Monday

8:47 a.m.

"Oy! We're leaving!" Lisa yelled over her shoulder, walking out the open door with Mashiro trailing behind.

The green-haired woman had Orihime tucked under her arm, the girl happily munching on another red bean bun.

"Where are they going?" Kensei asked Love, still wearing his apron from cooking breakfast.

"Shopping for clothes for the kid. Since that's her only outfit and she doesn't even have shoes."

Kensei looked over Orihime's bare feet, tiny pink toes wiggling in delight at her breakfast selection. Then he glanced at the cluttered table, Mashiro's clothing sketches lying in full view on top of the mess.

Kensei quickly yanked off his apron and threw it at Love.

"What are you doing?"

"Going with them. I'm not spending the next few years of my life watching that girl trot around in a matching jumpsuit."

"Have fun," Love said impassively, taking another deliberate sip of coffee.

2:24 p.m.

"Isn't shopping so much fun?" Mashiro squealed, as an exhausted Kensei dumped a pile of shopping bags on the floor.

"Fun?! You made me carry all the bags!"

"But that's because you're so strong! Don't show off all your muscles if you don't want to carry heavy things."

A vein twitched in his forehead.

"He's just mad because that woman thought you two were a couple and Orihime was your daughter," Lisa contributed.

The vein got bigger.

"Though I don't know why she thought that, he's not nearly attractive enough to be father to someone as cute as—"

The other five vizard gathered around surreptitiously to watch the fireworks.

4:33 p.m.

"Stop feeding her so much candy. She's going to get sick," Kensei said lazily from where he was sprawled on the couch. He hadn't moved for the past two hours, claiming that he was still recovering from his shopping session with the girls.

Shinji was sitting on the floor cross-legged in front of Orihime offering treats to get her to say his name. She simply giggled, shouting, "More! More!"

The candy was supposed to be for rewards, but she had charmed her way into half the bag, and then bullied her way into the rest, throwing one of her new tiny pink shoes at Shinji's head.

"Looks like she takes after Hiyori after all," Shinji commented, rubbing his head.

Hiyori shot him a dirty look from where she was reading manga, to which Orihime promptly responded by throwing up all over Shinji's lap.

"Told you," came the smug response from the couch.

7:07 p.m.

"You know, I'm not an expert on human children, but I think she needs to eat something other than red bean buns."

Lisa was looking down at the girl, hand on her hips.

Orihime was still too young to understand well what was going on around her, but her love language was food (scratch that, bread) and as far as she could tell, these new people loved her more than anyone else ever had in her short two years of life.

"You tell her that," Rose rebutted.

He had been the one to cook dinner this time, and set a plate full of steamed vegetables in front of Orihime, on the box that was serving as her temporary table. The orange hair girl was unimpressed and let her feelings known.

She was happily munching her way through her third bun, overturned plate of vegetables lying abandoned and unwanted on the floor.

"We'll make Kensei make her eat proper food tomorrow," Lisa suggested. "He's heartless enough, he can withstand her."

Kensei pulled his headphones away from one of his ears.

"What?"

Thursday

9:54 a.m.

Kensei and Shinji were sparring. Orihime had already become used to this, as frequently as her new family seemed to train.

The sparring was done without masks of course, at least while Orihime was watching. They did not want to frighten the girl and have to reassure that her new family was not made up of terrifying monsters.

They weren't sure they could honestly tell her that they weren't.

This morning was Lisa's turn to entertain her, and the two girls were sitting next to each other peacefully, both fully absorbed in their own reading material.

Kensei ducked as Shinji's sword swung over his head, missing him by a hair's breadth. Kensei retaliated with a swing from his own sword, which Shinji blocked effectively.

The two men paused, allowing the other to catch their breath.

Kensei glanced around the room while he waited for his heart rate to slow. His eyes fell on Orihime sitting quietly next to Lisa, engrossed in the magazine she was slowly flipping through.

He turned back to Shinji and readied his sword.

"Wait, Lisa! What is she reading?!"

Lisa didn't look up when she answered. "Just something that I lent her."

"Did you give her one of your dirty magazines?!"

Lisa glared at him and replied stiffly, "I don't read dirty magazines."

He darted over to where the two were sitting. Orihime looked up at him quizzically.

He grabbed the magazine she had been looking at and shoved it in Lisa's face. "Then what do you call this?!"

"I'm just giving her a lesson on female anatomy. There's nothing wrong with that."

Kensei grabbed a startled Orihime and threw her over his shoulder. He strode out of the room, presumably to find more age appropriate reading material.

Shinji stood alone where not a minute ago, he had been sparring with Kensei. He yawned, bored.

"Who's next?"