Don't own Bleach!!

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Chapter Two: Guessing Game

"Toushirou's been acting really weird around me lately." Karin said with a frown. She booted the soccer ball at her feet into a tree and watched it come right back towards her. Then the girl turned and looked up at the shinigami standing nearby. "Do you know what's up with him, Matsumoto?"

Matsumoto's eyes widened for a second and then she burst into a cheeky smile. "Oh!! Thaaatt… Gosh, Karin, don't tell me you don't know!! It's pretty obvious!!" Her voice rose and she sounded giddy like an excited child.

Karin rested her foot on the ball and pulled a confused face at the Tenth Company assistant captain. "What's pretty obvious? What's wrong with him?"

Matsumoto headed closer towards Karin and leant down so that her face was almost eye-level to hers. "Duh!! He's in love!!"

Matsumoto watched the young girl's eyes widen with surprise. She sounded incredulous, "What?? NO WAY!! Toushirou's in love??"

"Yep." Matsumoto looked slyly at Karin. "He's totally smitten."

"Wow." Karin said, her voice a mixture of disbelieving sarcasm and surprise. She returned to kicking the soccer ball at the tree.

"I mean, you've noticed it," Matsumoto said casually. "He's totally different when he's around you. He's been close to you for a while now but he's starting to react differently to you recently."

"Huh…" Karin muttered.

Matsumoto added, "He's completely head over heels."

"…Hm."

Karin was silent for a moment and then Matsumoto got the feeling that she was about to ask her for advice on what to do.

"Say, Matsumoto…" Karin murmured as she stopped the ball at her feet, and slowly looked up at her.

"Yes, Karin??" Matsumoto answered, hiding her smug smile.

"…So who's this person Toushirou's got the hots for anyway?" Karin asked, completely oblivious.

Matsumoto collapsed.

---

"Hey Toushirou…"

"Eh?" the snowy-haired captain raised his head and looked at her with his crystal blue-green eyes.

"You'll never guess what Matsumoto told me today!!" Karin said, grinning goofily like the child she was, bursting with an insane secret.

Hitsugaya was careful. He raised his eyebrows cautiously. "…yeah? What did she say?"

Karin didn't answer.

Hitsugaya panicked slightly but tried not to show it. His voice grew a little more urgent as he repeated, "What did she say?"

Karin sent him a wicked grin before replying.

He frowned and opened his mouth to speak. Before a word could come out of his mouth, Karin took a step away from him and dramatically pointed a finger at him, declaring: "You're in love, Toushirou!!"

It took a second for Hitsugaya to grasp what she meant. Immediately, his face began to burn, a pinkness spreading across his cheeks; and a kind of fury appeared in his eyes. He glared at her, "WHAT??"

Karin laughed wickedly, the mischief twinkling in her dark eyes.

Hitsugaya didn't know how to react. So, he had been annoyed that she hadn't noticed how he felt about her, but now that she knew of his feelings… how was he to respond? He felt embarrassment and shame. Especially now that she was laughing mockingly at him for it.

He felt an odd twinge inside. He glanced down confused. Was his… was his heart hurting right now?

His face tightened as he heard Karin's clear laughter. Damn. It hurt. Why did she have to laugh at him? Was it so hard to believe?

He considered this. He was, after all, the ice cold captain of Tenth Division. Rarely smiling, rarely revealing anything about himself; a distant, defensive person. And he had fallen for a simple human girl.

Thinking about it that way… yeah. It was hard to believe.

Karin's laughter which normally delighted him now got on his nerves. He turned to her, his eyes flashing with anger as he started, "What the hell is-?!"

Karin hadn't heard him. She went on and asked, "So who is it that you like so much anyway?"

He blinked at her. Huh??

Karin frowned at him. "Toushirou? Who is it??"

He stared at her incredously. "What…" he started softly. He saw the blunt innocence in Karin's eyes and any hurt he had felt before changed into anger and frustration. He opened his mouth and finished the statement he had been meaning to say before.

"Wh…what the hell is wrong with your head, baka?!?"

---

"Well… what's she like?" Karin asked.

Hitsugaya paused before turning to gaze at the girl sitting beside him on the roof of Orihime's house. His eyes met hers for a second and then flickered down away from her. His heart beat a little faster as he muttered softly, "She… she has black hair…"

Karin frowned out at the darkening scenery around her. "Is she shorter than you or taller than you?"

Hitsugaya refused to look at her. "She's… around my height, I guess. Maybe a little shorter… yeah… she's short."

Karin was silent as she racked her brains. Then she said, "Ah! I know!!"

"What?" Hitsugaya said, slightly dreading her answer.

"It's Rukia, isn't it??" Karin declared.

"Huhh…?" was Hitsugaya's smart reply.

Karin counted off the requirements. "She has black hair and she's short! It's Rukia, isn't it?"

Hitsugaya sighed loudly to himself. Karin frowned at him. "I'm right, aren't I?"

She spoke to herself then, wondering: "But if it was Rukia, then… how would Ichi-nii react to that?"

Suddenly, she changed the topic and asked Hitsugaya, "Hey, does that Hinamori you always think about have black hair?"

"What?" Hitsugaya stared at her. His eyes were tensed now and hurt visible in them. The mention of Hinamori's name made his insides turn and pain attack his stomach. He didn't want to hear her name!! He didn't need to remember the girl who he did everything for and then was brutally rejected from.

"…so it is her then?" Karin noted the long painful silence.

Hitsugaya was silent, unable to correct her. She waited. Then he said, "No. It isn't her… not anymore."

Karin nodded thoughtfully. She sighed with annoyance as she stretched her legs out in front of her and ran a hand through her hair restlessly. They sat in silence for another moment and then she burst out, "This isn't fair, Toushirou!!"

Hitsugaya looked at her, cautiously. Had she found out??

"You know I don't know that many soul reapers in the first place! How am I meant to guess any black-haired, short, female shinigami??"

He was about to snap at her angrily and then understood why she thought it could only be a soul reaper. Hitsugaya couldn't stop the affection for her childish idea shining in his eyes. He gazed at her and said, "She's not a soul reaper. She's a human."

Karin opened her mouth in amazement. "No way!!" she cried skeptically. She blinked in disbelief a few times and then asked, "Is she around my age or is she an adult?"

"She's around your age. …You know her."

Karin frowned, still stunned by the impossibility of Hitsugaya falling for a human. She concentrated fiercely, trying to put together the snippets of information she had collected. "Is it Ururu? From Urahara Shoten?"

"No." Hitsugaya said bluntly.

Karin was seriously at a loss. But watching Hitsugaya, who was practically her best friend, sigh and gaze mournfully into the distance, she felt like she was meant to find out who it was.

Her eyebrows raised quizzically because she herself was doubtful about the guess, she half-heartedly guessed again. "Midoriko?"

Hitsugaya's long-tested patience today was definitely running out with Karin's ignorant stupidity. "No!" he snapped.

Karin was pissed too. "I don't know!!" She cried. "This is too hard!! Why can't you just tell me who it is already??"

"I can't tell you who it is!!" Hitsugaya cried back.

She frowned at him. "Why not?? You don't trust me or something?"

"No! I do trust you!" He breathed hard from his impatience and anger. "It's just…" the hardness in his eyes left and he said softly, "It's just not that easy…"

They sat there, thoughtfully; the two of them perched on top of Orihime's roof, gazing down at the beautifully bright streaks of colour the sunset displayed across the sky.

Hitsugaya was annoyed. Annoyed and frustrated with Karin's lack of progress and brains. Smirking with hidden anger at the black-haired girl sitting next to him that happened to be just shorter than him, he said, "Hey, Karin?"

"Yeah?"

"Tell you what else," The shinigami captain said through his forced smirk, "this girl I like… she's an idiot. She's really, really stupid."

Karin was surprised. "Is she? I can't imagine you having the patience to deal with someone as stupid as you say she is."

You're right. I don't have the patience. Hitsugaya thought, gritting his teeth.

"Would it be Matsumoto?" Karin asked. "You always say she's an idiot."

Yes she is an idiot, but not anywhere near as idiotic as you are!!

Hitsugaya was furious. "How could you even suggest that?? What part of human, black-haired and shorter than me did you not get?!?"

"Forget this," Hitsugaya stood up huffily, preparing to leave. "Don't even bother guessing anymore."

Karin got to her feet. "Then are you gonna tell me?"

"No, I'm not!" He snapped.

"Awww… Toushirou!!" She whined as she followed him down the roof and watched him head towards Orihime's front door. "It's not fair!! You can't make me guess all day and then get angry and not tell me!!"

He turned at Orihime's doorstep and met her gaze. His blue-green eyes softened at the desperate cluelessness she held.

"I'm not going to tell you, Karin." he said, his voice slipping back into the calmness he always had.

Hitsugaya said one word before he turned again and went inside. He tried to hide the growing affection in his voice by sounding as normal as possible, but the awkwardness was still there.

"Baka."

Thanks for reading!! I'm not sure if the end of that chapter turned out the way I wanted it to, but oh well. I hoped you liked it!! Please review!! ^_^ emichii