Chapter One
"This is a world of dreams and reverie
"Where I felt the stars explode around me."
Those are the lyrics of a song my father used to sing for me when I was little. It's called "Strawberry Avalanche" by Owl City, and that's what he called me - his strawberry avalanche. In the song, the singer talks about suffocating, drowning, underneath a sea of citrus delight.
It's a weird song, but all of Owl City's songs are, and so are all of my father's.
My Dad, Isshin Kurosaki, sang me that song because that's what my name means. "Ichigo" means "strawberry." And he claims I'm like an avalanche.
"You just hit somebody all at once and that's it for them," he would joke.
I would roll my eyes.
I never thought the song would actually apply meaningfully to my life in any way. But the story I am about to tell you was a lot like that. It was a kind of fever dream, abrupt and amazing, full of excitement and exploding stars. And in the end, I suppose I became a sort of avalanche to a lot of people.
Or rather, unbeknownst to myself, I was always an avalanche. All mountain gatherings of snow and ice are just avalanches waiting to explode.
I was waiting. For fifteen years, I was waiting.
It was never meant to last.
"You said they come at seven, right?" I asked with casual curiosity, walking down the Karakura High School hallway in my school uniform. It was two-thirty; school had just been let out. "Every night?"
"That's right." The floating, transparent ghost of the little girl held up her wristwatch. She wore the same clothes she'd died in - cargo shorts, a striped tank top, a pink Barbie wristwatch, and pigtails. A long chain hung slinking from her chest. "Seven o'clock, every night."
"What exactly do they do?" I asked, raising an eyebrow, hands on my hips. "What about their presence is so horrible?"
"They're loud and drunk, they smash things and leave graffiti… They're just horrible!" The little girl shook her head, eyes squeezed shut. "They were messing around on their skateboards and they ruined the offering of flowers my classmates left for me at the…" She hesitated.
"At the place you died," I provided mercilessly. The little girl winced. "So you can't find peace until I find a way to make them leave for good."
"Can you do it?" she asked uncertainly.
I sighed idly. "Oh ye of little faith," I said, waving a hand. "It's irritating, but I suppose I can make it tonight."
The little girl brightened.
"Now come on." I walked off, hips swaying. My long legs strutted underneath the short skirt of my uniform, tight ass bouncing. I looked good and I knew it.
"Er - where are you going?" She stared after me, puzzled and worried.
"I have karate and kendo club meetings. You said it's not till seven, right?" I said over my shoulder. "Just follow me, and keep quiet. I'm sick of looking like I'm talking to myself."
The little girl scampered after me.
I wasn't sure how they all found me. They said they "felt" me. I had no idea what that meant. They said I felt "safe." And the more of them I helped, the more of them found me. It was cyclical.
It was also a lot of pressure. I didn't think of myself as a particularly heroic person, yet I found myself incapable of turning away people who needed my help. I was trying to just live my life, be ordinary, and it wasn't working out all that well. I had never been allowed to be normal. Death followed me.
Little kids used to say I could see dead people - claimed I talked to those who weren't really there. My best friend Tatsuki had to defend me from a lot of bullies, till I got strong enough to defend myself. That was just the beginning.
My father was a doctor. His hospital clinic took up the bottom and front part of our house. I helped him with simple nursing duties. The first time I ever saw someone die, I was seven. I watched an old man seize from a heart attack, and then slump over in the white hospital bed, his eyes going glassy toward the ceiling. I looked up - and he was standing in a corner across the hospital room. Staring at me, chain hanging.
I wasn't good enough, back then, to see the differences between the living and the dead.
I thought maybe that was why I could see the dead - because I'd grown up around death. My little sisters could also see ghosts, but no one else could, which furthered my theory. Not all people became ghosts - my mother, for example, hadn't. Only the ones with a tie left to earth stayed behind. In this little girl's case, I was guessing it was fear. She was afraid to pass on. Bringing her peace was only half the battle, yet it was also the only part I could do for her.
I pulled out my cell phone and made a call. "Yuzu?" I said. "I'll be home late for dinner tonight. Dead people stuff. I'm telling you, not Dad, because apparently I'm 'drifting away from him'."
I could hear the smile in my little sister's voice. "Well, you have been busier lately," she said. "But I understand. I'll tell Dad and Karin. We'll wait up for you."
"Thanks." I hung up.
As the eldest daughter, since my mother had died I'd taken up cooking and cleaning duty for the household. Dinner usually started at seven.
I curled up beside the locker rooms, waiting for the others to arrive, and I took out a big, dog-eared old book to read. Poetry - Maya Angelou. I loved poetry, theater, and music. I wrote poems and plays for myself, and I had taken lessons in the guitar. (I was currently learning Paramore's "Ignorance.")
"No horror today?"
I looked up. Standing there, smiling, was the ghost of a tall, dark-haired young man.
"Relax, the apocalypse has not yet come," I said dryly, pulling out Dracula, Frankenstein, and a Stephen King novel. Then, for good measure, I pulled out the bottle of hot sauce that always went beside my horror paraphernalia. "Sora. How are you?"
"Not bad," he said. "Yourself?"
"Helping out another ghost." I stood and pointed to the little girl. "Keep her occupied till tonight, will you?"
Sora bent down and smiled into the little girl's face. "Hello," he said.
"This is Sora," I said to her confused expression. "He's a friend. He helps me out."
"Then why haven't you helped him pass on yet?" the little girl wondered, frowning.
Sora and I shared a look. "Because Sora has a problem I can't help with," I said.
"What is it -?" the little girl began, and then I looked up, smiling. My living friends, Tatsuki and Orihime, had arrived.
"Ichigo-chan, what are you doing?" Orihime asked.
Talking to your dead older brother.
"Hallucinating vividly in front of a dead tattooed tree." They stared at me. I held up a book. "Otherwise known as reading."
"That's metal as fuck," said Tatsuki, impressed. "But your teachers are the ones who need you in front of books, Ichigo. I need you out on the mat."
I went into the locker rooms and slid my tall, slim, willowy body out of my uniform, perky breasts bouncing. I got on my sports bra and karate uniform, took the wood hairclip out of my messy copper colored hair and let it fall loose around me. Then I gathered it all up and pinned it in a messy bun. I took out my fang earrings, and applied a fresh coat of flame red lipstick in front of the locker mirror.
"What?" I said at Tatsuki's stare. "Just because I'm going out there to kick somebody's ass doesn't mean I can't look good doing it."
Tatsuki laughed and shook her head, getting into her own uniform. "I would protest, but your competition performance speaks for itself," she said. "Come on. It's time."
We walked out onto the mat in front of the assembled karate students. "Alright, brats, listen up!" Tatsuki clapped her hands. She was a skinny, boyish girl with a messy, shaggy, punk pixie cut of black hair, tomboyish clothes, and way too much eyeliner. "We have a new student joining us today, and -"
"Whoa, whoa, whoa, wait! This club is led by a couple of girls?"
Tatsuki sighed, smirking. "And there he is," she said wryly. Everyone began stepping away from the new guy, careful not to make any sudden moves in case me or Tatsuki suddenly decided to knock somebody's head off.
"What do two girls know about fighting?" he sneered. "I mean, look at that girl." He pointed at me. "I can smell her perfume from all the way over here!" It was a peppery, orange blossomy perfume called Black Opium, a fearful telltale sign of my coming presence because I didn't need to be underhanded or hide.
I shared a look with Orihime. She wasn't a member of the club, but she was smiling dimpled from the corner, arms crossed underneath her voluptuous breasts, changed back into a long flower print skirt that flowed around her generous curves and her little girl's twin star hair barrettes. Unbeknownst to her, the two ghosts were floating beside her, her dead brother also smiling secretively.
I sighed and stepped forward. "Okay," I said, lifting my chin in a challenge. "How about this? We have a spar, and if I lose, you get to lead the club instead of me."
"Ha! Great!" The boy brightened in glee. "I'll warn you, I'm very good. I totally deserve to lead this club. And I do hate making girls cry."
Snickers filled the room. The poor sucker probably thought they were in support of him. I smirked viciously. Had him.
Unlike this asshole, I loved making people cry.
We faced each other on the mat, everyone else in a big circle around us. Countless guys, many of whom had gotten this treatment in the past, had eager, shit-eating grins on their faces. Tatsuki wasn't worried - she knew I could handle it.
She may be the main head, but I was the only one in the club who could beat her.
The guy paused - and then made a sudden move to dart toward me. In a spurt of speed, I smashed right through his guard and he fell to the ground unconscious in a single punch.
I grabbed my water bottle, walked over, and dumped it on his head. He spat and sputtered, waking up and looking dazedly up at me with a bloody nose. "Hey, asshole," I said flatly. "You lost."
The snickers loudened as I walked away.
The guy was much quieter for the rest of karate club, and then when he entered kendo club an hour later he saw me standing at the front of the room once more, in uniform, next to an older scowling ponytailed girl named Mizuho.
He swallowed as I smirked viciously, walking over to spar with him.
I spent an hour doing homework in the library and then walked off campus with my friends at the end of the day. Michiru and Mahana had just come from crafts club, Chizuru from feminist and gay rights societies, Ryou from track and book club, Orihime from student health counseling, Tatsuki from the student disciplinary committee. Keigo and Mizuiro had signed up for everything, and Chad was a part of nature club.
"Still up for music lessons on Friday?" I asked Chad. He played bass to my guitar, and unlike me, he was actually in a band.
"Affirmative," said Chad stoically. He was a big hulking tattooed half-Mexican guy.
"Ichigo, let's make violent love together!" Keigo threw himself at me, and my fist met his face.
"No," I said flatly.
"Keigo, you should just be like me and adore Hime-chan!" Chizuru clung to a sweet but bewildered Orihime's arm. "Sorry, Ichigo, but you're flat as a board."
"Fuck you, I know I look good," I said casually. "Keigo, just be like Mizuiro. Flirt with teachers and older women."
"Exactly," said Mizuiro, smiling sweetly with sharp eyes. "The difference between you and me, Keigo, is that I know I'm way out of Ichigo's league."
"You guys are the worst friends ever," Keigo moaned.
"And you're a perv, little brother," said Mizuho. "You've stuck your hand up Ichigo's skirt three times in the last month."
"And I've had to beat the shit out of you - all three times," Tatsuki growled.
"You guys keep track of stuff like that?" Keigo wondered.
"At least he's not Ooshima, the big harassing bully." Michiru shuddered. "He gives me the creeps."
Ryou smirked, her eyes their usual dead. "I bet he has a tiny dick."
Mahana laughed. "Oh, I can so see it!"
"It would explain what he's compensating for," I admitted, languid and amused. "But I'm not worried about Ooshima. I could take him." I grinned.
The two ghosts were walking behind us, Sora amused - he was used to this kind of talk. "Hey, guys, I have to go this way." I pointed in the direction of the little girl's back alley. "Gotta pick something up before I get home. See you guys later."
As my friends called farewells after me, I walked off, the little girl running behind me. Sora raised his hand after us in a silent wave before following Orihime.
"Okay," I said, deadly serious, as we walked toward the alleyway. "Let's do this."