Title: It Makes Sense
Series: Bleach
Characters: Orihime, Tatsuki, Ichigo, Rukia, Uryuu, and Renji (Mention of Chad)
Rating: PG
Pairings: None, gen
Summary: She's in the handicrafts club. It only makes sense that she knows how to knit.
~..~
"Oh, damn."
There is a pause in the conversation as the soft swear registered in the ears of the other five people present at the table. They had found shelter at the covered table to escape from the heat of summer during their lunch break. Uryuu continued to read the book he brought with him. Every other eye moved to look at the petite, red-headed, girl of their group.
She is not looking up. In fact, Orihime is leaning over a book, flipping between clusters of pages; back and forth, back and forth. Her frown deepening until she settled on one page, set a paperweight on it to hold it open, and begins to undo the yarn work she is holding in her left hand.
"Ah! Orihime what are you doing?" asked Tatsuki as Orihime pulled the yarn apart wrapping it back up into a ball.
"You've been working on that for two days now. Why are you undoing it?" The other three blinked baffled. They hadn't noticed Orihime working on this project; in fact they hadn't even noticed when she pulled it out today. Too caught in hollow talk and who was going to take what shift while Chad was sick.
"Wrong stitch," is Orihime's short response. Tatsuki seemed to take this as a detailed enough explanation and turned her attention back to her lunch.
"Huh?" It slipped pass Ichigo and Renji's lips before they can stop it.
There is a sigh, and it is long and suffering and completely out of character for Orihime. If the others had been paying attention they would have noticed the smirk on Uryuu and Tatsuki's faces. When Orihime looked up at the two boys she looked annoyed and grumpy.
"I was doing the wrong stitch. The pattern I thought I was doing was a 6/6 cable. I was actually doing a 6/8 cable. I have to start over now." She'd reached the end of her work and now only had the slip knot left. She slipped one needle into the loop and straightened her yarn and tail.
Rukia, Renji, and Ichigo watched; fascinated as she slipped her thumb and forefinger between, pulled back and made a sling shot shape with it. She then proceeded to maneuver the needle between the looped yarn; quickly adding loops to the needle she was moving.
Rukia noticed that Orihime lips are moving as each loop appeared on the needle. When Rukia focused on what Orihime was saying she could hear the faint counting.
"36…44….50…"
Once she reached her fiftieth loop Orihime transferred the needle from her right hand to her left, picked up the other needle and got to work, fast.
The metal clicking of needles as Orihime worked was loud in the surrounding silence, but still gentle and somewhat soothing. Orhime's fingers are fast and her eyes rarely stray unless to glance at the book she's following instructions from.
It isn't until about ten rows in that she looked up at her surprised friends.
"Problem?" she asked confused.
The flabbergasted three blinked back.
Uryuu scoffs, dog-eared his book, and got up to head back to class as the bell tolled.
"Really now. Inoue-san is in the handicrafts club for a reason."
Orhime made a grumbling noise at the bell, but started to pack her things away as Tatsuki picked up both their bento boxes.
Tatsuki is grinning from ear to ear. "Also, the only time Orihime swears is when she makes a mistake while knitting. Isn't that cute?"
Orihime has started to make her way back to class, her knitting bag snug under her arm and her face buried in the knitting book. Tatsuki waved to the three shinigami and tossed a, "She also gets super distracted by knitting projects" over her shoulder as she jogged off to catch up with her busty friend.
The trio is left a little baffled and feeling like the world is sideways and Rukia is the first to break out of it and drag both Ichigo and Renji off to class.
A week later when Chad returns to school from an unexpected summer cold he is presented with a scarf, a note attached simply stating:
To avoid those winter colds later, OI
~..~
An: My head canon is that Orihime knows how to knit. Add it to your head canon, please. This was a little fun to write because I got dragged into the Sherlock fandom and have been stuck there. Then I ran across some lovely knitting fics in that fandom, begged my friends to finally teach me to knit and I would teach her to crochet. She did and I did and the rest is a happy ending!
I use to get reactions similar to the Shinigami trio's reaction to Orihime's knitting when I told people I knew how to crochet. It mystified a few people. It was nice to go to family and they accepted my ability to crochet because my grandmother taught all her daughters, and so all my aunts know how.
I mean sewing is nice and all but it is the handicrafts club. Sewing isn't the only thing you can do with your hands that's a craft. Orihime must have joined it for a reason, people rarely join things unless 1) it really, really strikes their interesting with no previous experience involved, or 2) they have an established interest and want to expand it.
Anyway, that's all for now. Enjoy the cute!gen Bleach fic. Please point any mistakes I may have made. This is un-beta'd and I did a quick read through to make sure the tense was right.