Title: Babysteps

Author: Claes Winterspell

Rating: K+

Status: Incomplete

Summary: Life starts with a few baby steps, so do relationships. Watch as children grow into teens, face adolescence, and turn into adults...with a lot of speed bumps along the way. UxI

Chapter 4:

A small black-haired girl happily walked down the pavement on the way to her house. It had been a great day at the dojo and Tatsuki had risen up to a yellow belt, much to Kurosaki's jealousy.

The seven year old snickered to herself at the thought of the rapid change of emotions in the orange-head's face; his eyes had grown wide as saucers at first then they changed into slits in a matter of seconds. Just to vex him some more, Tatsuki approached the boy and asked him how long has he been in the dojo and what belt color does he have now. Kurosaki, after grinding his teeth for as long as he could and glaring with all his might at her, succumbed to his rage and started chasing her after hearing a side comment from another kid named Ishida. She laughed the whole time; he was so easy to bait.

"I wonder what Hime-chan's doing now," she wondered out loud.

Tatsuki noticed a small crowd forming and noticed it was in front of her Hime-chan's apartment building. Coincidence? The little girl ran to said crowd and pushed her way in.

Once at the inner circle, the seven year old's eyes widened in surprise. What in the world is Hime-chan's onii-chan doing sleeping on the floor?

"Ah, Tatsuki-chan," she heard her friend's voice exclaim.

"Arisawa-san."

"Eh? Ulquiorra. What are you doing here," she asked, pointing from the unconscious man lying on the ground, to said unconscious man's sister then to him.

"Move aside kids, we'll move Sora-san inside," another man, the landlord, Tatsuki remembered, said before the stoic ten year old could answer. The children watched as three other men, all comically heavily built, joined the old lanky landlord and hauled Hime-chan's onii-chan. The crowd slowly dispersed as the need for a murmuring crowd was no longer there. The children followed the men inside.

X.x.X

Once the men have settled Sora down on the sofa the landlord stayed a while to serve them drinks. He had reassured the (calm) children that Orihime's brother would be fine and he would wake up anytime soon.

"That landlord of yours sure is kind," the karate student pointed out once the old man had closed the door.

"Yup," exclaimed Orihime with a popping sound in the end.

"So, care to-" at the sight of a small trail of blood on her friends forehead Tatsuki changed what she was about to say with an exclamation of, "You're bleeding!" accompanied by a point of a finger.

Following the direction of her friend's finger, Orihime gasped at the small trail of blood that started from the middle of his forehead to the bridge of his nose. They all wondered how no one noticed this at all.

"Well, I think we better clean that up first," Tatsuki said, already in the bathroom looking for alcohol.

"Uki-kun, how did you get that," asked Orihime as the ten year old tried wiping the blood with his sleeve.

Most of you would wonder as well as to how this unfortunate gash on such an adorable character came to be. You see, if we turn back to the past chapter in a normal perspective Orihime was, in fact, not kissing Ulquiorra on the forehead. When the little girl fell on her friend the force was so great that they had ended up bumping heads, except it was Orihime's front teeth that collided with Ulquiorra and not her forehead, leaving a small cut. If you would zoom closer to the poor boy's forehead you could still see faint teeth marks on his pale skin.

An incident too embarrassing to share, Ulquiorra carefully answered the best he could.

"Hn."

"Ah! I see," Orihime exlcaimed brightly much to the boy's dismay. Had she realized what really happened? But thankfully, Orihime's next words were nothing to be considered as pride-threatening. "That's wrong, Uki-kun. Cutters shouldn't cut there! You should cut somewhere around here, you see," said she as she held his arm.

X.x.X

"So let me get this straight," Tatsuki sat with her two friends in a loose circle, speaking with a very perplexed expression. "You're telling me that you're onii-chan was racing in a hurdles race but tripped on a hurdle when he saw you falling in the sprint race?"

"Yup."

"And Ulquiorra was in the sprints, too..."

"Uh-huh!"

Moment of silence.

"Right," the dark-haired girl turned to Ulquiorra, the more sensible, realistic and normal one. "So, what happened?"

After staring for a long while the green-eyed boy answered, "When Orihime-san tripped I caught her and we both fell down due to the loss of balance. Sora-san saw our fall and ran to us but he caught sight of something...extremely shocking to his senses resulting in his losing of consciousness."

"Maybe Nii-chan saw his super-idol, Don Kannonji," the brown-orange-head quipped. Her two friends promptly stared at her in perplexity- one very obviously, the other seemingly just staring. Their staring would have lasted longer if not for the sudden cry of one regaining consciousness at the back.

"Who-"

"HIME!!"

"Here," replied said girl in a chirp with a raised hand.

X.x.X

Once he had awaken the first thing Sora did was grab her sister from the clutches of the Enemy- he had planned to hiss and claw about but that would just be silly, he thought. The second thing he did was ban poor Ulquiorra from seeing his sister.

"Then we'll just play pin the tail on the donkey," the Arisawa kid deadpan as his sister frowned at him.

"Nii-chan, it was Hime's fault she tripped. Uki-kun did nothing wrong."

Ulquiorra was wise enough to not say anything.

Unable to resist his sister's teary-eyed and pouting look (and suddenly remembering his age), the dark-haired man relented and slowly cooled down. Cue in cheering from Orihime, eye-roll from Tatsuki and microscopic change in features from Ulquiorra.

The moment lasted for about a minute or so when, suddenly, a certain orange-head came bursting through the doors.

"Kurosaki," the karate-girl exclaimed.

"What happened to Sora-nii," was supposed to be his question until he caught sight of said guy standing with his friends and so he changed his inquiry into, "Aren't you supposed to be knocked-out?"

A beat passed and the boy realized he didn't really care anymore and so popped out a new question, "Wanna go play at the park?"

"I wanna!"

"Sure."

"Very well."

X.x.X

Snickers could be heard from atop a tree. Ichigo was now the It and a certain orange-brown-haired girl found her perfect hiding spot on a branch of a tree. A very tall tree. And how she managed to climb such a high tree in a dress and flip-flops was a mystery.

At the sound of crunching leaves and footsteps the little girl hushed herself and covered her grin with her hands. She spotted Ichi-kun's mop of orange hair pass under her tree and approach Tatsuki's hiding place.

"Aha," she heard the orange-head cry a few minutes later. "Found you!"

"Yeah, yeah," came her other friend's relaxed answer- Orihime imagined her dark-haired friend crossing her arms as she came out of her hiding spot, which was the usual cave under the slides. "I made it easy for you just so you can be proud you actually found one of us. You know, since you won't find Hime-chan and Ulquiorra."

The other child merely ground his teeth together and resisted the bait. I'll find them, he thought to himself as he glared daggers at the arrogant monkey of a tomboy who calls herself a girl, we'll see how you react to that. Ha.

Ichigo bet to himself he would find the remaining two in no time and laughed as he imagined Tatsuki looking around helplessly for him when she turns It. Said girl just raised a brow at the weirdo laughing to himself. She let out a sigh; boys.

After a while, Ichigo continued his search and Tatsuki leisurely followed him with her arms crossed behind her head. The orange-head looked carefully around, careful to not miss any slight movement. And then, he found what he was looking for; a small movement behind a tree. A shoe quickly hiding itself into obscurity. The boy grinned to himself.

Ichigo, as with as much nonchalance he could procure, strolled towards the path closest to the tree whoever-that-was hiding behind.

But then three things, which include a girl on a tree, said tree's branch and a squirrel, happened simultaneously.

Orihime, still on top of her branch, watched as Ichigo neared Uki-kun's hiding place and moved too far from the trunk resulting into the wobbling of the branch and her struggling to find her balance in such a precarious position. Just then, an unsuspecting and totally innocent squirrel jumped into the girls view and frightened her into leaning too much to the right, effectively throwing her off the branch.

Ichigo groaned at the sudden add of weight on his back and struggled to breathe around the grass that managed to shove its way up his nose and inside his mouth. The seven-year-old new instantly that tomorrow he would not feel great at all. Even right now he didn't.

"Owieeee," the girl on top of him whimpered.

"Hime-chan, I think you should get off of him."

As if just realizing that she had not been lying on grass, said girl sprang up, apologizing to her friend repetitively. "Are you sure you're fine, Ichi-kun?"

"Yeah, yeah."No, not really.

Then she gasped and and pointed to her friends newly acquired gash. Ichigo didn't really feel anything until it was pointed out. Delayed reaction. Ow! A whimper.

"We'd better get that cleaned," Tatsuki pointed out. "Hey, Hime-chan, where's Sora-nii?"

The orange-brown-haired girl looked about but couldn't find her brother. "I don't know. Maybe he went to get some turnips and butter for snack time."

The other three children took a moment to react to their friend's idea of a snack.

"Perhaps we could use the fountain's water and this handkerchief instead," came Ulquiorra's suggestion as he held out a piece of folded red cloth. And so, to the fountain they went.

Tatsuki took the now damp hankie from the older boy and started dabbing at Orangey's knee and judging from the boy's on and off grimace she was not gentle. When the wound was clean the children were at a loss of what to do next. Should they let it be? But didn't grown-ups always put plaster-aids after? Where wold they get that?

Orihime thought hard of what her brother would do at times like these and an idea came to mind.

And before anyone had enough time to react the little girl shouted, "I got it!" and bent down to kiss Ichigo's wounded knee.

X.x.X

A/N: O.O I'm sorry? Please accept this longer-than-usual chapter as a token of apology for my insincerity....Gah. Procrastination is one of the worst things a person can develope. Oh and lying is one of the worst sins a person could commit. So, kids, do not follow my horrible example.

On a brighter note...my love for Ulquiorra is flourishing like mad. His end, man! So ironic! So unforgetable! Like, Wow! /hail Tite Kubo

Crackers, anyone?

-Claes Winterspell