Tatsuki tapped her pencil against her desk and stared blankly towards the front of the classroom, bored out of her mind. Things had settled down on the sentai front and it left her in a strange limbo; she wanted to train, wanted to learn her new limits, and yet Urahara insisted they all take a week to rest before doing anything else, barring emergencies.

She supposed she could see the point of it. Several days later and she still felt oddly drained, and she could tell that Chad and Orihime felt the same. Ichigo, however, had bounced back as if it was nothing, going about his days the same as he used to.

Whatever the difference between them, Tatsuki was determined to not let Ichigo outstrip her. She’d been his rival and best friend for almost a decade and she refused to fall behind now.

(She’d dreamed of being a sentai when she was little.)

(There was no way she’d fail now!)

“Ishida-san, welcome back. I hope you’re feeling better,” Ochi said as the classroom door slid open and another student entered right before the bell rang.

(Wait… Ishida?)

Tatsuki sat up and focused on the teen entering the room. It was the neighbor they’d met on Monday, looking a lot less dead on his feet. He still looked tired, but the dark circles beneath his eyes were almost gone and his hair was less limp. He even stood easier, lacking the coiled, painful tension she’d glimpsed before.

So… still in pain, but his levels were more manageable now.

“As well as can be expected, sensei,” Ishida said with a small bow.

“Good, I’m glad,” Ochi told him, before shooing him towards the desks. “Remember to tell me if you need to leave for any reason, Ishida-san.”

“Of course, sensei.”

Tatsuki watched Ishida’s movements as he turned and began to walk. Saw the way his eyes widened and his steps faltered as he caught sight of her. Then Orihime. Then, confusion growing in his gaze, he scanned the rest of the room and spotted Chad and Ichigo sitting next to the window.

Ishida’s hands clenched, frustration creeping into his posture as he forced himself to keep walking. He strode past her without acknowledgment and sat at his desk in the back, pulling out his supplies and getting ready as Ochi started writing on the board.

Orihime leaned back in her seat and softly asked, “How did we not recognize him?”

“I thought he seemed familiar, but… I didn’t expect this,” Tatsuki murmured in return, pretending to write down some of what Ochi was going over. She prided herself on being observant, but she hadn’t recognized Ishida beyond a vague familiarity even after a month of classes. The rest of her class she knew by sight, if not by name, so why was he different?

(“Ishida-san, welcome back.”)

(“I have episodes like this every so often.”)

She spun her pencil between her fingers and mulled it over, watching Ishida out of the corner of her eye. The longer class went on, the more he settled, frustration bleeding out of him and disinterest slipping in. He was staring out the window, chin propped on his hand and his gaze distant.

Ishida did not want to be here.

Not that she could blame him. No one had reacted to his presence beyond the four of them and their teacher. And even as Ochi finished handing out homework and began to pack her books up, no one said a thing to him.

School was boring enough, but to have to endure it without friends?

She wouldn’t want to be here either.

“Let’s invite him to lunch,” Orihime whispered while their next teacher set up. “He looks lonely, so let’s fix that!”

“He’s not going to want to,” Tatsuki reminded her friend, even as she ripped a piece of paper free and scribbled ‘Lunch? Hime wants to invite Ishida.’ on it. A quick handful of folds and she had a compact little triangle that flew beautifully through the air and pegged Ichigo in the side of the head.

Ichigo caught the projectile with a scowl, giving her his ‘you are an immature brat and I don’t know why I like you’ scowl before he unfolded it and read her message. He leaned back to whisper to Chad, then scribbled something below her message, refolded the paper, and launched it right back at her face.

The utter brat.

Tatsuki caught the little triangle and stuck her tongue out at him, getting an eye-roll in response. She unfolded the paper and read his response — ‘Sure. Chad’s in too. Good luck convincing him.’ — with a feeling of exasperation.

‘Not going to help convince him? Isn’t he your type? Tall, brooding, and lonely?’ she wrote, then refolded the paper, waited for their teacher to turn back to the board, then launched it back at Ichigo.

One minute and one stink-eye later, she had her answer: ‘I don’t have a type!’

“Arisawa-san, do you have something to share with the class?” their teacher snapped, having turned around in time to see her grinning at Ichigo.

“No, sensei!” she responded, tucking the note into her desk before he could see it.

Their teacher frowned, looked between them, then turned back to the board with a grumbled, “Pay attention and stop goofing off, then.”

Tatsuki waited long enough to make sure he wasn’t going to try to catch her in the act, then pulled the note back out and wrote ‘Evidence says otherwise.’ before launching it at Ichigo.

‘One time, Tatsuki! One time! That’s not ‘evidence’!’

She smirked, twirled her pencil, and wrote back ‘Only once? Are you sure?’

Ichigo shot her a confused glower when he read the note, so she tilted her head towards Asano and Kojima in explanation. Based on his ‘I hate you, why are you like this’ scowl, he got the message.

‘They don’t count. You said ‘tall, brooding, and lonely’ and they don’t count.’

‘Two out of three ain’t bad! ‘Brooding and Lonely’ and ‘Tall and Lonely’ are good enough :D’

That message earned her the ‘I hate you, why are you like this’ scowl version two, the angstier and more betrayed version. Which morphed immediately into version three, Endless Betrayal Mode, when she had to cover her mouth and bite her lip in an attempt to keep from laughing.

Not that it did her any good. Instead, she started choking on her laughter, shoulders shaking and tears springing to her eyes.

(Oh, she loved riling Ichigo up!)

(He made the best expressions ever!)

“Arisawa-san!” their teacher barked, turning around and frowning at her as she kept coughing. “Are you alright?”

“J-just… just swallowed… swallowed wrong, sensei,” she forced out between coughs that verged on laughter. “Can I… get a drink?”

His flat expression told her he wasn’t buying her story, but he muttered his agreement and waved a hand at the door. “No more than five minutes, and no shenanigans!”

“Yes, sir!” Tatsuki responded as she rose, waved away Orihime’s concerned look, and hurried out the door. She had five minutes to calm down.

Better make the most of it.

(The look on his face! Hah!)

(She was totally right about his habits, too.)

Orihime’s plan probably had a better chance of success than she’d initially estimated, with Ichigo on the case. She’d yet to meet a person who didn’t fall into Ichigo’s orbit when he turned his attention on them.

(Hmm… she gave Ishida a week before he caved.)

(At most.)

(Poor guy.)