User blog comment:Xilinoc/Ch. 686 - Death & Strawberry (End of Bleach reMIX)/@comment-1489595-20160819152958/@comment-1489595-20160820051816

Can't say I'm interested in arguing what might of been either but talking about details like this can be fun.

Ultimately though every objection you posit about Ichigo and Rukia were ones faced by Isshin and Masaki and they somehow made a successful relationship out of it. So we know the idea of this kind of romance is hardly foreign to Bleach. It's central to the series. No reason a theoretical relation is suddenly unreasonable or illogical between Rukia and Ichigo because of the same problems Isshin and Masaki faced.

Realistically Kubo had no intention and no real interest in resolving any sort of romance between any of the characters during the series run (well...except for the final issue and that hardly counts). 700 issues and everything was as nearly ambiguous as it had been at the beginning. What little he did have (such as Orihime's secret declarations of love) was bait to keep readers invested and it worked.