25.2 things like loneliness

Set the day after Ichigo mourns his late mother, the short piece finds Tatsuki Arisawa discovering him alone at the riverside, having skipped class two days running as he always does around the anniversary. She scolds him, and when he points out that she too is playing hooky, she shrugs that her spotless reputation makes it a non-issue. Their small talk trails off into her private thoughts, where she remembers the day back in fifth grade when Ichigo dropped the affectionate honorific from her name, the first quiet sign that the two of them were drifting apart.

Tatsuki admits that whenever she notices how far they have grown from that old closeness, something like loneliness settles over her, though she refuses to dwell on the word. Rather than sit with the feeling, she nudges Ichigo on the head with her foot and hauls him off to the arcade, content that she can still beat him at every game, which for her is enough.

The vignette adds emotional texture to the friendship between Ichigo and Tatsuki, framing their bond through her perspective rather than his. It ties directly to the aftermath of chapter 25, when Ichigo learns a Hollow killed his mother, and shows how his yearly withdrawal quietly touches the people around him.

This omake appeared only in the guidebook Bleach: Official Character Book SOULs and was never part of the main serialized run. It spans a mere four pages and is placed chronologically on June 18, immediately after the events of the chapter 'memories in the rain,' where the Hollow Grand Fisher is revealed as the killer of Masaki Kurosaki. The story features only Ichigo and Tatsuki.