Disclaimer: I do not own Bleach or anything associated with it. Title of owner goes to 久保 帯人. :3 Nor do I own anything related to the Hana Yori Dango drama or manga.

AN: Heeey, thank you guys and gals so much for the feedback! I decided to go the random route: short chapters here and long chapters there. I try to cut chapters at places where I feel there will be either a cliffhanger or serve as an appropriate kind of ending point before the next chapter starts...

I said there was going to be a surprise in this chapter but ah, I'm sorry there's not much of a suprising thing in here... Well, I'll let you be the judge. I did include some background info on the Kuchiki/Shiba family. This is one of the chapers that I consider to be short so please bear with me! I tried to update as quickly as I could! Especially since this is one of my busier weeks...

Yosh! よろしくお願いします！

Chapter 12

The Shiba and Kuchiki families were well tied for many decades. It all started with the dear friendship of Kaien's and Byakuya's grandfathers. They built their fortunes together and passed down their wealth to their respective sons. Nonetheless their sons, Kaien's father and Byakuya's father, shared no similar friendship as their fathers shared.

After the passing of the Shiba and Kuchiki grandfathers, both sons were shocked to find that their father's will specifically stated the wealth to be split 50/50 as well as the control of a large and booming financial corporation. Literally in one night, the Shiba and Kuchiki bond was broken.

Fate affected Kaien's father negatively. His father died tragically in a car accident when Kaien was a mere 7 years of age. If it weren't for his father's plan for Kaien as the sole heir to the Shiba's half of the company, Byakuya's father would have had full control of everything.

Yet Byakuya's father found a way to gain more control of the financial corporation. Kaien and his mother were left with a large amount of funds at their disposal but Kaien would never be able to have equal control of the corporation his father had intended for him to have.

So after many years the financial corporation that Kaien and Byakuya's grandfathers had built together became one enterprise under the Kuchiki name.

In his lifetime Kaien never felt the need to go against Byakuya. Sure, Byakuya was an arrogant, greedy, selfish man. Like father, like son. But Kaien, at one point in his young life, had actually admired Byakuya. He was the model student: intelligent, dashing, and respected by his peers.

At dinner parties when Kaien and his mother were invited by Byakuya's own mother, Kaien would observe the mannerisms of Byakuya and mimic them when he was home. Byakuya was well praised by all the elders and Kaien was well on his way to having the same kind of praise.

When Rukia was born, Kaien instantly took a liking to her also. She was the little sister he never had. Along with Byakuya, Kaien had secretly wished they were his own siblings. He played with Rukia when they were older children and admired Byakuya at a distance since Byakuya was barely seen playing childish games at all.

When Byakuya's parents passed away, all things changed from then on. During this time, Kaien had become a young man and a new graduate of Takaimono. Kaien's admiration for Byakuya was long gone once he witnessed how ruthless Byakuya had become. Byakuya had instant control of the financial corporation. With his newfound power, Byakuya declared himself president of the company and gave no significant title to Kaien.

With no real control over the company and less than 50% of the shared assets he had possession over (although still important to the company), Kaien stepped aside and did not budge an inch to stop Byakuya.

Kaien's mother set up an arranged marraige for him at the age of 19 with the daughter of a wealthy ambassador. Although they were in no danger of losing their fortune, his mother wanted to feel secure in her wealth at the least. Byakuya had tricks up his sleeve and they never knew what to expect.

Now with the recent events revolving around Rukia and Ichigo, Kaien had his high hopes and his doubts. Kaien was rooting for them for sure but Byakuya would be hard to persuade. When it came to Rukia, Kaien would put her feelings before what high society deemed acceptable.

Kaien knew one thing for sure. He would do anything in his power to help Rukia if Byakuya ever tried to get in the way of her happiness. Kaien knew too well how it felt to have one's own happiness taken away.

He had a worry deep in the back of his mind that he would have to intervene sooner than later.

Ichigo was surrounded by loud music, flashing neon lights, and mingling teens when he was at the nightclub. As he stood there in amazement of the atmosphere, he felt a bit carefree to say the least. He made sure to give notice to his family beforehand to avoid another crying fest from his father.

For the first ten minutes, he stood with the group of his school classmates while speaking of random topics. Then out of the blue, one of the boys pointed behind Ichigo with a look of surprise.

"Whoa, hey! Look at that girl over there by herself. She is way too cute to be alone."

"She reminds me of someone…" Another boy chimed in.

"Orihime-san, right?" The one next to Ichigo added.

"Oh yeah! A little bit…" Ichigo's classmate prodded Ichigo with his elbow. "Hey, Ichi. Go ask her for a dance. You're the only one out of all of us that hasn't danced with a girl."

The others all agreed and cheered him on to approach her. Ichigo took a good look at the girl and noticed she did share a striking resemblance to Orihime. The only thing different was the color of her hair, a deep brown color.

Tatsuki felt a little uncomfortable in her apron and work uniform as she stood among the splendors around her. Renji had taken her to his mansion where Toshirou had quickly joined them, carrying a least a dozen bags of candied goodies. He had no interest in sweets and decided to give them to Renji.

"Here. Knock yourself out." He threw them all carelessly at Renji who fell over at the impact of the bags hitting his head.

With a frustrated grunt, Renji lifted himself out the pile of bags and beckoned for his butler to take care of the mess.

Tatsuki stood to the side, debating whether she should make a run for it now. When she did move an inch, Renji swiftly led her over to a couch and had her sit down across from him and Toshirou who sat on the opposite couch.

"Can you now explain why you so forcefully kidnapped me?" Tatsuki spoke up bitterly when they were settled. She glared daggers at Renji who raised his eyebrows when he felt slightly threatened.

"We didn't want it to seem like that but unfortunately Renji can't control himself." Toshirou answered, sending his own death glare to Renji.

"Sheesh, just gang up on me today." Renji folded his arms and looked away smugly.

"Anyway, since you are Ichigo's best friend, we wanted to clear some things up about his relationship with Rukia." Toshirou explained to Tatsuki. "Renji and I were quite skeptical from the start, but I'm learning to accept it."

"I'm not." Renji added. "Rukia is someone who can be easily blinded by love. I can't help but be worried for her."

"Ichigo isn't the kind of guy you should be worried about." Tatsuki defended her friend. "I, for one, am worried for Ichigo."

"Rukia is quite spontaneous…" Toshirou replied honestly. He continued on. "There is one thing we want to make sure…" He paused. "We want to know if Ichigo would pretend to be interested in Rukia just for her money."

Tatsuki had a fleeting memory pass through her mind when Ichigo had told her of his disinterest in Rukia's money being one reason why he avoided her advances. But was this really her time to reveal Ichigo's feelings? She decided no.

"I can't say what Ichigo's true intentions are. It's something I can't tell you myself. He will do what he wants." Tatsuki bluntly answered.

"You're right." Renji said, nodding in understanding. "He's his own person. But you're not thinking of the consequences that will come from this. There will be so many problems formed from their relationship. Our families, friends, everyone around us will be affected if Ichigo decides to return her feelings. You understand what mess will come about, don't you?"

Tatsuki shook her head. She believed that if two people decided to be together, there should be nothing standing in their way to break their bond. "No, I don't understand."

Renji scoffed at her answer. "Typical. I knew you wouldn't." He rudely added.

"How dare you." Tatsuki said through gritted teeth. Her fists balled up automatically as her temper rose.

Toshirou had to stand up and block Tatsuki from hitting Renji. Once she sat back down, still glaring daggers at Renji, Toshirou began speaking of another topic he had on his mind.

"We'd also like to tell you a few things about Rukia…"

Ichigo was hesitant on talking to this Orihime look-alike. His classmates were still prodding him on, giving him one reason after another on why he should approach her.

"Guys, I uh…" Ichigo's voice drifted off when he noticed a face in the distance that looked too familiar. Is that… Hanatarou?

Something was different about him. His clothes were sleek and trendy, his hair styled in such a way that he didn't look geeky like he normally did. Ichigo did not fully conclude if it was Hanatarou or not. He decided to find out himself but was stopped when his classmate placed a hand on his shoulder to stop him from moving.

"Where are you going? She's coming over!" He exclaimed excitedly.

Before he could react, Ichigo turned to see the pretty girl in front of him carrying two glasses of drinks. She eyed only him, an obvious signal for Ichigo's classmates to leave. They left him alone with her and went to do their own thing.

"Hi." She greeted with a smile.

"H-hello." Ichigo nodded nervously.

"Here's a drink on me." She offered him the glass in her right hand.

Ichigo declined the offer. "No thanks. I'm too young to drink actually."

She laughed and eerily it sounded similar to Orihime's laugh. "It's not alcohol, silly. I'm too young to drink that stuff too. Its just iced tea."

"Oh. Thank you then." Ichigo took the glass cup and exchanged cheers by clinking his glass with her glass. As he took a drink of his tea, he didn't take note that she didn't take a swig of her own drink.

She smiled again. "So what's your name?"

"Ichigo."

At the sound of his name, her eyes brightened with glee. "Oh, that's so cute! Ichigo-kun, eh? I'm Eri." After saying her name, she squinted her eyes as if trying to look at Ichigo through a microscope.

Another smile formed upon Eri's face, this time on the point of being seductive. She inched closer to him and bore her eyes through his. "We should go somewhere to be alone. Just the two of us." She whispered low.

Ichigo gulped heavily at her words. "I umm... wait..."

Eri giggled incessantly at Ichigo's nervousness. "It's okay. I'm a girl, I don't bite... yet. Let's go!" She readily took of hold of his upper arm and made him follow her through a small crowd.

As they were approaching the exit, Ichigo was suddenly hit by a wave of drowsiness. His eyelids were shutting themselves and his mind couldn't prod them back open. He felt woozy at the same time. Before he passed out, he spotted two large men coming toward him and Eri. His mind was already unconscious when Eri released his arm and he fell to the ground.

AN: Wow, that was probably the third or fourth time Ichigo has been knocked out, eh? Haha, I feel sorry for the kid. Really. But I hope you did enjoy thus far and that you'll leave a comment! I love the changes this site has been making! It's much easier to leave a review with just one click of the link at the bottom! ;D

Thank you my loves! ありがとうございます！