Disclaimer: I don't own bleach. I wish I did, but I don't. You people are driving me insane with this disclaimer!

I'm so bored. I hate when the clocks reset. It bugs the heck out of me. I'm trying so hard not to write the lyrics of the song I'm listening to right now. Well, here's the second chapter. Hope you enjoy it and most of all, I hope you review. Oh, and at the start of the story, I don't put the whole conversation because you guys already know the reason. This story takes place after Karin learns that Ichigo is a shinigami.

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After dinner, Ichigo and Karin went upstairs to sit in Ichigo's room. There, he told her why he didn't want them to come and Karin somehow brought herself to understand his reasoning. She didn't completely understand until he told her about the issues between him and Takuto. He and Takuto had been able to hide the evidence of their 'arguments' very well and nobody noticed that Ichigo had a different bruise every hour of the day they visited. He didn't want to scare Karin, but he couldn't lie to her either. When he got to the part about hiding the fact that he and Rukia are shinigami, Karin couldn't hold her silence.

She looked at Ichigo with wide eyes and said, "Rukia's a shinigami too?"

Ichigo nodded and said, "Well, now that you know everything, I think you need to go to bed. They'll be here tomorrow and I don't think you'll want to be tired then."

Karin nodded and walked to the door, but before she left the room, she said, "Good night, Ichi-nii."

When she was gone, Ichigo went back to his desk to resume working on his endless pile of homework. He had more assignments than he could count and only one of them was out of the way. He'd have to work extra hard from now on. They had a new assignment every day and he had to do those and the work that he missed. After an hour, he heard a knock on his door. He sighed. Within that hour, he'd only completed two more assignments and was just starting the fourth assignment of the night.

He got up with an aggravated groan and opened his door. Yuzu was standing on the other side with a confused look on her face. He looked at her and asked, "Yuzu? What's wrong?" then added, "Shouldn't you be asleep?"

She ignored his questions and said, "I want to know what you and Karin were talking about."

Ichigo knew he couldn't tell her. She'd flip out and start crying. Just because she was mature beyond her years doesn't mean that she isn't a kid. "She just wanted to know why I'm so tired," Ichigo told her.

Yuzu narrowed her eyes in suspicion. "That took an entire hour?"

Ichigo shrugged. "She wanted to see the assignments I have to make up."

She obviously didn't believe his excuse, but she took the hint. She looked over to his desk and sure enough saw the pile of books. "Okay. Good night, Ichi-nii." With that, she walked out into the hallway and went to hers and Karin's room.

Ichigo looked at the clock on his desk. It was after ten and he needed to get to sleep. He had to deal with school and Takuto the next day. He changed into his pajamas, sweat pants and a t-shirt that was missing the sleeves, and went over to his desk to turn his phone off. Right as he picked the phone up in his hands, he received a text message. He opened it up and saw that it was from Rukia.

Hey. I'll be back tomorrow. I won't go back to the house immediately, so I'll see you at school. Good night.

He shook his head. Now he had to add Rukia to the equation on how to deal with his life. He thought he'd just have to deal with school, and his insane family. Now he had to deal with Rukia too. For some reason, that didn't seem so bad once he thought about it. He'd have some sane company who'd be able to relate to his problems. But there was another reason that he just couldn't understand. He didn't try to understand it either. It was late and he wanted to get some sleep. He slowly walked over to his bed and lay down, thinking about absolutely nothing. After a few minutes, he fell into a deep and dreamless sleep.

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When Ichigo woke up, he felt sick to his stomache. There was so much he'd have to explain to the Takashis. He'd have to face Takuto and would probably get killed. Takuto had always had a lot of muscle and had always been a great deal taller than Ichigo. Well, at least they wouldn't be visiting until long after he got home from school.

After a minute, Ichigo decided that it was time to get ready. He looked at the clock and realized that he'd slept in longer than he thought. He still had plenty of time to get to school, but he'd have to skip breakfast. Putting his uniform on, he realized with a weird feeling of happiness. He didn't know where it came from, but right now, he was too late to care. Ichigo grabbed his bag, stuffed with books and ran downstairs.

When he got downstairs, Ichigo noticed that nobody was downstairs. Yuzu and Karin left for school only a few minutes previous, so he didn't expect them to be downstairs in the first place, but he at least thought his dad would be downstairs to see them off as was his usual routine.

Finding his dad hadn't even left his room, Ichigo shrugged it off and walked to kitchen to see that nothing had been used at all. That was odd. Didn't Karin and Yuzu at least have breakfast? He looked at his watch and he was definitely going to be late if he didn't move right then. He ran out the door and nearly ran over someone in the process of his sad attempt to leave his own house. He looked up and saw that he had nearly ran over his uncle Kaze.

He stumbled back in embarrassment and saw that his uncle wasn't mad at him for nearly killing him at all. That didn't surprise Ichigo. His uncle was always calm and never got mad. Takuto had tried many times as a kid and they all failed. Kaze and Masaki had always been the most calm people Ichigo had ever heard of.

Rubbing the back of his head, Ichigo said, "Itai!..Uh...sorry."

Kaze just laughed and said, "Where's the fire, Ichigo?"

Ichigo looked up at his always-happy uncle and cocked his head to the side? "Uh...school."

Again, Kaze laughed and said, "You're not going to school today. You're all going to spend the day with us."

Ichigo just looked at them for a moment. He was going to be in enough trouble later, so he'd might as well use the one excuse he had ready. "I've got too many assignments to make up. See you later," then he high-tailed it as far past Kaze as he could go before he was grabbed by the collar.

"What do you mean?" Kaze asked, sounding genuinely concerned. "Have you been sick?"

"..."

"Why didn't you tell Ishin, sweety?" This time it was Nami, who was walking toward them at a steady pace.

Ichigo was beginnig to feel trapt and when he felt trapt, his reiatsu went crazy. "I have a job now," he stated as though it were the simplest thing in the world. He hoped they wouldn't go too crazy with questions. Rukia had a report ready for him and he couldn't be late.

They heard another car pull up to the clinic. Ichigo turned toward the sound to see his oldest cousin, Yuko, and her husband, Hiroshi, step out of the car. They seemed happy enough. Hiroshi, like always, seemed to have a different motive hidden behind his dark brown eyes. But they all knew they could trust him. Unfortunately for Ichigo, he was a cop. Oh, joy.

"Ah, you guys are finally here," Kaze smiled. He always seemed to be in a good mood, even when he should be angry.

"Of coarse! Why would we be late?" Yuko laughed. She had long, golden hair, just like Masaki's. She looked a lot like Masaki as well. It made him sad to look at her.

They were all so happy. He had never seen them truly depressed before. Even when Masaki died. They had been said then, but they tried to shrug it off and said, "Everyone has to die sometime. Besides, she's gone to a happy place." He didn't want to ruin their happy little life by barging in with the world of shinigamis following close behind.

"Ichigo? Ichigo!" He heard someone shout his name and immediately snapped out of his thoughts. He looked up to see all of them leaning over him, all looking concerned.

"What?" he snapped.

Nami stepped forward and put her hand to his forehead to check if he had a fever. "You spaced out. Is there something wrong?"

Ichigo hestitated for a moment, then mumbled, "No. Not right now at least."

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A/N: Hey, I finally finished the second chapter. This took a while. I love writing right now and you should be able to tell how bored I am. Well, see you next chapter.