Five
(A Bleach Fic)
Orihime had always liked the number five. Truth be told it was her favorite number. She liked to imagine all good things came in fives. Five lives, five jobs, five foods – yes, the best dreams came in fives.
Except for love.
Love was best experienced only once because love in fives was just fickle. Real love, true love, need only be felt with one person. If Orihime was lucky enough to live five lives she would chose five times to fall in love with the same person.
And that person would never love her back.
It really was quite silly.
Ichigo loved with his whole heart but he could never love her like she loved him. Orihime wished she was the rain, but instead of binding the earth and sky she would bind hearts. She wished for the strength Rukia made look effortless. What she would give to have Ichigo look at her with something beside friendship in his eyes!
It was too late for that now. She would never see Ichigo again; the love she wanted with him was a fantasy. Her life was undone; her hopes and dreams were little more than bits of whimsy. She would never become an astronaut, or a teacher. She would never own a bakery, or eat every favor in Baskin Robbins. She would never go into Dunkin' Donuts and demand to be given everything.
And Ichigo would never fall in love with her.
He had never been in love before, of this Orihime was certain. Perhaps he could one day love Rukia. Their souls were joined, and Orihime envied that closeness, the feeling of completeness she desired above all else. She imagined it felt wonderful.
Orihime loved Ichigo. He was the savior the princesses dreamed about in the fairytales. He was the one she couldn't be without, the one she would love forever. Orihime would do anything for Ichigo. She would live for him, die for him, she wished she was strong enough to let him go. Her love for him was total, selfless, all-consuming. It was burning her to ash and soon she'd be scattered to the wind. This love was torture, but it was a pain she would gladly endure five times. Loving Ichigo was both a burden and a freedom. He inspired her. He crushed her. She couldn't imagine her life without him. This scared her more than anything.
She had forsaken everything to love him. Her heart, her mind, her soul – Ichigo owned them all. All she was she'd given to him, and he hadn't even noticed. She'd followed him for so long she'd forgotten how to be Inoue Orihime. She was defined by her love for Ichigo. Orihime was so very, very weak. She was ruled by her emotions. She was an echo of the girl her brother had loved so dearly, of the girl she saw in the mirror years ago. Orihime no longer knew who she was. She was shattered, broken. She was a stranger to herself. Such a realization sickened her, yet she wouldn't change a thing. One-sided love was cruel, but the love she felt for Ichigo – she would never feel anything but gratitude for it. Never.
Five lives. Five cities. Five jobs. Five foods.
All incarnations would mean nothing if Ichigo wasn't there to experience any of it with her. Five lifetimes with Ichigo would be perfect, even if it was five lifetimes of friendship. Just being near him was enough. It would have to be enough. His presence both healed her and ruined her. Orihime wondered what it was like to feel whole, to feel something other than emptiness and a maddening ache deep within her chest.
She wished she could have kissed him, just once. She wished he could have held her in his arms and felt for an instant just a fraction of the overwhelming love she felt for him.
It wasn't meant to be. In this life, or any other.
All five lives would be the same. Orihime would be alone in all of them.
This single truth wasn't enough to make her love him any less.