Sneak Peek: Final Chapter

They were laughing over a pot of spicy nabe on a cold winter night, just honest no pretense, authentic laughing. The one where her eyes twinkled playfully as her smile stretched to her eyes; her eyes also looked like they were smiling at him. That knowing look he should be annoyed by, but with her, it felt comfortingly challenging. It was the right look on her.

Rukia covered her mouth, her shoulders shaking. Honestly, it was a lame attempt of a joke on his end, but she seemed to have appreciated him having a go. Ichigo wasn't a joker; he didn't intentionally make jokes like she did.

She stopped laughing, inhaling and exhaling some oxygen, picked up her chopsticks, but she couldn't stop giggling.

"Okay, enough now. You can stop being nice now. It wasn't that funny."

She couldn't help but let one last giggle out before inhaling and exhaling whatever oxygen she had left. Her incessant giggling sounded gentle to him. Even as she crunched on an enoki mushroom, trying hard not to choke as her lungs became constricted from both the broth's spices and her inability to stop giggling. "No, it wasn't funny," she agreed, blinking back laughing tears. "But what's funny is that you, Mr. Kurosaki, can tell that lame joke with an unflappably straight face. Only the most confident people can do that." She looked down at the table, no doubt trying to mask her fit of giggles.

Ichigo smiled. He knew she could be loud, but never in a million years did Ichigo know that Rukia, a tiny, quite delicate being, could laugh this obnoxiously. Sometimes he wondered if she was laughing five octaves louder than him to show who was boss in the comedy lounge.

If she was wanted to be the laughing Buddha, so be it. He would serve her.

He wordlessly plucked a piece of spicy salmon and held it in the air, waiting.

Her gentle smile appeared again tonight. Holding her rice bowl out to him as a way to accept it – him, not as her boss, but as a friend.

He felt his mouth twitching to a smile, seeing her thoughtfully chewing the piece of salmon as she raised herself a bit to look into the bowl of boiling deliciously seafood assortment, swimming in a boiled broth, waiting to be fully soaked for consumption as she stirred the broth a bit with the ladle.

They were sitting across each other, out of bounds, giving each other a comfortable space away from one another, but still being within reachable proximity.

If this is what being comfortable with the person you admired and adored felt like, then he wouldn't mind.

Ah! The hell am I getting mushy and sentimental for?!

He turned away, feeling his cheeks getting warm. If this was how it meant to be crushing on someone, then he was doomed for life.

But it's Rukia. Worth being doomed for.

"Can you not handle spice, Mr. Kurosaki?" He turned to look at her, her gaze questioning his face. "We didn't have to order spicy nabe. Do you want to order something else?"

"Oi! I can handle spice. Probably better than you. Look at how red your cheeks are." There wasn't much conviction in his tone, but he was attempting to appear normal. As normal as he could with Rukia.

"For your information, Mr. Kurosaki, this cute flush on my face is due to my laughing my ass off at your ill planned comedic act minutes ago. Be lucky I even laughed. Some of the wait staff here walked by and didn't even try to pretend to laugh."

He smiled again, shaking his head. He can't win with her. It's almost as if he was written to be a character who could never win against her verbose attacks.

"I can handle anything, Rukia." He smirked, wanting to see if she would take the flirting bait.

"Oh yeah?" she gifted him an equally frustrating smirk. She may be a bright bulb, but her expertise in flirting was quite dim, which was disappointing yet refreshing.

"Whatcha got?" he taunted, but inwardly admitting to himself that he knew he was in supreme trouble. This was Rukia, strategically wicked Zhuge Liang who even Cao Cao was terrified of.

Out comes a ghost pepper. Where the hell did that come from?

The mere sight of the shriveled but potently red pepper was enough to trigger several buckets of sweat from Ichigo's skin.

"You can't be serious, Rukia."

Offering him a piece of tofu, which he quickly accepted and ate, Rukia snorted and just shook her head. "I'm just kidding. Even I wouldn't dare eat it. No one needs to spice up their life that bad." Thinking about it for a moment, she immediately hummed the Spice Girl anthem as she sipped on the steaming broth, weakly taunting him.

Chewing on the piece of tofu, Ichigo pondered for a bit, and another grin broke out onto his face. "Okay, I accept the challenge."

Fanning her mouth in a delicate manner, the broth was a bit too spicy tonight, Rukia looked at him, confused. "I'm sorry? I didn't challenge you."

"If I eat that damn thing and miraculously survive, you have to agree with my condition."

Wiping her mouth with a napkin, she place it back onto her lap and nodded, as if conceding it was fair. "I have to work overtime again? Okay, even though I'm being worked to death here. Deal."

Ichigo rolled his eyes. "No deal. Don't be so boring, Rukia. Only if you agree to, don't force yourself." He closed his eyes, contemplating hard. Should he?

Rukia smirked. It couldn't be that bad. She poured two cups of sake and handed him one of the small cups, clinking and drinking to symbolize their silent pact. A mistake with potential deadly consequences she should have thought about before clinking to.

But before Rukia could ask what the deal was, she nearly dropped her empty cup.

"You have to go on a date with me, Rukia," he softly yet clearly clarified, eyes searching for hers, hoping for a response to this very ill-timed and cliched rom-com request.

For the remainder of the week, Ichigo attempted to remain professional with Rukia, something that she was grateful for. She didn't know it, but he was determined to show her that he could respect boundaries.

Rukia sipped her coffee as she continued to read the annual reports Kurosaki delivered to her, informing her that he needed her to finalize the reports because they needed to present it at one of Shoten's many press conferences smart tech reveal next month.

Whoever drafted this report made several errors, and old writing habits remained as she got a red pen and started making margin notes. She yawned; between her growing responsibilities here and working on other writing projects, she was nearing her limit. Maybe she wasn't the machine Kaien and Hisana initially thought she was. She needed oil to recharge, but she was just too tired these days.

But she smirked to herself. That last op-ed seemed to have ruffled ASS', and maybe Kageyoshi's feathers, but it was the reaction she wanted since Kageyoshi– not her brother apparently – had to organize a conference about bribery and blackmail materials and how was a moral press could participate in such corrupted practices.

Rukia sighed. As much as she disliked her brother's rigid following practices and not wanting to rock the boat, she still biologically respected him, just because he was her brother, although it was getting harder to understand – and she will never want to – why he stood behind Aizen. That she could never understand. That ASS was a good writer, but he never showed any professionalism.

While journalistic integrity sometimes blurred the lines, bribery, or brown envelope journalism, when blatantly present, was an issue that was publicly scrutinized. No journalist wanted to be at that receiving end.

Dear lord, could she be evil.

She started typing, her hidden smirk eventually cracked into a fit of obnoxious cackles, leaving whoever was walking by her bewildered. That and that person most likely didn't want anything to do with her. She simply stared at the person's back; maybe she should tone it down a bit. Oh well, crazy be crazy.

She stared ahead and Lisa was pointing at her, holding back her own snickers until her oxygen levels were going to shut down. Lisa couldn't suppress that fit of snickers and started laughing, making Ise Nanao, her superior, coming out of her office to check on her.

Rukia saluted Lisa as Nanao was lecturing her about secretarial decorum in both shared office and public spaces. Judging by how Lisa was wiping her glasses multiple times, Rukia deduced she didn't care what she did in this shared space as long as she got work done.

Though Lisa and Nanao mutually respected one another, Rukia could tell Lisa was barely listening as she saluted Rukia back.

Crazies belong with crazies.

"K.- san?"

She sometimes detested this man. His constant presence, whether physical or immaterial, was always somewhere within her open space, overloading her with more work than she sometimes could process. Shared proxy wasn't supposed to be like this! She wasn't a human built AI machine! And yet, here he was, being the greedily strategic merchant, and exploiting her. Maybe she shouldn't have worked that hard or fast on her first day. But no, those damn Kuchiki lessons on professionalism and the art of swiftness at work were forever ingrained in her brain.

Hello. I'm still here, but life is chaotic, unsafe, uncertain, and busy. I'm being nicely mean again and providing a disjointed sneak peek. I will finish this chapter sometime. As for Midnight Library - um, yikes?

Please stay safe!