When she offers to stay the night with him, he gives her the guest room, right across from the one Ishida-kun spent his childhood in. Only part of it, really, Orihime thinks, flicking on the light with a suddenly shaking hand. He never got to really grow up. He'll be eighteen forever, old enough for university, but too young for anyone to treat you like a "grown-up".

The room is nearly bare and just as empty-feeling as the rest of the house- is this what it's been like for Ishida-san since Ishida-kun left? She's not sure she wants to know how that feels, even though she already does. A bed just the right size for a little boy sits at the far side of the room, its quilted coversheet white with crooked splotches of blue. Looking closer, Orihime's throat tightens painfully with the realization that the blue splotches are clumsily sewn crosses, probably the first he ever did. She just met Ishida-kun in high school, but that hardly stops her from falling to her knees with a dull thud and burying her face in the sheet, crying as much for the young man she just lost as for the little boy she never knew.

"Crying won't bring him back," Ishida-san says hoarsely from the doorway, wafts of cigarette smoke curling in the air above Orihime's head. Whether it's the smoke or something else, she realizes that she's been heaving dry sobs, her cheeks and eyelashes only mildly damp.

"Do- Do you ever think," she asks, rubbing her eyes on the back of her sleeve, "That maybe one day, you just run out of tears and can't cry anymore?" It's the only reason she can think of as to why his eyes are as dry as the butt of his cigarette- she knew he loved Ishida-kun, even if Ishida-kun himself never did.

"From a medical standpoint, no." The rest is left hanging, even as the cigarette smoke begins to dissipate, even as Orihime buries her face in the quilt again, eyes dry. He makes no move to comfort her, and both of them know it's probably for the best.

When she at last falls asleep, he's the one to put a blanket over her shoulders and place a glass of water on the floor beside her, so even if she's cried all her tears, from a medical standpoint, she'll be able to cry more.