Author's Note: Hello! This is my second entry for the IRBB. This fanfiction is a result of the fiasco that was the Bleach finale. It got me thinking about people settling, which happens more often than not. How would our middle aged characters react to having fucked up during their youth? So, this fanfiction came to be. It's a modern AU, because I don't have any intentions of fixing the mess Kubo created. I'd rather play with the characters in a different setting. Anyway, I couldn't finish all the fanfiction, and I only have some chapters. Although, I did meet the requierement of 7,000 words at least. Once I finish the rest, I will be posting them in here. This is just the prologue. If you're curious of chapters 1, 2, 3, and 4, you can read them in my tumblr. However, I'll be uploading them here too, with extra notes to get in depth with what happens in every chapter. I'll post the first chapter in a week, due to my work schedules (growing up is a bitch). I want to thank my partner c3-elly for making an amazing job with the fanart. She drew the cover art shown in here. It was a pleasure working with her. Her drawings make the story come to life, so check them out when you can. I hope you like this fanfiction, although it is weird. See you next time!

Warning: If you are an IH fan who likes to leave rude reviews on other people's fanfiction or fanart because you dislike the couple, this is a warning to you. If you dare leave a rude review bitching about my choice of shipping IR, and to "get over it", I'm gonna post it on Tumblr. I'm exposing you for being disrespectful. No, I don't care about your opinion. I'll always ship IR, so don't even bother. And why are you reading a IR fanfiction to begin with? Please, get lost.

Prologue: Her

"She was the most beautiful, terrible thing he'd ever seen, like an acetylene flame, an incandescent filament, a fallen star right in front of him." ─ Lev Grossman

July 20th, 2015

The bar smelled like disappointment. There was no other way to put it. Beneath its glimmering lights, the putrid odor of desperation and pain was pungent. People were drinking glass after glass, getting drunk to escape the drunkenness of their own problems. They smoked, and they drank, and oh how they laughed, they sure did. They all pretended to be having fun, but their smiles never reached their eyes. Even a blind man could have told you that the happiness and excitement inside were artificial. Truth was, no one was happy. They were empty. As empty as the bottles they keep chugging one after another. They were all miserable. So miserable, only alcohol could make them laugh anymore. So miserable that even in the dim lighting, they had to pretend to be happy. Pretend, pretend, pretend. It was a grotesque scene straight out of a nightmare.

In this sense, Las Noches, as high profile as it was, resembled any other regular bar in Japan, and most likely, in the whole world. Inside its white walls, listening to electronic music which made your ears drum, drinking imported liquor, were people that were just so goddamned tired of living, that they lived frivolously, but were never able to say it. Sure, most clients were the rich and the famous, venerated by mere commoners, but deep down they were just as sad and angry as the rest of the world. As hypocritical as the rest. Pretending, just like everyone else. Ultimately empty. Kurosaki Ichigo had never liked bars for this reason. He was tired of the hypocrisy of the world. He couldn't bear to see it, staring right into his eyes, plain as day. He sometimes feared he was the same as them. Equally empty, equally sad. Pretending like everyone else. Stop pretending.

Of course, there also were the ones that had stopped pretending all along. The ones who weren't laughing or singing or acting crazy. These people were the only real humans inside the bar. Most likely, you would have found them drinking glass after glass, telling the bar tender or whoever wanted to listen, their story. Most often than not, their misery came from a woman, or rather, their love for a woman. Keigo, the eternal bachelor, had told him back in college that the best way to pick up chicks, was to tell them about another woman. Apparently, if you told a girl your sob story regarding a lost love, she'd think you an eternal lover, like the ones you read about in romance novels, a notion so appealing, that she would take you home, and open her legs for you, as if in this way, you both could fill up your emptiness until you were full. Full of what, Ichigo didn't know, but he was sure that move had never worked for anyone. He had never seen Keigo exit the bar with someone. Neither had Chad. Hell, he hadn't either. The only person he had ever seen hookup was Mizuiro, and only because he was such a ladies' man, he could have picked up a girl in the market, or while buying pajamas for his mother. Ichigo now had to wonder if Keigo remained the same, going to bars every weekend, trying, and failing, to fall in love with one woman to another, never settling for anyone, never finding the one. Was he tired of that too?

Ichigo had never liked bars. Not even once. Not even when he had been a college student, finally able to taste the wonders of alcohol. When he had been single and free to do whatever he wanted. It just wasn't his style. Back then, he had had a reputation to keep. He had been a bad boy. Brash, rude and arrogant. The guy everybody liked to pick fights with. The guy most were afraid of. Everything bad you could think of, but not caring, never caring. But not a drunkard. Neither a womanizer. Definitely not someone that liked going to bars. He had never liked bars, which didn't explain why he now found himself in one on a Saturday night.

As strange as it sounded, Ichigo was in bar. It had never been his wish to be here, but he had come anyway. Perhaps it was out of curiosity, perhaps out of idleness, but there was something which had brought him to Las Noches tonight. He wasn't supposed to be there. And, speaking of reputations, he still had one he had to protect. Kurosaki Ichigo was a respected member of society. He was a doctor, who had taken over his father's clinic. The elder son, who looked after his aging father. The older brother, who still looked over his younger sisters. He was married. He had become a father himself. Ichigo had a beautiful and doting wife, who looked at him as if he were the sun, and a seven year old son, who admired him more than anyone in the world, waiting for him at home. He wasn't supposed to be there. Why had he even come, anyway? He didn't even know himself.

A part of him urged him to get home, back to his family, and forget this had ever happened. Another part of him just knew he had to stay. Maybe he, in fact, needed to be there. Maybe, Kurosaki Ichigo was just like everyone else in that bar. Tired of living monotonously. Tired of going with the flow. Tired of being dissatisfied with life. And, more than anything, tired of pretending. Pretending, pretending, pretending. Pretending he didn't want to be here. Pretending he wasn't curious. Pretending he didn't want an escape from the life he had been living for years. Stop pretending!

But, like it happens so often, it's not always possible to break up from our habits. So Ichigo decided to leave the bar. He didn't feel like he should be here to begin with. He wasn't ready yet to face what would probably come from going to the bar. He wasn't brave enough. So, he chose to leave. He started walking to the exit, going through rows of people who were laughing vainly, and others who decided to dance in the middle of the bar. He had just reached the exit and was about to leave when, as destiny would have it, seemingly having other plans for him, for, a gruff voice stopped him.

"Are you Kurosaki Ichigo?" The voice called him, loud and clear despite the noise.

Ichigo turned around and found himself face to face with a tall man, about his height, with broad shoulders, dark hair, and who was inexplicably wearing sunglasses and a tuxedo in a bar. "Yeah, that's me." Ichigo answered, raising an eyebrow suspiciously.

The man bowed. "Follow me. Ojou-sama has reserved a room at the back."

Ah. Now Ichigo understood what was going on. Without another word, he followed the gruff looking man through the bar. They passed the same people Ichigo had already seen, and ventured even farther into the bar. Upon his first inspection, Ichigo hadn't noticed exactly how large Las Noches actually was. It extended well into the back of the building, with more white tables, and white couches, and even a space for playing pool and dancing. It even had a second floor, decorated in the same way. But, in the farther back, Ichigo could see there were private rooms, which had large black curtains instead of doors. The man stopped in front of one of these rooms, and motioned Ichigo to go inside.

"Ojou-sama will wait for you here. She won't take long." And with that, the man closed the curtains, leaving Ichigo almost in darkness.

Now, the private room was very different than the rest of Las Noches. The walls inside were not white like the rest of the bar, but were painted a dark color, which Ichigo couldn't decide if it was black or brown or even a dark red. The room was very simple as well. It had a single wood table in the middle of it, and on top there were a bottle of sake and two cups. He also noticed that one of the walls was decorated with a traditional Japanese painting of a Sakura tree. Besides all of this, however, Ichigo couldn't see anything else. He also realized that inside the room you couldn't hear the music as clearly as outside. There were no speakers inside the room.

After his quick inspection, Ichigo questioned again his reasoning for being here in the first place. It wasn't right. He should leave instead of staying here. He should leave, go home to his wife and child, and forget this had ever happened. It was just a dream. It even felt like one. Of he left now, it'd be like nothing had ever happened. He could go back to his life, no matter how monotonous it was. Pretend, pretend, pretend. Keep pretending!

So Ichigo straightened his back, and took a deep breath, preparing himself to leave, when a voice outside the room stopped him.

"Kurosaki-san is already inside the room, ojou-sama." The man from before spoke.

"Thank you, Iba-san, I'll take it from here." Ichigo could have known that voice anywhere. It was the person who had asked him to come here.

Taking a step back, Ichigo saw as the curtains opened and in came a woman. She was petite, but walked with the grace of a queen. She had midnight hair, which had been styled in a high ponytail. Her skin, in contrast, was as white as snow. She was wearing a navy blue dress, which had a sweetheart neckline, showing more of her creamy skin. The dress also had a slit, which showed part of her leg. She was wearing silver pumps, while her hand clutched an equally silver purse. Her slender neck was adorned by a black choker with a diamond in it. She wasn't wearing much makeup, just pink lipstick on her luscious lips, and eyeliner. However, she looked flawless. And her eyes, which Ichigo had never been able to say if they were blue or purple, shone as brightly as ever. She turned them on him the moment she entered the room, and had the gall to smirk at him.

"Long time no see, Ichigo."

Kuchiki Rukia was standing before him in all of her majestic and terrifying beauty. Like a hurricane or a tsunami or any other natural disaster. As beautiful as well as chaotic, engulfing everything she saw in her wake. Suddenly, Ichigo couldn't breathe. He couldn't take his eyes off of her either. Those eyes, as enigmatic as always, had captured him, and were pulling at his heartstrings. His will to leave the bar left him.

Maybe Kurosaki Ichigo was finally able to stop pretending, if only for one night.

A/N: Yes, all chapters will start with a quote.