April 10th. Ichigo and Orihime.

Prompt: sweet on her…

He shoved his right hand nervously into his pocket as he walked home beside her, frowning harder than usual as he fingered the bad shield tickets that Mizuro and Keigo handed to him before he left to bring Orihime back in December.

Turned out that Chad and Ishida already had tickets and he was now left with an extra one. He had reluctantly dismissed the unwanted bubble of Orihime's happy face to the back of his mind and decided it would look weird to the others if he asked her to go instead of Tatsuki. They were already curious about how inconspicuously close he and Chad had become with her over the course of fighting hollow crime together. Keigo would bust an eyelid if he brought her to the concert without an explanation.

Turned out Tatsuki had something else to do and carelessly told him to ask Orihime instead. Fine. Good. It was what he had wanted to do in the first place. I mean, it was fine to do it now that Tatsuki had brought it up.

He was very comfortable with Orihime now after all they had been through, but somehow when it came to her, he always felt self-conscious. Like there was some kind of an invisible line between them he wasn't allowed to cross. He didn't understand why it was freaking hard for him to just spit it out and ask the girl to the concert without sweating profusely. It's not like it was a date. She'd just be hanging out with him and a bunch of other guys like Tatsuki had on occasion. It wasn't a big deal.

But he was keenly aware that he was breaking a sweat over it because it was Orihime. Must be because he was so keenly aware she was a girl unlike most of the other women he knew.

He was weirdly soft on her and he knew it.

Suddenly, he felt the soft touch of her finger poking the dip of the frown on his cheek and he lost his scowl. He shifted to look at her from the corner of his eyes, embarrassed as her cheerful "Kurosaki-kun" brought him out of his glowering daze. "You're frowning…" She lilted, tilting her head cutely at him, "And I thought I was being funny too. Your reaction is out of sync, Kurosaki-kun. Is there something else on your mind?" she inquired simply, curiosity sneaking into warm bottomless brandy eyes he wanted to get drunk on.

He shifted his shifty eyes to the front before he did something stupid and said gruffly, "It's nothing." then got out as casually as he could, "just remembered I had an extra ticket to the bad shield concert thing, courtesy of Mizuro and Keigo. Wanna go?"

She stilled, her cupcake brown eyes widening to a perfect round, a light dusting of pink frosting the slope of her cheekbones, making him feel all the more self-conscious than he already was. What was with his recent trend of likening Orihime's appealing features with confections and beverages that made you lose your damn head?

"Inoue?"

She was taking too long to respond and he was losing his damn head with her taking her own sweet time to come to her senses. He was going to clarify that his invite was casual; in case she ended up turning it down thinking it was a date or something, but she simply beamed at him, eyes sparkling pure bliss, completely surprising him.

"I'd love to. When are we going?" she asked excitedly.

He fished one of the tickets awkwardly from his pocket and handed it to her as he cleared his throat, caught off balance by her easy acceptance. "Great. The rest of the guys will be going too" he rambled," It's in December, next week. 9th or 10th I think, the date's on the ticket. I'll pick you up from your place, so we can go there together…"

He stopped mid-sentence and cringed. Why had he just said that? He just assumed they would go there together, then dismissed this train of thought to add, by way of explanation, "Tatsuki would have my butt if there was any trouble on the way. Best if we leave together right?"

"Oh! Um, Yes Of course! Thank you Kurosaki-kun! I'm looking forward to it." She looked a tad bit disappointed for some reason, but still relatively happy about the entire thing, so he didn't give it much thought.

"Good. No work on the day?"

"Nope. I'm all yours" She said carelessly, and then blushed, smiling sheepishly up at him through her lashes.

"Good." He said again awkwardly, smiling a tad bit goofily back at her.

And ruefully hummed 'All mine' in the wistful spaces of his bright orange head, a warm heat curling his belly at the futile, impossible thought.

Still, a pleasant feeling settled between them as they trudged on in comfortable, contented silence the rest of the way. At the very least, they were getting closer and she didn't seem to mind that much.

He was fine with that. Even as he couldn't help wondering to himself what she would say if he told her he wanted to get closer still… Closer… until there was no space left between them to breathe.

Probably bash both of their hard heads into each other in that adorable unexpected way she tended to sometimes. And try to bring him back to reality, her imagination going wild, thinking an alien had grabbed hold of his stupid mind and taken over him, turning it to sentimental mush.

He didn't think he could bear the pain of her unbearably kind and goofy rejection. It would only hit him more painfully where it hurts and stamp it on every aching cell of his heart how impossibly endearing she was to him and how hopelessly, madly, irrevocably, stupidly, head over heels sweet on her he was.

Damn, she was a sweet incurable disease he didn't want to be rid of.