Disclaimer: I do not own Bleach nor any of the Bleach characters. There are a few OC (like the whole Kurayami family), but the rest of the characters are works of the mangaka of Bleach.
Early the next morning, Ukitake woke up and found Haruna putting a wet cloth on his forehead.
"Oh," she said, startled. "You woke up. You ended up staying asleep through the whole night."
"Sorry to trouble you all the time, Haruna," Ukitake said while trying to sit up.
"Don't push yourself too hard, Juushiro," she said as she helped him.
"Thanks," he said. "What time is it?"
"It's still early," she replied. "We still have about two hours before we have to show up to the Academy."
"Ohh."
"Do you think you'll be able to go?" she asked him.
"Yeah," he replied. "I'm feeling pretty well now. Thanks for letting me rest here."
"Juushiro," Haruna said. "This is a hospital... There's no way we wouldn't let anyone stay here..."
"Right," Ukitake said and smiled. "But you and your brother have been so kind to me."
"Huh?" Haruna was confused, so she waited for Ukitake to elaborate more on what he had said.
"All of the doctors I had gone to previously gave up on me. They never really tried to do anything to me because they thought nothing could even alleviate my pain. But you and Hayato-sensei did so much for me. I know that while I was here for two weeks, you were the one to take care of me day and night, with Hayato-sensei coming in at least twice a day to make sure everything was okay. Nobody has ever done that."
"Uhh..." Haruna couldn't find the words to say in this situation. "You're... Really strong," she finally said after thinking for a while. "Honestly, I don't know if I would be able to go through all that and still smile and be kind like you are. I would lose my trust in everyone and hate them. It's your own strength and kindness that has kept you alive."
"Thanks," Ukitake replied with a big, goofy smile.
Haruna laughed at the expression Ukitake had made for the first time in front of her. Then, she abruptly stopped laughing and stared at him. "I really like the color of your hair."
"It's just white," Ukitake said, blushing.
"Yeah," Haruna said. "But I really like it, Shiro-chan."
"Shi-shiro-chan?" Ukitake was taken by surprise by the cute way she had addressed him, and his face got completely red.
"Ahh," Haruna said, also blushing as she realized what she had said, "sorry... Do you mind if I call you that?"
"Eh? Ah... No.. Not really... I guess..." he replied shyly.
"Okay then, Shiro-chan," she smiled. "I should go get ready to go to the Academy. Get ready too so we can leave together. I think Shunsui is coming here soon."
"Y-yeah," Ukitake was still embarrassed of the way she called him.
A while later, Haruna came back wearing her uniform and found Ukitake out of bed and ready to go. They met Kyoraku at the door and they left for the Academy. The three of them walked at a slow pace so that Ukitake wouldn't be tired when they arrived. Kyoraku noticed a strange awkwardness in Ukitake as Haruna helped him, but Kyoraku couldn't quite understand what was going on.
When they arrived at their new room, they saw Captain-commander Yamamoto already inside.
"You're late, you youngsters," he said in a rather harsh tone.
"We're sorry," Ukitake said. He sounded really sorry. "It was my fault."
Kyoraku and Haruna looked at Ukitake. Before they could say anything, the Captain- commander started talking.
"I know about you're health, so there is no need to apologize."
"Yes," Ukitake replied.
"Today you will have a more advanced training in kido," the Captain-commander said. "I have seen some of your training sessions, and I noticed that the three of you have a very high-leveled control of reiatsu, especially you, Juushiro."
Kyoraku looked confused, but Ukitake and Haruna looked completely calm.
"If I'm correct," the Captain-commander continued talking, "Juushiro, you've been controlling your reiatsu to suppress your illness as much as possible, and that requires and incredibly high-leveled control of reiatsu, as well as a big amount of it."
Ukitake looked at Haruna, who already knew this, and Kyoraku, who smiled at him in understanding.
"All three of you have a big amount of reiatsu, as well as good control of it. My goal is to make you capable of controlling your reiatsu even better so that you'll be able to cast higher-leveled kido with ease. For that, however, you need to be able to cast the lower-leveled kido and control its force. Today, we will start with that. Explaining with words is useless. It may give you an idea to how to control your reiatsu, but I'm pretty sure none of you need to hear it. I want you to use a low level kido to knock out those dummies without destroying them. Scratches are fine, but if it gets damaged too much, you're doing it wrong. Hit them with enough force so that they will fall and get a few scratches, but not so strong that they get burned or destroyed. Understood?"
"Yes," the three students answered simultaneously.
There were about thirty dummies in total, and three of them were put in front of the three students, one dummy for each. They spent the whole morning with this one exercise, and in total, the three of them together destroyed half of the dummies.
"This is harder than what I thought," Kyoraku said with a sigh while they were eating lunch.
"Yeah," Haruna replied. "At least we were able to knock the dummies down a few times without destroying them. That's good progress I guess."
"I never thought we would have to control our reiatsu to make our attacks weaker," Kyoraku said.
"It makes sense though," Ukitake said. "We need to be able to control our reiatsu so that it doesn't explode when we don't want it to."
"Heh," Kyoraku laughed. "You're right."
They spent the rest of their lunch time in silence, until they had to go back again for more training. That whole day was basically spent training reiatsu control.
After the training, Kyoraku and Ukitake left the room first, and Haruna approached the Captain-commander.
"Sensei," she said carefully.
"Do you need something?" he asked her.
"Yes," she replied politely.
"What is it?"
"I was wondering," she said hesitating, "if I could miss one day next week."
"What's your reason?"
"I have some personal matters to settle," she replied with a rather gloomy voice.
The Captain-commander was quiet for a few seconds and then said, "Alright."
"Thank you," she said and bowed down.
When she went out of the room, she saw Ukitake and Kyoraku waiting for her in the hallway.
"Are you done?" Kyoraku asked.
"Huh?" Haruna was confused at first, but then she realized what he was asking. "Yeah."
"Alright," Kyoraku said, "let's go get something to eat then."
"Uhh..." Haruna said. "I have to go home and help my brother."
"Oh, okay..." Kyoraku said.
"Yeah, sorry! I'll see you guys tomorrow!" Haruna said cheerfully and left the two young men standing in awe.
"She's acting weird," Ukitake murmured.
"What?" Kyoraku asked.
"Nothing," Ukitake replied, not wanting to worry his friend too much. "I'm feeling a little tired, so I'll go home and sleep."
"Alright," Kyoraku said. "I guess we'll just have to go eat some other day." Then Kyoraku smiled. "I'll take you home, since you might faint out of nowhere."
"Heh," Ukitake laughed. "Thanks."
For the next few days, Haruna spent less and less time with Kyoraku and Ukitake, and the two young men noticed that their friend was not being her normal cheerful self, but they didn't ask anything. They would wait until she felt ready to tell them.
One day after their training was done, they were heading outside of the Academy together, and Haruna, as usual, was walking in front of the other two. She suddenly stopped walking.
"Tomorrow," she said with a very weak voice. She had seemed really tired lately, but whenever the two asked her if she was tired, she would say she was fine. "You guys don't have to come pick me up, and don't wait for me either."
"Huh..." Ukitake said. "Haruna? Are you okay?"
"Yeah," she answered with a smile. "Just... Don't worry about me and go to the Academy without me, okay?"
"Uhh... Sure... But why?" Ukitake said. He was really worried about her.
"It's nothing," was all she said. Then she started walking ahead.
"Wait! Haru—" Ukitake stopped when he felt Kyoraku put his hand on his shoulder.
"Let her be, Ukitake. She needs to be alone. Let's wait until she's ready to tell us whatever is going on."
After much hesitation, Ukitake nodded. "You're right."
The next day, Kyoraku and Ukitake arrived at the Academy without Haruna, just like she had told them. They had arrived a little early, so they sat down and talked before the Captain-commander arrived.
"I'm really worried about her..." Ukitake said. "She's been acting really different, and now this... I wonder what's going on..."
"Ukitake," Kyoraku said, trying to cheer his friend up. "I know she'll tell us when the time comes. I'm worried too, you know? But let's wait. I don't want to pressure her to do something she doesn't want to, and that includes talking about things she doesn't want to. I'm sure you feel the same way."
"Yeah," Ukitake said. "Thanks."
Then the Captain-commander came in.
"Sensei," Ukitake said. "Haruna—"
"I know," the Captain-commander said. "She won't come today. She told me beforehand that she would miss today due to personal matters."
Kyoraku and Ukitake looked at each other and realized something.
"So that's why she came out late that day huh..." Ukitake said.
"Yeah," Kyoraku agreed. "I guess it's something really big."
"I really hope she's okay..." Ukitake said, looking gloomy.
"Kids," the Captain-commander said. "Take the day off today. There's no way you'll focus if you're worrying about her. We'll pick it up when she comes back."
The two students looked at the older man.
"Sensei," Ukitake said.
"Yama-jii..." Kyoraku said.
"Don't call me 'Yama-jii'!" the Captain-commander said and hit Kyoraku's head. Then he left.
"Ouch!" Kyoraku exclaimed. "That really hurt, Yama-jii!"
"It's kind of your fault for calling him 'Old Man,' Kyoraku," Ukitake said and laughed.
"I guess you're right," Kyoraku said, laughing.
Then they were quiet for a few seconds.
"I hope she's okay," Ukitake broke the silence.
"Yeah, me too."