[ishida/orihime] [angels_requiem]
Title: 20 Things About Ishida and Orihime
Author: angels_requiem
Character/Pairing/Group: Ishida Uryuu/Inoue Orihime
Rating: PG
Disclaimer/Notes/Whatever: I apologize for the pretentious drivel in advance. This is actually the first Bleach related fic I've written ever, and Ishida was giving me a very hard time. I really should have started with AU!Nanao/Ichigo. In any case, I don't own anything except a little piece of this community, and I'm really happy to see how much it's grown. You guys rule.



1. It begins: Once upon a time, there was a princess and an archer.

2. Orihime doesn't believe in regret. Sometimes plans go awry, but that's okay. Her brother once told her that when one door closes, another one opens, so she doesn't really mind when one is slammed in her face.

She knows Ishida-kun will open his door again. He just has to understand that there are people on the other side of it who care.

3. Ishida believes in regret. Sometimes he thinks that it's all that he knows.

4. The Tanabata is Orihime's favorite festival. Tatsuki asks her why – it's sort of depressing, isn't it? Being separated from your true love for most of the year, only to be allowed to see them for one day?

It's not, really, she says, writing in careful, deliberate strokes, because not having something makes you appreciate it more, right?

She folds her wish in half twice before hanging it on the bamboo tree.

5. "It's for the best," he tells his reflection in the medicine cabinet, but the man in the mirror is looking less like him and more like his father every day.

6. They run into each other in a fabrics shop one afternoon. She says, "Ishida-san! It's so nice to see you." The air is so heavy with dishonesty that Orihime imagines that she's suffocating underneath its weight.

7. Ishida says, "I'm well, Inoue-san." He doesn't realize how much of a lie it is until her smile bores a hole straight through it...

8. ... and he never realizes he has anything like a heart until it's broken.

9. She corners him six months later after spying him walking down her street. He tries to evade her, but she grabs his arm. "Don't go," she says, her warm breath visible as it hits the cold air.

10. He doesn't even notice that he's kissing her until she's kissing him back.

11. Orihime loves Ichigo unselfishly. His happiness is more important to her than her own, even if what makes him happy makes her sad. She has no qualms with the thought of dying for him, because she would, in a second, if she knew he would live to see another day.

12. Orihime's love for Ishida is selfish. When she closes her eyes and imagines her life without him (which is not so hard, all things considered), she feels as if she is breaking apart at the seams. His happiness is not as important to her as seeing his face every day or hearing him say, "Inoue-san," in that gentle voice reserved only for her. She lives for Ishida in a way that she never lived for Ichigo, because life, even in death, is nothing without him in it.

13. When Ishida accidentally calls Inoue Orihime, Ichigo's grin threatens to fall off of his face. "'Orihime', eh?" Ishida blushes so brightly that he's sure the snow is melting beneath his feet.

14. Orihime doesn't blush at all the first time she uses Ishida's first name. It's comes as naturally to her as if she'd always used it, and that's that.

15. There are no illusions of "happily ever after."

16. Ishida has a recurring nightmare of Orihime dying in his arms, her blood a pretty red against the white of his robes. "It isn't your fault," she promises.

The arrow through her heart says differently.

17. He never tells her about these or any of the others, but it doesn't make the second goodbye any easier.

18. This time, Orihime knows she will see him again.

19. In the end, he will traverse great distances for her. She will fight great battles for him. They will meet on the front line like two lovers, separated by a vast expanse of sky. Blood will be spilled. Lives will be lost.

But wishes will be granted.

20. On the bamboo tree, her hopes sway like wind chimes in the summer breeze.