Relationship Steps Part Deux|| ilpromenade; NSFW, ANGST, AND BOY LOVE WITHIN.
[ Okay, this was getting almost surreal. Lior gone? She'd been here since the first day both her, Ichigo, Stark, and the rest of them had been. Sure lots of people had come, and gone since then, but...not Lior. She was always there with a disarming smile.
So yes. Ichigo was upset. Maybe really upset. Not that she was gone, or anything, though, because in the end, that's what they all wanted. He was pissed off because Veles implied she'd have to come back. And do it after years of being on her own.
Escape was never the issue. Being powerless was.
So, it's not too much of a surprise that Ichigo was so wrapped up in his own thoughts that even though he cut in to keep Shiro from snarling at Tavros for information, he didn't think much about how the hollow might handle this.
Seeing Shiro display...well, sorrow. Loneliness, even. It was a shock. Ichigo had seen other sides to Shiro in the time the hollow had been out, but...never an actual, visual, emotional response of this magnitude. Not to anyone!
He had to figure this out.
So, without warning, and thinking it was dumb to call each other when they weren't that far away, he got up from his desk, and went looking for said hollow. ]