Work Text:
“You’re like a tree, Kurosaki,” Ishida Uryuu pointed out one day. They were on the rooftop of the school eating lunch as they so often did. It was last term of their final year of high school and unseasonably warm for late February.
Ichigo lifted his head to look at Uryuu. “What?” he asked. He took a sip from his box of peach juice. It was too sweet. “The hell do you mean by that, Ishida?”
“You’re pining.”
“What?” Ichigo asked again.
“You’re pining over Kuchiki-san,” Uryuu clarified. He neatly used his chopsticks to eat his lunch, a pair of maki rolls. Ichigo noticed that he occasionally picked something out of the sliced roll and raised an eyebrow at him. “Orihime made lunch,” Uryuu said when he saw the way Ichigo was looking at his bento.
Well that explained it. She’d probably put sea beans or something equally weird in the rolls. “Che. Rukia and I are just friends,” Ichigo said as he looked over the city.
“Is that why you’re drinking her favorite juice and have that sad look on your face?”
Ichigo glanced down at the juice box in his hand. “It’s Rukia’s second-favorite. She likes strawberry-kiwi juice better,” he corrected.
Uryuu snickered. “You’re a very good friend to know that you’re drinking her second-favorite juice.”
He huffed and took another long sip. At least it was cold, even if it was still too sweet. “Yeah, I guess I am,” he agreed, just to get Uryuu off his back. Not that it worked.
“So when are you moving to Shinjuku?”
“Who says I’m moving to Shinjuku?”
“Karin said you were accepted into Seireitei University.” When Ichigo shrugged with pretended indifference, Uryuu rolled his eyes. “Let’s not insult one another’s intelligence, Kurosaki. Kuchiki-san’s brother made her go to the women’s college when she graduated from Karakura High last year. You applied to every university in or near Shinjuku except the women’s college. So, when are you going?”
“Kurosaki-kun! Uryuu!” Before Ichigo could reply, Orihime bounded over from the door to the rooftop, and almost tripped before Uryuu caught her.
“Careful, Orihime,” Uryuu chided, and kissed her forehead lightly to take the sting out of his words. It wasn’t like Ishida to be affectionate in public, Ichigo thought, and he eyed his cousin suspiciously. Uryuu just looked at him innocently.
“Aa – sorry, Uryuu,” the sunny-haired girl apologized. She clapped her hands then, and said, “But I have news! Kuchiki-san is downstairs on the second floor, visiting from the Shinjuku Women’s College. She’s giving a speech to some of the other girls about what the college is like.”
Ichigo startled and stared at the door back downstairs.
“Just friends, Kurosaki?” Uryuu reminded him.
Ichigo scowled at him and strode back toward the door, tossing the empty juice box into the trash on the way.
“Poor Kurosaki-kun,” Orihime murmured. “It’s very hard for him with Kuchiki-san attending college a year earlier than the rest of us.”
“He’ll be fine,” Uryuu told her, and kissed her temple lightly. “I don’t think they’ll be apart for long.”
“Oh, Uryuu! You didn’t eat your sea beans!” Uryuu grimaced. Sometimes, it was difficult being Orihime’s boyfriend.
Ichigo clattered down three flights of stairs to get to the second floor. He darted past several classrooms before reaching the one where Rukia had been giving her talk. She was just exiting, smiling and waving to several of the girls she’d been speaking to. “Rukia,” he murmured, and she turned.
“Ichigo.” Just one word, as violet eyes met amber. She smiled up at him. Freed from the Karakura High uniform, she was wearing a black blazer and a knee-length pencil skirt; the shirt underneath the blazer was cream-colored and just a bit translucent.
Ichigo shook himself and stepped closer until he was nearly towering over her. “I didn’t know you’d be here today,” he said softly, and his smile echoed hers.
“The principal asked me to come speak to the second years,” she explained.
“How long will you be in Karakura?”
“Just for the day. I have classes tomorrow,” Rukia said.
“Just going to show up and then leave again without telling me, midget?” Ichigo asked, and scowled down at her. He earned a kick to his shin for that, and Rukia rolled her eyes a little.
“I was going to text you after school got out, idiot. I didn’t want you to be tempted to cut class,” she retorted.
“Che. There’s only a month left anyway.”
Rukia arched her eyebrow. “Your hair makes you enough of a delinquent without cutting, Ichigo. And besides, how would I ever live with myself if I led you toward having a poor work ethic?” Rukia’s voice pitched high and dramatic, but Ichigo just scoffed.
“You’re still a terrible actress. I still have half an hour left for lunch, come take a walk with me.”
“So presumptuous,” she said, but walked along agreeably. The low heels she wore tapped lightly against the floor. Ichigo led her upstairs to the roof and to the smaller part of it that had been their space before she graduated a year earlier than him.
“I’m moving to Shinjuku,” he said when they were looking out over Karakura.
“Oh?”
“I got into Seireitei University,” Ichigo added. “I’m moving into an apartment across from the campus the day after I graduate from Karakura.”
Rukia’s hair twirled and tangled in the breeze. “I thought you wanted to go further away.”
“Nah. They have a really strong child psychology program and a great literature department,” he said. His eyes slid to hers, though, and he smiled a little. “I guess I’ll be closer to you, too.”
“Missed me, strawberry?” Rukia teased gently and didn’t expect the way his eyes went soft and a little sad. “Ichigo—”
“Well we’re friends, aren’t we?” he asked lightly, and nudged his shoulder against hers. He still remembered the day they’d become friends, nine years ago when he’d been a mess of a nine year old who’d just lost his mom.
His memories of that day were perfectly clear even though the rest of that awful year had been a blur after his mother shoved him out of the way of an out of control car. The driver had been having a seizure, but that didn’t prevent Ichigo from blaming himself since he’d been the one who tried to cross the street at the wrong moment.
It had been Rukia who found him in the rain one day, mourning, and demanded to know why he was so sad looking. In the way that nine-year-old boys tended to do, he tried to chase her away by scowling and kicking water from a puddle at her – but she’d kicked back and turned it into a game. And eventually her luminous violet eyes looked at him and he found himself telling her what had happened. She’d dragged him to her sister Hisana for milk and cookies.
“Of course,” Rukia said, but her eyes said something else.
“What’s that face for?”
“I’m not making a face.”
“You are,” Ichigo insisted. “You’re making the face you make when you feel like you’re being selfish about something. You get a look in your eyes and your brows scrunch up right here.” His fingertip touched the space between her eyebrows lightly.
“That’s very specific. Do you have all my ‘faces’ catalogued, Ichigo?” she asked.
Ichigo’s lips curved up and his eyes were doing that softening thing at her again. “We’ve known each other nine years, midget. Yeah, I know most of your faces.”
“It’s just – I thought you’d want to go to Osaka or even to a college in Europe or America,” she said.
“Trying to get rid of me?”
“No! No, I just…” She mumbled something too low for him to hear, and Ichigo poked her again. “I’m worried you’re moving to Shinjuku because of me and that I’m holding you back.” Her mouth dropped open a little when Ichigo actually laughed at her.
“Seriously, Rukia?” he asked. Ichigo took a breath and his hand cupped her cheek. “Yes, I’m moving to Shinjuku because of you.” Then he leaned down and kissed her. It was just a soft, almost-chaste press of his lips on hers, but Ichigo looked at her a little nervously when he pulled away.
“Ichigo,” Rukia whispered. Then she grabbed the front of his blazer and hauled him back down for another kiss.