Disclaimer: Don' own... except for that extremely nice outfit that Rukia is going to wear for the upcoming skate competition that will have Ichigo's jaws on the floor... Haha.

*****

Flying On Ice

By: anaime

Chapter Three: In Progress

*****

For the rest of the morning Rukia obliged to her duty as a Kuchiki by having brunch with a bunch of relatives that insisted themselves on coming to Byakuya's manor.

So Rukia had to sit next to people with equally bland and disdainful faces as they looked at her well over the next two hours.

Three words: It. Was. Horrid.

After that, Byakuya had a 'little' talk with her that lasted more than half an hour about the precautions of pair skating and precautions of skating and precautions of her new skate partner and precautions of Yoruichi.

By the end of that, Rukia had to hurry and collect her skate necessities and dashed out the door. She arrived at the skating rink, just on time to put on her skates and politely greet Urahara and throw a condescending look at Ichigo.

This was going to be the greatest day of Rukia's short sixteen year old life.

*****

They were doing amazing, Urahara reflected as he watched the two skaters behind hooded eyes. This was there first time skating with each other, and they fit like black and white, night and day.

Okay, so at first they were a little awkward when Urahara had asked them to do a pair camel spin. Rukia's eyes had widened horrifically and Ichigo had glanced at Rukia and exclaimed "No way. No freaking way in hell!"

But they had done it. But only after Rukia kicked Ichigo in the shins.

She kicked him with her ice skates.

After several howls of pain (from Ichigo), they had managed it. A perfect camel spin. Their differences in height didn't look awkward at all. When they finished, Ichigo was cringing and Rukia had her face perfectly composed.

What Urahara had expected, after all.

And Ichigo eventually got better at controlling his facial expressions after six more camel spins.

Urahara chuckled. He had made them do every single awkward and closely intimate trick in the book. His mission, after all, was to make the two comfortable around each other. But really, all you had to do was have Rukia smack Ichigo on the side of his head, and voilá, perfection is born!

*****

Rukia got home at 6:45 that day, vowed to shower a hundred times after dinner. If there wasn't dinner with Nii-sama, Rukia would have sped to her bathroom, washed for two hours, and then told various maids to clean the tub. But, alas, fate is so cruel. There was dinner, so Rukia had only to content herself by washing her hands.

22 times.

*****

When Rukia was pampered and already suffering from improper hygiene at the dinner table, Ichigo was already in his own tub, vigorously scrubbing himself clean, he freaking smelled like that bitch! He'd missed Yuzu's dinner invitation.

His legs were screaming in protest from the long four hour practice of jumping, pushing, twirling, and spinning. He often watched the midget from the corner of his eyes to see if she was cringing in pain, disgust, or whatever. She wasn't. Not seeing her suffer from the long practice, Urahara, or Ichigo's presence had pissed Ichigo off entirely. The girl was not human.

*****

At next morning's practice, Yoruichi was there on the ice rink, staring with calculating eyes at the two skaters that entered at the same time from opposite doors. Both greeted her at the same time with the same greeting.

Glaring contest ensued.

*****

Rukia stared, dejected, at her supposed great skate partner. They had tried to do an axel throw today. Apparently, Ichigo hadn't thrown her at the exact height and she fell on the ice, not able to land on her skates. Rukia was nursing her almost broken ankle with an ice pack. She was letting her mind flow, cursing the orange strawberry with every dirty word in her vocabulary. Three days into this so called partnership, and Rukia was walking on a tight string. She was so tense, and Byakuya even commented on her sudden infatuation with bathing.

Currently, Yoruichi was brandishing something that looked like a knife at Ichigo, who was skating as fast as medal winning speed skaters. Rukia couldn't blame him, Yoruichi was yelling bloody murder. But apparently the once medal winning figure skater could skate faster than medal winning speed skaters.

Yes, Yoruichi realizes this little accident will cause them a week's delay in practice.

*****

The next day, Rukia decided to limp across to the ice rink, just to taunt Ichigo with sitting there reading a book at afternoon practice. She planned to throw in a comment or two about the late sleep she had this morning. He had to do extra practice with Yoruichi to improve his throwing skills.

Rukia almost laughed out loud when she got to the rink.

Ichigo was there, along with Yoruichi and was throwing the ugliest mannequin possible. A fling from his arms….

Weeeeeeee………

Ms. Mannequin hit the ice with the most sickening crunch and landed on its head.

"Hey," Rukia was at the entrance of the skate rink, and obvious humour danced on her face. Ichigo looked at Rukia and scowls, but Rukia missed the slight blush staining his tanned cheekbones.

Yoruichi looked about ready to tear her hair in agony when Rukia looked at her. "Rukia, look at this idiot! We've been practising the whole day, but whenever he makes a throw, the mannequin does not touch the ice with its feet!"

Then she went over and picked up the poor mannequin, and Rukia watched with interest at its numerous bruises. "Here, Princess, watch this!"

Yoruichi grabbed the waist of the mannequin, started skating, and flung the mannequin upwards. It made a perfect 360 in the air and landed on its feet before cluttering unto the ice.

"But Ichigo can't do it! He can't! He just can't!"

Ichigo looked over at Rukia, saw her expression of deep amusement, and, (if possible) scowled even harder. Rukia laughed, climbed to the bleachers, and sat down, perfectly content on loosing herself in the time of 16th century England.

Almost fifteen minutes of the sound of wood hitting ice in the background, Rukia heard and knew Yoruichi was massaging the bridge of her nose with her fingers, "Break, Ichigo. I need to figure out how to make you learn this in a week!"

A few minutes later, Rukia felt someone sit beside her, it was far too heavy to be Yoruichi. Tensing immediately, Rukia tried to go back to her novel. What was Juliet doing?

"Hey." His tone was soft. It suited him, somehow, it was the first time Rukia heard this deep, low, rich sound. Maybe it was the silent, vast oval rink that they were in, but Rukia found herself drowning in Ichigo's voice.

"What?" A curt and direct tone. Rukia congratulated herself, she was surfacing from the drowning Ichigo's voice had caused.

"I just wanted to…" Ichigo paused a fraction of a second, and looked at Rukia's face, "to apologize. Sorry. I didn't mean to let you fall yesterday."

Now shocked, Rukia lifted her head from her book and stared into Ichigo's eyes, they were a liquid gold, casted by the luminescent light above. He was completely sincere, but his tone already told Rukia that.

Whoa. Kurosaki Ichigo could be arrogant, conceited, cocky, and determined to the point of death by annoyance, but was he… actually nice?

"Th- that's fine. It didn't hurt that much. I've gotten into worse injuries before," Rukia cursed herself for stuttering, what, guys can't be nice?

"Yeah, um," The air between them was awkward, Ichigo looked for something, anything, that would distract himself from Rukia's wide, swimming violet eyes, "uh, hey, isn't that Romeo and Juliet?"

Glad that Ichigo had found a topic starter, Rukia joined in immediately. Awkward just didn't work with her. "Uh, yeah. I read it when two years ago when I was on vacation in London. My brother bought it for me."

"Really, can I see?"

Rukia nodded and handed her special edition book to Ichigo. He started flipping the pages and settled in his seat. Ichigo started reading Rukia's book, Romeo and Juliet, the ultimate romance angst story. Rukia was so shocked that she didn't say anything for a minute.

"Kurosaki…" Ichigo didn't even blink, he was now so absorbed about the sweet nothings Romeo was proclaiming to Juliet that Rukia started to think he was doing this to annoy her, "Kurosaki!"

Still nothing. Sighing, Rukia reached over and flicked Ichigo's forehead. That got his attention. "What?!"

"You're reading Romeo and Juliet."

"So?"

"I thought only girls read it."

"Well then, you're wrong. Shakespeare is my favourite. I've read this," Ichigo pointed to Rukia's book, "at least 100 times when I was fifteen."

Judging by Rukia's look of amazement, she hadn't even read the book ten times.

"What, midget, didn't think I can read?"

Sputtering, Rukia said, "B-but, Shakespeare! You like Shakespeare and his sonnets? Are you a girl in disguise in an ugly male body or something?!"

A vein was ticking on Ichigo's left forehead. "Never mind. You obviously don't get it. Shakespeare is phenomenal!"

Rukia had temporarily gone in shock.

Sighing slightly, Ichigo picked up the book again. Apparently, he was talkative about Shakespeare. "Romeo and Juliet was probably the most heart wrenching work Shakespeare made. Macbeth is alright, but it doesn't have lovers killing themselves for each other, so it's not as dramatic. I haven't read Macbeth in a while. Maybe I should go home and go that today." Ichigo stood up and stretched, "nice book, Kuchiki. They only produce 50,000 of these special edition books. Maybe I can trade you?" With a slight smirk, Ichigo departed, leaving Rukia more confused than before.

There was definitely more to Kurosaki Ichigo than an awfully devilish smirk and good taste in books.

*****

And there you have it! Their relationship... in progress. School's killing me, and I'm only two weeks into term three. Term three determines my vacation.

Reviews would be excellent, please... -shining puppy dog eyes- they really do mean a lot to me, and they do motivate me to write! -flashes puppy eyes again-

Haha, have a nice fanfiction/chocolate/ice cream/ filled day! -anaime