Bleach Fan Fiction ❯ The String ❯ Thoughtful Sunday ( Chapter 7 )

[ P - Pre-Teen ]

By: Vejhed

A/N: Hey there, everybody. I know it's been a while since I posted but I've been kinda busy what with Christmas and New Year's and school. And now it's final week and I've taken a few brain melting tests.

I am seriously glad that freshmen only have at most like three tests!!! I've already taken both of mine and thank God they're over. The first one, the one for English, I'm a little concerned about. I think I might have gotten confused with gerunds and participles. I really, REALLY hope not!!!!!!!! And my other one, for math, I think I did okay on. I was the last one done and I had to stay after class to finish it, but at least I took my sweet time on it. It was so hard though!!! I still skipped two questions.

Anyway, this chapter is a little bit weird and I'm not sure that I like it. I don't know if I want to put a chapter before this one or not, but for now I'm done with it. If I decide I don't like it, I'll revise it. I'm really not sure if I like the way it flows or how it's set up, but like I said, I'll fix it later if I really hate it…

Sorry if you don't like it… Oh, and how do you guys like the 'Lucy' thing? My sister, my friends and I think it's hilarious, but that's just us… The weirdoes… (^_^)

Tell me whatcha think!

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Disclaimer: I do not own Bleach or the characters. I simply make up strange stories of my own imagination for them to be a part of and so very kindly ask if they would please fulfill my fangirl-ish needs by participating in the pathetic attempts at stories I dare to write and, even more daringly, post. They kindly oblige…

(Lucy: Yeah, after you gag and bound them!!!)

*Throws Skittles and Lego's at Lucy*

(Lucy: *catches Skittles in mouth and accidentally swallows a Lego.* AAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!! I SWALLOWED A LEGO!!!!!!! I'M GONNA DIE!!!!!!! AAAAAAHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!)

'Lucy, calm down, I'm sure you'll be all right…. Just calm down…'

(Lucy: AAAAHHHHH!!!!!!!!! There's a Lego in mah tummy…=,' {…. *sniffle, tear, sniff sniff*……Poor little me…. The Skittles were good though! XD )

'See? You'll be fine. In a few days you'll forget that there's a Lego in your tum- Wait… *Anime sweat drops* AAAAAHHHHH!!!!!!!!! THERZ A LEGO IN YUR TUMMY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!'

*In unison* AAAAAAHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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Seven: Thoughtful Sunday

Here he was, at nine o' clock on a Sunday morning, thinking. Again, instead of sleeping or eating a sugary, heart-stopping breakfast, or playing video games or doing anything remotely "normal", he was thinking. Of course! It so happened, though, that, this time, what he was thinking about was very important. It was important and unavoidable. How could he not think about it? This was one of those things that you just had to ponder about until you came to a decision or an answer. This answer or decision didn't necessarily have to be correct; you just had to find it. This kind of problem was most frustrating as it could take days to find the desired solution.

He was undoubtedly thinking about the events of the party the night before. He'd been so tired when he got home that he had gone directly to bed and immediately asleep. Now, all that occurred hit him with a renewed force. Of course he had been aware of what was going on, but he was in too much shock to question it. He had just accepted the fact that what he thought was going on, was indeed going on. Now he was dissecting the situation and studying the details by replaying them involuntarily over and over again in his head. 'Ishida-kun, have I ever been known to lie?' echoed through his mind, bouncing back and forth between the walls of his skull for what felt exhaustingly like the billionth time in less than twelve hours. With these words, the entirety of his morning would be confused.

What did she mean? Had she said that sentence with the same tone, the same feeling as he had? Or was she lying? Orihime? Lie? No. Wait, no? No meant that she actually liked him. On the other hand, if she said that just to get out of an awkward situation… No, that would be lying and it was true that Orihime never lied. That meant that she liked him, right? So either she lied and said she liked him or she didn't lie and she did like him… Which was more preposterous?

Uryu decided, after much more pondering, that it was more unbelievable that she would lie, and even if she did, it was unthinkable that she would lie about something like that. So…. SHE LIKED HIM!!!!!!!

He was inclined to do a little victory dance I his head, but strongly refrained due to the fact that he would even have freaked himself out by this ridiculous act.

Then another thought hit him. It didn't really hit him as it sort of whacked him in the head with a brick, stopping his celebratory mood. 'What now?' That was the question that so dampened his mental parade of encouraging thoughts. What would he do now? What would happen when he next met her? This was impossible. How could he possibly find an answer to that? So instead of an answer this time, he made a decision.

'I'll just wait and see what happens,' came the mental quote.

Either she would act like nothing happened or try to avoid thinking about it, or she would act the same way he felt and blush over stupid little things that wouldn't normally matter.

His pondering session being over for the day, he went downstairs for breakfast. Hopefully his dad had gone to the store; he felt like cereal.

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Orihime was at her kitchen table eating a breakfast of birthday cake and grape soda. She had simply picked up what looked good and took the least amount of preparation. She, too, was thinking about the party the night before. Not the birthday party; her slumber party. It had been a lot of fun.

She and the rest of the girls had played Truth or Dare. Orihime had picked Truth, as she usually did, and was forced to answer any questions the others asked her. Tatsuki's voice hung in her mind with the words, 'So is he a good kisser?'. This had started a conversation within the game upon Orihime's answer. She remembered all the things the girls asked her and how hard it had been for her to answer truthfully, even though she knew the answer to all of the questions. 'Do you actually like him?' 'Did you like it?' 'Do you wanna be his girlfriend?'

She didn't really want to share every detail of her experience with her friends immediately after it happened. She would probably tell them eventually, once it settled in her mind, but right now she just didn't really want her friends to bombard her with these questions. Also, she had been a little embarrassed of her answers…

Now that she thought about it, this cake needed something… Of course! She walked over to one of her cabinets and, finding what she was looking for, sat back down. Nothing like a little bit o' soy sauce to pull everything together… She looked at the clock and saw that she'd been up for a little over half an hour.

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Damn it!!! Still no milk!!! How frustrating…. What else could he have? Searching the cabinets he found coffee, hot chocolate, tea, Ramen, canned foods, macaroni and cheese, popcorn, and a mess of other things piled up on top of each other very haphazardly in a three-shelf-high disaster behind the cabinet door.

He opted for a sleeve of Saltine crackers and a few slices of cheese with a side of soda. Taking these ingredients, he headed back to his room to lay on his bed with snacks on hand and laptop in front of him. He'd finish writing the chapter to his fanfiction he was working on, then log onto the fanfiction site to update it, and then maybe play his favorite online game. He was still a few levels away from where he wanted to be.

This would probably consume the remainder of his weekend. Even though it had made him grumpy right before he went to one of the most important parties he'd ever been to, Uryu was glad he'd done his homework in the middle of the night on Friday. It had freed up his Sunday.

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Orihime was having a mental conversation with herself. She was replaying the events from her turn of the Truth or Dare game. Replaying all that was said, all that she answered…

'Do you actually like him?'

'Well, I, I guess so…'

Her mind was screaming and yet calm at the same time as it made its insertion, 'Of course I like him!!! Well, I think I do… Why would someone even ask that question anyway? Maybe I should have picked Dare…'

'Is he a good kisser?'

Ohhhhhh yeah. Dare would have been sooo much easier…

'Well, I guess, I dunno, yeah? I think…'

'Well did you like it?'

By this time Orihime had been completely embarrassed and flustered. Couldn't they see what these questions were doing to her? This was unbelievable! Even if she wanted to ask these questions of somebody, she wouldn't do it like this! Why would she want someone to feel this way? The correct way to ask these questions was to be interested and calm, not exited, hyper and loud!!! Oh, well. It was a birthday/slumber party. What else could be expected? And anyway, she had totally enjoyed her night with Ishida-kun!

These questions were partly so uncomfortable because the truthful answers were the ones she didn't want to tell her friends, even though they would have been totally full of support for her, the prettiest, most popular girl in school, dating the biggest nerd in school. They actually really liked Uryu because they all knew him and thought he was really nice and cool. Actually, they probably would have thought the two would make an awesomely cute couple. Him being taller than her, very skinny, very pale, and very quiet in plain colors next to her bursting, strong, bright, loud personality and eye-popping shades. Not to mention her being of shorter height than him and of a stouter body build. Orihime was very thin at the waist but wider around in other places…

Yep… They would have said that she and Ishida would make the cutest couple ever… That wasn't really a problem with her though. The truth was… well if she could have brought herself to answer the questions truthfully the answers would have been something along the lines of:

'Hell yeah I like him! I like him more than I thought I liked Ichigo!!! Ishida is so sweet and nice and cute!!! And man, is he a good kisser!!! He could use some practice, but I think he's pretty much got it down! Dude, was that his first kiss? If it was, Damn!!! And, hell yeah I liked it!!! That was like the funnest kissing I've ever done in my life!!!'

Of course, this was not her personality and she would probably never even want to say anything like that in her entire life. She would only ever think it in the back of her head and live her own secret personality in there that her friends could never meet and would never know about. To them she would always be sweet, weird humungo-boobed Orihime that eats strange and somewhat gross concoctions that she didn't like very much either… And she was like that because that's how she set herself up to be when se moved here.

She had been the new girl in town and played the sweet but strange new girl in school with hair that everybody either hated or envied. Because that's how she started out, that's how she came to be known. If she suddenly changed her friends would worry… It was okay though. She didn't actually care. That was some other part of her that she didn't want to live or even know about. This was what she wanted to be. This was happy.

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-WHOOSH- An arrow of rietsu sped through the air, smashing right into a tree. It had only missed that bug my millimeters!!!! He was getting better but he still needed more practice with this new bow. Uryu had gotten bored of his room, his crackers n' cheese and his computer.

What better thing is there to do when you're bored than to train for upcoming battles? -WHOOSH- Another arrow sailed by, catching a floating leaf on it. That was a good shot! This was good! This new bow was waaay better than the last one. And it most likely wasn't going to explode on him! That's always a plus! He found a spot, focused and -WHOOSH- let it go. The arrow hit the mark perfectly.

So he was pretty good at precision, but he was still really bad at speed and he needed just a little bit more juice, more power in the arrows if he was ever going to stand a chance against anything higher than captain level. That wouldn't actually be a major downfall, however, if he were any good at running. His shunpo was pathetic. He couldn't run away from a fly if he tried! He would have to go to Yoruichi for that kind of training though. He'd just stick to shooting various random things with spiritual arrows for now… -WHOOSH- nearly perfect hit…

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Orihime was sitting comfortably in a large green armchair, reading one of her favorite books. Then a thought struck her. It was 6:30 on a Sunday night. School was tomorrow.

She had known that in the back of her mind, but the thought had just now made itself apparent to her. Why did she always overlook things like that? She thought, for a minute, about the work assigned on Friday and when it was due, then about the contents of her school bag. Yep, she had homework… She put the book down and, standing from the amazingly comfy chair, went to her bag.

Bringing it back to the chair, she looked through the contents, searching for all of the homework it contained. After she had it all out she decided it wasn't very bad. She'd already finished most of it. Just the tail end of that science assignment, an easy math practice sheet, and a bit of civics, which was totally fine if you had the book. All she had to do was skim through the chapter and she would get a perfect score on it.

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Uryu was very glad his dad was rarely home. Although it meant the grocery shopping was rarely done, it also meant that Uryu wouldn't have to put up with his crazy father that acted like all he wanted to was kill him during training and didn't even pay attention to him when he was home…

He was glad that his father apparently lived there, though, because it meant that Uryu didn't have to pay any bills. How did Orihime live in that house all alone? How were her house, or any of her bills, being paid for? Did her brother leave her money or something? Did she get some kind of 'child-living-in-a-house-alone-and-can't-pay-the-bills' deal from some organization?

These were questions he'd never really thought of before. Now that he thought of it, he didn't think anybody else knew the answers either. Except, maybe, her closest friends. That might be it. He wanted to know, but he didn't want to ask the question. That was a situation that he didn't like. He never liked being too shy to ask questions. That was frustrating and he hated to be frustrated. It was one of the worst feelings in the world.

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*Both still running around in circles crazily screaming* AAAAAAAAHHHHH!!!!!!!! THERZ A LEGO IN YUR TUMMY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!