Chapter 1:

Goodbye?

"I'll be born again as human so if we meet again let's talk more, okay?" She smiled too brightly for dead person, but then again she's always been a little weird. I really regret not getting to know her more and now we're saying goodbye.

"Ye-Yeah," is the least I could say. "Take care."

And her and Rukia head towards the Soul Society.

I was taking care of the business Rukia had been in charge of before she lost her Shinigami powers. I don't even remember how I got her "powers". The last thing I can recall, I was walking home after school when these ugly ass creatures called "hollows" tried to attack out of nowhere. Then I just woke up back home with Rukia all shrunk up in size. We suddenly got a call alerting Rukia that a young girl had died. I can tell you that I'm not cut out to be a "Soul Reaper" if it means saying goodbye to people I know. It was my first job and my classmate dies. It's just the mess of being able to see ghosts that drags me around like a dog. At least I don't have to take over Rukia's job in the end.

"Sigh." I start walking back home.

Inoue Orihime, it's too bad I only chatted with you once the whole time I knew you. I'm going to have to talk to Arisawa about this. You two were supposed to be good friends.

Yeah, that Tatsuki...

Shit.

I'm going to be the one to break it to her. Which reminds me, I might have to take care of her funeral, Inoue lived alone so no one else would cover it. Now that I think about it, where's her body?

I turn around and run back to the shrine, but I only see blood stains, no body.

"Hmmm." I scratch my head. I'm not so sure how this whole "Shinigami" business works, but whatever, I'm sure Ruikia knows what she's doing.

"So you're saying you have bad news?" Tatsuki crosses her arms. I can tell I have just annoyed her. I've been trying to get her to guess what happened yesterday but she's not cooperating.

"Well you can say it's bad, but probably just sad." I lean back avoiding her glare.

"Get to the point, Ichigo."

"Fine." I turn to face her. "Inoue died falling down the stairs yesterday."

Tatsuki's eyes widen then I see her expression soften. "Stop joking around." She hits my head with the back of her hand.

"I'm not joking around." She turns around and walks away.

"Yeah, like someone could die from falling down the stairs. Have you even felt Orihime's head? Diamond hard."

Well I never said she hit her head.

"You don't even talk to her, how would you know she died?" She asks.

"Because I was there."

She turns around fiercely, "And you didn't catch her?!"

"N-no!" Damn it, Arisawa. "I mean, I wasn't there to catch her. When I arrived she was already dead."

Her face saddens and her eyes change their focus to the ground. "Ichigo, don't joke. Since yesterday I haven't been able to sense her presence anymore."

I walk to her as I finally see her start to connect everything.

"You think that's it then? I couldn't sense her here because she's... gone?" She asks me.

"Yeah, that's probably it," I reply.

"Is your family going to take care of the funeral preparations? You know she didn't have anyone to care of her."

"I knew that."

"And you know, she really liked you—"

"As a classmate." I respond. "She said that before she left."

"What do you mean before she left?"

"Um I mean, I could tell that that's what she meant with 'like' before she died."

"Oh." She starts to get really quiet. "Do you think I could come over to look at her one last time?"

Shit.

"Er... You see, right when I was about to take her body back there... I kind of..." I pause and scratch the back of my head. "My dad decided to cremate her body since she had no legal guardians or close relatives."

She stomps on my foot and punches my stomach. "Ichigo, you idiot!" And she storms off as I stand there in pain.

So dealing with Tatsuki went well, I'd say.

She later called me to apologize and said that she'd like to take Inoue's ashes and deal with the funeral herself. My dad should have heard her when I told her I didn't have the ashes with me—her language has never been this colorful. In the end she ended up holding a memorial at her house a week later. I went, of course, along with the rest of our class. I also noticed a few people I didn't recognize which I later realized were Inoue's creepy landlord and her pedophelic stalkers (whom Tatsuki chased out as soon as they entered).

I'm not really an emotional guy, but hearing Arisawa talk about Inoue from the start of their friendship really killed me. If I'd known exactly how lonely she had been, I might have tried to be friends with her. I kind of just observed her because she never talked much. She was always really shy when I'd come around to say hello or when I'd chat with Tatsuki a bit. But Arisawa swears Inoue was a girl with high spirits.

I didn't cry though. I heard some of the girls cry and heard Chizuru make several comments about missing her lovely b-br... Er...

Tatsuki wasn't the type of girl to cry but she teared up several times as she spoke. She was really tough about it though, yelling, "I'm fine!" after every tissue she was offered.

I decided to stick around a little longer to help out a bit. I'm sure Arisawa still isn't feeling so great right now anyway.

As the last person walked out, I decide to approach her as she stubbornly tried to get the room picked up and clean again. "I can help with that," I say as I take some of the dishes off the table.

"It's okay, it was my idea to hold this at my house instead of hers." She wipes the table without looking at me. "I just don't think it would be right to have it at her place..."

"You know, you didn't have to do this by yourself," I say as I take a few tea cups and glasses to the sink.

The room becomes quiet as I start washing the dishes and I hear a short sob. "I'm... I'm going to get the mop." And she walks away. I decide not to say anything and just stick to what I'm doing.

She doesn't return, but I figured she'd never let me see her like that.

I wipe off the table and look around the living room to make sure everything is straightened before heading out. I hear a door close and I look behind me as I open the front door. "It's okay if you cry," I say and then walk out.

The night isn't cold, but I suddenly feel really cold, and for some reason, I start feeling a little depressed.

I look up at the sky and there are barely any stars. I wonder now, how far is the Soul Society? If it were easy to just see the place from down here, I wish I could see whether Inoue was still lonely.

"If we meet again lets talk more, okay?" I hear Inoue say in the back of my head.

"Sigh." I put my hands in my pockets.

I walk down the street staring at my shoes more than where I'm going and I start hearing some of the ghosts again. I know they're ghosts because their voices have just a slightly different pitch.

Is Rukia even doing her job properly? I don't think these ghost should be here. I mean if she were going to leave a few ghosts wandering around she might as well have left Inoue. I wouldn't mind keeping her company.

I'm really not in the mood to hear them right now, but the closer I get down the street the louder they are. It's hard to ignore them too, some of them here have this really annoying laugh. I'm sure they could give nightmare's if I didn't know any better.

The voices get louder and it gets harder to ignore them.

"—and so they found out that the one who stole the beans was the robber ducky!" I heard a girls voice say followed by an eruption of intense laughter.

"This girl's great! Right, honey?" It was the voice of an older gentleman.

"Yes, and so sweet. How did you say you died, sweetie?" An older woman's voice asked.

"Don't ask her again. You might as well tell her how we died." Her husband replied.

"But it's boring. It's just old age, sweetheart." The woman said.

"I'm sad to see how young you are." The man uttered.

"Don't say that. Instead, make her laugh a little. Tell her how that friend of yours died."

"Oh you mean Shin-Woo? Yeah, he's gone now but he died tripping over a step and biting his tongue."

"Not right away though, it got infected and then he died from it a few months later. The doctors back then weren't great."

Then I heard a young girl laugh.

"So how did you say you died?" The older couple asked curiously.

I turned the curb and I could still here them.

"It's kind of embarrassing," I heard the young girl say and I stop for a minute because I think I might know who's talking. But it's kind of hard to believe...

I turn around and walk towards the abandoned building right across from the convenience store.

"I died falling down the stairs last week," the girl laughs. But my eyes widen when I take a look.

"Inoue?" The girl turns around to look at me and she looks a little surprised to see me.

"Kurasaki-kun!" She beams.

I swear, she smiles too brightly for a dead person.

A/N: So It's been about two weeks since I finally caught up with Bleach, yay! And then I read the official one shot for the series. You know how many popular series' have one shots before the manga becomes serialized? Well so did Bleach. And I'm so glad I read it! The scale between Ichihime and IchiRuki was at a 6:4 ratio (in my opinion) and that one shot brought it up to 8:2. Seriously, it made me so happy. This story is based off of the one shot. Anyway, I hope you liked it, and if you did let me know ^_^

P.S. It's incomplete (and you should go read the one shot on Manga Eden, it'll make your day).