She rang the doorbell and waited. The nerves in her chest were fraying at the ends. She was anxious to get moving and not as excited about seeing the person on the other side of the door as she ought to be. She wanted to leave as soon as possible. It wasn't that she hadn't missed her friend or that she'd be any closer to a solution the faster she left, but with all the things in her life that suddenly became tilted, the only hope she had of not sliding down was to keep her momentum. Running, climbing, crawling, anything it took she would keep at it.

The door opened and she was greeted. "Orihime, glad you found your way!"

She didn't actually hear the greeting as Tatsuki's voice had been masked over by loud screaming from behind her. Orihime's attention was also split by the feeling of Kazui slipping his hand out of hers so that he could dash inside the house. Orihime remembered to stick a smile on her face when Tatsuki dodged her son to let him pass her.

"Hi, Tatsuki."

Tatsuki's attention was also split as she watched her own children run up to meet Kazui, or at least two of them. The third was caught by her husband and carried back down a hallway.

"Not yet, mister. We gotta put a shirt and pants on you."

The boy whined and yelled that he wanted to play. Tatsuki sighed at all the noise.

"Um, thank you again for watching Kazui today. I know your kids always keep you busy as it is," Orihime spoke with more awkwardness than she had with Tatsuki since they'd first met.

Tatsuki seemed to ignore that and smiled at her like she was plotting something. "It's all right, just as long as you plan on repaying me by babysitting my kids later. Besides, I've got a house full of boys, one more doesn't make that much of a difference. It should be the same for you too, right?"

Orihime smiled a little easier in response. "Maybe, but three more really does make a difference."

Tatsuki laughed and that eased some of the tension in her body even more. Well, at least until a line from Tatsuki's oldest had both their heads turning to the children in the living room.

"You're weird!" That was directed at Kazui. The boy had come in looking at everything curiously, and now his expression was no different, totally unaffected by the other kid's words. In fact, Kazui was staring at him like he was enrapturedly fascinating.

"Isao! Don't be rude to a guest, he doesn't have to play with you, you know!" Tatsuki looked like she might have yelled at her son even more, but her expression changed as she observed Kazui. She frowned like she was grieving, not something Orihime appreciated.

"Manabu, I'll come back in in a minute," she called to her husband as she stepped out the door and closed it behind her. She stood there with Orihime, looking at her with that same frown on her face.

There was no way Orihime could keep up a smile when faced with that look. It crumbled on her face and fell off.

"Is he okay?" Tatsuki asked.

Orihime took a deep breath in. "I don't think so."

"What's wrong?"

"I don't know. I don't even know if anything really is wrong yet. I took him to our pediatrician yesterday and he said that nothing is physically wrong with him. He didn't even seem to understand why I'm so concerned."

"Well he can't know your kid like you do. You should listen to your gut in times like these," Tatsuki took on a slightly angry expression.

Orihime was grateful, at the very least, that Tatsuki also thought something could be wrong. They didn't actually see each other often anymore. Tatsuki lived in the next town over, and with each having their own respective husbands and children, it was understandable that they lived very separate lives. It was nice though, that Tatsuki would always be her dependable best friend.

"I know," she agreed. "That's why I have a feeling that this could be worse."

'Worse than what?' others might ask, but Tatsuki could read Orihime without further elaboration. "You think it's inside?"

Orihime nodded. "Both Ichigo and I are very aware of our own souls and Kazui's also a shinigami. I think it's his soul."

Tatsuki nodded slowly without knowing what to say next.

Orihime helpfully filled in for her. "I'm going to go look for help today. Do you remember Urahara-san? I don't know if he'll be able to help, but I think he'll know how to get help."

"Will you take Kazui to Soul Society?" Tatsuki knew for a fact that Kazui had never been.

"If I have to, then I will. They have doctors there, so if something really is wrong, they might be able to tell."

Tatsuki paused the conversation for a moment by holding up a finger between them. "Orihime, why haven't you used Soten Kisshun on him?" That was Orihime's quote-on-quote 'healing ability.'

Orihime looked a bit unsure, herself. "I don't know if anything happened yet," was the answer she gave.

"It won't hurt him to try it, right? If the doctors here can't help you, doesn't that make this the most appropriate time to use your power?" Tatsuki persisted.

"I don't want to use my power for 'what ifs.' And… I have a bad feeling about it. I almost did use Soten Kisshun, but then, I realized that I had moved to do it without any thought at all. That's not something that's ever happened before. With Kazui in specific, I mean. So I think… it could be something wrong with me instead."

This was possible, Tatsuki reasoned. Kids picked up on things more acutely than she had ever expected before she became a parent. It could be that Kazui was responding to something having changed in his environment. Still, she wasn't going to dismiss his behavior.

"Okay… then I agree that you should seek out Urahara," she conceded. She sighed. "You can drop Kazui off here whenever you need, okay? I'll keep an extra eye on him and update you."

Orihime didn't even bother trying to smile. "Thank you." Pause. "Oh," she picked up the bag she had set at her feet and handed it over to Tatsuki. "This is anything I thought Kazui might need or want while I'm gone."

Tatsuki scratched at her hair. "Right," she mumbled in response. "Um, Orihime?" She waited for acknowledgement that she was being listened to. "I have a question and I want you to promise not to take it the wrong way if the answer is yes. I don't really know why I feel like I have to ask, but I promise you I don't mean anything by it," she explained.

Orihime looked hesitant to agree to the terms and conditions, probably because of the way Tatsuki had gone to too much length.

"It's only because I care and not because I'm suspicious of anything. And… because I've also had a weird feeling."

At that, Orihime immediately started to suspect something herself. She nodded her consent.

"Okay," Tatsuki took a breath. "Is everything okay between you and Ichigo?"

In Orihime's mind: suspicion confirmed. "Are you asking that because you've felt weird for a while? Is your memory weird?" she asked with haste.

Tatsuki seemed taken aback. "Uh, yeah, I think that's it."

"So it's not just me," Orihime breathed in a whisper. She forgot completely about where she was and who she was with as her mind drifted elsewhere. "So then Ichigo could have…"

Tatsuki observed her for a while as she tried to piece together what Orihime was thinking about. "So then…" Tatsuki started firmly in order to get back Orihime's attention. "You and Ichigo?" she lead.

Orihime came up short for an answer. "I haven't had a chance to talk to him since I woke up feeling strange. I don't know what he's up to, but he's with Rukia."

"Rukia?" Tatsuki's eyebrows furrowed even further. "How do you know that?"

"Depending on the distance, I can sense them."

"…Oh, right." How had Tatsuki forgotten that?

"I think they were with Ishida-kun last night too," Orihime thought aloud in an airy kind of way.

"Ishida? Really?" Tatsuki's gears were turning too. "They're getting the old group together?"

Orihime's face went from contemplative to slack. "You might be right. If they realized that they're all experiencing the same thing, they'd come together to try and figure things out."

"Do you think this is related to Kazui?"

Orihime's face became even more awed at the revelations unfolding before her overworked brain. It appeared Tatsuki had less earth-shattering revelations to contemplate if Orihime's brain had to play catch-up to her. "That could be it," she didn't want to solidify any one possibility in her mind that it shut out all others.

Tatsuki looked angry again. "Ichigo should be here with you."

"I know," Orihime didn't make excuses. "He should be and if he knew that something was wrong with Kazui, I'm sure he would be," she stated resolutely. She made sure to give Tatsuki that one look that said she didn't want to discuss it any further.

Tatsuki may not have been satisfied, but she dropped it.

Orihime had another that though. "Was your husband affected at all?"

"Manabu? No, not that I can tell. He acted just like always. He'd tell me if he felt off," she said, confident in their ability to talk to one another.

"Then it's person specific. So it has to be from a shared event or exposure. Not necessarily at the same time, but it seems everyone reacted at around the same time," she mumbled as she pressed the nail of her thumb to her lips.

Tatsuki had been able to tell this whole time that Orihime was eager to get out of there and she knew she was holding the woman up. "Go already," Tatsuki slung the bag in her hand over her shoulder and turned to her door. "Text or call if you need anything, I'll do the same," she ordered.

Orihime only nodded.


A/N: Hello. Thank you for showing up, dear readers. I can't promise that my update schedule will go back to being consistent. After all, I have work and school as well as other obligations. I hope that you all understand and in the mean time, I'd appreciate any feedback you have to offer.

I will also try to be less confusing when I write scenes that go back and forth between two points of focus. I had never noticed before that that wasn't a thing normal writers did in their stories. Oops. Thank you for letting me know. *bows*