Chapter 3
Ichigo started towards the stairs when he met Rukia.
"Listen…about before…" Ichigo started.
"Don't worry about it. I'm sorry that I just ran away like that." Rukia apologized.
They were walking towards the front doors of the high school and went down the patio.
"You know, you're very charismatic." She gave a soft, but sweet laugh.
"Oh yeah?" He replied.
"No matter what you say to me, it's always…always…"
"It's always what?" He replied, with a smirk on his face.
"It's always a pleasure to talk to you, Ichigo." She said with a sarcastic tone, and she was smiling.
"Yeah, you too Rukia. You too." He replied, smiling also. "Hey Rukia, what do you say we walk to the bridge right now?"
"Which bridge? You mean the high one above the gulf?" She asked.
"Yeah, that bridge. I like to go there every once in a while." He said it so calm, like he could wait, but he seemed just too eager to just go.
"Sure!" Rukia replied. She had a very quick reaction, and to Ichigo's surprise, she had seemed just as eager as he was.
The walk was very long and about three quarters the way there, the sun was starting to go down. Ichigo ran into a sprint, leaving Rukia very confused.
"Catch me if you can!" He playfully yelled back at her, but she'd quickly accepted his challenge. She ran right behind him, trying to catch up. But every time she caught up to him, he seemed to run faster than he was a minute ago.
"C'mon, we need to get there in time!" Ichigo repeatedly yelled back at her.
Rukia was so confused, she didn't know what he was talking about, but every time she thought that she'd caught up to him, and he got faster, and she wanted to just give up.
Ichigo was nearly 30 feet in front of her now. By the time she'd reached the bridge, she was panting. She was at the foot of the bridge, and when she looked up, Ichigo was just standing there at the tip of the bridge waiting for her. She was already out of breath from running, and when she caught up with Ichigo at the climax of the bridge, she scolded him.
"Wha…What the hell is... your problem?" She was so out of breath. "You know still how hard it is for me to run in a faux body!"
"There isn't any problem. You're out of breath, don't speak." He pulled out of pack of cigarettes. Rukia looked up at him, and she was dumbfounded.
"Ichigo…are you smoking?!" She yelled at him.
"Chill out. It's no big deal, just a little bit of stress. It's not like I'm throwing away my-"
"Yes, you are throwing away your life Ichigo! Did you ever even consider possibility of lung cancer?" She cut him off, but was a little tamer and still disappointed.
"I know, Rukia, but-"
"But what, Ichigo? You could talk to me if you're stressed…you don't have to smoke your life away. Remember, I'm always going to be your friend." Now she wasn't raging, but she was sad. Ichigo knew she was absolutely right, though, and assumed that she felt like he was putting a few cigarettes over his friend.
"Jeez, why do you even care so much, anyway?" He asked. He took the cigarette out of his mouth and tossed it in the water, followed by his entire pack. This wasn't like Ichigo, though. Usually, he was competitive and always up for an argument.
She closed her eyes and sighed. "Ichigo, do you want to talk to me? Is there something that you need to talk about? You know I'm here for you." She explained to him with a calm voice.
"There's…nothing to talk about. Sorry." He had that serious look on his face, that same look that made Rukia worry so much, yet she adored it. She'd sensed that there was something enormous devouring Ichigo's mind. She didn't want to bother him, knowing that he'd even had stress in the first place, and she didn't want to interrupt whatever was on his mind. But she didn't like the fact that he was holding whatever it was in. She thought that whatever was bothering him may affect and possible decrease his spirit energy. Not only that, but she wanted him to trust her with what was on his mind; she knew that she would always trust him with what was on hers. She just gave him a heart warming smile and asked him not worry about anything.
They started to walk back to the Kurosaki clinic. It was dark out now, and they were almost back home. They both stopped under a stoplight that was shining down on only the two of them. They felt like the only two people in the world, because it was so bright where they were, and so dark outside of the beaming circle around them. Ichigo was just about to say something when Rukia spoke first.
"Ichigo, how long have you been smoking?" She asked him quietly.
"What's with you always asking me questions?" He quickly shot back.
"I just need to know, so I'd appreciate if you'd just at least tell me." She said impatiently.
"Well, I think I started as soon as we came back from the Soul Society…yeah, somewhere around that time." He sounded so relaxed, he had his hands in his pockets and made it seem like it was no big deal at all. It meant a lot to Rukia, though; she needed and wanted him to be healthy. They were close friends.
"Do you think you're addicted, Ichigo?" She asked. He just walked over to her, lifted his right arm. She hadn't expected it, but he just kind of ruffled the top of her head a little bit.
"I'll stop just for you, okay? Just promise you'll get off my back a little bit; I can't breathe when you do that to me." He said. And he started walking again in his same old fashioned way, slow and casual, with the infamous hands-behind-the-head act. Rukia just smiled and she realized that her friendship with Ichigo was becoming stronger every day. She knew he cared about their friendship just as much as she had. This was one of her most sensitive subjects. Ichigo never knew that she cared so much about it though, and she wouldn't even admit it to herself. She didn't want to have any weakness. She was putting her pride before her friendship quietly.
At long last when the came to reach the Kurosaki clinic, Ichigo told Rukia to keep quiet for a moment; he opened the door slowly, and as soon as he got inside, he started for the stairs. When he reached the top, his sister, Karin, started to question him where he was all day.
"I went to the bridge with my friend-" he started.
"Ichigo, you smell like smoke…" she cut him off.
"I was just talking to some kids who were."
"Right…I'm not stupid, you know." And at that, she walked past him and went back down the stairs. When Ichigo opened the door to his room, Rukia was half way through the window already. He closed the door quietly behind him.
"Need a hand?" he asked politely, and extended out his hand. But not knowing she hadn't seen him or heard him open the door, he'd put her in complete and utter shock. In other words, he scared the shit out of her. She would have fallen out the window if he hadn't caught her. He slowly pulled her in, and noticed that she had a large scrape across her calf. He carried her in and placed her on his bed. She was sitting upright now, panting heavily from the shock that he'd recently put her in.
"Are you alright, Rukia?" he asked her.
"Yeah…I just got scared, that's all." she replied to him, almost breathless.
"No, no I mean your leg. It's bleeding pretty badly." he pointed to it to show her, but from her reaction, he'd assumed that she didn't know about it.
"Alright, hang on; I'm gonna go get you some bandages and wet paper towels. I'll be right back, lock my door just in case my either one of my sisters or my dad tries to come in."
He went into the bathroom to get a box of bandages for her, and then went down the stairs and to the kitchen for some wet paper towels. He picked up bottled water from the refrigerator. Although he never noticed before, he suddenly wanted to take care of Rukia.
When he arrived upstairs, he was surprised at what she asked him as soon as she'd opened the door for him.
"Why are you being so nice to me today? What's the catch?" she asked with suspicion.
"What are you talking about?"
"Ichigo, we both know you're not usually this friendly." She quietly said to him.
Thy both walked slowly over to his bed, and she resumed her position sitting on the edge of it. He stood in front of her and dropped himself on one knee. He started washing her cut off with a wet paper towel.
"Whatever could that mean?" He replied to her sarcastically.
"That means that you're usually this stubborn and selfish person, but right now you're not." She'd replied back with her eyes closed and a calm voice.
"What, you don't want me to be friendly to you?" he playfully countered her insult.
She'd opened her eyes again, revealing a beautiful violet color in each iris, and made a quiet gasp sound as she did. It was another challenge.
"No, no it's not like that! You're just…different, tonight." She said back to him.
"Well, is a good different, or a bad one?" he asked her with a hint of a smile on his face.
"It's…I don't know, you've just been a lot friendlier since we've been at the bridge today." She said with a quiet look on her face.
He finished cleaning her cut off, and was ready to put a bandage on it. He opened the box and put the bandage directly in the core of the bleeding.
"Ichigo, you know I know how to apply a bandage to my leg. Jeez, you're acting like a parent to-"
"Will you just shut up and let me take care of you?" He cut her off. "And you never really let me explain before. You kind of just cut me off when I tried to talk to you about it after school was out; come to think of it, you kind of cut me off all day. But I was going to apologize to you about that remark I made. I mean, hell, if someone told me I looked like a girl I'd be pretty pissed off, too." He thought he'd explained pretty carefully.
"Is there something wrong with how girls look?" She playfully asked him.
"Not how they look, just how they all have one thing in common; they confuse the hell out of guys." He playfully said back to her.
He handed her the bottled water. She grabbed the bottle from him and said to him sarcastically, "Yes, Ichigo, that is exactly what our primary goal is. It's a shame that you've picked up on that, though, because now I can't confuse the hell out of you." Then Rukia did something that Ichigo didn't expect. She lowered her right hand to where his head was and ruffled the top of his head. He stood himself up, and just stared down at her. She started to feel like she'd done something wrong until she saw him smile down at her.
"And who exactly gave you permission to do that?" He said with a deeper voice than normally, but an unusually happy one at the same time.
"Nobody." She'd replied. "I just wanted to confuse the hell out of you." She'd explained, and walked over to the closet smiling. She then looked at the clock on his wall.
"You spent so much time on healing me that you didn't have to shower…"
"Yeah…it's no big deal. Have a good night, Rukia."
She looked back at him, smiled and only said "You too, boy." And she left it at that. The closet door was closed for the night, and Ichigo went over to turn out to lights. He crawled under his covers and soon felt warm. Then, the closet opened again.
"Move over, boy." Rukia suddenly told him. She was now wearing her yellow plaid pajamas, the ones that used to belong to Ichigo's sister, Yuzu, before she'd stolen them from her.
"I beg your pardon?" Ichigo was confused now.
"I told you to move over, I don't expect you to refuse." Rukia demanded.
Ichigo hesitated at first, but he couldn't help himself. He surrendered to her demand for some reason, and slowly slid over towards the wall.
"And don't take all the blankets over with you. It's been chilly out lately." She said with a serious look.
"What? Don't you have my other blanket in the closet?" Ichigo now felt like he was losing control over his items. Rukia didn't even listen and slid right into bed next to him.
"Share the blankets, Ichigo."
"No. No way! You have your own, go-"
Before he'd even finished, he tore the comforter right out of his hands and off of his body and placed it quickly and neatly over her body.
"I'm not moving, so if you want your comforter back, you'll have to come closer and share with me." Rukia said looking him straight in the eye. Ichigo slid over closer to her, and felt strange but comfortable and warm. He was looking at the ceiling, but he knew that Rukia was looking at him. He could feel the violet in her irises reflecting off of the moonlight out of his window and onto his face. They didn't speak for a long time, and finally, Ichigo asked her, "Why are you in my bed?"
"No special reason, except that fact that there's no heat in the closet." She said back, satisfied with her own answer.
"Is it going to be like this all winter?" He asked her with a little paranoia in his voice.
"Well, winter is the coldest season of the year, isn't it?" She said with a smile on her face.
"Right…this is my bed though, and I feel like your invading my privacy." He explained.
"Your privacy? Is that the only thing that concerns you when someone is cold and comes to you?" She coldly asked him.
"Not somebody, just you." He said back to her sarcastically and ruffled the top of her head. "Confused?" He asked smiling. He shut his eyes and lay his head back. He was waiting for an answer, but she didn't reply. His eyes were still shut, and he was still waiting. Not too much longer, he'd felt Rukia's breath on the side of his neck, and he decided to open his eyes again. As soon as he opened them, he saw Rukia even closer to him. She looked back at him, and then her spirit phone started beeping wildly.
"A hollow." Rukia said with an upset voice.
