20=
=jewelry
He explained, voice strained, that he hadn't invested much thought into it, he swore it wasn't anything special but Rukia just nodded and sat on the window ledge with a small smile hovering over her thin lips. Chad had stared down at the box before nodding solemnly in approval and Ishida simply pursed his lips and appraised the twinkling lights captured in the cushion with interested eyes.
He had merely passed by the shop once or twice and chanced to see a familiar gleam of orange through the window, and when he paused to peer surreptitiously in, he saw her standing by a mirror, dangling the earrings by her cheeks. Then he remembered her birthday was coming up and in the midst of remembering when exactly it fell, only just in time realized she was exiting. He sprinted to the street corner and waited until she had walked away, bouncing as she stepped on the crisp leaves scattered over the sidewalk. He watched to make sure she wouldn't turn back and feeling slightly foolish, set his jaw and strode into the store, glaring at the shopkeeper's baffled stare when he walked towards the earring stand.
But he didn't buy them that day, nor the next, nor the following week, until finally he overheard her pleading with Tatsuki not to overdo it and her birthday slapped him on the back of his head so that he made his way, slowly, not deliberately, just out of idle interest, back to the shop where the clerk knew better than to stare this time, and he frowned down at the earring stand. He knew nothing of gift purchases and after a minute feared he was spending too long and so snatched up a bright violet pair. He went to the counter but when he set them down, he realized it would never match her hair and so he went back and took a black dangly pair. He put that one back immediately and stood there, awkward and fretting until he sensed the keeper was getting ready to approach him and he suddenly saw the pair she had been holding and snatched up the gleaming white pearls and handed them to the clerk with a scowl.
"She'll like them though right?" He ventured, a bit nervous, seeing her walk through the classroom door.
"Ask her yourself, idiot," Rukia grinned and pushed him forward.