In Motion Part 3: Pearblossom

by Kitachi

Tatsuki meets Orihime in the space between seasons, where the trees and sun and sky can't seem to decide what the wind means and, to herself at least, where suddenly every minute not spent outside is a minute utterly wasted.

Info:

Rating: General Audiences

Warnings: None

Category: Gen

Fandom: Bleach

Relationship: Arisawa Tatsuki & Inoue Orihime

Characters: Inoue Sora

Additional Tags: Fluff, Friendship, Bechdel Test Pass

Language: English

Series: Part 3 of the In Motion series

Stats:

Published: 2017-08-24

Words:1579

Chapters:1/1

Summary:

Tatsuki meets Orihime in the space between seasons, where the trees and sun and sky can't seem to decide what the wind means and, to herself at least, where suddenly every minute not spent outside is a minute utterly wasted.

Notes:

fluff is therapeutic amen

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Tatsuki meets Orihime in the space between seasons, where the trees and sun and sky can't seem to decide what the wind means and, to herself at least, where suddenly every minute not spent outside is a minute utterly wasted. It's the dying days of spring, though the muggy haze that had Tatsuki's skin uncomfortably tacky under her gi during practice, sweat pooled at the base of her spine, begged to differ. She'd made short work of her sparring partner, unheeding of sensei's repeated hissed warnings about pulling her strikes, and in her haste she'd had the boy beaten, probably on his way to bruising.

She strides with purpose now, away from the downstairs greengrocer's having been dismissed early with only a vaguely exasperated order to go and work her 'aggression' off somewhere else if she didn't have the discipline for it here today. Tatsuki is sorry for making trouble, but it's a distant kind of regret, mostly drowned out by the need to sprint barefoot through a drain tunnel, to collect all the acorns in the park. In other words to experience summer in its entirety, which is so relentless, so very immediate, that she feels like she'll vibrate out of her skin if she doesn't chase a grasshopper right now.

The journey to Karasu Bridge is always faster on the way there than back. Karakura is built on the gentlest of slopes and it opens up to Tatsuki's small feet, unfurling before her in the form of shortcuts seemingly built for people her size. She scales fences, tears through back gardens and alleyways, vaults over one last obstacle – a brick wall that divides some ramshackle homes from the street – already able to feel the phantom tickle of river silt between her toes, and—

"Gah!"

Tatsuki lands feet first onto something, someone, that isn't supposed to be there. She sits up and she's mostly fine, aside from having had the breath knocked out of her from the fall. The person she's sitting on groans, low and pained, and she scrambles off of him. She's about to apologise and ask if the guy is okay when she's abruptly knocked off her feet again, this time by a small orange blurr that careens into her side.

Tatsuki falls with only half the grace instilled by sensei's iron discipline, and so has only herself to blame when her palms begin to sting. Okay, not just herself.

"What the hell?" she says, scowling up at the girl that pushed her over.

"Leave Sora-nii alone!" the girl yowls, and the rest, as they say, is history.

Sora is thin, but in a way that would probably make Tatsuki's mom worry after his health. His dark hair is kind of sad looking with how it hangs, highlighting the too-sharp angles of his face, in limp, loose strands where a purple scrunchie has failed to hold it all back. Tatsuki imagines her mom plying the young man with sweets and snacks, exclaiming over his poor constitution. Orihime on the other hand reminds Tatsuki of her little cousin, the sweet-looking one that bit her once for stepping on a snail. After they all work out that no, Tatsuki wasn't attacking him, and of course Orihime should say sorry, Tatsuki decides that she likes them.

Orihime has never played frogs, which is a travesty. How can you live so close to the river, and not know how to play frogs? Orihime frowns thoughtfully. "Sora-nii doesn't know either. We play all the time but we never play frogs."

"What do the kids at your school play, then?" Tatsuki asks.

Orihime watches the river with her eyes glazed over. "Mm, I wonder?"

Every day with Orihime is an adventure. She learns slowly about the strange little girl living in the shoebox apartments by the river, in fits and starts, in half finished play-dates and awkward interactions with Sora. A rickety old table with it's wood splintered around the edges and the stain faded, left out on the pavement for recycling collection, is why the siblings had been out the afternoon they met. Simple living is far from uncommon in Japan, yet there's a strange, worn quality to the things that Orihime and her brother own, and after spying the table the first time Tatsuki comes over, she's pretty sure she understands why.

"Do you think aliens have triangles?" Tatsuki thinks Orihime would have more friends if she didn't say things like that all the time.

"Why would aliens have triangles?" Tatsuki has to ask, because sure, sometimes it's about a cartoon she saw playing in the window of the electronics store, but every once in a while, Orihime's answer tilts Tatsuki's world view on it's head.

"Well I can make a triangle with my fingers," Orihime says, demonstrating by holding her hands away from her body and forming a triangle from her thumbs and forefingers. "So an alien could do that if they wanted, right?"

Tatsuki twists her head away from the ceiling of the blanket fort they're in to blink at Orihime. "I guess, but what if they don't even have fingers? They could be like jellyfish."

Orihime's face gets all scrunched up when she smiles. "I bet jellyfish like triangles," she concludes, and rolls over to tickle Tatsuki until they're both crying with laughter.

Summer friendships never last, everyone knows that. When Tatsuki was five, she'd started a fight with two boys over the best tree in the park. They'd been sworn enemies for about two minutes before realising that Tatsuki could climb almost to the top, and so by default was the Supreme Tree Captain In Command. Or something like that. Tatsuki can't really remember their faces anymore, and she thinks; yeah, that's okay. There's something in the heat, something thick and drowsing, that overlays the memories of each Summer. The days, she knows, will begin to blur until eventually, the kids she met and the games she played are barely echoes of sensation. Muffled, distant laughter here and there, pain on scraped knees, maybe a name or two if she concentrates.

Tatsuki has never wanted the holidays to go on forever before, not really, but lately thoughts of summers past keep her tossing and turning. The girl she got popsicles with one day and never saw again, the dog she met and the gap-toothed boy who owned it, a group of preteens who let her take turns on the backs of their bikes that day she got lost. Summer friendships are temporary, everybody knows that, yet the thought of forgetting Orihime makes Tatsuki's stomach twist into knots.

"Do you want to come over for dinner?" Tatsuki asks one day, when both of them are collapsed from a game of cops and robots – don't ask, it was Orihime's idea – on the floor of Orihime's squashy living room slash kitchen slash dining area. The big glass sliding door leading out to the balcony gapes open, where freshly washed clothes hang in order to catch the last of the day's heat. Gentle wind blows in through the fly screen, cooler now that the sun is setting, carrying with it the comforting, crisp smell of laundry soap. Regardless, it is almost unbearably hot, to the point that Tatsuki has the hems of her shorts and t-shirt shamelessly rucked up so that her overheated skin can lay flush against the tiled floor.

Orihime pauses before answering. "When?"

"I don't know," says Tatsuki, although it comes out more like it's all one word, like she hadn't planned on getting this far. She swallows, continues, "Today? My mom said I could invite you over. And Sora, too. If. If you want?"

This is the feeling right before you know a balloon is going to pop, Tatsuki thinks. It's where time slows and you think you hear the sound but you know you haven't actually heard it yet, because if you had then you wouldn't just think, you'd know.

"I have a dress!" Orihime bursts out.

"I. You what?"

"Sora-nii made it for me," Orihime elaborates, abruptly sitting up, "I could wear it to your place. I've never worn it before."

Tatsuki feels like her heart is trying to escape out of her throat as she sits up too. "Wear it if you want. Or this, just wear this if it's too much trouble." She gestures frantically to the faded green shirt and grey shorts Orihime has on. "Let's ask Sora," she continues, tugging on Orihime's arm. "Is he done hanging up the laundry? Wait! I have to ask my mom."

Orihime stands, hands on her hips. "I'll get Sora."

Tatsuki stands too, and nods. "I'll call my mom then."

Orihime's face turns serious and her voice is grave as she speaks into her wrist, imitating her favorite movie; "Agents, syncronize your watches! Ready, set, go!"

The thing about triangles is that they do not depend on human thought to exist, unlike, say, unicorns. A triangle could exist wherever the concept of three lines joining together could exist, which is everywhere, right? And if an alien wanted to create a spaceship, they probably had to start at triangles and work their way up to aerospace engineering. So aliens, if they're out there, probably have triangles. Tatsuki won't think about it like this for a long time yet, but at seven years old, opening the door to her home she already knows it in her bones: like triangles, Inoue Orihime is universal. Unavoidable. Permanent.