originally written for the 2014 Ichihime Holiday Exchange hosted on tumblr
lifetimes ahead | 1273 words | fluff
Ichigo has never been good with words.
The very same smile could drag him to hell or fly him to the moon—neither option would faze him.
It sort of happened naturally, because the subtext was supposed to make sense in context and everything.
He didn't really stutter or stuff; but it was still very nerve-wrecking, to say the least. He had the whole scene played out a few times in his mind before, the words he was about to say almost flawlessly rehearsed, it was a little like fighting new enemies, only there wasn't really anything at stake.
He said, move in with us?, she looked at him with quivering eyes.
Us was a lot of things and he knew that she knew. She had to—at this point they had known each other so long that it felt like they were pretty much living half of each other's lives. Us was inside the Kurosaki Clinic, with his old, demented father and his sisters, Karin having unofficially sworn to spinsterhood and Yuzu possibly marrying that little brat in Urahara's shop or something. Us was spending mornings, afternoons and evenings together, dining and watching televisions and shopping and other stuffs. Us was not having to live alone anymore, even if it means enduring the deafening idiocy on almost hourly basis.
Us was him and her in the same space. Together.
He would always remember her face at this very moment, how her tense expression faded with the sunset behind her, strands of hair flowing around her head, looking as beautiful as she could be, and Ichigo realised that if he had any fears at all, it would be that few minutes of waiting for her answer.
Then it came out, just slightly louder than the wheezing of the breeze.
Yes.
The best thing about Orihime is that she knows everything, she understands all is there to understand about him, he doesn't need to spell things out to her, he doesn't have to think too much when it comes to her.
With her, it's a one-way ticket.
With her, it's a cottage in the middle of a lake.
With her, their future can be seen from a tunnel vision, the calm comforting light in the middle despite the darkness that surrounds it.
The worst thing about Orihime is convincing her of all those.
Ichigo has never been good with words, so he tells his father, "She said yes."
He's quite convinced that he'll never be able to reconcile with his father, now matter how long or how much history about him that he'll eventually learn. He has come to accept that his twin sisters' daddy is not his father, his mother's husband is not his father, and that the Kurosaki Isshin that stands in front of him with his back turn towards him is more Shiba Isshin than his father. He has accepted it, that his father, before anything, is ony willfully vulnerable because of who Ichigo is, and that, for Ichigo, is perhaps the greatest act of fatherhood.
"Are you moving out?" Isshin asks with solemn voice he only uses to announce grave news.
A while ago, there was a joke that kept ringing during family dinners, that Ichigo was going to move out. The first time Yuzu heard it, she threw a tantrum and didn't speak to Ichigo for weeks. Eventually Yuzu and Karin began hunting for places and started sending Ichigo addresses of places they thought Ichigo would like. All of them were, unsurprisingly, close or at least within transit distance from the Kurosaki Clinic.
"No, she'll move in."
"You're not moving out?"
Perhaps it was the way he realised some time ago that his mother's will is still alive somewhere and that she has been watching him, watching them. Perhaps it was the way he realised that he's not so different from his father, two men born into different circumstances but the same man inside. Perhaps it was the way he knew that precisely because Kurosaki Isshin, not Shiba Isshin, not his father, and him are men first, father and son second, that he realised that he should stay.
"Things happened."
Isshin smiles, and it's that kind of smile that Ichigo sometimes sees when he looks into the mirror, that kind of smile that reminds Ichigo distinctly of his childhood—
"Masaki, did you hear that? Ichigo is getting married!"
—with his lovely mother and that buffon of a father, yes.
Orihime moves in a few days before Christmas. It was Yuzu's idea. Wouldn't it be great, she had said, if Orihime-chan comes in just in time for New Year's celebration, then we could start living together by going to the shrine—
(She has obviously forgotten about her own future, especially when it comes to the one thing that distresses Isshin more than anything.)
—and they'll get to have a big sister at last and Orihime-chan, finally, will have the memory of a New Year's celebration with an actual family to remember for years to come. Karin's equally enthusiastic, even if it doesn't really show from her nonchalance. We have been expecting it anyway, she had said when Ichigo broke the news to them, it's only a matter of time and if anything surprises us, it's how long you took to ask.
Indeed, Ichigo had thought.
It has been at least twelve years since Aizen, ten years since Yhwach, but it has always been Orihime since then. Sometimes he wonders when was it that he felt the need to be close to her as often as possible. When was it that their friends stopped teasing and started nudging, when was it that it had felt natural to imagine her beside him as he ages, when was it that it only felt right that she'll be around forever and more.
Perhaps it was when he didn't say anything and yet she stayed, and he kept wondering why.
Not a lot of things his father told him ever got stuck on him, but the one thing that stayed was what he told him on that one day in that particular year he got his shingami powers and still failed to kill the hollow that took his mother:
You're the man the woman I love chose to protect.
He decides that if he were to have a son later in life, this would be one of the things he'll tell him.
His father can be kind of awesome and they'll have a lot to catch on, but they would have a few lifetimes ahead.
Ichigo has never been good with words, so he chooses to kiss her, finally really kiss her—tucking her hair behind her ear and angling his chin to match her face, pulling her into an embrace so tight that they are sharing space and air—as the fireworks set off, to tell her that she's the one, the only one, I'm sorry I couldn't—didn't—say this earlier, and thank you.
Thank you for staying.
Thank you for choosing me.
She'll take a thousand years to catch on, he'll bask in the beauty of the wait and they both strut into the afterlife for a brand new journey.