Cyclical (pg-13)
Title: Cyclical
Author: parcours @ flol
Rating: PG-13 (mainly language)
Summary: They say that friendship is a good foundation for a romantic relationship. She thought she had that covered.
She didn't really know what to make of what he said.
Brown eyes with a warmth so familiar to her looked at her with uncertainty. He who was used to projecting confidence, possessing a strong resolve, now looked as if he didn't know if he spoke the right language or said the things he meant to say. Even the small movements he made - a bit of a shift here, a twitch of a facial muscle there - struck her as curious. Such acute observations made for tics that were most likely insignificant to others, but not to her.
No, not her. Not when she seemed to have influenced them.
"Inoue?"
The red-haired girl licked her lips and shifted her "titanium alloy head" to look at the bustling passers-by on the narrow sidewalk. Even though she and Ichigo sat in the fancy outdoors seating of the bistro-style eatery, somehow the open space still felt claustrophobic, too cloistered with other customers eating and rubbing elbows with each other. The fragrant smells of warm soups and delicious entrées seemed suddenly stale. She squirmed in her seat. A screaming baby in a stroller came into her line of vision and she felt like she could relate to its irritation. Her heart ached and for a split second, it hurt to breathe.
She wanted to scream, too.
"I... I know it's been a long time."
Ichigo's voice sounded so distant from her, as if he was speaking from the still-far future and not now. Time? The time he referred to was quantifiable by years.
Every year that passed was accounted for, tallied off by her tears, the dates she turned down and the few she did accept, the amount of advice she received from Tatsuki and Rangiku.
"You waited for a long time."
She turned her liquid brown eyes to Ichigo, still looking like she didn't quite understand what to say to him or how to answer. In the speed of the memories that rushed to her, Orihime felt like her head would explode. She and their mutual friends didn't exactly know when an awareness for girls woke within Ichigo but when it did, he pursued it with the same single-minded tenacity that he pursued his otherworldly missions with.
Momoko. A sweet girl from a nearby school who became Ichigo's first girlfriend. They dated for a year and mutually ended the relationship when both graduated from high school. No news about her since then.
Akina. A smart girl with a pretty smile and generous spirit - so generous that she broke up with Ichigo when she decided to join an organization that extended a helping hand overseas. She kept sporadic contact with Ichigo with postcards from the locales she was at and when she gave her contact number, he would call her.
Mei. He broke up with her because, as Tatsuki explained to Orihime, "He said she had trust issues." Orihime remembered giggling when Tatsuki rolled her eyes and said "Well, he wasn't exactly forthcoming either. What was the girl supposed to think, with him disappearing all the time? If she had trust issues, why would she date him in the first place?" Tatsuki sniffed in disbelief at her oldest friend. "He just became a shitty boyfriend and he couldn't handle it."
Orihime could go on and on, but listing those girls as if they meant nothing to him did them a disservice. How would those romantic movies describe the relationships that meant something to Ichigo, but didn't last? They just didn't work out? Perhaps that was the answer. Perhaps not.
No one really knew about these things anyway, these romantic relationships. Her literature professor from a lower division college elective liked to tell her story about how she met her husband who broke up with her, became engaged to another woman, so on and so forth... and still, they ended up together! "Nobody ever knows about these things," she said with a wave of her hand. "The best thing I did for myself was to move on, believing I was never going to see or talk to him again."
She remembered taking it to heart, that advice. Orihime nurtured a hope for Ichigo for a long time. She almost asked her professor how to be able to move on when the guy happened to be a friend, but didn't. Her longing felt too personal to be shared.
To her, there was no escape from that hope. She thought she could bear that with all the force of her love, because that's what love's about, wasn't it? To be able to let the person go?
Not quite. Not really.
She realized she was wrong in a lot of things. She had the right idea, but it wasn't quite what she thought she knew and Orihime wondered about that. The last postcard from Akina did her in, her heart feeling like it dropped in her stomach which lurched uncomfortably, and Tatsuki finally gave her the talk. Good couples that started off as friends had a better chance of transitioning from platonic to the romantic, didn't they? Should she have made her feelings known?
It didn't matter if she did. There were always other things, other others to keep his attentions and affections occupied.
Until now. Until now, finally. Finally? Was this really just about timing, then?
Her heart felt dull. This man, as a boy, went to hell and back for her. Ichigo did all of that for her because she was, to him, one of his most important friends. She didn't understand then, but she understood eventually. Clarity concerning her heart and where he stood with her came with age, and when the knowledge bloomed...
Her hope died.
She left it where it was and kept moving forward, from high school, to college and her current undergraduate research duties. She settled comfortably in her role of being his good friend and she could finally look at him without wanting to hold him and be held by him. Ichigo never found out about her and her feelings.
How did he know now?
"I stopped waiting," Orihime choked, somehow feeling her heart in her throat and not in the space between her lungs, nor her stomach, not at all. She felt too hot. With her gaze, she traced the lines of his fine brows and his lean face. Looking at him used to hurt her once because she was so, so in love. And it hurt because she didn't know if she stood a chance at all. Then she believed she didn't stand a chance ever. Ever.
Perhaps there was such a thing as holding on too tightly. When she let go of hope, everything left with it - the past, the kind of present she wanted, the hypothetical future. That was it, no more looking back. Being confronted with those feelings all over again felt really uncomfortable and she didn't like it at all.
Feelings seemed to be more cyclical than anything else really, but she meant it. She stopped waiting because she thought (and probably wrongly) that he would never return her feelings. That he would never see her in that light.
Yet here he was, sitting across from her and looking as hopeful as she felt back then, letting her know that she wasn't just nakama anymore.
No one really knew about these things. Perhaps she could send a small gift to her professor for sharing this wisdom.
Ichigo's jaw tensed and she somehow knew it wasn't because he was mad. Not at all. "Do you think that, in time, you may be able to have a change of heart?"
She had this crazy urge to giggle that took much energy and effort to fight down. A waiter coming by to inquire about their meal distracted Ichigo long enough for Orihime to compose herself. It was like going back to the start of their conversation today. They were both back to that time thing, which was all she had with him and had too much of. Now she had to deal with the results of "bad" timing which, never in her wildest dreams and fervent hopes, did she think she would experience and see.
Cyclical. Right. The only constant in life was change, after all.
She reached for her glass of water and sighed. "I don't know, Kurosaki-kun," she answered with all the honesty in her heart. The tightness in her throat came back and it softened her voice somehow. "I really don't know."
What, no Valentine's Day offerings in the comm?? Although I did see alice hattercandy update "godsend," which was nice to see. Here's a small offering for the day of hearts. I haven't posted on ff.net or any other site, just here. ETA: False! I posted the story on my journal too, for archival purposes. I'm debating whether or not to post this at FLOL also since I see the occasional "I want to see more IchiHime fic" posts there. If you keep getting e-mails about edited entry, I'm sorry. I keep wanting to fix/add small things here and there.
Notes about this fic: I've been sitting on this for about a year now. I mean for this to be a trilogy, but not much headway into the 2nd part. It's a little bit on the angsty side, but the follow-ups will be happier. In my brain, they have a happy ending. This is meant to be a bit more introspective. A few OC's, but no one too impactful. This is my take on how Orihime and Ichigo grew up and the romance stuff that comes along with it all.
Author: parcours @ flol
Rating: PG-13 (mainly language)
Summary: They say that friendship is a good foundation for a romantic relationship. She thought she had that covered.
She didn't really know what to make of what he said.
Brown eyes with a warmth so familiar to her looked at her with uncertainty. He who was used to projecting confidence, possessing a strong resolve, now looked as if he didn't know if he spoke the right language or said the things he meant to say. Even the small movements he made - a bit of a shift here, a twitch of a facial muscle there - struck her as curious. Such acute observations made for tics that were most likely insignificant to others, but not to her.
No, not her. Not when she seemed to have influenced them.
"Inoue?"
The red-haired girl licked her lips and shifted her "titanium alloy head" to look at the bustling passers-by on the narrow sidewalk. Even though she and Ichigo sat in the fancy outdoors seating of the bistro-style eatery, somehow the open space still felt claustrophobic, too cloistered with other customers eating and rubbing elbows with each other. The fragrant smells of warm soups and delicious entrées seemed suddenly stale. She squirmed in her seat. A screaming baby in a stroller came into her line of vision and she felt like she could relate to its irritation. Her heart ached and for a split second, it hurt to breathe.
She wanted to scream, too.
"I... I know it's been a long time."
Ichigo's voice sounded so distant from her, as if he was speaking from the still-far future and not now. Time? The time he referred to was quantifiable by years.
Every year that passed was accounted for, tallied off by her tears, the dates she turned down and the few she did accept, the amount of advice she received from Tatsuki and Rangiku.
"You waited for a long time."
She turned her liquid brown eyes to Ichigo, still looking like she didn't quite understand what to say to him or how to answer. In the speed of the memories that rushed to her, Orihime felt like her head would explode. She and their mutual friends didn't exactly know when an awareness for girls woke within Ichigo but when it did, he pursued it with the same single-minded tenacity that he pursued his otherworldly missions with.
Momoko. A sweet girl from a nearby school who became Ichigo's first girlfriend. They dated for a year and mutually ended the relationship when both graduated from high school. No news about her since then.
Akina. A smart girl with a pretty smile and generous spirit - so generous that she broke up with Ichigo when she decided to join an organization that extended a helping hand overseas. She kept sporadic contact with Ichigo with postcards from the locales she was at and when she gave her contact number, he would call her.
Mei. He broke up with her because, as Tatsuki explained to Orihime, "He said she had trust issues." Orihime remembered giggling when Tatsuki rolled her eyes and said "Well, he wasn't exactly forthcoming either. What was the girl supposed to think, with him disappearing all the time? If she had trust issues, why would she date him in the first place?" Tatsuki sniffed in disbelief at her oldest friend. "He just became a shitty boyfriend and he couldn't handle it."
Orihime could go on and on, but listing those girls as if they meant nothing to him did them a disservice. How would those romantic movies describe the relationships that meant something to Ichigo, but didn't last? They just didn't work out? Perhaps that was the answer. Perhaps not.
No one really knew about these things anyway, these romantic relationships. Her literature professor from a lower division college elective liked to tell her story about how she met her husband who broke up with her, became engaged to another woman, so on and so forth... and still, they ended up together! "Nobody ever knows about these things," she said with a wave of her hand. "The best thing I did for myself was to move on, believing I was never going to see or talk to him again."
She remembered taking it to heart, that advice. Orihime nurtured a hope for Ichigo for a long time. She almost asked her professor how to be able to move on when the guy happened to be a friend, but didn't. Her longing felt too personal to be shared.
To her, there was no escape from that hope. She thought she could bear that with all the force of her love, because that's what love's about, wasn't it? To be able to let the person go?
Not quite. Not really.
She realized she was wrong in a lot of things. She had the right idea, but it wasn't quite what she thought she knew and Orihime wondered about that. The last postcard from Akina did her in, her heart feeling like it dropped in her stomach which lurched uncomfortably, and Tatsuki finally gave her the talk. Good couples that started off as friends had a better chance of transitioning from platonic to the romantic, didn't they? Should she have made her feelings known?
It didn't matter if she did. There were always other things, other others to keep his attentions and affections occupied.
Until now. Until now, finally. Finally? Was this really just about timing, then?
Her heart felt dull. This man, as a boy, went to hell and back for her. Ichigo did all of that for her because she was, to him, one of his most important friends. She didn't understand then, but she understood eventually. Clarity concerning her heart and where he stood with her came with age, and when the knowledge bloomed...
Her hope died.
She left it where it was and kept moving forward, from high school, to college and her current undergraduate research duties. She settled comfortably in her role of being his good friend and she could finally look at him without wanting to hold him and be held by him. Ichigo never found out about her and her feelings.
How did he know now?
"I stopped waiting," Orihime choked, somehow feeling her heart in her throat and not in the space between her lungs, nor her stomach, not at all. She felt too hot. With her gaze, she traced the lines of his fine brows and his lean face. Looking at him used to hurt her once because she was so, so in love. And it hurt because she didn't know if she stood a chance at all. Then she believed she didn't stand a chance ever. Ever.
Perhaps there was such a thing as holding on too tightly. When she let go of hope, everything left with it - the past, the kind of present she wanted, the hypothetical future. That was it, no more looking back. Being confronted with those feelings all over again felt really uncomfortable and she didn't like it at all.
Feelings seemed to be more cyclical than anything else really, but she meant it. She stopped waiting because she thought (and probably wrongly) that he would never return her feelings. That he would never see her in that light.
Yet here he was, sitting across from her and looking as hopeful as she felt back then, letting her know that she wasn't just nakama anymore.
No one really knew about these things. Perhaps she could send a small gift to her professor for sharing this wisdom.
Ichigo's jaw tensed and she somehow knew it wasn't because he was mad. Not at all. "Do you think that, in time, you may be able to have a change of heart?"
She had this crazy urge to giggle that took much energy and effort to fight down. A waiter coming by to inquire about their meal distracted Ichigo long enough for Orihime to compose herself. It was like going back to the start of their conversation today. They were both back to that time thing, which was all she had with him and had too much of. Now she had to deal with the results of "bad" timing which, never in her wildest dreams and fervent hopes, did she think she would experience and see.
Cyclical. Right. The only constant in life was change, after all.
She reached for her glass of water and sighed. "I don't know, Kurosaki-kun," she answered with all the honesty in her heart. The tightness in her throat came back and it softened her voice somehow. "I really don't know."
What, no Valentine's Day offerings in the comm?? Although I did see alice hattercandy update "godsend," which was nice to see. Here's a small offering for the day of hearts. I haven't posted on ff.net or any other site, just here. ETA: False! I posted the story on my journal too, for archival purposes. I'm debating whether or not to post this at FLOL also since I see the occasional "I want to see more IchiHime fic" posts there. If you keep getting e-mails about edited entry, I'm sorry. I keep wanting to fix/add small things here and there.
Notes about this fic: I've been sitting on this for about a year now. I mean for this to be a trilogy, but not much headway into the 2nd part. It's a little bit on the angsty side, but the follow-ups will be happier. In my brain, they have a happy ending. This is meant to be a bit more introspective. A few OC's, but no one too impactful. This is my take on how Orihime and Ichigo grew up and the romance stuff that comes along with it all.