Disclaimer: I don't own Bleach.
Cracktastic pairing of Orihime/Ikkaku. Yes, I know it sounds weird, but I've read weirder. Rated T for language.
Enjoy!
It was when Orihime Inoue accidentally crashed her car into the river when she first realised that she might have a drinking problem.
She didn't mean for it to happen. She really didn't. She wasn't even drunk when it happened. She was just a tad hungover from the previous night. One second, she had put her keys in the ignition, the next she was wondering why there were fish swimming past the windscreen. The policeman had been very nice to her when he was helping her get the car out of the river, probably because Orihime was crying quite a bit.
The Judge had decided that Orihime needed to face up to her alcohol problem, which surprised Orihime, because before he mentioned it, she didn't realise she, HAD a problem. Apparently, quite a few people didn't realise it when the possibility was first mentioned either.
"Well, duh, 'Hime." Tatsuki had replied over the phone, after Orihime had told her about the fact she now had to go to an Alcoholic Anonymous-esc help-group. "You're wasted the majority of the night. Every time we go out, usually it's my job to fish your head out of the toilet and stop you wondering into ongoing traffic."
"Really?" Orihime asked, suddenly feeling a stab of self-loathing. The nights out Tatsuki dragged her to always come back as a blur of unpleasant and easily forgettable memories. Tatsuki must have sensed this somehow, because her voice softened a little.
"Look, I know things have been tough for you lately...and to be honest, I guess I'd react in a similar way, but maybe this'll be good for you."
Orihime laughed weakly.
"So's cod liver oil."
The facilitator of the meeting seemed to be a smart person. She had neatly-styled black hair and glasses. There were six other people there besides her and Orihime, most of them men. Orihime sat down on a chair near the Facilitator, shifting about on the sleek white plastic that made her feel like she was going to slip off at any time. Her long flowy skirt settled around her thighs, and Orihime made a mental note not to cross her legs, because she was paranoid about the silky fabric slipping off them.
"Right," began the facilitator, pushing her glasses up her nose with a small shoving motion. "Now that we're all here, I think it would be a good place to start. So, let's go around the circle and introduce ourselves. I'm Nanao Ise, and I'm the facilitator."
Orihime barely paid attention as they went round the circle. She jiggled her knees, trying to decide on what to say,
My name's Orihime and I'm an alcoholic.Well, obviously, idiot! You wouldn't be here otherwise!
I was sentenced to coming to Alcoholic Anonymous for-No, no, 'sentenced' made it sound like you take yourself too seriously.
After something that happened between me and my friend-Ugh, they didn't ask for your life story.
With a start, Orihime suddenly realised the person to her left had finished talking and it was her turn. The others watched her expectantly, and a couple of people had raised their eyebrows.
"U-um..." stammered Orihime, blushing. This was SO not the confident start she had been aiming for. "My name's Orihime Inoue...I...I started drinking to cope with my b-brother's death, I guess."
"Thank you, Orihime." replied the Facilitator, as though Orihime had just passed her some toast. The man on Orihime's right spoke up.
"Madarame Ikkaku," he said in a bored voice, as though he had done this a few times before, "That's pretty much all you gotta know."
Orihime glanced in his direction, and then again. The first thing she noticed about Madarame Ikkaku was that he was completely bald. His head looked like a boiled egg, the bright lights in the hall making a shiny mark on the side. Orihime's eyes travelled to his, and she saw that he had some strange red markings on the outer corner of each eye.
Briefly, Orihime wondered if it was some kind of tattoo, but she couldn't imagine getting a tattoo done right next to your eye, let alone ones that seemed to blend into the skin like that. Ikkaku seemed totally at ease, the opposite of Orihime's jittery energy. Even his clothes seemed laid-back. His jeans sloped low on his hips, and tanned, muscular arms protruded from a fraying black T-shirt.
Orihime didn't realise she was staring- Not right then, but then Ikkaku's eyes suddenly flicked over to hers, his own eyes a dark grey. Blushing, Orihime quickly looked away and pretended to smooth the creases out of her skirt.
"Thank you, Ikkaku," Nanao said, in the same way she had said, Thank you, Orihime. "Well, now that you've all introduced yourselves, it's time to establish what goes in here, since it's the first meeting. Alcoholic Anonymous is about teamwork. They're your kind of safety net. Someone to admit to when you feel the urge to drink. You're here as a result of your drinking, but this group also works as a way out. Remember that."
Nanao continued, occasionally glancing down at a few sheets she was holding on her lap. She didn't seem nervous at all, and people were quiet as she talked.
Orihime glanced at the door, a quick, furtive glance, like she was looking at a car accident. Stealing glances at something she wasn't supposed to see.
"-And that concludes today's meeting." Nanao finally finished, shuffling the papers into a neat pile. "We'll begin our group exercises next week."
Orihime accidentally snagged the sleeve of her jacket as she put it on. Tugging it out of the side of the leg it had got trapped in; Orihime saw a strand of the faded white snap off, stuck in the chair. Sighing, she pulled up the zipper and then turned so grab her purse.
When she straightened up, she noticed Ikkaku was watching her.
Orihime left the meeting hastily.
The vending machine hummed to itself as it poured a weak jet of milky coffee into the Styrofoam cup. Orihime fumbled with the cup, grabbing it with her thin fingers. She sipped at it as she paced the corridor, the liquid sloshing about inside it was she walked, though the few speckles that landed on her hands were nowhere near warm enough to actually burn.
"Hey."
Orihime started, whipping around to see none other than Ikkaku Madarame standing behind her, looking slightly irritated and amused at the same time.
"Are ya plannin' on moving any time soon?" he asked, indicating the vendor behind Orihime with a jerk of his head.
"Oh, sorry!" squeaked Orihime, flustered, and hastily moved backwards, the lukewarm coffee sloshing about in the cup. Ikkaku snorted and stabbed a button on the machine; the vendor humming as it spurred into life, a stream of murky coffee splashing into the Styrofoam cup. No milk.
Orihime was quite tempted to creep away from him at this point, although she was aware she would just have to sit through an hour or so of awkwardness on her part. Ikkaku, however, glanced at her and spoke up, sounding conversational.
"Not much of a coffee drinker. But you gotta drink somethin', right?"
"R-right." nodded Orihime, not wanting to seem unfriendly. She paused as Ikkaku rooted around, apparently searching for something. "I don't think there's any sugar left..."
"Don't want sugar," Ikkaku replied, frowning at the machine. "Stupid thing ate my fuckin' change."
"Oh." supplied Orihime, feeling a bit foolish. She sipped at her lukewarm coffee, then instantly regretted it. The liquid had turned tepid; a layer of thin, not quite melted sugar crystals creating a white layer on the surface. She was quite tempted to spit it out, so instantly compromised by lowering her mouth to the thin cup and depositing her mouthful of lukewarm coffee in a more ladylike manner then spraying it everywhere.
Ikkaku raised his eyebrows at her as Orihime somewhat clumsily tossed the cup away, the cup landing in the bin, the pale brown liquid sloshing over the various balls of paper, wrappers and chewing gum.
"It was cold," offered Orihime by way of explanation, shaking her hair off her shoulders, glancing at the wet paper in the bin.
"They're much better when they're hot." agreed Ikkaku, and when Orihime swung her head back at him, she thought she saw him smirking. Just then, the doors of the hall opened with a self-important clicking sound and Nanao Ise poked her head out.
"You two are early," she observed, her glasses momentarily obscuring her eyes from view. "Hurry up and come inside. The others will be here in a minute."
Ikkaku merely grunted at her, and Nanao's head retreated. Without even glancing back at her, he headed on side, still clutching his coffee in one hand.
And for some reason, Orihime had the strangest feeling that that had just been the start of something.
...Whatever that was.
"So, what d'you do, anyway?" drawled Ikkaku, next meeting. Nanao had told the room to split off into pairs and start building up what she called 'an establishment'. Ikkaku had promptly dragged his chair over to Orihime, which she suspected was simply for no either reason besides the simple question: Why not?
"Well..."
Oh, what the hell.
"I'm training to be a nurse." blurted out Orihime, looking at her knees. Her profession always embarrassed her, even though it was what she wanted to do. It wasn't the nurse part that bothered her; it was the 'training to be' part. It made her sound like a little girl with a plastic stethoscope.
"No shit?" Ikkaku said, sounding reasonably impressed, and Orihime couldn't help but let a small, pleased smile slowly unfurl on her face. But then it was quickly diminished when the sensible, cynical half of her brain kicked in.
"Although, I guess being an alcoholic probably won't help me get past the training part," she added, almost as a gloomy afterthought. Ikkaku laughed, the sound a sharp bark.
"Did that only just occur to you?" he sniggered, flashing her one of his wolfish grins. Orihime didn't know why, but that grin made her feel both nervous and elated at once.
"Well, what do you do?" she asked him, deciding to jump on her abrupt burst of sort-of confidence. "How did you end up here?"
Ikkaku leant back in his chair, one hand drifting to the back of his head. Orihime noticed he was wearing the same black T-shirt as the first time she had seen him. His tanned arm looked nice against the black.
"Too much of the bad shit and too little of the good stuff, I guess." he mused after a moment. Really, this wasn't a proper answer at all, but Orihime found she didn't much care.
"We all do things we're not proud of." she reminded him, trying not to sound patronising, but Ikkaku paid it no mind. He just snorted and cocked his head.
"Even you?" he asked her, and once again, there was a hint of lasciviousness in his tone. Orihime bit the inside of her cheek, then decided to be reckless.
"Are you hitting on me, Ikkaku-kun?" Orihime inquired, trying to copy the same devil-may-care eyebrow quirk Rangiku had performed many times before, though it probably came off as more an innocent query then anything else. She also couldn't stop her voice rising into slight squeak, but she was still a beginner in all this. Ikkaku didn't appreciate Orihime's acting as much as she did, though, and his grin widened slightly.
"Yeah, pretty much." he answered easily, leaning forwards, elbows on his knees. "Why?"
"Should you really be doing that when we're meant to be dealing with our alcohol issues?" replied the amber-haired woman, flushing slightly as Ikkaku leant forward, abandoning her pseudo-attitude. The idea of being in close proximity with Madarame Ikkaku made her feel strangely short of breath.
"Hey, can't blame a guy for trying." he responded, with a shrug. "I have to have something interesting to do, right?"
Orihime wasn't sure whether to be offended at simply being considered a 'something', or pleased that he considered her interesting. So in the end she settled for a sort of wry smile, then got up and excused herself to go to the bathroom.
Ikkaku pretended to have a coughing fit to hide his smile.
"So, how's this Wastoids Club going?" Tatsuki had teased Orihime later that evening. Orihime was pacing around in the kitchen, wearing a knobbly blue bathrobe and battered green pumps.
"Alcoholics Anonymous is not a club." corrected Orihime, settling herself in her squashy armchair in front of the T.V, some random talk show on in the background. "It's...uh, a safety-net of teamwork and self-discipline. Or something."
"Convincing," snickered Tatsuki, her chuckling making the line crackle a little. "I think you missed out the power of friendship and the bit where you dance under a maypole, throwing rose petals about."
"Silly me." giggled Orihime, the spiralling white cord of the phone snaking around her index finger. "I guess I didn't read the booklet properly."
"It's nice to hear you laughing, you know." remarked Tatsuki, once their giggles had died down a tad. "So, this meeting thing isn't as bad as you thought, right?"
Orihime smiled, catching her reflection in the T.V
"Right," she agreed, her smile growing slightly goofy. Tatsuki inhaled in a slightly suspicious manner over the other line.
"You agreed with that way too easily," Tatsuki informed Orihime, and the amber-haired girl was quite grateful she couldn't see her right then. "Have you met someone?"
"Maybe." Orihime said, not bothering to keep a straight face, but her voice wobbled with amusement and Tatsuki snickered once again down the line. Then there was a sudden pause. Orihime frowned, pulling the phone away from her ear and staring at it, puzzled. Then she heard Tatsuki's voice, with much less mirth from before.
"So...um...I talked to Ichigo today."
"You did?" asked Orihime, and at Ichigo's name being mentioned, Orihime felt the familiar kind of lurching feeling in her stomach, as though somebody was trying to forcibly remove her stomach from the outside. She swallowed down the golf ball-sized lump that had suddenly appeared in her throat. "How is he?"
"He's...fine. He's still upset about, you know...what happened."
"Is he," Orihime mumbled. It wasn't a question. "Poor him."
Orihime heard Tatsuki suck in air through her teeth. Her tone hadn't been aggressive, far from it. Orihime had sounded sad. But Tatsuki knew Orihime well, certainly well enough to hear that bitter, reproachful bite to the words.
"Orihime-" began Tatsuki, hesitantly, and it made Orihime want to shudder. Tatsuki sounding hesitant was perhaps one of the worst things she could sound like- It was Orihime's job to be uncertain. It was Tatsuki's to be the brash, confident one. When Tatsuki hesitated, it meant she was about to say something difficult, for both parties.
"Sorry, Tatsuki-chan." Orihime blurted out, suddenly realising that whatever her friend had to see, she didn't want to hear it. Maybe some other time, when Orihime returned to feeling her old self, but not now, while she felt like she was standing on a rickety bridge, where every movement could be deadly. "B-but I've just remembered that I'm running a bath! I'll see you later!"
She stabbed the end call button before Tatsuki could answer. Orihime shook her head slowly, like a dog trying to dislodge water from its ears. She hated that she was bitter. Yes, she had a right to be angry with Ichigo, but she was also angry with herself. Maybe for deluding herself, maybe for wanting to forgive. Maybe both.
Orihime sank back in her chair and closed her eyes, letting herself be enveloped by the sudden silence.
"You're home early, Ikkaku."
Ikkaku grunted, shrugging off his jacket and tossing it onto a nearby chair. Yumichika rolled his eyes and skittered gracefully around the kitchen counter, picking up the jacket and hanging it up. Usually, he would have insisted Ikkaku do it himself, but just for today, he decided to let it slide. He was eager to hear about Ikkaku's AA meeting, which he probably wouldn't be able to coax out of him if he started fussing over coats.
Ikkaku returned from his room a few seconds later, having changed into his ancient pair of jeans that he only wore in the house. They were so pale blue that they blended in with the tiles in the apartment's pokey little bathroom, so it looked like Ikkaku's feet were suddenly miles from his body. Ikkaku padded into the kitchen, sliding into a seat and muttering under his breath.
"Bad day?" Yumichika inquired, once Ikkaku's grumbling had subsided.
"Eh, not really," Ikkaku shrugged in a surly manner, glancing at Yumichika as though daring him to contradict him. "Fairy girl wasn't in AA today. And I would kill someone for a fuckin' drink."
"Well, that's what the AA meetings are for," Yumichika reminded him, a bit tartly. But then he smiled slightly impishly. "And don't you know the AA girl's name yet? I'd think by now you're probably obligated to learn it, Ikkaku."
"I know her name," Ikkaku said, waving Yumichika's playful dig away, "Fairy Girl just suits her better."
"Don't let Kenpachi here you say that." remarked Yumichika, sounding amused.
"Where is he, anyway?" Ikkaku asked, glancing lazily about the room as though Zaraki could be hiding somewhere. Fat chance of that, since this was Zaraki Kenpachi they were talking about.
"Out. I think he said he was fetching Yachiru from pre-school."
"She hasn't been kicked out again, has she?" Ikkaku asked, finally growing bored of slouching over the kitchen counter and opting instead to rootle around the fridge, tactfully avoiding the cans of beer perched on the top shelf, the slick silver cans glinting at him.
"The word is expelled, Ikkaku, and no, she hasn't been," Yumichika reprimanded him, sighing as though this was painfully obvious. "She moved to a slightly more...open-minded pre-school, anyway. Which is lucky for me, since it means Kenpachi has no excuse not to pick up any emergency shopping."
"Ugh, whatever." Ikkaku snorted, finally pulling out a jar of pickles and fishing one out with his hand, biting into it with a loud crunch.
"So, what IS her name?" Yumichika finally prompted Ikkaku, waiting for him to swallow his mouthful of pickle before asking the question.
"Orihime Inoue." Ikkaku grunted, his voice slightly muffled. Yumichika was impressed that he remembered what hey were talking about, let alone being able to recite her name off-bat. Ikkaku must have picked up on the line Yumichika was thinking, because he shot him a look.
"What?" he demanded, irritably.
"I just can't help but wonder what it is about Orihime-chan that's drawing you in so much," replied Yumichika, smiling. "I didn't think fairies were really your type."
"S'not why," Ikkaku grunted, annoyed but apparently compelled to explain. "It just seems weird to me that she's in a friggin' AA meeting at all. She said it's got somethin' to do with her brother, but I dunno about that. She just don't look like the type of chick who'd go on a bender, you know what I mean?"
"Appearances can be deceiving, Ikkaku." Yumichika told his friend in a slightly singsong voice. Almost as though this statement needed punctuation, the door suddenly banged open and in strode Kenpachi; a paint-splattered Yachiru perched happily on one of his massive shoulders. Kenpachi didn't bother to elaborate on why Yachiru was rainbow-coloured, apart from grunting,
"Oi, you two don't know any really strong brands of bleach, do ya?"
Orihime really wished she had just said no.
"Orihime, sweetheart, you've been moping about the house ever since you crashed your car," Rangiku had wheedled, when she had last swung round to Orihime's place. "Just because you have a drinking problem doesn't mean you can't have fun, right? Come out with us, please! We'll look after you, I swear!"
How could she have said no to that? She could just have easily pulled out her own eyelashes with a pair of tweezers.
But now, saying no seemed like a strange kind of otherworldly place, a place where you didn't just get dragged along for the ride and end up losing control of the car.
Tatsuki, Rangiku and several other of Orihime's friends had promptly vanished into the smoky, neon-lit labyrinth of the bar. People danced to loud music that made Orihime's head pound and reverberated in her ribcage, shadows swaying in the purple and bright green lights. The floor was sticky with split drinks and every so often a hiss would sound out, followed nearly immediately by a huge waft of smoke creeping along the floor, like some malevolent fog.
Orihime's vision was already dancing slightly from her first drink, a cocktail with the slightly dubious name of 'Flamingo Explosion' and the even more dubious bright-pink liquid in the bottle, hence the name. She had downed it quickly, giving Tatsuki or Rangiku or whoever a tight, pretend smile. Usually when Orihime drank, she did it to forget, but all she could think about as the cocktail went down her throat was, "What am I doing? I'm supposed to FIGHT my addiction, not chug drinks named after spontaneously-combusting birds!"
This made Orihime laugh out loud, her laugh too shrill to be out of sheer amusement. She glanced around, as it seemed quite mad to suddenly burst out in a fit of hysterical giggles, but the writhing mass of bodies barely paid any attention. Rangiku was standing near the bar, chatting to a tall man with blue hair and a feral grin. Tatsuki was nowhere to be seen, though Orihime could dimly make out Chizuru slinking into the bathroom, her cheeks flushed.
"Hey," a voice said to Orihime's right, and she felt a hand on her shoulder all of a sudden, and a large man with bright red, closely-shaved hair was suddenly standing behind her, much too close for Orihime's liking. "Never seen you before."
"I can't see a thing!" Orihime answered her voice sounding loud and slightly slurred to her ears, even though she knew she wasn't that drunk. The man smiled, as though Orihime was an animal that had just jumped through a hoop.
"Let's go somewhere else." he said, the way this seemed more of an instruction then a request made Orihime nervous.
"No!" she said, too loudly. She attempted to control the volume of her voice, which was proving difficult. She felt the man's grip tightening on her shoulder, and she began babbling. "No, I mean, that's okay. I...need to go find my friend. She's not very well, and I...-"
"Orihime?"
Orihime whirled around, finally breaking the rock-like grip of the red-haired man. Somehow, she found herself nearly headbutting none other then her AA buddy, Madarame Ikkaku.
"Ikkaku-kun?" Orihime returned, bewildered. Why was he here? More importantly, why was he staring at her like that?
"What are you doing here?" they both asked at the same time, their voices mish-mashing together in the scramble to talk, and the fact conversation kept being drowned out by the music.
"C'mon." Ikkaku suddenly said, abruptly, grabbing Orihime clumsily by the wrist. Orihime was too confused to pull away, so she let Ikkaku lead her through the throng of people, weaving his way through, Orihime trotting to keep up. She didn't know why she was letting him drag her outside, except that she had been yearning to go herself. Whatever it was, though, Orihime found that she trusted Ikkaku.
Even outside, Orihime still couldn't really make out where she was being lead, but the night air felt pleasant, her face hot and her fringe sticking to her forehead.
Eventually, Ikkaku relinquished his grip on Orihime's wrist, calmly settling himself against the trunk of a cherry blossom tree, the tree sitting on top of a small hill as though marooned there. The blossoms were just at the stage where they were ready to let their petals fall, spindly branches drooping with the weight of the fat flowers. Ikkaku seemed perfectly at ease, whereas Orihime just stood there uncertainly, though she felt no desire to return to the bar.
"Siddown, willya?" Ikkaku suddenly said, tilting his head to look up at her, "You look like you're gonna fall over."
"I'm fine," Orihime responded truthfully, flopping onto the grass beside Ikkaku. "I only had the one drink."
"What we you doin' in there in the first place?" Ikkaku asked her now, his arms crossed behind his head.
"My friends asked me to come. They were worried about me."
"So they brought ya to a bar?" Ikkaku questioned, sounding sceptical. Orihime shook her head, feeling that she should defend her friends, but suddenly lacking the proper motivation to protest.
"They said I was moping about the house too much," Orihime admitted, tracing a pattern in the dirt with her finger. "I've kind of been avoiding people recently."
"How come?" Ikkaku asked, turning his head to look at her. Orihime paused here, wondering what to say. Then, with a sudden burst of reckless abandon, she suddenly blurted it out.
"My boyfriend cheated on me with my friend."
A small silence descended, but it was punctuated fairly quickly.
"Shit," Ikkaku said eloquently, staring at her now. "What the fuck's his problem? Is he blind?"
"...I haven't really asked him for an explanation." Orihime mumbled, "He didn't mean for it to happen...but I just...didn't want to think about it. It all just suddenly became too much. When my brother died, I felt so lonely, in that house on my own. And you know my job? I'm scared of failing, because I really want to be a nurse. And then after I found out about Ichi- I mean, everything, I just wanted to drown it all out. I guess it must sound pretty pathetic..."
"Nah, not really." Ikkaku replied, almost airily. He was quiet for a moment or two. He didn't look at Orihime as he spoke.
"You asked me how I started drinkin', right? Well, a good buddy of mine died. We used to drink sake, then beat each other up to decide who had to buy more. I guess I probably had problems before then, but when you drink with a friend, you can deal with it better. Or somethin'. But on my own, I guess I just didn't know when ta stop. And the fact I can't hold down a decent job pisses me off, and I drink to forget bein' pissed off, then I get mad at myself and it all starts again."
He sighed, rubbing at the back of his bald head.
Orihime leant against the tree, on Ikkaku's right. She stared up at the moon, trying to think of something to say.
"I never used to like drinking." Orihime confessed, a slightly embarrassed smile decorating her mouth, "But I had a weakness for absinthe."
Ikkaku grinned at Orihime, and she felt a strange fluttering motion near the pit of her stomach. Then Ikkaku suddenly turned his head away, rummaging through his pockets. Out of his deep jacket pocket, he suddenly pulled out a small green bottle. He handed it to Orihime, who turned it over to see the slightly faded label; the image of a fairy dressed in a glittering emerald mini-dress printed on it.
"She kinda looks like you," Ikkaku told Orihime, sounding amused. "I wondered what the hell some fairy-girl was doing in an AA meeting, ya know?"
"Speaking of which, why were you in that night club?" Orihime pondered, nodding to the still noisy bar, which felt like it was miles away, distant as the overhanging moon. "And why were you carrying a bottle of absinthe with you?"
"My friends were in there," Ikkaku admitted, with a shrug. "I only tagged along 'cause I kind of felt like I owed them, you know? They didn't invite me, but I just sorta wanted to."
"And the bottle?"
"This coat ain't mine, it's Kenpachi's." Ikkaku shrugged. "He's my roommate, kinda. So's Yumichika and Yachiru. I borrowed the jacket 'cause mine got bleached. Guess Kenpachi stopped by the store on his way to pre-school."
"It must be nice having the company," Orihime said, actually sounding cheerful at the prospect. "I live in an apartment on my own, so it's very quiet most of them time."
"Maybe you should meet 'em," suggested Ikkaku, finding the idea of Orihime in his apartment a strangely easy thing to picture. Like adding a piece of furniture from a set. Something to complete it.
"I'd like that," Orihime told Ikkaku, her large grey eyes locking onto his, her voice quiet and sincere. "It would be great."
Ikkaku didn't say anything to that. He just kind of mumbled a little, "Heh" to himself, before putting a hand to the back of Orihime's head, her hair soft and sleek. Orihime leant forwards, her hand sneaking to Ikkaku's and squeezing it, before they kissed, the crisp scent of the grass wafting through the air, the trunk of the tree feeling solid and secure as they leant against it, a few loose petals floating down to greet them before settling gently on the grass.
It wasn't exactly that they fit, exactly. It wasn't their unanimous feelings of both sadness and the desire to forget. Maybe it was a case of opposites attracting, but Orihime could already name a few things they both liked, so maybe that wasn't it. Whatever it was, though, it just felt good to have someone to be with. Someone that you didn't have to hide things from because it was inconvenient.
Someone who understood, really.
When Ikkaku did take Orihime up on her offer and show her his place, she was just as enthusiastic as she had first been, chatting to Yumichika, playing with Yachiru and being one of the few people who would converse happily with Kenpachi without bothering about his intimidating air. The last time she visited, Ikkaku had shown her the unpainted room.
"We're getting' more built." he explained to Orihime, who ran her hands along the smooth, concrete walls. "This apartment is too damned small for this many people."
"We should get some plants in here, Ikkaku-kun." Orihime had said, clearly visualising the completed room. "And paint it, too!"
"Yeah, why not." shrugged Ikkaku, the image of the voluptuous fairy suddenly springing up in his mind. He grinned as he remembered the fairy's outfit. "You'd look good in green."
Like it? I love reviews!
(I kept the Ichigo pairing ambigous on purpose, by the way, but hopefully it didn't confuse you too much.)