A/N: Woot! Early update! Don't get used to it ;) Leave a review!

Tuesday

8:14 a.m.

Orihime's biggest life change occurred during breakfast one morning as she was fishing out the last few stubborn grains of rice stuck to the bottom of her bowl with her chopsticks.

Mashiro was trying to convince Kensei that they needed to go on another shopping trip for the quickly growing Orihime, to which he reluctantly agreed. The girl desperately needed new clothes after a sudden growth spurt, and Kensei had put it off as long as humanly possible.

"Aren't human children supposed to start going to school around her age?" Lisa mentioned offhandedly over her own rice bowl. "You can pick up her school clothes while you're out."

Kensei was struck speechless for the first time he could remember. It had been several years since he had attended the Soul Reaper Academy as an aspiring soul reaper and even longer since he'd been to a human school as a living being. He looked over thoughtfully at Orihime who had given up all attempt at etiquette, abandoning her chopsticks and picking up each grain of rice with her tiny fingers, chatting with them before happily popping them in her mouth.

"You sure she's ready to be around other humans yet?" Hiyori muttered, throwing Orihime a patronizing look that the younger girl didn't notice.

Thursday

2:36 p.m.

Kensei dumped Orihime's new clothes into a pile on the couch and collapsed next to it, rubbing his eyes. The white-haired vizard hated shopping. He found himself dragged on shopping expeditions more frequently now that Orihime was growing so quickly and he didn't really expect it to let up anytime soon.

Orihime began to dig through the pile excitedly, running her hands admiringly over the colorful garments she had picked out. She paused as she found an outfit she had definitely not chosen: a plain white shirt with a collar paired with a pleated blue skirt. She noticed there were a few others like it in the pile.

She scrunched her nose and looked at Kensei in confusion.

"I didn't pick these out!" she insisted. "These are Lisa's!"

He looked over at the outfit she was holding.

"That's your new school uniform," he explained. "You have to wear it when you start school next week."

Orihime looked back at the clothing and saw that they were indeed Orihime-sized and would not fit the much taller vizard. "What's school?" she asked.

"It's a place where kids go every day to learn."

Orihime couldn't imagine what more there was that she needed to learn that she didn't know already.

"Learn what?" she demanded.

"How to read and write, how to do math, how to—"

"Do we get to watch Anpanman there?" Orihime had her priorities in the right place.

"No."

Orihime threw down her new uniform in disgust. "School sounds dumb!" she shouted as she ran out of the room to find someone who would share in her horror at this new injustice.

2:48 p.m.

So far, Orihime had failed to find a sympathetic audience.

"It'll be good for you," Shinji said lazily, cleaning out his ear with his pinky finger. "You'll meet other kids your age."

"You can learn how to play a musical instrument," Rose offered.

"And start reading manga," Love added from where he was absorbed in the newest copy of Shonen Jump.

"And I can start babysitting less," Hiyori complained.

Orihime decided to take her grievances elsewhere.

2:54 p.m.

She found Lisa on the couch reading a magazine.

"Why do you wear clothes like my new school uniform? Is it because you have to go to school, too?"

Lisa looked up at the child over the rims of her glasses.

"I wear these clothes because they're stylish," she sniffed.

"Is it because you failed? If I fail, do I have to keep going to school too, even when I'm all old and wrinkly? What if I invent a robot that looks exactly like me and I send her to school instead, and then I can stay at home and watch TV all day and then when she gets home she can just tell me everything she learned and then I'll invent a jet pack so she can—"

Lisa grabbed the still chattering Orihime around the waist and all but threw her out of the room.

2:57 p.m.

Orihime lost no momentum and quickly sought out her last hope.

"What if when I go to school it turns out it's full of Orihimes just like me?" she fretted to Mashiro. "Like someone kidnapped me and made a copy of me when I was a baby and then they all grew up and went to the same school as me and they decide they have enough Orihimes already and don't like me."

Mashiro didn't react like Orihime expected. Instead, the green-haired vizard patted Orihime gently on the head and said calmly, "Orihime, you'll be the only you at the school. All of the other kids will be different and I'm sure you'll get along with them just fine."

Hachi watched the exchange silently from the background.

Mashiro continued. "And I bet a lot of them will be cute boys! And they'll bring you flowers and write you poetry and then you'll find out that one of them has a mysterious past and is actually a vampire in disguise! And then—"

Hachi stopped her before she could get too worked up.

"Mashiro, you need to stop reading so many weird romance novels."

3:42 p.m.

"This is it, Orihime. Karakura Elementary—your new school," Rose announced that afternoon on the way to pick up ingredients for dinner.

They had gone slightly out of their way so that he could show her the tall building where she would start spending the majority of her time away from her family. Orihime still wasn't convinced that it wasn't a prison.

Holding tightly to Rose's hand, she peered around the entrance into the courtyard. School was already in session and had dismissed for the day, but Orihime could see a group of children kicking around a black and white ball with their feet, trying to keep it away from each other.

"They're playing soccer—it's a rather popular sport. It's something you can start playing too if you'd like."

Orihime observed the children warily for a few moments. As she watched, a girl with short, spiky black hair kicked the ball into a wide, rectangular enclosure sealed with a net. A boy in front of the enclosure tried to stop the ball with his foot, but stumbled and fell to the ground in tears. The girl shouted her victory, jumping up and down. Orihime watched as her team congratulated her, and her heart skipped a beat when their eyes met across the field.

Orihime tugged at Rose's hand to leave.

Sunday

8:12 p.m.

It was the night before the big day and Orihime had her new uniform hung up on a chair in her room. Kensei was standing by the door, about to turn out the lights.

"Are you going to make me breakfast tomorrow?" she asked, her mind already on her next meal.

"Alright," he said, after a moment. "What do you want?"

"Spaghetti!"

He regarded her silently, eyebrows raised.

"You're weird."