A/N: A plethora of reviews! You guys are spoiling me! I'm so stoked to see that this story is getting more and more positive responses! This chapter does have a slight jump in time, but it is only because if I wrote what happened each day, I would never get to the meat of the story, which I am eager and anxious to write! Anyways, keep reading, enjoying, and reviewing.
The following morning at school, Inoue delivers the desserts she promised to save for me. I only accept them under the condition that she lets me walk her to the bakery. She agrees after I assure her that it won't be a problem. I'll find some excuse later so I can escort her home. Now that I am fully aware of the perverts Inoue attracts, she needs to be protected. I swore that I would protect her, and this threat is no different.
So for the rest of the week, I accompany Inoue to her work and to her apartment. I assume that my presence would scare off some men, but the opposite occurs. They find me to be non-threatening, and they often challenge my patience when they begin to compliment Inoue while I'm still there. The only thing that can calm me down is that she doesn't return their affection, and it might be my imagination, but the smile she gives her pursuers seems forced. It's nothing like the smile she gives me when I make myself leave her work nor is it like the smile when I show up at the end of her shift. In fact, each time I enter the bakery to wait for her, her face lights up just a little bit brighter than the day before. And even if it is my imagination, it allows me from becoming violent with all the dogs that keep hanging around her.
I dropped Inoue an hour or so ago, and now I'm eating with my sisters. Dad's missing, but I'm guessing that he is busy with a patient.
It's quiet until Yuzu breaks the silence.
"Why do you look down, Onii-chan?"
"You're seeing things, Yuzu."
She starts to eat her dinner with a pout.
Do I look down? I was happy before I went home. Then again, Inoue had been telling me about how earlier that day, Chad had fallen asleep in class. Apparently, he started to snore, and she tried to wake him up before their sensei noticed. It had gotten to the point that she summoned Tsubaki to secretly wake Chad. Instead, the fighting spirit turned on Inoue for calling him out for nothing. He pulled her hair, and she had ended up voicing her pain out loud, which woke Chad. She had finished her story while she rubbed her head as if she remembered how much it hurt.
Her stories never failed to entertain me and put me in a good mood.
Then why did I seem down?
"Is Orihime working tomorrow?" Karin asks.
Ah. That must be it. Inoue is not working and that meant I wouldn't be able to walk with her. Inoue told me before we parted that she would see me at school. When she told me goodnight, I realized how I looked forward to walking together after school and after her work. I enjoyed the extra time I got to spend with her. I liked being around her, talking to her, and hearing her.
And now I have no reason to see her.
I shake my head in response to Karin's question and to rid myself of this funk I feel.
"Good," she replies. Is she mocking me? "I have a game tomorrow. Can you invite her?" My head snaps up in surprise. "What? Last time she was here, she said she would like to come to one of my games."
My lips twitch upwards, and I move my hand to cover them. I almost smiled.
"Sure. But don't get your hopes up," I warn her. I quietly tell myself that I should listen to my own advice. "What time does it start?"
"Some time around ten. You can tell her to meet us here, though. We can walk over to Mashiba together."
I nod. "Alright. Let me go call her right now." I excuse myself from the table. I head up to my room, climbing the stairs like I always do, in the same way I usually do. So it catches me off guard when I hear Yuzu ask Karin if I suddenly seem to be in a better mood. Karin's reply, though, literally makes stumble on a step.
"Our brother has finally reached puberty. I'm sort of proud."
Why would she say that?! More importantly, what did she mean by that?! I already hit puberty if it weren't obvious by my growth spurt and deepened voice. How does my improved mood relate to puberty?
I don't focus on it for long. All it would do is give me a headache, so I grab my phone, opening my contact list and look for Inoue's number. When I land on her name, my finger hovers over the call button. Why do I feel nervous?
"Oh, ho, ho! You're looking at your phone quite intensely. Are you watching something perverted, Kurosaki-san?"
I jump, startled at Urahara's unexpected appearance. My phone flies behind me, landing on my bed. Urahara leans from his spot on the window to grab my phone.
"Inoue's number?" He opens his fan and hides his mouth. "Perverted, indeed."
"What the hell does that mean? And give me my phone back," I demand, embarrassed. He tosses it to me. "What are you doing here, anyways?"
"Always so angry." He shakes his head in a condensing manner. "I've come with gifts!"
My eyes widen. "I can become a Shinigami again?"
His fan snaps shut. "Not quite. You still are under the provisional period. However, I think I found a way in which I can dilute your spiritual pressure in preparation for when you do have access to your powers." He throws me a package. "It's pills. You take them twice a day. They do a few things simultaneously: the first—"
I cut him off. "I don't need to know what they do. If it will let me use my powers quicker, I'll take them. I don't need an explanation." I open the package and fish out a pill. I swallow it immediately.
"The effects should happen soon. One of them should be a lowering in your spiritual pressure. You probably don't realize it, but your human form is releasing spiritual pressure higher than before. And when your emotions become unstable, your spiritual pressure reaches levels that become dangerous, and this is happening when you are human… I can't even begin to imagine what you will be like in a month." He becomes quiet. "Anyhow, just take the pills. I'm still researching on different and more effective solutions."
"Thanks. I appreciate it," I tell him sincerely.
"Don't thank me just yet, Kurosaki-san. There is still a chance in which you may be unable to use your abilities in the human world. If I can't find a method to suppress your enormous strength, you will only be able to use your sword in Soul Society."
"Well, I'm not going to worry about it. I trust you."
He looks at me, and his expression is almost akin to…pity.
"I will do my best, Kurosaki-san. You belong in this world," he says. An ominous feeling comes off his words, but before I can think, he disappears from my window.
I rub my head in confusion. Of course I belong here. This is my home…then why did his last words seem so foreboding?
"Did you call her yet?" Karin leans on my doorframe.
"Not yet."
"Do you want me to do it?" She steps into my room and reaches for the phone in my hand. I pull my arm back, holding the phone away from her.
"I'm good. I just got distracted," I defend myself. She rolls her eyes, smirks, and leaves my room.
I look at the small device in my hand. Her name stands out.
I take a deep breath and dial her number.
It rings and rings and rings.
"Hello?" She breathes into the phone.
I gulp. It's almost like Inoue just whispered right into my ear.
"Uhh, it's me. Ichigo."
I hear her breathing stop and pick up. "Kurosaki-kun! I'm sorry it took me so long to answer! I was in the bathtub, and I barely got to the phone in time."
An image of Inoue starts to form in my head as she explains. I shake my head hard, but all it does is scramble my thoughts even more.
"I didn't even have time to put clothes on," she continues. I snap the phone away from my ear.
My room becomes an inferno in that second. My face flushes as my brain paints me a picture of her. It can only give me an image of Inoue with wet hair and bare shoulders before I smack myself.
I press the phone back against my ear. "Call me back when you get dressed." I don't wait for her to answer. I hang up.
I know it's rude, but I couldn't help it. To think that I was talking to a na-na-naked Inoue…It made me embarrassed! Like I was somehow peeping on her or something.
I fall onto my bed. I bury my face into my pillow, trying to escape this unbearable heat that surrounds me.
Is the air conditioner off or something?!
She is quick to call me back. I sit up against my wall and answer.
"Kurosaki-kun?"
"Sorry about hanging up, Inoue. I…" I fumble to tell her a reason for it. "I didn't want you to catch a cold." My excuse makes me hit my head against the wall.
"How considerate! Thanks!" She accepts the lie with such ease that I feel bad. She's so trusting that sometimes it hurt. "Is there something you needed, Kurosaki-kun?"
"Oh, about that…are you busy tomorrow?"
"No, I'm not!" She shouts in the phone without thought. I laugh. "I, uh, I mean, I don't think so…why?
"Karin has a match. She wanted me to invite you to come watch."
"She did? I would love to come!" I can hear the excitement in her voice, but I can hear something else, too. What is it?
"She'll be happy to hear it." I only admit it to myself that I'm happy as well. "We'll meet here around nine. Is that okay?"
"Sure! I can't wait!" I smile. But then I hear her sniffle. Did she really catch a cold so quickly?
"Are you alright, Inoue?"
She hesitates before she finally speaks in a muted voice, "Tatsuki-chan…" She pauses. "I'm so proud of her! She got a full-ride to the University of Tsukuba!" Although she sounds animated, her voice cracks.
"Hey…" I was never good with words or tears.
"She's going to do a lot of great things! She's going to kick a lot of butt, too!" She chokes out a watery laugh. I clench at the phone, feeling helpless. "I'm happy for her! I really am! So happy!" She sniffles. "I'm just going to miss her."
"It's not too far away," I try to comfort her.
"She said that too. You two must be twins!" The sadness in her voice thickens. "It's not too far away," she repeats. She sighs. "Things are changing, aren't they?" I almost miss her words from how quietly she said them. "Well, I better get to sleep! I don't want to be late! I'll see you tomorrow!"
"Yeah, see you tomorrow." She hangs up.
Before I know it, I call Tatsuki. She picks up after the second ring.
"Hey, I heard you got a full-ride. Congrats."
"How did you fi— You talked to Orihime?" She sounds like she is in disbelief.
"Yeah. She just told me over the phone."
"I can't believe it!" She starts to laugh obnoxiously. "Wait, how did she sound?" All traces of humor are gone.
I don't know how to answer her. I struggle with putting the words together.
"She's sad, isn't she?"
"She's happy for you," I counter, defensive on Inoue's behalf.
"When I left her apartment tonight, she told me the same thing. It would have been more believable if she weren't bawling her eyes out."
"She is though. Happy for you, that is."
"I know." She breathes out harshly. "I should have spent the night. I just told her and left."
"She'll be fine." I hear beeping on her end. "Do you have another call?"
"Speak of the devil! It's Orihime. She must have been sneezing. I got to go." She doesn't end the call yet. "You know the hardest part about all of this? It's leaving her alone." The call cuts off.
I don't even get the chance to tell Tatsuki that Inoue wouldn't be.