Rukia Kuchiki was tired.

Her final year of high school had, so far, been incredibly stressful. Exams, essays, university applications, university interviews, the academic side of the last just four months had been pure chaos.

The familial side had been harder. Her older sister had gotten ill this time last year, and died six months ago. Her brother-in-law had been supportive in his own way, but he was withdrawn at the best of times, and now he'd lost his wife… he hadn't even looked at her. But Rukia understood, completely. She saw her sister every day in the mirror. He just needed time. He still asked after her studies, questioned when she stayed in on a weekend to revise instead of seeing her friends. It was getting better.

And then, as if to make life just a tiny little bit more frustrating, boys. Or a boy. Just one. He hadn't said a word to her once in the ten years they'd been in the same class, he'd maybe caught her eyes maybe two or three times, but that was it. It wasn't obsessive or anything. She just liked him. He was scowling and moody, but still, from what she knew, incredibly kind and loyal, knew Shakespeare like nobody's business, played in three sports teams, was tall and distractingly cute. She just wasn't his only admirer. And she was shy. So she didn't really stand a chance with a guy like Ichigo Kurosaki; she just got to sit and watch the prettiest girl in her year put her hand on his shoulder and giggle while he looked at her with his eyes.

She was just so tired.

And then one day, it all got a little different.

The day before she'd gotten a really fucking good score on an English practice test. She and a couple of her friends, Momo, Rangiku and Nel, had gone out for dinner to celebrate, as they'd also nailed their tests, and Rangiku had, predictably, snuck a couple of bottles of booze between her incredible assets. After only a couple of drinks – her brother would skin her if he thought she was drinking underage – Rukia had found herself in a hair salon, and a chin length, choppy bob framing her face.

The next morning, a Friday, found her a little hungover, downing fresh orange juice with a couple of paracetamol, but a compliment from her brother: that her new hair was 'very becoming'. She had a little smile on her face that stuck around until the very last period of school, when her mathematics teacher handed her back her algebra practice paper – 98%. Her teacher announced it to the class, and, all of a sudden, Rukia massively regretted cutting her hair as she'd lost something to hide the fuck behind when her cheeks went bright red.

When the class was finally let go, Orihime Inoue, her not-crush-just-acknowledged-good-looking-classmate's girlfriend, picked up her 87% and flounced out of the classroom with her hair flowing like a veil behind her, stopping for a second to place her hand on her boyfriend's shoulder, smiling at him, and saying goodbye.

Rukia found herself leaning against the teacher's desk by the classroom door, checking her social media, the rest of the students gone except for her three best friends, crowded around her desk, desperately trying to understand how she'd managed to work out the last question of her paper. Their arguing had reached eardrum splitting level when Rukia heard a considerably softer voice to her right.

"Nice hair."

She turned her head towards him, slowly, in a little bit of disbelief, and said, so eloquently, "… what?"

Then, like the absolute nerd she was, she actually turned to look around herself, because she was sure one of her friends must have stood up and Ichigo Kurosaki had actually complimented them and not her, but they were still sat yelling about simultaneous equations, and he had actually, of his own volition, said something to her.

He looked a little taken aback and confused, and his cheeks got a little red, but he tried again, bless his poor soul. He pointed vaguely to her hair, and then his hair, and said, "you, uh, got your hair cut. It looks… nice."

Rukia, meanwhile, went a lot more red, and looked away awkwardly, towards her friends in case one of them wanted to save her from making a dick of herself, but now they were half ripping apart a text book over whether to multiply or divide first in the equation. So, she said, "thanks", and then she stayed quiet. Like an idiot. And looked at the floor. Like a really big idiot.

"So, uh… have any plans for your weekend?"

She looked up at him again, eyes round and cheeks even redder. "… Yes?" she answered, like a question, and then mentally punched herself in the fucking face.

He raised his eyebrows and went a little more red himself, cleared his throat, and kept fucking going like a trooper. "Anything fun?"

She mumbled something, and she was pretty sure he picked up the words 'friends', 'revising' and 'movie night', but who really knew.

Then she found her vocal chords, because of fucking course she did, and caught his eye.

"I guess you'll be hanging out with Orihime, right?"

He looked so confused and then he frowned at her. "I don't know, maybe?"

"Well, you spend a lot of time with her and talking with her so…"

"Well, she's actually looked at me more than twice in the last ten years and tries to talk to me."

And then she went really red, and her chest got really tight, and felt like the shyest, stupidest human being on the planet and a lump got caught in her throat and she looked away and hoped the ground would swallow her up or her friends would stop arguing over what fourteen to the power of four was.

And it was ridiculous, because Rukia Kuchiki was not actually, in any other situation, shy, and to suggest it at any other time would have you laughing because she was so confident and well-spoken and opinionated that she wasn't fucking shy.

But she tried to swallow that bastard lump in her throat, and said, quietly and little hopelessly, because she really liked him and she didn't even really know what else to say: "sorry".

Then she looked up at him, and felt even more like a fucking idiot because he'd been fucking teasing her and his little, cute half-smile that she'd never seen before faded right off his face.

Then Rangiku stood up, threw her 500-page textbook on the floor, and started yelling profanities about Pythagoras, how small his genitalia must have been and how frustrated his wife must have been, and then looked over to Rukia, and saw her face, and went silent.

Then her eyes narrowed. "What the fuck did you do, Kurosaki?"

He raised his hands in surrender and raised his eyebrows. "I was just talking to her-"

"Then why does she look so upset, you dick?!"

They started arguing about how terrifying Ichigo's face was, because no one else turned into lumps of flubber when talking to him. That was when Rukia slipped out, abandoning her bag and dignity for a couple days.

Saturday saw Rukia working on more university applications, and staring at her chemistry homework until it began to make some sense.

Sunday morning, however, saw Rukia sat at their usual square, white-paint-chipped table, waiting for her friends to join her for their weekly breakfast ritual, which usually involved them tutoring each other and talking about boys, the latter subject she usually liked to keep quiet on. The café was cute, black and white tiled floor, matte grey walls, shabby chic chandeliers and lamps scattered on side tables.

It was now a nearly quarter past ten, and the other girls were later than usual. She was about to ring them and find out what was keeping them, when a chair at her table pulled back, and Ichigo Kurosaki sat down to her right.

She stared at him with huge, violet eyes, her phone motionless in her hands.

"Sorry I'm late, a guy whistled at my little sister so she broke his arm and I had to get her out of trouble," he flashed a slight smirk at her while he put his jacket around the back of his chair, and shook his cloth napkin out and pulled it across his lap. "How are you?"

"Erm… fine…" she mumbled, and he kept his smirk on his smug face while he flagged a waitress down.

"Do you know what you want to drink?"

"… Breakfast tea. Please."

He ordered two, the waitress unable to keep a smile off her face at the attention he was giving her, considering the little smile on his face, then picked up his menu. "So, what's good here?"

Words failed her, and she did an odd shrug and head shake combo, feeling extremely foolish sat next to him in black ¾ length yoga pants and her purple Adidas trainers, a white hoodie and bedhead hair, while he dressed a little like a model, in expensive looking dark-wash jeans, a white shirt rolled up neatly to his elbows, and a black leather jacket now on the back of his chair. Seeing him in real-life clothes was even more disarming than usual. She picked up her own menu to hide a little behind it.

"You know, when I usually hear you, you're pretty vocal."

Her eyes looked up again, her face in a permanent state of blushing that she wasn't sure if there was any point in hiding at this point, just in time to see him slip on a pair of narrow reading glasses and quirk an eyebrow at her.

"What… sorry?" she was getting frustrated at herself now for being unable to form a full sentence.

"Well, I've been in the same class as you for a pretty long time now, and even though we've never actually talked, I have heard you. I'm not deaf. You usually seem pretty opinionated. Chatty, even." He looked back down at the menu. "Hey, is the bacon and French toast pretty good here?"

She took a deep breath, and replied with a quiet, "I guess."

They were quiet for a few moments.

"So I guess you don't like me much then?"

Her blush faded a little bit as her head jerked up and she frowned at him, and managed to make an actual coherent comment. "What do you mean?"

"Uh, well, I kinda figured you just didn't like me, but then I thought I'd say something anyway just in case, and then your friend Rangiku said she was pretty sure you liked me, but…" He flipped his menu around. He cleared his throat a little, and he blushed a little. "You can just tell me to leave, you know."

The waitress arrived to put their individual teapots and teacups down on their table just as Rukia figured out that she was, actually, completely stupid as she suspected, and realised that he was as shy as her, and that her being shy when she was usually one of the louder ones in their class, whereas he rarely spoke unless forced, was making her look like she hated him.

Because Ichigo Kurosaki didn't speak to just anybody unless necessary, she knew this about him, and he was sat there looking between the waitress, who had just asked if they were ready to order, and Rukia, who he was clearly waiting on to decide if she could stand him for longer than ten minutes. And she was just staring at him as her brain imploded with new information and thinking he was pretty cute when he was bashful.

And just as he had obviously given up – and she could tell by the look on his face as it turned back into his trademark moody scowl – she pulled herself together.

"The pancakes here are really good," she told him quietly, then looking at the waitress, who nodded and wrote it down. "I think you'd like them with the fried chicken, maybe?" she said, looking him straight in the eye properly for the first time.

He blinked at her like she'd grown another head, and then looked up to the waitress. "Yeah, that sounds good, thanks." But he was still scowling.

She was restless and embarrassed, and still a little confused as to why exactly she made him shy, so she poured her tea, and watched him follow suit out the corner of her eye, took a sip, and then fiddled with her teacup.

"I thought you hadn't ever even noticed me." She wondered briefly if, if one blushed for long enough, it would be stuck forever. She kept her eyes to her cup, but she could feel him looking at her.

"I've noticed you. We've been in the same class for a decade, Rukia," he said slowly, like she was a little dumb. She was. And he'd just said her name to her for the first time.

It got a little less awkward. They talked about school, and he side-lined the conversation when she brought up Orihime again. They talked about family, and he'd known about her sister. One of his younger sisters and he had dropped off flowers and a basket of muffins soon after, but she hadn't been up to receiving visitors, so she hadn't known. They talked about his sports teams, and he knew she'd been studying traditional dance, though she had no idea how he'd discovered that.

They'd both cleared their plates, and he'd shook off his scowl again. She'd even, miraculously, managed to get a couple of true smiles out of him.

He was still wearing a little one when he insisted on paying the bill, and commented, a little quietly, "so would you be up for another date?"

And then she fucked up again, as she was prone to do when confronted with this man.

"Th-this was a date?"

His face dropped again. And then his face changed again, and she didn't think she'd seen a human being look so uncomfortable in her life. He leaned back in his chair, taking his forearms off the table, and cleared his throat.

"But… you have a girlfriend."

He looked up at her and started to talk, but she cut him off, because now she could talk perfectly easily. "She's beautiful and tall and smart and confident and nice… why would you want to… with me?" Now she was scowling.

"I don't like Orihime like that."

"She likes you."

"Yeah, I know, but I like you." It clicked a little later that there was no way he'd meant to say that so bluntly, but she was frustrating him, and he was trying to make it clear to her.

Unfortunately, Rukia appeared to have lost all social skills for the moment. "But why?"

He looked a little angry now, actually. "What do you mean, why?" He was incredulous.

"Well, I'm nothing like her-"

"I'm aware-"

"- so why the hell would you like me-"

"Well I like you a lot more when you're not being so fucking ridiculous, and actually talk and be yourself-"

"-Oh, so now I'm being ridiculous am I-"

"Yes, you are, you infuriating little midget-"

"How dare you make fun of my height!"

"I'm telling you I like you and you're just asking why for fuck's sake-"

"Of course I'm asking why, you're you and I'm me-"

"Yes, and I like you, so will you just shut up because your opinions are rejected!" He sighed angrily. "Now finish your tea, for god's sake."

She huffed herself, and spat "well, I like you too!", and drank her tea.

He glared at her.

She blushed and tried to glare back.

"Yo."

She looked up from her desk, the coffee she was drinking from her favourite Chappy flask to try and wake herself up on the early, cold Monday morning poised between her mouth and the surface.

He smirked at her, reached out, and tugged the strand of hair between her eyes. "Nice hair."

She blushed, looked down, then looked back up to his eyes. "Thanks. Shame about your tangerine nightmare, huh?"

He said the same thing to her five years to the day later, after her brother had lifted up her veil and given Ichigo her hand.

This might seem ooc for Ichigo, but my rationale was that, on a normal day, if Ichigo and Rukia met and she felt as shit about herself as she did at the opening of bleach, and Ichigo had been as… attentive as he is throughout the manga, she'd have been a gaping fish, especially considering how good looking he turns out according to Riruka.

On another note: the fandom wars are starting to piss me off. If so many people read IR from Bleach independently, and then a chunk of people read IH, then the context for both therefore must be there. Neither group have grabbed their pairing from thin air, though different perspectives make you see different pairings. It's really frustrating that people from different fandoms are arguing when we should all be mad at Kubo for purposely baiting people, and regardless of fandoms, we're left without knowing if Urahara, Yoruichi and Isshin are even alive, and there's a shit ton more characters (Grimmjow, Nel, etc) also unaccounted for, which just shows how ridiculously shoddy the whole thing is. There's a reason some people are shipping IR and some people are shipping IH and both think the manga warrants their pairing, so either Kubo is an idiot who doesn't understand how subtext works or he's a money-grubbing douchebag, but whatever Kubo is, neither fandom is necessarily wrong if they both show their own evidence. This is Kubo's fault. That Mayuri-cosplaying asshole.