.
Mercy no more
.
The thing about Rukia is that Ichigo can't ignore her. He's tried. It's hard.
Which shouldn't be possible. Not only for someone who's as unobtrusive as she makes herself to be, but also for the fact that she's forgone having a physical body at all. Ever since she'd reached whatever spiritual pressure threshold required not be Hollow bait, and is essentially invisible to everyone but him, Rukia is a lot quieter than she had been when everyone else could see her.
It's kind of baffling, actually.
He's been around Rukia long enough to know how curious she can be, and how persistent she is to learn whatever catches her attention. She's never thought twice about poking at him to fill the gaps, at least when it's just between the two of them, and now that it technically is - in a crowded room with no one to see her ignorance - Rukia just. Doesn't.
Ichigo had fully expected her to take full advantage of her pseudo-invisibility and drive him up and over a wall. Lord knows she does it every other time when the opportunity arises; her poorly concealed mischievous streak would no doubt relish the chance to make him look even more like a crazy person than usual.
And while that had been the case the first few days, after that. Well.
Rukia just kind of. Disappears.
She's still beside him, of course, in some way. Perched on the window sill beside his desk, sitting in her chair a few feet away from his own, leaning against the railing of the roof at his elbow or walking shoulder to shoulder as he trudges from class to class; choosing to shadow him like the pluses used to. Though unlike them, she doesn't want anything from him, at least not in that instant.
When a Hollow appears, it's a different story, but those occurrences are few and far between, and until then, Rukia is. Different.
Ichigo finds himself constantly glancing over, looking out of the corner of his eye to watch her just. Be.
It unnerves him a little, if he's being honest.
The first few days when she'd abandoned the use of her gigai in favor of walking unseen, she'd been fidgety. Anxious, almost. Like shedding her overt child-like enthusiasm itched, and she'd felt too exposed without it, and had to compensate.
Once that had passed though, Ichigo felt like he was meeting her for the first time all over again.
Rukia had never really struck him as the quiet type, but being the only one to see her makes it abundantly clear that it's a default setting of hers. She's comfortable not being noticed, allowed ample opportunity to observe without being observed in turn.
When they're back home, or just the two of them, it's different then too.
Because the girl everyone in class met is just as much Rukia as the girl sitting by herself in a sea of people who don't see her in return.
He knows this in the way she smiles, absent and content, at the way the sun sets from the roof; the way she traces her fingertips along the edge of the desks, casually nudging papers and pens out of reach of their classmates' hands in a harmless prank. Ichigo can practically hear the incredulity in her expression when she's treated to the unfiltered conversations of a bunch of teenage boys, the friendly mocking in the twinkle in her eye and the curl of her smirk when the girls at school whisper about him.
She'll voice it all to him anyway once they're alone, but with her preference to be invisible, Ichigo's become quite fluent in the language Rukia speaks with no words necessary.
It makes deciphering the expressions she doesn't consciously show him all the more important because even though he's the only one who knows she's there - and he's the only one to acknowledge her - she still doesn't think he sees her.
It makes Ichigo angry in a way he can't explain. At least not to anyone else.
Everyone just assumes he's having one of his moods.
Rukia knows him better.
Because while he's been watching her, listening to her when no one else could, it hadn't consciously occurred to him until then that she'd been doing the same.
It's just as well, he brushes it off, he's got a bone to pick with her, "We're supposed to be friends."
Something in her gaze flickers, a movement along a still pond, there and gone. She doesn't deny it, but her brows furrow just a bit, and he can hear the disbelief, the confusion she doesn't say aloud, we're friends?
Ichigo scoffs, "You live in my closet, you ride on my back, I open your juice boxes even though you know how to. Of course we're friends."
Rukia huffs, incredulous, relieved. She pointedly looks away to hide the flush on her cheeks. "Well then, what are you pouting about?"
"Friends tell each other things," he says.
And though she nods, she also looks uncertain. Where are you going with this?
"Sometimes you look. You look sad. Or lost. Or just. Like someone's offered you a Chappy and then snatched it right out of your arms. What the hell is up with that?"
Oh, her expression says. Oh. "Ichigo..."
He makes a noise like a scoff even as it's his turn to look away so she doesn't see how embarrassed he is now that the words are out, because. They don't make much sense, do they? Definitely not paired with how much of a dick he is by asking her like that. And definitely not a fair thing to bring up after the debacle with the Grand Fisher when Rukia told him she wouldn't ask about it, wouldn't go where he didn't invite her. And he couldn't even return the favour.
He's about to brush it off, brows twitching in a scowl of a dismissive whatever, more annoyed with himself than anything else, but then Rukia says, "Anger is a protective response, a way to tell yourself that you've been disrespected, hurt, and you don't like it you, don't deserve it." Then, "Are you angry at me? Have I hurt you, Ichigo?"
"No," is the immediate, reflexive reply. Because it's true. Of all the things Rukia's done - annoyed him, drove him crazy, pissed him off - she's never done anything with the intention of harming him.
She watches him steadily before she slowly relaxes, accepting. Then, more gentle, "Then who are you angry at?"
He thinks of the longing in her expression at the camaraderie shared, open and free, between classmates, friends, family. He thinks of the ache shaping her mouth in the sad curve of her smile; the guilty flick of her gaze as the color of her eyes shift dark and distant, like she doesn't deserve to look at it and want.
Ichigo can feel the loneliness of it at his chest, heavy and clawing, the anger crawls up his throat as he replies in a growl, "Whoever put that look on your face."
It doesn't take her long to put it together. He knows how to read her as easily as she reads him which means Rukia knows exactly how he feels when she says, "It doesn't matter."
"Rukia," he protests.
But she touches his chest, the same place her sword had pierced him so many weeks ago, and pats it once, twice. Her smile is sad, her eyes a little glassy. It's a plea, louder than the words she says, "Let it go."
And when he doesn't, hours later, and she's gone. Well.
Ichigo's angry about that too.
He's angry about her note. About the closet she's left vacant like she'd never been there. About the fact that she's agreeing to go with her dick of a brother after all the shit his red haired partner was spewing.
He's angry that Rukia wants to just leave. He's angry that she was ever at risk at all, that she'd been in danger this entire time.
He's angry that he can't make her stay. That he isn't strong enough -to fight for her-to keep her-to protect her.
Ichigo's angry about a lot of things, but not as much as Rukia is when she repeats, furious and tearful, "Let it go."
There's no good way for this to end, not with him alive and not with Rukia here, so it just ends right there - with Ichigo looking up at her, rain (just rain?) clinging to their lashes; fists curled and lips thinned.
Their combined anger at their helplessness in the situation is palpable as the lightning that crashes around them, their sadness as heavy as the storm.
He looks into her eyes and feels the echo of his heartbeat reverberate from his soul from hers to say: you're full of rage because you're full of grief, and god, you deserve so much better than me.
A/n: for the seventh day of ichiruki month's "you are full of rage because you are full of grief"