Disclaimer: I do not own Bleach or anything associated with it. Title of owner goes to 久保 帯人. :3 Nor do I own anything related to Hana Yori Dango.
Author's Note: Yay! I got love and reviews! (hugs reviewers) Because of you, reviewers, I decided to post this chapter sooner than I expected. You all make my day a pleasant one so I hope to do the same with this chapter. Warning: there's quite a bit of swearing in this chapter.
Yosh, start! よろしくお願いします！BWAHAHAHA
Chapter 3
After school on the day of his incident with S4, Ichigo didn't feel like talking. At all. Surprisingly Sado had more to say then him at work. Urahara had figured it had to do something with getting a bad grade in class so he brushed it off and didn't ask Ichigo any questions further. Once Ichigo returned home, his father noticed his lack of conversation and asked him during dinner.
"So… Ichigo… you're awfully quiet. You usually have a few things to say during dinner."
"Yeah, Ichi-nii. Is it my cooking? I wasn't able to buy pork from the market because it was too expensive so I had to settle for the pork fat." Yuzu said and slightly pouted at her brother's lack of speech.
"No, it's fine." Ichigo assured his sister and took a bite of the food to prove it was fine.
"Ah! I know what it is." Isshin's face lit up like a light bulb. "You're having girl problems, aren't you? Is there a rich girl that you like but she can't possibly date you because you're poorer than dirt?" He grinned like an idiot acting as if knew exactly what Ichigo's problem was.
Ichigo didn't bother answering his foolish father on the matter. This only fueled Isshin to nitpick further.
"If you're having trouble son then what you need to do is be yourself. Once she discovers the real you, you'll have no problem snagging that girl and marrying into her family of wealth in which your poor family will benefit from!"
Ichigo couldn't stand it any more. In one swift motion he punched his father square in the face, sending Isshin to fall back in his chair. Ichigo stood up from his seating position on the floor and left the table to go into his room.
"Son, your hit is getting better!" Isshin yelled out to his son as he stormed off. Ichigo answered him with a loud slam of his bedroom door.
"Could it really be girl problems, Dad?" Yuzu questioned, more worried seeing Ichigo in this state.
Isshin shrugged while Karin gave him an ice pack to apply to his now red and swollen face. "We won't know for sure until he does bring some girl home… I have a feeling it'll be soon." He grinned to himself.
In his room Ichigo went over to his small desk to work on homework assigned for that night. After five minutes of reading his textbook he stopped and for once in his life, didn't feel like continuing. He was getting frustrated that he couldn't concentrate and thus forced himself to read. But after countless tries, it was to no avail. He couldn't read the words and keep them in his mind like he usually would do when studying.
"What the hell is wrong with me?" Ichigo questioned. As if by some invisible force he ignored his homework and moved elsewhere. He ended up sprawled on his back on his bed, his arms idly behind his head as he stared at the ceiling.
Ichigo had to admit it to himself. He was getting rather apprehensive. He thought about what happened earlier that day: Hanatarou's mishap with the S4, his defense against the S4 to protect Hanatarou, his own declaration of war against the S4. Or rather war against Rukia and that helper monkey of her's, Renji. He paid no attention to the other half of S4 but he assumed they took heed of his declaration also.
I'm such an idiot. He thought to himself. I told myself the one thing I'd be sure to do was stay out of other people's business. But damnit, I have to be nice and help someone in need.
He checked the time on his wall clock. 9:30 P.M.
In less than 12 hours he'd have to head back to school. In less than 12 hours he'd have to face his fate from the S4. For all it was worth, he would have to suck it up and act like nothing happened. Maybe that would help him.
In another part of town in an area where only the richest could spend their time, S4 were sitting around and dining on a fine feast of Kobe beef and salty caviars. Orihime had made it even tastier by her standards, and added a bit of natto(fermented soybeans) into the mix of beef and caviar.
"Mmm, this is delicious!" She yelled out in pure ecstasy. "Toshirou-kun, try some." Like feeding a baby, she grabbed Toshirou's head and forced the spoon to go into his mouth.
"Ugh, get that away from my face!" Toshirou pushed her hands away resulting in Orihime's face to form a sad pout.
"Aw, will anybody try this? I swear by it." She raised the spoon, willing to shove it in any body's mouth if they volunteered to eat it.
Nobody answered and continued to eat their food. "Fine. I'll just enjoy this great creation by myself."
Ignoring Orihime's loud munching, Renji spoke up. "Should I call right now to post a notice in that punk Ichigo's locker, Rukia?"
Rukia closed her eyes for a moment contemplating. She put her fork down, finished her chewing, and took the cloth from her lap to dab at her mouth. Renji was just about to ready to dial the number of their lackey who posted the notices when Rukia simply said, "No."
Renji's jaw dropped from shock. Orihime stopped her own chewing as a small smile came upon her face. Toshirou merely raised his eyebrows at Rukia's answer.
"What? You have to leave a notice! He declared war against us! You have to put his ass back into his place!" Renji yelled out, quite furious that this was the first time Rukia ever declined to post a notice.
"I have my reasons, Renji." Rukia replied and got up to leave the table. "I'm going to test him first tomorrow and then we'll see where he stands." She smirked and left the table, making Renji wonder what her true intentions were.
At the start of school the next day as Ichigo walked through the halls, many students gave him weird glances and whispered to their friends as they pointed him out. Ichigo continued his walk, not taking notice of the pointing, and stopped in front of his locker. He felt eyes on the back of his head, waiting for his every movement and wanting to see that red notice hang in his locker.
Taking a deep breath, Ichigo lifted his hand to turn the knob and inch by inch opened his locker to reveal… nothing. He breathed a sigh of relief while the whispers continued behind him, probably disappointed at the absence of a red notice. Most of the students left to their own homerooms as Ichigo took out a few books he would need.
After a while it was seemingly quiet in the hallway. That is until Ichigo heard someone step behind him. Thinking it was just some other student who was curious to see if there was a red notice in his locker, he decided to turn around and show that person there was no such thing present in there. But even before he could turn around, he was knocked square on the back of his head with a hard object.
The impact was so quick and hard Ichigo barely had time to register what just happened. His vision grew blurry and before he knew it he was on the ground, staring up at three figures whose faces he did not recognize.
"Goodbye, Kurosaki Ichigo." One of the figures said and with another hit to his head, Ichigo fell into an unconscious state.
Ichigo came back into consciousness feeling sore and aching in many places. He felt his hands tied behind his back and he was sitting on a wooden chair. He groaned and opened his eyes, feeling as if that was a chore in itself. He heard laughing and wearily lifted his head up to see the three figures he saw earlier. He now saw their faces clearly and actually knew one of the boys to be a classmate of his.
"You're awake, eh?" The boy that was his classmate said. "Hah, you've been out cold this past hour and I'm surprised you actually wake up for real now."
"Yeah, you kept trying to wake up but we just beat you back into your stupor." Another one of the boys said. "Are you ready to go back into that stupor, punk?" He got up from his stool chair and approached Ichigo, menacingly throwing up his fists.
"Heh." Ichigo chuckled even though his throat hurt and was burning. "You dumbasses are cowards. You have to get me unconscious to beat me up."
The boy stopped in his tracks. Ichigo's words obviously affected him. "You little shit. You really want to get fucked up, don't you?"
"Give me your best shot." Ichigo answered boldly. "I'm awake now. Let's see what you can do."
The boy looked over at the other two and nodded his head. They all proceeded to get up and walked toward Ichigo, getting their fists clenched and ready. Ichigo's classmate was the first and took his stance. He aimed to hit Ichigo straight on his jaw but the door to the class opened suddenly.
"Ano… what are you guys doing?" Ichigo heard a female voice question. He turned his head to the speaker and his eyes widened. It was one of the members of the S4. Inoue Orihime. She scratched her head in confusion and walked in.
The three boys threw their hands down and quickly bowed to her as she approached them. "Inoue-san, we were told to use this classroom to give Kurosaki Ichigo special treatment." One of them quickly answered.
She glanced at Ichigo and looked back at the three boys who were still bowing. "Haha!" She laughed surprisingly. "This is the home economics room and you're giving him special treatment here?"
"Yes, Inoue-san. We're terribly sorry if you didn't know this beforehand. We expected that Kuchiki-san had informed you of this." Ichigo's classmate explained to her.
"Actually she didn't. And I wanted to use this class to experiment on some new food ideas." Orihime frowned slightly. "You there." She was referring to Ichigo.
He looked up at her, still quite shocked of her being there. "Are you okay?" She tilted her head sideways curiously and Ichigo felt a little flustered that she was asking him.
He nodded slowly. "I guess. But I would be better if I weren't tied down to this chair." He said honestly.
"Hey you, go on and untie him." She pushed one of the boys toward Ichigo. The boy stood there for a moment, mouth open confusedly. "Did you not hear me? Untie him." She repeated and he quickly obliged.
Now that Ichigo was free, he gave a deathly glare at the boys who in turn cowered back. Cowards. Ichigo said mentally, seeing their fright even in his current bruised state.
"Now you may leave." Orihime ordered the three boys and made a motion of her hands as if shooing them away.
"B-but, Inoue-san, Kuchiki-san said we have to-"
"I will talk to her." Orihime said and waved her hands at them. "Now goodbye."
They shuffled out of the classroom one by one. Ichigo's classmate looked back, as if making sure no one was looking at him. Ichigo sneered at him and he walked out quicker.
Once they were gone, Orihime turned back to Ichigo and smiled. There's actually a nice member of S4? Ichigo thought. Maybe she's just pushing me around, yeah. She's probably tricking me then she'll try to kick my ass too. But I'm ready for it this time. S4 will not get to me-
"I'm sorry this had to happen to you." Orihime said, stopping Ichigo's train of thought.
Ichigo blinked a few times as if trying to absorb this all in at once. "You're sorry?"
Orihime nodded and gingerly fiddled with her fingers. "You see, Rukia doesn't mean it at all…"
Ichigo snorted. "She doesn't mean it for me to get me beaten by a couple of random guys?"
Orihime stopped her fiddling and held her head down almost in defeat. "You're right. She does mean it." She quickly lifted her head up and pointed at him. "But you're different, you see. Normally she would have given you a red notice but instead she made this happen so it's totally different with you!"
Ichigo still didn't quite figure out where Orihime was going with this. "Both of them sound the same to me." He slowly said.
"It's hard to explain exactly. Ano… I really shouldn't tell you this but… she's testing you." She blurted it out fast.
Ichigo's brow furrowed as he did not fully understand her point. "Testing me? For what? How many punches I can handle? Because if she's testing me on that, I'll show her how much I can-"
"No, that's not it!" Orihime interrupted him.
"Then what is it?" Ichigo was getting fed up with this guessing game.
"Her… her interest in you has piqued since you stood up to her yesterday. I don't know exactly what she's planning but all I know is she's testing you."
Ichigo shook his head and laughed. "I told her this was war and I'm ready for whatever punch she's going to throw at me. Make sure to give her that message."
Orihime nodded. "Okay… etto… do you need to go to the hospital?" She questioned when she saw a big bruise form under his eye.
"I'll go after class. I missed enough today." Ichigo responded. Before he left, he turned back to Orihime who was in the middle of setting her things down on the counter. "Hey."
She looked up. "What is it?"
"Thanks for helping me. I figured when I said it was war against the S4, it'd be against all of you. But I owe you one so… I'm not going against you." He went back to where she was and held out his hand. "I'm Kurosaki Ichigo."
She smiled happily and shook his hand. "I'm Inoue Orihime. Nice to meet you."
Ichigo had managed to find some time to go to the bathroom and wash himself up before returning to class. He looked in the mirror and found a cut on his lip as well as the bruise under his eye. "That's all those guys could do with the time they had?" He wondered but still thankful that they didn't manage to put him in a comatose.
He went back to class and noticed the classmate who was ordered to beat him wasn't present. Even though there were still whispers that he knew were about him and the occasional ball of paper thrown at his head when the teacher wasn't looking, he blocked it all from his mind and focused solely on the teacher's lesson plan.
School ended quicker than normally for Ichigo since he had lost at least an hour and half earlier. As he walked outside of Takaimono, he noticed the yells from student's vehicles were more frequent this day but he paid no heed to it like normal. Ichigo wished he could block out the sounds and kept a hand over his bag where he left the remnants of his mp3 player.
Ichigo started thinking of things like how he was going to tell his father about the mp3 player, how he was going to pay his dad back for the mp3 player, assignments and projects that were due next week, and… for a brief moment he thought about Inoue Orihime.
He was still in total surprise that someone as nice as Orihime hung out with someone as cruel as Rukia. With rich people he could try to understand but with girls, he really couldn't get them at all. Since those two were rich and were of the female species, his head was spinning from trying to figure them out.
One thing Ichigo knew for sure was that Orihime was different from the typical rich girl. He could tell from their encounter that she was cheery, thoughtful, and kind. She helped him out of a sticky situation and at the same time tried to help her friend, Rukia by trying to explain her actions.
While he was thinking of all of these things and walking toward Urahara's shop, Ichigo failed to notice a sleek black limousine drive slowly on the road beside him. He also failed to notice when it stopped abruptly on the side of the road and two men in black suits and black sunglasses stepped out and went behind him.
Ichigo felt hands grab his body tightly and another pair of hands place a cloth over his face. He struggled to fight them off but these men were too strong and resisted his squirming. He inhaled whatever substance was present on the cloth and in less than 3 seconds, went into a drowsy state and eventually passed out.
The men in suits dragged his body over to their limousine quickly and shut the door. The limousine drove off past Urahara's shop toward the east side of town where most of the wealthy resided.
AN: Heh, I ended it with a little cliffhanger, sorry. D: Those who are familiar with HYD know what's coming next, I think. But don't spoil it! :P Hopefully you will review and those that are reading but not reviewing, I'd appreciate some words of love or appreciation or criticism, sure. I need that motivation to update!
Sankyuu! ありがとうございます!