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What Is the Sound of Love?	By : roguebitch Category: Bleach > General Views: 1476 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own Bleach. I make no money from the posting of this story.

Chapter List
- 1-What Is the Sound of Love?
- 1
Part of The Yearning of the Sword series. Set WAY before "Hoping Tomorrow Is, Was, and Will Ever Be". Title shamelessly stolen from the last chapter of Terry Pratchett's "I Shall Wear Midnight". As was the answer to the question.

***

On Rukia’s birthday, the snow started falling in feathery flakes sometime around noon, after lowering clouds had foreshadowed the approaching weather by obscuring all sunlight. It was just cold enough to make the snow powdery after it fell on the already-existing base layer, but not so cold that a walk in the storm would be unpleasant.

That’s what Ichigo hoped, anyway.

They were both busy that day, Ichigo had student teaching, and Rukia had Fukutaichou duties. Rukia preferred not to make a big deal out of her birthday, but Ichigo was going to challenge that preference today.

Ichigo finally got free of his classes midafternoon. He walked back to his room through a windless, constantly shifting curtain of snowflakes. Once there, he grabbed a small box off the shelf next to the door, turned and walked back out, stuffing it into his coat pocket.

He got to 13th’s headquarters and knocked on Rukia’s office door, then slid it open without waiting for an answer. Rukia looked up, frowning, but when she saw it was Ichigo, her expression smoothed out and she smiled.

Ichigo knew that their relationship would always have its volatile aspects, but things had gotten better after Orihime and Uryuu’s wedding. After a devastating fight, Rukia had stopped testing Ichigo, and they had been able to move forward together.

“There’s a beautiful snowstorm going on outside. Take a walk with me?” Ichigo said. Rukia looked down at her desk, an uncertain look on her face. “Oh, come on, you can take a break, can’t you?” Ichigo cajoled. “The paperwork will be here when you get back. And it’s your birthday. Please?” He made his expression pathetic. Rukia laughed.

“Since you put it that way,” she conceded, pushing her chair back. She donned her winter gear and joined Ichigo as he walked outside. The silence was profound as Ichigo turned towards the cherry orchard in the gardens. All that could be heard was the slight crunching of their footsteps in the snow as they walked.

Ichigo reached out and took Rukia’s hand, tucking it with his into his coat pocket. She glanced up at him, smiling a little, then tipped her head back with her mouth open, trying to catch snowflakes on her tongue. Ichigo grinned.

“Are you getting any?”

“Lots. You try it.”

Ichigo tilted his head back with his mouth open and succeeded in catching one snowflake on his tongue. He got another in his eye, and stumbled in the snow. Rukia laughed again.

“I don’t think I can do it and walk at the same time. How are you managing it?”

“You are guiding me and holding me up,” Rukia replied. Ichigo squeezed her hand gently.

“Always,” he said softly. Rukia squeezed his hand back.

They got to the cherry orchard, where the trees reached bleak arms up into the sky.

“Stop,” Ichigo said. “Close your eyes. Listen.”

Rukia stopped and did as Ichigo told her.

“What do you hear?” Ichigo murmured. He got down on his knees, and then bowed further, until he was nearly laying on his chest in the snow. He looked up at her.

“It is so quiet I can hear the snow falling,” Rukia said, wonder in her voice. “It sounds like the trees are whispering to each other.”

“Rukia,” Ichigo said, voice low and rough. “Open your eyes.”

She looked down at him, expression confused.

“Ichigo, what are you doing?”

Ichigo, goshu-zarei, smiled nervously up at her, fumbling in one of his pockets. He held the small box up from his prone position.

“Fukutaichou Kuchiki Rukia, will you please do me the great honor of consenting to marry me? Here, in the cherry orchard this spring, where we had our first kiss?”

Rukia drew back from Ichigo, eyes wide with shock. She didn’t reply. The silence stretched on and on.

“Rukia, I’m freezing and my legs are getting soaked. Say something. Please.”

“Oh, Ichigo, get up, get up. You don’t abase yourself to me!” Rukia twisted her fingers together, truly distressed.

“Yes, I do. You are both nobility and my military superior. This is the only right way to ask.”

Rukia dropped to her knees in front of Ichigo. She reached out gloved hands to raise him up so he sat in seiza, as she did, facing each other as equals.

“Ask me again.”

Ichigo took Rukia’s hands and looked into her eyes.

“Rukia, please. Will you please marry me, be my wife, as well as my friend?”

Ichigo couldn’t tell if the tremors he felt through their joined hands were his or Rukia’s. Her eyes were wide and dark and luminous, mysterious in the uncertain light of the snowstorm. Suddenly they crinkled up at the corners as she smiled gently at Ichigo.

“Of course I’ll marry you, baka. It’s about time you asked me.”

Ichigo laughed, and pulled Rukia to him to kiss her. If there was moisture on his face or hers, it could be credited to snowmelt.

“Don’t you want your ring?”

Rukia pulled back to look at Ichigo. “Ring?”

“Traditionally, the bride-to-be wears a ring.”

“A ring would interfere with my grip on my zanpakuto.”

“Not this one. At least try it on before you decide you can’t wear it.”

Ichigo opened the small white box he held. “Take off your left glove,” he said. Rukia did, and Ichigo lifted her hand and slid a cold metal circle onto her middle finger. She held her hand up to look at it, then tipped her head to the side, looking at Ichigo.

“You would normally wear it on your ring finger, but maybe you could wear this behind the finger loop on your wristlet? I don’t think it would get in the way there.”

"You seem to have thought of everything."

"I really want you to wear this ring."

“What is it made of?”

“Platinum inlaid with carved moonstone. I thought of so many different kinds of rings and jewels and none of them seemed right until I saw a picture of this ring in a magazine. Moonstone just...fits you.”

Rukia’s continued scrutiny of the ring gave Ichigo the fidgets.

“Do you like it? Should I take it back?”

Rukia dropped her hand and then climbed onto Ichigo’s lap, wrapping her arms around his neck and pulling his surprised face down to hers to kiss him again and again. Even with a collective 8 layers of clothing between them, Rukia straddling his thighs had its usual effect on Ichigo, and his hips bucked up into her a little. Rukia gasped and laughed quietly.

“It is perfect. Don’t you dare take it back. Are you wearing a ring, too?”

“Guys generally don’t until they get a wedding ring. So, no.”

“What do the wedding rings look like?”

Ichigo smirked. “Not telling.”

“How did you know what size to get?”

“I had to guess. But I had a pretty good idea. From when we would hold hands.”

Rukia slid her arms around Ichigo again and rested her head on his shoulder. “Thank you,” she whispered. Ichigo turned his head and kissed her hair. “Koibito,” he said. “Itoshii. I love you.”

And even though her face was wrapped in a scarf and buried in the shoulder of his coat, he could hear her whisper, “I love you,” soft as the snowflakes that were still falling.
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What Is the Sound of Love?