Bleach Fan Fiction ❯ The String ❯ The Dress ( Chapter 1 )

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Disclaimer: I do not own Bleach or any of the characters. I simply

kidnap them to do my bidding so as to entertain my fan-girlish

notions *does evil laugh, chokes on inhaled bug and dies* (Lucy:

don't worry she posted the chapter before that happened).

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

 

 

One: The Dress

 

“Oh Ishida-kun! It's wonderful thank you! I love it!” Orihime

exclaimed. She first held it to her chest and then at arms' length in front of her to look at it. It was a blue dress. At the top of the right arm a dark blue ribbon started and it spiraled down the entire dress ending at the bottom left corner of the skirt.

 

Tatsuki crossed the room and whispered something in Orihime's ear. Orihime's face lit up and she said “Good idea!” before running off. Uryu was thoroughly confused. Girls were so strange sometimes. Of course they probably felt that way about boys most of the time too. He thought it was funny how that worked. Just then the doorbell rang and Tatsuki, who had stated earlier that Ichigo was supposed to drop by around 4:30, called “Come on in.”

 

Ishida looked around at the clock and saw that it was apparently 4:33. Ichigo walked into the room to find Tatsuki looking excited and Uryu looking very confused. They both looked as if they were waiting for something.

 

“So what are we waiting for here?” Ichigo asked.

 

“Well I'm not really sure but I think it's supposed to be a secret anyway.” Uryu answered.

 

They waited patiently for a few more seconds when Orihime suddenly skipped into the room… wearing Uryu's dress…

 

Uryu looked upon her as if he had never seen her before. The dress looked better on her than he had expected. It clung to her in all the right places and complimented her delicate curves. It flowed like water over her body and the skirt fluttered when she moved. If she were to turn, it would have gracefully and beautifully flown out in a perfect pleated circle.

 

By this point Uryu had blushed about three shades of light pink. He hadn't meant for it to be so… stunning? Was that the word he was looking for? He very much hoped this wasn't in any way suggestive. He had simply wanted to give Orihime something practical that she would enjoy, but now, looking upon it, Uryu wondered if it was appropriate to make a girl look so good, so attractive.

 

Ichigo also looked a little abashed. He was definitely a

little uncomfortable at how it made her look. He liked her as only a

friend and everybody knew it. There was no possible way he could

ever have feelings for Orihime. You could see it in his eyes every time

he looked at or talked to her. Uryu and the rest of the guys knew he

didn't think she was particularly attractive. This was a slightly

different look that he gave her now though. It wasn't that he was checking her out or any thing of that nature. If anyone ever even suggested that Ichigo was checking Orihime out, he would have punched the guy in the face. Besides, Ichigo liked someone else and all the guys knew it; he just wouldn't tell them who. Most people suspected it was Rukia because of his habit of changing the subject when they asked him about her and how he had a knack for misspeaking when he was around her. She just thought he was a klutz, but everybody else was secretly laughing at him.

 

“Hey Inoue-san! Nice dress!” he said quickly regaining himself.

 

Uryu saw Orihime blush at this as she said, “Oh thanks! But Ishida-kun is the one that made it.”

 

“Well I guess all that sewing paid off. It's nice work.” Ichigo replied, giving an enthusiastic smile.

 

Uryu adjusted his glasses to hide his irritability. He resented

Ichigo's flirtatious style of conversation with Orihime. He was such a

ladies' man. Well, not really, but he was perceived as such due to the fact that any girl that had ever met him had, at one point, had a crush on him. Most of them soon got over it, though, after getting to know him a bit.

 

Orihime evidently was not one of those girls. It was so frustrating! Here he was, trying his hardest to get Orihime to notice him and going out of his way to make her a meaningful and heartfelt gift whether she realized that's what it was or not, and all Ichigo had to do was walk in the room and give her a compliment and she was blushing like crazy! Didn't Ichigo realize he was flirting with her even if he didn't mean to? Didn't he realize she took everything he said to heart and carefully considered every possible meaning of what his words could mean? Was he actually so clueless that he didn't know this was going on right in front of him? The whole situation was stupid and aggravating!

 

“Ishida-kun? Are you okay?” He turned his head and saw Tatsuki sitting on the floor next to him. She was so quiet and

lightweight that she had appeared silently beside him without him

even noticing. He had been so caught up in his own thoughts and

cleaning his already-spotless-spectacles that he hadn't realized her. It

was very…odd. Although, she was a black belt in, what he was sure were, a few martial arts, so she had undoubtedly been trained to move quickly and quietly and, in time, it had surely become part of her life.

 

Quickly getting over his slight startle, he responded, “Oh it's

nothing, I was just thinking.”

 

“You know, it is a nice dress you made. It looks like it was made

just for her,” she answered.

 

“Oh, well thank you…” Uryu trailed off into thought. Tatsuki

thought he looked like he was daydreaming about something.

She smiled slightly to herself thinking `Aha! It's just as I

thought! He's totally in love with her! Poor guy. Inoue-chan

likes Kurosaki-kun. She'll never notice him…'

 

“So are we going to do homework like we said or just hang around?” Uryu inquired.

 

“Yeah, we should probably get to that you guys,” Tatsuki agreed.

 

About an hour later as they were finishing up Uryu looked at the

clock, which read 5:52 and remembered that he had to be home by

6:00. This meant that he would have to leave at about 5:5o or so. His

house was not particularly close to Tatsuki's. It was within walking distance and not very far away in perspective but if you had to walk, it

seemed a much longer distance than it actually was.

 

“Hey you guys, I should probably be going. I promised I'd be home by six.” Uryu informed his friends.

 

They all looked up from getting their papers together and packing their book bags up to look at him. Tatsuki thought he looked a little saddened, Orihime thought he looked tired and Ichigo thought he looked slightly relieved.

 

Tatsuki was the first one to speak. “Ok well see you later! And don't be shy to stop by every once in a while just to talk or somethin', `kay?” she invited.

 

“Well see ya later I guess…” Ichigo said.

 

Uryu smiled faintly and was turning to leave when he felt something come in contact with his body, throwing him off balance and almost knocking him over. He soon realized that it was Orihime hugging him. He was shocked and a little embarrassed. She was hugging him! Orihime Inoue was hugging HIM! Uryu barely had time to regain his composure before he heard her voice saying, “Thanks again Ishida-kun! You're such a good friend!” and she let go of him, smiling. It was so brief and astonishing that he honestly didn't know what to say. He was also slightly hurt by what she had said. He was constantly and painfully reminded that she didn't even know he existed.

 

He had to say something so, collecting himself, he said, “Y-Your welcome Inoue-san. It was no problem…” and walked out of the house thinking dejectedly, `So that's what she thinks of me, huh? Friend? Of course… I knew that but still… Why doesn't she notice me? Maybe I'm just too shy. Not like her… She's so hyper and outgoing, everyone knows her! Barely anyone knows me… But that doesn't matter! I like it better that way anyway. I just wish she would pay more attention to me… She's too busy hoping Ichigo will like her to consider that someone like me even could like her.'

 

On his way home, Uryu only observed the things he saw around him; the things that were always around but nobody ever took the time to notice anymore; birds, grass, trees, the sidewalk, power-lines and, his own shoes.

 

Upon arriving home and opening the front door of his house, Uryu soon realized that his father was home. He could be heard him typing away on his laptop in the next room. Uryu figured he was probably working on his blog, emailing someone or doing something of equal importance. He sighed and looked around the front room, just glad to be home.

 

“You home already, Uryu?” he heard his father ask.

 

“Yeah. I told you I'd be home around six.” He called back.

 

“Oh I didn't realize it was that late already…” He could hear his dad mumbling about how there weren't enough hours in the day and other such nonsense. Uryu shook his head at how weird is dad was and made his way up to his room. Opening the door to his bedroom and dropping his book bag next to the desk, he plopped down on his bed so that he was lying on his stomach with his head and feet hanging off the sides.

 

This was his least favorite position to be in. He played with the carpet, pulling on individual strands for a few seconds before sighing and rearranging himself on the bed. He now had his hands behind his head on the pillow staring at the ceiling with one leg straight out and the other one bent so that his knee was pointing at the ceiling.

 

As he watched the ceiling fan spin `round and `round he thought about the last few minutes of his visit at Tatsuki's house. The

truth was, he had felt all of the things his friends thought he did. He was sad that he had to go, but also relieved that he could finally get out of there so he wouldn't have to be around Orihime anymore, and he was definitely tired. He'd stayed up late the night before resulting in only having gotten a few hours of sleep. He was also tired of doing homework and tired of being near Orihime. He wanted to be near her but every time he was, he felt very self-conscious. He worried

about simple, stupid little things that he'd never even considered

about himself before. He would find himself noticing things he didn't

really want her to notice, like that his hair was sticking up the wrong

way or that he had injuries from battle that she hadn't been able to

heal all the way. He wondered if she would notice that he was getting

a small blemish on his forehead. He figured probably not. His hair

usually covered that part of his face.

 

What made things worse was he wanted her to think he was at least slightly attractive, but he didn't even know how to do that. He didn't know what she thought was cute or even what she liked in someone's personality. He didn't know her like a girl-friend would know her. He knew girls talked about that kind of thing to each other. He had no doubt that Tatsuki and Rukia knew those things about her, but he didn't. Of course he didn't. He was a boy. For that reason alone he could never know that information unless Tatsuki, Rukia, or Orihime, herself told him. Of course she wouldn't tell him. Even if they were going out (in his dreams), she would only tell him what she liked about him, not about boys in general and he could NEVER ask Rukia or Tatsuki about it or they would definitely know that he liked her and he couldn't have that. Not yet. He wasn't ready to let people know he liked her.

 

He suddenly remembered what he had started off thinking about. What had happened at Tatsuki's house… The last few minutes at Tatsuki's house… Orihime had hugged him. She had hugged him!

That was an amazing thought. He thought about how he must have

looked, and now, looking back on it, it actually seemed quite comical.

It had happened so quickly that he had no time to feel hardly

any emotion at all. He was sure that if she hadn't taken him so off his

guard he would have been too shy to hug her back anyway. He no

longer felt so guilty about not hugging her. Of course, he probably

shouldn't have felt guilty about it anyway. When she had let go of him

he was still trying not to fall over. If he had known what was going on

he'd probably have freaked out and blushed like crazy. In fact, he seriously doubted that he would have been able to keep himself standing. All things considered, he was glad it happened the way it did.

 

He turned his head to look at the alarm clock on his dresser,

which read 6:34. He suddenly remembered that he had last eaten at

11:00 and now his stomach had a certain grumpy feel to it, so taking a

deep breath, Uryu went to the kitchen for some Ramen.

 

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~