You know, originally I had intended to make a popular-boy-makes-a-bet-with-a-no-name-girl story, but I guess those plots are a little too predictable that sometime between the beginning and the end it starts to get repetitive, excessive, boring and just frustrating. So here's a plain-as-vanilla and possibly-cliché popular-boy-with-no-name-classmate-and-oh-wait-there's-another-girl-who-is-somewhat-involved story.

Based on the Mindy Gledhill song 'Anchor'.

'when I'm lost I feel so very found
when you anchor me back down
there are those who think that I'm strange
they would box me up and tell me to change
but you hold me close and softly say
that you wouldn't have me any other way'

If it were safe to accuse the universe of any one crime, the majority of students at Karakura High would blame it for the injustice that was Toshiro Hitsugaya. As the wealthiest, cleverest, and arguably the handsomest of the male student body, he was the "it" kid of the generation and by far the most well-known name on the entire campus.

It was simply unfair how much he had, really.

However, Toshiro was of a different opinion—

"I'm short," was his bitter, unchanging response to the nitwits who constantly asked him how he could be so perfect, and not only did he make an admirable effort to understand the course material which the others figured came naturally to him, he also lacked something else that one would think would accompany such a level of popularity: friends.

"Why don't you ever invite your friends over to play?" Toshiro's guardian, Jushiro Ukitake, would occasionally ask at dinner, to which Toshiro would reply, "I'm not four years old anymore."

In truth, Toshiro merely didn't consider any of the people who hung around him to be his friends, and he certainly didn't want to offer them a glimpse into his home life when he didn't even feel comfortable around them at school.

The fellows were a little easier to be around than the females, for obvious reasons including that many of them worshipped him like a deity. He would sometimes join a crowd of the boys as they walked home, usually to someone like Ichigo's or Kira's house, where they would congregate in the den with the television on, some snacks prepared by an out-of-sight mother left on the coffee table to be shared, and conversation that jumped from head to head like a game of Hot Potato. The atmosphere was good-humoured, light, and relaxing; Toshiro knew he could never recreate the same kind of easy-going experience and enjoyable experience at his lavish, stiff and somehow cold home.

"Hitsugaya-kun," said a quiet, anxious voice from behind him, accompanied by a wary tap on his shoulder, "can we ask you a question?"

Toshiro turned around and regarded the pair of first-year girls with impassive and bored eyes. "What is it?"

"Are you—" The girl speaking turned to her friend and nudged her sharply on the shoulder, hissing, "Hey! You said we'd ask him together!"

Resisting the urge to roll his eyes, Toshiro said again, without raising his voice, "What is it?"

"Are you dating Karin Kurosaki?" blurted the girl who had remained silent before, promptly blushing a beet-red colour once she realized how concerned she sounded.

Toshiro raised an eyebrow, not having expected such a question, but he could figure out the sentiment behind it. First-year girls who were brave enough to approach him were also the most transparent. "No," he said simply.

"Really?" whispered the red-faced girl, still slightly overwhelmed by her brashness.

Her friend gasped, "Seriously?"

Seriously. Toshiro had never considered that he had never considered dating. Until now, that was. Promising himself he wouldn't get irritated, Toshiro clarified in a controlled voice, "I'm serious. Is that all?"

Nodding in a somewhat giddy fashion that Toshiro dreaded would evolve into some kind of obsessive pursuit of his attentions someday, they ran off in a whole other direction, squealing to themselves under their breaths. Toshiro blinked up at the sky, finding his mind suddenly clouded by an inexplicable heaviness and confusion, and was beginning to prepare himself to forget the incident entirely when the devil that'd been spoken of arrived in a blur of stripes and black pentagons.

"Hey, Toshiro!" shouted Karin Kurosaki as she ran toward him dribbling a soccer ball between her cleats-clad feet. "Come join us for one last game before lunch is over!"

Toshiro hesitated, looking behind Karin to where her older brother Ichigo was waving at him, flanked by Renji Abarai and Ikkaku Madarame. Despite having an egg-salad sandwich he had yet to finish eating and an AP History test after lunch that he would do well to study for with what time he had left, Toshiro had a profound love for sport and the invitation was highly tempting.

"Fine," he relented, then slung his bag off his shoulder and to the ground in a single fell swoop, and shrugged his jacket off right atop it. With a couple flexes of his feet and some ankle rolls, he was sprinting toward the field, ball in possession, with Karin at his heels.

He shoved the incident with the two girls to the back of his mind with the confidence that he would not have to worry about dating and romance for quite a while longer. However, little did he know that the most discreet of gears were being set into motion to change this.

The first gear that moved was the departure of his AP History teacher.

"What? She's gone?" screeched the busty redhead that shared a seat with Toshiro.

"Quiet down, Matsumoto," barked the assistant-principal.

The principal gave Rangiku Matsumoto a calm, assuring smile and said, "She's just on maternity leave for now. Since the two AP classes she taught were fairly small, we've decided to combine them into one period so that Kurotsuchi-sensei can teach all of you."

"Kurotsuchi-sensei?" The class was in an uproar. "Which one?"

"Why can't we get a new teacher?"

"I don't wanna be with that class; it's just full of skanks!"

Looking appalled by the language and alarmed by the frenzy, the principal took a seat at the front of the room and waited for the commotion to quiet down. It didn't, however, and the assistant-principal was forced to resort to using the whistle that doubled as her Physical Education attention-getter to restore order in the classroom.

"You will keep quiet and respectfully listen to the rest of what your principal has to say," she half-hissed, half-hollered. "If there are any questions, raise your hands like proper students instead of bellowing them out like the little animals you're all being—"

"Thank you," the principal said quickly, "that's quite enough. Now, as you're all aware, the school is short on money. We've already cut our budget for textbooks and supplies, several teacher salaries, and funding for organized events and food. We are trying to work around your teacher's temporary leave by having other teachers pick up her classes instead of filling the position with someone else."

Looking slightly embarrassed to being forced to admit the school's cutbacks, the principal said quickly, "That is all. Nemu Kurotsuchi will be your new teacher, and this class will now be joining the other AP History class held first thing in the morning. As of today, right now, all of you will be granted independent study time during this period."

There were numerous cheers throughout the room, and as the principal and his assistant filed out, Nemu Kurotsuchi entered immediately with a swoosh of her long, black coat.

"Good afternoon," she said cordially, though not very warmly. "When I taught the morning class earlier today, I realized that they were a day's work behind this class. Therefore, I caught them up, and you lot will write your exam tomorrow when you join the others. Today can be a study period. Use your time wisely, and if the noise level gets too high, I will assign you homework for the hell of it."

Kurotsuchi-sensei was not domineering, nor doormat material, but she was far from being easy-going and she certainly could be very intimidating. Indeed, many of the students looked intimidated by her words, and instantly took to their books.

Toshiro was glad that his test was postponed; he was uncomfortably sweaty from giving his all on the soccer field at lunch. To kill time, he finished eating his egg-salad sandwich, which was a bit on the salty side and softer than he'd have liked by now, and skimmed through his notes on the timeline of communism.

"Hitsugaya-kun," Kurotsuchi-sensei called, "I'd like to speak with you."

Toshiro did not need another excuse to escape his textbook, and compliantly crossed the rom to the teacher's desk in the corner. She ended up congratulating him for maintaining such a remarkable average in a course designed to be particularly challenging to even the most gifted intellectuals his age, then asked whether or not he would like the time to study this period, since there was a favour she'd like to ask of him.

"I'm free," Toshiro said simply. After being complimented for his efforts and academic achievement, he didn't think it was appropriate to admit that he didn't want to study. "What am I doing for you?"

She reached into the desk and removed a file of papers, leafing through them until she found a stapled pair that she handed to him, along with a roll of duct tape and a permanent marker. "This is the class-list for the morning AP History class. I'd like you to assign seats to each name on this list and mark it on the edge of the desk."

"In alphabetical order?" Toshiro asked for clarification, accepting the tools from her and scanning the list of names without much interest. There were about sixteen in total, and he recognized about twelve.

"In any order you choose," Kurotsuchi said indifferently. After a split-second pause in which she turned away to glance at her laptop then looked back at him, she added, "Perks of being a teacher's pet."

Toshiro blinked, wondering if she was cracking a joke, but her face showed no signs of humour and her eyes were as passive and strict as ever. Nodding stiffly to acknowledge his duty and dismiss himself, Toshiro returned to his desk and began to study the papers.

The names he recognized belonging to the people whose company he did not especially enjoy, he felt a vindictive pleasure in placing far, far away from him. The names belonging to those who he did not mind, which were few and far-between and limited to the people who rarely ever spoke with him at all, he chose to place nearby, and when it all came down to it, he was stuck with the people who he did not recognize at all by name, so he used a decision-making mechanism with his pencil to scatter them randomly throughout the room.

The last name was a boy's name, and he would have to be Toshiro's desk partner. Wrinkling his brow, Toshiro decided to change that – he would prefer to sit alongside a female, since they were easy to deal with. On the occasion that a female would harass him for whatever reason, he could merely snap at her with rude eyes and treat her for an approximate ten minutes in the coldest disposition possible for him, and she would be disenchanted immediately, or perhaps simply realize the trouble she was causing for him, and be scared into remission.

Males, however, were different. The ones he weren't yet familiar with always wanted to get to know him, if only to make their debut in the "it" crowd, and nothing bothered him more than individuals who pursued nothing but popularity above everything else.

So, in a moment's spontaneous choice, he switched the name with Momo Hinamori's, a girl he hadn't yet met or heard of, and finalized it with tape and marker.

For Momo Hinamori, a girl who was content with keeping her name vague and her past obscure, and for Toshiro Hitsugaya, who was generally disinterested in and skeptical of love and all its promises, this was the single most reckless gesture he could make.

This story will contain one-sided HitsuKarin, but the main pairing is HitsuHina. The hardest part of a story, I find, is always the beginning, so please have faith in my next words: it will get better.

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