Once again, I do not own Bleach-Tite Kubo does. I'm simply writing stories with the characters.

I have appreciated the messages and comments about this story, and the support has been absolutely wonderful. I really do thank you all so much, even if you only read the story and that is all. I still appreciate that.

Oh! And on another note, I have had some note that there are some references and resemblances between this and some Jane Austen novels. There will be some calls back to her and her works. I started this during a phase of reading her works and visiting her home, and I had inspiration at that time to write some sort of romantic story as she would but in my way. Thank you so much for all your continued support, and I hope that it continues to be satisfactory!


Orihime smiled as she continued to sip her drink. Her last comment, making the young, mysterious man had made it a fun game. Everything seemed interesting to her now. Everything was simply more vibrant. It had been a long time since she had found herself able to talk with someone mentally as she had.

Truth be told…I took the idea from many books I had read.

She was always supposed to play a mental game with the man. It was never meant to be easy. Any time a character had a problem with society and some sort of knowledge was always in need of someone to put them back in their place. Although she had taken it upon herself to put him in his place, she couldn't help but feel a slight twinge of both happiness and guilt. Orihime had never been so rude with someone, especially someone who she didn't truly know, but she had felt that it was necessary. All of her studying and research had led to Orihime believing that it was necessary to remind Mr. Kurosaki that he wasn't better than the ones around him.

In fact, she had found it somewhat infuriating that he couldn't truly retaliate with her, but she had one this first chess game. Orihime was sure that she was going to find trouble with everyone due to her actions, but she found that it was completely necessary. Orihime smiled to herself as she had walked away from the man, sipping from her drink very delicately.

Interestingly, she found herself with a slight dance in her step as she had walked away. Orihime carefully danced through the group of people on the sidelines of the dance floor before finding her way through the door and out of the room. The door led her to a wonderful, large garden that belonged at the back of the house. Large flowers bloomed in various colors throughout the garden, leading to a center area that contained a very large fountain. The way that the moonlight seemed to hit it, Orihime couldn't help but be drawn to it. The light seemed to bounce on the large statue of Dionysus. He seemed relaxed, sitting at the 'bottom' of a large sculpted tree and drinking from a goblet of wine. The water seemed to make it look as if tiny lights flickered on him like fireflies forever trapped within the image the sculpture created.

"I've read about you…quite a few times." Orihime seemed to only giggle as she ran her hands along the edge of the fountain piece, tracing its line and after the circle around it. The marble of the statue seemed cold despite how warm outside felt to her. The weather has never been one to tell the truth.

Orihime sighed outwardly for the first time since she had been at the party. Slowly, she walked until she reached the back of the statue and could see the moonlight. As delicately as she could, she balanced herself on the edge of the fountain, seating herself and looking up at the moonlight. Orihime sat there in silence for a few moments before she began to do what she always did when a book wasn't readily available—hum. She hummed to her heart's content. There were songs, few and far between, that she truly knew, and she seemed to really only remember the ones that she had been told her mother used to sing. Although she didn't have many—if any—memories of her parents, she found that the humming had always been calming.

Forgetting that she was alone, Orihime grew a little brazen with her humming, opening herself up and singing some words of the songs that she had remembered or figured out through the years. She continued for a few moments until her song was drawn short by a gentle touch on the shoulder; however, Orihime had squealed before jumping up and turning to see who had followed her.

"I hope that you don't mind me having stumbled out here. Your singing was beautiful, and I couldn't leave you sitting out here alone. I get so saddened seeing close friends out and alone during such a lively party. It is truly a shame."

Orihime simply smiled. Mask tucked into his right, coat pocket, Mr. Urahara still felt like a stranger. Although he was closer than that—and frankly because of his ties to Yoruichi—he was somewhat of an enigma to Orihime, and she didn't know where to place him within her circle of friends.

"I appreciate the gesture, Mr. Urahara. I was simply overwhelmed with the large amount of people in the room. I had to get out by myself once for a few moments."

Orihime simply smiled and giggled. What normally would have made her quite embarrassed, talking about her interactions in a large group, simply resulted in her giggling to herself. Perhaps I truly have had too much to drink for the evening. Setting her drink down beside herself, she clasped her hands in her lap and gave her full attention to Mr. Urahara.

"That's what I had thought and assumed. You didn't seem as if you had much earlier interaction with very large groups. Selfishly, I had wondered if you would be capable of handling such a gathering. I figured I would find you out here eventually after things had gotten to be too much for you out there," Mr. Urahara simply placed one hand over Orihime and slightly gripped it in a gentle and caring gesture, "Are you okay? Do you need a carriage? If you are uncomfortable and wish to return home, I assure you that no one will be bothered or think any less of you."

Mr. Urahara gently removed his hand and smiled, turning to admire the moon as Orihime had done before. She followed his eyes before slightly smiling. "I don't wish to return home, Mr. Urahara. I admire your concern, and I am infinitely thankful for it; however, I just needed some air. You're right that I don't have much experience with this, but I'd like to continue and force myself to experience it. You never know when you'll get another chance like this in life, and I would hate to spend the rest of mine regretting it."

Orihime could hear Mr. Urahara giggle slightly before he spoke next, taking in her words. "Orihime, you never cease to amaze me. Truly, Yoruicihi doesn't give you enough praise, "He smiled even brighter, "So, I heard that you met my esteemed third guest. I trust he wasn't too rude or inconvenient for you to have to endure in public. He can be rather off-putting and terrible to have discourse with."

It was Orihime's turn. She found herself giggling as Mr. Urahara had just moments beforehand.

"He wasn't too bad. I simply had a small discussion with him and left him with some thoughts to consider for himself. Perhaps he will be open to some rather…friendly criticism of his attitude." Orihime felt herself chuckle, but she tried to stifle it by covering her mouth with her hand.

"I believe the drink or the atmosphere has made you more brazen this evening, and I can't say that anyone would be disappointed." The small silence after the sentence was cut short as a servant stepped out from another entrance to the garden, informing Mr. Urahara that he was needed within the house.

"I'm sorry, but it seems that I am needed," The gentleman said as he stood up, removing his mask from the pocket and placing it back upon his face, "However, should you grow tired of the party or wish to escape again, we have a rather large library—two stories in fact—with various amounts of literature I have purchased and obtained through journeys along Yoruichi's collection and her family's earlier collection. Doubtless, there are several volumes in there you haven't had experience with."

He quietly turned from Orihime before turning back, yelling to her a delicate message that made a smile cross her face: "You are more than welcome to take whatever books suit your interest, as long as you continue to be as witty as you have been this evening."

With that, Orihime was left with the sound of Mr. Urahara and his servant returning to the party. The loud noise could be heard as the door opened and closed behind them. Orihime was thrilled with the party, but she found herself in a sort of conundrum. She didn't care for the large groups of people and the tightness of the space that resulted from it, but she was comforted by it being there. Although it was selfish, Orihime never wanted this evening to end. It had been a grand success in her opinion, and she felt pleased with every aspect of it. Judging from the few glances that she had managed to catch, she must have looked decent enough to call for some attention, but she had been able to keep her anonymity, and that had been beautiful.

"And to top it all off, the mysterious man has been revealed…somewhat." She couldn't help but smile at that. Finally, she had a face to attach to the name and stories. Somewhat. The mask had held back most of his face—she wouldn't deny that. However, she had a brilliant imagination. What she had filled in was something that she found entertaining and entrancing, but she was sure that she had given a compliment to the man by letting her mind draw his face for him.

Now you are getting proud…and a little rude.

But…that doesn't make it any less fun.

Orihime giggled to herself, looking back up at the moon once again. It shone so bright in her eyes that she felt as if she was basking in the sun. She listened as the music changed to a beautiful waltz. Orihime stood up and quietly swayed to the music before she did a few waltz dance steps by herself, imagining the handsome man who had traveled from page to page in her novels—the man that she chased from book to book.

Orihime stood up and turned to the fountain. The dance shifted from the waltz to a more up-tempo song, and Orihime found herself saying goodbye to that mysterious man yet again. There was another night, someday, when she would find him. As he disappeared into another time—a dream or book she would read—while she made her way through the day until she could see him again. A smile slipped across her face as she tried to compose herself again. A small skip in her step, Orihime walked her way towards the home and found the nearest butler.

The man led her down a hall opposite of the direction the party was going. As they reached the middle of the hallway, the butler opened a large wooden door, letting Orihime in before leaving the room. The library was expansive and beautiful. Large bookshelves extended almost every inch of the room with paintings dispersed in between. An elegant staircase extended to a second floor on the right half of the room that had more bookshelves, although, they were shorter than the first floor's shelves. Large, two-story back windows gave the room a beautiful view of the moon outside, while beautiful gas lamps and large chandeliers throughout gave a beautiful, warm feeling. Orihime felt nothing but elation slip through her body, and an anxiety spread through her.

I can't get through all of these in my lifetime. It's so beautiful.

A giggle slipped from her lips before she began smiling and looking through the room. Orihime danced from shelf to shelf, combing through each book individually. She traced the spines, noting whether she had read them before, if she had, she moved on; otherwise, Orihime read a page or two and moved on until she began to understand the system. The books were divided by subject. Slowly, Orihime found herself in what she assumed was a philosophy section where people she had never thought of seeing were collected. Orihime's parents—nor her aunt and uncle—had ever let her read anything that was philosophy. She had never heard of many of these writers outside of the really brilliant socialites at small parties. Otherwise, they were completely unknown to her, and they thrilled her.

Orihime found herself pulling book from book as she began to look into writers, ranging from French philosophers—based on what French she understood and recognized from their writing—to the Greek philosophers that she had only heard of. Their words were intriguing, and they began to strike somewhere in her heart that she had never noticed before. There were thoughts that she would never have developed on her own or been allowed to. Orihime sat and read until the door to the library slowly began to open, and she found herself in an interesting place.

"Ah, so I meet you again here. Isn't this rather 'disagreeable, distant, and anti-social'?" The man simply smiled and walked forward into the room. The smile didn't break as he lifted the glass to his face and took a drink from. Ichigo began walking towards the staircase in the middle of the room and upstairs, where Orihime had retrieved many of her books from. However, Orihime paid him no mind. Ichigo hadn't truly made himself much of a conversationalist to her yet, and he would have to do much more to redeem himself. Orihime simply giggled.

"What can I say? I have a pension for being a hypocrite. Life is easier to condemn those for doing the things that you enjoy. It's more fun that way as well."

Orihime felt herself smile quite boldly before she continued reading again. The world began to fade again until she was jolted back into reality.

"I had wondered where that book had run off to…" Orihime felt herself jump, and she jumped again when she turned to follow the voice. Ichigo was closer than she had imagined. He gazed over the arm of the chair, his breath rolling down her shoulders and across her neck, looking at the page she was reading. However, when Orihime had jumped, Ichigo had slid a smile back across his face after riding his face of the concentration he had poured into the book. Orihime looked shocked before anger slowly slid across her face—one rising from embarrassment and his subsequent happiness at her embarrassment.

"I guess it wandered off to a better owner—one who would appreciate it." Orihime tried to hide the annoyance in her tone, but she couldn't seem to suppress it. Despite her best efforts, her voice sounded strained, and she knew it was easy to read how annoyed she was at the situation.

Orihime only felt her anger get worse as she heard him snicker from near another set of bookcases. After taking pleasure in her surprise, Ichigo had moved to another bookcase and continued sipping his wine, only stopping to listen to her response and chuckle.

"That's potentially true. Someone who seems so enraptured in a text that they lose touch with reality is simply something I can only admire. Their…surprise at everything around them seems to be a rather…unique pleasure."

She could feel the smile he had across his face despite the fact that she couldn't see it whatsoever. Instead, she sat the book down, and stood up, adjusting her dress appropriately as she could.

It's only because I was reading.

Orihime couldn't help but feel somewhat ashamed at herself. She had always gotten somewhat annoyed when someone would incessantly disturb her during reading. It was her escape and pulling her back was always uneasy for her if it wasn't done on her terms. She got too involved and it was difficult to just remove herself from a story at any point.

"If one can't be surprised at life, there isn't much left to enjoy in it, Mr. Kurosaki," Orihime said as she began to walk nearer to a window and look out at the moon again, thinking back to her conversation with Mr. Urahara before and the concept of borrowing some of the books within the library.

"Ah, so you would be so quick to condemn the rest of us to death, Ms. Inoue. What a swift judge you are…"

The words seemed to trail from his mouth, and Orihime followed their footsteps back towards his tall figure. Although the mask still hid quiet a large part of his face, she was able to quite easily read the amused face that he had one, despite his best efforts to hide it. Mr. Kurosaki stood with a book opened in one hand while sipping from his glass with the other before placing the book back into the bookshelf he stood nearest. Orihime had never considered how tall he was until she saw how large his stature was compared to the bookshelf when she had stood near it.

"Swift saves the pain. It's better than drawing it out, I believe." She felt herself smile somewhat. Although not entirely true, there was a game to play with this, and she found herself taking the bait. It was enjoyable to play this match of chess with him, spouting words and random ideas to drift in her favor. It was fun to see the mechanisms turning for each competitor, hoping to get the move on the other. Orihime felt herself studying his stance and casual demeanor after her comment.

"Ah, so we prefer to yank off our bandages and not slowly pull them away. Interesting. Such a beautiful animal would rather be yanked from the thorns…I see. I would have to agree on that. So, you would be able to throw away a man than stay with him for consideration of his own feelings?"

Orihime watched as his stature seemed to grow somewhat confident, and she felt herself seem off-center to the idea.

"If I loved someone, I would be willing to pull away from the wound and not hold them to it. I cannot rightly do that to someone. This works under the assumption that I can truly love someone, and you should never base your hypothesis on an assumption if what I have read is correct."

Ichigo seemed to perk up at her comment. A smile crossed his face before he tilted his head down. Orihime felt a personal victory, and she felt herself quite content with such a supposition. With grace and as much calm as she could muster, Orihime began walking herself towards the door. As she reached the door and began to exit, she heard one final exclamation before she closed the door behind her.

"Indeed, Ms. Inoue, we will have to see if my assumption is true or not. We will have to see…"

Orihime felt as if he was getting one last jab in, trying to say that he could win this logical game. She neared the end of the hallway to find the group gathered together in the main hallway, standing in a circle and having a discussion. Yoruicihi simply turned as the other guests began to notice Orihime and greeted her with hurried hand gestures to join them together. Exclamations and happy phrases were exclaimed as Orihime neared them.

"How has the party been for you? Have you been enjoying yourself?" Rangiku seemed almost excited about the concept of Orihime finally having stepped out of her shell. "What were you doing over there? Away from everything?"

Orihime felt herself blushing once again, and she was thinking of a good excuse. If Rangiku felt that this had been wasted on me…

"I-"

"I have to admit that is my fault. I was speaking to Ms. Inoue—trying to get to know her better considering how important she is to my lovely wife—and I mentioned that she should go and look into our library. I had heard of her love for books, and I wanted to see if she admired my collection. In fact, I told her to ask for books that she would like to take home if she found any."

Orihime giggled as Rangiku seemed to consider everything. For once, someone seems to support my reading habits.

"That was very generous of you, Mr. Urahara, and I'm sure Orihime will be more than interested in many of your books. Now, you have opened a Pandora's Box that I'm sure you will be more that interested in closing very quickly. You'll never get her to stop reading or borrowing books."

Rangiku was content with what had been said, and Orihime would be forever indebted to Mr. Urahara for helping her and providing her with chances to be herself. Her moment of consideration was drawn short by the sound of another voice joining into the conversation.

"I do hope that you will take advantage of the library. It would be a shame to see such knowledge and research go to waste."

Orihime watched as everyone's reactions seemed to change ever so slightly as the voice appeared, and she recognized its smug tone come drifting along with its melody. She was able to hold her composure until she felt the owner of the voice near close behind her.

"Ah! I have wondered about you, sir," Orihime's invaluable cousin seemed to exclaim louder than was necessary, "I haven't met you yet, and we are about to leave the party for the evening!"

Orihime watched as everyone seemed to see the atmosphere, and she heard one singular response from the owner of the melodic tone, one that only seemed to complicate the entire evening and potential future evenings as well.

"I'm Ichigo Kurosaki, the 'disagreeable, distant, and anti-social' member of the party that had avoided everyone the day that you dined with my esteemed friends. I'm surprised that Ms. Inoue hadn't introduced me or mentioned me to you before now." Ichigo took a casual drink from his glass before handing it off to a servant nearby and returning to the conversation.

"She and I have had such a wonderful evening. It's a shame that she hadn't thought to mention me to such a dear family member," He said as he seemed to look around the group before taking in the shock on Rangiku's face, "Oh! Perhaps I'm running my mouth when I shouldn't have been. You'll have to forgive me. I'll banish myself back to my room as punishment. Goodnight, everyone." And with a slight gesture he leaned closer to whisper only in her ear: "Goodnight, Orihime."