Reflection

Warnings: Sorry for any detectable OCC-ness! It’s hard guessing how everyone would react to something like this! (I almost didn’t want to upload because of how it turned out! *wails*)

Chapter 18

“DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA WHAT YOU’VE DONE?!” Orihime held her arms up to shield her face from another angry slap.

“STOP IT, KUCHIKI-SAN!” she shrieked at how the stinging small hands branded her upraised arms as she fell to her knees.

As soon as Rukia had seen the Hollow departing a couple of feet away in a clearly weakened state, she had taken advantage of her being defenseless to hit and yell at her for her mistakes. In Orihime’s mind, she had every right to be angry, but mistreating her and taking out her rage at Ichigo’s alleged betrayal on her seemed exaggerated. Rukia’s actions were those of a woman in denial of her own inadequacies that made her see her, Orihime, like the culprit of her own fault. The Hollow had been the one that had dragged her into his dark world and she was paying a high price for it.

Rukia’s attitude was something a woman with her own cross to bear would have done. She didn’t know how she had come to that conclusion, but Rukia was beginning to lose her ‘right’ to be offended by her secret relationship with the Hollow. The viciousness of her blows and the emotional crack in her screams had made her into a lunatic that didn’t see the difference between right and wrong.

Anger and sadness mixed, creating an array of negative emotions that unfurled in Orihime’s chest as Rukia grabbed a handful of her hair and pulled hatefully at the strands as if wanting to destroy her image, to tear it to shreds until nothing was left that made her, her.

I’ve had enough! Rukia was hiding something and in order to make up for her own secrets, she was releasing all of that rage at the wrong place. In Orihime’s point of view, she did have some share of the blame, but Rukia… Rukia probably had a good deal of it beyond her knowledge. Things that her sheltered mind had hidden for the sake of her innocence were being revealed in the pain the other girl was giving her.

She knew! She had always known! She gritted her teeth as everything opened up like seeping long infected wounds in her mind’s eye. She had told Rukia once about how she had felt about Ichigo. It had been no big secret, yet in spite of that, the other girl had seduced him, leaping at the opportunity after reading into Ichigo’s closed mindedness. In fact, Rukia had almost acted desperate in getting Ichigo’s love, as if he were going to vanish right before her eyes. Only an insecure envious woman used to not having everything she desired would do something of that nature.

Rukia was weak. Now she knew what her weakness was. Seeing things so crudely and without a bit of goodness told her that. Rukia was a very weak and sad woman with a list long of blunders that hooded her perception. That made her far weaker than Orihime could ever be and someone like that didn’t have any justifiable reasons to bring her down and shatter her own confidence. She had already lived for far too many years in the shadows of her own uncertainty and the Hollow, the monster that had tantalized her into wanting something for herself, to give into selfishness for what she desired, had finally made her see what was the vital part missing from her.

She wasn’t one for fighting or holding grudges since those things conducted the bearer of such hatred to lose themselves. She disliked fighting… However, Rukia’s blows that hit every inch of her exposed skin like fiery whips was what snapped something inside of her that she would have never wanted to come out. A darkness that almost ate away all good reasoning. A yearning that told her how gratifying it would be to do some damage on a abuser for a change. To rain all of her pent up grief, to open up the dam of emotions she kept tapped under selfless sacrifice on that small yet strong body. She was tired of being stepped on without her feelings being taken into account.

“THAT’S IT!” she screamed angrily, jerking her arms away from her face and rising so quickly to her feet that Rukia’s shorter frame was pushed back. Taking the other girl by surprise, she tackled her to the ground heavily on her, pinning her faux body.

Rukia yelped in surprise, obviously not expecting such a reaction from her and Orihime, for once not thinking about the badness in hurting someone else, sat up and reared back her open palm to strike the shocked girl across the face.

She jerked her hand back to cradle it against her chest, probably more surprised than Rukia by her violent defensive actions.

I can’t believe I did that! Her chest hurt over what she had just done. She was losing herself. Over the last couple of days she had yelled, cried and now she was even striking others. How much will happen before she became a monster just like him? Even wondering, worrying over her own unpredictability was excruciating.

I don’t want to be like this! I don’t like feeling like this!

She was beginning to fear herself, but she knew that this was something she had to live through. Things were too deteriorated to back away like a coward; a masochist that endured suffering because it was the only thing she had ever known.

There were no more yells… Just heavy breathing coming from the both of them echoed in the vast space they were in as they looked at one another through different eyes.

Rukia had stopped moving and stared up at her, her indigo orbs just peeking through a fall of disheveled feathery raven hair. Those eyes held fury and disbelief, and for a very brief moment, Orihime believed that she saw a hint of admiration.

“Enough…!” Orihime cried brokenly still inwardly reeling over hitting her, looking at her through tear-filmed eyes. “I am sick and tired of all of this! I am sick and tired of everyone thinking I’m a push over and that I don’t count! You can’t hurt me because you don’t even know why you’re doing it anymore, Kuchiki-san! I don’t know if you are hurting me to punish yourself!” the other girl gasped. “You…!” her voice broke as she gulped harshly, feeling a stream of words filling her throat. Words that carried a truth that still tortured her. The reality that the girl, the one she had seen as a friend and comrade had to hear.

It hurts to know all of this now…

“Kuchiki-san…,” she sobbed, her shoulders shaking as the other girl’s face scrunched up in a pained grimace that echoed hers. “Kuchiki-san… I’m so sorry for having to put you through this…!” she sniffed loudly, thinking of the words she needed to say. “But I loved him and you knew! I told you about how I felt because I trusted you and your friendship and all you did was force yourself to become the center of his world!”

Tears brimmed in Rukia’s eyes, but she didn’t interrupt her, though her body quaked in quiet cries.

“I’m not blind anymore! I stayed away because I really thought that you and him could work out, but I guess I was wrong”, she smiled faintly down at Rukia who widened her eyes. “I never meant for things to get so out of control…”, she shook her head and closed her moist eyes“. Kurosaki-kun isn’t the Hollow… The Hollow is someone else that just… shares his body. I really hope that you understand this…”, her voice cracked in the end since emotion was making harder for her to breathe. Her chest ached in the despair she was living and giving.

The fullness in her chest was growing with every revelation, so much to the point that there was another thing she had to know in order to be at peace with her friends and herself.

“Why?!” she asked mournfully, snapping her eyes open. “Why did you do it, Kuchiki-san?! Why did you start wanting him after I told you!”

Rukia parted her lips to only have a whimper come out.

“WHY?!” Orihime pressed.

“Be-because…,” she blinked away her own tears, squeezing them out of the corners of her eyes as her eyelids lowered. “I don’t even know why… I do a lot of the things I do…”

Rukia was broken; maybe had been broken for a long time. Perhaps years before she had ever met Ichigo. Orihime had seen that in the eyes she was trying to hide behind her downcast lids. There was guilt and some form of self-imposed penance in their watery depths as if Rukia was giving up on many things and dragging baggage and shame for events long passed that probably had nothing to do with her or Ichigo to begin with.

That’s still not enough…

“Kuchiki-san…?” Rukia opened her eyes to look up at her sorrowfully. “I still need to know…”

There were so many questions in her softly spoken demand and from how the other girl grimaced in sadness at her whispered words; the list of questions grew. Orihime knew that there was more than what met the eye. Deep down, she hated all of the anger she felt towards her friend, but if there was something that cleared that emotion, she would be able to breathe again. She needed to move on from the depressive state she had been in for weeks after Rukia and Ichigo had begun their seemingly perfect relationship. Move on to something that didn’t bring so much pain and distrust. Her friends were like a makeshift family that had supported her, shaped her, and shielded her from the evil of the true world they all lived in and most of that had been destroyed so that there was barely any hope of salvaging what was left.

Building things up again was an impossibility now.

She was grateful for their protection, but she needed to continue to grow without them sheltering her from the ugliness of life. She had seen plenty of evil and good… It was just time to understand it without someone sugarcoating it for her benefit.

“He… He reminds me of him…”

“H-him?” Orihime’s voice was cracked, probably due to her dry throat. Screaming and crying had done that to her. Her voice matched her state of mind. Bleak and desolate with a hint of anxiety. Part of her didn’t want to hear what Rukia had to say because she felt that it was something intimate, yet she had set her mind on facing the cruel reality of her friends.

Rukia nodded slowly, her eyes getting a distant melancholy that made them dull and unseeing. As if she were recalling something that had scarred her.

“He reminds me of-”

“WHAT THE HECK IS THIS?!”

TATSUKI-CHAN!

Whipping her head to look over her shoulder, she saw her friend standing a couple of feet behind her, staring at them agape.

“Tatsuki-chan, I can explain-!”

“WHAT HAPPENED TO YOU?!” the girl cut her off, her wide shocked eyes looking from her face that had obvious signs of a fight before falling and hardening on a immobile Rukia. For a moment, she appeared to be about to rush over to them, but she held herself, her body becoming rigid as her eyes narrowed.

“I-I… I was just talking to Kuchiki-san…”

“I bet you were!” she snapped. “Since when does talking leave handprints on someone’s face?!”

Oh, no! Orihime knew Tatsuki’s way of thinking. The girl was her number one defender, going as far as to fight boys twice her size in the past in order to get her some respect. She had become like a protective sister, which in turn made her the one that most cared about her in their circle of friends. Tatsuki was the kind of girl that stuck by her, in spite of how crazy her ideas were just because she wasn’t as judgmental as everyone else.

Tatsuki, even though Orihime had yelled at her about the Hollow, had come there because she still cared and had overlooked everything wrong she had done and perhaps, in her own way, had tried to come to accept it. Her presence there told that as loud and clear as her concerned yet furious brown eyes.

“I…”, she looked away, helplessly returning her eyes back to Rukia who was underneath her. The broken shinigami had an almost resigned expression.

“It’s okay, Inoue. You don’t need to make excuses for my sake. It’s time for all of us to stop pretending”, her voice came out strong, though her gaze was still empty.

Her eyes flared. Was Kuchiki-san…?

“What’s going on?” Tatsuki asked slowly.

Gulping, she shook her head at herself, not really comprehending what Rukia meant. Those words were cryptic and sounded like a silent confession and farewell.

Slowly moving off her body to allow her to sit up, Orihime sat on the floor and shot a wary glance at her long time friend who was now moving her eyes between the two of them in disbelief and complete confusion.

“I… I’m not even supposed to be here…,” Rukia said lowly, shifting to a sitting position, her eyes looking down at the shiny reflective wooden flooring. “I know who is to blame now…”

Orihime’s heart skipped a beat while Tatsuki just frowned and crossed her arms, probably expecting for Rukia to stop speaking in riddles.

“I’m sorry for dragging you into this, Inoue…”, Rukia’s lips tilted in the faintest of smiles as her eyes glanced her way still retaining that depth and remorse that she had yet to understand where it truly came from.

“What…?”

Swallowing, Rukia closed her eyes and took a deep breath before speaking up again.

“You were right about me punishing myself. I shouldn’t have… I just don’t have a right to be here… anymore…”, her words came out haltingly, breaking in a harshly expelled breath at the end.

Her eyes widened in realization. The true intentions of Rukia became evident when the girl rose to her feet slowly, her small hands smoothing over her wrinkled skirt once she was standing with her back forcedly straight.

She’s giving up.

“There’s nothing to forgive. Don’t ever say you’re sorry when you have done nothing wrong to me, Inoue”, her voice was firm.

“B-but, Kuchiki-san-”, she gaped, cutting off her own words as the girl scoffed a self-hating little laugh.

“Don’t beat yourself over it”, Rukia forced a smile, her indigo eyes looking somewhere off to where Ichigo’s Hollow had walked off to.

Following her gaze, Orihime stiffened, not liking the confrontation that was about to take place. Ichigo, who had been curled with his back to them was beginning to sit up with a barely audible groan. He was only forty or so feet away from them. His body was shuddering in pain, but he had yet to look in their direction.

“I think… I’ll be going now…”

Surprised, Orihime’s eyes shot to Rukia who was looking down at the floor again in shame.

“That’s it?! You’re not even to talk to him?! You’re going to run off like a coward?!” Tatsuki breathed in amazement.

“We’ll talk when we’re both ready. Right now things are too fresh for any of us to make sense of what has happened…,” Rukia glanced at the tomboy glaring at her, then looked back at Orihime who was still on the floor staring up at her in disbelief, “I’m sorry for hitting you.” Those were her last words before she walked away with her back rigid, leaving the two speechless girls and an Ichigo who was slowly awakening.

The air was thick in puzzlement after the heavy metal echo of the gym’s doors opening and closing sounded out.

Orihime felt something odd in the atmosphere. Rukia… Rukia was suffering and was once again disguising things to make it more endurable. In fact, everyone surrounding her had been doing that for a long time; hiding emotions behind strength and dignity.

Rukia’s acceptance was a sign of her own defeat and injured pride. A flimsy concealment for her faults.

The guilt over her being the one that had opened up the secrets and falseness of her friends, had Orihime whimpering, pulling her knees to her chest. Laying her forehead on her raised knees, she hid her face behind her hair, hoping that no one could see how she too was in agony.

Everything had been passable, more tolerable before she had met the Hollow. Yes, it had been painful, but at least everyone else had been happy.

“Geez… I guess this was the storm, huh?” hearing Tatsuki’s chagrined tone, Orihime peeked at her through her hair, her eyes burning. She wasn’t going to cry anymore because she felt that her tears had run dry over the last couple of days.

Scratching the back of her head, blinking, and smiling a bit ruefully, Tatsuki was obviously at loss for words as she looked back at her. The fact alone that she hadn’t done the obvious thing in going after Rukia to beat the answers out of her showed her loyalty and respect towards Orihime. It was enough to make her cry again. The thought that someone out there knew her enough to see what she wanted and honored that at all, gave her a feeling of equality that she had never experienced.

“Tatsuki-chan…” just saying her name had her breaking in the inside. Her friend was still there… unconditionally and loyal as always.

Thank you for understanding… Her eyes glimmered and Tatsuki’s slight smile faded away.

“Tatsuki-chan…!” she cried and at this the girl’s face showed a mirror of her pain. A comprehension beyond that of any of her other friends.

Without any words coming from her, Tatsuki rushed towards her as she clutched her eyes closed, her body shivering as the tears she had sworn not to shed were set loose again.

I’m so pathetic! I always need someone to hold on to! I hate myself!

The comforting familiar, sisterly arms of her friend engulfed her like a mother would hold a child.

“I’m such a mess up!” she rasped against her friend’s shoulder.

“No you’re not. You are just a good person that has bad things happen to her…,” Tatsuki whispered, stroking her hair.

Her ears vaguely picked up the sounds of feet dragging their way in their direction. From how Tatsuki stiffened, Ichigo must have already risen and was already making an approach.

I can’t face him… Not yet. Not like this.

“Inoue”, his solemn voice was above them and far too close. His shadow fell over them, blocking out the light spilling through the windows.

Her whimpers grew louder at hearing him say her name. In an effort to drown out his voice, she pressed tighter against Tatsuki’s feminine fit body.

“Ichigo…”, Tatsuki sighed, deflating her stiffened form as if not knowing what to say. “ You need to go to Kuchiki…”

“But Inoue is-”

“I know how she is right now and you being here is only making it worse! Go find Kuchiki now!” she barked, not shifting to look at him.

His breathing was rough sounding to her ears. The uneven huffs of breaths were strained, showing that there were a lot of words he was holding in by just standing there helplessly. Tatsuki’s words had stated a fact. He had already done enough and his presence was a reminder of what was lost.

“She’s going to be alright… I know that she’ll be okay…” Tatsuki said as if she were confirming something for her own benefit.

Orihime really hoped her friend was right. The sadness and uncertainty had been shredding her soul for far too many years, years before she had even met Ichigo and the others. How much would she have to go through before finding some peace? Was there a limit to the harsh lessons one was forced to learn?

Orihime felt as if she had aged a century in just one day.

I need everything to be alright again…

***

Tatsuki eyed her friend worriedly. After the incident inside the gym, she had steered Orihime out of school after briefly going to the gym’s locker-room to get her a t-shirt that wasn’t a tattered mess. From then on, her friend had been silent, only sniffling occasionally during their silent brisk walk to her apartment.

All she had been thinking about when Orihime had been leaning on her in their speedy departure was getting her away from the pain. Skipping school was nothing to her, as were the fired off questions other students had thrown their way on the way out.

I can’t leave her alone for tonight…

The ginger-haired girl before her sipped her tea with downcast dead eyes, her movements slightly shaky, showing betraying signs of her present thoughts. Tatsuki knew her enough to conclude that Orihime wasn’t fit to be alone during such a time. The girl was blaming herself for things that had nothing to do with her. She was certain from Rukia’s attitude hours earlier that the whole altercation in the gym had stemmed from something beyond the present problem.

Kuchiki had been too resigned and accepting. Her forgiveness, though somewhat strained, had seemed genuine.

Ichigo and Rukia’s relationship wasn’t meant to last. There were just too many things in between, other than the different worlds and ages. Ichigo didn’t have enough maturity to know what he truly wanted out of life while on the other hand Rukia was seeking something that he didn’t know how to give.

She scoffed mentally at that. In the outside those two had had the infamous childish glow of a new relationship. The hopefulness and newborn loving infatuation all kids tended to show whenever they begin a companionship. How many times had she seen ‘new couples’ act that way, only to break up weeks later saying that they hadn’t been as in love as they thought they had been. She had thought that Orihime would have seen that as well, since they had seen the same story repeated over and over again.

Girl meets boy, they develop a ‘crush’ that they instantly label as love and then embark into a relationship simply founded in that baseless emotion. Just months earlier, Tatsuki and Orihime had seen the perfect example of that BS. A classmate had ‘fallen in love’ with a boy she had only gone on a date with three separate times. After the boy had kicked her to the curb, that same girl was later seen spouting negativity when before she used to only talk about how he had the most ‘perfect’ hair, smile, and voice. It was laughable how things could change in the blink of an eye once the enchantment was broken.

What can I tell her to make it better?, She was in a bind. All of the ‘relationship experience’ she had was that she had seen other people living through. Stuff in school and movies. If she told Orihime her opinion it would make her feel as if she wasn’t apt enough to talk about something she had yet to experience.

Orihime’s eyes flashed to hers before they looked back at the teacup sitting in front of her atop of the low round table.

She needs me to say something…, She blinked, tensing her hands into fists under the table. Her friend needed her words, anything that would take out the sting of what had just happened and she didn’t have a thing. What a worthless friend she was turning out to be. There she was witnessing her friend falling apart for the mistakes of others and she was useless to stop it.

“They’re not mad at you!” she blurted out awkwardly and then cursed at how her exclamation had her friend flinch in surprise.

I really suck at this…, hotness rushed to her cheeks as Orihime stared at her wide eyed.

Her friend sniffed loudly before returning her newly saddened gaze to the nearly empty teacup before her, her vacant expression stating an unspoken need to drown in the cup itself.

As soon as they had arrived at her apartment, Orihime had taken a shower. Tatsuki knew that the girl hadn’t put much effort into cleaning herself, leaving her usually flawless ginger hair in matted tangles, her face still showing evidence of tears.

Oh, man… what a mess this has turned out to be. I knew it… I saw it coming and didn’t do anything…

“Orihime-chan…,” she raised one of her hands from underneath the table to place on top with the palm up in hopes that one of Orihime’s pale immobile hands would seek hers. Inhaling deeply, she said the few consoling words she could. “They have forgiven you. Well…”, she smiled wanly more for her sake, “they don’t need to forgive you and you don’t need to blame yourself anymore”.

Sleek, Tatsuki… Smooth…, she closed her eyes in a wince.

“They should hate me…”, at the cracked tone in Orihime’s low voice, she opened her eyes to see her depressed features. Her pallor was rivaling the usual bright beauty she had, “I-I split them apart.”

Shaking her head, Tatsuki rejected her friend’s self-destructive words. “No! How could you split them apart when they had their own issues?!”

“But they were so happy… together”, she softly argued back, her face showing hints of confusion.

“Orihime-chan…”, she sighed, removing her hand from the table’s surface since her friend hadn’t made any movements to seek comfort“. Me and everyone else in our group saw the warning signs…”

“Warning signs? Warning signs of what?” Orihime blinked, finally showing some expression other than that frightening empty abyss that clashed with her customary cheerfulness.

Nodding grimly, Tatsuki decided at that moment to tell her the few things that others hid from her.

“Ichigo…”, she paused briefly, steeling herself. “ Ichigo is more insecure than he appears. He does do things that people would see as unpredictable,” at that fact she rolled her eyes“,but he also does things that people expect him to do.”

“What?” both of Orihime’s brows rose.

“What I mean to tell you is… Is that Rukia was just… convenient for him”, she lifted a shoulder, making a face at the word. She wasn’t sure if that was the right word to describe Ichigo’s own personal defect. “I’m telling you this… because I’ve known him for years and I’ve noticed that about him. He doesn’t like getting wrapped up in emotionally complicated situations, always taking the easy way out. He either closes into himself and acts like Mr. Tough Guy or he goes with the flow. Rukia was… his ‘going with the flow’.” That term made her cringe. “… She made things easy for him and he probably needed someone like that, I guess… All of us, most of all Rukia, have noticed that about him. I think that it has a lot to do with his mother… He just doesn’t analyze people because it would make him remember who he used to be.”

I’ve said too much…, she closed her lips and sat back on the balls of her feet, waiting for Orihime to comment on what she had disclosed. The topic was uncomfortable.

Ichigo had a tendency to shut others out, keeping them on the outside out of his insecurity of keeping them safe or simply feeling too much. Orihime was a girl that needed lots of patience and patience involved far too many things that he would feel incapable of giving. Everyone had surmised that and Ichigo was probably oblivious to his own evasiveness. Everything in his attitude screamed it. He was continuously in denial of his own feelings, sometimes exaggerating them or keeping them in lockdown.

How many times had she seen him pretending to be happy or pissed off? He didn’t like people to know what he was thinking whenever something in his life was out of control. That lead him to been seen as unpredictable or just plain crazy.

“He cares, Orihime-chan… He always has. He just doesn’t know how to show it”, she chuckled dryly as a thought popped into her head. “He’s just… socially retarded.”

“Tatsuki-chan!” her friend looked at her in shock, showing hints of color entering her cheeks.

“But he is!” she defended, feeling some more laughter bubbling in her chest. “C’mon, you have to admit it! Remember when we went to the beach a couple of years back and that senior lost her bikini top?!”

She could see that Orihime’s face was twitching at the memory as she struggled to hide a smile.

“When the thing floated over to him, he had no idea what to do and all he did was toss it directly at her face and then run out of the water sputtering like a little kid! He hid himself in the bathroom stalls for hours afterwards! Don’t you wonder what the heck he was doing in there that whole time by himself?!”

A small giggle escaped Orihime before she clamped a hand to her mouth, but that was good enough for Tatsuki.

At least… She hasn’t lost her smile…

***

Author’s Note: At Boogermeister, Erosu, bleachfan7, and Valmasy03 thanks for the reviews! I hope the hime abuse wasn’t too much, but in order for her to grow strong, first she must break *like the beating and the realization she had before bitchslapping Rukia* LOL (kinda didn’t like how it turned out. I kinda pictured it differently, but putting so many emotions into words is HARD!). At Erosu (P. ours) AWESOMENESS! It’s cool that you started a fic in here (I loved it by the way. Gin and Rangiku… *shivers* For once I don’t see a fic with Gin duking another dude. LOL.) Hope to see more in the future! At Orant mihi thanks for reviewing! And no, I don’t have an account at FF.net because I had grown somewhat scared of that site (I’ve seen a lot of good fics getting banned from that site due to lemon content.). I would have liked to post in there, but nah. Someone would have reported me after the third chappy. *sad face* I used to search in there for Hichigo fics and when I saw little het ones (the yaoi are pretty smoking hot, but I wanted something different) I opted to write one full of smut and angst (since only Hichigo hooking up with Hime could produce so much chaos. Lol) Hope you continue liking the fic! As a warning to everyone: nearly everyone is gonna be emo in the fic now, since I’m getting close to some crucial points (sorry about that! *winces*) so some characters might seem OCC when the fic starts drawing to a close. Sorry for the OCC-ness of this chapter. I needed some lame humor to get Orihime out of her depression at least for a little while.