A/N: Hello everyone! This is an Ichiruki story that takes place Ichigo's freshman year in college—but instead of going full time to college he went to Soul Society to train, and he takes night classes part time in the living world. It is an AU, that drifts off during the lull in the middle of the Arrancar arcs. Aizen is sitting tight for now, but still at large (not very important to this story).

It is therefore a sequel to Handprints and the Rain: BUT IT IS NOT NECESSARY TO READ THAT STORY. It will be helpful, but not necessary. Chad gave him a letter before he left; he is no longer afraid of the rain. Now, on to the beginning of an Ichiruki phenomenon.

This is dedicated to my friend Carrie, who has been waiting very patiently. Her work can be found under her penname carrietheninja.

Sakura in the Snow

Chapter 1:

Washed-out Cover

It was raining.

Ichigo stared dismally out of the window, desperately wishing that it would stop.

But of course, even that wasn't the same anymore.

Now, he saw the rain and wished for it to stop only so that he could go train with one of the captains—whoever's turn it was today. He wasn't good at keeping track.

He jumped up impatiently, absently brushing his fingers against the picture frame on his desk. The somewhat sentimental object appeared rather innocuous to the casual observer, but a few of those close to him in the Seireitei knew that it meant so, so much more.

In the frame was a somewhat goofy shot of Ichigo and his high school friends taken at a time when "transfer students" were included with the group: Hitsugaya was sulking in the background next to Chad, Matsumoto and Orihime were beaming twin smiles, Ishida was awkwardly draping his arms around Mizuiro and Orihime, and Keigo was backed by Ikkaku and Yumichika. Ichigo and Rukia were caught in the middle of a minor fight, but somehow it fit perfectly into the mood of their dysfunctional group.

But tucked behind the photo was Chad's parting letter, the one he'd given Ichigo right before Ichigo had left for the Soul Society instead of a university.

The letter that had finally helped him to stop hating the rain.

But the rain was still making him depressed, today, because he was lonely, something he would have had a hard time admitting to even himself a few years prior.

He missed his friends, and, more than he'd care to admit, he missed Rukia.

Ever since the disaster in Hueco Mundo, Byakuya, Renji and Rukia had slowly but surely began to get along as a group. Renji and Rukia had merely needed to renew their friendship, but Byakuya had had to forge two new ones. At first Ichigo had felt irrationally left out; it would have been easier if he hadn't had to see them so often—the three of them were frequent live-ins or visitors—or if he could acknowledge the fact that they weren't technically supposed to be a part of his world.

It was odd, Ichigo reflected, feeling as though he unexpectedly had two brothers home from college half the time. Rukia was normal; she went to school with him. Renji and Byakuya, on the other hand, were harder to explain. It had taken longer (especially between Byakuya and Ichigo) but soon Ichigo had adjusted to his new way of life and the four of them had formed decidedly odd friendships together, albeit strong ones.

He was glad he had Renji, whom he guessed was his best friend next to Chad, here in the Seireitei because it made Chad's absence easier. Renji couldn't replace the loyal giant, but he could eclipse the gap. And Ichigo and Renji were so alike it was scary at times.

But ever since Rukia and Byakuya had begun to get along properly, Rukia's power and prestige had slowly grown, causing problems Ichigo never would have imagined.

He never would have thought his life could be so different without Rukia. She had come back after his disastrous rescue of her in the Seireitei too soon for him to truly miss her, and he had always known when she would come back, or at least that she would be back, after her periodic returns to the Soul Society. When she had first explained to him that she was a temporary seat in the third division in order to train for a more prominent position and that she might not come back for a very long time, if at all, he accepted it. But as the weeks dragged on, even with a visit or two from Renji, it began to dawn on him that something was very visibly wrong with his life.

Prestige for Rukia he appreciated. Whenever he was with her and people started whispering, he got pissed off—he hated being talked about—but when he saw them whispering just around Rukia, hearing that it was in awe of her as an individual, it made him swell with pride. Rukia was quickly growing in acceptability and in fame. It felt good to see the amazing woman he knew she was get the credit she deserved.

But it came at a price. Nothing had really changed when she had come back to stay for awhile, glowing, to tell him that she was now the Fourth Seat in Squad Thirteen, but he had realized with a jolt that she was the cause of the nagging, empty feeling permeating his life. He'd missed her. A lot.

And no matter how much she grew in skill, he still felt the deep-seated prickling—another thing he didn't want to admit, but it was worry—that drove him to be overprotective. It made him feel needed. That no matter where she went she might still need someone's help, and Ichigo could be that person to help her. For some reason, Ichigo thought, looking back at the raindrops slithering down the pane, he honest to God wanted to be the person she could always rely upon.

Kind of like one could rely on the rain to come again, and again, and again.

He grinned, ruffling his hair and then stretching languorously. God, he was sentimental.

He just found it annoying that he saw more of Byakuya, with whom he now shared some weird sort of understanding, than Rukia these days.

Not that he knew exactly why he cared so much, or wanted to know why.

He had thought that balancing paperwork, training, part-time classes in the real world, and hollow extermination missions would distract him from the seething confusion he felt inside.

With his other friends gone for now, his main focus was on Renji, Byakuya, and Rukia, his best friends in the Seireitei. Especially since, rather uncharacteristically, Ichigo thought, Byakuya had let him stay in the Kuchiki mansion for an indefinite length of time. Of course, now he was acquainted with hundreds of others in the Soul Society, but only a few of them were completely familiar with him. And so Rukia's presence—something so normal and strangely comforting—was sorely missed when she was gone.

Which was more often than necessary, in his opinion. Like the damn pointless training mission she was away on right now.

He pushed open the door to his room and padded through the dimly lit hallway, figuring that after he grabbed some food from the kitchen, maybe he'd find something to do. He wound his way through some of the obscure back passages that were usually used by the servants—he had found the passages almost instantaneously when he had arrived in an effort to avoid the other nobles living in this monster of a house. When he emerged into the almost intolerably bright kitchen, he was met by a host of stares.

"What're you lookin' at?" he groused as he rummaged in his favorite cabinet. The servants were used to him by now, and he was even pretty good friends with a good deal of them because of his down to earth, easy-going nature. So if they were staring at him, something was definitely up.

He turned back around with an apple and some rice balls in his hands, and, looking up, he was slightly shocked to see most of the servants still staring at him.

"Ok, seriously, what the hell?" he growled, looking expectantly at the head cook, a matronly woman who had immediately taken him under her wing when he had arrived, somewhat lost and annoyed. She was kind, and had introduced him to her son Akira, who, after a small misunderstanding, was now his closest friend among the servants.

The woman, Shuni, winced and looked frantically around. She had never been good at hiding worry; she still shrieked and rushed to bring him tea and ice bags every time Ichigo turned up in her domain with bandages somewhere on his body. Just that she was unnerved was enough to tell him that something—even though it might be small—was wrong. "Oh, Kurosaki-kun," she gushed, coming over and herding him through his loud complaints to one of the small break tables on one side of the enormous room, "I was just about to send someone looking for you! No one's seen you since breakfast!"

"Because it's bloody raining," Ichigo huffed, sprawling into a chair. "Who's supposed to be training with me today? I don't have classes or anything."

Shuni's eyes widened and she got a look in her eyes that almost disturbed Ichigo with its sadness. She gave him an uneasy but comforting smile. "I think it's his Lordship, Kurosaki-kun, but since it's raining—"

"Yo, Kurosaki," Akira came over from nowhere, punching Ichigo on the shoulder before stretching out next to him. Akira was helping with his mother, but he was in his final year at the academy. He was supposed to graduate and join the 13 Guardian Court Squads within a few months. Ichigo couldn't help but notice that even tough-as-hell Akira looked a bit wary today.

"Dude, did I grow a third head or something?" Ichigo asked, taking a large bite out of his apple.

"No, we're still in shock about your second one," Akira grinned, catching an apple from his buddy Riku, another almost-ready-to-graduate-student at the academy.

"Shut up," Ichigo snarled good-naturedly through a mouthful. He swallowed hastily, "Riku, you see my second head?"

"When someone stands behind you, yeah."

"Specially when they're taller than him, like Abarai."

"He's not taller than me!"

"He was looking for you earlier," Riku told him, sliding into another chair and staring at him with the same sort of wariness Akira had up. "He—" Akira rather obviously stepped on his foot and he finished lamely, "—was trying to find you."

Ichigo's facial expression deepened as his scowl became slightly more pronounced. "Any ideas as to why? Did he say something to make everyone freeze in their tracks when I walked in?"

Half the staff had already hastily disappeared. The remaining kitchen aides were determinedly busy, banging things loudly and striving to stop stealing shocked glances at Ichigo. "He said some—er—stuff," Riku muttered, predictably. As tough as Akira was, Riku was usually defensive and a bit unsure of himself. It was ten thousand times easier to get anything out of Riku than it was to get something out of Akira.

Sure enough, Akira was studying his apple, hard, as if Ichigo could maybe find some answers there if he gave it to him. "Kurosaki," he said slowly, and his voice sounded as though he was trying valiantly not to ask a question that he desperately wanted the answer to. "You really beat Kuchiki-sama?"

Damn.

He'd been hoping that everyone would be too awed by his epic status as human-shinigami or "substitute" or whatever the hell they wanted to call him these days what with wars and Espada and bloody hollow masks coming over his face in pseudo training by the captains of the Gotei-13 to actually look at his track record.

Damn.

"Hnnh. Where'd you hear that?" he asked easily instead of swearing.

Akira took a thoughtful bite out of his apple, his gaze suddenly piercing right through Ichigo's battered soul. "Like Riku said. Renji was yelling this morning. Something about Zaraki-taicho and himself a few times and several arrancars. . ."

Ichigo shrugged, stuffing the last of the rice balls in his mouth and swallowing. "Yeah. What of it?"

"How can you be so damn calm, dude?!" Akira finally exploded, just like Ichigo had known he would, and surging to his feet. "You're not even dead and you're already one of the most freaking powerful people on the other damn side! You got people running, regular spirit energy and sword crap ain't nothing to you, you got Kuchiki Rukia wrapped around your finger, you got the ability to save the universe from that bastard Aizen—how can you be so calm?!"

Ichigo blinked. "I think I'd go in-freaking-sane if I decided to consider—wait what was that about Rukia?"

Akira was already collapsing back down in a huff, but he visibly paled when he heard that, as if he had let something totally inappropriate slip. Riku jumped in for him, "You just scared the hell out of us, Kurosaki. You're so flippant and laid back: hard to believe that they could be depending on you to save the universe."

Ichigo waved it off, still concentrating on Akira, "Yeah, yeah, that's my job—why'd you say that about Rukia?"

Akira mumbled something, but inaudibly.

"Ok, you'd best tell me what happened this morning. ASAP."

"You totally started this, Riku," Akira growled.

"I didn't mean to!" Riku quailed, not wanting to start into this subject.

"Oh, just come out with it," Ichigo sighed, ruffling his hair. "It can't be that bad. You've probably already got the all-powerful half-assed rumors pounded at you before."

"I shrugged those off," Akira argued. "I bought what you said—"

"—which wasn't a lie," Ichigo reminded him. Oh God, did they know about—they couldn't know about his mask.

"—but hearing it from Abarai-fukutaicho. . ."

"Your total idol," Ichigo smirked.

Akira scowled. "Shut up."

Riku muttered. "It made everything too real."

Ichigo suddenly blurred out of existence, leaving his apple core on the table. Riku jumped slightly. "I'll never be able to use shunpo like that," he sighed wistfully.

"Abarai can't use shunpo like that," Akira shot back involuntarily, flushing when Riku gave him an amused look.

Ichigo reappeared a few moments later behind Shuni, who was still wringing her hands by a sink. He gave her a hug and pressed a few flowers into her hand. "Stop worrying, Mom," he teased. "If that goofball pineapple shows back up, tell him I'm in the Fifth Garden."

He winked out again, only to come back and grab Akira and Riku, hauling them away from the prying eyes and ears in the kitchen to the Fifth Garden. The Fifth Garden at the Kuchiki Manor was technically one of Rukia's but she had given it to Shuni years ago. Shuni had outfitted it with hammocks, so it was now a quiet hangout for most of the younger generation of servants. Ichigo loved it, partially because he had won acceptance there when he had first got to the Seireitei. The Fifth Garden was where he had had to fight Akira and Riku in front of as many servants that could cram into the space where the spirit energies wouldn't affect them in order to prove his place at the manor. He'd drawn the fight out for the two students' benefit—but he had hoped that they would've never known.

The look in Akira's eyes clearly signified that he remembered though, and Ichigo felt a bit guilty.

The three of them flopped down on hammocks, and Ichigo stared dismally at the still-cloudy sky, feeling the brief sprinkle mist his face. Hopefully it wouldn't get any heavier.

You've got Kuchiki Rukia wrapped around your finger—

"What's this about me and Rukia?" he asked quietly, reigning in and tightly controlling his mounting anger.

The look his two friends exchanged was not lost on him, even though his eyes were still fixed on the heavens. "You had to have heard some of the—"

Ichigo waved Riku off, grimacing. Of course he'd heard some of the rumors. And he knew that they had intensified since last week—

Ichigo showed up at the 13th Squad headquarters wearing a nondescript haori and Rukongai-worthy clothing, mainly because Akira had decided it would be funny to have someone dry clean all of what Ichigo considered "normal" clothing. He hated attracting attention when he didn't need to anyway, so maybe it was for the best. He bent over slightly, panting. It was forever from the Kuchiki residence to Rukia's division. "'Scuse me," he asked a passing shinigami he seemed to think was probably the 17th or 15th seat of the squad. He looked vaguely familiar. "Could you tell me where I could find Kuchiki Rukia right now?"

The guy gave him a once-over and let out a bark of laughter. "Filth matches filth, I suppose," he snorted derisively.

"Excuse me," Ichigo said again calmly, more pronounced this time as he beat down frighteningly out-of-control feelings of rage that scared him. "What was that?"

The man sneered. "Everyone knows she's not powerful enough to be considered for vice-captain, noble or no, so—"

Needless to say, a few members of the Fourth Division were hauling away a rather beat-up member of the 13th who was blubbering about an orange-haired demon not much later.

"Rukia!" Ichigo yelled, bursting into an office area and appearing in front of the gaping Fourth Seat. He barely heard the shocked gasp of quite a few of her underlings when his arms caged her against the wall. "Why didn't you tell me Ukitake wanted you as vice?" he snarled.

The startled shinigami of that work space were left blinking in shock at an empty patch of air that had previously held a vaguely known civilian stranger and the noble Kuchiki Rukia.

They reappeared in one of the 13th Squad gardens. "Ichigo!" Rukia growled, kicking his shin violently and letting go of his haori. "I'm working! I told you, don't bother me!"

"You like it," Ichigo smirked, still just inches away form her face, seemingly unperturbed by her forceful kick, one hand holding her arm.

Rukia threw her hands in the air and wrenched herself out of his grasp. "You're impossible! And yes, they want me to be fukutaicho, but it's new news, only some of my squad know about it—"

"—enough to have crap being said about you!"

Rukia's eyes widened in understanding. "You sent—"

Ichigo shrugged. It had taken him longer than expected to find her. Long enough for the man to be found, and Rukia to find out about it. "He got into it with me. He totally asked for it."

Rukia palmed her face, shaking her head. "I was somehow hoping that there could be more than one orange-haired demon in Soul Society."

"Ah, you don't think I'm a demon."

Rukia sent him a piercing glare that somehow managed to send shivers crawling around his neck. "Sometimes I do."

The feeling was rising again, the feeling he constantly tried to suppress with varying degrees of success when around her. A feeling of heat, protectiveness, possessiveness, hunger, and infatuation all compounded into one driving need, a desperate want that would be, if unleashed, as overpowering as his un-caged hollow.

A feeling that he felt was strictly forbidden and best kept unnoticed, however hard that would be.

Rukia passed a weary hand over her eyes, and Ichigo couldn't help but notice she looked much more peeved than usual. "What were you doing here, anyway?"

"I was going to offer to take you to lunch," Ichigo muttered, his mood suddenly shifting into the "very embarrassed" category. He knew how that sounded, and he hadn't meant it like that, or, at least, not really. "I mean, Renji said you haven't been getting out much, and that he knew a place we could go since I don't have any classes until tonight, and that he would stop by because he hasn't seen you since he got back from Okinawa."

Ichigo caught sight of an odd light in her eyes, one that made him move back towards her in a split second, without thought, without conscious effort. But it was gone as soon as it had come, leaving him breathless and furious with himself for making it disappear.

"What do you say?" he asked, confused to what his body was doing, confused to why his mind was so unfocused. She wasn't supposed to have any effect on him, and yet the muscles in his abdomen tightened when her tongue flicked out to nervously lick her small but full lips, and his pulse quickened as her one small hand rested on his chest, just below his shoulder.

"Ichigo—" she said, the tired note still lingering in her voice. He was suddenly very aware of the fact that her touch was much more gentle than usual.

"How 'bout I tell Renji to wait?" he said a bit huskily, his hands suddenly on her forearms, drawing her closer. He couldn't smother the raging desire to bring that light back into her eyes—he rarely saw it, and it made him dizzy. "We don't get enough time together anymore, and you obviously need a break."

He reached out to smooth her hair back, something his only slightly younger self would never have done. The light blossomed, but he could see she was fighting it for some reason. He pushed her stray black strand behind her ear, and, as his fingers lingered just a smidge too long on her cheek, her eyes suddenly blazed, the light winning, and she crumpled without warning against him.

"Rukia?" he asked softly. "Did you even sleep last night? I don't remember you coming back to the mansion."

"No," she mumbled into his shirt. "There's so much to do—"

"—and Byakuya to avoid," Ichigo finished for her, trying to imagine the stoic noble's face when Rukia broke the news. He wouldn't have taken it kindly, not at all. It had taken Ichigo, Renji, Ukitake, and at-her-best-noble Rukia with a little help from Byakuya's Third Seat and even the Commander to get him to consent to her being the Fourth Seat of Ukitake's division.

He guided her over to a bench, and it was only this close that he felt the dangerously depleted pulse of her spirit energy brush against him; his spirit force was so strong that he hadn't noticed the absence of hers at first. As he looked down at her, he saw the circles under her eyes, and became painfully aware of the trembling of her exhausted muscles.

She slumped against him when they settled onto the bench, but she seemed to draw strength from his muscled arm wrapped around her, straightening slightly. He jumped when she suddenly buried her face back into his haori. "I don't want to talk to him again."

"You already did?!" he asked incredulously, his arm tightening unconsciously around her too-thin shoulders.

"It's no good. And now I have idiots talking about me—"

"Not for long," Ichigo snarled, surprising even himself.

"Hmmmhhh," she hummed into his chest, causing his ears to tingle unnaturally.

"Go to sleep, Rukia. I'll wake you up in a little while."

"Really?" she murmured, burrowing farther into his shoulder.

He looked down at her, severely worried by her behavior. "Yeah. I'll always be here when you need me," he replied involuntarily.

He could almost hear the smirk in her voice. "I thought I told you never to save me, idiot," but she yawned, ruining the effect.

"Like I've ever listened to you, midget," he snorted. "Go to sleep."

She mumbled something inaudible, and drifted off with barely a protest.

He sat still for a few minutes until he knew she was asleep and then gently probed for any injuries or abrasions. There were a few bandages—nothing major, but she hadn't gotten them attended to. "Damn it all, you're a stubborn moron," he muttered, carefully lifting her up into his arms as not to wake her. She merely snuggled into his neck, eliciting heat that spread sporadically throughout his body. He hastily ignored the inappropriate feelings and proceeded to flash step directly to Ukitake-taicho's office.

A/N: I hope everyone enjoyed that brief breathe of fresh Ichiruki breeze! And –gasp- what in the world have Renji and Byaky-kun done?! Expect much more in next chapter! This fic will be short—prolly about three-ish chapters. Maybe an epilogue.

Thanks for reading!

~Conterra-hime

(There was some nonsense posted here, ignore that if you saw it)