EDIT: 20-May-2011. Fixed grammar and spelling errors. Removed bulky A/N.

Warnings for extreme OOC-ness, fast pace and overall teenage-ness. =)

End of the outreach is in this chapter. :D

Disclaimer: Bleach isn't mine. Book from which the whole story was based on is owned by Tara FT Sering.

All The Right Moves

Chapter 5

The Star of the Show: Supergirl Juliet!

Previously…

Two more days passed without incident.

On the morning of the 5th day, Yoruichi-sensei reported at an assembly by the grassy area that several of the volunteers had gotten sick and had to be sent home.

Unfortunately, Tōshirō was one of them.

For a while, Rukia imagined that life at the outreach would be extremely boring without Tōshirō, even if the most she saw of him was at night when she handed the food she prepared after he worked as a carpenter during the day. The way he smiles at her had been such an inspiration to Rukia—something she looked forward to everyday. Even when she was so exhausted from running after the energetic Yachiru and other frisky toddlers, and teaching them songs all day long, she still looked forward to doing her early evening food routine. Now, what would keep her going without Tōshirō there? The kids, perhaps? Or the community she had come to know?

a. Should I stay on and finish what I started—and what I actually came here for?

or

b. Should I go home as well and volunteer to be Tōshirō's nurse on the way home?

RUKIA sadly said her goodbyes to Tōshirō who weakly boarded the van that was taking the sick and the volunteer nurses back home. Rukia really wanted to be a volunteer nurse for Tōshirō, especially since that blonde junior girl Makoto Yumi was one of the volunteer nurses and Rukia was so certain that she wouldn't let such an opportunity to get closer to Tōshirō slip away. The problem was, Rukia couldn't take it upon herself to leave the poor, helpless people of the community she had grown quite fond of—the real reason she was there in the first place. She had gotten close to them, and somehow, she got the feeling that she was well-liked. It filled her heart with undeniable joy.

It was on the Tuesday of the second week of their stay when Yoruichi-sensei encouraged everybody to appreciate nature and take photos for posterity. Rukia suspected, however, that Yoruichi-sensei simply wanted company in the photos so she could pin them up on the bulletin board at school. But the dark-skinned woman was in such a good mood that day—which was very rare for her—that no one had the heart to say no. One of the volunteers gamely put a picnic basket together while all the girls and Yoruichi-sensei trooped to the nearby creek, the one where Tōshirō and Rukia sat beside each other almost a week ago. The water was ice-cold and the huge rocks were slippery.

"Isn't this wonderful girls?" Yoruichi-sensei asked, sniffing the air. "Fresh air! Clear water! Okay, let's have our photo taken here!"

From out of nowhere, an official photographer appeared.

It turns out, the town's local officials sent him to take snapshots showing how everyone was happy and having fun at the evacuation site. The girls were all in a row, trying to smile despite the sun's glare, when all of a sudden, they heard someone screaming and crying. Heads turned in every direction, searching for the source of the sound. When they finally found where it came from, they saw that a small boy, no more than 7 years of age, had somehow managed to get to the other side of the creek. He didn't look like he was in grave danger, but all of his friends have ran away and fear had made him hysterical. Also, he had no clothes on.

Rukia remembered the kid as one of Yachiru's playmates during one of their babysitting sessions.

Yoruichi-sensei yelled to ask if he was okay, and through his tears he said no, and that he stepped on a sharp stone, slipped, and his left foot was wounded, so he couldn't make it back home. Suddenly, everyone noticed how the air was dry and prickly on the skin. Not at all suitable for someone to forego wearing clothes.

The official photographer—the only grown male in the area at the moment—looked at his shoes, looked at the creek, and then didn't say a word. Rukia figured he was not going to do it without second thought, so she—in a fit of courage and a very impulsive on-the-spot decision—suddenly waded through the creek towards the poor little boy. The other girls call out to her to come back and ask for help instead, but the little boy looked so afraid that Rukia could barely imagine leaving him there any longer. So she plodded on, and the water got deeper until it was waist high. The petite girl swallowed heavily, summoning all the courage she had earlier. Rukia finally got to the boy and told him to ride on her back, which the frightened child did without pause, and then walked back through the waist deep water. The raven-haired girl carried him on her back all the way home that by nightfall, she was drained of energy.

Her mom would surely scold Rukia if she ever found out that the petite girl got sick during the outreach and didn't even bother calling home. Rukia couldn't, however, imagine leaving everyone she had gotten close to before the whole program was even over, so she decided to stay…again.

The heat of the sun, plus the fact that her adrenaline shot up too fast too soon when she rescued the boy the day before left Rukia extremely tired and exhausted. She had been instructed to rest and cool off in the large tent the whole day. She had been in the outreach for a week and a half, and because it was so close to the end of the program, she pleaded with Yoruichi-sensei to not send her home, promising to recover in no time.

Some of the kids Rukia babysit during the day, led by the boy she rescued and a happily bouncing Yachiru, came to visit her. They took a peek in groups, giggling as they poked their heads in. At some point, the giggling didn't stop and Rukia was so distracted from the manga she was reading that she just put it down and indulged her guests.

Suddenly, someone called out Rukia's name as if to check if she was awake. The voice was familiar, but in her disorientation, Rukia couldn't quite place it…

Tōshirō poked his head in. "Hi, heard you were sick, supergirl."

ACK! The first thing that came to Rukia's mind was that she looked sick.

"Hi, w-what are you doing here?" Rukia asked as she tried to fix her hair to gain any semblance of order. She would've been blushing bright crimson, too embarrassed at being caught looking worse for wear by the soccer star were she not drained of energy. As it was, she couldn't find it in herself to do more than stutter on a few words to show her nervousness. Thank goodness.

"Can I come in?" he asked. Rukia could see the silhouette of the little kids on the tent wall as they giggled and pushed each other outside, and even heard a yell of "Bye-bye Shorty-chan, Whitey-chan!"

"Sure," Rukia said, sitting up.

"I'm feeling well already," Tōshirō started. "But I'm still not allowed to work. So I'm just visiting. I decided to check on you." He smiled at the end of his statement, looking around the large tent.

Rukia's head spun so quickly she lost track of all other thoughts but one—did he just say check on you? 'Me?'

"I wanted to ask you to watch the soccer championships."

She was really feeling a fever now. So Rukia decided to just say, "Yeah, sure."

The raven-haired immediately passed out the moment her head hit the pillow.

"I'm pretty impressed, supergirl." The white-haired lad whispered as he tucked several strands of Rukia's hair behind her ear, smiling before making his way out.

The rest of the outreach remained uneventful, and before she knew it, Rukia was saying goodbye and going home.

Back at school, Rukia adjusted quickly back to her normal academic life. Everything had been going by smoothly, but she hadn't forgotten about the soccer championships yet. In fact, it was all she could think of the last few days. She hadn't seen Tōshirō since she got back from the outreach, and even if Rukia was still on a high after doing all those good deeds, her mind settled back into its default mode: thinking about Tōshirō.

Rangiku and Momo almost harassed Rukia with all of their questions about what occurred during the outreach. When they finally calmed down, they decided to break some news to Rukia.

"Hey, you've been gone for two weeks and all. And you said you'll make it up to us for choosing the outreach over the Drama Club, right?" Rangiku asked.

"Yeah, what of it?" Rukia asked back.

"Well, girl, the Drama Club is still open for auditions! I don't think they met the needed number of new recruits, so you can still join. Come on! It's going to be so much fun!" Rangiku excitedly announced.

"She's right, Rukia. The Drama Club is really fun. Plus the three of us in it together? Go to the auditions, okay?" Momo said, smiling in encouragement.

Rukia sighed. "Alright. But, I'm not assuring you I'll actually get in, okay? I don't think I'm qualified enough to be a part of the club."

"Oh, come on Kia-chan! No need to get all shy and stuff! You've played several lead roles when we were in middle school! For all we know, maybe the Drama Club is just waiting for you to audition." Rangiku grinned teasingly at her petite friend.

Rukia playfully rolled her eyes. As if.

The auditions went by pretty well, and Rukia was in. And as if to prove that Rangiku's words true, the auditions were officially closed after Rukia joined the Drama Club.

The whole school seemed to have joined the club, so it really was a wonder why the auditions were still open up to earlier that day. Heck, everyone she knew but Tōshirō was present in the auditorium during their first official meeting—Rangiku, Momo, even Renji and Kaien were there, with his posse of senior guys and girls.

The chose presentation for the school year was the classic Romeo and Juliet. Urahara Kisuke, the director, seemed to have a weird obsession with William Shakespeare. Last year, they did Timon of Athens (an embarrassing flop!), and the year before that was A Midsummer Night's Dream.

Urahara-sensei asked through the megaphone who wanted to play the role of Juliet, and no one dared volunteer—suddenly, everyone was volunteering to be everyone else. Irritated, Urahara-sensei announced that the club would be drawing lots for the role and asked all the girls to write down their names on tiny scraps of paper. From the far corner, the fishbowl got passed around as girls dropped in their names. Finally, it came to Rukia, the last girl, trying to be inconspicuous at the opposite corner.

Urahara-sensei took the fishbowl and everyone watched in slow motion as—out of all the tiny scraps of papers in the glass bowl—he picked the last one in, and announced, "Our Juliet is…"

Kuchiki Rukia's name reverberated around the auditorium as everyone turned to her and started the barrage of teases and cheers.

From the noisy crowd, Kaien unexpectedly jumped forward. "Urahara-sensei, can I be Romeo?"

Rukia scowled. She knew Kaien was just trying to irritate her. Urahara-sensei rolled his eyes, smiling behind his fan as he said, "Of course you an, Shiba-san." Kaien smiled mischievously and gave Rukia a playful wink, with which the petite girl's reply was her tongue.

Everyone knew this play would not be a passionate love story without a kiss, so Rukia right then and there decided that she must back out—AT ONCE!

Rukia raised her hand and violently protested that she didn't want to play the lead role. In the flurry that followed the role assignments—people laughing at each other for the roles assigned to them—nobody heard Rukia protesting. Even Urahara-sensei, now surrounded by laughing students, never once saw her waving her hand wildly.

Rukia decided to tell him after the club time was over. But when she knocked on his office after class, no one was around. Instead, she found something posted on his door: the cast list—with her as Juliet and Kaien as Romeo.

Thank you to all the reviews I'm still getting! I'll try to update as often as I can. Have a great day everyone!