Chapter Text
It was a sunny Sunday morning when Ichigo stepped out of his house, his wallet tucked safely in his pocket and Yuzu’s voice in his head, reminding him of everything she wanted him to buy for her. Tomatoes, cabbages, carrots and cucumbers; rice, curry powder, and apple juice. A bottle of sake for dad and a few bananas for Karin, and he had been given permission to buy a few chocolates as well to keep for when they felt like eating something sweet. But most importantly—Yuzu had said—he needed to get to ABCookies and bring some of their honey buns that his youngest sister was so crazy about, along with some other treats to share with his sister’s friends, who were coming to his house to hang out after lunch.
A light breeze ruffled through his hair as he made his way down town, and upon inhaling through his nose he could smell the spring in the air; the scent of the cherry blossoms around him making his nose crinkle in approval: spring was indeed one of Ichigo’s favorite seasons. He walked without his trademark scowl on his face, the ideal weather only helping in making his mood better, and he briefly thought that if Yuzu had been the one to go grocery shopping today, she’d walk by with small skips on her steps.
Passing by several stores to collect all the groceries he had to take home hadn’t taken long, and by the time he stepped out of the supermarket with the few items he was missing only 20 minutes had passed, and with a handful of bags he made his way towards his last destination before going back home. After walking down several blocks he spotted the big, colorful sign of ABCookies at the end of the street, and taking long strides he approached the shop and stepped inside; the bell ringing as he pushed the door open, and at the same time the sweet smell of freshly baked bread and pastries assaulted his nose, and with just that he could understand why his sister liked this bakery so much.
Taking a look around, Ichigo took note of the warm environment of the shop: the walls were painted with a light pink colour, several frames lined up on the left one with what he assumed were pictures of the owners and workers of the shop; a wallpaper with a floral pattern giving the finishing touches to the decoration of the concrete covering the bottom half of it, and the shelves displaying their pastries were coloured white with a few streaks of silver here and there. The teen approached one of the display shelves as in a trance; everything looked absolutely delicious. Especially those chocolate covered donuts, and that one chocolate cake with cream and strawberry filling. There were also chocolate filled anpan, and chocolate manju, and also—
“Excuse me, can I help you?” a voice snapped him out of his thoughts, and he reluctantly tore his gaze away from the chocolaty heaven before him in favor of addressing the person that had called out to him.
When the orange-haired teen laid his dark brown eyes on the shop employee that had offered him her help, the fleeting thought that it would be more appropriate to simply label this bakery as ‘heaven’, chocolaty or not, passed through the back of his mind. The voice—the slightly high-pitched, musical, almost angelic voice—belonged to a petite young woman who looked about his age and downright gorgeous, and Ichigo inhaled sharply as he took in her features: the alabaster skin of her face tinted with a faint blush on her cheeks, the big, round, bright brown eyes framed by impossibly long eyelashes; her small, delicate nose, and underneath it a pair of plump, pink lips that Ichigo wanted to reach out and run his thumb over to find out if they were as soft as they looked; and maybe, if she’d let him, he could crouch down a little bit and cup one of her cheeks in his hand, tilting her head towards him as he got closer, and then they’d close their eyes and he would close the distance between them, slowly, and finally; he’d press his lips to—“Um, sir?”
He snapped his mouth shut as he was snapped out of his daydreaming, and he had been unaware of his parted lips as he stared at the young girl before him, now seeming a little flustered, and he wanted to punch himself in the face for blatantly staring like that and making her uncomfortable. “Uh, yeah, sorry.” He said, and he cleared his throat before turning his gaze to the pastries once more, to try and get his thoughts together; not to hide his blush, he was not blushing. Ichigo Kurosaki didn’t blush. Ever.
The pastries. Yuzu asked him. For her friends.
“Do you have any buns left, honey?” he asked, and there were a few moments of silence between them that felt like an eternity before he realized what he had said; and suddenly his face felt as if it was on fire as he looked at the petite woman behind the counter—and no, he was still not blushing—and he tripped over his words as he corrected himself: “Bu-buns! Honey buns! I meant ho-honey buns, doyouhaveanyhoneybunsleft?”
Silence once again stretched between them, and the girl still hadn’t answered his question; instead looking at him with slightly parted lips and her eyes—how were they so big, and so bright, and so beautiful—wide open, and he was considering turning on his heels and dash out of the shop and never come back ever again in his life when he was startled out of his thoughts by her sudden fit of giggles, that escalated into full-blown laughter that she tried to stifle behind her tiny, delicate hand. “I-I’m sorry!” she said between wheezes and giggles. Ichigo merely watched, completely mesmerized by the way the corners of her eyes crinkled and they shone in amusement as she laughed, and the sound; cliché as it was, could only be described as music to his ears, and he thought he wouldn’t mind to hear it again: if he had to make a fool of himself to get her to laugh like that again, he’d do it as many times as was necessary. “You just,” she spoke once more, when her laughter subsided. “You just looked so funny, your face reminded me of a strawberry! A strawberry with orange leaves” she giggled, and he brought a hand to his mouth and cleared his throat once more.
“Funny,” he said, “that’s my name” he offered, a small smile on his face. “Ichigo, I mean. My name’s Ichigo.” The taller of the two mentally kicked himself and he briefly thanked every god he knew the name of that netiher Renji nor Rukia were around to make fun of his behavior in the shop, or his lame attempt at hitting on this girl. And since when was he hitting on her?
“Ichigo-kun, huh” she replied with a shy smile adorning her face and her cheeks flushing a darker red than their natural light pink colour; and the way she said his name made him feel light and warm all over. He almost asked her to say it again, and again, and again. “My name is Orihime,” the girl—Orihime, the name suited her; he was sure she could pass as the fairest princess in the world—continued, and offered a shy it’s nice to meet you, with a bright smile on her face before she asked, “So, honey buns? We still have some of those, would you like anything else?”
Ichigo did not think of asking for her number, because they had just met, in a bakery shop, and that would be inappropriate and kind of creepy and he wasn’t a desperate old man, it had been enough accidentally calling her honey. So he instead offered the list of pastries Yuzu had asked, and she must’ve somehow recognized who they were for as she gasped quietly and asked with wide eyes, “Could it be… you’re Yuzu-chan’s big brother?!”
Cocking an eyebrow, Ichigo replied. “I am. Do we know each other?” and resisted the urge to roll his eyes, because no; of course they didn’t know each other, Ichigo was sure he’d remember such a beautiful girl had he seen her somewhere else before.
“No, we don’t. But I do know Yuzu-chan, she drops by the shop frequently with her friends after school, and she loves those honey buns,” Orihime explained as she placed the pastries he had asked in a paper tray, “And she told me she had a big brother with a fruity name who got on fights a lot because of his unusual hair colour” she finished, a small smile on his face, and he lingered on the description of his name. Fruity. He had never heard anyone refer to his name as fruity, but it was better than referring to it as girly. “She also told me your face was constantly stuck in a scowl but I guess that was just an exaggeration?”
Those words were the cue for him to plaster said scowl on his face. “My face isn’t constantly stuck in a scowl,” he said, and almost pouted.
“There it is!” was Orihime’s reply, and when he looked at her her smile had gotten even wider, and her eyes were glinting with amusement as she looked at him; and when he directed his scowl at her, her response was to burst into a new fit of giggles that didn’t last as long as the last one. “You’re funny,” she said, and he congratulated himself even though he hadn’t been trying to be funny, but hey, it was a good thing that she thought of him like that, right?
“I’m glad you think so,” he said, and wiped the scowl on his face in order to offer her a small, warm smile; feeling his gaze softening, and it seemed to have certain effect on her as she sputtered and went back to her task of collecting the pastries Ichigo was about to take home and quickly packed them and informed him of the price he had to pay.
After paying for the treats and getting his change in return, Ichigo took his bag off the counter at the same time Orihime spoke: “Then, Ichigo-kun… see you around?” she asked, and there was something akin to hope in the tone of her voice that made Ichigo feel the butterflies in his stomach that Yuzu’s shoujo manga spoke so much of.
He took one last look at her, making sure to engrave in his mind how small and cute she looked with her uniform on: how soft and shiny her auburn hair looked and how her bangs framed her heart-shaped face, the colour of it just a bit darker than that of her irises, and the small hat sitting on the crown of her head just adding to the adorableness factor of her appearance; before he replied with a soft, “Yeah. See you around.”
Ichigo nodded his head as she offered a quiet bye bye with a last lingering smile on her face, and he turned around and exited the shop. The walk back home seemed to take half the time it took to get to ABCookies, and he barely registered entering his house and placing the grocery bags on the kitchen counter: his mind was full of Orihime. A few moments after he entered the house, Yuzu came to greet him and speak to him, probably making sure he hadn’t forgotten anything, but her words were lost in the air and he simply asked, almost unaware of the words slipping past his lips. “Hey, Yuzu. Do you believe in love at first sight?”
His younger sister just looked at him as if he had suddenly grown an extra head, a startled huh?! Flying out of her mouth, and then her eyes caught the bags from the bakery shop, and her confused scowl melted into an almost sly smile as she spoke, a teasing tone on her voice: “Oh. You met Orihime-chan, didn’t you?”
Ichigo only sighed, and looked back at the bags holding the delicious treats inside, and he replied with a mere, “Yeah.”