Ranma 1/2 Fan Fiction / Naruto Fan Fiction / Bleach Fan Fiction ❯ Who's Got Short-Shorts? ❯ You Talk In Your Sleep, Kurosaki-Kun ( Chapter 3 )

YOU TALK IN YOUR SLEEP, KUROSAKI-KUN

Disclaimer: I do not own Bleach & co. Tite Kubo does.

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“Rukia … Rukia …”

 

His voice was the barest of whispers but Orihime heard every word, every moan that came from his mouth as she lay beside him in bed. She stared at that sweet mouth, the same mouth that had owned her most intimate parts, the same mouth that she had claimed, time and time again in the privacy of their bedroom. The same mouth that had made vows to her and whispered sweet nothings in her ear. That very mouth was betraying its owner, telling all his secrets in the dead of night.

 

“I love you …”

 

This wasn't the first night Orihime had woken up to his mumbling, clutching her pillow and squeezing her eyes shut to keep her emotions inside. In fact, the first time she heard him, she had sat up brightly, excited that he was dreaming about her, confessing the deepness of his love in dreams the way he never did in waking. But then that treacherous mouth let slip the name that had shattered her fantasy world.

 

“Rukia … I love you …”

 

Rukia was dead. Everyone had felt that last wisp of her reiatsu sputter out in Huecho Mundo. She was dead. Dead as the spicy tuna they had had for dinner. Yet Ichigo, she knew, would never stop pining, never stop looking, for the ghost of his dreams, regardless of the solid, human girl in his bed.

 

“Come back to me, I love you.”

 

Suddenly, Ichigo shot up in bed, the sweat on his forehead rapidly changing directions and heading southbound towards the covers. The spread was decorative and hand-embroidered with flowers and covered the bed they shared as husband and wife. Orihime shut her eyes and slowed her breathing as she always did and felt his hard body roll away from her. He was heading to the bathroom to wash his face and, as she speculated, to convince himself to keep stringing his wife along. Orihime rolled over to face the wall and felt the pieces of her heart move with her. Kurosaki-kun had always been the one for her. She had always known that they would marry and have many, many babies with orange hair. But her actual life was gilded and unhappy. Ichigo had never been the same since Huecho Mundo. Sure, he laughed and smiled and scowled, but Orihime could always differentiate the looks in his eyes. Ever since her death, Ichigo had had that pitiful puppy look perpetually fixed on his face, the look that only Rukia could cure. And so she lay in her bed, the bed she shared with her husband and mulled over her remaining options, because staying with this empty shell of Kurosaki-kun, she hotly realized, who would forever dream of another woman was no longer her answer. No matter what she did, Orihime knew she'd never see her happy ending come true, but she had to do what was best for her. She was finally tired of worrying about Kurosaki-kun. Orihime was sick and she was in need of the cure. So, she sat up in bed and faced the bathroom door, gathering the anger she'd stowed away for years, ready to fight and purge her life.

 

The door-handle turned and Ichigo came through the frame, wiping his eyes before he looked up, startled to see Orihime's hard, gray ones looking back at him. Eyes that had always looked at him full of love were now incensed and Ichigo stood uneasily by the door, disheveled by the sudden change in her composure.

 

“Ichigo,” Orihime said darkly, “why did you marry me?”
“What?”

“Why? Why did you bother?”

“What are you saying? What are you talking about?” Ichigo was bewildered. He had not been expecting this.

“I know you still love her,” Orihime admitted sadly. “You talk in your sleep, Kurosaki-kun.”

Now Ichigo looked scared and he started towards her, to fix things like he always did, but Orihime stopped him with her eyes. There was no fixing this now.

“Tell me why!”

“Orihime,” Ichigo said quietly. His eyes were pleading, glinting with fear in the moonlight washing the room. “Orihime, I love you, you know that.” Ichigo's voice was trying for sincerity, but to Orihime it sounded like he was vowing eternal chastity to stale bread. Not the whimpering, passion-filled avowal he whispered to Rukia every night.

“But you don't love me like you do her,” and her head drooped because it was the truth. He'd never felt for her the way he did Rukia. Orihime clasped her hands above her heart and let a single tear drip from her left eye. That was all the grieving she'd allow herself. It was high time for Orihime to channel Tatsuki and yell her emotions. No more keeping it inside.

Ichigo saw the change in his wife and he knew what she would say next. But he couldn't let that happen, he couldn't let her leave him too.

“No! Orihime! You have to understand! I love-”

Orihime blinked her damp eyes and looked at him. Her eyes were blurry and she fisted her hands in her eyes to wipe the tears away and what she saw when her vision was clear made no sense. When Orihime looked at her husband, expecting to see a man groveling on his knees, she saw, instead, a man who wasn't even looking at her. Instead, his sight was directed past her, far over her shoulder. She brought her fist into his face and felt a smidgen of satisfaction as he toppled onto the floor. But Orihime checked herself and went to pack her things instead. Maybe he'd notice her when she was gone.

As she stood before her cabinet draws with the biggest bag she could find at her feet, Orihime saw something she hadn't seen in years.

Hope.

Happiness.

Joy.

Optimism.

All these things glimmered in his eyes as he looked out the window. Those same eyes that had been deader than rocks mere moments before. Those eyes that Orihime could decode so easily.

“What-?” Orihime began to wonder. But then the swell of anger stopped her thoughts and soared inside her, rising as swiftly as her foot. She kicked him hard in the stomach, domestic abuse be damned. She knew he wasn't hopeful because he thought his marriage could be saved. Those were Rukia's eyes. He was having some kind of fantasy while his wife was leaving him. That was the final straw.

Orihime screamed. She was just feeling too much to bear it quietly. Ichigo didn't even so much as blink at her. Orihime moved towards him, letting her anger guide her. She was going to make him look at her if he wouldn't do it on his own. That's when she noticed the shadow falling across his face and the wall behind his back. There was a full moon out and Orihime was surprised she hadn't seen the shadow before. She turned to face the window and she saw Rukia.

No, it couldn't be.

But it was.

Rukia's mouth was moving, she was saying something fast between her thin lips. Orihime couldn't hear a word. Ichigo, on the other, was captivated. His gaze was intent on her face, as if every word were sinking in and that optimistic look in his eyes brightened steadily.

He could hear her loud and clear. Of course he could.

Orihime moved to the window to break it and break that bitch that had everything she couldn't. But Ichigo was faster. He grabbed Orihime as if she were a feather and tossed her to the side. In the blink of an eye he was on the other side of the window, his shinigami robes fluttering around his body, his lifeless shell slung over his shoulder and his hand snug in Rukia's. With another blink, they were gone with no more than a gust of wind left behind.

He left Orihime wide-eyed, alone, and unloved.

 

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I think what I was trying to say, when I wrote this story way back in December, was that even if you take Rukia out of the triangle, some things are just meant to be, and there's no one who can fill the void. And I think Orihime knows this too, deep in her heart of hearts.