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Rukia’s wooden sword slashes at him, looking to exploit a weakness in his defence but he raises his arm up to block the blow just in time. She staggers back and lunges at her, but she deflects his blow and moves in for a strike of her own. Ichigo doesn’t know how long they’ve been at this dance now, but he is dimly aware that the sky was bright when they started, and the moon is now high in the sky. The rain has been pouring down in heavy sheets since this afternoon, but they are shielded from it in their usual training spot under the bridge.
He wants to check the time and raises his wrist reflexively before he remembers that his watch is on his actual body and not his Soul Reaper form. His distraction is her opportunity, and her final strike finds its mark and takes the legs out from under him. He lands flat on his back, wind knocked out of him. She lashes her sword against the hard ground by his feet and gets back into stance, indicating for him to get up. He knows the drill at this stage. He strains every muscle in his body, willing himself to get back to his feet, but his body refuses to cooperate with him. He has hit his limit.
“I’m out,” he says breathlessly. It feels like the ground underneath him is spinning, and he shuts his eyes to ease the vertigo. “You got me.”
He hears her kneel down by his head and smooth the pleats of her skirt. She sounds a little out of breath herself, which is rare. She never seems to get tired, never seems to run out of steam or need to stop. He must be getting better, he concludes.
“You’ve worked really hard” she says, her voice so soft it’s hard to hear her over endless torrent of rain. He feels her lift his head up off the ground and deposit it onto something soft. When he looks up, he’s staring straight up into her face from her lap.
“What are you doing?” he asks, voice croaking with exhaustion. She looks away, almost embarrassed.
“Giving you…a reward” she says. She must have read this in a manga, he reasons. She does all sorts of strange things because she thinks that’s what real people do. Half the time he finds it endearing, the other half, hilarious.
Her hands thread through his thick red hair, scratching an itch he didn’t even know he had, and it’s his turn to feel embarrassed at the high-pitched groan he lets out under her touch. He hears her chuckle lightly, but she carries on undeterred, massaging his head gently. It’s pure bliss, and he feels every muscle in his body relax almost involuntarily as she strokes his tension away.
Although they’ve spent scarcely less than five minutes apart since Byakuya’s warning some weeks ago, he realises that outside of sparring and the odd hi-five this is probably the most physical contact they’ve ever had. It’s odd all things considered. They spend every waking moment of everyday together - they sit next to each other in school, they train and spar until his legs give out, they do homework and eat at the low table in his bedroom. They even sleep in the same room, her in the wardrobe parallel to his bed. They lie awake together for hours, talking about anything and everything – funny things people have said in school, tv shows, manga. As defences were mutually lowered, he found himself sharing things he had never told anyone else before with her, his hopes, his dreams, even about his mother. In hushed tones he’d told Rukia his favourite memories about his mam, and about the grief and guilt he felt at her passing. He appreciates how she never judges him or even tries to soothe him with platitudes about how it wasn’t his fault. Even if she doesn’t always understand his feelings, she simply listens, really listens like no one had ever done before. She in turn opened up to him about her lonely life in the Soul Society, the heavy expectations foisted upon her, and about her departed sister. He tries to listen to her as best as he can to learn to read what her pauses and sighs really mean.
“You’ve been reading too much manga, because you’re nuts if you think this is a fair reward for what you’ve been putting me through” he grumbles, but he is disappointed nonetheless when she her hands stop moving.
“Oh?” she says, a note of amusement in her voice, “What do you want instead?”
“Some peace and quiet” he huffs “A night where I don’t have to go to bed black and blue from you beating the crap out of me.”
“I’m afraid I can’t do that” she says, and he is suddenly very aware that her face is so very close to his. Rukia leans over him further until her eyelashes are almost brushing his face and then gently, ever so gently, she plants a kiss on his flushed cheek. It’s soft as a butterfly’s gossamer wing against his skin but it sends a jolt of electricity through him. Ichigo rolls off her lap onto his knees to prop himself up on one arm, ignoring how his body screams at him in pain and fatigue. He moves closer to her and slowly brings his hand up to stroke her cheek with his knuckles with a feather-light touch, as if she will bolt away from him like a scared animal if he moves too suddenly. He leans in to her, but stops short of closing the distance between the two of them at the look of anxiety in her lilac eyes. He shuts his eyes, his lips pursed slightly. It’s an open invitation, a submission to her. He is risking it all in a moment of reckless vulnerability, but he is hers if she wants him.
After a beat of hesitation, she leans in and closes the gap, pressing her lips against his tentatively. He responds in kind, deepening the kiss. She winds her arms around his neck, and he pulls her closer, until she is sitting across his lap and their bodies are pressed flush together. If her kiss on his cheek had created a spark, this kiss sends currents of electricity through him until she is thrumming through his veins. Time seems to stand still and everything else melts away, until there is no Hollows to hunt, no bastard older brothers to protect each other from and no heavy June rain pelting the pavement, only him and her, wrapped in each other’s embrace forever and ever. They break apart for air, only to find each other’s lips again with even more hunger. She arches against him when his tongue skims over her lips, begging for entrance and she yields. He caresses the soft insides of her mouth with his tongue, digging his fingers into her hips and back hard enough to leave little bruises but he is scared she will vanish on the wind if he doesn’t hold on tightly. He needn’t worry, as her hands find his hair again, clinging to him for dear life. He never wants to let this moment end, never wants to let her go, never wants to come back down to Earth again.
When they are finally forced to pull apart again, she touches her fingers to her kiss-swollen lips in disbelief.
“My brother is really going to kill you now” she says, laughing a little. She’s trembling, he notices, so he wraps his long black sleeves around her and gives her one of his lop-sided grins.
“Don’t care” he says, touching their foreheads together “High risk, high reward.”