a/n: for some reason this just came to me and i had to write it down. i really hope you guys like it. think bittersweet.

i don't own bleach.

reviews are loved.

tatsuki: it's hard being the one always left behind. not knowing when she'll be coming back. not knowing if she'll be coming back. not knowing when she'll leave. it happens randomly, any given second. orihime will have disappeared somewhere i can't follow her. that's hard to accept, that she's always keeping a big secret from me, something that she can't tell me about for whatever reason. i've tried beating it out of ichigo. yeah, i've tried that a couple times. i've tried tears - fake, of course. well, most of the time. okay, they're mostly real. but that doesn't work, all that happens is ichigo gets all p.o.'d and gives me the cold shoulder. and ichigo's chill, i don't want him to ignore me. we tried following him to that weird guy's place. urahara or whatever his name is. he didn't get mad, he just made us leave because he had work to do. most likely it was illegal. orihime's been hanging out with some pretty shady characters lately and it worries me, alright? i just want her to be safe. she'd go into a white van with tinted windows if they offered her a puppy, that's just how she is. all she sees is the good in everyone, it's that naïtivité she has that gets her into situations. and then who has to come in and save her, yep that's me. i want to be able to save her. but i can't save her when she's off places that i can't follow. it's hard.

keigo: it's hard being the comic relief. you don't get credit for anything you do. no one takes you seriously, and when you do act serious everyone asks you if you're feeling all right. i don't mind usually, in fact i can't really imagine it being any other way. but there are some times when you just want to grab them by the shoulders and give them a good shake and say, "i'm not always a big ball of moron, sometimes i do grow a brain and i'd appreciate it if you took me seriously when those times do come." it's not often that i feel that way. usually just when ichigo and the rest are off doing supernatural stuff and then come back and make excuses that no one born anytime in the last week would believe. like when orihime came to school all cut up and bruised and looking like she'd been hit by a goddamn train. and she tells us she fell down the stairs. what stairs? the stairs going up the empire state building? seriously. it was obvious she'd been attacked by one of those monsters that are always cavorting around karakura. i don't know how she managed to get away with just the injuries she had, but somehow she must have fought it off. what i don't understand is why she couldn't tell us. us, meaning me, tatsuki and mizuiro. why they have to constantly lie. when it would just be easier to tell the truth. it's hard.

mizuiro: it's hard losing people you love. and when i say that i don't mean when people die. i mean when they drift away from you, when one day they're in your life and then the next they quite suddenly aren't. when the people you used to eat lunch with you suddenly don't even make eye contact with in the hall. when your best friends aren't there. it's hard when they don't tell you why they're distancing themselves. when you ask and they look away. when you try to do the things you used to do like go to bad shield movies and they act all melancholy and like their minds are constantly elsewhere. i didn't know ishida very well before ichigo brought him into our group. and when i met him, i thought we could probably get along very well. and we do. but how can i make friends with people who can't tell me the truth? if someone can't tell you about themselves how can you know them? i feel like i used to know them - ichigo, chad, ishida, inoue. even kuchiki. but now i feel like i don't know who they are anymore. and i want to know them again, but i can't when they are always telling these half-lies. it's hard.

tatsuki, keigo, mizuiro: we're the ones that get left behind. and it's hard to wait at home, like sailor's wives. not knowing when they're coming back, not knowing if they're coming back. only wanting the days to come back when we would just laugh and flirt and make fun of kurosaki-san and argue about if we wanted to do ice cream or a movie after school. when our biggest problem was having to study when we would rather go to a karaoke bar. when we didn't lie to each other. but those days can't come back, no matter how many falling stars we wish on, and we keep being left to stare at the window and hope they'll be alive when they come home this time. and hoping that smile on orihime's face wasn't the last one, hoping you didn't just witness ichigo's dad get drop kicked for the last time, hoping you didn't see chad cuddle his last stuffed bear, hoping you didn't need ishida to hem his last sock. hoping, because that's all you can do.

it's hard.