A/N: I found this in my lappie :D The .doc file stated that this was created during April XD I didn't change anything in this, and instead just posted it up straight—I didn't want this to collect virtual dust in the laptop and I was too lazy to re-beta it XD

Not my best, I know, but I hope you guys will enjoy it anyway :D

Up, Down

"It's so damn hot today," Ichigo muttered to himself as he walked up the stairs leading towards the rooftop.

It was barely midsummer, but the people of Karakura were already starting to feel the heat. Temperatures could rise as high as 35 degrees Celsius these days.

So it was surprising to see Rukia leaning against the (metal—might he add) rail of the rooftop underneath the blistering sun that recess period.

She was flying paper airplanes off the rooftop through a hole in the metal barrier that day.

He yelled her name and she looked towards him. Throwing one last airplane into flight, she walked over to him. Her face was pinkish-red from the heat. He flung her a packet of melon bread and walked back towards the stairway. She followed suit, fiddling with the packet of bread, trying to rip it open.

As the days became increasingly hot each day, they tend to eat in the closed stairway instead of outside on the rooftop. He sat on the third step; she on the second. The faced each other comfortably this way—him leaning on the rails of the stairs and she on the walls.

"What were you doing?" he asked, taking the packet from her hands. He opened it effortlessly and passed it back to her—now with a ready-to-drink juicebox along.

She sipped the juice—the day was hot after all. "The airplanes you mean?" He nodded, not trusting himself to speak with that full of a mouth. She took a small bite of the bread. "Something I saw in a manga yesterday."

He rolled his eyes. Oh, Kami, not again. The last time she copied something from one of Yuzu's mangas, they both had to scrub a putrid mixture of instant curry, corn flour, and tomato sauce off the living room floor. ("Don't ask," Ichigo would say.)

"See," Rukia said, peeling the white sticker off the bread packet. She took out a pen from her skirt pocket and scribbled something on it. Ichigo leaned forward to see what she wrote:

Thank you for the bread~! (bunny drawing and stars)

She got up and out of the stairway, and wordlessly, Ichigo followed. By the time they both reached the edge of the rooftop, she gripped the railing tight and threw the (badly) folded sticker-note-paper-airplane to the sky.

The thing fell straight to earth, like lead.

"It's feels like telling something to someone… without that person knowing."

He chuckled. "That," Ichigo said, ruffling her hair, "was called fancy littering."

"Stop it!" She slapped his hand away from her hair. She hated it when he did that—it made her feel short. Rukia crossed her arms across her chest. "And for the record, it was not littering."

"Uh-huh, sure."

She tried to hit him on the head, but he evaded without an effort. He stuck a tongue out, a smirk bordering his lips. "Midget."

She kicked him on the shin, ran back to their eating spot and drank his juice as revenge.

Ichigo was on his way towards the convenience store, when a fluttering piece of paper stuck in a branch caught his attention. Curiosity peaked, Ichigo stood on his toes and gently pulled the fragile thing off the clutches of the tree.

A paper airplane—with a string of familiar neat hiragana on its left wing.

"I think I'm starting to like that idiotic carrot-top."

He stopped, blushed, smiled, and continued walking, the note kept safely in his pocket.

Rukia came to school the next day, barely on time ("That idiot didn't even wake me up!" she cursed). Finally she saw a neatly folded paper airplane on her desk.

Picking it up in her hands, she saw a small scrawl at the tip of its nose. She unfolded it.

"I think… me too."

She looked up, her ears noticeably turning pink, and he caught her eye. He looked away hastily, but she managed to see that reddening hue coloring his cheeks.

"Idiot," she whispered to him as she sat down. "I thought you said it was fancy littering."