Whoa, I'm on a roll here, my friends! As promised, I give you the next chapter. Sadly, Ichigo makes no appearance here, but instead a very nice Orihime/Chad friendship is featured. But this is still IchiHime, so of course that's still discussed.
Because I always fantasize that the friends are the biggest IchiHime shippers, hands down, and I think it's important not to just focus on Ichigo and Orihime when dealing with them as a couple, but let their nakama get in on the action as well.
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Chapter 10: Don't Hit On Customers
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"How about this, Orihime?"
The girl looked up from her shopping basket as she acknowledged Chad's suggestion for purchase.
She scrunched her nose, "Um, my budget this month isn't as much as it usually is, so I better not."
Chad replaced the candy that he knew Orihime was so fond of. "Well, if you're sure," he watched her inspect fresh vegetables, "Is there anything else you need, then?"
Inoue took out of her basket a list of FFI: frequently forgotten items.
Chad had come over to her place just as she was about to leave to shop for groceries, and when she told him where she was headed, he insisted on coming to assist her.
"If you feel like it, you can round up these," she handed the list to Chad, "but only if you want to, Sado-kun. Don't feel like you have to."
Chad shrugged. "It's no problem, Orihime." he told her in his deep bass voice.
She smiled at him, "Okie dokey. Thanks; you're a big help."
Chad gave her a thumbs up, then departed for the first good he was planning on retrieving from her FFI list.
Orhime stayed in the produce section and compared the fresh vegetables to each other, trying to discern which were best.
"Hmm..." she muttered. She noticed this particular tomato was bigger, but the smaller one seemed a lot more firm.
"You need any assistance?"
Orihime, startled from her thoughts, jerked her head to the right to see a young guy, probably around her age, looking patiently at her. He obviously worked there, because he was wearing a uniform with the store's logo.
"Oh!" she was relieved it was just an employee, "No, I'm fine, but it was nice of you to offer."
He scanned her appreciatively; clearly smitten, but the notion was lost on Orhime.
"It'd be best to get the firmest over the largest," he offered with a grin, "but I'm sure you already knew that."
Orihime dipped her head in gratitude and put the small one in her basket. "That's very good advice..." she paused to look at his name-tag, "... Satoru-kun."
"No problem."
She expected him to leave after that, but he instead put his hand on her shoulder in a groping kind of way. Orihime just stared at him, caught a little off-guard by the close physical contact, but remained totally oblivious to his shameless flirting. She wasn't very good at reading human behavioral ques, at least not the particular kind that Satoru was using. He just seemed like a very nice boy, so she smiled at what she perceived as altruism.
Satoru took this as reciprocation to his advances, "So, I didn't get your name..."
As Orihime was about to answer, Chad returned with an armful of groceries from her list.
"Sado-kun!" she greeted him happily. Chad regarded Orhime warmly, but somehow with no expression, and noticed the employee looking very cozy, hand on her shoulder and all.
Reading the situation instantly, he gave the worker an icy warning glare transmitted only through eye contact. That, coupled with Chad's already towering and intimidating physique, did it.
Satoru backed off and turned to Orhime. "You didn't tell me you had a..." he broke his sentence, and began quickly walking the other way, but Chad heard him mutter something about a 'freaking tease' under his breath as he departed quite swiftly.
Orihime watched Satoru leave for a moment before she turned to her friend. "Huh. That's very odd. I wonder why he left so abruptly."
Chad placed the four items he had in her basket. "He was making a pass at you, Orihime. When he saw me, he figured I was with you romantically and left because he felt you had been leading him on when you had your boyfriend with you the whole time."
He told her this as if he was commenting on the color of the floor tiles, but of course, he conveniently left out the condescending eye contact that was used exclusively to get the guy to bolt.
Orihime, ever clueless, seemed intrigued, but understood. She had recently learned the euphemism of 'making a pass' at someone. Shockingly, it didn't involve sports in the slightest as she had originally thought. "Are you sure? I didn't get that from him at all. I feel horrible if I mislead him."
"Don't. He shouldn't hit on customers while he's supposed to be working." Chad reprimanded Satoru with that blunt aloofness that somehow conveyed perfect emotion. He looked down at Orihime from his lengthy, curly bangs.
"You really don't notice other guys, do you?"
Orihime blinked at him. "'Other' guys?"
"Besides Ichigo, I mean."
That sent her into panic mode. "Kurosaki-kun? Oh, Sado-kun, I don't notice him at all! I mean, I do, because he's such a good friend and he's so nice, but I could never, ever feel that way! I mean, he could never feel that way about me, so-"
Orhime stopped her crazy babbling, because she could see that Chad didn't buy any of what she was saying.
"You know that I know," he told her, "So don't feel like you have to pretend that I don't. I wouldn't say anything you told me in confidence, if that's what bothers you."
Once again, a stranger would look at Chad and deem that he was indifferent due to his stoic demeanor, but Orihime knew better. She and all their nakama recognized that Chad was the polar opposite of detached.
Orihime sighed, but seemed almost blissful. "Well, I guess I really don't notice other guys, Sado-kun, not romantically. It's not really a voluntary thing, like I make it a priority to hold off for Kurosaki-kun, because that would be presumptuous of me, to assume we'll have any kind of future. I'm selfish enough as it is without all that. I just couldn't imagine feeling this way about anybody else; it's not even an option."
Chad nodded reverently. "That's very poignant, Orihime. People underestimate you as a bimbo, but I think you're very intelligent."
The two began to make their way to the checkout, and Chad took the now hefty shopping basket, gallantly toting it for Orihime.
"Aww, that's very sweet of you, Sado-kun! But I'm not that smart; I think you're one of the smartest people I know!"
Chad let that hang in the air, but didn't respond to it. "Orihime, Would you mind if I asked you a weird question?"
"Of course not!"
"What is your ideal date?"
"October 17th."
Chad sidestepped out of another shopper's way. "I meant like a date with Ichigo."
"Oh!" Orihime stopped walking for a second, "Let me think; there's so many... I think we'd take a long walk on the beach, the sun would be setting, love would be in the air, and then, boom! The killer humanoid piranhas would rise from the water! And the gang would have to band together to save the day, but Urahara-san would perform his bankai, and the piranha humanoids would be in awe and want to get autographs. So they'd go back home to get pen and paper, but then they'd realize they can't use paper because it's all wet, since they live underwater, and you would go home and get a hair-drier to help them dry their paper out, but it would take so long that they'd get frustrated and call off the attack altogether... Wait, what was the question again?"
Chad pondered seriously for a minute. "I don't really remember."
So they once again began walking in the direction of the checkout to pay the clerk.
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At an undisclosed location outside, which was actually a display window for the grocery store, Rukia and Renji peered inside, spying on Chad and Orihime.
"Hah! Chad and Orihime are on a date! This is scandalous news, indeed! I can't believe we just happened to catch them here!" Rukia was doing what she loved best; investigating things that had nothing to do with her.
Renji narrowed his eyes. "That's because we didn't. We saw them in town and followed them here."
Rukia waved him off. "Irrelevant, irrelevant."
"This feels very illegal."
The short-haired girl turned to him. "That's because it is." she looked back into the store at the pair. "Ooh, they're checking out now. Quick, take out the camera phone and we'll snap a picture of them and upload it to one of those social networking sites."
Renji began to fish around in his pockets, but stopped. "Hey, wait a second, what exactly is a social networking site, anyway?"
Rukia twirled her imaginary moustache, thinking. "Huh... Dunno, but they sure sound like fun."
He was exasperated now. "You're gonna get me arrested in this world!"
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Well, thank ye for reading, stopping by to take a gander, or whatever you did to get to this point in the chapter. As usual, I hope you liked it.
I also thank you for the good chunk of reviews you've given me. Don't forget to leave another and tell me what you thought of this chapter. Also, don't hesitate to plug anything of yours you'd like me to read. ;)
Take care and I'll see you next update.
Yowl yearningly, my yellow young'uns.
-Sage