i'm ashamed we failed at forever [fic] (ichigo/orihime)
title. i’m ashamed we failed at forever
series. Bleach
character/pairing. Kurosaki family, Karakura gang, Ichigo/Orihime
word count. ~3300
rating. PG
prompt. Ah, do not tear away thyself from me! [The Comedy of Errors by William Shakespeare] (written for 10_shakespeare)
disclaimer. Bleach belongs to Kubo Tite, The Comedy of Errors to William Shakespeare, 1999 by Kevin Gonzalez and Don’t Go Far Off, Not Even For a Day to Pablo Neruda. The title is from Slow Leak by Ellen Doré Watson
summary. The loss of Ichigo weighed heavily on everyone and it felt impossible for them to stand back up. But when he is given the opportunity to say goodbye to one person, whom does he choose?
notes. Written for miserymarmalade who wanted Ichigo/Orihime where Ichigo has died and Orihime is the only one who can see him. Hopefully this is somewhere along the lines of what you wanted! ❤
don't go far off, not even for a day, because -
because -- i don't know how to say it: a day is long
and i will be waiting for you
It happens so suddenly, is such a surprise, it feels like the world has stopped turning.
The phone call comes out of nowhere.
It is so hard for her to remember exactly what had happened. It feels like another part of her life. Actually, if she was to be more precise, it feels like she has lived two lives in this one lifetime: the one with Ichigo, and the one without him.
And the happiness she felt from the former made the misery she felt in the latter all the more painful. It hurt to think of him, feels like someone has plunged a knife into her heart and is turning, turning, turning, until the blood spills out and, even then, she feels the metaphor is lacking, because nothing could compare to what she was feeling. Words like grief, sorrow, anguish, they all sound so terrible and they are still not enough.
Nothing is ever enough.
They had been studying for exams; such a trivial thing now.
Tatsuki’s phone had been sitting next to hers on the table, buried under the pens and paper strewn everywhere, cans of soft drink tossed haphazardly around the room.
They had been discussing chemistry. Acid mixed with base makes what? Did it even matter now?
Such trivial things to spend your life thinking about.
‘It’s alright, it’s alright!’ her phone chirped, cutting into their conversation.
“Orihime, I thought we were leaving our phones on silent, otherwise we’ll never get through everything.” Tatsuki said accusingly although there was no malice in her tone.
“Ehehe, sorry Tatsuki-chan. I’ll just take this call and then I’ll switch it off, I promise.”
“You’re just trying to rub in the fact that you’re more popular than me.”
She laughed before answering the phone with her usual cheery ‘hello?’
She could only hear sobbing on the other end.
“Hello? Hello? Are you okay? Is anyone there?”
“Orihime-chan.” She could make out her name, broken with sobs and hiccups. She could also recognise the voice.
“Karin-chan?”
Karin never cried. It was one of the many things Ichigo had told her and stuck with her (although everything he had ever said was permanently glued into her memory). Because really, how could someone never cry? There were so many things that could break your heart, crying sometimes made it feel better. That was how she felt anyway.
“Karin-chan, why are you crying? Kurosaki-kun told me you never cry so it must be very bad.”
At the mention of her brother’s name, Karin’s words suddenly became incomprehensible.
“Ichi-nii…” she finally managed and Orihime knew, somehow she just knew.
Her heart sank, fell so quickly through her shoes and the floor and the ground and the centre of the Earth. Sometimes she thinks it is still falling.
‘It’s alright, it’s alright!’ her phone had chirped.
The world was mocking her.
They go to the hospital.
Tatsuki was crying and she held her hand so tightly, it was like all the bones were broken. Not that she could feel it, not that she cared.
For once, she had to be the strong one, because Tatsuki needed her, and she needed her, too. The tears were there, she could feel them, but she refused to let them fall, knowing that if she started, she would never be able to stop.
They met with Isshin, Yuzu and Karin outside his room. Yuzu and Karin seem so much smaller, like their tears pouring out had somehow shrunk them, such was the volume of their sorrow.
Isshin… Isshin was broken. There was no other word for it. He had not looked up when they came in, had made no reply to their condolences. It hardly felt like he was even there, a hollow shell of the man they knew.
First a wife, now a son.
Half a family left, he was less than half the man he was to begin with.
Chad, Ishida, Keigo and Mizuiro soon turned up, as solemn as she had ever seen them.
Tatsuki squeezed her hand. They were all quiet, the silence was deafening.
“Can I see him?” she finally asked.
The room was so white it almost hurt her eyes; the walls, the floor, the curtains, the sheets.
There he was, orange hair such a stark contrast to the lack of colour in the room, made his face look all the more pale. Any trace of colour was gone; there was no blush, no sign of life.
He was gone.
She took his hand and traced the back of it with her thumb. The last time she had held his hand, he had been unconscious as well, but she had been able to feel his pulse, his warmth.
Now he was cold, still. Gone.
Gone.
She kept saying the word to herself and it had lost its meaning.
He couldn’t be gone, he just couldn’t be. This was Ichigo; he always came back. He’d come back from the dead once to save her.
“Come back.” she whispered.
No response.
He couldn’t hear, couldn’t speak.
Gone. Gone.
“Come back.” she said, a little bit louder. “Come back. Come back.” she started to shout. “Come back! Please!”
The tears had started to fall, dotting the sheets with her liquid grief but she didn’t notice. She was almost shaking him.
“Please!”
And suddenly she was being pulled back, hands strong but gentle on her shoulder and then she was being embraced.
“It’s okay, Orihime.” Tatsuki whispered.
“No, no, no. It is not okay! He has to come back. He always comes back.” she argued. “This is Kurosaki-kun, he wouldn’t leave us.”
“Orihime…”
She pushed Tatsuki away and turned back to Ichigo. Even with all the noise he hadn’t stirred, hadn’t woken up. Hadn’t moved.
Gone. Gone.
And then she reached for her hairpins.
“Inoue-san. No.” Cold fingers captured hers but she shook free.
“I can fix him. I always fix him.”
“Inoue-san.” Ishida was soft but firm, his eyes narrowed. “You can’t bring him back. This was his time.”
“No, how could it be his time?” Tears fell so steadily, it was like her eyes were a tap, the water coming out full blast and the faucets were broken; she rubbed at her eyes but they wouldn’t stop. “It’s such a… a stupid way for him to die. A car accident? He deserved more than that. I can fix him!”
“This is not a battle, Inoue-san. There are doctors, nurses, family, who have let him go. You can’t come back from the dead, not in the real world.”
“I can fix him.” she whispered. She took his hand again; she was shaking so violently, it was like he was moving. “Please, let me fix him. Please.”
She felt Tatsuki arms around her and she leant into her warmth, the warmth Ichigo no longer had. Compared to Tatsuki, he felt like ice.
Tatsuki quietly pulled her hairpins off her jacket and handed them to Ishida.
And Orihime’s legs gave out, tumbling her to the floor like a rag doll.
Gone. Gone.
The funeral was packed. Isshin had tried to joke that he never knew Ichigo was so popular but his face stilled any chance of laughter the joke might have stirred.
Turning up in her best black dress, Orihime felt self-conscious of her hair for the first time in years. How could she have such bright hair at someone’s funeral? At Ichigo’s funeral?
She’d bought a box of black hair dye the night before but didn’t have the courage to use it.
Instead, she bought a black hat and tucked her hair demurely into a bun, hiding the bright auburn colour from the world.
Tatsuki had held her hand during the service. It was bruised, dark purple splotches staining her beautiful skin but it didn’t matter. She needed to feel someone there with her, needed someone to tether her to this world that was spinning so out of control, so quickly.
She clenched her other fist. When she looked at her hand later, she could see the half-moon wounds dotted into her palm. It was so funny; she hadn’t felt them at all. Even now, looking right at them, it didn’t hurt.
She couldn’t figure out if it was because everything else hurt so much more or because she’d gone numb.
It was the day after the funeral and everyone was trying to get back to life as usual.
Life as usual. There was no ‘usual’ without Ichigo. She was so mad at them for trying, acting like he’d never been there.
Because he had been there. He was the reason they were all still standing here.
She had been soaking in the bath for an hour; her fingers and toes had gone pruny. Usually it would’ve made her laugh, but it felt wrong to laugh without him here. Her face just didn’t seem to move that way anymore.
She wrapped a towel around herself before wandering through her apartment to find some clothes that didn’t need to be washed. Her apartment was still in the state it was the day she picked up the phone, she didn’t have the heart to clean it up. This was how the world looked when Ichigo was still alive - who was she to try and change it?
She was rifling though her laundry basket when she heard him.
“Sorry, is this a bad time?”
She almost dropped her towel in shock, only managing to grasp the edge of it before whirling around.
And there he was, a gentle smile on his face, a faint blush on his cheeks.
“K-Ku…”
“Yep, it’s me.” he smiled before gesturing to her. “Did you want me to come back later?”
“No!” she reached out to him, almost as if she was scared he was going to disappear, fade away, like a figment of her imagination. “Please, don’t go!”
“I promise I’ll come back. Y’know, just so you can get some clothes on or something…”
“No, please, stay. Please don’t go.”
“Okay, I’m staying.” He dropped himself onto her couch. “So, how’ve you been?”
“‘How’ve I been’?” She had just gone through hell for the last few days and he had the audacity to ask how she was?
He quickly noticed her change in tone. “Whoops, sorry. I just… y’know, I’ve kinda lost my concept of time. Dying does that to you, I guess.” At least he looked sheepish, scratching the back of his head.
“Why are you here?” she managed to ask.
“I get to say goodbye to one person.” he said simply. “Usually you don’t, but Soul Society owes me big, so I asked for an exception.”
“One person? And you chose me?”
“Yeah. Well, you only got to say goodbye to one person when you left for Hueco Mundo, and you said goodbye to me. I thought I’d return the favour.”
“But you could’ve said goodbye to your family…”
“I thought that you needed this more than they do.”
Was that how he saw her?
“I’m not weak.” she said firmly. “I can manage this perfectly fine, thank you. I’ve lost someone before, in case you forgot.”
“Having lost someone before doesn’t make losing another person any easier.” he murmured. “If anything it makes it harder. And I wasn’t trying to say you were weak or anything. I just… I just meant that my family has each other to help them through this, and you…”
“Don't? I don’t have anyone?”
“That’s not true.” he sighed. “Could you please stop twisting my words around?” She stayed silent and he took it as her apology. “The thing is… I mean, I can go say goodbye to them anytime I want, really. I’m a shinigami after all, it’s just that I can’t spend too much time here in the living world, it stops all of you from moving on because you think I can drop in whenever you invite me over for dinner, and it’s just not how it works. I’m dead, just because I’m a shinigami doesn’t change that, and the world has to keep moving without me.”
“It doesn’t feel like it is.” she hugged herself tightly. “I feel like the world has stopped.”
There was a moment of silence before he stood and slowly walked towards her. He gently took her hand and said softly, “And that’s why I’m here to see you. You’ve lost someone before, and I know how hard it was for you. And… I wanted you to know that I’m okay, I’m not bitter or angry or anything like that…”
“Well I am.” she said furiously. “They wouldn’t let me heal you. I could’ve fixed this-”
“But it would’ve been wrong.” he interrupted. “It was my time to go and I’m okay with that. You can’t choose who lives and who dies, Inoue. That’s not how the world works.”
“But why did it have to be you?”
And suddenly the tears came and his arms were around her. He was warm, just like how she had always dreamed; warm and soft and real and here and she didn’t want to let go.
“I wanted to see you for another reason.” he said after a few minutes. She was clutching him for dear life and he was hugging her tightly back, rubbing the rough material of her towel gently.
“What?” she murmured into his chest.
“I wanted to tell you something. You were the only one I really had unfinished business with and I didn’t want to leave it that way. And I’m probably doing the stupid thing by telling you but I wanted you to know. I didn’t tell you when I was alive and I’d be the biggest idiot in the world if I didn’t tell you even after being given another chance.”
“What?” she repeated and then he uncoiled himself from her to look her in the eyes.
“What was between us in the end, it still wasn’t really what I wanted. I was happy to be your friend, really, but… I always felt like we could’ve been something more. And I really think we could’ve been if I hadn’t been dense or cowardly or…”
“Dead?”
“Yeah, that too.”
She paused before saying, “And you… you know how I feel about you, right?”
“I did. I figured it out right at the end. I did tell you I was dense.” and she smiled shortly before he started talking again. “There’s something else, and I’d like to think you would’ve done it anyway, because you are strong. I just wanted you to know that I don’t begrudge you being able to do it, that I don’t want you to feel guilty for doing it.”
“And what’s that?”
“Live.” She looked at him in shock. “I really want you to live this life, in this world, with all the people still here, okay? I want you to fall in love and get married and have beautiful babies and become a teacher or whatever it is that you want to do.”
“I can’t do that.”
“But I want you to.”
“Kurosaki-kun,” the tears were starting again, “do you have any idea how much I like you? That it isn’t like anymore, that it’s love? And it’s a love that I want to last for every single lifetime I get to share with you? That it’s a love that’s going to haunt me for every lifetime I don’t get to see you, because I know that there’s someone out there that I love so much, no one else even compares?”
“Inoue…” he started but she quickly cut him off.
“It’s not fair, that you want me to live when you don’t get to. It’s not fair because I wanted to be a teacher, married to Kurosaki Ichigo with lots of beautiful babies. And I wanted you to come home from work and I’d have cooked you dinner, and you would’ve been used to my cooking, and we’d talk and laugh and read bedtime stories and make love and we’d fall asleep and do it all over again. And even though it was the same thing every day, I’d never get sick of it, because it was you and it was me and that was all I needed.”
And suddenly he was hugging her again.
“And it’s not fair to you for me to do that to you, and it’s not fair to me to have to settle for second best, and it’s not fair to whoever it is that I think is maybe kinda good enough, because he’d still be nothing.”
“Okay. Okay.” he whispered into her hair and she was sobbing into his chest. He sighed. “I don’t know what to do.”
“Stay.”
“I can’t.”
“Then let me come with you.”
“I can’t do that either.”
“It seems we've reached a crossroads.”
“I guess we have.”
She had released him slightly and reached for his hands. She could feel the pulse that was absent when she held his hand in the hospital and it was so reassuring.
“There’s this poem I read once,” he started to say.
“You read a lot, Kurosaki-kun.”
“Do I? Well, this poem, it was something I remembered because it was how I felt after my mum died.” He cleared his throat dramatically and she laughed. “‘If there were an antonym for suicide, we could all choose when to be born. I would have been born after that day so I could not remember you. So my fingers would stop pointing at all the things that aren’t there.’”
After a pause, she whispered, “Why did you tell me that?”
“If you need to,” he said slowly, hesitating on the words, “I want you to forget about me.” Seeing the look on her face, he quickly corrected himself. “Well, maybe ‘forget’ isn’t the right word. I want you to stop thinking about me, especially if it’s hurting you. I know what you said before, and if that’s how you feel, I’ll understand it. But I don’t want you to give up before you start trying. If you never fall in love again, that’s okay. If you don’t become a teacher, that’s okay. If things don’t turn out how you wanted, that’s okay. But I want you to try to get everything you want out of life, because if you don’t try, you’re just… existing. And you deserve so much more than that.”
“If I promise to try,” she started after a moment of silence, “can I have a goodbye kiss?” Her tone was hopeful and he smiled.
“Our first?”
“My first.” she clarified.
“Mine too.”
And it was short, too short, but it might’ve been because she wanted him to kiss her forever. It didn’t matter that they would’ve run out of air because he was there and it was all she needed. It was all she ever wanted because he was soft and gentle and there. And she was crying, crying and smiling and half-laughing against his lips, and he was crying and smiling too.
He squeezed her hand tightly and she squeezed back.
He wasn’t gone; he was here with her and it was all she needed.
don't leave me for a second, my dearest,
because in that moment you'll have gone so far
i'll wander mazily over all the earth, asking,
will you come back? will you leave me here, dying?
request!
watch?
series. Bleach
character/pairing. Kurosaki family, Karakura gang, Ichigo/Orihime
word count. ~3300
rating. PG
prompt. Ah, do not tear away thyself from me! [The Comedy of Errors by William Shakespeare] (written for 10_shakespeare)
disclaimer. Bleach belongs to Kubo Tite, The Comedy of Errors to William Shakespeare, 1999 by Kevin Gonzalez and Don’t Go Far Off, Not Even For a Day to Pablo Neruda. The title is from Slow Leak by Ellen Doré Watson
summary. The loss of Ichigo weighed heavily on everyone and it felt impossible for them to stand back up. But when he is given the opportunity to say goodbye to one person, whom does he choose?
notes. Written for miserymarmalade who wanted Ichigo/Orihime where Ichigo has died and Orihime is the only one who can see him. Hopefully this is somewhere along the lines of what you wanted! ❤
don't go far off, not even for a day, because -
because -- i don't know how to say it: a day is long
and i will be waiting for you
It happens so suddenly, is such a surprise, it feels like the world has stopped turning.
The phone call comes out of nowhere.
It is so hard for her to remember exactly what had happened. It feels like another part of her life. Actually, if she was to be more precise, it feels like she has lived two lives in this one lifetime: the one with Ichigo, and the one without him.
And the happiness she felt from the former made the misery she felt in the latter all the more painful. It hurt to think of him, feels like someone has plunged a knife into her heart and is turning, turning, turning, until the blood spills out and, even then, she feels the metaphor is lacking, because nothing could compare to what she was feeling. Words like grief, sorrow, anguish, they all sound so terrible and they are still not enough.
Nothing is ever enough.
They had been studying for exams; such a trivial thing now.
Tatsuki’s phone had been sitting next to hers on the table, buried under the pens and paper strewn everywhere, cans of soft drink tossed haphazardly around the room.
They had been discussing chemistry. Acid mixed with base makes what? Did it even matter now?
Such trivial things to spend your life thinking about.
‘It’s alright, it’s alright!’ her phone chirped, cutting into their conversation.
“Orihime, I thought we were leaving our phones on silent, otherwise we’ll never get through everything.” Tatsuki said accusingly although there was no malice in her tone.
“Ehehe, sorry Tatsuki-chan. I’ll just take this call and then I’ll switch it off, I promise.”
“You’re just trying to rub in the fact that you’re more popular than me.”
She laughed before answering the phone with her usual cheery ‘hello?’
She could only hear sobbing on the other end.
“Hello? Hello? Are you okay? Is anyone there?”
“Orihime-chan.” She could make out her name, broken with sobs and hiccups. She could also recognise the voice.
“Karin-chan?”
Karin never cried. It was one of the many things Ichigo had told her and stuck with her (although everything he had ever said was permanently glued into her memory). Because really, how could someone never cry? There were so many things that could break your heart, crying sometimes made it feel better. That was how she felt anyway.
“Karin-chan, why are you crying? Kurosaki-kun told me you never cry so it must be very bad.”
At the mention of her brother’s name, Karin’s words suddenly became incomprehensible.
“Ichi-nii…” she finally managed and Orihime knew, somehow she just knew.
Her heart sank, fell so quickly through her shoes and the floor and the ground and the centre of the Earth. Sometimes she thinks it is still falling.
‘It’s alright, it’s alright!’ her phone had chirped.
The world was mocking her.
They go to the hospital.
Tatsuki was crying and she held her hand so tightly, it was like all the bones were broken. Not that she could feel it, not that she cared.
For once, she had to be the strong one, because Tatsuki needed her, and she needed her, too. The tears were there, she could feel them, but she refused to let them fall, knowing that if she started, she would never be able to stop.
They met with Isshin, Yuzu and Karin outside his room. Yuzu and Karin seem so much smaller, like their tears pouring out had somehow shrunk them, such was the volume of their sorrow.
Isshin… Isshin was broken. There was no other word for it. He had not looked up when they came in, had made no reply to their condolences. It hardly felt like he was even there, a hollow shell of the man they knew.
First a wife, now a son.
Half a family left, he was less than half the man he was to begin with.
Chad, Ishida, Keigo and Mizuiro soon turned up, as solemn as she had ever seen them.
Tatsuki squeezed her hand. They were all quiet, the silence was deafening.
“Can I see him?” she finally asked.
The room was so white it almost hurt her eyes; the walls, the floor, the curtains, the sheets.
There he was, orange hair such a stark contrast to the lack of colour in the room, made his face look all the more pale. Any trace of colour was gone; there was no blush, no sign of life.
He was gone.
She took his hand and traced the back of it with her thumb. The last time she had held his hand, he had been unconscious as well, but she had been able to feel his pulse, his warmth.
Now he was cold, still. Gone.
Gone.
She kept saying the word to herself and it had lost its meaning.
He couldn’t be gone, he just couldn’t be. This was Ichigo; he always came back. He’d come back from the dead once to save her.
“Come back.” she whispered.
No response.
He couldn’t hear, couldn’t speak.
Gone. Gone.
“Come back.” she said, a little bit louder. “Come back. Come back.” she started to shout. “Come back! Please!”
The tears had started to fall, dotting the sheets with her liquid grief but she didn’t notice. She was almost shaking him.
“Please!”
And suddenly she was being pulled back, hands strong but gentle on her shoulder and then she was being embraced.
“It’s okay, Orihime.” Tatsuki whispered.
“No, no, no. It is not okay! He has to come back. He always comes back.” she argued. “This is Kurosaki-kun, he wouldn’t leave us.”
“Orihime…”
She pushed Tatsuki away and turned back to Ichigo. Even with all the noise he hadn’t stirred, hadn’t woken up. Hadn’t moved.
Gone. Gone.
And then she reached for her hairpins.
“Inoue-san. No.” Cold fingers captured hers but she shook free.
“I can fix him. I always fix him.”
“Inoue-san.” Ishida was soft but firm, his eyes narrowed. “You can’t bring him back. This was his time.”
“No, how could it be his time?” Tears fell so steadily, it was like her eyes were a tap, the water coming out full blast and the faucets were broken; she rubbed at her eyes but they wouldn’t stop. “It’s such a… a stupid way for him to die. A car accident? He deserved more than that. I can fix him!”
“This is not a battle, Inoue-san. There are doctors, nurses, family, who have let him go. You can’t come back from the dead, not in the real world.”
“I can fix him.” she whispered. She took his hand again; she was shaking so violently, it was like he was moving. “Please, let me fix him. Please.”
She felt Tatsuki arms around her and she leant into her warmth, the warmth Ichigo no longer had. Compared to Tatsuki, he felt like ice.
Tatsuki quietly pulled her hairpins off her jacket and handed them to Ishida.
And Orihime’s legs gave out, tumbling her to the floor like a rag doll.
Gone. Gone.
The funeral was packed. Isshin had tried to joke that he never knew Ichigo was so popular but his face stilled any chance of laughter the joke might have stirred.
Turning up in her best black dress, Orihime felt self-conscious of her hair for the first time in years. How could she have such bright hair at someone’s funeral? At Ichigo’s funeral?
She’d bought a box of black hair dye the night before but didn’t have the courage to use it.
Instead, she bought a black hat and tucked her hair demurely into a bun, hiding the bright auburn colour from the world.
Tatsuki had held her hand during the service. It was bruised, dark purple splotches staining her beautiful skin but it didn’t matter. She needed to feel someone there with her, needed someone to tether her to this world that was spinning so out of control, so quickly.
She clenched her other fist. When she looked at her hand later, she could see the half-moon wounds dotted into her palm. It was so funny; she hadn’t felt them at all. Even now, looking right at them, it didn’t hurt.
She couldn’t figure out if it was because everything else hurt so much more or because she’d gone numb.
It was the day after the funeral and everyone was trying to get back to life as usual.
Life as usual. There was no ‘usual’ without Ichigo. She was so mad at them for trying, acting like he’d never been there.
Because he had been there. He was the reason they were all still standing here.
She had been soaking in the bath for an hour; her fingers and toes had gone pruny. Usually it would’ve made her laugh, but it felt wrong to laugh without him here. Her face just didn’t seem to move that way anymore.
She wrapped a towel around herself before wandering through her apartment to find some clothes that didn’t need to be washed. Her apartment was still in the state it was the day she picked up the phone, she didn’t have the heart to clean it up. This was how the world looked when Ichigo was still alive - who was she to try and change it?
She was rifling though her laundry basket when she heard him.
“Sorry, is this a bad time?”
She almost dropped her towel in shock, only managing to grasp the edge of it before whirling around.
And there he was, a gentle smile on his face, a faint blush on his cheeks.
“K-Ku…”
“Yep, it’s me.” he smiled before gesturing to her. “Did you want me to come back later?”
“No!” she reached out to him, almost as if she was scared he was going to disappear, fade away, like a figment of her imagination. “Please, don’t go!”
“I promise I’ll come back. Y’know, just so you can get some clothes on or something…”
“No, please, stay. Please don’t go.”
“Okay, I’m staying.” He dropped himself onto her couch. “So, how’ve you been?”
“‘How’ve I been’?” She had just gone through hell for the last few days and he had the audacity to ask how she was?
He quickly noticed her change in tone. “Whoops, sorry. I just… y’know, I’ve kinda lost my concept of time. Dying does that to you, I guess.” At least he looked sheepish, scratching the back of his head.
“Why are you here?” she managed to ask.
“I get to say goodbye to one person.” he said simply. “Usually you don’t, but Soul Society owes me big, so I asked for an exception.”
“One person? And you chose me?”
“Yeah. Well, you only got to say goodbye to one person when you left for Hueco Mundo, and you said goodbye to me. I thought I’d return the favour.”
“But you could’ve said goodbye to your family…”
“I thought that you needed this more than they do.”
Was that how he saw her?
“I’m not weak.” she said firmly. “I can manage this perfectly fine, thank you. I’ve lost someone before, in case you forgot.”
“Having lost someone before doesn’t make losing another person any easier.” he murmured. “If anything it makes it harder. And I wasn’t trying to say you were weak or anything. I just… I just meant that my family has each other to help them through this, and you…”
“Don't? I don’t have anyone?”
“That’s not true.” he sighed. “Could you please stop twisting my words around?” She stayed silent and he took it as her apology. “The thing is… I mean, I can go say goodbye to them anytime I want, really. I’m a shinigami after all, it’s just that I can’t spend too much time here in the living world, it stops all of you from moving on because you think I can drop in whenever you invite me over for dinner, and it’s just not how it works. I’m dead, just because I’m a shinigami doesn’t change that, and the world has to keep moving without me.”
“It doesn’t feel like it is.” she hugged herself tightly. “I feel like the world has stopped.”
There was a moment of silence before he stood and slowly walked towards her. He gently took her hand and said softly, “And that’s why I’m here to see you. You’ve lost someone before, and I know how hard it was for you. And… I wanted you to know that I’m okay, I’m not bitter or angry or anything like that…”
“Well I am.” she said furiously. “They wouldn’t let me heal you. I could’ve fixed this-”
“But it would’ve been wrong.” he interrupted. “It was my time to go and I’m okay with that. You can’t choose who lives and who dies, Inoue. That’s not how the world works.”
“But why did it have to be you?”
And suddenly the tears came and his arms were around her. He was warm, just like how she had always dreamed; warm and soft and real and here and she didn’t want to let go.
“I wanted to see you for another reason.” he said after a few minutes. She was clutching him for dear life and he was hugging her tightly back, rubbing the rough material of her towel gently.
“What?” she murmured into his chest.
“I wanted to tell you something. You were the only one I really had unfinished business with and I didn’t want to leave it that way. And I’m probably doing the stupid thing by telling you but I wanted you to know. I didn’t tell you when I was alive and I’d be the biggest idiot in the world if I didn’t tell you even after being given another chance.”
“What?” she repeated and then he uncoiled himself from her to look her in the eyes.
“What was between us in the end, it still wasn’t really what I wanted. I was happy to be your friend, really, but… I always felt like we could’ve been something more. And I really think we could’ve been if I hadn’t been dense or cowardly or…”
“Dead?”
“Yeah, that too.”
She paused before saying, “And you… you know how I feel about you, right?”
“I did. I figured it out right at the end. I did tell you I was dense.” and she smiled shortly before he started talking again. “There’s something else, and I’d like to think you would’ve done it anyway, because you are strong. I just wanted you to know that I don’t begrudge you being able to do it, that I don’t want you to feel guilty for doing it.”
“And what’s that?”
“Live.” She looked at him in shock. “I really want you to live this life, in this world, with all the people still here, okay? I want you to fall in love and get married and have beautiful babies and become a teacher or whatever it is that you want to do.”
“I can’t do that.”
“But I want you to.”
“Kurosaki-kun,” the tears were starting again, “do you have any idea how much I like you? That it isn’t like anymore, that it’s love? And it’s a love that I want to last for every single lifetime I get to share with you? That it’s a love that’s going to haunt me for every lifetime I don’t get to see you, because I know that there’s someone out there that I love so much, no one else even compares?”
“Inoue…” he started but she quickly cut him off.
“It’s not fair, that you want me to live when you don’t get to. It’s not fair because I wanted to be a teacher, married to Kurosaki Ichigo with lots of beautiful babies. And I wanted you to come home from work and I’d have cooked you dinner, and you would’ve been used to my cooking, and we’d talk and laugh and read bedtime stories and make love and we’d fall asleep and do it all over again. And even though it was the same thing every day, I’d never get sick of it, because it was you and it was me and that was all I needed.”
And suddenly he was hugging her again.
“And it’s not fair to you for me to do that to you, and it’s not fair to me to have to settle for second best, and it’s not fair to whoever it is that I think is maybe kinda good enough, because he’d still be nothing.”
“Okay. Okay.” he whispered into her hair and she was sobbing into his chest. He sighed. “I don’t know what to do.”
“Stay.”
“I can’t.”
“Then let me come with you.”
“I can’t do that either.”
“It seems we've reached a crossroads.”
“I guess we have.”
She had released him slightly and reached for his hands. She could feel the pulse that was absent when she held his hand in the hospital and it was so reassuring.
“There’s this poem I read once,” he started to say.
“You read a lot, Kurosaki-kun.”
“Do I? Well, this poem, it was something I remembered because it was how I felt after my mum died.” He cleared his throat dramatically and she laughed. “‘If there were an antonym for suicide, we could all choose when to be born. I would have been born after that day so I could not remember you. So my fingers would stop pointing at all the things that aren’t there.’”
After a pause, she whispered, “Why did you tell me that?”
“If you need to,” he said slowly, hesitating on the words, “I want you to forget about me.” Seeing the look on her face, he quickly corrected himself. “Well, maybe ‘forget’ isn’t the right word. I want you to stop thinking about me, especially if it’s hurting you. I know what you said before, and if that’s how you feel, I’ll understand it. But I don’t want you to give up before you start trying. If you never fall in love again, that’s okay. If you don’t become a teacher, that’s okay. If things don’t turn out how you wanted, that’s okay. But I want you to try to get everything you want out of life, because if you don’t try, you’re just… existing. And you deserve so much more than that.”
“If I promise to try,” she started after a moment of silence, “can I have a goodbye kiss?” Her tone was hopeful and he smiled.
“Our first?”
“My first.” she clarified.
“Mine too.”
And it was short, too short, but it might’ve been because she wanted him to kiss her forever. It didn’t matter that they would’ve run out of air because he was there and it was all she needed. It was all she ever wanted because he was soft and gentle and there. And she was crying, crying and smiling and half-laughing against his lips, and he was crying and smiling too.
He squeezed her hand tightly and she squeezed back.
He wasn’t gone; he was here with her and it was all she needed.
don't leave me for a second, my dearest,
because in that moment you'll have gone so far
i'll wander mazily over all the earth, asking,
will you come back? will you leave me here, dying?
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