The first time Uryu had ever laid eyes on her, he had been immediately irritated.

He had been sewing silently in the classroom in the morning of the first day of the school year when she had barged in, giggling incessantly with her friend and shrieking about goodness-knows-what.

Offering no apology to Uryu for interrupting his peace, the first girl had noisily proceeded to take out a thumbtack and attempt to pin a sheet of paper to the wall next to the door. Every time she had tried, it had fallen straight back down to the floor.

"Aww, Tatsuki, it won't stick," she had said, sadly, her voice grating on Uryu's ears.

"Give it here," the other girl, Tatsuki, had responded. Seizing the sheet of paper and the thumbtack from the other girl's hands, Tatsuki had held the pin against the paper in her left hand and used her right fist to repeatedly punch the pin into the wall.

Uryu had winced with every THWACK, careful to keep his hand steady as he carefully stitched the Quincy cape in his clasp.

"There! That'll stay where it is forever, now," Tatsuki had declared, and the other girl had bounced on her feet excitedly and clapped her hands together.

"Brilliant! Oh, thank you so much for helping me with this incredibly important task, Tatsu... ooh, hello!"

Uryu had glanced up at that moment to see the girl waving vigorously at him from across the room. He said nothing.

"Whatever you're sewing looks really amazing!" she had continued, apparently not put off by Uryu's lack of a response. "I hope you're planning on joining the handicrafts club!"

As she had gestured at the sheet of paper she and Tatsuki had just pinned by the door, Uryu's heart sank. As a matter of fact, he had been planning to join the club, if only because he knew he would be good at it and it would annoy his father. The fact that this irritating girl was a member definitely counted as a strike against it...

"I'll consider it," he had replied.

"Brilliant!" exclaimed the girl. "I look forward to seeing you there!"

And with that, she had walked off, wittering away to her friend. Uryu had returned to his sewing, wondering if irritating his father was really worth having to spend time around this irksome girl.

That afternoon, Uryu found himself standing outside the handicraft club's room, a plastic Sunflower Seams bag hanging from his right hand and his left hand hovering in the direction of the door-handle, as though it couldn't decide whether to knock or not.

Irritating Ryuken, being irritated myself. Ryuken being indifferent, myself not suffering. Hmm...

Uryu made up his mind, and just as he was about to lower his hand and turn to walk away, the door flew open and Uryu found himself staring at the face of a pretty girl with long, honey-brown hair.

Rats.

"Oh, it's you!" the girl shrieked in excitement, grabbing Uryu's arm and dragging him inside the room before he could protest. The door swung shut behind him and Uryu stumbled forwards, feeling the eyes of every girl in the room watching him curiously and the males regarding him with envy as she frogmarched him inside.

Believe me, Uryu thought. I'm not enjoying this.

Uryu prised the girl's hand from his wrist and forced himself to look into her questioning eyes. "If you don't mind, I think I'll just sit here," he murmured, choosing an empty desk at the side of the classroom and setting his bag down.

The girl tilted her head marginally to the side, her eyebrows drawn into a slight frown. "Oh, okay then," she said, an hint of disappointment evident in her voice. "Well, if you want to talk, I'll be over there with the others!"

"I'll bear that in mind," said Uryu, quickly emptying his fabric and thread from the bag and pointedly not looking at the girl as she glanced at him, sadly, one last time, before she turned and walked away.

"Whoops! I just remembered that I never did ask you for your name! That was rude."

Uryu deigned to look up from the embroidery he was packing away in his bag at the end of the hour and found the girl standing in front of him, looming over the desk and peering eagerly at his work. Uryu hastily closed the bag.

"It's Uryu Ishida," he said, slinging the carrier bag into his rucksack and shouldering it. "Like 'rain dragon'."

"That's a nice name," the girl responded, smiling broadly. "I'm Orihime Inoue."

Uryu regarded Orihime's face for a couple of seconds, before forcing a polite smile. "'Weaving princess.' That's apt, considering you sew." And you look like a princess.

Wait, where did that thought come from?

Orihime's smile widened further. "I know. Well, you look like you're in a hurry, so I guess I'll see you here tomorrow?"

NO. She is annoying. Just say no, before she can get on your nerves even more.

"I guess," Uryu shrugged, only realising what he had said when Orihime beamed at him.

"Fantastic!" she declared, brightly. "Well, it was nice to meet you properly, Uryu. See you tomorrow!"

Uryu gave her a stiff nod before he made his way towards the door, wondering how everybody except him and Orihime had filed out of the classroom without him noticing.

"What are you sewing, Uryu?"

Uryu glanced up, as usual, to Orihime's smiling face.

"You're quite persistent, aren't you?"

Orihime's smile briefly twitched, before she stared down at her hands.

Uryu immediately felt guilty for snapping at her; she really hadn't done anything wrong.

"Ah, I'm sorry, Orihime," said Uryu, quickly. "That was unkind of me."

"No, it's okay," Orihime said, her genuine smile immediately returning. "Everybody has bad days, right?"

Uryu didn't understand. How could this girl be so forgiving?

"I just noticed that you don't really have any friends," Orihime continued, peering straight into Uryu's eyes in a way that made him feel slightly uncomfortable. "I would like to be friends with you, if you want."

For the first time in many months, Uryu couldn't think of a single thing to say. Therefore, he said nothing.

After a few seconds, Orihime clapped her hands together. "Okay, you're probably not ready yet. That's fine. I'll let you think about it!"

And with that, she gave him a wave and floated away, leaving Uryu alone with his sewing.

Uryu frowned at the square of white fabric before him, incredulously examining the blue crosses he had been embroidering which had somehow mutated and grown an extra two points. Whoever heard of a six-pointed cross?

"Hello, Uryu!"

Uryu started, greeted once again by Orihime. His eyes were immediately drawn to the clips holding her hair back behind her ears.

Oops.

Uryu hastily folded over a corner of the fabric, covering the mutant cross before Orihime could see it.

"Good afternoon, Orihime."

Orihime beamed. "What are you sewing?"

Uryu hesitated. "A mantle."

Go ahead, laugh, I know that most people think capes are silly...

"Oh, that's interesting!" said Orihime. Uryu braced himself for the laughter, but it never came.

In fact, Orihime seemed to be honestly interested.

Uryu was spared further self-conscious embarrassment by one of Orihime's friends, who turned up at that moment and dragged her away. Uryu found that actually, he wouldn't completely mind if she had stayed.

Perhaps she wasn't really so bad after all.

Author's notes: I was re-reading Chapter 0 the other day and I was struck by how Uryu was watching Orihime before Rukia even turned up in Karakura, and I wondered how that had developed considering when Orihime introduced Uryu to Ichigo she said that she didn't know him very well. Therefore, I had to write the plot-bunny. Also, I kind of liked the idea of Uryu having an awful first impression of Orihime before slowly realising that he didn't hate her as much as he thought he did. (Or at all.) :D