To the Same Heights

   "Ichigo..." Orihime said softly. 
   "Yes?" he asked.
   Orihime twirled her long, strawberry blonde hair in her fingers. She looked down at her feet and looked back up at Ichigo. "I've always...Ichigo...I wanted to say that you're my favorite person. So please, would you go out with me?!" she forced out.
   Ichigo was surprised to find out that she liked him. He WAS pretty dense though, so of course he didn't put it together. 
   He sighed and leaned against the classroom's wall. Honestly, he never thought of her in that way. He always thought of her as a good friend. When he told her how he felt, she ran out instantly.
   He didn't want her to feel bad about it, but that's how he felt about her. It would've been worse if he lied to her and went out with someone he didn't care about. Plus...there was someone else...

   "Ichigo?" Rukia said while he finished his homework at his desk. Ichigo turned around in his chair. 
   "I heard that Orihime...told you..." she said slowly.
   "Yeah..." he said. He didn't really want to talk about it, but if it was Rukia, then it wouldn't matter.
   "Are you with her now? Like, dating? Is that what it's called?" she asked. Rukia was afraid to hear the answer, but she wanted to know.
   "No, I turned her down." he said.
   But, he knew that if the girl that he loved had done the same thing that Orihime had done he wouldn't hesitate to say yes.
   She had always been there for him and never let him down. She could relate to Ichigo. And, most of all, believed in him more than anyone else did. She was the girl who meant the most to him.
   "Why? Isn't she nice and pretty?" Rukia asked. 
   "Orihime's nice and pretty but that's not really enough for me to like her. I only think of her as a friend." Ichigo said.
   'Really?' Rukia thought to herself, 'But she has really big..."assets"...and she's really pretty.'
   Rukia stood up from Ichigo's bed and asked, "Ichigo, who do you think you would've said yes to?"
   "Ehh....," he began. That question had an easy answer. The one person in the world that he would've said yes to would be, "You."
   Her heart skipped a beat and the world around her began to feel dream like. She couldn't believe what she heard, but she knew that he didn't normally lie. Especially not to her.
   "What?" she asked in disbelief as while her cheeks turned into a bright shade of red. 
   "I said that if you would've asked me out and said that you liked me, then I would've said yes to you." he said.
   The minute Ichigo got out of his chair, Rukia looked down at her feet. He grabbed her hands and held them until she looked up at him. 
   When her lavender colored eyes looked up at him, he grinned, slightly blushing. He's never done this sort of thing, which was weird since he was almost eighteen years old.
   Ichigo sighed and leaned in to kiss her. She didn't move away, she just let him do it.
   Their lips touched and Rukia was enjoying Ichigo's scent and the warmth of his arms while they were wrapped around her and he was enjoying the fulfillment of his dream.
   When they parted, she looked up at him again. "I like you a lot." she blurted out.
   "I like you a lot too." Ichigo admitted. 
   He held her silky smooth cheeks and thought of nothing other than how beautiful she looked right now. Her shiny black hair, her porcelain skin, and her pink cheeks. 
   "Do you want to go out with me?" he asked.
   She smiled and said, "Yes. But I'd like it if we kept it a secret for a few weeks. Orihime's my friend and I'm her's."
   Rukia was always so considerate of other people's feelings, that's yet another reason why he liked her.
   "Of course." he said with a smile.