A/N: I wrote this for ichirukimonth last year, so it's...well, it's long overdue that I upload it here.

Disclaimer: I don't own Bleach, Tite Kubo does.

He's a Masters student.

Or perhaps a PhD candidate like herself. The title on his textbook is too long and specific to be for an undergrad. She takes one look at the cover - an x-ray of what is either a hip or a shoulder - and tells the barista to add three shots of espresso to the small black coffee ordered just seconds before.

"And would you like to deliver this yourself or have one of us do it?" Orihime Inoue chirps, scribbling on his cup with a gold sharpie. A barista passing by slides her green tea across the counter before heading off to deal with one of her classmates. Rukia traces the rim of her cup and catches the if you could please do it just as it has her lips parting.

He looks tired.

"I'll do it," she says. Orihime smiles and sets to work, pouring and mixing and sealing the lid smoothly. "Thank you for participating in this month's pass it forward! Have a nice day, Kuchiki-san!"

"You as well, Inoue-san." Rukia picks up his cup gingerly, eyeing the bubbly letters stamped across the black material. To: Kurosaki-san, From: Kuchiki-san. Happy friendship day!

Kurosaki doesn't look up at first, too absorbed in the spikes and dips of the image he's analyzing. When she settles the drink down in the small gap between his phone and stickies, he jerks up as if electrocuted.

His eyes are as rich and golden as the honey sweetening her tea, and, for a second, she drowns.

"Kuchiki." Toshiro Hitsugaya, her fellow PhDc in International Law, stops just short of her elbow and waves a notebook in her face. "I found a case we could use as precedent. I need you to look it over to confirm."

"Yeah, okay," she replies, turning around and leading Toshiro to a table in the darkest part of the café. She cracks open her case notes and soon forgets him between the pages of legal jargon.

Rukia hates rewriting lecture notes.

She wishes her cursive was more legible, like Toshiro's, so she doesn't have to spend ten minutes at a time figuring out if the case number mentioned ends in a 5 or a 6, texting someone for help, and then starting the vicious cycle all over again.

She coughs loudly, trying her best to muffle the wet sound in the crease of her elbow. Sticky phlegm sticks to her throat in a way that no amount of retching will ever dislodge. Her lymph nodes are swollen, a sure sign that infection is setting in, but Rukia knows that nothing short of having to shove a straw through her neck so she can breathe will convince her to visit the doctor. It's too much of a hassle with her busy schedule.

A green cup edges into the corner of her vision and she damn near snaps her neck looking up.

Kurosaki balances his own coffee on top of a book almost as large as his head. He's dressed for the weather in a thick coat and bright yellow scarf, which he ducks his mouth into. Rukia clears a space in front of her and he settles down, pulling out a highlighter and setting to work on whatever chapter he's been assigned.

She takes a sip of the drink and smiles.

Echinacea and honey.

It takes several weeks of trial and error (he winces when she gets him coffee with sugar; she gags a little when he forgets the honey) before they figure out their orders (premium dark roast with two shots of espresso; black tea with a spoon of honey and a little bit of milk).

After that, it becomes a pattern for them. They'll sit at the same table at 4 PM, with the exception of Fridays when he arrives at 6, and take turns buying each other drinks. Sometimes she'll catch a typo on one of his papers and correct it for him, and in turn he figures out what her messy writing is saying, and they'll go back and forth like this until 9 PM when he walks her home.

Throughout all this, not a word is spoken.

Rukia doesn't mind that she's never heard him speak, or that she doesn't know his first name or what he does - though she has figured out it has to do with engineering, if the title of one of his powerpoints is anything to go by. It's a comfortable degree of anonymity they share, where neither can judge one another for anything they may be hiding. To her, he's just the perpetually exhausted student who has remarkably expressive eyes, and to him, she supposes she's just the frazzled looking girl who occasionally reminds him to use semi-colons instead of periods.

Still, there's a part of her, deep down, that wants to know what she should call him when he worms his way into her dreams. What kind of personality he has so she doesn't daydream about the wrong first conversation. What his eyes look like when he's happy so she can remember them as she goes to bed at night.

She wonders if he thinks the same.

Surprisingly enough, it's Toshiro who manages to give her a glimpse into Kurosaki's life.

"You seem to be getting close with Kurosaki," he comments over international legislature one day. They're situated in the library after class, preparing themselves for what is bound to be a pop quiz the next day. Rukia shoots her friend a curious look and lowers the screen of her laptop so she can see him clearly.

"You know him?" she asks in what is hopefully a nonchalant tone. Toshiro, being the shrewd lawyer that he is, sees through her bullshit like an x-ray and huffs in amusement.

"Ichigo and I went to the same highschool," he informs. "He's a PhDc for biomedical engineering. His whole family is into medicine. Dad's a doctor, and twin sister's are a final year medical student and a pharmacologist respectively. He's the only one that went for the engineering bit."

"And his mom?"

The corner of his lip twitches down. "She died when he was eight. Hit by a car right in front of him. He obviously doesn't like to talk about it."

Rukia falls silent, digesting the information. Though she hadn't seen her sister die, sometimes, when her brother-in-law looks at her, she thinks she does. Not the act of death itself, but she sees something broken and raw and that's what scares her the most about dying. The body will stop feeling pain and it will succumb to nature's will, but the memories that linger in the people left behind leave open, bloody wounds in their souls that never heal. Eventually you grow accustomed to the pain and you think it will be okay, but then you see someone with the same colour eyes, or they're wearing a hat that looks familiar, and whatever thin barrier you've managed to seal over the gashes splits open and you're left feeling like nothing will ever change.

She wonders if that's why he's always so tired.

They sleep together for the first time three weeks later.

Though they had never discussed it, it was bound to happen eventually. She had entertained many ideas for this first: they would do it in the library, or behind the coffee shop, or even in her car. Perhaps there would be a buildup, a kiss one day, a hickey the next, and then they would do it when the tension between them was thick enough to catch fire.

What really happens is that that she looks over at him as he walks her home, realizes he has rather full looking lips, and pulls him down for a taste.

The rest, as they say, is history.

"I wanted to be a doctor," he tells her once they settle under the sheets. He's got a nice voice, a little rougher than she had imagined, but she supposes that's due in part to their…activities. "Can't stand the sight of blood, though, so I figured engineering was one way to go."

The unspoken because of my mom lingers between them.

"I've always wanted to become a lawyer," Rukia says softly, shivering as he traces dopamine, serotonin, and endorphins into her spine. "International law has always fascinated me. Once I realized I could help but away traffickers across borders, I made up my mind."

"Why a PhD? Why not straight to law school?"

"I am a lawyer." She laughs when he stops in the motion of drawing out a differential equation and looks at her in abject surprise. "What, you thought you could just go undergrad, masters, PhD? I went to law school and returned for my masters and PhD. I enjoy the classes and the learning opportunities. I could go abroad for further research if needed. Things like that. Why a PhD for you?"

Ichigo shrugs. "This opens up more doors for me."

"Fair enough," Rukia says. "Do you have to pee very often?"

"Excuse me?"

She cracks an eye open. "You drink a lot of caffeine. It's a diuretic, no?"

"Where in the hell did you figure that out?"

"I read your notes upside down."

He laughs.

She gets the email while editing her thesis.

A placement in the United Nations overseas in New York. Six months. People have cried tears of blood and sacrificed everything to nab a coveted position here, Rukia included. She should be screaming so loudly she gets kicked out of the library for good, but all she feels is unease.

That's the cost, isn't it? Sacrificing everything.

"How are you going to tell him?" Toshiro asks quietly, staring at his own email. She's not surprised he's got one, too.

"With my mouth, what else?" she quips, though it lacks a certain bite. She doesn't need to tell him, it's not like they're dating or anything. Not officially, anyway. A clean break would be ideal for the both of them, but if she does it then their fragile balance will be shattered beyond repair. Ask her half a year ago if she would leave a man for an internship like this and she would have said yes before the question was finished. Now…now she needs to think.

"Long distance relationships are hard to maintain," Toshiro says. "But they're manageable."

"You sound like you speak from experience. Got a girlfriend in Canada or something?"

"Tokyo, actually." He laughs at her shocked expression. "Kurosaki's doctor sister. We've been together for a few years, now. It won't be the same as you and him being on entirely separate continents for the first time, but if you manage to put in a phone call every now and then, it should work out."

"You'll be on a separate continent, too," Rukia points out.

"I meet up with Karin roughly once a year for three weeks before we both have to go our separate ways. We're used to minimal contact." His hard turquoise eyes soften a little in sympathy. "It won't be easy, but you two can do it if you try."

"You're early," Ichigo comments. "I was waiting for you. Toshiro keep you in the library late?"

"A little." Rukia slides his cup of coffee over and quickly raises her tea to her lips, hiding behind the rim.

"You can sit, you know. The seat isn't broken," Ichigo jibes as he picks his up. She watches as he goes eerily still when he reads the gold letters penned shakily across the cup.

I got a placement at the UN in New York. 6 months. I leave tonight.

I'm sorry.

"I didn't know how to tell you earlier," Rukia explains hastily, as if it will somehow stop his face from going stony and blank. "I wanted a clean break so it would be easier, but I didn't know how and…I didn't want to hurt you."

"You think that telling me hours before you leave is somehow going to hurt less than giving me time to prepare?" he snaps.

"I didn't know what to do," she reiterates weakly. "I'm sorry."

"Dammit, Rukia." He runs his hands through his thick hair, pulling at the roots. She wants nothing more than to crouch down and hug him until he unravels at the edges and calms down, but the promise of a clean break keeps her steady. She can't make this any harder than need be. Not to him.

"I'll understand if you don't want to wait for me," Rukia says. "6 months overseas is a long time to wait for someone."

Ichigo doesn't respond, and she thinks she understands her brother's pain a little bit better.

"Goodbye, Ichigo."

She doesn't look back.

The coffee shop has green walls now.

The minty colour adds a new, earthy pop to the cozy little cafe, and Rukia is pleased to note that their menu is unchanged, right down to the Monday special.

"Kuchiki-san!" Orihime exclaims, practically leaping over the counter to hug the PhDc. Rukia pats her back gingerly, smiling all the while. "It's been a while, Inoue-san."

"We missed you so much! How was America? What can I get you? Your regular? Oh, we got these delicious jelly things the other day I think you'll like, how about those?"

"America was lovely. I spent most of my time working, so I didn't really get to explore, but I liked the food. My regular is fine, and I'll take one of those jelly things." Rukia pauses as she goes for her purse. "One small dark roast, two shots of espresso, and I need to borrow your pen, please."

Orihime smiles slyly. "Coming right up, Kuchiki-san." It takes the auburn-haired barista no more than a minute and a half to whip together the order, sliding everything over and waving away the cash. "On the house," she says firmly. "It's your welcome back gift. I won't have you arguing with me."

"Inoue-san…I can't-"

"He hasn't switched his spot. Right there." Orihime points to their corner. "He wears headphones most of the time, so you can surprise him, if you'd like."

"Thank you," Rukia says sincerely. She stuffs the jelly packet under one arm and picks up their cups, falling into routine steps. Her heart pounds loudly, drowning out all ambient noise and echoing in her footsteps. She's half afraid he'll hear hear before she reaches him, and half afraid he's still angry at her. Six months without contact. Six months of Toshiro occasionally providing updates via Karin. Six months of regrets. Six months of wishing her apology had played out differently every night before bed.

Six months of all that is nothing compared to the crushing anxiety that has her head buzzing in the six seconds it takes to walk over and hand him his cup.

Ichigo looks at the cup and goes still for a second.

I'm home.

Rukia feels as if she's aged ten years as she waits for him to pick up the cup or look at her or even shut his books and walk away. He needs to do something, dammit. She can deal with cold anger and righteous fury, but indifference is not something she is prepared to handle. Not from him.

He clears a space before him and nudges the empty chair. Rukia collapses into her seat and feels hope thrum through her veins. Acknowledgement. An olive branch. Call it what you may, but it means he's calm enough to talk to her. No explanation will ever be good enough, and Rukia knows it will take more time than ever to go back to what they once were, but she's prepared to wait.

So long as he's willing, she can wait.

Ichigo pushes a cup towards her and goes back to his textbook. Something about a type of mesh that's becoming a forefront in biomedical engineering and its many uses. Rukia puts her own purchase to the side and pulls his closer.

To: Rukia. From: Ichigo. Happy friendship day! Is written in what is clearly Orihime's writing, and just underneath that -

Welcome back in small, sure letters she's seen translating her own messy script time after time.

It's a start.

A/N: I hope you enjoyed both the IR and the background hitsukarin because god knows both ships deserved Justice.

-Eien