Second chapter time, people! And you know what the second chapter means, right, kids?

Mail time!

Maiea: Aww, Thank you.
Saccharine Rhapsody: No! His eye isn't gone, par say, as much as it is taking vacation! I expect another chapter too!
TimCHell: You must really like reviewing. A lot. Actually I am physicly very far away from the padded cell. Mentally, I'm not so sure. Maybe if you review thirty-seven more times... Just joking! I, actually, thought that was good for Rukia also. I think Isshin is outta character in this chapter, though…
And so he ran again. He hated the rain and the storm, but it was better than the inside. His house, the inside, had become a maze of walls filled with silence. It was a silence that he thought he had left, but with Rukia gone, the silence had come back. He had not noticed it before. It had crept upon him slowly. So slowly and quietly he had jumped when it had first appeared. Kon had been stupid enough to ask him what was wrong. Didn't he know, after all these day of living with him, that he wasn't going to tell?

His father had asked him where he was going.

"Out." He had said.

"Well, yeah, that's obvious." Karin had pointed out.

"I mean, running. I'm going out for a jog." Karin could tell when he was lying.

"In the rain?" Karin was skeptical.

"Eh… so I don't overheat." And he was gone. In the rain, running, running.

Kira slowly moved his hand, "I can see! Hanatarou-san, you're great."

Hanatarou blinked, "Oh, it's just my job."

"Yeah, but I thought I wouldn't see again." Kira blinked more.

"Well, It wasn't a very deep cut." Hanatarou nodded.

"Okay..." Kira just wanted this kid to take a compliment!

He would run forever if he had to. Forever wasn't that long. Ichigo nodded. Forever...

He looked down the hill. Was that Tatsuki? Yeah, Tatsuki and Orihime where standing in front of a rock.

Ichigo could see that the rock was a grave marker. He didn't want to talk to Orihime or Tatsuki right now, though. It was rainy and cold, he didn't want to talk to anyone right now.

He kept running. Running helped. Ichigo had never once considered joining the track team. He liked running for himself, not for other people. Not for the faculty. But, regardless, he had great stamina. He probably could run forever if he wanted to. Forever was a very short time, if you thought about it.

"So, Renji, tell me again how you stabbed Kira in the eye." Byakuya didn't look angry. Byakuya never looked anything, so how could he look angry?

"Well, we where sparring…" Renji thought Byakuya must have heard this story a hundred times already. Everyone else had simply though that it was a common sparing incident and that no one was to blame.

Byakuya, or course, thought it was stupid and an embarrassing blemish to the good name of squad six.

"and Kira didn't duck like I thought he was gonna..." Renji scratched the back of his head. How long would this continue? Usually Byakuya cut him off before he could get this far in the explanation, but this was going on oddly longer than usual. What time was it?

"So then... Yeah, Zabimaru hit him in the eye..." Renji smiled like he was telling a bad joke, "Heh, heh..."

Byakuya grunted as if to say "You idiot."

Renji mentally punched himself in the face.

Though Ichigo was no good at remembering the names of people, he had a very good sense of direction and could always remember a place. The place where something happened.

Standing under a streetlight didn't stop rain. Rain would fall anywhere it wanted. It would fall all over him. A particularly tall streetlight stopped nothing.

Ichigo remembered what had happened here.

Ichigo didn't like walking near here. Just like the place near the river where his mother had been killed, he would go out of his way to avoid walking near this place. It was quiet, it was cold, and it was easily avoidable.

Ichigo had gotten quite good at avoiding this place. Quite good.

"So…" Isshin, the father of Karin, Yuzu and Ichigo starred out the window, "He's rather moody today."

"Isn't he always moody when it rains?" Karin pointed out.

"True, true." Isshin nodded.

"Dinner's almost ready!" Yuzu fanned the rising steam out of the kitchen.

"What where you guys fighting about?" Isshin asked his daughter.

"Yuzu and Ichi where fighting over who could win in a fight," Karin answered, "you or don Kanonji."

"And, NATURALY, ICHIGO WAS ROOTHING FOR HIS OLD MAN, RIGHT?"

"No, actually..." Karin rolled her eyes.

Ichigo hated this place. Ichigo hated this place, because, because...

Ichigo looked up to the streetlight. Ran dropped of it. It made it look like the streetlight was crying. The streetlight was crying.

Ichigo hated this place. He didn't hate it because it was the place where Byakuya an Renji had first burst thru into the real world.

He didn't hate it because it was where he had first met Renji, of because this was the first place where he had felt Byakuya's blade.

He hated this place because this was where Rukia had left. Ichigo didn't know it at the time, but this was the place where Rukia left for good.

"Honto Arigatou" He panted through the rain.

Rukia sneezed.

Captain Ukitate turned his head, "You sneezed!"

"I know." Rukia now sniffled.

"That means someone is thinking about you." Ukitate sometimes wondered if Kuchiki Rukia had grown up in a cave. He sometimes wondered if all the Kuchiki had grown up in caves. He knew for a fact that Byakuya was not socially cold, but socially retarded.

"Really? I wonder who..." Rukia smiled.

"Who what?" Ukitate asked.

"I wonder who is thinking about me."

Wow, so, what do you think? It's a lot more angst-y that the last chapter, which was mostly comic-y.

I reread this thing and I realized how much it looks like an Ichigo/Rukia. I didn't mean it to be like that, I meant it to be a 'Ichigo misses Rukia' fic, not a 'Ichigo loves Rukia' fic. But, if you like that kinda stuff, go ahead.

Ichigo likes it when you review. All you have to do is press the lavender button and type something. Ichigo wants chocolate.