Author's Note: Well people, I finally got around to writing the second part to "Orihime's Final Sayonara." I really hope you all like this and I think my writing has greatly improved thanks to my amazingly perfect…admirable helper (she basically wrote this with my help instead) *estallidos-she's wonderful guys…tell me if you think so too please…

TiffanY

Oh, there's something I want to make clear to you all…these letters never sent are actually Ichigo's…also, this is in both letter and story form…letters are italicized…

Letters Never Sent

The letter slowly slipped from Ichigo's hand. His whole body was limp and his tear stained eyes remained stunned frozen. He never thought a day like this would come. A day where "his" world would crumble…for the second time…it had all come to an end.

Ichigo's limp body gravitated slowly toward the floor…his feelings of misery, detachment, pain, guilt, and indignation all bloomed. They were born, this day he died.

Orihime,

Remember that autumn we cut pumpkins and watched the candlelight flicker, illuminate the raw edges. You watched with lit irises as I carved the drawing of an elephant rigorously…I was so rough the figure lost its shape. When I was finished, you asked what it was. When I didn't answer…you began your own ruined carvings. I never gave you an answer because I never knew…You've made me see a lot of things clearly.

Orihime, it was my heart…

I carved a pumpkin recently…but it was too late for Halloween. I couldn't joy the children with its presence, however, because there is just something entirely too hopeful about watching broken things glow. So I put it under the bed…

Ichigo quickly scribbled words on lined paper…afraid that if he didn't hurry up and record them, they would quickly run away, onboard with his past train of thoughts…to be forever lost.

Orihime,

I was just thinking about that day you stood in the middle of the railroad tracks and smiled at me. You went on about being in two places at once. I told you that no one could be in two places at once and that it was illegal to stand on railroad tracks as I shook my head, disapprovingly with a smile.

I regret that…the day you left, I rode my bike full speed down the hill toward the tracks with my legs on the handlebars and my hands lifted. They flew away that day and since then, I don't know where they went. But you…you do. When I crashed at the bottom, I thought I felt you hold my hand. But no one can be in two places at once.

P.S. Do I count as dead if I'm tired of living?

Ichigo roamed the house with his paper and pen. He carelessly dragged his socks against the dirty floor…blackening his souls.

Orihime,

Do you still have the note I wrote you in September of 2006? The one I penciled on yellow cardstock that you tucked into your purse? The fortune from the Chinese restaurant that said you would be my wife? A deck of cards that I wrote on, fifty-two reasons why I loved you? Do you still have my learner's permit in your wallet, me at fifteen grinning excitedly for the camera? You looked sheepish when I pulled it out (I'd wondered where it went). You said you took it because I didn't need it , you don't need me anymore, either.

All I have are little pieces of you. Your yellow monster key chain that is chipped and faded, your novel, your brush, and one of your brothers gifts, a blue hairpin. I wore your key chain for a while. I took it off and took it home. I cannot bear to touch some things anymore; they're much too heavy.

Here is what you truly left me with, if you really cared to know:The spaces in between my fingers where yours once were, and my hand that still is cupped gently, molded to the shape of your palm, and that, when I wake from emptiness in my arms for warmth from someone who is no longer there.

Ichigo turned over in the bed…and a sudden memory shades reality.

I.

"I am going to make every person around me as happy as I can," I bravely declare.

"You should get a job," you offer, and I doodle on a whiskey bottle and say that making

people happy is my new job.

"You should get a paying job," you clarify, and I kiss you until it doesn't matter.

You don't need money if you're dead.

III.

I tell you that I'm going to leave because even if it hurts now, it will eventually make you happy,

and you refuse to speak to me for the rest of the night.

And here I thought I had all of the answers.

V.

I joke about going to med school, just so I can keep you alive joke about doing some nice deeds,

You joke about doing kind deeds so people will write kind things about you in your orbituary.

Neither of us thinks the other is particularly funny.

VII.

You roll over in bed and whisper, "Did you mean what you said, Ichigo? About making people happy?"

I pretend to be asleep so that I don't have to tell you

"The only people that I want to make happy are the ones I don't care about…" So that way I won't feel

as bad when I fail.

Ichigo sat at an outside café and watched, contemplatively, the exact place they met. He wrote…

Orihime,

That day we met…I called it fate. You never did figure out I didn't believe in fate. I just believed in the curve of your spine and the way you tucked your feet beneath your chair.

Within an hour of meeting you, I loved you. I wanted to tell you my middle name. I wanted to tell you stories of beauty like the one your voice sang me… But it was getting late and your eyes told me you were asking for more than my silly ramblings.

We've spent seasons apart.

Come home!

I want to see you dancing in the suffocating white of winter.

I want to see your hair flow in the spring wind softly with blooming cherry blossoms.

I want to see you wipe beads of sweat from your nose as you gaze at the summer sun.

I want to hear your feet rustle in the autumn leaves of nature's floor behind me.

Beautiful changes of the season pass by and it only reminds me everything beautiful will leave in the end.

I hate seasons. I hate being alone.

But the only way I can avoid hurting myself is to stay back from the ones I love…and yearn for the one I need.

Ichigo watched the cloudy sky, depressed.

Sometimes, I watch out the window…and wonder; hoping a piece of heaven will fall from the sky and crush me. But…it never happens. When will you return?

Orihime…

When I kissed you on the two dimples of your back…and said ilikeyou iloveyou iwantyou ineedyou…I meant it.

There wasn't much left in Ichigo's heart, just hope. He slowly wrote his last memories of her on print paper.

You used to fall asleep in the grass with me, and we'd wake up with petals stuck in our eyebrows and grass stains on our lips. Our lazy kisses tasted like rain.

You said:

"Love means throwing handfuls of grass at each other. Love means 3:00 AM bubble baths. Love means wishing on shark teeth and broken seashells and stoplights."

"Okay, Hime," I said absentmindedly, brushing errant twigs from your hair.

"What comes on TV tonight?"

One year later I asked you what love meant again, but by then it was much too late.

I asked:

"Is it holding hands? Remembering to buy cereal? Letting me touch you under the table at the restaurant? Breathing you in? Letting you come first when we're making love? Believing? Does love mean that you're going to give me one more chance?"

You said:

"Yes, no, no, yes, no, yes, no."

I finally figured it out--Love is you.

I used to blow into your ear while you were trying to fall asleep. You'd laugh and I'd pull off both of our shirts, kiss your cheeks and ears and eyelids until neither of us could breathe. Afterward, you'd sleepily call me your little snuggle puppy, curve your body around mine, and just when you'd close your eyes I'd laugh and blow into your ear again.

We never used to have change because we'd go downtown and spend it all on parking meters.

We used to love endlessly.

You used to wear jeans that were dyed.

You used to finish off my bowls of melted ice cream.

I used to push you on the swings, higher, higher.

I used to kiss the insides of your weak wrists and tell you broken things are beautiful.

I wonder if you ever believed that…sometimes, I don't. Lately, I haven't at all…

Now you're a lifetime away and we're now learning to live with the "now"s instead of the "used-to"s.

Now we are two instead of one.

Now we can never heal our shattered hearts.

Now you live without me, most likely happy.

Now you escape my mind.

Now I write you letters everyday.

Now I tell you imissyou imissyou imissyou.

He struggled to remember. He couldn't.

As the years passed, you became more out of focus, a faded photograph. You were grinning, fiddling with your fingers. You were only eyes, ashen colored, half open. You demand so much of my faith everything else is drowned by the thought of you returning (at least your love). The thought is so deep in the water; I can only see a blurry figure of you anymore. Sometimes I forget…but this time…it's all I can remember….

I love you