Disclaimer: Bleach belongs to Tite Kubo
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There are ten contradictions that form the gravity Ichigo must defy to reach her.
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one.
Ichigo is not as innocent as Yoruichi once teased him for.
He lies warily on top of the covers of his bed, tapping his knuckles against the walls, the gentle, rhythmic tap... tap... tap... soothing to his soul. He closes his eyes and inhales, catching that fleeting scent of strawberries carried by the wind and pouring into the bedroom window- the window that is left open every night for the convenience of her. Ichigo's jaw clenches in feverish melancholy as the faint smell of strawberry grows stronger, followed by a subtle gust of wind, and he opens his eyes, already aware of what he should see.
Rukia sits on the ledge of the window, staring out into the evening sky.
"Where have you been?" Ichigo's tone is all too familiar to Rukia. She takes only a passive glance at him before returning her attention back outside. "I was with Renji," she answers half-heartedly, her voice trailing off at the end.
"He's in Karakura right now?"
"No. I took a visit to Soul Society."
"Yeah? For what?"
"Our date."
Ichigo props himself up by his elbows and throws her a puzzled, almost hurt- almost- expression. She slides off the ledge and shuts the window securely behind her, jumping down from the bed to the bedroom floor. Her feet doesn't make a sound, as always, just a small whisper of an exhale that pushes Ichigo into a radical heartbeat.
"Your what?" He asks in prying disbelief, his hair disheveled from the pillow he laid on.
"Yeah, the date. May 14th? We visit our friends' graves every year."
"Oh."
Their date. Their day of a month of a year type of date. Not the other kind, the kind that would kindly rip Ichigo's heart out.
It was by accident. Ichigo didn't mean to... It was never an intention- never even a thought. But it happened; she contradicted every aspect of truth that proved they were never meant to coincide. And they did more than coincide- they intertwined. In spite of everything that told him it wouldn't work, Kuchiki Rukia had entangled her life with his: into his house, his school, family and friends, his will to live, his thoughts. His heart.
Rukia slides open his closet door, retrieving her nightclothes from between clean sheets. Kon is in there as well, bound and muted by duct tape wrapped around and around and around by his own foolishness of defiance when Ichigo had demanded silence a few hours prior. He catches Rukia's eyes as he's muffling pleas for help, and before she slides the closet door back shut, she gives him a teasing, toothy smile.
"Good night, fool," she says softly to Ichigo, almost sweetly, and walks towards the hallway.
"You're not going to sleep here?" Ichigo asks, hoping the mild disappointment in his voice goes unnoticed. Rukia takes a look at the boy, eyeing him from head to toe, and lifts the corners of her lips into a type of smile rarely given to Ichigo- adoring, shy, intimate.
"I had my moment of peace today. I'll let you have yours."
For him, Rukia turns the switch off before she walks out of the room, taking the light with her. But the conversation stays with Ichigo, echoing in his thoughts as he lies there, staring up at the dark, distant ceiling, and listening to the pitiful groaning of a mouth-taped Kon against Ichigo's tap... tap... tap...
It was by accident.
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two.
Ichigo will never admit it, but he enjoys Renji's occasional visits.
He likes Renji. He likes how their friendship was born from a battle- a living example of contradiction. Renji does not adapt to new environments as skillfully as Rukia. She's an expert at learning games quickly, but concerning Renji, there are no easy ways for him to square his circles. Ichigo enjoys Renji's feeble attempts at modern speech. His naivete. His discomfort.
He doesn't enjoy the way Rukia's eyes light up in excitement, pleased to show her best friend the oddities of the human world. He does not like it when she hugs Renji goodbye as if she'll never let go, as if something more precious than gold lies within her embrace.
But whatever, it's better Renji comes to Karakura than when Rukia visits Soul Society. Because when she does, Ichigo must watch as Rukia eagerly slides out of his hands and into everyone else's. Ichigo is forced to remember that Rukia does not belong to him. She belongs to her brother. Her captain. The Thirteenth Squad. Ichigo is forced to remember that Rukia is wanted by many; she must be shared.
But Ichigo is selfish. He likes to keep her guarded in his room, safe and protected in his closet where she nags and she sleeps and she smiles.
"I'm heading to Soul Society in the morning. Will you come?"
"Uh."
She must be shared.
"...sure."
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three.
Rukia can't swim.
It is innately contradicting, considering Rukia's personality is much like water. Dynamic, beautiful, essential to life. Rukia lives gently until she decides not to. She wears away rock-hardened hearts as if nothing could be easier, like Renji's heart, like Ichigo's heart, until it is something smooth and beautiful. Rukia is fluid, creating herself a new path without struggle. So when swimming, it is nothing but natural to assume she is in her own element.
This is absolutely not the case.
Rukia keeps quiet of this humiliating shrivel of information, sealed and locked tightly behind her lips. Yes, of course she can make it to shore in a life and death situation. No, it would not look elegant. Rukia was never taught properly how to knife through the waters, and her struggle to stay surfaced consists of some comedic collaberation of the dog paddle and running. So when Rukia shamefully decided to admit it to Ichigo, he lost all capability to control his laughter.
That is why Ichigo is on the cold, sandy shore, pushing his shirt off his shoulders and throwing it to the side. He watches Rukia wade through the water, unsure but brave, waiting for him to give her directions. As if to show off, he runs quickly seaward, a mischievous, competitive smile on his face, and he quietly disappears under the surface. Ichigo emerges in front of Rukia, who scoffs and pushes his chest away.
"Go away, idiot."
"You want me to teach you, don't you?" Ichigo's smile has not dissolved in the water, and his eyes are narrowed in daring anticipation. Rukia takes his hand and he steps back, back, back, leading her deeper into the ocean.
"It's cold."
"Nah, you get used to it."
Rukia leans in towards his face, and repeats angrily, "It's cold."
"I'll keep you warm."
He sweeps his arm down to catch her legs and carries her away from the shore, her bare bare bare skin hot hot hot against his stomach.
Ichigo likes giving Rukia swimming lessons.
Although, every time, she never learns how to swim.
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four.
There is that old wives' tale- the one that claims our dreams are only played in a myriad of black, white, and shades of grey. Ichigo could almost laugh at this, because he knows the truth.
Because the distinct violet eyes in his dreams contradict this.
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five.
His head is throbbing and his chest rises and falls in shallow breaths. The blood leaving through his wound flows dangerously quick, and he groans violently as Rukia puts pressure on it.
"Ease off, Rukia." He says quickly, because talking is agonizing.
"This hollow had venom when it bit you."
"Get Inoue."
"No time. I'll do it."
Rukia chants her mysterious words and lays her hands out in front of the open gash on his chest blade. The pain augments and Ichigo writhes and curses and demands Rukia to call Inoue over. She gives him an offended glare.
"Inoue can't be called in time. The venom spreads fast. I can do it," Rukia says. She speaks in short, succinct sentences over him, the way she was trained to speak when talking to a patient in critical conditions. But her next words contradict her teachings; they are lengthy and full of unnecessary emotions: "You know, I used to heal you way before Inoue did, and you had no problem with it."
Ichigo can hardly comprehend anything with the pain he is suffering, but if he was able to focus, he would easily detect the discrete jealousy in Rukia's voice as she bitterly heals him.
Instead, he falls into unconsciousness.
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six.
Rukia's compassion is only active in intervals, like seasons. The time between those intervals... well, it's a very colorful period.
In the high school classroom, where it is not as private and intimate as Ichigo's bedroom, Rukia conceals her true self with a wavery, girly personality that is not her own. There are broken seams in her facade, however. Every now and then she'll accidentally spill her bento on Ichigo's uniform, or cause him to trip down the stairs before batting her eyelashes at fellow classmates. Ichigo is quick to retaliate, hiding her books and denying her to copy his homework.
This is their physical display of affection. Their contradicting proof that they care. Every time Ichigo "loses" Rukia's bookbag or Rukia cuts holes into his gym shorts, they are reminded of their undying, irrevocably annoying love for each other.
Whatever type of love that might be.
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seven.
When Rukia wakes Ichigo up in the middle of the night, it's usually because a hollow is thrashing around the town, or because she is concerned for Yuzu, who tosses inside the blankets in discomfort, or because Rukia can't sleep and selfishly doesn't want Ichigo to either.
Tonight, Rukia pulls him out of bed because she wants his company on the roof. She pulls him out the window and over the gutters to the flat terrain of shingles and darkness. Rukia points skyward. "That one."
She wants to know the stars.
Ichigo is rusty with things like this. It takes him a while before he can answer, and there is bland uncertainty in his response, "Polaris."
"And that one?" Rukia scratches her fingers against the black air of the night to a famous constellation. She looks like a child- ridiculous and full of wonder.
"The Big Dipper," Ichigo answers, and he rubs his eyes awake while taking a seat next to her, so close that his hip and shoulder grazes against hers. Maybe she's too stubborn, or too lazy, or maybe she likes the feeling of their friction, because she doesn't move away. Instead she allows him to lead her fingers to a simple arrangement of three stars.
"It leads you to Orion's Belt, right over there." The information of astrology flows back into Ichigo, back from his memory in primary school where he was taught how to map the night sky. He knows that one. And that one. And that one.
"Cassiopeia," Ichigo pushes Rukia's pointed finger to the left and uses it like a paintbrush to trace an image of a queen on her throne. "She angered the gods and was forced to sit upside down like that. And that one? Andromeda? She was Cassiopeia's daughter. She was saved by Perseus, a demigod."
Rukia sends him a sideways glance of confusion, and he chuckles gruffly before continuing, "A demigod is half god and half human. Perseus' mother was a human, but his father wasn't. He was a hero, though. The hero, actually. Gods could only watch as he contradicted all their thoughts of him."
"Like you," Rukia mentions flatly.
Although Ichigo cannot explain it, what Rukia says hits him like a gust of wind, and his veins feel as if they are on fire, as if something other than blood is coursing through him. Ichigo is not self-reflective. He avoids his own thoughts of himself, and the conversation is leading to a topic he is not comfortable with. So, like always, Ichigo hides behind his brooding scowl, scoffing a "che" from behind his cold, chapped lips and looking away in disinterest.
Perseus and the gods aren't real anyway. Ichigo knows the real gods- death gods. It is the reason he doesn't worship them. The reason he doesn't pray. If he has problems, he'll tell them straightforward. That or he'll fight them. Prayers aren't needed.
Rukia is his god.
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eight.
Amidst those nights, when Ichigo is forced to wrestle with the dark beast that dwells inside his heart, it is Rukia's voice that whispers the words to bring him back to the world.
Because while the grim monster controls Ichigo's heart, contradictingly, so does she.
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nine.
Ichigo contradicts all heated arguments he willingly shares with Rukia. Because honestly, he doesn't like it when she is angry.
But there are certain risks he just won't take. There are certain battles he must fight where Rukia is the enemy. And when it is a battle of words, there is no stronger adversary than Rukia. Because her greatest weapon is the way she can bring Ichigo down by speaking. And as he sits in front of his desk, bearing Rukia's war on her tongue, he is thinking that nothing could be so eloquent and dangerous at the same time.
"You're being irrational."
"You don't get it, Rukia."
"No, you don't get it. Look at the bigger picture, Ichigo. You've proven yourself a thousand times over that you are just as strong as us. You're stronger, even, and you should be grateful Soul Society's recognized that."
"I don't want to be the Thirteenth Squad's vice captain."
"Your powers came with an obligation. My obligation. Ichigo, you will be second in command to Ukitake Jushiro. I would serve under you. And you'd lead within a human lifetime if you wanted; you will never be required to leave your family. How do you not accept this opportunity?"
Ichigo stands from his desk chair, and as Rukia reaches her hand out to touch his arm, he waves it away. His eyes are smoldering in anger and desperation. She doesn't get it, she doesn't get it, she doesn't get it. How can she not see what she wants him to do? How can Rukia not understand why he would never accept that title? That title. The title that would leave him vulnerable to be compared. The title that once identified a man Rukia revered beyond all ends.
"I won't become your next Shiba Kaien."
Ichigo would never compete with him.
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ten.
Rukia and Ichigo are always in the middle of their own war.
But the real fights, the ones that involve actual heart, actual fighting, are the silent fights- the time when Rukia never talks and Ichigo never bothers. And this is dangerous for their friendship, because nothing cushions them. Nothing defends them. The universe never intended for Ichigo to share his life with Rukia, and their love is innately an impossible love- a once in a lifetime contradiction. And Ichigo is so fervently aware probability favors the theory that once their friendship is lost, it will be lost forever. It made sense, too. To stay friends, they had been fighting against the grain for months, defying laws of the universe since the night Ichigo had first laid eyes on a black swallowtail butterfly.
Ichigo tells himself that letting go of their friendship is the easier path. Nothing truly keeps Rukia anchored on earth besides her assignments and Ichigo. He is holding her back, holding her down with a love that is just ultimately purposeless.
But for Ichigo, that isn't the point.
The point is that Ichigo has always been the embodiment of contradiction. His burning and battered scowl contradicts his underlying kindness. His unspoken popularity contradicts the loneliness he cleverly hides away. And Ichigo realizes Rukia coincides to this philosophy- her great wisdom defies her youth, and her immeasurable strength is insurmountably manifested in a body too small to logically do such a thing.
Rukia and Ichigo have always lived above the laws and currents of the universe, divorced from the physics of life, the physics of love, that pass by as Ichigo and Rukia live the way no one else was intended to.
And as Ichigo realizes this, he dismissively tosses a nagging Kon out through his bedroom window, and blatantly slides the closet door open, where a young goddess lies unhappily above carefully pressed laundry. She mutters tired words out of frustration that transform into words of pure surprise. Because Ichigo pulls her closer, by her arm, and towers over her until his lips rest safely at the seam where her neck meets her shoulder. And as seconds pass, his lips create a kiss, which turns into two kisses, which turn into three kisses. And as Rukia finally reacts and presses her chest against his, Ichigo exhales a pleasing reminder that their love was born out of contradictions- multitudes of contradictions that were built and glazed and gilded into a miracle.
Rukia feels the warmth of Ichigo's strength as he lifts her up and carries her across the hardwood floor and onto his bed, where he creates a trail of messy kisses up her leg as she laughs and shudders at the tickling sensation. As the air gets heavier and their breaths get shorter, Ichigo climbs over her body, the body he knows belongs to him, and whispers dark words, secrets, into her ear, before allowing her to push the sweater off his shoulders. And as Rukia arches and gasps at the pleasure of his friction, Ichigo is ardently determined to prove to Rukia that he is not as innocent as Yoruichi once teased him for.
Ichigo likes a world with contradiction, because a world with contradiction is a world where he can be with Rukia.
Everything else makes no sense.
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I found this story on my Blackberry for a while now. After some editing and adding, it turned into something pretty heavy, haha.
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