Genesis
Rating: PG-13
Fandom: Bleach
Characters/Pairings: Ichigo/Rukia, Ishida/Orihime, Shinji/Hiyori, Urahara/Yoruichi
Disclaimer: Bleach and it's characters do not belong to me, I am simply using them for my own twisted purposes. Kaien, Yuusuke, etc. are my own creations, so please do not use them for your own.

Summary: Every story has a beginning, just as it has a middle and an end. Lives are lived, wars are fought, loves are found and lost. This is one such story. This is the story of a beginning, but it is also the story of a journey. The story of how one man and one woman found their way through obstacles and hardships to finally stand on the cusp of their own destinies. It is the story of three worlds, and the friction between them. It is a story of change, of hardship. A story of prejudice, loss, and heartache. But above all... it is a story of life. Life, in all it's colours and shapes.

The sigh slipped out in a faint muted whisper as hands folded themselves together, their interlaced fingers creating a cradle for the head crowned by a shock of vibrant orange hair as Ichigo lay back against the sun-warmed tiles of the roof and folded his arms behind his head. Blinking slightly in the brightness of the sunset light, he frowned and unfolded one hand from it's position to reach into his pocket. Finding the small white rectangle, he slid his thumb across the front of it, the pad easily finding the raised edge of the iPod's scroll wheel. Pressing thumb to the flat disc, he swiveled the digit, listening as the device clicked through songs before settling onto the one he was looking for. He pulled the hand back out of his pocket and replaced it behind his head before stretching slightly and crossing one leg over the other. That was better. Now at least, there was the chance to drown out the thoughts in his head -- loud and angry music tended to do that -- with the vocal tones and instrumentals of his own personal noise collection.

He stayed like that for a few minutes, silent and still, the faint hum of the music the only audible sign of his presence. It was nice like this. Nice to just be here for a change. No hollows, no arrancar, no... nothing. Only, that train of thought only served to bring his mind back to what it had been brooding about to begin with, what had initially sent him seeking the solace of the rooftop where he had often gone as a child to simply get away from everything. But that had been a long time ago, and those troubles had been different. Smaller, more easily overcome than the ones he faced now.

Opening his eyes, he stared up at the butter-cream clouds overhead, watching as the falling sun painted them with streaks of red and orange, beginning to fade the edges to crimson and lavender as the fringes of the sky darkened in preparation for the oncoming night. Things... weren't the same anymore. And not just because of all they'd experienced in Soul Society, though that did have a good deal to do with it, but now there was more that came along with it. Honestly... he hadn't expected things to all just up and end after they'd saved Rukia from her execution, and it wasn't only because of all the shit that had happened with Aizen. He just... knew, was all. Even when they'd all been ready to go, ready to come back home and pick up where they'd left off and she'd chosen instead to stay there, to stay behind and not go back with them, he'd still known. Still understood, somehow, that it wasn't really "good-bye" but instead was just a momentary parting.

It was frustrating to think about it, to face the fact that while things in general hadn't been the same once Rukia was gone, once the dark-haired shinigami was back in Soul Society -- back where she belonged, he had to remember that -- that of all the things that hadn't been the same, the most notable thing that had changed was him. But before he'd even really had the chance to think about it -- unwillingly, of course, because when you really got down to it, feelings weren't his thing -- the arrancar had attacked.

That first incursion still ate at him, still gnawed at his insides when he remembered the feeling of impotence, the horror he had experienced as he'd watched his friends fall on either side of him, watched Chad and Inoue be so thoroughly defeated, nearly killed and there he was, unable to save them, unable to do nearly anything because of the shrieking voice in the back of his head, because of the Hollow within his soul and the way he was losing himself to it. They'd been saved, thanks to the timely intervention of Yoruichi and Geta-boushi, but no one had understood that that didn't mean a damned thing when it came down to it, other then the fact that they were all really fucking lucky. It didn't MEAN anything because he was supposed to be the one fighting. The one saving them. The one protecting his friends. And yet, he'd been useless.

Because of her.

Well, not literally because of her, that would have just been stupid, but at the same time he couldn't deny that while the aggravating little midget had been a pain, and a thorn in his side, and sure she'd been in the way some of the time, he'd come to rely on her. Not so much for her powers -- kinda hard to do that when HE'D had them all -- but for her knowledge, her confidence, and the simple fact that she knew a hell of a lot more about this shinigami shit than he did. He'd been useless because, even though he'd known she wasn't coming, known she wasn't there to rely on, to turn to as backup... he'd still been hesitating. Still holding back, like some frightened child afraid to ride his bike without training wheels.

It was maddening, and even more so because now she was back, and there was nothing to be done for it. No time to wean himself from this dependency he'd only recently been able to admit he had, no way to sit back and mull over feelings and emotions and just why he felt so damned empty when she wasn't around, because now she was around and ironically enough it was now, when she'd finally returned, that he most felt that he didn't want her nearby.

Something had changed between them, something that he didn't really understand, and didn't know how to approach. She was still Rukia, still the same bossy little midget brat who beat him up and ordered him around and expected him to cater to her every demand for Chappy-themed crap to round out her collection. None of that had changed. And it wasn't the fact that she was now fighting beside him, rather than behind him as his support. Sure, that first time when she'd declared that she was perfectly capable to fighting again he hadn't believed her, but the way she'd planted his face in the pavement with her shoe and -- as she put it -- ground some sense into his orange head had been enough to make him throw up his hands and give in. If she said she could fight again, who the hell was he to get in her way.

Except... that was exactly what he wanted to do, and it didn't make sense. Rukia was a shinigami, hell she'd BEEN a shinigami longer than he'd been alive, it wasn't as though she didn't know what she was doing. She could fight, she was strong and capable and skilled. He knew that, but still... something in him couldn't get past the idea of her fighting. Some portion of himself that had arbitrarily decided that it's sole purpose in life was to protect her and how the hell was he supposed to protect her if she kept putting herself in danger like that?

Shoving a hand back into his pocket, he thumbed the volume dial on the iPod and closed his eyes again. What was the point of worrying over it, he'd already spent enough time trying to figure this shit out, and there were more important things to worry about than why things felt weird with Rukia. Heaving another sigh, he refolded the other arm behind his head and did his best to relax.

~*~

From her vantage point on Ichigo's bed, it wasn't as though it was difficult for her to know where he was. Hell, she'd heard the commotion his feet had made in their tromp across the roof-tiles a scant thirty minutes ago, and that wasn't even taking into account the fact that Kurosaki Ichigo hemmoraged reiatsu like an angry wound wept blood. He was nigh impossible not to notice. Shifting on his bed, Rukia readjusted her skirt and idly flipped the page of her manga. If he wanted to be alone up on the roof, it wasn't like she was going to bother him about it. At least.... not right off the bat. Nosy though she knew she could be -- she'd have denied it if he'd called her on it -- she had enough respect for him to respect his privacy and respect when he wanted solitude and the time to deal with whatever demons were flitting through his head. It was enough, she knew, that she was there. Enough that he knew she was there, and that he knew that soon enough she'd make her presence known and they'd share some sort of intangible communication and things would be alright again.

Glancing at the clock on the wall, the violet-eyed shinigami watched the brilliant red second hand tick by in the relative silence of the late afternoon. Another twenty seconds and she rolled her eyes, slipping the thin plastic slip with the Chappy logo on it between the pages before setting the slim volume down on the side of the desk. Honestly, what was it with men that made them do this whole silent brooding thing whenever something was on their minds? Couldn't they just talk about it like normal adults? Forgetting for a moment that -- were she to be somewhat honest with herself, which she wasn't -- she herself had just as bad a habit of internalizing, of keeping everything inside where prying eyes couldn't see, she crawled across the comforter to wedge her fingers against the sash of the window.

Shoving upwards, she felt the initial resistance before the wood and glass pane slid up and out of the way, the sudden breeze from the open window ruffling dark hair. Leaning out of the window, she took a moment to glance around, making sure no one was watching before she leapt out of the window, the soles of her loafers impacting against the tiles as she made her way across the low edge of the eave, peering up over the ledge to where his lankier form was sprawled across the roof.

He was still moody, that much was certain, he'd been moody since she'd come back, though she knew it really didn't have that much to do with her. At least... she didn't think it had much to do with her. If it had, the shinigami honestly wasn't sure what she would have done. Either way, it was a moot point, seeing as the reason for his dour mood could easily be traced back to what had happened with Inoue and Sado, when the Arrancar had attacked. He'd been powerless, unable to do anything to stop what had happened, and she knew him well enough to know how much he abhored that feeling.

She watched him for a moment, her sharp eyes taking in the thin white cords running to the earpieces. One of those music-listening things, she'd seen it before just as she'd seen the little pink one that Yuzu kept in her backpack or the other little white rectangles that other humans carried around. She herself had never played with one, but they seemed to be popular with most of the other people at school. Either way, whatever sort of music the device held, it was keeping her orange-haired substitute's attention to the point where he hadn't even noticed her approach.

Hopping up over the ledge to land on the roof, she made her way across the tiles to where he was laying, stopping to look down at him. He wasn't asleep, she knew him well enough to know better than that, though he probably would have managed to fool anyone else who couldn't read him as well as she could. It was the entire reason why she'd been able to bring him out of that funk he'd been in, all but beating him back into normalcy. At least... she thought she had, but it was beginning to seem as though any progress she'd made was proving temporary at best. Shoving her hands into the pockets of her skirt, she nudged one foot against his shoulder.

~*~

He knew she was there, knew even before the shadow cast by her smaller form fell across his face and the toe of her shoe nudged none too gently at the point of his left shoulder. Scowling slightly, he cracked one amber-brown eye open to peer up at her back-lit figure where it leaned over his supine form, taking one fleeting moment to study the way the setting sun cast an areola of gold around her head. It was eerie, in a way. Almost like the halos in those old paintings you would see in museums, even though the momentary thought of Rukia with a halo made him snicker. Heh, she was about as angelic as he was, despite the fact that the sudden image of the petite shinigami in flowing white robes and limned in golden light seemed to stick in his mind.

Almost lazily, as though he could barely be bothered to flex the muscles to even move, he lifted one hand to his ear, hooking a finger around the thin white cord to pop the ear-bud out of his ear. It wasn't so much a courtesy to her – that would have indicated he cared about being courteous. He didn't – but more simply because if he couldn't hear what she said then she'd just say it louder, and then kick him for 'not listening', and right now he just wasn't in the mood for it. She was violating his space, and despite the fact that she did that almost daily, it irked him more right now than it normally did, perhaps because of the weirdness that seemed to have sprung up between them.

Not even deigning to sit up and look at her properly, he raised one eyebrow slightly as he thumbed down the volume slightly on the iPod. She hadn't said anything yet, which meant one of two things. Either A. she was bored, and was expecting him to come up with something to entertain her, or B. she wanted his attention so that she could talk about something that he likely didn't want to talk about. He almost hoped it would be the former. At least if she wanted to try and beat money out of his arm or something like that, he knew how he was supposed to react to it.

"What?"

The grunted response came out perhaps harsher than he'd planned on, but that was fine with him. Hell, maybe if she thought he was in a really foul mood, she'd leave him the hell alone to brood in peace. He pondered that for a moment, then reconfigured his assumption as her toe impacted his ribs this time, harder than before as she glared at him with her hands on her hips. Obviously not. Scrambling back slightly, he fixed the girl with a dirty look.

"The hell was that for, you brat?"

She returned his scowl with a frown of her own. Ungrateful oaf, it didn't matter that she'd expected him to respond that way, it was still rude and uncalled for and he deserved a sound thrashing for it. But that... she'd worry about later. Right now, there was something else more pressing that needed to be dealt with and that was the unsettled mood he persisted in carrying around. She understood – at least, she was relatively sure she did – that a good deal of it had to do with what had happened to Sado and Inoue, and while she couldn't blame him for feeling responsible, it was time to get over that and realize that no matter how he may have felt, that it was in no way his fault.

Ironic, she thought to herself, and a little bit hypocritical of her to be telling him not to let guilt eat at him. But then, he hadn't actually been at fault, hadn't actually hurt anyone. She couldn't say the same for herself. But again, that was beside the point. Taking a step back to fix her violet gaze on him, she sighed and rolled her eyes slightly. Just enough to get his attention, to get the message across that she was irritated.

It worked, and she managed to gain the satisfaction of watching honey-brown eyes narrow slightly as his look got even fouler for just a moment. Crossing her arms over her chest, she cocked her head to one side.

"What's wrong?"

Subtlety wasn't really in either of their natures, she could use it when she needed to, but it always seemed wasted on him, mostly because he didn't have an appreciation for the tact and tended to only get more irritated and demand that she just "spit it out" rather than beating around the bush. Ichigo wasn't the type to appreciate all the subtle nuances, he always went straight to the heart of the matter. It was... refreshing, in most instances. A nice shaft of blunt honesty in a world that dwelt on so many shades of gray where opposing points of view and all the subtleties of politics and relationships muddied so much of the waters.

He flinched slightly at her question, not from the directness of it – that was one of the things he liked about Rukia, she never wasted time trying to pretty things up or find some nice polite way to say stuff – but more from the fact that apparently his luck had not been with him today and the purpose of her intrusion into his little bubble was the second option his mind had helpfully prepared. Great. Just fucking great. Sighing, he rolled his eyes and leaned back against his hands, tilting his head up to watch the painted clouds slide by across the heavens with a shrug.

She wasn't going to buy it if he said 'nothing'. He knew better than that, just as he knew that were this any other case, he'd probably have been able to talk to her about it. Or at least... about all of it. Rukia was... different. He could talk to her in ways that he couldn't talk to anyone else, even despite all the fighting and arguing they did, they just had a connection that was unlike any of the bonds he had with any of his other friends, regardless of how long they'd known each other. But now... there wasn't really an easy way to explain it to her that didn't sound all weird in his head.

~*~

Watching him, she caught the barely noticable flinch at her question. The slight tremor of motion was all she needed to know that she'd struck a nerve, that it wasn't simply Ichigo being a moody teenage brat. There was something wrong, something bothering him, and obviously it was something that wasn't going to respond to the normal things she would do to cheer him up. Just the fact that he'd retreated like this, while not out of the ordinary for him, was enough of a red flag in her mind. Sighing, she simply shrugged her shoulders and turned, settling down onto the tiles beside him to hug her knees to her chest. If it was a case like this... then she couldn't just drag it out of him.

He'd tell her, that much she was confident of. Perhaps not in so many words, and perhaps not right away, but she knew him well enough to know that he would open up to her when he felt ready. It was the same when the subject of his mother came up. Rukia knew the basic details, knew from the information she'd gleaned what must have happened, but... she also knew there was a great deal more to the story, so many more layers of depth there that deserved to be left undisturbed until he decided it was time to let her in.

They sat like that for a while, silent and still, long enough that she stopped counting seconds and began counting stars as their twinkling points began to speckle the darkening sky overhead. She was beginning to think that perhaps she'd been wrong, that nothing was going to come of her endeavor, that she'd have to either beat it out of him or just accept that whatever it was would remain a mystery, when she felt him shift beside her, the hand in his pocket reaching up to slip behind his head and join it's mate.

"It's my fault. It isn't, but... it still is."

She remained silent, simply listening. It didn't take any more words than that for her to know what he was talking about. Inoue. Sado. His friends, who had been so gravely injured by the Arrancar that he'd been powerless to fight against. Their injuries had taken such a toll on him that she almost hadn't recognized him that first reunion, standing in the window of their classroom. It had been the almost lost look in his eyes that had been her deciding point, as her foot had collided with his face before she dragged him off, pushing him and forcing him and driving him to fight the simple Hollow. Forcing him to face the fear within himself, the fear that he would fail, that he wouldn't be able to do what he'd sworn to himself that he'd do. Protect those close to him.

He'd shaken it off, and for awhile it had seemed as though her words had made their way through, had been all the difference he'd needed in order to snap back and find himself again. And even now, in spite of the brooding, she couldn't see that lost look returning to his eyes. He wasn't lost, he wasn't confused. Just... guilt-ridden. Frowning, she raised an arm and took a deep breath before the hard point of her elbow dug into his gut.

Coughing and sputtering, Ichigo shot up into a sitting position, gasping for breath before he rounded on her with a growl only to be met with her upraised palm in his face.

"Stop it. Quit wallowing in your own self-pity and realize something. They're both still alive. And the reason they're both still alive is because of you. Because you were there to protect them both. That's more than I can say for myself."

Her words weren't harsh, but they were calculated to shock. Rukia didn't talk much about her past, it just wasn't in her nature to bring up things like that, but in this instance she couldn't help but feel it was warranted. And it seemed to work, as the rage drained from his face, leaving behind only a shocked lack of comprehension combined with confusion and befuddlement. Seeing that she'd made her point, the shinigami lowered her hand and simply continued, her voice soft.

"Renji is the only friend I have left from my childhood. The others... died. Some from the simple hardships of the world we lived in, others... the victims of Hollows. But the one thing that was always the same was that I couldn't do anything. I couldn't stop it, I couldn't even try and help. But rather than dwelling on that, I kept going. Kept living, because to do anything else would have been a dishonour to them."

Ichigo opened his mouth to say something, to say anything to somehow retort back – and in doing so, to keep clinging to his own guilt – that her story was completely irrelevant, because his friends weren't dead, and beyond that that she had been a stupid kid so of course she wouldn't have been able to do anything, but somehow... any retort that he pulled up out of his mind just sounded hollow and, to be honest, downright mean. And while he wasn't about to argue that he could be a jerk sometimes, that level of mean just... wasn't him.

His anger and frustration dampened somewhat, he settled instead for a noncommittal grunt and a sulky look as he turned his attention back to the sky, trying not to take too much notice of her expression. If he did, she might actually think he was paying attention to what she was saying. Which he wasn't. Shrugging his shoulders, he hooked his arms around his knees loosely, much in the same way she was sitting. There wasn't really anything he could say at the moment, so he simply kept his mouth shut, waiting for her to say something else, for her voice to break back through the low-key hum of voices and instruments still filtering through his ears from the iPod's speakers.

~*~

Watching him out of the corner of her eye, Rukia nodded to herself with a sigh of quiet relief. Still sulky, still broody, but she could tell that she'd at least managed to get through to him again. Leaning back on her hands, she cast violet eyes up towards the stars, watching as the last faint traces of sunlit colour painted their way across the hazy clouds, turning them into an aurora of pink and lavender. Closing her eyes, she let the light breeze play across her face, it's gentle fingers ruffling black hair. This was nice, an enjoyable change to their usual fare of fighting and hunting and arguing. It wasn't often that the two of them got a chance to simply just be together like this, like normal friends, and it would have been a lie to say that she didn't covet those small windows of time.

Shifting her attention to his larger figure, she let her eyes trace over the features she'd grown so familiar with over the short 3 months time-span. It was hard to believe at times, that this boy – no, it really wasn't fair to call him that, he'd seen more than most men twice his age had ever had to deal with – this man, she corrected herself, that she'd simply encountered at random one night had come to take such a prominent place in her life. That in such a short time, they'd grown so close, become such good partners that they could read each other with hardly any difficulty, that they understood each other so well that times like these, silent though they may have been, were by no means lacking in so many levels of non-verbal communication. Chuckling slightly, she let her eyes drift over unruly orange hair, down his forehead past eyebrows that were nearly always pulled into a scowl, continuing their way down his face in careful study. Ichigo wasn't bad looking, a fact that she wasn't going to deny – though she would have denied the amount of time she'd spent mulling over that fact on occasion – and it wasn't at all hard to imagine how he'd look in a few years, with the last traces of boyhood gone from his face.

"Oi. The hell're you staring at?"

His voice jolted her out of her momentary reverie and she blinked in startlement, the heat rising slightly in her face as she realized two things. One, she'd been practically ogling him and two, he'd noticed. Fighting down the horrified widening of her eyes, she made a desperate attempt to regain her shattered dignity with a hmph, crossing her arms over her chest and glancing away. Hopefully in the dimming light, he hadn't noticed the way she was sure her cheeks were burning with colour.

"I wasn't staring! I was just... looking at that."

Nodding her head with a jerk towards the iPod, she continued. He'd buy it, she was relatively sure. And if he didn't, then she'd just have to kick him and take his mind off of the fact that she'd let her guard down long enough for him to catch her staring at him.

"We don't have things like that music-machine, I was just trying to see how it attaches to your ears."

One orange eyebrow raised up slightly in a skeptical fashion as he considered her words. It sounded like typical Rukia-babble, and he had to admit that it did make sense for her to not have the slightest idea how the hell an iPod worked – though he couldn't help but feel that it was just a little bit fucked up that a place like Soul Society could have computers and TVs for surveilance, but didn't have basic things like music-players or ovens. Rolling his eyes with a shrug, he shook his head slightly. She didn't have to get all bent out of shape about it, hell the way she was acting you would have thought she was staring at him. Which was just stupid. Picking up the other earbud from where it still hung abandoned from the cord running up his chest, he waggled it in the air for her to see.

"It doesn't 'attach' to my ear, it's just a little speaker that goes inside it."

Her puzzled look just made him scowl and heave a frustrated sigh. And she wondered why she got on his nerves at times. It wasn't really that hard to understand, was it? Without much of a thought as to what he was doing, he reached over and stuck the little white ear-piece into her ear, brushing a stray lock of black out of the way as he did so.

"Look, it just fits in there like this, see? And then the music plays out of this part."

Holding up the small white rectangle in it's black case, he thumbed the volume dial again, watching as her eyes widened in almost childish wonder at the sudden onslought of music, any arguments she may have been creating in her head seeming to just die as she listened in rapt attention to the iPod. It was... strange, in a way. Seeing Rukia like that, seeing her look... happy, it just wasn't something he was really used to. Sure, he'd seen her squeal with glee the last time they'd gone to the mall and she'd seen that enormous Chappy doll in the window, the one that was as big as her and that his idiot dad had insisted on buying as "a present of love for my beloved third daughter Rukia-chan", but that wasn't entirely real happiness. Just like so much of the persona she presented to the world wasn't real. But this... right now, was different. She wasn't pretending, wasn't acting the part of some air-headed little schoolgirl. Right now, she was just Rukia. Just herself, free of all the lies and facades. He liked her better that way, when she didn't try to pretend to be someone else, try to put on a face that – in his opinion – didn't fit her at all.

Swallowing past a sudden unexpected lump in his throat as he watched the petite shinigami, he bit his lower lip and turned his attention back to the iPod. It was probably just the novelty of the device that had her so enthralled – he really couldn't picture her as a Three Day's Grace sort of person – seeing as he had doubts that his taste in music mirrored her own. Pressing the pad of his thumb to the wheel, he spun the control, amber eyes watching as the list of words scrolled across the screen. There wasn't much on here that he would consider 'girly music', but his tastes were varied enough that he was relatively certain he could find something that would probably be more to her liking. Frowning as he continued scrolling through folders, he finally found the one he was looking for. Pressing the wheel with a click, he nudged her shoulder slightly to get her attention.

"You'll probably like this better."

Ichigo watched as she paused, head cocked slightly to the side as the song changed, waiting and watching her expression as the harsher German vocals gave way to a softer, more melodic chorus. Hopefully she'd like it, it was different than the normal stuff he listened to, despite the fact that he tended to have a pretty widely varied range of musical preferences. Either way, she hadn't hit him yet and she seemed to be listening to it. A moment later, he was rewarded by her soft intake of breath as the expression on her face changed to one of rapt wonder, violet eyes slipping closed as she nodded her head softly to the beat. In that moment, she suddenly seemed so different to him, so unlike the Rukia he knew from their everyday dealings and more like some otherworldly creature deigning to rest herself upon this plane for a moment. It was... eerie, almost, yet somehow so captivating that he couldn't look away.

~*~

To say that she'd expected Ichigo to have no taste in music would have been a lie. He wasn't a completely uncultured lout, and it was true that he had good taste when it came to a number of things. That being said, even considering her assumption that the orange-headed teen knew what good music was – it was always debatable, especially with some of the cacaphonic noise that she'd heard other humans refer to as 'music' in her time in Karakura – she had to admit that she'd underestimated his affinity for beauty when it came to sound. She didn't recognize the language that the song was in, just that it was foreign, and that the words had a definite gutteral quality to them that, while very different from her native Japanese, nonetheless had a certain appeal to it. The verses were almost more spoken than sang, but the chorus was a wonderfully soaring, lilting melody that wove in and out like light through a garden.

Closing her eyes softly, she let her head sway gently to the refrain, losing herself in the soft harmonics. This was... nice. And not just the music, but the entire situation. Sitting here, with Ichigo, and just... being there. Just being together, not fighting or arguing, but just being two people listening to a song on a rooftop. It had a normalcy to it that Rukia couldn't help but find herself being drawn towards, perhaps because it was still so different from the life she was used to, or perhaps just because her recent near-death experience at the hands of the Soukyouku simply made the brief moment seem all the more precious.

Almost without volition, her head shifted to the side to rest against the firm warmth of Ichigo's shoulder as the song clicked over softly in her ear, another similar song beginning to play. Had she really been thinking about it, she would have realized how suggestive her posture was, how much the two of them at the moment resembled any other young couple enjoying a nice bit of quality almost-romantic time to themselves and done something about it. She and Ichigo weren't like that, they were just... just partners, just comrades. But right now... there was a closeness that she couldn't really define or understand. It was like so much in their relationship, it just was.

~*~

Ichigo froze as her head bumped softly against his shoulder, eyes widening in shock as he turned his head slightly to look down at the top of her dark head pillowed against him. The simple fact that Kuchiki Rukia was sitting there, leaning her head on his shoulder, almost didn't compute in his brain that was doggedly determined to keep her person situated far across his mental plane from anything remotely resembling sweet or cute. Rukia just.... wasn't cute, and she certainly didn't have any sort of relationship with him that would warrant this almost-snuggling.

Swallowing slowly, not only due to his own nerves but because he was relatively certain that were this not a weird twilight-zoneish episode of his already complicated life that he would almost definitely be beaten later over this, he contemplated his next move. He didn't want to move, and dislodge her – if she were doing this on purpose, then doing so might just piss her off and then he'd be hit for sure – but at the same time he was relatively sure that if he didn't move, she'd get some sort of weird idea and hit him anyway.

After a few indeterminably long moments, he settled for shifting his shoulders slightly to nudge her for a moment before calling her name softly. At least that way, he was less likely to startle her and then earn a beating for that as well. And if she'd fallen asleep on his shoulder... well, he just wasn't going to consider that option seeing as the most likely conclusion to that seemed to be the idea of him spending the night on the roof so as not to disturb her.

"Rukia...."

~*~

His voice drew her easily out of the half-trance she'd been drifting into, her eyes closed as the music simply carried her away with it's melody. Blinking in startled surprise, she looked up at his face for a moment, the confusion muddling her senses as the seconds ticked by. As the fog cleared, she grew more conscious of several things. That she was cuddled up against his arm, her cheek pillowed against the warmth of his shoulder. That he was staring down at her with a rather puzzled look on his face. And above all, that she'd been practially snuggling him for some undetermined amount of time. Rukia could feel the blood rush into her face as violet eyes widened and she jerked her head away, nearly snapping her own neck in her hurry to divert her line of sight from his fast enough for him to not notice the way her breath had caught, the way she'd been momentarily frozen like a deer in the headlights.

Shifting uncomfortably, she fidgeted in the sudden overwhelming thickness of the silence that dragged on between them. Things had been a little weird before, but now.... now the atmosphere was almost oppressive in it's awkwardness. She could see it in the stiffness of his shoulders, feel it in the tense way the air hung around them in spite of the light breeze. Sucking in a deep breath, she searched frantically through her mind for something, anything to say to break the silence, to make things normal again.

Before she had the chance, Ichigo did it for her, easily pulling his arm from between them to point overhead as a sudden white streak shot across the sky, fading into the deepening navy.

"Shooting star. That's unusual, seeing one from here. Normally the lights in town make it so you can't see them."

Turning her head towards the direction he pointed in, she studied the fading trail for a moment. It was hard to imagine a place where you couldn't see shooting stars. They'd been a constant when she was growing up with Renji on the streets of Inuzuri, on those clear brilliant nights when the two of them would climb up onto a high tree branch and count the stars. Renji had always told her that shooting stars made dreams come true, if you were ever lucky enough to catch one. A world without that just... sounded sad.

"Make a wish."

Glancing up at him with a curious look, she cocked her head to the side.

"What do you mean?"

One hand came up to smack across his forehead. She couldn't be serious. How did you not know that you were supposed to make a wish on falling stars? Heaving an irritated sigh, he rolled his eyes and fixed her with a look that plainly spoke of how much she was trying his patience right now.

"How the hell do you not know you're supposed to make a wish on a shooting star? I thought all girls knew that sort of mushy crap. Everyone does it when they're kids. Yuzu even has a little book from when we'd make wishes when we were little. She'd write them all down, so we could see which ones came true."

He expected a smart-ass remark – or a fist to the face, that would have made sense too – but what he got instead was a slightly confused look for the moment or two before her expression settled into one of almost disappointment as she looked up at the spangled sky overhead.

"Oh. I always thought they made dreams come true. I guess not, though..."

Watching her expression, it almost made him feel bad, as though somehow he'd taken something away from her, like a grownup telling a little kid there wasn't a Santa Claus. Scratching the back of his head awkwardly, he groped for something to say, something to maybe make things a bit better without sounding too corny.

"That's.... just stupid. Stars don't make dreams come true, you make your own dreams come true. Quit being all depressed and shit. It's annoying."

Perhaps not exactly what he'd pictured, but then his mouth and his brain seldom seemed to agree – just as that one little portion of his mind seldom agreed with the rest of his subconsciousness – but regardless of that fact, his words seemed to at least have some degree of effect, as the sadness left her face a bit and she turned to him with a smile and a nod.

"Yeah... I guess you're right about that."

Blinking in surprise, he simply stared at her for a moment, watching the way the lights from the town glinted off of her hair, shining lights into her eyes. She looked almost as ethereal as she had the first night he'd seen her, when she'd come walking into his room with that superior expression on her face, acting like she owned the damn world. Swallowing, he felt his heart speed up, it's rhythm thundering in his ears as, almost without volition, he could feel himself leaning in, tilting his head down. Her eyes widened fractionally, but she didn't move and simply stayed frozen, her face tilted up towards his.

"Oi, Ichi-nii! Rukia! It's dinnertime!"

Yuzu's shrill voice broke through the sudden haze of the moment like a knife through butter. Blinking in shock, violet eyes refocused, meeting brown for a moment as two sets of cheeks began to redden at their proximity. In a matter of seconds, the scant few inches between them had been abruptly enlarged to several feet as Ichigo tugged the iPod's cord back and scrambled to his feet with a mumbled few words. Glancing back over his shoulder at the equally-shaken shinigami, he raised an eyebrow at her.

"You coming or not?"

Without waiting for her answer, he loped over to the edge of the roof and hopped down onto the eave to swing through the open window, trying to ignore the roaring in his ears and the racing of his heart.

Author's Notes: Hello all, and I hope you enjoyed this first chapter. Yup, Ichi almost kissed her there, and she knows it, even though she isn't real sure what to make of it. Don't worry, he'll figure it out soon enough, and Grimmjow shoving an arm through her chest and then nearly cero-ing her head certainly won't hurt in regards to making our beloved berry give some real thought to how important his little midget is to him. I know the buildup is a little bit slow, but what sets Genesis apart from most of my other IchiRuki is that it's supposed to be slow, because it's supposed to be believable. The first part is a bit tougher for me simply because it was a part that was never part of the original RP-canon that Genesis is drawn from. Myself and my RP buddy for this story never really fleshed out the beginning portions, we simply referenced them at different points through the RP. That being the case, I am having to rewrite the beginning from scratch, which is a tad bit harder than I would have expected, especially in keeping with the somewhat deeper, more serious nature that Genesis has. There's plenty of fun and amusing parts, but overall the mood is more 'adult' in nature, mostly because Genesis is a story that deals a lot with growing up.