WARNING: This story is eventual yuri (girlxgirl) which means eventual girlxgirl sex between Tatsuki and Halibel and possible side pairings of boyxgirl and boyxboy because, to be honest, I need the diversity to stay in truth. There will be mentions (if not graphic) use of molestation, abuse, drugs, foul language, and issues involving gender and sexuality. I am not saying my views are the one true God, but when it comes to religion, politics, and sexuality, people get riled up. If you review, don't declare war. If you are reading this and consider yourself a member of the LGBTQ community or an LGBTQ ally, these are simply ideas and frustrations I have encountered personally or in my relationships or with friends, so I am in no way trying to offend. I understand the differences between each individual's sexuality and I respect everyone's individual decision towards gender. I in no way am implying that sexuality is "a choice" or "a phase" or that abused or molested children turn to the sex that they have not been abused by for comfort. Although that may happen occasionally or be an excuse or whatever, I am here to tell a story, not declare war. -TPP

WARNINGS: THIS CHAPTER CONTAINS MOLESTATION OF A CHILD, FOUL LANGUAGE, AND MENTIONS OF DRUG USE. CHARACTERS WILL BE OOC, BUT I MATCHED THEM AS BEST AS I COULD.

THIS CHAPTER IS TOLD FROM TATSUKI'S PERSPECTIVE AND IS A BIT OF A BRAIN-TIME-SKIP, SO I APOLOGIZE IN ADVANCE FER THE INCONSISTENT TENSE CHANGES. AFTER THIS CHAPTER, THERE WILL NOT BE SUCH DRASTIC TIME SKIPPING.

Dedicated to Ky for pushing me and KatInTheShade for befriending me like I deserve it. Both of you have no idea how talented you are and how you push me ta be a better writer and a braver person. I'd be nowhere without you guys.

Reckless

"Things cannot be reversed, we learn from the times that we are cursed

That things cannot be reversed, learn from the ones we fear the worst

And learn from the ones we hate the most…how...

Blow out the candles, blow out the candles."

–Daughter "Candles"

Chapter 1.

5 Years Old.

My Barbie has on a pink tutu-like dress. Her hair is blonde and really curly.

Her neck is almost as thin as her waist. Her hand snaps off between my fingers.

I cry for about a minute before I tug on the dress. I play with the Velcro on her back until I've stripped her.

Now she's naked except for little purple boots.

I wrestle her into the mermaid outfit covered in green glitter that doesn't come off in my hands.

I put her hair in pigtails then strip her again.

I poke her chest, than undress the other Barbie I have. Her skin is slightly darker and her hair is in a braid that my mom just taught me how to do.

I set them side by side sitting up, like they're holding hands.

They're both naked and smiling.

My brother charges into the room. He's only a year older than me.

"Come play Legos with me," Shirosaki demands, staring at my naked dolls, "Why they naked? You're supposed ta' dress 'em up. "

I throw them into the play box and go build Legos. We make massive towers and we fight over who gets to work the helicopter.

The next time I play with Barbie, I rip her head off and stuff it under the couch.

7 Years Old.

"Why do I have to be the pink Power Ranger?"

My brother hits me on the head with his white Power Ranger action figure, "Cuz 'yer a girl, stupid."

"I'm not stupid. I want the red one."

"No! That' s my favorite!"

"Then I'm not playing!" I scream, slamming his bedroom door behind me.

I don't talk to him for the rest of the day. I'm too pissed to play by myself so I end up lying on my "bed" which is a mattress on the floor in the hallway between the bathroom and living room. This is Andrew's "house", my soon-to-be-stepdad's trailer, a two-bedroom piece of shit with brown shag carpet with a single couch and no cable.

Mom and Andrew wanted to move in together before the wedding. Mom sleeps in Andrew's room and my brother's room is basically a closet, so I get to play squatter.

S'not so bad. I pretend I'm camping, especially when I can hear the bugs chirping outside and the rats under the floor.

Shirosaki isn't really my brother. We don't share the same blood. I say he's my brother because he should be: he protects me and teaches me things, like how to catch a grass snake or how to throw rocks so that they skip on the water.

And we like all the same things: Power Rangers, dirt bikes, monster trucks, pogs, Batman. We play outside all day until the mosquitoes are so bad we go inside and wrestle each other on the living room floor.

He almost always wins.

9 Years Old.

"Hey," Shirosaki says, sucking on a piece of candy, "Let's play a new game."

"What kind of game?"

He shrugs and leans against the side of our bunk beds. We're sharing a room until the den of our new house gets converted into a bedroom for me. It'll be purple with flowers on the walls. Mom wouldn't let me have anything else even though Shirosaki's room is blue and I wanted green.

Stupid mom.

"How 'bout Doctor? You have to take yer shirt off, though."

"Why?"

"Cuz I'll be the doctor, then you can be the doctor."

I'd been to the doctor before. I don't know why my heart was beating so hard as he slid his hands over my naked chest. I was lying down, him hovering over me. His fingers tickled over my ribs, my belly button, than back up to my chest. Mom makes me wear bras even though they're uncomfortable and I hate them. Since it's a training bra, Shirosaki unclasps it from the front and runs his cold hands over my now-loose chest.

"Your boobs are hard," he says, pinching my nipples.

"I don't want to play anymore."

He shrugs and lets me pull my shirt back down, "You wanna be the doctor now?"

He laughs as I bury my head into my pillow.

He curls up next to me until I eventually come up for air and we bump foreheads.

"It's a stupid game," he says, pecking me on the lips.

This was familiar. We kissed all the time. On the cheek, on the forehead, but Shirosaki had never kissed me on the mouth. Only mom and Andrew do that.

It was nice. He hugged me closer until we dozed off.

11 Years Old.

When it thunders, Shirosaki doesn't like to sleep alone. I'm not afraid, so I let him sleep next to me, his head buried between my shoulder blades.

His arms and legs are already getting so long: he's getting longer and longer everyday while the only thing that seems to be growing on me is my chest.

Give it a year, maybe two, and his feet will be hanging off the end of the bed.

It's already unfair enough when we play basketball or soccer. He's taller, so he always knocks my shots away from the basket. He's got longer legs, so he can run faster than me and get a goal. Then when I say I'm done, he'll tell me to stop being such a girl.

He likes that I'm a girl but not a "girly girl."

"You act like a boy but you have big boobs. What's wrong with that?" he'd say before chomping on a Snickers, his favorite snack. He could eat whatever he wanted without gaining a pound. I used to hope when he got old he'd be the size of a sumo wrestler.

"Tatsuki."

"Huh?" I say, turning onto my other side so that we're facing each other. It's dark but we can see each other's eyes.

He runs his thumb over my bottom lip.

"I'm gonna go live with my mom."

12 Years Old [or] Puberty.

It's not like I could've stopped it.

His mom lived two hours away. I barely ever saw him. My best friend and brother, the person who was basically my twin, just vanished. When he did come around, he smelled like cigarettes. I hated that. He shaved his head, telling me not to worry about him, that he was fine, that his mom was cool.

His mom was getting remarried.

"I'll have a stepbrother," he said with a crooked smile, "nice, huh?"

This is what rejection feels like.

"I'm your brother."

He laughed, almost six feet tall, and said, "You're my lil' sister, Tatsuki."

I'd shoved him in the chest until he fell into the dirt. We were at the local neighborhood park skateboarding, my whole body shaking until I felt like I would beat him until his whole body was black and blue.

"I hate you! Stay away from me or I'll kill you."

I didn't see him for weeks after that. I didn't call him, he didn't visit. I was miserable.

That's when Andrew started touching me.

Mom worked late shifts. Sometimes she wouldn't get home til midnight.

He had a bad back and wanted neck massages. Then he said he'd give me a massage.

The first few times, he'd just skim underneath my shirt, touching along my spine.

After that, he started touching my belly.

After that, under my bra.

I couldn't move. I couldn't do anything but sit there and stare ahead at the tv screen like I was being sucked into the show, my heart hammering out of my chest.

Touching touching touching.

Shame. Humiliation. Fear. Anger.

He'd come into my room. Lay down with me in my bed.

I was silent, unmoving.

Touch touch touch.

His hands moving along my rib cage, over my stomach, down to…

No.

"Your panties are wet."

His fingers probed. I was going to throw up.

More pressure, rubbing. I squirmed, trying to close my legs.

"Stay still, Tatsuki. It's just a massage."

I didn't cry even after he left.

Middle School Year 1 [or] 6th Grade.

I'm sitting in front of the principal's desk and he's looking at me like I'm some kind of mutant.

I'm not much to look at, although I'm tall for thirteen at five foot eight. I probably won't grow any more. I'm a head taller than most girls in my middle school, which is probably the only reason my basketball coach puts up with my attitude. I have a square face and mud brown eyes pushed back in my head that makes it impossible for me to wear eyeliner, but I make up for it with thick black eyelashes.

Most people don't approve of my wardrobe, but it's within the school dress code: black jeans, black collared shirt, and short, black spiky hair. I'm the only girl in the entire middle school who paints her nails black. There's a rumor going around that I'm a witch. The eight studs in my ears are silver and school policy dictates no more than two piercings in the lobes of females while males cannot have any ear piercings at all.* I was reprimanded by several teachers and even given a detention and told to take them out. I refused. Got another detention. Refused again, got a call home. Took a Saturday school sitting in a white room for four hours to think about my rebelliousness.

Still didn't give in. They gave up after that.

But he's not staring at my ears anymore: he's staring at my chest.

I hate my chest. My first year of middle school and I'm a D cup. It doesn't matter how form fitting my sports bras are. It doesn't matter that I wear two undershirts. I was wearing training bras by the time I was seven. I wasn't allowed to play with my male cousins in the pool topless since I was four while most other girls could get away with it until they were eight or nine.

People have been staring at my chest since third grade.

I hate my chest.

I don't blink. The principal clears his throat.

"So, would you like to talk about why you're here, Arisawa?"

"No. Not really."

"I'll have to call your parents."

The mustached principal really hadn't had much in his arsenal that fall semester. Threatening to call my parents was the equivalent of smacking me on the wrist, especially when I was sure my mom would laugh in the principal's face, or at least laugh at him over the phone when he told her why I was even in his office to begin with.

"Do what you have to do. Detention, whatever, but I'm not apologizing."

His beady little gopher eyes had gone all screwy. His shirt had become less and less starched before my eyes, "You will apologize to those girls. Then you will apologize to your gym teacher, and you will be compensating the school for the broken stall."

Yeah. This is the part where I laughed at him.

He was being so funny. Like there was any way any of those things were going to happen.

"Can't you just suspend me?" That's what he did for all the other bullying, tyrannical misfits. Why was I being excluded? Maybe he was being sexist.

"I'm suspending you for a week," he started, building up speed like a shiny, bald locomotive, "When you come back, you have mandatory weekly sessions with the guidance counselor for the rest of the semester. What you did today will not be repeated: I will not tolerate fighting in my school."

I heard everything he said. It made sense, in a way. He needed a scapegoat. I'd known going into it that I was going to lose. After all, three girls' words against one was always going to win, especially when one of said-three girls had a bloody nose and a black eye and had wailed the entire way to the nurse's office.

"I'm not paying for the stall," I said when he was finished, referring to the handicap bathroom stall in the girl's locker room. When they'd played their little joke on me, refusing to let me out, it hadn't been my fault that the door had cracked off of the hinges.

It hadn't been my fault when I was finally out and able to get my hands on one of the girls. It hadn't been my fault when I slammed her head against the tile wall and punched her like Shirosaki had taught me.

It wasn't my fault that they had come back to the locker room to get me alone while I was changing, talking shit through the door. It wasn't my fault that they had called me dirty names and told me I was disgusting.

They had said they saw the way I looked at girls. They'd called me a fucking bull dyke before putting all of their weight against the stall door so that I couldn't get out.

Thirteen years old. Three against one.

"I can't believe Coach lets you change in here with us, it's gross."

"Fucking lesbian."

I didn't like girls any more than I liked boys.

They had threatened me.

"Fine. I will have the girls split the cost with you. I don't believe they are as innocent as they have presented themselves."

Split the cost. Make it equal. Make it right.

Problem solved. Case closed.

"I'm not apologizing."

"Maybe when you come back next week," he offered.

A week later, everybody's eyes are on me.

It felt that way, anyway.

I was forced to apologize to the girl I'd nearly sent to the hospital's parents to avoid a lawsuit with the school. I even pretended to mean it.

In gym, I opted to change in the lobby bathroom.

Later, at lunch, Orihime asked me if I was feeling okay.

She was a total ditz, one of the dumbest girls in the middle school, but she was sweet and knew everybody and happened to have bigger boobs than me. I imagined myself smitten.*

"Yeah. I'm good."

Funny.

Not even an hour later, during history, I watched one of my bullies pass her a slip of paper.

I knew what was on it, but I hadn't been ready for it.

It's a good joke, right?

This is why guns are unnecessary. Humiliation gets the job done quicker and there's no cleanup. Not much evidence, either.

She avoided me for a long time after that. We had been friends.

So later when one of the boys from the basketball team shoves me into a row of lockers and tells me to watch where the fuck I'm going, I'm grinning.

It takes a teacher screaming my name repeatedly and four boys from my class to get me off of him.

My face hurts. My lip was split open, the taste familiar.

I watch the blood gushing from the boy's nose, his hands shaking from anger before he's garnering sympathy from the students that have begun to flock around him.

His teammates are still tugging me, dragging me. I kick out viciously again, my sneakered foot connecting with someone's legs.

Blood pound pound pounding in my head.

Mom's called to the school. She's sitting in a chair next to me, her face hard as the principal and guidance counselor offer the options available to a troubled student such as myself.

I'm smiling the entire time. Mom's been medicating me for years, siphoning off of her own personal menagerie of prescriptions. The guidance counselor wants to commit me to a city-run youth therapy group, a kind of anger management for minors. To avoid expulsion from the private academy, I would have to attend the sessions three times a week after school, including private sessions with the school guidance counselor every morning before classes to keep me in check.

My mom agrees to the conditions not because she cares but because she doesn't. It's too much hassle to move me to another school. She doesn't have time for this.

I agree with her.

It doesn't matter where I go. I hate everyone equally.

The principal doesn't even look at me as he says, "It's an incredible program. I really feel this is for the best."

And I think choke on a knife.

I make the guidance counselor uncomfortable.

I can see it in her eyes.

Her name is Mrs. Perroway. She's in her early fifties and a long distance runner. I know this because she is the assistant coach of the school's track team and plaques adorn the cream-colored walls of her office like a particularly potent outbreak of herpes. Her hair is red and short in a bob cut, her lips too small for her face, making her look like she's constantly sucking on lemons. She drinks herbal teas and her tiny office is filled to capacity with penguin memorabilia. I'm assuming it's her favorite animal or she needs a therapist more desperately than I do.

Her big steel rectangle desk keeps her as far away from me as possible, her fortress of protection from her students.

She stares down at my open student file, her glasses resting at the end of her nose, "So, Tatsuki, is there anything in particular you want to talk about today?"

My finger twitches on the armrest, "Don't call me that. I don't know you."

"Oh, I'm sorry, um…Arisawa, is it?" she says with a half-hearted smile, "Tatsuki is such a unique and beautiful name…"

"Why do you like penguins?"

She laughs lightly, taking a sip from a red ceramic mug with a dancing penguin on it, "Oh, they're just lovely, aren't they? Beautiful creatures. Do you have a favorite animal?"

"Yeah. I do."

"I hope it's not penguins," she trills. She reminds me of a skinny, obnoxious bird, "I think I have them covered."

"No, the Asian Cobra. They're white with flattened heads."

She smiles again even though her eyes stay worried, "Aren't cobras poisonous?"

"Yeah. Their venom is classified as a neurotoxin: it attacks the central nervous system. Nearly instant asphyxiation."

She's seen my records. She knows I'm currently taking honors biology.

She knows I'm enrolled in the sophomore anatomy class, upstaging kids five years older then me.

They tried to talk my mom into giving me an IQ test or pushing me a grade or two ahead, but no, she didn't want to. So they'd given me a few "honors" courses to keep the private academy from looking like a bunch of incompetent retards.

She knows I currently hold the record for fastest cat skinner and dissector in the school's history, a kind of sick competition held by the school's long-standing anatomy teacher who used to be a mortician, Mayuri-sempai.

It's a stupid competition. Anyone can skin a cat.

Severing the connective tissue between the fur layer and the flesh is like cutting through wet dental floss using a scalpel as your tiny saw. It's all in the wrist, really.

Practiced patience.

Then you start peeling the fur layer back like a ripe, fermaldehyde-flavored banana.

If you did it right, you're left with a little cat fur jacket and a shiny, grayish cat carcass covered in sinew and muscle, smooth as a newborn baby.

Most students start hacking away at the belly, thinking that's the fastest way to skin and get to the organs.

I always start with the neck and work my way down. The skin is more malleable there, easier to manipulate and stretch.

One vertical cut from throat to groin, then one diagonal line at the top of the chest cavity, just like a cross. Too deep, you damage muscle. Too shallow, you start all over again.

I chew on my fingernail before looking her in the eyes.

The skin around her eyes is cracked with too much makeup, "I don't like snakes."

"They're overly aggressive and have no fear of humans."

Mrs. Perroway signs my session slip and lets me leave.

3rd Year of Middle School [or] 8th Grade.

"Fuck school," Grimmjow growls, kicking at the desk in front of him. Nobody sits there anymore.

"Maybe we should quit and join the circus!"

Ichigo's glaring at the stupid Keigo kid who dares to sit in our corner of the history classroom, "Shut up, Keigo. Go be creepy somewhere else."

Keigo laughs awkwardly before turning around in his desk to start up a conversation with a kid with glasses. The teacher hasn't arrived yet, so everybody was either talking or texting.

"I need a cigarette," Grimmjow huffs, running a hand through his obnoxious blue hair, "Oi, we hangin' after taday?"

"My place," Ichigo says, flicking a paper football to Grimmjow's desk before grinning at me, "but we gotta stop at the head shop first."

"You break my bowl*, fuckwit?"

I listen to Ichigo and Grimmjow fight over who was paying for what. They're fucking retards, but we've stuck together for almost two years now.

Ichigo's smart but has a bad attitude. Grimmjow's an idiot at science and math but makes up for it in being able to beat the shit out of anybody and has enough charisma to power China. He can talk his way out of anything.

Nobody fucks with him, or Ichigo, because, you know, they're best friends. They fight like an old married couple that wants a divorce. I'm the child caught in that divorce.

They've had respect for me ever since the stunt I pulled in sixth grade where I sent that one chick to the hospital and put the co-captain of the basketball team in a nose splint.

I proved myself, I guess.

I'm more like Grimmjow in terms of rudeness and anger management, but me and Kurosaki naturally mesh together better. I dunno. They're the only friends I have.

I'm not deaf, either. I know what girls say in the bathrooms, in the hallways, about me.

At first it was hilarious. "Tatsuki The Slut" doesn't really have a ring to it. Apparently I was fucking (or trying to fuck) Grimmjow and Ichigo.

At the same time, too. We're still a little young for threesomes, yeah?

Anyways, when it appeared that we were just a bunch of pissed off teenagers with delinquent-like tendencies, the rumors just became vicious.

Dyke. Lesbian. He-She. It. The Thing. Drag King.

I could probably think of more.

Of course it bothers me. It would bother anyone, but threatening to kick someone's ass only works so many times.

Besides, silence always stirs the pot of animosity better. A grin or a wink was stronger than a hiss or a punch when it came to rumor mongers.

So the words still floated, but nobody was antagonistic quite as much as before. Grimmjow and Ichigo weren't exactly subtle when it came to the female population.

"Don't talk shit about Tatsuki. She's the perfect woman."

I snorted, remembering Grimm's defense of me in the cafeteria a couple weeks ago. He'd gotten up from our table and stormed over to some extremely loud and obnoxious underclassmen and just laid it out. A teacher had told him to sit down and be quiet or he'd get another detention. He told the girls they were all ugly trolls before taking his seat again.

I'll love him for that forever.

Ichigo and Grimmjow were calling each other names at this point so I settled it by saying I'd pay for pizza after the smoke out.

They instantly shut up.

Across the room, Orihime was staring at me. When she noticed I was staring back, she ducked her head.

I kind of miss her. She was always so nice to me.

I guess the second a rumor hits home, loyalty doesn't matter anymore.

Oh well. I got my boys and that's all I need for now.

The door to the classroom opens and our teacher, Yamamoto-sensei, is walking in talking quietly with a student I've never seen before.

I don't think anybody's ever seen her before.

The first thing I notice is her sea-glass green eyes.

My heart is in my intestines as Yamamoto ushers her over to his desk and hands her a few papers, talking to her about how there's a test in a few days but she could easily catch up on the material, how we're only halfway through World War I and that he was happy to have a new student join his ranks.

Her skin is like melted caramel, her blonde hair reaching her mid-back.

I can't stop staring at her legs. She has to be a swimmer.

Grimmjow grins and says something to me, but I don't hear him.

Yamamoto introduces her as Halibel from Hueco Mundo.

"Call me Hal."

Slightly husky, strong.

She isn't looking at me, but I want her to.

...to be continued.

A/N:...That was exhausting.Don'tworry:the story is going to develop in high school and into college. And, since this is based off personal experience,Grimm and Ichi aren't going anywhere anytime soon. In real life one of them goes away,but I'm keeping both of them for the sake ofthis story's sanity.

*This rule always irked me in school. I never gave in though.

*I didhavea crush on a girl in middle school who was just like Orihime but blonde. Ugh.

*A bowl for smoking weed.We have a cool head shop down here called Purple Haze.I named mine Da Vinci until my friend Martin dropped it and broke it.Forty bucks down the drain.He never bought me a new one.A bong is the safest way to smoke weed as the water helps filter the smoke, but glass is second and my preferred. I hate rolling and I'm too impatient for it.