Ichigo doesn't like trusting people, she knows. And it is no easy thing to gain his trust—he's seen too much and lost too much to simply forgo logic and hand over bits and pieces of his heart.
("I lost you once," he's told her, eyes burning, "and I will not lose a part of me again")
Sometimes she wonders how he bestowed that title on her, the one that brought them together in the first place (we're nakama, right?), when she knew him so well and yet knew nothing about him at all.
He tells her that she's silly for thinking of such things, and then she thinks that she hasn't changed at all: she's still got clouds in her head and stars for eyes, she's still a silly girl, she's still silly in love.
And she still pours out her heart (in rivers and oceans of softly spoken words, of surreptitiously slipped confessions) and makes him flush. They trade shy promises like notes, always tucking them between their ribs for safekeeping.
"I'm selfish," she tells him one day, murmuring it into his shirt as he fiddles with a strand of her hair. She sits back, running a hand over his chest to linger over his heart. "I want to know all of you," she continues slowly, "more than anyone else, better than anyone else, every day, every hour."
His eyes soften to burnt umber and she wants to know if they will always be like this; if he will always smile back, if her swelling heart will ever stop doubting-
"You already…" he murmurs, pausing before drawing her close. "You've broken me."
He kisses her forehead and she floats with the weightlessness of understanding.
You've broken me so that there's nothing left from you.
sorry for the delay, everybody! I've been swamped with schoolwork as of late and am also trying to recover from a cold. I still made time to add to this little collection, so please let me know if you like reading my silly, sappy little stories XD