welcome sunrise with the morning glory [fic] (ichigo/orihime)
title. welcome sunrise with the morning glory
series. Bleach
character/pairing. Ichigo/Orihime
word count. ~1900
rating. PG
disclaimer. Bleach belongs to Kubo Tite, the title comes from Painting Pictures by Adele
summary. In the middle of a night in winter, you sit and talk to him about nothing, but you can feel the heat from his body radiating into you and you are not cold at all
notes. This was written for afteriwake who wanted an Orihime-centric fic with either Ichigo/Orihime or Ishida/Orihime and the prompt ‘no alarms and no surprises’. I can’t write Ishida/Orihime (I’m too dedicated to my OTP) so she wrote that, leaving me with Ichigo/Orihime. I’m not sure whether this actually fulfils the prompt though, hurhur! XD
It is quite cold downstairs on the couch but you are still quite content. More than content really because he is just upstairs, within metres of where you are lying. If you could reach up through the ceiling, you could take hold of his hand and maybe watch him sleeping. The thought brings back memories of the last time you watched over him as he slept at night, the last time you held his hand, the last time… when you tried to-
“Aren’t you cold?”
Kurosaki Isshin leans over the back of the couch to survey your shivering form. You think he is very like his son, his eyebrows furrow the same way and you wonder how alike they really are.
( and you know how horrified they both would be at the thought they resemble each other at all. )
“You should get some more blankets, otherwise you’ll get sick.”
“I’m okay! I never get sick, I have a super strong immune system!”
“Even so, you’re our guest, I can’t leave you shivering on the couch. Ichigo probably has some spare blankets in his closet; you should go get some. I’d get them for you but he’d probably accuse me of attacking him in his sleep.”
“You two are very close, aren’t you?” You smile warmly when he appears uncomfortable with the idea that his relationship with his son is more than just attacking him when he least suspects it. “It’s why Kurosaki-kun is so kind, because he love his family very much.”
Isshin smiles knowingly at you. “Ichigo also loves his friends very much,” and at the back of your mind, you think he is maybe possibly hinting at something, something only a father could know about his son, but you’re too scared to ask. Instead, you bundle the one blanket you have around yourself and walk clumsily towards the stairs.
Your socked feet do not make a sound as you sneak across the floorboards that lead to his room. You pause at the door, your eyes stare at the ‘15’ hanging directly in front of you, yes, this is his room. Your fingers trace the shape and you wonder absently whether he noticed that the shape of the hanger resembled the insignia emblazoned across Superman’s chest, whether he knew he was a lot closer to being a superhero than he’d ever give himself credit for.
Eventually the cold gets to you, the doorknob twists in your hand and you enter the room you’ve wandered freely in and out for a month, waiting, waiting. Even now, his scent still sends something rushing through your veins. No matter how often you breathe it in, your body reacts in the smallest ways that mean the biggest things, things that only he can make you think and feel.
You quietly slide his closet open and, sure enough, there are two or three blankets resting inside but the temptation to climb inside eats at you until, after a few moments of hesitation, you clamber inside. The space is quite small, almost claustrophobic, you can’t believe Rukia spent two months in here. You lie down and turn your head to face him, to watch him sleeping with the moonlight dancing over his face as he dreams.
The shelf below you creaks as you shift your body weight, reminding you that people aren’t meant to sleep inside closets. Only someone as small as Rukia could get away with it and you definitely weren’t. You glance at him once more before sitting up to climb out.
( i-i'm heavy!
yeah. don't worry, you’re not as heavy as i thought you’d be.
and as he carries you down, you turn his words over in your head. not as heavy as he thought you’d be? what did that mean? )
“Inoue?”
Your head snaps up so quickly at the sound of his voice, you get a crick in your neck before unceremoniously tumbling out of his closet, falling to the floor with a painful thump.
“Inoue!” His voice is loud but still husky with sleep.
( and sexy? yes, maybe a little bit sexy, too. )
“Kurosaki-kun! I’m sorry, did I wake you up?” You take his proffered hand to clamber to your feet.
“I’ve been sleeping for a month, I’m pretty rested up. Are you okay?”
“Yep! It takes a lot more than that to hurt me!” You notice he is cradling your hand in both of his larger ones, studying it carefully. “K-Kurosaki-kun?”
“Sorry,” he coughs, “I just noticed your hands are really cold.”
“Oh, I just came up here to get some extra blankets, it’s a little cold downstairs.”
“You’ve spent the last month on the couch. You can go home, you know. I’m… I’m fine now.”
You cannot ignore the pause, the moment he hesitates before he lies to your face but you know he needs the lie, the lie is all he can hold onto right now.
( but i'm here, too. you can hold onto me. )
And that is why you are here: because he will have to face the facts sooner or later and it will break him, if it hasn’t already, and you want to be there to pick up the pieces, to help him put himself back together when the largest chunk of who he was is missing.
“It’s very comfortable on the couch, though! A perfect fit! And… and I just wanted to stay one more night, just in case.”
“Just in case?”
“Just in case you wanted to talk about anything.” The offer hangs heavily between you, and you open your mouth to speak when he turns away from you abruptly. He drops your hand in the process and this is the coldest you have felt all night.
“I don’t want to talk about anything,” he grinds out and you nod slowly in understanding. He climbs back into bed while you gather a blanket from his closet before turning to leave. He waits until your hand in on his doorknob before speaking again, so quietly, it is almost like he doesn’t want you to hear him. “But I’ll talk about nothing.”
You turn your head towards him, his orange bangs back to their usual length hide his eyes. “… What?”
“If you want to talk, that’s okay. Just not about anything important.”
( but every conversation with you is important. )
“Okay,” you say after his words sink in.
He awkwardly stretches out his hand but quickly drops it back down to his side as you walk back towards him and he shifts position to make room for you. You sit next to him, the side of his body touches yours at every point, thigh to thigh, hip to hip. His bed is too narrow to sit apart but you don’t mind at all. You can feel the heat from his body radiating into you and you are not cold at all anymore.
“Yuzu-chan is a very good cook, isn’t she?” you start. His family seem like a pretty safe topic for the time being, although they are far from ‘nothing’ to the both of you. Suddenly you feel his body relax, like he was scared that you would ignore his request and ask him one of the million important questions running through your mind at this exact moment.
( except you would never ignore a direct request from him, doesn’t he know that? )
He responds and you fall easily into comfortable conversation. He is in the middle of telling you a story about his father when you notice light is peeking through his curtains.
“The sun’s rising, Kurosaki-kun!” He pulls the curtains open but frost clings to the glass, muting the brightness of the sunlight.
“It’s morning already,” his tone is laced with something you can’t identify. You debate internally, wondering if it’s any of your business, wondering if asking constitutes talking about ‘something’, but he answers before you ask. “You know, I haven’t woken up with an alarm clock for months.”
“Really?” Without an alarm clock, you would easily sleep until almost lunchtime and you always thought he would be the same. The idea that he is an early riser is quite surprising.
“Yeah, my damn shinigami badge always goes off around this time. It’s like a Hollow conspiracy to get me out of bed or something,” he sighs and, after a pause, adds, “guess I’ll need one now.”
“… Kurosaki-kun…”
“I know I would bitch and moan about it, but it was so much a part of who I was… I don’t know who I am without it.”
He sounds so dejected, your heart breaks for him.
“But that’s something you can find out now.”
“And what if I’m… nothing without it?”
“You won’t be,” you say so firmly, he stares at you. “I’m not friends with you because you can see ghosts, Kurosaki-kun. I’m friends with you because you’re a kind person and you make me laugh and we have fun together. None of that is going to change.”
( i'll still be in love with you. )
He studies his hands to avoid responding. “It’s not like you to quit before you start, Kurosaki-kun. I think you’re going to surprise yourself,” you say as brightly as you can but the silence stretches on. You stare out the window, the frost slowly melting as the sun rises in the sky, casting shadows in his room.
“Thank you,” he says finally.
“Huh?”
“Thank you,” he repeats, giving you a half smile. “I don't know what it is, no matter what you say or how you say it, I can’t get angry with you.”
“I don’t get angry with you, either.”
“But you hardly get angry at anyone, that doesn’t count.”
“Hmm, really?”
“Really,” and his smile has widened now and he holds your gaze for a moment longer than he usually would, a moment that stretches on and on, until-
“GOOD MORNING, IIIIIICHIGO!”
His body crashes onto yours, large hands cradling your head as he pushes you into the mattress. The sudden intimate contact causes your cheeks to burn but he quickly releases you, now too busy chastising his father to notice how flushed you are.
You clutch your nightshirt tightly. “Wow, that was a shock.”
“Oho! Ichigo, you have a girl in your bed! Not just any girl! Orihime-chan!” Isshin does a little celebratory dance from under Ichigo’s foot.
“Why did you charge in here like that?” Ichigo bellows and his father shrugs.
“I didn’t know she was in here.” Father and son share a nonverbal exchange, Ichigo is clearly disbelieving and Isshin is feigning innocence. “Why would I assume a girl like Orihime-chan would be with you?” Ichigo’s eyes flash warningly.
“What does that mean?” you cannot stop yourself from asking.
“It means-” Isshin starts but Ichigo grabs him by the collar and drags him out of his room, ignoring his father’s protests.
“K-Kurosaki-kun!”
“Don’t worry, he’ll be fine. More than fine, I’m sure.” He slams the door loudly after his father. You can both still hear him cackling loudly in the hallway.
“Guess you still won’t need an alarm clock, Kurosaki-kun!”
He blinks at you blankly before sighing, corners of his mouth twitching, “I guess not, I’ve got my own personalised one.” He walks towards you, offering his hand to help you out of bed. “C’mon, Inoue. Breakfast.”
His hand is warm and you are not cold at all.
series. Bleach
character/pairing. Ichigo/Orihime
word count. ~1900
rating. PG
disclaimer. Bleach belongs to Kubo Tite, the title comes from Painting Pictures by Adele
summary. In the middle of a night in winter, you sit and talk to him about nothing, but you can feel the heat from his body radiating into you and you are not cold at all
notes. This was written for afteriwake who wanted an Orihime-centric fic with either Ichigo/Orihime or Ishida/Orihime and the prompt ‘no alarms and no surprises’. I can’t write Ishida/Orihime (I’m too dedicated to my OTP) so she wrote that, leaving me with Ichigo/Orihime. I’m not sure whether this actually fulfils the prompt though, hurhur! XD
It is quite cold downstairs on the couch but you are still quite content. More than content really because he is just upstairs, within metres of where you are lying. If you could reach up through the ceiling, you could take hold of his hand and maybe watch him sleeping. The thought brings back memories of the last time you watched over him as he slept at night, the last time you held his hand, the last time… when you tried to-
“Aren’t you cold?”
Kurosaki Isshin leans over the back of the couch to survey your shivering form. You think he is very like his son, his eyebrows furrow the same way and you wonder how alike they really are.
( and you know how horrified they both would be at the thought they resemble each other at all. )
“You should get some more blankets, otherwise you’ll get sick.”
“I’m okay! I never get sick, I have a super strong immune system!”
“Even so, you’re our guest, I can’t leave you shivering on the couch. Ichigo probably has some spare blankets in his closet; you should go get some. I’d get them for you but he’d probably accuse me of attacking him in his sleep.”
“You two are very close, aren’t you?” You smile warmly when he appears uncomfortable with the idea that his relationship with his son is more than just attacking him when he least suspects it. “It’s why Kurosaki-kun is so kind, because he love his family very much.”
Isshin smiles knowingly at you. “Ichigo also loves his friends very much,” and at the back of your mind, you think he is maybe possibly hinting at something, something only a father could know about his son, but you’re too scared to ask. Instead, you bundle the one blanket you have around yourself and walk clumsily towards the stairs.
Your socked feet do not make a sound as you sneak across the floorboards that lead to his room. You pause at the door, your eyes stare at the ‘15’ hanging directly in front of you, yes, this is his room. Your fingers trace the shape and you wonder absently whether he noticed that the shape of the hanger resembled the insignia emblazoned across Superman’s chest, whether he knew he was a lot closer to being a superhero than he’d ever give himself credit for.
Eventually the cold gets to you, the doorknob twists in your hand and you enter the room you’ve wandered freely in and out for a month, waiting, waiting. Even now, his scent still sends something rushing through your veins. No matter how often you breathe it in, your body reacts in the smallest ways that mean the biggest things, things that only he can make you think and feel.
You quietly slide his closet open and, sure enough, there are two or three blankets resting inside but the temptation to climb inside eats at you until, after a few moments of hesitation, you clamber inside. The space is quite small, almost claustrophobic, you can’t believe Rukia spent two months in here. You lie down and turn your head to face him, to watch him sleeping with the moonlight dancing over his face as he dreams.
The shelf below you creaks as you shift your body weight, reminding you that people aren’t meant to sleep inside closets. Only someone as small as Rukia could get away with it and you definitely weren’t. You glance at him once more before sitting up to climb out.
( i-i'm heavy!
yeah. don't worry, you’re not as heavy as i thought you’d be.
and as he carries you down, you turn his words over in your head. not as heavy as he thought you’d be? what did that mean? )
“Inoue?”
Your head snaps up so quickly at the sound of his voice, you get a crick in your neck before unceremoniously tumbling out of his closet, falling to the floor with a painful thump.
“Inoue!” His voice is loud but still husky with sleep.
( and sexy? yes, maybe a little bit sexy, too. )
“Kurosaki-kun! I’m sorry, did I wake you up?” You take his proffered hand to clamber to your feet.
“I’ve been sleeping for a month, I’m pretty rested up. Are you okay?”
“Yep! It takes a lot more than that to hurt me!” You notice he is cradling your hand in both of his larger ones, studying it carefully. “K-Kurosaki-kun?”
“Sorry,” he coughs, “I just noticed your hands are really cold.”
“Oh, I just came up here to get some extra blankets, it’s a little cold downstairs.”
“You’ve spent the last month on the couch. You can go home, you know. I’m… I’m fine now.”
You cannot ignore the pause, the moment he hesitates before he lies to your face but you know he needs the lie, the lie is all he can hold onto right now.
( but i'm here, too. you can hold onto me. )
And that is why you are here: because he will have to face the facts sooner or later and it will break him, if it hasn’t already, and you want to be there to pick up the pieces, to help him put himself back together when the largest chunk of who he was is missing.
“It’s very comfortable on the couch, though! A perfect fit! And… and I just wanted to stay one more night, just in case.”
“Just in case?”
“Just in case you wanted to talk about anything.” The offer hangs heavily between you, and you open your mouth to speak when he turns away from you abruptly. He drops your hand in the process and this is the coldest you have felt all night.
“I don’t want to talk about anything,” he grinds out and you nod slowly in understanding. He climbs back into bed while you gather a blanket from his closet before turning to leave. He waits until your hand in on his doorknob before speaking again, so quietly, it is almost like he doesn’t want you to hear him. “But I’ll talk about nothing.”
You turn your head towards him, his orange bangs back to their usual length hide his eyes. “… What?”
“If you want to talk, that’s okay. Just not about anything important.”
( but every conversation with you is important. )
“Okay,” you say after his words sink in.
He awkwardly stretches out his hand but quickly drops it back down to his side as you walk back towards him and he shifts position to make room for you. You sit next to him, the side of his body touches yours at every point, thigh to thigh, hip to hip. His bed is too narrow to sit apart but you don’t mind at all. You can feel the heat from his body radiating into you and you are not cold at all anymore.
“Yuzu-chan is a very good cook, isn’t she?” you start. His family seem like a pretty safe topic for the time being, although they are far from ‘nothing’ to the both of you. Suddenly you feel his body relax, like he was scared that you would ignore his request and ask him one of the million important questions running through your mind at this exact moment.
( except you would never ignore a direct request from him, doesn’t he know that? )
He responds and you fall easily into comfortable conversation. He is in the middle of telling you a story about his father when you notice light is peeking through his curtains.
“The sun’s rising, Kurosaki-kun!” He pulls the curtains open but frost clings to the glass, muting the brightness of the sunlight.
“It’s morning already,” his tone is laced with something you can’t identify. You debate internally, wondering if it’s any of your business, wondering if asking constitutes talking about ‘something’, but he answers before you ask. “You know, I haven’t woken up with an alarm clock for months.”
“Really?” Without an alarm clock, you would easily sleep until almost lunchtime and you always thought he would be the same. The idea that he is an early riser is quite surprising.
“Yeah, my damn shinigami badge always goes off around this time. It’s like a Hollow conspiracy to get me out of bed or something,” he sighs and, after a pause, adds, “guess I’ll need one now.”
“… Kurosaki-kun…”
“I know I would bitch and moan about it, but it was so much a part of who I was… I don’t know who I am without it.”
He sounds so dejected, your heart breaks for him.
“But that’s something you can find out now.”
“And what if I’m… nothing without it?”
“You won’t be,” you say so firmly, he stares at you. “I’m not friends with you because you can see ghosts, Kurosaki-kun. I’m friends with you because you’re a kind person and you make me laugh and we have fun together. None of that is going to change.”
( i'll still be in love with you. )
He studies his hands to avoid responding. “It’s not like you to quit before you start, Kurosaki-kun. I think you’re going to surprise yourself,” you say as brightly as you can but the silence stretches on. You stare out the window, the frost slowly melting as the sun rises in the sky, casting shadows in his room.
“Thank you,” he says finally.
“Huh?”
“Thank you,” he repeats, giving you a half smile. “I don't know what it is, no matter what you say or how you say it, I can’t get angry with you.”
“I don’t get angry with you, either.”
“But you hardly get angry at anyone, that doesn’t count.”
“Hmm, really?”
“Really,” and his smile has widened now and he holds your gaze for a moment longer than he usually would, a moment that stretches on and on, until-
“GOOD MORNING, IIIIIICHIGO!”
His body crashes onto yours, large hands cradling your head as he pushes you into the mattress. The sudden intimate contact causes your cheeks to burn but he quickly releases you, now too busy chastising his father to notice how flushed you are.
You clutch your nightshirt tightly. “Wow, that was a shock.”
“Oho! Ichigo, you have a girl in your bed! Not just any girl! Orihime-chan!” Isshin does a little celebratory dance from under Ichigo’s foot.
“Why did you charge in here like that?” Ichigo bellows and his father shrugs.
“I didn’t know she was in here.” Father and son share a nonverbal exchange, Ichigo is clearly disbelieving and Isshin is feigning innocence. “Why would I assume a girl like Orihime-chan would be with you?” Ichigo’s eyes flash warningly.
“What does that mean?” you cannot stop yourself from asking.
“It means-” Isshin starts but Ichigo grabs him by the collar and drags him out of his room, ignoring his father’s protests.
“K-Kurosaki-kun!”
“Don’t worry, he’ll be fine. More than fine, I’m sure.” He slams the door loudly after his father. You can both still hear him cackling loudly in the hallway.
“Guess you still won’t need an alarm clock, Kurosaki-kun!”
He blinks at you blankly before sighing, corners of his mouth twitching, “I guess not, I’ve got my own personalised one.” He walks towards you, offering his hand to help you out of bed. “C’mon, Inoue. Breakfast.”
His hand is warm and you are not cold at all.