Looking back on it, I'd have to say that I really was an idiot for not seeing it. I knew, of course, how Orihime-san felt about you, Kurosaki. Of course I did, everyone knew. Well, everyone except you that is. But how I could have missed your feelings for her… now that is completely beyond me. I suppose that you'd say it hurt my Quincy pride, and in a way you'd be right. I had always thought myself more observant than that.
But my pride wasn't the only thing hurt.
I tried not to notice it at first, because it was foolish. Pathetic and weak, the way my heart ached just a little bit every time your hand brushed against hers. Every time it lingered. Emotions like that were nothing but baggage, completely useless. And yet… I found myself unable to let them go.
I even tried being happy for her. She had been pinning after you much longer than I had, that was for sure, but I could never really get myself to be alright with it. There was still a tiny flame of hope, buried somewhere deep inside my rusting heart, that maybe you felt something… anything for me.
I remember, on the afternoon of your six month anniversary with her, you asked me to help you sew back together your only nice dress shirt that you had torn at a party a few weeks back. Said you were taking her out to a nice restaurant, and you had been saving the measly allowance that your father gave you for the past three months just to afford it. Do you know I nearly cried then? Because I tried to imagine you doing something like that for me, and I couldn't. I just couldn't. I couldn't imagine you sucking up your pride and asking for help for me, I couldn't imagine you working and saving for months to do something special for me, hell, I couldn't imagine you remembering an anniversary for me. That hurt. Actually, I think that hurt even more than the time I saw the two of you kissing behind the school by accident. It hurt, because it just tore apart every fantasy I had ever had of the two of us being together.
I fixed your shirt of course. Made a few snide comments about your not being able to do it yourself, got a few back for being a "girly man" as you so eloquently put it, but I fixed it with slow, precise stitches. My hands were trembling the entire time. I couldn't decide whether I was angry, or whether I wanted to curl up and cry for a while.
You're the only one who's ever made me cry before, Kurosaki. Because that's what I did, you know. I went home that night and cried and cried until I fell asleep. Well, of course you wouldn't know. I wouldn't want you to. It's pathetic.
When you told Sado, Asano, and Mizuiro that you were taking Orihime out…. a hole appeared in my heart. When I looked down, I almost expected to see it. Like with a hollow. A wide, gaping hole, ragged and bleeding around the edges where you tore it. But I've healed since then, Kurosaki. I'm not so weak anymore. I'm healing that hole, filling it in slowly. By now, it's only a tiny shadow of what it was back then.
Gods, I hope I'm not making the wrong choice right now.
You're walking out of school, heading home to change and clean up before going out for your one year with Orihime-san. It's been a whole year. You have three dress shirts now, and a part-time job at Kurosaki Clinic with extremely flexible hours, but decent pay.
I call over to you. You look at me, puzzled, because I haven't spoken to you in about a week. You head over all the same, to where I'm standing by a large tree. I've been planning this for weeks, you see.
I lean over to my bag, resting on the other side of the tree, and pull out a notebook as if to ask you a question about something from class. You come over to my side, and I drop the book, grab your face, and press my lips to yours. It's only for a second, because you push me off, but I was expecting it. You push me, I grab my bag, and I run. The notebook was empty anyway.
You look at me the next day in class, you start to say my name a few times, but every time I pull out some schoolwork or sewing to busy myself. I don't say a word to you. You don't exactly look happy.
My silence holds out for three days. You don't seem to even be trying to talk to me anymore, which is just what I was hoping for. A clean break. There's no way we could have been friends anyway, it just hurt too much.
You were never mine to begin with.