Characters: Orihime, Ichigo
Summary: I love you, but you kill me.
Pairings: onesided IchiHime, mentioned IchiRuki
Warnings/Spoilers: No spoilers
Timeline: No timeline in particular
Author's Note: There are days when I feel even sorrier for Orihime than usual; this is one of them.
Disclaimer: I don't own Bleach.

Wake on the morning and I still think of you. I've dreamt of you all night, and my eyes are filled with your sight.

I don't know why I love you the way I do, only that it's the reality of the matter and it is so sweet, even as it sears me on the inside and fills my eyes full of tears. I don't know why I should be crying either; isn't love supposed to bring more joy than it does sorrow? My tears fall through like the summer rain, putting a puddle on the tiles of my kitchen floor that I will have to eradicate later, and I always feel guilty, for to deny my tears is in a way to deny the love I bear you.

I love to watch you when we're at school; my friends roll their eyes at how obvious I am and say I should try harder to seem impassive, that it's unattractive to most boys to seem so obviously fascinated by them. You barely seem to notice I exist, so why should I try to hide the way I feel?

You never notice me. I have no idea why; I know that it hurts me. What is it about me that is so insignificant that you at the best of times see me only with vague and blurred lines? Why am I so dull, so colorless, so utterly uninteresting to you?

Every fiber of my being screams for you, cries out for your attention, just a small sign that maybe you feel the same way about me. I've never wanted anything so much as to be accepted by you, to be welcomed in by you, but you never give that to me, you never give me any reason to hope, or to keep my dreams alive.

You are so cruel, at times. Your oblivion burns me, the way you always seek the company of another wounds me, but I can't hate you. It's not in my nature to ever have the capacity to hate; I don't know how to hate someone, and I hope I never will.

Maybe if I was braver, then you would notice me. If I were bolder, brighter, braver, more willing to fight or take risks, then I would start to shine in your world. I could be more like her, the one who changed your entire life, and maybe then you would appreciate me for what I am. I strive for your sake—don't you understand? I always want to be stronger so you will see me.

But it will never be that way.

I am the one who has no purpose except to heal, useful when others need her and nothing but a burden when they don't.

You push me aside with the flat edge of your sword, brusquely, telling me to keep out of your way even when I would try to help you. You see none of my usefulness, nothing of how I want nothing more than to be an asset rather than a burden to bear. You want only to have no distractions when you fight.

That's all I am to you. A distraction.

Your eyes are set, and see only one thing. Me, static, heavy as lead and incapable of being an advantage to you. You are unable to see that the past has given way to the future, and that I am no longer just a flimsy piece of paper, but a stronger me, a more real me, a me that can take care of myself the way I never could before. When you see me, I am still just an infant, helpless and wailing for help, if you even see me at all, and what little self-esteem I have built up is destroyed by the light of pity and some small contempt—I know I can see it, even if no one else can—in your eyes.

I'm just something to be protected but never looked at, my advice never consulted even when I know more than you. I am coddled, caged, pushed aside, told to hide, not just by you but by everyone, and my inability to hate keeps me from hating you even when you marginalize me, even when you still see a frail little china doll. It hurts so much more when you're the one who does it, when you are the one who tells me to go home and be safe, for you are the one whose approval and respect I desire more than anyone else's.

You devalue my growth, you try your best to cheapen the way I have changed and grown. When I say I want to help with the determined gleam in my eyes that you have never seen before, you don't think of how different I am. You think that it will all go the same before, and I will only get in the way.

I'm still useless in your eyes. When you look at me, I'm barely human anymore.

I love you, but you kill me, every second of every day, every time you look straight through me the way someone looks through a window. I want to die every time you can't see how much I've changed, every time you can't see how I'm not the frail little girl who needs to be shielded and protected anymore.

I am utterly transparent, clear through as the summer rain when you look at me.

I want you, with my heart, my mind, my body and my soul. I want you, all of you, forever, but the way you look at me makes me shrivel and grow less of a person. You deny me with every unseeing glance you pass over me.

My heart burns for you, but you stamp out that fire every time it ignites, stubbornly refusing to die.

At times I want to hate you, but I can't.

And I still love you, even when I am bruised and scarred by your blindness. I'm afraid I always will.