It's a warm autumn day in Karakura, and sunlight streams through the window creating a light atmosphere to match Rukia's mood.
Rukia opened her eyes and grinned, Nii-Sama had been as good as his word. One week after their conversation and she was waking up ready for her first day at Karakura High, he had bought her her very own house in the town, a convenient distance from the school and the shops, and in a decent neighborhood. She gets dressed quickly, because she has to report to the headmaster five minutes before class starts, to get her timetable.
Ichigo wakes up before his dad enters his room for once, so he decides to play possum. His dad's habit of waking him up with a kick to the face may be annoying, but it had given him the reflexes he needed to fight off the idiots who attacked him because of his hair.
Lying still, he heard his door open quietly, his dad was going for stealth today, good job he woke up early. Ichigo had woken up in a bad mood. So he decided to teach his dad a lesson and do something he would never do in an actual fight. He heard his dad shout his name and knew that his dad's foot would now be raised over his head, so Ichigo raised his fist and punched his dad, hard, in the nuts.
Walking out of his room, leaving his father weeping on the floor, Ichigo went downstairs to see Yuzu and Karin eating breakfast, the latter spoke up, "Yo Ichigo, did dad get you today, he said he had a surefire way to approach you."
Ichigo replied, "actually he would have got me if I hadn't woken up early, I was lucky, I heard him sneak in and managed to hit him before he hit me, he's probably still on my floor the idiot."
At this point his father came downstairs, "Ichigo, how could you do that to your daddy?"He wailed.
"Bloody hell how hard did you hit him?" Karin asked, shocked,
"It's not that I hit him hard, it's just where I hit him that mattered." Karin noticed the way her dad was walking, and decided not to ask.
Ichigo walked to school with a heavy heart, not for punching his dad, the fool had it coming, but because he felt like he was going nowhere. His life was boring, which was especially strange seeing as his dad was insane, his friends were weird, and he got in fights almost every day, but it all seemed routine.
He was bored with it all, his friends were great, most of them anyway, but they were predictable, even Inoue's awkward advances were getting predictable, and worrying. Every day she was getting a little bit more forward, which meant every day he was getting closer to having to shoot her down. He knows he shouldn't pretend he doesn't notice her interest, but for all Keigo's raving about her, Ichigo simply wasn't interested.
If only she wasn't so bloody shy and sweet he could shoot her down with a clear conscience like he does with the other girls, but while he may not fancy Inoue, he doesn't want to hurt her either, especially as Tatsuki would kick his ass afterwards.
He is still lost in his thoughts when he hears Keigo shouting. "IICCHHIIGGOOOOO!" at which point he sticks out his arm for his normal greeting for Keigo.
Rukia walks through the school doors, and as she does so she hears a very loud boy shouting "IICCHHIIGGOOOOO!" Rukia turns to look at the source of the noise, and winces when she sees a young boy get brutally clotheslined by a tall boy with orange hair.
"Yo, Keigo" he says in a bored tone, and Rukia is shocked to see Keigo jump to his feet unharmed. They seem really weird, thinks Rukia; they're probably delinquents, especially that tall one. She makes a mental note to stay away from them.
"Well Miss Kuchiki, we are very happy to have you here at Karakura High, here is your timetable, and if there is anything else you need, just let me or one of the teachers know, okay?" the head teacher smiled at her, and she smiled nervously back.
"thank you very much, I'm happy to be here Urahara-San." after saying goodbye, she left the head teacher's office in a much better mood, the head seemed very nice, if a tad eccentric, and it was good to know she could go to him for help. Her classroom was 1-3, and upon finding it, she knocked on the door and waited.
A friendly looking woman opened the door with a smile, "Hello, you must be Miss Kuchiki, I'm Ochi-Sensei." Rukia walked in and the teacher turned around to address the class. " alright class, we have a new student joining today, this is miss Kuchiki Rukia, and I want you to be nice ok, now let's find you a seat" she said more quietly, but Rukia's heart was sinking, because the only empty seat in the class was right next to the carrot top delinquent from this morning!
Ichigo had been busy looking out the window for most of the teacher's speech, and so when he looked back at the front of the class he was surprised tosee a new girl standing there looking at him, a cute new girl, he thought, then he frowned to himself, where the fuck did that come from?
Rukia had been burning holes in the side of carrot-top's head out of annoyance when he had turned around and she had met his eyes, and all thoughts of annoyance fell out of her head and she could only think of how nice his eyes were, like soft pools of amber.
Ochi-Sensei was smirking to herself, she had seen thosekinds of looks before, this was going to be fun. "Rukia there is a seat free next to Kurosaki-San, as I'm sure you noticed." at this point both Ichigo and Rukia blushed in embarrassment, and the jaws of everyone else in the room fell to the floor because Kurosaki just blushed over a girl!
Rukia sat down and endeavored to look anywhere except at him, god she feels so stupid, just what wa- "hey" she turned around to look at him, he was rubbing the back of his head for some reason, "I'm Kurosaki Ichigo"
He's smiling, kind of, that's good, I think. "Hey, I'm Kuchiki Rukia." Rukia replied.
"I was thinking, seeing as your new here, if you want you could hang out with me and my friends, I mean you don't have to it's up to you."
Rukia smiled at him "that sounds nice, thank you." he has a really nice smile.
"Alright then, great, we eat lunch on the roof."
The morning passed really well, though she had missed a month of work, the teacher planned the lessons so Rukia could catch up, but the rest of the class could advance as well, it was very well done. The bell for lunch rang and Rukia smiled, then she realized she didn't know the way to the roof, she thought about following Ichigo when she heard his voice, "hey, you probably don't know your way around yet so if you want we could walk up to the roof together?" he was smiling again, nervously, Rukia loves his smile.
"Sure, thanks." she smiles back. Looks like this year is going to be a good one.
Rukia was walking with Ichigo when she suddenly noticed everyone was staring at them, "umm, Ichigo, why is everyone looking at us?" she was surprised to see Ichigo blush and then start rubbing his head again.
"oh, well, they're just surprised to see me walking along with the new girl, because, I don't really, usually, get on with girls very well." Rukia was surprised at this, but a little pleased too, she was starting to worry that there was something on her face.
They got to the roof and sat down, and Rukia noticed that everyone in the group was in their class. As she sat down, the boy named Keigo from this morning looked at her and smiled at Ichigo, "well done Ichigo, you got the new girl to hang out with us; I'm Keigo by the way"
"I know, I saw you this morning, by the way Ichigo, why did you clothesline him like that?" Rukia asked.
Ichigo just shrugged and said "he's really annoying and I didn't want him to hug me."
Keigo seemed a bit deflated by the conversation, and the small black haired boy net to him spoke up, "Hi, I'm Mizuiro; I was wondering about your last name, are you related to the Kuchiki family, the ones who own squad 6?"
Rukia blushed a bit at this, "actually, I was adopted into the family when I was six, Kuchiki Byakuya is my brother."
Everyone's eyes widened, and Keigo looked like he was about to burst, as he asked "if your Kuchiki Byakuya's sister, then why the hell are you in a public school?"
Rukia suddenly realized how foolish she had been, why had she thought for a second that she would be safe from bullies in a public school? Whereas the snobs at private schools see her as a commoner, these students would obvious-"
"Who cares?" she looked up at Ichigo, as he continued, "Who cares who her family is? She's here now, so what does it matter?" everyone started nodding, and as Ichigo looked down at her, she smiled at him and mouthed "thank you" he frowned, "for what?" he mouthed back, and she just smiled wider.
Rukia was soon introduced to everyone in the group, Chad, Tatsuki, Inoue, and Ishida. Ichigo told her a bit about each of his friends, like how he had met them, and they asked her a few questions about her life, though she left out a lot about her previous schools, she told them about how she had lived on the streets and one day she had been adopted by her Nii-Sama, and then they talked about all sorts of things, and all Rukia could think of how lucky she was to have met Ichigo.
School was nearly over for the day when a loud chorus of groaning came from room 1-3. The groaning was caused by Ochi-Sensei assigning them a project on the stuff they had learned in the last month, which must be over one thousand words. She followed on by saying "don't worry class, you have a week to do it and you will be completing it in pairs, so it's more like having a five hundred word project each! The pairs are posted on the wall, have fun and I will see you tomorrow."
There was a great deal of mumbling and groaning as the students filed out of the classroom, after checking who they were paired with. Ichigo and Rukia were pleased (though they tried not to show it too much) to see that they were paired up.
Ichigo and Rukia walked out of the classroom together, and Ichigo spoke up, "well seeing as we're paired up, we'll have to decide whose house to go to do the project. Your welcome to come to my house, my dad's insane but my sisters are nice, well Yuzu is, and you could stay for dinner too." he was rubbing his hair again.
"That sounds nice, thanks." Rukia replied, and Ichigo smiled.
"Great, well I'll walk you home and then you can write down my address when we get there."
Rukia raised one eyebrow, "you don't even know where I live yet, I could live miles away from you and you're already offering to walk me home."
Ichigo shrugged, trying to look nonchalant and failing on account of the redness in his cheeks "doesn't matter, I want to make sure you get home safe."
Rukia scoffed, "that's sweet Ichigo, but you can't walk for miles every single day simply to make sure I get home safe."
Ichigo's blush intensified and he looked away from her as he mumbled just loud enough for her to hear. "Yes I can."