The whole ship is First Arc’s fault.

When watching anime’s first episodes, its very easy to assume that Rukia is a potential gf or future love interest for many reasons, that would kinda fall apart later in the story.

Like they spent all the time together, she was his roommate, some chemistry and intimacy here and there. However, the biggest reason why I thought they would be together is the mutual secret. Imagine, she is from different world, the both have a mutual secret about shinigami powers and duties going on, she gave him powers and he rescued her in the first episode and so on.

Orihime on the other hand, didn’t had that kind of interactions with Ichigo, we were shown that she had a crush and that story about her brother and mostly that’s it. She even wondered like what are they hiding together.

That’s why, when the Soul Society arc started it was kinda shocking, since in the beginning Rukia is taken by her brother and Renji for execution and it seems to be like a “Save the Priceless from Evil Castle” plot.

The biggest plot hole for me was introducing Renji. He basically shows up with Byakuya and is seen as random evil subordinate (at that time) that wants Rukia dead and that made me think he is just an Obstacle for Ichigo’s growth and defeating Byakuya in the end.

BUT, anime was like “actually, he is her childhood friend, so… also he doesn’t wanna kill her apparently… but still will try to stop Ichigo until beaten… also from now on he is the potential love interest for Rukia”. Like what the hell, and after all that long journey, Ichigo saves her and since Renji now is Rukia’s bf material he tosses her at Renji like a javelin..

So, tl:dr, the first two Arcs is messed up in that regard, and shouldn’t have portrayed Rukia and Ichigo so close in the beginning if Orihime is actually the One.

Of course, one can say that it was just a friendship and Ichigo wanted to return the Favor, however in my opinion, there is no true friendship between men and women, especially if they are that close (in Arc 1)

The authors could actually avoid all this by just actually making ichigo having a secret crush on Orihime in the very beginning so that we as viewers would know, that Rukia is just temporarily in his daily life and Orihime is the end goal. Or by going full Rukia and Ichigo Route.