A few days after the knife incident, it began to rain. And it rained and it rained and it rained. I loved it. I spent entire days outside, reveling in the showers. And I only got struck by lightning once. But the look on Kuchiki face when I told almost ruined the whole experience. Her face turned red, and I had to relax my face to keep her from breaking her handwhen she slapped me.
"Why would you do that!?"
"I didn't mean for it to happen. I'm sorry."
"No you aren't."
"I didn't want to make you mad or anything..."
"You are such a guy!" And with that she gave me a shove. Kuchiki is small, but she's surprisingly strong, and when she caught me off guard like that, I started to fall back. Realizing that I was going to fall, she tried to grab me, but I was so heavy that she couldn't stop me. In fact it just pulled her off along with me. I had taken to shielding all the time, but the shove had broken my concentration. That was lucky for Kuchiki, because the boulder we fell off of was tall enough that she would have broken bones if I was shielding. But it still hurt when she landed on top of me.
"Oh, f***. Kuchiki, are...."
But then I started to feel really weird. Like seriously messed up. And then I blacked out.
When I woke up, Kuchiki was curled up in a ball asleep on top of me. And as I looked at her, she was so relaxed, so at peace. Then, as I looked at her small face, I felt something I had never felt before. I wanted-- no, I HAD-- to protect her. She was precious to me. It wasn't like I had to do anything she asked, I wanted to protect her. I set her down on the ground, but as soon as I pulled my arms out from underneath her, she woke up.
"Hey."
"Welcome back, sleepyhead."
"You're the one who blacked out."
"You pushed me."
We continued to talk for hours. And while it appeared on the outside that nothing had changed, if it was possible, Kuchiki's smile was even brighter.