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They have their first date and Orihime is so excited she barely remembers to breathe while she waits. He comes dressed in a soft-looking jumper, with his soft brown eyes and his soft sweet smile. Orihime swings the door open and watches his eyes widen when she presents the bunch of flowers she picked out for him.
He pulls out a chocolate bar from his pocket and holds it out to her and for a second they do nothing but stand in her doorway, cheeks red and eyes on the gifts in their hands.
“Can I come in?” He finally asks. She steps back and tries not to stare at his ass.
She had handed him the formula to her perfect first date and the perfect first date they are going to have. He had insisted he would get the food, she could make them soda pops. She does just that, smiling to herself as he hovers behind her. She wishes he would put his arms around her waist and pull her back into his chest.
Kurosaki Ichigo is a gentleman, though. He offers to get the glasses before she is done opening the bottle and pours the soup in bowls while she scoops out ice cream. Maybe it isn’t for the best to combine the cold of soda pops with the warmth of their delicious take-out meal but they are both too giddy to care. It sounds yummy. That’s all that matters.
Sitting facing each other on her couch set, the silence descends, and with a vengeance too because lovestruck, nervous smiles soon become awkward. Suddenly she can’t think of one thing to talk to him about.
What had they ever talked about? War? Saving lives, saving strangers, saving friends, saving his sanity?
No topics appropriate for a first date.
Sometimes, in the throes of laughter, with arms around her, she thinks the poets were wrong. War does not age you beyond your years. Other times, she manages to curtail her naivete.
Suddenly she is wondering if this isn’t it. Will she always struggle to exist with him like this? Force herself so strongly to not think of all the times she had to mend his bones that all she can think about are all the times she had to mend his bones? … and Rukia’s, and Renji’s, and Ishida’s, and a thousand others she had barely known, more that she had loved.
Nervously, she fingers her hairpin and mirrors his awkward smile. His gaze darts around her space and watching him take it all in is only slightly less awkward. Finally, he turns back to her and she panics.
“Do you want to watch a movie?”
…
Watching a movie was not on the schedule. Talking was.
And I picked out the worst one, she thinks and tries not to cry.
Her taste is solid, she knows, and The Platform is worth everything in the world, a genius production. It is not, however, appropriate for a date, and it's visible enough as Ichigo’s expression tightens through the pain and the gore, his eyes alight with an expression Orihime loves.
He looks like he always does when he finds somebody in need of help- like he could tear the sky apart to wipe the tears from their face. Yes, Orihime loves it and she loves him, but that’s not a very loving look and this is not a romantic film and she is so stupid-
She is also almost definitely going to cry at the end. Which is a problem in and of itself.
She sighs and places her chin in her palms, silently growing to hate one of her favourite films.
…
Ichigo falls back on her couch with a curse when it ends and sure enough, Orihime’s eyes are wet. She has not managed to hate the movie, after all, the impact of it ringing in her chest like it had the first time she had watched it.
“What was that?” He gasps, face flushed with emotion. His eyes are wide, he looks a little manic, and she tries to cheer herself up with the fact that at least he enjoyed the movie she recommended.
“What do you think they meant when they sent the little girl up?” He asks in the manner of one who wants to answer the question themselves so Orihime asks him in return what he thinks and he launches into a tirade.
“I think the message was very clear. The kids are our only hope. You have to protect them the best that you can because there’s no other way in life just like there’s no other way out of the prison system. To say that the girl was the symbol of resistance I think is supposed to signify that we have laid the groundwork for things but the struggle is supposed to be carried on by the younger ones. You know?”
She doesn’t think she has seen him get so into anything, manga, comic, movie, song, ever. It’s refreshing, a whole new side of him, bursting with ideas and trying to share them with her. His knee is bouncing where his leg is folded under him and he’s suddenly all his years and not a day more, the vibrant orange of his hair the tint of his whole personality.
She has always thought of him in warm, comforting browns and maybe that was wrong. This orange is just as fun, far enough removed from the brown to be thrilling and new and not daunting at all.
“Also,” she hopes she is not about to sound stupid. “I think it ties into the child’s placement in the prison, right at the bottom cell. As if to say the system has been designed so that the most naturally powerful, that is the kids, the ones with the most hope who have not been indoctrinated yet, are contrastingly at the biggest disadvantage because their positions in life are dependent on the people living on the levels above, who have very little compassion. The struggle to survive and climb through will probably take so much out of the kid that her special powers are not that effective anymore, you know with the temperature not lowering on her level? It’s interesting, the symbolism of it.”
“It’s very moving,” he agrees and doesn’t look like he thinks she is stupid at all. “I love that they went down not in search of the child who’d save them all, but the last person just so they could feed them. It’s so beautifully done, Orihime! I can’t believe I never heard of it before.”
She preens, so happy she becomes way too aware of every limb of her body and what incompetent carriers of joy they must be, so that it has to curl up around her heart in a coil so tight she feels full of warmth and tears again.
What a crybaby, she thinks and fails to feel ashamed of it.
“Thank you. I had a great time.” He tells her more than an hour later, standing on her doorstep again. They are both smiling at each other and it shouldn’t mean as much as it does but it does.
It does.
“Me too. I’ll see you again, yes?”
His hand is big, ruffling her hair like he doesn’t want to mess it up as much as he wants to be able to touch.
“See you.”
…
She receives a picture from Ichigo one Saturday afternoon and the leaves on the trees are the ripe golden of autumn. She knows exactly which park it was taken in and the text underneath makes her smile.
‘ Walk?’
‘Fifteen minutes.’
He sends her a smiley back and she suspects he does not often use emojis because she knows of no one who knows anything that uses the smiley.
Orihime is proud of her dress collection, she has built it over years. She has the perfect outfit for an evening walk, maroon, high-necked, flowing around her knees. When Ichigo catches sight of her, a smile spreads across his face. He holds up his phone and they take their first selfie together.
“You look nice,” he tells her and tries his best to keep looking her in the eyes as he says it. It is so intensely adorable that her grin threatens to split her face in half.
“Thank you.”
He purchased juice boxes for them and hers is mixed fruit, the flavour she loves. She doesn’t know how he knows that and then berates herself in silence. He pays attention, not just to her, but to all of his friends. He knows small things like those better than anyone else in their friend group does and she’d like to feel special, thinking he only pays attention to her, but she loves him too much for that.
“Um…”
Ichigo is rubbing his flaming red neck, his face ducked to the side. Orihime glances down, confused, and catches sight of the hand extended towards her.
A happy flush spreads across her cheeks and shakily, she laces her fingers through his.
Her skin tingles and they hold hands awkwardly in the middle, a wide gap between the sides of their bodies. She can’t help it. A step towards Ichigo, and her heart will combust.
From the corner of her eyes, as she sips her drink, she catches sight of him sending the picture to Rukia.
“Send it to me too?” She asks and he turns to her with an alarmed expression on his face, like she wasn’t supposed to catch him smuggling pictures of them to his best friend. Somehow, he brings himself to nod and she muffles her giggles in her scarf.
The air is pleasantly cool and the crunch of half-dried leaves under their feet endears itself to Orihime. He scratches at his temples and asks her-
“So, any new books you read?”
“Since when?” She teases. “The last time we met? Or the last time you were over at my house? Or the last time I posted about a book? Or-…”
“This week!” His face is red. “This week.”
“I have been making my way through No Longer Human by Osamu Dazai. Started it for this new show I watched. I haven’t decided whether I like it yet. I have been more into poetry lately.”
He nods like he is not comprehending any of it. That’s fine. He’s a work in progress.
“What about you?”
He turns to her.
“Read anything new?”
“Um, no. Do you have recommendations?”
Her eyes glitter.
“I always do.”
They talk about books for half a minute more. Orihime brings up the photography page Ichigo started and he excitedly tells her about this new camera lens he is saving up for. He is learning a new language too, which is exciting. German, apparently. Orihime feels more impressed, which till then had seemed an impossible occurrence.
The sky grows darker around them and Ichigo tells her about Yuzu branching out into riskier fashion choices that drive their father insane. He worries, Ichigo says, and he does too. Yuzu is his younger sister, after all. Orihime reminds him that Yuzu is a woman. Ichigo and Isshin will never worry as she does about these things.
“It’s a weird world,” Ichigo says. “I feel like my whole worldview is shifting as they grow up.”
“That’s natural,” because it is, “I think the key is to always talk to her. She’s still a child, she won’t understand things like you do, as an adult.”
“Sometimes I wonder if they have missed a woman’s presence in their life,” he muses and she gets a little caught up on where a lock of hair is curling atop his ear. “Sometimes… maybe I could have done more… You know,” he shrugs. “Not been so standoffish for so long. I feel like I don’t know them as well as I should.”
“Because she’s dressing differently?” She asks.
Ichigo sighs.
“No. It’s not just that.”
“I think it might be because they barely know themselves right now. Puberty. You remember how it is.” She makes a face and he laughs at that.
“As if you’d know,” he says. “You have gone through it more gracefully than anyone I know. You didn’t need a glow-up to begin with and then you got one anyway. The rest of us have to struggle to look presentable.”
She squeezes his palm and wonders where she is getting the courage.
“If it’s any comfort, you have looked perfectly presentable to me since you were twelve.”
Ichigo raises his eyebrows like he doesn’t believe her.
“With my pimply forehead at fourteen?”
“With your pimply forehead at fourteen. And the way you kicked Kunikida-kun’s legs out from under him when he was trying to scare that primary school kid and his cat.”
He looks like he doesn’t remember. She runs her thumb down his like she will never forget.
Ichigo walks her home, still the gentleman. Orihime takes too long to find the courage to push him against her balcony railing and kiss him, not quite the lady everyone thinks she is.
Somehow, somehow, she is convinced he would like that.
…
They are video calling and that’s new. She put make-up on before she accepted the call and the tiny pendant on the choker he’s wearing brings out his collarbones quite well.
“I took another route on my way home today,” she tells him as she rubs her feet together under her blanket. “And I saw this patch of flowers under the bridge. Wild ones, I think but so pretty. I will take you someday. Your feed is so floral these days, you could probably take good pictures there.”
He grins. His face looks longer on her phone screen and funnily so. She takes a screenshot and tells herself it’s not because of his collarbones.
Ichigo shows her his white chocolate donuts. Karin bought them for him and Yuzu because she neglected to tell them she was seeing someone.
“It’s strange,” he voices through a stuffed mouth. “Dad always said Yuzu would get a partner first, then me and then Karin. Turns out she beat all of us.”
“You sure it’s not Hitsugaya-taichou?” She giggles.
His eye twitches. “She’s got taste.”
“I think he’s nice.”
His lip curls a little.
“Not nice enough for my sister.”
“I didn’t think you’d be this protective.” She grins.
“I am not protective,” There are crumbs on his shirt. She hopes he is not in bed, knows that he is. “I am opinionated.”
“Fair enough.” She shrugs and doesn’t tell him how much she had wanted someone to be protective of her like that, in the brief window of isolation between her brother’s death and her closeness with Tatsuki. She filled those shoes easily, Orihime thinks and makes a mental note to buy her new shoes. Just because.
“So,” he gulps and his sound glitches a little. Either that or he’s moving his lips and not talking. “Renji told me you have a new tattoo.”
She sits up in excitement.
“Do you want to see it?”
His face flares up and he squeaks.
“A picture!” He is shaking his head like he doesn’t agree with his own words. “A picture! I want to see a picture.”
“Yeah, that’s what I was gonna send you.”
“Nice.”
It’s hard to not laugh at the disappointment in his words.
Her mind drifts and she thinks of him in this room with her, thick fingers cradling the hem of her shirt as he lifts it off her. His hand on her tattoo and then his lips, too and it’s way too hot all of a sudden. She can’t bear to look at his collarbones a second more.
“I have my neighbour coming over in five! I will have to go, I am sorry.”
She makes excuses, the filthy liar. He smiles and makes her promise they will go out to the flower patch the next evening before he lets her go.
Tossing her phone away, she throws her head back on her pillow. One hand inches towards her lamp to turn it off, the other inside the band of her shorts.
…
Ichigo doesn’t want to click the flower patch. He wants to click her sitting in there.
“Don’t you have a book in your bag?” He asks from behind the lens and she feels a little thrilled that she has established herself as enough of a bookworm that people count on her to carry a paperback at all times. With a proud smile, she holds one up and he waves his hand like telling her to get on with it, intently focussed on his shot.
She rolls her eyes and opens it up to a random page.
“Yes, that’s it,” he mutters to himself. She bites her lip and a giggle, too.
“I want one with both of us,” she says barely five minutes later. “Does it have that timer function?”
He pokes his head out from behind the camera, his nose flared in indignation like she should have known the answer to that. He reaches out a hand to make sure the tripod is balanced right in the muddy ground before he presses some buttons and rushes over to her.
His cologne washes over Orihime in some sort of a hug. She elbows his arm till he puts it behind her, scooting closer.
They smile at the camera and keep stupidly smiling. Ichigo has never used self-timer before and he isn’t sure how long he set it for.
“This is probably it,” he says and deflates next to her. She realises her back is hurting and slouches over.
“I am hungry.”
His eyes travel over her like her words aren’t a demand for food but a sweet verse of poetry that he’s never heard before. She feels exposed in her long-sleeved dress and turns away to put her book back in her bag.
“Oh, wait,” he says. She turns back to find him picking up a fallen pink bloom that Orihime can’t name. She doubts Ichigo can, either.
Wild flowers. There’s something undefinably romantic in the anonymity of them. Like dying for your lover in secret, when the world tells you your love is for show.
“Here,” he says and for a second she thinks he will tuck it behind her ear and that she will drop it minutes later. But his fingers part the pages of her book so it lays open on a random page number. There, Ichigo places the tiny flower before pressing it shut.
Safe. Forever.
Her heart is thundering in her chest. The beating of it feels sacred, like the clap of angel wings against stormy winds. She wonders if she should be trying to temper it and not leaning forward like she is.
He looks up into her eyes.
“Kiss me,” she does not say.
“Kiss me,” he hears anyway.
It is not fireworks. It is not long and deep. It is quick and hurried and they giggle afterwards because they’re sitting out here in the open, lovestruck enough to have lost their damn minds.
She wants to kiss him longer. She wants to kiss him forever.
It shows in the picture they took, it shows in the dress she is wearing, it shows on her skin, she thinks. That makes her happy and Ichigo asks her why she is grinning so much so she turns and giggles- “why are you?”
They must look silly but they are holding hands again and walking closer together. Their shoulders brush.
“I want to post that picture,” she tells him.
“Don’t write a cheesy caption,” he begs between bites of his cheeseburger.
She posts it and her caption is ‘A cheesy caption’.
He glares at her and asks her who told her she’s funny. She is laughing too hard at her own joke to retort.
“This was nice,” her hands are clasped behind her back and the urge to swing them from side to side is strong, but she is stronger.
“Yeah, yeah,” he nods, nervous.
Orihime wonders if now is the right time to push him against the railing and kiss him. Instead, she pulls him inside and he looks overjoyed. Her hands cup his face and his, her shoulders. This kiss is longer, a lot more firework- y. They separate only to dive at each other again. Ichigo’s lips are soft like his giant, bumbling heart and she wonders if she was in love before, what is to become of her now?
He is going to drive me insane. She lets him lick into her mouth and marvels at how aware of her whole damn body she feels, like she is eighty feet tall and a hundred feet wide.
He pulls back this time with a faint smile and Orihime feels dizzy.
“It was,” he smirks. “We should do it again sometime.”