The Legend of Tanabata

A/n: Hello Bleach Fans!

I have loved Bleach from the moment I first saw it on Japanese Tv while on my study abroad program. I have long been a loyal shipper of the Ichigo/Orihime pairings… even though my friends scoffed at me.

The fluffy moments in the anime from time to time have made me squee a few too many times to have much dignity left…

So then why write a fic? Good question. There are a lot of good fics out there, and of course so many that are not… this is my contribution to the "not" category. Ah fake humility… Oh course this is going to be good! At least I think so… let me know what you think- I tried to not over use the cliché story ideas… but sometimes they just work well, with a twist of course!

Anyway, relax, enjoy and maybe review afterwards.

A little bit late for the Tanabata festival in Japan- but oh well, I enjoyed my time at the local celebration, so here is Tanabata Bleach Style! (not really, but oh well!)

I own nothing!

"You want me to do what?" Ichigo's mouth was agape as he stood near the door to his high school homeroom. The request, well the command rather given to him by his entire class was still being processed in the back of his mind.

Quickly his troubles from the previous nights Shinigami duties, his lack of sleep coupled with not finishing his homework and being ambushed by his dad while he was still trying to dress after a longer than usual shower all seemed to melt away. Hell, no one seemed to mind he was ten minutes late to morning homeroom, which he was now trying to figure out if he was regretting that he stopped to talk to a wandering soul on the way to school. He had brought flowers for a little girl again, and she was awfully lonely, so he decided to stay and talk longer than usual...

Deciding that even if he had not stopped, this out of the ordinary and quite absurd request would still have been placed on his strong shoulders, he sighed.

"Oh come on its not that bad." Tatsuki said as the class stood there looking at the orange top that at the moment resembled a fish out of water.

"Not that bad? Who the hell nominated me for something so stupid? There is no way I am going to be in a play, not even for the cultural festival... especially if I have to play a girls role!"

"But... I thought that... Kurosaki-kun would... make a good princess." Came the slightly embarrassed voice of the one girl in the class that held a secret power over him.

Ichigo looked over to see Inoue Orihime not looking at him and fiddling with her hands.

'Leave it to Orihime to come up with such an idea...' He sighed to himself feeling bad to see her both embarrassed and a little sad.

"I... If you don't want too... it's..." She continued to mumble before she stopped and hit herself on the head. "Sorry."

"I... wait... Inoue..." Ichigo muttered feeling that he was going to be dragged into this mess either way; at least he could make her not feel bad. He let his shoulders go lax and dropped his head in defeat.

"And we have our Princess!" The class cheered.

"I leave you to the capable hands of the sewing club to get a costume worthy of a princess." Tatsuki smiled devilishly. She was going to enjoy this cultural festival immensely and it was all going to be at Ichigo's expense.

"Wait! We're doing a play about the Tanabata story right?" Ichigo had to try and see if he could get a different role... no self respecting high school boy would willingly be dressed up as a girl and like it... and he definitely didn't want to wear anything that Ishida put together. The outfits for Kon were freaky as hell on the stuff animal; he could only imagine the horror that would be prepared for him. The others would not let him live it down... ever.

"Yeah, so?" Keigo questioned sitting back in his chair, the attention of the class had now begun to shift from Ichigo, to making preparations for the festival. Ichigo knew he had only a limited amount of time before his fate was sealed.

"Well then, I have a better person to play the role of the princess. I mean, why not have Orihime play the part of Princess Orihime?" He said hoping that the Orihime fan boys, and girl, would love that idea. No one said anything and Ichigo knew he had to continue. "Think of it Keigo. Silken kimono, obi tied perfectly around her waist..." Ichigo felt kind of dirty trying to get out of the role by playing up Orhime's assets of a great body to get the usually perverted people on his side.

And it was working for a time, he knew that Keigo and Chizuru were getting excited, but things came crashing down when the beauty in question spoke up again.

"But I can't be the princess, I am the prince. How can I play two roles... well unless I get a mecha me, oh that would be fun! Mecha Me and I could have so much fun cooking..." The girl seemed to go on talking to no one in particular about the thought of having a mecha clone of herself. Ichigo sighed. It was hopeless.

His shoulders slumped once again and he walked dejectedly over to his seat. Throwing his bag on the floor, he slumped down into his chair and put his head on his desk.

'How can this day get any worse?' He wondered before he sensed someone standing in front of him.

It was the always calm and composed Quincy, he could tell from the spirit energy. The dark haired boy looked down at Ichigo and adjusted his glasses still not saying a word.

"What?" Ichigo asked rather annoyed as he lifted his head up a bit.

"They gave me a choice of fabrics, do you prefer puffy powder purple or pretty in pink pink?"

'Kill me now.' He cried as he set his head back on the desk trying to forget the two horrible color choices he had been shown.

The homeroom activity had finally ended, but not soon enough for a tired and now even crankier Ichigo. Diving into his math worksheet, he tried to forget the stupid play, the stupid cultural festival, and every thing else that had been going down hill since he first got up that morning.

Looking up after finishing the problem he noticed everyone else was still working trying to find some value for x. Glancing around the room, his eyes ended up on the one person he had been thinking of more frequently the last few months.

There was something about Orihime that had drawn him to her for a while. Even before he became a Shinigami, he had noticed there was something about her that intrigued him. Her being best friends with Tatsuki, and the fact he didn't know exactly why he felt different about her had kept him at a distance. He always thought she was scared of him... or at least that was how she acted around him sometimes.

The whole mess with the Vizards and the Espada had seemed to change their relationship, if you could even call it that. He was sure she had a crush on him; her devotion to him and her concern at times were way beyond that of just an ordinary friend. And in many ways that made him happy.

He had been so worried when she was gone, and when they finally got her back, he was too tired to say anything else than 'welcome home' when they arrived back in Karakura. He passed out after that, and had very few memories of what happened afterwards and how he got back to his house practically healed.

He knew that Orihime had healed him, but he wanted to badly to say or do something for her when she finally was returned to her rightful place with her friends. Ichigo cursed his luck at times. They had returned victorious, wasn't that the time when the heroes at least got a kiss from the damsel they had just saved... he sighed at how pathetic he sounded.

His feelings were getting more and more out of check lately. For the last three weeks since the ordeal, he had been more aware of her than ever before. He hated to admit it but he was getting more and more possessive of her as well. Sure he could hit Keigo for his lecherous and dirty comments, but recently he added a little extra power to the punch or elbow to the face. And Chizuru had been pissing him off a lot more than usual with her ways of trying to get near her.

The concept of two girls was suppose to be thrilling to boys, especially boys his age, but for some reason he shuttered at the thought of the innocently sweet and bubbly girl with anyone, regardless of gender. 'Anyone other than you.' His mind added. Ichigo wanted to cry. Even his mind was now against him.

Sighing for the millionth time that class period he decided to look away from the girl who had her brows in a slight frown as she concentrated on the assignment. He hated the way her tongue would dart out ever so slightly from her pink lips from time to time as she moved her pencil over the paper. It drove him nuts...

Everything about her seemed to be having that effect on him. And that was one of the reasons that he now found himself as the lead role in a play for the school's yearly cultural festival.

'But I can't be the princess, I am the prince... I thought that... Kurosaki-kun would make a good princess.' Her words from earlier rang in his head. She really wanted him to be the princess, huh?

He wondered why it seemed so important to her... but he chalked it up to the mystery that was female gender. Hell he even had troubles figuring out Yuzu and Karin these days...

Lunch time seemed to be years away as the short five minute break in between classes ended and the next subject began. At least it was something that interested him; Old British Literature was a secret interest of his. In fact his enjoyment of Shakespeare would seem weird to many of his classmates if they ever found out.

'Good old Hamlet. Now there was a guy who had things about as bad as I do at times...' He laughed to himself as he opened the textbook and began to follow along with the teacher.

"Hey, where does the Princess want to eat?" Keigo asked as he slapped Ichigo on the back as he bell rang and it was finally lunch time.

"I swear if you call me that one more time I am going to knock you out so fast..."

"Ok, ok." Came the voice of reason between the two constantly fighting friends. Mizuiro smiled at the two and held up his lunch signaling the other two to hurry up and get theirs.

"Meet you on the roof." Ichigo called as he stood up and ran to get his bread from the lunch shop.

On his way back to the classroom, he was once again lost in thought. Taking the stairs two at a time, he returned to the classroom to grab small Tupperware dish Yuzu had given him this morning. He was happy that today he would be getting a piece of homemade cheesecake for lunch, but that was not the only thing on his mind.

Word was traveling fast that the touch guy of the class was going to be the princess in the class presentation of the Tanabata story, and he could already hear the snickering from others.

"And it's only going to get worse." He sighed as he dug in his bag for the baked treat.

"What will get worse?" A voice from behind him asked as the once empty classroom had another occupant in it.

Looking up Ichigo saw the red headed girl smiling a confused smile.

"Um... nothing. I was just talking to myself." He said feeling bad telling her that her idea was going to bring him nothing but annoyance and trouble. She was so aloof at times that he doubted she even considered his reputation of being a tough guy when she volunteered him to play the cross-dressing role.

"Kurosaki-kun... I..." She always did get nervous around him. Orihime hated how she would either get super shy around him or act like a total airhead. It was just something about her beloved Ichigo that did that to her. Her heart always pounded like the footsteps of Godzilla in down town Tokyo, and then when he looked at her with those serious yet emotional eyes, it was like he had lasers that would keep her attention locked on to him...

'There you go again, thinking about monsters and mechas when you should be apologizing to him.' She berated herself as she summoned up more courage to talk to him... alone in the classroom...

"I understand if you don't want to do the... the..."

"Play?" He finished for her feeling the tension drain slowly from his body. There she goes again with her secret powers on him.

"Yeah...I.."

"It's fine." He said putting his hand on her shoulder as he made his way out of the classroom. "I don't think it will kill me... although Ishida better not go all out with that dress... I do have a limit to how many bows I will wear." He said trying to be funny.

Orihime laughed politely at how cute he was being. She truly did love him, and it was at times like these she had wished he was conscious to hear both of her confessions, one the night before she left and then the other after she was rescued and returned to her home.

But she accepted the fact that fate might not be on her side. And she had also accepted the fact that he may not really feel anything for her... but she did have hope. He had given that to her when he came for her, fought for her... and welcomed her back home.

She was looking at him as if she was hoping for something. There was a silence between the two that wasn't uncomfortable per say, it was more of a silent conversation going on in each other's eyes.

It was then Ichigo decided to tap into that endless spring of courage of his and take action. It always seemed to work ok while wearing his Shinigami robes, but it was a rare feet to see him use it as student with a girl... no, not just any girl... the girl.

"Say, you wouldn't want to come to my place sometime so we could, um.. practice?"

A/n: Yes... Practice... nudge, nudge, cough, cough! That kind of pracitice, right?

Well, you will just have to wait and see!!!

Anyway, chapter one complete! I have done my part, now do yours. A chocolate chip cookie to those who review... er... can't really promise that... how would I get them to you? From Japan? I know some custom ninjas who would have a field day if I started shipping back cookies in the postal service...

So instead, how about a fast update for chapter 2? It has fluff... come on, fluff can be better than cookies... fluffy chapters also don't go straight for your butt either...

Anyway- comments welcome, randomness appreciated, silent readers... well at least that means people are reading it, right?

Thanks!