Disclaimer: I do not own Bleach.
Warnings: Mentions of depression.
Rating: T, though it won't stay that way for long.
Chapter 1: The Fallibility of the Human Conscious
This moment. This was the one he had been waiting for. The wind beating hard on his temples and slapping at his face. There was no place for thoughts. No place for forgiveness, grieving, beatings, or blood. That space was taken.
His fingers gripped the chain link fence tightly. His knuckles turned white, probably less from the cold and more from the pressure. After all, it was basically holding him from falling hundreds of feet to a sticky death. He vaguely hoped they would hold.
No, that was wrong. He did not hope they would hold. He was not, after all, standing on the edge of a building, gripping a chain link fence because he was another average Joe that just wanted to keep on going. Keep on taking the train at 7 o'clock every morning, pushing through the hordes of people and bursting through the glass doors of the hospital. Keep on taking patient after patient, and waiting, oh so patiently for his scans, access to machines, the results of x-rays and CAT scans, and the surgeries. Those were by far the worst he had to deal with in that building. Every moment in that place was like being on a stage, heart beating, adrenaline pumping madness, and through it all he had to work as if he was under control. As if he knew what he was doing and how it all worked. To be honest, he was just trying to see past the blood pounding in his head every time.
It really was a wonder to him why he was known as the best doctor in Karakura. There was no reason for him to have that kind of title. He was just as insecure, whiny, and fucked up as all the people that walked through those doors. Well, except for the special few. Seeing and treating them was a special kind of hell.
Hell though. Real hell. The reason he was standing on top of this damned rooftop. That took the form of a once weakened male that could hardly leave the apartment due to his fragile skin. He had tattooed his eyes at 16, coloring the irises black and wearing gold contacts to make everyone around him feel just the tiniest bit creeped the fuck out. His own personal demon. The one that called himself Shiro Kurosaki.
Just the thought of the name had Ichigo's toes curled around the edge of the concrete. The small holes and rough edges spiked through the cold numbing his toes. He winced.
The wind cracked against the side of his cheek and for a moment he caught the smell of fast food, burgers soaked in grease and chow fun that had too much salt. The alleyway below him was relatively empty. There were very few people that chose to hang around a series of fast food restaurants without finding somewhere to escape to.
In that moment he remembered all the reasons why he wanted to live. The Chinese take out boxes that littered his floor were a physical momento of all of the dinners they'd shared. The moments that they'd fell against the back of his old couch and watched reruns of soap operas and game shows until the ended up the same way they always did. The boxes empty and discarded, only remembered by the ants using them as a lifeline.
He could hear them. His family, yelling and screaming at him calling him all kinds of names while begging him to step back onto the concrete, go back down the steps and keep going. Keep marching ahead despite the knot in his chest, right behind his lungs that felt as if it weighted a thousand pounds. A thousand regrets. Regrets and wishes.
But the thoughts had sobered him. Finished chilling his body where the wind couldn't quite reach. He tightened his grip on the fence. There was too much. This was too much. Too much.