Characters: Tatsuki, Ichigo
Summary: Sometimes, she thinks about him at night.
Pairings: Ichigo x Tatsuki
Warnings/Spoilers: No spoilers
Timeline: during the manga
Disclaimer: I don't own Bleach.
Sometimes, she thinks about him at night. The hours are long, growing longer until each tick-tock of the clock has an eternity between each stroke, and Tatsuki couldn't get to sleep if she tried. Her mind has yet to dispel all the thoughts amassed during the day. No sleep is found; Tatsuki wonders if she's possibly becoming an insomniac.
Just one more trouble to add to everything else. There's absolutely no chance that she could convince her parents that she needs sleep meds.
Perfect.
Tatsuki wants dearly, for just a moment, to feel for something in the dark that she can punch. That would be all she needs, to pummel a surface hard or soft until she's exhausted and can go to sleep. But her mother, exhausted with Tatsuki's wanton destruction of property, has forbidden her from slamming her fist on anything else in the house on pains of death.
And Tatsuki doesn't think she can get up; her bones feel locked and weighted down with lethargy, not hollow anymore but filled with sand. There is no getting up and moving around, not with paralysis over her.
So Tatsuki lies awake, and thinks of Ichigo, brow knitting as she traces shapes in the plaster ceiling.
They used to be so close. Tatsuki can remember a time when she and Ichigo would have counted the other as their closest friend. When that time was on her and Tatsuki had less years with which to gauge the permanence of relationships, Tatsuki thought it would all last forever. That's what is always thought, Tatsuki supposes; it doesn't make reality any less bitter a pill to swallow.
Now, of course, everything is different; the way of the world but still torture to accept. Now, now Tatsuki thinks with a half-exasperated, half-sullen roll of the eyes, Ichigo's entire character and treatment of her has done a complete one-eight. To an extent, this change can be excused by the death of his mother, but the extent that can't shreds across Tatsuki's skin like a cheese grater. Both annoying and painful.
Now, Ichigo is closed-off and standoffish, nearly grim in his demeanor and almost totally unsmiling. If it were just that, then Tatsuki likes to think she could be reasonably understanding. But it's not just that. Now, Ichigo distances himself from her; Tatsuki isn't sure whether he does it consciously or not, but either way it rankles. He used to be completely open with her; now, Ichigo keeps secrets.
What has changed between them that makes Ichigo think there are things he can't tell her? What change could possibly be so revolutionary?
Tatsuki doesn't know.
And that's the problem.
Deep within her, Tatsuki feels like a limb, one of her arms, or maybe a leg, is being ripped out of its socket. The process is slow, and agonizing with the sound of grinding, groaning bones rising as a hellish chorus in Tatsuki's ears. All too quickly, the limb is gone entirely, never to be seen again.
Too slow, and too fast. Just like the destruction of whatever it is Tatsuki and Ichigo once shared.
The night is too long, and Tatsuki wishes there was something she could hit.
But it wouldn't ease the dull ache burrowed deep in her heart, and Tatsuki can't move.