...um...
... yeah. It was an interesting concept, so...
He's never seen her cry. Perhaps, he had mused, overworking your smile leaves no energy to run the tear glands. Perhaps her biological assets in... other areas... had been paid for by her inability to shed tears. He'd many a theory about the phenomenon, so many that his rather verbose diary had spilled into several more volumes for her sake. But here she is, sobbing all over his lovely tatami mats and apologizing right and left for her behavior, and for once the owner of the Uruhara Shouten is at a loss for words. Not to mention hypotheses.
"Ah—Inoue-san, may I ask...?" he says uncertainly, kneeling down beside her and frantically wracking his brain for responses her unexpected outburst. This is not a situation he has the training or the talent to deal with. "Is there something I can do...?"
She shakes her head vehemently, sniffs prettily (if rather loudly) and wipes her eyes with the back of her hand. Uruhara, in a flash of purposefulness, stands up and grabs a box of tissue from a nearby shelf.
"Sorry," she whispers, taking it from him. "I just... kind of... came here, and I don't know why. I didn't mean to trouble you."
"No trouble," he says briskly. "Now, what's this all about?"
Orihime stares up at him, watery eyes all tragic and grateful and innocent at the same time, and spills the story:
Ichigo. Her. Old crush, new girl, daring rescue mission into Soul Society. Battles and captains and other Shinigami affairs. Best friends. Tragedy. Stolen love. Classic case of a broken heart. Then the confession and the rejection.
She tells it all in such an uncharacteristic monotone that it frightens the ex-Shinigami. Uruhara's not sure if he can trust himself to speak, so he sits there in silence a moment longer, regarding her hunched form with an air of grave decision.
"You know," he says at last. "You're a lovely girl. There will be others."
"What others?" she replies hopelessly. If he didn't know her better, he'd say she was being cynical.
"Like..." Like me. But he doesn't say that. "Like... someone who's been right in front of you for a long time."
She raises her head at that, long soft hair cascading around her face. Oh, how he wants to braid that hair, to feel it between his fingers like rivulets in a copper brook. He could say it now, he knows. Like me. But it wouldn't make her happy. He's too old for her, too crazy, too dangerous anyway. She doesn't deserve a rogue like Uruhara Kisuke. Even if she'd take him.
"Like... Ishida Uryuu-san!"
Orihime's eyes widen. "Wha...?"
"Ah-hah!" he puts on his normal grin again, to cover the hairline cracks that have started appearing in his heart. "That Quincy boy is in love with you, Inoue-san. Very much so, in fact." Uruhara reaches into his coat pocket with a flourish, withdrawing a folded piece of paper that he presses into the girl's palm. "Look what he left here the last time he visited!" (All right, so Ishida hadn't left it, per se. It was more along the lines of Uruhara snooping around in his precious sewing kit and removing a few items of... interest for later blackmailing purposes. But it had the same effect.)
Orihime unfolds it, and reads, her eyes growing larger with every line.
"Is it real?" She says quietly, at last lifting her eyes to meet his.
"Every word." He must be the stupidest man in the world, to give his beloved a love letter from a rival. Or maybe he's just insane, as Yoruichi claims.
She presses the letter to her chest, and unreadable expression on her face.
"Thank you, Uruhara-san," she says. "I am sorry I got tears on your tatami mats. I..." she pauses, "...Thank you." And then she stands up to leave.
He watches her go, sliding the shoji screens open and closed behind her, her shoulders bent forward as though trying to protect something tender within. Ishida would be happy—the letter is clutched in her left hand like a talisman. It will take more than that small salve to heal her, but it will be a start. A place for courage to begin. Better than he has, anyway.
Well... that's not quite true... Uruhara thinks, glancing over at the slender, golden-eyed woman glaring at him from a photograph on his wall. Yoruichi's due back from Seretei any day now, as full of sarcasm and wisdom as when she left. He doesn't have any love letters from her buried in the pockets of his coat, of course. But it's something.
Uruhara plasters his grin firmly onto his face, willing it to stay there and keep him safe behind it. He's not above a little hiding from the world. He's not above a little pretending.
He's not even above taking a page out of Inoue's book, and doing a little overworking of his smile.
-End-
(Oh, by the way, I'm pretty sure Orihime has never cried in front of Uruhara, but I wouldn't stake my life on it. Sorry if I'm wrong.)