Personagens: Orihime J-Idol, Ichigo membro de uma banda, Uryu estilista, Chad lutador, Rukia Kuchiki (aparição), Rangiku Matsumoto (aparição), Keigo Asano (aparição), Tatsuki Arisawa (aparição), Don Kanonji (aparição), Byakuya Kuchiki (citado), Urahara Kizuki (citado), Yoruichi Shihoi (citada), Time Karakura na vida adulta.
Casais: IchiHime, ChadIshi, RenRuki.
Gênero: romance, fluffy.
Outros: short fic, universo alternativo, casais principais se apaixonando, época de white day.
Capítulos: ???
Idioma: Português(BR)
Nota: Essa é a minha primeira fanfic de Bleach, estou nervosa! Rsrs.
A idéia veio com um dos temas do evento Orihime Week em que as pessoas deveriam produzir algo inspirado na idéia da Hime sendo uma Idol.
Não sou boa em escrita, já produzi duas fanfics (uma de Gravity Falls e outra do livro Sem Coração) que não chegaram a serem concluídas (fora as minhas histórias originais que nem saíram do primeiro capítulokk). Acho que uma one-shot é um ótimo caminho considerando isso tudo... Essa história seria uma one-shot, porém acabei tendo muitas ideias e cheguei a conclusão de que não conseguiria coloca-las em um único capítulo.
- Comentários de dicas de escrita e sugestões de estrutura do blog para uma leitura mais agradável são sempre bem vindos!^^
- Por favor! Caso não goste de qualquer um dos ships não leia, apenas ignore o blog e siga a sua vida, afinal, nenhum de nós ganharemos algo em uma briga de ship kkkk.
Os personagens não me pertencem e são de total propriedade de seu criador original.
ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤ1:00 ━❍──────── -?:00
O set de gravação do programa das quinze horas estava terminando os preparativos. As últimas garrafas de água estavam sendo colocadas nas mesinhas perto das cadeiras enfileiradas e os convidados especiais esperavam ansiosos nos camaris pela campainha tocar.
Sentando no puff, Ichigo Kurosaki, um guitarrista um tanto quando reconhecido em seu nicho, fazia perguntas em sua mente de como havia chegado até onde estava, afinal, programas cujo principal assunto eram fofocas e o mundo pop não eram exatamente o estilo da banda que participava.
O pequeno camarim era atormentado pelas risadas escandalosas que Keigo soltava a cada vítima de pegadinha do programa que passava pela pequena televisão.
Prestes a falar algo, Ichigo é interrompido pelo som da porta se fechando. Em frente à ela, parado e acompanhado de roupas novas, Uryu Ishida, um jovem estilista de nome já consolidado na indústria, se desculpava pelo seu atraso.
— De boa — O ruivo se levanta para pegar seu figurino, uma blusa moletom branca com um desenho simples de algo que se assemelha a uma caveira, figura presente na capa do último single lançado.
— Por que demorou?
— Tive que ajudar uma cliente importante, ela está neste prédio aliás. Desculpe, não achei que tomaria tanto tempo.
— Sério?! — Keigo com um sorriso que ia de orelha a orelha agarrou os ombros do estilista, se aproximando de seu rosto — Então, ela é bonita?
— Sr. Asano, isso é confidencial
— O QUE?! — E então o jovem rapaz se encolhia cabisbaixo.
— Até onde eu posso dizer, ela irá se apresentar no mesmo programa que vocês, talvez até mesmo se esbarrem pelos corredores — Ishida afastava as mãos do outro.
— Se vamos nos encontrar então não tem problema dizer quem é. E pare de me chamar de "senhor", faz eu me sentir um velho. EU SÓ TENHO VINTE ANOS!!
— Estou tentando manter o profissionalismo, você quem deveria usar meu sobrenome ao se referir a mim.
Pressentindo que uma discussão desagradável e nada lucrativa, Ichigo interrompeu os dois homens a sua frente.
— Desculpe o meu amigo carente aqui, Ishida — Ele deu tapinhas fortes na costas de Keigo que reclamou assim que pararam fazendo Uryu dar um leve suspiro.
— Mas, para falar a real, eu meio que fiquei curioso também.
— A minha cliente é a famosa Idol misteriosa que terá um debut stage hoje.
— Uhm. Acho que ouvi alguma coisa sobre. A Yuzu não parava de falar sobre ela.
— Bem, a empresa que a gerencia decidiu que faria dela um mistério, para gerar mais comoção ao público. Eles deram muito duro quanto a isso, então não quero ser o culpado a estragar a surpresa. Não quando falta tão pouco para o dia importante dela.
Em menos de vinte minutos o programa começou. A abertura era uma apresentação de um girlgroup que cantava uma música sobre paixões, combinando com o tema do dia: White Day.
Após a apresentação dos convidados e do papo furado com Don Kanonji, o apresentador, o momento mais esperado havia chegado. Atrás de uma tela branca e fosca, a tão esperada Idol estava prestes a mostrar o seu rosto pela primeira vez enquanto cantava seu mais famoso single.
Foi quando a tela despencou no chão que o mundo começou a se tornar cada vez mais lento, pelo menos para Ichigo Kurosaki que sentiu seu rosto esquentar e seu coração ficando confuso, oscilando entre parar e ter batidas rápidas em seu peito.
Caminhando em direção ao centro do estúdio, ela, a garota que Ichigo jamais poderia esquecer o rosto e o nome, Orihime Inoue, sua pequena paixão de pré adolescência. A garota que desapareceu de sua vida após a morte do irmão. A garota que só ouvia falar quando sua melhor amiga Tatsuki Arisawa comentava sobre.
Com sua doce e gentil voz, ela prendia a atenção dos outros artistas presentes no programa.
— Duplas formadas, vamos finalmente começar este especial de White Day!
Os convidados estavam sentados em duplas misturando-se com os outros artistas, com as meninas do girlgroup sentadas ao lado dos membros da banda, algumas fazendo par com seu próprio grupo por causa da exceção de participantes, o que ocasionou um bom fanservice para os fãs.
— Ah cara! O Ichigo acabou sendo a dupla da Orihime! Eu quem deveria ter ficado no lugar dele. Estou com inveja...
— Eu posso ouvir o que está dizendo — a voz do outro lado chamou a atenção de Keigo — Sr. Asano é muito sortudo por Tomu ser a sua dupla, então cuide bem dela, sim? — Rin, a Idol conhecida por ser a mais durona em seu grupo, repreendia o baixista.
— Opa opa! Parece que as coisas estão começando a esquentar aqui, hehe. Então vamos começar!
O especial levava provas em que os participantes, com seus pares, deveriam fazer chocolates, artesanatos e responder fatos sobre uns aos outros, aqueles que conseguissem cumprir a maioria das provas ganhava o prêmio de melhor "casal" do ano.
— Kurosaki, já que não sabemos muito sobre um ao outro, vamos conversar enquanto isso.
— Ah! Certo... Meu nome é Ichigo Kurosaki, tenho vinte anos e toco guitarra. — Ele fatiava as barras de chocolate que seriam derretidas para fazer outro chocolate só que mais decorado.
— Sou Orihime Inoue, tenho vinte anos e, como pode ver a pouco, canto. — Ela colocava os pedaços de chocolate em uma grande tigela de vidro.
— Pode parecer meio engraçado, Inoue, mas deixe-me tentar um palpite. Eu preciso saber se estou certo antes de continuarmos essa conversa. Ichigo sorria desajeitado. Você por acaso seria Orihime Inoue de Karakura?
Os olhares e as câmeras foram todos direcionados para a dupla. Como esperando, claro, afinal Orihime era a estrela do programa durante aquele episódio.
— Espera. Vocês se conhecem?
Um reencontro depois de anos! Que bela matéria. Don Kanonji pensou consigo mesmo.
— Inoue e Kurosaki se conhecem? Tomu perguntou.
Todos esperavam uma resposta de Orihime, que só percebeu o questionamento quando olhou de volta para Ichigo que a olhava curioso.
— Cresci até o começo de minha adolescência em Karakura. Como Kurosaki sabe disso?
— Lembro de você na época do colegial. Não acredito que seja você mesma.
O set ficou em silêncio para ouvir a conversa dos dois fazendo com que um estranho nervosismo subisse em Ichigo.
— Quero dizer. Tenho uma amiga de lá com quem cresci. Sempre que conversamos sobre nossas vidas ela menciona você.
Orihime deu um risinho.
— Ah sim, posso imaginar quem seja.
— Então vocês se conhecem? Rin perguntou.
— Mais ou menos...? Estou lembrando de Kurosaki na escola também, mas não éramos próximos.
— Vocês dois conhecem a mesma pessoa e moraram na mesma cidade mas nunca chegaram a se encontrar. E aqui estamos hoje! Keigo soltou surpreso.
— No programa do Don Kanonji especial White Day!. Seria esse o verdadeiro começo de um romance? O apresentador olhou para a câmera e uma música extremamente brega e romântica começava a tocar fazendo com que um humor comediante tomasse o ar do estúdio.
a quick , sharp hum , and a motion of his hand . “ I don’t recall any orders given regarding you . I’ve never even seen you prior . noted , yes , but nothing else . “
Sado knew this was a long shot. More than a long shot, it was likely going to be what led to his death. And yet, he couldn't find it in himself to regret his decision. Ichigo would be able to win his fight, there wasn't a doubt in his mind about that. He knew his best friend, and he knew he wouldn't stop until he had set things right.
But where did that leave him? The Fullbringer who had fallen in love with a Quincy. The very same Quincy who had left to fight against him, against their friends. He knew that Uryu's pride in the Quincy was worth more to him than anything else. That didn't make it any easier to find out he had been left behind.
Falling to one knee before the Jailer, he crosses one arm over his chest, the other still rigid at his side. "I'm here to earn a spot as one of your soldiers. I'll fight for it, if necessary." His voice held much more bravado and confidence than he was currently feeling. "Who do I need to kill to prove my worth?" The words felt heavy, foreign in his mouth.
But if it kept him close to Uryu? If it allowed him to see, with his own eyes, that the boy that brought light to his world was safe? He'd do whatever he had to.
That time when Ishida is about to be swallowed by the Dangai and Yoruichi yells at Ichigo for trying to use his sword, which is a problematic no no, except then Chad just rends the fabric with his bare hands, heaves an entire Ishida over his shoulder, and keeps running. King shit
I was actually just talking about this in the tags of a future reread post that I assume will go up sometime this weekend. But in my reading last night, I just got to the additional scene I was thinking about in those tags, and that I think you're referencing here. So I'll go ahead and update with that part!
After Kuukaku launches their spirit gumball at the Seireitei, their aircraft is less stable than they would have liked, and starts to dissolve on contact with the barrier, creating a vortex that threatens to spin them off into separate directions in the Seireitei. Yoruichi doesn't want anyone ending up alone, and urges everyone to grab hold of someone.
When it looks like Ishida might spin out solo, Chad makes a grab for him:
[Bleach 085]
But he's too far--he can't be reached! So Chad breaks formation and flings himself out, using that momentum to make sure Ishida ends up with Orihime (Chad's original partner):
[Bleach 085]
What is more romantic and heroic than yearning for each other's hands, reaching impossibly as the forces of the world ruthlessly try to tear you apart?
Grabbing that man and throwing him like a basketball.
I love both these bits so much, but this post also made me think of these panels from when the Karakura Kids meet up outside Urahara's just before going to Soul Society:
Chad really said, "WELP, I guess I will protecting this twink with my life then."
That time when Ishida is about to be swallowed by the Dangai and Yoruichi yells at Ichigo for trying to use his sword, which is a problematic no no, except then Chad just rends the fabric with his bare hands, heaves an entire Ishida over his shoulder, and keeps running. King shit
I was actually just talking about this in the tags of a future reread post that I assume will go up sometime this weekend. But in my reading last night, I just got to the additional scene I was thinking about in those tags, and that I think you're referencing here. So I'll go ahead and update with that part!
After Kuukaku launches their spirit gumball at the Seireitei, their aircraft is less stable than they would have liked, and starts to dissolve on contact with the barrier, creating a vortex that threatens to spin them off into separate directions in the Seireitei. Yoruichi doesn't want anyone ending up alone, and urges everyone to grab hold of someone.
When it looks like Ishida might spin out solo, Chad makes a grab for him:
[Bleach 085]
But he's too far--he can't be reached! So Chad breaks formation and flings himself out, using that momentum to make sure Ishida ends up with Orihime (Chad's original partner):
[Bleach 085]
What is more romantic and heroic than yearning for each other's hands, reaching impossibly as the forces of the world ruthlessly try to tear you apart?
Grabbing that man and throwing him like a basketball.
I understand Renji fans. Tall, long hair, a bum, tattoo, loser, masculine, wimp, mascular, tan, sexy, stray dog, cool, monkey snake, malewife, girl dad. He's dangerous.
I hate drawing his tattoo but damn he's hot. I enjoy.
orihime doesn't actually believe him at first when he asks her out | (ao3)
Orihime doesn’t actually believe him at first when he asks her out.
The weeks leading up to the wedding pass by in such a rush that she’s mostly just focused on planning her leaves at work and getting the veil done in time. Even though it was handy to have the Kurosaki Clinic as a meet-up location for everyone, she hadn’t actually planned to spend so much time there. There was so much to do off-late, and the last thing she wanted to do was distract Ichigo from his studies (contrary to his lackadaisical attitude, she knew he wanted to do well with his courses). But an evening had become many evenings, and Ichigo’s sisters were so sweetly persuasive that Orihime often found it hard to say no. The Kurosakis were a rowdy family, but they were warm and kind and welcoming in a way that was addictive to just lean into. Ichigo had to have gotten it from somewhere, after all.
And then the wedding happens, and Rukia actually wears the veil, and she’s so busy crying that she hardly has the time to process what it all means. Marriage had always been a distant concept to Orihime. Sora had never married, and she had never actually given much thought to it until she saw Rukia walk down the aisle with her own brother—somber and serious and beautiful. A bride.
It was only when her eyes met Renji’s that Rukia’s expression broke into a small, knowing smile. A Rukia smile, undoubtedly, with all its usual restraint, but there was a familiarity to it that gave Orihime pause. It felt like a secret shared. It felt intimate, a wisdom beyond Orihime’s years. For the briefest of seconds, she wondered what that must feel like. That closeness. That vulnerability.
Then she felt afraid—and promptly beat her curiosity back into submission.
So when Ichigo admits that he’s been thinking about her for a while, that he’s been harboring feelings for her, it doesn’t really—register. His eyes are uncertain, searching, and she instinctively wants to reach out to him, but she doesn't know how. She suspects she must have stuttered something back, but she is, ultimately, in utter shock. Four years of doodling his face on notebooks and following him to hell and back, and she never once thought about what would happen if he honestly, seriously, actually liked her back. It doesn’t make any sense.
In the end, she realizes she must have misunderstood him, which sounds a lot more like her the more she thinks about it. Her daydreams about Ichigo have always been vivid with detail, turning his mild affection into rapturous sentiment, so she files it away as her usual whimsy and moves on.
But then Ichigo asks her if she wants to go on a walk one day, and Orihime isn’t sure. They’ve done things like that before, but those instances were spontaneous—him walking her back home after she dropped her notes off at his house, or him lingering by her doorway, long after a hang-out with their friends. He’s never asked like this before and it feels—different.
And when she actually shows up to the end of her street where they were supposed to meet, he looks nervous. Worse, he can tell something is off.
“Is something wrong?” he asks with a small frown.
“No! No, of course not,” she blurts, then quickly smiles as if to pacify him.
They walk up to the river together and find themselves strolling along the bank for a while, but it’s quiet. Orihime keeps trying to recall what he said at the cafe the other day, about what he could have possibly meant when he said, I’m trying to be honest about my feelings and it’s okay if you want to stay friends.
Her nails dig into her palms.
“It’s kinda cloudy, huh,” Ichigo remarks, a little sheepish when he looks over his shoulder at her. Orihime’s stomach drops at the way he looks, windswept and casual with both hands tucked into the pockets of his jacket. His eyes are so warm, so kind, and she wonders if he knows that she loves him. Something lurches within her, and she almost feels sick as she stops in her footsteps.
"I'm sorry." She shakes her head. "I'm sorry, this is just. This is a lot."
"What is?"
"This," she whispers. She dares not call it what it isn’t, already wanting to flee. Ichigo’s eyes widen, and she can tell he’s realized, kind of, what she’s talking about. She pushes on, her voice small and guilty. "This doesn't feel very real to me."
A casual conversation with Ichigo is all well and good, even if it makes her stomach goopy sometimes and she’s got to scream herself hoarse into her pillow to beat down the rush. But she just can’t picture Ichigo doing that about her. Even her wildest imagination draws short.
“Are you talking about what I said the other day at the cafe?” he asks quietly.
Orihime nods, not really looking at him but out towards the Karakura horizon.
“Do you—do you not feel the same?”
The shock of that question instantly draws Orihime’s attention back to his face. She realizes he’s trying to brace himself, and the corners of his eyes are creased like it would…
(Like it would hurt if she says no)
“It’s not like that,” she mutters, mustering courage. But it falters when their eyes meet, and she flushes. Even saying that much is too much. Still, she finds her voice for long enough to say, “But, um. You said you liked me.”
It’s Ichigo’s turn to flush. “Y-yeah.”
Oh.
“As—as friends?” She wants to kick herself for asking the question, and then promptly wants the ground to swallow her up when Ichigo looks like he’s in pain.
“Ye-No—I mean.” He covers his mouth with a fist to clear his throat. “I just, uh. You know. I like being friends with you, obviously. But it’s—it’s not. Fully, like.”
Orihime nods quickly but completely devoid of comprehension.
“I think it’s been a little different for a while now,” he admits, almost guiltily. “Maybe for a long time, I don’t know.”
Orihime tries to breathe, to think of the implications. But in the end, she’s just swept away by the golden sunlight on his face, by the courage it must have taken for him to admit such a thing. She still has a hard time wrapping her head around it, but she recognizes, intuitively, that he’s trying to give her something. Something important. And she can’t not handle it with care. Not when it’s from him. Even if it feels like she’s cupping her hands around something tenuous.
“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you earlier,” he adds, and she can tell from his tone that he’s serious. “I think I was trying to figure it out for myself.”
Orihime laughs feebly, embarrassed. “You don’t have to be sorry for something like that.”
Ichigo smiles a small smile back at her, both hands in his pockets. He still looks tense, uncertain, and Orihime wants to make him feel better, but between them is a wall that hasn’t come down before, and she doesn’t know what it’s going to feel like when it does, but she bets it's intense. It has to be. She hates to admit that she’s a little afraid of it.
“It doesn’t have to be anything you don’t want it to,” Ichigo says quietly. “We can forget this happened.”
Orihime watches him, the way the light hits his face as he waits for her answer. She shakes her head. “No, I just.” She braves herself to look up at him, to try and say what she has in her heart. “Can we take it a little slow, Kurosaki-kun?”
_____________________
Tatsuki calls her crazy for not jumping him the second he confessed, which is really typical of her, but Chad just frowns when she tells him what happened.
“You like him,” Chad points out.
Orihime nods. That’s not something she’ll ever deny.
“He likes you.”
She gnaws her lip, fighting down the anxious surge in her stomach.
“He does,” Chad insists. “I know him.”
For a minute, Orihime stews on his words, the two of them quiet as they walk along the side street together.
“Give him a chance,” Chad says, glancing down at her with a small smile. “Let him show you. Ichigo won’t let you down.”
_____________________
Orihime pays a little more attention.
There’s a little bookstore in midtown Karakura that she likes, and she builds the courage to ask him if he wants to go with her.
(“That sounds like a great idea, Inoue,” he’d breathed, and Orihime wasn’t sure if it was a trick of the light or if he looked a little relieved by her initiative).
Either way, Orihime watches the slouch of his back, the thin, long lines of his fingers as he gently pulls books out of the shelves and frowns at the little blurbs on the back. His movements are so familiar to her by now, but she ends up watching him more than the books, fascinated by his every gesture, the firmness of his shoulders, his arms.
“Here,” he says, and she starts a little. He’s holding a book out to her with a little smile. “I think you’ll like this one.”
She takes it from him gingerly. It’s a heist adventure set in outer space—exactly the kind of thing she likes to get lost in during breaks at work, and it touches her deeply, the fact that he knows what she likes to read—that over years of borrowing and lending from each other, he’s learned. She smiles and holds the book to her chest, determined to find something for him too.
But fundamentally, the truth is that Ichigo is no different from who he used to be. Even as they talk about their friends, or when she brings him yakisoba and they sit by his bedroom window to eat it, he’s still the same he’s always been. He talks flippantly about his teachers but passionately about his classes. He scoffs at the ridiculous things she says and teases her about her wild imagination. He looks lost when she meanders her way through a story but listens patiently anyway. These are all things that the Ichigo of last year used to do. The Ichigo she knew and had grown comfortable with, to a point where she didn’t feel conscious about being in his room, or talking to him like this, with no one else around. It’s easy to forget that he likes her in those moments, which makes her think maybe he doesn’t like her that way at all—maybe he was just trying to tell her how much he values her as a friend, and she was reading into it too much, or projecting or—or—
(Or he’s always felt like this, her brain provides. She takes a gigantic hammer and smashes this thought, then steps on it with her foot for good measure.)
Orihime knows that Ichigo has always loved her—just like he’s loved Chad or Rukia or a person he just met that needed saving. Ichigo is a kind, giving person. She knows better than to mistake that for pining.
But there are times where his thigh brushes hers, or she laughs at something he says, and he gives her a look, a look that he’s never given her before, tentative, searching. She wonders what would happen if he would lean down and kiss her then, just his mouth on hers, nothing more. It’s nothing she hasn’t imagined before, but like all her other fantasies, it’s not something she’s ever thought would actually happen. She’s imagined burger kingdoms (because if there’s a Burger King, he has to have a home, right?) and clouds that taste like cotton candy, and this is just one of those things—perfect, but too good to be true.
“I don’t know what I’m doing,” she pictures telling him. “I like you,” she pictures telling him. She even knows the exact face he would make, a little stunned, because she’s always coming at him from a little left of center. A little tender, because he’s always been so kind to her. Ichigo would never hurt her, but she’s a coward all the same, satisfied with having him only in her burger-kingdom-candy-cloud fantasies. She’d never know what to do if he gave her his hand.
She throws her head into her pillow and screams. At least this hasn’t changed—and it provides her a little comfort.
_____________________
He’s walking her back home from his house one day when he says, “I don’t know what I’m doing wrong.”
Orihime whips her head up so fast she nearly gets dizzy. “What?”
He doesn’t look at her. “I’m terrible at this. Being a boyfriend.”
Orihime wants to reassure him of his merits, but she’s still stuck on boyfriend. Kurosaki-kun, her boyfriend. The shape of those words makes no sense, not in that order, not even rearranged. A hysterical part of her wants to laugh, and then lie down sideways and roll all the way home.
Ichigo lifts his gaze from the ground and frowns at her. “You don’t believe it.”
“Kurosaki-kun?”
He kicks at a pebble in his path and watches it totter out of the way. “You don’t believe that I like you.”
It’s only slightly accusing. He mostly just sounds sad, like there’s something wrong and he has no idea how to fix it.
“That’s not—” she begins. True, she wants to say, but she can’t bring herself to admit that it would be a little bit of a lie to say she had wholly embraced this idea that Ichigo was apparently in love with her. “Kurosaki-kun.” It comes out a little helpless, and she can’t help but stare up at him, hoping he’ll understand.
“I do, you know,” he says quietly. Stubbornly, almost. There’s a determination in his eyes that’s so familiar to her by now, a brimming thunder in him that speaks of hidden depths—things he feels that he can’t quite find the words for. Ichigo has always spoken so much with so little that when he says, “I do,” again, she knows. He’s been saying it to her in one form or another for a while now. Had he always been, even when he hadn’t quite known that that was what he was saying?
“I’m the terrible one.” she says finally, shaking her head. “Kurosaki-kun—Kurosaki-kun is so brave, so warm.” She looks up at him, and she tells herself she isn’t going to cry, even if she feels it at the base of her throat. “I wouldn’t even know what to do if you gave me your hand.”
Surprise breaks out on Ichigo’s face, followed by understanding.
“You could hold it,” he said quietly. And then color fills his cheeks, his own admission embarrassing him as he looks away from her face. “I-If you wanted to.”
Orihime lets out a breath, the thrill of possibility and permission making itself clear in the air between them. She stares at his hand, so large, so there, and lowers her own to lock their fingers together. Warm. His hand is warm. Her cheeks are on fire. Ichigo still doesn’t look at her, but his cheeks are pink too.
“I’ll hold it,” she decides, carefully cradling it with both her hands like it’s the most important thing in the world. Ichigo nods and squeezes his grip. She squeezes back.
They walk home that way. Neither of them says a word.
_____________________
Later that night, much, much later, Orihime rolls over in bed and stares out her window. It’s dark outside, quiet, and all she can think about is Ichigo. She’s spent a few nights like this before, her love for him so full that it had a presence of its own in the room. Ichigo, with his hand on his chin, talking about anything, everything. Ichigo at war, his back to her because he trusts her with it. Ichigo’s hand in hers, not limp, not asleep, but awake and alive and hers to hold.
I like you, she tries with her mouth. I like you.
She picks up the phone and dials his number without thinking about it, really.
There are one, two, three, four rings between them, and then his voice arrives on the other end, thick with sleep, concerned. “Hello?” A pause, like he’s pulled the phone away from his ear to see who’s calling. “Inoue?!”
“Kurosaki-kun,” she returns.
“What’s wrong? Are you in trouble?”
She smiles. “No. I just…I wanted to tell you…”
“Tell me what?”
“I like you, Kurosaki-kun,” she confesses, true and soft and clear. It’s only when she’s said it that she realizes it’s the first time she’s said it to him out loud, with him awake to hear it. “I like you,” she says again, stronger this time, more insistent—no room for error, or misunderstanding or doubt.
There’s a long silence on the other end, and it draws for so long that Orihime almost falls asleep to it, but for once she’s not afraid. She’s ready for the wall to come down, however long it takes, or however fast.
Finally, Ichigo laughs, just a heavy exhale from his nose. “Sheesh. Is that it? I thought you were seriously in trouble or something.” He doesn't sound disgruntled, though. He sounds pleased. Thrilled, really. It's like the warmth is emanating off of him, and Orihime can feel it all the way here, three blocks away. And then he says, “Me too,” and it’s like he’s here, burrowed in her ribs alongside that beating thing she calls a heart.
She falls asleep that way, her phone cradled to her chest, static waves connecting her to him. It’s the best sleep she’s gotten in years.
_____________________
Some time later, after a few days have passed, she takes him to the park for a date, his hand in hers as they walk between the trees. He’s in a light jacket that looks good on him; she’s in his coat, two sizes too big on her.
“I want to race you to the end of the park,” she declares, tilting her gaze towards him to see his reaction.
He blanches. “It’s the middle of winter.”
“That makes it sound like you don’t think you can win in these conditions,” she observes, tapping her chin with one finger. “Could it be that the mighty Kurosaki-kun is…slacking…?”
Ichigo frowns. “Oi.”
“It’s just a few hundred meters,” she assures him.
He sighs, letting go of her hand and heading over to the other side of the walkway so he can get into position. “Ready when you are,” he says.
Orihime grins. They ready, set, go it, and then she’s darting, dashing through the park like her feet can’t carry her fast enough. Ichigo is hot on her heels, but it’s clear she’s going to be the winner, wind whipping at her hair and her clothes. Something fuels her from within, gives her a boost that makes her reach the park’s edge a second faster than he does, shoes roughly scraping against the pavement upon her landing. She could have run forever with how buoyant this feeling is in her chest, but she settles for grinning, holding her hands out to him as he catches up to her. He’s sulking.
“I’ll buy you hot chocolate,” she promises soothingly, then laughs at the hope that strikes his face. It’s cute enough to deserve a kiss, so she stands up on tiptoes and plants one on him, her lips soft against his cheek.
“O-Okay,” he breathes, a little flush rising to his cheeks.
“Let’s go!” She pumps one fist in the air.
Ichigo takes her other hand, tugging her back before she can walk into oncoming traffic. She settles back with a sheepish grin. He shakes his head. They look both ways this time.
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