Title: Died on a Rainy Sunday
Genre: Romance / Angst
Rating: M (language)
Pairing: Ichigo x Inoue
Spoilers: N/A
Summary: I always knew looking back on the tears would make me laugh, but I never knew looking back on the laughs would make me cry.
Word Count: 482
Warnings: Takes place during Inoue being an idiot and leaving way back in the beginning of the Arrancar Arc.
Disclaimer: Bleach is definitely not mine.
A/N: I haven't seen Bleach in a literal decade.
Goodbye (exclamation): used to express good wishes when parting or at the end of a conversation
She was gone.
She was gone.
She'd just left and… and now what? He was just supposed to let her do that? Is that what she expected? Is that what she really thought about him? That he would just be like, "Well, okay, glad this is over. Inoue's gone, but I've got tons of new friends, so no big deal." What the fuck kind of person did she think he was?
They'd gone through too much together. And he didn't even mean all the crazy shinigami shit. What mattered most to him in his life now was the semblance of normalcy his friends from before that time offered him.
He remembered Inoue crying over the stupidest things, it seemed like everything at the time. The smallest thing could set her off. But now it just seemed funny. She'd cry when she was sad, but she'd cry when she was happy, too. Finding out about Rukia being kidnapped. Finding out they were going to rescue her. She'd cry when she laughed too hard. She really was such a crybaby.
But… but she was bright, too. Full of light and laughter and so much love it seemed to pour out of her. Rukia was a ball of contradicting emotions: a fierce desire to protect wrapped in an angry, violent shell. Tatsuki, too, was all hard edges. Her softness only visible in brief moments. But Inoue… Inoue…
Inoue might cry at everything, but she laughed at everything, too. She laughed at the antics of her friends. She laughed at things on TV or in magazines, small dogs and things in books. Life was a great, big, ball of joy to her and she found something pure and perfect in every day. The sudden thought that he might never see her smile again, that he might soon start to forget what her laugh sounded like… it made him want to cry.
It made him miss her softness.
Inoue was soft all the time. Always with her soft eyes and soft, healer's hands. The soft look in her eyes when she looked at him. The look that meant warmth and home and love. The look that Ichigo ignored for other people. The look that he missed now. More than anything.
And he would do anything to get it back.