Ichigo Kurosaki yawned as he took his shoes out of his locker. He hadn't had a good sleep lately at night so he became so sleepy during the day. Today his plan was to get back home as soon as possible and hit the bed. He might skip dinner if he had too, he was just so sleepy. Now that he thought about it, instead of sleeping at night, there had been something bothering his mind.

Orihime Inoue was just a classmate before this. She was the school idol and she was the school infamous punk, never had he thought that one day he would had a chance to get closer to the girl. He had never really paid attention to her before, to him she was just a girl who would never had anything to do with him. Until then one day he had to witness the girl had her heart broken twice… Then he started to think about the girl. Maybe he cared about the girl a bit more that he should have to because she had become the reason why he hadn't slept properly lately.

This morning Orihime acted a little weird when he greeted her a good morning. She smiled awkwardly and quickly left the classroom and didn't come back until the first lesson started. Keigo asked him if he had done something wrong to the girl but Ichigo didn't remember if he had said or did something wrong to the girl. What pissed him off even more was that she didn't give him a chance to ask what had he done to her because apparently the girl was adamant that she shouldn't be anywhere closer than 15 meters away from the boy. For a reason, it annoyed the boy so much.

Sleepy and annoyed, the boy decided to talk to the girl tomorrow. He would ask her what the heck was happening. He didn't want to admit it out loud but he worried about her. She did told him that she wasn't bothered by the rumor flying around about them but now she was clearly avoiding him. He hated to say this but it felt bad when the girl acted like that toward him.

Yawning as he put on his shoes, Ichigo almost missed a small gasp from his back. He turned around to see the girl in his mind was standing there with her back, ready to get her shoes and go home. From her expression he could see that she didn't expect him to be there. He hadn't even opened his mouth when the girl started to run away from him. Cursed mentally, Ichigo lost his sleepiness and started chasing the girl.

Damn it, he thought as he sprinted toward the girl, what did I do to her?

Despite how she looked, Orihime was the fastest girl in her class. She could run faster than most of the boys in her class but unfortunately Ichigo was the fastest boy in her classroom. Ichigo had never run seriously though when he was timed during P.E class. This, however, was not P.E class and Ichigo had never put this much effort in chasing after someone like this before. He was tired and sleepy but he needed to catch up with the girl and hear her reason for avoiding him this whole day.

This was not something she planned. She didn't expect him to chase after her. He supposed to just let her be, not chasing after her like this. Orihime tried to run faster but too bad, Ichigo was fast and after chasing her for about five minutes, he finally caught up with her in the school backyard.

"Wait! Stop running!"

"Then stop chasing me!"

It was weird. Wasn't she the one who told him that the rumor didn't bother her? She told him that she didn't mind even though people talking about them, then why suddenly she was avoiding him like this? If he had done something wrong toward her, he would want to know because he didn't want her to hate him.

Finally Ichigo grabbed her hand and before he realized what he was doing he pulled her body and hugged her from behind to stop her from running away. She tried to get away from him but he wouldn't let her. Orihime struggled but Ichigo was just too strong for her.

Ichigi gritted his teeth, no matter how she wriggled in his arm he wouldn't let go. Instead of weaken his grip, the way she moved against his body gave him a weird feeling. If only she didn't stop moving it would be bad…

"Stop moving please…." Ichigo grunted, "and I am so sorry, OK? I apologize!"

Orihime stopped moving and chewed her lower lip nervously. She didn't understand why he apologize all of sudden. He hadn't done anything bad to her. If anything, it was her who needed to apologize to him.

"Why did you say sorry?" Orihime felt her face reddened as she became aware of his hard body pressing against her back.

"I don't know, you tell me!" Ichigo frowned, "I don't know what I might have done to you but I must have been doing something bad that makes you avoiding me like this! I don't know what it is but I want you to tell me so I can fix it!"

When Orihime didn't say anything Ichigo cursed silently. He regretted this position they were in right now. If only he could see her face right now he might get to see her expression.

Ichigo narrowed his eyes. It was embarrassing but he guessed he had no other choice. He whispered nervously only loud enough for the girl to hear.

"We are friends, aren't we?"

Orihime's heart skip a beat as she felt his warm breath on her reddened ear. She would be lying if she said she wasn't happy when he said that they were friends. She did want to be his friend but after what had happened yesterday she felt that avoiding him was the best thing she could do right now.

"Y-you're unfair Kurosaki-kun…"

.

Uryuu Ishida had expected that the rumor of him and a certain red headed girl would once again arose. After the second confession from the girl, there were chances that she would tell someone about this which would cause another rumor. However he didn't expect that the rumor would be so far away from the truth. First of all, apparently he had been involved in a love triangle. Not only it was a love triangle but the other man in the crazy scenario was his good for nothing cousin, Ichigo Kurosaki. How the rumor could have been so weird and far from the truth, he didn't know. He knew that for sure Orihime was not cheating on him with his cousin since they were not even dating and for a reason he just couldn't imagine that the girl would have anything to do with his cousin. That was just too confusing, even for him. That was the reason why today he stopped her and asked her directly about the rumor.

At first he wanted to ignore the rumor. After being rumored to be secretly dating the school idol, Uryuu knew better that it would be wasting his precious time to deny it. That was why this time he also decided to just ignore it. But apparently, the rumor wasn't 100% wrong this time because he had seen that the orang haired cousin of his had been talking with the girl. It seemed like there was something going on between those two and even though he didn't know what happened between those too, he had to admit that it did bother him.

"Umm… what is it about, Ishida-kun?"

The boy sighed as he folded his arms and looked at her with a bored expression on his face, "I bet you have heard about the recent rumor about us. The one saying that we're involved in a triangle love…"

Orihime blushed.

"Th-that rumor is …."

Before she could finish her words he had cut her in, "What is your relationship with Ichigo Kurosaki?"

The girl blinked at the question. Coming from Uryuu, it was actually not expected at all. The way he said it didn't seem like he was jealous, besides he had made some point the he didn't have any feeling for her, so why he cared about the rumor? Orihime swallowed nervously. If she had to name it, the relationship she had with the orang haired boy, what would she call it?

"Well…" she started carefully, not really wanted to say anythung wrong which might make Uryuu hate her more that he already had, "what does it have to do with Ishida-kun?"

She didn't want to sound harsh or rude so she said it as gentle as she could. She really have given up her feeling for him but still she didn't want him to hate her more than now by saying anything wrong. She bit her lip when he narrowed his dark eyes as he sighed. That was not a good sign. Did she give him a wrong answer?

"Ichigo Kurosaki is my cousin," there was something cold in the way he mentioned his name it almost made her shiver, "as far as I know, nothing good would happen if you get close to him."

Orihime wanted to defend Ichigo but a voice inside her head told her to keep her mouth shut, at least for now. Something she said might be a disadvantage for Ichigo. She didn't say anything and just looked at the boy in front of her. For a moment she wondered what was it again that made her in love with him.

Ah yes, he was being gentle toward her few years ago in the hospital when her brother died.

"I didn't want to be a busy body, but just so you know, this rumor might be nothing for you but it is disturbing me. Do you know what they said about me?" he shook his head as if disgusted with the rumor, "they pity me because you dumped me for him. It made me seem so lame, don't you think? And you know what they say about him? They said that he had force you to be with him. Some even said he might have harassed you."

"Kurosaki-kun won't do something like that!"

"That was not what they believe!" he spat, "If there is nothing between you and him just don't fuel the rumor more than this by keep hanging around him! It doesn't only concern you, ok? Please think about the other parties!"

Orihime looked at her feet, his words where like knifes, slicing her heart.

"I understand…" she said gently, "I will do something about it."

.

"So tell me… Do you hate me or something?"

Orihime pouted.

This was not how she planned it. For them to be in this position was not part of her plan. The plan was for her to avoiding him until the rumor goes down but it seemed she couldn't keep it for long. What worse was that if someone saw them in this position… she didn't want to imagine what people would say this time.

"I don't hate you," Orihime sighed, "why would I hate you, you are so nice to me."

"Then why avoiding me?"

Orihime shook her head and blushed, "I want to protect you. They said something really bad about you. If they see us like this, they might think you attacked me."

"Do you think I would do something like that?"

"Of course no!" she panicked, why would he said something like that, "I don't want them to get the wrong idea about you just because of me!"

Ichigo sighed. He started to understand her better and better. This beautiful girl was always so selfless. Why did she care so much about him? Didn't she know that such rumor didn't bother him at all? Those people can say anything they want about him and he would give no fuck.

"I have an idea."

Orihime tried to tilted her head to look at his face but he hugged her too tight for her to move.

"What is it?"

"W-we can pretend to be a lover."

"W-what?!"

Ichigo shrugged, "to fight fire with fire? What do you think?"