A/N: Aaah, finally, something Bleach again. The sheer amount of IshiHime in the last chapter was so adorkable, I had to whip something up. This diverges from canon in where Hime's hairpins have gone, and her relationship with Uryuu- I don't think they're quite at this stage yet. Key word being "yet". xD Hope you all enjoy! Oh, this also doubles as a really TL;DR drabble for Mel- these things are getting progressively longer, to the point where I'll be doing a whole novel for Lisanna and Lluvia. xD

He is the first to notice. It's just early enough for the school to be open, for a few dedicated students to have crawled out of bed and come in to study. Uryuu would like to say he's here for that reason, but the fact is that he's at school simply because he has nowhere else to be. There are only a few other students in the room, but even if it had been packed full, he would be the first to notice. She walks in the door with an extra roll in her hips, the tips of her fingers brushing the tops of long stockings, her hair nestled around her shoulders like a fiery mantle, her full lips upturned in a tiny, absent smile. To anyone else, she would look the picture of confidence, but he knows the curved slant of her eyebrows and the wideness of her eyes mean she's nervous. She spots him then, and her expression shifts to full-out, almost comedic surprise.

"Ishida-kun!" she cries, earning her frosty glares from the few others in the room.

"I-Inoue-san," he stammers, unsure of where to put his eyes on this renovated version of her without feeling absolutely obscene. "You're here unusually early." The sky is also blue, he notes wryly to himself as she trots over to him, weaving around empty desks in ways that make her skirt do things a school uniform should not be capable of.

"I wanted to surprise everyone!" Inoue-san says, voice so light that he can hardly believe it's her again, not a half-evicted shell. "I spent all last night trying to come up with a new look, and by the time I picked one, it was almost time for school! But I wanted to be here early so everyone would come in, and suddenly- bam! Who's she? Oh, wait, it's Inoue!" For all her claims of having stayed up all night, Uryuu can only think that she's just now woken up from a very long sleep, an indefinite hibernation.

"You look… Nice." he responds awkwardly, making perhaps the biggest understatement of his life. She could not be more radiant as a supernova, and he only hopes she will last longer without decompressing back into herself. Inoue-san giggles and runs her fingers through her newly curled hair, the tiniest blush on her face. Uryuu tells himself it's the morning light, though he is standing by the window and blocking the light from hitting her.

"Thank you! It's been such a long time since I really changed up my hair that I'd forgotten how hard it is to pick a new style that's really 'you'. Come to think of it, Student Council President-san's been looking sharp lately." It takes Uryuu a moment to register that she is referring to him and the marginal change in the way he parts his hair. He feels his face flush and quickly reaches up to adjust his glasses, to hide what he knows she's probably already seen.

"I'm hardly looking any different, Inoue-san." His hand slowly comes down from his face, but stops in midair as he realizes what is missing in this new Inoue-san. Her hairpins are nowhere in sight, despite the fact that the bangs framing her face reach below her chin. She smiles up at him, the wide, simple one she wears when she is confused about a person's sudden actions. But before he can speak, a shriek that might be garbled English pierces the air as Honshou-san launches herself onto Inoue-san's back. He shifts away quietly as Arisawa-san joins in, pulling Honshou-san away and admiring the sudden changes in her friend. His place is not in that overly exuberant group of girls now flocking around Inoue-san, but his eyes stay trained on the conspicuously empty spaces above her ears. Perhaps he's been too hasty in judging her recovery, a thought that perturbs him far more than if she'd come to school the same as always, wearing a cracked smile on her lips and misery across her back.

He thinks about approaching her at lunch, but she is out the door and onto the campus' lawn before he can so much as stand up, her friends trailing after her. A few minutes later, he can see her from his seat by the window, hair streaming out behind her like a proud new banner as she runs to the nearest tree and plops down at its base, a package that might be food in her hands. Gradually, others join her until only the top of her head is visible, a blaze of auburn amongst a sea of black. Uryuu could watch her all day, but the phone in his pocket rings, a text message informing him in playfully girlish speech that there are Hollows nearby. He sprints out of the room, down the stairs, and off of campus, and though he feels Inoue-san's eyes on him as he runs past, she does not follow him. He tells himself that whether she's given up her powers or not, this is for the best.

Urahara-san's hours are erratic at best, giving Uryuu more leisure in staying after school rather than rushing off to work. Though Inoue-san is now Vice-President of the Handicrafts Club, she's taken a shift for one of her coworkers and is not there today. He makes his way out of the building slowly, the air outside not sure if it wants to be winter or spring. This section of the school is empty, everyone else at clubs or the sports fields. Footsteps clatter behind him, and he turns around to see Inoue-san running towards him, still dressed in her bakery uniform.

"Ishida-kun!" she calls, waving her hand above her head. He stops and waits, wondering with brief panic if something's wrong, if she's been hurt. When she reaches him, she leans over and rests her hands on her knees, breath coming in deep gasps and cheeks rosy from her running.

"Is everything alright, Inoue-san?" he asks slowly, sorely tempted to reach out a hand to steady her. "You were supposed to cover someone else's shift today, correct?"

"I was," she pants, looking up at him, "But Touko-san came back earlier than she thought she would, so my boss gave me the rest of today and tomorrow off, so I hurried over here to see if I could catch the end of the meeting…" she trails off, realizing that his being on the way out obviously means she's missed it.

"You didn't have to run all the way," Uryuu points out, feeling a smile tug at the corner of his lips. "We only discussed some minor budget details, and you weren't the only one not able to make it."

"I still wanted to be there, though…" Inoue-san says, standing up straight and tucking a stray shirtsleeve from her school jacket back into her bag. He shakes his head, no longer fighting the smile.

"It's perfectly alright."

They stand there for a moment as the wind picks up, blowing her hair so close to his face that he can smell the sweet scents of the bakery still lingering on it.

"May I walk you home?" she asks suddenly. He blinks in surprise, not quite sure he's heard her right. As he knows it, the boy generally walks the girl home, and only then when they are close friends or a couple. His face colours a little at the thought, but if she notices this time, she keeps it to herself.

"You don't have other things to do?" It's a feeble attempt to dissuade her from something he wants so very much, something so small as a few minutes of her time.

"Nope," she says with a shrug, a stray lock of hair falling out from behind her ear. The sight instantly reminds Uryuu of her missing hairpins, but he says nothing, not wanting to upset her and shatter this fragile halcyon glass.

They walk along Karakura's streets in a comfortable silence- him with his hands by his sides, her with her hands behind her back, bag slung casually over her shoulder. There is a spring in her step as she walks, a small, knowing smile on her face, like she's discovered the world's greatest secret and is content right now to keep it to herself. On the terrace above the city's park, she comes to an abrupt stop, turning out to face the empty field. It's still too cold for most kids to come out and play, so the entire area is deserted.

"…Inoue-san?" he asks hesitantly.

"I was just thinking," she says, as if he'd already asked her what was on her mind, "I haven't been here in almost two years. Not since…"

"Not since what?" Uryuu finds himself echoing curiously, coming to stand beside her.

"Not since things that happened a while ago," Inoue-san finishes, though she seems unsure of her answer. "Not since things all made the right amount of sense, I guess."

"Your hairpins…" he begins, wondering just what she's getting at. She looks up at him, and to his surprise, her expression is gleeful, rather than melancholic.

"Ishida-kun, you noticed!" she exclaims, smiling broadly. Before he can get a word in, she holds up her finger in front of his nose. "Now, guess where they went." Uryuu's eyes slowly trace her figure, from the top of her head, down her round face, over her shoulders, her school jacket with a candy-stripe ribbon poking out at the top, past the fluffy apron and sleek skirt of her uniform, down all the way to her boot-clad feet. Looking back up at her, he searches her eyes for an answer, but finds only cryptic mirth.

"Where?" he asks, giving up. Carefully, she takes his hand in hers, sliding it beneath her jacket and holding it to her chest, allowing him to feel two tiny six-pointed bumps above her heart.

"Right here," she says simply, smiling more radiantly than he has seen her in a long time. "I already showed pretty much everybody else, but Ishida-kun kept getting away." Normally, his mood would be soured at the thought of Kurosaki experiencing the exact same thing as he is now, but she's much closer to him than he remembered her being just a moment before, and her and atop his, her chest below, is so very warm that he completely forgets where he's touching her. Every ounce of his proud rationality is quite utterly gone from him, and he feels his face inching towards hers unsurely, until he can taste her breath, sweet as the smell of her hair, until their foreheads are touching, and she's not moving away, just watching him with those big grey eyes, until she murmurs, "wait".

Like a switch has been thrown, Uryuu jolts back.

"I'm sorry, Inoue-san," he blurts, feeling his stomach sinking, "I've gone too far, my apologies. I-"

"No," she cuts him off, and he realizes she is still smiling. "You're the Student Council President, so that means your romantic procedures have to be strict! Everything has to be in perfect drama form, which means the wind has to be blowing, and we have to kiss in slo-mo with at least four different camera angles!" He's torn between asking her why they have to behave like they're in a drama and processing the fact that she had intended to reciprocate when the wind picks up and she flings herself onto him, wrapping her arms around his neck and kissing him hard. The force of her weight sends him stumbling back a few steps before he regains his balance and lets his arms circle her waist, hesitantly at first, then pulling her close, feeling every bit of her body pressed so tightly against him that her hairpins are certain to leave a mark on his chest, even through their clothes. Their lips move awkwardly against one another's, neither of them apparently having the slightest idea of how to properly kiss someone. Uryuu's head is once again absolutely empty, coherent thought replaced by a warm, dense fluff of euphoric nonsense. If this is what she considers "slo-mo", his garbled mind babbles, he's only half-certain he wants to see "fast". Inoue-san pulls away after what may well have been hours, lips slightly swollen and eyes bright enough to be blinding.

"Well then," she breathes, still clinging to him. "It's definitely better firsthand." Uryuu gives in right then and laughs, even as she outright stares. "I've never heard Ishida-kun laugh before," she comments, and he realizes that he has not heard himself laugh any time in recent memory either. When she lets go and pulls him over to the empty field, sitting him down beside her and kissing him silly, he vaguely realizes that she never intended to take him home at all.