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A Grudge's Decision	By : toujourseveille Category: Bleach > General Views: 6010 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own Bleach, its fandom, or any of its characters. I make no profit from writing this story.

Chapter List
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A/N:…I’m updating, oddly enough, out of poor self-discipline.
Okay. Like always, read this with discretion (in regard to General Ideological Horror). Not beta’d.
I’d like to give a big thanks to anyone who has read or reviewed this thing. I’m still surprised by the amount of attention this story has garnered—granted, there’s a morbid attraction to ‘rapefics’ and ‘whump’ (I understand this), but the writing’s fucking obtuse. There are many conventional fic elements that A Grudge’s Decision lacks (/shits on, burns, and drowns in the nearest bay). Time, for instance. And courtesy.
…Yeah. Sorry for that, by the way. This fic isn’t particularly courteous with its audience.(Nn.)
On that note—

(07)「鼻突きというのは」“Meeting Head On” Means
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(into the fourth week.) :: nothing, I
Tuesday. Seven-fifty in the morning, and he’s by the door—grey uniform, tapping on a loafer.
Hand on the shoji, muffled hiss of the tracks. (Light low, still shadows in the dirt courtyard.) He steps—
“Ichigo?”
(Book bag over his shoulder, hanging off a few fingers.)
“Yeah?”
He doesn’t turn around.
“Are you…?”
Urahara trails off. (Foreign situation, even for him.)
“What?” Voice soft, a little petulant. “I’m going to school.”
“…”
He frowns, but Ichigo doesn’t see it.
(He’ll be hands-off, for now.)
“I’ll be fine. It’s nothing.”
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:: sublimate
“Mmpfft—!”
Ichigo cheeks puff out in some sort of self-restraint (holding his breath), but then he bursts out laughing.
Rukia almost wants to laugh along, too, but she doesn’t know why he’s laughing. It’s strange.
(It’s out of the blue.)
He sees the quizzical look and tries to control his breathing—he’s in stitches; it’s hard to talk.
“Ah… Ah… It’s—ahahaha! It’s, like… Wow, how has it—mmhmhn—gotten so bad? I mean, it’s—like really, really BAD!"

He laughs harder. His face hurts.
Rukia’s frowning and that place under her eyes feels heavy.
“I’m just… It’s just… fucking amazing how many– things have gone wrong! Just… hahaha—it’s so fail…!”
(He’s holding his sides.)
“Mm–oh… Well, I suppose it could be worse—I could be a girl… Hmhmhm… and—PREGNANT!”
Ichigo’s legitimately cracking up.

It would be refreshing if she thought it was funny, too.
“Ha ha ha… What would that even be? Would I be the mom? Or the—ffff—THE SISTER! buHAA HAA HA—"
Rukia wants to tell him to stop.
“Hahaha…! oh… oh…” He wipes away tears of mirth. “…Fucking crazy… Heh, it’d be like… ‘Teen Mom’—now with swords! Find it at your… mm–local hellhole, ahaha—”
She wants him to stop.
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(around two weeks.) :: la persistencia de la memoria, I
Ichigo yawns, stretching, and walks into the kitchen.
“Mornin’… Oh—Yuzu make breakfast?”
Karin looks at him like he has three heads.
“Ichi-nii?”
He blinks owlishly at her.
“Huh? Why’re you looking at me like that? Something happen?”
After a second, she pushes in her chair and goes to look for Urahara.
“Karin– Oi!”
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(hospital.) :: that is to say
He’s been standing in the shower too long. Eyes closed, drifting a little—
The damp air is starting to smell salty.
Rusty.
(Cuts through the glycerin.)
When he looks down, it’s not water running down his legs.
It’s blood. (A few globules of semen.)
—Kind of looks how it did that night. Upside-down ‘y’ shapes.
(He’d tried to stand up by himself. Went between his toes.)
He stares at it indifferently for a few seconds. Formally. Then he blinks, and it’s water again.
Faster and thinner. With suds.
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:: in charge
“—Kisuke, you’re his godfather…”
“But I didn’t think Isshin would turn out to be a goddamned rapist!”
Urahara puts his face in his hands. Shuddering breath—he’s worn out.
(He’s had recourse to more expletives in these last few months than…)
“I don’t have the maturity for this. I just don’t.”
Tessai puts a hand on his shoulder.
“…Don’t underrate yourself. I’m sure Ichigo-kun appreciates your help—you’re the closest thing to a father he has. You might not hear it from his mouth…”
“This is so hard… I know—I’m just tired.”
He takes off his hat for a moment. Holds it to his chest, rubbing an eye.
“Sometimes… I know it’s selfish and absolutely peripheral, but sometimes I wish he could validate my efforts a little. He’s… There’s so much anger—which is understandable, but he directs a lot of it at me, and—while logically, I understand it’s untrue—it feels like nothing I do helps. And then…”
He laughs a little, humorlessly, inclining his head, fingers lightly reposed over his nose.
“My emotional shallowness certainly doesn’t palliate things. I’m such a hypocrite… I’ve… preached to him so much about ‘inner strength,’ but I’m a terrible example—"
He raises a hand when he sees Tessai open his mouth to rebut him.
“You don’t need to reassure me—this is a pity party; I am aware that this is a pity party, but I just need to have a pity party right now.”
Tessai pauses for a moment, and then nods.
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(4.5 weeks.) :: nothing, III
“Ahh—you’re making such a big deal about this!”
“But it is a big deal—”
“It’s NOT that serious! …So what?So what if he had sex with me? So what if I didn’t want it? I’m not gonna waste my time whining about it—I have better things to do!”
“‘Better things to do’? This is not one of those things that you can just… You can’t just…”
“I can’t what?”
“…Agh, you—Ichigo, what you’re doing is like… You know better than to leave a wound untreated—”
“…A ‘wound’? Oh, come on—”
“That’s exactly what it is!”
“You’re blowing this way out of proportion—”
“Ichigo, this isn’t ‘the battle’ anymore! You LOST!”
“…”
“…”
“…”
“You lost… Stop… Stop trying to press forward so hard…”
“…”
“…”
“…And what else would I do? Tell me that, Ishida. What else would I fucking DO?”
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:: fear is
On the way back from school, he—
There’s something wrong.
It was somewhere by the kombini—he’d started to get that inexorable feeling.
There’s something wrong.
Totally irrational. It’s almost funny; there’s this conception that started to creep into his head, the conception that—not exactly that there’s something or someone behind him. That’s not it.
No.

It’s the feeling that there’s nothing behind him.
That, if he turns around, nothing will be there.
Not even blank space.
He says to himself that that’s not true—can’t be true, but—
There’s something wrong.
It’s as if… starting a few inches behind him, the volume has shut off. As if a few inches behind him, the temperature (it’s not colder, it just) stops.
(Distantly horrifying.)
At first, he’d thought it was just some voodoo-y spot of concentrated spiritual energy, maybe left over from a hollow—there are those; he’s felt plenty of those, but—
It’s been a mile.

(It’s followed him.)
There’s something wrong.
He’s walking—fast now—and the rush of cars (THE CARS), right after they pass him in the opposite direction, they lose their sound.
He can’t turn around and look. He just can’t. It’s not that petty fear, no.

It’s animal, now.
Maybe it’s the medication. (What the hell dose is he on, anyway?)
But that’s not right—meds aren’t supposed to do this—
There’s something wrong.
That lack of sensory input, stalking him like a spectre—is that his mind doing that, or are things really disappearing?
—can’t be true, but—
He can feel it—the, the nothingness is almost level with his peripheral vision—

HE DOES NOT WANT TO KNOW WHAT IT LOOKS LIKE
He doesn’t know when he’d started running. Sprinting, his lungs—
—constricting; it feels like there’s infinity behind him, but he’s being funneled into a small room—he can’t breathe—
Whatever it is (OR WHATEVER IT ISN’T) is faster than him, and he can’t feel his feet touch the ground anymore—just the ache of his own body weight—
The only things he can see, can hear, can KNOW is directly in front of him, but it’s starting to close off; he’s on the verge of having no information about his surroundings, holy shit—
(NO INFORMATION TO EVEN

DISTRUST)
Barking gasps, legs and arms senseless pistons, eyes watering at the pure speed—the overdrive—it feels like his body is going to come apart in a mess of metal balls and joints, or perhaps just dissolve under the strain—
It feels like his mind is eclipsing, but when the Shouten lurches into view, shuddering, hurtling toward him, he is able to hold onto the there-ness just long enough—
He collapses by the door, leans up against the building, heaving.
Eyes impossibly wide, he holds both hands over his mouth.

He can’t anything.
(Urahara comes out with a sedative.)
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(early, second day.) :: (ir)rationalizations
So.
Okay.

HE HURT ME AND IT’S MY FAULT
Okay. So that was ‘rape.’
I was raped.
Raped.
Like Rape-Rape.
As in ‘actual rape.’

HE HURT ME AND IT’S MY FAULT
Okay.
I…
I can deal with this.
Dad did it, but I can deal with this.

HE HURT ME AND IT’S MY FAULT
Dad raped me, I was raped.
Okay.
Okay, Ichigo.
This is all right. You didn’t lose much.

HE HURT ME AND IT’S MY FAULT
It’s just sex. A little early, but okay.
You didn’t want it, and it was with Dad—
Sex isn’t that big a deal.

HE HURT ME AND IT’S MY FAULT
Right? Yeah.
…Yeah, it really isn’t, now that I think about it.
You can get over this. You didn’t die.

HE HURT ME AND IT’S MY FAULT
Fighting Kenpachi was worse.
Byakuya, too.
Actually, Soul Society was worse.
A lot worse.

HE HURT ME AND IT’S MY FAULT
This is nothing.
This is nothing. Rape is nothing.
It’s all nothing.
It’s all nothing at the end of the day, right?

HE HURT ME AND IT’S MY FAULT
Yeah. Yeah. Okay.
Okay, Ichigo.
You’re going to be okay.

HE HURT ME AND IT’S MY FAULT
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:: nothing, II
Four-twenty-something, rattle of preparations for an early dinner.
They’re sitting against a wall in the den, maybe five feet apart—Ichigo’s feet on the coffee table.
Renji twirls his goggles on a finger.
Urahara’d kicked him out of the kitchen—the man looked piss-tired, kind of wounded. The only thing he’d said was, “Go.”
(But his eyes had said, “Tanomu.”)
Ichigo’s not saying a thing, giving off the ‘The Wall Is More Interesting Than You, Fucking Leave Already’ vibe.
Renji turns (awkward movement—his ponytail is no longer between him and the wall) and looks dully at Ichigo.
The kid has rings around his eyes like a frigging tanuki. Puffy, too.
Renji sighs at the tension, annoyed.
Why does he have to get caught up in their crap?
“Oi.”
Sharply.
Sitting up slightly, Ichigo gives him a slow look in response.
He looks beside himself. Frustrated—wistful, in a way.
(Lost.)
—looks ridiculously in need of consolation, but there is a defensiveness, too—an antagonism—that litters his expression.

(‘I don’t need anyone.’)
Renji makes an irritated noise. He’s seen that before.
Pisses him off.
(A sudden sympathy for Urahara.)
“You seriously too pussy t’ ask for comfort? …Y’look like yer gonna croak, you arrogant shit.”
Ichigo flushes for a moment, mouth slightly open. But the surge of anger at being baited (pitied) washes over, and he starts to make that face like he’s going to go to pieces—sucking in his lips, eyebrows going into a straight furrow.
(The whole shebang.)
Before the corners of his mouth can do that Crying Stretch down, though, he turns away and swallows—what is probably—the lump in his throat.
“I’m fine.”
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(around two weeks.) :: la persistencia de la memoria, II
“You’re… You’re crazy. He’d never do something like that.”
Urahara feels like a terrible person. Conscience feeling bloated (airless, crowded) against his skull, he sniffs.
(Can a person make this less devastating?)
“Ichigo… I’m… I’m looking after you and the girls, now. Legally.”
Ichigo is blank-faced. Staring at some crack in the floorboards.
It’s bigger than the others.
“No.”
“You… you can…” Urahara feels short of breath. “You can check. I picked up your things—the other… a few days ago. After you were released from the hospital…”
Pale, Ichigo shakes his head at him. “No. No, that’s…. That can’t…”
Urahara, clasps his hands in front of his chin, and swallows from his ears, eyes shut.
“I’m so sorry,” he whispers.
For a second, Ichigo shuts down.

The room shuts down.
Urahara takes a breath through his fingers.
“If you… want, I have a copy of the… the… police report—”
“No, you don’t.”
“…Ichigo,” he pleads.
“You don’t,” Ichigo says decisively, determination eerie—the haughtiness, eerie. “You’re just… I oughta kill you for playing a prank like this. I mean—I knew you played sick jokes, but…”
(Urahara begins to cry the tears of a grown man.)

(The quiet ones.)
“Gotta admit, though; you almost had me there—”
“...He hurt you… Ichigo, he… He hurt you so badly…”
Ichigo snarls.
“NO, HE DIDN’T!”
Urahara wipes his eyes on his sleeve.
Dark green.

“…He wouldn’t.”
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A/N:…
In all honesty, I’m starting to doubt the quality of this work. I always attempt to have 3K+ word-count updates, and sometimes, to reach/surpass that length, I feel like I’m putting crap in there that doesn’t need to be there and/or doesn’t flow. (A vignette-based story like this is especially vulnerable to that, because I don’t really need to work by “causal” girders.) In this chapter, I just… it felt just… “No,” to add another vignette in there.
So, yeah—this is shorter than usual.
(The next update might come sooner, though.)
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Well, I hope you guys still, uh—I wouldn’t say like, but—favor this… It’s a bit of a ride.
Either way, I now have an LJ (ttenandayo) I use for status updates and other supplements for this fic (artwork, author’s notes, references, translations, timelines, etc.). It’s a little more navigable than the AFF forum, as it is more private.
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A Grudge's Decision