All we know
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It starts with a funeral.
Ichigo didn't know who's in the beginning, but the Universe worked in strange ways. He was seventeen, and his mother had been gone for so long his sisters only remember what she looked like because of that stupid blown up picture his dad has posted on the wall in the dining room.
He remembers her, though, rather vividly at that, and out in the rain – staring at the marker, and his reflection against the polished black stone – he thought, You've always had the happiest eyes, Ma. Because while he may scowl and glare, and look sullen and sour as a default, Ichigo knew he took after his mother.
It didn't matter how often he considered dying his hair, it was his mother that peered at him in the mirror when he looked at his reflection – checking out the damage from his most recent fight. It was why his hair is still orange despite his (unwarranted) claims to delinquency, the unwanted attention he receives, or the Karakura thugs who're stupid enough to try and get him to join their gangs after he'd beaten them to pulps. Morons.
But today wasn't about them, or how the only thing he's gotten from his mother was her coloring. Today, it was about her.
He offers the flowers before her, and tells her quietly, "I'm sorry I'm late", before rising back up from his haunches to stare at his blackened reflection, her name engraved in white.
Some distance away, just over the marker of her final resting place, a service is happening, and a sullen collection of people stand over a coffin that has already been buried.
Though everyone is dressed appropriately in black, there was a girl in the crowd, standing out like a sore thumb in all white.
Ichigo can practically hear the disapproval of her wardrobe choice from where he was, and he managed a grunt in agreement.
If it weren't for the umbrella she twisted about overhead, he might have even managed to add that to the list of reprimands against her.
He can't honestly do it, though, he was still in his school uniform and without his school blazer, no raincoat or umbrella in sight; he was already soaked to the bone. But that's not a new thing for him either.
Unconsciously, while he considers the script below Kurosaki Masaki that reads loving soul, wife and mother, he thought, rather morbidly, that today was a perfect day for a funeral: Dark clouds, storm approaching, rain everywhere.
His shoes make a squelching noise as he shifts.
God, he hates the rain.
His mother died in the rain when he was eight. They were walking home from karate practice and stopped at the grocery store to pick up a few things, the grocer had dropped an extra jar of sweets for him to share with his sisters; his mother and he shared an ice-cream.
That was as far as he ever delved, as far as his mind would take him – and then it's all just flashes of moments, like discarded polaroids he keeps in a box somewhere: The contents of the grocery bag scattered along the pavement, that extra jar of sweets destroyed; her shout for him to get out of the way; the screech of tires; her eyes (brown as his, wide as his, scared as his –), and then - and then, she's lying face down in a pool of blood that's red-red-red.
The sirens usually wake him from his reverie, the color of blue and red more than the wail of it, but this time it's the faint color of purple, and the pitter-patter sounds of rain bouncing off an umbrella that isn't his.
He blinks.
"You'll get sick."
His voice is hoarse from disuse, "That matters to you?"
"Not particularly." He can see the white of her dress in the corner of his vision, her voice deeper than he expected. "But I don't think she'd be happy to know that you're standing here in the rain."
Kurosaki Masaki stared at him, and in looking away, he sees the girl beside him.
She's so short is the first thing that comes to mind, that, and despite the torrent, she doesn't look touched by the rain at all. Must be nice, he thinks bitterly.
"Idiot, don't you own an umbrella?" is her next remark.
"Didn't think it was going to rain," he retorts.
"Don't you watch the weather report in the morning?"
"I didn't know I was coming here until I did." Until he had the absurd thought that he hadn't visited his mother in a while, that he missed her birthday; that her death anniversary was too far away – Until he had her favorite flowers in his hand from that same grocer he saw the day she died, until he was on the train to get here.
Her voice is quiet, "She must've missed you."
It's suddenly hard to swallow, but he echoes nonetheless, "Yeah, maybe."
They stand in silence for all of two minutes before he hears himself say, "She's been gone a long time though."
A tragedy, Ichigo has come to realize, watching the group of people linger around the erected gazebo near the freshly dug grave, is an event.
Some simply bear witness, distant observers to a performance they find themselves sitting in on.
The thought of them make his eyes itch with a phantom burn, makes him remember the shocked faces of the other pedestrians standing around doing nothing but looking. As if Ichigo is just an actor, like his mother is just some prop, like the accident that took her was part of some show.
Others though, others are reactors.
Those people that willingly engage, involve themselves, wanting to be part of it. Those that ask him, poke and prod him, wanting to know what happened, are you alright, does it still hurt?
Ichigo can't tell which he despises more.
After the accident, Ichigo didn't expect the wave of sympathy that had rushed him, hadn't been prepared to do anything but drown in it thanks to the weight of his mother's loss pulling him down-down-down.
Later, he'd learn to tread water when the tragedy was less a fascination and more a passing thought.
Every Mother's Day since, he silently stewed, and whenever someone asked what he was doing for his mom this year, forgetting that she had passed away at all, he mastered carelessly shrugging and replying blandly, "Flowers, I guess."
It was pointless to remind people that she was gone; he had no intention of rehashing a memory that haunts him so potently still, even if, as he's so often told himself, "It's too late to be sad."
The girl beside him, stands quietly beside him, eyes cast to the sky still cracked by a storm in the horizon. Over a rolling thunder, she says, "There's no expiry date for emotions."
He looks at her incredulously, but instead of being embarrassed (though he considers that she has no reason to be), she continues firmly, "Whatever you feel, let yourself feel it. You can't dilute yourself to make other people feel comfortable. You have to live with you; don't make it harder than it already is."
After standing side by side saying nothing else, they end up going to the coffee shop just outside the cemetery.
A black car waits for her on the curb, but she waves it off, the driver's side door shutting again with an almost resounding thud.
"Sorry for your loss," he finally remembers to say as they stand in the doorway of the coffee shop.
The firm shake she gives the umbrella is slightly firmer than necessary, and he catches the hard swallow she pushes down her throat, even as she nods, dark hair hiding blue eyes.
Resolutely, he orders for them once they're seated, and finally she speaks, "I don't even like hot chocolate."
"You're not human."
"I could be allergic." His expression is caught between a squint of disbelief and a thoughtful frown, and she snorts at his expression. "I'm not, but I could have been." A second later, she took a sip, all complaints gone, humming as she did, and all Ichigo can think with a smirk tugging at his lips was this girl is full of shit.
He finds out that her sister, who she had just buried, had passed away from a cancer that had spread at a rapid pace, overtaking every organ until she was being kept alive entirely by machines.
"Hisana wanted to go," she says firmly, though her eyes are glassy and even with the way she's rapidly blinking, the slight red tinge in them isn't hard to miss. "She was in pain, and she wanted to go."
"She stayed for you," and Ichigo doesn't know whether that's an explanation or an accusation, but she nods, nonetheless.
"For her husband too, she really loves him," she adds, and he doesn't correct her use of the present tense.
He doesn't tell her about his mother, and she doesn't ask, instead they talk about everything else:
How his father is insane, likely why after all these years he's yet to remarry. How her brother-in-law, distantly loving as he is, has a permanent stick up his ass.
How she loves horror movies but can't watch them by herself. How he knows all the subplots to the top three latest K-dramas because of his sisters which she called bullshit on that, and she was right (he watches it without them because Karin always ends up throwing something at the TV).
How she can pirouette in her sleep and recite the periodic table from most reactive element to least.
How he kidnaps his sisters from school whenever he knows they're having a bad day and treats them out to anything that makes them feel better.
How she ran away from home once but came back before anyone noticed because she realized her favorite show was on.
"You're literally the most dramatic dumbass I've ever met," he informs with a snort, hot chocolate finished, clothes uncomfortably damp.
"Excuse you; you didn't see the dress she wanted to stuff me in. I love Hisana, I do, but no one looks good masquerading as a mint green crème puff," she declares, arms crossed in a huff.
"So you decided the only way to handle it was to pack up your shit and hit the railroad tracks?"
She sniffs. "Clearly you have no appreciation for theatre."
"You came back," he reminds, "just because your show was on."
"It was the latest episode! He was going to find out that the kid was his!"
"And did he?"
"No, it was just another ships-passing-in-the-night moment, the jerks."
Before he can retort how typical that trope is, a man in a black suit walked in, speaking to his shoes as he bows to her, "Kuchiki-sama, your brother has requested for you to return home, you are due to start school tomorrow morning."
The smirk she's been sporting smooths over to one of forced indifference as she nods, before flashing a look at Ichigo that's neither a smile nor the mask she's conjured forth. "Thank you," her voice quivers for the first time, "I…I needed this."
"Yeah," he nods, "me too."
"Do you want a lift home?" she offers, making to stand and he, following like an idiot.
"Uh no." He rubs the back of his neck; conscious of the glare her driver was leveling him over her shoulder. "But I should probably go anyway. It's getting late. It was nice meeting you."
Her smile, a real smile, is brief. "You too, see you around."
Not even five minutes later, he's standing on the sidewalk watching the black car peel out, and Ichigo with a bemused smile notes that the sky is clearing up.
I originally started this story going through some mental health stuff that had me feeling a certain way (hint, not good), and I've been reluctant to continue. However, I do want to finish writing it, even if it's going to go a different route to what I initially planned.
It won't be all sunshines and rainbows, but I don't think it'll get sad enough to even warrant an angst tag.
It also probably won't be updated at the speed that Hazards and Modern Romance were, and I'll very likely only work on it in January.
As of 6/12/2018 the proceeding chapters will be deleted and re-uploaded once I've edited them. If you'd like to keep track of the fic outside of ffn, including any other content related to this fic, find me at my writing-tumblr everything-withered