A/N: Hey everyone! Thank you to those who haven't given up on me! I now completely understand when people say that life's gotten crazy and that's why they haven't uploaded in awhile. I really do appreciate all the alerts and favorites. They make me smile and really happy when I see them. A special thanks goes to Dark Gothic Lolita, GothChiq80, and blood-velvet angel for leaving reviews. I'm sorry I didn't respond individually, to be honest I'm pretty shy, just reading them made me turn red. LOL But I really do appreciate them. You guys are the reason for me to upload this Chapter!
Disclaimer: I don't own bleach, if I did I would probably screw it up. All rights are Tite Kubo, who is awesome.
Although Orihime had watched Akiyoshi's conversation with Hisa-chan intently, she wasn't concerned with him talking to her since Hisa-chan seemed to have an extremely low reiatsu level. She had wanted to make sure he understood the difference between the living and spirits, but that conversation would have to wait until they were home. Right now they needed to head to the store.
They arrived at a market that was located a few blocks from the bakery Orihime worked at. Walking hand in hand they entered the store; Orihime took her list from her pocket and began read off the different items that they would need to purchase. Grabbing a basket the two began to walk through the store grabbing the different items they would need for dinner. Glancing up Orihime saw an aisle that housed small toys, movies and magazines. This gave her an idea, "Yoshi-kun, to celebrate you coming to live with me why don't you go pick out a toy from the toy section."
"Really? Can I really?" said Akiyoshi excitedly.
Leaning down so she was eye level with him she responded "Yep, it will be a welcome home present from me. You go ahead and I'm going to grab the green onions for dinner, wait there until I come back."
"Okay!" Akiyoshi exclaimed before running off down the aisle with a beaming grin.
Orihime stood up straight and headed towards the produce area. She was surprised to see a familiar tuft of orange hair. Placing a smile on her face she approached him. It looked like he was working in the fruit section putting containers of strawberries away. When she got close enough she could see the scowl on his face which, combined with the task that he was accomplishing, made her giggle.
Ichigo turned around when he heard the familiar giggle.
"Hey Inoue, how are you doing?" Ichigo asked remembering their adventure the night before.
"Hi Kurosaki-kun! I'm having a wonderful day, how is yours going?" Orihime responded
"Alright I guess, just working," he responded, as he returned to stocking the strawberries.
"I didn't know you worked at this store, I thought you were working at one closer to your house." Orihime said tilting her head inquisitively. Ichigo turned back, meeting her gaze, scratching the back of his head as he answered,
"Well… I was but me and my boss there had a difference of opinions, so here I am."
Orihime didn't say anything just quirked a brow at him.
To which Ichigo responded with a small smirk.
He really appreciated the fact that with Orihime words weren't always necessary. There were times at school that their eyes would meet and nothing needed to be said to convey what they were thinking. Sometimes the looks were as mundane as "Hey isn't this lesson boring?" or "You better stop day dreaming and pay attention before you get caught!" But sometimes the looks were filled with something he had yet to decipher; all he knew was that they made him feel special and unique.
"…saki-kun? Kurosaki-kun?" Orihime repeated.
"Eh? Oh, yeah Inoue?" Ichigo was finally brought back out of his musings.
"Kurosaki-kun you were day dreaming!" Orihime laughed
"Oi! Stop laughing I was not!" Ichigo responded, trying to hold a scowl as long as possible, but it was replaced with a smile before even setting.
After Orihime's laughter died down she continued, "Okay fine you weren't, but what I was going to say was that I have to get going. It was good seeing you."
"Yeah, I'll see you around Inoue," his smile faded, but to as much of a frown as when Orihime first saw him. He turned back to his cart of strawberries as she turned away, but then he heard her.
"Kurosaki-kun?" she called. Ichigo put down the containers he still had yet to place and replied.
"Yeah, Inoue? What's wrong?"
"I had forgot. I need some green onions."
"Oh... working on one of your special recipes I'm sure," Ichigo stated with a raised eyebrow. He pointed to a bin a row down from them, "Should be right there."
Orihime opened her mouth to respond but was drowned out by a loudspeaker,
"Meat department, call on line 1!" it exclaimed. Ichigo frowned and turned to Orihime, "Well, that's me, I have to get that."
"But I thought you were working here in the produce?" she asked, confused.
"You know how it is, everybody wants me to cover for them," he replied. Shrugging his shoulders, he continued, "I don't really care, it's more money."
"Just don't work too hard, Kurosaki-kun," she said, with a hint of demand, heading towards the bin of onions.
"Sure Inoue, see you."
"Thank you, Kurosaki-kun," she said with a slight bow as he hurried off, her voice partially masked by the loudspeaker repeating the request.
Orihime walked back to the main grocery aisles after grabbing her green onions. She knew that she needed to find Akiyoshi and get out of the store before Ichigo saw the boy. It was good in a way for her to run into him because now she knew where he was. She quickly made her way back to the toy aisle. It was strange to her, even though she hadn't been away from Akiyoshi for more that a few minutes and had only known him for a day, she felt uncomfortable with him out of her sight. She found him standing in the middle of the aisle with a toy in each hand concentrating. Orihime walked up behind him and looked at the toys. It seemed he was having a hard time deciding between Gokai Red and Gokai Blue from the kids show Kaizoku Sentai Gokaiger. So Orihime figured why not buy both and they could play together.
"Yoshi-kun, are you having a hard time deciding?" Orihime asked
Without looking up at her and with all the seriousness of an adult he sighed, "Yeah, see Gokai Red comes with the Gokai Saber, but Gokai Blue comes with the Gokai Gun, so I'm not sure which one to get."
"Well what if we buy them both so that we can play with them together?"
Akiyoshi's head whipped around and his smile said it all.
With that Orihime and Akiyoshi walked hand in hand to the registers on the opposite end from Ichigo and quickly checked out. Once out on the sidewalk Akiyoshi let go of her hand and skipped ahead, excited to go home. Orihime on the other hand wasn't as excited as she remembered the talk that they would need to have that night after dinner.
Once home they put the groceries away together and Orihime handed Akiyoshi his new toys, "Yoshi-kun, why don't you take your toys in the living room and play while I get everything ready for dinner, okay?" The boy happily obliged with no objection.
Orihime could hear Akiyoshi playing in the other room which brought a small smile to her face. Her thoughts turned to the conversation that they would be having after dinner. She was trying to decide what to say and how to bring it up. She then thought of a story Rukia had once told her. It had been during one of their outings that Orihime had decided to ask Rukia how she explained the whole shinigami, hollow, plus thing to Ichigo. Rukia then laughed and said how she made drawings for him and when he didn't listen to her she proceeded to draw on his face. Now Orihime knew that she wouldn't draw on Akiyoshi's face but the idea of making drawings to show him the difference was a good one. With this decided she finished pulling out the needed ingredients for dinner and called Akiyoshi back into the kitchen.
"Alright we're ready to start!" Orihime said while thrusting her hand in the air.
Akiyoshi copied Orihime's stance and said "Ready to go!"
"Tonight I think we should make my very special rainbow casserole." Orihime got out a big bowl and spoon.
"Okay what to we do first?" Akiyoshi asked while washing his hands.
"Let's see… how about you crack the eggs while I cut up the sweet potatoes and green onions, after you're done with the eggs you can wash the blueberries and raspberries." Orihime reached over and patted Akiyoshi on top of his head, "Just make sure not to get any of the shell in the bowl, okay?"
Once everything was put in the bowl and mixed together, Orihime poured it into a pan and stuck it in the oven, setting the timer. Turning towards Akiyoshi she realized that they had an hour to kill so she decided to get his bath out of the way. "Hey how about you take your bath while dinner cooks?"
"Okay!" Akiyoshi said.
Orihime laughed and ushered him to the bathroom, "While the tub fills I'll get you scrubbed up and then you can play for a bit."
Once it was full she left him to play by himself while she went across the hall to work on her drawings. Orihime liked that when bathroom door was open she could see the tub from where she sat in her bedroom. With her colored pencils and papers around her, she began to draw a story to help her explain things to Akiyoshi. Once done she realized she had drawn quite a few pages and began to think that maybe she should become an artist for children's books. Smiling to herself she gathered up her art supplies and placed them back in the drawer of her desk. She then heard the timer for the oven go off, so she removed the casserole from the oven and set it on the stove.
Walking back into the bathroom she grabbed Akiyoshi's towel and helped him out of the tub. "Dinner's ready, it just needs to cool a little bit and then we can add the red bean paste as frosting."
"Okay Princess." Akiyoshi said while shaking the water out of his hair.
"Ah! Yoshi-kun don't do that, you're getting me all wet!" Orihime laughed.
This just made Akiyoshi laugh and do it again.
Once Akiyoshi was dried, dressed and dinner was finished Orihime brought out her pictures. She sat down on the couch and patted the space next to her for Akiyoshi to sit. Akiyoshi climbed up on the couch and snuggled against her side. With this done she held up her pictures so that they could both see them easily.
"Yoshi-kun, there are some things that I need to explain to you and I need you to listen carefully okay? When I'm done you can ask me any questions that you have." Orihime spoke quietly but clearly so that Akiyoshi would know how important the conversation they were getting ready to have was.
"Okay Princess, I'll listen real hard, I promise." Akiyoshi said.
Orihime then began, "In this world there are different types of people. There are Special people like Shinigamis, Quincys, Vizards, and others" Orihime held up a picture that had a girl dressed in a black kimono and holding a sword, a boy with the Quincy Cross hanging from its neck holding a bow and wearing glasses, a boy with orange hair and a big sword, a girl that had flower hair clips in her hair and a boy with armor on his arm. Orihime had drawn them all as children so that Akiyoshi would be able to relate to them. "All of these are good people. There are also what we call pluses and hollows." With this she switched the page and it showed a girl with a chain dangling from her chest on one side and a frog that had a mask cover its face and a whole in its chest on the other. "The pluses are ghost that haven't gone to heaven like they were suppose to when they died, they're good too. This is the really important part, hollows are not good. They are scary creatures that aren't nice at all. If you ever see one I want you to run away as fast as you can. Okay? Promise me, okay?" Orihime looked straight into Akiyoshi's gray eyes and waited for him to agree.
Akiyoshi seeing that Orihime was done responded "Okay Princess, I promise I'll run away as fast as I can. But can I ask you a question now?"
Orihime nodded.
Akiyoshi pointed to the picture of the ghost, "Is Hisa-chan one of these? I saw she had a chain like this one."
"Yes, she's a plus but it's okay remember pluses are good, so you can still play with her. But I want you to know that not everyone can see her, only special people can see her."
"So since I can see her, does that mean I'm special?" Akiyoshi asked.
"Yes, you are special, and it's good to be special but it means that you have to be more careful."
"But you could see her too, so does that mean you're special too?" Akiyoshi's eyes widened with this realization.
With a small smile Orihime responded, "Yes I'm special too. Later on I'll introduce you to some of my friends that are also special but for now I want to keep you all to myself!" Orihime then reached over and squeezed Akiyoshi in a big bear hug.
Akiyoshi giggled, "Okay! That sounds like fun, but I'm happy I get to stay with someone special like you."
"I'm glad that you get to stay with me too!" Orihime said with a smile, "now it's time to get you to bed, come on I'll sing you a song again."
At first Akiyoshi frowned at the idea of going to bed but perked up when he heard the part about the song. "I like when you sing you have a really pretty voice, Princess."
They then walked into the bedroom and set up the futons. Once done Akiyoshi crawled into his and Orihime sat down beside him and began to sing. At first Akiyoshi sang along with her until he began to drift off. When he was asleep Orihime pulled the covers up under his chin and quietly shut the door. She walked down the hall and decided to make some tea and take some time for herself. She set the tea kettle to boil and went to get a cup down from the cupboard when there was a knock at the door. Orihime was surprised to have someone knocking so late at night especially since she wasn't expecting anyone. Looking through the peephole she saw a familiar face and opened her door.
"Good evening, Inoue-san," Uyru was standing in her doorway holding a small bag. Without hesitation and with clear direction he continued, "I believe that there may be something we need to discuss?"
A/N: So what did you think? Wondering what Uyru knows? I know! I know! But I'm not telling until the next Chapter. LOL Thanks again everyone for reading! I'm not gonna beg for reviews but I will say that I love them and they keep me going! So until next time ~MsPris