Disclaimer: I'm going to stop doing disclaimers on this story and assume you know that I don't own Bleach.
"You ready, 'Hime?" Rukia asked, throwing her bag over her shoulder, "We're going to be late for school!"
"You know, we could just stay here today." Orihime suggested from the bathroom as she finished fixing her hair, "We wouldn't get in trouble. And tomorrow's Saturday." Rukia closed her eyes and tilted her head back a little as she smiled to herself. Just the thought of the fact that Orihime was hers... and she was Orihime's... was still amazing.
"As amazingly tempting as your offer is..." Rukia almost sighed, "I'm afraid staying here would raise too much suspicion. Especially in Ichigo and Chizuru."
"But everything they would say would be right... or am I wrong?" Orihime asked, coming out of the bathroom, directing a puzzled look to her girlfriend.
"Not everything. Gossip can get out of hand. I think we should go, just to confirm the truth and deny anything false. Otherwise people would start saying we eloped together." Rukia explained, to the bewilderment of Orihime.
"Really? People would actually say that?"
"You don't even know." Rukia said, then asked again, "Anyway, are you ready to go?"
"Not quite." Orihime answered, picking up her own bag. Then she walked purposefully over to Rukia and pulled her in by the waist, pausing so Rukia could pick up on her intension.
Rukia was always very observant.
After the brief make-out session, the girls stood, smiling like idiots for the shortest instant, until Orihime told Rukia,
"Now I'm ready."
The girls broke the embrace, but walked out the door hand in hand... which caused a little bit of a complication in the doorway, a little giggling, and another quick smooch before they left the building.
-Later, at Karakura High, in the classroom before class-
"Hey, Orihime!" Tatsuki shouted, her head turned to face Orihime as she clutched the front of Chizuru's shirt, ready to punch her, "Where have you been? I thought you were going to be late!"
"Yeah! I thought you two were going to ruin the rare occasion of everyone in class being here today!" Keigo commented.
"That's right. And they didn't, so pay up." Mizurio told Keigo. The brown-haired boy handed over his due, overly dramatic anime tears streaming down his face.
"Did you and Rukia-chan have fun last night?" Chizuru grinned a devilish grin.
"HEY! WHAT WAS I JUST TELLING YOU ABOUT...!" Tatsuki said, turning back to Chizuru and waving her fist, but Orihime smiled and waved off Tatsuki's sentence. Chizuru and Tatsuki both looked at Orihime in confusion, but Tatsuki's gaze was more intense. Rukia's face held her trademark dangerously sweet smirk.
"It's alright. We were expecting worse." Orihime explained, "That's why we even showed up today. Right, Ruki-chan?" She looked down at Rukia, who watched her face with a raised eyebrow at the use of the term 'Ruki-chan'. She quickly recovered her smirk, however, and replied,
"That's right, 'Hime." as she leaned in, pausing an inch or two in front of Orihime's lips, to make sure the class understood that it was mutual. Orihime grinned and finished what Rukia started, knowing what would happen. As soon as their lips made contact, the entire class stared in shock, except for Chizuru, who's apparent pleasure was perhaps a little over the top.
Tatsuki felt like she couldn't breathe.
Chizuru moaned loudly from Tatsuki's grasp, making Rukia and Orihime blush deeply.
"Oh my GAWD! DoitagaindoitagainDOITAGAIN!" she cried, not really making an effort to break away from her captor, but lurching towards her new Goddesses, a huge smile across her face, showing how excited she was. Then Rukia, Orihime, and Chizuru all suddenly noticed at once how incredibly still Tatsuki was. Her expression became one of anger crossed with disappointment and sadness as she shook her head, tossed Chizuru to the side, pushed her way past the two girls, and ran out of the classroom. Chizuru had been tossed into the wall a few feet away, but she was glad that it stopped her momentum.
"Tatsuki!" Orhime shouted, moving to pursue her friend, but was bumped before she could go by a speeding Chizuru, with the most serious look on her face anyone in the class had ever seen. Orihime paused, pondering the reasoning behind Chizuru's action.
"She tends to ignore you more often than not if Tatsuki isn't around." Orihime recalled Rukia telling her. Maybe... Orihime' stride was slow as she moved quietly to the doorway. She barely poked her head outside the room, and saw Tatsuki running down the hallway with Chizuru surprisingly gaining on her.
"ARISAWA!" she heard Chizuru call out in a tone that only contained concern, but of a hard, serious sort, "PLEASE, WAIT!" Orihime watched as her friend continued running for a few moments, seemingly in defiance, until she actually slowed to a stop. Rukia's head popped out right underneath Orihime's.
"What's wrong?" Rukia asked softly,"Why aren't you chasing her?"
"Shh!" Orihime shushed her girlfriend and continued watching.
They both witnessed the interaction between Chizuru and Tatsuki, but didn't hear anything they said...
Tatsuki's head was hung low as she stood, unmoving, listening to Chizuru's footsteps coming closer. She expected the lesbian to run right up and do something to try to cheer her up, or make her want to beat her up, but she did exactly the opposite. She ran, true, but as soon as she felt she was close enough, her paced slowed. She stopped a small distance behind Tatsuki's left side, and simply frowned at the back of the tomboy's head.
"Talk to me." she said, her voice low and soft, but still hard enough to fit the moment.
"H-how..." Tatsuki muttered, her subconscious alerting her to the fact that the girl got her to talk so easily. The quiver in Tatsuki's voice was immediately recognized by Chizuru as the brink of tears, with which she was all too familiar. Tatsuki started again. "How could she do that to me?" she said softly. "Orihime..." she smiled a sad smile and shook her head, "I always told her how dense Ichigo was, because he didn't know how she felt about him. I knew... I knew she was just as bad, but that was okay!" Her head lifted, or rather, was thrown back, and Chizuru saw only a corner of the look of agony on Tatsuki's face. A pang of dejection made the redhead's expression carry split-second poignancy as her mind's eye showed her the playfully challenging grin that most commonly inhabited the features of her classmate. "It was okay... because I didn't want her to know." Tatsuki continued, "That was because she liked Ichigo... not anymore I guess... but I thought... I thought she would never return my feelings because..." she bit her lip, no doubt to hold back the sobs that were threatening to escape. "Look at us. We're all upside-down." she shook her head again and said, "I'm crying, Orihime's making Rukia-style responses to your outbursts, Rukia actually blushed... what next? Keigo will tell the class he's gay. Or you'll actually be seri..." she glanced at Chizuru and saw her pensive, unchanging expression. "Oh, God." she said, turning her entire body to finally face her listener, "It's the end of the world. It's gotta be." Chizuru took in Tatsuki's visage, which showed obvious signs of tears, maybe even very quiet sobs.
"It'll be alright, Tatsuki. I know exactly where you are." was all Chizuru said. Tatsuki stepped forward and grabbed Chizuru's shirt with both hands as her legs slowly failed her. Chizuru let herself be dragged down, let Tatsuki curl up on her side in her lap and cry, the grip of the karate champion like vices on her shirt. A small, inert smile became visible on Chizuru's face. She hesitantly ran the fingers of her left hand through Tatsuki's hair, while she reached her right arm to the farther side of the girl's back, and gave in to the girl's tugging at her shirt, leaning down to the point where her nose was in Tatsuki's hair. It smelled like pomegranates... well, as close to pomegranates as you can get in hair treatment. It was better than Chizuru ever could have imagined. Pomegranate. Possibly the one thing she hadn't guessed...
Tatsuki's cries never got very loud, Chizuru figured it was because Tatsuki knew Orihime was still in the classroom that they weren't very far away from. When they began to die down, Tatsuki decided to say something she'd been wanting to tell Chizuru for a while.
"H-hey... Chizuru... s-stop me if you've... heard this one." Tatsuki said, her breathing still irregular.
"What's that?" Chizuru wondered, straightening herself, but staying in the knelt position.
"What do y-you call a l-lesbian w-with long nails?" Tatsuki asked, looking up into Chizuru's eyes. The remnants of her tears made Tatsuki's honest smile give Chizuru not only a feeling of happiness at seeing that she had been successfully cheered up, but one of accomplishment. Soon, everything would go back to normal...
It was that thought which kept her depression firmly where it was.
"I don't know." Chizuru actually never had heard this one. She smiled at the girl in her lap... the girl she'd really wanted all along...
"S-single." Tatsuki said, grinning. Chizuru's expression quickly transitioned into a surprised smile, replacing the depressed one.
"That... that was actually really funny." Chizuru responded. Tatsuki lifted herself into a kneeling position in front of Chizuru, and wiped the water away from her own face. The athlete took a long shaky breath, signaling the end of her physical display of emotion, as she took one of Chizuru's hands in her own, causing the lesbian to blush lightly.
"Chizuru..." Tatsuki said, smiling down at the hand she was holding, "Your nails are long. That's why I've been dying to tell you that joke. Maybe that's why you're always single. You should think about cutting them." Chizuru's blush deepened. She inhaled in an attempt to calm herself down. Tatsuki had been honest with her, told her perhaps her darkest secret. She decided right there that she should do the same.
"I would for you." Chizuru said, slipping her hand out of Tatsuki's grasp so she could take both of Tatsuki's hands in her own, "The truth is, Tatsuki, I would do anything for you. I... I tell you that you're too butch for my taste, and actually, you should be. But... there's something about you that just... just..."
"Glows?" Tatsuki suggested. Chizuru made a face that was confused, interested, and kind of weirded out, all at the same time.
"Umm... We can go with that. Not quite what I was looking for, but it works." Chizuru said. Tatsuki shrugged.
"I overheard Ichigo and Rukia singing a song the other day, and the last lyrics were 'ameagari, tada, tada, kagayaku'(1). It was kinda weird how good they sounded together."
"Huh. Anyway, I just-... Wait... You're not... I mean... you know what I'm telling you." Chizuru said, secretly revering the fact that she was still holding Tatsuki's hands.
"Yeah. It's not like I'm just gonna take off while you're in the middle of a confession like that."
"But... you haven't... hurt me, or yelled at me, or anything! I... I always thought that you completely loathed me... that you would completely reject the very idea..."
"Oh, don't worry, usually you'd be totally right. If this were any other day, I would have stopped you, and been mad. And you know better than anyone what happens when I get mad."
"But have you ever noticed..." Chizuru muttered, blushing a little, "I was always smiling."
"What?" Tatsuki asked.
"Every time you got mad... yelled at me or hit me... I was always smiling." she answered. Tatsuki thought back. She was right. In every instance she could call up, Chizuru had a grin as she went down. There were even a few times when she would compliment Tatsuki's punches.
"I never noticed." Tatsuki said, "Maybe now I will. But... Chizuru, you should know that it's not you I loathe... just the fact that you're a perv." she reached under her shirt pulled out a small object on a chain, "Look."
"Th-that's...!" Chizuru said in shock.
Flashback to two years before...
"Secret Santa? Seriously, who does those things?" Chizuru heard Tatsuki say from across the room. She turned so she could just see Tatsuki and Orihime staring at the Secret Santa hat. The hat had lots of names in it.
"Ooh, Tatsuki-chan, you shouldn't be that way! I know! We should do it!"
"What? No way! If someone wants to give me a gift, they can be open about it."
"But what about your secret admirer?" Orihime asked, raising a red flag in the back of Chizuru's mind.
"What secret admirer?"
"I don't know, then it wouldn't be a secret! But what if you do have one?"
"Hah. Sucks to be them." Tatsuki commented, shrugging.
"Tatsuki-chan! That's so mean!"
"What? If I do have one, they'd probably agree!" Chizuru smiled lightly in response.
"Hey, let's both try to get each other!" Orihime said.
"We're just gonna get each other gifts anyway."
"But it'll be fun!" Orihime insisted. Tatsuki sighed in defeat.
"Fine. I'll do it."
"YAYYYY!"
After Tatsuki and Orihime put their names into the hat, they shook it and drew.
"I goooooooott..." Orihime said, unfolding the paper in her hands, "Kimamoru Ryo. Huh. Don't know him. Your turn Tatsuki!" Tatsuki looked at the paper in her fist. She sighed and opened it.
"What the hell? What could I possibly get for HIM?"
"Who is it?" Orihime asked.
"Kurosaki Ichigo." Tatsuki grumbled, "Why is he even IN there, anyway...?" The two girls left the room, talking along the lines of something about Ichigo, but Chizuru wasn't listening. She walked over to the hat, knowing that this could be her only opportunity to get the one she wanted a present without drawing attention to herself. Before she realized, she found herself entering her name, and drawing a paper, but to be fair, she shook the hat around some first. She just held the slip that she had drawn for a few moments, wondering if it was even remotely possible...
"Only one way to find out..." she whispered to herself, opening the paper. She stared at the name on it blankly, obviously for lack of any other reaction.
'Arisawa Tatsuki' was practically scribbled across the paper.
Back to our story...
"The pendant you gave me two years ago." Tatsuki said, dangling the necklace. It had a simple silver chain, but the pendant was beautiful, in a way that only black can be. From the bottom up, it started as a clear quartz point, faceted off into a straight prism, with silver accentuations that almost seemed to serve as glue in some places, but decoration in others as it transitioned into a small black sort of roundish shape, had silver, turned into a black cylinder like section, had silver, another black sphereish point, and one last line of silver that seamlessly changed the black to quartz once more, almost making you think that only you could see the black parts, like it was some sort of power... but the pendant never changed, really, so it was decided that it just looked cool by both parties.
"Do... do you remember what I told you?" Chizuru asked curiously.
"It's supposed to be a charm that helps you get stronger. Or something like that, right?" Tatsuki answered.
"I... y-you really..." Chizuru began to stutter, but stopped and said, "Close enough." then changed the subject, "But that doesn't mean anything. Just because you didn't throw it out doesn't..."
"Chizuru, are you stupid?" Tatsuki asked, looking a little annoyed, "I was able to pull it out on a whim. It's around my neck. There's only one possible way I could have done that, since I certainly didn't plan on this." Chizuru's eyes widened.
"Y-you wear it every day..." Chizuru realized.
"I'll admit, for a perv, you pick out great gifts." Tatsuki said. Chizuru blushed as she thought of something horribly perverted to say, but found that she couldn't say it.
I might have a chance now... I'm not about to ruin it...
"Look. I think we should be friends." Tatsuki said, "Maybe things might go from there."
"Wait... this is... this is weird..." Chizuru said, standing in spite of the fact that her mind was reeling, "Did you really just say that?"
"My world is upside-down." Tatsuki shrugged, "So I'll go upside-down with it. Maybe it'll be fun."
"We should get to class be fore the teacher sees us..." Chizuru said, looking around.
"Right. Let's go." Tatsuki replied.
Back in the classroom, the peepers named Rukia and Orihime ran back to their seats as soon as Tatsuki and Chizuru started to turn their attention towards the classroom door. Everyone was seated as the bell rang, signaling the beginning of class.
-Later-
"So, what was that?" Orihime asked her friend right after class ended, and everyone was gone except Rukia.
"What was what?" Tatsuki asked, her voice sounding slightly bitter.
"When you tossed Chizuru and ran out... why did you do that?"
"LIKE YOU CARE!" Tatsuki snapped.
"Tatsuki, I..." Orihime began.
"Orihime, wait." Rukia advised.
"What, this whole, time? I was right? You really don't know, huh? And I thought you were smarter than that. Well, here, I'll spell it out for you," Tatsuki shot at Orihime, her annoyance audible, "I love you, Orihime. I always have. I never said anything because I thought you liked Kurosaki. My mistake, though." The emphasis on the word 'mistake' made Orihime's heart ache.
"Tatsuki... I'm so sorry... You're right, I should have noticed... But I..." she said, unable to face her friend out of shame.
"Can't leave Kuchiki-san. Right?" Tatsuki growled. Orihime forced herself to look into the athlete's face, and was surprised by the contradiction of the angry voice to the expression of pain and despondency. Just a split second after she looked, however, Tatsuki's face changed from pain to shock as she realized how much she was hurting her friend by speaking so coldly.
"T-Tatsuki-chan... I... I'm so sorr-" Orhime muttered, her gaze falling. Tatsuki forced up a depressed smile.
"Orhime..." she interjected softly, establishing eye contact with the other girl, "I'm the one who should-"
"NO! Tatsuki, don't ever apologize for being in love! You can't control that! I..." Orihime paused to consider her words, "I think you have the right to be angry with me. I might not know exactly what you're feeling right now, but... this whole time, you thought I was untouchable, and then it turns out I was within reach the whole time. If you want me to avoid you for a while, I'd understand." Tatsuki let the information she was hearing sink in. She turned her head, her face displaying her distress at the statement quite clearly.
"Orhime..." she said. She looked up, showing the saddest happy grin Orhime and Rukia had ever seen, and ran to embrace her friend, "That's why I can never be mad at you! There are some things you don't quite get about life, but you always come through where it's important... but please, don't avoid me... just know this..."-she stepped away from Orihime and turned to Rukia, suddenly more intimidating than Orihime even knew she could be- "If you EVER even THINK about hurting her, I will hunt you down PERSONALLY and NEVER REST until I deliver what I CONSIDER to be something kinda like justice, but closer to a very VIOLENT REVENGE!"
"W-wow...Wa-wakarimashita (2)..." Rukia managed to stutter.
"GOOD!" Tatsuki bellowed, storming out of the room.
"I-is she usually like that? That was even scarier than if Captain Kenpachi were to threaten me..." Rukia told Orihime.
"No... I've never seen her quite like that..."
-Outside the classroom-
Tatsuki grinned as she walked, taking some solace in the fact that, even if Orihime was dating Rukia, she knew that Tatsuki was there if anything went wrong... and that if that was the case, Rukia would be dead.
(1) "Ameangari, tada, tada, kagayaku" means, "After the rain, just, just, glow."
(2) "Wakarimasen" means, "I understand"