Author's Notes: Wow, I am really really pleased with the overwhelming response (for me, at least) I received for the previous chapter! A big thank you to all you reviewers out there!
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Tumbling Down.
Chapter Two.
Seireitei Academy was a school for the rich and the spoiled, but it is most unfair to say that the school was one that bent rules and regulations for the richer students… Well, perhaps only those exceptionally rich and charming students like Kuchiki Byakuya, for example, but that was beside the point.
Anyway, the point was to show that no matter what one's status in the society was, one had to share his or her room with a fellow student of the same sex.
And this was a bad thing for Hinamori Momo, because she was Rukia's room mate and the first unlucky person to face the younger Kuchiki's wrath in the morning. The raven-haired girl had woken up, stared at the date shown in her cell-phone, and promptly swore all the way to the bathroom. Even as she showered, muffled cursing could be heard under the loud gushing of water.
Don't get me wrong, Rukia wasn't such a difficult person to get along with. Usually, she would let the younger girl use the bathroom first rather graciously, and did not use such foul language if she could help it. Unless, of course, if she was talking about a particular orange-head who drove her up the wall ever so often.
And yes, this person was the exact reason for her frustration so early in the morning. Today was the day Shuuhei's bet would start to take place, and the day that she would lose her freedom to someone that she really, really didn't like.
Being the smart girl that she was (yes, not all rich people had mushy peas for brains), Momo opted to avoid her room mate for that day at least, and slipped out of the room quietly so as not to further aggravate her senior.
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When Rukia finally stepped out of her room unhappily, she found herself staring at a tall figure leaning against the wall opposite her door and grinning lazily at her. It was then that she stopped muttering death threats for Shuuhei and began to smile maniacally at the person standing in front of her with his hands shoved into his pockets. Brilliant, just brilliant. Now she would be able to kill Hisagi without even getting her hands dirty.
"You're the best thing that happened to me today, Renji," she remarked in a light tone as she practically skipped past him, swinging her school bag in her hand. The red-head gawked at his friend's awkward behavior and attempted to force down the blush that was rising up to his cheeks (the best thing that happened to her, imagine that!) before following her to class.
It wasn't long before he caught up with her, because of his longer strides and the fact that he was walking faster than usual.
"What?" he asked the girl, who was currently humming to herself (although she was not very in tune) and practically sparkling with that beam on her face.
"Renji, Renji, Renji. I must tell you about how our best friend sold me to the enemy for a mere thousand bucks…"
And she told him everything that happened the day before, leaving out the small detail about how the loser of the bet had to leave the school. Oh, and she did emphasize a little more on the part that Kurosaki Ichigo actually owned her for a week.
During lunch, Hisagi Shuuhei found that perhaps he should've considered losing the bet and a thousand dollars, and leaving the school, but not face the angry, growling mass of red that was Abarai Renji. The scarred bad-boy suddenly felt very small, but the optimistic part of him thanked the gods that Rukia hadn't told her brother about the bet… yet. It didn't help that his cool bad-boy image that he had so painstakingly built over the years would crumble into dust in a few seconds under the terrifying fist of the red-haired male that stood before him.
Just when Renji was about to beat the lights out of his tattoed ex-friend (encouraged by the taunts of "FIGHT, FIGHT, FIGHT" from the crowd of students around them), Rukia stepped into the circle very gracefully and looked at Shuuhei a little sympathetically.
"Erm, hi?" he managed to utter, despite the stress-filled environment they were currently in. Translation: Thank you for deciding to save poor me, oh holy Rukia-sama!
She smiled at him, and he raised an eyebrow at her questioningly. Translation: Don't bow to me just yet, Shuuhei. I'm just being nice little me.
And then, he caught the impish glint in her violet eyes, and the world crumbled down around him. Translation: Oh. My. God.
"Renji dear, try not to kill him, will you?" She had lapsed into polite speech again, and most people found a dazzling Kuchiki Rukia very, very scary indeed (the circle of students actually cowered in fear and stepped back when her lips curved into a grin). Translation: KILL HIM AND YANK OUT HIS GUTS FOR ME TO DISPLAY ON MY BEDROOM WALL, RENJI.
"I'm going to die," the would-be victim almost whimpered, but braced himself for attack. Translation: I'm going to die.
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Luckily for him, the bell rang before Renji could do any real damage (like, cut his head in half, for instance), and everyone dissipated to their respective classrooms. Rukia (that bitch!) had actually laughed at the sorry state he was in, limping to the classroom with bruises all over his body. Of course, Renji wasn't much better, because Hisagi Shuuhei was after all their friend, and a strong one at that.
She stopped laughing on her way out of the canteen when she heard a whisper at her ear. "You are so evil."
"Why, thank you!" she replied in an unusually bright voice, which meant that she was going to turn around and punch the poor fellow in the face-
-Except that the "poor fellow" was much taller than her and caught her fist easily, as though he was swatting a fly. He did wince a little at the pain though, because Rukia had a black belt in judo (and had been diligent in letting the whole school know about it).
"Kurosaki," she snarled, snatching her hand back and quickening her pace towards her class.
"You might want to be reminded that you have to do whatever I say from today, till next Wednesday," he said dryly, but she ignored him. "And now I'm telling you to stop, Kuchiki."
She bit her lip, but forced herself to halt, although refusing to turn around to look at him once again. It was most irritating to find that he was behind her again so quickly, and whispering again, "Just testing," before he strode off in the opposite direction.
Rukia wanted to scream and pull her hair out, and probably throw both her shoes at the orange-head, but she glanced at her watch and realized that she was five minutes late for her class, so she merely bit her lip harder and sprinted to her classroom.
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"Figure 1.67 shows how a ray of light travels from air into gla-" The class was interrupted by a firm click of the sliding door as Kuchiki Rukia walked in, bowing her head in apology for her lateness as she made her way to her seat. Ukitake-sensei frowned a little at her but didn't say anything, and turned to face the blackboard, continuing with his lesson.
It wasn't long before he was interrupted again. "The last time I was late, the teacher gave me two days of detention!" came an exaggerated exclamation from the back of the classroom. Rukia felt herself stiffen up but she didn't turn, because she knew what was going to come next.
True enough, another irritatingly high-pitched voice followed, as though she was reading her lines off a cue card. "She thinks she can get away with anything because she's a Kuchiki." As usual, the surname was emphasized with that slight drawl at the end, something that pissed the ebony-haired girl off very much, but she held her anger and stared ahead, trying to absorb what was on the blackboard. It was a good thing that Renji wasn't in the class, or she would have to restrain him from hitting the girls and be sent off for counseling about "thinking before acting" again.
There was a loud rap on the blackboard as the silver-haired teacher broke a piece of chalk into two clean halves against the black surface. A queasy silence fell over the class as he turned and looked at the group of girls who had been commenting too much for their own good.
"Sakurano-san, I believe you were sent to detention because you were late for five consecutive classes," the teacher said in a very calm and quiet voice, but sent a ripple of fear through the students. Ukitake Jyuushirou was not someone you would want to mess with; everyone knew that he had his own special method of dealing with those who interrupted his lessons. The named "Sakurano-san" mumbled something that sounded like an apology as she twirled a lock of hair around her finger nervously, and it was quickly accepted by a curt nod before the lesson resumed.
Rukia wrinkled her eyebrows at the little exchange between student and teacher – she was sure that the hatred directed at her had deepened greatly, but allowed a much suppressed grin to spread across her face; even if most of the female population in the academy didn't exactly like her, she would survive with fair teachers like Ukitake-sensei, somehow. Fortunately, the rest of the Physics lesson went on relatively peacefully, disregarding the awakening of the usual sleepyheads, and a few random students who were caught off-guard for some of the questions asked.
The real ordeal would be after class, Rukia predicted, as she felt the killer glares from Sakurano and her airhead sidekicks who were attempting to burn a hole through the back of her head.
As usual, her fortune-telling skills were exasperatingly accurate, and she found herself being cornered by the same group of girls at her locker. Sighing to herself, she punched her combination into her lock and proceeded to exchange her Physics textbooks for Biology ones with a certain amount of calmness that she had acquired from spending time with her brother. There was no use getting angry with these ditzy idiots; it was a waste of her energy and time.
She clicked her lock back into place and turned to walk away, only to find herself being blocked by one of Sakurano's followers. "I have a class to get to," she tried to say amiably, even throwing in a rare genuine smile, as she pushed through the circle of girls. They didn't budge, as expected.
"You sicken me, Kuchiki Rukia," said the queen bee, with the signature flick to her perfectly styled hair. Rukia resisted the urge to scoff and settled with a cough instead.
"You are nothing, you know that?" At this, the younger Kuchiki narrowed her eyes, but said nothing. It was surprising how she could lash her anger out at males, but preferred to remain silent under the verbal torment of females. "People treat you nicely because of your brother, and Abarai Renji. You have no friends. Even Hisagi Shuuhei, whom you claim to be one of your best childhood friends, didn't even bat an eyelid when he practically sold you to Kurosaki Ichigo!"
Rukia couldn't help but flinch at that sentence because it was true, in a sense. God, these bimbos sure knew where her weak points were. Sensing her discomfort, Sakurano continued her assault rather triumphantly.
"I don't even think your own brother likes you, judging by the way he ignores you when yo-" There was a loud crash, and a slight crumpling sound, causing the whole group of girls to squeal and jump back, leaving Rukia staring at someone she really didn't want to see at the moment.
Kurosaki Ichigo withdrew his fist from the locker beside hers, leaving a huge dent in the middle of the metal door. "That's enough," he muttered darkly at the girls, who scampered away like rats from a flood. Equally darkly, Rukia muttered back at him with less fury than intended, "I didn't need your help, dear knight in shining armor," at which he merely shrugged.
"You might want to fix the locker," she remarked dryly after a period of silence. They both turned to look at the disfigured metal door. It belonged to someone named Yamada Hanatarou, whom they both sympathized with inwardly; it wasn't everyday that you got huge dent in your locker for no reason at all.
"Whatever," he replied, and subsequently dumped all his books into her hands. She looked at him as though he'd just grown three horns and tail.
"We're in the same Bio class. You're carrying my books there because of the bet," Ichigo spoke slowly in a mocking tone, as though he was explaining how to drink milk to a three-year-old. "Go to hell," Rukia spat at him, but tightened her grip on both their textbooks before stomping off towards their classroom, despite wanting desperately to throw his books at his face.
It was good that she had missed his grin, or she would have punched him in the face like he had damaged Hanatarou's locker.
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Rukia was glad to find Renji gesturing at her to sit next to him; there was usually less trouble when she was with him, because everyone was too afraid of him to do anything to her. But no, she had to follow the stupid orange-head to his desk because he didn't want to take his textbooks from her arms. To add on to that, he had insisted that she sat beside him so that she could take notes on his behalf, earning several venomous looks from the females in their class. She rolled her eyes and mouthed an apology to the red-head, who shot an equally venomous look at the person she was sitting next to, for which she was thankful.
Halfway through the lecture, Rukia's pencil broke and she cursed under her breath. "You're doing this on purpose," she hissed at her seat partner, who was currently snoring away with his head on the table.
"How did you guess?" he answered sarcastically, brownish eyes flickering open, but didn't bother to lift his head.
"Did you see those glares of death your fan-girls were shooting at me?" she demanded, keeping her voice low as she rummaged in her pencil case for another pencil.
"Yes, I'm aware of how popular I am," he responded, turning his head so that she could only see a shock of orange hair. She had to bite her lip hard to refrain from hitting his head with a metal ruler.
"Asshole," she muttered, wondering why the whole class was gazing at the two of them. Including the teacher, who did not look pleased at all. Uh oh.
"I'd appreciate it if you would abstain from using profanities during Biology class, Kuchiki-san," said the teacher wryly, eying Rukia with distaste.
"I apologize for my mistake, Soi Fong-sensei," the named student replied, a faint blush creeping across her fair complexion as she felt the full impact of an entire class staring at her.
Beside her, Kurosaki Ichigo snorted. This time, she didn't refrain from slapping his head with some random stationery she'd found on her desk, and he rose from his seat, swearing a little too loudly.
"That's it, detention after school, the both of you!" Soi Fong shouted, at which the both of them grimaced and bit back on the insults they were about to hurl at each other, instead slumping down into their seats in much the same manner.
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"What kind of fucked up system makes their students clean the toilets for detention?" Ichigo growled as he threw his mop down onto the ground and glared at it.
"We wouldn't be here if someone hadn't stood up and cursed in the middle of class," Rukia retorted, scrubbing viciously at the sinks.
"You were the one who jabbed my head with a pair of scissors!" yelled the orange-head, rubbing the back of his head to make sure it wasn't bleeding, at which his companion smirked, much to his annoyance.
"If you hadn't ordered me to take notes for you in the first place, none of this would've happened," she pointed out, but immediately regretted it when she saw his mouth curve upwards in a sinister grin.
"Oh yes, it slipped my mind that you're still under my full control," he began in a sickening drawl. "No, you don't-" Rukia interrupted with a horrified look on her face, but was brushed aside quickly. "That means that I can also order you to finish my part of the cleaning." With that, Ichigo strode out of the washroom, leaving her gaping.
"I HATE YOU, KUROSAKI ICHIGO!" the raven-haired girl screamed at his retreating figure and flung the sponge at him.
"The feeling's mutual," he replied, waving a hand and not bothering to turn around. The sponge hit the door as he closed it and slithered down before landing on the wet floor with a disgusting squelch. Rukia could have broken all the cubicle doors in the toilet, and blown up all the toilet seats, but she chose to walk over to the door and picked up the sponge before resuming her scrubbing very miserably.
Just six more days, she chanted to herself as she dunked the mop into a bucket of murky water.
To be continued.
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To readers: Yes, I am aware that the characters are pretty OOC, but I DID try my best to make everyone remain in character! I swear. XD This chapter was to show that Rukia is not very popular in school because she has two of the hottest guys hanging around her all the time, and now she has an additional burden which is Kurosaki Ichigo, who enjoys torturing her, but doesn't seem to allow others to torture her. She doesn't like to spar with females verbally because she finds it a waste of time (as mentioned above), so she isn't that much of bitch as depicted in the previous chapter. Sakurano was a just random figure that popped out in my head; no character in Bleach seems mean enough to say those things to Rukia except maybe Gin, but he is definitely not a ditzy airhead and therefore does not fit the role. XD More IchiRuki interaction to come. Oh, and do boarding schools have lockers? I hope so; if not, the whole Ichigo-punching-locker thing wouldn't be valid and I would be very sad. :(
Thanks to: Kitty, Always Reading, kurenoharu, revanninja, cantabile21, LukeShaehl, onionroach, Kuchiki Rukia-sama, Winterflower, notnow, Sarah Kerrigan, Brok3nRagd0ll, kobisaki, Ori, Sousui, Satan Hat, Danny-171984, dopeypoo, nightxXxshade, jiaxi
Minitsu: I apologize for their OOC-ness, but as the plot progresses they will become more into character, I think I can assure you that. :)
Rukiaprincess: Yes, I will try to finish my other stories! XD
YL: Here is your Ichigo-torturing-Rukia bit! XDDD
Please continue reviewing; receiving reviews in my mailbox is like… eating chocolate ice-cream with lots of fudge on it! XD