Reflection

Warning: Orihime OCC-ness (yes. I make her curse and use the word ‘fuck’, don’t kill me for that!)

Chapter 19

Inky night had been blanketing the silent sideways inner-world since the incident at the gym. Shirosaki shivered, his white robes plastered over his skin while the stoic zanpakutoh soul accompanying him under the rain merely stood on the staff he always used, just hovering above the watery ground.

He had lost count of how many hours, days or even weeks his stupid King had been locked inside his house. All he knew was that he hadn’t seen his hime in quite some time, which had driven him to a moody quietness that Zangetsu couldn’t begin to understand.

They both merely existed alongside each other, not saying a word. Like they had been from the beginning. Two beings, or essences of one soul coexisting. Shirosaki nearly snorted aloud at the crude facts. The three of them, Ichigo, Zangetsu and he, himself, were just different dimensions of a single spirit being. None of them had a thing in common, but that didn’t take away that they were still one.

Now he could see why Zangetsu hated the fucking rain so much. The never-ending water beating down on them was cold, chilling enough to freeze the marrow of his bones. Even breathing in the frigid world was taxing. He could literally see his huffs of breath coming out in small wispy clouds.

Sniffing loudly, he shifted his body, his sopping wet hakamas sticking to his legs like an icy second skin. No matter how much he moved, he couldn’t find a bit of warmth.

Ichigo’s thoughts weren’t as clear as before… The strong rejection in the gym had nearly severed their telepathic connection, making the King’s thoughts come to him in incoherent mumblings that appeared to have a wall muffling them. He could still see what he saw, not that it was much to interest him since he was purposely keeping away from his lil’ hime.

The bastard was hiding. Most of what entered his line of vision were books, or just plain walls. It was grating his nerves not seeing people other than King’s obnoxious father and his little sisters and the occasional images of unfamiliar people on a TV screen. How boring and nerve-racking. It was making him anxious being so disconnected from other beings, especially her. Out of everyone the King knew, Orihime was the one he had most interacted with when free.

Fucker thinks he can keep me away from her…

Ichigo was now completely alone. The Kuchiki bitch had abandoned him. Shirosaki had learned this when he had returned home to open a barren closet that only had three narrow wooden walls and some thin bedding. Everything in his King’s world had started going downhill from that moment forward.

He should have felt some happiness in not having to see King and the Kuchiki bitch rolling around with each other, but unfortunately if the King was depressed, he ended up soaked in the fucking downpour in that world of his. He hated having such a strong relation to him because of that. His emotions manifested in that world in beating rains, perpetual night and howling winds. It was getting annoying having to dodge the sudden lightning strikes that jabbed the sideways building both him and Zangetsu were on.

Yet another reason to hate the rain.

He should have known that Ichigo would figure it out eventually… His unusual bond with Orihime was something that the King couldn’t fully grasp. He probably thought that he was just going after his friend for the thrill of hurting someone, but little he did know was that Shirosaki never did something unless there was an actual reason behind it.

What a dumbass.

His spine tingled when a bluish silvery snaking beam of light struck the ground a couple of yards from him and Zangetsu. Its shimmering light was blinding for only the fraction of a second before it sputtered out on contact. The ground he was sitting on shook and rumbled at the force of it.

All he had to do was count to predict where the next strike would hit. Once in the past he had intentionally, just for the fuck of it stood right under one of those powerful bolts. That one time experience was enough to keep him from ‘experimenting’ with pain again. Sometimes boredom led him to do some stupid shit…

Being stuck in there, without seeing his lil’ hime had made him think too much over what was happening. He didn’t like thinking over things that discomforted him and Zangetsu’s ‘talk’ the day the Kuchiki bitch had left King hadn’t helped.

“Are you in love or is it a desire to make someone else feel as wretched as you? It isn’t worth going through all this if you don’t even know what it is. You’re leading the three of us to death for something you cannot name.”

He snorted loudly this time, but the zanpakutoh soul standing not far from him didn’t move an inch to acknowledge the scornful sound.

What the fuck was ‘love’ anyway? Was it that dumb mushy feeling King had felt for Kuchiki? That whole ‘I’ll protect you’ with a feeling of comfortable companionship? If that was ‘love’, he didn’t want anything to do with it. It sounded too damn boring for him.

He had been overanalyzing what had pushed him towards Orihime. In fact, he had done so to the point that he had almost started to believe in that disgusting little four-letter word he couldn’t bring himself to say without wanting to vomit.

What he felt for Orihime was consuming. Every time he was around her he wanted to touch her, smell her… When she cried or hid her emotions, it felt as if someone had slapped and stomped on him. Whenever she wasn’t around he had a hard time thinking or breathing, his whole body feeling useless and bloodless as if his limbs were made of floppy cardboards.

That wasn’t the insipid nauseating thing called ‘love’. He didn’t know what it was fucking called… But it was something. King’s ‘love’ towards Kuchiki was nothing compared to what he felt for Orihime.

Zangetsu had tried to convince him that it was that, but he had laughed it off, calling it ‘being horny as fuck’. No one could deny that he enjoyed fucking the girl, making the wildness she concealed behind those large grey eyes manifest just for him. It was the only way he could express those strange emotions that had been suffocating him of late. Fucking. If he wanted to touch and smell her, he did that by making their bodies one so he could feel her soul vibrating, singing with his.

She was as free as him in those moments. He saw it whenever she came. She would release the shame she kept from her friends. It was like her spirit spoke to him and told him all of her secrets.

That wasn’t love. Wanting to permanently merge yourself with another, making them smell of you, and feel only you wasn’t that shitty little sentiment. That stupid word seemed kind of plain compared to it, in spite of how Ichigo had used the word so much with Kuchiki whenever they fucked each other. For some reason, that bitch had liked having him tell her that she was loved. Shirosaki was damned lucky that Orihime didn’t ask him for any confirmation during sex.

Except for the last time they had been together… She had appeared to have been expecting something greater from him other than sex. Something that gave a purpose to their mindless fucking.

What a load of bullshit. What could he tell her if she ever asked him ‘what do you want do?’ again?

That he liked to tease her darkness, to draw it out to him so he could get that feeling of completeness? How her shy acceptance of him always turned him on? That whenever her eyes would look at him timidly, he would see her yearning being overshadowed by the sense of loyalty to her friends? Should he tell her that he wanted to break that bad habit so she could only think of him and herself? Or that he wanted to stay with her and not return to that monotone dimension he was always in?

The only true flaw he saw in her was her continuous self-sacrifice. How in the fuck could someone live without receiving anything? He had been asking himself that ever since being born.

He could see all in the outside world. Well at least, he could see deeply into things Ichigo didn’t take to mind. When he had noted that she was just a shadow, someone hidden and pushed to the side, he had felt like he was looking at himself.

Imprisoned by others that were too ashamed or too self-important to bother understanding and reading. Someone that was ignored…

Everyone else surrounding King didn’t resonate with him in that manner. He supposed that it was a Hollow thing, since Hollows weren’t only attracted to souls with strong reiatsu but were also drawn to souls that echoed the misery they’d had while alive.

King was still alive which meant that her misery equaled his in a way. The idiot hadn’t seen that, probably because her suppressed emotions were too toxic and similar to his own.

No two people alike could ever find a true balance. Being around Zangetsu was enough to know that and the fact that all of them were so different from one another reinforced this. The ‘balance’ lied in filling the missing parts of the unfinished puzzle. Darkness with light, hate with that foul-tasting feeling labeled love… All of them contrasted yet filled each other. No soul was complete unless everything was within it.

Ichigo was incomplete, his missing parts elsewhere while his lil’ hime who was also incomplete only needed what he was ashamed of. His darkness. There was a good reason why he had been letting the girl know of his presence from the very start. The vacant spots in her soul had been calling to him to fill them.

He’s not gonna keep me away for long…, he sneered confidently as water ran down in thin trails over his white face.

All he required was her magnetic presence to come out. That ‘missing’ essence that she kept suppressed was what had given him the strength needed to go to her that first night… When she had been mourning, looking at his King and Kuchiki. Her emotions, full of faded coloring had reached out to him then.

Ichigo thinks he’s actually doing her a favor…

His King was one stupid selfish son of a bitch.

***

This is the place. Orihime looked at the unfinished building standing in front of her. It had been two weeks since she had last seen the Hollow, Ichigo, and Rukia. Everything in her life was going slowly back to normal, or at least that was what she was leading her other friends to believe.

Tatsuki had been helping her ‘cope’, but even her friendship wasn’t enough to fill the emptiness she had been feeling. Her friend thought that it was all because of Ichigo’s absence… The truth was that she was feeling that way because everyone was so damned careful around her, treating her more fragile than before.

She hated it. For once she wanted to change herself, and everyone around her still insisted in keeping her safely stowed away from harm. Ishida did it in trying to be nicer than usual, going as far as to inviting her and Tatsuki out on a Saturday. He never did that which was why she had declined.

Sado simply asked her every instant he saw her if she was alright. The question shouldn’t have bothered her all that much if he hadn’t had that concerned look in his eyes whenever he asked her. It was like he expected her to shatter by even pondering the answer to that.

No one else had changed, though one day Asano had made an exaggerated attempt to make her smile, which only ended up in him falling down the front steps of their school. Everyone but her had laughed when he plummeted butt first on the pavement with a howl.

To all of them she was made of glass. Transparent, pure and so easily breakable at the first sign of conflict.

But the Hollow was the one that vulgarly spat the truth behind the endless string of lies. Of course his crudeness always made her blush to her hairline, but that was what made him the most honest one of all. If he were seeing how the others were acting around her, he would have probably made fun of them and called them out on it without a smidge of shame.

No, the Hollow simply did that because he didn’t care about what others thought or for anything for that matter. He had only used her, trying to make her as evil minded as him in the process. The sex had just been a form of his manipulation-

Stop thinking about him! Why am I here anyway?! Why do I keep coming back here?!

Lately she had been walking past that particular place. She had never dared to venture in from the street. All she did was walk on the sidewalk and shoot a skittish glance in its direction; taking in its unfinished appearance on her way home from school. There was no need for her to walk by the place on her way home, but she kept being drawn to it.

Now she had finally gathered up enough courage to walk pass the wooden fencing closing it off from the street.

The building was the barren color of unpainted cement, only four stories high. She vaguely remembered what the inside looked like beyond the garage-like sliding door.

It was mostly empty save for the dirty mattress and the metal bars sticking from the ground that the Hollow had used as a makeshift headboard to tie her to. Come to think of it, she started to believe that he had been planning attacking her for quite some time. There was no way that an abandoned building project would have a bed. The chains being present was somewhat explainable, but the bed? No… He had been intending to molest her.

I wonder if Kurosaki-kun knows that…

Taking a deep shuddering breath, she stepped forward. The building’s garage door was slid upwards, like Ichigo had left it when they had left the place that first night. It was obvious that no one had bothered going to that place, otherwise the door would have been touching the ground.

With every hesitant step, she could see the inside clearly. The bed was still there with sunlight coming from the absent ceiling of the edifice shining down on it, making it look like it was under spotlight. That night she hadn’t been able to see much, but she knew that there was a kerosene lamp somewhere inside. The Hollow had used one and when Ichigo had taken over, there had been some dim lighting once her blindfold had been removed.

Soon enough she was standing just a couple of feet inside, seeing the near emptiness. It was oddly colder inside and there was a faint smell of cement dust and rainwater. How come she hadn’t noticed that before?

The sight of the bare mattress had her body trembling. The chains the Hollow had tied her up with were piled up in a snakelike spiral beside it.

I shouldn’t have come here!

Seeing that large bleak room just threw everything back in her face. Everything that had happened. It forced her to recall in painful detail what the Hollow had made her feel. The terror, the pleasure… Only he had made her feel so frightened and… content. With him it was as if she were just at the edge of a precipice wanting to go forward while being afraid to do so at the same time.

She hated to admit that she missed the descending sensation he had given her. That was what she had experienced with him. Falling. All blood rushing to the surface of her skin, her heartbeat racing wildly, the excitement. Sure it was all physical signs of something she had liked doing with him, but there was something else to it. His sick method in making her let go had become addicting to her.

With everyone treating her more delicately, she found herself needing the abuse and darkness which thrilled and dismayed her.

The Hollow had become just another being to depend on. She depended on him to start depending on herself because that was practically what he had been pushing her to do. To want something for herself when all she really wanted…

Was him. His evil was beautiful to her. His selfishness had become a drug that allowed her to be shameless for at least a little while.

With those thoughts, she started to feel a bit of anger towards everyone. She saw them as enemies that kept him away from her. Especially Ichigo. Her friend was intentionally locking the Hollow away within himself so that they couldn’t be together again. The boy that she had once felt she loved was actually cheating her out of what she enjoyed. Did he believe that he was protecting her in doing so, or did he do it out of resentment at her rejection? Could it be that he wanted what the Hollow had taken from her?

She shook her head quickly and blinked at the stained mattress before her. No, Ichigo didn’t want her. He only started desiring her after the Hollow had in some way taken her interest away from him.

It was all clear now. Ichigo’s absence made the answers to her questions come harshly.

She didn’t love him and probably never had. What she had felt for him was a crush and admiration, an unrequited love for someone unattainable. She still deeply cared for him in a level higher than a regular friend. It was just a nonsexual love. Like the affection she felt for Tatsuki or the love she had for her long dead sibling Sora.

Letting that belief system go was painful. It had become too comfortable to have something to believe in and latch on to. Her so-called love for Ichigo was one of things that kept her from going forward. For years she had stayed in place, waiting for him to say anything that made her existence worthwhile. He had never said anything and there she was lost, without someone to set high aims for and to make her strive to better herself.

No, she had to become strong for herself for once. Not to impress Ichigo or help others, but for herself. She needed to take some pride in her strengths in order to harness them, forgetting her uncertainties and fears, because that was what had pinned her down and made her weak.

With this newfound strength, she took a purposeful, brave stride to the side of the bed. She saw it, she could smell its mold and it didn’t frighten her anymore. The dilapidated skeletal building housed the beginning of dark memories and lessons that had taught her how to respect herself.

Smiling faintly, probably a little crazy at her self-revelation, she sat down on the edge of the squeaky old mattress. Its springs sung harshly just like on that night.

Her shoulders sagged as her bravery wavered like it always did. Who was she to think that she could move on and push the Hollow away as a memory? She would never forget him. If she had once thought that she wouldn’t be able to live without Ichigo, she had been blindingly stupid. His Hollow was the one that she couldn’t erase from her mind.

Exhaling in a whimper, she raised her feet off the ground so that she was sitting on the bed completely. Her gaze was blank and glued to the dusty, pebble covered cement ground. She was getting that numb vacant feeling again. The one that gave her comfort whenever she thought too much.

Forcing herself to think again, of something that contrasted with her surroundings, she blinked at the floor.

I need to buy groceries! her flat expression didn’t match her inner exclamation but it felt good to think of mundane things. And Tatsuki-chan invited me to the movies… She said there was a romantic comedy… Somehow the whole romantic comedy mental comment was a bad idea because her face contorted and her eyes began to ache, distorting her sight of the grayish floor.

I feel so stupid! Glistening tears began to dot her school skirt. Absentmindedly wiping the tears away from her cheeks as her nose began to burn and turn red, she sniffled pitifully.

She wished he was there.

“Inoue…?”

Gasping at the male voice coming from the entrance of the decrepit room, she hurriedly smoothed her hands over her hair and skirt before quickly looking over there.

“Kuro-Kurosaki-kun?” Even saying his name wasn’t as thrilling as before. The only thing that excited her about his presence was the similarity between him and the Hollow. Other than that, she was merely surprised to see him.

He was wearing street clothes, which was to be expected since he had been missing school for weeks now. He hadn’t changed much from the last time she had seen him except that his features were tired and for some reason they looked more mature.

Running a hand through his hair and huffing out a breath, he walked further inside without looking at her. When he was just a couple of feet from the bed she was sitting on, he finally met his grim amber eyes with her teary ones.

“What are you doing here, Inoue?” he asked quietly, pulling his hand away from his hair. His shoulders were tense and his features were hard yet soft when he had spoken.

“I-I…”, she blushed and looked away from his intense gaze. It was uncomfortable looking at him now, especially since he was so serious, as if he was chastising her for being there.

“I thought that after what happened last time you would have come around”, hearing him say that so lowly, she looked at him nervously. He was scowling at her like a reprimanding parent.

“C-come around?” she asked hesitantly, not fully understanding what he meant.

“Inoue…”, he closed his eyes, a muscle twitching in his jaw as he clenched his teeth in irritation. “He’s a Hollow. He doesn’t feel a thing feel a thing for anyone.”

“I-I know that,” she stammered lamely, not liking to admit it.

“No you don’t!” she flinched when he snapped, opening his eyes to glare at her. She couldn’t help blanching at the anger in his eyes.

“Rukia… Rukia has left me…” his voice cracked.

Her breath caught in her throat. Now she knew why he was so angry.

“I’m-I’m sorry to hear that, Kurosaki-kun”, and she was being honest in saying those words. His breakup with Rukia was the last thing in her mind. In fact, she had been hoping feebly that both of them had talked things out and come to an understanding since Ichigo himself hadn’t done anything wrong. Rukia had too see that.

“Are you really sorry?!” he asked sharply.

Gulping, forcing her eyes to continue looking into his, she nodded.

“Yes. I’m really sorry”, feeling tears trickling down her already moist cheeks, she wiped them with the back of her hand, her eyes never leaving his. Apparently, her frankness was enough for him because his angry face softened slightly.

“You still… haven’t told me why you’re here”, she could hear a shy grin in his words as his lips twitched, never truly forming into a smile.

“Um…”, she blushed and briefly glanced at the grey walls and dusty floors before looking at him. “I-I thought that coming here would help me… forget about him, but,” a saddened smile shaped her lips“,I was wrong.”

Guilt flashed in his eyes, showing that he probably blamed himself for her state of mind, which in truth was partly his fault.

“I should have been stronger in keeping him away…” he said after an awkward silence and she stiffened.

He was still as blind as the others.

“Don’t blame yourself, Kurosaki-kun. I just… miss him”, she mustered up a nervous laugh before looking away from his depressed image so that he wouldn’t keep beating himself over how she felt. A part of her resented him for staying away, but she knew he had done it with the best of intentions.

When she glanced at him to see why he was so silent after her word, the remorseful expression on his face had transformed into one of horror.

“What… did you just say… Inoue?”

Shifting nervously side to side on the bed, her blush began to sting.

“That I-I miss him.”

His eyes widened and she knew that anger was taking hold because his chest began to pump hard in harsh breaths.

“You miss him?! JUST WHAT THE FUCK DID HE DO TO YOU, INOUE?!”

She shuddered and hugged her knees to her chest, afraid of his outburst.

Seeing this he took a deep breath to compose himself.

“You… you don’t know what to want.”

Her eyes closed in pain. He was repeating what everyone had told her since she was born. That she wasn’t mature enough, or was too airheaded to make major decisions.

“He… He was just playing with you, Inoue…”, she bit down on her need to whimper. “He… He doesn’t know you well enough to care about you-”

“STOP!” she screamed, snapping her eyes open.

He gaped at her in amazement.

“Inoue-”

“JUST STOP!” she cut him off, abruptly straightening her body on the bed so she could rise.

Once on her feet, his scowl deepened when she pointed and spat furiously at him, “You’re the one that doesn’t know what to want, Ichigo!”

“How could you want to be with a monster like him?” he asked roughly, his voice oddly more neutral than hers.

“How could I?! Because he’s the only one that treated me like I wasn’t breakable! Because he had always wanted me, unlike you that only wants to fuck me after he did!”

His jaw dropped.

Gasping just as shocked as him, she slapped a hand over her mouth and stared at him disbelievingly. What she was saying was the truth, but it sounded more like something he would have said.

Oh, no… I’m a monster!

“I’m so-so sorry, Kurosaki-kun!” she shook her head, muffling the whimpered apology with her hand. Over the last two weeks she had promised herself to stop crying but her eyes were refusing to cooperate. It was like she was an endless fount.

Getting over some of his shock, Ichigo held a hand out, “Listen, I shouldn’t have-”

“No…!” she wailed behind her hand, staring at him in horror. Removing her hand away, she straightened her back, “You are right…” he blinked, his brows knitting together. “He-he could have never cared about someone… like me. I was just…”, her voice cracked, “hoping that someone accepted me and he looked like he did…”

“Inoue-”

“Please I just don’t want to hear anymore!” she cried, and unable to stand what seemed to be an inevitable truth she ran past him.

“INOUE!”

Leaving the building and the small fenced off area, his yells increased in volume, just as her running increased in speed. She wasn’t just running away from him, but running away from a broken heart. She had gotten her foolish hopes up again.

Angry, fast feet rushed after her, but she ran blindly into a crowd to get rid of his hot pursuit.

Not again! Never again will I get my hopes up!

The only thing she wished for was to be able to ask him if what was hurting her was true.

To ask him if he had truly cared for her at all.

***

Author’s Note: OMG WTF??!! I went all PURPLE PROSE on the last chappy! No wonder I didn’t like how it turned out! CRAP! *bangs head against something* Oh, well… Too late to go over it. There indeed were many emotions to sift through in order for Orihime to bitchslap Rukia. She just needed an extra ‘push’. Anyway! Hope you guys liked chappy (even though Shirosaki’s POV left much to be desired *winces* Poor guy doesn’t know what’s wrong with him, I guess. I’ve been reading L. Sacher-Masoch’s masterpiece so I’m in a depressive pain-inflicting state of mind.). Thanks to bleachfan7, Boogermeister, and Orant mihi for the wonderful reviews! All of my reviewers keep me writing! (I want to finally see a finished Hichi/Hime FULL-fic. Seeing drabbles and one-shots and unfinished long-fics for this pairing has always gotten on my nerves. Those always leave me anxious due to being ‘short reads’) Please tell me what you think and what needs fixing! I beta my own stuff so I don’t know if any of the grammar in here is good. *winces*