Disclaimer: Bleach is the property of whoever owns it which sadly isn't me. If it was me I would live in a much bigger house and drive a much faster car.

AN: I have read a total of six chapters of the manga (the FIRST six) and have seen the anime up to episode 168. What is written here should be construed as, more or less, an AU because I have no idea what happens after that. I only watch the English dubbed version (hello AS) because- and it's my own person opinion, don't be hatin'- I HATE SUBTITLES. I can't watch the pretty colors and flashing lights and read subtitles at the same time. I'm terribly lazy, aren't I? Besides, I love the English voices. I think they fit the characters perfectly. Point is: Spoilers are certainly not intended.

This is a very short something intended to break some fairly serious writers block. It's a jumpy jumbled mess of blah and at first it was meant to be a longer piece but I'm not sure I'll be continuing it. We'll see though. Never say never! This is also my first try at something pretty angsty. Not sure what I think of it but what's new about that, right? I've read through it once and did a spell check but I do miss things. Apologies for any major errors.

Life Starts Now


Existing. If Ichigo had to choose one word to describe how he felt about his life it would be that one. The one with three short syllables.

Ex-ist-ing.

Ichigo had never in his life felt forgotten. He'd always been the one at the center of attention whether it was because of his hair and the frequent negative attention it received or because of more positive things like his good grades or the crazy friends he seemed to have like Keigo and Mizuiro. No matter the cause Ichigo had never felt the crushing emptiness of being alone quite like he was now.

He still had his family of course. His dad was still certifiably nuts and his sisters were there just as they'd always been. He should be happy. He knew that. Only there was a distinct emptiness inside that had taken a while to identify.

The war with Aizen had been long, brutal and bloody and it had kept Ichigo focused on the task at hand. He'd had a goal and the single-minded tenacity to go forward at any cost. Many lives, on both sides, had been lost and it hadn't been until the fighting was over that the survivors had been able to step back and take stock of the casualties.

Ichigo had already known two that had been lost. Even now, whenever he closed his eyes for anything longer than a blink he saw Chad's broken body lying in the crimson-stained sand and it had taken months to stop hearing Ishida's gurgled screams as the Quincy had been cut down with a vicious swing of a zanpakuto.

The violent splashes of red in Ichigo's nightmares were impossible to ignore and he would wake in a tangled mass of sweat soaked sheets with the metallic stench of old decaying blood in his nose.

Ichigo knew he wasn't the only one having troubles with the aftereffects of war. Inoue barely left her house anymore and the last he'd heard from her she was blaming herself for everything that had happened. He'd tried to console her and had tried to make her understand that the war was in no way her fault. At first he'd blamed Aizen and the other traitors. Now, months after returning, he'd started to blame himself. It wasn't something he'd ever admit to Orihime but if he hadn't charged straight in to Hueco Mundo with Ishida and Chad right behind him the two young men would still be alive.

Ichigo wanted to talk to someone about it but the person he wanted to see obviously didn't want to see him.

After the war had more or less been won the surviving shinigami had left the barren wastes of Hueco Mundo and had gone back to Soul Society. Ichigo had gone with Rukia and Renji and had stayed within the walls of Seireitei for almost a month doing whatever he could to help out.

During that time he'd stayed at Renji's place and it had felt really good to know that he had a brother-in-arms with whom he could talk to about the horrors that wouldn't stop flashing through his mind. The lieutenant had been great about listening and just being there. Ichigo had broken down more than once and Renji had never made him feel less for it. The usually brusque lieutenant of the sixth division had been kind and understanding.

Ichigo could vividly remember going out one night with Renji and some others. They'd all drank far too much and they'd all had tears in their eyes when they'd raised their sake bowls in memory of their fallen comrades. Hours later, Ichigo had stumbled out of the bar leaning very heavily against Renji's side, completely dependant on the redhead to get him home in one piece and with his dignity still intact.

It had been the following day when Ichigo's thoughts had been rocked

He'd never considered himself gay. If he was honest with himself he'd admit that he'd never really considered himself anything.

Thoughts of that nature just hadn't crossed his mind. Sure, there had been opportunities. Inoue had been interested for years and there had been more than one occasion where some guy would make their intentions known. Ichigo wasn't sickened by either sex but he'd never felt inclined one way or another.

Not until the night Renji had held him tight to his side and walked him home.

Being pressed against the lieutenant's warm firm body had suddenly awoken something within him and he'd felt a strange heat pooling in his groin. If he'd been at all sober he would have been mortified by the rock hard erection he'd been sporting. Luckily Renji hadn't noticed and the redhead and gotten Ichigo back to his place and laid down on the pullout futon Ichigo had been using without any awkwardness.

Ichigo would have expected the emotions he'd had to be gone the following morning but he couldn't have been more wrong.

He'd woken up severely nauseous with a killer headache beating a nasty rhythm in his brain and Renji had been there with water and a pill to cure his aches and pains. The redhead had stayed with him all day, even going as far as rubbing his back when Ichigo had emptied his stomach with toe-curling heaves.

Later, after he was feeling a hundred percent better Ichigo had wanted to talk to Renji about the conflicting emotions he was feeling but the lieutenant had been called away on squad business and the substitute soul reaper had lost his nerve.

It had been only a few days later when Ichigo had made the trip back home. Renji and Rukia had been there to see him off and they'd both promised to come visit as soon as they could.

That promise had been made over nine months ago and Ichigo hadn't seen or heard from either of them since.

***

Things had slowed down considerably since the war with Aizen had been won. Hollow sightings in the world of the living were back to semi-normal levels and Ichigo found that he had a lot more free time now. More time than he was really comfortable with.

He still went on patrol, constantly on the lookout for even the slightest vibration of spiritual pressure. He'd worked hard on his ability to sense it and, although he'd never be considered a master, the ability had grown by leaps and bounds. He'd sense one coming through and dispatched it as fast as he could which was now within mere seconds.

When not on patrol he'd try to stay busy with studying and completing homework but his attention would wander to other things and Ichigo had found that his grades had fallen slightly.

Believe it or not, life before the war had been far simpler. Ichigo had known what was ahead of him and charged straight forward into the future. He'd known that survival was not guaranteed but the fight was required. It had to be done. Aizen and the other traitors had to be taken down so both the Soul Society and the living world could stay safe. Because of that, life had been full of nonstop action for so long that he'd become accustomed to the frantic pace. For months and months he'd been so focused on the battles ahead of him that nothing else had mattered.

He'd had a goal and had fought hard to meet it head on.

By the time the fighting had ended and Aizen had lain dead the sands of Hueco Mundo had been stained with the blood of hundreds and the palace of the espada had been decimated. Destruction throughout the land was absolute and Hueco Mundo could only be called a wasteland now. The first thing Ichigo had wanted to do when he got back home was to burn his shihakusho to ash. Unfortunately, the stain of memory wasn't something he could burn away so easily.

After the fighting was done and his stay in Soul Society was complete he'd made the trip back home.

It had been one of the hardest trips of his life.

Soldiers were friends with other soldiers because they all knew what the other was going through. That was how Ichigo had felt while he was with the shinigami. They had fought alongside each other and therefore understood him far more than anyone in the living world ever could.

After he'd come back from Soul Society he'd done the only thing he could; immersed himself in his studies and had somehow managed to graduate in the top ten of his class. From there he'd spent the summer with his family and had been able to go to university in the fall with a slightly clear head. It wasn't until he'd been at school for a month that he fully realized he hadn't heard from anyone in the Seireitei since he'd come back home.

At first he figured they were just busy. So many seated officers had been lost that surely the squads were scrambling for replacements. Ichigo tried not to think of it as a betrayal or that he'd simply been forgotten but the paranoid suspicion crept into the back of his mind little by little until one day he came to the conclusion that he'd meant nothing more to the soul reapers than an extra hand. They'd used his power to fight Aizen and his arrancar and once the fight was over and Aizen had been killed, Ichigo and his own hollow were no longer needed.

Ichigo would never admit it to anyone but he'd spent the following twenty four hours after that realization curled up in the fetal position crying into his pillow.

He'd almost gone to Urahara's and demanded the shopkeeper open a gate to the other side but he'd held himself back at the last minute. If they didn't want to see him he would respect their wishes and stay away. He had his own life to live and needed to stay focused on his studies but deep down inside he knew that none of it was right.

He'd felt like he had finally belonged while he was with the soul reapers. Living in the real world, working a part time job and going to school were not what he wanted to be doing. If Ichigo really looked deep within himself he knew that what he wanted was to be a full time shinigami. The fact that he'd basically been left behind stung more than he'd ever admit to anyone.

He tried to just not think of them and found it to be a constant struggle. There was always someone from Soul Society stationed nearby but it was never anyone he knew and any incoming hollows were dispatched so quickly that they never took the time to even greet one another. The last guy stationed had taken the time to say he was an unseated officer from the eleventh division before he'd shunpo'd away. Ichigo could have followed him but he hadn't had the ambition that day.

Of course, one person kept popping into his thoughts. The same person that at one time, years ago, had tried to kill him. The same person Ichigo had almost killed in the struggle to save Rukia from Soul Society's antiquated system of rules and regulations.

After everything they'd been through Ichigo considered Renji to be one of his closest friends, if not the closest. They had been like brothers, looking out for each other in everything but it was the brotherly side of their relationship that had Ichigo confused.

Ever since he'd come back home to live his "real" life, he'd been trying to come to terms with his feelings.

Ever since he'd come back home Ichigo was certain he wanted something more.

Back in Hueco Mundo, winning the current battle had been first and foremost on his mind. The very last thing he would have ever thought about was starting a relationship with Renji Abarai. The thing was, if he really concentrated, fighting in Hueco Mundo had been where the very first inkling of something more than brotherly affection had struck.

He'd seen Renji, broken and bloody, trying to fight a losing battle and something had snapped. A vicious primal instinct had awoken in him to protect the redhead. His inner hollow had burst forth without a second of warning and Ichigo had struggled harder than he'd ever had to before in order to keep control. The large group of fraccion Renji had been fighting had fallen under Zangetsu's bloody blade within seconds.

Ichigo had played off the act as simply being in the right place at the right time to help the lieutenant out and neither of them had ever dissected it further. At the time Ichigo had been more than okay with just being friends.

Now though, after everything that had happened…

Ichigo had lain awake one night and seriously contemplated what was going on inside his head.

His heart certainly fluttered in an unfamiliar way whenever he'd been near the tattooed lieutenant and the intensity of his reaction to seeing Renji hurt had been surprising. He'd always been ready and willing to lay down his life for those that he cared about but that was something he likened to honor. People that couldn't protect themselves needed to be looked after. Renji, on the other hand, was more than capable of protecting himself.

What had hit Ichigo when Renji had been struck down was pure possessiveness.

His hollow had shrieked in a rage when Renji fell. Ichigo's unspoken affection for the redhead had stayed that way; unspoken, but the unhinged reaction from the hollow within him had clued Ichigo in to a side of the creature he'd never seen before. The side that cared.

For once they'd been fighting together instead of the constant struggle for control. Ichigo had been forever thankful to the hollow after that and even though it hadn't yet been spoken of, Ichigo had the feeling that perhaps the hollow approved of his feelings.

Now, back home in the real world, his heart clenched at the pain of being forgotten by the one person he wished so hard for. He hadn't heard a word from Renji in almost a year and it hurt more than Ichigo would have ever thought possible.

He was a substitute soul reaper with hardly any souls to reap. He was a first year university student struggling to maintain a decent grade point average because he couldn't sleep at night without reliving the deaths of his friends. He was an eighteen year old young man torn between two worlds that didn't want or need him. Little by little the loneliness of survival seemed to creep down onto him, weighing him down as if a boulder the size of a small car lay upon his shoulders.