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Summer Rain - Chapter 1

"Mommy, this time, I'll be the one protecting you!" He said determinedly as his smiling mother wiped the rainwater away from his face.

He was nine going on ten, and he had already decided with great certainty that if that was only one person in the world he could protect, that person would be his mother. That was a resolution he had made a long time ago, when he had first learnt the meaning behind his strange name.

But on that rainy, summer evening, she had died.

She had died because he had not been able to protect her. He had murdered his beautiful mother with his very own hands.

People thought he might forget what had happened. He was so young after all, but he was nine going on ten. He was not young enough.

And it was not something one could forget.

People also thought he might not understand what had happened. He was so young after all, just nine going on ten. But already, he had seen more than death itself.

So he understood everything.

Kneeling rigidly at the wake, trying his best not to tremble or cry, he could not find the courage to turn and look at Yuzu's blotched and swollen face. And neither could he find the strength to get up and comfort Karin who was curled up in a corner, sobbing quietly with her face pressed against her knees.

He could not do anything. He could not protect his sisters from the pain.

Because he was the one who brought it all to them.

"Daddy, why is Mommy not waking up? Why is she lying there? Why are all these people here? What are they doing, Daddy? Why is Mommy sleeping over there?" Yuzu was making a scene, screaming and hiccupping as she tugged angrily at Dad's sleeves. Her voice had already gone hoarse from her tantrum but she would not, or perhaps, could not stop.

His father's face remained stoic as he cradled Yuzu into his arms, like he was carrying a young toddler, calming her down as he stroked her hair and gently rocked her back and forth. "Mommy's not waking up, Honey. And because she is not waking up, the people who loved her is here to see her one last time."

"Why is Mommy not waking up! I want Mommy to wake up! Daddy, make Mommy wake up! Make Mommy wake up!"

Ichigo knew that his Dad's lips were quivering as he held Yuzu a little closer to his chest and buried his lips into her soft brown hair. And he knew that he was avoiding the sympathetic glances of the visitors, as they watched him try to comfort a child that could not be comforted, because she was much too young to understand the sudden loss.

"Yuzu dear, Mommy's not going to wake up. She has gone somewhere far, far away, and she's not coming back. But we'll be okay. You hear that, Honey? We'll be okay. We'll be fine. We'll definitely be fine. We'll be fine."

Ichigo guiltily shifted his eyes away from his Dad's face and fixated them onto the ground instead. He could still hear his father murmuring "we'll be fine" over and over again. He had been too distraught to notice in the beginning, but it seemed that a part of his father had died along with his mother on that day.

He wondered why his Dad did not just tell Yuzu that he, Kurosaki Ichigo, was the one who killed her. That he was the one who failed to protect her. That he was the one to be blamed.

It would have been easier if someone railed at him, reproached him or hit him. Anything was better than his father's silent grieving or the meaningless commiserating gestures that came from all these strangers.

His father reached out to hold his hand that had begun to shake, but he shrunk away, shrinking away like he thought he would be scalded by the warmth of his touch. He felt suffocated, like his father's pleading eyes and outstretched arm had sucked the oxygen right out from the room. He wanted to push him away. To escape from this overcrowded house and drift away. To jump into that river and be carried away into the open sea where no one would ever find him. Because he could not bear to be touched by his father, or to be touched by anyone else around him. He did not want anyone to hold his hands and comfort him.

Because no one should be dirtied by touching the hands of a murderer.

- - -

Funny that he should be recalling such memories at such a time, when he was lying in his own widening pool of blood, hearing the patter of rain against the asphalt and pending death on this cold summer's night. Those were memories, so deeply etched in his head that he could not forget them even if he wanted to. Memories of his regret, his shame, his sin.

But perhaps it was apt for such memories to come at such moments of hopelessness.

His lungs were gurgling with blood and it was getting really difficult to breathe. He wanted to turn around and lie on his back instead, thinking that it would make breathing much easier if he did that, but he could not even feel his limbs anymore, much less find the strength to push himself up and change his position. All that were left was the dull throb of the wounds in his chest, the chill of the falling rain against his skin and the warmth of his blood slipping away into a puddle beneath him. He closed his heavy lids, quietly awaiting the passing of time to finally take him away.

It was obvious. The fight in him had vanished, because he knew that he deserved this. He deserved to just die like this, in this state of utter disgrace. Perhaps, though unsaid, he wanted to die like this.

He could not protect his mother.

He could not protect his sisters.

He could not protect her.

"Mommy, this time, I'll be the one protecting you!"

It was a mockery.

Because six years later, he was fifteen going on sixteen, but absolutely nothing had changed.

In the end, he still could not protect anyone at all.

- YL -