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Ichigo took a steady sip of his coffee, set his mug down, then braced himself.
“Orihime and I are moving in together,” he announced bluntly.
He noticed Isshin glancing up from the morning paper ever-so-slightly. Yuzu looked away from her own breakfast and blinked. “You’re moving out?”
“With Orihime?” Karin added.
“Moving in,” Ichigo corrected. “And yeah. Obviously.” They’d been going steady — dating, he thought, a little flustered — for a while now and been dancing around the idea. Orihime had a job; Ichigo had a job. And while he hadn’t exactly said it out loud, he already knew he wanted to marry her when he asked her out about a year ago. This was a logical next step, no matter how dramatic his family was going to act about it.
Predictably, Isshin burst into wails. “My baby is leaving me!”
“I’m twenty-two.” Ichigo poked him in the forehead with the sharp end of his fork. “And I’ll only be a few blocks away.”
Yuzu’s ears perked at that. “You’ve already picked a house out?”
“An apartment,” Ichigo explained. “And we haven’t finalized anything, but the rent’s alright and it’s not too far from the town center, so…” He stared at his family, feeling a headache start to build at their varying expressions.
“Aren’t you going a bit fast?” Karin asked dubiously, playing with her food.
“We’ve been dating for a year,” Ichigo pointed out.
“And - and what about your room?” Yuzu fretted, purposefully wringing her hands into her frock.
Ichigo frowned. “You can have it.”
That seemed to be the wrong thing to say, because Yuzu’s eyes widened in alarm. Ichigo moved to comfort her, or at least ask what was wrong, but Isshin swooped in immediately, hugging Ichigo backwards to his chest. Ichigo nearly fell off his chair, flailing as Isshin boomed in his ears.
“My darling son! All alone in the city!” He turned to Masaki’s poster, still keeping Ichigo within his grip. “How soon they come into this world, beloved, and how soon they leave. Just yesterday, he was yea tall, just the cutest little cheeks—”
“Alright!” Ichigo snapped, shoving Isshin off. “That’s enough out of you.” He stood up, harshly scraping the chair back as his family winced. “What’s the problem? I’ve lived away from home before, so I know it’s not that.” He turned to Yuzu and Karin. “You guys like Orihime, so I know it can’t be that either.”
“We do,” Karin said sheepishly, as Yuzu muttered a feeble, “You have.”
“Then what?” Ichigo demanded.
Isshin, Karin, and Yuzu hesitated. Then,
“WE’RE GOING TO MISS YOU!”
***
“We probably shouldn’t have sprung it on them like that,” Orihime mused, resting her bottom lip on the pen nib. They were filling out paperwork. “Especially with everything that’s happened…”
Ichigo winced, remembering how hard his sisters had hugged him just a few years ago, when he’d returned from Soul Society after the war.
"I should have known they wouldn't make this easy for me," he grumbled anyway, wiping away a smudge of ink that had smeared on her mouth with his thumb. Orihime smiled, then dared him to lick it.
(He didn't).
Still, as the hectic few weeks of moving in came along, Ichigo could only marvel at how expertly Orihime was handling his family’s meltdowns. They picked Yuzu and Karin up from cram school to show them the apartment, and Orihime made a special note to show the soccer field nearby to Karin, and that they were within transit distance from the clinic. She included them in the most banal choices — like where to place their television and whether they should buy more chairs. By the end of it, Yuzu and Karin seemed to get the message that this wasn’t going to be a big step and that Ichigo wasn’t going anywhere they couldn’t visit as often as they liked. Orihime even let Yuzu poke her nose around the bedroom and bathroom, and then took all of her suggestions about Ichigo’s food habits in good stride.
“Oi,” Ichigo grumbled, when Yuzu began hinting at how he liked his mentaiko a little on the sour side. “I’m not that picky of an eater, you know. We’ll be fine.”
It was embarrassing, having his family make a spectacle of all of this when Orihime was so…independent. Having lived alone since she was twelve, she seemed to know a lot more about these things than he did, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t prepared. He was learning, too. He wanted to show her they were equals in this. And, even if it was a little old-fashioned, he wanted to take care of her, even if his family was undermining that with every question or teasing jab they lobbed his way.
“Ichigo-kun can take very good care of himself,” Orihime said gently. “But you needn’t worry; I’ll take good care of him, too. And we’ll come over all the time! So often that you won’t even get a chance to miss us.”
Privately, even if he agreed with her words, Ichigo was glad to have a chance at privacy. Even back in university, though he lived in the dorms, he dropped by on weekends and often stayed back, choosing to take the train the next day instead. Having a nice, quiet place to himself now sounded nice, and having a nice, quiet place with Orihime sounded even better.
Still, he shot Orihime a grateful look, to which she just winked.
“Okay,” Yuzu accepted with a small, genuine smile.
His sisters’ reactions were far preferable to Isshin’s, who later pulled Ichigo aside and gave him some colored advice about unplanned miracles in that off-hand way of his that made Ichigo turn red to his roots despite himself. Yeah, he was definitely going to be enjoying the privacy, even if he’d been reminded of a little detail about his own conception that he would have liked to forget.
Despite it all, having his family's support was nice. Ichigo hadn't exactly dreamed of a future like this—ever. But somehow it felt like everything he had wanted all along. All he could hope for was that this was Orihime's dream too—that this was something they could share.
As he walked Orihime back to her apartment one evening, he couldn't help but ask, “Are you happy?”
Oblivious as always, Orihime stopped in her tracks to give him a sidelong glance. “Well, I did eat a little too much at dinner.”
Ichigo shook his head, both because that wasn’t new but also because that wasn’t really what he meant. “I meant. To be leaving this place.” He jerked his head towards her apartment. To be moving in with me, he didn’t say, but her eyes brightened with understanding nonetheless.
“Very,” Orihime whispered, with a small smile. “Thank you.”
That was all he needed, really.
***
Orihime wasn’t used to coming home to him yet, he could tell. The idea of returning to a warm house instead of an empty one was quite new to her. The first few times, her eyes misted in joy when she spotted him from the doorway, and while he would never understand what that was like, he felt ten feet taller in being able to give this to her.
Also, living with Orihime was unlike anything else.
They had had sleepovers before, but that was back when they were still in that stage where they were showing off in front of each other. And, Orihime had futons back then, which meant that most of their sleepovers ended in separate mattresses anyway. Not that those hadn’t been fun; they’d spent many a night curled up under the blankets, having marathons of their favorite shows and whatnot, but in this house — in their house — Ichigo had insisted on a proper, Western-style bed.
In fact, most of their house was Western, but the bed had been a must-have for him — even if Orihime had been apprehensive about the price it cost and the space it took. Eventually they agreed that wherever they moved next, they could just take the bed with them and that this was a good, long-term investment. Dreamy as Orihime was, there was nothing more romantic to her than a wise financial decision, he quickly came to learn, so the bed hadn’t been a problem in the end.
Other things he learned: Orihime was dynamic as hell, always in motion, always working on one thing or another. She talked to her stuffed animals, wore patterned pajamas to bed, flipped through betsuma for the plot and giggled secretly, refusing to tell him what she was giggling about. He learned things about her only someone who lived with her could know — mundane, casual, quotidian things.
Still, the first few nights were disorienting. He woke up every time she shifted, or every time a car passed by their road, the headlights throwing dancing shadows along their walls. His battle-honed reflexes had unfortunately crept into this part of his life — the part where he shared a bed with someone and stirred every time they shifted. Often, the late hour and his own latent cynicism made him wonder if he was built for this kind of life, or if a rude awakening would come and take it all away, laughing at his audacity. Thoughts like that sent pure fear coursing through his system, ice-cold and thrumming with sickening adrenaline.
“Ichigo-kun,” Orihime murmured sleepily, abruptly, one hand spreading over the span of his chest. “What's the matter?"
He sighed, feeling like an idiot more than anything else, and turned to fold her into his arms, tucking his head over hers and letting her legs creep between his. His hand ran over the firm, steady line of her spine, admiring the strength of her body. She was warm, and she smelled like she always did, which brought him infinite comfort.
“Sorry,” he whispered, stroking her hair. “Go back to sleep.”
“Mm.” She nuzzled her head under his chin and did just that.
In the morning, he decided to cook her breakfast before she headed into work. He often rose with the sun anyway, on days he wasn’t injured or tired — which seemed to be more often than not, lately. They had eggs, and they had bread, so he figured a sunny-side-up wasn’t out of the realm of possibility.
However, a good ten minutes in, he realized his eggs were more runny than he would have liked, and he had no idea how to fix them. He prodded at them with a frown.
“Good morning!” Orihime chirped, and Ichigo was startled to realize she was fully dressed in her uniform, the sun already bathing their kitchen in golden-yellows as she came in, her hair pulled back into a ponytail. “Did you cook breakfast?”
She sounded so delighted, he instantly felt awful.
“They’re runny,” he protested when she made an interested noise and approached the steaming skillet.
“They should be fine. I’ll get us some plates.” She rummaged around their cabinets and drew up two plates, while he added a finishing touch of salt and pepper to his poorly-cooked eggs. He made a mental note to text Yuzu, or maybe even call her, glumly humbled by his utter lack of prowess.
Orihime, on her part, made all the right, appreciative sounds as she chewed on her piece, which was nice, and didn’t make him feel fully like shit.
“You know,” she said through bites. “This would taste great with watermelon slices.”
Ichigo blanched. “They would not.” He watched her get up, knowing full well she was headed for the fridge, where they kept their cut-up watermelons. He sighed. “Orihime, you can just say the eggs are bad if they’re bad.”
“But they aren’t!” she insisted, plopping a few fruit slices on his plate. “I’m just trying to add some flavor.” She picked up his fork and rolled his food until the little pink pieces were sandwiched between the eggs. “Here. Say ah!”
He let her feed him, but only because he still felt bad about ruining breakfast. However, when he chewed thoughtfully at the watermelon-egg combination, he couldn’t help but release a surprised sound of betrayal. “It’s good!”
Orihime pouted. “There’s no need to sound that surprised about it.”
Ichigo wondered about all the other food he’d whole-heartedly rejected throughout high school — if she’d secretly been holding out on him with her recipes. It was so like Orihime to bring something incredibly unexpected into his life. Something incredibly good. He wondered why he even put up a fight when it came to her, when nine-times-out-of-ten her surprises were pleasant, and her idiosyncrasies were endearing.
“Well, I should be off to work,” she said, and suddenly he felt apprehensive. He had a long day ahead, too, but he’d been too focused on how bad the eggs were to actually enjoy breakfast with her.
“Orihime.”
She paused from where she was digging through her purse and stared at him. Although he would have loved to stall, he realized she seemed eager to get to the bakery.
“Nothing. Nevermind. You should get going. You don’t wanna be late.”
She considered him for a second, probably measuring the tilt of his scowl, the inches between his eyebrows for some formula that only made sense in her head — and when she gathered that he really was fine, she smiled. “Okay.”
Then, her expression turned softer, more vulnerable and she approached him, setting one tentative hand down on his shoulder.
“What —”
“I—”
Both of them turned slightly pink, and Ichigo’s heart was pounding in his chest at their closeness, the intimate way she was leaning over him. “You go,” he croaked, swallowing to wet his dry throat.
“I just wanted to wish you before I left,” she admitted, tucking a stray strand of hair behind her delightfully pink ear.
Oh. Well.
“Go ahead,” he breathed, and she leaned down to press her full lips against his in a soft, parting kiss. Before he knew it, he tucked his palm behind her nape and dragged her in deeper, mindful of the way he was sitting, and she was standing up, and that if he tugged with any more force, she could be in his lap — no. She was going to be late. He let her go.
“Have a nice day, Ichigo-kun,” she whispered, and most of his overwhelm melted away when he noticed how meek she had become too.
“Yeah.” He grinned. “You too.”
***
They had guests over, a few weeks in. Ikumi, Kaoru, and her new fiancé — some wiry-looking guy who wasn’t too good with eye-contact but made amicable enough conversation. Ikumi wouldn’t admit it, but there was a happy glow to her that was palpable, and Kaoru seemed content, darting shy glances at Orihime every time she spoke to him over the table. They’d been on double dates with the couple before, but Ichigo had been hesitant to invite the guy over to his own house without making sure he was the right guy for his former boss first.
“Here,” Ichigo said after dinner, handing Kaoru a box of cookies. “My girlfriend made these for you.” He only meant it to be a little taunting — the brat had given him enough grief to last a lifetime when he used to work at Unagiya after all — and he knew he’d hit a sore spot when Kaoru sulked.
“You’re too ugly to have a girlfriend.” He took the box anyway.
Ikumi laughed, because she was a demon like that. Ichigo glared at them both, but was content enough to sit across from them on his reading chair. Somewhere in their box balcony, Orihime was showing the to-be Mr. Unagiya her potted plants. Kaoru ran over to them, and Ichigo watched Orihime beckon him with a hand.
“Who would’ve thought,” Ikumi said, gesturing her beer bottle around the apartment. “You, in a normal house like this.” Ichigo glanced at her and raised a brow, but said nothing, because he knew what she meant. “It’s nice. Enough room for two — maybe three?”
Ichigo looked at Orihime again despite himself, feeling a strong rush of unspeakable emotion at the way her hand was resting gently on Kaoru’s hair. It was so easy to imagine orange instead of black, a little kid between the two of them, who looked and sounded and acted like the two of them. Something in his chest folded and unfolded with the gravity of it.
“Yeah,” he said, his own voice sounding distant to himself, like he was watching someone else’s life, through someone else’s rose-colored lenses. “One day, maybe.”
“God, you’re such a sap,” Ikumi teased, and he made sure she was looking right at him when he flipped her off.
***
Later, he returned from his shower to find Orihime in the kitchen, washing the dishes. He frowned, because it certainly hadn’t been the first time he’d planned on doing something only to find her finishing up the same task before he got around to it. In fact, there were only a few plates and bowls left, compared to how full the load had been before he'd hopped into the bath.
“Do I do it wrong?” he asked, watching her put a plate into the tub. Orihime tossed her head over her shoulder, like she was surprised to see him back from his shower.
“Do what wrong, Ichigo-kun?”
Ichigo moved into the kitchen and set his towel down on the back of a chair. “The dishes. You’ve been doing them yourself the last few days, even though it’s my turn.” He ran a hesitant hand through his hair, wondering if she would have told him at all, if he hadn’t asked. “You can tell me, you know. If there’s a particular way you want them to be done.”
“Oh. It’s not that,” Orihime said, sounding genuinely surprised as she set a plate down. “I’m sorry, I was kind of on auto-pilot when I came in.” She looked sheepish. “I guess I’m just used to handling everything on my own, I didn’t even realize it was your week..”
“It’s fine,” he replied shortly. “It’s just. You know you can rely on me, right?!” His words came out heated, desperate, and Orihime’s eyes widened in surprise. “You don’t have to be alone anymore! If there’s anything you need, all you have to do is ask—!”
“Oh, Ichigo-kun.” Orihime abandoned the plates and flew towards him, burying her face in his chest as she squeezed her arms tight around him. “You’re so cute.”
“Hey,” he protested faintly, poking her forehead away from his chest to no avail. She just nuzzled into him further.
“You’re such a thoughtful person. How did I get so lucky?” she asked, her eyes shining with affection when she looked up at him.
Ichigo averted his gaze, because there was so much he wanted to say about how he was the lucky one, or how none of this felt real — how happy he was. How easy everything was, even when it didn’t go as planned. How nice it felt to be someone worth coming home to. How he kept waiting for the other shoe to drop.
In the end he just muttered, “that’s my line, idiot,” and accepted her happy guffawing for what it was.
***
Eventually, they fell into a working, steady dynamic.
Ichigo gave up on fixing Orihime’s breakfast or lunch — it turned out she usually preferred to eat at work with her coworkers anyway — but he ended up making dinner almost every night. They came up with a chore chart for laundry and the dishes (it had ridiculous stickers on it — a housewarming present from a bored and heavily pregnant Rukia back in Soul Society). They watched shitty, late-night television. Well, he usually read his book of the month or edited his transcripts while Orihime watched her shows, but in all honesty this was exactly how he preferred to watch Laugh Hour: through Orihime’s secondhand commentary and random, absent glimpses up at the screen.
Every now and then, she would remember his existence and gratify it by reaching for his hand and he, without looking up from his work, would give it. Eventually, his thumb would stroke hers, then prod it, and then they would be wrestling, Orihime’s face smug, her eyes glinting with a challenge.
It was easy then, to pull her in, to kiss her, to push her into the couch, to just feel her fingertips dragging against his stomach, his dad's advice about 'unplanned miracles' notwithstanding. He'd never been like this before, never felt anything more than vague appreciation and curiosity about another person's body, but living together made it much easier to not feel guilty about his own desires. It was nice to know she wanted him like that, and that if he held her against their bed — their bed! — and kissed her senseless she wouldn't exactly be upset about it.
He was learning more about himself than he ever had before, and in turn, was learning more about Orihime. No two days could ever be alike with her, and he was truly starting to come into his own.
“You're a cheater for using tactics like that to distract me during a thumb-wrestling match, by the way,” she complained later, when they finished, though she looked too flushed and pleased for the complaint to really take effect.
“So it worked, then?” Ichigo bragged anyway, rolling onto his side so they could look at each other.
No amount of eye-rolls could hide her fond expression.
"Ichigo-kun is so vain," she remarked, and then swooped in to kiss him hard before he could retaliate. The tension from his jaw melted away, his mouth giving way to her soft and wet one. Meanwhile, his hands crawled back down to cup her ass and give it a good squeeze, thoroughly enjoying the way her mouth released a sharp gasp.
"Having an adventure down there?" she asked, her cheeks flushed.
"Hard not to." He shrugged, drumming his fingers over her butt just to hear her giggle. He lifted one hand to cup her neck, and then kissed her again, smiling when she smiled, smudging their joy together until they were sharing a laugh more than they were a kiss.
A guttural howl suddenly vibrated through the air. Somewhere behind them, his shinigami badge went off with a shrill rattle right after.
Orihime released Ichigo with a sigh, idly tossing aside the comforter so he could get out of his body. Ichigo reached for the badge, then turned back around and whispered, "I'll be back."
Orihime propped her head up on one elbow, her hair a mess, her smile crinkly-eyed when she took his hand with her other hand and pressed a kiss to his knuckles. "Be safe."
"Yeah."
By the time he dealt with the Hollow and came back, Orihime had cleaned a little until the bed was in decent shape again. He'd fully expected her to be sleeping — it was a work night, after all — but instead she was sitting up, her laptop balanced on her bare thighs.
"That's my shirt," he said, sliding the window open
"Everything okay out there?" Orihime asked, ignoring his completely valid accusation of clothes-stealing.
"No signs of the apocalypse yet," Ichigo replied dryly, slapping his badge back to his chest. That split second of vertigo kicked in, and then he was in his body again, underwear and all.
A not-so-quick trip to the bathroom later, he emerged and landed on the bed, purposefully dropping half of his weight on Orihime to buoy her in place.
She tried to push him off and move towards the bathroom, but he stalled her with a single hand on her thigh. “Wait, I um. Maybe don’t go in there yet.”
Orihime stared at him for a moment, mystified, then realized his meaning, a slow grin spreading over her face. Then she was laughing, her face pressed into her palms as he felt heat crawling up his ears. “Oh my god!”
“Yeah, yeah, laugh it up. I’ve got IBS, by the way, so—”
Orihime laughed even harder, nearly knocking the laptop off the bed, as she wheezed and braced one hand on his thigh for support. Eventually, her eyes still glittering, she realized she had offended his delicate sensibilities and crawled closer to him, resting her head on his shoulder with a sigh.
“Still think I’m sexy?” he asked, only half-joking.
“Always,” she replied with complete sincerity, stealing a kiss from his pliant mouth to disarm him and then pulling him down by the head so he could spoon her. Ichigo sighed and rested his chin on her shoulder, one hand flat on her belly, his thigh bracketing hers. He felt her muscles stretch as she reached for her laptop again.
“What are we watching?”
“Naruto,” she replied.
Ichigo made a face. “Shippuden?”
“Mm-hmm.”
Ichigo groaned, burying his face in her shoulder as she giggled and ran her fingers through his hair. On screen, Naruto was trying to talk someone out of doing something stupid, as he was known to do. Ichigo was only half aware of the plot at all times, and he knew asking Orihime would leave him more confused because she had a hard time following this stuff too. A small, precious wave of affection rose within him and he bent down to kiss her cheek.
“Call in sick tomorrow,” he muttered into her ear, then kissed it too.
“What for?” she asked, hitting the volume key down a few times as Ichigo spread his hand under her shirt.
“Take a day off,” he suggested. “We could go out or something.”
Orihime glanced back over her shoulder. “Really?”
“Why not?”
“I’ve never done that,” she whispered, her voice suddenly colored by a newly-discovered longing. “That sounds really nice.”
Ichigo smiled. “Yeah.”
Orihime felt her lips tremble, and then she paused the episode, turning on her belly to look up at him. “Can I confess something?”
Ichigo stared down at her. “Of course.”
“I really like living with you. Sometimes I feel like I’m dreaming when we’re together…like all this is happening to someone else,” she revealed, spreading a hand over his chest. “I’m just so happy, Ichigo-kun.”
Suddenly, Ichigo was surprised. All these days he’d been having the same thoughts, the same feelings. Yet somehow, hearing her say it immediately abated his own anxiety. Hearing her say it made it more real which shouldn’t have surprised him at all really, the way she could come right out and just say things, the things he’d been holding to his chest. He realized that this was his life, his for the making and no one else’s, and it was up to him to make it a good one. A happy one
“I feel the same way,” he whispered, and then leaned down for a kiss.
Later that night, they went to bed with their alarms off, Orihime’s head pillowed on his chest as they drifted to sleep. The shadows still came, and so did the passing cars down on the streets below, but Ichigo wouldn’t know. The other shoe could stay floating or drop like a tonne of bricks for all he cared. He was fast asleep.