Something a little different but mostly the same. How fairytales turn to madness. The harsh collision of childhood dreams and adult realities.
Here's my attempt at Ishihime folks.
All the Things It Isn't and the One Thing It Is
Orihime Inoue often looks at the person she's become and wonders how exactly she ended up in the life she's in.
She used to imagine and fantasize and dream about all the extravagant possibilities life had to offer. She saw herself being an astronaut or a teacher or eating all the donuts she could just because or opening a restaurant or being a space robot; there were no limits to her potential. She would marry a someone more prince than man, cooking him bean paste alfredo and wasabi ice cream and live happily ever after. But then her aunt passed right before graduation. And without her support university seemed like a distant prospect and after all those years of battle and mayhem she was so tired of fighting why had her dreams become an uphill battle? Little by little the dream was fractured until nothing was recognizable but her high school memories. And then there was Kurosaki-kun. Quiet, unyielding as always yet she had expected him to be happier that everyone was safe; something about him seemed so empty as he went out with all their friends and smiled a hollow smile she hadn't seen in years.
(She wondered if he left his soul back in that other world and it was just his brain making him go through the movements of living.)
It made it all the more surprising when he asked her to lunch, and then another lunch, and then dinner, and then somehow she was announcing her engagement while grasping a hand she wasn't sure was reciprocating her hold. And this brought her to where she stands now. In a house that will never be home, with a partner bound only by law, in a life she now understands she wanted only in theory.
Kurosaki is a good man and better father but terrible husband whose touch feels dull and lifeless, who makes less and less effort to hide that he is unhappy as the years drag on.
Ishida understands. Dependable, empathetic Ishida who she finds herself spending more and more time with, who always takes a long lunch so they can meet at her favorite cafe and picks up Kazui from school when she falls behind on housework and will help her with her knitting when she gets herself tangled up in knots. She tells herself it's just because she's lonely, it's just because he's kind, no she doesn't see him as anything more than a friend.
The first time she kissed him she didn't mean to, not really anyway. He came over for lunch and they were having coffee she made with extra cayenne pepper (their favorite) and laughing about some crazy patient he had at the hospital and she couldn't remember the last time she was so happy that it seemed only logical to pull him closer and closer. In her defense he never pushed her away. He tastes like coffee and warmth and the sharp saltiness that ultimately breaks the moment, neither of them knowing whose tears started first.
She's not sure what will eat her alive first; the guilt, or the anger. Anger that she felt so alienated in her own marriage, anger that she always knew deep down that Ichigo never believed his own admissions of love, anger that she married the wrong man and it all implodes into one nasty fight that starts over Kazui playing baseball or soccer next spring and turns into an all out war over who regrets their life the most.
She accuses over and over you never loved me and by the end he doesn't both trying to deny it but instead demands to know why she's so unhappy now I gave you everything you wanted I did everything I was supposed to damnit Orihime I came back here for you-!
"No you didn't," she says bitterly, the feeling of that day he returned for good rushing back to her with such an intensity it almost knocks her breath out. "You left there because of her."
(His face goes blank at the mere insinuation of her, the dark haired violet eyed elephant neither had acknowledged in their ten years together.)
"Why are you even bringing this up now," He snaps, eyes burning with an emotion she can't quite name. "I made my decision didn't I?"
He storms downstairs and she makes no move to stop him. Later while lying in bed unable to sleep she realized it was guilt she saw in his eyes.
She continues her lunches with Ishida.
She confesses the whole mess to Tasuki during a routine trip to the store, eventually breaking down in the car and sobbing I'm a terrible person I'm cheating on my husband terrible terrible-
but Tatsuki tries to reason with her, if she's unhappy and he's not invested it's okay and it's not like she's selfishly hurting him he doesn't love her it's different right, right?
But deep down she knows it's still wrong. Like somehow that would make it more okay, cheating on him with his friend out of anger or hurt or spite or-
but this isn't spite
it's love.
In a moment of clarity ten years too late she realizes she would've fallen for Ishida no matter how Ichigo felt about her. The same way Ichigo will always love Rukia no matter how hard he tries to convince his heart otherwise. There are people whose souls are happiest together; who, no matter the struggle or sacrifice, are simply meant to be together. When she looks back the signs are so obvious and the path was so clear and yet here she is, married to a man more ghost than human who pines for a dead woman, in love with her soulmate.
It should be a fairytale but it's become a curse.
Weeks later she takes a moment to apologize to the woman she should've become from the girl she'll never be again, before adjusting her sweater and heading off to lunch.