Chapter Text
This is not real.
(Am I really having)
(Are these really)
(Am I still)
(The writing is illegible.)
(What is my name?)
(I am Ichigo Kurosaki, right?)
(Am I)
(Is Zangetsu still)
(Am I still human?)
It’s been six months since Aizen was imprisoned.
And I think I died with Mugetsu.
The journal is torn, writing illegible in some places, rips in fragile paper where a sharp pen has cut through it. The words are smeared in some places, tears having spilled on the page and smudges where a hand laid on half-dried ink before laying on the page.
The whole journal is like this.
An attempt to write, only to be scratched out. An attempt to exist, futile but resilient.
And then nothing. Nothing but torn pages and half-written dreams of a man who had never gotten a chance to be anything more than a weapon.
Ichigo stares at the paper on his desk. He’s finished his homework for the summer, has finished his side job, eaten his dinner, and now sits alone, journal open on an empty page. He doesn’t know what to write.
Curling the pen into his hand, Ichigo lifts his fingers to touch the last words he’d written in it.
I think I died with Mugetsu.
The words beat in his head, staccato tapping against his ribcage, and he breathes out a whisper of pain. Slowly, he takes his pen in his hand, and starts to write.
I’ve cursed being able to see ghosts ever since my mother died. Sure, I helped ghosts out a little, but what has that gotten me, trying to protect them? Where are the people who say they are my friends? They’re too busy now, to be around me. They’re simply… there, going on with their lives, going away to something bigger and better now that they’ve used me. I feel like there’s a sheet of glass between me and them, and I’m fucking pounding my hands on it, screaming at the top of my lungs and they can’t fucking see me. Are my hands bloody yet? Can they see the trails of blood my hands leave behind?
How much of myself must I give for them to notice I’m here? How loud do I have to scream to be noticed? How much more must I be willing to lose?
I’ve given my powers, I’ve given up my Zanpakuto and my Hollow, I’ve given up everything for them.
Is a thank you too much to ask for?
How much more do you fucking WANT?
(What follows is inarticulate, a mess of kanji)
… I want… I want someone to acknowledge me. I want someone to fucking…
I just want someone to admit that what happened to me was UNFAIR.
I hate it.
I fucking hate living.
It feels good to vent on paper again, Ichigo notes, staring down at the pages.
That was the problem, before, he admits freely. He was trying so hard to be normal and gentle and kind about shit.
The problem is that Ichigo is not normal. He’s not gentle, and he hasn’t been kind since his mother died.
So he writes out his venom, spits out his hate, seethes on paper about the fucking INJUSTICE of it all. To those he once called friends, he holds in his hate, and when he’s home, alone and allowed, he fucking stews in his rage, fills pages upon pages with his vitriol.
It’s freeing, to admit how angry he actually is, how fucking pissed he actually is. He lets himself be angry, lets himself admit that things aren’t right.
It’s the only way he can get through another fucking day without killing something or someone.
Of course… he boils over eventually.
“How about you keep your fucking nose out of my buisness?” Ichigo’s tone is frigid, and all of his friends stop in shock that afternoon.
It’s typical. Ichigo is being, yet again, harassed by some small-time thugs, some lowlives looking for a quick buck. Ishida had only come to help him, but Ichigo had been brutal in dealing with them, their bodies crumpled from a sheer, outraged force he hadn’t expected. To say nothing of the fist he’d been forced to dodge when Ichigo had seen him.
Ishida is staring at Ichigo, where he stands, fist dripping blood from a broken nose not his own, and tries to process what is happening before his very eyes. Ichigo’s expression is cold. Colder than any of them have ever seen.
“Kurosaki-san?” Orihime reaches out, and he uses that same bloody hand to smack hers away, leaving blood on dainty fingers that she squeaks at.
“You fucking heard me.” He gives Ishida a colder glare, a sharper one. “How about you simply keep your noses out of my goddamn fucking buisness, leave me the fuck alone. I’ve done what you all wanted, didn’t I?”
They waver in shock, and Ichigo’s head tilts in malicious irritation.
“Soul Society got what they wanted. You all -” he gestures with his bloody hand, “- got what you fucking wanted out of me. Isn’t that right? You have your powers, you have your recognition and your bigger and better lives. How about you stop pretending that you’re here with me for anything other than a shitty fucking obligation?”
“You think that’s why we’re here?” Ishida says, incredulous, and Ichigo’s smile is sharp and slanting.
“Tell me the last time you came to talk to me without one of these shitty little thugs coming by first.”
Ishida’s throat works, but he can’t. Because he doesn’t remember.
“Can’t even tell me, can you? What about you, Hime?” His drawl is mocking. “Or did I simply forget that you’re not allowed to speak to me anymore, now that you work with Soul Society?” His eyes slide to Chad, who does not flinch. “Congratu-fucking-lations, Chad. You at least have the decency to say hello to me in the mornings and jack-shit for the rest of it.” With a scoff, Ichigo turns on his heel and walks off.
“You never talked to us first,” Chad points out quietly, and Ichigo’s smile, when he turns back to them, is bitter.
“Should I always be the one reaching out? When you say, sorry, I’m busy, maybe later. Or how about when you say, now’s not a good time. Or should I keep trying when you simply look at me and shrug your shoulders before walking away?” Ichigo’s words are biting, viciously so. “At what point am I allowed to fucking stop being the first one in line? Am I always the one who has to reach out? Is that what I am to you? A fucking tool to show you how important you are over other people?”
Chad has stepped back, startled, mouth working. It’s rare for Chad to miss the mark when he speaks.
“Fuck you.” Ichigo’s words are a dark snarl, and he turns on his heel once more. “Don’t fucking reach out to me. I don’t fucking want any of you in my lives if I’m just a toy for your convenience.”
It’s anticlimactic, to see him walk away, the crunch of snow under his feet cracking the frozen silence.
None of them know what to say.
Ichigo dreams. Bloody dreams, hungry dreams. Ichigo sometimes thinks that this is his Hollow’s revenge for losing his powers.
He’s never imagined wanting these things in his head, these awful things.
But he wakes up, breathless and panting, alone and empty, with blood on his tongue and a raging hard-on from a depravity he’d never admit to aloud.
He thinks that there’s something wrong with him.
There is.
He thinks there’s a piece missing.
There is.
He’d sacrificed himself willingly, so many times, because he’d thought, if he did, someone would love him. That he’d… he’d finally find something. Forgiveness? Understanding?
No. He doesn’t get or find any of those.
All he has left is nightmares.
He’d carved a part of his soul out, and it was time for him to reap those rewards.
It’s still not enough. All he’s doing is simply staving off the inevitable, pushing away what will be his demise. He knows, so very well, what awaits him.
But at the same time.
Will that wait for him? He’s lost all of his powers, he may show up anywhere in the Rukongai, perhaps even in an outer district.
Maybe that would be nice. Nobody would know where he’s going when he dies.
Hell, he might even turn into a Hollow right away.
He doesn’t know.
So he plans. He knows that a person who is prepared can take things with them. So he tucks away a fresh notebook, compiles things he wants to keep.
He stares at the substitute badge he’d worn for so long, torn upon whether or not he should keep it or toss it.
In the end, he tosses it, shoves it under his bed and sets the bedpost on top, just in case it can fucking move without his knowledge. He doesn’t know what else to take. Some clothes, he guesses. Comfortable stuff.
Now all he needs is an excuse and a reason to be caught off guard and carry the backpack.
Both come to him when Keigo offers to take him on a trip to Tokyo, to take his mind off things.
It’ll be easy to lose Keigo, Ichigo thinks. But there’s a little guilt. Keigo is the one he’d actually kind of miss, he would admit that pretty freely. Of all of them, Keigo’s the only one who gave a damn, who tried to talk to him every single day.
Fortune favors him, in the end, when Orihime and Tatsuki tag along. It’s tense and awkward, especially after he’d chewed Orihime out, but he talks to Keigo, ignores the girls.
He gently reminds Keigo that he has to make sure they’re all good for their hotel, and his friend is off, distracted, leaving him with the girls at the empty train station.
And then.
Ichigo picks a fight. He’s memorized the schedule, he’s memorized it all, in preparation for this moment. He knows Tatsuki will blow her top, knows Orihime will try to play peacemaker, and he’s done with it.
The argument escalates, and Ichigo smiles, cruel and mean and so fucking satisfied. Their train isn’t this one, and Keigo is nowhere in sight.
Ichigo taunts Tatsuki, the girls going pale as they realize, as he steps back -
Right into the incoming train.
Ichigo never feels it hit him.
What Ichigo doesn’t know -
They turn his room upside down, once the police come to Karakura with his dead body. Everyone is in shock, horrified and angry when they see him, this bitter, angry boy who was never a child, who never fucking got a chance to be a child.
He didn’t expect to be mourned, for how could anyone mourn a boy who had turned on those he’d once called family?
Ishida is the angriest at first.
(Ishida is the one who finds his journal, who gets halfway through before he has to run and vomit up his lunch, at the realization that losing his soul killed a part of Ichigo he will never get back.)
Urahara Kisuke reads the journal, the bitter self-vitriol that lines the pages like gasoline and thinks - what have they done?
Despite being hit with all the force of a train, Ichigo’s body is surprisingly pristine.
(Orihime rejected his death several times, but Ichigo didn’t want to come back.)
They blame him.
For not reaching out, for not asking them, for not realizing they were his friends.
And then they blame themselves.
For not trying harder, for not asking him, for letting Soul Society drive a wedge between them.
It’s a vicious cycle. The journals are lighter fuel to a fire that has been burning for ages, consuming all who had touched the boy with orange hair.
Ichigo burns. They all burn, but he burns brightest.
Ichigo was once their common friend.
Now, he is their shared misery.
Karakura burns.
(This is the tale of a boy who doesn’t realize his value.)
(This is also a story that never happens because someone notices.)