Disclaimer: I do not own Bleach. It belongs to Tite Kubo.
Title: Box of Chocolates
Pairing: One sided Ichigo/Orihime, some Ichi/Ruki
Inspiration: Heartbreak
She was right all along. He never loved her.
Orihime yawned and lifted her arms over her head, stretching. She knew that it was late, and Homecoming should have been over by an hour ago. But no one was returning.
Orihime had opted out of going to Homecoming with excuses of studying for her pre-Calculus finals. She stared at the pile of books laid out in front of her and then she glanced at the clock behind her on the wall. It was half past 11. Chills ran down her back as she gathered her things and put them away in her backpack. So she stood up and walked to her closet to get a sweater.
She turned the closet light on and pushed open the door. Orihime shoved some hangers aside only to come across the dress she had bought for Homecoming. It was dark blue, her favorite color. The saddest thing wasn't that she couldn't wear it, but it was that the person she had bought it for would never see it.
She shivered once more when the doorbell rang. Part of her willed her not to answer the door.
But she didn't listen.
She never did.
Orihime unlocked the door and turned the doorknob. The door creaked open by its own weight. She pulled at her pajama shorts; she was sure they had ridden up when she was studying.
"Who is it?" She called out in an attempt of stopping, but it was too late. The person on the other side had let himself in. His hair was disheveled; his black tie was loose around his neck and crooked. The buttons on his white button-down were mismatched. She could smell the alcohol on him.
"H-hey." It was Ichigo.
Orihime didn't want to see him anymore, much less talk to him. And here he was, standing outside of her house late in the night.
"What do you need?" She crossed her arms over her chest so he wouldn't be able to stare down her.
"Can we talk?" He slurred shamelessly.
She wasn't going to let him stand in the cold October night, so she reluctantly let him in. He took his worn out sneakers off and shoved them next to her delicate ballet flats.
She directed him to the living room where they stood awkwardly. Orihime couldn't stand the silence so she turned away and went to the kitchen to start a cup of tea.
When the kettle started to whistle, Orihime shut the stove off and grabbed the kettle. She poured the water into a mug, steeped the tea, and threw out the teabag after draining it. Then she went back to him.
But she couldn't find him.
Her house was small; there weren't many places he could be. At first she thought he was in the bathroom, throwing up from all of the alcohol he had drank, but when she came to the bathroom, it was dark and empty. She sighed and left the mug of tea for him, just in case he was to stop by there.
Orihime turned around and headed to her bedroom, thinking that he left. She opened her room's door to find him in her room.
He was standing with his back facing her and her closet was opened further. Her blue dress was out of its hanger and in his hands.
"What are you doing with my dress?" She walked up to him.
"We missed you at Homecoming. Tatsuki wanted to know where you were." His chestnut eyes drifted to the bodice of the dress. "You would've looked beautiful in this."
The feelings that she had tucked away; the anger, the hurt, had broken free from their barrier and all her ire spilled over.
She reached out and ripped the dress from his hands. She hugged the dress to her chest protectively.
The tears fell from her cloud eyes as she shrieked, "How could you go into my room and dig through my things? This is my home, Ichigo. You have no right to come traipsing into my house, drunk, after you have obviously been busy, and tell me you missed me and that I would have looked beautiful. Don't you understand what you're doing to me?"
He started to say something, but she cut him off by continuing.
"How can you even begin to say those kinds of things when you just told me I'm only your friend a few days ago? When you just got a girlfriend right before that? How dare you?" She cried as the teardrops fell.
"Dammit, Orihime! Can't you see I'm trying here? I'm trying to fix things between us. I'm really trying." He snapped out of his drunken stupor.
"Fix what, Ichigo? We never had anything to begin with." Orihime stopped yelling, but her tears had not faded.
"Of course we did!" Ichigo cried, clearly exasperated.
"What? What did we have, Ichigo?" Orihime asked him. She wasn't being sarcastic or rhetorical. She just wanted answers.
"I…I don't know. But we had something." He stumbled for his reply. They were both desperate now.
Orihime stopped crying, and she could say what he really needed to hear from her.
"I know. I know what we had. I know what we could have had. But now, now we have nothing. You made sure of that. I didn't give you up. You gave me up." She asserted. She wasn't going to passive anymore. She had found her voice.
And then it happened so quickly. Before she knew what was happening, Ichigo pulled her to him and kissed her.
Fireworks set off in Orihime's head, a warning signal for her to stop kissing him.
He tasted like whiskey.
Before she could react, he pushed her away like he always did. His hands drew away from her waist and instead, they were on her shoulders, keeping her at arm's distance.
Ichigo looked at her with mortified eyes and in a state of aftershock he rushed out, "That…that shouldn't have happened. None of this should have happened. I shouldn't even be here. Oh, god. I need to go."
He headed out of her room in a hurry, gathering his things quickly. She trailed behind him, appalled. He was already at the door by the time she reached him. He turned the doorknob, and he looked behind him at her. Ichigo's chocolate eyes searched her fog eyes, but couldn't find anything.
In a final act of desperation he whispered, "I'm sorry," before walking out of her house.
Orihime closed the door when he left and turned around. But instead of going back to her room, she slid to the floor, sobbing.
She couldn't do this anymore. She just couldn't. She was done.
This was a monster to write. Thank God it's done! Thanks to sakurachild for helping out by writing that outline I so desperately needed! (Thanks for all of teh reviews. Reviews are like little love letters!) ~A