Also titled: Luna are you seriously starting another story? In the past couple of months I have completely fallen in love with this pairing and this story idea just would not leave me alone. Plus GrimmHime does not have enough fics.

Couple of things! This is an AU where Grimmjow is human, and born human, two years before Orihime. Because of this his personality, his goals, etc are a little different, but hopefully he doesn't seem too out of character. Also, I changed Orihime's back story a bit. This story is centred around depression and explores/talks about it a lot. It also involves a decent amount of talk about death. I know a lot of people aren't comfortable with that sort of thing so if you are one of those people I wouldn't recommend reading this. Some things might seem confusing at first, but I plan on explaining everything as the fic goes on.

Orihime watched her friends leave her home. They all had disappointed looks on their faces, as if they could possibly solve her problems in one afternoon visit. Orihime knew they meant well, she did, but she couldn't bring herself to care any more. She wanted to care, she wanted to be enthusiastic, but she just couldn't do it, which made her even more frustrated. It had never taken any actual effort to be interested in life before, it came naturally. But something had clearly stopped working. It was like she was physically incapable of caring about anything any more. She just felt lethargic and sad and frustrated all the time.

She couldn't cope. She ended up dropping out of school, she had unofficially quit her job and she ended up spending all of her time cooped up in her home. It felt more like a prison these days. She couldn't find the motivation to get out of it though. She couldn't find the motivation to do anything. Orihime didn't understand it. She felt worthless, but yet she couldn't muster the energy nor the interest to actually do anything productive. The most productive thing she had done all week was to buy food online so she wouldn't starve. That was literally it. She was sick of feeling like this. She was sick of everything. At this point she just wanted out.

The sudden loud banging on her front door made Orihime grimace, the noise instantly making her headache worse. She glared at the door before turning away, intending to ignore whoever it was at her front door. Her friends had just left, and there was no one else who cared about her, so what was the point? That was if her friends did actually care about her. It was hard to tell these days really. Orihime winced as the loud banging on her door just got louder, making the pain in her head more intense. She gave up and decided to answer the door. Hopefully she could just get rid of whoever it was quickly and she could go back to...well, doing nothing.

Upon seeing the tall, muscular, blue-haired man in her doorway, her face showed more expression than it had in months. What the hell was Grimmjow of all people doing here? "Whoa. The rumours are true."

Orihime stared up at Grimmjow in confusion. "What are you talking about?"

"Ever since you disappeared from school there have been all sorts of theories about why. Most were dumb as fuck, at one point some people thought you died. The one that was most popular though was that you got depressed and gave up on life. I thought that one was fucking stupid too, but clearly I was wrong."

Orihime shrugged. "So? That doesn't explain why you're here."

His appearance confused her a lot. They knew each other well enough to be on first name basis with each other, but that was the limit. She had literally no idea why he was here. She had no idea how he knew where to find her either.

"I came to see what was wrong with you. With all the rumours going round I couldn't help but be curious. I didn't think little miss cheerful herself would actually fall so far down."

"Well now you know. Bye Grimmjow."

Grimmjow stopped her from closing the door on him. "I'm not leaving."

"Why not?"

Grimmjow shoved himself past her and into her apartment. "Because clearly, you need some fucking help. This place is a mess. So are you. What could've possibly turned you from the happiest girl in the world into this."

Orihime shrugged again. Grimmjow had to count to ten to stop himself from putting her head through a brick wall. Of course she wouldn't get anywhere if she didn't put any effort into doing anything.

Grimmjow didn't know how to talk to her, and she was giving him nothing to work off either. But it was obvious she needed help. Grimmjow wasn't even sure if the girl should be left alone. Not when she was in such a state. He never intended to be here. Not like this anyway. It was true that his own curiosity got to him, and that was why he visited. It wasn't often than an angel like Orihime, the third best student in her entire year, would suddenly quit school. But he didn't expect to find her like this. He did genuinely think that all the rumours flying around school were ridiculous. He never thought Orihime of all people could get depressed. He didn't know what he expected when he knocked on her door, but it certainly wasn't this.

He wanted to leave. He barely knew the woman. He knew her name, her personality, but that was about it. But he couldn't bring himself to leave. Not after seeing the look in her eyes after he asked her what had happened to change her into this. The look in her eyes made his heart stop. He knew that look. She had lost something very important. And that loss had reduced her to this. She was sad, lonely and quite frankly pitiful. She had depression. She wasn't just sad. She needed to see some sort of doctor. He knew that mental state better than he'd care to admit. And he couldn't help but feel for the poor girl.

He glanced around her home. She hadn't cleaned in a while. He had only ever been here once before, and it was only briefly. Her place wasn't exactly a dump, but he knew it was usually a lot cleaner than this. His eyes rested on a shrine over in the corner. He remembered seeing it last time. Except...there was only one photo on it then. He glanced at Orihime before making his way over to the shrine. There were two picture frames. One was there before, with a photo of her older brother in it. But there was a new one, one that contained a photo of a little girl. She couldn't have been older than eight at the most. Grimmjow looked back at Orihime before looking at the photo again. He had never heard of her having a little sister, but they looked too similar for it to be anything else. The only thing that was different between the two, except for the age difference, was that the little girl had black hair like her brother, instead of the bright colour Orihime had.

Grimmjow glared at the photo. Since when did she have a little sister? She didn't have one when he was here last time, and that couldn't have been more than a year ago. The two of them weren't quite friends, the reason they knew each other was because a few of Orihime's friends were friends with some of Grimmjow's friends. Sometimes on outings with friends she ended up being there. Outside of school, the last time he saw her was about five months ago, and she didn't have a little sister then. So at some point in the last five months, not only did she gain a little sister, but she had lost her too. Grimmjow admitted that losing a younger sibling was sad, but she had gotten over her older brother's death. There had to be something more to this. To her. And Grimmjow was going to find out one way or another.

XxXxXxX

By the time Grimmjow had cooked dinner, Orihime had fallen asleep on the floor, back against the sofa. He nudged her a little roughly, making her whine before she opened her eyes. "What?"

"Dinner's ready."

Orihime shook her head. "I'm not hungry."

"I don't give a fuck. Just eat it."

When Orihime made no move to get up, Grimmjow grabbed her wrist in such a way that she instinctively grabbed his wrist too and yanked her up from the floor. "That hurt."

Grimmjow glared at her. "Get up on your own next time then."

Orihime sighed before walking slowly over to the kitchen part of her apartment, sitting down at the small table. She waited for Grimmjow to sit down before she started to eat quickly, not particularly feeling like facing his wrath. However about half way through the meal Orihime started to struggle. Her appetite would switch between not wanting to eat anything to wanting to eat all the comfort food she had in the house. Today was one of the days where she didn't want to eat anything. The fact that Grimmjow cooked the portions he was used to didn't help, as he clearly ate more than she did. She wondered where he put it all.

Grimmjow sighed as he watched the girl pick at her food. She seemed too nervous to stop eating completely after he told her to eat, but it was clear she wasn't going to finish it all. "Orihime." She looked up from her plate to his face instantly. She couldn't recall him ever calling her by her actual name. "You don't have to eat it all if you can't manage it. Just eat as much as you can." Orihime nodded, surprised at the sudden softness. She ended up eating a good 80 percent of the meal as a response to his gentle orders without even realising it.

It ended up being a lot more difficult than I expected to set up this story. I imagine the following chapters will be better than this one. I would love to hear what you think. I've never written GrimmHime before, and I usually write fluffy stuff, so this is a first for me. I hope you liked it! And hopefully you look forward to next chapter!