Author's Notes: I'm really really sorry for the super late update. Please don't shoot me because I took such a long time to update… All right, shoot me all you want, but here's the next chapter. XDD

---

Tumbling Down.
Chapter Three.

Rukia awoke to the feel of something cold down her neck, instead of the usual tinkling melody of the alarm in her cell-phone, which she would set to ring at exactly seven in the morning so that she wouldn't be late for any morning classes… But that wasn't what she was worrying about at the moment. The wet, cold and slimy thing was sliding down her back slowly, as though someone was urging it to move faster. She opened an eyelid reluctantly and was met with nothing but darkness. Oh yes, and the smell of her sheets. Which were currently suffocating her, because she had somehow gotten herself into a very uncomfortable position on the bed, with her face pressing into the mattress and her butt facing upwards.

That explained why someone had managed to place that slimy thing (it could've been an icepack, but why was it slimy then?) inside her pajamas.

Wait. WHAT?

She scrambled up from the clump of sheets and blinked a few times for her vision to get used to her surroundings. It was still relatively dark, but she knew it was the dark of the morning, and not the dark of the night… Argh, never mind. It was hard to concentrate in the wee hours of the morning, and the wet thing that had just slid out of her pajama shirt didn't make things better. Momo was still sleeping in the bed beside her, which meant that there was someone else in the room…

And then she noticed the flash of orange standing at the doorway, frowning and smirking at her, all at the same time. She'd always found that look very infuriating. Even more so, at this point in time, because she just knew that he was the culprit of putting that wet thing (it was an icepack, she realized) into her shirt.

"What in the FUCK are you doing in the girls' dorm, Kurosaki?" she asked, sounding very much like an irritated mother cat whose babies had just been taken away from her.

"Get up," Ichigo said in a level tone, instead of replying to her question.

"It's four in the morning, and you expect me to get out of bed just because you stormed into my room and woke me up with a fucking ice pack?" Rukia responded, keeping her voice level as well, to match his. Also, she didn't want to wake Hinamori up because of a squabble she was having with an idiot.

The orange-head simply shrugged and turned to walk out, but paused just before he stepped into the corridor, saying, "Hisagi Shuuhei can just transfer out of this school if he wants to."

Oh. Right. The bet. The stupid bet that never should have existed in the first place.

Rukia groaned inwardly, but kept her face stony as she glared at Ichigo, who had turned around to face her again. "Get out of my room while I change," she said begrudgingly, throwing her covers onto the floor and trudging to the bathroom.

"My condolences to your room-mate. I'd bet she does all the cleaning around here," remarked Kurosaki, glancing meaningfully at Rukia's side of the room. He wasn't exactly lying, because there was a very clear distinction indeed.

"SHUT UP AND GET YOUR ASS OUTTA HERE!" the black-haired girl bellowed from inside the shower, not bothering to keep her voice down anymore. She could've sworn that the asshole was grinning as he closed the door behind him.

---

By four fifteen, Rukia found herself plodding across a baseball field with Ichigo's school-bag in one hand; the bastard had woken her up just so that she could finish up his homework while he went for baseball practice. It's all right, it's just five more days, she chanted to herself as she sank into one of the many spectator benches and wrenched out the worksheet their teacher had given to them as homework a few days ago.

She was thankful that it was just Math homework because, frankly, she wasn't very good at anything else. Tenses in languages baffled her, chemical equations never seemed to balance up properly, and her art skills were… Not up to standard. It was a pity, really, because she loved art so much. She preferred to think that no one else could understand her artistic sense, which consisted of scribbled bears and bunnies with eyelashes to show their gender difference. It was surprising to find that the orange-head had actually bothered to draw a border on one side of his worksheet to separate their rough workings from their presented answers, as their teacher had instructed them to do. Rukia herself never did bother to draw the stupid border, and she was aware that most of the people in her class didn't either.

The first half of the worksheet had been done already, in a neat print that she presumed was Kurosaki's handwriting. Yet another surprise about the champion of Kuchiki Rukia's list of the people she hated most. Although she'd known him ever since they were twelve years old, she realized that she didn't know much about him, besides the fact that his father was a rich businessman and his mother had passed away sometime ago. No siblings, perhaps? In fact, she couldn't even remember what had happened to cause her to hate him so much…

"Look out, Kuchiki-san!" An anxious call from the baseball field startled her out of her thoughts as she looked up to see what the commotion was all about, only to see something white flying towards her and hitting her right square on the forehead. Damn those baseballs – they were so hard and painful. For a moment, she found herself seeing bunnies dancing around her head singing "Mary had a little lamb" before passing out onto the bench, after having been hit by a ball from a homerun.

---

She was on a boat. It was swaying from side to side and making her feel rather dizzy, but not seasick. A comfortable feeling – it made her feel as though she was in the clouds, floating above everyone else. This particular cloud was warm and soft, she realized as she nuzzled into it, sighing contentedly. It also smelled somewhat like… Clean school uniform just out from the wash.

One violet eye opened groggily as Rukia took in her surroundings. Rather, her constantly changing surroundings, because she was moving up the stairs. Strange, she didn't feel as though she was walking, even though she was ascending up the steps. And her hands seemed to be hanging over something; the something that smelled like clean school uniform. Another violet eye opened and she blinked a few times to get her vision back into focus (a sense of déjà vu from earlier on, in the icepack incident). A sea of white. With a little bit of orange at the top, like orange fudge spilled over vanilla ice-cream. Damn, the imagery made her feel so hungry. Without much hesitation, the black-haired girl sank her teeth into the "vanilla ice-cream", awaiting the heavenly taste to spread throughout her mouth…

"What the fuck are you doing!"

Oh my, her ice-cream was talking. Did ice-cream usually use vulgarities in their speech? She didn't think so. And it tasted bad – it tasted like she'd just chewed on her school uniform. A pair of arms sprouted out of the sundae as the orange fudge turned around to form an angry face, and she found herself sitting at the top of a flight of steps, her ass hurting like shit. That shook her out of her dream-like state completely, and she glared at the culprit who'd just dropped her onto the ground deliberately.

"You again, Kurosaki," she spat, hoping that her glower would cause him to wilt into a puddle of goo, but to no avail.

"Bitch, you do not BITE the person who carried you up four storeys because you fainted during his baseball practice," the named person retorted, rubbing his right shoulder (the place where she'd sunk her teeth into) meaningfully, and frowning at her as though he wanted her to melt into a puddle of goo as well.

Credit given, Rukia was a little taken aback when she was informed that he'd carried her while climbing to the fourth level (a great feat, no?), but she recovered quickly and shot back, "If it hadn't been for your stupid homerun I would've finished your Math homework in a jiffy without getting hurt on my head AND my ass, and we'd both be in class now." Inwardly, she groaned. Math was first period, but they'd missed the first half already, so there wasn't any point in rushing back to class – it would only result in more detention because she didn't have an excuse letter from the nurse's office. Might as well finish the journey and mend her head in case the baseball had killed too many of her brain cells. Then she would be able to sue Kurosaki's pants off, and be a very triumphant girl indeed.

Subconsciously, an evil grin spread across her pale face as she tried to get back onto her feet. Alas, she'd stayed on the ground for too long arguing with an idiot, and when she attempted to stand up, the blood rushed to her head too quickly, and she felt herself falling, falling, falling down the stairs…

And just like in a clichéd chick flick, Ichigo managed to catch her slim figure in the nick of the time, such that they seemed to be in the last stage of a tango, with her spine bent backwards and his arm holding her rear lightly as he gazed into her face, a smirk playing on his lips. Add a rose and the pose was perfect. Ouch, her ankle just twisted because of her awkward position. Gah, she really didn't like this guy because he seemed to bring her great misfortune every time they met, and the next thing he did did no more than add more points to her "Why I hate Kurosaki Ichigo" mental list.

The bastard lifted her up (to his credit, he did it kindly, like a gentleman would've done) and placed her in an arrangement such that he looked like a groom carrying his bride, before striding off towards the sick bay with certain sort of determination which helped him to deal with insults and kicks from the "pretty bride in white (well, the blouse of her school uniform was white)". They were lucky that most of the school was already in class because the very fact that they were actually existing within much less than a meter of distance between the two of them would have caused quite an uproar –Ichigo's fan-girls and Renji would definitely have a lot to say about it.

Anyway, after a torturous period of dodging Rukia's deathly punches while trying to keep a firm hold on her small structure, Ichigo finally reached the sick bay and practically tossed her onto one of the beds, clearly glad to wash his hands clean of her. Highly displeased by the string of unfortunate events that had happened in the short span of a few hours (it'd started when he had stuffed that fucking ice pack down her back), the raven-haired girl sat up on the bed defiantly, making sure that the scowl on her face was evident.

"May I help you?" a soft-spoken voice came from behind the curtain that separated one bed from another. The school nurse's slender but slightly calloused hand pushed the curtain open gently as she turned to face the patient on the bed with a smile. At that, both students stopped glaring daggers at one another and smiled back at her a little sheepishly.

"Unohana-sensei, I got hit on the head by a baseball this morning," Rukia offered, but with less conviction than she intended. There was something about Unohana Retsu that made your emotions settle down like the low tides ebbing from the shore slowly and gracefully.

"And you?" the nurse asked, directing her question at the orange-head, who was currently leaning against the bed silently. Rukia couldn't help but feel a little victorious when she saw him twitch a little in surprise (I mean, this guy never seemed to get flustered over anything). But he covered his momentary shock swiftly with a lopsided grin and replied smoothly, "I'm fine, thanks. Aside from the fact that my fellow schoolmate attempted to murder me on our way up the stairs." At this, the victorious feeling died straight away as Unohana-sensei chuckled lightly.

"All right then, we'll have to fix you up before your next class."

Violet eyes blinked as Rukia nodded and let the school nurse do the necessary procedure. By this time, her arch nemesis had somehow found his way out of the sick bay without her noticing it and was probably enjoying their chance of cutting class with a valid excuse. As she thought of the million possibilities of things he could do before their next class started, she rolled her eyes and scoffed. Just five more days and I'll be free!

---

The female Kuchiki exited the nurse's office with an icepack (damn those cursed icepacks; she seemed to keep encountering them today) held to her forehead to stop the swelling, and was astonished to find Ichigo's dozing figure leaning against the wall opposite the door she'd just walked through. She couldn't quite bring herself to believe that he'd stood there waiting for her, instead of seizing the opportunity to slack off somewhere else. It just seemed so… Weird. She stepped closer and squinted at his serene face. So it was true that most people looked much less frightening and unfriendly when they were asleep.

Rukia's eyes felt a slight stinging pain for a moment when the cold water that had condensed on the surface of her icepack began to trickle down her face and she hurriedly squeezed her eyes shut whilst drying her face with her sleeve. When her eyelids fluttered open, she found herself staring into orangey-brown orbs, and nearly jumped back in shock if not for her excellent control of her emotions (after all, she'd thought of killing so many people at different points of her life, but had never ended up committing any murder, showing her ability to restrain herself).

"Are you that touched by my chivalrous actions?" Ichigo asked, frowning a little. If she'd been a bystander and not part of the conversation, she would've laughed out loud because he looked genuinely perplexed. But she wasn't a bystander.

"What?" she inquired intelligently, holding the icepack to her head again. Damn, her head felt like it was splitting apart – the after-effects of a strong impact.

"You're crying tears of joy because I painfully stood here the whole time you were chatting with Unohana-sensei about your injuries," he replied, pointing at her red eyes.

Then she realized that droplets of water were still hanging onto her eyelashes, and blinked them away exasperatedly. "I'm not crying, you moron. Water got into my eye-" It was at that moment that the hourly school bell decided to blast into the ears of the poor students, cutting Rukia's words short.

"We have Chemistry together now. It's in the lab; come to my locker because I want you to carry stuff for me," the orange-head commanded, completely forgetting whatever topic they'd been arguing about before, and turned on his heel to stride to the lockers, without waiting for his companion to catch up.

"Bastard," Rukia said under her breath as she followed in suit, ignoring the queer glances other students were throwing at her. Clearly, the news of him owning her for a week hadn't spread around the whole school yet – whether it was good news of bad news she couldn't tell, because those who didn't know would probably think that she was finally succumbing to the almighty Kurosaki, while those who knew… Well, it wasn't very nice for one of your closest friends to rent you out to "the enemy" for a mere thousand dollars.

---

Chemistry in the laboratory was disastrous, and so was lunch, thus resulting in the unanimous conclusion that Kurosaki Ichigo and Kuchiki Rukia just couldn't get things right when they were working together. Their experiment during Chemistry had ended up with a small explosion because one of them had forgotten to turn off the gas supply while the other had struck a match before the gas could disperse away into the air. It was lucky that no one had gotten hurt, but they were sent to detention again, because they endangered the other students or something along that line. You'd think the richer kids would be let off the hook more easily, but it was probably due to the fact that they were so famous in the school already that the teachers loved punishing them with duties that their servants at home would've done for them such as cleaning the toilets.

Lunch was another affair altogether. A messy one, no doubt. Rukia had apparently gotten so pissed off with something Ichigo had said as a fleeting remark, and smashed his face into a plate of mashed potatoes, which was followed by a handful of fries flying through the air to land on her back (the masterpiece of one of the orange-head's fan-girls, perhaps), then some green toxic-looking jelly splattering all over another person's lunch table, until the whole canteen was in chaos. Seireitei probably never had to "sentence" so many students to detention at one go. Of course, the roots of the problem were given a tougher punishment than the rest, and that meant sacrificing their weekends to categorize the haphazardly arranged books in the library for say, four weeks or so.

When Rukia finally flopped down onto her bed, Momo had to help her up to the bathroom because she was so tired that she couldn't even walk properly. The fucking asshole had conveniently tossed all his detention duties into her hands – she had to clean more washrooms than one person could handle in a day, help clear up the mess in the canteen during mass detention, and help with some paperwork in the staff room.

"Whatever happened to the old-fashioned detention? The type in which we just sat at the back of a freezing room and pretend to do homework while the teacher dozed off in the front?" mumbled Rukia as she sank further into the bathtub. Every few minutes or so she jumped out of the water to breathe and shout out, "It's exploitation, I tell you! Damn the school and Kurosaki to the deepest pits of Hell!"

Outside, Momo heard her muffled shouts behind the bathroom door and shook her head sympathetically. It was tough being a rich kid.

---

To readers: I think the main reason why I put off updating this story for so long was because I couldn't get any inspiration to churn out ideas and I didn't want to disappoint all of you with a short chapter with not much substance in it… Not that I'm saying this chapter is particularly satisfying – sure, it was a hell of a rollercoaster ride (that means it was FUN XD) writing it, but nothing's really happened besides some development of the relationship between Rukia and Ichigo. Sorry to those who wanted Rukia torturing Ichigo – we have quite a fair share of that in canon already, in my opinion. Well, she got to bite and kick him in this chapter! XD New characters will be brought in soon, I promise. For now, I hope you guys enjoyed this chapter; I made it a little longer to make up for my long period of absence. :)

Thanks to: rukiaprincess, Kitty, notnow, Kokuuei, YL, LadyRequiem, Sousui, Zyzychyn, mikeee, Danny-171984, anonymus, nightxXxshade, Tearasakura-no-hana-hoshi, cantabile21, kobisaki, Kuchiki Rukia-samadopeyPoo, minitsu, deathberry, brok3nragd0ll, FuturePast, SHiNiGAMiLENNE, phyrefox, kurenoharu, chikarin-chan, Phoe-chan, Astarael00, Cringe, Placid Snowflake, anne522, update, jiaxi, mizz rukia, Reyana Draconis, Lin, KagomeHigurashi66, Cold Onyx Eyes

amwong88: Jealousy will definitely play a part in this fic, and so will IchigoXRukiaXRenji because I am a sucker for that pairing. XD

Kaira: Perverted? Perhaps. XD Mwahahaha.

And anyone else I didn't manage to get from the review page. Thank you all so much!

Reviews will be very much appreciated. They may seem like small things to you, but they brighten up my day lots! –shot for being irritatingly clichéd- XD