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Chapter 11

Ichigo stood in the doorway of the precinct, blinking at Kuchiki's empty desk. He looked at his watch-8am on the dot.

Then someone crashed into him from behind.

'Fucking hell, Kurosaki!'

He turned around to see an irate Kuchiki rubbing her nose.

He couldn't stop the grin on his face. 'Good morning, sunshine.'

He noticed that she'd forgone her usual button-down in favour of a tight black t-shirt tucked into the waistband of her pants. Her hair, loose and still damp, fell over her eyes.

'What?' she demanded, noticing his stare.

'Nothing,' he said, still grinning.

She rolled her eyes and pushed pass him, throwing her car keys onto her desk, instead of placing it in her drawer like she usually did.

He was about to tease her about her off-routine behaviour when Hisagi and Kira made an appearance.

'Good morning, Detectives,' Hisagi greeted, looking fresh as a daisy. Kira beside him looked like he was trying not to throw up.

'Agents. You okay there, Kira?' Ichigo asked. The poor guy had really went passed his limits last night.

Kira nodded and gave him a half-hearted thumbs up.

'All set for the trip back to base?' Kuchiki asked Hisagi without any indication that she noticed how Hisagi blatantly scanned her form.

'Yeah, I just didn't want to leave without saying goodbye,' he told her with a smile. 'I really enjoyed working with you, Rukia.'

'Yeah, it was great working with you, too.'

'And, you as well, Ichigo.' Hisagi added, remembering that he was standing there too.

'Sure,' was all Ichigo said, crossing his arms.

Hisagi then pulled out his business cards and handed one to him. He scrawled his personal number on the back of another card and gave it to Kuchiki.

'If anything else related to Kariya comes up, call us. Anytime.'

Ichigo had a feeling that 'anytime' only applied to Kuchiki.

'Well, that's it then.' He shook Ichigo's hand, and then Kuchiki's, but before letting go, he told her, 'I meant to tell you last night-you look beautiful with your hair down. You should wear it like that more often.'

Ichigo sure was glad that Hisagi was leaving. He didn't think he could stomach anymore of the man's flirtations.

When the agents had left, Kuchiki let out a tired sigh. Her shoulders drooped as if the little exchange sapped all her energy.

'What? Sad he didn't propose?' Ichigo teased, hoping to get a rise out of her.

'I'm devastated. Can't you tell?' she said, giving him an exasperated look.

Turning away from him, she plucked a pencil off her desk as she made her way to the break room. Ichigo watched her thin fingers twist the pencil into a knot at the nape of her neck.

He sat at his desk and thrummed his fingers on it. He was pleasantly surprised when Hisagi's compliment didn't make her blush, much less smile. Did she not care for compliments? Or did it take much more to put some colour on her cheeks?

Ichigo was curious now. He wanted to see if she would truly be unaffected by him too.

Seduce me, she had said to him.

Before he lost his nerve, he marched to the break room.

Kuchiki was standing with her arms to her sides, her back to him, waiting for the coffee pot to fill.

In a few steps he was behind her. She turned to him, her eyes narrowed, mouth ready to swear at him, no doubt.
But then her eyes widened when leaned into her. He reached for the cupboard over her head and pulled out another mug. His arm brushed against her own when he set his mug down next to hers.

He was so close that his breath ruffled the few strands of hair that didn't the pencil didn't hold.

Her eyes never left his, and God, were they enchanting.
It was a rare moment when he could just study the colour of her eyes.
He could never tell, really. Sometimes they looked black; other times he could swear her eyes were violet.
Right now, her eyes were dark, dark blue-the kind of blue that people drown in.

He also saw the purplish tint under her eyes. Had she not slept well? Had she slept at all?

Ichigo knew he had lost control of himself, of this moment, when his hand cupped the side of her face. He brushed his thumb over the delicate skin under her eyes, while her fingers wrapped gently around his wrist.

He didn't know when it had happened but his other hand settled on her hip, and hers rested on his bicep.
They stayed like that for a heartbeat or two.
Maybe a thousand. He didn't really know.
His mind was blank with Kuchiki's scent all around him.

A car horn beeped loudly outside making them both startle. His hands dropped from her body and she slipped away from him.

His heart thudded in his ears.
That wasn't how he expected things to go.
She wasn't supposed to look at him like that; wasn't supposed to let him hold her for so long.

She was an idiot.
An absolute idiot.
She had been the one to say it-she had told him to seduce her. And she knew that was why he cornered her in the first place. But that didn't stop her skin from overheating at his touch.

She sat at her desk, trying to bring her body back to its normal state. Kurosaki sauntered out of the break room and silently placed a mug of coffee on her desk as he walked by.

Wonderful.

She was so out of it, that she had forgotten the one thing she had went in there for.

The minute he was in her space, her brain fogged over. There was something about him that had her rooted to the spot, her eyes locked with his.

And then his eyes suddenly filled with concern-like he could see all the years of exhaustion in her own.

She wanted to put her head on his chest and fall asleep to the sound of his heart beat.

Or she wanted to kiss him.

She wasn't sure which.
Probably both.

It was around midday when she couldn't it take anymore. Her pulse raced every time she stole a glance at his broad back, imagining the muscles underneath the fabric of his t-shirt. And with Uryu and Chad out of town, she had no reason to keep her eyes to herself. So, she left her paper work and made her way down to the evidence room where she spent the remainder of her shift secretly looking for any mention of the Menos.

When she got home, she ordered a pizza and tried to figure out her next move as she ate. She had found nothing so far about the Menos in the station's records. If she couldn't find any leads there, and if her informant didn't have anything for her, she would have no choice but to somehow sneak back into Rukongai.
Just the thought of going back there made the ham pizza churn in her belly.

With her brain and body too exhausted, she decided to shower and go sleep. As she dried herself, she received a text from Lieutenant Tessai. She let out a miserable sigh when she saw it was a location of a crime scene.

She dressed quickly, throwing on black leggings and an oversized grey hoodie. It was only when she had parked behind all the squad cars that she realized she had left her gun and badge at home.
She cursed, letting her head drop to the steering wheel. She took in a calming breath and jumped out of her car, praying that nothing else would go wrong.

She squeezed through the residents of the suburban street to get to a pretty house with roses creeping up the walls, and policemen stationed all around. She recited her badge number to the officer in charge and he let her into the house with no fuss.
She tied her hair up into a ponytail as she bounded up the front steps and almost crashed into Kurosaki again.

'Woah,' he said, steadying her by the shoulder. They hadn't so much as made eye contact with each other since that morning, and she hadn't expected him to be here either. He looked unfairly handsome in black sweatpants, and a matching hoodie unzipped over a white t-shirt.

Before she became flustered again, she said, 'What, are we, like partners now?'

'I guess so, Kuchiki,' he said with a small smile that made her heart flip.

He looked over her shoulder and waved one of the uniforms over to them.

'What did the neighbours say?' Kurosaki asked a young officer with dark reddish-brown hair. 'Ashido,' his badge said.

'The couple had moved in recently, so not much is known about them. Everyone heard the screams but no one saw anything, sir. Several of them called the station as well,' he said as the three of them went into the house.

There, on the living room floor was the corpse of a young woman with blood still leaked out the back of her head. Rukia could guess how she had died judging from the blood at the corner of the coffee table.

'It looks like it just happened,' Kurosaki explained while she examined the body. The woman was in her night clothes- a blue shorts and a tank top with little white clouds on it. Large blood-stained handprints marred the charm of the set. There were dark bruises on her arm where someone had grabbed her, and dried blood formed on her lip and a small cut on her cheek.

'And the husband?' Rukia asked the officer.

'No sign of him yet but some of the neighbours said they sometimes see him take nighttime walks. Maybe he'll be back soon.'

Rukia hummed in acknowledgement but she had worked many cases like this and the husband was almost always closer to the crime that one would think.

She asked Officer Ashido to follow her while Kurosaki stayed with the crime techs. The house was a fair size, just right for a young couple who might want to start a family of their own. They checked the kitchen, the dining room, the bathroom and both bedrooms but found nothing.

When they passed the kitchen the second time, Rukia heard a faint rustling. She signalled to Officer Ashido to ready his gun and keep behind her. They followed the sound to a portion of the kitchen wall. Upon closer inspection, it looked like there might be a door there.

Rukia pushed her palm where she assumed it would open, and as luck would have it the panels swung out revealing a pantry and a man with glasses crouched down on the ground.

The man reached out with one bloodied hand and roughly shoved Kuchiki to the floor.

There was the bang of a gunshot and wails of pain that followed. Kuchiki pushed herself up to see the man writhing on the floor with a bullet hole in his leg.

'Take him away, Officer,' she said, and he hand-cuffed the suspect and easily hauled him off the ground, blood trailing from his leg.

'What the fuck happened?' came Kurosaki's voice as he appeared before her, gun at the ready.

'He was hiding in the pantry. Judging by the pyjamas I'd say he is the husband and most likely the murderer. He tried to run but Officer Ashido got him in the leg,' she explained, rubbing her elbow where it smarted from the fall.

Putting his gun away, Kurosaki asked her 'Are you okay?'

'No, the fucker got his bloody handprint all over my hoodie.' She frowned at the blood stains on the light grey material.

Kurosaki chuckled-a lovely, deep sound.

'Detective Kuchiki?'

'Yes?' She looked up to find one of the crime techs waiting for her.

'We need your hoodie for evidence,' the woman spoke, but her eyes glazed over as she stared at Kurosaki.

'It's the same blood on his hands,' Rukia clarified, bringing the woman's attention back to her.

'Er, yes, but Officer Ashido said that the suspect pushed you to the ground. The DA may want to add assaulting a police officer to the charges. We'll need your hoodie for that.'

'Okay…just…will you give me a minute please?'

The tech nodded and gave Kurosaki one more longing look before she left the kitchen.

'What's the matter? Just give her the hoodie.' Kurosaki said impatiently.

She looked up at him and couldn't stop her cheeks from heating as she said quietly, 'I'm not wearing anything underneath. Just my bra'

'Oh. Oh. Um, then here.' He shrugged off his own hoodie and handed it to her. 'Wear this.'

He made to leave, but she stopped him. 'Wait. Where are you going?'

'Um…out. To let you change.' He said it like it was obvious.

'No, you have to stand watch while I change,' she told him.

'Can't you change in one of the rooms?'

'Just turn around and wait here. It won't take a minute.' She grabbed him by the arms and turned toward the hallway.

Then she turned her back to him and began carefully removing her hoodie so that the blood wouldn't smudge. Quick as she could, she tugged on Kurosaki's hoodie and zipped it up enough to be modest.
This was the second time she wore his clothes-she still had his t-shirt in her closet.

But it was either this or let everyone see her old pink bra.

'Thank you,' she said, coming to stand next to him, bloodied garment in her hand.

'Um, yeah no problem,' he replied, the tips of his ears going pink.

When they came out, the body had been removed and the crime tech was waiting by the front door. 'Here you go,' Rukia told her, handing the evidence over. Heat rose to her cheeks again as the tech looked between her and Kurosaki.

The tech the smiled and leaned toward Kuchiki to say, 'Don't worry, I don't wear anything under my hoodie either.'

Rukia just gave her a perfunctory, agreeing smile and said, 'We can bag the body now.'

The tech looked slightly taken aback but said nothing as she left to do her job.

'You sure have a way with people, huh,' Kurosaki told her, his ears still pink.
She supressed a smile. She wondered if he knew he did that.

'So, I'm told,' she replied, pushing the cuffs of his hoodie up to her elbow only for it to immediately fall down over her hands.
She clicked her tongue, pushed the cuffs back up and folded her arms.

Kurosaki chuckled beside her, and this time she couldn't help but smile at him.