FOREWORD: This series is inspired by songs, and may be quite sad. It started off as a lone one-shot, but developed into something more. Each chapter may be read individually without having to read the others; because that is how I wrote it. Thank you for reading!

I do not own Bleach, or any of its characters.

I: ASSENT

Ichigo fills up the empty space between him and his love. And it hurts.

He apologises.

I smile and shake my head to say apologies are not necessary—I understand and it's okay; but I can feel the tears already brimming in my eyes, threatening to fall at any moment. My body starts shaking with trapped emotions.

The truth is, it's been a long time since apologies have meant anything, and we both know it. I try to and I want to, but I really do not understand. How can he still be so hung up, after all this time?

At first, I thought I could make it go away. And then, I thought time could heal it. But neither I nor time have been able to influence a thing. I have come to acknowledge it is a part of him I will never grasp; a part of him that will always confuse me, and at that, the biggest part of him.

It is a part of him that will never be mine.

And it hurts.

We are celebrating our five-year anniversary in a couple of weeks, and it still hurts like it did the first time. I never get used to the pain. It still catches me by surprise. I guess I am always secretly hoping that every time it happens is the last. But I should know there will be no end to it. Things like that never die.

It's not that I haven't tried hard enough to break through. It's not that he won't let me in. It's that it hurts too much for him, and for me, to fully explore.

After all this time, it's still raw.

After all this time, it's still alive.

I never blame him for it. I could not, ever. I have known from the beginning, and it would be unfair of me to hold it against him now. It does not matter that I only get to hold a small part of him. Rancour is not in my blood. I still give him my all—nothing less and always more. What else would I give, when he is the only one for me?

I love him—I will never doubt that fact.

He loves her—I will never forget that fact.

They say your first love is never forgotten. They say your real love dims out your first love. But what if your first love was your real love? What happens when they leave? And what happens after that?

I am the by-product of what happens.

I am made up of hurt and hopeless hope that the pain will one day stop. I am pathetic and ashamed, but I cannot let go. I am willing to act as though I do not know why he looks into my eyes, and sees nothing. I am willing to pretend I do not know that when I hold him close, he feels nothing.

But I do know. I may not know all about it, but I know enough to drive my famished heart to agony. He tries to protect me from it, but he does not know there exists no shield from that. When the one you love loves someone else, there is no anaesthetic strong enough to numb the pain.

It's something I cannot reject.

I found it a long time ago when I was looking for my lost hair clip in his bedroom. I told myself I would stop checking to see if it is still there, but I do, every single time I can; and every single time, I die a little.

He does not know I know about it; the box, neatly tucked underneath his bed. He does not know I go through it with trembling hands, whenever he is not around. He does not know how much I cry when I take out the pictures, the Chappy soul dispenser, the notes scribbled in her handwriting, the sketchbooks... He does not know I know he kept all those things that belonged to her; all those things that mean more to him than I ever will.

I don't know why I keep doing this to myself.

I'm a silly woman.

I have given him two decades of my love and five years of my life. He still has not asked me to move in with him even though I spend a lot of time at his place. I have no key to his home; no key to his heart. No allocated room in his closet; no lasting space in his life.

I am always just a temporary visitor.

I know what's holding him back. He still hopes she will come back. He is still waiting for her; still looking for a way to find her and be with her. Being with me forever never crossed his mind. His future has always been with her. It's always been her for him.

I know how it was between them. I witnessed it. He never does for me the things he did for her. He never looks at me the way he looked at her. He never teases me the way he teased her—mocked her even. Her name and my name come out of differently from his mouth. Our conversations do not flow in the same direction and never drift the same way. The energy, the aura, the tensions, the affinity, the feelings... Everything was different.

It felt right between the two of them... Even to me, desperately in love with him, seeing them together just felt right.

He was happy with her. He was whole with her. He belonged with her, and he settled for me. No matter how much I give to him, it is never enough to fill up the void she left. She came into his life, and suddenly he was hers. Effortlessly. Naturally. She ironed out the creases of his frowns. She planted sparkles of hope in his downcast eyes.

I envy that. I envy the way she stopped his pain. Not the superficial injuries, but deep down pain that can only be healed by a loving hand. I envy the way she made him happy, and gave him strength. I envy how easy it was for her.

Why can't I make him whole like she did?

I feel inadequate, and it just hurts so much sometimes. It hurts more than seeing them together. It hurts more than hearing their conversations and not understanding what they are on about. It hurts more than knowing the intimacy between them, the unspoken bond, and not being able to come close to anything like that, even after five years of "being in a relationship" with him. They never had to say a word to understand each other. Why is it that no matter how much I say, I can never get through to him?

I have always loved him, and I know I always will. It's like my soul was made to love him, but it was not made for him. It's like I was only made to love him, not to be loved by him. Hence, I was happier seeing him happy with the one he was made to love than I am now. Because even if I hurt, he was happy.

I can't take seeing him sad.

And he is miserable.

But it's something I cannot reverse.

The sparkles she had planted in those eyes have disappeared ever since she went back to Soul Society over a decade ago, and never came back. She said they would never work out. She said it was for the best, and that one day, he would see it too. She said they had to end it then, before it got even more complicated. She said not to look for her. She said to forget about her. She broke him to pieces and left. And although he turned the Earth and heavens upside down and inside out to find her, to get her back, he never saw her again.

It hurt me to see him in so much pain back then.

But what hurts even more is that I cannot stop his pain.

His heart is something I cannot reconstruct. I was never given the power to.

It took six years for him to allow anyone else near him. It took six years for him to understand her words. So when he let me pick up the pieces she had left, I did so knowing the shards would make me bleed. And I pieced them back as best as I could, knowing full well I had found too little of the whole to call it my own.

I knew what I was getting myself into. I'm not stupid. And he told me himself, that he could not guarantee he could make me happy. He warned me from the beginning, that he did not know whether he could love me.

It hurt, but I said it did not matter. It hurt, but I said I was fine with it.

Am I, though?

I stand here today in front of the man who has held me in his arms hundreds of times in the last five years... but has he really felt my soul? His hazel eyes have met my own thousands of times... but has he even noticed I'm there? His ears have heard my persistent babbles for hours on end... but has he really been paying attention? He has kissed me and touched me countless times, and the contact has made my senses flare up... so why has he always looked so empty during those moments?

I tell myself it's okay. It's okay to have a part of him. But it just hurts so much that someone else has the rest of him, the best of him.

"Don't cry," he whispers, wiping my tears away with his thumb.

I look up at him, and manage another smile. "No, no, I'm alright, Ichigo-kun!"

"No, you're not," he growls.

He sounds angry. Angry at himself.

Angry that her name slipped out because that is the one that is always on his mind.

Angry that that is who he is all about, when the woman he is holding is not her.

"You're crying!" he almost shouts.

"It's just those contact lenses... You know how they always make my eyes burn," I say laughing, hoping it will ease the pain away, but it only encourages more tears to flow from my eyes.

Why does it have to hurt so much? I am with the person I love. He looks after me, and he protects me. I should be happy to have him to hold. So why does it hurt so much?

"I don't want to hurt you," he says, in a softer tone. "You know that."

I become solemn again, and nod.

"You should leave while you still can," he says. "Or you will get more hurt. I cannot keep doing this to you. You deserve better."

I can always leave, I know that. And I also know that if I do, he will let me go. He will not come after me. He will not spend years trying to find me, like he did trying to find her. I have always only been just a temporary visitor in his house... and in his heart. He says I should leave while I still can, but he does not know, I can't—I love him, even if he does not love me.

It's okay if I hurt.

"I am right where I want to be. I don't want to leave. I will never leave you, Ichigo-kun," I say. I wrap my arms around his waist, bury my face in his chest and hold him close to me. Even if it kills me. "Never."

It's okay if he uses me to fill up the void.

He wraps his arms around my shoulders, and holds me tight. His scent enfolds me—fresh, clean and spicy.

For a second, it feels like it always should. Like I am his world. Like we belong together. Like he loves me. It's for moments like these, that I stay. For the seconds, or milliseconds, where my heart is pulled back into shape. I feed on those moments; play them back over and over until I forget whether they really happened, or if they were just figments of my imagination.

And then he says, "I'm sorry, Orihime."

The moment ends; my heart falls back to pieces.

I say nothing, and he kisses me. I know what kind of kiss it is. The kind that's apologetic. The kind that says he will drown our sorrows and our unsaid words with carnal passion. The kind that says that even if he can't give me his heart, he will make it worth the stay if that's what I desire.

And he takes off his shirt as he crawls on top of me on his bed.

Where, underneath, he still keeps her pictures, his memories of her and the ring with which he proposed to her over a decade ago.

Where every night, I give myself to him, entirely.

Where every night, he gives himself to her, entirely.