Chapter 9
Ichigo sat in at a little table waiting for her date to arrive. Across the room she could see Rangiku and Matsumoto sitting at a table of their own trying to look like they weren't there to spy on her date. Ichigo didn't know who they set him up with and the waiting was making him nervous. The door to the restaurant opened and a familiar figure walked through the door.
Yumichika walked over to the table and sat across from him.
"So you're my date?" Ichigo asked.
"I guess I am." He replied plainly.
"So…." Ichigo said.
'this is the most awkward situation I've ever been in in my entire life' Ichigo through to herself. She flipped her hair over her should and watched as Yumichika stared at a reflection of himself in his soup spoon. After a while she got bored and stopped paying attention to him all together.
"Can you see what's going on?" Rukia asked Matsumoto.
"Nothing's going on, they're just sitting there." Matsumoto replied with a sigh. After another fifteen minutes of sitting there waiting for something to happen they gave up. It looked like the two at the table had given up too; well Ichigo did at least. After the orangette was finished eating her food she stood from the table and walked out of the restaurant.
Rukia and Matsumoto stood from their table and followed her outside.
"What happened Ichigo?" Rukia asked finally able to catch up with her friend.
"Yumichika is a conceded asshole, cross him off the list." Ichigo replied.
"Alright, on to date number two." Matsumoto said happily.
"Date number two?" Ichigo asked.
"Yeah you still have like five more left to go." She replied.
"Why did you schedule so many in one day?" Ichigo asked.
"Because I knew that there was a possibility that some of them would fall through or they would work all together, now come on, we need to get you some ice skates." Matsumoto said.
"Why ice skating?" Ichigo asked as she followed behind Matsumoto.
"Because the captain doesn't like the heat," she replied.
Lunch with Yumichika was boring, Ice skating with captain Hitsugaya was a bust; all they did was argue and fight the whole time. They nearly got in a fist fight after Ichigo 'accidentally' pushed Toshiro down on the Ice.
After ice skating with Toshiro, Ichigo went for a walk in the park with Ikkaku which was another disaster waiting to happen. Two hot heads in the same place wasn't good. Placing those two in an intimate situation was a horrible idea in the first place.
Izuru turned out to be too shy for Ichigo's liking. Every time Ichigo tried to talk to him he gave a simple one worded answer and that was it. Ichigo couldn't get a conversation started to save her life.
Rukia even set Ichigo up on a dinner date with Byakuya and that was the biggest fail of all. Byakuya spent the whole night trying to show Ichigo how to be a 'proper lady'. Instead of listening Ichigo did the exact opposite just to get on his nerves.
After an entire day of failed dates Ichigo was ready to beat her face against the wall
"Well the date with Nii-sama was the last one for today, we can try again tomorrow." Rukia said optimistically.
"We have to do this again tomorrow," Ichigo groaned.
"I promise that dates tomorrow won't to be that bad. We can even go to the human world and look for guys there." she said. Ichigo rolled her eyes. She didn't want to do this anymore; I was turning out to be the biggest waste of time he had experienced.
Ichigo sighed and stood from the floor and headed for the door.
"Where you going?" Rukia asked.
"Just going to take a walk." She replied
"Alright," she replied not pushing the conversation any further.
Renji was sitting outside watching the stars.
"What are you looking at?" asked a familiar voice. Renji looked over to see Ichigo standing next to the bench he was sitting on.
"Looking at the stars," Renji replied.
"You've been sitting there for a while now; the stars can't be that interesting." She said looking up to the sky.
"So you've been watching me?" Renji asked jokingly.
"No, I-I wasn't watching you I was just saying." Ichigo replied. She could feel her cheeks burning red.
"You know, if you look up at the sky long enough you can start to see pictures in the stars." Renji replied.
"Really?" Ichigo replied. She moved closer to the bent and sat down on the far edge.
"What pictures do you see?" Ichigo asked after a brief moment of awkward silence.
"There, he said pointing up at the sky, that bunch of clouds and stars looks like sparkling water." He said. Ichigo nodded, 'sparkling water' didn't really make a lot of sense but she knew what he was trying to say. It was actually more interesting than she thought it would be. They spent the next hour sitting there looking up at the sky, pointing out constellations and tell jokes about the 'pictures' that they saw.
"Ichigo, are you still out here!?" yelled Rukia's voice. Ichigo looked away from the sky and over to the direction of the voice then over to where Renji was sitting. She didn't really want to leave, she was having run, but Rukia was looking for her and it would be rude if she didn't answer.
"Well I gotta go; I'll see you around Renji." Ichigo said as she stood from the bench and walked away. Renji nodded but didn't say anything.
If anyone asked he would refuse it until his face turned blue, but the truth was that he didn't want Ichigo to leave either.
