A/N: Dang it! This wasn't supposed to happen! I wanted to update another story but this came out instead. Well, hope you guys like this.
A Liar's Paradox
Chapter 1: You Make Us Look like Lovers
If there was anything impossible that she wanted most in the world, it would be for her to turn back time. There were a lot of impossible things that she wanted to do; she wanted to evolve into a Humanoid that can breathe fire which can move as fast as 350 miles per hour, she wanted to eat every one of the donuts in her favourite donut joint in one sitting, she wanted to be able to pluck a star to be given to Tatsuki for the Karate girl's birthday, she even wanted to live five lifetimes... and she would still fall in love for the same guy.
It was that strong, her love for him.
And because of that love for him, she was content to just be with him, to sit next to him, to be near him, to feel his presence, because even though others see her as an airhead, she was actually a very realistic person. She was content, because she knew he would never notice her. So she had been very happy when he started to treat her as a close friend, like how he was close to Chad and close to Ishida. She had been so happy that she decided to keep her true feelings hidden, for the sake of keeping that trust he had in her. Tatsuki had called her a fool for that logic, but she didn't care. She liked it the way things were then.
Except for Tatsuki, she had thought no one else noticed. But she was wrong. Chad, despite being quiet, was actually a good observer. He had been the first to know her feelings, but Ishida had been the first person to point it out to her. Rangiku knew about it the first time she saw the way Orihime talked to Ichigo. Toushirou was the next one to know, courtesy of having Rangiku Matsumoto as his Vice-Captain, and along those times, what she didn't know was that Urahara and Yoruichi had noticed, even Jinta noticed before Ururu did. If she even knew that Renji and Rukia noticed her feelings for the orange-haired-punk-with-the-good-grades, she would probably be too embarrassed to face them as they were around Ichigo the most.
Rangiku had told her to tell Ichigo as soon as possible, Tatsuki even surprised her by suggesting scandalous moves, but she had refused. Because Orihime is Orihime. She wanted her friendship with Ichigo to last a very long time, so she kept her words hidden.
She thought her resolve was solid enough. That one solid resolve of not wanting to let Ichigo know about her true feelings. But she had made a mistake. She had accidentally let it out.
She hadn't meant to let it out.
Summer at Karakura High
She had been looking for Chad to ask the gentle giant about helping her transfer some boxes from the Art's Club's former operation room to a new place, when she felt Ichigo's reiatsu trailing a flight of steps leading to the door of the rooftop. She felt something off with the Shinigami's reiatsu, as if he was in turmoil, and that prompted her to trail after his reiatsu instead.
He was leaning against the fence, his face turned up towards the sky. He lowered his face and she tried to keep her heart from beating too fast when his brown orbs met her greyish ones. He tried to lift one corner of his mouth as he saw her, and at that instant, she felt it again. She could feel he was troubled and he was unsure of something.
"Hey, Inoue."
She blinked a few times, before finally laughing self-consciously as a hand was brought up to rub the back of her head.
"Oh, hey Kurosaki-kun! I'm sorry, I just felt your reiatsu and I decided to drop by..."
Ichigo tilted his head to one side, looking as if he was pulled away from a strange dream back into reality. After a short while, Orihime decided to try and strike a conversation. The boxes could wait, she was sure Chad was not even around the school anymore since it was already about half an hour after school. Besides, if Ichigo was troubled by something, she could at least hear him out. Plopping next to her friend, she lifted her face to mimic what Ichigo had been doing.
"Actually, when I felt your reiatsu, I sensed something off with it."
Ichigo looked up to see a duck-shaped cloud floating by, and he sighed. "I just hope Ishida didn't notice it during class."
Orihime shook her head, and her eyes followed a cloud resembling an aeroplane. "Maybe he didn't, because I just noticed it a few minutes ago, when I was looking for Sado-kun."
Ichigo chuckled softly, and scratched the back of his head. "Damn, it's that serious, huh... Well, can't say I'm not glad that no one noticed it."
Orihime turned to him, eyebrows arching. "Hm? What do you mean, Kurosaki-kun?"
Shaking his head, he pinched the bridge of his nose. He chuckled for a while before he turned his face to her.
"Actually, I just got here a few minutes ago. And I was thinking about some stuff... Well, it's pretty big. I just... realized something I guess... but I can't be too sure about how I feel right now."
Orihime frowned, tilting her head to one side as she observed his fidgety actions. She could spot the uncharacteristic faint pink staining the apples of his cheek. 'Is he... blushing?'
"What is it that you feel?"
Ichigo looked at her uncertainly, and she smiled. "Well... I don't know, I think because you're a girl, maybe you know about these things more than I do."
Seeing Orihime nodding enthusiastically, he cleared his throat before he started.
"Lately I've been... feeling weird stuff."
"Weird stuff?"
"Yeah, I think..." at this, he turned to stare at the concrete floor of the rooftop, and after he swallowed, ears painted red, he turned back to her and looked straight into her eyes.
"I think I like Rukia."
At that moment, Orihime felt utterly speechless. It took her five seconds for everything to begin to sink into her head. Five seconds for her heart to suck in as much as pain as it could, before it released all the pain as it beat rapidly against her ribcage. Five seconds for her tear glands to stop working, and when those five seconds were over, they began to function, misting her line of view.
Anyone who had been there would notice her eyes turning glassy, even as she turned her face away to stare at the sky to hide the disappointment showing in her grey orbs. She hugged her knees closer to her chest, her knuckles turning white as she balled her hands into tight fists, as if doing that would stop the twisting ache in her chest. She tried to smile. And when she turned to him, she failed. Her mouth was stubborn. The corners only lifted into a small smile.
"Why are you saying that, Kurosaki-kun? Ah, wait a minute, is that you Kon-kun? Because only Kon-kun likes Kuchiki-san that much, right?"
For a split second, Ichigo broke into a short-lived laughter. He shook his head, and sighed as he let his head loll backwards.
"It's really me, Inoue. Geez. It's true ya know... I think I like her... a lot. I don't know how to describe this but... lately I feel strange around her. I mean... I haven't seen her for a while, ever since I came from Soul Society to bring Ginjo's body here. And when she came here yesterday I... I felt so happy. I think about her too much lately, about those times when she used to live with me and my family. Even when she's not staying at my house anymore, I can't help but to feel too used to have her eating dinner with us. Having her around makes me feel so... important...She knows me better than anyone else, and it makes me feel... special, I guess... Damn, this is so hard. I'm being a mess."
Orihime swallowed a lump, and she began to speak up again, as if his confession didn't mean a thing to her.
"Kurosaki-kun, I think you don't just like her. It's love. You're in love with her. You know, to feel very special around her, the need to have her around you, next to you... It's obvious, isn't it Kurosaki-kun? You love her. It's normal to be a mess when you love someone... if you're so organized even when you fall in love is just... boring, right? So it's okay, to be a mess once in a while."
Brown eyes blinked at her before he spoke up. "You seem to know a lot about these things, huh?"
She nodded, her forced smile widening, her contained tears trying to claw the back or her eyes, just wanting to go out.
"O-Of course I do, because I feel those things too..."
The moment she said that, she regretted it. She didn't mean to, it just came out of nowhere. She looked away as he stared unblinkingly at her.
"Seriously? You like somebody too? Wait, of course you do, to be able to know how I feel... well who is it?"
She shook her head, trying to evade that question. "It's embarrassing, I can't tell you that kind of thing! Really, Kurosaki-kun, that's a secret..."
Ichigo frowned. "Hey, that's not fair. I told you about Rukia so now you should tell me about whoever this guy is..." He stopped, and then suddenly his lips turned up into a smirk.
"Hey, is it Ishida?"
Orihime laughed, and shook her head. "No, it's not-"
His smirk turned wider. "I see, It's Chad, isn't it?"
She flailed her arms, denying everything as her cheeks started to redden. "Kuro-"
"No, I got it. It's Renji!"
This time she laughed self-consciously again. "He's not-"
Frowning again, Ichigo tilted his head to the side as he came up with his last resort. "Don't tell me, Keigo-" He tried to stop the grimace on his face, and he blinked when he heard Orihime saying something.
"Hm? What's it?"
Her cheeks were pink, and she wasn't even looking at him anymore when she spoke up. "Please, Kurosaki-kun... I don't..." She swallowed as she held back the tears.
Ishida? Chad? Renji? Keigo?
She knew he was dense when it came to obvious things, but she never knew he was just that... that dense.
He really hadn't noticed her as more than a friend after all. Hearing him guessing names made her realize that he never looked at her as a woman. He had never seen her as a potential companion. There had never been any romance after all.
Ichigo started panicking as she looked as if she would cry. "H-Hey, I'm sorry, okay... I just wanted to know..."
Orihime shook her head, and finally she looked up into his eyes. For a moment, something clicked in his head, but before he could guess what it had been, she voiced out a name.
"Kurosaki-kun..."
He leaned closer towards her, straining to hear her barely audible voice. "What is it?"
"It's you, Kurosaki-kun."
"What-"
"That person is you, Kurosaki-kun."
He swallowed, uncertainty settling deep in the pit of his stomach as he stayed on his spot. He searched her eyes as she looked back at him.
"I know how you feel... it's because I like you. I love you."
"Hina-chi! Me too! Me too! Spin me too!"
"Ack, lemme go, you snot-head!"
"But I wanna spin too!"
"I'm not- Hey, stop climbing on me! Sensei! Inoue-sensei!"
"Heave-ho! Yay!"
"Oi, get off me, you little girl. Ah, what'cha doin' to my bag! Hey you lil- Sensei! The brats are running away with my schoolbag!"
Seeing no response from his teacher, Hinata Arisawa bellowed out his teacher's name.
"INOUE-SENSEI!"
A head wearing a straw hat turned slightly towards the fourteen- year old boy, enough to see the boy being glomped by a five-year old girl and two other boys dangling on both his arms. It took her a while before she realized the sticky situation her student was being in, and a smile broke out on her face. Her attention, which was previously focused onto the rabbit blinking back at her, was averted to the youngest Arisawa.
The sleeves of his white summer uniform were folded to reveal his shoulders, and a particular small scar on his elbow caught her eye before the smile on her face widened, sensing the uncomfortable situation that her student had gotten himself into. She tipped the brim of her straw hat and opened her mouth to say something when an old woman whom was previously watering the potted plants threw her glove at the whining young man. It hit the back of his head and miraculously bounced back into the elder's hand before she snapped at the boy.
"Shut it, young man! You were the one who offered to help, snot-head."
The boy grumbled 'old hag' under his breath before Orihime's laughter filled the backyard garden. When two pairs of eyes turned to her, she covered her mouth with a loosely-gloved hand.
"You're very popular with the kids, Hinata-kun."
The boy scowled, a scowl so much like Tatsuki's as he grumbled something inaudible, while he was trying to pry the kindergarten kids off him.
He was trying to pluck the little girl off his shoulders, when he spoke up, voice irritated at having his teacher call him so familiarly with the presence of other people.
"Stop calling me familiarly, sensei. It's not that I'm that close to you."
One of the boys who were previously dangling from one of Hinata's arm ran to Orihime and hugged her midsection as she stood up. She ruffled the boy's hair before she gave him a rabbit that she picked up for him to play with.
"Why can't I call you that? We do know each other for a long time. Ne, Nanako?"
The old woman nodded as she struggled on a stubborn weed in one of the pots. Hinata's scowl got even deeper when the girl refused to let go of his spiky black hair.
"You knew me for a long time, but I've never really known you. You're aneki's friend, not mine."
Orihime pouted. "How mean, have you forgotten? I always played with you when you were this small," she drew a small circle with the tip of her finger and continued. "I even helped change your diapers when Tatsuki-chan and your mummy-"
The little girl on Hinata's shoulders giggled, and the boy sputtered as red colored his face when Nanako's cackle filled the backyard.
"Sh-shut it!"
"Aww... Hina-chi wore diapers!"
He started to put serious effort in plucking the child off his shoulders and at the same time to prevent the little kids who had heard on his conversation with his weird teacher from running to the front yard and start telling embarrassing stories about him in diapers.
"Sh-Shut up, brat! Really, sensei, why did you even bring me here anyways! You should've just done this volunteer work yourself next time! Hey, you there! Stop talking about me!"
Nanako's cackle became louder, mingling with Orihime's carefree laughter.
"Orihime-san!" Hinata hissed menacingly as Orihime started to pat his head.
If anything, her smile widened. "That's more like it. I really like it when you call me that."
The boy stopped grumbling, and instead blinked dumbly at his teacher before his face started burning up like a tomato. He looked away, letting Orihime freely pat his head as if he was still the little boy whom used to play base-soccer with her all those years. He could never be mad at Orihime. She was like the sister he never had, and looking at her being so happy kind of made him happy too, in a sense.
"Che, you're too happy for your own good-"
"Ah! Hime-sensei! Ichi-kun is here!"
Nanako stopped laughing at once as the children were happily cheering. She tilted her head to get a better view of the man whom the children were eagerly surrounding and happily chatting with.
"Orihime-chan, Hinata, looks like The Doctor's here."
Both names turned their heads to watch as Ichigo knelt down to ruffle his niece's head. The three-year old smiled a toothy grin before she hugged him. Another identical-looking boy came and latched onto his arm.
Hinata's scowl returned.
"Che, how come they like him more? I had to put up with the bullying just now. Ungrateful brats."
Orihime turned to him, a knowing smile on her lips. "Hm? Hinata-kun's jealous?"
The boy was about to rebut when a voice interrupted them both. "Who's jealous?"
Hinata rested his hands on his hips, a vein twitching on his forehead. Ichigo raised a brow as the boy said nothing and turned around to pick up his bag that was left abandoned on the grass.
"I'm goin' home! Bye, sensei."
He disappeared just like that, and Orihime blinked. She turned to an equally puzzled Ichigo and scratched the back of her head.
"I guess he's jealous of you."
The children who had been swarming him were busy playing with the stethoscope Ichigo previously had with him, and Orihime laughed when she spotted one of them pretending to be Ichigo.
"Me? What for?"
His niece was still latching onto his leg when she looked up to him. "Hina-chan's very funny, but you're funnier!"
Ichigo raised his brows at Orihime. "Seriously?"
When she nodded, Ichigo shrugged. "I don't think so. Anyway, go and fetch your brother, Nami. I'll be waiting here. Don't forget to say thank you to your sensei, okay."
The girl nodded and skipped happily to find her twin brother. Orihime adjusted the hat on her head when the wind blew past them before she smiled up at Ichigo.
"You're early today, Kurosaki-kun."
Ichigo showed her his pager. "Got released early. It was something about me covering up Ishida's shift when he went on his honeymoon two months ago."
The wind blew again, harder this time and the straw hat on Orihime's head fell in front of her eyes. The corner of his mouth lifted a bit as he helped to adjust the hat onto her head properly, not noticing the slight blush on Orihime's cheeks as she laughed self-consciously.
"Th-Thank you, Kurosaki-kun."
"You should tie it, like this."
Nanako covered her mouth with a gloved hand, trying to hold in her squeal as Orihime's cheeks started to burn when Ichigo tied the ribbon onto a knot under her chin. He gave a satisfied smirk when Orihime thanked him again.
"It looks like you were called here again, Orihime."
Said name held her cheeks in her hands to hide the blush as she tried to act unaffected by his kindness.
"Rabbits! The teacher asked me to tell the children about rabbits!"
She took off her gloves, and turned around to pick up a white rabbit.
"Rabbits?"
Orihime nodded enthusiastically. "I told them about a rabbit's favourite food, what it does with its ears, and why white ones have red eyes. I even told them about Chappy!"
Ichigo couldn't help smiling back, even if just a little. "You seem happy, to be doing extra work. You still have your job at Mabashi High, right?"
Nodding, Orihime watched as the rabbit leaped off her hands and started to chase a black rabbit. A boy waved at her before he was taken away by his mother, and she waved back. She spotted Nami and her twin brother running towards them, and she nearly stumbled backwards when they hugged her midsection, thanking her for telling them about rabbits.
"It's calming to be with these kids, don't you think? Besides, I don't have anyone waiting for me at home."
The way she said that tugged something in Ichigo, and he cleared his throat when he hesitated to ask her to come over to their house to have dinner. His nephew beat him to it.
"Mama said you can come, sensei! Have dinner with us!"
Nami had already asked Ichigo to carry her on his shoulders when Orihime turned a puzzled look towards Ichigo. He nodded, telling her it was okay.
"Yuzu wanted to see you... I mean, she's pregnant again and she just wants you to celebrate with us... If that's okay with you, that is."
Orihime looked down to see Ryouma Kurosaki smiling up at her, and she just didn't have the heart to decline.
"Okay then. I'll be there."
Ryouma hugged her again before he rushed to hold onto Ichigo's outstretched hand. Ichigo motioned towards his car, parked nearby under a tree.
"I'll pick you up at seven."
Orihime blushed again, and shook her head. "Ah, it's okay, I can walk there!"
Ichigo frowned. "If you say so... See you later, Orihime."
"Okay, bye!" She waved as he drove away, and she stood there, smiling at nothing in particular.
"Oh my god! Orihime-chan!"
Said name blinked as she turned around to watch as Nanako eagerly took off her gloves and grabbed her left hand. The simple diamond ring on her wedding finger glinted in the sunlight.
"Is that him? The one who gave you this?"
Orihime blushed when she understood what the old woman said. "N-No, he's Ichigo Kurosaki. He's still single..."
Nanako let go of her hand and sounded very disappointed when she spoke up.
"Really? But you two looked so good together! And he even tied that straw hat for you!"
Orihime forced a smile as she caressed the diamond ring on her finger. "He's a friend... a good friend... that's all."
Nanako frowned, and then she scratched her chin as she thought of something.
"Hey, come to think of it, I never got to see your husband, you know. And suddenly those kindergarten teachers gossiped about you being divorced..."
Orihime swallowed, and she quickly turned around to avoid looking at Nanako. "Th-They were right... I'm divorced already."
"Really? But you're still wearing that... ring..."
Something tugged Nanako's heart as she saw Orihime shrugging, as if it was nothing. Poor woman, and that doctor was so nice to her too.
"I thought that you two looked really good together, you know. It's such a shame, to have someone as kind as that to be just a friend to you. After all, you're beautiful. People would've thought that you could get anything with that kind of beauty."
Orihime nodded, and took off the straw hat. A wry smile curved her lips as she thought of what Nanako said.
She could get anything with her beauty?
Of course, she knew better than to admit that.
If only they knew what happened on her last summer at Karakura High.
If only they knew.
A/N: I'm just gonna leave this as it is. If one of you can guess who her ex is, I might do a super long chapter for the next update. Oh, and I forgot to mention it before but most of the chapters in this story will have flashbacks to make you guys understand this story better. And please ignore what happened after the full-bring arc. Till then, adios!
