Prompt: 3 June 2008; Fate, like the wind, swept it away
Character(s): Ichigo (hints of IchigoxRukia)
Summary: Forgetting doesn't help, but neither do the memories.
Spoilers: Through chapter 423
Notes: I am not a member of the lj community 31 Days
She disappeared as if she had been a wisp of wind. One second she was there, blurry and slightly translucent, and the next she was simply gone, as if she had never existed.
In the next few days, Ichigo kept to himself and stayed away from everyone. It didn't last long, though. The more time he spent alone, the easier it was to convince himself that she hadn't ever existed. Ichigo couldn't stand that, so he broke his self-imposed isolation after a mere two and a half days.
For the next week, he subtly kept the conversational threads attuned to Soul Society and the shinigami. He used every bit of guile he'd ever picked up to keep the recent events churning through talks with his friends, desperate to hear about and be reminded that it had actually happened.
After that first week, though, Ichigo didn't want to hear anything else about it, about her. He knew it happened, and with Ishida still running out in the middle of class to deal with hollows, he wasn't likely to forget. He just didn't want to talk about it anymore.
Ichigo shut up that part of his life, locking it deep in his mind, only taking it out when he absolutely needed to remember that it happened. At all other times, he ignored it. It wasn't avoidance—it was survival. He finally got one of the two things he most wished for, and he tried to find solace in that. He failed, of course. But he wasn't going to admit that.
It was sharp and painful and bitter, but there was also something almost sweet about his memories involving his time as a substitute shinigami. So he looked at them in private and ignored that period of his life at all other times. It was the only way he could survive.
He wasn't sure if it would have been easier or harder to have a physical memento. He's grateful he doesn't have to find that out.