Characters: Orihime, Ichigo, Rukia (in spirit)
Summary: Orihime can't help it if her face isn't the right one. She's so clumsy around him, and it's impossible to think of being with him without guilt. Spoilers for Deicide arc.
Pairings: IchiRuki, onesided IchiHime
Warnings/Spoilers: Spoilers for Deicide arc
Timeline: during time skip
Disclaimer: I don't own Bleach.
Still giddy, still unwieldy. Still utterly awkward, Orihime notes gloomily, staring into her bathroom mirror with the sort of intensity one would expect out of a snake trying to hypnotize it's prey. Still like a foal just born, with legs so weak that they can barely support the weight of the body. Still just like that, in front of Kurosaki-kun.
The way she stares into her mirror, moodily contemplating her appearance could be misconstrued by the typical teenage girl angst by those who don't know Orihime well. The uncertainty, the painful insecurity about her looks, the feeling that she's not pretty enough, and that maybe she'd be a little prettier if she was just a little thinner, just a little tanner. That's not Orihime's issue.
Orihime knows she's beautiful. All she has to do is look into the eyes of her friends and she knows she's beautiful, even with her hair disheveled and huge shadows under her eyes, even with the harsh, unflattering bright white fluorescent lighting of her tiny bathroom, looking at her face through a battered mirror hiding a medicine cabinet behind. She has no issue with the way her face looks.
It's just that her face is the wrong one.
It isn't Rukia's.
Why is the truth always so devastating? Why does it have to hurt so much?
What is it about me that doesn't make me good enough?
It's been months since any of them last saw Rukia, as far as Orihime knows; she doesn't talk about it to Ishida or Sado. And she doesn't dare speak of Rukia to Ichigo, but Orihime knows, knows he hasn't seen her. She can see it in the dull, dim lack of light in his eyes, see how some of the color's gone out of him, how he seems a bit washed out, without Rukia.
Like everything for Ichigo is darker in his eyes. Like the whole world is nothing but a dirty, meaningless place without Kuchiki Rukia in it, with him.
If Ichigo thinks the whole world is dirty, like he's seeing out of a warped window in a building so long abandoned that the layer of dust is a clear half-inch thick, then that must make Orihime dirty by association too. And what makes her feel dirtier than anything else is the envy, the hoping, the daring to dream that maybe she might have a chance.
Is it normal to think like this? I have my chance now, but at the expense of another's happiness. How can I feel anything but guilt?
For about a month after everything happened Orihime was too much in shock to really process any of this as being at all relevant to her love life. The developments that had taken place were too mind-blowing and distressing and she was still surmounting her own trauma (In a way, she still is, but at least she can function now instead of just wandering through life numb), so everything in that first month is a bit of a blur. Dimly, Orihime can remember returning to school and schoolwork, Tatsuki and Ishida both throwing worried glances at her every other moment, going home, doing homework, eating by chewing mechanically and then sleeping.
Once that month was up and over, however, Orihime was fully aware of all the implications involved.
And that own awareness disgusted her, as much as she wanted to act on it.
Orihime can't help but feel like whenever she tries to take a chance for her own happiness she's crushing her foot down on the dreams of others, or as if she's insensitively treading on pain and all anguish sundry.
She's tried to ask Ichigo out. More than once.
And every time, she falters, and stumbles, and falls. And leaves the words unsaid altogether.
Not because of any shyness. Because, however shy Orihime is (and when it comes to Ichigo, she is exceedingly shy), she's also good at revving herself up enough that she feels like she's ready to take on a Menos army, and compared to that, asking Kurosaki Ichigo out on a date should be ridiculously easy, right?
Right?
Wrong.
It's not easy. In fact, it's impossible.
Because though Ichigo probably doesn't think he has any vestige of Rukia except for the memories, Orihime can still see the Shinigami's shadow hovering over him. Like he's infected with memory but he doesn't know he's sick. As much as Ichigo's misery keeps him from seeing anything, it's that misery in itself that holds him down and lets everyone see the source of his pain.
Any fool can see he still aches for Rukia.
In any lifetime, Orihime would be able to see that he still loves her.
And she knows where she fits into this puzzle. It's simple: she doesn't fit in at all. The puzzle Orihime's looking at has only two pieces and she's nothing more than a third wheel. A stray, superfluous puzzle piece that will be inevitably discarded. She can't interfere with that; Orihime doesn't know how to insinuate herself into the love story of two entirely different people.
Ichigo still loves Rukia and Orihime still loves Ichigo. She knows in her heart (in a way, she's a little afraid because she knows in her heart) that she always will. There is nothing Orihime can foresee at present that will change that. She'll always want her own chance at happiness. She'll always want her one day in the sun.
But Ichigo lives in darkness without Rukia. There is no sun for him, nor any gentle moon to light his path.
Rukia is the only one who can alleviate this pain, the only one who can bring balm to this grief.
Rukia.
Not Orihime.
Rukia.
The one wearing the wrong face can never hope to be anything more than the maladroit suitor who makes clumsy overtures then drops them when Ichigo doesn't even notice and she remembers who is truly residing in his heart.
All Orihime can do is sit in the darkness herself, and wait for her one day in the sun.