This is for the FLOL 2011-2012 Fanwork Challenge.
A/N :
I'm in a good enough mood to make a such long and grateful A/N :p
Hello, hello nice people. Than you very much for all the alerts, favs and reviews :3! PotterFan (You honor me *nods* I'm really happy you have noticed how the structure was and all the Ichigoness. Than you very much for reading it); Aya (You just have to wait for the next chapter, there will be Orihime POV. Anyway, I really enjoy making Ichigo's POV, I don't know if it was OoC though, but I think it wasn't that bad. Thank you for you review :D). codegal (But it's my pleasure, really. If I don't have pressure I don't work at all, so I thought requesting for the challengue would help me to end something, you know. Thanks for gave a look to this ;) ) XBluexFlamingoX (Just five days later xD, sorry, I wanted to upload sooner, but you know, sometimes the blue sky through my window looks extremely interesting. Hope you like this chap too and thank you :3). nypsy (I thinks you won't know very soon how they ended in Ichigo's house -actually if I put that will be in like a special chapter or something-, though this chapter and the next can calm some curiosity you could have ;3. Anyway, don't worry if you can't handle with the depress of this fic, however, I'm trying to do this in the nicer way I can, so you can laugh, feel tenderness and pain and all the rest. And yeah, I was (am) looking for some beta-reader who can fix my engrish, overall. Thank you for reading this. Hope you can keep enjoying it.) Jason (Aww, I think I wasn't quick at all, you can kick my-whatever -no you can't and I kinda care about my-whatever, you know D:- But as I said, sometimes the blue sky got all my interesting and I lose my way and all D: Anyway, thank you and hope you like this :3) CharNinja LOL(*encouragement* And I hope keeping all the spectatives, but it's really hard, you know . Than you very much for you review). Dj Gin (Here it is, my lord :3 Hope you like it! Thank you for reading this!).
About this chapter: A chapter introspective that has been made by 3 parts in Retrospective and 1 part in Prospective, hope you can realize what it's all about. I made that way because it's convenient (for me, of course). And apologize in advance for all the engrish you'll be dealing with :P
PERCENTAGE
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I
Retrospective:
Before That 1.A
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I was pondering the process of breathing yesterday,
Searching for the button to pause things for a moment.
Touching is confusing with even a little bit of ill will.
I can't take it and then let go – it's unreasonable.
Feedback —School Food Punishment
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"I guess is impossible for you to understand when I don't want to do something that only you want to do" Ichigo snorted as he was trying to find a free a seat.
Rukia ignored him and cursed when she tripped with someone who was coming in the opposite side.
"Jesus. This people don't know how to walk civilized" Rukia grunted, pushing away someone's unlucky back. "Seriously Ichigo, I told you, we should have come earlier."
Ichigo finally found a seat and beckoned Rukia to follow him.
"First" Ichigo said, almost having to shout to her due to the noise into the disco "I didn't want to come, you wanted. Second, this place has just opened and they always do at the same time every night, since forever I could say; and third, people is not the problem. You are the dwarf that no one can see even if they'd wanted."
Rukia glared at him, slowly squinting, and it seemed she was going to say something but at the very last, she regretted.
"Huh? What was that? I thought you were going to punch me on my face or something typical of you" Ichigo said, opening her eyes in —a mock—surprise.
"You are just an idiot and I don't want to be in bad mood because of your stupidity tonight" she said shrugging and then looking away.
"Then, you really didn't have to bring me here. I told countless time I didn't want to come."
"Tsk, Ichigo, you should try to be a little more acquiescent, you know."
"Same goes for you" Ichigo muttered when he noticed that she wasn't paying attention to him.
The story of my life, he thought. For some horrible and unknown reason he always ended doing whatever Rukia wanted —what didn't mean he wanted too. Apparently, his opinions didn't matter at all when she was demanding something.
"So why do I have to go exactly?" He had asked her a few hours ago.
"Because" she started to say, unusually serious, "you are my friend. Aren't you?" she ended in some kind of solemn voice.
"Damn. You." Was the only thing he could say before she smiled all triumphant and put an end to the (already lost) discussion.
"Rukia" Ichigo had to call her two times before she turned around to see him.
"What?"
"He will come."
"He is not Jesus."
"What? I mean, I know he is not Jesus but…" he couldn't finish the sentence because for the first time, he was sort of perplexed for the Rukia's randomness. But above all, because that meant she was actually very nervous.
She really thinks he won't come, he thought, feeling a little sad for her.
"You need a little of faith, you know."
"I know he will come."
"Who, Jesus or Renji?"
"He's not Jesus, stupid."
"Ok, whatever you want then." He rolled his eyes.
"Ichigo" she said after a while.
"What now?"
"Thank you."
"Heck, as if I care…"
But in indeed, he did care about her. A lot. And he didn't want to see her all depressed because… well, he had seen her in this way before. And it had been like if the world was coming to an end. A bitter end. With fire and other unfriendly things in between.
With Rukia broke and completely lost.
And with an Ichigo without any idea about what the hell he had to do about that.
"But if Jesus won't come, what will you do?" Ichigo asked, suddenly serious.
She stared at him and it was an odd look, Ichigo thought. Because despite all the uncertainty and fear into her eyes now, there was, diffidently was, the certain about something incredibly improbable.
"I'm just going to get drunk and cry over your shoulder. Then, I'll keep living this piece of shit called life."
Ichigo smiled and nodded.
"I supposed so."
And I will find you and kill you if you don't appear, Renji, he subsequently thought.
Abruptly, the lights dimmed and he barely could see Rukia, who was staring to some place, probably at the crowds dancing according to the music that at the same time, was getting louder and louder. He couldn't understand what the singer sang. It was just an annoying sound into his ears. Just noise.
"Rukia!" He called her.
But she didn't answer. It was like if she already was between all the people dancing and smiling and lying into their own worlds.
"Why did you decide that place? Probably he never will found you. You still can…"
"No" she had interrupted him. "It's okay in that way because if we can't meet in a place like this, how suppose we could meet in another life?"
Ichigo looked at her, totally disconcerted.
"You are saying such weird things. Seriously, what's wrong with you?"
"I'm perfectly fine, stupid."
"Yes, of course you are" he replied with sarcasm.
Rukia had just rolled her eyes and kept getting ready for the (maybe) date with a man she hadn't seen in three years.
And now, Ichigo thought infuriated, she can't be sure if he will come here and if he can find her.
Since when did she become so complicated? Because he was pretty sure that she could be everything but complicated. In fact, that word was a taboo for her on day.
But obviously, not right now, he sighed.
The play of lights started to blink around the place. The colors changed in according to the beat of the music and it made people's heads looked red, green, orange, yellow...
How they do this? Ichigo wondered. They just dance and dance like if there is no tomorrow. Like if nothing else's matter if they can laugh, scream, kiss, hug, have sex and other drugs.
Too basic. Creepy. Degrading. And…
And for no specific reason, he had to stare to Rukia again. Her eyes looked so far away from here, kind of empty and he could noticed it even when the lights changed so fast that he barely recognized Rukia's face. But however, he understood that she wasn't paying attention to him not because she was with the rest of the crown, but because she wasn't aware of anything else that wasn't waiting. Because she was waiting.
For him.
He weirdly smiled. Until now, he hadn't realized how focus Rukia was on it. She had made of all this scene, a kind of existential goal. This meant that tonight she couldn't fail.
Renji couldn't fail.
Nothing could fail.
So Jesus has to come anyway, Ichigo thought, a little relieved.
Then, the music got even louder.
God, he hated this. The noise. The annoying people; indeed, the whole world was it, and the majority of the time, he could handle with it. But now that he was being aware about how Rukia was feeling, the only think he could think after that relief, was that he wanted to run away from there.
And he had no clue why. He wasn't doing nothing but stand what he was used. And Rukia was his friend and he was just doing what a friend had supposed to do. Wait with her. Stay with her. Therefore, despite all the troubles he had to go through because of Rukia, this wasn't a huge sacrifice for him actually.
It was just the usual.
Just the same.
As always.
I can't believe I'm thinking about this he closed his eyes, getting impatient. Damn Renji. Damn Renji. But he knew his mental diatribe wasn't Renji's fault, neither Rukia's.
He was tired of the usual, Ichigo suddenly thought as it was a revelation.
He was tired to have to stand all the annoying people, doing things he didn't want to, speaking what he didn't think, what he didn't feel; always for the sake of someone else, not worrying at all about what he was actually hoping for; what he was waiting for.
What he was waiting for?
He opened his eyes abruptly.
"Rukia?..." Ichigo heard a male voice shouting from some place near of them.
Ichigo was looking at Rukia and could noticed the exactly moment when she heard Renji's voice. Her eyes were glowing in something that he could was excitement and relief. And she smiled. And maybe she cried, but he couldn't be sure because she turned her face around to meet Renji.
"You came!" Rukia shouted to him.
A tall man avoided the crow to approach to her. He was wearing a dark shirt and his red hair was longer than three years ago. Ichigo didn't see his face clearly, but he guessed that nothing more had changed.
But people change.
"And it doesn't matter right know," Ichigo said as he rose up. He didn't even bother to say hello Renji, because he knew that the man was having eyes only to see the tiny woman in front of him. Even if Ichigo would have pushed him on his face, Renji wouldn't have noticed him.
Letting them, he prepared to get out of there. At last.
So Jesus has come, Ichigo thought.
But it wasn't Ichigo who was waiting for him.
Retrospective:
Before That 1.B
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But without you here,
It would definitely be boring.
So I will be waiting for you
Until the year 2085 by killing time.
Me Me She — RADWIMPS
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"So what are you waiting for?" Ichigo wanted to ask to all the people there. "Nothing extremely transcendental will happen today, neither tomorrow. It's just the same with different faces. Always. How can you handle with the fact that everything will be always the same and still keep doing it? Are you even waiting for something else?"
He stopped when a drunken boy crossed in front of him, reeling. He was laughing and screaming something unintelligible, followed for other two boys who were trying to grab and hold him so he doesn't fall. Pathetic.
Am I waiting for something (else)?
The suddenly thought kept him froze on his feet.
Stupid.
He had never waited for something, and this night was not the exception.
"I'm getting out of this crap. Now" he said to himself with conviction.
But after five minutes, his conviction had gone and he was still there, in a place he hated, full of people that weren't there for real. Why, if the only thing he wanted was just run and run so fuckin' away from there?
"Creepy rhetoric" he said; it was the last thing he needed right now.
He found an empty corner and lay against the wall. There, he could see all the mass of people in movement. Maybe they weren't aware, but Ichigo could see them changing their forms, shaping each other in order to fit, trying to reach themselves with the other selves: one hand there, a smile hidden behind someone's hair, a casual arm wrapping a waist, a kiss in the curvature of the neck and much, much more.
What exactly is that? He wondered. How desperate are you, trying to fit whatever the way is, with other person?
And could it be that Ichigo suddenly wanted the same thing that everyone wanted?
However, at that point, he barely recognized himself and it was a totally mess. Really. He always had been just a part of certain static audience that was only focus in their own irremovability; no matter how useless were the rest of the world, how they wasted their lives, the only thing Ichigo worried was to keep breathing enough to keep living enough. That's why he didn't understand why he was making so many questions in such shortly time and in that place and night exactly.
Why he couldn't move.
The only thing he could do was to observe the people in movement.
Maybe Rukia and Renji's issues had really messed him up, because nothing else could explain why he was feeling the way he was now.
Nostalgic about something he didn't remember.
Inexplicable down.
And—
Incredibly alone.
The feeling had to be wrong, of course, because all that damn people. But he knew, loneliness could exist even when you're in the middle of a crown. The problem was: he never had felt this way before.
Maybe some part of him wanted to be like Rukia this night; maybe —in a remotely possibility— he desired have to wait for someone else or that someone else were waiting for him.
He took the palm of his hand to his eyes and rubbed them. Perhaps all of this was just because he hadn't slept the last night; perhaps all his creepy rhetoric was a sort of signal about how he should and shouldn't sleep.
So he was going to get out of there.
For real.
And with his new decision in mind, he took a step and—
"Do you wanna dance?"
And after all, I was waiting for you.
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A sweet and soft voice came into his ears. Before he wondered how he could distinguish it through the loud music and noise, he felt a little pressure against his chest.
"Do you want to dance with me?" Again, the sweet female voice stunned his mind. And that her —very endowed— boobs were rubbing his chest didn't help to clear anything-at-all.
"Sorry, I—" Ichigo was going to refuse when he looked down and saw the most angelical? face he had ever seen. O remembered.
"Hi!" The girl said, smiling at him. Her skin was painted with a pure white, and it seemed to shine like a pearl or something a lot of more poetic that Ichigo couldn't really think because he was absolutely lost staring at a pair of estranges and beautiful grey eyes.
Because they were grey, weren't they? Maybe because the lights…
"Let's dance and dance!" the girl said with such exacerbate enthusiasm.
The contact between their bodies got broken and he suddenly felt cold. And inexplicably alone.
He wanted to say something, but he couldn't.
He wanted to run away, but he couldn't.
He couldn't do a lot of things like move, think or just blink.
He only was able to stare at her, a girl with long and indefinite color hair, dancing on the ground with her arms opened as she closed her eyes and smiled.
Who are you calling for? he thought, a little incongruent.
The music changed. It was a fast and strongly song. The lights changed too; their sequences went in order to the music and… yeah, they seemed to shine straight on her face (blue) on her mouth (pink), on her eyes (yellow), on her hair (red)…
"It's like if she were drawing for someone who was testing different tones of the color, trying to define her little by little; draft by draft."
But of course it wasn't possible, because she was already there. He was there. And everything had been painted before they met.
And if everything had been done already, why don't dance with her then?
Everything is such a waste of time he hardly tried to remember. Why do anything if nothing last? And if nothing last, why do anything over and over if you knew the only thing that never changes is that everything will come to an end?
"The problem with you" Rukia had said once. "Is that you think and overthink everything. And you screw up everything before even give it a chance, how do you pretend live like this forever? It's wrong, terribly wrong."
"Pretty romantic, coming from you" he had said.
"Shut up, stupid" she had muttered.
But whatever was his belief or what he thought was the right thing, disappeared when, almost without noticed, he took a step toward the all-big-smile-girl.
One.
Two.
Thre—
"What was the accurate distance between you and me just now?" she asked. "One kilometer, five meters, just one millimeter or one hundred miles?" She was too close and this time he even smelled her alcohol breath.
"I don't know" Ichigo replied, near of her ear. "But I'm just here. Right now."
"Are you?"
He was going to replied that of course he was, but the contact of her arms around his neck distracted him.
How long since he had been embraced? He couldn't remember, honestly. But it didn't matter right now. He closed his eyes and he could feel her perfectly; her voluptuous body, her check rubbing his and even her breath caressing his skin.
"Dance with me, please" she begged, extremely near of his lips.
How could I even think about refuse it? He barely thought.
And Ichigo did what she was asking for.
That and more, much more.
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A Glimpse at the Prospective:
What happened afterward 0.5
"I want so much you open your eyes."
"I'm doing it. I'm looking at you."
"But, you know, it's not enough."
"Why? Do I need glasses?"
"No" she smiled. "But what you see is what everyone else sees."
"Is it a bad thing?"
"Nope."
"Then?"
"I want to you see me how I see you."
"And how do you see me, Inoue?"
"With my eyes wide opened."
He sighed.
"I don't get you"
"I know, sorry"
"But I have my eyes so damn wide opened right now, Inoue, why is it not enough?" He said, a little sad.
"Sorry."
"For what?"
"So sorry, Kurosaki-kun."
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Retrospective:
Before That 1.C
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Show me now, show me the arms aloft
Every eye trained on a different star
This magic
This drunken semaphore
And I
Called Out In The Dark — Snow Patrol
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And the girl wasn't having enough of him. At one point, she was hugging him, and the next she was taking a step back and started to whirled on the ground, laughing, then she started singing to the roof with every cell of her lunges, and—
"It's a fake." He suddenly thought, and this time her breast again tightening against him didn't distract him. "Her smile is a completely fake." He kept thinking. "Everything, including the fact that she is here, with me. But it's all not true. She is no here, so there's no a real distance between us There is just… nothing." And realizing about it was like a kick in his stomach.
"What happened?" This time, she had to shout a little to him.
You are not here and I am devastated. Don't know why.
"You're drunk" he finally said after to try and try to find the correct answer to her and himself.
She didn't say a thing. Instead to give him some relief, some proof that something at least, including herself, was real, she guided him to dance again.
Her body touching his.
Her arms around his neck.
Her face too near of his.
"Why are you faking to me?" he wanted to scream at her, but he couldn't. "What a fake, all of this. Just a fucking mess." And his rotten mind was starting to repeat everything again when something kind of real happened.
She kissed him, from nowhere.
And he could feel it; feel her.
Her lips touching his, gently, inviting him to open his mouth and—
What am I doing?
But no one seemed to want to respond at him that night, although it didn't matter.
This time his hands rose up, without any doubt, to her milky checks and grabbed them, hardly, to be sure that she wasn't going anywhere. Ichigo realized that he really needed it, because he hated when people go.
And I don't want to you to go.
Then, he took a little breath and opened his mouth. Quickly, her tiny and smooth tongue started arguing to meet him and then could taste her; and she tasted like alcohol and sugar and life, if the thing were even possible.
Suddenly, a deep part in him, felt a hungry he had never felt before.
Is possible to eat someone's mouth?
He didn't need a real answer, of course, because that was exactly what he was doing with her lips, tongue and teeth. But somehow, it wasn't enough for him.
Ichigo's pulse quickened, his entire body got hot and he was more than aware of her body, trembling against his, like fall on the water.
He bit her.
He pulled her hair to make her to be more and more near of him.
And she gasped.
She scratched his neck when he pushed her toward him, and it was a sweet and delicious pain, all because she was here. With him. For real.
But just when everything was going to blow up, she left him.
And for a second time this night, Ichigo felt devastated. Losing her touch made him more stunned than when she had spoken to him.
This was the moment when he realized he had closed his eyes.
"Are you still here?" it was the first thing Ichigo thought and said, even before he opened his eyes; even when he wasn't sure if she was still there.
The lights still illuminated her face, he noticed then. For an ephemeral second, their gazes met. Her eyes seemed to shine, he could see, but it was odd, like if she was—
"I'm with you. Aren't I?" But her arguing was filled with sadness and something he felt like a pure and truly lie.
"That's not what I mean" Ichigo replied, desperately serious.
"What a shame, then" she whispered to his ear.
For the umpteenth time, she hold him. So tight. So real.
A lucid part of his mind was aware about the slow and paced music that was sounding right now. And like his mind, his body was also perfectly aware how their bodies fit; how her breath over the skin of his neck was quick, irregular; but above all, he was aware about how he wanted to hold her.
Until the end of the world, if the thing were possible.
Like forever.
"What exactly am I—"
No question, please, the universe seemed want to say him, because whichever diatribe was in his mind, it died at the moment she spook.
"You know" she said, quietly, "I'm totally screwed up."
"No," Ichigo argued, "you are drunk,"
"And other things" she murmured.
"What?"
But she just laughed again, with her fake-angelical face and suddenly she stared at him. Somehow, Ichigo thought, she looked so genuinely sad.
Don't cry. Please.
"I'm all screwed up and I know you don't want to dance with me. I knew at the first time I saw you." she took other step back. And other one. "So I'm going now" she smiled weirdly and turned around.
For a second, he couldn't believe it. She, going on. Somehow, this entire and unexpected situation seemed to make a rare sense just if she was with him, because when he saw her starting to go, he felt how everything was a waste of time. Again.
And he didn't want it.
Why do something if it won't last? Everyone and everything will come to an end sooner or later and he knew it: nothing will change it; nothing, but—
"Don't go." Ichigo said, or probably shouted. "Don't go, please" he repeated.
And she didn't.
But she really, really should have gone that night. When still wasn't too late.
Author's note :
Agh, you know, what I loved about this chapter was... everything!
...
Ok, I'm lying. Actually the only part I really really loved was the last, you don't why? I'll tell you (beause you wanna know :P): This was going to be the Prologue of the story, but when I finished it I felt like something was missing,so time after that, I wrote the actual prologue. And right now, the problem I had with the actual first chapter (wrote moths ago) was that the engrish was good enough to make you cry (yeah, like a crybaby and all) and I had re-wrote like everything again, which means: I took like for ever to upload (hope you can stand my engrish now). Ah, but why I loved the last part? That was because when I was editting it, I wasn't convinced at all about the start, but when came to the last part my heart was filled with tenderness and cute things. How I like this pairing, you know. And I think I could painted them just the way they were in my head and this is basically what the latest parts are made. And yeah, some RenRuki to make your life happier (and mine too) :)
Ah, and don't worry. For the next chapter the story will be moving forward ;) (and some parts I didn't put here, probably will be in some extra chapter- if I'm in the mood, 'course)
Ah, have a nice day ;)