I honestly like this oneshot better than the first. Enjoy! Oh, and once again, I don't own Bleach. If I did, Ichigo and Rukia would have been together already.

"Where are we going, Ichigo?"

Ichigo grunted in annoyance, ignoring giggles and stares from a group of passing girls.

Rukia readjusted her big floppy hat. "Ichigo! Where are we going?"

Ichigo remained silent, walking slightly ahead of Rukia.

Rukia was pissed. Oh, so you want to test me, do you? She stopped dead in her tracks. "But Ichigo, I thought you loved me," she bellowed dramatically.

Ichigo whipped around, his face slightly flushed. "What?"

"Don't act like you don't know what I'm talking about!" She was starting to get a crowd.
"Leaving me for that skank Kimi…"

"Kimi…what the hell…" Ichigo was beginning to get nervous; several spectators were shaking their heads at him disgustedly.

"Ichigo, how could you, I'm with child!" she cried, her voice filled with phony emotion. A murmur went around the crowd, and a couple people gasped.

At that moment, Ichigo was positive that Rukia was the devil himself. His right eyebrow twitched with fury as he turned around and grabbed Rukia's hand. "Can't you understand the concept of surprises?" he hissed at her, so quiet only she could hear. He continued to guide her to the destination, dragging her away from the crowd of people that had formed.

"Where the hell did you learn that from?" Ichigo was no longer angry. He was now dead tired, and it was only ten o'clock. That's what Rukia did to him.

"It's a monologue from a soap opera that I saw yesterday," Rukia stated proudly, looking smug. "Where are we going?"

Ichigo sighed, and then admitted defeat. "The beach. Chad and Inoue and everyone are waiting for us there."

Rukia's face was furrowed in confusion. "The…beach?"

"You'll see. We have to make a stop first."

They continued walking in silence. Rukia glanced up at Ichigo, noticing how the sun lit up his profile. His bright orange hair seemed to be radiating light. For some reason, her stomach began to feel funny, and at that moment, she noticed that they were still holding hands.

Ichigo didn't seem to notice, and she wasn't going to point it out because his hands amazed her. It amazed her that they were twice the size as hers, and what they were capable of was even more astonishing. They were strong, and could beat a person to a bloody pulp, but at the same time, those hands were gentle, carefully cradling hers.

This is what she told herself. It was the truth. Well, partially true. Rukia refused to acknowledge that holding Ichigo's hand made her happy.

"What's so funny?" Ichigo had to look way down to see her face. She really was short.

Rukia hadn't realized that a smile had crept onto her face. "Nothing." She discreetly removed her hand from Ichigo's and used it to nervously readjust her hat.

He hadn't realized he had her hand until it was gone. He cleared his throat uncomfortably. "Well, we're here."

Rukia wrinkled her nose. "This store is the beach?"

Ichigo couldn't stop the smile from reaching his face. Dammit. He had an image to uphold, you know. "This isn't the beach. We have to get you a bathing suit first."

"A what?"

Ichigo pulled a pink bikini off one of the racks. "One of these."

Rukia gasped dramatically, putting a hand over her heart. "You can't expect me to show my goodies to everybody," she exclaimed pompously.

Ichigo raised an eyebrow at her, wondering where the hell she got her vocabulary from. He was getting more tired by the minute. "No one wants to see your flat-chested midget ass anyway. Just pick one."

He didn't see the punch coming, but he really should have.

Rukia stalked off in a huff, looking through the racks. After trying on a million different swimsuits in a million different colors, she settled on a cerulean bikini that really brought out her indigo eyes.

She looked good.

After Ichigo paid for her stuff, they continued on to the beach. Rukia gasped in wonder, making Ichigo smile. She was acting like a little kid.

"Oooh, look, look, where does the water stop?" she exclaimed, grabbing his arm in excitement. "It's so blue! What's this stuff on the ground? It's soft. Geez, there are a lot of people. You know I hate crowds! Are you even listening to me? Oooh, look, a bird!"

"There they are," he said finally, nodding his head in their direction.

"Kurosaki-kun! Kuchiki-san! Over here!" Orihime was waving her hands wildly, as if they hadn't seen her already. She was in a red one piece swimsuit, and as usual, her boobs were covered up in effort not to bring attention to them. Unfortunately, and also as usual, her humungous knockers brought attention to themselves and were getting ogled by most of the guys on the beach.

Orihime wasn't the only one there. She had brought Tatsuki with her, and Chad and Uryu were sitting on towels. "Took you long enough," Uryu spat at Ichigo. Believe it or not, he was wearing swim trunks with the Quincy cross all over them.

"Shut up," Ichigo said, pulling his shirt over his head.

Rukia unconsciously stopped breathing. Had Ichigo always been so deliciously ripped? If this were a manga she would be drooling a little.

"Come here, Rukia," he said, pulling a bottle of sunscreen out of his bag. Rukia just stared at him. "Come on, you need to put some of this on or you'll burn," he stated forcefully, squeezing some in his hand and reaching for her.

"No!" Rukia said, slinking away from all that beautiful muscle. "Come on Inoue, show me around."

"No problemo!" Orihime went into full guide mode. She grabbed Rukia's hand. "Let's go! To the water! Yay!"

"Whatever," Ichigo muttered, watching Orihime drag Rukia to the water and slathering himself in sunscreen. "Don't come crying to me."

"Ichigo," Chad bellowed.

Ichigo looked up from what he was doing. "What's up, Chad?"

Chad just looked at him. He could tell that there was something between those two, but he could also tell that either they didn't realize it or they chose to ignore it. Finally, he said, "Never mind."

Ichigo looked perplexed. "Okay."

"Come on guys," Tatsuki said, stretching. "Let's play some volleyball." Chad and Ichigo followed her, followed reluctantly by Ishida.

"Ah, AH, the water's cold!" Rukia shrieked as a wave hit her from behind.

Orihime laughed hysterically. "This is so much fun!" She bent down and started splashing Rukia, oblivious, as usual, to all of the guys staring at her.

Rukia coughed, choking on the saltwater. "St-stop, Inoue," she sputtered. When the splashing did not cease, she bopped Orihime on the head with her fist. "I SAID STOP!"

"I'm sorry," Orihime whimpered, a tear in her eye. Her crying quickly stopped when she saw something on shore. "Ice cream! I love ice cream! I'll be right back, Kuchiki-san," she called, running out of the water.

Rukia smiled. You had to love her.

She continued to stay in the water, feeling it wrap her body in cool comfort. She didn't venture deeper than her waist, though, because she couldn't swim and had no intention of drowning.

The real world is great. As soon as that thought echoed through her head, a huge wave came from behind and knocked her over.

She surfaced sputtering and pissed. "Stupid ocean! I almost died!"

A strange feeling came over Rukia. Something was different; something was off. She was looking around, trying to figure out what was wrong, when she noticed her bikini top was gone.

A small shriek escaped her lips. She crouched down on the sea floor, the water now covering her upper half as well as her bottom. In a panic, she searched around her for the fabric that covered her. It was gone. Oh crap.

She stayed like that for a while, pondering her next move. What should she do? She couldn't stay like this forever; her knees were starting to hurt and her skin was pruning. Rukia sighed deeply, and then noticed that Orihime had returned from getting her ice cream.

"Inoue!" Rukia called frantically, "could you come here for a sec?"

Orihime glanced at Rukia in the water. "Oh, Kuchiki-san! That's okay, I'm done swimming."

"No, Inoue, please come over here," Rukia called, a touch of panic in her voice.

"Oh, no, I'm fine right here," she called back, taking a lick of her ice cream. "Maybe later. Oh my God, is that CAKE?"

"No, no, Inoue, come back!" Rukia called helplessly after the running girl, watching Orihime wave at her.

Dumb bimbo.

How else could she get out of here? She looked around. Tatsuki, Chad, and Uryu were playing some sort of game with a white ball. She sighed. She would just have to find Ichigo and get him to help her.

She looked around and found him sitting under his umbrella, surrounded by a group of busty girls. Rukia became infuriated. Stupid Ichigo! Why'd you have to be so good-looking?!

Wait, what was that thought?

Stupid.

No, the other one.

Um… asshole.

Oh, okay.

Rukia would die before she asked him to help her! She crossed her arms stubbornly. It was getting sort of cold.

"Come on," one of the girls cooed. "Don't you want to swim with us?"

Ichigo was starting to get annoyed. Can't these girls take a hint? He had been ignoring them for five minutes, but they kept pestering him. "No thanks."

"Are you sure?" another asked, practically pushing her breasts in his face.

Ichigo closed his eyes in order to control his annoyance. He opened them again. "I'm sure."

The leader of the girls sighed. "What a shame. Come on girls, he's boring." They finally left him alone.

"Hey Ichigo," Tatsuki called, "we're going to get some lunch. Wanna come?" She and the other guys had stopped playing volleyball and had returned under the umbrella.

"Sure." He needed a break from the beach vibe anyway. He stood up, dusting sand off of himself. "I'll go get Rukia."

"Okay, we'll meet you there," Tatsuki replied, looking for Orihime.

Ichigo searched the waters for Rukia, finally finding her head seemingly floating three feet out. "What…are you doing?"

"Nothing." Why am I so stubborn? Rukia thought to herself. "Just enjoying the water."

"Okay, well it's lunchtime. Come on out."

"No."

Ichigo looked at her. "Rukia, you can get back in when we come back. Come on."

There was nothing else she could do. "I…I can't."

"Why not?

Rukia took a deep breath. "Um…oh hell! My bikini top is gone, okay! I can't get out; I'll flash people."

A funny expression passed over Ichigo's face. He didn't say anything, he just walked to his stuff and came back.

He got close enough to hand her the towel, but still kept his distance. "Here." He turned his head away from her until he heard her splashing to her feet.

Rukia's joints were sore and her skin wrinkled. "Thanks," she muttered, heading back towards the umbrella to find her dress.

"Rukia," Ichigo called after her, following her to the umbrella. "Rukia."

She had reached her destination and was searching through the bag with one hand while holding onto her towel with the other.

"Rukia."

His soft tone made her turn around and look him in the eye.

"Why didn't you tell me sooner?"

For once in her life, Rukia was speechless. She decided to continue looking for her dress instead of confess. Finally, she was forced to admit it—her dress was not in the bag. "It's not here." She bit her lip. She must have left it in the swimsuit store.

Ichigo reached over her and into the bag. "Put this on." He handed her his shirt and pointed to a changing tent.

The shirt was long on her, landing just a little above her knees. Rukia tried not to think about how much the shirt smelled like him. Ichigo tried not to think about how nothing was under that shirt but bikini bottoms.

By now, the sun was starting to set and people were going home. They sat under the umbrella, watching nothing and watching everything. "This is the longest lunch I have ever seen," Rukia stated. "They left hours ago."

"Probably got distracted." He looked at her. "Are you hungry?"

Rukia shook her head. "I'm content looking at the sunset. It's so pretty."

It was true. The sky was lit up with yellow, orange, red, and even purple, all over the sparkling blue sea.

"I used to come to the beach all the time," Ichigo said suddenly, not really to her, but to the universe. He smiled. "My mom loved it here."

Rukia looked at Ichigo, her knees hugged to her chest and the shirt pulled over them. "Why'd you stop?"

"She died." He looked over the water at nothing in particular. "It made me sad to come here."

"What's so different now?" Rukia wondered out loud. "Are you sad now?"

He finally looked at her. For a couple seconds, that's all he did, look at her. Then he smiled, and said, "No."

She had returned to looking over the water when she felt his hand on her face. Ichigo was using his thumb to wipe away sand. His eyes squinted in concentration as he worked. Finally, when sand was gone to his satisfaction, he removed his hand and started to take it back.

Rukia caught it before he could.

She wasn't sure why, but she had grabbed his hand, surprising both of them.

They stared at each other. Neither of them blinked, and they hardly breathed; they just took each other in without saying a word. Their hearts were beating a mile a minute.

Then, as if there was a magnet, they slowly started moving towards each other, closing the gap between them. Ever so slowly, not taking their eyes off one another, as if they were afraid they would miss something. They continued until their lips were millimeters apart and stopped there, as if asking each other for permission.

A loud voice broke them out of their trance. "There you guys are!" Orihime yelled running towards them. She didn't seem to notice how far away they sat from one another or their red, embarrassed faces. "We would have waited at the restaurant, but Tatsuki noticed an arcade, and her and the boys started playing…anyway, on the way back, we saw a pastry shop. Do you guys want to come?"

Ichigo was the first to speak. "Sure, why not." He stood up, dusted himself off, and reached out his hand to help Rukia up. She accepted it, and once on her feet, shook sand off of Ichigo's shirt.

"So Kuchiki-san," Orihime started when the three of them started walking towards the others, "how did you like your first trip to the beach?"

Rukia spoke truthfully. "Well, it was…interesting." But it didn't matter because Orihime was too busy thinking about the pie she would eat once they got to the pastry shop, and Ichigo was too busy trying not to think about what was under his shirt and failing miserably at it.

Ichigo never got that shirt back.