Ichigo x Rukia x Orihime

Numbness Rekindled

Rukia's eyes widened.

His tanned, muscular arms were tightly wrapped around her, as he stood behind her, clutching her for dear life. He had ran up behind her as she has prepared to call the Soul Society to take her deluded self back, and desperately thrown his arms around her.

"Ichigo...", she whispered. She felt numb, previously she would've been burning all over with butterflies and strong feelings, her cheeks would be scarlet, her heart would be fluttering.

But she felt nothing.

It felt as if nothing would feel strongly within her again. But that was a good thing, she realised. That's what it meant to be a Soul Reaper. There should never be any emotion displayed, nor even felt. All that should matter - the protection of the Soul Society.

Her thumb raised to press the call button on her Soul Pager once again.

"Oh no, you don't!" And before her cold, unmoving fingers could process what was going on, his muscular hand had knocked her Pager out of her grip. It fell off the wall and landed on the concrete floor below with a loud clatter. Maybe he had broken it. Again, she barely felt a thing.

He then spun her round, hands fixed on her shoulders tightly, so she was facing him, forced to look at him.

"Ichigo...", she mumbled again, still not processing anything. All she could hear in her head was the repeated phrase, 'when we slept together... when we slept together... when we slept together...'

...

"Rukia, what the hell?!", even Ichigo's handsome face, contorted with worry and anger, couldn't budge her from her inner numbness. At most, it caused her a little confusion. Why was he angry? What had she possibly done? "You've been away for months! I thought you weren't ever coming back! And then you run away from me? What's going on?!"

Ichigo had always been dense, she thought. But this was literal stupidity. How could he not know?!

"What's going on is that I know I don't belong here anymore", she heard herself automatically reply. Her voice was brittle and fake.

"What?! Why not? You were fine before! Are you gonna go back?", he asked, his voice growing quicker and more panicky. His words and sentences gave way. Rukia didn't see why he appeared to care at all. It was so confusing. Shouldn't he be happy? Now he could be free to live with Orihime without her in the way. Thinking back, maybe throughout that whole time of them both playing the game to win him over, maybe she had just been annoying. Maybe he hadn't said so because he felt sorry for the dark haired, slim Soul Reaper. When in reality he'd been with Orihime from the start. She was nothing compared to the pretty girl with the hourglass figure.

She bit her lip.

"You can't leave... I thought you wanted to stay here", Ichigo was saying. His hands had dropped from her shoulders, and he was looking down at the floor. He looked miserable, and that surprised her.

"But you don't want me to stay, surely", she replied. There were no inklings of hope within her. She had already come to terms with the fact she was unwanted for sure. And that was causing the empty feeling inside.

And then he lifted his orange-topped spiky head to look at her, and her heart skipped a beat as she got lost in those soft brown eyes. They were shining and reflecting her own face within them.

"Ichigo?"

And then he stepped forward again and wrapped his arms around her tightly. Her eyes widened as she felt her head against his muscular chest, her body pressed up against his, he felt so warm... and their Spiritual Pressures were intertwining. She could almost taste the flavour of his own in the close proximity to it she was.

"You can't go...", he muttured.

She looked up at him to interject, just as he brought his face down to hers, and the space between their lips disappeared.