A Grudge's Decision
folder
Bleach › General
Rating:
Adult +
Chapters:
9
Views:
6,178
Reviews:
17
Recommended:
0
Currently Reading:
0
Category:
Bleach › General
Rating:
Adult +
Chapters:
9
Views:
6,178
Reviews:
17
Recommended:
0
Currently Reading:
0
Disclaimer:
I do not own Bleach, its fandom, or any of its characters. I make no profit from writing this story.
Give and Take
A/N: Slow updater is slow. /Tomato Ducking Motion
So, I uh… illustrated parts of the last chapter. Three-ish scenes—one turned doujinshi-esque with a little dicking around. (I did not have the time to that. Feh.) It can be found here (scroll for the modified versions):
www2 . adultfanfiction . net / forum / index . php / topic / 19007-illustrations-for-a-grudges-decision
…without the spaces.
At some point, I might post another author's note for last chapter/this chapter under "Anime/Manga (all), Bleach, General, A Grudge's Decision" (in the same forum). A little about my Japanese usage, and a lot of my blathering.
Now, here's my standard [SENSITIVE ISSUE] warning and my [NOT BETA'D] warning. And without further ado:
(05) 「やり取り」Give and Take
.
.
.
.
(sometime in the spring.) :: euphemism
"Kurosaki, why were you out so long?"
He tries to ignore the kid (can't remember his name), keep his eyes down on his textbook.
Kid moves closer.
Ishida and Chad are out hollow hunting. He's not allowed.
(He feels uncomfortable.)
"They say you were in the hospital. Is that true?"
"Yeah." He doesn't look up. Grips his pencil a little tighter and takes notes on something for the second time over.
Ichigo bows his head as if concentrated, but he just wants to hide his face.
"I was sick."
.
.
.
.
(early february.) :: more than this
'Migi!'
He wonders if Ichigo knows how communicative his eyes are.
It's horrible during the spars.
(Seigan. The eye contact.)
With each swing, Urahara sees (feels) that subtle undercurrent of madness—Ichigo's desperate struggle to not feel helpless.
All the times Ichigo has denied himself company after a nightmare, all the times he has tried to keep the others from hearing him cry—everything he attempts to keep private is so barefaced and loud in his eyes—
It makes Urahara want to stop the spar. Leave the basement. (He shouldn't have the clearance to see any of that.)
But he stays.
'Head strike, low counter. Footing's sloppy.'
Both Ichigo's kendou and hakuda have regressed. There's a lag between his intentions and his movements, but it's not quite from lack of practice—it's like he's disconnected from his body.
(Urahara blames Isshin.)
—Poorly executed tsuki.
'His center of gravity…'
Guiltily, Urahara catches the stab with Benihime—tilts her and easily supinates Ichigo's right arm (he's holding Zangetsu far too tight). He steps forward and makes Ichigo's spine torque to the right, sending him to his left knee.
With a finishing kick to his left shoulder, Ichigo is on the ground, looking frustrated, embarrassed. Discouraged.
Urahara backs up a few paces—Ichigo becomes nervous when people hover. He looks elsewhere until Ichigo gets to his feet.
(Watching a fallen warrior is invasive; turning his back is insulting.)
"Ichigo, people know that you're talented. You don't need to prove that."
Seigan, again.
(Urahara tries not to recoil at the rawness.)
"It doesn't feel that way."
.
.
.
.
:: is, V
He's tempted to stay in the yukata—since That, he really hates undressing, even if he knows he's alone—but he forces himself to fish through his pile of clothes.
Urahara had gone back to the (empty) house for him and ransacked his dresser. Despite knowing his room would no longer look like a crime scene—floors scrubbed and bleached, linens washed, evidence erased—he hadn't been ready to go back.
(He doesn't know if he'll ever be ready for that.)
He doesn't dress in an entirely weather-inappropriate manner, but he does dress a tad excessively. His friends reserve comment about this. They also reserve comment about his idiosyncratic tendency to walk close to the walls. (Fewer blind spots, he thinks.)
(He doesn't particularly care if they understand his reasoning or not.)
.
.
.
.
:: nakama
"That's disgusting, Ishida."
The first thing Ishida feels is hurt. A sharp pain supersedes the anxiety that was sitting in his stomach.
He's shocked.
He's shocked at the narrow-mindedness, and he takes the low road.
"It's not like I'm spreading my legs for my father—"
(When Urahara breaks up their fistfight five minutes later, he looks disappointed in both of them.)
.
.
.
.
(week, give or take a half.) :: stoicism
His reaction isn't what Urahara expects.
It's a lethargic, distracted saunter. They're in the kitchen; Renji makes his way to the counter nearest the stove. Leans on his left hand, locking his elbow, and his right rests on his forehead, a little over his eyes. (Fingers curled inward in a default sort of way.) He brings his hand down after a second or so, heavily—it pulls at the skin of his face, briefly exposing the red crescents of his inner eyelids.
He exhales, and looks out the window.
"How bad is'e?"
It's slightly rhetorical, slightly hopeful. Quiet.
Urahara's face darkens. Renji doesn't see it—he assumes it from the silence.
Their eyes meet after a minute—sharing, if only for a moment, the understanding that only people who have seen the darker parts of Rukongai could share—and Urahara remembers just how many years Renji has on Ichigo. It's easy to forget.
It's easy to forget Renji's maturity, and it's easy to forget Ichigo's age.
(Fifteen.)
"Bad."
He's terse, for both their sakes.
.
.
.
.
:: listen
He remembers.
Lying on the floor, waiting. The same seed that conceived him viscid between his legs.
Inside his body.
(That's fucking disgusting.)
His eyes drip—the memory aches.
"He told me I'm stupid." Shaky breath, but he's calm.
He talks like it's not his story.
(But he remembers.)
He remembers.
"He beat me," he says, impassively. "I didn't… I didn't really fight back, 'cause I…"
He clears his throat.
"I felt—guilty?"
He remembers.
(He felt sorry for his father.)
Trapped under another body—a living one, this time around.
He was injured. Exhausted. Scared.
"He raped me—just once, though. Karin stopped the second."
Voice detached, like he's talking about trivia or something.
It looks off.
"I… didn't think he'd go through with it, but…"
(He did.)
Sideward glance. Wipes his eyes almost casually.
They both sit for a bit. He drums the tips of his fingers on the table, idly.
It's not annoying.
"He, uh…"
He clears his throat again.
"—called me by her… name."
He remembers.
"He was totally shitfaced."
He laughs a little. Looks like he's going to fall apart.
(His emotions surface only briefly.)
There were sirens. Lights.
When they turned on his bedroom lights, everything looked awkward.
"To think of it, you were crying, weren't you? I remember thinking it was creepy—confusing as fuck, actually."
He sighs and looks up in no particular direction.
"You saw me and cried."
(He's numb.)
He remembers.
.
.
.
.
:: is, II
He gives her a bland look.
"What's with that reaction?"
He shrugs.
"It's not like I'm a virgin."
Yoruichi almost laughs at the 180.
(It would be poor taste.)
She dresses and leaves.
.
.
.
.
:: i'm still here, IV
His most recent adventure is walking to the kitchen. He doesn't know where they keep the glasses, so he sits down on the floor, swamped by the quilt he took from the futon. The floor is no tatami mat, but it's clean; he semi-intentionally dozes.
Gentle tap on the shoulder. "While I generally wouldn't prescribe the kitchen floor for sleeping, it's nice to see you up and about."
Or 'about.' He's not really 'up.'
"Ichigo-kun… How about you go buy a newspaper? Get some fresh air."
"I don't want to."
.
.
.
.
:: just sex
"'Rape' isn't about the sex, Ichigo…"
Urahara's eyes are like slits. But he's not mad—not exasperated, either.
'Resigned' is a better word.
(It's hard talking to a person who hates himself, day after day.)
"Sure didn't feel that way when he blew a load up my ass, Urahara," he snaps, maliciously.
The shopkeeper—his godfather—winces at the crudity, the frankness. The coldness.
(Ichigo is standoffish, characteristically, but not cold.)
Urahara sighs. Raises hands slightly in surrender (making sure not to appear combative), and goes to leave.
He doesn't have the energy for this today.
.
.
.
.
:: is, I
He broke Chad's nose—it was an accident.
Ichigo is too mortified to apologize.
(Chad doesn't look hurt. He looks guilty.)
Chad leaves, because he knows Ichigo.
They talk again in around two days.
.
.
.
.
(eight days.) :: actualization
There is a moment when it becomes real to him.
A part of Ishida is unable to acknowledge what happened to Ichigo, because it doesn't make sense. Possibilities have always been his forte, but this—this never occurred to him.
Even when he was in that god-awful hallway with the policemen standing around the door—even when he saw Urahara pacing, red-eyed and angry, looking so old and so young without his poise—even when he heard the actual words, there was a part of him that, on principle (and perhaps out of intellectual arrogance), clung to the belief that it was impossible.
Ichigo. Being a "rape victim." "Abused by his father." He could parrot the concept, but he couldn't fully grasp it.
Seeing Ichigo's arms in casts didn't make it real; he could visualize that after a bad fight. Seeing him cry made it even less real—almost as if manufactured in a dream.
But there is a moment when it becomes real to him.
It's that miniscule lapse of time—the kind that doesn't seem to amount to much of anything. It's four; he checks up on Ichigo after school, out of worry (and, to an extent, morbid curiosity). The sun is at an angle harsh on the eyes—he walks out of the window light to avoid the glare. He arrives at Ichigo's new room number (in the psychiatric ward now—so surreal) and stops short at the doorway.
Ishida doesn't often pick up on the cues—he's not as organically instinctual as Ichigo or Renji—but he knows. He just knows that it's not the right time for him to enter the room. There's a hollow-but-heavy sensation oscillating in his chest, and it speaks more sense to him than his thoughts.
But he does catch a glimpse before he retreats—a glimpse that feels stolen.
Ichigo is looking down at his lap, mouth opened slightly. He looks stoned out of his mind, about to fall asleep—recently sedated, probably. There are two other doctors in there, talking softly.
Ichigo's legs are bare to his upper thighs. It draws his eyes because it's strange—not a part of the body people often see, especially with guys. They're checking up on his injuries, and Ishida turns to leave, not wanting to encroach upon Ichigo's privacy more than he already has. But he notices one more thing before the glimpse comes to a close—
Bruises. Dark, graphic bruises on his thighs.
(Finger-like. Palm-like. The kind you don't get in fair fights.)
It's not unexpected. That's what he says to himself as he leaves, walking down that same hallway.
Not unexpected.
'I won't let you do it again…'
'—dare touch me…'
Something flares in his veins. It's familiar—familiar like his own lifeblood.
(But he can't name it.)
Stiff and blank-minded, save for those images whirring through his head, he leaves the building. Heads home—he can't think. Throws something breakable. Cooks a meal he doesn't eat, and then goes to sleep at five.
It's so real that he doesn't know what else to do.
.
.
.
.
:: just alive
"…"
"Do you want to survive this?"
"…"
"I'm asking you, do you want to survive what he did to you?"
"."
"."
"…the hell're you talking about. I–"
"Look at yourself."
"…"
"That's not the look of someone who survived—"
.
.
.
.
:: routine (choke)
He doesn't know whether he's more annoyed or afraid that they are crowding his room. It's already small enough at the Shouten, but they're making it smaller. They've trespassed his seven-foot bubble, they're (partially) surrounding him, and they're blocking the door.
(Don't they know they can't do that?)
He'd kill for Lorazepam right now (breathe, remember to breathe), but Urahara is a killjoy.
("…aren't supposed to be used for more than a month. They're not even supposed to be used on a regular basis. Regardless—you need to be able to deal with stress and stressful situations without taking…")
Right. Because he's totally functional like this. (What the hell are they even saying? He can't hear them over the fucking fire alarm in his nervous system.)
They've probably noticed that he's not listening, because they've stopped talking.
He takes the moment to make a vague, dismissive waving gesture. But they don't seem to get it, so he mumbles.
"…too many people. Back up, like… five… feet."
It's an odd sort of order, but his friends humor him because they're used to it.
"'N you're blocking the door."
.
.
.
.
:: is (a jackass), III
Dead wife, fractured family. Pity in his old friend's eyes.
(It's the kind of masochism fueled by guilt, he knows.)
'I don't deserve your sympathy.'
—is what he meant when he said—
"Ichigo was so tight."
(He feels slight relief when she vows torture.)
.
.
.
.
(january.) :: is, IV
Somehow, Yuzu is the most put-together of all of them.
(It strikes Urahara every once in a while—the emotional intelligence and strength of that little girl.)
—Seven when he crumples in his lab, tired of trying not to yell, tired of trying to keep Ichigo from falling apart.
Yuzu, out of nowhere, appears over his shoulder; he's admittedly startled. She sets a cup of tea on his desk (something with chamomile), turns him around by his swivel chair, and looks him dead in the eye—not critically, but seriously.
Perhaps it's a Kurosaki trait, but she has the pluck to give him—someone centuries older than her—a straight-faced injunctive notice.
"Go to bed."
(He does.)
.
.
.
.
(semi-generally.) :: lesions of man
Thunderheads black, but the rain soft—a city, no traffic.
(The only wind is his breath.)
It's lonely in here—quiet like a ruin, water lapping against the burnt buildings (sputter of old embers) like skin-on-skin; it's lonely.
"You're not worth taking over."
He keeps hearing that.
Echo. Condescension.
(But it's not his hollow. It's his own voice.)
His hollow doesn't say anything.
Ichigo finds him because of the blood. Bloody waters, red in sluggish wisps like exhaust. Ghostly flesh—it (he) lies near the outskirts of the wreckage on some inclined-whatever slab of debris, black tabi skirting the sea.
Wound in his belly, shihakusho with the garish stains. Breathing quietly.
Silent, the hollow gives him an unreadable look, and Ichigo is caught between the desire to be cruel and that sickening contrite feeling.
He doesn't want to be his father.
For once, he resolves to do nothing. No release. Makes him feel badly, feel merciful. Feel a whole fucking cocktail of feelings he can't describe.
(So he doesn't.)
Takes a seat next to his hollow, hair clinging to his face—phantom reminder of his mother, and that's okay.
Full of animosity, they look upon his world and wallow alone (together).
His hollow doesn't say anything.
.
.
.
.
(around a month.) :: yeah
"You'd feel better if you were clean."
He supposes that's right, but he wants to go back to sleep.
"No, you'd feel better if I were clean."
(The blankets over his head turn it into a dull slur.)
On some level, he knows that's a little mean, but he can't really focus enough to feel sorry.
Urahara sighs and lets the jab at his motives slide. He knows Ichigo's lapsing out—slower speech.
"I'm being serious, Ichigo. Keeping up your hygiene can help improve your mood."
"Yeah…" (He doesn't know what he's agreeing with. The futon's acting up, somehow. Churning.)
He rolls over, facing the wall.
"…Now, now—you can't 'yeah' me away. We've had a month of that." He doesn't say it accusingly.
The word 'month' registers somewhere in Ichigo's brain. The rest he forgets.
"Really?" His first guess was either two weeks or two years.
"Yes, really."
Moments like this, Urahara thinks back to the times Ichigo bettered himself under threat of death.
(He has a feeling that wouldn't work now.)
"Ichigo, I'm starting the furo, alright?"
He says that to encourage.
"Yeah."
(He has low expectations.)
.
.
.
.
[UPDATE:] I'm working on drawing this chapter's vignette listen.
And, not to sound like the dude on the couch, but...
If it does in any way, how does this story make you feel, personally?
I have a fair idea about people's general intellectual reaction to it...
.
So, I uh… illustrated parts of the last chapter. Three-ish scenes—one turned doujinshi-esque with a little dicking around. (I did not have the time to that. Feh.) It can be found here (scroll for the modified versions):
www2 . adultfanfiction . net / forum / index . php / topic / 19007-illustrations-for-a-grudges-decision
…without the spaces.
At some point, I might post another author's note for last chapter/this chapter under "Anime/Manga (all), Bleach, General, A Grudge's Decision" (in the same forum). A little about my Japanese usage, and a lot of my blathering.
Now, here's my standard [SENSITIVE ISSUE] warning and my [NOT BETA'D] warning. And without further ado:
(05) 「やり取り」Give and Take
.
.
.
.
"Kurosaki, why were you out so long?"
He tries to ignore the kid (can't remember his name), keep his eyes down on his textbook.
Kid moves closer.
Ishida and Chad are out hollow hunting. He's not allowed.
(He feels uncomfortable.)
"They say you were in the hospital. Is that true?"
"Yeah." He doesn't look up. Grips his pencil a little tighter and takes notes on something for the second time over.
Ichigo bows his head as if concentrated, but he just wants to hide his face.
"I was sick."
.
.
.
.
'Migi!'
He wonders if Ichigo knows how communicative his eyes are.
It's horrible during the spars.
(Seigan. The eye contact.)
With each swing, Urahara sees (feels) that subtle undercurrent of madness—Ichigo's desperate struggle to not feel helpless.
All the times Ichigo has denied himself company after a nightmare, all the times he has tried to keep the others from hearing him cry—everything he attempts to keep private is so barefaced and loud in his eyes—
It makes Urahara want to stop the spar. Leave the basement. (He shouldn't have the clearance to see any of that.)
But he stays.
'Head strike, low counter. Footing's sloppy.'
Both Ichigo's kendou and hakuda have regressed. There's a lag between his intentions and his movements, but it's not quite from lack of practice—it's like he's disconnected from his body.
(Urahara blames Isshin.)
—Poorly executed tsuki.
'His center of gravity…'
Guiltily, Urahara catches the stab with Benihime—tilts her and easily supinates Ichigo's right arm (he's holding Zangetsu far too tight). He steps forward and makes Ichigo's spine torque to the right, sending him to his left knee.
With a finishing kick to his left shoulder, Ichigo is on the ground, looking frustrated, embarrassed. Discouraged.
Urahara backs up a few paces—Ichigo becomes nervous when people hover. He looks elsewhere until Ichigo gets to his feet.
(Watching a fallen warrior is invasive; turning his back is insulting.)
"Ichigo, people know that you're talented. You don't need to prove that."
Seigan, again.
(Urahara tries not to recoil at the rawness.)
"It doesn't feel that way."
.
.
.
.
He's tempted to stay in the yukata—since That, he really hates undressing, even if he knows he's alone—but he forces himself to fish through his pile of clothes.
Urahara had gone back to the (empty) house for him and ransacked his dresser. Despite knowing his room would no longer look like a crime scene—floors scrubbed and bleached, linens washed, evidence erased—he hadn't been ready to go back.
(He doesn't know if he'll ever be ready for that.)
He doesn't dress in an entirely weather-inappropriate manner, but he does dress a tad excessively. His friends reserve comment about this. They also reserve comment about his idiosyncratic tendency to walk close to the walls. (Fewer blind spots, he thinks.)
(He doesn't particularly care if they understand his reasoning or not.)
.
.
.
.
"That's disgusting, Ishida."
The first thing Ishida feels is hurt. A sharp pain supersedes the anxiety that was sitting in his stomach.
He's shocked.
He's shocked at the narrow-mindedness, and he takes the low road.
"It's not like I'm spreading my legs for my father—"
(When Urahara breaks up their fistfight five minutes later, he looks disappointed in both of them.)
.
.
.
.
His reaction isn't what Urahara expects.
It's a lethargic, distracted saunter. They're in the kitchen; Renji makes his way to the counter nearest the stove. Leans on his left hand, locking his elbow, and his right rests on his forehead, a little over his eyes. (Fingers curled inward in a default sort of way.) He brings his hand down after a second or so, heavily—it pulls at the skin of his face, briefly exposing the red crescents of his inner eyelids.
He exhales, and looks out the window.
"How bad is'e?"
It's slightly rhetorical, slightly hopeful. Quiet.
Urahara's face darkens. Renji doesn't see it—he assumes it from the silence.
Their eyes meet after a minute—sharing, if only for a moment, the understanding that only people who have seen the darker parts of Rukongai could share—and Urahara remembers just how many years Renji has on Ichigo. It's easy to forget.
It's easy to forget Renji's maturity, and it's easy to forget Ichigo's age.
(Fifteen.)
"Bad."
He's terse, for both their sakes.
.
.
.
.
He remembers.
Lying on the floor, waiting. The same seed that conceived him viscid between his legs.
Inside his body.
His eyes drip—the memory aches.
"He told me I'm stupid." Shaky breath, but he's calm.
He talks like it's not his story.
He remembers.
"He beat me," he says, impassively. "I didn't… I didn't really fight back, 'cause I…"
He clears his throat.
"I felt—guilty?"
He remembers.
Trapped under another body—a living one, this time around.
He was injured. Exhausted. Scared.
"He raped me—just once, though. Karin stopped the second."
Voice detached, like he's talking about trivia or something.
It looks off.
"I… didn't think he'd go through with it, but…"
Sideward glance. Wipes his eyes almost casually.
They both sit for a bit. He drums the tips of his fingers on the table, idly.
It's not annoying.
"He, uh…"
He clears his throat again.
"—called me by her… name."
He remembers.
"He was totally shitfaced."
He laughs a little. Looks like he's going to fall apart.
There were sirens. Lights.
When they turned on his bedroom lights, everything looked awkward.
"To think of it, you were crying, weren't you? I remember thinking it was creepy—confusing as fuck, actually."
He sighs and looks up in no particular direction.
"You saw me and cried."
He remembers.
.
.
.
.
He gives her a bland look.
"What's with that reaction?"
He shrugs.
"It's not like I'm a virgin."
Yoruichi almost laughs at the 180.
(It would be poor taste.)
She dresses and leaves.
.
.
.
.
His most recent adventure is walking to the kitchen. He doesn't know where they keep the glasses, so he sits down on the floor, swamped by the quilt he took from the futon. The floor is no tatami mat, but it's clean; he semi-intentionally dozes.
Gentle tap on the shoulder. "While I generally wouldn't prescribe the kitchen floor for sleeping, it's nice to see you up and about."
Or 'about.' He's not really 'up.'
"Ichigo-kun… How about you go buy a newspaper? Get some fresh air."
"I don't want to."
.
.
.
.
"'Rape' isn't about the sex, Ichigo…"
Urahara's eyes are like slits. But he's not mad—not exasperated, either.
(It's hard talking to a person who hates himself, day after day.)
"Sure didn't feel that way when he blew a load up my ass, Urahara," he snaps, maliciously.
The shopkeeper—his godfather—winces at the crudity, the frankness. The coldness.
(Ichigo is standoffish, characteristically, but not cold.)
Urahara sighs. Raises hands slightly in surrender (making sure not to appear combative), and goes to leave.
He doesn't have the energy for this today.
.
.
.
.
He broke Chad's nose—it was an accident.
Ichigo is too mortified to apologize.
(Chad doesn't look hurt. He looks guilty.)
Chad leaves, because he knows Ichigo.
They talk again in around two days.
.
.
.
.
There is a moment when it becomes real to him.
A part of Ishida is unable to acknowledge what happened to Ichigo, because it doesn't make sense. Possibilities have always been his forte, but this—this never occurred to him.
Even when he was in that god-awful hallway with the policemen standing around the door—even when he saw Urahara pacing, red-eyed and angry, looking so old and so young without his poise—even when he heard the actual words, there was a part of him that, on principle (and perhaps out of intellectual arrogance), clung to the belief that it was impossible.
Ichigo. Being a "rape victim." "Abused by his father." He could parrot the concept, but he couldn't fully grasp it.
Seeing Ichigo's arms in casts didn't make it real; he could visualize that after a bad fight. Seeing him cry made it even less real—almost as if manufactured in a dream.
It's that miniscule lapse of time—the kind that doesn't seem to amount to much of anything. It's four; he checks up on Ichigo after school, out of worry (and, to an extent, morbid curiosity). The sun is at an angle harsh on the eyes—he walks out of the window light to avoid the glare. He arrives at Ichigo's new room number (in the psychiatric ward now—so surreal) and stops short at the doorway.
Ishida doesn't often pick up on the cues—he's not as organically instinctual as Ichigo or Renji—but he knows. He just knows that it's not the right time for him to enter the room. There's a hollow-but-heavy sensation oscillating in his chest, and it speaks more sense to him than his thoughts.
But he does catch a glimpse before he retreats—a glimpse that feels stolen.
Ichigo is looking down at his lap, mouth opened slightly. He looks stoned out of his mind, about to fall asleep—recently sedated, probably. There are two other doctors in there, talking softly.
Ichigo's legs are bare to his upper thighs. It draws his eyes because it's strange—not a part of the body people often see, especially with guys. They're checking up on his injuries, and Ishida turns to leave, not wanting to encroach upon Ichigo's privacy more than he already has. But he notices one more thing before the glimpse comes to a close—
Bruises. Dark, graphic bruises on his thighs.
(Finger-like. Palm-like. The kind you don't get in fair fights.)
It's not unexpected. That's what he says to himself as he leaves, walking down that same hallway.
Not unexpected.
Something flares in his veins. It's familiar—familiar like his own lifeblood.
(But he can't name it.)
Stiff and blank-minded, save for those images whirring through his head, he leaves the building. Heads home—he can't think. Throws something breakable. Cooks a meal he doesn't eat, and then goes to sleep at five.
It's so real that he doesn't know what else to do.
.
.
.
.
"…"
"Do you want to survive this?"
"…"
"I'm asking you, do you want to survive what he did to you?"
"."
"."
"…the hell're you talking about. I–"
"Look at yourself."
"…"
"That's not the look of someone who survived—"
.
.
.
.
He doesn't know whether he's more annoyed or afraid that they are crowding his room. It's already small enough at the Shouten, but they're making it smaller. They've trespassed his seven-foot bubble, they're (partially) surrounding him, and they're blocking the door.
(Don't they know they can't do that?)
He'd kill for Lorazepam right now (breathe, remember to breathe), but Urahara is a killjoy.
("…aren't supposed to be used for more than a month. They're not even supposed to be used on a regular basis. Regardless—you need to be able to deal with stress and stressful situations without taking…")
Right. Because he's totally functional like this. (What the hell are they even saying? He can't hear them over the fucking fire alarm in his nervous system.)
They've probably noticed that he's not listening, because they've stopped talking.
He takes the moment to make a vague, dismissive waving gesture. But they don't seem to get it, so he mumbles.
"…too many people. Back up, like… five… feet."
It's an odd sort of order, but his friends humor him because they're used to it.
"'N you're blocking the door."
.
.
.
.
Dead wife, fractured family. Pity in his old friend's eyes.
(It's the kind of masochism fueled by guilt, he knows.)
'I don't deserve your sympathy.'
—is what he meant when he said—
"Ichigo was so tight."
(He feels slight relief when she vows torture.)
.
.
.
.
Somehow, Yuzu is the most put-together of all of them.
(It strikes Urahara every once in a while—the emotional intelligence and strength of that little girl.)
—Seven when he crumples in his lab, tired of trying not to yell, tired of trying to keep Ichigo from falling apart.
Yuzu, out of nowhere, appears over his shoulder; he's admittedly startled. She sets a cup of tea on his desk (something with chamomile), turns him around by his swivel chair, and looks him dead in the eye—not critically, but seriously.
Perhaps it's a Kurosaki trait, but she has the pluck to give him—someone centuries older than her—a straight-faced injunctive notice.
"Go to bed."
(He does.)
.
.
.
.
Thunderheads black, but the rain soft—a city, no traffic.
(The only wind is his breath.)
It's lonely in here—quiet like a ruin, water lapping against the burnt buildings (sputter of old embers) like skin-on-skin; it's lonely.
"You're not worth taking over."
He keeps hearing that.
Echo. Condescension.
(But it's not his hollow. It's his own voice.)
Ichigo finds him because of the blood. Bloody waters, red in sluggish wisps like exhaust. Ghostly flesh—it (he) lies near the outskirts of the wreckage on some inclined-whatever slab of debris, black tabi skirting the sea.
Wound in his belly, shihakusho with the garish stains. Breathing quietly.
Silent, the hollow gives him an unreadable look, and Ichigo is caught between the desire to be cruel and that sickening contrite feeling.
For once, he resolves to do nothing. No release. Makes him feel badly, feel merciful. Feel a whole fucking cocktail of feelings he can't describe.
(So he doesn't.)
Takes a seat next to his hollow, hair clinging to his face—phantom reminder of his mother, and that's okay.
Full of animosity, they look upon his world and wallow alone (together).
.
.
.
.
"You'd feel better if you were clean."
He supposes that's right, but he wants to go back to sleep.
"No, you'd feel better if I were clean."
(The blankets over his head turn it into a dull slur.)
On some level, he knows that's a little mean, but he can't really focus enough to feel sorry.
Urahara sighs and lets the jab at his motives slide. He knows Ichigo's lapsing out—slower speech.
"I'm being serious, Ichigo. Keeping up your hygiene can help improve your mood."
"Yeah…" (He doesn't know what he's agreeing with. The futon's acting up, somehow. Churning.)
He rolls over, facing the wall.
"…Now, now—you can't 'yeah' me away. We've had a month of that." He doesn't say it accusingly.
The word 'month' registers somewhere in Ichigo's brain. The rest he forgets.
"Really?" His first guess was either two weeks or two years.
"Yes, really."
Moments like this, Urahara thinks back to the times Ichigo bettered himself under threat of death.
(He has a feeling that wouldn't work now.)
"Ichigo, I'm starting the furo, alright?"
He says that to encourage.
"Yeah."
(He has low expectations.)
.
.
.
.
[UPDATE:] I'm working on drawing this chapter's vignette listen.
And, not to sound like the dude on the couch, but...
If it does in any way, how does this story make you feel, personally?
I have a fair idea about people's general intellectual reaction to it...
.