As always I do not own Bleach or anything really.

SECOND DISCLAIMER: the beginning of this story was inspired by Blumberberry's Pain and Pleasure.

PLEASE REVIEW THEY INSPIRE ME

I didn't dream strangely enough. One would think I'd have nightmares after what had happened. I thought I'd be trying to get to sleep for hours and only getting a few hours of sleep. But no. I was able to go home, put my groceries away and almost immediately fall to sleep. Granted, I had been in a sort of fuzzy-bunny daze, but I thought I'd lose some sleep after last night!

I was beginning to question whether it had really happened like I remembered it. But I saw what I had seen. I was sure of it! There was no way I conjured up all those sensations when he had come near, or the burning heat when he had left. Not even I'm that imaginative! It was like being suffocated, like going from the sweet bliss of air conditioning to the heavy weight of a humid August day. And it only lasted a moment, but I remember it. There's no way my imagination had come up with that! How could your brain create something unlike anything you've never felt before?! It didn't and doesn't so it had to be real!

That was my conclusion to the previous night's events as I got dressed in my school uniform and ate my scrambled eggs with cream cheese. I skipped down the four flights of stairs two at a time.

It was a beautiful day out. The trees were in their main performance of color, reds and oranges and yellows, scattered upon the earth and up above my head. The air was not yet cold enough to warrant a coat, but fall was here to stay.

I hummed as I exited my apartment building and played hopscotch on the sidewalk around the corner. I stopped at the telephone pole that was right outside my bedroom window. I checked my watch. I still had a few minutes before the bus came. The bus wasn't a school bus, but I lived far enough away that I needed to ride a bus to another stop about five miles closer to the school. From there I would walk another two miles to the school.

But when I stood beside that pole, the pole that I had stood by through rain, snow, and fog, something was different from every time before. I felt that cool aura, that soothingly cool presence.

There was not a doubt in my mind. It was him. He was real! He had to be because he was here! I could feel it! I took another step towards it, noticing how as I got closer the aura intensified.

I thought about how he had looked when he had gotten close to me. He had frozen as though he had come into contact with something that wasn't physically there, just like I had! Maybe he had felt something from me as I had felt from him! And if his…his presence was still lingering here beside the pole, then maybe that meant that he had been here! If he could do that then maybe I could too…that was the line of thought that convinced me to lean into the pole, trying to infuse my…aura into it.

I hoped it worked because a few moments later the bus came and I had to hop on.

The ride was nice. I've always loved to see what kind of people get on. Some are old, young, nice, mean, sassy, mellow, happy, sad, but what amazes me is that we are all in the same place, doing the same thing. I might have nothing else in common with these people but we're all riding the same bus.

It only took about ten minutes to get to the next stop where I get off. I smiled at the bus driver as I got off. I had never spoken to the guy, but if I were him, I'd want somebody to acknowledge that I was there and that I existed. I'd want to know that someone appreciated what I did for them every day.

Tatsuki, my best friend in the whole wide world lives really close to the stop where I'm dropped off. So she waits for me there so we can walk to school together, just as she had that day.

"Hi Tatsuki!" I smiled, stepping off the last step.

"Hey Orihime! How are you?" She was dressed very similarly to me, with a grey skirt and jacket. "Oh, I'm great! But last night these men were chasing me and then this guy with wings and horns showed up and he saved me, but when we got too close together he flew away!" I told her the truth, knowing she wouldn't believe a word. She thinks I'm still bubbly and silly and like strange foods.

I still do like strange foods of course. But somewhere along the way I lost my silliness, my odd little quirks were still there, just more subdued. Somewhere along the way I had grown up. Everyone still expected me to be and treated me like I was helpless and naïve. They treated me like a constant damsel in distress. I didn't have the heart to tell them that I wasn't that person anymore, that I don't need to be protected from mere ladybugs and grasshoppers. That I don't have the imagination I used to have, with robots and bunnies and giant, walking and talking dolphins. But it would break their hearts to know that, so from the time I turned fifteen and realized that I wasn't that person anymore, to now, two years later, I kept the façade.

I asked her how her various sports were coming along so she could babble on about it so I didn't have to go through the work of creating scenarios that didn't happen. It was about a half hour before we reached the school. Tatsuki and I parted ways. We had a different first period. But in my first class was Ichigo and the girl who had transferred about a month ago, Rukia. She was so serious, but didn't seem to know certain things, simple little things like how to use a juice box. It was a little odd.

Ichigo and she had seemed to know each other from outside school. Rumors about her being a one-night-stand had circulated. It bothered me a little. It didn't really help that now she and he seemed to spend a lot of time together. They always seemed to be somewhere together.

But I couldn't bring myself to hate her, or to even dislike her. She had become a part of the group. She had funny drawings and, despite being so little, had a vicious temper. She had become rather protective of me too, I had noticed. I guess I just come off as someone who needs to be protected.

School ended rather quickly and without incident, although Ichigo did knock Keigo to the floor again during third period, but that was normal.

I met up with Tatsuki after the last bell. She and I had planned a while ago to go to the mall, even if we didn't get much. There were lots of fun things to do without actually buying anything. We raced up the down escalators, danced for the people outside the glass elevator while we were in it, serenaded people while we stood in front of this giant rotating ball. I ended up buying a new shirt at her insistence, but I got another without her noticing. It wasn't really my usual style, entirely black with subtle, dark green lace lining the deep v- neckline. I wasn't even going to admit to myself that I got it because it had his color scheme.

We didn't get on the bus back home until nine, and I didn't get home until nine thirty. I said farewell to Tatsuki and climbed the stairs to my apartment. I was really tired from everything we'd done at the mall, so I decided to just take a shower and go to bed; my homework and studying could wait for the next night.

I watched the sun on the surrounding stone walls fade as the sun made its descent for the evening. Unfurling my wings, I listened to the telltale clicks of my talons on the stone floor as I stepped out of the shadow and towards the hole I had entered through. I waited for a few moments, making sure that the sun was gone, before extending my black wings to their fullest extent and soaring out.

My body directed me towards her without my mind's consent. I landed a few hundred feet from the building, not wanting someone to poke their heads out and see a giant bat flying above an apartment building in the night sky, folded my wings close to my body, and walked to the pole where I had viewed her window the previous night.

Her overwhelmingly warm and pleasant soul residue emanated from it. I could feel it all over. She had been here today. She had stood right where I was standing. Possibly touched the wood of the pole with her hand.

I couldn't stop it. I was drawn in. I leaned into the pole relishing how warm it was, treasuring every second of bliss. I had to be closer. Tentatively, pressing my hand to the pole and held it in front of my face, bringing it to my dark lips. I tried to restrain myself, to pull back from what my body wanted so desperately to do, but I could not. My tongue flicked out across my fingertips. It was so irresistible. A drug.

In only a second the taste was gone and my tongue was met with nothing but the blandness of my hands. I almost felt relief, now that I was back in control of my impulses. Not a second later, twinges of pain swept their way through my body from my hollow, but I could withstand it. It wasn't like last time; I didn't feel the need to jerk back, electrocuted from her soul.

I assumed it was because I was not close to her, only to something she had touched. Or perhaps it was because it was less concentrated.

Without my volition, I was swept up to my perch on the top of the pole. Unbidden, my thoughts flitted to the previous night. When I had gotten too close, when I had begun to feel her soul, her eyes had glazed over, almost as mine had, so distracted by the pleasure. It couldn't have been a pleasant experience for her by any means, but I knew that she had felt something from my presence.

I wanted desperately to venture closer, so be near that wonderful aura. But if she was the pure soul, which I was quite sure that she was, she would have angels, known to her or not, nearby, watching her. If I went closer they may be able to sense me. They would take her away to someplace where she would be 'safe' until she died and became the next god.

I climbed to the top of the pole, not being able to resist being as close as possible. The time of darkness passed without my knowledge as I contemplated what this meant.

Angels would be near and because of that I was in danger. It had been a long time since I had faced one, and I was far stronger now. But angels were resolute and persistent; they did not give up, and it wasn't as if I'd even encountered one that was actually powerful, only the weak trash.

They might find out that I'd been around within mere minutes, or it might not be until they actually found me. It really depended on their sensitivity to demon souls. I wouldn't think they would allow their less-perceptive to be in charge of the guarding of the most important soul in the world of the living. But who knows, angels can be ignorant, oblivious trash. Either way, with the pure soul around they would be quick to alert their superiors of my presence in the area once they found it.

However, I did know that their resources were spread rather thin. Unfortunately, having such a concentratedly demonic 'aura', did tend to leave obvious traces in the places I'd landed. They were quite keen, I knew, to catch and kill such a powerful demon such as I. My hide and horns a sort of trophy. But I'd perfected methods of throwing them off my trail over the last few centuries. They would be unable to connect my last feeding ground to this one.

Perhaps it was safe to stay here for a while. Just maybe.

So lost in my thoughts, I did not notice the sun grace the horizon with its presence, nor did I notice that it was up until I felt the searing pain on the tip of my folded wing.

Instinct commanded that I flee, and flee I did. I dove into the nearest opening, which so happened to be the window to a basement of a small shop that seemed to be in a rather out-of-the-way location.

But I did not concern myself with that as I examined the tip of my wing. It was gone, crumbled to ash, much the same as when I consumed a human's soul and their body turned to dust. I sighed and probed the exposed flesh with the tips of my fingers. It was only a small amount, the size of my palm perhaps. I would regenerate quite easily, within a few moments.

The pain of my small injury diminished quickly as I fell into the trance of sleep as the rising of the sun commanded.