"Come on, Ichigo, let me see it."

He shook his head, frowning. She wanted to burst out laughing, he just looked so adorable.

"Please, Ichigo?"

"No! Why do you want to see it anyways?"

She gave him a look. "It has my name on it."

He kept on frowning. She still wanted to burst out laughing.

"I'm not going to let you see it, Orihime."

She sighed. Ah well, so much for using her feminine wiles, whatever those were. She knew that fanfiction told lies about what worked on boys. Oh well.

"You're right, Kurosaki-kun. It's yours, I'm sorry. Please forgive me."

He looked over, still frowning. This time, she didn't want to laugh at him. She felt horrible—she had invaded his privacy. Not only that, she had done so for no good reason, only her own curiosity. She had been very presumptuous.

His words interrupted her train of thought: "Forgive you for what, being curious? Yeah right, Orihime. I'm not that bad of a person."

He called me Orihime, she thought. Even after I went and called him Kurosaki, he still thought that I was Orihime. She looked down, trying to hide her blush.

He thought that she still felt bad, and, looking around to make sure that nobody was looking at the two of them, he tossed his iPod onto her lap. She looked up, startled. He wasn't looking at her.

"Kurosaki-kun?"

"Go ahead, look," He was still staring away from her.

"Are you sure? I really don't have to see it."

He finally turned back to her. "Yes, you do."

There was suddenly a loud slamming sound. Orihime looked around startled, but she couldn't tell where it had come from or what had made it. Ichigo didn't seem to have noticed the sound, either. So she dismissed it.

"No, I don't."

Wait. Orihime hadn't said that. Then who...?

"Yes, you do!" it was louder now. And suddenly she realized that it wasn't Ichigo talking. He was frozen, looking at her the way he had been a minute ago, when he was given her the iPod. But his words were still going on and on. There was a slamming sound again, louder this time. Ichigo still wasn't moving.

Then it clicked. She knew what was happening.

Orihime reluctantly opened her eyes. Another day. One more period of purgatorious existence. Again. Another day in that place that many had died to be able to see, a place for which death was a prerequisite.

She didn't like it. She wanted to be in her dream. Her dream where Ichigo was within reach, within fathomability. A fake place, a fake world, a fake existence. It was fake, but it was so much better than the dimension that she lived in.

She would give anything for her dreams of the two of them to be real, to be the truth. She wanted him to be safe, to be with her. But the two did not go had in hand, either the people or the abstractions. He would have died if she had stayed. She had left for him.

It had been a long time ago, Orihime mused. Ancient history to some.

She snuggled back into the pillows of her bed, wanting to go back to that dream, that wonderful, beautiful, peaceful dream. She closed her eyes, sinking into the sheets, ready to depart.

Her eyes shot open. She couldn't remember the dream.

She wanted to cry. She had only wanted a few more minutes. Was that so much to ask?

There was yelling in the hallway, people arguing about who had to do what. She sighed. Apparently, it was too much to ask. She supposed that she should not try to postpone the inevitable, but she simply could not help herself.

She got herself out of bed, resigning herself to another day. She walked to the chair that sat in front of a vanity with a mirror and sat down, looking at her reflection. She looked the same way that she had looked every day for the last two hundred years: tired.

She god up and began to get dressed—today was a new day, she told herself. You never know what will happen. She got herself ready, dressing exactly the same way as she had the last sixty three years, since her promotion. She arranged blue flower pins in her hair. She looked at herself once more in the mirror, not bothering this time to sit down, and smiled at herself. And almost burst into tears right then and there. Almost, just as she had done for the last two hundred years. And just like every day before then, she simply smiled again and turned away before she could call herself out on her lying face, her treasonous eyes.

She left her room, then. She took her Zanpakuto, hanging it over her shoulder in the way that she had seen Retsu Unohana do several times in the past. The distant past, but memorable nonetheless. She chastised herself for being to sentimental. Nostalgia was something that she left behind every morning when she left her quarters and didn't take up again until she removed her uniform at night. It had no place in her work.

She strode down the corridor towards the argument that had awoken her. It was remarkable that she had not woken earlier—the sound was deafening, almost to the point of being noise as opposed to language. Oh well, she sighed to herself.

"I'm not going to go there, I'm sorry. No, I refuse."

"You refuse? You lost all right to refuse a long time ago, Shimura. Or did you forget where you are?"

Isao Shimura glared right back. "Yes, Caregiver Kimura, I know very well where I am. But I have my rights, and I refuse to go out there, not to take in another insolent bastard who will be another failure. Does it have to be me who goes? No, somebody else can go. I don't have to. So let somebody else do it."

They were clearly close to a fight. There was a crowd gathering; apparently, Orihime had not been the only person woken ahead of schedule. Orihime didn't like fights. She put herself forward, so that both men could see her.

"May I be of assistance, gentlemen?"

Both men jumped to attention. "Yes, chief Caregiver Inoue, what can we do for you?" She smiled. She supposed there were some advantages to being so gifted.

"What is it that the King has commanded to be done?"

The men looked nervous. Orihime suspected why, but she wanted to be sure why before she volunteered.

"You see," began Kimura, "There is a new recruit."

"Ah. And Isao here has been asked by the king to see this new recruit safely here?"

Kimura looked to the floor. "Not him specifically, but I..." He faded out, not completing his sentence.

Orihime was confused. Her presence was truly not so intimidating. She had only asked a question. A perfectly legitimate one, too. She just wanted for everything to go smoothly. She liked being left alone to her own devices, to retreat into her thoughts. She had become very content being alone a long time ago, the first time she had been to Hueco Mundo.

"Yes?"

He kept his face angled towards the ground. "Nothing, chief Caregiver. Forgive me for this disturbance."

Ah, much better. Blessed silence. "Thank you, Kimura. Isao, you do not have to go, I will go. It's been a long time since I've been outside of the walls, and I need to keep myself in practice."

The man looked relieved. Both men, as a matter of fact. They expected to be reprimanded for their racket, which she was half in a mind to give them, but... oh well, no matter. So long as they stopped taking her time, she would be content. They were not bad people, after all.

She looked up to the group of people that had gathered to watch the spectacle. "Does anybody know if the king is awake yet?"

Hikifune stepped out. "He should be awake by now, Orihime. He'll want to know the plan, of course."

"Thank you, Hikifune," Orihime called as she started down the corridor towards the King's reception room. Hikifune was one of the few people in this place that Orihime found herself truly getting along with. The woman was just so similar to Orihime, as if the two of them were sisters. There had been a time, in the earlier years of her life in the universe, when she had had fantasies that the two of them were related (which actually seemed possible, given the circumstances). It was a waste of her time, though. Even if they were distant relations, it was not particularly significant now that they were all dead, Orihime thought ruefully.

In all honesty, Orihime did not like the person that she had become. She missed being innocent and kind. She missed ignorance, naivety, call it what you will. But there was no going back.