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: Hey all! I am back with the newest installment! Whooo, sorry if I took so long that it seemed I was abandoning the story again but no worries, that won't happen at all! I'm just getting a bit busy with the start of school coming around. Oh, and to the manga readers: G-DAMN! ICHIGO LOOKS SO BADASS! And so hot but I'm worried about what's in store by using the final Getsuga Tenshou. *sigh* Waiting for Rukia to make an appearance still!

Anyway, just a few things to some of my reviewers:

Gunblades19: Ah, no worries! I'm not ending it soon since I decided to extend it with this Teen of Japan thing. xD

Twilight Puppeteer Of the Dark: lol, welcome to ! Uh, I'd like to include some HitsuHina but where the story is now, it's going to be realllllllly hard to include her. But we'll see... ;D

XxKasumiAmuxX: Your review brought a huge smile to my face, no lie! We'll see about the Hitsugaya thing and no, Kaien will not die. And I also love Rentatsuki. :D

Thanks to my other reviewers CloudRed1988, Everlastingsakura, lori0108, and readers! Enjoy!

Yosh! Let's go! よろしくお願いします！

Chapter 24

Kaien arrived at the bistro, looking handsomely approachable with a fresh glow to his skin that was undoubtedly obtained from recent basking in sunny coastal weather. The waitress who led him over to where Rukia and Ichigo sat took her sweet time questioning Kaien if he would like to order the day's specials and listed each one by one. Kaien, being the gentleman, listened intently while Rukia sat brooding by tapping her fingers on the tabletop in annoyance at the waitress.

Kaien settled on a simple cup of hot jasmine tea to which the waitress further prodded if he were sure he wouldn't like any other item on the menu. Losing her cool by now, Rukia answered for Kaien and ordered the waitress to get a move on and stop flirting with the man. Ichigo slightly chuckled at the sight of the embarassed waitress shuffling away while Kaien reprimanded Rukia for being rude.

"Fine, fine. I'll be nicer to her when she comes back." Rukia grumbled in compliance with Kaien's demand.

Kaien nodded in satisfaction then swiftly focused his eyes over to Ichigo. "Ichigo! Long time, no see, right?" Kaien grinned happily likely due to the fact that he realized Ichigo and Rukia were finally in some sort of relationship. As if showing his inner joy at their meeting, his long arms caught hold of Rukia's and Ichigo's shoulder on either side of him then pulled them both toward him in a crushing hug. "I'm so happy seeing you two kids together!"

Needless to say, Ichigo felt like he had another version of his father with him right now. What was with the overly blatant display of affection? Ichigo would never understand.

Once Kaien released them both from his almost deathly grip, he took a sip of his cup of tea, which had just arrived. After clearing his throat, his tone quickly became serious.

"Nanao informed me of how you stood up to Byakuya, Ichigo. By gods, you have some courage fit for an army. I'm still wondering how you did it." Kaien commented with wonder lacing his voice.

"He was doing what he thought was right." Rukia added quickly, seemingly defending Ichigo of his brash action.

"But from what I've done, it doesn't seem to fix anything at all." Ichigo included this modestly, and scratched his neck, uncertain what consequences would come about. "I don't know how my family will live through this debt."

"Easy! You win the money to pay for it." Kaien replied confidently without elaborating his statement, making it sound as if his solution was that simple.

It came off as so absurd right off the bat that Rukia eyed him with concern. "Kaien-dono, what are you getting at?"

"T.o.J of course!" Kaien answered her as if stating an obvious fact. This realization hit Rukia as if a light bulb turned on in her head. She nodded in instant agreement.

"T.o.J?" Ichigo repeated slowly, cocking his head to the side in confusion at the English letter abbreviation.

"Teen of Japan. In short, T.o.J." Rukia replied before taking a sip of her cup of hot cocoa.

Kaien nodded, deciding to explain to Ichigo further. "Yes, once every few years before Christmas there's a huge contest held to find out who could be Japan's number one male high school student. Luckily one is being held this year."

"Come to think of it, you're familiar with past winners." Rukia said to Ichigo then gestured to Kaien. "Kaien-dono is a former T.o.J winner as well as Ishida Uryuu."

"Ehh?" Ichigo gaped in surprise, not in disbelief but at the sheer coincidence. "Kaien-san and Uryuu?"

Kaien nodded his head proudly and smiled in nostalgia at the memory of his youth. "It was and still is an honor to this day. Basically T.o.J is very high-class status contest where contestants are judged on their intelligence, looks, and overall charisma."

Ichigo furrowed his brow. He thought of himself as pretty smart, considering his acceptance into Takaimono. But taking into account his looks and charisma, he never was one to be praised for his outrageously bright hair and lanky demeanor. The scowl on his face seemed to grow harder as if validating the claim. "Jeez, I don't think I'd be able to go through that."

"The prize for T.o.J is six million yen as well as full time scholarship to Takaimono." Kaien included this information quickly, causing Ichigo's scowl to turn into complete surprise.

"Six million yen…" Ichigo said to himself. He was engrossed in his thoughts of the benefits of winning that much money. His father's debt could easily be paid off and the rest given to his father and sisters for whatever they needed.

Rukia's voice snapped him out of thoughts. "But during this time, haven't the contestants been chosen already?"

"That's all right." Kaien assured her with ease, knowing well of her concern. "Past winners can make recommendations at any time, and I have no doubt they'll let Ichigo enter with my vote of confidence... and of course, the usual generous donation." He added in slyly.

"Really, Kaien-dono?" Rukia questioned with glee. "You would do that?"

"It's to help Ichigo, so of course I would." Kaien paused, his tone of voice lowering a little before he spoke again to Ichigo. "You'll be surprised to know that Byakuya won the first T.o.J contest ever held many years ago."

"Ehh?" Ichigo yelled out in shock for the second time that day. These pieces of information were coming at him left and right.

"I was still pretty young during that time." Rukia said as she recollected the faint memory. "But I do remember him being all over the media. Winning T.o.J got him the respect he no doubt is taking advantage of right now." Rukia scrunched her face up bitterly at the thought.

"Exactly! Which means he'll have to accept you if you win, Ichigo, because everyone else will!" Kaien laughed heartily and gave Ichigo a swift pat on the back. "Attaboy, you'll be so revered that if Byakuya didn't accept you, it would be hypocritical on his part. Some man he is if were to not accept a fellow T.o.J winner."

Ichigo thought for a moment about the possible outcomes of winning the contest. The prize money, the full scholarship, and maybe, just maybe, Byakuya could finally leave him, his family, and Rukia alone to their own doing. This could definitely be in his advantage. It was worth a shot.

"So… I really have a chance, don't I?" Ichigo looked toward Rukia and Kaien, a new hope shining through in his eyes.

"No." Kaien and Rukia's immediate response was in unison, a deadpan expression on both their faces.

Ichigo fell back in his chair at the seemingly change of heart. "Ack! No? What the heck, you guys?"

"In all honesty, right now Rukia has a better chance at winning the contest than you even if she's a girl." Kaien stated and pat Ichigo's hand apologetically.

Rukia glared at Kaien, registering his words in offense to her. "Huh? What are you trying to say-"

"So you have to be deeply committed if you want to make the decision of entering the contest." Kaien interjected, ignoring the fuming Rukia nearby. "If you choose to do so, you will no doubt have my full support all the way. So what are you going to do, Ichigo?"

"Oi, Kaien-dono! Don't ignore-"

"I'll do it, Kaien-san!" It was Ichigo's turn to interrupt Rukia as he made his final decision. He bowed his head respectfully. "I will do my best. Please give me your guidance."

"Yosh!" Kaien raised his fist in the air triumphantly. "T.o.J, here we go!"

The start of the week thereafter proved to be both stressful and eye-opening for Ichigo as he began his so-called crash course for T.o.J. After school that Monday he was taken immediately to Rukia's mansion where Kaien was waiting for him to begin the learning sessions he had in store for Ichigo. Rukia was nowhere in sight, Kaien stating she left to run a few errands before he began explaining the basics of T.o.J.

"You got that?" Kaien stopped his leisurely pacing of the room and looked over at Ichigo who was busy writing notes of whatever Kaien informed him of. "There are three main criteria: the first being physical appearance."

"Physical appearance..." Ichigo repeated, a bit hesitant at the aesthetic criteria. He swiped a lock of his orange hair out of his face, wondering if it's color would be a downfall. It always seemed to be anyway.

"Don't worry, what's inside is important too." Kaien assured him and placed a hand over his own heart. "You'll be able to showcase outward skills. Things like tea ceremony and Chinese calligraphy. Have you practiced your calligraphy?"

"Ah, I believe so." Ichigo said without a second thought.

Kaien raised a dubious eyebrow and sat on the couch by Ichigo. "So you've practiced it?"

Ichigo shrugged. "Well I guess so. I mean, isn't it just writing out Japanese characters like I do at school every day for reports and homework?

Kaien sighed and raised a hand over his eyes in mild frustration. "This'll be harder than I thought. We'll have to start with the basics of calligraphy."

"Huh?" Ichigo sat there confused. "But I just said..."

"The second criteria is intelligence." Kaien continued and sat up, ignoring Ichigo's lack of knowledge on calligraphy. "If I remember correctly, they went over general knowledge, language, and special topics. It'll be a quiz that covers just about everything."

"Hey, I'm good at quizzes!" Ichigo said quickly. "I get the highest scores in class all the time!"

"It's not only based on high school knowledge or useless trivia, you know."

"Damn..." Ichigo let out a sigh of defeat.

"And the last criteria," Kaien continued, "is physical strength where your own physicality will have to shine through. This one's tricky because it's always a surprise what you're up against but you'll have to use all your wit to get through it the best way you can."

"What did you have to do?" Ichigo questioned.

"There was a special gauntlet they created in a stadium. It involved a lot of running and jumping over hurdles and obstacles." Kaien grinned. "Luckily for me, a majority of the other rich boys never did a single physical activity in their life. I used to come here when I was younger all the time and join Rukia in these crazy obstacle courses she had set up in the back."

Ichigo's eyes widened in shock. "Rukia had obstacle courses set up?"

Kaien smirked. "She may be small, but that girl packs a punch. Who do you think taught her how to punch like that?" Ichigo pointed to Kaien who shook his head in validation. "Yup, and judging by that bruise on your arm, I'm sure you've been on the receiving end of those punches."

Ichigo glanced at the medium sized light purple bruise on his forearm. "Heh, pretty much. She punched me, then she thanked me."

Kaien's interest piqued at the mention of this. "Sounds quite confusing and interesting... whatever happened between you two."

Ichigo nodded and looked at the floor in thought. "Ah... Wait." He looked over at Kaien who was smirking rather suggestively as if he knew exactly what went on between Ichigo and Rukia. "It's not what you think!"

"Yes, I understand." Kaien folded his arms casually. "I mean, no one ever kisses and tells."

Damn it, how does he know? Ichigo tried to keep the blush from forming on his face and acted nonchalantly by looking around the room to avoid Kaien's eyes.

"But I'll leave it at that." Kaien started to pace the room again in slow strides, seemingly in deep thought. "This is the type of competition where nothing at all is predictable. So you have to always be on your feet, aim at the ready for every possible circumstance or else..." He paused and earnestly met eye to eye with Ichigo. "You can't win this." He stated truthfully. "Therefore since you only have a mere two weeks left until the start of the competition, in order to prepare yourself there will be extensive and difficult training ahead of you."

Kaien reached for a leather bound book on the table and held it open in front of Ichigo to see. "This planner has your schedule for the next two weeks. Inside is what you are expected to do from lesson plans to a bit of reading material that you should get acquainted with beforehand." He handed it to Ichigo.

Ichigo flipped through pages of neatly handwritten itinerary, skimming over timed schedules and pages upon pages of information pertaining to the contest. It all hit him so suddenly, he was beginning to doubt himself of his ability to actually do well. He would be competing against the best high school students who had the advantage of living a wealthy lifestyle to ready them for such an exclusive contest. It was unnerving to say the least.

"This is... quite a lot." Ichigo suddenly felt very tired, more tired than he ever felt at the impending workload he was about to take on. He closed the book, leaving it atop his lap. "I guess I'll have to try-"

"Ichigo, this is not like you at all!"

Ichigo turned to the sound of a familiar voice only belonging to Rukia. "Eh?" He cried out when he spotted not only Rukia standing behind him but Renji, Toshirou, and Orihime standing by her. Kaien sat down nearby after their arrival with a knowing smile gracing his face.

Rukia raised an eyebrow at his reaction. "What? It's true. What happened to the fighting spirit you showed my brother? It surely is still in there somewhere." She nodded over to her friends. "These three are here because they offered to lend you a hand."

"Even though we doubted you from the start, this being Teen of Japan and all." Renji added truthfully and took a seat across from Ichigo.

"You should have seen Rukia." Toshirou nodded a head over to Rukia who started to look very uncomfortable at the mention of her name. "She diligently tried to persuade us to aid you by reminding us that you were the only one who ever stood up to S4. Then she mentioned that if you were to win, her brother as well as all of Japan would recognize you as the greatest boy ever." Toshirou chuckled when he noticed Rukia was full on blushing at his account of her complimenting Ichigo.

"It sounded fun, so we all decided to pitch in!" Orihime added in brightly, that somber demeanor she had beforehand nowhere in sight.

"Also these instructors here will coach you on the way." Rukia pointed to her right. Ichigo was taken aback to find a row of people standing by in professional attire, undoubtedly masters in their fields.

Kaien gave a hard a pat on his back, trying to snap him out of his awe. "Yo, Ichigo! You ready for this?"

Ichigo looked around him, the amount of support he had seemed endless. Kaien, Renji, Orihime, and Toshirou, these people he knew for such a short amount of time all were willing to give them their guidance. He met eyes with Rukia who gave him a silent but firm nod of approval, her violet eyes signaling that she was giving him her definite support no matter what the cost. It was overwhelming and he definitely felt like he didn't deserve so much.

Ichigo bowed his head humbly before them. "Everyone, arigatou."

"Hey, hey, don't thank everyone now." Kaien piped up. "You can do that after you've won, alright?"

Ichigo looked up and nodded in agreement. "I'll do my best!"

"ARGH, THIS IS HARDER THAN I THOUGHT!"

Ichigo vehemently threw down his blackened paint brush, causing his already blotchy calligraphy work to become more blotchy in the process. He was seated in front of a workspace of calligraphy paintbrushes and paint sets outside the Kuchiki mansion. The calligraphy instructor monitoring his work gave a sigh of defeat and gathered up Ichigo's failed work while placing a clean new sheet of paper and paintbrush in front of him.

"You're gripping the paintbrush wrong for one. And to paint a flawless type of curve, you need to work on the flick of your wrist! Flick of your wrist!" Renji repeated. He sat by Ichigo, displaying his technique of achieving such means on the paper in front of him.

To Ichigo's surprise, Renji was an expert at writing Japanese calligraphy having practiced it ever since he could wield a paintbrush. Although Renji did prove to be skillful in this field, his display of his technique was not beneficial to Ichigo. Instead of instructing patiently, he yelled at every wrong move Ichigo made. Instead of going through each paint stroke slowly and many times, he did it once and went on to the next paint stroke. Basically Renji was a terrible teacher.

"Look at how Rukia is doing it." Renij ordered after another of Ichigo's failed attempts.

The whole time Rukia sat near Ichigo, quietly observing his lesson since its beginning. She was careful not to intrude on many instances, unless they were ones where Renji continued being an asshole despite the many reprimanding glares she sent his way. At one point she started getting restless and requested a piece of paper and paintbrush to doodle a few things. What became a doodle of a little bunny went on to her writing whatever Ichigo was practicing on his paper. She didn't seem to notice when Renji had called her out for Ichigo to observe her painting.

Ichigo watched as her lithe fingers moved her paintbrush in delicate but deliberate strokes across the page. The ending result came out as a beautifully written Japanese character. Ichigo had no idea Rukia was just as good as Renji was. He stared in awe at the result until Renji smacked him on the head to get his attention. This also caused Rukia to lose her attention on her painting and glare at Renji again.

"That's... really amazing, Rukia." Ichigo commented genuinely on her calligraphy and looked from her painting to his own, trying to replicate her end results.

Rukia gave a confident nod but secretly felt elated at Ichigo's compliment. It didn't help that she was simultaneously relishing in the look of concentration on his face. It was full of determination, of thoughts working in his mind like clockwork as he tried his very best to perfect his painting. Rukia thought he looked very... handsome?

Oh dear. Rukia nervously looked away lest her emotions get carried away. She excused herself for a moment after silently pushing her piece of paper closer to Ichigo.

As Rukia walked inside the mansion and down the corridors to the nearest restroom, she mentally chastised herself for thinking such thoughts. It confused her greatly, this thing called attraction growing within her. Thinking back, she never really focused on Ichigo's physical looks so strongly before. It was more of his features showing his low social status contrary to his attitude that interested her more. Sure, she never thought of him as ugly because she would never dare associate herself with someone of lesser looks.

But at that moment beforehand when she truly looked at him, his features stood out so exponentially. It was the shimmering citrus orange of his hair in the sunlight, the bright glint of amber and brown of his eyes, his defined jawline. It was titillating thinking about him to say the least, as evidence of the flush in her cheeks had shown when she looked in the mirror. She felt a little like a giggly school girl. How she hated feeling that way, as if the strong demeanor she spent many years building was slowly deteriorating within.

In her hearts of hearts, she wanted this relationship to be built on more than just physical attraction. It seemed to be going that way considering they never said anything about each others looks to one another excluding the usual banter on her height.

Resolutely she told herself she would try her best to suppress ogling at him again. That is, unless he was doing the same back to her.

AN: Hmm, wonder what Ichigo thinks about Rukia's looks... Hmm... Heh, by the way I really appreciate when people say they like how the relationship between Ichigo and Rukia is not developed in a rush. Well, it doesn't seem rushed, right? I mean they've only had one real kiss and it's already 24 chapters into the story, haha!

So... my question for you all: what would you like to see in the next chapter regarding Ichigo's own thoughts toward Rukia taking account what has happened? :D Just wondering, not sure if I'll actually include it especially if it'd be farfetched at this point! Like raunchiness or something, haha!

Thanks again! :)