A/N: Hiya!

I have finally updated everyone!

I'm sorry for the wait but as you can very well see...

I am writing this in first person narrative which is a POV I have NEVER DONE BEFORE! hehe... :X

So I took my time in writing this one.

I wanna say thanks to you guys who've reviewed the prologue thing

and also for you guys that faved and alerted. Thanks a bunch! :D

To infinityXisXme, Blanche, zombiegirl22 (You are such a sweetie! ohmygosh! O.O I will try to update that Drabbles Series.

Don't worry cause I'm curious too of what's going to happen! Haha! XD)

pamianime! thanks sooo much for liking my stories that means a lot. :)

And I'm very glad that you enjoy them.

LadyxDeath&kuma-chan: honestly you only check this out now?

Hahaha! Well thanks for the supply...will do. :X

Have you guys watched the film "Like Crazy"?

I really loved it cause of it's tone and pacing. Though it sometimes got a bit too slow

still...it was perfect. :D

I had it in mind as I was finishing this chap. If you have seen it then you know

what I'm talking about. Another thing I especially liked about it was how

muted the telling is. So you actually really absorb the emotions being conveyed

by their actions and expressions rather than just through their dialogue. XD You know?

Yeah. So...it's like that and before I knew it I was already incorporating a bit of it

in here. Hahaha...XD

Also! Another thing I wanna tell you guys is that I'm gonna be writing

what I'm gonna call "Unchapters" which is kind of like the Prologue.

So it's not in the first person narrative!

Yes! You guessed it!

My dementedness is rearing it's lazy head. ^^.

Well...I promised you weirdness and here it is then!

Hope you guys enjoy it as much as I did writing it. :)

Haven fun!

Disclaimer: Kubo-sensei...uuhhhhh... T_T

01. Rukia

I stare at my feet – pale. All the way up to my face – blank. I do not see anything. My reflection so shiny in the morning light was almost as reflective as the surface reflecting it. Flat. Bright, almost too bright to really make out even a vague outline of. I retract myself further under wanting to go deeper inside. But there was no space for myself right now. My skin was bursting, too filled with everything to worry about anything.

There she is smiling again, this girl staring with wide blue-violet eyes. Lustrous lightly disheveled cropped black hair, tiny button nose and natural pink lips. The Lucky Little Bitch that get to live a Blessed Life of Bliss. If you call an absentee older adoptive brother, an abnormal idiotically expansive and elegant town house, 'go spend all the money I give you and don't flunk out of school, uphold the fucking holy name of Kuchiki', a blessing then you might be saner than I am on some counts. Those that don't.

I should be emancipated. Live off on coffee steam and morning dew. Spiritually uplifting and physically emaciating. Grievances, grievances. Not enough (never enough) solutions.

I steal a glance back into the room where the warmth of the sun was already toasting the sheets, the bed too heated to be comfortable in much longer. He was still sleeping or pretending to sleep. Maybe. But I know he really is asleep but do not ask me how only that I do.

He looks clumsy sprawled out like that with his long limbs askew, bare with every sinewy muscle out for show. Caught unawares of his own exhibitionism. Unworried as his face was scowl free. The sheet tangled on one leg. It was plain white unlike the pillowcases with random prints on them that seem to explode all over the wary greyness of the cloth. It was first class pure cotton and very, very comfortable.

He might be beautiful. I always like to think he was if not handsome. I never wanted to look his way. I really didn't. But because we never wanted to look at each other that was exactly how we got into this mess. I can't remember who spoke first or if there were actual words involved. And then I remember the sound of his voice and it was lyrical and wistful. Unrecognizable.

Maybe we were talking about poetry but I can't be sure. He never seemed the type who did. It was always the nevers every time his name comes to mind. Always momentarily unsure because I have to think about it for a second and that was not normal. A person always has an identifier and he was a surprise. An unforeseeable accident. A dark line smudged irrevocably. No one crosses over that line even if it was a little blurry.

What could be formed on the other side would only be dysfunctional delusion. Not that anyone within five mile radius lacked negativity as religion. It's healthy for creative inputs. Favorable and totally effectively productive. The best in the worst. Whip out the charcoal and the tracing paper. Here comes direct inspirational incentive!

He was always out. Busy, busy Mr. Personality everybody wishes to see. Every girl/guy/girl dreams of to be/be with. Not that he was the Perfect Pretty Boy but Bad Boy outshines the good. Only no one really realizes that neither one exists. He was something else entirely.

I look away right then straight at the gossamer curtains rendering everything with a living, breathing vitality that otherwise should've been left cold and just slightly abandoned. Reeking of neglect and carelessness and disorder.

But it has been two weeks now and the curtains remained the same pale peach that bathes every surface it touched with that irresistible warmth. And under this light his tan looks even more appetizing. I wanted to crawl over and lick. At dislocated times like this that makes me wonder if it would actually taste like caramel like what always comes to mind when a certain light shines on it just the right way. The right shade.

Just like now.

A light beeping sound jerks me from Furu-Furu Land to where my bag was lying on the distinctly patterned knit rug. My phone is sounding the alert. Great. Now they wonder where I've been.

I don't bother to check if I was right in thinking that the Guardian Patrol has finally made contact and is commanding me to go straight back to HQ. I finish washing my face with cold water, strip off the overly large shirt I had slipped on getting off the little bubble island with a hot warm lean muscled body to spoon with and actually start putting on my own clothes instantly missing the smell clinging to the fabric that I just peeled off my own skin. The niceness of it becoming too familiar.

Not good.

And the bed looks temptingly inviting.

I make no sound. Breathing in steady, shallow rhythms. Control the heart beat for he might accidentally hear how irregular it is just standing in this few meters separating us yet again. So close but never close enough.

I debate over whether I should kiss him one last time. A boot in one hand, the other holding onto the strap of my bag. But in the split second that it took for a crease to form between his brows the moment passed and I bolt.

The floorboards do not creak as I tip-toe past the bed to the door, twisting the handle painfully slow and slipping my body through the tiny gap between frame and edge, closed it and let the handle go slooooowly. Pause for a moment, strain to hear any movement from inside. A grunt, a snore, a sleepy "Whu-?".

Not a sound.

Escape Execution: Success.

I lock the door afraid he'll come after me dragging the sheets as an afterthought heading for the door only to find it won't budge cause I already turned the key and gripped the handle too tightly. I can see the light playing on his skin, his expression changing with every shadow that passed over it. I see it way too clearly. It's not hollow. There was no blank space where a face should be. The silhouette filled-out in full color, not just a palette of disturbing images of non-persons like magazine cut-outs stuck to popsicle sticks as half-bodied dolls.

I almost hear the sound of his breath as he let it out slowly. See his head turning away, his hair covering his eyes so no one can see what's really happening. Veil the emotions thundering along.

I let go of the handle quickly crumpling my hand into a fist close to my chest. The image was too real. The sound of his breath was too close.

I wrap my scarf around my exposed neck. Take the first step away hands in both front pockets of my skirt. Make sure my hood is up and then press play. Yoav moans/keens/breathes through my headphones as the intro careens into feedback then reverb. Echoing. Almost taunting as I walk, one foot forward followed by the other and repeat until I find myself somehow alone in the elevator going down, down, down.

With your feet in the air and your head on the ground

Try this trick

Spin it

I think, think, think.

I don't think, think, think.

Where is my mind?

Way out in the water

I see it swimming

Where is my mind?

Where is my mind?

I stride out of the building out to the blinding sunshine and pause. Feeling suspended all of a sudden right up front of an apartment building I should not be wandering dead or alive. The cracks on the pavement becoming curiously larger bleeding undepth. I could not find an answer to a question I never did ask. And I keep repeating this unknowable unquestion that always remain unanswered contradicting the hate and the venom of the situation I'm in. And I tell myself: I do. But what I don't tell myself: And it's unfair.

I try not to think too much about it at all because it's distracting. Picking everything up from the floor is exhausting and running high and then low is not a good way to indulge in fantasy, anemic tendencies in consideration. Well deliberated decision. Precision to depth drug-induced or just low blood/sugar levels to stabilize. The brain that actually thinks it's in love is like a lump of blubber. Go figure.

Where is my mind?

The gravel crunch beneath my booted feet, hard and dry with little holes filled with tiny rocks and powdery bits. I keep my head down as I slip on my over sized sunglasses turning everything I see into tones of sepia and chocolate. Pretty. Now the sun looks like a huge bonbon. Yuumm~.

I check the time on my wrist. Thirty minutes till my first morning class and I'm in yesterday's laundry. I have to go home back to that empty space with all the lavish furniture, the embroidered drapes and all the glass fixtures sure to wow the magazine people and those who will flip through the glossy pages. The decorator assured everybody involved that it is a hundred percent Fabulous. Not that everybody involved he/she was addressing was in any way concerned but with the tiny probability that they cringed with the word he/she used.

It takes me fifteen minutes to get there and the cab wasn't even that fast. I hurry, hurry, hurry. No time to waste. I have to get to school before he does. The balance must be restored. Lose the emotions hanging like fat, swinging back and forth. Frothy, buttery, choco-mallowy irritation.

Hide. Hide everything into the drawer under the bed. Candy, caramel covered smile. Bright brown eyes staring deep, turning ochre to amber in a heart beat. Sweat so sweet I lick my lips just to taste it again. Danger-zone. The scale is screaming face the lie, unbuckle the truth and ride it out. Oh wait. Already did.

That morning after is hands down always the hardest. Makes sense to deftly avoid any sort of contact until further notice. It's always the time when the unbridled sin beckons and the lie disappears. ...cost. Must keep walking. Keep distance from orange-haired-hot-male-campus hotshot-boyfriendtoy.

I hurry across the green patch towards the Digital building I do not look anywhere else but would occasionally check if I'm about to crash into somebody. Not that I had to but just for something to do since people literally jump out of the way when they see me coming. Ah, the prestige of the pedigreed kind. The Shiny Genuine Bauble in the midst of the unoriginally mass-produced 'Unique Gems'. But how do you really know if your pearls are real? Is there some kind of pap smear-CAT scan-please put your chin over the tissue paper and look straight ahead so I can diagnose the trauma this will bring-thingy to make sure of your overrated authenticity?

"Yo, Dazehead…" ah, the lazy drawl like acid in the morning of a hangover.

Dazehead. Aye, aye. She walks, she talks, smokes, downs cups and cups of coffee without scalding herself and hates alcoholic beverage(s) of any kind. She snorts crystalline powder of the highest quality like a fucking Princess of the United Republic of the Meth Peoples. Which in the actual real world they call the (Insert Label). Oh yeah, yeah, yeah's. The Barbie squadron out to dominate the world with Maybelline liquid eye liner, strawberry Chapstick and high-end BB Cream.

It's the Clique. The Holy Grail of insipid existentialism on campus. Guilt ridden stinking of fear. The want that is to belong but not really. Just the want part not so much the belonging crap. It is so wonderful to want something so mundanely important sans the meaningfulness of the one meaning we do want. Observe: Boy wants girl. Girl wants boy. Explosion of the senses. Heightened fever. Then caput before the high. Double trauma. Like being born and finding out you're missing an arm or a leg.

"Class started five minutes ago. You want a cig?..." the drawl is back on full force I have to clench my stomach to keep myself from heaving. Beady eyes stare steadily, waiting for my answer.

"I have a pack. Why are you still out here? Don't you have like a seven a.m. class, Abarai?" I side step him before he gets another chance to block my path again like he had all the right to keep putting his face before mine at eight-something in the morning with me still no coffee in the system. The fuel tank is almost running dry. The patience meter coming up just behind.

He smirks. It's the knowing smirk and I want to throw/push/kick him over the metal railings off the second floor open hallway. No glass to bounce off this time friend.

I keep silent, peering at him from behind chocolate clouds but keep smelling caffeine. I note the little twitch on his left eye as he saw a tiny not-even-there left over mark below my protruding collar bone showcased by the open collar of my shirt. Ooops. Forgot to do the second top button again. My bad. I could say that and roll my eyes like the first few times he had greeted me like this. More like ambushed me and start silently growling like an angered bulldog. Or I could just act like I could care less about his more than obvious disproving glare and just let the two open buttons of my black shirt be open. Instead I adjust the waistband of my skirt just a tad higher on my almost non-existent waist.

He doesn't say anything back and I twirl my fingers round and round the two loop silver chain hanging on my neck. I count the seconds that tick by but I couldn't make myself move from where I was standing. There was part guilt part defiance clutching my gut, gurgling upwards.

Silence between us has its good times and awful times. There was no in-between. Throw or be thrown. It's a brutal friendship but strong. And sometimes it's harder to betray the thought of doing something bad to it than actually doing it.

"Renji…"

I almost didn't recognize the emotion in my voice but he does and he backs up. Glances away for a while not because he can't look at me anymore but because he's thinking of what he can say to me again.

He doesn't speak for a long time and I look up to gauge his expression. He was still looking far away, his eyes dark and narrowed and his jaw was clenched tight, twitching jerkily. I follow his line of vision and I flinch both physically and emotionally.

Standing a good ten feet away with his blinding hair under the cover of a large hoodie, hands stuffed carelessly into his jean pockets with his body slightly angled to our direction was the very same boy I just left sleeping a good quarter of an hour ago. He was also looking at something so very far away. Eyes shadowed, face emotionless but his scowl was deeply etched on his forehead. Even with the distance between him and me I can always tell.

Before I can clamp my own mouth shut the words were already bleeding through my lips.

"You keep slamming me about it…I wanted it too!" There was something wrong with my voice this morning. I could detect a faint trace of something like desperation edging in closer than before when it was completely non-existent.

"You make it sound like there's something that's like a "we" between you two." his smirk slides in place as he pointedly kept his gaze away. "So what do you call this fake relationship you have, huh? Is it even one? Can you even call it that?" he pauses again and this time he turns so that he was staring me right in the eyes. "He doesn't want you to tell anyone!"

"So you're saying I'm a cheap slut."

I hear my voice and I don't. There was silence between us again and I hear him sigh. A sigh somewhere near exhaustion and not wanting to stop struggling. It's a painful sound.

But I've made up my mind about this and I've died a thousand deaths since the first kiss. No one's looking because there's nothing to see. Because they do not know what to look for. Because we've wrapped ourselves with this darkness and turned our inside out so no one would recognize us. At least not in the way they expect. Not in the way that they know. And that is the real secret.

"Look. I know you're looking out for me and shit. But I really do want this…even if it doesn't make sense."

Thanks for reading!

Hope you had fun. :)

Hit that link and tell me what you think.

God that totally geeked out.

Oh well. Please tell me what you think anyhows!

Comments, reviews, violent reactions.

Stay tuned for the next one! :X

See ya all soon!

-kimchi-