Disclaimer: Bleach isn't mine.

OMG! I feel like such a dork, updating my fanfic in the middle of my vacation! But that's okay. I've had this chapter written out since a long time ago, so I don't feel that guilty. I just wanted to post this before I leave for my internship tomorrow.

Chapter 7

"Barely even friends
Then somebody bends
Unexpectedly..."

"Comments like that will cost you much more in the future," Rukia was saying smugly behind a cluster of pines to a disgruntled Ichigo, "So watch that filthy tongue of yours, ok? And before you ask, yes, I just had to drag you here so the others wouldn't be suspicious. Sometimes my actions hardly call for welcome reception."

"No kidding," Ichigo gingerly rubbed his face. He wasn't talking to her because, gee, there really wasn't much you could say to a petite girl that just completely bashed your innocent face into hard cement.

Rukia took out some strips of white bandage from within her uniform and thrust them at the boy on the ground. "Use this or leave it."

"Peh," Ichigo grunted, reluctantly snatching the gauze from her, "What will you do, spread the short germ and infect me to be vertically challenged?" He ducked instinctively, afraid of what that remark was going to earn him.

But Rukia, oddly, wasn't coming up with her witty little insults, and was instead focused on a cell phone in her hand. It had rang, and she had shut up immediately. Ichigo figured he would like the cell phone to ring more frequently.

After a while, he was sick of just waiting there on the ground watching Rukia tap away at the cellphone. He wrapped up some excess bandage and straightened up against a tree, trying to keep weight off his right arm, which was still throbbing numbly.

"No cell phones on campus, Miss Model Student," He said, waving an uninjured hand in front of her face. She swatted it away. "Besides," he asked, "what else could you possibly do to me besides slap me, insult me, and slam my nose into the handiest horizontal object?"

"Oh, I don't know," replied Rukia, still squinting furiously at the glaring cell phone screen, "Use your imagination."

"So you'll fry me in a baking pan and feed my innards to maniacal calculators bent on possessing the earth through electromagnetism?"

"Mmhmm," Rukia said, distractedly, "Sounds about right."

Ichigo promptly strode over from the slightly crushed pine leaves under him. A spicy scent rushed up into his nose.

"What's up with –sneeze- you? Preoccupied with a cell phone game, no less," he said after attempting to sneak a look over her shoulder. "What's so important about that?"

She flinched and moved away from him quickly. Her narrowed eyes let him glimpse a layer of the hesitation and secrets buried inside.

"Don't look at what doesn't concern you, Nosy! I'll have you know that this isn't for you to see. Anyways, standing so close to me is an invasion of personal space. Aren't you concerned about your image, with me so near?" She taunted, her eyes again alive, challenging him with their claims. "Why are you such a hypocrite?"

"I'm not," he said haughtily, "If you haven't noticed, I have to congratulate you on picking one spot that no one can spy in on. There's no one to see me with you, so it's all good."

What he said sunk in for a moment in the quietness. Nothing save the soft whirr of the electric box near them was disturbing the peace. Silence was abound, and the two were all alone. All alone…

Both had an epiphany in the middle of the little wooden clearing. They were in a secluded glade, and no one could hear or see them. It was perfect…

For arguing, of course!

Ichigo began his verbal assault first.

"What kind of a loser keeps a roll of gauze with them everywhere?" Ichigo scrutinized the wad suspiciously before chucking them back to Rukia.

"Obviously a more careful and prepared loser than you!" She returned. This idiot was not learning his place quickly enough..."I'm not the one who was got beat up by a girl twice. Advice for the future: try not to diss the very person that helped you out."

"I was not beaten up," Ichigo sneered, plopping on the ground (he obviously held no respect for his stiff, business-ish uniform). "That is to say, I didn't retaliate. Anyhow, I wouldn't have been in this retarded position had you restrained yourself from hitting me back there."

"Your inability to control your tongue is not my problem, Kurosaki-san," Rukia paced around him, mocking him with her eyes and piercing tongue. "As I mentioned earlier, we would get along just pleasantly if you shut the hell up."

Then, Ichigo noticed something about Rukia. She was very easy to read, as long as you knew where to look. Her eyes held kindled fire in them; the mysterious blue depths reflected clearly what she was feeling. When they first met in the classroom, her eyes had flashed a startled indigo, and though her posture and stance otherwise had been quite composed, her eyes betrayed her and told another story.

As of now, her cerulean orbs were glittering something awful. Ichigo got a bad feeling in his stomach that she really loved messing with his head. She wasn't so much as displeased as happy to toy with Ichigo's mind.

"Hey, you're having way too much fun with this."

"Don't be a spoilsport," she said, speaking quietly so as not to disturb a tiny thrush who had made it's careful way into the woods. "School's all about fun, isn't it?"

Forget irritable and a complete snippety, and add clueless idiot to the list. "Um, sorry to break it to you, but we're all here for an education, not for a year of raunchy times."

"I know," she said, her voice almost a whisper. The little bird was really close to her now, and she was staying still, completely motionless besides the soft movement of her lips. "But it's were you can relax a bit and make friends, right?"

"You won't be making many friends," he laughed a bit too goodnaturedly for his liking, "if you treat everyone the same that you treat me."

"Hey, you're an exception. You ought to feel special." Again, her eyes held that half taunting, half enjoyable trance. "I reciprocate people's attitudes towards me."

"And…that accounts for your abuse of me how?"

"As I've said, you're an exception."

"Hmph." Silence. "So how did you manage to end up making the dance team? I heard from someone that the acceptance rate was low…about 15. No way you would have made it without some sort of blackmail or something."

Ichigo was teasing her. "Is that an insult?" Her voice rose, and the little bird fluttered away. She glared at Ichigo menacingly, as if blaming him on its departure.

"Hey, don't look at me! You startled it." Ichigo craned his neck to see the thrush leap away. "It is an insult only if you take it like an ill-tempered, PMS-ing idiot."

Rukia's nostrils flared quite becomingly. She was getting quite riled up by the insolent jerkface.

"Well, I'll not be insulted by a sexist idiot." Ichigo made to protest, but she cut him off with a flip of her hands. "Actually, calling you an idiot is an insult to the people with actual mental problems."

Her poker face was impassive, as if to provoke him into argument. Ichigo stood up and replied scathingly. "Psh, sexist my butt. Excuse me if I'm slightly discriminated against things that bleed for weeks on end and don't die."

Rukia snorted. "Without you guys, we wouldn't have to suffer."

"Geez, do you have a complex about always getting the last word?"

"That's generally the case. I'm good at arguing."

"And lying!" he added hotly. "I never knew you could put on such an act."

Rukia smiled briefly before becoming stern and patronizing again. She was indeed having a good time making fun of the hot-headed man before her, and somehow she didn't think that the Society would approve much of her doings. Ukitake-sensei had told her to be on the look out for Empty children and suspicious behaviors, and even told her to record her daily proceedings in a log. Undoubtlessly this kind of behavior was frowned upon…

"You don't know a lot about me." she said. "Anyways, that was a pressing situation. Attempting not to get stuck with sitting to a knucklehead doofus for an entire year constitutes as a dire emergency begging to be prevented, so excuse me if I had to resort to lying." Rukia leaned against a sturdy oak behind her and kicked up tufts of earth with her shoes. "Can you honestly say that you wanted to sit by me the whole entire year?"

Not missing a beat and not even having to consider the issue, he said simply, "Hell no."

Rukia nodded, not offended, contrary to Ichigo's prediction (and to his advantage, really). Her little spiel having played out, she faced him with her nose wrinkled slightly, and Ichigo assessed the situation.

It was the first frickin day at school, and here she was, making cake out of the recipe for disaster. Whenever she opened her mouth, his preference was to stick something painful up her ass, but then he reckoned he probably would have had to first take out the ten foot pole that was lodged in there first. Oh well. She made for an interesting conversation. Ishida either always talked nonstop about education, Orihime about her wild imaginations, while Chad more or less seemed like he didn't have any vocal chords.

"I'm assuming that you don't want to deal with me either, right?" Hey, he wasn't that bad, was he? Then again, it wasn't protocol that he had to grump at her every two seconds.

"No freakin' duh!" Sarcasm dripped off her voice and echoed off the woods in the clearing.

"Well, that's funny," he resumed triumphantly, scratching his nose, "You're still here, wasting lunch away with me. Besides, aren't you hungry?" Ichigo had eaten before Rukia appeared, but he wasn't sure if the short girl had had her lunch before bothering him. "Lunch period's over in about five."

"Five what?" She paled. Her stomach grumbled loudly, and she blushed despite herself. "Minutes?"

"What else? Hours? We're not leading that much of a leisurely lifestyle here, you know."

Rukia rolled her eyes and backed out of the forest into bright sunlight. She called to him as she ran.

"I know that, and thanks to Sode no Shirayuki, I learned the hard way." Ichigo couldn't tell if she was being sarcastic or not. "Summer practice was hell, but definitely worth it."

She was racing up the formidable granite steps in bounds, and Ichigo inadvertently admired her speed. Her swift steps brought her quickly up the slope, and to him, she faintly resembled a hopping bunny, with the way her feet barely touched the ground.

He made a mental note to tell her that she ran weird the next time they meet. Meaning, if they at all meet again. Maybe the anti-Christ that had set him up to sit next to Rukia finally stopped delighting in steadily shortening his lifespan.

He smoothed out his ruffled suit and regained his composure. It was time to return to the living hell hole that others called school.

There was something soft, he decided somewhat unwillingly as she made her way urgently towards their classroom, beneath her hard ass behavior. Andthough Ichigo couldn't exactly place what it was, he admired her for it nonetheless. She was different, (no other girl save Tatsuki had punched him before, and that was only because they had been sparring partners), and Ichigo felt an odd little quirking of his lips as her small figure ran out of his sight.

Haha! I actually had another section of a lunch thing typed out, but I guess I can update that next time. This was just some silly IchiRuki love.

So where I am right now is really hot... sweltering, really. I was born here, and I'm so glad to be able to eat all the little things that I had as a child!

Thanks so much to joster13 and Alkaid for reading my thingie, and all those who offered. I was almost stunned to tears at the amount of people who wanted to help with this little plot bunny of mine.

Please review if you want to!

Love, Jerkess.