A/N: I thought I should get this chapter out fast so that the last scene of 8 isn't lost too quickly. Enjoy! I'd also like to thank andraq and Satan Hat for being consistent support and encouragement to continue the story. Thanks you two, you're the best!

An Awkward Invitation

Ichigo watched the landscape, stuck on the surface of the earth as their shinkansen went speeding past. The rust on many of the gates and roofs, the damp, almost black wood that was the building blocks for entire villages seemed to blend into the surrounding countryside, as if the world was sucking the changeless farming communities down into the dirt.

His eyes refocused as they played a trick that was becoming more and more frequently used. He looked at Rukia's reflection as she sat almost rigidly next to him, her showy boots propped up on the seat across from them. Her shoulders were slouched only slightly to keep her balance, but the real sternness in her body was the intensity of her deep, ocean-like eyes. She hadn't looked at him at all since they'd gotten on the train, hadn't spoken a thanks when he made sure to buy her a juice on the way out. Not even one single squeak of protest when he'd mumbled a short joke.

"Rukia?" he said quietly. His voice shatterred the silence like a bat to a mirror. The small woman snapped out of her thoughts and looked up at him with an almost expressionless gaze.

"Aa."

"I…ah, that…er, nevermind," he mumbled. She looked like a doll, eyes that saw right through a person. He turned back to the window. He wasn't sure what he had wanted to say. Hanabi Matsuri was just a day away, he suddenly realized. He realized with a great amount of shock that he was about to ask her to come with him, away from his family. He wanted to show her the festival grounds like he had shown her Miyajima today. He sat dumb-founded, unable to believe that he had almost asked her...on a date?

Rukia leaned back against the seat with a heavy sigh and fidgeted with her bottle of juice. It sloshed timidly from inside the container and she traced the outline of the small, happy bunny on the cover.

"I'd never seen one, you know," she said quietly. The sound of her voice was heart breaking, like a sorrowful animal with their ears turned back, tail dragging limply across the ground. Ichigo would have done anything to make the impression fade from his mind, he thought. What was more shocking to him was that he allowed his soft-hearted musings to finish their train of thought. It was something he had never let himself do before...

"What?" he asked, blinking away his daydreams. He had completely forgotten she had started talking. They kept their voices low as most of the passengers around them were asleep. It must have been past midnight by now…

"A rabbit. I wasn't even sure if that really was one when I first spotted it. They look a lot different than Chappy…" she trailed off. Ichigo let a small, almost imperceptible smile tug at one side of his mouth.

"There aren't rabbits in Soul Society?" he asked. Rukia, the pout of a scolded child on her features, shook her head and continued to look at the lovable little icon on the bottle in her hand.

"Then it's a good thing you saw a real one. They're hard to find in Japan unless you go to a big pet store, y'know," Ichigo said, leaning his head against the back of the seat. He stared up at the racks of luggage above them and had a sickening vision of a suitcase falling on Rukia's head. It made him smirk in that arrogant way of his.

"I never thought they'd be so fast. And they walk on four legs?" she asked. Ichigo couldn't contain his smile as he tried not to laugh, for fear of waking an elderly woman in the seat in front of them.

"Bounce more or less, I guess," he chuckled, scratching the back of his head. The train slowed at Kyoto Eki (Kyoto Station) and both were quiet as they watched the beautiful temple-scape and imperial palace get left behind as they departed from the busy station about five minutes later.

"How much longer till we get home?" Rukia asked as the minutes ticked by. Ichigo glanced at his watch, nearly one in the morning. The little shinigami yawned. He couldn't blame her, he was starting to get tired himself.

"A while," he said cryptically. Rukia gave him a condescending look and twisted herself up on the seat next to him, her head leaning against her armrest awkwardly. She squirmed for several minutes before sitting back up with a frustrated huff. Ichigo watched her with a spark of amusement in his eyes. She gave it one more try, turning on her back with her legs off the seat somewhat lopsidedly. She bit back a growl of irritation as her rear slid off the seat and she was forced to sit straight again.

"What are you looking at?" she hissed at him. Ichigo snorted and looked away, his stupid, boyish grin still plastered to his face. At least she was back to her old self. He began to remember parts of their trip, almost picturing them in the reflection of the glass. Moments of content silence, pulling her by her wrist through a swarm of deer, chasing after a rabbit...He wondered what a hand as small as hers felt like in held in his...

Ichigo chanced a look at her, his expression gentle. Those raven black waves of hair obscured her face, which hung limply in front of her. She'd fallen asleep sitting, her chin propped up against her chest. Cradled gently between her wilted fingers was the half-empty bottle of juice, swilling gently as the train turned a sharp bend in the track.

Ichigo's ear twitched as the sound of shuffling luggage could be heard above their heads. He looked up curiously and nearly shrieked. A large, heavy briefcase was tumbling down the side of the shelf, the sharp, black corner angled straight towards Rukia's unsuspecting neck.

"Yabai!" he whispered a yell instinctively and caught it with one broad hand, sheltering Rukia's head under his wall of a chest. She yelped and her bottle went flying down the aisle to the front of the car. He had just a moment to think about his earlier visualization before his charge's muffled cry of anger reached his ears. He braced himself for the inevitable and sucked in a silent gasp as she punched him hard in the stomach.

"Baka! What are you doing?!" Rukia sizzled, pushing him away. She looked at him wide-eyed, breath coming quickly from the fear of disaster as she woke up. Ichigo waved the briefcase in her face.

"It was about to fall on your head! I think you'd hate me even more if I let it fall. Cheh, maybe I should have. At least then you would have stayed unconscious," Ichigo boasted, waiting for her to retaliate. When he opened his eyes from his pseudo-proud expression, he saw her looking intently at the seats in front of them.

"My juice went that way. Go get it," she commanded, pointing toward the door to the next car. Ichigo growled and gritted his teeth.

"Fine."

He stood and threw the small, but deadly piece of luggage back on to the rack abovean empty bench and sauntered towards the front of the car. He found it under a snoring businessman's seat and grumbled, looking back at the expectant Rukia, her arms crossed. He sighed and fell to his stomach, reaching for the beverage as quietly as he could. He pulled it towards him and stood, a look of triumph on his face. The previously snoring businessman stared up at him incredulously. Ichigo laughed nervously, coughed and flashed the bottle in front of the man before striding quickly back to his seat, a bright red blush on his cheeks. When he tried to hand the drink back to Rukia, he found that she was once again fast asleep.

Rukia awoke the next morning to the warmth of the sun and a light breeze floating through the open window next to Ichigo's desk. Her closet door had been left open. She was tucked snuggly in a thick comforter and her boots, she saw, were placed neatly against the foot of her host's bed. He, however, was nowhere to be seen.

Rukia sat straight up in her bed, afraid the perhaps his sisters had found her. Or worse, his dad. She jumped out of the closet and muffled a shriek, noticing that her skirt from the previous day was practically around her hips. She pulled it down and pressed her ear against the door.

No noise. Wait. Something in the kitchen.

"What's with this stupid rice maker, anyway? OUCH, damnit!" Ichigo. Rukia let go a sigh of relief as the shinigami downstairs battered kitchen appliances in a frustrated rage. She turned away and stretched, her clothes feeling worn and itchy. The kind of feeling you get when you've stayed in your pajamas all weekend. A ray of warm sunlight shined down on her toes and a smile graced her rosy lips when she wiggled her feet on the carpet.

Rukia turned back to her large drawer with a content sigh and inspected the neatly folded clothing before her, weighing her choices carefully. She picked up the first tank top on the pile (a cloudy blue) and a pair of mid-calf khakis. After trying on the outfit, she decided to wait for the pants and shrugged them off her ankles. The jeans people wore in the living world seemed so constricting. She pulled on a jean skirt and was just about the open the door when the knob turned from the otherside.

Ichigo opened the door casually, but hesitated once he noticed Rukia standing in front of him. He closed his cell phone and walked into the room, a platter in his other hand. He grunted a good morning and set the food on the desk for Rukia to eat as he fell to his mattress with a tired sigh. Rukia sat down at the desk and began picking at her rice. She grinned, knowing that Ichigo had trouble handling the arduous task of rice-making. It was a wonder the boy could handle shinigami powers at al–

"That was Keigo," he said abruptly. Rukia looked up from her bowl and shrugged, slurping up a noodle hungrily.

"So?" she sputtered distractedly. Ichigo crossed his arms behind his head.

"He wants you to go with him to Hanabi Matsuri," Ichigo grumbled, his scowl deepening. Rukia blinked.

"Like a–?

"Date. Right."

"I refuse," Rukia said sternly, returning to her brunch.

"I already told him you'd say no," Ichigo grunted, looking away. Rukia looked at him, an udon noodle dangling from her mouth. She raised her eyebrow and made a circling motion with her chopsticks, as if to tell him to continue his explanation. When he refused to answer, she set down her bowl of noodles, took another heaping mass of rice into her mouth and set down her chopsticks. His face was slowly becoming a curious shade of purple…

"Ichigo? What did you say I'm doing?"

"I didn't."

"Then why are you turning a funny color?"

Ichigo was silent for several minutes and continually moved away from Rukia as she practically crawled over him, trying to make him look at her. He finally got fed up with her antics and shoved her off the bed roughly. She landed on his disheveled pillow with a squeak and snatched it out from under her rear, launching it at his head. The following stare-down would repel even Kenpachi from the room. Ichigo snarled and looked away, letting her win the fight.

"He assumed that we're going as a couple since I was so…threatening when he asked if I knew your number. He invited us to go to dinner tonight before the festival. He said it was the least he could do for "the winning man." Cheh," Ichigo grumbled, his ears still a vivid pink. To his surprise, by the time he'd counted down from three he wasn't pelted with books from his shelves or Rukia's modest collection of shoes.

"Okay," she chimed, turning back to her noodles. Ichigo eyed her suspiciously and crawled back up to his bed, his face menacingly close to hers. He tapped her head and she prodded him with the blunt end of her chopsticks without losing the rhythm of her noodle eating. Ichigo sighed in defeat, confused.

"Fine. Be ready to leave at six thirty. My family's already gone. My dad's a bit nuts about the festival and dragged the girls to camp out at the riverbank last night. So if you want to take a bath or something, knock yourself out, ne," he said, heaving himself off the bed. "I'll be downstairs watching TV or something."

As the door shut, Rukia let the wide, mischievous grin spread across her features. It had been hard not to keep hidden. A date, hmm? She could give him a date. This was what the woman in the lingerie store would call the perfect time to "wrap him around her finger" whatever that meant. Quickly shoving the rest of her rice into her mouth, the shinigami grabbed her boots and perched herself on Ichigo's window while she zipped them up. Jumping down to the pavement, she raced off to the shopping district in Karakura. It was time to revisit Megumi-san.

A/N: I think you all know what's coming in TWO CHAPTERS! That's right! The Little Black Dress is chapter eleven, everyone! I know, it's been a long haul for the debut, but it'll be great, I promise.