Disclaimer: I don't own bleach

"Kuchiki-san, don't you think it's strange that this is the third time this month that Inoue-san has made us partner up for these group assignments?"

"I thought so too, she's not exactly subtle about it."

Ishida couldn't help but cringe at the memory of Inoue literally dragging him to Kuchiki-san's desk and yelling, "Sensei! Kuchiki-san and Ishida-kun will be a team!" Then she darted off, latching on to Aresegawa Tatsuki, completely oblivious to the fact Tatsuki had likely just broken Chizuru's nose again after the red-head had tried to leap to Inoue-san and claim her as her own team mate.

And that was just the first time.

"Oooh! Let's have visual aids for our presentation! I'll draw!"

"Uh…I don't think that'll be necessary Kuchiki-san." After all, visual aids were supposed to be…helpful, not Chappy the rabbit.

"Fiiiine…."

An awkward silence descended on them until Rukia's eyes widened in realisation. "Hey! You know that dress you made for me back in soul society?"

"Yes, but what does that have to do with our presentation?"

"Ugh! Don't be stupid! I'm talking about Inoue!"

Ishida blinked confusedly, "I thought you were talking about the dress?"

"Inoue and the dress! Jeez you're as slow as Ichigo sometimes."

Ishida would have been insulted by this, except he really didn't care that he and Kurosaki were equally confused by Kuchiki-san's rapidly changing conversation. Besides Kuchiki-san had said sometimes.

He was still confused though.

"Inoue kept mentioning that dress when we were going on about our group projects, I think she wanted me to wear it today."

Explaining that before would have been nice. Ishida adjusted his glasses and reminded himself not to say that out loud.

"Meaning that…?"

"Well it's obvious! She wants you to make me another dress!"

"Um…are you sure?"

"Of course I'm sure! You go get to work and I'll start on this presentation, it's easy enough."

…

Both Rukia and Ishida were equally stumped the next week, when upon showing Orihime the new garment, the girl had redoubled her efforts to get them alone at every possible opportunity. Not only that, but much to Ishida's embarrassment, while he'd been making the dress, Rukia had seen fit to add the 'visual aids' to their presentation. No one ever quite figured out how she'd managed to incorporate so many Chappies into a presentation on renewable energy sources, but Ishida swore that their next assignment (and at the rate things were going, the next assignment after that and the following one after that) would be completely Chappy free.

Ok, I'm not sure how many people will get the reference since there has been next to no hint in the anime later of Orihime being convinced that Ishida likes Rukia. Atleast not as far as I can remember. Unfilled plothole, I was sure she'd have tried to play matchmaker by now. Oh, feel free to suggest a character to accompany Ishida in later chapters, it's getting difficult now since he doesn't really know that many shinigami.