibllings, huh? She never really thought about it that way, but now that he had mentioned it— and she thought about Ichigo and the twins at that moment —it really does seem that way. "I guess they sort of were…" Her eyes were closed, and Ichigo though she really had fallen asleep. He stayed there, his fingers weaving between her hair, watching the rise and fall of her chest in soft slumber.

Her voice came to him softly… maybe sleepily. "Have you, Ichigo?"

"Have I what?"

Violet met amber in the semi-darkness. "Slept with someone…" He turned slightly red, but he directed himself to be on the same thinking frequency as her; 'sleeping with' means to lie beside someone, unconscious and probably dreaming… not… that. Damn his brain. Damn it.

He let his eyes stray to the falling snowflakes outside, as if trying to remember. "Tatsuki slept over a few times before," he finally said. Rukia snuggled into her —their— blanket and looked at him, a smile forming on her lips, as if subtly persuading him to elaborate.

"We played around the house like mad. Just so you know, we were 7 or something. Before her mom arrived, we pretended to fall asleep in front of the TV so that Tatsuki wouldn't have to leave." A boyish smirk appeared on his lips.

"I thought it was a pretty ingenious plan. It always worked. Though, I had a feeling mom knew." Rukia repositioned herself, putting her dainty hands underneath her head, facing him. "And when night came, you could hear us laughing about in my room. We were punished for sleeping in class once because of that."

He saw her restraining a grin, when she said bluntly, "You are an idiot, Ichigo."

"We met in kindergarten, you know. She stole my colour pencils and somehow after that we became close."

Rukia grinned. Unconventional was the word she could use to describe Ichigo and Tatsuki's meeting. In fact, she could use that word to describe her and Renji's meeting too— stealing a jug of water from that cranky old Washio-jii.

She yawned, and he retracted his hand from her hair, reaching out for Midsummer's Night Dream on the windowsill. "Sleep, you," he said, holding back a laugh from her tearful eyes.

"You can't," she mumbled unintelligibly, "order me aroun...mh." She yawned again, then turned so her back was facing him, and she was facing the door. "You go to sleep too, 'Chigo..."

Her eyes were closed, her breathing was light, her whole body was calm and still, but Rukia wasn't asleep. Unlike her body, her mind was racing. It has been a while since they talked like this. In fact, she could count the times when she and him had these talks as intimate as these with one hand. But that alone, gave Ichigo a huge leap. Rukia was not an open book, and for her to confide to someone like this was a gigantic rarity.

Maybe, he was the only one she did confide to.

Maybe, he was the only one she could confide to.

She was thinking of things, things that were said tonight. She concluded that Tatsuki and Ichigo were close friends. Ichigo speculated that she and Renji were like siblings. ...so what does she and Ichigo make?

They were close, like friends— but it seemed like their relationship was much more than that.

They understood each other, like siblings— but her head screamed that they weren't like that.

They were intimate, like lovers— but they weren't one.

So, what were they? What relationship were they holding on to? Somehow any connection that appeared in her head didn't quite fit the situation. Too close to be friends, and not exactly lovers either. Maybe... Ichigo was a special one. He didn't fit all those 'types' in general. He held a special place in her heart, one that no one else could fit into. Like he was that puzzle piece, a unique one that no other replacement can be found in the world.

She glanced at the boy beside her. His skin painted orange with the lights from the bedside lamp, his heavy brown eyes flitting across the pages, his broad shoulders rising and falling in sync.

He was her puzzle piece. Her only one.

She blinked momentarily. That film reel was back in her head, coiling her brain. How would people react if she said that she had 'slept with' Ichigo? In her head, everything was clear: they would shriek in surprise, or be rendered speechless, or maybe Ryo would give her a pat in the back while Mieru said, "I knew it!" or maybe—

The lights were switched off.

Like the lamp, her thoughts were shut off, leaving a blank darkness fill her mind, like the one that shrouded the room now. Rukia felt him move beside her, the bedsheets rustling underneath his body.

Silence reigns.

"Good night, Rukia..."

She felt blood rush to her face when she heard his voice whisper in her ear like that. She compelled her heart to stop beating so rapidly against her chest and forced the blood to stop flowing to her face. Finally regaining control, she turned to face him, but his back faced her instead. His breaths were collected and calm.

Rukia... she decided not to tell anyone about this. No one would know that she had 'slept with' Ichigo. He was special to her, and this could be her one little secret.

She poked him on the shoulder, and he turned to face her, a scowl on his face. He grunted at her, leaden with sleep, "What?"

"You're not supposed to go to sleep until everyone had replied."

His eyebrows creased even further, apparent with confusion.

Rukia leant forward and kissed him on the cheek. "Good night, Ichigo," she whispered.

His eyebrows rose high, and his cheeks were tainted with mottled pink and rubicund. She smiled at his expression, purely by amusement, and unceremoniously fell back down on the bed.

"I thought you just say good night, and no kissing were involved, midget," he said to her, his tone filled with amusement.

"Shut up, strawberry," she mumbled and closed her eyes.

And she slept with him until the morning sun rose.

A/N: I... don't know if I like this or not, but I remember writing this back in 2009 on pieces of paper. XD Recently I found those pieces of paper and converted it from handwritten form to text form. Hope you enjoyed! (:

Comments, constructive criticism, and whatever else (except flames!) puts a huge smile on this author's face :D

Thanks for reading!