Ichigo keeps the Chappy plushie in the back of his closet. Its rumpled form is curled sadly on its side, untouched. It's like an untainted altar to a time that once was. A time when she occupied his living space, in the same way that she still occupies his mind and soul.

It's been a year now since her visage faded completely from his consciousness. On the street outside his home. It ended in the very same place where it all began for them. The irony burns, and the feeling hasn't faded with time.

He still has the note she left the night she planned to leave him for the first time. With its inscrutable drawings and half-felt regrets. It sits in the bottom drawer of his desk. He can't bear to part with the silly scrap of paper, if only because it's one of the few, tangible reminders that she ever existed in this space. So it sits and collects dust in its dark corner of his room.

Her blue sundress, lifted from Yuzu's collection, resides in the bottom of his laundry bin. It's moth-eaten and color faded by now, but he makes the excuse to himself that she'll have something to wear instead of raking through his closet when she comes back.

(If she ever comes back.)

Her graded school assignments sit in a disheveled heap under his bed. Her low marks in English transport him back to a simpler time. Discovering his powers for the first time. Hollow hunts with her piggybacked on top of him, shouting orders in his ear. Despite his annoyance at the time, there's not much he wouldn't give at this point just to hear her voice once more.

He still has the scars from their initial sparring matches. Even without her powers, she was a force to be reckoned with. (He can't say the same for himself.) The indelible marks on his body are proof that she was here. That she mattered.

Without his abilities, he's become a lifeless zombie, simply going through the motions. It's not what she wanted when she wished a normal, human life for him. But to have a say in how he leads his life, you have to be present in it. And she isn't. So as far as he's concerned, Rukia can fuck off with her sanctimonious bullshit. This was never what he wanted. He wanted the power to protect - his friends, his family, and her. Being human was never in the cards. Being alone despite being surrounded by those who care. His friends who've walked on eggshells around him the past twelve months, who never even deign to speak her name. He wants to scream in frustration. His fists have met his bedroom wall more times than he's proud of.

He never asked for this empty, mundane, human life. He never wanted to feel this tugging on his soul, worlds away from its missing piece.

He misses his powers, but he misses her more.

So he'll keep the plushie, the sundress, the scribblings. Because it's all he has left.