Warnings: Spoilers for chapter 286 of the manga and a reference to the Bleach movie, Memories of Nobody
Notes: It's a little stream-of-consciousness, but not confusingly so. Also, this is completely unbeta'd; feel free to point out any errors.
Disclaimer: I'm playing in someone else's sandbox (namely Kubo Tite's).
Orihime would've liked to think his rescue attempt was romantic, but she wasn't stupid. Contrary to what some might think, she didn't have more boobs than brains. Her thought process was just different. With the upbringing she had, it just had to be. Especially on those days when Sora wasn't home and she only had herself and her thoughts to occupy herself. And wasn't it better to have creative, different, interesting thoughts than plain, typical, boring thoughts when your thoughts were the only things keeping you company?
So, yes, Orihime would've liked to think Kurosaki-kun (she wished she had the nerve to call him Ichigo all the time) coming all the way to Hueco Mundo just to rescue her was a sign of his undying love for her, but she didn't. Because he'd gone through a lot more to rescue Kuchiki-san (she felt a little uncomfortable being too familiar with a girl who might be her rival, even though that girl was supposed to be her friend) when she was going to be executed in Soul Society. She thought he might've done something like this for someone else, but she couldn't remember who and wondered if maybe her imagination was playing with her again. In fact, she's fairly certain he'd go to the ends of the Earth (or elsewhere) for any of his friends. So she didn't go on thinking she's special or anything.
Not that she didn't want to be special to him--aside from the happiness and well-being of all the people she cared about, that's pretty much the only thing she wanted. And she really couldn't be thinking she's special or anything, even though he looked at her that way after he fought Grimmjow. And had he ever looked at Kuchiki-san that way? She hoped not, but thought, in an uncharacteristically pessimistic moment, that he probably has. Probably when they were alone. At his house, because Kuchiki-san stayed there sometimes.
And she really tried not to be jealous when she thought of Kuchiki-san--she did like Rukia, after all. And then he picked her up and she tried not to think about how his hands were on her waist (they were bigger and warmer than she'd imagined) and then how his hand was this close to touching her...somewhere indecent. Which made her blush because she kind of wanted him to touch her. But then Grimmjow and Nnoitra showed up and she stopped thinking about trying to not be jealous that she might not have been as special to Kurosaki-kun as Kuchiki-san was, and started worrying about Kurosaki-kun getting himself beat up again.