#(and they were a limited time color so i'm extra salty)

[piratefalls]

there’s been so much going on in the last like two weeks and i am so tired and it’s coming up on final exams at work and that’s going to make me more tired and i am now double tired in advance

[peachhoneii]

Could I ask for the "we can't do this" kisses with ichiruki? (I'm a glutton for angst). Thank you!

Half-Empty

Writing this wasn’t the hard part. The hard part was looking up Ichigo’s and Orihime’s son’s name. Yes, I forgot Kazui’s name. I am still salty about the ending. 

@i-masshiro, I really hope you enjoy your story. It was fun to write, and as much as the ending broke my heart, it’s always good to dive into the IchiRuki hell ride. 

When an affair was dissected to its basic components, everyone was to blame.

Ichigo sliced the fish in perfect halves. The skillet sizzled on the stove where three slices fried to a deep, blackish brown. The readied rice sat in two separate bowls on the kitchen table. The green onions were sliced in quick, careful chops, ready to be sprinkled on top for additional flavoring.

The television stole Kazui’s attention in the living room. There was a ten minute time limit before he entered the kitchen for the fifth time to ask if dinner was ready yet, and for the fifth time, he’d tell him that it’d be ready in a little bit.

It was days like this he missed Yuzu’s cooking, but she had gone out with her friends for the night, a celebratory night for finishing finals early this semester. She deserved it for all the work she put in for the family. She didn’t have to prepare the meals throughout the day, or babysit Kazui, and she did both without complaint or pay.

He sprinkled the green onions on the fish, placing them on top of the bowls of rice. His meals weren’t as sophisticated as Yuzu’s or as creative as Orihime’s, but Kazui would eat anything. This made dinner preparation easy for everyone.

“Kazui, food’s ready.” He called as he set the glasses next to the bowls, “Come and get it.”

He peaked around the corner, seeing into the living room. The late night talk show was muted, and there was no Kazui in sight. He was about to call his name again when he heard the gentle thud on the second floor, right where his room was. As typical as it was for his seven year old to get into hijinks completely misappropriate to his age, Ichigo rolled his eyes and climbed up the stairs.

“Kazui, I said dinner was ready.”

A muffled sound, a tiny squeak, “I’m coming! Don’t come in.”

It wouldn’t be against his better judgment to return downstairs and wait for his son. Kazui was responsible to a fault, but the high pitch of his voice, the quick patter of trying to hide from Dad told him this wasn’t an occasion Ichigo could let roll without harm.

He knocked on the door with the sign written in a seven year old’s script, “You know by telling me I shouldn’t come in you’ve given me every reason to come in, right?”

The quick patter stopped at once, “No?”

“Kazui, I’m going to open this door in three seconds.” In three seconds he’d either find his former bedroom in a complete uproar or innocent tidiness. He didn’t know which outcome worried him more, “And if we have to tell your mother, I’ll take the fall.”

Kazui protested quietly, crying that he wasn’t sure he wanted his mom to know. There wasn’t a pause between pushing the door open and standing in the suddenly free doorframe.

“What the hell, Kazui?”

Ichigo lived lives. That was what he told his son. He had lived lives; the life he lived was too many for a single person. He didn’t accept that it was simply one life he lived despite it being exactly that. There was before, after, a terrible middle stage, a mediocre ending, and the present.

When he opened the door, he anticipated — at worst, that his son had spilled another paint set Karin had given to him for his birthday. He wailed for hours at his mistake, sniffing and holding onto his shirt as they cleaned the mess.

His present self, this present life of his, had grown compliant to the mundane. It accepted the quiet, little things most people were conditioned to accept, to expect, to even anticipate. His planned night was having a quiet dinner with his son as his wife finished her extra credit studies at university. He’d tuck Kazui in bed for eight o’clock; his bath was at six. He’d end the night with a nine o’clock game show.

Ichigo was the mundane. He was a boring, stay at home dad that loved his son and was content with the life he managed to procure.

He hadn’t forgotten the past. He hadn’t pushed it aside.

He hadn’t tried to keep alive either.

There was nothing to say when he opened the door. There was a before and after, and the before was suddenly irrelevant to its after. He stood blankly for a moment, a single moment that comprised of a single second, and rushed inside the room, not thinking to close the door or say anything else.

Calmly, too soft to be quiet but loud enough to be heard, “Kazui, what happened.”

“I don’t know.” He was dressed in pajamas, sniffing, and wiping at his eyes, “I…I was putting up my color pencils when she came in. I didn’t know what to do, and she – she, asked if I was okay and then she…”

Whatever panic that might have taken over died then, and he laid a hand on Kazui’s shoulder, “You did nothing wrong, okay? I’m proud you were able to stay calm. You did great.”

Kazui wiped his nose on his sleeve, “I…what are we going to do?” He glanced down at the woman slumped against his bedroom wall.

“You’re going to eat your dinner.”

“Do you think she’d want some food too?”

Ichigo sighed, “Kid, I don’t think she’s going to be hungry when she wakes up.”

Knowing the shinigami that had fallen into his son’s room, his prediction was unexpectedly accurate.

Carrying her downstairs was like old times.

This was the worst possible time to think about old times.

Despite sitting Kazui down for his dinner, the boy took his dinner with him as Ichigo rushed to the medical area of the house, following his father eagerly as he shoved simmered fish and rice into his mouth. In the rush of things, Ichigo didn’t have the time to think about lecturing him for it.

He laid her on the cot and examined her injuries. There weren’t any cuts or bruises, but a large bump on the back of her head. That was the safest conclusion. Her pulse was regular, or as regular for a seemingly dead person. Kazui watched it intently on a nearby stool as he did the basic procedures.

“Why’s Ichika’s mom here?”

“I don’t know, kid.” He looked back at him, “You really should be in bed. Your mom will call any minute.”

“What are you going to tell her?”

Ichigo shrugged, “The truth…she’ll understand,” and then he’ll spend ten minutes convincing her not to rush back home. He didn’t want to jeopardize her work. She’d come so far this semester.

Kazui swallowed the last of his meal, and gulped his water down, “Dad?”

“Yeah?”

“She’s going to be okay?”

“Looks like it.” He smiled reassuringly, “And don’t think I don’t know what time it is. Bed, kiddo.”

“But-,”

“Bed.” He crossed his arms firmly. He was never good at looking mean when it came to his kid. His default expression was grumpy already, “I’ll come to tuck you in.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Are you sure -,”

“I’m positive.” He walked back and forth in front of the room, “It’s a minor bump in her head, and I don’t sense any hollow activity. Whatever was going on has been settled for the time being.”

“I should come home.” She said quietly but with enough resolve that made Ichigo grin, “I can heal her, at least, and if anything happened, I’d be able.”

“Nah, she doesn’t need to be healed.” He leaned against the wall, “She’ll be up in the next ten minutes, and we’ll get a gigai from Urahara. At worst, she’ll have a killer headache.”

“Okay,” she wasn’t convinced, “but it wouldn’t hurt.”

“It’d hurt your studies.” He spoke quietly, calmly, and sighed into the phone, “You’ve come too far to jeopardize this, Orihime. Kazui is asleep. Rukia is in good hands, and I’ll even give them a goodnight kiss for you.”

“You will?”

“Absolutely…might have to take one for the team though,” he said, “she’ll definitely punch me for it.”

Orihime giggled, “You’re right, but it’ll be worth it.”

He didn’t have anything to say to that.

“I know you will,” her breathy laughter ended with a resounding click.

Ichigo was inclined to call her back, to inquire what that was about. He knew a hook dangled dangerously in the simple, seemingly harmless comment, but as his redialed his wife’s phone number, he heard a gentle stirring on the cot in the room. Not quite forgetting, stuffing his phone into his back pocket, he opened the door, and was greeted with violet stained eyes glaring back at him.

The eyes didn’t take his breath away.

It did stop it, for a second, maybe two.

He was speechless under the glare. His stomach dropped, and his hand clenched around the doorknob, threatening to smash it in his grip.

“Ichigo.” Her glare narrowed dangerously, “What am I doing here?”

Just like that, just like that with her annoyed edge, and her annoyed look, they returned to their past, or was this their present – Ichigo didn’t know, didn’t really care.

Dr. Kurosaki, husband to Inoue Orihime and father to Kurosaki Kazui, was a man of an even temper. He spoke calmly, some would say casually, and smiled for children and patients when he wasn’t busy scolding them for their lax dietary habits.

He rarely lost his temper. Kazui had never seen his father angry. Agitated, yes, but mad or angry, or even loud wasn’t something he’d ever describe his father as.

Had he seen his father then, he’d say that his father wasn’t angry, even as his mouth twisted into his traditional, regular scowl.

The sentence he let out was undeniably not very Ichigo like and all very Ichigo like at once, “Cause you got your ass handed to you by a hollow and scared the shit outta my son.”

She glared.

He glared back.

His mouth twitched.

Her lips trembled.

“I need a drink.”

They were glad the aforementioned son was sleeping in his bed upstairs.

“You were taking a shift for one your under underlings?”

“They’re not underlings.” She sloshed the sake in her cup, “They’re my subordinates. Calling them my underlings makes me sound like some maniacal villain.”

“With you as their boss, yeah, it’s probably true.”

She punched him in the arm. Not softly, “Shut up, you ass,” she finished her drink and lied back down, “but I am sorry, for scaring Kazui…that was unprecedented.”

He sat on the floor, holding a can of beer in his hand, “What happened?”

“One of my subordinates was injured several days agao,” she sent him a pointed glare, “I decided to go in myself to survey the situation.”

“And you got knocked out?”

“The hollow had been on the run for nearly a century.”  She stared at the small, glass cup, eyes brimming with thinly veiled anger, “I underestimated him, a minor travesty slight consequence of being in an office all day.”

“Slacking up on your training?”

“Actually, no.” She stretched, feet peaking underneath the sheet, “I train every day after getting home, with Ichika, with Renji, but it isn’t the same.”

“Different from fighting the real thing.” He shifted on the floor, unable to keep his eyes off her, he drank every bit of her in those seconds, “It feels like a half full glass.”

“It feels more half-empty these days.”

He watched as she leaned forward, pulling her knees close to her so that she could rest her chin on top of them. The sake cup was placed on the table near the cot.

Glancing at him, she laughed weakly, “I shouldn’t say that as a captain. It’s what I…agreed to when I took the robe,” she closed her eyes and sighed, “but it feels so -,”

“Soporific?”

“Yeah.”

“And sometimes, I think it’s all a dream.” Her head titled to rest on its side rather than the chin, “I’m not a captain, not married, not a mother, just…me and my friends living in the slums again, or it’s just me at the academy. Or it’s just you and I…with me living in your closet again.”

He didn’t want to admit he thought the same. He’d wake in the morning beside his beautiful wife, and he’d prepare breakfast for her and their son. He’d walk Kazui to school as she took the car to attend her morning class. He’d come home and open the practice.

There was nothing about this life, about the life he now lived.

A beauty lied in its monotony. It’s days consistency soothed him as it should. This was the world he deserved, the world his son deserved to grow up in.

He fought and killed for this world. He sacrificed more than he was willing to give his child a chance, and he wasn’t going to regret that.

He didn’t deserve to complain. He didn’t deserve to question.

But sometimes, only sometimes, only during the fraction of a second when his eyes parted — mind too groggy to understand its current place in the realm of existence, he was confused. It was as if he didn’t understand the events leading to his beautiful wife sleeping beside him or the wonderful son he’d send off to school. He’d walk back home, eyes set on the sidewalk, set on opening the medical practice he had resumed in his father’s home — it wasn’t his, not fully, not in the way it had been Isshin’s and Masaki’s.

He shook his head, grinning, “It’s weird to think I’m married with a son now. It is, but I wouldn’t give him up for the world.”

“Ichika is my complete opposite.” Rukia’s smile was genuine, soft and tender, and the faint light gave way to her glistening stare, “She’s obnoxious, loud, and abrasive, but loving, kind, with an insatiable hunger for knowledge. She’s her father’s daughter through and through.”

“Insatiable hunger for knowledge?” Ichigo grinned, “Doesn’t sound like Renji.”

“Shut up,” she laughed, “you’re right though…that isn’t like Renji. That’s all Ichika.”

Sitting in the room together, surrounded by medical equipment, alcohol, and a darkened city on the outside, it wasn’t as if they were sent back in time. It wasn’t as if they were living in the present either.

Time stood still for them.

He led her to the roof. Leaving through the front door wasn’t personal enough, and a part of him wanted to watch her ascend to the skies.

After checking on Kazui, now scrawled on top of his comfort with drool dancing down both sides of his mouth, they traveled upstairs to the root to stand underneath the stars.

Shouting people, car horns, muted cries of a forlorn ghost, along with the typical sounds of a chilly night in the city mumbled despondently in the distance. Ichigo stuffed his hands in his pockets, stare vacant but surprisingly full for the hour. A man of routine, he rarely sidestepped it for any reason.

He chuckled. This reason sufficed.

His eye moved to the corner of its socket. A gentle air brushed against her hair, and she tucked a strand behind her ear, lost in the moment.

“It’s different at night.” She stepped on the ledge, body firm as the wind tried to push her backwards.

“Needless noise fills the silence.”

Needless noise was what he missed.

He missed the piercing shrieks indicating a hollow was making its way through. He missed rushing into danger, tearing through danger with his oversized sword. He missed the soul that was attached to the sword.

So much to be missed, so much to push aside, and he stared off into the night, grasping at lost memories, trying to piece them back together into some real, tangible.

He didn’t tell her that.

He didn’t want her to think he had regrets.

“You could’ve been a captain.” She said breathlessly.

He crossed his arms, “I could’ve been a lot of things.”

Her stare continued but cocked to the side, “A lot of things, many things, and a single one was what you wanted.”

“And you could’ve been…,” he glared at her, “you could’ve been anything.”

When she looked at him with her deathly large eyes, he almost regretted what he said. His throat tightened, and nails dug into his upper arm. His jawline twitched with an emotion he shoveled down deep below in his soul, patting down on the soil to keep it content.

“We could’ve been anything.”

And she could have said anything else.

He opened his mouth to bark at her, to scold her for the implication. They’re married, he wanted to hiss. They have families, he wanted to shake her. His lips remained flat, pressed sourly together as his eyes pled above her.

This was where it would end.

This was where they would end.

He didn’t anticipate her hand snatching at his shirt. His neck, back suddenly arched downwards to meet her, and her lips crashed on his.

Her mouth was desperate. His hands circled her waist. Her arms clung to his neck with her fingers skirting along his chopped sticks of hair. She grunted, moaned against his mouth, tongue fighting his for control, and he let her take control, for the first time he gave in willingly, painfully. He pulled her as close as he could, ensuring their force would not break her as hers threatened to devour him.

Her back slammed on the stone wall, and her legs climbed to hold him, to keep him. They didn’t know how long they could be kept, and they didn’t care — for now, this was their present and future.

His palms gripped her wrist. The subtle, panicked pulse in the middle stunned him. Their present and future wilted abruptly, without any sign, leaving them to inhale each other’s gasps. What doubt did they have now? She could take him now, claw at his shirt and pants, claw at his skin, and he would bite her in return, greedily burying his teeth into her skin until skin broke and bled shed.

Her legs claimed his waist, and his groin wanted to claim her. Just for a moment…just for now…he shook his head, cursing her and himself and fate itself.

A choked sob permeated his speech, “We can’t do this.”

“I know.” Her tearless smile attempted to comfort him, “I know we can’t.”

His forehead fell on hers. Their breathing fell in sync, counting its rhythm, and they closed their eyes as a black butterfly floated amongst the night lights, fading into darkness.

She smelled of rain that stuck to the skin and clung to the scent after a vigorous shower. He wondered if she knew he hated the rain.

With his head laid down for bed, the moon’s violet haze haunted Ichigo’s dreams.