AN: I hope you all enjoy this chapter :) Again, thank you to all the anon reviewers! 3

Orihime Inoue had struggled to get up that morning, having to unwind the covers from around her petite frame, and had to walk to the bathroom to splash cold water on her face for the upcoming day; her first day back at her college. She had struggled to get a t-shirt on the right way around, had nearly pulled on her jeans when they were inside out, and had accidentally put her elbow in the butter. Once she had changed she had made her way towards the college, each footfall feeling like she was making her way towards the execution block.

"Orihime Inoue… That's her?" Orihime turned to see a huddle of students gathered at the entrance staring at her in avid interest. She turned away again. She supposed she ought to have expected this.

She was so preoccupied with her thoughts that she bumped into a tall figure. She looked up and realized with horror that it was none other than Grimmjow. His eyes reminded Orihime of when you drained the ocean of colour; you would get that washed out blue.

"Someone who had really been raped, wouldn't be here." His loud voice sliced her to her very core, and she stumbled back in a dazed way.

"You're just a stupid sl-!"

"Is there a problem here?" Ishida had come over unnoticed by the onlookers. Grimmjow seemed to size him up; It was no secret, that Ishida was bloody strong despite his build.

"No, no problem." Smirking coldly down at Orihime, he turned away to continue his conversation with his fellow cronies, one of whom, slapped on the back as if to say, 'nice one.'

"Thank you, Ishida-kun." Orihime could feel her voice shaking, and she attempted to control it by concentrating on something else, like her psychology class, her mathematics class, and her creative writing class.

"Don't mention it. Just tell me, if someone's giving you any problems."

…

Orihime peered into her desk; she was attempting to look for her essays. She reached a hand into the dark crevice of her desk feelings around; she pulled. A sea of snakes poured out of the narrow gap, spilling over the floor onto her feet. Orihime reached down to pick one up. Eight small foil squares, accordion-pleated at the perforations.

Trojan, Orihime read, Twisted Pleasure Lubricated Latex Condoms.

…

Orihime ran to the bathroom, and wretched weakly into one of the basins. Two girls squealed in disgust, and left the bathroom, leaving Orihime alone. She preferred it that way.

She hadn't anticipated, that this would happen, that nobody in the world who wasn't her friend, wouldn't believe her.

"Someone who had really been raped, wouldn't be here."

Orihime slowly lifted her head, and smoothing her hair, and tugging at her t-shirt, Orihime left the bathroom.

"That's her?"

"Yeah."

"Why's she here?"

"She probably wasn't raped at all."

"She's a liar."

"And a slut." Giggles.

Orihime ran to the end of the corridor, searching for a familiar orange head.

"What a stupid whore."

"Did you see how I put the condoms in her desk?"

"That was brilliant!"

"I know, right?"

Orihime continued to run, and collided with a tall figure. Picking herself up from the floor she looked up only to realize, with a great wave of relief that it was Chad.

"Sado-kun! Please, I have to get out of here! Could you tell Kurosaki-kun I'm going home?" Chad looked down at the big, frightened gray eyes, and then looked over her head at the crowd forming behind her.

"Stupid slut, throwing herself at any man in her path." Chad could hear the whispers now, and a concentrated anger began to boil in his blood.

"Of course I'll tell him. Just go home, okay?"

Her eyes conveyed gratitude that couldn't really be expressed in words, because no word was big enough.

"Thank you."

…

"Orihime went home, Ichigo."

Ichigo stopped looking around the cafeteria for a familiar redhead, and instead looked at Chad in disbelief.

"Why?"

"Well… In case you haven't noticed you great big retard, nobody believes her. They all think she's making it up, and keep chucking names at her, that would insult anyone enough to smack them, but Orihime, being Orihime, she doesn't fight for herself." Renji had joined the table, and not far off was Rukia helping herself to Sushi.

"Who's calling her names?" Ichigo asked, his fingers twitching as though itching to strangle whoever it was.

"Well… everyone…" Renji said unhelpfully.

"Right," said Ichigo, cracking his knuckles, but he stayed seated when he received a warning look from Chad.

Rukia joined them, slumping down in her seat, and absentmindedly rubbing her stomach. There was now, a very tiny bump there to be seen. Ichigo gazed at her plate, somewhat shocked at the amounts.

"How much are you planning on eating, Rukia?" Ichigo asked with mild interest.

Rukia glared at him in defensiveness. "I'm eating for two, asshole!"

"I don't think it really works like th-!" Chad was cut off with a death-glare from the small figure, sending him to gazing at his fingernails in apparent interest.

…

Ichigo's POV

Let me tell you what happens when you cook down the syrup of loss over the open fire of sorrow: It solidifies into something else. Not grief, like you'd expect, or even regret. No, it gets thick as paste, black as ash; and yet it isn't until you dip a finger in and feel the sharp taste dissolving on your tongue that you realize this is anger in its purest form, unrefined; a substance to be weighed and measure and spread.

This is what I feel all the time when I see Orihime. I feel regret about not being there for her, of course. But mostly, I feel so angry, that sometimes my hands start to shake, and I have to grip the edge of a table, or concentrate on holding my pen, so as to prevent it. Mostly, I feel ashamed. I feel awkward, and embarrassed, that I was the same gender of the fuckers who did this to her. I can't touch her anymore, without expecting some kind of retaliation, whether she backs away, runs from me, or worse feels the need to strike out. Orihime is definitely not a violent girl by nature. She had to be the most pacifistic person on this earth: When she sees a line of ants, instead of stepping on them, she takes great care to walk over them, and sometimes follow them along, just to see whether where they are living is safe from predators, or young children who find it funny to step on them.

I can remember once, when we were about ten, Orihime had been digging in the undergrowth for aliens, or so she said, and had come across a chickadee's egg that had fallen out of a nest. She had carried the egg out, only to realize that it had an enormous crack down the middle. When you put the egg on to the pavement, the bird had fallen out, still embryonic and developing, it was pink-skinned and pale, oddly humanistic. She, Tatsuki and Rukia had held a funeral for the bird, by lining a matchbox with tissues.

"Wilbur," Orihime had intoned – god alone knows why she chose a name like that -, "lived a short life, full of danger."

Not unlike her own, it was later to be revealed.

Orihime had cried a week over that damned bird – the first time that finding something, for Orihime anyway, became equated to loss.

"Orihime Inoue?"

"That's the one."

"She's gone home, why do you want to know?" It was one of Orihime's professors who was speaking, the one who had amused her by bringing in real red bean paste and chocolate cake – one of Orihime's recipes – and dividing it up into fractions during her extra mathematics class.

"Just wondering…"

"Don't give her any trouble you lot."

I turned just in time to see none other than Grimmjow Jagerjaques and his fellow muscular cronies grinning at her professor, in an unreassuringly sinister manner.

"Wouldn't dream of it… Sir," the sneaky bastard added.

As they pass, Grimmjow shoves me hard with his shoulder, so that I stagger back slightly. I glare after him, and resist the urge to slam him into a wall.

…

Orihime's POV

My favorite museum as a child was the Karakura Aquarium, and my favorite exhibit was the tide pool where you practically got to play God. There were sea stars, which could spit out their own stomachs and grow back limbs that were damaged. There were anemones, which might spend all their lives in one place. There were hermit crabs and limpets and algae. And there was a red button for me to push, which created a wave in the tank and spin all the sea life like the clothes inside a washing machine, before letting them settle again.

I had loved being the agent of change, at the small touch of a finger. I would wait until the water had just settled, and then I would push the button again.

There was a second exhibit at the aquarium that I liked. A strobe, spitting over the flow of an oversized faucet. I knew it was just an optical illusion, but I used to think that in this one corner of the world, water might be able to run backward.

Sometimes I think that maybe there's one big guy constantly pushing a big red button to keep our lives in motion. But then I think, he's not very nice. What kind of person would elicit the change, which would do something like that to me? What kind of person would want to tear me into pieces?

…

I go into college again the next day, but today would be different. Today people would come up to me to say the horrible things, instead of just whispering.

"Nobody believes you. You're an attention seeking slut."

I can't help it. I let a tear slide down my cheek, and wonder why the first tear you cry, is always the hottest, and the most painful.

"Have you got a problem?" I look up to see Ichigo towering over me, and the man who said that horrible sentence, which seemed to numb me to my very core.

"No problem. Just telling her, what we think of her. It's free speech, don't you know?"

In that moment something seems to break in Ichigo's eyes, and I can feel something inside me break with it: My heart.

Before I really know what's happening they are on the floor wrestling with each other. I have never seen a fight up close before but this is horrendous. I watch Ichigo – who isn't Ichigo anymore, something is different about his eyes – punching every inch of the poor guy he can reach, and I watch the guy put his hands in front of his face in defense.

"Kurosaki-kun! Stop it! Stop it!" I scream and I try to grab his elbow, a crowd has gathered I see with shock, but I find myself sprawling across the floor. I try to get up, my hands and knees are shaking, and I again try to stop this.

"Kurosaki-kun! Please stop!"

…

Ichigo's POV

This is where I go, when I go, and he's there:

It's a room with no windows and no doors, and walls that are thin enough for me to see and hear everything but too thick for me to break through.

I'm here but no there.

I am pounding to be let out, but nobody can hear me.

This is where I go, when I go, and he's there:

To a country where everyone's face looks different from the ones I know, and the language is the act of not speaking, and noise is everywhere in the air we breathe. I am doing what the Romans did in Rome; I am trying to communicate, but no one has bothered to tell me that these people cannot hear.

This is where I go, when I go, and he's there:

To the place where my body becomes a piano, full of black keys only – the sharps and the flats, when everyone knows that to play a song, you need some white keys.

This is why I come back, and he leaves:

To find those white keys.

…

Rukia's POV.

I feel the bump underneath my t-shirt. It's growing pretty fast, and soon I will have to buy clothes for fat people. The thought makes me shudder.

I carry my books so it conceals my stomach from view, and walk down the corridor towards room number two hundred and thirty-three.

I can't get there though. I am blocked by a crowd, and with annoyance, I elbow my way through, much to the irritation of others. I think I get one guy in the groin. What can I say? Despite what Renji thinks, being small has its advantages.

"Kurosaki-kun! Please stop!" ¨

"Inoue?" I utter the word out loud, and I see suddenly that someone is filming something with his or her phone. Immediately I elbow said person in the stomach, causing them to drop their phone, and I tuck it safely into my jeans. There is no way this will go on youtube.

I finally make my way to the front, where I see Ichigo wrestling with some poor sod on the ground, while Orihime tries to pull him off.

"Kurosaki Ichigo!" My voice comes out louder than I would expect it to.

"Would you kindly get off that young man, this instant?"

No response. This time I take matters into my own hands, and so handing someone my books, I roll up the sleeves of my cardigan, and give Ichigo a good blow to the head. There will be a bruise there later. Immediately, Ichigo's body slackens, like a puppet that has been cut from his strings.

Orihime I can see is crying, and I suddenly feel anger towards Ichigo. The last thing she needs is for her friends to start brawling like this.

Ichigo looks up at me, and I can see the way his expression of cold fury slips, like a coloured contact lens, so I could see what was actually underneath; fear.

"Get up the pair of you, honestly." I can see blood on Ichigo knuckles, and when I look over at Orihime again, I can see that her arms have been bruised, from the times that she had been thrown off the brawl by Ichigo. Her white t-shirt has blood on it.

I drag Ichigo down the hall and punch him for good measure.

"What the hell did you think you were doing, beating the guy up like that?" I demand, furiously.

"He called Orihime a… A…"

"A slut?" I offer. I have heard what everyone around the college is calling her, and it makes me mad as well, don't get me wrong, but that doesn't me I start public brawls.

"Yeah…"

"She told you to stop, what the hell were you thinking?"

Something about his expression is odd. I can't put my finger on it.

"I need to go to the bathroom, Rukia," and with that he frees himself of my grip, and runs towards the nearest bathroom. I am left to jog back to where Orihime has remained frozen, her gray eyes completely empty.

…

Ichigo's POV

I stare into the mirror where I can see his reflection. He is standing behind me, but when I look around the bathroom, there is nobody there; he only exists in the mirror. He looks like me, in negative, and I am terrified of him.

"Nice going, Ichigo!"

"Shut up." I must sound mad, talking to people who don't exist, but this guy feels all too real.

"Admittedly though, I was the one who did the beating up, but you were the one who let my come out to say hello. If you don't want me here, you shouldn't let your emotions get the better of you."

I lift up my fist, and I punch the mirror. The glass splinters, and the mirror falls from the walls. I can feel shards and fragments embedded in my knuckles.

"Now only a mad man would do that, Ichigo."

Even when I can't see him, he is always there, lurking in the wasteland of my mind.

AN: Again, I hope you enjoyed this chapter :) Feedback is appreciated :)