AHAHAHAH I was reading over chapter nine and I realized I made tons of mistakes T-T like at the end Orihime called Ichigo by his first name. OK PEOPLE, JSUT PRETEND SHE SAID "Kurosaki-kun" PLEASE (: Anyways, R&R PLEASE! I WANNA HIT MEH 100 REVIEWS MARK :D Huhuhu...

Someone was banging on his door. He looked up from his desk and paperwork, raising an eyebrow. Her knocks were too familiar to not recognize. He gave a sigh.

"What is it, Matsumoto?"

She banged the door open. Usually she wouldn't even knock; Hitsugaya noticed this and knew something was wrong. "Taichou! I need your help!"

TWO WEEKS EARLIER

Rukia smiled, "Thank you all for visiting." She was sitting in her bed, her three friends Ishida, Orihime and Chad surrounded her. The gifts which she had been given was set on the ground next to her bed. Orihime returned her smile and said, "It's nothing Kuchiki-san! You're our friend, why wouldn't we visit you? We're sorry that we visited a week later; we thought that you were still unconscious so we decided to leave you alone." The raven-haired girl shook her head. "No, it's the fact that you visited that really matters." Ishida sighed in relief. "Well obviously, I'm sure Kurosaki visited you the day after this incident, knowing him." Rukia stared at him for a few moments and fiddled with her fingers.

"Actually... Ichigo hasn't visited me yet."

Her three other friends gawked at her. Their faces stayed like that for awhile more before dropping it. "That's too bad. Oh well I'm pretty sure he'll visit soon." Reassured Chad, Rukia merely nodded. Orihime stared at her and sighed. 'This isn't what Kurosaki-kun would do at all.' She looked up and gave a smile to Rukia but surprisingly Rukia did not return it. The girl frowned and twirled her hair with a confused expression.

Ichigo stood outside Rukia's room. He held his hand up to the knob and hesitated. He stared at it awhile more before dropping his hand. He sighed and turned on his heel, heading his way out of the 4th division barracks.

"WELL!" Matsumoto yelled, she banged her fist onto his desk and continued, "That bastard Ichigo! It's been three weeks since Rukia's gone into the hospital and he has not even visited her once! I can tell that Rukia is rather sad about that fact. She hardly smiles now all because of HIM." She started cursing his name, mainly because of the fact that Ichigo was now acting a lot like a man she knew. Take a guess and find out yourself who that guy is. Hitsugaya drank a bit of his tea and removed it from his lips, "He hasn't? Wow that's actually pretty shocking. So what do I have to do with this?" Matsumoto gave a sly smile, "Well, that's where you come in. Go and comfort Rukia, you've visited her the most out of all of us by the way. Even more than Renji or Byakuya which rarely happens. It's quite obvious you've gotten rather close to her." The captain went pink and retorted rather angrily. "You dumbass! I've not gotten close to her at all! So just shut up and leave me alone already. Kuchiki is strong; she can take care of herself." Matsumoto growled at him and turned on her heel, making her way to the door. Before she exited she stopped and said rather loudly.

"Men. All of them are all so selfish."

Hitsugaya waited for her footsteps to fade away. The minute he was sure she was gone he jerked up and sprinted out of the room, making his way to the 4th division. As he got there one of the nurses stopped him. "I'm sorry Hitsugaya-taichou but running is not permitted in the hallways. May I know who you might be visiting?" The snowy-white haired shorty panted, he held onto his knee and raised his finger, telling her to wait a moment. He took a deep breath and stood up, "Kuchiki Rukia of the 13th division please." The nurse raised an eyebrow, "Again? That's the 8th time you've visited her in the last three weeks. Very well, go on." Hitsugaya made his way to her room. As he reached it he took a deep breath and shoved the door open. Rukia looked up, her eyes wide. Tears were streaming down her face. Hitsugaya gulped, "Kuchiki? A-are you... crying?" he asked. Rukia shook her head, "N-no, I'm merely smelling onions. That's right. Onions." Hitsugaya shut the door behind him and made his way to Rukia, grabbing her hand, "There are no onions anywhere." She stared at him and rubbed her tears. "Fine, I am. So what? Everyone cries. There's nothing possibly wrong with it." She pulled her hand away and sighed. The boy sat on her bed and stared at her. "What's wrong Kuchiki?" she shook her head.

"I know this is terribly selfish of me but, I really want Ichigo to visit me. I can't help but wonder whether I did something wrong or not. Ichigo's never not visited me for such a long period of time so I'm wondering whether it's my fault or whether he got into an accident or..." Hitsugaya rolled his eyes. "Are you stupid? Don't you realize why he's not been visiting you? Do you? Well obviously he's pissed by the fact that he couldn't save you! THINK. Geez, seriously, stop blaming yourself. I thought you would've known that by now." He raised his legs onto the bed and wrapped his arms around it. "So cheer up, ok?" Rukia merely stared at him and raised an eyebrow, "But why would Ichigo possibly do that? You need to think Hitsugaya-taichou. Whenever I got hurt when he was around he blamed himself sure, but he never failed to visit." Hitsugaya stroked his chin.

"Well maybe but... did you know that Ichigo struck the final death blow to that espada? He probably feels like he's the reason you're hurt. Or maybe he feels that he was being too arrogant and probably felt that if he wasn't so full of himself that he could've protected you." Rukia shook her head, "But why now? All those other times... what could possibly be so different that he won't visit now?" Hitsugaya shrugged his shoulders, "Don't know. Don't worry you can pound him all you want when you see him next time. And you gotta promise me that. A message from me to him too."

"For calling you a midget?"

"Well that too, but mainly for making you cry.

"Promise me you won't tell Nii-sama or Renji about me crying like this?"

"Promise me you'll kill Kurosaki the next time you see him?"

They both nodded. Hitsugaya held up his hand and stuck out his pinky. Rukia understood this gesture. It was what humans would call "A pinky swear". Rukia brought her hand up and wrapped her pinky around his. She stared at him and threw her arms around him. "Thank you Hitsugaya-taichou, you've made me feel a lot better." She smiled. Hitsugaya went a light shade of pink and nodded slowly.

"Sure. I'm glad to help."

Orihime stood at Ichigo's door. She was staring at him. "Promise?" He rubbed the back of his head, "Yeah, sure. I promise." Orihime sighed in relief. "Thank you. And make it soon OK? When I visited her a few weeks ago her face looked distraught and sad. Rangiku-san told me that she visited her yesterday and before she went in she could've heard sobbing. So please, visit her soon. I have to go now Kurosaki-kun, I'll see you later!" she smiled at him one last time and ran off. Ichigo gave her a small wave. He closed the door and made his way up the stairs. Isshin yelled from their kitchen. "ICHIGO MY BOY! WHAT COULD THAT BEAUTIFUL CLASSMATE OF YOURS POSSIBLY WANT FROM YOU!"

"Please dad, I'd like to be alone right now."

Soon, Ichigo was in his room. He walked to his bed after shutting his door. He stood in front of his bed and plonked himself onto it. 'Did I really make Rukia cry?' he thought to himself. He stayed there for awhile before slamming his fist against his pillow. 'Dammit! I'm so selfish! I'm hurting Rukia for my own sake. How could I do that? How could I make her cry! I don't get it. What's keeping me from visiting her?I've always been the first to visit her so I just don't get it!" he yelled at himself.

The next thing he knew there was a sound of a heavy thump. He looked up and saw the shoes of a shinigami. He sat up and stared at the girl standing a few feet away from him with a rather angry face. "Why haven't you visited Kuchiki-san?" she demanded. Ichigo went wide-eyed, "Hinamori? What are you doing here?" he asked. She ignored his question and continued, "Do you have ANY idea on how much you've hurt her? DO YOU? She hasn't been eating, DO YOU KNOW THAT? "She screamed. Ichigo was taken aback. He had never seen Hinamori lose it. But that's hard to say 'because he's only actually hanged out with her for a few days.

"Yeah I do, I just got a big lecture about that from Inoue. I've never seen her so... urm what's the word? Oh yeah, worried. About Rukia."

Hinamori walked up to him and looked straight into his eyes. "You better visit her soon. We all know very well that YOU ARE the cause of her depression. Why have you not visited her yet?" He sighed and scratched his head. "I don't know."Hinamori wasn't convinced. "You're not telling the truth." Ichigo sighed. "Promise me you won't tell anyone?" She nodded.

"Well... It's just that Rukia is... really important to me. She's a very good friend and... I just don't get it. I could've saved her that night. And I know, usually I'm like the first one to visit her but I just don't get why I can't now." Hinamori sighed and walked to Ichigo and raised her hand up, pressing a finger slightly towards where his hear was.

"Listen to your heart and that will tell you the answer."

Ichigo looked at her with a rather blank expression. She stood up and smiled, "Well, I have to go now, I was actually supposed to kill this hollow downtown, but I thought I'd drop by your house and help you find out what your true feelings really are. Bye Kurosaki-kun!" she stepped onto his bed and was about to exit the window before turning to him.

"I hope you know what you feel about Kuchiki-san now." She smiled before jumping out of his window. Ichigo stared at blankly ahead. He laid back down on his bed before running a hand through his hair.

"I think that I may be in love with Rukia."

CHAPTER END 8D I hope you all enjoyed it hehe. R&R PLEASE 8D