Together at Last

A/N: A lighthearted IchiHime interpretation of the events in chapter 425. What did happen to Orihime's hairpins? Posted 11/7/10.

Disclaimer: I do not own Bleach or any of its characters.

Orihime marched down the high school hallway in time to the beat of her new theme song. She hummed it out loud. "If I laugh, then you laugh. If you laugh, then someone else will laugh too." She smiled to herself. The new song was keeping her spirits up. Yes, everyone had sorrows and problems, and it didn't really matter if they were big or small. She was so glad to have put her fears and nightmares away after the terrifying events of a year and a half ago. At least all of that was in the past, with the shinigami war over and her enemies dead or in prison. And she was happy, now that what mattered to her had finally happened – Ichigo Kurosaki, the man she could love for five lifetimes, had asked her out at last.

She passed by a window looking out over the courtyard, and – speak of the devil – her gaze was caught by her boyfriend and her best friend arguing and gesticulating in the center of the yard. She stopped suddenly. Whatever could they be discussing to make them so grumpy? Time to make them laugh. If you're going to have a theme song, you have to live your life that way. She leaned far out the open window, waving vigorously.

"Kurosaki-kun! Tatsuki-chan!" she called.

Ichigo had been troubled by the events of the shinigami war far more than she had been, for he had been in the thick of the fighting and had risked his life to save both Karakura Town and Soul Society. The scars had been much worse for him than for her. He had not yet been able even to talk about the events of those days of battle. Indeed, he had completely lost his shinigami powers and seemed content with that. He refused to even mention the name of Soul Society.

Orihime's hands stole unconsciously to her hair, where the hairpins her brother had given her were no longer in their place holding back her bangs. Even the mere sight of her hairpins, the reminder of her powers and thus of those traumatic days, had been distressing to Ichigo. So out of consideration for him, she had taken them off and now wore them on a chain around her neck under her school uniform. She would not remove the hairpins Sora had given her, but they were out of sight now and she could see it made Ichigo more comfortable.

Looking down at her friends on the ground, and calculating how long it would take to walk all the way down the hall to the stairwell and then all the way into the courtyard, she made a quick estimation of the time she would save by sliding down the drainpipe. It was no contest. She leaped out of the window and onto the drainpipe, grinning.

"Yo, Inoue," said Ichigo, looking up at her in concern as she began sliding down the pipe.

"Hey!" shouted Tatsuki. "That's dangerous, stupid! You'll fall! I can see your panties!" That was Tatsuki. If fear didn't work to knock some sense into Orihime, try embarrassment. What else are best friends for? Orihime didn't mind. Tatsuki had been so supportive of Orihime in those dark months right after her return from her kidnapping, having long conversations with her late into the night about her fears and terrible experiences during her captivity in Hueco Mundo. Tatsuki had been furious at both her and Ichigo for not telling her the truth about what was going on. But her fury was somehow grounding, the more mundane emotions gradually displacing the more horrific ones in Orihime's mind as time went on. It actually made her feel better to think that the worst thing that had happened was Tatsuki's indignation at having secrets kept from her. But there was still some residual anger on Tatsuki's part. Orihime had to spend time calming her best friend down on many occasions. This might be another one, judging from the look on Tatsuki's face.

Orihime came running over to the two of them. Before she could say anything, Tatsuki gave her a good hard clout on top of her head. Ichigo started forward with a distressed look on his face at how rough Tatsuki was being on her.

"Stop whaling on my girlfriend!" he shouted, at the same time as Orihime shouted in pain and drowned out his words.

"Ow!" cried Orihime, vainly trying to protect her head with her arms.

But Tatsuki was stronger than her and evaded her block. She glared at Orihime and shook her fist. "Well, that's what you get! Next time I'll hit you even harder!"

"Hey, knock it off," cried Ichigo. "She didn't get hurt, after all." He yanked Tatsuki's fist down and the girl turned her glare on him.

She hauled him up by his shirt front and menaced him with her fist. "Shut up! I have no reason to be lectured about Orihime's education from you!" She narrowed her eyes at him, reminding him of the long months he had ignored his feelings for Orihime and kept on pretending they were just friends.

"I'm not lecturing you! I'm just saying you're being too cruel!" he argued.

"That's lecturing!" cried Tatsuki, drawing her fist back.

"Ummm!" said Orihime hurriedly. She had better think of something fast, or either or both of her boyfriend and best friend were about to get hurt. "I have something to discuss with you!"

"Discuss?" The two of them were caught off guard.

Good. Her distraction was working. Now. Think of something quick.

"Ummm, the truth is—"

She had it.

"There's this song called the Wahaha Song that I've made the theme song of my life, only recently I've just been humming it instead of singing it, and I was wondering why that was?" she asked, with a wide smile.

The other two looked completely confused.

After a pause, Tatsuki said, "You've matured?"

"No! Too baaad!" sang out Orihime. She launched into a complicated explanation of the "do" in "do-re-mi" and how it should be written. Tatsuki and Ichigo looked more and more bewildered. Good! They seemed to have completely forgotten their fight. If she kept on going this way, soon they would both be annoyed with her and would be back to being good friends. She congratulated herself even as she kept up the light-hearted chatter.

Tatsuki finally shook her head in exasperation. "I don't have time for this. I gotta go to work. Don't you have to, too, Orihime? Better go home."

She and Ichigo traded a few more barbs, but they were good natured. The storm had been deflected.

Orihime linked her arm through Ichigo's and he gave her a loving smile. Her heart soared as she looked into his warm brown eyes. She felt like running her fingers through his spiky orange hair, but restrained herself since they were in public.

She had to rush off to her part-time job at the bakery, and Ichigo had to work too. They exchanged a soft kiss, smiled at each other, and then ran in opposite directions. But now she knew that they would always come back to each other, no matter where their separate lives took them. All was right with the world.