She had never met anybody like him, he was intense, mature, cold and for some reason totally magnetic. Sometimes she wished that it had always stayed that way, her only watching him from a distance. If she had she wouldn't feel this way now. She hated how their meeting was just like a shojo manga one of those instances that you read about and say as if that would really happen, but this time it was true and that made it all the more embarrassing. She actually had ran in to him one night on the way home from practice as she dribbled her ball along the side-walks that she had assumed were empty of people. As always her eyes were on the ball as she wound it in and out of the bollards marking the change from the road to the side-walk she danced in and out of them as if they were multiple dancing partners in and out, in and out the ball always firmly in her sights and the only thing in her sights; the rest of the world vanished as the only things that mattered were her feet and the ball of leather.

"Oi watch it!" an ice cold voice from the side of her said making her stop in her tracks she pulled her baseball cap over her eyes and turned to confront the person and came face to face with the widest teal blue eyes she had ever seen.

"Ummm sorry," she said all her cutting remarks lost,

"I'm not on about me," the petulant voice said, "You almost walked straight in to the road without looking." she looked down and saw the stripes of the cross walk and felt herself blush.

"Thanks I guess," The voice sighed and she looked back in to those beautiful and frightening eyes. "My names Karin," she said softly,

"Did I ask for your name?" he grumbled shoving his hands further in to his pockets.

"I guess not," She replied and then said, "But you did just save my life,"

"Hardly," he said back sounding haughty, "There isn't any traffic and you were in my way," he eyed her expectantly and she jumped back,

"Sorry," she mumbled not really wanting to say anything else in case he shouted at her. He walked passed her and she saw his hair it was bright white, no dye could do that, but she had never seen hair of the colour be natural before.

"Thanks Karin," he said with the barest hint of a smile, "I'll see you in school,"

"Yeah, sure… HUH?" but before she could ask he had vanished as if he had never been there, her coach had said something about athletes now using this technique called shunpō that meant more development was done on the hips, legs and feet to speed up reaction time, but as fast as this miracle flash step was supposed to be, there was no way in hell that it would be that fast. What was with that see you in school? The last place she would see someone that looked that way would be school. She was in a sport and art institution and he looked more like someone that would be doing, accounting for all she knew.

She was sat in her English Literature class the next day when it all made sense. She was sat reading over the chapter of Persuasion that the class were reviewing when all the girls started to chatter excitedly as if someone had just spotted Brad Pitt or someone as equally famous with global appeal. She looked up and saw a shock of white hair covering uninterested teal eyes. He was stood wearing tight black jeans and a black t-shirt that made the white of his hair stand out more. He glanced around the room until he saw Karin and he smirked, actually smirked and made a bee line for her making the other girls jealous.

"Hello again," he said softly as he sat down next to her, the ice in his voice from the day before thawing slightly.

"What are you doing here?" Karin spluttered almost knocking her volume of Austen on the floor.

"My Gran says you can never have too much of a good thing, so I have four degrees and I want one more." he played with the small tuft of hair that fell over his left eye and smiled, "Literature is the only one I don't have. So you know don't knock it till you try it." He glanced at Karin's well thumbed book and his face fell, "However if I had known that the varied reading list and courses from Japanese to English literature had that in it, I may not have bothered." Karin instantly became defensive,

"What is wrong with it?" she asked her voice haughty to his surprise and delight,

"Well it's just like two hundred pages of: will he talk to me or why won't he talk to me? It's vapid and annoying."

"Well aren't you just a know it all." Karin said blowing out her breath, "But you are wrong, this one is about two people that made a mistake and whether they can forgive each other and forgive themselves. It's not vapid either, this was the last novel she wrote while she was sick and dying she uses this novel more than any other to mock the social constructs, she can't understand why a lowly naval officer can't marry the woman he loves just because she comes from money and he didn't. It's a novel that shows her dissatisfaction with the way women are viewed, yes maybe we are the gentler sex but it doesn't mean we can't fight back for what we want." She took a deep breath and felt her cheeks get red, "Sorry I just lectured you didn't I?" she shook her head, "I don't even know your name." she said,

"So do we ever get to look at something modern and fun?" he asked avoiding the question,

"If you were hoping for Harry Potter you may want to sell your copy, we go over things that have stood the sands of time." she smiled "And if you were thinking this was popular fiction you may also…"

"Want to get rid of my copies of Twilight?"

"Yes, but more for the fact that although it is written in English. The writer is in fact an American."

"Wow what a young genius I am," he said with a soft smile, "I'm Tōshirō Hitsugaya by the way, I think you earned it." Karin grinned and put out her hand,

"Karin Kurosaki, pleasure to meet you."

"Kurosaki?" Tōshirō asked with his eyebrows raised in a comical fashion, "As in Ichigo Kurosaki?"

"Yeah he's my brother," Karin said suspiciously, "What has he done now?"

"Nothing that I am aware of, it's just I work for a sister company that's all."

"You're a designer?" she asked amazed.

"Yes," he replied simply.

That was it their first conversation and she could remember it as if it happened yesterday. After that all their conversations were that way; electric and enlightening and that was what drew Karin in. If only she had stayed on the outside only giving a little of herself then she would have been safe, but Karin had risked her heart the first time they had spoken, she just hadn't known it then.

The conversation about Momo had only come up by accident a few months in to their friendship…

"Tōshirō where in the hell are you going?" Karin called out to him across the blistering asphalt, "You don't have work today do you? I thought Matsumoto-san phoned you earlier saying that you didn't have to go in to the office." Tōshirō turned around his teal eyes wide he hadn't realised that someone had noticed him leave, but of course Karin did she never ever missed a beat when it came to him. For a few moments he couldn't speak, he didn't know what to say,

"Hospital," he said in a voice just above a whisper. "A friend of mine is in there."

"Can I meet them?" Karin asked and at the shock in Tōshirō's eyes she back pedalled, "If I'm over stepping anything I'm sorry, it's just that my dad is a doctor and I sometimes help out as a nurse to keep the patients calm, I'm told I have a good bedside manner," she watched Tōshirō eye her up and down and in that moment she could have sworn there was a faint blush over his cheeks, but that wasn't possible this was the ice King, but if it was what was he thinking about? When she saw him shake his head slightly as if trying to get rid of an image, she realised that she didn't really want to know what he was thinking about.

"You can come," he replied, "But don't expect her to comment on your bedside manner, she won't even realise you are there." Karin didn't say anything she just nodded as if she understood what Tōshirō was trying to say. He was happy that she didn't start ooohing and ahhhing over him as if the pity would help, he preferred the quiet acceptance and when he looked in to Karin's obsidian eyes he saw that she knew what he was thinking. She slipped her hand in to his and squeezed it in a form of reassurance. Tōshirō knew that if it had been anyone else that had done that, he would have shaken them off, but with Karin it felt right; it felt as if he had come home.

Karin hated Momo the moment she saw her. She was beautiful and feminine all the things that Karin knew she wasn't and in eternal repose she looked like a fairy tale beauty just waiting for her prince to kiss her and looking at Tōshirō she could tell that he wanted to be that prince if the universe would let him.

"It's a pleasure to meet you Momo," she said and Tōshirō looked up,

"Why are you doing that? She can't hear you,"

"How do you know that?" Karin asked and Tōshirō walked back in to the wall confused, "Until you wake up Momo I will take care of Tōshirō don't you worry."

"As if she cares," Tōshirō said bitterly,

"Stop talking that way it's your negativity that has her locked up inside her head, start thinking that things will work out and they will! Start doing it now!" Tōshirō's head snapped up and he looked at Karin so intently that she felt it right to the bone; it was a scary feeling, but eventually he sighed and rubbed his face. He looked tired and a lot older than his years.

"No one has ever talked to me like that," he said his voice a little shaky,

"I bet," Karin said with an oddly charming quirk of her lips.

"I'm not used to it; you really lashed out at me didn't you?"

"You deserved it," Karin pouted, "How is Momo going to wake up if you keep being so negative about everything?" Tōshirō stared at her even harder,

"You are amazing," he said sagging against the wall. That was the very moment when it started the ice in his heart began to thaw and there was no looking back.

They visited Momo once every week and Tōshirō confided in Karin that he was happy he was no longer alone when he went as the place gave him the creeps. Although he said it even he knew it wasn't just that; he valued her company no matter what. It felt good to have someone just want to be with him no matter what, with no agenda.

After Momo had been in the coma for six months and the first snow had begun to fall Tōshirō finally decided what he wanted. He just didn't know if he was willing to pay the price to get what was dearest to his heart.

Tōshirō Hitsugaya had never had it easy in life. His parents had died when he was too young to remember them and was then taken in to foster care by one of the old women who lived in the building he grew up in. She had another person under her wing a girl a few years older than Tōshirō although she never acted that way. He had always been too smart for his own good and managed to isolate himself without even trying.

He was a prodigy and with all that power a huge responsibility was put upon the young boy. By the age of seventeen he was a deputy director of Soul Serenity Designs along with some of the best talent that the country had to offer. It seemed he lived a charmed life and that the course of his life was set. That all changed suddenly when the girl he had grown up with was stabbed by an unknown assailant as she was walking home from work and she had fallen in to a persistent vegetative state. He knew that he was never going to get her back, but no matter what; he wanted to hope that maybe if he prayed enough and made one thousand paper cranes that maybe his wish would come true and everything would be okay.

Eventually Momo would wake up and he would continue to live his apparently charmed life with Momo by his side as Momo was the one person in the world beside his Gran that he truly loved. He never expected to be hit by a hurricane that would shake him so much that he didn't know which way was up. No matter how strong Hurricane Karin was he was happy that he was caught by her and thrown about in her wake. He had never realised it, but she was what he had always been waiting for.