DISCLAIMER: I don't own TMM because I can't think of a creative reason why. ((One-shot))
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Ichigo smiled a broken smile only she could manage. Masaya was gone forever from her heart. He was ripped out and strewn across the stars when he took her by the throat, broke her ribbon off and threw it into his fireplace.
"You stupid idiot. Did you really think I loved you! How could anyone love someone so selfish and whiny like you? I only stuck around to see if you'd rake in any money for all your "heroic deeds", but you didn't. Now, I'm done waiting. So get out." he snarled.
"I'm so unwanted." she sighed. She grinned her "bittersweet" smile.
There were so many smiles she had invented.
But each one was painful.
"I can't wait to forget the one mistake this world make." Masaya laughed.
She laughed with him. It was hollow and insane, never-ending and controlled.
"Koneko-chan?" someone asked.
Ichigo turned around, beaming her "forgotten and down" smile.
Kish took one look at her with his wide topaz orbs and flew into her arms.
"What happened to you? I missed you so much!" he declared.
She patted his shoulder, showing the "worthless" smile.
Kish stiffened.
"Nothing's happened that I didn't know was coming." she assured.
He pulled away and stared at her. Ichigo shrugged.
"No one wants a horrible nuisance placed on their shoulders, always begging for protection and true meaning. Nobody wants to have to catch someone every two minutes before they plow down a set of stairs, or fall into a thirty foot depth. I know now: there is not one soul who wants the likes of me."
Kish was shaking in anger. Ichigo watched, smiling the "unimportant and left burning" smile. Her once joyous eyes were blank and dead. Like a doll's eyes. He punched the wall. Kish's blood trailed to the floor of the balcony. Ichigo cocked her head.
"I want you. That bastard made you think that! That you were nothing! Ichigo--can't you remember that you mean the world to me! That I love you!"
The smiles fell from her hands and shattered like glass on the pavement. Her eyes lost the fog surrounding them, her heart threw away the chains, lock, and key. She reached over and touched his shoulder, tears falling.
"What was I?" she asked in a shaking voice. "What was I, Kish?"
He held her once more and kissed her lips. "You weren't my koneko-chan. But now you are."
Ichigo didn't protest and kissed him back, the stars burning with purpose, her heart beating to the rhythm of time again. She was Ichigo. And she was loved.
The best part was that she him loved back.