A/N: Um, wow. Okay. It's been a while since I've updated, heh heh heh. ;u; I bet some of you thought I've abandoned the story, but alas I've come back with an update! And don't worry, I intend to keep writing. I have a bunch of ideas for this fanfic, and my love for our favorite Strawberry hasn't gone yet!
Thanks to everyone that have reviewed or just been reading it so far. It makes me happy as long as there's at least one reader! Enjoy this chapter!
This Is My Confessional
Chapter 4
Monday, April 12th.
Frustration.
That's all Fuyuko felt as soon as she woke up that morning. Her toothbrush frustrated her (goddamnit, why is it so rough). Her toothpaste frustrated her (you call this mint?!). Her hair frustrated her (I didn't grow you so long so that you could misbehave!). Plus the fact she just accidentally burnt her toast.
"Great. Now the toaster won't even work the way I want it to." She shot a glare at said toaster before harshly putting another piece of bread into the slot. Ignoring the fact that she was speaking to an inanimate object, she muttered, "Do it right this time."
Fuyuko slumped onto the couch and stared aimlessly at the black tv screen. She barely got any sleep last night no matter how hard she tried. Something just seemed off. It was like somehow the balance in her life was suddenly tipped off, and she couldn't figure out the reason why nor how to fix it. It was just a nagging feeling in her body she couldn't get rid off. Sighing, she stood up and walked over to her book bag… and then cue another shot of frustration.
"Just because I hate math doesn't mean my textbook has to go missing on me." She let out a long exaggerated sigh as she tilted her head upward. "Heavens, do you hate me or something?"
DING!
Momentarily startled, Fuyuko whipped around until she realized it was her toaster that made the sound. 'So it's not actually the heavens giving me a sign to tell me that they do hate me…'
She quickly stuffed any stray pencils plus any needed materials into her bag and made her way back to the toaster. Satisfied that the toast wasn't actually burnt this time, Fuyuko spread on some butter and deemed it edible enough. A better breakfast would've been more desirable, but with one glance at the clock, she knew she had to leave her house now if she didn't want to be late to school.
'What's the point. I can't find my math book, and I barely got any homework done this weekend. Also…' Fuyuko paused on her doorstep as she looked down at her ankle. More specifically, it was the ankle that was previously sprained. The events that took place three days ago still haven't left her mind, and she didn't know if it even would any time soon. Something had attacked her, and what it exactly was still remained a mystery.
She finally understood why people were always afraid of the unknown because that's what it was – the unknown. How was anyone supposed to prepare for that? And it terrified Fuyuko that every time she closed her eyes she saw that gigantic, black creature coming straight towards her. She hated it, this feeling of helplessness. What made it worse was that she didn't know if she'd encounter something like that again anytime soon.
'Too soon,' she shuddered at the idea. It'd be way too soon for that, but knowing her luck, stuff was always bound to happen.
"I really need a distraction," Fuyuko muttered to herself.
It seemed as if her prayers were answered when in the distance a figure clad in all black suddenly caught her attention, causing her eyes to narrow. The person was far off, but she could still see that whoever it was… was flying? Maybe not flying exactly, but they definitely had to at least be in the air. And what was that thing that was strapped to their back?
'What the,' She blinked in disbelief. In practically a second, that person was gone already.
"I'm growing crazy," Fuyuko deduced. "I have to be. In just a few days, I bet I'm going to end up in the nut house. I might even turn myself in."
For a moment, she debated on whether it was an even good idea to go to school anymore. Sighing, she decided to just keep walking – she was already halfway there anyways.
After a while, the caramel-haired girl once again found herself looking up at Karakura High School with the same hint of distaste on her face. However, this time the frown on her face deepened as she saw Keigo Asano running at her with two others walking behind him, both looking exasperated at their friend's actions.
'Really? Again? Haven't I suffered enough the past few days,' Fuyuko sighed in her head. Feeling too lazy to move one step to the side, she merely put up a hand with a "stop" motion.
"Don't you dare even touch me, you idiot," She snapped, glaring at the brunette. Surprisingly, he actually stopped but as luck would have it-
"But Fuyu-chaan~" Cue Keigo's unstoppable whining. She didn't even bother to tell him to stop calling her that.
Fuyuko gave a pointed look at Mizuiro who stood to her side, "Is this going to become a daily occurrence in the morning because I don't know if I can take it. Am I going to have to switch schools just to get away from this thing?" At the last question, she pointed at Keigo, whose face morphed into a devastated one.
"Fuyu-chan!" And there's that devastated cry to go with that devastated face. "Don't you like me-"
"No."
Mizuiro let out a nervous laugh as he patted Keigo's shoulder in an attempt to ease the guy's depressed state, "Bad morning, Fuyuko?"
Fuyuko's lips formed into a pout, "Yeah." She childishly pointed at Keigo, "And he made it worse!" Mizuiro laughed at his friend's complete 180 in the way she acted, and even Ichigo, who had been standing behind Keigo, let out a chuckle.
Fuyuko finally realized that he was standing there (which was a wonder that she didn't notice since he was the tallest and most noticeable out of their whole group). She hadn't seen him since he dropped her off at her house. A thought popped into her head as she turned towards the orange-haired boy.
"Hey, did I leave my math book at your house? I can't find it anywhere," She questioned, but she immediately regretted her words as soon as she saw the look on Keigo's face. To the side, Mizuiro had a questioning look as well.
""At your house'?!" The brunette repeated in a loud voice, causing Fuyuko to groan as he continued to shoot off questions at a rate of a million per second. "Ichigo, you had Fuyu-chan at your house?! When did this happen?! How?! Why?! Is this the start of a beautiful lov-"
"What the hell are you even talking about?!" shouted the carrot top.
Fuyuko blinked in surprise as she watched Ichigo forcefully elbow Keigo in the face and push him away. Though, truth be told, she probably would've hit him a second later if Ichigo hadn't done so.
Acting like he hadn't just violently hit his friend, Ichigo turned towards Fuyuko, "I don't know, but I can always text Yuzu or Karin to check."
The blue-eyed girl nodded, "Alright."
"Why were you over at Ichigo's house, Fuyuko?" Mizuiro finally questioned, unable to hold his curiosity.
"Yeah! Why were you at Ichigo's house?" Keigo miraculously reappeared, momentarily startling them.
For a second, Fuyuko's eyes widened in surprise, not actually expecting Mizuiro to ask her outright. Her mouth opened but no words came out. She looked over at Ichigo who had been staring at her until he also turned towards Mizuiro. As soon as his mouth opened – probably to explain exactly how she had ended up at his house – she shot in front of him, pushing him back a few steps as she slapped a hand over his mouth. As a result, Ichigo let out a startled, muffled shout behind her hand as he looked at her with bewildered eyes.
Fuyuko chuckled nervously as she tried her best to act nonchalantly, "Long story. You don't need to know." There was another muffled shout behind her hand, and she vaguely understood it as Ichigo trying to say, "Get your hand off me!"
Her only reply was a pointed look shot back at him, which could clearly be translated as "Shut up and let me handle this!"
Mizuiro raised an eyebrow at the interaction between his two friends. 'Strange,' was the only thing that ran through his mind. He, too, was confused to how the two actually even became friends – were they even friends? – in the first place.
Fortunately for Fuyuko, the bell rang, signifying that class was about to start. Letting out a small sigh of relief, she took her hand off of the annoyed red head's mouth and quickly turned on her heels.
"Gotta go to class, bye!" She shot one last warning look towards Ichigo and stalked off towards the inside of the school.
As soon as Fuyuko was far enough away from the three, both Mizuiro and Keigo turned their curious eyes towards Ichigo, expecting an answer. Put on the spot, he debated on whether to tell the truth or not but seeing how the brown-haired girl freaked out earlier – even though he had no idea why she even did, it wasn't that big of a deal, was it? – Ichigo laughed nervously as his right hand rubbed the back of his head.
"Like she said, it was nothing. You don't need to know," He repeated Fuyuko's words. "Let's get to class."
Without waiting for the other two to respond, he, too, turned on his heel and proceeded to walk into the school, leaving Mizuiro and Keigo to themselves.
"Something's definitely going on between them…" pondered Mizuiro out loud. He then turned to face his friend but blinked in surprise when he saw yet another devastated look on the Asano's face. "What's got you so down now?"
Keigo dramatically reached for the other's shoulders and shook him. "We've known Fuyu-chan for so long now, and she's never agreed to hang out with us!" He cried. "Now Ichigo comes along and she's already been to his house?!"
The brunette then, again, dramatically pointed a finger up as if he had just amazingly figured out the solution to a hard problem, "You think they're hiding something from us? What if they've actually known each other for years now? Or what if Fuyuko's got some big bad secret and Ichigo's the only one who knows about it!? Maybe he's blackmailing her! Ahh, who knew that Ichigo could be so smooth–!"
Mizuiro sweatdropped at his friend's crazy ideas.
"Keigo–"
"–or the two are actually secret agents!"
A second bell rung, signaling they only had a limited amount of time left to get to class. Mizuiro slapped a hand on Keigo's shoulder, finally succeeding in quieting him down.
"It's probably nothing, like Ichigo said, and if they both said we don't need to know, we probably don't then," shrugged the black-haired boy. Although in all honesty, he really did want to know, but he didn't want to go butting into both the orange head and the caramel-haired girl's business. He knew that both were the type of people to get easily annoyed, and that never ended well.
"Let's get to class, Keigo-kun~" And he proceeded to pull a reluctant Keigo towards the school. Unsurprisingly they were the only two left in the courtyard.
...
...
Fuyuko uncomfortably moved in her seat as she looked up at the clock in the front of the room. There was still at least ten minutes left before it was lunchtime. In the past five minutes her stomach had growled numerous times. She looked out the window to her left as she stared at the soft green grass that lay on the ground. Class had already left her feeling undoubtedly tired, and she couldn't wait to just rest on the ground and eat!
She stretched out her arms. 'I feel so lazy…'
But then Fuyuko blinked. Something didn't feel quite right…
A gasp suddenly left her lips as her grip on her pencil tightened. She felt as if an immense pressure was slamming down on her body, causing her eyes to clench shut in pain.
'What's going on – damn!'
She couldn't move at all. It was like something was holding her down, and it was completely overwhelming her.
'What the hell is this?' She struggled to think.
"Spiritual energy… I want it… I want it!"
Fear settled into the pit of Fuyuko's stomach, and she could feel the cold sweat on the back of her neck. It was the same kind of voice – the voice of that monster she had encountered. It wasn't the same, but it had the similar evil, dangerous undertone to it.
Brrrrrringgg-
As soon as the bell rung, signaling that class was over, Fuyuko shot out of her seat eyes wide and startling everyone else in the room. The teacher, who was in the middle of explaining the homework, stared at her bewilderedly.
"Yukimura-san?" questioned her sensei.
Realizing the predicament that she was in, Fuyuko quickly bowed while muttering "Sumimasen" and proceeded to awkwardly sit down, ignoring all the stares from the rest of her classmates.
Her heart felt like it would beat out of her chest, and as everyone scrambled to get their lunches out or go meet their friends, all Fuyuko could do was just sit in her seat in shock of what just happened to her. She was just thankful that the bell had knocked her out of whatever crazy state she was in.
Normal people didn't experience what she just experienced, she concluded. Then again, she was far from normal, especially with her strange ability of being able to see ghosts. She groaned, nothing was going right today.
"Hey, Yukimura!"
Hearing her last name being called, Fuyuko sighed in annoyance but nonetheless slowly raised her head up to see her classmate, Satoshi, grinning down at her.
"Bad dream?" He asked, referring to her little outburst earlier.
The corners of her mouth twitched, and she honestly didn't know whether she wanted to frown or to smile at the irony of it. If only it was just a bad dream.
"You could call it that," Fuyuko finally replied, shrugging.
His hand slapped her shoulder in a friendly way, but she still had to refrain herself from moving away from his touch – it was uncomfortable to say the least.
"Well go eat some food, it'll make you feel better," The short-haired boy advised.
She gave a small smile and lazily replied, "Was gonna do that without you even telling me."
Satoshi gave a short laugh, "Alright, whatever. See you around then."
The caramel-haired girl didn't bother responding as she simply watched him walk away. As he approached the doorway, Fuyuko saw him pause and wave at someone.
"Hey, Kurosaki!" Satoshi called out, and as if on cue, the orange head walked into the classroom. He scanned the room before his eyes landed on her and he walked forward.
"Yo."
Finally standing up, she looked up at the taller guy, "What is it?"
"I got a text from Yuzu, said that your book is back at the house," Ichigo explained. "Probably dropped out of your bag the other day."
"When can I get it back?" She asked as she ruffled through her bag to find some money for lunch.
He shrugged, "You can come back home with me after school if you want. Quickest way for you to get it back unless you want to wait for tomorrow morning."
Fuyuko frowned, she was already behind on schoolwork. Tomorrow morning would be too late. 'But I wanted to go visit the bakery today!' She mentally whined in her head.
Sighing, she finally replied, "Yeah, that's fine. Meet you at the gate after school then?" She paused and added in as an afterthought, "Preferably away from Keigo and Mizuiro, too."
Ichigo froze and his thoughts immediately led to the brunette's crazy antics. He nodded after a few seconds, "Yeah."
An awkward silence filled the space between them until Fuyuko raised a finger and pointed at the doorway.
"Shouldn't you, uh, go eat with your friends now?"
Ichigo blinked, "Oh, right… I guess I'll see you later then?"
She made a face, "I mean I guess I have to." Whether it was said jokingly or not remained unknown to the other.
The scowl reappeared on Ichigo's face, "What's that supposed to mean?"
Fuyuko did a little giggle, pretending to act bashful while effectively confusing him. She reached her hand up and patted his shoulder, "Whatever you want it to mean, Kurosaki." Afterwards, she turned around, rolled her eyes and walked towards the door, muttering, "Jesus. Guy gets riled up too easily."
Ichigo was left standing next to her desk as he stared confusingly at the empty spot where the caramel-haired girl was just at a few seconds ago. He lightly scratched his head, "She's kind of weird…"
As he walked out of the doorway of the classroom, he could still see the retreating figure of Fuyuko in the distance. Ichigo frowned, "I forgot to ask her why she didn't want anyone knowing how she ended up at the clinic."
His eyebrows furrowed when he realized they still didn't know how she got hurt in the first place. His dad didn't even bother pressing about it. Was she okay now? She certainly seemed so the day he walked her home. However, Ichigo still had a lot of questions about her – he just didn't know if he wanted to go through all the effort in getting the answers to them.
...
...
She was right earlier. The grass felt abnormally comfortable as Fuyuko rested on it. For a little bit, she told herself, everything was ok. No scary monster had attacked her, she couldn't see ghosts, and there was no strange "attacks" during class. She was normal.
She snorted in disbelief. What was she trying to do to herself? Create false hope even for only a short while? No, she shouldn't do that. What was worse was that she had absolutely no one to confide her strange happenings to, and it was then when she felt a pang of utter loneliness hit her.
'No one.' The words echoed in her mind. Who would believe her stories? Who would believe that she could see ghosts? She bit her lip as she fell deeper into her thoughts. Was there anyone that even shared similar experiences to her?
Her hands shot into the air and then covered her eyes as a shout of frustration left Fuyuko's lips. From the side a couple of birds flew out of the trees, startled by the yell. Fortunately, there weren't any students near her.
"I am feeling way too stressed for my own good," Fuyuko muttered to herself.
Taking a deep breath, she took her hands off her eyes and lain them on her sides as she tried her best to relax her body. A warm sensation filled her chest, and she actually started feeling comfortable again. Her eyes slowly opened, and after a second, Fuyuko realized that there was something different. She couldn't exactly pinpoint what it was, but… it felt nice. Her indigo eyes slightly scanned her surroundings. It was as if the trees, plants, bushes all had their own energy – as if they were actually living. It was strange, but it was comforting at the same time.
It definitely felt nice.
Off to the side, the leaves of a bush rustled, but Fuyuko was too out of it to hear it. Instead, a black cat poked its head out as its golden eyes narrowed at the sight of the girl on the ground.
The cat sighed, 'She doesn't even realize she's letting out an excess amount of reiatsu right now, to the point where it's dangerous.'
Through the last couple of days, she hadn't expected the giant leap of spiritual energy within the girl. It had to have been because of the hollow attack.
'But it's strange…' The cat's tail swished around. Uncontrollably, the ears also stood at alert as the bell rung through the school, signaling the end of lunchtime. Within a second, the cat had already disappeared.
Fuyuko finally stood up as she lightly patted her clothes for any dust or dirt. Stretching her arms, she frowned at the building in front of her. "Time to finish this piece of shit school day."
Halfway towards her trek back to the school, Fuyuko turned around as she stared at the same spot that the cat had been.
"I could have sworn I felt someone watching me." She shrugged and turned back around. "Oh well. I'm going crazy anyways."
As she walked back into her classroom, she could see Satoshi grinning at her from the corner of her eye.
"Feel better?" He questioned.
Her only response as she sat back in her seat was a "No" without even looking back at him.
"Alright, class. Take out your books."
True to Fuyuko's belief, class began and progressed in a boring manner. Time seemed to barely crawl by, but luckily – to her relief – nothing out of the ordinary happened. Like most of the time, she spent class time half-listening and half-daydreaming. It wasn't that she was a genius; she found herself struggling sometimes, too, but if she bothered to pay attention during class, any of the work turned out to be easy. Besides, she always stuck to the fact that school was basically memorization at best.
Fuyuko stretched her arms as she watched other students either scramble around cleaning the room or packing up their items. She closed her doodle-filled notebook and placed it inside her bag. Grabbing her strap, she placed it on her shoulder and started out towards the entrance of the school. Now she had to go meet Ichigo Kurosaki.
"I wonder if his sister's home," She mumbled to herself. One thing Fuyuko missed was her cooking, and she practically drooled just thinking about it.
'It's not fair,' her mind whined. Yuzu had the cooking skills of a famed chef while Fuyuko deemed herself lucky whenever anything she cooked came out half decent, and don't even get her started on her crappy baking skills. She shivered at the thought of being stuck earning a living with a job that required her to be in a kitchen.
See. This is why she took school seriously.
'Yeah,' she scoffed. 'So I can become rich and hire people to cook for me one day.'
She was at the front of the school now, and at the gate, Fuyuko could see the familiar orange head standing there most likely waiting for her. She was about to walk over to him, but she paused.
There was that feeling again. Like there was a giant pressure being pushed down on her – on everything. The only different was that this time around it wasn't as strong.
It was weird, too. It was as if… Fuyuko bit her lip in thought. It felt like there were two different pressures, and they were both farther into the distance. For some reason, she had a suspicion where it was coming from. There was a gnawing need at the back of her mind, telling her to go to where it led.
"Oi, Fuyuko!"
Fuyuko looked forward. Great. Ichigo had spotted her.
Her hands twitched at her sides. "I seriously am going crazy."
She walked towards the direction of the gate, towards Ichigo, and right past him in the opposite direction of where they were supposed to be heading.
"Wha – hey, where're you going?!" She could hear him shout after her. Fuyuko turned around and indigo eyes met confused brown ones.
"Go on ahead," She called out to him. "I've got something to do first. I'll be at your house later!"
With that last word, she turned back around and took off into a run towards the Yumisawa Children's Park. It was a small park that wasn't too far from the school, so she made it within a matter of about ten minutes.
When the park was in clear view, what she saw caused her to freeze in both shock and fear. There in the corner of the park was the same exact thing that attacked her. At a closer look, however, Fuyuko noticed that although it was the same species, it was different than the one that actually had attacked her the other day.
"What is going on?" She muttered. "Why's there so many of these things all of a sudden?"
It didn't notice her at first, but the longer she stood there, Fuyuko didn't realize the monster eventually would. So when it finally turned towards her, she couldn't help the string of curses that left her mouth. Why did she think it was a good idea to come again?
'What am I even trying to accomplish?' She frustratingly thought in her mind. 'Getting myself killed?!'
"Some no mai, Tsukishiro!"
Fuyuko's jaw dropped as she watched an entire pillar of ice encase the monster. A second later, the whole thing shattered and there wasn't anything left except for shatters of ice.
Fuyuko followed the trail of ice until her eyes landed on…
"What the," She couldn't help but speechlessly gasp. Right in front of her was a girl dressed in what looked to be an outdated black garb. Indigo eyes followed the movements of the mysterious stranger as she slid her sword back into the sheath.
It couldn't be–! It was the same person Fuyuko saw in the morning. Sure whatever she saw was pretty far off in the distance, but she had a feeling this – whoever it was – was definitely the same.
Fuyuko's breath caught in her throat as the stranger slowly turned around. A pair of violet-colored eyes stared straight at her.
A velvet voice cut the tension in the air.
"So you're the one who's leaking their spiritual pressure everywhere."
A/N: Plot is finally moving along! Fuyuko has finally met another soul reaper~ I'm excited. Once things really get going, I bet I'm going to have even more fun writing this. I hope you readers are enjoying it as well. Review if you can.