Bleach Fic: we beg lines
I think I have the sniffles. It feels like it's been too long, guys. But this is for tosca1390. Who is the best of all things. And lets me subject her to various rounds of animes that I haven't seen, etc. Also IDEK what this is. I just have a lot of strange feelings when I get the sniffles.
we beg lines
they meet in the middle. step, parry, thrust. bleach | rukia/ichigo | AU | 5,806 words, PG.
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“He’s really back,” Karin says.
Her head sinks over Rukia’s knee as they sit on her bed. Their schoolbooks are everywhere and Karin’s eyes are too red to really get back to work.
Rukia does not look at her friend. “I know,” she says.
There is a way to these stories; she can pick and pull between characters, imagine different scenarios and different ends, a kind of linearity that not many people want to get and grab. But she isn’t a character, he is not just some boy, and the last time the two of them stood in the same room, a passing acknowledge was shoved onto her shoulders because she was only important in a small, small way.
Karin calls about their History exam. Rukia leaves a note on the kitchen table for her brother and brings her Physics book instead. This is what it means to have an older brother, she supposes.
But when she arrives at the Kurosaki house, she seems to slip into the middle of things, right in between Inoue and Karin’s brother. This is how she knows he’s really back in town.
“Tell Ishida that I’ll be around,” he says, and he ruffles Inoue’s hair, giving her a lazy grin. It startles her, his eyes, Inoue’s eyes, and the soft awareness that seems to keep everything settled.
“Sure,” the older girl grins. They both notice her. Then, it’s Inoue who smiles again first. “Rukia-chan! It’s so good to see you. Here to see Karin-chan?”
Rukia’s fingers slide her hair behind her ear. She feels self-conscious. She wants to hate school. It’s easy to blame, of course.
Just as soon as Karin’s name is mentioned, her best friend flies out of the house, bag and soccer ball in both her hands. Her hair is wild and her eyes are bright. She grabs Rukia’s arm, pulling her back away from the house.
“Ja, Ichi-nii!” she calls. “Take a shower, okay? Rukia-chan and I are coming back and I don’t want to subject her to that airport smell of yours - and a day later too.”
“Fuck you!” he calls back.
Inoue laughs and Rukia sighs, letting Karin yank her into walking. Her arm automatically tightens around her book and there’s a slight, slight mumble of protest. Rukia feels her cheeks flush and her friend laughs a little.
The other girl’s grip around her wrist is tight. She doesn’t think about it.
Ichigo left when she was thirteen. She remembers because there was something about a girl (Inoue), college (he didn’t go), and several terrible anniversaries surrounding his mother. She remembers because Karin was with her, in between the strange schematics of her sister leaving her brother, leaving her, and for once, for once, Rukia was just really glad to have some kind of distraction.
Thinking about it now, she cannot remember or pinpoint when she sort of fell for him, or when the crush became that crush, or when he stood as a distraction for her too, in the worst possible way. What she remembers most is that he noticed her and if anything, if anything at all, that meant too much even then.
Now, she’s just worried about Karin.
They finish school that day, the two of them walking into town. Karin is still wearing her practice uniform for soccer; Rukia has her fencing uniform stuffed into its own bag, her hair pulled into a haphazard braid. Sweat still gathers at her neck. She doesn’t know where they’re going, but Karin did say something about tea.
She touches her friend’s arm first. “Do you want to talk about it?”
“No.” Karin’s fist closes around the strap of her back. “He’s an asshole. But I have to be happy because Yuzu-chan is happy and Goat Face is happy and really, that’s what matters, right?”
Rukia shakes her head. “No,” she murmurs. “You’re allowed to be angry too.”
“I just - I don’t understand why he left,” Karin sighs. “Nobody does. I just don’t do the whole blind acceptance thing. He never did.”
Her lips curl. She shakes her head again, listening to her friend rant lightly about her brother and then her father, as all things somehow drag back to Isshin. He’s much different than Byakuya; warmer, maybe overly so. It’s still hard to get used to.
And maybe, she thinks, she gets it. She knows what it’s like to lose someone to leaving.
“But he came back,” she says, and Karin stops, wide-eyed. Her cheeks flush and then she softens. Rukia’s sister’s name goes unspoken between them. Rukia shrugs too, linking an arm through her friend’s. “That means something, you know?”
They’re quiet then, walking again and moving deeper into town. There is a teashop where everyone in school likes to frequent. It’s an odd convergence of classmates; sometimes it’s fun, sometimes it’s not, but right now, it may be what the two of them really just need.
Rukia squeezes her friend’s arm. “It’s all right,” she says.
It’s a week later that Ichigo finally corners her, or finds her, or finds her and corners her. This is after school. She knows that Karin has an away game, or game somewhere; she’s just too preoccupied with fencing practice, in the middle of directing a younger student with their form.
They call her the Kuchiki heir at school. It’s never just Rukia or even captain. She is aware of her admirers, even the younger teammates that she does have on the fencing team. The few friends that she does have keep her away from the titles and things and maybe there, that makes her grateful the most.
“It’s like this,” she murmurs, gently pulling the girl’s elbow back. Her hair falls into her eyes and the girl is blushing. “Remember to watch your footwork too.”
“Got it, Rukia-san!” the girl grins.
Rukia offers a smile, stepping back. She brushes her hands against her uniform and then turns to take a break. It’s how she spots Ichigo then, finally, leaning against the wall and watching her.
His leather jacket fits over his arm. He tilts his head to the side, but doesn’t smile and she almost just wants to go into saying that Karin isn’t here.
She knows all about his story too, at least from what her best friend has said. It’s been about traveling and people and it’s really what makes him happy. Yuzu now gushes that it’s the happiest she’s seen him in a very, very long time. So she looks for that, that stranger and not the older brother that she is supposed to know - at least, for Karin, and finds herself only seeing the handsome man watching her.
“Yo!” he calls finally.
She rolls her eyes, stepping to him. She stops at her bag for her water. He is too much for her to look at, she thinks. He is lines and angles, hard and when she reaches him, his eyes are bright and heavy and she’s flushing despite it all.
“Hello,” she greets. Her fingers pull at the cap of her bottle. “What can I do for you?”
He shrugs. “Nothing. There’s a delay in Karin’s game. I was on my way there. She mentioned that you had practice - so I was going to see if you wanted to come.”
“We’re here for another hour.”
“So?” He rubs the back of his neck. “I can wait.”
She rolls her eyes again. “I know you can, but you should probably go to her game.” She studies him, watching as he straightens against the wall. She doesn’t remember him as this tall, but he definitely hovers over her. “I can always make the next one,” she adds.
He says nothing and she turns away, looking back to the group. The other captain, her other best friend, Nanao, is working with a group of boys from the boys’ squad, her thin patience written into her face. Rukia hides a smile, shaking her head.
She moves to lean against the wall too, sliding to the ground too. The bottle presses against her lips and she watches the others then. Step, she thinks, parry, and lunge. It’s about order and patience and reading people. She never thought herself to be someone patient, but fencing applies to something in her instincts and she’s more than happy to have some kind of outlet.
“Karin says you’re good.”
She blinks. She looks up too, meeting his gaze.
“You’re the captain,” he says. Her lips turn. “We didn’t have a team when I was here.”
“I remember,” she says. “Hinamori-senshi was the one that introduced the concept when I was a freshman. It’s become quite big.”
“Ah.”
They’re quiet again. She watches him and then shakes her head. You’re like Karin, she wants to say. There’s something about the way he cannot hide anything. She sees the lines in his face and the way they pull at his mouth. It moves to his hands too, his fists as they curl and grip against his chest, then his legs too. He drops his jacket and she reaches for it, pulling it gently into her hands.
His gaze is hers again when she lifts it up.
“Whatever -” he sighs, his mouth pursing. “Whatever you said to her, thanks.”
Her cheeks flush. Her fingers dig into the jacket; he still doesn’t take it from her, his eyes dark. He’s too serious, she thinks.
“I didn’t say anything,” she murmurs.
“Yuzu says she listens to you.” His hand brushes over hers, his fingers skirting over her knuckles. “So seriously, I - thanks.”
Rukia laughs a little. “I really didn’t say anything.”
“You don’t give yourself credit, idiot.”
She snorts. She raises an eyebrow. Nanao’s waving at her from across the room, her eyes dark with some kind of misery. Her lips quirk and she sees their coach, Kyouraku, lurking behind her.
She pushes herself up to stand. She pushes the jacket into Ichigo’s hands too; halfway, she decides to fold it back over his arm without thinking. Her fingers slide over the sleeve of his shirt and then stop at his wrist. She meets his gaze and she shrugs, her mouth curling.
“You don’t know me that well, Kurosaki-san,” she says. Her voice is husky and she doesn’t mean to, but it’s just too easy to let herself push a little. She doesn’t say goodbye and she steps away, grabbing her bottle off the ground.
It’s a little harder to ignore the glint in his eyes though. His mouth quirks and suddenly, suddenly he’s back to saying nothing at all.
She tries not to think about how long he watches.
This is not about first loves for her. Older, she is too much of a pragmatist. She studies him and she decides to hold what she sees. Being close seems to make sense, but that unnerves her in a different way.
This happens without structure:
She trips just outside the clinic; he catches her and his hand over her hip is warm.
It takes her awhile to not call him Kurosaki-kun. He tells her he hates it and Yuzu is watching this whole exchange, grinning widely. Nobody hears when she finally calls him Ichigo, her mouth soft as they stand over the dishwasher, cleaning up, and in the middle of the mundane act, it seems to make the most sense.
He laughs and sees her at practice because he’s picking her and Karin up; she has to adjust his hand and footwork because he parries too sharply, too intently, and it’s a good thing she can’t admit that she likes that.
That would be stupid, she thinks.
The weird thing isn’t that she’s back to noticing him again. She feels stupid, of course, and away from the change in his form, she sees how acts with her, how he’s interested and how he listens and doesn’t know what to do. But it’s different, it’s different because Karin notices and Yuzu notices and Isshin notices and everybody’s weirdly okay with it -
Or mostly, it’s because he’s noticing her too.
He’s writing a book, she finds out finally, Traveling everywhere, it turns out, was a really big thing again. He’s talking about the foods and the people and that motorcycle he bought to get around for a year in Istanbul, all because he won a card game and a little more than luck.
She likes his stories, but she doesn’t tell him. It’s not just Istanbul, it’s Paris and Rome and the middle of Argentina in the winter. She listens and tries to paint the pictures in her head, tries and tries to imagine if her sister is doing the same thing wherever she is, if at the very least she’s happier this way. She doesn’t tell him this and she wonders, sometimes, if he reads that on her face because he asks about school and college and fencing a little too eagerly.
“There’s nothing to say,” she tells him one day. She sits next between him and Yuzu, watching Karin and the girls’ soccer team prep for their game. Her hands brush over her skirt. “I’m really boring.”
“You’re a terrible liar,” he says dryly.
Yuzu giggles. “She really is, Ichi-nii.”
Rukia mock-glares at Yuzu, rolling her eyes as both siblings laugh at her. She tucks her hair behind her ear and feels self-conscious between them nonetheless.
“I don’t know many girls that fence or whatever,” Ichigo continues. “I know you’re good too.”
She shrugs. “I don’t really do it because I’m good,” she says.
“Then?”
She blinks, looking at him. He’s serious, pulling at the collar of his jacket. She feels her hands tense in her lap. Nobody’s really asked her why, not even her own brother. But then again, she and Byakuya don’t really know how to talk.
“I do it because it gives me a clear head,” she says finally. “It’s not about the opponent or the point, it’s just about movement and speed and the structure in your mind. I do it for the same reason your sister plays soccer - it’s mine.”
Yuzu chuckles next to her. “Also everybody on the team loves her and Nanao-san, Ichi-nii. You should see the admirers.”
“I bet,” he murmurs.
Rukia blushes, looking away. She doesn’t really know what else to do.
Once Inoue calls her pretty in front of him. It’s accidental. They’ve run into each other on the weekend, just as Rukia wanders out of the Kuchiki offices for her tea and another hour of waiting for her brother. The others are there too. Ishida and Sado both ask her about school and fencing and parries and everything of that nature as it is just the polite thing to do.
The sun is hot and slick against her throat and she cannot, for the life of her, remember the name of the shop they were standing in front of. It’s not the dress, she reasons into mid-panic and Inoue also calls her cute because if there’s one thing Rukia cannot hide, it’s when she blushes.
It doesn’t matter though. Ichigo agrees.
“Especially when she fences,” he says. “It’s beautiful.”
She cannot laugh it off as teasing.
That distinct memory she has of him is a strange one. The suitcase by the door, the letters to his sister, the replay of whatever it was that happened between him, his friends, and of course, of course Inoue, who she knows only because she came around to see Karin and Yuzu and then stopped.
The smaller memories are the ones that are coming to the surface now. The way he would stupidly ruffle her hair and how she just wanted him to stop; she was a kid, she was a shy and angry kid, one that didn’t understand what was going on around her until those few moments. There was that one time he told her that she looked pretty, which now seems vague and heavy and out of place.
It makes sense that they have no place.
She spends the night at the Kurosaki home, after the school dance. When she and Karin were leaving, Inoue and the rest of Ichigo’s friends were coming, ready to drag him out. Karin eyed them all warily.
“It’s fine,” she tells her friend, but still, even later, it’s easy to read where Karin’s mind is. You don’t get over leaving, she tells herself again.
But this is how she finds herself in the Kurosaki kitchen, sleepy and still in her dress for the dance. The light still catches at the sequins, the fold of fabric brushing against her thighs. Karin is upstairs, passed out on her bed and really, Rukia thinks, all she just wants is milk. This is the problem with being a light sleeper.
She is settling at the kitchen bar though, her legs folding over the stool. She cups a mug and the door from the clinic opens, Ichigo walking in.
“It’s late,” he greets.
“It’s late,” she greets too, and he smirks.
He shrugs out of his jacket, tossing it over the island. He looks at her hands and then the fridge, moving to her. He pulls her mug of milk out of her hands.
“It’s not warm,” he says, wrinkling his nose. “That’s not right.”
Rukia snorts. “I didn’t make it for you, asshole. I like my milk cold.”
“That’s too bad. There’s always next time,” he drawls.
She laughs, she actually laughs, rubbing her eyes. He doesn’t ask about the dance and she doesn’t ask about his friends and it’s just better that way, really, all the polite informalities filed away for elsewhere.
What he does do is sit next to her, taking the other stool. His legs are too long, but they press against hers and they’re sitting knee to knee, oddly enough.
“Think she’ll ever forgive me?” he asks.
“Karin?” Rukia tilts her head to the side and he nods. “Sure,” she says slowly. “You’re her brother. She loves you.”
“Don’t bullshit me,” he says.
“I’m not.”
She’s honest and her shoulders feel heavy. She doesn’t understand why it’s just this easy for her to talk to him, without quantifying it or reasoning or anything of the above. Instead, she finds herself just riding whatever his return means to her.
“You’ve already been forgiven,” she says. “She gets it, you know - that you had your reasons. It’s really about trusting you. That may take awhile. That always takes awhile.”
He rubs his eyes. “Yeah.” There’s a pause. “You know,” he tells her. “You’re the only one who hasn’t asked me why I did it.”
“It’s not my business.”
“But you still can ask,” he insists.
She takes the milk back from him. Her fingers curl around the mug and she pulls it to her lips, letting them rest against the rim.
“Do you want me to ask?”
Ichigo stares at her. “What?”
“Do you want me to ask?” she repeats.
“You’re weird,” he says lightly, and she laughs into her mug. Their knees press closer. She feels her dress shift against her legs too, just as she slides forward on her stool.
His hand drops. His fingers graze her knee and she watches them turn against her dress. Her leg moves too, a little closer to his touch. It’s dark enough in the kitchen where she gets away with just feeling the flush on her cheeks
They are on the brink of something. It catches at her, pooling together in her throat. She feels it tighten and shift and she is trying not to look at him all the same. It cannot be just her, she thinks.
“Does it matter?” she asks finally, forcing herself to focus. “Whether I know or not. I was a footnote if anything else when you left -” Her lips quirk. “Shouldn’t you be telling Karin-chan about this anyway?”
“I don’t think she wants to listen,” he murmurs.
“Do you blame her?” Her voice softens. She puts the mug down. Shyly, she touches his arm. “My sister left around the same time you did,” she says, and the words are just coming out. They don’t tumble. They aren’t loud. “Every once in awhile I get a postcard. Or did - the last time I got one was fifteen and -” she catches herself, “it doesn’t matter. You came back, Kurosaki-kun. Your family is happy to have you.”
It’s the most she’s said to him and meant. She thinks of her own brother, home and not home, lost in the transitions and mergers and work. She is a Kuchiki. She is the heiress to an empire she was never meant to have. This is something that she’s only on the cusp of dealing with. But it doesn’t scare her. It’s a fear that hasn’t picked her.
He laughs a little. “You really are weird,” he says. Then he’s serious. “Sorry about your sister, I didn’t -”
Know, he doesn’t finish. She shrugs. It’s different, suddenly. “It’s different for me,” she murmurs. “Hisana-nee was always restless.”
“I don’t remember her,” he says.
She looks away, putting her mug on the counter. Her gaze settles on the microwave clock. Upstairs, the floor creaks and shifts.
“I don’t either,” she says. “I don’t think that matters as it is.”
He slides off the stool, moving over her. He reaches forward, brushing her bangs away from her face. She blushes again, wide-eyed at how comfortable he is like that. It could be her, just her, she reasons, and her issues with space and people and just not know what to do.
But he lingers too. His fingers drop against her jaw.
“Your parents -”
This is a mistake.
She cuts him off, her hands curling in her lap. “It’s not a competition,” she says flatly. “I was a baby as it is, when nii-sama took me in - or married Hisana-nee. It depends on how you look at it, really.”
“You’re not angry with her,” he murmurs. The tone in his voice is curious. She reads nothing else. “Maybe it’s a thing -”
She snorts.
“What?” he asks.
“I told you, Kurosaki-kun. I’m nothing special.” She sees it in his gaze, she thinks. Finally too; he is trying to make her into something. She’s not entirely sure what, but the curiosity is what makes her the most uncomfortable.
And then suddenly, she’s a little angry too. It comes too fast and too soon. It licks at her throat because she remembers. He’s writing a book. He’s back and she doesn’t know him. She doesn’t know what to do with him. She’s not a little girl and this isn’t anything. She doesn’t like that she’s losing a grip on her anonymity.
She turns her head, looking away. “I’m not a character you can put in your book.”
“Rukia,” he says.
“I should probably go to bed,” she continues. She pushes herself up to stand. She nearly trips too, ducking under his arm. The floor is cool against her feet and she curls a hand in her hair. “Your sister’s a light sleeper.”
He doesn’t say anything else or tell her to stay. She gets the feeling that he’s not that guy. He doesn’t ask anyone to stay. The thought of that unnerves her though and she’s replaying her own words, even as she starts up the stairs.
This isn’t a competition.
(What she won’t admit to, what he won’t admit to is what happened later, somewhere between her marching back to the lockers, completely mortified as he grabbed her wrist and dragged her back. He said something about talking over and over again, that she needed it and that this wasn’t instinctive or about favors or anything else.
This is how she finds her hands framing his face, her mouth over his, opening wide as she kisses him hard. She dominates, she pushes, she makes sure that it stands between the two of them as you will not forget because this is the closest she can say to someone that she is not terrified of being left behind, but that she is tired of being disappointed. She kisses him with teeth and her nails, dragging against his cheek, into his hair as he pulls her forward and turns her into a locker.
This isn’t a competition; he still kisses her until she’s breathless.)
A postcard comes out of the blue. The glossy picture stretches out to greet her. It is the morning of a big meet; Byakuya is waiting for her at the table, paper folded underneath his arm as he gets ready to leave for the office. She can hear the car running too.
It’s the way that he’s watching her though, the dark eyes and the slight, tense slant of his mouth. It always makes her think of some odd analogy, but it never really works for him - her brother is all lines and hard lines at that, not quite family but family nonetheless. Rukia has learned to hold onto the blessing.
“Good luck tonight,” he says quietly.
She sees the postcard then and there, her name scrawled across the open back lazily. Her sister’s handwriting is neat. She can read the first line too: I cannot believe you are eighteen already - as if this was supposed to make thing better.
Rukia is angry. Maybe enough for the both of them.
“What is with you?” Karin hisses just before the meet. She stands with Nanao too. Her friends are watching her as she slides on her gloves. “You been too fucking quiet all day, Rukia.”
She shrugs, braiding her hair. She weaves her fingers through the strands, looking into the crowd of the other school. She sees two boys that she knows - Toshiro, who she trained with years ago, and Kaien, a strange crush that she had too. The world feels inexplicably small and it doesn’t need to and she cannot blame anyone but herself as it is.
Then there is Yuzu too. She walks in with both her father and Ichigo, Inoue and Ishida and Sado - it hits her that it’s this week, or weekend really, that starts the alumni rounds for their school and it would just be her luck. This is a reason or an excuse, but there is nothing real to hold to it.
She tries not to think about her last conversation with Karin’s brother, or how easily she fell into avoiding him after. She doesn’t give herself time to think about how intense his gaze now feels and how she hates being on the radar.
This isn’t about them though. Her fingers tremble. She tries to think of herself in line with the meet. It’s parry. It’s thrust. It’s always quick thinking.
A hand lands on her arm. “Rukia,” Nanao murmurs.
She blinks, looking down. Her hands feel steady enough.
“I’m fine,” she says.
There is a reason she is this good.
Later, sweat licks away at her throat. Her hair mats over her jaw and forehead. She sits on the floor, stretching her legs out as she watches the others leave. It’s Nanao that steps in and redirects Toshiro elsewhere, even as Kyouraku lingers to tease her. She appreciates it all the same.
When everyone is finally gone, she picks up a spare foil from the wall. Her fingers curl around the hilt and she moves to one of the mats, falling into form.
There is too much to imagine; in the beginning she always sees someone, from her parents, to her sister, to the brother that finally rounds out some stability. Her elbow juts into position, then she extends her arm, then she pushes herself into a thrust. She passes forward then, dropping to the floor with a hand and her blade extends forward, straight into the space where Ichigo now stands.
He isn’t smiling. She doesn’t care.
“You called me Kurosaki-kun,” he greets.
She pushes herself to stand, pulling the foil back. Her fingers shift over the blade and she shakes her head.
“You shouldn’t be here,” she counters.
His eyes are dark. “You’re good,” he says. “I mean, you’re really good.”
“I guess.”
She turns and he grabs her arm, forcing her to keep watching him. She tries to focus her gaze elsewhere, but there is something in her that can’t. She just can’t.
“I didn’t mean to make you angry,” he murmurs.
Her mouth twists. “I’m not angry,” she says.
“Now,” he drawls. “That’s a lie. That’s a stupid lie.” He pokes a finger against her forehead, drawing it against the crease against her skin. “Karin’s worried too.”
“I’m fine,” she says automatically.
“Bullshit,” he snaps.
Her eyes narrow. His grip isn’t tight and she isn’t exactly pulling herself away. It’s not that she’s worried or afraid or anything. Somehow being close to him is just stupidly easy and she wants to hate that. She needs to hate that.
Instead, she brings a hand up, her fingers curling around his hand. She pulls it away from her arm. But he drops his hand down to her wrist and she finds herself sighing, shaking her head too.
“You’re an ass,” she tells him. “You’re also my best friend’s older brother and everything about this is a walking cliché. And I can’t exactly tell her anything because that’s not fair and she’s still getting used to you being here.”
Rukia stares at his hand around her wrist. She still grips the foil. Ichigo tugs at her too, pulling her closer.
“You shouldn’t worry about Karin.”
She scoffs. “It’s a little more complicated than that.”
“You’re also assuming,” he says. He isn’t teasing, but there’s that glint in his eyes again, the slow curl of his mouth that unnerves her too. They’re gold, she thinks. Or amber - no, it’s just unnerving how the color and the depth and everything seems to change against her. His mouth touches her forehead. “But that’s cute,” he adds.
“You’re a patronizing ass,” she snaps.
It’s then that he laughs, really laughs, and it’s the most intimate thing she’s ever heard. It brushes against her skin, over her forehead as his mouth opens and her fingers flex nervously against his chest. She doesn’t know what to do with it, the sound, and her cheeks are warming right there, right in front of him, where there’s no place or piece of conversation that she can hide behind.
He is pulling the foil out of her hand too. It startles her and she watches, mystified even as he lets it drop to the ground. There are so many questions then. There is the how and the why and she’s just not it; it’s the way that he continues to look at her too and how she just can’t fit any of it in, any of him in and that in itself just doesn’t want to work for her.
“I didn’t love her,” he says finally. “She didn’t love me either - I think everybody sort of knew or whatever, but then there was that added expectation of well, okay, but you should be together anyway.”
Her eyes are wide. His hand slides into her and he holds it loosely.
“She’s sweet, Inoue. She’s still sweet. I think weirdly enough it was Dad - and seriously, this can’t get back to him - who pointed out first. The right one is supposed to be different, it’s supposed to be all-encompassing, so much so that if I left for a couple of years and came back, it would be this fire …” he laughs a little, rubbing his throat. “Listen to me,” he says dryly.
Her lips purse. “I am,” she murmurs.
There are voices somewhere in the space too. She thinks they’re by the door. It doesn’t matter. She doesn’t care. She can’t seem to pull herself away from him as it is and that should scare her.
He tilts his head to the side though, then tugs her forward, pulling her into him. His hand falls to her hip and catches over her uniform, pulling a little at the white suit. He laughs out loud again, low and shy and far too husky.
“I know,” he says. “But I just want you to know that I can listen too. I’d like to, really.”
It would be easy to tell him then, maybe too easy, about everything. She could start her story at Hisana, she could even follow with how she stood next Karin for days and how easy it was to care too much about him and this and that. She could tell him about how she really does love Byakuya, but that Hisana is still that ghost between them and if anything, if anything at all, she wants to hate her sister, but she can’t and won’t. It isn’t how she works.
Instead, Rukia pushes herself onto her toes. She is pulling her gloves off without thinking. The velcro pops against the back of her hands and then she lets her mouth touch his jaw.
Her lips open slowly, softly, as if she were sighing into him. She lets her hands rise and press against his chest, her fingers curling into his jacket. She doesn’t move and she finds herself half-resting, half-nuzzling against his skin. She is neither shy nor apologetic; the best and the worst part about herself, she supposes. But his arm slides around her waist and he is pulling her against him all the same.
This may be something, she thinks. Rukia gives him this to start.
There is a wall that overlooks one of the old fields in the park. Rukia sits on the low end, her school skirt fluttering against her knees. Karin is next to her and they watch as Ichigo messes around with the ball and his friends, tossing it back in forth into an impromptu game of soccer.
“He’s really back,” Karin says lightly, and she makes no move to join the game, leaning against the wall next to her.
The wall is cool to touch under her palms. Her thumbs skirt against the brick; they catch hard into a crack and then stop. It’s been like this since she can remember though, between broken pieces and a hangout for kids at school.
“He asked for curry last night,” Karin continues. “Yuzu almost died in the kitchen. Goat Face was totally psyched too.”
Rukia does not look at her friend. “I know,” she says.
There are a few unspoken things between the two girls; Ichigo pauses, ducking under Ishida’s arm, then Renji’s to squint and look at the two of them. He rolls his eyes and then yells something like come on, pointing at his sister and then finally, finally her, the corners of his mouth shifting into an indulgent smile.
The flush against Rukia’s cheeks is warm. “I’m glad,” Karin says.
we beg lines
they meet in the middle. step, parry, thrust. bleach | rukia/ichigo | AU | 5,806 words, PG.
-
“He’s really back,” Karin says.
Her head sinks over Rukia’s knee as they sit on her bed. Their schoolbooks are everywhere and Karin’s eyes are too red to really get back to work.
Rukia does not look at her friend. “I know,” she says.
There is a way to these stories; she can pick and pull between characters, imagine different scenarios and different ends, a kind of linearity that not many people want to get and grab. But she isn’t a character, he is not just some boy, and the last time the two of them stood in the same room, a passing acknowledge was shoved onto her shoulders because she was only important in a small, small way.
Karin calls about their History exam. Rukia leaves a note on the kitchen table for her brother and brings her Physics book instead. This is what it means to have an older brother, she supposes.
But when she arrives at the Kurosaki house, she seems to slip into the middle of things, right in between Inoue and Karin’s brother. This is how she knows he’s really back in town.
“Tell Ishida that I’ll be around,” he says, and he ruffles Inoue’s hair, giving her a lazy grin. It startles her, his eyes, Inoue’s eyes, and the soft awareness that seems to keep everything settled.
“Sure,” the older girl grins. They both notice her. Then, it’s Inoue who smiles again first. “Rukia-chan! It’s so good to see you. Here to see Karin-chan?”
Rukia’s fingers slide her hair behind her ear. She feels self-conscious. She wants to hate school. It’s easy to blame, of course.
Just as soon as Karin’s name is mentioned, her best friend flies out of the house, bag and soccer ball in both her hands. Her hair is wild and her eyes are bright. She grabs Rukia’s arm, pulling her back away from the house.
“Ja, Ichi-nii!” she calls. “Take a shower, okay? Rukia-chan and I are coming back and I don’t want to subject her to that airport smell of yours - and a day later too.”
“Fuck you!” he calls back.
Inoue laughs and Rukia sighs, letting Karin yank her into walking. Her arm automatically tightens around her book and there’s a slight, slight mumble of protest. Rukia feels her cheeks flush and her friend laughs a little.
The other girl’s grip around her wrist is tight. She doesn’t think about it.
Ichigo left when she was thirteen. She remembers because there was something about a girl (Inoue), college (he didn’t go), and several terrible anniversaries surrounding his mother. She remembers because Karin was with her, in between the strange schematics of her sister leaving her brother, leaving her, and for once, for once, Rukia was just really glad to have some kind of distraction.
Thinking about it now, she cannot remember or pinpoint when she sort of fell for him, or when the crush became that crush, or when he stood as a distraction for her too, in the worst possible way. What she remembers most is that he noticed her and if anything, if anything at all, that meant too much even then.
Now, she’s just worried about Karin.
They finish school that day, the two of them walking into town. Karin is still wearing her practice uniform for soccer; Rukia has her fencing uniform stuffed into its own bag, her hair pulled into a haphazard braid. Sweat still gathers at her neck. She doesn’t know where they’re going, but Karin did say something about tea.
She touches her friend’s arm first. “Do you want to talk about it?”
“No.” Karin’s fist closes around the strap of her back. “He’s an asshole. But I have to be happy because Yuzu-chan is happy and Goat Face is happy and really, that’s what matters, right?”
Rukia shakes her head. “No,” she murmurs. “You’re allowed to be angry too.”
“I just - I don’t understand why he left,” Karin sighs. “Nobody does. I just don’t do the whole blind acceptance thing. He never did.”
Her lips curl. She shakes her head again, listening to her friend rant lightly about her brother and then her father, as all things somehow drag back to Isshin. He’s much different than Byakuya; warmer, maybe overly so. It’s still hard to get used to.
And maybe, she thinks, she gets it. She knows what it’s like to lose someone to leaving.
“But he came back,” she says, and Karin stops, wide-eyed. Her cheeks flush and then she softens. Rukia’s sister’s name goes unspoken between them. Rukia shrugs too, linking an arm through her friend’s. “That means something, you know?”
They’re quiet then, walking again and moving deeper into town. There is a teashop where everyone in school likes to frequent. It’s an odd convergence of classmates; sometimes it’s fun, sometimes it’s not, but right now, it may be what the two of them really just need.
Rukia squeezes her friend’s arm. “It’s all right,” she says.
It’s a week later that Ichigo finally corners her, or finds her, or finds her and corners her. This is after school. She knows that Karin has an away game, or game somewhere; she’s just too preoccupied with fencing practice, in the middle of directing a younger student with their form.
They call her the Kuchiki heir at school. It’s never just Rukia or even captain. She is aware of her admirers, even the younger teammates that she does have on the fencing team. The few friends that she does have keep her away from the titles and things and maybe there, that makes her grateful the most.
“It’s like this,” she murmurs, gently pulling the girl’s elbow back. Her hair falls into her eyes and the girl is blushing. “Remember to watch your footwork too.”
“Got it, Rukia-san!” the girl grins.
Rukia offers a smile, stepping back. She brushes her hands against her uniform and then turns to take a break. It’s how she spots Ichigo then, finally, leaning against the wall and watching her.
His leather jacket fits over his arm. He tilts his head to the side, but doesn’t smile and she almost just wants to go into saying that Karin isn’t here.
She knows all about his story too, at least from what her best friend has said. It’s been about traveling and people and it’s really what makes him happy. Yuzu now gushes that it’s the happiest she’s seen him in a very, very long time. So she looks for that, that stranger and not the older brother that she is supposed to know - at least, for Karin, and finds herself only seeing the handsome man watching her.
“Yo!” he calls finally.
She rolls her eyes, stepping to him. She stops at her bag for her water. He is too much for her to look at, she thinks. He is lines and angles, hard and when she reaches him, his eyes are bright and heavy and she’s flushing despite it all.
“Hello,” she greets. Her fingers pull at the cap of her bottle. “What can I do for you?”
He shrugs. “Nothing. There’s a delay in Karin’s game. I was on my way there. She mentioned that you had practice - so I was going to see if you wanted to come.”
“We’re here for another hour.”
“So?” He rubs the back of his neck. “I can wait.”
She rolls her eyes again. “I know you can, but you should probably go to her game.” She studies him, watching as he straightens against the wall. She doesn’t remember him as this tall, but he definitely hovers over her. “I can always make the next one,” she adds.
He says nothing and she turns away, looking back to the group. The other captain, her other best friend, Nanao, is working with a group of boys from the boys’ squad, her thin patience written into her face. Rukia hides a smile, shaking her head.
She moves to lean against the wall too, sliding to the ground too. The bottle presses against her lips and she watches the others then. Step, she thinks, parry, and lunge. It’s about order and patience and reading people. She never thought herself to be someone patient, but fencing applies to something in her instincts and she’s more than happy to have some kind of outlet.
“Karin says you’re good.”
She blinks. She looks up too, meeting his gaze.
“You’re the captain,” he says. Her lips turn. “We didn’t have a team when I was here.”
“I remember,” she says. “Hinamori-senshi was the one that introduced the concept when I was a freshman. It’s become quite big.”
“Ah.”
They’re quiet again. She watches him and then shakes her head. You’re like Karin, she wants to say. There’s something about the way he cannot hide anything. She sees the lines in his face and the way they pull at his mouth. It moves to his hands too, his fists as they curl and grip against his chest, then his legs too. He drops his jacket and she reaches for it, pulling it gently into her hands.
His gaze is hers again when she lifts it up.
“Whatever -” he sighs, his mouth pursing. “Whatever you said to her, thanks.”
Her cheeks flush. Her fingers dig into the jacket; he still doesn’t take it from her, his eyes dark. He’s too serious, she thinks.
“I didn’t say anything,” she murmurs.
“Yuzu says she listens to you.” His hand brushes over hers, his fingers skirting over her knuckles. “So seriously, I - thanks.”
Rukia laughs a little. “I really didn’t say anything.”
“You don’t give yourself credit, idiot.”
She snorts. She raises an eyebrow. Nanao’s waving at her from across the room, her eyes dark with some kind of misery. Her lips quirk and she sees their coach, Kyouraku, lurking behind her.
She pushes herself up to stand. She pushes the jacket into Ichigo’s hands too; halfway, she decides to fold it back over his arm without thinking. Her fingers slide over the sleeve of his shirt and then stop at his wrist. She meets his gaze and she shrugs, her mouth curling.
“You don’t know me that well, Kurosaki-san,” she says. Her voice is husky and she doesn’t mean to, but it’s just too easy to let herself push a little. She doesn’t say goodbye and she steps away, grabbing her bottle off the ground.
It’s a little harder to ignore the glint in his eyes though. His mouth quirks and suddenly, suddenly he’s back to saying nothing at all.
She tries not to think about how long he watches.
This is not about first loves for her. Older, she is too much of a pragmatist. She studies him and she decides to hold what she sees. Being close seems to make sense, but that unnerves her in a different way.
This happens without structure:
She trips just outside the clinic; he catches her and his hand over her hip is warm.
It takes her awhile to not call him Kurosaki-kun. He tells her he hates it and Yuzu is watching this whole exchange, grinning widely. Nobody hears when she finally calls him Ichigo, her mouth soft as they stand over the dishwasher, cleaning up, and in the middle of the mundane act, it seems to make the most sense.
He laughs and sees her at practice because he’s picking her and Karin up; she has to adjust his hand and footwork because he parries too sharply, too intently, and it’s a good thing she can’t admit that she likes that.
That would be stupid, she thinks.
The weird thing isn’t that she’s back to noticing him again. She feels stupid, of course, and away from the change in his form, she sees how acts with her, how he’s interested and how he listens and doesn’t know what to do. But it’s different, it’s different because Karin notices and Yuzu notices and Isshin notices and everybody’s weirdly okay with it -
Or mostly, it’s because he’s noticing her too.
He’s writing a book, she finds out finally, Traveling everywhere, it turns out, was a really big thing again. He’s talking about the foods and the people and that motorcycle he bought to get around for a year in Istanbul, all because he won a card game and a little more than luck.
She likes his stories, but she doesn’t tell him. It’s not just Istanbul, it’s Paris and Rome and the middle of Argentina in the winter. She listens and tries to paint the pictures in her head, tries and tries to imagine if her sister is doing the same thing wherever she is, if at the very least she’s happier this way. She doesn’t tell him this and she wonders, sometimes, if he reads that on her face because he asks about school and college and fencing a little too eagerly.
“There’s nothing to say,” she tells him one day. She sits next between him and Yuzu, watching Karin and the girls’ soccer team prep for their game. Her hands brush over her skirt. “I’m really boring.”
“You’re a terrible liar,” he says dryly.
Yuzu giggles. “She really is, Ichi-nii.”
Rukia mock-glares at Yuzu, rolling her eyes as both siblings laugh at her. She tucks her hair behind her ear and feels self-conscious between them nonetheless.
“I don’t know many girls that fence or whatever,” Ichigo continues. “I know you’re good too.”
She shrugs. “I don’t really do it because I’m good,” she says.
“Then?”
She blinks, looking at him. He’s serious, pulling at the collar of his jacket. She feels her hands tense in her lap. Nobody’s really asked her why, not even her own brother. But then again, she and Byakuya don’t really know how to talk.
“I do it because it gives me a clear head,” she says finally. “It’s not about the opponent or the point, it’s just about movement and speed and the structure in your mind. I do it for the same reason your sister plays soccer - it’s mine.”
Yuzu chuckles next to her. “Also everybody on the team loves her and Nanao-san, Ichi-nii. You should see the admirers.”
“I bet,” he murmurs.
Rukia blushes, looking away. She doesn’t really know what else to do.
Once Inoue calls her pretty in front of him. It’s accidental. They’ve run into each other on the weekend, just as Rukia wanders out of the Kuchiki offices for her tea and another hour of waiting for her brother. The others are there too. Ishida and Sado both ask her about school and fencing and parries and everything of that nature as it is just the polite thing to do.
The sun is hot and slick against her throat and she cannot, for the life of her, remember the name of the shop they were standing in front of. It’s not the dress, she reasons into mid-panic and Inoue also calls her cute because if there’s one thing Rukia cannot hide, it’s when she blushes.
It doesn’t matter though. Ichigo agrees.
“Especially when she fences,” he says. “It’s beautiful.”
She cannot laugh it off as teasing.
That distinct memory she has of him is a strange one. The suitcase by the door, the letters to his sister, the replay of whatever it was that happened between him, his friends, and of course, of course Inoue, who she knows only because she came around to see Karin and Yuzu and then stopped.
The smaller memories are the ones that are coming to the surface now. The way he would stupidly ruffle her hair and how she just wanted him to stop; she was a kid, she was a shy and angry kid, one that didn’t understand what was going on around her until those few moments. There was that one time he told her that she looked pretty, which now seems vague and heavy and out of place.
It makes sense that they have no place.
She spends the night at the Kurosaki home, after the school dance. When she and Karin were leaving, Inoue and the rest of Ichigo’s friends were coming, ready to drag him out. Karin eyed them all warily.
“It’s fine,” she tells her friend, but still, even later, it’s easy to read where Karin’s mind is. You don’t get over leaving, she tells herself again.
But this is how she finds herself in the Kurosaki kitchen, sleepy and still in her dress for the dance. The light still catches at the sequins, the fold of fabric brushing against her thighs. Karin is upstairs, passed out on her bed and really, Rukia thinks, all she just wants is milk. This is the problem with being a light sleeper.
She is settling at the kitchen bar though, her legs folding over the stool. She cups a mug and the door from the clinic opens, Ichigo walking in.
“It’s late,” he greets.
“It’s late,” she greets too, and he smirks.
He shrugs out of his jacket, tossing it over the island. He looks at her hands and then the fridge, moving to her. He pulls her mug of milk out of her hands.
“It’s not warm,” he says, wrinkling his nose. “That’s not right.”
Rukia snorts. “I didn’t make it for you, asshole. I like my milk cold.”
“That’s too bad. There’s always next time,” he drawls.
She laughs, she actually laughs, rubbing her eyes. He doesn’t ask about the dance and she doesn’t ask about his friends and it’s just better that way, really, all the polite informalities filed away for elsewhere.
What he does do is sit next to her, taking the other stool. His legs are too long, but they press against hers and they’re sitting knee to knee, oddly enough.
“Think she’ll ever forgive me?” he asks.
“Karin?” Rukia tilts her head to the side and he nods. “Sure,” she says slowly. “You’re her brother. She loves you.”
“Don’t bullshit me,” he says.
“I’m not.”
She’s honest and her shoulders feel heavy. She doesn’t understand why it’s just this easy for her to talk to him, without quantifying it or reasoning or anything of the above. Instead, she finds herself just riding whatever his return means to her.
“You’ve already been forgiven,” she says. “She gets it, you know - that you had your reasons. It’s really about trusting you. That may take awhile. That always takes awhile.”
He rubs his eyes. “Yeah.” There’s a pause. “You know,” he tells her. “You’re the only one who hasn’t asked me why I did it.”
“It’s not my business.”
“But you still can ask,” he insists.
She takes the milk back from him. Her fingers curl around the mug and she pulls it to her lips, letting them rest against the rim.
“Do you want me to ask?”
Ichigo stares at her. “What?”
“Do you want me to ask?” she repeats.
“You’re weird,” he says lightly, and she laughs into her mug. Their knees press closer. She feels her dress shift against her legs too, just as she slides forward on her stool.
His hand drops. His fingers graze her knee and she watches them turn against her dress. Her leg moves too, a little closer to his touch. It’s dark enough in the kitchen where she gets away with just feeling the flush on her cheeks
They are on the brink of something. It catches at her, pooling together in her throat. She feels it tighten and shift and she is trying not to look at him all the same. It cannot be just her, she thinks.
“Does it matter?” she asks finally, forcing herself to focus. “Whether I know or not. I was a footnote if anything else when you left -” Her lips quirk. “Shouldn’t you be telling Karin-chan about this anyway?”
“I don’t think she wants to listen,” he murmurs.
“Do you blame her?” Her voice softens. She puts the mug down. Shyly, she touches his arm. “My sister left around the same time you did,” she says, and the words are just coming out. They don’t tumble. They aren’t loud. “Every once in awhile I get a postcard. Or did - the last time I got one was fifteen and -” she catches herself, “it doesn’t matter. You came back, Kurosaki-kun. Your family is happy to have you.”
It’s the most she’s said to him and meant. She thinks of her own brother, home and not home, lost in the transitions and mergers and work. She is a Kuchiki. She is the heiress to an empire she was never meant to have. This is something that she’s only on the cusp of dealing with. But it doesn’t scare her. It’s a fear that hasn’t picked her.
He laughs a little. “You really are weird,” he says. Then he’s serious. “Sorry about your sister, I didn’t -”
Know, he doesn’t finish. She shrugs. It’s different, suddenly. “It’s different for me,” she murmurs. “Hisana-nee was always restless.”
“I don’t remember her,” he says.
She looks away, putting her mug on the counter. Her gaze settles on the microwave clock. Upstairs, the floor creaks and shifts.
“I don’t either,” she says. “I don’t think that matters as it is.”
He slides off the stool, moving over her. He reaches forward, brushing her bangs away from her face. She blushes again, wide-eyed at how comfortable he is like that. It could be her, just her, she reasons, and her issues with space and people and just not know what to do.
But he lingers too. His fingers drop against her jaw.
“Your parents -”
This is a mistake.
She cuts him off, her hands curling in her lap. “It’s not a competition,” she says flatly. “I was a baby as it is, when nii-sama took me in - or married Hisana-nee. It depends on how you look at it, really.”
“You’re not angry with her,” he murmurs. The tone in his voice is curious. She reads nothing else. “Maybe it’s a thing -”
She snorts.
“What?” he asks.
“I told you, Kurosaki-kun. I’m nothing special.” She sees it in his gaze, she thinks. Finally too; he is trying to make her into something. She’s not entirely sure what, but the curiosity is what makes her the most uncomfortable.
And then suddenly, she’s a little angry too. It comes too fast and too soon. It licks at her throat because she remembers. He’s writing a book. He’s back and she doesn’t know him. She doesn’t know what to do with him. She’s not a little girl and this isn’t anything. She doesn’t like that she’s losing a grip on her anonymity.
She turns her head, looking away. “I’m not a character you can put in your book.”
“Rukia,” he says.
“I should probably go to bed,” she continues. She pushes herself up to stand. She nearly trips too, ducking under his arm. The floor is cool against her feet and she curls a hand in her hair. “Your sister’s a light sleeper.”
He doesn’t say anything else or tell her to stay. She gets the feeling that he’s not that guy. He doesn’t ask anyone to stay. The thought of that unnerves her though and she’s replaying her own words, even as she starts up the stairs.
This isn’t a competition.
(What she won’t admit to, what he won’t admit to is what happened later, somewhere between her marching back to the lockers, completely mortified as he grabbed her wrist and dragged her back. He said something about talking over and over again, that she needed it and that this wasn’t instinctive or about favors or anything else.
This is how she finds her hands framing his face, her mouth over his, opening wide as she kisses him hard. She dominates, she pushes, she makes sure that it stands between the two of them as you will not forget because this is the closest she can say to someone that she is not terrified of being left behind, but that she is tired of being disappointed. She kisses him with teeth and her nails, dragging against his cheek, into his hair as he pulls her forward and turns her into a locker.
This isn’t a competition; he still kisses her until she’s breathless.)
A postcard comes out of the blue. The glossy picture stretches out to greet her. It is the morning of a big meet; Byakuya is waiting for her at the table, paper folded underneath his arm as he gets ready to leave for the office. She can hear the car running too.
It’s the way that he’s watching her though, the dark eyes and the slight, tense slant of his mouth. It always makes her think of some odd analogy, but it never really works for him - her brother is all lines and hard lines at that, not quite family but family nonetheless. Rukia has learned to hold onto the blessing.
“Good luck tonight,” he says quietly.
She sees the postcard then and there, her name scrawled across the open back lazily. Her sister’s handwriting is neat. She can read the first line too: I cannot believe you are eighteen already - as if this was supposed to make thing better.
Rukia is angry. Maybe enough for the both of them.
“What is with you?” Karin hisses just before the meet. She stands with Nanao too. Her friends are watching her as she slides on her gloves. “You been too fucking quiet all day, Rukia.”
She shrugs, braiding her hair. She weaves her fingers through the strands, looking into the crowd of the other school. She sees two boys that she knows - Toshiro, who she trained with years ago, and Kaien, a strange crush that she had too. The world feels inexplicably small and it doesn’t need to and she cannot blame anyone but herself as it is.
Then there is Yuzu too. She walks in with both her father and Ichigo, Inoue and Ishida and Sado - it hits her that it’s this week, or weekend really, that starts the alumni rounds for their school and it would just be her luck. This is a reason or an excuse, but there is nothing real to hold to it.
She tries not to think about her last conversation with Karin’s brother, or how easily she fell into avoiding him after. She doesn’t give herself time to think about how intense his gaze now feels and how she hates being on the radar.
This isn’t about them though. Her fingers tremble. She tries to think of herself in line with the meet. It’s parry. It’s thrust. It’s always quick thinking.
A hand lands on her arm. “Rukia,” Nanao murmurs.
She blinks, looking down. Her hands feel steady enough.
“I’m fine,” she says.
There is a reason she is this good.
Later, sweat licks away at her throat. Her hair mats over her jaw and forehead. She sits on the floor, stretching her legs out as she watches the others leave. It’s Nanao that steps in and redirects Toshiro elsewhere, even as Kyouraku lingers to tease her. She appreciates it all the same.
When everyone is finally gone, she picks up a spare foil from the wall. Her fingers curl around the hilt and she moves to one of the mats, falling into form.
There is too much to imagine; in the beginning she always sees someone, from her parents, to her sister, to the brother that finally rounds out some stability. Her elbow juts into position, then she extends her arm, then she pushes herself into a thrust. She passes forward then, dropping to the floor with a hand and her blade extends forward, straight into the space where Ichigo now stands.
He isn’t smiling. She doesn’t care.
“You called me Kurosaki-kun,” he greets.
She pushes herself to stand, pulling the foil back. Her fingers shift over the blade and she shakes her head.
“You shouldn’t be here,” she counters.
His eyes are dark. “You’re good,” he says. “I mean, you’re really good.”
“I guess.”
She turns and he grabs her arm, forcing her to keep watching him. She tries to focus her gaze elsewhere, but there is something in her that can’t. She just can’t.
“I didn’t mean to make you angry,” he murmurs.
Her mouth twists. “I’m not angry,” she says.
“Now,” he drawls. “That’s a lie. That’s a stupid lie.” He pokes a finger against her forehead, drawing it against the crease against her skin. “Karin’s worried too.”
“I’m fine,” she says automatically.
“Bullshit,” he snaps.
Her eyes narrow. His grip isn’t tight and she isn’t exactly pulling herself away. It’s not that she’s worried or afraid or anything. Somehow being close to him is just stupidly easy and she wants to hate that. She needs to hate that.
Instead, she brings a hand up, her fingers curling around his hand. She pulls it away from her arm. But he drops his hand down to her wrist and she finds herself sighing, shaking her head too.
“You’re an ass,” she tells him. “You’re also my best friend’s older brother and everything about this is a walking cliché. And I can’t exactly tell her anything because that’s not fair and she’s still getting used to you being here.”
Rukia stares at his hand around her wrist. She still grips the foil. Ichigo tugs at her too, pulling her closer.
“You shouldn’t worry about Karin.”
She scoffs. “It’s a little more complicated than that.”
“You’re also assuming,” he says. He isn’t teasing, but there’s that glint in his eyes again, the slow curl of his mouth that unnerves her too. They’re gold, she thinks. Or amber - no, it’s just unnerving how the color and the depth and everything seems to change against her. His mouth touches her forehead. “But that’s cute,” he adds.
“You’re a patronizing ass,” she snaps.
It’s then that he laughs, really laughs, and it’s the most intimate thing she’s ever heard. It brushes against her skin, over her forehead as his mouth opens and her fingers flex nervously against his chest. She doesn’t know what to do with it, the sound, and her cheeks are warming right there, right in front of him, where there’s no place or piece of conversation that she can hide behind.
He is pulling the foil out of her hand too. It startles her and she watches, mystified even as he lets it drop to the ground. There are so many questions then. There is the how and the why and she’s just not it; it’s the way that he continues to look at her too and how she just can’t fit any of it in, any of him in and that in itself just doesn’t want to work for her.
“I didn’t love her,” he says finally. “She didn’t love me either - I think everybody sort of knew or whatever, but then there was that added expectation of well, okay, but you should be together anyway.”
Her eyes are wide. His hand slides into her and he holds it loosely.
“She’s sweet, Inoue. She’s still sweet. I think weirdly enough it was Dad - and seriously, this can’t get back to him - who pointed out first. The right one is supposed to be different, it’s supposed to be all-encompassing, so much so that if I left for a couple of years and came back, it would be this fire …” he laughs a little, rubbing his throat. “Listen to me,” he says dryly.
Her lips purse. “I am,” she murmurs.
There are voices somewhere in the space too. She thinks they’re by the door. It doesn’t matter. She doesn’t care. She can’t seem to pull herself away from him as it is and that should scare her.
He tilts his head to the side though, then tugs her forward, pulling her into him. His hand falls to her hip and catches over her uniform, pulling a little at the white suit. He laughs out loud again, low and shy and far too husky.
“I know,” he says. “But I just want you to know that I can listen too. I’d like to, really.”
It would be easy to tell him then, maybe too easy, about everything. She could start her story at Hisana, she could even follow with how she stood next Karin for days and how easy it was to care too much about him and this and that. She could tell him about how she really does love Byakuya, but that Hisana is still that ghost between them and if anything, if anything at all, she wants to hate her sister, but she can’t and won’t. It isn’t how she works.
Instead, Rukia pushes herself onto her toes. She is pulling her gloves off without thinking. The velcro pops against the back of her hands and then she lets her mouth touch his jaw.
Her lips open slowly, softly, as if she were sighing into him. She lets her hands rise and press against his chest, her fingers curling into his jacket. She doesn’t move and she finds herself half-resting, half-nuzzling against his skin. She is neither shy nor apologetic; the best and the worst part about herself, she supposes. But his arm slides around her waist and he is pulling her against him all the same.
This may be something, she thinks. Rukia gives him this to start.
There is a wall that overlooks one of the old fields in the park. Rukia sits on the low end, her school skirt fluttering against her knees. Karin is next to her and they watch as Ichigo messes around with the ball and his friends, tossing it back in forth into an impromptu game of soccer.
“He’s really back,” Karin says lightly, and she makes no move to join the game, leaning against the wall next to her.
The wall is cool to touch under her palms. Her thumbs skirt against the brick; they catch hard into a crack and then stop. It’s been like this since she can remember though, between broken pieces and a hangout for kids at school.
“He asked for curry last night,” Karin continues. “Yuzu almost died in the kitchen. Goat Face was totally psyched too.”
Rukia does not look at her friend. “I know,” she says.
There are a few unspoken things between the two girls; Ichigo pauses, ducking under Ishida’s arm, then Renji’s to squint and look at the two of them. He rolls his eyes and then yells something like come on, pointing at his sister and then finally, finally her, the corners of his mouth shifting into an indulgent smile.
The flush against Rukia’s cheeks is warm. “I’m glad,” Karin says.