They were sitting in a restaurant, that's where they really were. "You're not gonna eat anything?" Ichigo.
He was looming over the operating table.
"Are you stupid?" That was Rukia. She was looking across the dining table from her side of the booth at Ichigo like she couldn't believe he had just asked her that.
His hands were steady as he held the scalpel with some version of confidence and lightly made an incision along the drawn line across someone's abdomen.
"What's that supposed to mean?! I was just asking you a question!" Ichigo didn't see how he could have done anything wrong.
Blood beaded beautifully in a crisp line as he handed the scalpel off and used a tool to separate skin and skin.
"What? You didn't notice the waitress only bring two glasses of water to the table? Or that no one but us has looked at her? Or what she's wearing? She has to have a body to eat here, you know." Uryuu may have been otherwise preoccupied, but he was listening to them. He might have understood why they have been arguing every time they spoke to each other since he'd left the hospital with them. It made for an excellent distraction. It only worked in part, of course. That's probably why they kept doing it. Ichigo hadn't noticed any of that, the possibility wasn't even on his mind. Now that he actually looked at any part of her other than her face, yes, her uniform gave it away.
He was in another room, looming over another operating table.
"Just so you know, I brought provisions of my own. I wouldn't want you to worry," she was mocking him.
He made an incision along someone's arm.
"Oh, yeah?" Ichigo raised an eyebrow at her.
He cut along a leg.
"Where do you keep them then?"
Down a chest.
"I don't see a bag anywhere."
Along someone's back.
Ichigo asked his questions maybe out of concern, maybe because it was something present to poke and bicker about.
He picked up the scalpel.
"I have pockets, mom."
That was… that word was a curse to each of them. Although there was an effect, Ichigo and Rukia both ignored it, carrying on with Present. Uryuu, however, was brought back to where he always ended up after his memories started mixing.
"You have pockets?"
He was standing in the frame in his father's shadow. But a shadow could not shield him from seeing.
"Of course! Shinigami are assigned to look after an area of the living world all the time. How did you think we survive a month at a time here?"
He stood where his father was, soles matching soles, a thousand times over.
"Then why doesn't my uniform have pockets?"
He picked up the scalpel.
"I don't know! You've always worn that in soul form, we change into ours!"
He picked up the scalpel.
"Are you sure yours doesn't have pockets?" He wasn't.
At this point, even their pointlessly terrible conversation wasn't enough to hold Uryuu there. Incision after incision, he always looked up to see his mother. Dead, not living. Not in any condition where he could help her by cutting her open. It was mutilation.
His routine was concrete in his mind. There was no hesitation, nothing to think about. He didn't even know if he had been thinking for the past decade! How could he have always picked up that shitty scalpel? How could his hands have been so steady? How could there have been no doubt in his aim?! There's no doubt where there's no thought. His life felt like an endless loop. He was trapped in this loop even now. That he was physically away from his loop didn't make any difference to his psyche.
He was supposed to be working on something important. He had been given a mission. He had to remember the most recent event in his clear memories. Rukia had told him that her and Ichigo's clearest memories were from around the same time. They wouldn't tell him what their memories were because they didn't want to affect his. This was impossible. Although he did have memories that were much clearer than the ones swimming in front of his eyes to blind him, he could only focus on… well the ones swimming in front of his eyes blinding him.
Did he have a choice in this? Although he would like to believe he always had a choice, it was more convenient at the moment to say, no, no he didn't.
He was temporarily rescued as something broke through his memory fish.
"Do you think Chad is like us? I think I should call him," Ichigo was looking over at Rukia for confirmation.
"We know it's affected at least three people. I don't think it would be a mistake to check on him," she agreed. For once. When had they stopped bickering? And when had the atmosphere turned so serious and careful?
Ichigo turned his eyes to Uryuu. "I don't have my cellphone with me," he admitted. That probably warranted some questions, but there wasn't enough focus on the broader things even between the three of them for any of those questions to surface. For the moment, at least.
Uryuu pulled his phone out of his pocket without thinking it through. "I don't have Sado-kun's contact." Why he didn't was a question he didn't know the answer to.
"That's fine, I know it. Give it here," Ichigo held out his hand for Uryuu's phone.
Although Uryuu gave it to him without complaint, when Ichigo slid out of the booth to take it outside, he heard a "pfft" from one of the two across the table from him. Both of them seemed to be trying extremely hard to hold back laughter. Or their breaths. Maybe they'd pass out and Ichigo wouldn't have to deal with whatever they had found in him to mock.
But, he was still going to ask, "What?"
Rukia chuckled with restraint as she tried to speak. "It's just that— no one memorizes anyone's number these days," she chuckled a bit more.
"And you remember it even despite your current circumstances," Uryuu continued for her, not exactly laughing himself but something close to it behind his hand.
Ichigo stared between the two of them. Were they… really getting along so easily?
"It's— it's almost cute!" Rukia finished.
Nope. He was not staying for this. He walked straight out the front door without looking back at either of them. In different ways, they both liked seeing him react. The two of them being "friends" or whatever was very bad.
He ignored the fact that they were probably still laughing at him and walked until he knew he couldn't be seen through any of the windows in the restaurant. Uryuu's phone didn't have a password protecting it. He wondered if there was a reason for that, but his question may have been answered as he looked for the dialer on the touch screen. There wasn't much on the phone to being with.
He typed in Chad's phone number and held it to his ear. There was a reason he remembered Chad's number. In all the years he'd known him, the man's number had always been the same and it used to be that they would call each other if they needed someone to have their back. At least, that was the intention. There were hardly any times where either of them actually called the other for anything. But it was something Ichigo kept in the back pocket of his mind.
"Hello?" he was greeted from the other end of the line.
"Chad."
There was some silence. "…Ichigo," Chad clearly knew who he was without anymore needing to be said.
Ichigo struggled with how to say any of what he needed to. "Hey, um…" he broke off for a bit to try again. "…How are you?" he asked, dancing around what he really wanted to know.
Chad's response didn't actually answer his question directly, but it probably said more than a direct answer would have. "I'm at the airport."
Ichigo was a bit stunned, figuring out what Chad was telling him. "Ah. Are you planning on coming home? Oh, uh, you haven't been living in Japan for a while now. Then, are you coming here? Or somewhere else? I guess you could go wherever you wanted. Why are you at the airport?" Ichigo rambled awkwardly as he kept remembering other things and becoming unsure of others.
"I have a flight to Narita tonight." The way Chad was choosing to answer him with a blank tone gave him the feeling he was answering all his questions at once.
"Okay. Have a place to stay?"
"Not yet."
Ichigo thought for a minute. Or more like, he had the idea already but needed time so that it didn't seem like he had planned this out. "I'm with Ishida and Rukia. We could take the shinkansen and meet you."
"Okay," Chad accepted. "Ichigo?"
"Yeah?"
"Are you okay?"
Ah. They had been friends for a long time. There weren't always many words spoken between them, but what words were spoken mattered. "I will be," he answered.
A/N: Thank you to everyone who's been reading this. I wish you all good things this year and in years to come. *bows*
To Andrey258, for now I'll tell you that I don't plan on having the characters learn that they're a part of a manga. I'll not sure I could think of a way to pull that off in a believable fashion. Also, I think the way you reply to all the other reviewers is... (for lack of a better word) cute. I do appreciate you.
To Ice Maiden Olivier, I'm very glad my writing could bring a smile to your face, knowing that also brings a smile to mine. And to yeahbuddy2256, I feel very honored by what you have said. The reason I love writing is because of its strange ability to communicate feeling. Thank you all very much. I hope hear from everyone again. *bows*
