Author's Note: I do not own Bleach or its characters. This is AU.
Bring Me a Ring
Ichigo had sent Rukia off to class and then had thrown himself into cleaning the apartment to keep from over thinking things. Unfortunately, it didn't seem to be working. All he could think about was that kiss. It he was honest with himself, Ichigo would admit that he'd been attracted to Rukia for a while now. He hadn't really been planning on doing anything about that attraction though, especially not when Rukia had so much on her plate already, but he couldn't really bring himself to regret the kiss. It wasn't his first kiss by any means, but there had been something special about it.
Still, right now wasn't exactly the best time to be starting a romance, and that was assuming Rukia was interested in him. He thought she might be, but she had never acted like Orihime or any of the other girls who had wanted to date him. It could be that she just saw him as a friend and didn't want to hurt his feelings. Ichigo had been in situations like that himself. And he did know that she had some other guy friends. Rukia had never said anything, but she could be dating on of them.
That thought made Ichigo rather jealous. None of those friends were really helping her with this mess. The jealous caught him by surprise, and it took him a minute or two to get a hold of himself. Ichigo hadn't realized that Rukia meant enough to him that he would be jealous of other people's relationships with her. He sighed. He didn't think that he was going to be able to ignore this. He hadn't asked for her to sweep into his life and go about changing things, but she had, and now he was stuck with the result. And truthfully, Ichigo didn't mind all that much.
Of course, he still didn't know what to do about it. Ichigo wasn't exactly an expert on romance, but he did know that starting a relationship in the midst of a time of crisis probably wasn't the smartest idea. But he couldn't just ignore things either. And he didn't know how Rukia felt. The scary thing was Ichigo could see the two of them twenty years from now still bickering with one another. He'd never had that kind of reaction to a girl before. It was more than a little disconcerting. Ichigo shook his head and stepped back to survey the kitchen. The place was probably clean enough that you could eat off the counters.
Ichigo sighed. He had homework that he really should do. Rukia would kill him if she thought his grades slipped because he was helping her out. They needed to get her through this mess first, and then he would ask her on a date. Of course, since Rukia was involved, things probably wouldn't go the way he had planned, but he was sure he would survive. At least he knew that if they did end up dating, their relationship would never be boring.