Glittering flecks of multicolored light blanketed the dark, velvety blue of the early night sky, shining like stars for the briefest of moments before they burned themselves out. As their light waned into nothingness, the last echoes of the explosions from which they had been born rolled across Karakura, signalling the end of the year's fireworks contest. Raucous applause and cheering began to echo from the yukata-clad crowds that packed the streets that had been designated the festival grounds.

Orihime and Tatsuki decided that they had had enough noise for one night simultaneously, and so began to wriggle their way out of the milling crowds. The escape took time. It also took an occasional nice hard chop or two, delivered by Tatsuki with her one good arm, to clear away particularly obstinate (or drunk) obstacles. But in the end, the two successfully broke free from the crowd rather near to where they had entered it: a stretch of street running alongside a grassy-banked canal.

When the sounds of the festival faded to a low, distant hum, Tatsuki spoke, glancing away from Orihime, putting on a smile that she could not prevent from looking a bit anxious. "Uh, so...you're going up to visit your aunt, right?"

Orihime blinked a few times. Fortunately, her brain managed to retrieve the alibi she'd fed Tatsuki before her mouth could contradict it, but it was a close shave. "Ah, yes, yes, it's been a while, and she really wants to see me, so..." She trailed off, offering a light "what're you gonna do?" shrug.

"When're you leaving?"

In Orihime's brain, a co-pilot on a fully booked passenger flight wondered aloud why the captain wasn't sitting in his seat and operating the controls. As soon as the question--purely rhetorical, as the co-pilot was the only one in the cockpit--was asked, reality asserted itself over the flight in a dramatic fashion, sending it into a tailspin. But before the jumbo jet of Orihime's lie could slam into the hard, unyielding ground of Tatsuki's curiousity, the captain stepped back into the cockpit after a brief dalliance with one of the stewardesses and things got back on track.

"Not sure!" Orihime said, smiling brightly as disaster was averted. "She's gonna call me when she wants me to come up. She's got some work things to sort out..."

Tatsuki arched an eyebrow, and Orihime's plane hit a patch of violent turbulence. "What, did she finally get a steady job?" Tatsuki asked, smirking. "Doesn't seem her style, from what you've told me."

"She's, uh, working on forming a band. Got a couple of the potential members crashing at her place," Orihime explained hastily. "As soon as she clears them out, she'll have room for me."

"Well, glad to hear that some things never change..."

"Yeah..." Orihime looked down, eyes on her feet. In her head, the plane was flying in clear skies again. "Anyway, I should have a few days."

"That's what I thought." Tatsuki scratched the back of her head, smiling another awkward, nervous smile. "I. Um. I'll miss you, you know. But, uh!" she sputtered, whipping her head in Orihime's direction. "Don't worry about it! I know, I know, family stuff. 'S'no big deal."

Laughing quietly, Orihime unclasped her hands from behind her back, reaching out to entwine her fingers with Tatsuki's. "I'll miss you too." The quiet murmur might've been too low for Tatsuki to hear, had Orihime not stepped closer to her in the process. A slight rustle accompanied their every step as the fabric of Orihime's skirt brushed against Tatsuki's jeans.

"T-Thanks." The sudden proximity turned the slight halt in Tatsuki's voice into an outright stammer. "Gah, this is dumb. It's not gonna be that long..."

"No," Orihime agreed, "It's not." She gave Tatsuki's hand a squeeze. "But being away from you is always a little strange."

"Y-Yeah..." Tatsuki attempted to bring her free hand up to tug at her collar, but the plaster said hand was encased quickly put an end to that. After scowling briefly at her cast, she turned her attention back to Orihime, smiling in a manner that was a bit closer to her usual confident self. "We should take advantage of the time we've got, then!"

Orihime nodded. "Definitely!" She giggled, eyes turning upward as she pondered. "Oh! I've thought up all sorts of cool sports! Way better than base-soccer. You're gonna love basket-by."

"...If that's what I think it is, I, uh, would rather not risk breaking any more limbs before this one heals, Orihime."

"Darn." Orihime's lips pulled into a enough of a pout to make Tatsuki vaguely reconsider her refusal. "Oh well, we can do other stuff."

Tatsuki laughed quietly. "Yeah...we'll think of something."

Pouting gave way to smiling as the light of a new thought broke like dawn over the Vast Orihime Plains. "Hey, I just thought of something! You still haven't seen my new place yet!"

"You mean the hotel room?"

"Yeah! And we're headed in...uh, well, almost the right direction!" Orihime said, peering about. "If we turn left at the next intersection, we'll be able to get there pretty quick! C'mon, wanna go see?"

"Um..." Tatsuki was growing slightly alarmed by the number of times she'd said "um" or "uh" during this conversation. "Sure!"

Orihime's hotel room was a modest affair, a narrow, rectangular single-occupancy. The hotel was not run-down or trashy, but was still not the sort that any but the hard-up would stay in: it was suffused with the sort of sad, faded atmosphere common to hotels in which people lived as opposed to merely stayed in. Tatsuki found it hard to keep herself smiling as Orihime led her to the room. Once out of the halls, the depressing aura of the place receded somewhat, thanks to Orihime--her attempts to decorate the place with flowers and pictures, combined with the mere presence of her personal effects, lightened things up to make Tatsuki feel a little better.

"It doesn't look like much, I know," Orihime began, sitting on the edge of the bed, "But it's pretty fun sometimes! Every once in a while someone gets into a fistfight with someone else, and the halls are so narrow it's like watching Street Fighter! ...No fireballs, though. Although one time Ayase-san in 6B did an uppercut that looked almost like the Dragon Punch! Knocked Shiragami-san in 6H right out. Ayase-san's a former boxer, though, so it was probably a matter of coincidence and not style..."

Tatsuki found herself beginning to laugh as Orihime detailed the misadventures of the other tenants, her remaining worry rooted out by Orihime's obvious inability to be touched by the hotel's prevailing mood. She took a seat next to Orihime, nodding animatedly as Orihime spoke, grinning as Orihime described how Shiragami thought that his karate experience (he had been in a club for one year in junior high, and was well into his thirties now by Orihime's guess) made him hot stuff.

"...So anyway, Shiragami-san uses 'sama' when he talks to Ayase-san now," Orihime concluded. "He's gotten a lot nicer, too. Before he lost to Ayase-san, he was sorta a bully around here. He never did anything to me...mainly the other people on his floor."

"Hah! If he ever did, I'd show him what it really means to practice karate," Tatsuki vowed, grinning. "Bet I could take him even with this stupid cast on."

"I bet you could..." Orihime smiled a soft, strange little smile--one of her many hard-to-read expressions. Tatsuki blinked as she tried to figure it out. Something about the look in her eyes...something that wasn't there that often.

When Orihime inched close enough to Tatsuki for their legs to be touching, Tatsuki remembered, and the recollection set her cheeks alight with red. Her mouth opened to speak, but nothing came out. It was those eyes, dammit. They always clammed her up but good.

Orihime brought her lips to Tatsuki's ear, so close that the touched light to the lobe as she whispered. "It's been a little while...but I was hoping..." What she had been hoping was left unsaid. Tatsuki didn't need to hear it to understand, anyway.

"Erm," Tatsuki answered intelligently.

"You don't want to?" Another pout, one even more persuasive than the previous. This was the expression Tatsuki knew as the Pout to End All Pouts, Orihime's deadliest method of ending arguments and getting her way. Tatsuki's warrior's resolve was as nothing before it, for the secret to Orihime's style--and to this, her ultimate technique--was to subtly use her enemy's own wishes against them.

"T-That's not it," Tatsuki said, engaging in the token struggle of one who knows they've already lost the fight but refuses to simply surrender. "You just...kinda caught me off guard there, ya know?"

"You always say things like that," Orihime replied, the Pout to End All Pouts still firmly in place. Tatsuki felt herself get a little weak in the knees as Orihime's unfairly-endowed frame leaned against her. Silky almond hair brushed against Tatsuki's neck as Orihime's head leaned on her shoulder...oh, yes, she was lost now--her hand releasing Orihime's so that her arm could wind its way around Orihime's supple, slender waist.

Wait. Arm?

Tatsuki glanced at the free arm that had frozen halfway to its goal. Then she glanced at the other one--the one encased in the cast. The jaws of defeat loosened, leaving just enough room for victory to be snatched from their grasp. "Wait just a minute, Orihime. Have you really thought this through? I mean, with this stupid thing..." She wiggled her cast-encased arm.

Orihime lifted her head to look up at Tatsuki with wide, uncomprehending eyes. "You only really need one hand, though," she pointed out. "Or a mouth. Ooooh. Mouth is always good."

Tatsuki sputtered incoherently for almost a minute before managing to say, "W-Wait just a damned minute, Orihime, do you really think we'll be able to do something without it being awkward? Perhaps painfully so?"

Blink.

Blink.

"We'll work it out!"

Well, it wasn't the Pout, but the cheerily unconcerned tone of Orihime's voice somehow brooked no resistance. Defeat's maw slammed shut again, this time mangling victory beyond all hope of repair. "Fine, fine. You're gonna have to undress me, though," Tatsuki said.

Orihime giggled lasciviously. Tatsuki never could figure out how she managed to do that, but manage she did. "I guess this is what they mean by Christmas in July, huh?"

"It's August, Orihime."

"Only by a day. Let's say I was delayed in opening my present for some reason."

"Whatever you say, Orihime...whatever you say."

"Does that mean I get to use the handcuffs this time?"

"..."

"Yaaaaay!"

Tatsuki settled back onto the bed with a bit of a sigh. It was going to be an odd night.

Fortunately, she reflected with a smile down at Orihime (who was busily removing Tatsuki's pants), she was with someone for whom "odd" was almost always synonymous with "good."