"Did I do anything last night that suggested I was sane?"
― Terry Pratchett, Going Postal
Anxiety wakes Ichigo Kurosaki up every morning and tucks him into bed at night. It's been this way since his mother shielded him with her own body so that he might escape danger, and live. He begged his father to pick him up from the dōjō that day, desiring just a bit of the affection the old man showed his little sisters. Isshin refused, preferring to get Yuzu and Karin home safely from their respective extracurricular activities. There are times when Ichigo thinks his father hates him. He hardly knows him. Shades of gray cloud Isshin's past. This fact remains tucked away in the corners of Ichigo's thoughts like a predator in wait.
Masaki had come to get him instead, and Ichigo didn't mind. Her smile illuminated even a rainy day. The other kids gravitated towards her. Many of them had longing eyes that wished they could trade places with him. Ichigo pushed through them, pressing towards his mother's light, needing her embrace. He'd lost to Tatsuki again, but none of the earlier parts of the day mattered. Isshin's coldness didn't matter. She smothered everything with her brilliance, making sadness a ridiculous thing in her presence.
But the world had taken her too quickly, and raindrops beat on Ichigo's head like palms against a drum. Her body was cold and bloody, and he lay beneath her longer than he should have, hoping for the pound of her heart to rouse him from this dream, but there was nothing but the rain.
When missing his mother makes it impossible for him to breathe, and the night opens itself up to nothing but fear and terror, Ichigo remembers the way her head tilted to the side, how her eyes slitted into downcast crescent moons when she smiled, the rosy tint of her lips, and the way they moved when she called his name, face shining as bright as the sun.
He places her memory under lock and key, keeping it near his heart so that he can draw strength from it like a security blanket, but the madness is stronger. It is always stronger. Ragged rips and tiny cracks scar his soul, and Ichigo thinks that if he can just remember his mother as she was, the agony will let up, but when he reaches for thoughts of her protecting him, making him laugh, and promising to never leave – each time he stretches forth his hand, he's met by a pale, ghostly finger that wags at him and keeps him just outside of his right mind. His mother's light cannot drive out this darkness. Everything fades to black.
It's like he transforms, becoming someone else. No, something else. Something without a heart that operates on the instinct of being everything other than what he's carefully crafted himself to be. Ichigo's felt ostracized all his life. It's the color of his hair, the way his eyebrows come together and his lips curve south.
People want you walking around every second of every day with a smile on your face to make them comfortable, to perpetuate the illusion that everything is fine.
He's only ever wanted to find his place, but life and its users tend to weigh him down with so much shit that he hardly knows if he's coming or going. He's acted out the script; graduating high school, being accepted into university, and doing the very best that he can, but he struggles to understand why good grades and an immaculate record even matter when people insist on picking him apart in the recesses of their ugly minds, and vomiting their expectations of him out of the sides of their crooked, faithless mouths.
It seems that everyone wishes nothing more than for him to be someone else. None of them have ever taken the time to genuinely get to know him, to decipher the beats of his heart or the dreams that rest on the horizon of his mind's eye like clouds, but Ichigo knows that it's useless to assign blame. He doesn't even know who he is. Something infects him, and he's certain that this thing isn't close to what anyone would like him to be. Maybe it's well past the time for security blankets.
He smiles.
The thing inside of him commits horrible acts with a Glasgow grin on its face. Usually, there is hardly a handful of moments before Ichigo betrays what he thinks he stands for, and is left wading through the seas of his restless soul. Sometimes the madness is subtle like the time he instilled the fear of God into a reckless driver that cut him off as he exited the highway. He pursued the owner of the rickety vehicle to his destination at a nearby service station, and chilled the short, homely looking man to his bones when he confronted him. The episode left Ichigo shaken and tightly wound after he returned to himself, wondering when he'd lost it. No harm had come to the man, causing Ichigo to reason that it couldn't have been anything more than severe frustration that inspired his behavior. This is the easiest falsehood to tell himself when his memory is an ebony haze of slick-as-oil details he's unable to hold onto. However, when he does remember the plaguing singularities of what he's done, and the action replays in his mind in slow motion, he curses the heavens and the day he was born.
Ichigo isn't fond of parties, but Keigo is hard up for a girl to notice him, and he can't go alone so he relentlessly begs his old buddy to come with him to the first house party of freshman year despite his antisocial preferences. Keigo stresses, in that exhausting and over-the-top way of his, that they cannot make a name for themselves unless they mix and mingle with the upperclassmen, but Ichigo sees through his act. When Keigo finally lands a girl, it'll probably be the death of him.
It has never been easy to endure the guy's whining so Ichigo sucks it up and shocks himself by purchasing a new outfit for the occasion. Ordinarily, he is good with money, but something possesses him to blow a chunk of his savings on a designer t-shirt. He's aware that such an uncalled-for purchase will come back to bite him considering how much he spent to buy the car that he doesn't need, but deep down, perhaps he has something to prove, or maybe it isn't him at all.
They arrive looking nothing like the other freshmen. Ichigo is lanky but broad-shouldered and lean-muscled. The sleeves of his t-shirt rest snugly against deltoids and pectorals, and stop mid-bicep. His orange, spiky locks are peculiar, but make him irresistibly noticeable, and the girls' appreciation falls from his hair to other details like his praline eyes, and the strength of his jawline.
Every shape, hair color, and class rank of female flocks to him, and his face burns. He's 18-fucking-years-old blushing like a prepubescent piece of shit. Keigo slides in as sure as the sunrise to pitch himself as the Casanova he knows he'll never be. Ichigo can't help feeling a little used, but he's thankful for the distraction and uses it to slip to another part of the house. None of the girls are his type anyway.
"Do I even have a type?" he asks himself as he drifts about the house with no stopping point in mind, remembering the girl of his dreams.
When sleep is kind enough to visit him, he sees black swallowtail butterflies and she's there, perched on top of a streetlight. Fog obstructs his view of her, leaving him to fill in the blanks. Sometimes he sees knitted brows. Other times, just the flat line of her lips. She's all business and duty. A bit too serious, but he's one to talk. Her eyes are blue. No, they're more like violets or plums. Their darkness match the depths of his soul. Ichigo prefers when there's only light surrounding her. It's always blinding like salvation. Not once has he been able to touch her, and he questions if he'd even recognize her if she passed by, but when she reaches out to him, the threat of her touch freezes him with familiarity. He finds it unfair that he only meets his demons instead of this angel.
He shakes off these fantasies. It's hard to keep insisting that he isn't crazy when he's agonizing over dreams about butterflies and a girl that would probably make the nighttime news for committing suicide by hurling herself to the pavement from a streetlight.
He turns a corner razor-sharp, and bumps into Tatsuki. The cup of neon punch she holds carelessly flies out of her hand, spilling all over her neighborhood friend's overpriced white tee. Ichigo curses. The moment has not come back to bite him, but to swallow him whole.
Damn this t-shirt.
Despite his ruined attire, seeing Tatsuki provides a nice surprise. She had been accepted into some university in the United States, and talked his ear off about her plans for the future, but a last-minute full scholarship to the University of Tokyo presented an offer she couldn't refuse. She lunges at him, raring to go like old times, but he catches both of her arms, pulling them above her head, waiting for her to yield although he rather likes glaring down at her as she flails like a fish out of water. She hasn't changed a bit with her fists ever at the ready to engage him in combat, and her heart unceasingly grasping at the past, needing to be stronger than him again because if she's honest, change of any kind frightens her. She writhes until Ichigo pushes her away and almost sends her crashing into the girl that's come with her.
"Hi, Kurosaki-kun!" she beams.
Her smile is sweet but nauseating like cough syrup. She's attractive enough, Ichigo thinks. Her hair is orange but less offensive in tone than his. The smile plays up her soft features. She's much more full-figured than the girls he's used to seeing, but college obviously teemed with women of all body types as he figured out earlier. If he notices the swell of her chest and the curve of her hips, he's certain that the other guys have also seen. He stops, chastising himself and baffled about why he's even thinking of such things, but he realizes it's the menacing opportunistjust beneath the surface. He considers this girl, and it seems with each beat of Ichigo's heart, his thoughts are canceled and replaced by things he wouldn't dream of imagining. It is him. The feeling is unforgettable, but as he's grown accustomed to doing, Ichigo brushes it off, hoping against hope that nothing will come of it.
I'm not crazy. I'm okay. It'll be okay.
"Who are you?" Ichigo asks, shooting a nasty look at Tatsuki just to get her going again, just so he can feel normal again.
The girl rubs the side of her left arm and stares at the floor, needling her foot into it. She stammers something incoherent, and Ichigo isn't listening anymore. He's glad to see his friend again. The price of plane tickets from Tokyo to wherever she'd originally decided to go away to didn't appeal to him. Tatsuki ends their staring match and smacks the girl's shoulder, telling her to speak up. Her countenance grows more uncomfortable, and Ichigo is glad that he's at least not this awkward.
"Ichigo, you idiot!" Tatsuki growls. "This is Orihime! Inoue Orihime! She was in all of our classes first and second year!"
The name doesn't ring a bell. Ichigo rolls his eyes, searching for a memory of the girl, and his stomach turns. She'd brought an unheard-of dish to school once; something with potatoes and honey, and he only tried it because she looked like she was going to cry if he didn't.
"Oh! Inoue!" he crows. "You go here too? Awesome!"
Her face changes instantly. She looks so hopeful, and the memories begin to return in segments. Orihime was normally this way around him, seeming to need his approval and acknowledgement, and for the life of him, Ichigo can't find anything about himself that makes him so special. It's like she hinges on him, and he wants to renounce the pedestal she's put him on.
In high school, she'd granted him dominion over her feelings. If he wished, he could dig his fingers into her puppy love, draw out every good thing, discard it, and hurl rejection back at her. She'd stay and serve like some unwanted thing craving validation. There's a reason he considers girls to be silly distractions. He has enough on his plate like outrunning the grief that crushes him whenever he's too slow. According to Mizuiro, he isn't boyfriend material anyway.
Despite Ichigo's lack of interest in Orihime, Tatsuki had been vigilant, always there to drill her worth into him if he didn't say the right things to her or notice something new about her. Still, even that was barely enough to guarantee that he retained a proper memory of the girl. She is nice, but he sees the expectation painted on her face, and he hates girls like that. Even after the years since high school, her eyes still hold the blueprint of their future together, and he shudders at the thought of her smiles needing to be inspired by whatever move he makes.
After too many drinks, Orihime is bent over, pushing her ass into Ichigo to the bass and rhythm of a rap tune. He bobs his head and goes with it, a touch of drunkenness taking hold of him. She'd hung out in the background for some time, anticipating this moment anyway so Ichigo feels it meet to at least grant her a dance. Besides, Mizuiro's insistence that he 'loosen up' had begun to resonate, helping the alcohol exact its iniquity.
At first, he declined the cups of punch shoved in his face, but his friends were relentless so he had no choice but to give in to silence them. The nausea reminds him why he never drinks. Keigo flashes him a thumbs-up from across the room before plunging his tongue into some redhead's mouth. After a few more songs, a stubborn yawn breaks through. Ichigo is sick of the party, and the eight o'clock class at the top of his morning compels him to cut the evening short.
Placing both hands on Orihime's hips firmly, he moves her out of the way. She's startled at first, but resumes lolling her head back and forth to the music. The color leaves her face, and she's likely to vomit at any moment, and that's all it takes for Ichigo to zip to the door. He pats Keigo's head on the way out, shooting one last look back to check that Tatsuki has come to Orihime's aid. He makes his exit. The temperature has dropped significantly and the chill makes his fingers tingle as he fumbles for his keys. He pauses and sucks in a few deep breaths. His cellphone jumps in his back pocket. There's a text message and missed call from Chad. Ichigo taps out a response ensuring him that he's fine and will be home soon.
'Wtf are we? Married?'
The car takes a minute to warm up, but Orihime has since pursued him like something in heat, and managed to slip into the passenger's seat of his car. Ichigo doesn't realize her presence as he's dozed off, but the clicking of a seatbelt wakes him. She only smiles. He sighs, seeing no reason to protest. So be it. She resides at the dormitory across from his, and though his buddies would stress that taking a girl home is the expected end to any college party, he plans to drop her off and chase the couple of hours of sleep that he has left. He peels off and lets the top down.
The air is thick with something he struggles to put a finger on, but he guesses it's because of Orihime rubbing his crotch. Her hand is heavy as she pats him like she's looking for something in the dark and unable to tell what she's touching, and high-ringing giggles chime out of her every time she hiccups. She's drunk off her ass, and there's intermittent snorting on the tail end of her goofy laughter. She collects herself and rubs him with a little more finesse, but Ichigo isn't close to getting hard. He's unsure if the alcohol is to blame, him, or the fact that she just doesn't do it for him. He cares very little about arriving at a conclusion. There are never any girls in his bed or on his arm. He honestly would rather be left alone outside of his small circle of friends.
"Kurosaki-kun, you're sooo hot," she coos, leaning over the center console, centimeters away from his face.
She unzips his pants and finds a rhythm as she strokes him. Something inside snaps as easily as a bird's neck. He turns to her, slowing to a stop at the red light, and she chokes on the breath that catches in her throat.
"You're not so bad yourself, sweetheart."
His voice is a twisted symphony of echoes. Pale skin, whiter than snow makes it difficult for Orihime to tell where the t-shirt begins and his flesh ends. There's just a faded stain from the punch Tatsuki spilled.
His eyes – those eyes of his are black as pitch with only the glow of cruel intentions at their center. Ichigo can sense the fright radiating from Orihime, the way that she's rethinking every decision she's made tonight, and how they've led her to this place with a boy she's never really known.
Ichigo's control and his desire to protect her burrow deeper, so deep he'll have to claw his way out this time. He can't afford to wake up the next morning and peddle lies to himself. This thing subjugates him, imprisoning him in some part of his mind. It's unlike the other times. He scrambles for a way to tell her to run, to just get out of the car while she still can. Orihime recoils into the seat, burying her face in her hands. After a moment, she quirks up, daring to look at him, certain that she's just a bit impaired, and Ichigo can tell she's rationalizing the change in his visage because there's no way. He brushes her leg with a cold finger that causes her to flinch.
"Is that you, Kurosaki-kun?" Orihime inquires with quivering lips.
The engine revs as the car goes mobile again at the command of the green light. The speed sends her slamming back into the seat, and she grips her skirt with one hand, and the door handle with the other. Whomever she saw isn't there anymore.
"Who else would it be?" he asks, speeding up even more. "You're not drunk, are you?"
Orihime hiccups and the giggle that follows is sure like the ones before. She rests comfortably against the seat, and gathers her soupy thoughts.
"Maybe a little." She admits before leaning towards him again.
Ichigo scrambles to assert himself, but he's never been able to, not even once. He keeps him pinned down and powerless.
"Not so fast, King. You don't even want her, but I do."
They enter the gate to her building. She wrings her skirt in her hands, clutching the fabric like it's her own life. She's demure again. It's strange with her, Ichigo notices. Orihime laughed and carried on with her girlfriends and the other students in high school, and amassed great popularity, but she was never that way with him. She has always needed him to look at her, to feel his eyes on her.
"It was good seeing you tonight, Kurosaki-kun." Her voice is a whisper.
"You too, princess."
It takes little time for them to crash through her bedroom door, falling onto the bed. She climbs on top of him, movements scattered again and lacking any grace. Her hair smells of cotton blossom and tangerine. The trail of sticky kisses she leaves on the side of his face elicits a dance of his fingers from the nape of her neck down her bare back. He rolls her over, trapping her under him. He loves everything that way. Orihime kicks her shoes off and starts inching her skirt down but she's painfully sluggish. In a clean sweep, he assists, and pulls the skirt off along with her panties. He hooks the undergarment with a finger, and takes a long pause to hold it before tossing it on the floor. The white pattern accented with strawberries jars Ichigo, but he just laughs.
"Ichigo, you dog! She's got it bad for you!" he teases.
"Stop, damn it! Stop this! Leave Inoue alone!"
His protest is ignored.
He returns to his work, flips Orihime again, and snakes a hand across her belly to lift her up before planting his face in her ass. She stiffens, but soon succumbs to the deep moans drawn out by the spell his tongue casts around her rim. Her skin is soft and milky, and wetness trickles down her legs. Years of anticipation spill out of her. Orihime rocks back onto his mouth as he continues licking her like an envelope while rubbing her clit, making her back arch just the way that he wants. He drags his middle finger back and switches to a thumb also wet from her. He traces the tight, pink flesh that contracts as she takes a deep breath.
"I-I've never had it… there." She confesses, and though there's fear in her voice, a bit of curiosity can also be detected.
"Oh, really?" He pokes one of her cheeks with his hardness, and she jumps a little. "Well, I'll have to make sure you never forget it."
He coaxes her apart with his thumb while nibbling her cheeks. She nearly loses herself in the haze of pleasure until he penetrates her sharply, and her eyes slam shut. Her cry is shrill and immediate, overcast by guttural sobs. He pushes in and tugs out without a care for the way she's arching wildly and gripping the covers. She won't outright admit that it hurts. Kurosaki-kun can do no wrong after all. He goes up an octave and her ass slams against his lower abdomen, loud and slick with sweat. The high from torturing her is so intense he can drown in it, and he succumbs to a temporary fall. Ichigo exploits the weakness, attempting to force his way back to the top.
"What the hell are you playing at, Ichigo? You son of a bitch!" The thing hisses. "Stay away! I won't let you ruin this for me. She wants me to stop but she doesn't have the courage to ask. She's that gone for you."
"Stop hurting her! Stop this!" Ichigo's desperate.
The tide changes. His skin is warm again, and when Ichigo fully resurfaces, Orihime cries, but is barely audible as if she's being suffocated. He withdraws from her, coming close to falling off the bed from the way his head swims, and she crashes against the pillows, lying numb and still. The sniffles that she releases threaten to break him, and he's horrified by what he's done.
"Ino—" He isn't given the chance to finish.
"Please go," she requests.
And he's disgusted all the more because he cannot find a shred of hatred in her voice.
The weekend expires. Sleep's eluded him like fireflies, and his dreams have left his mind throbbing and weary. Orihime has taken up residence in his mind, and he's avoided everything; the mirror, and all life outside of his bedroom. He remembers how she brought her legs close to her chest, crushing them as she lay still as a corpse, grasping for a safe place that didn't exist.
His eyes water and he fails to notice until his pillow goes damp.
How could I have hurt her? What is wrong with me?
The headache is splitting, and he's taken medicine every couple of hours to no avail. There is no running from this.
The chocolate croissants he usually enjoys at the new bakery across the street from campus turn to soot in his mouth. He crumples up the bag and chucks it into a nearby trashcan.
"Kurosaki-kun?" A once-effervescent voice calls him.
His blood curdles and his veins pulsate. Judgment for his sins stands before him at five feet two inches with baggy, bloodshot eyes and wet hair that still drips.
"Inoue." Ichigo's voice cracks like he hasn't spoken in months.
He finds momentum and bows deeply, eliciting stops and stares from passersby. Orihime slowly reaches for his shoulder and nudges him into the alley to her left. It takes everything in him to lift his head, and once he catches her eyes, he bows again. His fingers curl into fists on his knees and he's prayed at least ten times for the ground to open and drag him inside. Orihime breathes deeply, waiting for the clock to turn back so she can stop being afraid of him.
"I –" he pauses. "Inoue, I am so sorry. I hate what I did to you. I can't imagine how scared you were or how you must feel."
She presses a hand over her mouth to help as she chokes her tears.
"I'm not asking you for forgiveness," he goes on. "I just – I never wanted to hurt you. But I did and I can't –"
"Kurosaki-kun –" She stops him.
Ichigo eases up carefully and puts more distance between them, nearly hitting the wall behind him. She studies his eyes and feels disgusted by her desire to help him. He'd ripped through her body, and she hasn't known peace since she allowed him into her bed. Orihime's tried to sleep, but black eyes drill holes into her bones. Cold fingers and nails like razors carve her flesh, and she doesn't want to be consumed.
That was Ichigo.
She looks at the boy she's loved, wondering why she never noticed his brokenness. His glossy eyes muddle her image into oblivion as tears stream down his face. He quickly wipes them away, and she's no longer reflected in his eyes.
"What happened to you, Kurosaki-kun? That night, you – That wasn't you. It couldn't have been. Kurosaki-kun doesn't sound like that. Kurosaki-kun isn't like that!"
He brushes an arm with the other, and looks away. Before he finds his next words, she comes closer and puts her hands on his chest. She rests her head against the back of her hands. His arms go stiff at his sides. He can't embrace her.
"Get help, Kurosaki-kun. Get help before it's too late. Don't worry about me just please."
She runs and her legs take her further away from him than she's ever wanted to be, and she knows she'll never love him again. It's for the best, and she despises how much it's taken for her to see it.
The next day, Ichigo walks the school's halls with the hood of a sweatshirt about three sizes too big pulled over his head. He wants to disappear. Even if, by some miracle, he woke up normal for the rest of his life, he'd still want to fling himself over a cliff and into the sea.
Hunger latches onto him, and he heads for the premade, cold food section of the cafeteria. He fastly settles on a salad, and snatches it from the selection, but he's not quick enough to avoid the firm hand on his shoulder. He turns to meet Ishida Uryuu's fist. Onlookers pull out their phones, and clasp their hands over their mouths in shock, and then there is an uproar as Ishida drags him out of the back exit that leads outside. No one dares to follow them. He nearly pushes Ichigo down the stairs, then descends them himself, stopping to stare, arms crossed, at his pitiful, hooded friend. Ichigo balances himself and moves to shove Ishida back, but gets decked again.
"What the fuck is your problem?" Ichigo growls, balling his fist and imagining the moment when it finally connects, and Ishida's left pulling fragments of his glasses out of his eyes and from the bridge of his nose.
"I wonder the same thing, you damned reprobate! I guess Chad's been covering for you. Look, I am only going to ask once. What the hell did you do to Inoue-san?"
Ichigo goes cold and wooden in an instant. Ishida's eyes ignite with blue fire. Ichigo pops his jaw and the shame is fresh again.
"She came to me late Friday night, barely able to stand! I took her to the hospital. She has torn tissue, and is overall, deeply traumatized. What the hell is wrong with you?"
A thicket of silence nestles between them, and Ishida's red with fury now. Ichigo can't find the words because there is nothing he can say. He gnashes his teeth, and his head hangs with impossible heaviness.
"I can't control it, Ishida. I've tried but I can't! That night, something took over, and Inoue got hurt. I can't… control it."
It's one word after the other and they all string together making it difficult for Ishida to comprehend. He tries to hone in on Ichigo's point, but his patience wears thin. It hasn't escaped him that his rival is a bit off, but now, something terrifying rests in Ichigo's eyes. His remorse is spilling out and staining the loveliness of the autumn afternoon, but Ishida can never forgive him, not after seeing Orihime paralyzed by fear and pain. Not even her overstated explanation and acceptance of Ichigo's pitiful apology allow him to dismiss the way her trust had been violated.
He recalls the time when Ichigo flashed out and beat a group of guys to a bloody heap for threatening Chad. Clearly, something was wrong then, but Ishida dismissed it. Ichigo's superhero complex had often been his guide and punks that underestimated his propensity to protect never got off easy.
But this was different. He'd hurt someone, and protection and heroics had nothing to do with it. This time – the way Orihime had sworn that Ichigo was different, solidified his conclusion that there is much more than unchecked rage stirring within his friend, and it's reached this point because no one has ever wanted to acknowledge it. Ishida figures that Ichigo has chosen to treat these occurrences of acting outside of himself with the same casual ignorance; writing off the flawed portions of his existence, hoping for something to change.
Nothing can change when you're unable to admit that something is wrong.
"Kurosaki, you need help, and I suggest you get it." Ishida uses his left hand for support as he jots down a few lines on a slip of paper. "Take this," he says, handing it to him.
Ichigo stares at the note as if it'll talk back to him, and Ishida's hand finds his shoulder again, but now, his touch is lighter and trembling with a little concern.
"Good luck, Kurosaki," he says, and then he's gone.
Ichigo skips the rest of his classes and retires to his dorm. He utters a quick prayer of thanks that Chad isn't home. The warmth of the sun peeking through the blinds and lingering on his bed is an inviting luxury he doesn't think he deserves, but he lies down. The room is so quiet that he's reminded of the paper in his pocket when he rolls over on his side and hears it crinkle. He moves again, staying on his back, and after a drag of time passes, he fishes the note out and opens it.
Kuchiki Rukia, MD
Karakura General Hospital, Psychiatric
+81 3 3342 3311
kuchikir
He can think of nothing worse than putting his struggles on display, but Ishida is right. He has to get himself in check because it isn't going to end just because he hates himself for hurting Inoue, or just because he wants it to. The paper is heavy in his hands, weighty with his fate as he contemplates making the call. Perhaps this Kuchiki Rukia knows exactly what he needs.