IchiHime's Escape from Vegas Chapter 3: Singing Chad, a bleach fanfic

Okay people, chapter 3 is out.

I don't own Bleach, Kubo Tite does.

( ) = background singers.

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IchiHime's Escape from Vegas: Chapter 3

Singing Chad

Ichigo and Orihime waited patiently until Uryu was done to enter is hotel room. Luckily for them the hotel Mizuiro had originally set up for them was nowhere near a casino. It had been hard enough to pull Uryu away from the poker tournament, the last thing they needed was a relapse. Orihime handed him the coffee she had gotten for him out of a vending machine down the hall. He had taken the time to shower and change into a clean set of clothes.

"Thank you Inoue." Uryu said, taking the cup and drinking deeply.

"Are you okay now Ishida-kun?" Orihime asked as he sat on the edge of his bed.

"Yes, thank you for dragging me away from that degenerate game. I don't know what came over me to compel me to act the way I did."

"Yeah, especially since you were the one most against gambling." Ichigo said, not about to let him off the hook for the kicks he'd delivered to the orange haired teen in his frenzy to return to the poker tournament, "We had to drag out like a kid in a candy store. A spoiled kid."

"Once again, I apologize." Uryu said, but his voice betrayed the deep annoyance he was feeling.

"Eh, whatever." Ichigo waved it off, "So what do we do now. You have no idea where anyone else is and we still need to find them."

"How did you find me?"

"We pulled the stuff out of our pockets. I figured we must have gathered some stuff as we drunkenly went through the city we picked stuff up. I found a ticket saying you'd entered the poker tournament so we went there."

"Then I suggest we go through the contents of your pockets again." Uryu finished his coffee, the tiredness in his eyes disappearing, "Put everything on the bed."

Uryu stood up and let the pair empty their pockets onto the bed. Ichigo took another look at all the items, nothing sticking out to him like last time. There were two match boxes from the club they had gone to, although he already knew they'd been there. But as he reached down to scoop them up he noticed something. It looked to be a folded piece of paper, but when he grabbed it and unfolded it, it was a napkin.

"Was this in your pocket Inoue?" Ichigo asked as he looked at the blank tissue.

"Yeah, it was." Orihime answered, looking just as confused as Ichigo at the thing.

"Look on the other side." Uryu said crisply.

Ichigo did and saw only one thing scrawled on the top,

Hey babe, call me later.

Justin 555-9043

Ichigo read it once, then again, and finally a third time. It took everything he had to keep from ripping up the piece of napkin as a burst of anger shot through him.

"Who the hell is Justin!' Ichigo thought furiously, 'Does every guy think they stand a chance with Inoue now? If I ever find this guy I'm going to- . . . . . . Wait, why am I so pissed?'

"Uh, who's Justin?" Ichigo asked, still trying to figure out his sudden anger.

"I . . . um . . . I don't know." Orihime replied, not sure how to take the fact that a total stranger had not only called her 'Babe' but given her his number.

"Look at the corner." Uryu ordered in a calm voice.

Ichigo did and saw a small monogram. The design was catchy and the name of a bar, along with its address, was listed right below the symbol. Ichigo looked at Justin's message, to Orihime, then at the monogram, and then finally to Uryu.

"Why does this matter?" Ichigo asked, his annoyance showing through, still ticked about the 'Justin' thing.

Uryu sighed then stood and looked Ichigo in the eye, "Having this napkin means you were most likely at the bar sometime last night. Since I was the first person to leave the group then it's also likely that, that is were you went next. Even if the latter is untrue it still means that you went there at some point." He calmly explained.

"Oh." Was all Ichigo could say, Uryu's explanation made perfect sense.

"Then I guess we're going to a bar." Orihime piped up, reaching down to put the items back in her pockets.

"I'll go get a cab." Uryu said, heading out the door.

"And you can pay for it this time." Ichigo called out after him, not forgetting that Uryu had a lot of money now.

He quickly reached down to get his own items. Since Orihime started first she was out the door before him, but paused outside to wait for him. The last thing Ichigo grabbed was the boxes of matches from the club. He was heading to go out the door as he put the boxes in his pocket when he heard a rattling in one. He stopped and shook the rattling box again. His curiosity got the better of him, realizing that the box was also a little too heavy for just holding matches. He opened it up and saw a ring. Ichigo flipped the box over and dropped the ring into his right palm. It wasn't extravagant or expensive looking, just a simple ring. Ichigo stared at it for a second before slipping it onto his right ring finger, he didn't know why he did but it fit perfectly.

"Kurosaki-kun, are you okay?" Orihime's voice came from the other side of the door.

"Yeah, I'm fine." Ichigo replied, forgetting about the ring, tossing the empty match box in the trash, and heading out the door, "Let's go." He led Orihime down the hall and outside.

True to his word, Uryu had gotten them a taxi. They fit into the back seat and told the driver to take them to the location of the bar. The bar was quite a distance away from all the casino's, lucky for them, and was in another section of the city. As the cab driver stopped he turned back for his pay. Ichigo pushed Orihime out of the back and quickly followed, leaving Uryu to pay. As they stepped out Ichigo and Orihime took a long look at the bar. The front was just a wall with a door, but the name of the bar was painted over the top, and it was a karaoke bar.

"A karaoke bar?" Ichigo asked in surprise, "We go on vacation to another country and we go to a karaoke bar?"

"It's not like we do that every night Kurosaki-kun." Orihime tried to explain, "And I've never heard you sing karaoke."

"Yeah, for a good reason."

"Whatever you reason is will have to wait Kurosaki." Uryu walked up behind them after he finished paying the cab fare, "We need to go in and see if the patrons remember anything."

Wordlessly, they all entered the bar. Because of the time of day it was pretty much empty, having only a bartender stocking and fixing things at the bar and a few waitresses organizing tables and chairs and cleaning up the place. When they first came in none of the patrons took notice but eventually the bartenders eyes landed on them and he smiled widely.

"Well, well, look who it is." He said loudly to catch everyone's attention. The waitresses stopped their organizing and smiled at the three.

"Um, are you talking to me?" Orihime asked.

"Not just you," he pointed at Ichigo, "him too. After his little show tons of people got on stage and sung their hearts out. Lots of drinking too. Business was really booming last night thanks to him." He reached down below the counter and then set a large trophy on it, "You forgot this when you left last night too."

The group walked up to take a good look at the trophy. It was a cheap one, made of two columns from the base holding up a plastic figure that was singing into a microphone. The plate at the bottom had an inscription.

Ichigo Kurosaki

1st Place: Karaoke Contest

Ichigo visibly turned pale after he read the plate. There was no way, no way, he had sung karaoke. But here was the proof before him. He was just thanking his lucky stars he couldn't remember that.

"Wow, first place Kurosaki-kun." Orihime clapped her hands together in congratulations.

"Uh . . . really?" Ichigo asked.

"Yeah, that other friend of yours was good but not as good as you." The bartender commented.

"Right!" Ichigo almost yelled, suddenly remembering why they had come, "How many of us were here when we showed up?"

"Your group." The bartender stopped what he was doing to think, "I'm sure, counting you two, there were eight of you in the group. I didn't get a good look at any of you but I know there were eight. I especially remember the big guy."

"So Chad was with us." Ichigo said mostly to himself.

"Yep, like I said, he wasn't as good as you on stage though."

"Huh! Chad sang!" Surprise was not only on Ichigo's face, but Orihime and Uryu's too. Chad was usually quite, what would compel him to get up and sing?

"Yeah, I have a video if you guys wanna see."

As they all gave nods the bartender led them further back into the place. Against the back wall was a large screen, a stage, a set of lights pointed at the stage along with cameras, a pedestal set in front of the stage, and a microphone on the pedestal. The pedestal was the computer used to select songs, and after a little fiddling around with it, the bartender brought up a video file. When it played the stage was empty but there was noise as the bar was busy. Eventually they all saw Ichigo find his way on the stage, still intoxicated from the club, and begin sorting through the music selection.

"What the hell!" Ichigo yelled, "I thought you said you were going to show us Chad; why are you showing me!"

"You were on before the big guy." The bartender answered, "Besides, I wanna see your performance again.

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The noise of the crowd grew a little quieter as Ichigo got on stage and started making his selection. His expression changed from scowling, to a deeper scowl, to one of surprise, then a small smile and nod as he pushed the button to make his selection. He grabbed the microphone and stepped back to the center of the stage as the computer took a few seconds to upload the selection to the stereo.

"Uh." He spoke into the microphone, his voice showing he had definitely been drinking, "I'd like to dedicate this song to a special girl out in the audience." He smiled out into the audience and then the music started.

"We're no strangers to love baby, you know the rules and so do I

A full commitments what I'm thinking of, you wouldn't get this from any other guy

I just wanna tell you how I'm feeling, gotta make you understand