Main POV
"Well that settles it," Ichigo said. "There's no room for argument now, you're going to the seireitei."
"Better start packing," I sighed and headed through to my bedroom, the only part of the apartment that didn't completely look like a bomb had hit it. I went through the drawers and started packing enough clothes for a while when Ichigo followed me inside. He was holding a bag that I hadn't noticed him carrying before.
"I wore these for a couple of hours each while you were sleeping." He held out the bag.
"Huh?" I looked up at him. He rubbed the back of his neck.
"I remembered you saying that the reason you wore my clothes so much was because you liked the smell. That you felt comfort from them smelling like me," he explained and I blushed. I felt safe wearing them. It was like being wrapped in his arms wherever I was. Of course, now I also associated that smell with all the sex we'd been having. Turns out it was more than just Ichigo's deodorant and washing detergent I liked, it was also his sweat added to the mix. Or I assumed it was his sweat, unless he was just constantly releasing pheromones. I really didn't understand much about biology. Or chemistry. Math was my thing. Math and maps.
"Yeah," I said eventually. "I do. You make me feel safe. When I wear your clothes, even when you're not with me it reminds me that you're never far away."
"Then make sure to pack these," he told me. "If we get separated, you know I'll still be with you."
"Gross," I smiled. "Don't be romantic this early in the morning."
I looked over to the bed where I had dumped Kon to find him snoring away lightly and smiled. Sleeping Kon was cute. Awake Kon, not so much. I took the bag I was packing over to the bathroom and heard the crunching of glass underfoot.
"Jees," Ichigo said as he walked in. "You really did a number on this room."
"I uh," I rubbed the back of my neck. "I may have used a little too much spiritual pressure when punching through the window up there. We couldn't get it open any other way."
"Remind me to fix that for you when we come back here next," he said and I turned back to face him.
"You know how?" I asked.
"I thought you knew everything?" He teased. "You forget I worked for Unagiya Shop. I had to do lots off odd jobs. I can fix a stuck window no problem."
"This knowledge would have been helpful when I first moved into this apartment," I commented. "Can you also replace glass in a window?"
"I can give it a try," he shrugged. "Although you'd be better paying a professional."
"I just like the idea of you standing in mid air outside my apartment in your shinigami form installing a window," I told him. I went to the cabinet under the sink and started grabbing various toiletries to take with me. Ichigo went to the drawers to try and help me. He started raking through them pulling out everything he thought I'd need.
"When was the last time you had one of these?" He asked, shaking a box of tampons at me. I shrugged. Like I could remember.
"I think it was while we was staying at your family's place," I replied after thinking about it for a while. "Unless you think we're going to be in the seireitei for a month we should be good."
"I think that's how long it took to rescue Rukia, but time works differently there," he replied. "Better take some just in case dead people don't get periods and you're stuck."
"Look at you being all prepared," I laughed.
"I'm just looking forward to you murdering all of Squad 11 with your pms," he countered.
"Why, too scared to fight them yourself?" I teased.
"I could fight them, but pms you is not just violent, she's organised. The perfect weapon," he commented tossing a box into my bag anyway. "Now, the soul society is super boring, so make sure you pack plenty to do."
"What are you going to be doing? Half this stuff is all shit just for me," I pointed out.
"I'm going to be in my shinigami uniform, so I plan to steal more from there so I have spares for when we come back," he told me. "And I imagine I'll probably just spar with people while I'm there, work on getting stronger. Seems there's no such thing as a peaceful life here."
"I'm sorry," I sighed. "You were supposed to have a peaceful life before I got here. This is all my fault."
"What are you talking about, this isn't your fault, anyway, you can't know I was supposed to have a peaceful life," he said. "You said yourself the last arch in Bleach was me fighting for the soul king."
"That's not exactly true," I replied sheepishly. I could feel the guilt creeping back in. "That thing I didn't tell you before."
"What does the shave to do with this?" He asked. I lead him back through to the bedroom and lifted up a corner of the mattress. I pulled out the copy of Bleach's final issue and flipped to the last chapter. I handed it to him.
"The epilogue is set ten years after that were supposed to be happy, at peace. There wasn't supposed to be anymore fighting. Not only that, but you were married. Married to someone else. And, I knew that. I knew who it was, how she felt abut you, and I dated you anyway. Because I was selfish. And that's why I feel so guilty. I've changed your destiny. I changed your destiny because I couldn't control myself. Because I didn't want to. Because I wanted you for myself."
He looked at the book in his hands. He was silent as he watched me speak, heard my voice choke up. He watched me grow too ashamed and turn my head away. Orehime had been nothing but nice to me since I got here, and here I was telling her husband. Stopping her from ever getting married in the first place. Stopping her child from ever existing.
I looked up. He was flicking through the pages of the epilogue slowly, reading it's contents. He reached the end and then closed the book gently. He handed it back to me and then rested a hand on my head.
"I don't care," he said, finally.
"W-what?" I asked.
"I don't care about this future," he told me. "It's not the one I want. This might have been how things were supposed to turn out, before I met you. But you're right, my life has changed since then. And I'm happy with that. I've accepted that. I might not get married sometime in the next 10 years. I might see you walk through the rift without me, go back to your family and have that door close forever. But at least I got to have the years that came before it. I knew losing you was always a possibility when I agreed to help you all those months ago, damn it. But I don't care. I want you Uo. For as long as you're here. As long as you want me and as long as we can have. Forget about any other futures. Yours is the one I want."
I stared up at him as he made his speech. My heart raced in my chest and I could hear my pulse in my ears. He looked down at me, determined and passionate. I stepped forward and grabbed his shirt. I held him close to me. To have felt this, guilt, for so long. To have been carrying it all by myself and to hear him say that. I needed it. I needed every word of that speech. He wrapped his arms around me, holding me just as tightly and running his hands through my hair. He pulled me down towards the bed softly. He sat on the plush mattress and I was in his lap, recovering from the heavy feeling I'd felt, trying to get the rock out of my throat.
"Do you understand now?" He asked. "I don't care because it's you, just you."
"I understand," I replied. A tear dropped down my cheek. "I love you."
"I know," he chuckled. "It's all you've said the last three days. Every time you dropped in and out of consciousness, it was all you'd say," he told me. "I love you Hikaru, I always will."
"You're my world, Ichigo Kurosaki," I told him. "My whole goddamn world."
He leaned down to kiss me and connected our lips. I shifted quickly in his lap so I was facing him fully and gripped his t-shit. He held my upper arms tightly, but not enough to bruise and we kissed frantically. Rough treatment as each kiss left bruises on my mouth. My skin would be red when we pulled away, but I didn't care. Briefly, I heard shifting on the bed beside me but I ignored it. I kissed him back as hard as I could, as if it was the last time I'd do so. I heard a squeaking noise as something batted my shoulder, but again I ignored it. I shifted my hips, feeling myself getting wantonness.
"HEY!" I heard Kon screaming and finally pulled away from Ichigo. "I'm still here you know you big Jerk, Ichigo, how could you forget about me? I'm not some intimate stuffed animal that you can ignore. I won't let you make me the third wheel!"
"Sorry," he replied. "I forgot you were there," he said.
"I also forgot Urahara is in the next room," I added and Ichigo froze in shock.
I climbed off Ichigo's lap to go and talk to Urahara about the business. I knew he wouldn't be expecting anything from me, but we'd set up a service for the customers, and it wasn't their fault I was being targeted by some smelly old people. He saw me heading out and I could see him hiding a knowing smirk behind his fan.
"Seems you've awoken an appetite in young Ichigo that was laying dormant until now," he commented. "It wasn't long ago that he would blush at every little thing."
"I've been thinking about that actually," I replied thoughtfully. "Anime Ichigo was a blushing virgin. Real life Ichigo is just proper. He's a gentleman. He seems to blush when people like you are teasing him or when he's seeing something he's not supposed to be seeing."
"Anyway," Urahara said as Ichigo wandered back into the room with a bag of his own. "I imagine you came to talk to me about more than just your sexual encounters with Ichigo."
"Tease all you like, Hat'n'clogs, not gonna work," Ichigo responded before going to the fridge and digging out a juice box.
"Someone's gotta continue the deliveries while we're gone," I explained.
"So you are back," Keigo said standing in our open doorway. No one had bothered to install a new door yet. "I thought for sure you'd more time recuperating."
"Actually," I told him. "I'm going away for a while. Just trying to figure out who's going to take over the deliveries while I'm gone."
"Oh wonderful god my prayers have been answered," Keigo started screaming and running around on the balcony outside my balcony. He leapt up in the air and pirouetted before he seemed to calm himself down a bit and step inside.
"Prayers?" I raised an eyebrow.
"Keigo's been looking for a job," Ichigo explained sipping on his juice box.
"Can he drive?" I asked. "Unless he plans on operating the bicycle unit of our courier business."
"I got my licence as soon as I turned 18," Keigo told me. "I thought we'd be going on way more road trips."
"How many have you gone on?" I asked.
"None," Ichigo replied. "He doesn't have a car."
"Keigo," I turned to him. "You can take over the deliveries if you can prove you won't total my car while I'm gone. And when I get back, if you do a good job, we'll talk about hiring you on a more permanent basis."
"How am I supposed to prove..." he started and I threw my keys at him.
"We going to your family's place first?" I asked. Ichigo nodded and tossed me a juice box. He grabbed my bag for me and we headed over to the front door.
"Uo," Urahara said. "You'll need to look at the books before you go, they're due at the accountant before you come back."
"I'll look at the computer when I get back to the shop," I told him.
"You'll need a while," he called after me when I took the stairs.
"You can drive stick right?" I asked from the backseat. Somehow it was my car I was squeezed in next to the cooler, Kon sitting in my lap under the seatbelt.
"Yeah," he replied. He was going a bit ham on the safety checks, but I appreciated the effort.
"Don't worry about it," Ichigo assured me. "For all that we tease him Keigo actually graduated first in his class at Camp Karakura Driving School."
"Camp Karakura Driving School, don't tell me you actually went on one of those driver training camps, did you?" I chuckled.
"I thought I could pick up babes at the same time," he explained. "No such luck."
"When have you ever had luck with babes?" I asked and Ichigo scoffed, holding back laughter.
"Hey, I'm driving you around Miss, no need to be rude," he looked back at me accusingly before turning back to keep an eye on the road. It wasn't long before we were arriving at the Kurosaki Clinic and I was climbing out, hands intertwined with Ichigo's. He pushed me back against the body of the car, leaning down to kiss me. Keigo cleared his throat and I rolled my eyes. We broke apart and I told Keigo he might as well come with us and talk to Isshin about his duties while I was away.
"Hey, Ichigo, where have you been?" Karin called from the front steps. "Jees I know you love spending all your alone time with Uo but you could have at least checked in with us after Toshiro walked me home on the 24th." I turned around and she gasped. I was going to have to get used to that reaction. "Uo.."
"It's alright," I told her. "I'm alright. It'll heal."
"We would have come by," Ichigo said as we got closer. "But I wanted to make sure I was by her side while she recovered."
"Of course," Karin nodded, still in shock. "Listen, Yuzu is gonna freak."
"I know," I sighed. "I'm prepared."
We walked inside, Keigo heading round to speak to Isshin while Ichigo lead me through to the kitchen. Yuzu was humming away to herself when we got there. I smiled, I missed her. Ichigo cleared his throat, announcing our presence. She spun round excitedly before she stared at me in shock. Her jaw dropped and she let go of the china bowl she had been holding.
"What happened?" She gasped. "Uo, are you alright?"
"I'm fine," I smiled. "We got into a bit of trouble, but it was nothing your brother couldn't handle. He kept us both safe."
"Oh Ichinii," Yuzu cried out and rushed over, wrapping her arms around both of us. She started sobbing. "I'm so glad you're both okay. I knew I could count on you to protect Uo."
My face hardened. I hated this feeling, the look of shock on everyone's face when they saw me. I wanted to look like I used to. This wasn't fair. That old guy, how could he do this to me, for a stupid rift. Ichigo looked down at me with concern, but I barely registered it, I was too angry. He tussled Yuzu's hair before tugging me by our intertwined hands out of the kitchen and up the stairs. He lead me through to his room and sat me down on his bed.
"Uo," he said. I didn't respond. That fucking old man. He'd scarred me, permanently. I looked like a burn victim. I was a burn victim. I was so angry. I wanted to look like me again. I wanted people to look at me like they used to instead of staring at me, horrified.
"Hikaru," he demanded, almost sounding like he was scolding me. It jolted me out of my silent rage. I looked up at him. "Are you alright?" He asked much softer.
"I.." I started.
I dropped my gaze down to my hands. I wasn't alright. I'd been pretending I was fine this whole time, holding on to my mantra of I'm fine. Hoping if I told myself enough that I'd be okay. But I couldn't lie to myself anymore. I wasn't okay. I felt guilty, being so upset, it was just a scar. I'd come out alright, but, I still hated what had happened. The way I looked now. As angry as I was at the old man, I felt pretty stupid for coming out of my room, Ichigo had told me, he warned me to stay put. He knew how to keep me safe. He was strong enough, if I just stayed out of the way, but I put myself in danger and then I got myself hurt. I hadn't even thought about how he must have felt, seeing me like that.
"Look at me," he growled. My lifted my head up, looking into his sad, brown eyes. "Tell me."
"How bad is it?" I asked, feeling myself choking up.
"It's better than I thought it was going to be," he told me. Which I found surprising. "I saw your skull Uo. It went all the way down to your bones. I was scared we weren't going to get that skin back. I thought you were gonna lose half your face." And there was that guilt again. What I'd done to him by being stupid.
"Is that what's bothering you?" He asked. I screwed my face up. I could feel the tears welling in my eyes. "Uo," he came down to kneel in front of me. He held my hands in his and I started to cry. I felt pathetic. "Talk to me, tell me what you're feeling. What's going through that head of yours."
"I hate this," I cried out, choking on my own sobs. "The way everyone looks at me, they're so shocked and horrified. I wanna look like I used to. He hurt me and he's fine but I look like this. We won but I feel like I lost. I know it was my own fault, you told me. You fucking told me, stay in the bedroom. But I followed, I knew better but I got in the way and you had to save me and I got burned anyway. And I never even thought, while I was doing it, that if I got hurt, what it would do to you. Because I know you Ichigo Kurosaki, you need to be able to protect everyone, and I fucked that because I got myself hurt and there wasn't anything you could do about it. And then you had to watch me writhing on the counter, screaming and crying. And then you had to hold me, three days I spent sleeping. And I know it's just a scar, it's healed, it's not coming back, I'm better now but it's still there. I look like this now, and I can't handle it."
I worked myself into such a stateI couldn't breath properly. I was chocking on my own breath and I couldn't see I was crying so had. Ichigo had gone from kneeling before me, giving me his sad eyes, to holding me tightly as I dropped my head down on his shoulder. He held me, and held me, and just let me cry until I got it all out. He rubbed my back and ran his fingers through my hair and I have no idea how long we spent up in his room doing nothing useful but i felt guilty over that too, using up valuable time that we didn't have so I could have a mental breakdown.
"Are you ready for my thoughts now?" He asked once I'd settled down. I lifted myself up off his shoulder and stared into his sad eyes, noticing they were a bit puffy and wet. He'd been crying too as he held me. I nodded. If he had something he needed to say, he should say it.
"I'm not angry with you, or hurt by you. I'm not upset you came out of your bedroom. I am fucking angry that you got hurt in the crossfire, but I'm angry at that old man. Because he was coming for you anyway. Because even if I hadn't seen you since you got here, if we'd never have gotten together I know he would have come for you anyway, and I'm glad I'm with you, even if it meant seeing you get hurt, because I know I can protect you. Because if I wasn't with you, you'd be all alone when this guy came for you. You could have died then. And I wouldn't have that. Not ever.
I don't blame you, for getting hurt. It was an accident and they happen. I hate that it did, but it's no one's fault. I don't blame you for getting hurt and making me watch by your side while you were hurt and getting healed because being by your side was better than not being there, hearing your screams from another room and being unable to do anything. And I wanted to be by your side. You were unconscious most of those three days, I could have been off doing anything else but I was with you because I wanted to be there.
So stop it. Stop with all the guilt over this, stop making it your fault, because it wasn't Hikaru. It's not your fault."
"It's just a scar..." I stared, staring down at him, feeling the tears coming again.
"It's not just a scar, not to you. That's your face, he hurt you and you walk around with a constant reminder that he did. You walk around with a constant reminder that you were in pain, that you wee scared, that you suffered. You can be upset, you can be angry, you can hate the way that it looks, that's normal. You're hurting, it's okay for you to feel that way. But let me tell you something," he said. "Your scar will heal. It will. And even if it never did, I don't look at you differently. I still see Uo who liked math, who calls me dummy. Uo who thinks too much, who spends too much time inside her own head. I still see my beautiful girlfriend. I still see sexy Uo who's got a body that makes me just wanna die right there every time I see it. I still see Uo the girl who gave me my first hand job. I see Uo who writhes under me when I finger her. I see the flustered cheeks as I put my head between your legs. I see the Uo who gets me going with her cries and the way you grip my hair, and hold my body to yours like it's the only thing keeping you on this planet. So stop crying. Because you're beautiful, you'll always be beautiful to me. You'll always be beautiful to everyone. Your friends, our family, they're shocked, they're hurt because you're hurt, but they;ll heal too. And when they do they're still going to see you as beautiful Hikaru Uotani."
"I love you," I started crying again and wrapped my arms around his neck.
"I know," he said into my neck. "I love you to Hikaru. I love you so much."