A/N: Hello there! This isn't going to be my first fanfiction ever, but my first one written in English (which is not my native language). I would love to hear what you think of it, even if you don't intend on reading further - I want to know where I lost a reader's interest, so that I can do things better in the future. I promise I will absolutely not flame anyone offering constructive criticism to me. :)
Pairing: Ichigo X Shirosaki (Vasto Lorde - Why? Because I'm in love with this long white hair of his.)
Warning: This story is rated M for language, violence and sexual content (YAOI - boy X boy) in later chapters. I tried very hard to keep Shirosaki IC, so you shouldn't expect a lot of vanilla sex. Don't like - don't read! Not suitable for readers under the age of at least 16!
Disclaimer: I don't own Bleach and I didn't get paid for writing this fanfiction.
Songs I listened to while writing this: Eyes Set to Kill - Darling; Skillet - Comatose
[0] Comatose
Scowling, Ichigo turned his already absent look away from his teacher - to whom he wasn't paying attention anyway - to gaze at the sky beyond the classroom's windows and watched the fleecy clouds rolling by.
He knew he should feel a sense of accomplishment: After all, he had returned from Hueco Mundo alive. After all, he had managed to save Orihime and bring her back to the world of the living - unconsciously he shot a glance at her, sitting at her desk as if nothing bad had ever happened, before staring at the blue sky once more. After all, nobody had died and everyone had returned back home.
He should be relieved. He should feel happy. But the problem was: he didn't.
During the past few days the Substitute Shinigami had tried very hard to forget about the whole mess, to carry on with his life, to go to school like everyone else, to talk to ordinary people about things teenagers were usually interested in. However, no matter how much he pretended to be just a perfectly normal person again, he couldn't stop himself from wondering about Hollows, Espada, Aizen, Shinigami, the Soul Society. In a nutshell, he couldn't stop himself from thinking about what he would never be able to explain to anyone who hadn't seen it with his own eyes.
Suddenly Ichigo was jolted out of his thoughts by an angry voice, "Kurosaki! Are you listening to me at all?" When his eyes returned to the front of the classroom, he was looking right at his teacher's disgruntled face. The brown-eyed boy mumbled some lackadaisical excuse in response. "Be good enough to lend me your ear for five more minutes, would you?" she snapped at him before turning towards the blackboard again. His gaze dropped down onto his desk and he could almost feel several sympathetic glances from behind him. One of them came from Inoue for sure, another one most likely from Chad - that was very easy to guess. Maybe Ishida was also looking at him, although it seemed hardly probable since the Quincy was too much of an exemplary student to ever pay attention to anyone but the teacher during class.
Actually, it didn't matter. The Substitute Shinigami couldn't talk to them about the way he truly felt either. Of course, they - unlike most of his classmates - were aware of the recent events regarding the hidden part of reality most human beings were completely oblivious of. That fact, however, didn't make things better. If anything, it made his situation even worse. Ever since his battle against Ulquiorra, Orihime had asked him every single day if he was okay. To be perfectly honest, Ichigo didn't know what to say anymore: If he admitted that he wasn't, she would try to help, but she couldn't. If he answered that he was fine on the contrary, it would be painfully obvious he was lying.
Before the orange-haired boy had any further occasion to pore over the shit he was in, the bell rang for the end of class. Around two dozen chairs were pushed back from the desks almost simultaneously, producing a disturbing amount of noise all around him, as every other student stood up to grab his stuff and make his way home. Orihime, Chad, and even Ishida one by one threw a look at him while passing, though none of them were really surprised when Kurosaki didn't return it. He hadn't done so for a while now. Finally, he could not fail but notice that he was the last one remaining. Even his teacher was already gone, presumably quite mad at the behavior he had shown for more than a full week now. Taking a deep breath and involuntarily wearing a scowl on his face again, he slowly started to shove his books into his school bag.
When he left the classroom and walked down the long, empty hallways, he didn't expect to find any of his classmates still inside the school building. The female voices coming round the next corner caught his attention, surprising him by mentioning his name. There were two of them and he knew right away that they belonged to Inoue and her best friend Arisawa, because he had been familiar with both of the girls since his childhood.
"Come on, Orihime, cheer up! Ichigo may be a bloody dense idiot sometimes - he doesn't see the most obvious things unless they hit him in the face. But besides that, he's a very good friend. I'm absolutely certain that he'll snap out of it soon." It was Tatsuki who had said that, both her voice and her harsh choice of words betraying her. The long-haired teenager replied in a much more quiet and well-spoken way. Still, the sadness in her voice was virtually palpable, "It's not that. It's just . . ."
Her more feisty friend let out a frustrated sigh. "Please tell me the truth, would you? I'm fed up with you people never bringing me into the loop. I already have at least some clue about what the four of you - Ichigo, Chad, Ishida and you - are doing. I saw that goofy black outfit and that weird sword the dumbass is wearing sometimes as well as one of these . . . monsters he was fighting. It's pretty clear to me that you were not on some holiday together - I seriously smashed Kurosaki's face in when he refused to tell me where you were back then. So . . . ?"
Tatsuki's request was met with silence at first. The brown-eyed boy eavesdropping on the conversation silently leaned his back against the cold wall, waiting for Orihime to respond. He had certainly noticed those minor, but nonetheless significant changes in her behavior towards him. Of course it wasn't anything blatant since the kindhearted girl in glaring contrast to Arisawa always tried to avoid hurting other people by telling them the naked truth. She still smiled at him, she still talked to him and offered her help, she still defended his frequent absence from class in front of the teacher and his other classmates who suspected him of skipping school. But - and the Substitute Shinigami was well aware of that - she had started to sometimes avoid eye contact with him when they faced each other.
"It's just . . . ," Inoue went on at last, ". . . that Ichigo has changed a lot. He has often had problems controlling his temper in the past; he is a very straight forward person. Ever since I've known him, he has never turned away from a brawl with the other guys at school. Even so . . . he has always realized where to draw the line, hasn't he? I mean, he didn't ever beat anyone up so badly that they had to be taken to a hospital or something like that." Tatsuki shrugged. "At heart, Kurosaki is quite a little fraidy cat. I first met him in elementary school where we both went to the same combat sports club. I remember him always crying after losing to me during practice. Sure, he has grown older since then, but he wouldn't hurt a fly except if it's do or die. I'm pretty sure of that."
The next sound the teenage boy could hear was a muted sniffle, which also crept into Orihimes's voice and made it tremble. "You are wrong," she breathed before hesitantly adding, "The truth is that I've never ever been as scared as I was of him a few days ago!" Ichigo stiffened while the girl's words echoed through his mind. What was she saying . . . ? That she was scared of him? He had come all the way to Hueco Mundo, had given everything he'd had to save her - only to scare the crap out of her in the end? The one and only goal he'd had during this battle had been protecting her . . . hadn't it? In the meantime Arisawa was staring at Inoue in shock, watching her best friend trying in vain to hold back her tears. "He was looking at Ishida-kun and me like we were . . . trash, simply getting in his way. He fought his heart out without even caring for a second about us or himself!" she whispered shakily.
Round the corner the Substitute Shinigami clenched his fists, pressing his back against the wall trying to contain the outcry which was about to escape his throat by grinding his teeth until his jaw began to ache. Tatsuki's voice seemed to be quite far away as she attempted to calm down Orihime, who couldn't help but weep freely now. It went off even further once the girls started to walk down the corridor together. Ichigo didn't move an inch until every last sniffle and sob was gone. He stood frozen in place for at least another five minutes, squeezing his eyes shut and breathing heavily as soon as his friends had disappeared. There was no way he could have misinterpreted what he had overheard a moment ago, no matter how hard he tried to turn every word he had just picked up over in his mind.
When he opened his eyes again, he felt dead tired. All Kurosaki wanted to do at this point was to make his way home, crawl into his bed, go to sleep and never wake up again. Sluggishly he put his body into motion, shuffling down the hallway, blindly dragging his feet out of the school building. He had nearly managed to leave the campus, he could already see the front gate - but then another person calling out his name made him freeze dead in his tracks, "Iiiiiiii-chigo!" At this point he was absolutely sure that some higher power truly had it in for him. Why Keigo, of all damn people? Just what he needed now!
At least the orange-haired teenager got the chance to take a deep breath of fresh air before the other boy caught up with him. As soon as he stood beside him, Ichigo's classmate already started to yak at him, clapping him on the shoulder with overexaggerated enthusiasm. "You always look so depressed these days - keep smiling! Did you catch the latest news? A friend of my sister's is throwing a party tonight. Not any party but the party to celebrate his 20th birthday! Do you know what that means?" The Substitute Shinigami shrugged, scowling. "No - and I'm not interested at all, alright? By the way, aren't we supposed to be in school tomorrow?" he replied, hoping Asano would get the point.
Of course he didn't and simply blabbered on, "Oh, come on, Kurosaki! Today is Friday and that guy will be reaching legal age! They're going to have all kinds of alcohol there - beer, juice, cocktails, everything. They'll play the coolest music, I heard they even hired a DJ! Just imagine . . . tons of pretty girls! It'll be awesome! Drinking, dancing, flirting and stuff all night, you know?" Ichigo let out a low groan, still wearing his trademark scowl on his face. He should have known that getting rid of Keigo wasn't anything easy, especially with some stupid idea like this being stuck inside his empty head. "Listen . . . ," he began some kind of poor excuse, but his classmate cut off his words by nearly jumping in front of his feet and giving him that 'Com'on, com'on, com'on!' hangdog look so typical of that idiot.
On second thought, maybe he wasn't completely wrong? Aside from the fact that he undeniably was the most aggravating person of the whole school, he probably had a point there. Could it be that damnable to let go of the things he was agonizing over for a few hours . . . ? Perhaps trying to behave like an ordinary teenager would be much easier, doing the things everyone else did instead of chasing Hollows and other weirdos to protect the world. At least the Substitute Shinigami thought so for the moment after having considered it for a few seconds. He took Asano entirely by surprise with the final answer to his unspoken request - which the little chatterbox had only made because he was too terrified of his older sister to dare showing up at her friend's birthday party alone, anyway. "Well - yeah. I'm just going to stop by tonight, okay?" the orange-haired boy muttered.
"Really?" Keigo called out, literally bouncing up and down with joy in front of him, "That's gonna be the best decision of your entire life!" After getting Kurosaki's promise, the nag miraculously got off his back and popped off in an instant to give him no chance to change his mind about it. So Ichigo could finally make his way home. At that time, he was still hoping this party wouldn't suck too much. Unfortunately, he was badly mistaken . . .
[- to be continued -]
