Hey everyone! I'm back after forever...And I have a new fic that I'm going to start, so I hope you all enjoy it! This first chapter is short just to get me started, they'll be longer in the future I promise!

~Lyn

Even years later, he still found himself hovering outside the bedroom of Ichigo Momomiya. Every so often, she came home from college, and Kisshu enjoyed watching her read or surf the internet. Strangely enough, he had never seen that Aoyama kid around after his departure with Taruto and Pai. But maybe that was due to the fact that he never stayed for too long, and his visits were infrequent.

On this particular night, Ichigo looked a bit more tired than usual. Kisshu didn't know much about the concept of 'college', but it wasn't hard to deduce that it was, in fact, stressful for the majority. He watched her pull out her singular ponytail, letting her long strawberry hair fall down just barely past her shoulders.

Her usual routine would have her grabbing a set of pajamas and heading off to the bathroom, but something was off tonight. Maybe it was the way she carelessly tossed her hair ribbon onto her desk. Maybe it was the way she had kicked off her mary-jane shoes and left them overturned in the corner. Maybe it was the way she seemed to drift over to her bed, rain in the edges of her eyes, letting herself fall onto the rosy pink bed sheets.

Either way, he could sense the exhaustion radiating from each breath that raised her chest up and down. She curled up into a ball facing away from the window and lay there on top of the bed sheets for a long time, unmoving. It almost looked like she was crying, but when she sat up again, her makeup was all perfectly in place.

He confirmed something was wrong by the way she ripped off her bell collar and hurled it at the sliding glass window.

The loud thunk against the glass startled Kisshu, and he fell from the tree, landing flat on his back on the concrete walkway in front of her house. He groaned, not hearing the window above slowly slide open.

"Wh-who's there?" Ichigo's wavering voice just barely made it's way to his ears.

Kisshu sat up quickly and remained rigid, not wanting to teleport to give away his identity. The red head looked around for a few more moments, then pulled back inside and shut the window before her eyes could adjust to the dark.

He breathed a sigh of relief, then flew back up to his perch on the tree. The bell still lay on the floor next to the glass where it had fallen as she sat down in front of her mirror and pulled out a small towelette from a box.

He couldn't understand why she was wiping purple stains around her face and on her arms until he realized several minutes later that it was cover up that was coming off onto the cloth.

Kisshu's mouth dropped open and he froze, staring at all the bruises decorating his beloved's body, not realizing she was staring back at his reflection in the mirror.

Ichigo dropped her makeup remover towelette. She didn't dare move an inch, but she could see someone watching her through the window. Her mirror was positioned at just the right angle so that she could see outside, and there was definitely a figure sitting in the tree.

Her pulse quickened and her breathing got shaky. What if it was him...?

Trying to act casual, Ichigo leaned over, pretending to pick up the cloth but secretly reaching for her Mew Pendant, which she kept in a small crook under her desk. Her fingers clenched tightly around the dusty metal that hadn't been touched for years-

And then her ears filled with a distantly familiar sound as a pair of paled hands clasped around her mouth.