Title: And Keep Good Company (Bookmark)
Author: Lys
Characters/Pairing: IchigoxIshida, Orihime
Rating/Warnings: PG-13, kissing and sexual themes.
Status: Bookmark 12/20, 1,175 words.


a/n: CRAP. THIS CHAP IS CRAP AND I ADMITS IT.




Orihime was looking for Ishida Uryuu. She meant to ask Ishida-kun if he was ready and willing to talk with them again (she’d caught him speaking with Kurosaki-kun earlier that day), because although she could understand why he would isolate himself from the group after his experiences in Soul Society, she was still his friend. So were Kurosaki-kun and Sado-kun. Friends never liked to see people they cared about isolate themselves.

She found something she was never looking for in the first place.

Kurosaki Ichigo had Ishida Uryuu pressed against the wall harshly, fingers rubbing angry circles into the smaller boy’s shoulders, wrinkling the fabric of his white button-up. They parted with a moan and a deep gasp, sucking for air. A small line of spittle was hanging down Ishida’s crushed lip and reddened chin.

Orihime’s mouth went dry—somehow, she wasn’t able to look away, no matter how hard she tried. She shouldn’t be staring because it was so intimate. Too intimate. She should look away, or maybe act normal and walk past. A small, high noise escaped her throat, making the decision for her. She turned and fled, instinct propelling her strong legs, looping the corner and finding her way to the stairwell. Halfway up, the door at the bottom opened, Ishida Uryuu slipping in and slamming it behind him, staring up at Orihime with his hot face and rumpled clothing. He panted.

She froze where she was standing, staring down at the boy over the railing connected to the stairs. “Ishida-kun.”

“Rapunzel, Rapunzel,” Ishida called up to her, cupping his hands and smiling a small, shy little smile. She smiled back, despite herself. Ishida, at least, wasn’t angry with her. He ascended the stairs, stopping two down from her, looking up from over the frames of his glasses.

She’d never noticed how blue his eyes were before. Not like the sky. More the shade of of an iris in the rain. Orihime wondered what Ishida would think, if he ever knew how she would describe his eyes. Maybe he’d laugh at her.

Maybe not.

“I’m sorry. I’m really, really sorry. I didn’t realize—“

“It’s okay.” He assured her. “It wasn’t as if you could have predicted something like that would end up happening. Not even I did.” He shrugged politely, further adjusting his shirt around him, tucking in the little piece of a tail that came loose.

“Kurosaki-kun…”

“Is having an odd time in his life, which I am sure he is over by now.”

An ‘odd time,’ Ishida Uryuu described it as. Orihime could only hope that, if this were the case, cute-faced boys with brave hearts would feel odd about her many times in the future. The blush on her face deepened and she looked away, playing with her long, thick auburn hair.

“He’s going to be angry with me, I think. When he sees me again. I know how he is about things like, um.”

“Like?”

“Like that,” and by That she meant interpersonal relationships in general; kissing other boys against the wall on school property in specific and only very, very recently.

“Oh,” muttered Ishida Uryuu, adjusting his glasses with two long fingers. “That. That kiss wasn’t what you might be thinking it was. Kurosaki just had to get something off of his proverbial chest,” Ishida said, eyes looking pointedly away from Orihime’s own ample breasts, clearing his throat uncomfortably.

It didn’t bother Orihime—she was used to it, and Ishida Uryuu was…well, he was. He was the kind of nice boy little girls read books with lots of pictures about; not really a dragon so much as a white knight. A very skinny one who could use more to eat, and not at all Orihime’s type, but bless him anyway.

“I wasn’t trying to guess what it meant, Ishida-kun. I just felt so…”

“Upset? I promise you, I’m not about to take Kurosaki off the market. I’d sooner kill myself most dead.”

“No,” said Orihime, face twisted into a feminine frown. The situation was absurd in the way that television dramas were. It happened to other people, living other lives, but it never happened to you. It especially didn’t happen to you if the life you lead was weird enough, and if your two male friends who you caught necking in the hallway were culturally-sworn enemies, even if it was a lifetime ago.

“You can be honest about it, if you’re upset. You can even slap me if you’d like, right across the cheek. I’d like to think you deserve it, for being just as close to that giant idiot as I am.”

“No,” Orihime mumbled in confusion. “That’s not right. I’m not really upset at all, Ishida-kun. Do you remember what I told you in Soul Society about Kurosaki-kun?”

A light went off in Ishida’s iris-in-the-rain eyes as he came to the sudden realization of exactly which conversation Orihime was invoking—the one about Kurosaki and Rukia. What was there left to be upset with, in a race that you lost months ago? Orihime believed that bitterness was for lemons and sour candies and wanted nothing to do with it.

“I understand. If you’d already assumed you’d lost him to the shinigami woman, what reason do you have to emotionally torture yourself over a person like me. Why did you run away, then? Kurosaki has probably already exploded into a million pieces with silent suspense, as he does. Although it’s your choice to answer; I would never push you into telling me if you didn’t want to, not in a situation like this.”

Not ever, Orihime understood; because Ishida was a nice boy.

“I didn’t want to—“ the heat on her face was almost painful. The air of the air-conditioned building felt cold over her ears, and the image of Kurosaki-kun’s hungry lips pressed against a blushing Ishida-kun welled up inside her brain again, pleasant and painful; unasked for though perhaps not unwanted, and she felt a little guilty for enjoying it for its own sake.

“I didn’t want to embarrass you and Kurosaki-kun.”

They chewed their respective lips, falling silent.

Finally, Ishida spoke, moving up the two steps between them until they were together, equidistant on one white stair-step. He tilted his head, removing his glasses and wiping them on the cuff of his shirt.

“Truly, you’re a Queen among commoners.”

Orihime sighed, countenance relaxing at Ishida’s unexpected and honest compliment. A relieved giggle bubbled out of her throat, echoing bittersweetly in the empty stairwell.

“A princess,” she corrected, gathering the dark-haired boy against her, arms wrapped tightly around his small chest as he jumped against her, startled.

“Ah! No hugs!”

“She’s back, you know,” came Kurosaki Ichigo’s unusually mature voice from the bottom of the stairwell, nervous and apologetic; the voice that used to frighten Orihime away. “Rukia. I’m sorry I was eavesdropping down here. I came in a few seconds after Ishida and you two were already, uh. I heard everything.”

Ishida gave a heavy, exasperated sigh against her, throat vibrating against the side of her face as she clung to his form. Orihime’s eyes filled up with a year's worth of unshed tears. She wiped them against Ishida Uryuu’s slight shoulder because she knew he’d let her. She loved them so much that it hurt sometimes.

It hurt so good.