(一目惚れ)
"Orihime, can you please stop fidgeting?"
Said girl pouted and asked unhappily, "who is fidgeting?"
Arisawa Tatsuki shook her head and removed the slender, fair hand that was worrying the top of her best friend's head.
With the thin wrist encircled by her hand, Tatsuki waved the guilty appendage in question.
Inoue Orihime smiled sheepishly at her friend and after reclaiming her cold hand, she decided to lace it together with her other equally cold hand in case she started to show her nervousness again.
"Tatsuki-chan, why are we doing this?" She asked, not for the first time.
"Doing what?" Tatsuki answered and grinned.
Orihime leaned closer to her and whispered, "This matchmaking session."
Tatsuki shook her head, again. In a firm voice to assure the nervous girl, she repeated what she had been saying for the past few days since she arranged for this blind da... Whoops! She meant,
"It's not a matchmaking session. I bumped into a childhood friend of mine who just happened to be at this university with us. His cousin as well. I thought since his cousin appeared to share the same interest as you, why not introduce him to you. A new friend." Tatsuki smiled reassuringly.
Orihime appeared suspicious. She has a right to be. Arisawa Tatsuki has always been like a big sister, almost a mother hen to her ever since rescuing her from mean girls bullies.
"But you kept talking about this Ishida Uryuu. Should not you at least have talked a little about your friend. One would have thought I should be making friends, not a friend. Unless... " Orihime eyed her friend warily. "You have a thing for this childhood friend of yours."
Tatsuki burst out laughing.
"What?! Me and Ichigo?! Why, that's..."
"Is that his name?" Orihime interrupted, interested in this seemingly childhood friend of her boyish friend.
Tatsuki nodded. "Yeah. Kurosaki Ichigo. Didn't I mention it to you?"
"That is what I have been trying to say. For the last few days, it was completely about Ishida-kun." Orihime said in exasperation.
"Ishida-kun, eh?"
"What would you expect me to address him? We are of the same age. 'San' might be inappropriate and you know I do not go around calling people by their surnames." Orihime grumbled.
"You could call him by his given name." Tatsuki teased.
"Like you and 'your' Ichigo?" Orihime fired back.
"He's not my Ichigo! Putting me and Ichigo together is like saying our country is bosom buddies with a certain East Asian country. Pun fully intended, right, bosom buddy?" Tatsuki joked as she gestured with her hands, fingers moving inwards her palms.
"Tatsuki-chan, that is so mean!" Orihime folded her arms across her rather impressive chest. She glared at her friend.
"I'm not going to apologize. Your two 'friends' are the envy of many 'friendless' women. You should be the one apologizing to me though."
"Huh?" Orihime uttered in complete befuddlement. "For what should I be apologizing for?"
"For suggesting that there could be something going on between me and Ichigo."
"What is wrong with him?"
"Nothing. It's just that it''ll never happen. Me and him."
"Then how about Kuro-Kurosaki-kun," She looked to her friend for confirmation.
"Yeah. It's Kurosaki, Kurosaki Ichigo." Tatsuki answered her and wondered where was all these questions leading?
Orihime leveled a steely gaze at her.
"Then how about Kurosaki-kun and I?"
"What about you and Ichigo?" Now it was Tatsuki's turn to be puzzled.
Orihime smiled innocently.
"Kurosaki-kun and I as a couple."
"What?! You and him! Impossible! Ishida is more suited for you." Tatsuki blurted after falling for the trap.
"I knew it!" Orihime shouted, accusingly. "You are trying to h-hook me up with Ishida-kun." She stumbled over the word in her rush to strike out at her interfering friend.
Damn!
Busted!
"That's not what it is. I just want you to make more friends."
"Friend, you mean. Anyway, I am leaving. Goodbye, Tatsuki-chan." Orihime gave her friend a look of disappointment. She was getting really tired of Tatsuki always thinking of what she should or should not do. She started to walk away but she was stopped by the swift movement of her wrist being trapped by her athletic friend.
"Tatsuki-chan," Orihime began to say with more than a touch of annoyance in her voice.
"No. You listen to me, Orihime... "
"Yoi, Tatsuki."
Saved by the 'strawberry'.
Tatsuki let out a grateful breath of relief. She felt the thin wrist of the princess' stiffened.
"Orihime, what's wrong?" She asked a blushing Orihime.
Not that unusual for Orihime.
Her cheeks flared up over the slightest thing.
But this?
Over someone she has never met.
"Let go of me, Tatsuki-chan." Orihime's breathless voice was barely above a whisper.
"This your friend, Tatsuki?"
Tatsuki smirked, wickedly. She turned Orihime around and shoved the slightly shivering girl towards the newcomer.
"Yea. Kurosaki Ichigo, meet Inoue Ori... " Whatever she was going to say died at her all-of-a- sudden-beyond-dried throat because...
Kurosaki Ichigo was kissing Inoue Orihime!
(デイ一プキス)
