Devilish Delights

A series of one-shots based on random moments between Ichigo and Orihime.

Disclaimer: I don't own Bleach ... but I do own every sexy thought and imaginative fantasy I have of the characters.

Special note: This fic was inspired by a oneshot (Inuyasha) by Maiden of the Moon called Hot. I thank her for allowing me to borrow her plot!

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Delight 1:

He'd always known that she was a strange girl, but sometimes it was like it would slip his mind.

He'd get caught up in how normal she could be and then Wham!- out of nowhere, she would do and say something that would totally shatter that illusion of normalty and he'd be left staring dumbfoundedly at her or just plain confused as to the workings of her mind. A mind that would no doubt, he believed, confuse the hell out of the most brilliant of scientists or thinker...

He shuddered slightly in remembrance of some of the past evidence of that mind at work, the projection of her future self being one of them.

Yeah... sometimes it was rather easy to forget just how strange she could be.

Especially at times, incidentally, like this- when everything was normal in the world- the sky was blue, the grass was green, and there wasn't a single cloud in sight. . . When Tatsuki was dozing off, tired from her morning training sessions and lack of sleep; When Rukia and Renji were in their own world, whispering heatedly to one another; Chad and Ishida were oblivious to him, and when he was ... well he was staring at her, unable to pull his gaze away as she sat reading some new shoujo novel (or some such—he could never tell since he himself had no interest in the stuff). . .

Times such as these when she suddenly began talking to herself, cheeks red, slate grey eyes wide, and drool all but oozing from her candy-pink lips as she became more and more engrossed in her readings.

"Oh...Oh... yes...no, no," she was muttering at random intervals, her emotional response quite visible with each utterance, the pages of the text going closer and closer, so close to her face that her nose was soon buried in the binding. "Oh, no—no, that won't do! Wait. . . wait, yes! Yes! Wait... no-no!Oh my!. . ."

Rukia, hearing the slight commotion, stopped arguing with Renji long enough to peak over at the auburn-haired girl with one eye brow raised. Seeing nothing she noted to be out of the ordinary however, she promptly ignored the strange sounding murmurs in favour of returning to arguing with Renji. Orihime was just weird in her estimation so this was just normal behaviour for her. She seemed not to notice or care that one of her best friends salivating over a book did in fact define weird to others or that she seemed way too absorbed in said book. Thus, she returned to her prior activity, back to engaging herself in a heated, undertone "discussion" with the scowling redhead without a backward glance.

Chad, as usual, wasn't overly concerned one way or the other as he didn't even bother looking and Ishida, taking one look, brushed it off as well.

Tatsuki slept on, ignorant of it all.

He, on the other hand, was unable to pull his gaze away, fascinated by her strange mannerisms even as he was torn-

Torn between worry and irritation, amusement and curiosity- Worry because he was sure that she was going to end up poking an eye out or something with either the text that was so close to her now, her eye lashes must be brushing up against it or with the random, aimless arm-waving she was engaging in from time to time in beat with her exclamations, some of which were going too close for comfort to her eyes. . .

Irritated because, at the moment, Inoue Orihime didn't appear to give a damn about anything else in the world but the novel she was reading.

And that just rubbed him the wrong way... though he couldn't quite put his finger on why.

Hell, this was lunch time- the one time of the day they all gathered up here to chat and catch up outside of class. She'd always been so attentive to their conversation- well when she wasn't off in her day-dreaming world- and in him...

Dammit, he could have left there right now and he didn't think she would notice....

Not that he expected her to ... not really...

His scowl deepened.

"Ohhh, Why are you....? No, don't do that! Don't!" she cried softly, her hand engaging in that aimless waving about again, her eyes wide and frantic. "No! No! No! He's right there! Don't...!"

Her engaged cries turned into a sound of utter frustration in the next moment and his curiosity won out over his amusement, irritation and worry over her behaviour.

"Inoue."

She seemed too absorbed to hear his call so he tried again, making his voice a little louder, a little firmer, so he could rouse her from the fantasy land she seemed to be in.

"Inoue."

Still no response.

"Inoue."

This time he followed up with a soft snapping of his fingers.

The book lowered quickly and her grey eyes met his in slight confusion

"Huh? Were you calling me, Kurosaki-kun?"

Only two or three times, he thought inwardly with a sigh.

"You're really absorbed in that book," he noted instead of voicing his thoughts.

"Hai," she returned excitedly, not really seeming to understand exactly what he was geting at, "It's a really good story."

"Good?" he echoed.

"Hmm," she returned.

His curiosity was really getting better of him, especially in light of her flushed face and the excitement lingering in her grey eyes...

"What is it about?"

"Oh," she began, slightly surprised he'd asked, but then, getting over it rather quickly, her eyes sparkled some more and she lit into her explanation, "Well, you see... there's this girl, her name is Saya and because of the superstitions in her village, she's given to the water God as his bride... His name is Haebek... wait maybe it's really Mui... uhmm...You see there's still some confusion as to whether they are the same person- Haebek and Mui, that is- or two different people... yeah ..um..yes... well, Haebek or Mui and Saya...they're trying to get to know each other but all sorts of things start to happen and then there's Hooye... he seems to show up whenever she needs help and he offered her a comb and she took it and accepting the comb is like accepting a marriage proposal but she doesn't know..."

Ichigo's frown deepened as his mind twisted and performed dangerous acrobatics trying to keep up with her explanation of the story.

"... but then Nakbin returns but I don't think she's really Nakbin- she was his wife- and Haebek... Mui... well he's in a quandary and somebody's trying to get rid of Saya and ...."

His brain crashed.

"Inoue... Inoue," he butted in gently then more firmly.

Her excited eyes turned to him then frowned at the sight of his deeply scowling face.

"You.... you don't get it, do you?" she returned quietly.

He didn't want to lie, so he opted for a soft version of the truth.

"No," he answered, following quickly with, "but I think it's more because I'm not really interested in that kind of stuff than you're explanation... it's just a bit too unreal ..."

Instead of being affronted, he was surprised as Orihime simply smiled, rather patiently, at him.

"It is... a bit unrealistic I guess," she agreed, "But it's..."

She seemed to struggle to find the words.

"But it's also just a really good story, full of things I'll never get to do myself or experience myself and its kind of nice to escape into that world sometimes. Besides," she continued, tracing the outline of the very handsome looking dark-haired guy on the cover, "the characters grow on you. You get to know their every thought and...they become your friends... "

". . . They're just made-up characters.... ink on a piece of paper, Orihime."

She gave a nervous laugh before defending softly, "I know that!"

She calmed slightly, her hands returning to tracing the dark-haired guy on the cover he noted with growing irritation.

"It's just... they become kind of real to you... I mean... I know they are just ink on a piece of paper, someone's imagination but that doesn't make them or their thoughts and emotions any less real in my mind."

Only Inoue, he decided with a soft sigh, would develop such attachment to something on paper...

Then he recalled Rukia's infatuation...

Maybe it was a girl's thing...

Maybe that's why he didn't get it...

"It doesn't hurt that Hooye and Mui... or Haebek... um... well all the guys really...are really hot!" Orihime added as if on sudden inspiration.

Ichigo's eyebrows snapped together and his eyes narrowed unconsciously.

A feeling akin to jealousy... no.... well.... not jealousy, he corrected hastily, more like irritation at the characters, flooded through his body.

That's jealousy, idiot, his hollow mocked and he stamped him out viciously from his thoughts.

"Hot???"

The slightly incredulous question had come from his mouth but he had yet to notice that it was laced with his irritation and ... yes, jealousy.

She must have picked up something in his tone as her eyes snapped away from the picture she had been studying- that guy again he noted, irritation growing yet again- and her cheeks flushed hotly.

"Um... well...it's... um...I mean the art is pretty good but ... that's not to say...um...well... I think you're pretty hot too..."

One could have heard a pin drop in the second that the words fell out of her mouth.

The previously ignored audience around them were suddenly all at attention, unbelieving of the words that had just been uttered and unable to tear their eyes away from the two thoroughly red-faced teens within their midst.

"You think I'm hot?" the question seemed drawn from him, a near squeak he would have been embarrassed about under any other circumstances... but right now, that was the least of his concerns, "You..."

A very red-faced, auburn-haired teen glanced up from where she had been gazing in sudden utter fascination at the front of her book. It was then that she noticed how intently the boy in front of her was staring at her, hazel-brown pools glued upon her person, his cheeks pink-tinged. A lump, previously unnoticed, suddenly clogged her throat. "Um..."

"You...you think I'm hot?" he questioned again, his brain trying to wrap around the words.

Shit... this was... well this was Inoue Orihime, hottest, most popular and most desired girl in the entire school and he was...well he was the school punk, a delinquent with unsightly orange-hair...and she just ... she just said she found him hot?!!!

Just the notion of that was enough to set his brain on the verge of short-circuiting.

The realisation of how much she had disclosed in her unconscious announcement weighed heavily on Orihime. What had she done? Her mouth opened and closed, without words, wanting to somehow retract the embarrassing confession of her innermost feelings. It stayed open longer than necessary as she caught the confused... and was that hopeful?... look on his face, before snapping close at the realisation that she was creating a wide open gateway for any flying insect to find roost in her mouth.

She looked away, unsure of how to act in light of her revelation and unable to look at him in her emabarassment and suddenly very interested with the clouds, the rusting rails- hey she'd never noticed that before, that they were rusting- anything but him.

Well, since she had let that much slip already, her mouth seemed to decide... surely it couldn't hurt to answer his question:

"Er. . . uh. . . I. . . um. . .I...I ... I do."

The bell rang loudly in the background... saved by the bell, and, before he could blink, she was up and running away, her face still as red as a tomato in the wake of her admission.

But, unlike her, he couldn't move.

He couldn't believe what he had heard.

She thought he was hot...

She thought he, Kurosaki Ichigo, orange-hair, unfriendly scowl and all... was hot...

He found his lips quirking up, oblivious to the amused expression of his friends who were still watching him.

"She thinks I'm hot," he muttered still in disbelief, then the quirking turned into a somewhat goofy grin, "She thinks I'm hot."

Rukia's loud snort shattered his dream world.

"Yeah... so we all heard," she returned, "Now get your lazy ass up and get to class... Moron..."

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Owari.

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A/N: It's been a while since I've added to the Ichihime fanfiction world. I got the idea a while back to do a series of oneshots but just never got around to it as life's been busy. This one wouldn't let me be however till i had written it so here it is.

PLEASE READ AND REVIEW. I would love to hear your thoughts before i get started on my other one-shot ideas.

I'd also like to take this time out to say a big THANK YOU to everyone who has read my stories and continue to support my efforts. You are all truly appreciated.