Oookay, so iot's been a super long time since I updated this story, and I apologize to anyone and everyone that had and is still keeping tabs on it. Truth be told, I'm just a lazy SOB (er, DOB?).

Also, as stated at the top of my profile, I'm editing what I had written up for this story because I fucked up my own timeline. Oops.

This is the new and (slightly) edited chapter.

Shopping with the two girls I had literally bumped into felt more like a guided tour than anything else, what with Orihime spouting an informative monologue on just about everything. I had quickly come to the conclusion that while she was a seemingly kind girl, she was an absolute air-head, and I found her voice annoying as hell; it sounded as if it was ripped right out of a sappy shoujo anime.

Anyway, I finished buying all my school junk like pencils, paper, and a cheap 1-inch three-ringed binder. Apparently, they were shopping for similar items, so they finished at about the same time I did and we said our good-byes and split up. Honestly, and I know this makes me a bitch, I was glad to go; there was only so much of Orihime Inoue I could handle. By now, it was starting to get dark, so I headed home and got there in time to eat dinner while it was still warm. The rest of the evening was pretty uneventful, and a while later I went to bed.

~~Time Lapse~~

It had been a week since Mom and I had arrived in Karakura town, and we had adjusted pretty well. At least, I had, and I'm pretty sure Mom had, too, as I hadn't heard any complaints yet. It was a Sunday, the day before school started, and I was hanging out at the Urahara Shop. Of course I had purchased something to eat (so I wasn't loitering), and Cool-Hat Guy didn't seem to mind my presence, anyway. At the moment, I was sitting on the small patch of pavement in front of the building, watching he clouds float by, seeing if I could discern any shapes in them. So far I'd found a dog and a weird-ass fusion between a horse, a fish, and an elephant. Don't ask. I looked down to grab another milk-flavored Pocky stick from the box sitting next to me and jumped slightly to see Yoruichi sitting there, facing me and watching. As I sat there, unmoving, hand only half-way to the nibbles I craved, the cat's tail twitched in what I swear to God was amusement or something.

"Y'know," I started, placed my hands on the knees of my crossed legs and leaning down to look at her on eye level, "I like animals. I like cats. But –and don't take this the wrong way or anything- you kinda creep me out." The cat blinked and her amusement seemed to grow. "Hey, I'm just speakin' the truth here!" I exclaimed, although not too loudly while making a mock angry-pouty face, "Stop laughing!"

I swear to God if cats could smile, this one did, and the tip of her tail continued to twitch. I continued to stare at her with what I would think was a weird –and only slightly hilarious- look on my face. Not looking away, I slowly reached for my Pocky, drew out two sticks, and stuck one in my mouth. The other I held out to Yoruichi, and speaking around the Pocky –talking with my mouth full, I know, shame on me, whatever- I smirked and said, "I like you, Cat." After a couple seconds of continuing to stare at me and laugh, Yoruichi took the Pocky stick and meandering into the shop.

"She seems to like you, Takanada-chan!"

"Geebus!" I exclaimed, jumping about a foot in the air. How I managed that with my legs crossed, I don't know. I whipped my head around, embarrassed, to see Cool-Hat Guy standing there, looking just as amused as his cat had. I looked sadly at the ground in front of me, where the other half of the Pocky I had in my mouth lay; I had accidently bitten it when I jumped. Quickly, I picked it up, blew on it, and popped it into my mouth.

"You're eating that?" Urahara asked incredulously.

"Thirty-second rule."

"Isn't it supposed to be three seconds?"

"That's for ninnies."

"Hahahaha!"

Not too long after that I left the Urahara Shop and headed back home.

"Hey, Saika, what do you want in your lunch tomorrow?" Mom asked as I stepped in through the door. I closed it and walked into the kitchen where I saw her with a spread of cooking stuff on the counter, as well as two bento boxes; hers, of course, had a background that faded from pink to white with sakura petals and a yellow, Milky Way-like pattern on it with little spots and sparkles painted to look like stars or something. Mine was plain dark red; I planned on decorating it with stickers and stuff later. About two months before we moved from the States, Mom had started studiously cooking Japanese food, and I'll admit I think she got pretty good at it.

"Uh, how about some sweet tamagoyaki*?" I suggested, and she nodded and happily began working. I asked if she wanted help but she said no, so I went upstairs and got my school stuff ready for tomorrow.

~~Next Day~~

I got up a bit earlier than I normally would have to, leaving myself time to show up at school about fifteen minutes earlier than necessary so I could take care of stuff at the front office. Mom said she had pretty much taken care of things last week, but I still needed to pick up my books and schedule, as well as actually find my class. I got dressed in my white shirt and grey blazer, and I untied the cutsey bowtie they expected me to wear and instead wore it around my neck like a small scarf, tying it off on one side so that it kinda resembled a bandana but with less bulk around my neck. The skirt, sadly, I couldn't directly improve on, but at least it wasn't as short as I thought it was gonna be. It actually reached a couple inches past my knees, so it covered up the leggings I wore under it. I left my hair down, grabbed my school crap, and made my way downstairs quietly; Mom's English classes didn't start 'til later so she wasn't up yet. Snagging my bento outta the fridge, I left my house and made my way to Karakura High.

An uneventful walk later I found my way to the main office of the school, where, surprisingly, things went pretty smoothly about getting the rest of my shit together. They had my books ready for me, and the oh-so-nice lady at the desk handed me my class schedule. 'Why can't things be this easy in America?!' I thought bitterly, giving the woman a two-fingered salute in thanks as I left.

I found my classroom easily enough, and walked in only to see a few students in there. Well, I say a few, but actually there was only one. He looked tall, and was skinny with dark, somewhat long hair and square wire-framed glasses. He was sitting at a desk reading a book , and immediately Piccolo from DBZ Abridged flashed through my head, shouting, "NEEEEEEERD!" Suppressing a snicker, I gave a half a wave in response to his nod in acknowledgement when I entered and looked at the chalk board, where our teacher had kindly drawn out the seating chart. Apparently I sat behind some chick named Ichigo; seemed like our teacher was not one for the whole alphabetical order thing. Ichigo's name was spelled differently than "strawberry", but I'd bet my left kidney her friends flipped her shit about it. Well, if she had friends like me, they would, but who knows, they might actually be nice people.

After a bit people started filtering in and, since class hadn't started yet, sat in groups chit-chatting with the people they knew. Me? I was content watching, until…

"Ah, Takanada-san!"

Turning, I saw Orihime and Arisawa walking in, and Orihime was waving energetically at me, so I decided to haul my butt out of my seat and say hello. I was just about within comfortable speaking distance when Orihime got jumped by a red-headed chick who proceeded to, right there in front of God and everybody, molest to poor girl while squawkin' about how attractive she was. Arisawa went into a rage, yelling something along the lines of, "Chizuru, get your perverted lesbian hands off of Inoue!"

"The fuck?" I muttered, dead-panning.

"Don't worry, that's normal," someone from behind me said, and I turned to see a guy who was a few inches shorter than me standing there. He had short black hair that kinda tapered on both sides and black eyes. "Are you a friend of Orihime's? She seemed to know you."

"Not really," I replied bluntly, "I just met her and Arisawa yesterday."

"Ah. I'm Kojima, Mizuiro, by the way."

"Takanada, Saika. Nice to meet you."

"MIZUIRO!" someone –a guy- squawked, and with the same dead-pan expression I turned to the door, through which two more guys had walked. The noisy one was a few inches taller than me with brown, slightly upturned hair and brown eyes. "Who's this fair lady you haven't introduced me to?!" Next thing I know is the guy's spouting off crap about beach-parties and dates and whatnot. "Ah, you should come with me t-!"

BAM!

"Shut the hell up!"

The brunette wailed in pain and clutched at his face with one hand and pointing an accusing finger at me with the other. "How cruel! We only just met! And Ichigo!" At this he whipped his hand to face the he had come in with, "How could you! I'm your friend! And you both did it at the same time! How weird! Traitor!"

I turned to the "Ichigo" person as the brunette continued to cry and pout noisily, already surprised to have heard a masculine voice join mine in yelling at his friend. This guy was tall, like six inches taller than me, with bright orange spikey hair and brown eyes, and a perma-scowl on his face. "Sorry about him," the guy said, rubbing the back of his head, "Name's Kurosaki, Ichigo."

"Takanada, Saika. Wait, Kurosaki? Hmm…I've heard that somewhere…Ah, Kurosaki Clinic! I met your dad and youngest sister!"

"Ah, that's right, I remember Yuzu talking about someone giving her baking tips or something, and Dad spazzing about a new friend at school…"

"He spazzed when I told him that wasn't likely, too."

"Why's that?"

"Dude," I blurted, jerking my thumb in the direction of Kurosaki's bawling friend, "I've been in this town barely a week, this is my first day of school, and I just sent a stranger's face into a desk. That strike you as 'sociable' behavior?"

"Point taken. That's Asano, Keigo, by the way, and he's always like that."

"Noted," I replied, and at that moment the teacher walked in and told us to take our seats. It was at that point, when the ginger sat in front of me, that it sunk into my obviously-not-very-attentive brain that HE was the Ichigo "chick" for whom I had been feeling slight pity for earlier.

I think I did a pretty good job of keeping my snickers unnoticed as class started.

The rest of the day was pretty uneventful; I ate lunch in the classroom, teachers came in and prattled on about crap I didn't really care about, and the final bell rang. Since I didn't have much else to do, and Mom wouldn't be getting back from work until later, I decided to head over to the Urahara Shop and hang out. I'd been going over there often the past week and essentially loitering, but I bought stuff and Cool Hat Guy didn't seem to mind so it was okay.

"Aa~h! Takanada-chan!" Urahara exclaimed, waving his fan at me, "Welcome!"

"Hey!" I called, flashing a peace sign.

"I see you survived your first day of school! How was it?"

"I met the last of the Kurosakis and sent his friend's face into a desk," I stated bluntly, "But other than that it was pretty boring."

"Takanada-chan," Urahara started, and I could practically see the anime sweat-drop rolling down his head, "That's… not very lady-like."

"I get that a lot," I replied. Urahara moved to the side of the door so I could enter the store, and immediately I went browsing through the nummy stuff. "Oh, hey, you got a new riceball flavor!" I browsed for a couple more minutes before I got what I usually did; riceball, package of dango in the brown sauce, and a Ramune soda.

"By the way," Urahara started as he rang up my stuff, "I have a new shipment of candy! They're new to the shop, and I was wondering if you'd try one? I think an opinion would be good to have before I threw it on the shelves!" He held up something that looked like a Pez dispenser with a duck head on the top, and on the side it said "Soul Candy".

"Uh, sure?"

"Great!"

I held out my hand, and Urahara pushed down on the duck's head –poor little duck- and out popped a round green candy from the thing's mouth. I threw the candy into my mouth, expecting it to be like a coated chocolate. What I got was a sudden rush as my face was rudely introduced to the floor.

Chapter 4! Woot!