The Messenger

Summary: After losing her brother, Orihime Inoue sets out on her own and settles down in a quaint town named Karakura. There she hears a rumor about a mailbox where letters to those who have passed on are left and handsome boy who delivers those letters directly to heaven.

The Rumor

Orihime sighed as she dropped the last box of her belongings onto her living room floor. With a groan she straightened out her back and surveyed her surroundings.

Her new apartment looked exactly like the pictures on the website. It was a fully furnished one bedroom, one bathroom apartment with a spacious living area and kitchen. It wasn't the most extravagant place in Karakura, but it had a warm and cozy feel to it, and Orihime was sure with a few personal modifications it would feel like home in no time.

Excited at the thought of decorating her new abode, she grabbed a box, drug it over to the plush white sofa, and began to unpack. The tape gave way easily to the girl's insistent tugging and she delved into the box's contents. The first item she pulled out was a colorful owl-shaped clock. Orihime's eyes immediately darted to the mantle as she had already decided on a place for one of her favorite possessions while she was still moving in boxes. She positioned the clock directly in the center of the mantle before returning to her task.

The next item she pulled out was a decorative mirror she had previously hung in her room. She took a moment to check her hair and gave a frustrated pout at her disheveled appearance. Today her bright auburn hair that normally fell down to her waist and long bangs that perfectly framed her face were pulled up out of the way in a messy bun. She also had a very fair complexion which contrasted beautifully with her vivid grey eyes, but today there were dark circles under those eyes from her late night of last minute packing. Orihime had never considered herself to be pretty. In fact, the boys in her class often teased her for her unusual hair and eye color, and not until junior high when she developed her curvy figure did they seem to change their attitude. She turned her focus back to the mirror and decided to take down and shake out her hair in hopes to look a little more put together.

She reached over into the box for the next item and froze when she felt her fingers close around a very familiar picture frame. Slowly pulling the frame from its container, Orihime found herself staring into the eyes of her deceased brother.

Sora Inoue was Orihime's older brother who had passed away only a few short weeks ago. Sora had practically raised Orihime by himself since the siblings had been born into an unstable household. Their mother was a prostitute with no motherly instincts. The woman rarely spent time with her kids and would leave the house most nights, and sometimes she would not return for days. She reluctantly stuck around for most of her son's teenage years, but three years after having her second child she disappeared without so much as a word. Although their other parent never abandoned them he was in many ways worst than their mother. Their father was a raging alcoholic with a frequent abusive streak. As soon as that abusive streak turned toward his three year old daughter, the eighteen year old Sora took his little sister and ran away from the broken home to give her a chance at a much better life.

Orihime was able to grow up in safer and more cheerful environment. Sora absolutely adored his little sister and did everything he could to make her happy. She was his world and he was hers. They lived together for sixteen years before a car accident stole him away. Orihime had just graduated from high school and now she was alone in the world.

Tears welled up in her eyes as memories of her brother invaded her mind. It had almost been a month since her brother died, but she could not seem to stop crying every time she thought of him. She knew Sora wouldn't want her to spend all this time mourning him. He would want her to move on and be happy. But how could he expect her to just get over losing her brother and best friend?

She quickly shook those negative thoughts out of her head. Carefully she sat the picture back in the box and pushed it out of the way and out of her mind. She was not going to let herself get depressed on her move in day! This was supposed to be a brand new start for her. She was starting a new life in a new town. Orihime was going to make her way on her own now, and she was determined make her brother proud.

A knock at the door startled the girl out of her reverie, and she had a quick moment of panic as she wondered who could possibly be there to see her. She didn't know anyone in this town. After all, this was her first day in her new apartment. Crazy possibilities started forming in her head as she made her way to the door. What if it was burglars? Or aliens? Orihime gave a sigh of relief when she discovered that it was just a normal girl with short, spiky black hair in what appeared to be karate gi. Slowly she pulled the door open to greet her guest.

"Um, hello," Orihime offered shyly.

"Hey there, I'm your downstairs neighbor, Tatsuki. Nice to meet you," said the girl as she outstretched her hand.

"It's nice to meet you too. I'm Orihime," the red head replied more brightly than her initial welcome and shook the girl's hand.

"I know this probably seems really sudden since you just got here a couple of hours ago and everything, but I just wanted to welcome you to the apartment. I heard we had a new person in town so I had to come and investigate," she stated playfully. "So hey, I know moving in can be pretty hectic, so if you want to come down to my apartment for supper you are more than welcome."

Orihime was amazed at the girl's generosity. "Oh wow, that would be wonderful! I honestly haven't even thought that far ahead," she laughed glancing back at the numerous boxes scattered throughout the room.

The raven haired girl smiled, "I totally understand, just head on down in about an hour and I should have everything ready. Is spaghetti okay with you?"

"Yeah, sure, that sounds great," Orihime called out after the girl who was already making her way back over to the stairs.

"Kay, see you then!" Tatsuki yelled back over her shoulder with a wave.

Orihime closed the door and leaned back against its frame. She couldn't help the wide smile that was plastered across her face. Her first day in a new town and already someone wanted to have her over! Tatsuki seemed like a really nice girl too. She had a very relaxed and friendly personality. Who knows, maybe they could even become good friends?

The red head looked down at her baggy sweat pants and over sized t-shirt and then looked over at the stacks of boxes all around the apartment. Somewhere in there were the boxes that contained all of her clothes. She set her mouth in a determined line. There was a lot of work ahead of her in the next hour!

Orihime propped her mirror up on the seat of the sofa to get a good look at her outfit as she finished up getting ready. She had managed to take a quick shower and find a box with several sundresses in it and selected the least wrinkled of them to wear to dinner. It was a simple dark blue, halter top dress that draped down to her knees with a crocheted flower pattern across the bottom hem. She crawled up to the edge of the sofa with her makeup bag and fished around in it until she found her foundation and mascara. After covering her dark circles and applying her mascara, Orihime raked her fingers through her hair and hoped it would suffice since her brush was still safely packed away somewhere.

She briefly wondered if she had over dressed, but decided she enjoyed dressing up and would rather look nice and make a good impression. Taking one last look in the mirror, the auburn haired girl walked to the door, slipped on her flip flops from earlier, and headed to the floor below.

As soon as Tatsuki opened her door, Orihime was instantly relieved to find the other girl had also changed into nicer clothes. "Hey there, come on in. Everything's ready, and I'm starving!"Tatsuki quickly ushered her guest inside her apartment and led her to the kitchen. "What would you like to drink, Orihime?"

"Water is fine, thanks."

"I sat the plates and forks on the counter, go ahead and help yourself." The dark headed girl encouraged as she filled two glasses with ice.

Orihime served herself some spaghetti and took a seat at the kitchen table. A few seconds later, her host had deposited their drinks on the table and sat across the table with her own heaping plate of spaghetti.

"So Orihime, tell me about yourself. What brings you Karakura?" Tatsuki asked as she popped a meatball into her mouth.

Orihime smiled at the girl's boldness. "Well, I just graduated from high school, and I guess I just wanted to go out into the world and see what all it had to offer. Karakura seemed like a really nice town with a lot of opportunities so... here I am," she said managing to skirt around the touchy subject of her brother.

"Wow, that's deep, and pretty brave of you. I'm on my own here too. My parents let me move out when I graduated last year. It's nice being independent and all, but sometimes it can be a little lonely," her expression brightened as she added, "but I'm really excited now that you've moved in. We can hang out and do all kinds of fun stuff."

Orihime tried not to bombard the older girl with how ecstatic she felt at the hope of having a real friend. "That sounds great!" She said cheerfully. "Thanks by the way. I really appreciate you inviting me over for dinner. It's delicious." She emphasized her point by slurping a noodle into her mouth.

Tatsuki laughed. "Oh, it was no problem, really. I wish I had more time to clean up though. I'm sure it's a lot messier than what you're used to."

"Honestly," Orihime blushed and stared down her plate, "this is the first time I've ever been invited to someone else's home."

A loud bang caused Orihime's head to snap back up. She found that her companion had slammed her fist and silverware down hard on the table like a child demanding food. "What?" she asked incredulously, "You've never been to someone else's house? "

"Well, I never really had any close friends growing up. There were a few girls that were nice to me, but we never talked much outside of school. For the most part I tried to stay invisible at school," Orihime gave an unconvincing laugh.

"That's their loss then. You seem really cool Orihime. One of the only girls my age I've ever met that isn't obsessed with boys and clothes. People are just jerks sometimes. If only we had gone to the same high school, I bet we would have been best friends." She said earnestly.

"I wasn't alone though, I had my brother. He was my best friend," the red head added before she realized what she had let slip. Well, it would have come up at some point anyway, she thought to herself.

"You have a brother? That's cool. I bet he misses you a lot," Tatsuki managed to say with a mouth full of spaghetti.

"Actually, my brother passed away a few weeks ago. I guess it wasn't so much a decision to strike out on my own as it was being forced to be on my own." Tears began filling her eyes and Orihime willed them to go away. She did not want to scare her new friend off by bawling her eyes out the first time they hung out together. She wiped fiercely at the corners of her eyes and averted her gaze.

"Oh, Orihime, I'm so sorry. I had no idea. My gosh, I- I had no idea."

"No, it's fine. I still just miss him a lot. He was all I had. It's just hard to get over that, you know?" She continued to wipe at her eyes, "I'm so sorry, I can't seem to stop crying."

"Don't apologize. You need a good cry. You shouldn't have to deal with that all on your own. "The raven headed girl stood up and led her new friend to her couch. She cleared off some space for them to sit down and pulled the other girl into her arms. For some reason she already felt very protective of the younger girl, like Orihime was the little sister she never had. Tatsuki was determined to watch over this girl and make her happy again. "You cry as much as you need to."

Orihime cried because she missed her older brother; however, she also cried because she finally felt like she wasn't alone anymore.

After a good crying session on both the girl's parts, Tatsuki pitched the idea that Orihime spend the night with her and then they could both attack the arduous task of unpacking the latter's belongings tomorrow. Orihime quickly agreed and ran upstairs to find some pajamas while Tatsuki hurriedly picked up as much of her apartment as she could.

Later that night the two girls sat on the bed talking about anything and everything they could think of. They had been at it for hours, but couldn't bring themselves to stop. With every new topic they discovered that they had even more things in common. So for hours they stayed up giggling and chatting.

"You know Orihime, since you still miss your brother so much. You should write him a letter," Tatsuki offered.

Orihime smiled at the helpful suggestion, "Yeah, I guess writing my feelings down might be a good way to get them off my chest."

Tatsuki abruptly turned her whole body to face Orihime head on. "No, I mean literally. Ah man, I forgot you don't know about this since you're new here. There's this mailbox here that everyone calls "heaven's mailbox." It's in the middle of this field up north from here. I've seen it a couple of times because the field is next to a really pretty park that I like to go to," the girl rambled, "Anyway, people take letters to deceased friends and family members and put them in there and supposedly they get delivered to those people in heaven."

"How can they get to heaven?" Orihime asked disbelievingly not wanting to get her hopes up.

A wide grin spread across the older girls face and she leaned in closer to share the next part of the rumor. "Well, from what I've heard people have seen this super handsome guy come and empty the letters into his messenger bag before he mysteriously disappears. Spooky, huh?"

Orihime didn't want to admit how excited she was to think that there might be a way to communicate with her brother. She remained slightly skeptical at the thought of something so supernatural occurring, but Orihime had a wild imagination, and she firmly believed that anything was possible. "How do they know he doesn't just throw the letters away when he takes them?"

"I've heard a lot of stories of people who say the person they wrote the letter to responded to their requests in the letter. In fact, a girl in my high school who lost her mother wrote a letter to her mom saying how she missed her and how she wished she could have one of her mom's special red velvet cupcakes one more time. That girl to this day swears that one morning she woke up and there was a cupcake sitting on her kitchen counter. I mean, it couldn't hurt to try could it? I'll write the address down for you and you can go tomorrow while I'm at work. Sound good?

"That would be great, thank you so much!" Orihime exclaimed excitedly and jumped to hug her friend but ended up effectively tackling her off the side of the bed. The two girls just fell in a pile of giggles on the floor.

Finally Tatsuki pulled herself up on the side of the bed. "Well, I don't know about you, but I'm exhausted. We better try and get some sleep if we're going to attempt to unpack all your things before I leave for work tomorrow."

"I agree. Night Tatsuki!" the red head said brightly before she slipped under the covers and settled in for the night.

"Goodnight Orihime," the girl whispered back as she reached over to the bedside lamp and plunged the room into darkness.

The next morning the two girls managed to drag themselves out of bed by ten o'clock. They quickly shoveled down some waffles before heading upstairs to unpack. With both girls pitching in to empty out the boxes, the process took only about four hours. Just in time for Tatsuki to get to work at three.

As promised, the raven haired girl wrote down the address for the mysterious mailbox as well as her cell phone number in case Orihime needed to reach her.

"Call me as soon as you get back okay?" Tatsuki insisted as she walked out the door.

"Okay, I'll swing by the supermarket on the way home so I can cook supper for you this time," Orihime laughed.

The older girl smiled at her friend's laughter. "Alright then, see you tonight!"

Orihime waved until her friend disappeared from sight.

Upon arriving to the renowned park, Orihime crinkled up the address and stuck it in her pocket. With her other hand she held dearly to her letter to Sora. She had spent the past two hours collecting her thoughts and writing them down on paper. She told him of how she missed him and how she was handling life without him now. She also told him about her new friend Tatsuki. She didn't have a major request to ask of her brother, but she did ask that he would send her a sign to let her know that he was okay.

Her heart soared as she spotted a bright red mailbox standing in the middle of the field, and her pace doubled as she trekked across the grassy plain. She was almost there, almost able to send her letter.

She could not contain her joy as she walked the last few steps up to the mailbox. It was a surprisingly bright red color despite looking quite old and worn. Orihime ran her finger tips across it surface to assure herself that it was real. Her fingers brushed over the cool metal of the mail slot and the whole situation suddenly felt very real to her. This was it. She was going to get to talk to her brother after all this time of missing him and wondering if he was okay.

Orihime took a deep breath and pushed her letter through the slot. She heard the paper make a distinct thud as it landed on the letters below. Quickly she released the breath she did not realize she had been holding. Clasping her hands together, Orihime felt a wide smile spread across her face. Mission accomplished. She turned and began her journey back across the lush slopes.

Only a few steps later Orihime thought she heard the sound of rusty hinges opening. She glanced back towards the mailbox and froze at what she saw.

A tall figure stood next to the mailbox and was currently pulling its contents out and stuffing them in his bag. The figure was dressed in all black. The only color on his person was a shock of orange hair atop his head.

Orihime gasped and, as if on cue, the figure whipped his head around to lock eyes with her.

Her heart was attempting to beat out of her chest as his gaze bore into hers, and it took several seconds before her head finally accepted the reality of who she was staring at.

The Messenger.