The Sun and the Moon

PART TWO

Chapter 5

It was raining heavily.

Ichigo pulled his raincoat closer to his body. He marveled at the way his red wellingtons made squelching noises every time they made contact with the shiny asphalt of the sidewalk where they tread.

A car drove passed, splashing rainwater from the puddles into his smiling face.

"Such a rude man, is he not, Ichigo?"

The familiar sweet-sounding voice was immediately followed by an angelic face, as mother stooped down to wipe her young son's face dry, a wide smile on the boy's face showing all his milk teeth. "It's okay, okaa-chan!" Ichigo answered, offering to stand on the outermost edge of the sidewalk nearest to the road, so as to "protect okaa-chan from the nasty cars", to which the young mother laughed amusedly.

All this time, the boy clutched his mother's hand tightly, never letting go. The warmth of his mother's hand always made him feel safe and secure, like he could do anything in the world with her by his side. The young woman stood up, straightened the umbrella and mother and son continued walking in the rain happily.

Ichigo looked across at the river's edge. The river had swollen and threatened to spill onto the banks, but to his surprise there was a girl by the edge. She was clad in an antediluvian kimono as black as her raven hair. The young boy stopped in his tracks.

Turning around, the girl's deep violet eyes stared back at him.

Ichigo released his mother's hand, and ran down the grassy slope towards the riverbanks.

He had to get to her, somehow…

"Ichigo!" he heard his mother's angelic voice shout his name…

But Rukia…

"Ichigo!"

The young man was roused from his dream by the annoying sound of someone shouting his name. The orange-haired man did the first instinctive reaction that came to him, his punch sending the source of that annoying sound flying to the other side of the room and landing unceremoniously with a loud crash.

"Why did you punch me, Ichigo? I thought you liked me!~"

Ichigo yawned, getting into a sitting position on the bunk bed. The trademark scowl returned to his face. "Idiot, why the fuck did you wake me up all of a sudden?"

The other man had tears streaming down his face as he replied in a tone used by jealous girlfriends, "You were screaming out some girl's name! Ru-Rukie or something… Who is she anyway and—"

"Shut up, Takada."

Takada Yosuke got up all of a sudden, face contorted indignantly. "Takada? Aren't we on first-name basis already, Ichigo~!" And with that, the other man in white coat pouted his lips into a kissy face and advanced on Ichigo, who launched a pre-emptive attack which sent Yosuke flying out of the room so fast, the wind closed the door behind him in a bang.

Ichigo sighed. 12:34AM, the clock on the bedside table read. At least he managed to get some two hours of sleep.

Until now, he could not believe his bad luck that ensured that of all his classmates in medical school, the homosexual one who had always been obsessed with him had to be the other junior resident doctor in Kagamino Community Hospital. Takada Yosuke had hit on Ichigo whenever he could since day one, but despite that Ichigo still remained friends with the guy, who reminded him so much of his classmate Asano Keigo, and thus helped Ichigo not to feel as homesick about being away from Karakura.

Ichigo laid back on the bed and stared blankly at the lightbulb overhead. It had been good for him too, that Yosuke woke him up before the dream really ended. He had been having the same recurring one for weeks now, and every night it ended the same horrible way. It was strange, he thought, because in reality it was a Hollow in that memory, not the raven-haired shinigami who haunted his dream.

It had been three years now, since he graduated from medical school and started working at the hospital. He had moved into a small apartment nearby in Kagamino, north of Karakura, a little short of two years ago, something which his sister Yuzu cried over until now. Ichigo had no use for the apartment anyway, for he practically lived in the hospital nowadays.

His whole family was shocked when he first announced to them during dinner that he had applied and was accepted to medical school shortly after high school. The twins were overjoyed but his old man, who he had expected to be bouncing off the walls in his usual overexcited manner, was unusually quiet that night. Isshin never commented about his son's decision since then.

Ichigo got out of bed and prepared himself for a long night of being on call. Most young doctors like him hated the idea of prawling the wards at early hours of the night, keeping watch on any critical changes in the patients, but to Ichigo it was his favourite time of the day, when the corridors were empty and silence was the only companion to his contemplative solitude.

"Is this even what you call living a life, Onii-chan?" was Karin's nonchalant remark during one of their visit to him at the hospital, referring to his abnormal less-than-four-hours-of-sleep-a-day lifestyle. To that, Ichigo made no reply. He knew his sisters still disapproved of his idea to move out and live away from the family in order to work at the hospital. "You know, Onii-chan… Otou-san could use a lot of help at the clinic…"

Every visit the twins would try all means and ways to convince him to return to the clinic; they even enticed him with generous financial incentives, but every time Ichigo refused them. He could not bring himself to reside in that house and sleep in that room, not when there was a pair of checkered yellow pyjamas still folded neatly in his closet, not when there were graffiti of bunny-looking characters on his closet door and his wooden desk, not when there were still unremovable stains on the ceiling because someone never understood how to insert a straw properly into a tetra-pack – no, he could not bear it, not when everywhere he looked, all he could see were the traces of the existence of someone long gone.

That was the reason why Ichigo immersed himself completely in his job, though in fact to the young orange-haired man, being a doctor was more of a blessing. Ichigo had returned to the living world with an aching emptiness in his heart that could not be cured, but he found that in between on-call duties and treating patients and surgeries, the profession had somewhat helped him forget that gaping midget-shaped void in his life.

But perhaps most importantly, being a doctor enabled him to save the living from pain and hurt, since there was nothing he could do now for the dead.

"Kurosaki-sensei," a young female nurse handed a patient's folder to him nervously, avoiding his gaze. "Uh… Yamashita-san's blood pressure had been rather unstable tonight, but I've been monitoring him…"

"Arigatou, Mashima-san," replied Ichigo, which brought a deep crimson blush to the young girl's fair cheeks.

He was walking towards Ward 317 where his patient, an old man with prostrate cancer called Yamashita, was being confined, when a familiar figure with long auburn hair sitting on the benches along the corridors caught his attention.

The woman looked up, then sensing a pair of eyes on her, she turned to look at Ichigo's direction.

"Inoue?"

Author's Notes

{i} Really sorry I haven't been updating this fic. Actually I've posted till Chapter 27 at nahypochlorite[dot]livejournal[dot]com so do head over there if you're impatient! I will be posting the polished up chapters in here anyway, but will probably take some time.

{ii} Also I really need a beta reader so please PM me if you're interested!