rating: rated f for fluff
disclaimer: i don't own shit
Of Strawberries and Lemons, Robots and Aliens
When simple things like strawberries and lemons make Orihime's brain go wild.
When she saw his face, she thought of lemons. Not always. Just this morning. Normally, when Orihime Inoue saw his face, she thought of way different things; like, how he looked when he was cooking (or rather when he was trying to cook) or when he was meeting Chad (or any other of his friends).
She wondered if he made a face like this - like biting into ten lemons at once - too, when he was doing these things.
Then she thought about his name. Kurosaki-kun. Kurosaki Ichigo. Ichigo (she blushed, even though she was just thinking about his first name). She began to imagine a huge mountain of the sweet red fruits that were practically equivalent to Kurosaki Ichigo's first name; strawberry.
Quickly, she glanced over a few heads of classmates at Kurosaki-kun's profile. And she didn't need both halves of his face to think about it again: lemon.
Orihime turned her head back to the chalkboard, where the teacher was writing in clear letters: »Japanese History.«
If Japan (or rather the whole earth) had begun with robots and aliens, then Kurosaki-kun might have been born as an alien, Orihime figured. Robots were big (there was no such thing as small robots in Orihime's imagination; if aliens were small, then robots had to be big), yeah, just like Kurosaki-kun, but they were cold and not able to show any emotions. She just couldn't imagine Kurosaki-kun without this face.
She silently giggled when she pictured a six-armed and orange-haired alien in her thoughts.
Tatsuki poked her from behind: "Orihime, you're too young for daydreams!"
Right.
Orihime sat up straight.
Coughed slightly.
Tatsuki-chan was absolutely right.
Well, Tatsuki-chan being absolutely right didn't quite seem to work. A few moments later Orihime was sunken into daydreams about six-armed, orange-haired alien-Kurosaki-kun again. With this face. Lemons!
一/姫
His parents must have liked strawberries a lot. Like, a lot lot lot lot.
As hard as Orihime thought about it, she couldn't find any other plausible reason for Kurosaki-kun's parents to choose that name (Ichigo).
Neither a kidnapping by aliens – who at worst would have been responsible for his name and his weird face – nor the contribution of any other monsters seemed reasonable to her. And that was saying something.
Thoughtful, she began to nibble at her pen.
Needless to say, Kurosaki-kun was a very sweet person. Or so she thought. He was nice and all. And sometimes he smelled sweet. Or so she thought. Maybe it had only been her imagination playing tricks on her that day when he had walked past her and it suddenly started to smell like flowers and fresh water and chocolate and even cinnamon. Or so she thought.
It was just, that his name (strawberry) didn't quite match with his face (lemon). And this didn't quite match with Orihime's brain.
How could that possibly be? It's like being a strawberry but tasting like lemon. Sweet, sour. Sweet, sour. Sweet, sour.
Strawberry and lemon. Strawberry and lemon. Strawberry and lemon. Totally incompatible with one another. Sweet and sour. Not matching.
No aliens. No kidnapping.
What would a robot taste like? Strawberry or lemon?
No more daydreams.
Suddenly, she felt hungry.
And when Orihime's stomach finally growled, it wasn't just the sign of class ending, but rather of her brain being at its limit.
愛
"Ahh, lunch!"
Orihime stood up, stretched her sleepy muscles and then turned right.
Kurosaki-kun.
She watched as he got up from his chair, shoved it under his desk and turned to follow Chad outside the room.
"Kurosaki-kun!" she said happily. When he looked around, she smiled. "I just wanted –"
Then, something went terribly wrong there. Something sharp, like the razor sharp tooth of a shark poked into her back (later a classmate would apologize for accidentally ramming his elbow into her back), she stumbled forward, over chairs, so many of chairs, desks, over her feet, they tangled, she closed her eyes, reached out to something and… surprisingly even got to grab something.
一/姫
Holding her eyes shut tight, she wondered if she stumbled right to the end of the classroom, pulling on the curtains, but then she remembered that the windows were at the other side of the classroom.
She opened her eyes. White cloth dazzled her eyes for a moment, she blinked a few times, recognizing the fabric, then she flushed bright red. She knew it. She knew it. She knew it. (Yes, she knew it.) She even smelled it; strawberries, lemons, fresh water, cinnamon, strawberries, lemons, chocolate and flowers. But she prayed, in her mind, silently, secretly, when her eyes wandered up, slowly.
Please, not Kurosaki-kun, not Kurosaki-kun, just don't be Kurosaki-kun!
But when her eyes finally looked right into Kurosaki-kun's, she forgot to pray, she forgot that she was clinging to him, to her love, in front of everyone, she even forgot that strawberries and lemons were so not compatible and that six-armed Kurosaki-kun was somehow creepy.
When she looked at his face, she all of a sudden knew why he was named Ichigo; the red cheeks and that surprised look, so innocent and sweet - just like a strawberry!