AN: Yo, I'm here again… its still exam time… so I'm writing this BEFORE I study… hehehe so I won't be bothered by ideas while I'm studying. And about that other chapter…Well, I didn't update when it hit 30 reviews… cuz, I was away the whole day, and when I came back I was like… oh wow. So thanks to you guys again XD

Disclaimer: I don't own Bleach – if I did I would make the anime follow the manga.

A Summer Job: Business Lunch(es) – Part II

"Aww," Rangiku Matsumoto sighed after finishing off the book, The Princess and the Picnic. "Now that," she declared to her captain, who was acting rather strange of late, "was a real love story."

The captain looked up, obviously not listening to a word she said; just that it was a force of habit to look up when someone was talking to him. Matsumoto had once told him he did this because he was shorter than everyone else, and it took 2 full days to defrost her. Despite this incident, she was still willing to tease her captain to bits.

"What?"

"I said, this is a real love story." She held the book in her hand and waved it over the couch.

"Oh."

At the mention of the word 'love' she felt her captain go rigid. She wondered if it had anything to do with a certain 5th division vice captain. Hitsugaya bent down to finish his paperwork, which he left during the morning to look after Ichigo. It was after lunch, the time most shinigami's were lazing around.

"Aw, Hitsugaya-taicho, you don't want to know what happened?"

"No."

Matsumoto shuddered. So cold. An evil grin spread across her face. She knew that the subject of love was continually avoided in the 10th division, well in the hearing range of the captain, who, was actually failing at love at the very moment.

"Anyway," she announced in an eerily cheery voice, "I'll tell you what happens."

She cautiously looked up from her couch. Her captain was still bending over his desk, completing paperwork, though it was obvious that he had heard what she had said, despite the fact that he didn't say anything.

"So, there was this prince, and he met this princess." She peeked up from behind her couch. "and do you know how they met?"

Hitsugaya sighed. It was obvious that he wouldn't get much paperwork done with his lazy vice-captain, well lazing around. And plus, he had to put up with her annoying voice, telling him an annoying story. He might as well listen.

"No, I don't know how they met. Do enlighten me." He said in a sickly sweet tone, that could probably rival Rukia's acting voice. He picked up his cup of tea, and proceeded to sip it in an annoyingly adult manner.

Matsumoto looked at her captain, delighted, completely ignoring his sickly sweet tone. "Well, it happened like this. The princess was so bored of her castle, that one day she decided to take a picnic." She looked up in surprise as she saw her captain nearly choke on his tea. She raised an eyebrow. And it seemed like it was getting a bit colder. "So she went on her picnic, but she got a bit bored by herself. So she decided to invite her childhood friend, who was the neighbouring prince. At that time, they didn't have any feelings for each other though." She looked up again in surprise, when her captain had choked yet again, AND the temperature had gone down. A lot.

"Is something wrong, Hitsugaya-taicho?" She watched him carefully. Maybe she shouldn't have told him the story after all. But this kind of behaviour, even for him was quite different.

"No…Nothing's wrong…" Hitsugaya managed to squeak out. He stood up shakily. "Er, bathroom…" And he was off leaving a very puzzled Matsumoto behind.

"Aw, I didn't get the good part." She lay back on the couch to read the last paragraph again.

The princess and her prince, skipped happily down the sunny lane.

The princess held her prince's hand while they skipped, and in her other hand she was swinging a picnic basket.

And they lived happily ever after.

The end.

Far away, in some corner or another of Soul Society, the princess was skipping happily down a sunny lane. Actually, it was Rukia, and she wasn't skipping. She was, however, holding her prince's hand, except for the small fact that it was Ichigo, and, the only reason why she was holding his hand was because she was dragging him along the ground.

It was such a picturesque moment.

"Come-on-you-id-i-ot!"

"Look we're here." Rukia had stopped pulling Ichigo, and had led him up to an overhang which looked over the 78th district of Rukongai.

Ichigo stopped rubbing his arm and looked up. It was now mid-afternoon, and the warm sun was comfortable on his back. The city actually looked…decent from here.

"It looks nice."

"Yeah."

The two stood there, looking down at the city, which Rukia had grown up in. It was so different from what he had imagined, Ichigo decided. Standing behind Rukia, he noticed what had caught his attention when he was looking for her when he was with Hitsugaya. She was wearing contemporary style clothes, which was strange since they were in Soul Society. Now that he came to think of it, he had only seen her in her school uniform, one of Yuzu's dresses, her shinigami uniform, and (once) in her kimono. This was the first time he had seen her wearing…jeans?

"Oi, Rukia"

"Hmm?" She didn't stop looking down at the town.

"What's with your clothes?"

"Huh?" This time she turned around to look at him. She looked down at what she was wearing. "Oh, these…" She shrugged, almost embarrassed. "Well, I got some tailors to make me some clothes…that were more, your style."

"Huh?" Ichigo looked confused. "My style?"

She blushed furiously, "No, idiot, I meant, the style of the living world." She turned away from him.

Ichigo, being Ichigo, got absolutely none of this, but he did understand that Rukia was turning away from him, and that he had done something…wrong? He shrugged.

"Well, no need to get so mad about it… Jeez, I was just going to say that it looks good on you." As if realizing what he just said, his face went red.

Rukia turned around, and all of a sudden, the ground beneath them had just become a whole lot more interesting.

"O-oh…" The silence was unbearable.

"Um, anyway, aren't we going to have this, um, picnic?" Ichigo asked, still looking at the ground, with one hand scratching the back of his neck.

"Y-yeah…"

Rukia hurried past him to lay the cloth on the ground, underneath a large, overhanging tree.

"Here, let me help." Ichigo took the basket from Rukia, and started laying the contents on the mat. Slowly, but surely, a large bead of sweat started to form at the back of his head.

"Um, Rukia?"

"Yeah?"

"Why isn't there any bowls?"

The large bead of sweat was mirrored by Rukia.

"Er…"

Ichigo sighed. "Leave it to you to get everything, except the bowls."

"Hey! It's because I was working so hard on the meal!"

"Yeah, so hard that you forgot to bring something to eat it in."

"Shut-up. Anyway, look," she pointed to two pairs of chopsticks. "At least we have them."

"Oh yeah, and what am I supposed to do with chopsticks without a bowl?"

"Eat from the container, idiot." Rukia proceeded to break up her pair of chopsticks, and grabbed a large helping of noodles from the container. "I've done it lots of times," she announced proudly.

The large bead of sweat dropped.

"Jeez, fine, fine." Ichigo sighed as he scooted closer to Rukia. He waited till she had started chewing on her noodles before digging his chopsticks into the container. He just realized how hungry he was, and proceeded to eat the noodles. However, being Ichigo, he took such a large helping that he couldn't eat it all in one bite, so he let some of the noodles hang down over the container.

Rukia finished her first mouthful, swallowed, and said, "Yuck! Don't slobber all over the container."

Ichigo, with his mouth still full, replied angrily, "Itf woudenf had happthend if thumone had bourght ah bowrr."

Rukia stared at him. "What?"

Ichigo rolled his eyes, and Rukia shook her head, muttering to herself about how people shouldn't talk with their mouth full. She took another helping of the noodles, not noticing that because Ichigo had let the noodles hang loose over the container, she had accidentally gotten some of his noodles.

Ichigo, on the other hand, decided to let Rukia win all the arguments while his mouth was still full, but as soon as he would finish… He never finished his next thought. What he saw, directly in front of him, and only a few inches away, was a very started Rukia. His face soon turned the same colour as hers, as they both realized that they were eating the same noodle, and because of the shock, they just kept chewing slowly, coming closer, and closer, and closer, and…

What the heck! I'm…I'm… Ichigo was basically pleading for his body to stop moving forward.

It's just Rukia…

Rukia, on the other hand, just kept coming closer and closer, till all that was left between them was the one noodle. Ichigo looked at her eyes. They were wide, open, and innocent.

Their lips met, for the tiniest of seconds. And then, just as quick as it had started, it finished.

They suddenly recoiled, as if realizing what they had done. Seconds, then minutes passed.

"That was mine." Rukia broke the uncomfortable silence.

"H-huh?" Ichigo didn't understand, and Rukia just laughed silently inside of herself. Ichigo was still young, after all.

"..."

"That was my noodle."

"What?" The astonishment quickly turned to anger. "What do you mean that was yours? It was in my chopsticks!"

Rukia turned around. "Yeah, whatever," she said in an annoyingly airy voice.

Ichigo growled under his breath. "Damn you."

Rukia turned back, facing him. Ichigo's angry face was just too funny, and he was staring at her like he wanted to bore a hole through her body with his eyes. She scrunched up her face and poked out her tongue. "Nyah!"

Ichigo sighed. Damn those manga's.

To be continued…

AN: HA! FINISHED SCHOOL… for a bit…anyway, review and review and all that, sorry about the little delay, but exams, exams, did I mention exams?