Dedicated to BlueMiko - who reads and laughs and appreciates. - RedMiko -
Disclaimer: All characters belong to Tite Kubo. I just wish my brain worked like his…
Sequel of sorts (more like bookend) to Fractured Melody - the story told from Chad's point of view. Orihime and Chad
Italicized text: Flashback.
Her Face to the Sun
Once she had brightened a room with her laughter. Once she had quieted a room with her crazy imagination. Once she had sang a song when she thought no one was listening, but they heard her because, after all , she was only in the next room preparing tea for them and who on earth forgets where they are anyway?
He never really used to notice her. One day she wasn't there and the next she was. One day he's normal, the next he can see things most people can't. And then his world shatters and reshapes and his circle of friends grows from one to four and then more as they rescue each other and discover the undiscovered country.
Like a planet to a sun, he finds his orbit shifting around her. Compared to the others, she is the weakest and he, with the others, comes to her rescue more often than not. Even as she grows in her abilities, he finds himself running to her side to bring offense to her defense. And when she goes to Hueco Mundo to save them all, he is there by Ichigo's side to bring her back.
It isn't until they trek across that vast white desert that Chad realizes that maybe it isn't just for Ichigo that he wants to bring back Orihime.
And it isn't until they find her corpse laid out on a slab of stone, dressed in an Arrancar robe, thin and pale and achingly beautiful that he realizes the extent of his selfishness - that maybe he wants to rescue her for himself, but it's too late now - and so he despairs with the rest of them until somehow Ichigo's raging tears bring forth the Shun Shun Rikka and they bring her back to life.
Of course, he should have known - they all should have known - that the job would only have been half-completed.
Back in the real world, she awakes to find she doesn't know them. After several days at the hospital, the doctors come to them and with soft, apologetic voices say that it might be best if she were institutionalized, they might help her get her memory back and prevent her from hurting herself and besides, her screaming nightmares are keeping the other patients up at night.
They visit often, Ichigo most of all, and Chad watches his heart break, watches all their hearts crumble under the relentlessness of Orihime's self-protective amnesia. It's the greatest blow Aizen could have dealt - the faux-death of a comrade. It becomes a rallying cry for all of them as they gather their forces for a final march on Hueco Mundo - while at the same time becoming a horrible weight on their shoulders. Even if they win, it's no guarantee Orihime will ever be the same. Even Urahara has visited and offered no smiles, no coy words, and Ichigo's face turns bleak at his pronouncement. She doesn't want to remember - whatever the Espada and Aizen did to her shut her down completely.
The final battle against Aizen brings horror. While Chad struggles momentarily against a binding kido, Aizen strikes Ichigo down - a sneaking, furtive move that slides a blade between his ribs and sends a burst of lethal reiatsu straight to the heart. The war is won that day, but Chad can do nothing but watch as the smile fades and the orange hair fades and the spirit that was Kurosaki Ichigo fades and even the edge of his memories fades until he can barely remember and can only bellow his frustration and pound great furrows into the earth with his fists.
"Look after her, okay?"
Ichigo's last words haunt him as they bury the boy. Ishida leaves the country for America, unable to face the loss. Rukia and Renji return to Soul Society to help rebuild the Gotei 13. Urahara informs Chad that, yes, Ichigo will eventually show up in the Seireitei - but the Rukongai is vast and it may take a while. Oh - and Soul Society is now off-limits to ryoka. There can be no more mistakes like last time.
Chad can't face Orihime's blank mind or frightened face for days. To have sacrificed her memories or Ichigo's life - it's too much to ask - and then to give nothing back but take even more from him…. He spends the days going to school, watching his classmates try to fathom Ichigo's disappearance, ignoring the pestering queries while he tries to think of a reason as to why he is the only one who remains. Days turn into weeks and weeks into months and he all but forgets about the girl in the institution.
It comes as a dream - an ecstatic, twisted nightmare where he is reunited with Ichigo in the Rukongai. There is no blood. There is no loss. Nothing to suggest death or war or cruelty. Instead, Ichigo asks about Orihime. And Chad can't answer his questions.
He awakes in a cold sweat.
They make him do paperwork. He says he is only a visitor but they insist. He is fingerprinted and background checked and made to wait until even his great patience is stretched to the breaking point. But the memory of his dream keeps him from running and they finally lead him down a stretch of hallway that reminds him of the halls of Hueco Mundo.
She is so tiny. Her legs so thin. Her cheeks sunken. Her eyes dull. He didn't think his heart could be broken again - but it crumples when he sees her and he can only sit at the little table and look at her - he can't look away - while she forms broken sentences and asks broken questions. He walks away, resolving never to come back.
But the next day he watches her fingers, plaiting the seam of her gown, curled with her legs under on the bed. She speaks in nonsense, a nonsense that is not Orihime-nonsense, but enough of a resemblance to convince him that she is still there underneath. He watches her feet as they rub against each other, notes the hairpins still in her hair and he wonders if she remembers their significance.
She doesn't want to remember. Doesn't want to, doesn't need to, doesn't have to. He watches her cringe as he opens his mouth to answer her questions, relax when the answers have nothing to do with making her delve into the darkness of her mind. And when something he says tightens the skin of her forehead, she gets up quickly, jerkily, and moves around the room, pacing like a worried dog. So he thinks long before he speaks – but she doesn't seem to mind – and since his days are reigned by his silence and her chatter, he brings his abuelo's worn guitar and tries to remember how to play.
His notes are halting and hesitant, pulled from his memories of long ago in Mexico, yet still she moves, her pacing flowing smoothly into swaying motion, her hair swinging free, her head bobbing until she looks like a sunflower – a mirasol – like the ones his abuelo used to plant outside their tiny apartment. He watches her and his fingers move on their own and he finds the notes one after another.
But her face changes. It grows blank, cheerful yet empty. The music doesn't make her think, doesn't make her yearn. It allows her to escape – and he knows, with every fiber of his soul, that she must not escape. So one day when she stumbles and he catches her, he looks into her eyes and sees the last remnants of her old self so far away that he wonders if he's imagining things, that maybe last night some other soul came and began inhabiting the familiar body. And so he sits on her bed, his guitar resting beside him, and he stares at the floor and remembers.
The story spills forth, detail building on detail, all in Spanish. His second language is rusty, long out of practice like his music. He fumbles over words, makes ones up, blushes to think of his abuelo chastising him for murdering such a beautiful language. He can't look at her, knowing that he's asking her to remember and to understand. She is quiet and, concerned, he finally does meet her gaze – and the curiosity, the wide-eyed wonder at his words, the incomprehension is so familiar and so Orihime that he feels his throat tighten and the words trickle away and he can only pick up the guitar and play.
Yet he finds, as the days pass by, that his Spanish is the only thing that brings her back to herself. His music takes her away while his voice anchors her and draws her nearer the wall. She dances and listens and he watches and speaks and plays, weaving the fabric of her days so that she can follow the threads home. She asks questions now, wants to know what he says. She even mimics the words, mangling the sounds so that he has to swallow the laughter and his fingers tremble on the strings of the guitar with the effort. He watches her eyes grow more familiar each day and her face soften and her smile widen and he feels the ache in his heart return – and he realizes he doesn't have to surrender her to anyone this time.
That is the day he buys her a flower, his heart light with love of her. That is the day he loses himself in her dance so much that he can't play anymore and can only watch her whirl in joy, her thin arms and legs peeking from her hospital gown. That is the day she drops beside him, her face intent and her fingers curling around his, trying to place them back on the strings, to bring the music back. And that is the day he finds himself drawing her close and laying his lips on hers, his heart aching with sorrow and joy, sorrow at her memories hidden so deeply, joy as she kisses him back.
"ICHIGO!"
His heart so full can do nothing but shatter and he can only stare at her as she writhes, her hands over her face, her screams echoing, reverberating, bouncing through his head. Yet he knows - he knows she is not to blame – that somehow, sweetly, his kiss was the thaw to the icy wall in her mind and the flood in her mind is too much. Her hands draw away and he sees her terrified eyes and feels the pull of what's left of his heart towards her. The doctors come and begin to restrain her, another stands before Chad and says he must leave and never come back but that can't be true – she needs him, he can't leave her…
"Help me!" she pleads with him and he reaches a hand to her.
--
Abuelo – the mirasols haven't grown.
Not yet, chico. But soon.
But the neighbor's mirasols have – why won't ours?
You must let flowers grow on their own, chico. They must decide to come up from the cold ground and lift their faces to the sun.
Can I dig them up and hold them to the sun?
If you do that, they'll never grow. They have their own timing. You have to leave them alone.
--
The words leave his mouth before he realizes they even formed in his brain. "No puedo. Pero tú puedes. Tienes que desear recordar para ser libre." With that, he slings his guitar on his back and, his jaw set, he walks out the door. Behind him, she sobs.
I can't. But you can. You have to want to remember in order to be free.
Once again, he avoids the institute, hiding behind gigs with his band, ignoring his abuelo's guitar now locked in the closet. Her sparkling eyes swim before his vision sometimes when he sees the sunflowers that begin to bloom – but then he remembers her wounded cry of "Ichigo!" and his soul freezes and curls like a leaf before a frost. Doubt cripples him. Why had he left her? Jealousy? Or tough love? Or was it even love? Some days he wonders whether he seeks escape for himself too. It has been months since he last visited Ichigo's grave.
Days float past, one indistinguishable from the next.
The dream returns.
Once more, Ichigo visits him, laughing, alive, sparring playfully with him as they walk along the river. And once more, his face falls sad when he asks about Orihime and Chad can't tell him anything.
He awakes and sees the guitar, sitting by his window in the moonlight. He doesn't remember unlocking the closet door – but he takes it as a sign. Dressing, he picks up the guitar and walks with purpose towards the institute.
He plays softly in the garden outside her window. She's never let out during the day, that much he knows, but sometimes they leave the window open and sometimes he can hear her sobbing and sometimes he can hear her speaking quietly, words recognizable but so atrociously accented that he can barely contain his laughter and his shoulders shake as he plays for her.
She speaks a little to him but her questions are unlike what she used to ask. She demands answers now and one day he overhears her talking in hushed but delighted tones, with tiny crystal voices answering back, one loud and irritated voice in particular. It's then that he knows her time behind the wall is finite. And it worries him. She has her memories back – she remembers her love for the bright-haired boy, the one who died saying her name as Chad watched him fade. He listens as she speaks her halting Spanish to him, asking to understand, and he hesitates.
Around him, the sky is dark, the moon high and cold above him. Spring has come but the nights are cool and he shivers in his bright Hawaiian shirt. The roses that bloom and fill the air with their scent still dance in the winds, dropping stray petals, the younger smaller leaves curling their edges. Yet far in the hills, he sees light, spreading its fingers among the stars and pushing its warmth against the low clouds and he knows that the chill won't last forever.
"Come."
Then she is there, her warm arms sliding around him, her body pressed against his back. The clouds burn gold, the edge of the hills pink, and his heart warms as the first beams touch his cheek. He takes her hand in his, hoists her on his back and together they walk toward the dawn.
--
If you travel south and east from Japan, across the ocean, you will come to a land where the language is soft and mellow, the people friendly, taking life at their ease. The trees sway in the never-ending sun, the nights warm as the days. The cuisine might strike you a little odd – chilies in the sweets, chocolate in the meat sauces – but somehow it blends and warms and welcomes and leaves you wondering how such variations can actually work.
On the side of a hill, just outside a little village, there is a small house. Like the cuisine, it blends in and stands out – fading into the trees but so distinctly Japanese that one can't help but look at it and admire the mixture of architectures. Sunflowers line the front of the house while a small path twists and meanders from the back, leading up to a row of white stones. On each is a name - just a name. No message, no birth date, no death date.
In front of one, incense burns. A tall man stands before it, his hands in his pockets, gazing down and smiling faintly. "Ichigo…" The deep voice whispers the name and the winds sigh for a moment, whirling the fragrance high. "She is well and happy now." To the right of this stone, the grass ripples near the others. Ishida. Asano Keigo. Tatsuki. Kurosaki Karin.
The wind flares and then silences and he kneels, reaching out to brush Ichigo's marker. "She will be fine when you come. Just…" He pauses, feeling strangely guilty and not-guilty. His name, cheerful and giggling, comes floating over the distance and he turns his head to see her standing in the back door, waving a dripping spoon at him, dancing like the sunflowers. Already, some of the sauce from her spoon has smeared on her cheek – but she doesn't seem to notice. His smile widens and he raises his hand to her and turns back to clap his hands over the marker.
"Just…don't come soon."
A/N: I've wanted to write this half of the story - but it wouldn't let me for some reason - until I was in the middle of NaNoWriMo, trying to write 50K words on something completely different - and this story just screamed at me, absolutely screamed to be written. Argh! So I did. Sort of. I started it, abandoned it, finished it, edited it and posted it. I like the two different takes on the same story, how each has their own secret doubts and worries and views. It was a bit of a challenge and yet not a challenge. I also had fun imagining Orihime living in Mexico or South America, where they mix sweet and spicy and where she can learn to mix "odd" flavors together (chocolate and pepper) and still have yummy meals.