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Author's Note: Welcome to another one-shot by yours truly! As you have read, this is an Ichigo x Orihime fanfiction. I have not decided if I will turn this into a series or not. I have some notes written out, but nothing concrete or strong enough to stand on its own. Maybe after a while, I'll write the complete fanfiction, but for now we'll stick with the one-shot. Either way, I would love to hear your thoughts on my work.
Remember to like, follow, subscribe, etc. on both here and A03 under my username: Badbut94.
Warnings: Nothing outside of some spoiler alerts.
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Summary: Until recently, Ichigo considered Orihime nothing more than a great friend. But that could be because he never knew of her feelings for him. Now, the roles reversed and he's the one watching her from a distance. Now he has to watch the woman of his dreams leave him behind. IchiHime. One-shot. SPOILER ALERT: Set after the ending of the manga.
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Missed Opportunities
Normal P.O.V.
"Take this!" Ichigo shouted as he swung Zangetsu and sliced the final Gillian Hollow down its center. The creature screamed as it vanished. With a sigh of relief, the strawberry blond male placed his Zanpakuto onto his back and folded his arms.
"That should have been the last one. Thank goodness. I'm so fucking tired. These things have been coming nonstop lately."
And he was right. For an unknown reason, the Hollows have been coming at all hours of the day. Luckily that Ichigo and the others are out of high school. From time to time, Ichigo still works his job from time to time. But most of his days were filled with Hollow Hunting. Luckily, he can go home now and fall asleep. That is until something caught his eye.
Down below, he saw long wavy auburn hair bouncing with each step. The beauty below him was his former classmate and good friend, Orihime Inoue. She wore a long, pretty sky-blue dress that reached her calves with white flowers on it and a matching pair of sandals. Her lovely voice sung a deadly siren that filled Ichigo's ears. He would never admit it, but while they were in school, Ichigo noticed that she would subconsciously hum several happy tunes. On more than one occasion, he would get in trouble when he was caught taking a nap from it. But that'll remain his own dirty little secret. Currently, he was busy wondering what she was doing. Trying to remain discrete, Ichigo looked closer and saw that she was carrying a couple bag of groceries, but he didn't know where.
"Probably to her apartment. And what is she doing walking by herself right where a Hollow was defeated? I swear sometimes she does things without thinking." He groaned as he smacked his face.
As if on cue, the beautiful, developed woman slowly turned towards his direction. Thinking quickly, Ichigo ducked behind a nearby building when she stopped and turned in her direction. From the corner of the building, he saw her large gray eyes look around the emptied air. After she was satisfied that nothing was there, Orihime Inoue shrugged, adjusted the groceries in her hand, and continued on her path home. Ichigo waited a moment before he released his breath.
"That was close. What does she have, superhuman hearing?"
"That or she could have felt your spiked spiritual pressure. You never were good at hiding it." Renji teased as he appeared beside the startled strawberry.
"Where the fuck did you come from?! Don't seek up on me like that, ya bastard. I swear you just knocked off a few years of my life a moment ago." Ichigo panted as he gripped his chest.
"I just finished up my group of Hollows, and thought I'd come check on you. Little did I know I'd find you ogling Orihime." Renji chuckled with an eyebrow raised.
"I wasn't ogling. I was just making sure she was safe. She did walk right through a path where a Hollow was cut down not too long ago." He blushed as he looked away and folded his arms.
"Hm. Whatever you say. Well, if you're done daydreaming about pretty girls, we can~ Hey wait! Where are you going now?!"
"I just want to make sure she gets home alright."
Renji stumbled over his words as he tried to stop Ichigo, but nothing worked. Instead, the red-haired pineapple man just rubbed his face in frustration before following his friends towards Orihime's apartment.
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It didn't take long for them to follow Orihime to her apartment. Once there, the boys sat on a nearby rooftop and watched Orihime enter her apartment.
"She's something, isn't she?"
"Yeah." Ichigo sighed as he placed Zangetsu between his legs and rested against it.
"Sooooo tell me again why you didn't confess to her? Or even tried to tell her how you felt. It's obvious that you like her, a lot. Why didn't you, ya know, do something about it?"
"Oh, and like you told Rukia right off the rip about your feelings." He glared.
"Ya got me there. But the important part is that I manned up and finally did. What's your excuse?"
Ichigo didn't respond for a long while, but when he did, he started with a sigh. "I don't know. Maybe because I'm a big fat chicken. I'm just so use to her being around. At first, I never really paid too much attention to her. I just remember her as the little girl who was bullied for her hair color, like me, and whose brother died in my family's clinic. As we grew older, she never got lost in the crowd because of her beauty, but she was lost to me. After my mom was murdered, I lost interest in everything, especially girls. However, through our adventures, I found comfort in her.
She's warm, has the brightest smile, kind, caring, and she reminded me of my mother. In a way, it felt as if my mother was with me again. With Orihime beside me, I felt invincible. I felt like I had all of the power in my possession, even when I originally lost them. But then we graduated high school. And sure, we run into each other here and there and still fight together, it's not the same… I miss her, Renji. I really miss her. I miss having her around. The way she would call my name, begging me to get up and continue to fight; to win. She was my number one cheerleader and the most important person in my life. I hated the way people would use her against me. I wanted to protect her. But then I saw that she could handle herself. Nowhere as well as us, but she remained strong and brave. It's one of the many reasons I started feeling romantic things for her. This fucking sucks." He groaned as he rubbed the heel of his palm into his eyes.
"Well, why don't you go tell her now? What's stopping you?" Renji asked. Without looking up, Ichigo pointed to the man that walked into Orihime's apartment and kissed her lips tenderly. "Oh… damn dude… That does suck. Sorry man."
"It's alright. It's my fault anyway. At least she's happy. She got tired of waiting for me. At least she's with someone who'll appreciate her. C'mon. Let's go report back. After that, I plan on passing out, and hopefully dying in my sleep."
Renji doesn't say a word as both disappear out of the sky. However, just as that happened, they failed to notice a sad Orihime looking out the window and towards where they used to be. Thanks to her quick thinking, the strawberry-blond woman made the men think that she oblivious to their presence. In actuality, it depressed her. If only Ichigo could hear the truth: that her heart still calls for him. But how long would he take before he realized that she would do anything to be by his side again. She gave a final sigh as she turned her back towards the window and went into the kitchen and cooked kitchen.
A single heavy thought on her mind: "I wished you loved me back, Ichigo."
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The End…?