Ichigo smirked, who would've thought that the great Rukia Kuchiki would crush under his gaze? "You," he began, watching her intently, even though she remained still and quiet, sitting on his bed, "You really underestimate me alot don't you?" he asked her, that same, cocky, flirty face remained stained in her features, a smirk curved her lips and her eyes had some sort of hidden message, the kind you see in modeling and music videos, but he was never so stupid as to fall for her silly little act, "Ofcourse I underestimate you, you're stupid and reckless and irresponsible," Ichigo only grinned more, "I'm starting to feel insulted here Rukia, how come?" "Hmph, do you think I can see that one remaining brain cell of your's?" now normally this would be an insult, normally this would provoke yelling and screaming and ultimately Ichigo being injured, but her tone was so playfull and silky smoothe that it didn't take him more than a milli-second to remember that they were just teasing, "Well, if you can't guess my thoughts, then there's no reason to kiss you," he smirked, their faces only a hair away from eachother, "Your lines are the worest, but you really do make me-" her thoughts stopped, her playfull face filled with terror and her soft, honey-sweet voice shreiked into a shrill sound of horror, at first Ichigo was puzzled, but then he felt it, the sharp blade of her brother's sword jammed through him, in the distance of his conciouseness he heard Rukia's frantic voice pleading for him, "Ichigo! Help me! PLEASE! Help me Ichigo! Don't let them take me! They'll hurt me! Please help me Ichigo! ICHIGO!!!!!!"
Ichigo awoke from the nightmare, eyes wide, breatheing heavy, it was pretty early in the morning and Ichigo was sure that that had been nothing more than a dream, a nightmare, but in the back of his mind that little thread of worry started to wrap it's way around the rest of him, giveing into that small pull Ichigo got up and approached the closet, he hoped that she was still there, and more than anything that she was still sleeping, the last thing he wanted was to wake the sleeping shrew.... he slid the door open queitly, but something was odd, instead of being met with her sleeping face he was met with a blanket covering something up, curiouse, he slid the door open to the other end and sure enough there rested her peacefull face, her hair was messy and very eskew (she looked like she had been hit with a bolt of static electricity) her amythist eyes remained closed, her pink lips slightly parted, and her small fists curled up next to her face, he had watched her sleep before (and to this day she wasn't aware that he often spied on her in her sleep, and Ichigo wanted to keep it that way) she was normally a very neat sleeper, not messy like his sisters were, she would normally fall asleep in a certain position and stay that way untill she woke up, so seeing her like this was amuseing to say the very least, suddenly her eyes started to flutter open and realizing that he had been caught, he dashed back to his bed and pretended to sleep
"Why did you sleep upside down last night?" it was an hour after the incedent and the question had been nagging at him severly, "And why would you think that I did?" Rukia shot back, smirking victoreously, "I woke up and saw you climbing out the opposite end of the closet," he stated non-chalantly, he had maneged to weasel his way out of it this time, Rukia gave in, he had a reasonable answer, though she would never admit it, "I had a headache last night," she stated simply, leaning against the wall of the closet, "And? Did you take some asprin and fall asleep backwards or somethin'?" she glared at him slightly, "No, I didn't take any medicine," "You should've," "I'll get to the point if you'll shut up!" she shouted, Ichigo shrugged, pretending to lock his mouth shut and throw away the imaginary key, "Everytime I get a headache I sleep at the opposite end of the bed," "Why?" Rukia rolled her eyes, she thought he had shut up, "Because as a little kid we didn't have medicine that was accesable to us, so I had to sleep at the opposite end of the bed to make it stop, well, I had thought that that was a good ideah, so imagine my horror the day I decided to hang upside down from a tree because I had a headache," Ichigo cringed, "Ouch," he mumbeled, "Mm-hm, Renji had to take care of me for two days! I was so out of it that I could barely move!" she was laughing, she was remembering extremem pain and here she was laughing about it! "Renji huh?" Rukia didn't notice the slight hostility in his voice, "Mm-hm, he was so tired that he said 'If you ever do that again I'll kill you'! Funny story right?" "Yeah, REAL funny, espically considering that he almost came through with that," he sad in a sarcastic tone, "Ichigo, why can't you let go of that already? He's your best freind, almost your brother," "Well gee, I hope HE dosen't treat ME the way YOUR brother treats YOU!" Rukia was now standing, Ichigo was still in his desk chair, "Ichigo stop that!" she demanded, obviously this was no longer a playfull discussion, but now a true argument filled with anger and fear and everything else that could crawl under your skin, "I'll never forget the things they did to you, even if-" "I never asked you to FORGET! I'm asking you to FORGIVE!" She yelled, Ichigo stood up, looking down at her with fire in his coffee eyes, "NO," he said simply, but that two letter word seemed to speak a million more, "Why can't you just forgive them?! They were only following orders!" "Yeah ok! Let's ALL'follow orders' and kill eachother!" "Ichigo stop! You don't get it! It isn't like they WANTED to do it!" "Well there's this little thing called 'haveing a mind of your own', I no YOU'VE heard of it! Well sometimes, then other times you're just robotic as the rest of them!" "Robotic?!" "Yeah! It's like one minute you're all for free thinking and then they brainwash you into some obediant slave! And by the way, I broke the rules to save you! If they really cared they would've helped! I understand that Renji redeemed himself but-!" "But no one asked you to save me! I begged you NOT to save me! That's why you're so stubborn! You don't GET IT!" she shouted, her eyes were starting to tear up, "You could NEVER understand," her voice wasn't above a wisper, "YOU never lived on the streets, YOU were never suddenly a noble's family, YOU never went from rat to princess in a day flat! And unless you've DONE those things then you'll NEVER understand!" she was now sitting on the edge of the bed, simaler to the way she was in the dream, "You're right," he admitted, sitting next to her, "I've never been in that situation and I'll never understand how hard it is to go through that, but I DO understand something that you clearly have missed somehow," "Oh?" "Yep, it's why you deserve to live," her head shot up, "Don't tell me that you weren't inching around, waiting to spring that 'I deserve to die' thing on me," Rukia looked back down, "Why am I here in the first place? I'm nothing but a heartless murdering, -" "Shut up, don't talk like that ok?! It's disturbing! Besides, if you were actually heartless then I wouldn't have saved you, if you were anything less than pureity and love then I wouldn't have saved you, get it? You're an exampe of how people SHOULD be, minus the self-hate, Rukia, you're here for ME, to help ME, and I'm here for YOU, get that?" Rukia smirked slightly, "You really no how to push my buttons, and you really need to stop lieing to yourself AND to me, it isn't a good habbit, truley, we both no that there's no reason for me to-" her thoughts were cut off by the light impact of his lips on her's, she was laying there, eyes closed, letting him kiss her, and she couldn't even wounder why because she couldn't think straight, after a moment the sweet kiss stopped and she was slowly snapped into reality, "Do you still not believe me? Do you still think that I'm lieing about you or about how much I love you?" she couldn't speak, she could barely think, but she could see that Ichigo was becomeing quickly annoyed, "Answer me!" he demanded, she shook her head slowly, still in a slight state of shock, Ichigo rolled his eyes, grasping her rists lightly, he brought one to rest over her chest, "Do you feel that?" he wispered, she nodded quickly, "Do you understand, that that little thumpedy thump going on in your chest right now, that's why I saved you?" she nodded slowly, "You no, I'm still waiting on you," he smirked, and that's wen it hit her that at the moment, this was a game of cat and mouse, this once emotional fight was nothing more than a game right now, and she wasn't going to loose, "So wat if I love you back?" "So alot of things," and that ended it right there, with both their worlds hanging upside down