"I want mom!" she stubbornly refused to even look his way.

"I told you, she's not here. Why don't you tell me what happened?" he asked again as patiently as he could.

"I don't want to tell you, I want to tell mom!" she was clearly very distraught. As far as he could tell, she hadn't been crying, but something clearly had happened.

"Was it something at school?" he guessed.

She had her arms and legs both crossed as she sat on her futon. He had remained in the doorway leaning his back on the frame. He wanted her to feel like she had her own space. In this state, he thought it was best if she came over to him.

"Yes, but I'm not telling you what!"

There! She finally gave him some information. He could play this game if that's what it took. "Then… was someone mean to you?" he probed.

"…No. Not someone," she hinted.

"More than one person?"

"Yes."

He thought about his next question. "Was it some older kids?"

"Some of them."

Some of them? The vast majority of students at the academy were older than her. In fact, he hadn't even known for sure if there were any kids younger than she was. "Did you know them?"

Uh-oh. Even though he couldn't see her expression, he knew this was bad. Her head dropped a bit.

"…Yes," she said with more sadness and hurt than anger this time.

Hit the nail on the head. "What did they do to you?"

"I want mom," she sounded much more broken.

No, that was it, he wouldn't stay in the doorway any longer. He went to her and wrapped her up in his arms even if she seemed unwilling. "Ichika." All he did was speak her name and hold her.

"No~," she whined. "You don't understand, dad!" She turned in his arms so that she could point her defiant eyes at him. Tears slipped past her guard though, revealing to him her true feelings he already knew. "My friends, even one of the teachers, they were all pretending they didn't remember who I was! They looked at me like I was crazy when I tried to talk to them like I always do―" she stopped to sniffle and take a breath. "And then when the history teacher took attendance, she acted like she didn't recognize my name and made me introduce myself to the class!" she started crying harder.

Her friends forgot her? Much like he had just this morning? He couldn't imagine what it would feel like to be forgotten by the people you love. He tried not to show how much this hurt him. He hugged her closer to him again. He hugged her tight in hopes that his feelings and his love would be made apparent to her. She was his pride and joy. And since becoming a father, he truly understood what that phrase meant. The relationship of parent and child was unique and to be cherished. She was more precious to him than anything else in his life. Even with hazy memories, he could be sure of that. Which is exactly why it was unfathomable that he would ever forget her, even for a moment. He didn't have the heart to be angry at himself for it. All that was there was just… sadness. Sweeping sadness that tied him in knots and blew him away like dust. A useless struggle to fight that.

"Ichika, I can't change what your friends did, but you'll be hurt forever if you don't forgive them. I know you don't want to hear that and I'm sure your mom could find better words to help you, but I don't want you to stay hurt. The things people say and do to you only have power over you for as long as you let them. I'm not saying that you have to forgive your friends now, I think that there are times when it's okay for us to be hurt. But if you wake up tomorrow and you still feel hurt, it'll be a lot harder to forgive them later on. And… forgiving them doesn't mean you have to stay friends with them," he said softly from his heart.

He had no way to know exactly what to do like Rukia always does. In fact, she'd probably go to the school and demand an apology from everyone their daughter pointed at. But the thing was, it might be better for Ichika if she made new friends instead. If her friends had forgotten her for the same reasons he had, then it was possible that they would remember her again. But they had all seen her today and it seems nothing came to mind. He had only forgotten her until she had been brought to his attention. He was worried that they may never remember her. And if that were the case, Ichika would have to start over with them. To think, how hard would that be on her, on anyone, to remember so much time spent with a person and not have them remember a thing? There wasn't anything he could really do for her about that.

Ichika didn't say anything in response to him, but she did wrapped her own arms around him as far as they could reach. They held on to each other for a while until Ichika only sniffled. Eventually she pulled away first but she let herself stay in her father's lap.

"But I can't just not be friends with them anymore," she told him like he was stupid.

"Why not?" he didn't see why she couldn't.

"Because, ugh! I told you, you wouldn't understand! It's a girl thing, that's why I wanted mom!"

A girl thing? Or is she just saying that? "How can I understand if you don't try to explain it to me?"

She made some sounds like she was unwilling but still gave in. "There's only one other kid my age in the entire academy! I barely have any friends at all because no one wants to 'babysit' me!" she said it like it was disgusting. "I thought my friends didn't care about my age," she mumbled. "But even if I tell them that we're no longer friends, everyone will just pretend like nothing happened by next week or I'll make enemies for life!"

"Ichika."

"And there's no way I'm losing the one person there who's my age," she said in a voice that was more like she was hurt again.

"Ichika."

She huffed and looked at him.

"Try to understand them and if you can't, then you have to move on for your own sake," this was a compromise of sorts. He realized that he couldn't just ask her to get rid of her friends. "I know this is hard for you because you only ever listen after the fact. Unfortunately, you got that from both your mom and me which makes it doubly hard for you. But I want you to try your hardest if you really want to stay friends with them. If you do that and you understand them, it might not hurt so bad."

If it turned out they did remember her eventually, Ichika would need all the understanding in the world to forgive them for actually forgetting her. That had to be a much worse thing than pretending to have forgotten. If he were to look inward right now, he'd crumble.

Ichika considered it for a while. "I'll try," she conceded.

"Good," he smiled at her.

He took her hair out of the hair tie it was pulled up into and combed through it with his fingers. It must have felt good because his daughter closed her eyes at the feeling.

"When will mom get back from work?" she asked softly.

He needed to start with the truth. "Mom isn't at work."

Ichika opened her eyes. "Where is she?"

He needed to continue with the truth. "She's in the world of the living."

"Why?"

He needed to end with the truth. "I don't know why, but I think she's visiting the Kurosakis."

Ichika looked betrayed. "But why didn't she tell me? Why'd she go so suddenly? And why don't you know for sure?"

Ichika was old enough that she'd understand any of the worst case scenarios he could think of. But he didn't want to think about those and he didn't want her to think about them either. "Everything's fine, you don't have to worry. She'll be back soon. Even if we don't like to listen to people, we at least listen to each other. So Ichika," he continued to stroke her red hair. "Don't worry. Please."

She probably understood more of what was in his voice than he wanted her to, but she seemed to accept his plea. She hugged him around his neck and he suddenly felt comforted by her.


A/N: I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas. I'm not sure why but I particularly like this chapter so I hope you all enjoyed it.

To Alternate, James, Andrey258, Ice Maiden Olivier and yeahbuddy2256, you guys really are too amazing. Thank you very much. *bows*