Disclaimer: I don't own Bleach, etc, etc...

Chapter 3: Introducing…

Ichigo plopped down in his chair, inhaling deeply at finally being able to sit down after having an uneventful morning of appointments. He had arrived at around six due to some scheduled appointments as well as an "emergency."

The "emergency," of course, turned out to just be a child who was falsely paranoid about having tapeworms. He demanded his mother that he be taken to the hospital to get checked out so he wasn't "eaten alive by mutant worms" at well around five in the morning! While Ichigo did think that was fairly cute considering the child was only four, he also found it aggravating to be woken up extra early in the morning by his pager only to have the situation be a false alarm. However, after some reasoning and several cups of extra black coffee, he got over his morning stage of "senseless annoyance" and was able to tell the difference between good and bad.

He was not the only one aggravated though. The pipsqueak's own mother did not think it was cute at all and was fairly cranky. Hospital service wasn't exactly cheap after all, even with insurance, and when all the hubbub was the result of some paranoia from the travel channel, the high fee wasn't at all desirable.

The other few appointments after that weren't as interesting since they consisted of the usual fractured bone and physical. The patients themselves were fussy annoying fifteen year olds with out of whack hormones who didn't even want to roll up their pant sleeve or change into a hospital gown! They were too "sensitive," says their mother, and they weren't even female.

And that was why he's always preferred younger children, they were easier to handle and fun to joke around with. He got along well with them, and they were always obedient for him, if not their own parents.

"Damn! My neck hurts like a bitch," complained Renji, disrupting the silence of the office as he unceremoniously marched in with a plastic bag in hand. He dropped down onto the loveseat in front of Ichigo's desk and stretched, post placing the plastic bag down.

"Too much grump dancing?" asked Ichigo, not even sparing Renji a glance as he flipped through files in the portfolio on his desk.

"No, actually," The red haired man glared at his friend and stretched out his arms on to the back of the couch. "There's this chick that just started working about a week ago, and for some damn reason, she always has the urge to disagree and argue with everything I say! And she's in the same team I am in too! To make it worse, our offices are right across from each other. It's ridiculous!"

Ichigo raised one of his brows, suddenly feeling some kind of "déjà-vu."

"Where have I heard that before? Sounds familiar…"

"That's not the point! Right now, all I need is something to help with my neck troubles!" Renji pointed to his neck to emphasize.

The orange haired doctor behind the desk rolled his eyes, "Neck troubles?" he murmured, snickering. "There are some heating pads in the cabinet," he said, jerking his thumb in the direction of the office cabinet to the side, not bothering to lift his head.

Renji got up and walked over to the said cabinet and started rummaging around. Playing with the equipment inside instead of actually looking for the heating pads, "What's this? Looks like a deformed tampon?"

"Will you stop screwing around? And the pun's intended." Ichigo snatched the "deformed tampon" out of the other man's clutches and replaced it with the heat pads. "I tried keeping everything in here organized, but of course you have to snoop around and mess it all up."

"Becoming like Ishida are we?" mumbled Renji, walking back to "his mojo." And "his mojo" being the loveseat couch that he always occupied every time he came to Ichigo's office uninvited, which was every week if not every day.

"Don't you have to go to work? Where do you find the time to go to my office just to mess around every day?"

"When it's my lunch break. It's also yours if you haven't noticed," said Renji, pointing to the clock.

Ichigo turned to the clock and widened his eyes, "You're actually right for once." He took off his glasses and slipped it into its case. "That's why she isn't here," he said, realization coming to his head.

Renji rolled his eyes and picked up the plastic bag he brought with him and took out several Chinese food boxes, "Are you talking about the little she-devil with a bad spit fire?" He handed Ichigo a large container of what looked like rice noodles with some kind of curry sauce mixed in it.

"Yeah, she's probably out getting lunch with her friends, if she has any," answered the orange haired man, looking hungrily at the noodles on his desk. "Did you get the salt and pepper squid?"

"When do I ever forget?" Renji cleared the front of Ichigo's desk, and unceremoniously placed the many Chinese food boxes on it. "Oh, and I asked for extra spicy Singapore chow mei fun, so be grateful," he said, watching as Ichigo literally swallowed everything.

As the two barbarically ate, like men did, Ichigo popped up a question, "Is that new worker of yours tom boyish, hot-headed, pretty petite and quick to snap?"

"How'd you know?" said Renji, sarcastically, scowling at the thought of the woman. "She's horrible! So not my type. You know, that I think about it, I won't be surprised if she's friends with your little headache."

"I hate him! He's a womanizing good-for-nothing pig!" yelled Tatsuki, ending her story, unaware of the stares being sent her way. She stabbed a piece of sushi angrily and shoved it in her mouth. "He mocks me all the time and I can tell he's checking my ass out! I called him out for it one time and he blatantly denied it. Then when he leaves for work, there's always a girl who comes and gets in the car with him. And it's a different girl each time! I hate men like that!" Pieces of rice flew out of her mouth as she complained.

"He can't be that bad. Maybe you're just overreacting like Rukia was," said Orihime, mixing duck sauce, honey, wasabi, and soy sauce together to create her ultimate dipping sauce.

"I'm not overreacting! He's really an asswipe!" yelled Tatsuki post swallowing.

"And I was not overreacting!" added Rukia to her defense. She frowned and dipped a tuna roll into her soy sauce, "I just had a lot on my mind."

Orihime shrugged and picked out some sashimi from the large plate in the center, "Could have fooled me. And are you sure you two just don't like them?"

The two woman next to her, snapped their heads and stared at her with the casual, "What are you smoking?" face that they always made when she said something totally implausible and ludicrous. And as expected, they used it often.

"What? And no, I didn't eat any fruit loops this morning," said Orihime, pouting and crossing her arms over her chest.

Her two friends shook their heads, continuing back to what they were doing.

"I don't think it's the fruit loops that did anything. What you said was too surreal for something produced by fruit loops," said Rukia, picking the ginger off her sashimi.

The auburn haired woman rolled her eyes, "You guys are always too serious! You're always telling me to get a boyfriend, but neither of you ever try to get one yourselves! It's no fun being the only one 'available.' And when I want to stay single too, you guys yell at me!"

She frowned and stuck her bottom lip out, watching as her friends stayed silent knowing she was partially right.

"Well, since none of you are talking about anything interesting, I'll start by saying… I have a new favorite customer!" said Orihime, happily.

Instantly within two seconds after saying it, both Tatsuki and Rukia snapped their heads to her.

"Who is he?" asked Tatsuki, placing her chopsticks down.

"Does he look like a pervert?" asked Rukia, picking up her tea and sipping it.

"Ano… I don't really know his first name, but he doesn't look suspicious or anything, he just looks a bit sad. He has dark green eyes and short-ish black hair with cute bushy eyebrows! I think he's a detective or something? He comes to the restaurant and orders some really expensive dishes and eats alone. I've only seen him from the back, and he always gives me compliments about my food. He doesn't say it directly of course, but he at least tells the waitresses to tell me," said the buxom woman, clasping her hands together dreamily.

"He sounds like a gentleman," said Rukia, "so I approve… for now. How does he dress?"

"He sometimes wears a black Armani suit with no tie, or a trench coat with a dress shirt and pants. He doesn't necessarily dress up."

"So you've been watching him!" Rukia gave her a knowing smile, "It seems this mister mysterious has an admirer named Inoue Orihime."

Tatsuki laughed, "I think so two. You seem to know a lot about what he does, Hime." She smirked and leaned her head on her hand, her elbow resting on the edge of the table.

The auburn haired woman flushed bright red, "What are you two implying? I do not like him! I barely know him!"

"We never said you liked him. I was plainly talking of platonic admiration, what do you think I was talking about?" Rukia smirked and metaphorically nudged the other woman, obviously hinting at something.

Orihime blushed redder, if it were possible, "W-w-what?! Are you sure you didn't eat fruit loops this morning?" Her two friends both stayed silent and smirked evilly at her as they stared at her knowingly. "Y-you guys are horrible!"

"Love you too," said the two dark haired women in unison.

Renji burped, stretching out his arms. "As I was saying, that bitch was arguing with me about the types of wheels we should replace the old ones with for this one old model Toyota," he said, eating a piece of fried tofu lethargically slow, chewing with "much" enthusiasm. He exhaled deeply, not just from eating too fast, but also from having eaten too much.

"Isn't that up to the customer?" asked Ichigo, playing with the remainders of his food.

"Usually it is, but the customer told us to choose whatever's best for his car. And what I think is best is what she thinks isn't good enough, which isn't surprising." Renji scowled and got up to throw away all the empty containers. "'This is better you buffoon,' she says," he mimicked.

"Well, maybe what she picked is better, whatever that happens to be," shrugged Ichigo, getting two ginger-ales ready from the plastic bag Renji brought. They were always prepared with alka-seltzer or ginger-ale every time they ate Chinese for lunch. Most of the time, they would impulsively over eat and then regretfully suffer from bad indigestion. Ichigo had a little self control, so his indigestion wasn't as bad as Renji's.

"It's not the best! She's not thinking about it thoroughly enough." The red haired man took the ginger-ale from the other man and took a long drink. He pulled it away and inspected it, eying suspiciously, "Hopefully this time after I drink this, nothing weird willhappen."

The orange haired doctor rolled his eyes, "'Let's hope your kidney doesn't fail again,'" he said, mocking the other man, making air quotation marks.

"I swear I was turning yellow!" defended Renji, throwing out the rest of the unfinished Chinese food containers.

"Turning yellow has nothing to do with your kidneys! That's called jaundice and it is related to the liver," said Ichigo, shaking his head at his ignorant friend.

Apparently, the last time Renji drank ginger-ale, he called Ichigo at two in the morning claiming he was suffering of kidney failure. He had ranted about it the days afterwards for longer than the orange haired man could remember. Ichigo had put it off as a fluke, and didn't even bother to check if anything was wrong due to Renji's tendencies to be stupid. The red haired idiot kept insisting something was wrong and demanded to be checked out even though Ichigo told him it was nothing, but he still kept pestering. So to solve the "problem," Ichigo punched Renji in the gut and said that now he "had a reason to get checked out."

"Well- I- whatever! I'm a not a doctor, so how would I know?" Renji scowled and looked to the side, slightly embarrassed.

"You don't have to be a doctor to know," said Ichigo, rolling his eyes.

"Yeah, you do! I bet if you asked a bunch of people what this 'jaundice' thing is, they wouldn't know," said Renji, crossing his arms. He slipped off his shoes and laid back on the couch, his feet falling off the side of the arm rest.

"You shouldn't lay down after you eat," said the orange haired doctor, throwing a pen at the other man's head to get his attention. "And shouldn't you leave? Your lunch break should be over by now."

"Kenpachi won't care. And Ikkaku's taking my cars anyway, and I don't believe I have anything else on my schedule until next week with the car dealers so I'm just going to hang around until I'm forced to leave," Renji picked up the pen thrown at him and flung it on top of the desk.

"Well, now I'm forcing you to leave. You can't just hang around; I have work to do after my lunch break! I only have ten minutes and I'd rather not have to spend it with you," Ichigo organized the papers on his desk and used his legs to move the office chair and himself over to the cabinet to place the folders in.

Suddenly hearing the door open, both men turned to the door left ajar to see three women walking standing there.

Rukia walked over to her desk and started looking around for something. She pushed items out of the way as she looked on the desk and in its drawers, grumbling at the difficulty of finding the item she was seeking for. Eventually, she caught sight of it in the way back of one of the drawers and smiled brightly, "Found it!" She turned around to face her friends, not expecting Tatsuki to be glaring fiercely at Ichigo's friend, or Renji as he called him, on the couch. It seemed like they were in the middle of a glaring contest.

"Tatsuki? I found that lotion you wanted… hello?" She poked her glaring friend, who didn't even budge.

"Abarai," spat Tatsuki with venom.

"Arisawa," said Renji with disgust written all over his voice and scowling face.

"You two know each other?" asked Ichigo, mildly surprised.

They nodded hesitantly, not even shifting their glares a single bit. "She's that bitch I was talking about from work," answered Renji, making "that bitch" narrow her eyes and tighten her fists.

"You asswipe! Why the fuck are you here?"

"Because I can be. Why are you here? They finally found out you're crazy and need time in the asylum?"

"I'm going to k-" Tatsuki's sentence was left unfinished when Orihime interrupted.

"Tatsuki, we're at a hospital, you can't kill someone on these premises. Wait until you're at work or something," said Orihime tugging on her friend's arm to keep her from physically harming anyone.

Rukia nodded her head, "Yeah, if you kill him here, who's going to get blamed for it? Most likely me. So handle it somewhere else." She pulled the long haired woman farther away from the couch and placed the lotion they had come for in her hands. "And here's that lotion."

Renji snickered, mumbling something akin to, "She wouldn't be able to kill me in a million years," to which Tatsuki glared at him, shutting him up.

Orihime cleared her throat, smiling politely and directing her attention to Ichigo and Orihime, "Anyways, I don't believe I introduced myself. I'm Inoue Orihime, nice to meet you two!"

"Yeah, nice to meet ya'," said Ichigo, nodding his head to her in acknowledgement.

Renji quickly glanced at her chest before moving his gaze up to her face and smiling a gentlemen's smile, "Why hello, Inoue. It's a pleasure to meet you." He stood up and brought Orihime's hand to his lips and kissed it, resulting in a his face being kicked with some freshly muddy boots.

"Don't fucking touch her you pig!" yelled Tatsuki, pulling her auburn haired friend away from him.

"Oh, no, it's fine! Really!" said Orihime, waving her hands in the air. "I think we should go now Tatsuki! Come on!" she said quickly, hoping to prevent any injuries. She smiled and bowed to the two men in the office and smiled at Rukia before pulling her violent friend out of the office. "That was close! I thought you were going to go on a rampage!

"Why don't you leave first? I have to go to the bathroom," she said, waving to Tatsuki, who waved back, still angry. After Tatsuki left, she walked in the direction of the bathrooms.

After finishing her business, she sighed, walking out and stretching. As she looked around, she frowned, not remembering the way out, or at least the way to the elevators. The halls for each floor were really confusing considering that this was a huge hospital compared to ones in small towns, so she had a hard time finding her way through.

"Um…," she started spinning around in circles, confused. Was it left? Was it right? What was it?

"Can I help you with something?" asked someone, most likely a man, from behind.

She looked over her shoulder and spotted a man with glasses and dark hair. "I was just wondering where the elevators are? I'm a bit lost," she said, smiling politely at the man.

"Ah yes, this floor is pretty confusing," he laughed, liking the woman's personality. "Here I'll escort you if that is okay. By the way, why are you here? Not to be a creeper or anything."

"Oh, I came to visit my friend, Kuchiki Rukia, if you know her?"

"Kuchiki-san, yes, I know her. So you're a friend of hers?" He lifted his glasses as he turned a corner.

"She's one of my best friends!" said Orihime cheerfully, following on after him as he led her through different halls. "I'm Inoue Orihime, nice to meet you!

"And you can just leave me here. I can see the elevators from here, thank you!"

Uryu nodded, "And I'm Ishida Uryu. Let's hope we'll be able to talk more sometime," he said, smiling. He waved to her as she sprinted to the elevator before it closed, waving back at him.

"Can you give this to Ishida for me? It's important," said Ichigo, holding up a thick folder.

Rukia's eyes flickered at the folder and then back to him, thinking as to whether she should take it or not.

After a couple of minutes, she shrugged and reluctantly took the folder, "I guess?" she said, leaving the office.

She yawned as she walked, her eyes half lidded. She had barely gotten any sleep last night, and she was just about to pass out cold. Her high heels were the only things keeping her awake due to their loudness.

Without looking up and watching where she was walking, she abruptly slammed into somebody's back, causing her to fall over on her bottom and drop the folder. She grumbled something childish, and scratched the back of her head.

"Oh, I'm sorry, here let me help you," said a man, helping her up by grabbing her arms and hoisting her up. Once she was standing, he bent over and collected all the papers on the ground, "I should stop stopping in the middle of the hall shouldn't I?" he said, laughing.

Rukia pat off the dust off her skirt and looked up to find a dark maroon haired man who was rather tall and attractive, watching her. He smiled kindly and handed her the papers he had just picked up, "Sorry again. You're Kuchiki Rukia, right?"

"Yes, I am, and you are?" she asked, not sure what else to say. She organized the papers back into a neat packet and stuck it into the folder.

"Kano Ashido, nice to meet you."

A/N: How was it? This chapter introduced all the pairings mainly involved in this story other than IchiRuki! And I hope you know which ones.

Sorry for not a lot of IchiRuki! But believe it or not, these pairings play quite a part in their [Ichigo and Rukia's] story!

Please tell me what you think! I don't need anymore ideas, or situations, I found my old planning sheets! So thank you to the people who tried.

Please review!