Holy...crap.

NINETEEN REVIEWS for last chapter alone?

I wish I could, like, marry all of you. But I'm relatively sure that's considered polygamy, so I can't.

But I can give you cookies and plushie of your favorite character!

So, um, this has been beta'd by the amazing Copper. Love her!

Do I look like I own Bleach? No, I don't.

"So what kind of errands do you have to run?" Ichigo asked the girl next to him from under the safety of his umbrella.

Orihime looked up from under her own umbrella. The rain had made a return and now the street were darkened and wet with large puddles everywhere. He had to admit, at least to himself, that Orihime was definitely wet dream material in her formfitting school uniform with its short skirt, along with her light blue flowered umbrella, overly large galoshes and her long, black sweater.

"Well, I want to stop by the burn site to see how it's going. There's also a bakery that's close that I want to stop in. I also need to stop by the dry-cleaners and if we have time, we could stop by this little yakisoba shop that's excellent and cheap," Orihime answered thoughtfully. "Oh, and I should get more clothes, so I need to go to a consignment store as well."

Ichigo couldn't help a grimace and she evidently noticed, judging by her slight smile. "I said you didn't have to come, Kurosaki-kun."

He merely grunted as the pair continued down the street. Kisuke had called Rukia to his shop for something, which was how it wound up being the two of them. Tatsuki had not yet returned from her forced vacation and Ichigo had blatantly refused to allow Chizuru to accompany them, despite her threats and complaints.

"Here we are! Our first stop," Orihime's cheerful voice broke through the comfortable silence as she paused outside the small, quaint-looking bakery.

"Here?" Ichigo confirmed as they entered the small store, almost immediately hit with the delicious smell of fresh pastries.

" Yup! I'm pretty good friends with the owner. He usually gives me a discount, in return for me watching his children for free. He is always willing to try out anything I can think of. He makes the best guacamole-carrot muffins," she told him, oblivious to the way Ichigo's face greened.

Guacamole-carrot muffins? He thought in disbelief, pulling a face despite himself when her back was turned.

"Ah, Orihime-san!" A deep masculine voice called, as a short, balding, heavyset man entered from the back, a cheerful smile on his face.

"Takayama-san, good to see you!" She greeted politely, turning to look at the bakery owner.

"It's been too long, my dear. And who's this young lad behind you? Your boyfriend?" There was a teasing glint in Takayama-san's deep blue eyes as he spoke.

Orihime flushed deeply. "This is Kurosaki Ichigo, a classmate of mine. We're just spending the day together," Orihime denied, vehemently.

"Like a date?"

Her blush deepened. "Takayama-san!"

"Ho ho ho! I'm just teasing my dear," The older man told her lightly as he tied a white apron around his waist. "I just finished making some of those muffins you love so much. Would you like some?"

"Oh, yes, please. Half a dozen please," she responded, earning a nod and another smile as Takayama-san disappeared into the back. She picked up a hand basket before turning to look at the silent Kurosaki. "Would you like anything, Kurosaki-kun? I highly recommend the Kabocha Korokke. It's to die for," She reached for some of the very pastries she had praised, placing them in her basket.

"Nah."

"Are you sure?" She turned, placing a small loaf of warm bread in as well.

"Yeah. Not that hungry," Ichigo answered, following her as she wandered throughout the small store.

After picking up a few more items, consisting of a couple croissants, a chocolate-chip muffin in case he changed his mind later, and a blueberry muffin for her, she returned to the checkout where her bag of muffins were waited.

"How much, Takayama-san?" She asked, pulling out her wallet. The bakery owner waved it away.

"It's on the house, my dear girl. I heard about your home. Tell me, where are you staying? I may not have a lot of room, but you're welcome here," He asked, bagging up the purchases.

"Arigato, Takayama-san, but it's not necessary. Kurosaki-kun and his family were kind enough to let me stay with them," she assured, taking her free purchases.

"Oh, really? Well, take good care of my Orihime-san, okay Kurosaki-san?" He teased, bidding them a cheerful farewell.

"I can see why you liked him," Ichigo commented as the door closed behind them, watching as she dug out a korokke and bit into it, wiggling in pleasure at the taste. She chewed languorously, before swallowing. Just watching her made him want to try one.

While he had never been very fond of Kabocha pumpkin, and therefore the Kabocha korokke, her reaction had him wondering if it was really that good.

"Mm hmm. Takayama-san has always been rather kind to me. Tatsuki-chan met him once and immediately liked him! His children are a lot like him: complete angels," She answered thickly, swallowing once more. She pulled out one more and was about to bite into it when she noticed Ichigo staring at the flaky piece of food. She offered it to him instead. "Would you like it, Kurosaki-kun?"

He accepted the pastry slowly, his long, callused fingers brushing her small ones accidentally, a spark of electricity racing up her arm.

Startled, she almost dropped the korokke before Ichigo snagged it. Her cheeks flushed and she dropped her gaze to the concrete as she noticed the faintest flicker of smugness deep within his dark brown eyes, which remained focused on her as he ate the Kabocha korokke.

"So, um" she cleared her throat awkwardly. "The burn site is on the way to the dry-cleaners, so we can stop by briefly."

Chewing, he nodded slowly. The korokke really was quite good.

Still embarrassed, they collapsed into a tensed, awkward silence.

"So this is it, eh?"

Ichigo crossed his arms over his chest as he stared at the remains of what once had been Inoue's apartment. The petite beauty stood next to him with a faint smile on. "Yup, this is it." She agreed, unconsciously beginning to nibble on the cuticle of her thumb. "It looks like they've begun cleaning up, though." Orihime continued, noting the piles of burned debris piled around. "It looked a lot worse than this a few days ago."

Looking at the rubble, Ichigo found that difficult to believe.

"Orihime-san?" A new, feminine voice broke into their conversation and the mentioned female turned to look at the speaker.

"Oh, Shinmura-san! Is something the matter?" Orihime asked cheerfully. The older woman smiled at the energetic young woman motherly and shook her head.

"Iie, I was just wondering if you had found a place to stay? You had mentioned that your friend was out of town a few days ago, so I was naturally worried," The woman spoke, holding her broom loosely in her hand.

Orihime nodded her head happily, gesturing towards the substitute shinigami beside her with a small hand. "Hai, I was. Kurosaki-kun was kind enough to allow me to spend some time with him and his family until Tatsuki-chan can get back," she explained with another beaming smile.

A second later, Ichigo felt the older woman's contemplative stare on him and he stared blandly back. To him, she looked noticeably more fierce than she had when she was talking with his cheerful companion. Finally, grudgingly, he nodded his head in a sort of would-be respectful bow and after a moment of more staring, she finally gave a half-hearted smile to him.

"Well, I've been getting your mail for the last few days, so here it is," she pulled a relatively thick sack of cream envelopes from a pocket in her apron and passed them to the surprised-looking girl.

"Thank you, Shinmura-san!" She thanked, tucking the stack away for safety.

"It's no problem, dear," the woman smiled maternally at the naïve girl before Orihime checked her watch.

"Oh, Kurosaki-kun, we need to get to the dry cleaners before they close today. Bye, Shinmura-san! I'll see you soon!" Then the exuberant girl took Ichigo's hand and tugged him away insistently. Ichigo went along willingly, glad to be away from Shinmura-san and her over-analyzing stare.

After a moment, he realized two things: One, Inoue's hand seemed much more delicate and finely-boned than normal in his larger, callused hand, and two: they were still holding hands.

Despite the fact he was normally the furthest thing from touchy-feely, particularly in public, Ichigo instead decided to weather this so-called injustice and allowed Inoue to keep holding his hand as he trailed behind her obediently.

He felt disappointment run through him seconds later when she realized their hand-holding and dropped his hand rather quickly, immediately stammering out apologies with bright red cheeks.

As they entered the dry cleaners, Ichigo flexed the hand that Inoue had been holding, frowning at the tanned appendage. "You were warm a minute ago, damn it," he muttered venomously to it before shoving it unceremoniously into his pocket.

"Kurosaki-kun?" Orihime's sweet voice broke in and chocolate brown eyes snapped up to meet worried gray. She was a number of inches shorter than him, he realized distantly. In her arms were two or three garment bags and it seemed to dwarf her.

"Here, let me take that," he relieved her of the garment bags, leaving just the pastry bags in her hands. She smiled thankfully at him, cheeks dusted a light pink. "Now what's next on your list?"

"Thank you, Kurosaki-kun!" Orihime chirped brightly. "Well, I'd like to go to the consignment store, but I can just do that tomorrow or the day after when it's not so rainy." Truth be told, she did need the new clothes but she could also tell that Ichigo's patience was beginning to wear thin and she decided to just call it a day for now. "Besides, I'd kind of like to get home and take Livia for a walk." The healer added on quickly, correctly reading Ichigo's face as that of a man who was about to stubbornly refuse going home when all he really wanted to was just that, and cutting him off.

Ichigo caved under her silently pleading gray eyes and hoisted up her clothes. "All right, we can do this again tomorrow or whenever," he grunted, before leading the way outside.

She smiled serenely and followed him outside.

…It was a few steps later that she realized he had said 'we.'

"Please, Kurosaki-kun?"

Ichigo turned his head to study his Japanese textbook stubbornly, purposefully avoiding Inoue's wide, innocent eyes. He had had sisters long enough to know that that look could bring nothing but trouble. "I'm sorry, Inoue, but no," he repeated, "we are not going to teach your dog how to tap dance."

How this rather odd conversation had started, he wasn't quite sure. But nevertheless, the dog was not learning to tap dance, despite the bambi eyes that Inoue was sending him.

She pouted, crossing her arms underneath her rather impressive bosom. Then, all of a sudden, she brightened.

" Well, what about this!" She exclaimed, raising an index finger into the air. Ichigo stared at her warily, eyebrow cocked. "We learn tap dance and then sooner or later Livia-chan will want to join in and she'll learn that way!"

"….No, Inoue," he repeated tiredly, shaking his head to try and get rid of the headache quickly forming between his temples.

… These math problems were not agreeing with him.

Finally, with a frustrated sigh, he shoved the half-completed math homework and open textbook away from him and got to his feet. Inoue trailed after, the pout still curving her lips downwards.

"Kurosaki-kun?"

"Yes, Inoue?"

"…Are you mad?" She asked in a small voice.

Surprised, Ichigo paused with his hand on the refrigerator door handle and turned to look at the girl behind him. Big gray eyes shined worriedly up at him. "Of course not," he offered after a moment. "I just forgot how much I hate math and now I have a headache."

" Oh!" She instantly brightened. "Do you want anything? For me, whenever I have a headache-" She must mean after she smashes her skull into other people, he decided privately- "I've found that a green tea with wasabi and a little bit of sugar with the peels of tomatoes can help a lot!"

This time Ichigo managed not to squirm with nausea. "No, thank you. I'll get some Advil and be fine."

"Okay," she agreed, still looking worried. "Do you want to sit down?"

Ichigo shook his head. "It's not that bad." He noticed her crestfallen expression, "Okay. Maybe I will sit down for a minute."

She brightened and immediately ushered him to the couch. Somewhat reluctantly, Ichigo sank into the cushioned furniture. Orihime stood before him and clasped her hand together in front of her chest. "Do you want anything, Kurosaki-kun?

He shook his head. "Advil and a banana will do. Thanks."

"Okay!" She practically bounced into the kitchen and reappeared moments later with a bottle of Advil in one hand and a banana in the other. He thanked her before popping two of the pills into his mouth dry. Afterwards, he unpeeled the banana as Orihime stood before him, twiddling her fingers.

"Is something wrong, Inoue?"

She physically jumped, eyes wide before biting her lower lip causing him to stare, despite his best efforts.

"Um, well, Kurosaki-kun…" She trailed.

"Yes?" He prompted after a moment.

She clasped her hands in front of her in a pleading gesture. "Will you please help me teach Livia-chan how to tap dance?"

He sighed. "…Fine."

"That's okay, I can understand. I can try it mys- Eh?"

She looked absolutely stupefied.

"I said fine," he repeated.

Now she positively beamed at her, and he refrained a sigh.

… He was getting way too soft.

" You did what?"

"Well, I got Kurosaki-kun some Advil, and I really wanted to help him with his headache, but he seemed kind of irritable, so I didn't want-"

"Before that!"

"The math homework?"

"Back."

"Him carrying my clothes for me?"

"After that!"

"Getting him to agree to help me teach Livia-chan tap dance?"

"Oh…my…god."

"Tatsuki-chan, is something wrong?"

The girl on the other line sounded like she was choking on something. "Is…something…wrong, you say?"

"Um, yes?"

"Orihime, do you even know what it is that you succeeded in doing?"

"Um, no?"

"You just got Kurosaki Ichigo to agree to help you with something that he obviously doesn't want to!" Not to mention doing something that doesn't have a chance in hell of succeeding.

"…Is that good?"

"It's very good!"

"Really?"

"Yes! Orihime, I do believe that Ichigo, as oblivious and stupid as he is, is in love with you."

"Tatsuki-chan!"

"What? I'm just stating the truth. Tell me how he responded when he saw you in the wife beater, shorts and those socks."

"Well… I don't know."

"You don't know?"

"Well, no. You see, I haven't actually worn those in front of him yet."

"… Oh. Then you have to wear them tonight…do you think you could get a camera stashed somewhere on you when you do so that I can see his reaction myself? Between your boobs might work, I think."

"Tatsuki-chan!!"

Yes, Orihime decided privately to herself later on with crimson cheeks, Ichigo's reaction was definitely worth seeing.

But she had forgotten about his father, whose reaction, if possible, was even more spectacular.

Isshin had needed a blood transfusion to regain the blood that he had lost upon seeing Orihime in her sleeping attire for the night.

"…Damn it."

Ichigo rubbed at a tired brown eye with a fist roughly. He bit back a yawn before rolling over groggily to stare blearily at his alarm clock. Deciding with another hidden yawn that he was definitely not going back to sleep with only a half hour until he had to be up anyways, the substitute shinigami climbed out of bed wearily.

Surprisingly, he hadn't been called for hollow duty that much but the image of Inoue in the formfitting black wife beater, a pair of sleeping shorts with some cartoon character he didn't recognize on it and over-the-knee high black and white striped socks was enough to make any healthy teenage boy lose sleep.

He knew for a fact that Inoue had no idea just how badly her sleeping wear last night had affected him and he was more than willing to bet that Tatsuki had been behind the endeavor as Inoue hadn't been able to look him in the face as she had excused herself to the bathroom to change almost immediately after saying goodbye to Tatsuki on the phone.

(Of course, this lead him to wonder why the short-haired Arisawa was suddenly so eager to try and get Ichigo to lose as much blood as possible.

If she had wanted him to die, she could kick his ass until he died from blood loss. Death due to overly attractive nakama wasn't really on his to-do list.)

With a ragged sigh, Ichigo ran his callused hand over his exhausted face once more, stumbling to the bathroom with the intent of a shower.

It was way too early in the morning for this.

"-and once I tried to put vanilla ice cream and chunks of mango and wasabi sauce, oh, and you can't forget chocolate syrup, and I put these all in a blender and tried to make a smoothie out of it, except I think the mango was too big because when I tried to make a drink out of it, it was too thick and not very smooth. I've always thought that smoothie should be like velvet, but this one was too thick, almost like a handmade afghan-"

Ichigo listened to Orihime's cheerful morning ramble absently, still looking tired with slight bags under his eyes and his orange hair looking noticeably more rumpled than normal, if possible.

"-and my curtains, well, before they were ashes, were all so plain and once I took a paint brush to them in an effort of making them more colorful, but instead I missed and got it all over my walls-"

…She was still talking?

"-then Tatsuki-chan and I came up with the idea of putting on a talent show, except we didn't have any money and I didn't want to ask my relatives for fear of seeming greedy-"

Her relatives? Oh right.

"Did you call them?" Ichigo asked suddenly. Orihime, temporarily paused in her narrative, blinked at him owlishly.

"Pardon?"

"Your relatives," he explained shortly. "Did you call them to let them know that your staying with me?"

"Oh yes!" She brightened. "I called them my first night staying with you."

He lifted an eyebrow. "And they were okay with it?"

"Well," she began hesitantly. "They were less than pleased, but I think they understood after an explanation. They asked if I wanted to come stay with them but I decided not to as they live kinda far away and I want to go to school here."

Ichigo was curious despite himself. "Really? Where do they live?"

"…Osaka," she answered quietly. His lips pursed in a silent whistle, impressed despite himself.

"Hey! Ichigo! Inoue!"

They turned at their respective names, only to see a harried and more-than-a-little-ticked-off Kuchiki Rukia barreling towards them, one sock half on and a shoe in one hand. As she approached them, she didn't even try slowing down and instead drove straight into Ichigo, her head firmly in his abdomen. She hit him with enough kinetic force behind her to throw Ichigo to the ground rapidly, causing his head to crack hard against the pavement. "Oi, you little midget!" He groaned out before kneading the back of his head, feeling the large bump already swelling there and wincing.

His eyes involuntarily closed for a minute before he fell Rukia's bony knee dig into his side as she got to her feet, sounding perfectly fine by the sound of her voice greeting Inoue, who returned the greeting softly. Only seconds after that, he felt soft strands spill onto his cheekbones and chocolate brown eyes squinted open, only to meet wide, worried gray eyes. "Kurosaki-kun, are you alright?" Her sweet voice was heard asking quietly.

Instinctively, he had to bite back a snarky, biting response and instead flashed her a forced grimace. "Yeah, Inoue. I'm fine." He began to sit up and almost without realizing it, he felt her small hands, one on his shoulder in an effort to help support him and the other prodded at the back of his head in a whisper of a touch while he winced.

"Kurosaki-kun, you should get this checked out. It's getting rather big," she noted worriedly. From off towards the side, Rukia muffled a snicker, marveling once more at the auburn-haired girl's naiveté and judging by Ichigo's suddenly stiff shoulders, he had realized the same thing she had.

"I'm fine, Inoue." His voice had an odd, choked inflection to it and Orihime's eyebrows crumpled deeper in worry but she reluctantly backed off as the Kurosaki clambered to his feet before proceeding to hover like a small mother hen. "And was the tackle really necessary, runt?" He demanded, whirling on the tiny Shinigami in a huff of indignation. Rukia delivered a lightning fast blow to his shin as she passed him in order to continue walking to school and Ichigo crumpled like a wilted flower.

"Kurosaki-kun!" Inoue's panicked voice was heard and the Kuchiki bit back a smirk. Her plan was working.

When Ichigo and Orihime stumbled into the classroom, the carrot-top was looking noticeably less than pleased. He had already made a vengeful oath against the "violent little brat" and despite herself, Orihime was smiling.

She knew that the chances of him actually doing any permanent harm to the Kuchiki were practically nonexistent. She also knew he wouldn't accept leaning on her shoulder, so she instead took up his books and carried them for him.

" Is it just me or has Kurosaki been injured a lot lately?" Ishida was heard asking Sado in a stage whisper. The gentle giant shrugged noncommittally, dark eyes focused on his nakama, noting the way that Ichigo was being remarkably gentle to the worried Inoue despite his normal brash nature. But then again, he has always treated Inoue different from everybody else.

"Nobody likes him," Chizuru butted in jealously, having cut off from her rant about Ichigo corrupting 'her' Hime-chan just long enough to hear Ishida's comment.

"I think Orihime likes him plenty, you overzealous lesbian." A new voice snapped in agitation.

The unorthodox threesome paused, turning to see the newcomer. Arisawa Tatsuki, in all of her tomboy glory, stood there glowering darkly at the red-haired lesbian.

Orihime who had been saying goodbye to Ichigo, suddenly looked up and waved ecstatically before tripping over to her hurriedly.

"Tatsuki-chan!" She greeted, thrilled. Tatsuki smiled sisterly at the slightly taller girl, and nodded, patting her absently on the head as she almost immediately launched into telling her about her morning so far. After a few minutes, Tatsuki cut her off gently and lead her into the hallway to discuss something.

Ichigo was worried, despite himself.

The entire day at school, Inoue had been silent as the grave, even at lunch. Her gray eyes looked more somber, as if somebody had repeatedly brought up Hueco Mundo to her. Tatsuki, while not as quiet, had been more speculative and he had felt her eyes on him a lot during the day, making him ready to climb the walls after the first hour.

And now, they were walking home, an uncomfortable bubble hanging over their heads. Right about now, Inoue would be halfway through her second ramble, but now she was silent as the grave and her eyes were averted to the ground.

"Are you dying?" he asked her in his normal, ever-so-gentle way.

"Eh?" She asked him bewilderedly, blinking owlishly at him.

"You look like you just got really bad news," he explained with a slight shrug.

"Oh, well, no. I don't think I'm dying," she replied hesitantly, completely missing the fact that he was in no way serious.

"Then what's wrong?"

"It's nothing," she attempted. Ichigo's brown eyes just stared at her knowingly and she deflated. "Alright, well, its something Tatsuki told me."

"Okay…" He trailed warily.

"…Tatsuki-chan's back and wants me to come stay with her from now on."

Ooooh, cliffhanger.

I usually don't do cliffhangers, so I have no idea how I actually did. But Copper-sama seemed plenty disgruntled, so I'm assuming it was pretty good.

So, um, thanks again so much to those who reviewed, or favorited or put me on their alert! When I realized I hit fifty review, I actually melted into a pile of me in glee.

Thanks again, and I hope you continue to read and review!

-Vampyre Heartbreak