Chapter Text
Kurosaki Ichigo goes missing on the eve of April 15, two weeks after starting High School; just long enough for his classmates to be curious but not concerned. Save, of course, for the two who know him best, and the two who watch his movements with either longing or disdain. But none of them know any more than the rest.
Perhaps it is better, that way.
There are no signs of unusual behavior to explain a runaway — no clothes or belongings missing from his home, no money taken from a bank account or pocket. Ichigo had turned in his homework that morning just like always, his homeroom teacher attests; he’d gone up to the roof with Yasutora Sado for lunch, talking about Shakespeare as they left the classroom. The english teacher laments his delinquent ways, mourning that he would be such a wonderful addition to the theatre club if he weren’t off getting into trouble after school. After all, for a boy of only fifteen years, Kurosaki Ichigo has a remarkable amount of passion and presence.
Yet for all that passion, and all his unmistakable presence, Ichigo disappears… for lack of a better word, quietly. He packs up his bag as the bell rings, walks halfway home with Arisawa Tatsuki, is seen visiting a memorial by the side of the road (according to Ishida Uryū, at least), and then simply… never returns home.
For the first night, then two, nobody shows much concern. There are no ill signs, after all — perhaps, as Kurosaki Isshin suggests, the boy is just out discovering more of life! Or sleeping over at a friend’s house. Maybe he’s gotten dragged into a spot of trouble with the local gangs, the school board murmurs amongst themselves, and will show up tattooed and pierced come Monday morning. Maybe he just got sick, Kurosaki Karin wonders quietly to her twin sister, and went to the hospital. Goat-Face wouldn’t tell us either way, and obviously Ichi-nii wouldn’t come here for treatment.
But why wouldn’t he call us?
She doesn’t know, just as nobody knows what to think come Monday morning, when the sun rises and the school bell rings and Kurosaki Ichigo is still nowhere to be found. People begin asking questions, Arisawa Tatsuki and Yasutora Sado at the forefront.
They go to the teachers, then to his house. Searching for answers, asking where has our friend gone. Challenging, prove to us that you care.
One week after Kurosaki Ichigo never comes home, they convince his father to file a missing person’s report. Arisawa Tatsuki takes out her worry on punching bags and training poles. Yasutora Sado vents his into feeding an ever-growing number of stray cats, and leaving flowers at every memorial he sees. It’s what Ichigo would have done. It keeps a part of him here.
Even though he is very much still gone.
The first week becomes the second, when Kurosaki Karin steps into her brother’s room and steps out as though she’s seen a ghost. She and Yuzu stop asking if anyone has found Ichigo. Whatever they know, it is kept to themselves, and books slowly disappear from the shelves in the empty bedroom.
Arisawa Tatsuki asks her friends to ask around — at clubs, at cafes, at sports matches and part-time jobs. Yasutora Sado confronts those who used to pick fights with Ichigo, and even they offer apologies for the lack of news. Kurosaki Ichigo put up a good brawl, but he knew when enough was enough, and anyone bleeding at the end of the day understands the worth of a guy like that. They offer to keep their ears to the ground. Yasutora Sado shows them the best places to feed stray cats in need of homes, and where they can pick wildflowers for shrines.
At the end of the second week, Kurosaki Isshin begins making calls. Ishida Ryūken knows nothing, did not even know that his son was the last to see Ichigo until he heard from the school. Hirako Shinji laughs at the idea of him knowing anything of the whereabouts of a boy he’s never met.
Isshin calls Urahara Kisuke, who for once has no answers. Aizen has not moved, no Quincies are rising from the grave, the Hollow World remains distant and unheard.
Nothing has changed beyond the disappearance of a single boy.
And life inevitably goes on. April becomes May, passing over Golden Week with holidays and cheer and barely a quiet thought that something is absent. Isshin takes his daughters to the river on Greenery Day, and while he runs through the grass like a man half his age, Kurosaki Yuzu and Kurosaki Karin sit on the bank and look down at the water. Whatever answer they search for in the ever-flowing current, not even their father can discern. They go home holding hands, a crown of daisies balanced atop each their heads, though nobody saw them picking flowers.
In her small apartment, Inoue Orihime asks her brother’s ghost if he knows where the friend of her friend has gone. If there is anything she can do to help. She doesn’t know that Inoue Sora has already passed on, and no longer hears her prayers.
Even if she knew, she would still ask. Just in case someone would have answers.
In his own apartment, Ishida Uryū tosses and turns, unable to sleep when the alternative is admitting to himself that he doesn’t remember whether the Ichigo he saw that day was still alive, or already dead. Had there been a chain dragging on his breastbone, or a hole in his chest? Had the pallor of his face been human fatigue, or a half-caught glimpse of bleached-white bone? Uryū doesn’t know, because he never cared enough to step closer and ask.
Now, with the boy who finishes fights and tends to even the loneliest of shrines gone, he never will.
After the holidays end, Aizen’s cameraflies begin thinning their numbers. Urahara Kisuke watched, and ponders, and calls the Visored out in Nara to ask if they’ve encountered the same phenomenon — but with Kurosaki Ichigo missing and no news of Aizen’s actions, he cannot move. A Queen in a game of chess whose opponent’s pieces are invisible.
When the pawns vanish, naturally you expect knights and rooks to take their place — but none come. Karakura greets May with quiet.
Nearly a perfect month after Kurosaki Ichigo’s disappearance, almost to the night, a truck crashes into the Kurosaki Clinic. Nobody is harmed, and as Kurosaki Isshin bemoans the damage to his home, Karin and Yuzu steal away to their brother’s room. The shelves that once held books are bare, the bed neatly made after Yuzu’s last restless tidying. Ichigo’s clothes still hang in the closet, except for the tees that Karin steals for nightshirts.
They sit together on Ichigo’s bed, shoulders pressed together and feet rumpling the pristine covers. Yuzu grips Karin’s hand.
Did she see…
Could she feel…
A secret has never felt lonelier to keep.
At midnight, as sirens light the street around the Kurosaki Clinic, a knock on the door rouses Urahara Kisuke from his uneasy sleep. There hasn’t been a camerafly seen in four days, which never bodes well — so if he stayed up for two of those days without rest, one could hardly blame him. A century in exile does nothing if not harden one to expense.
He blinks blurred pixels from his eyes and wraps a hand around the hook of Benihime’s hilt, her curiosity a knife-sharp bell in his mind. The shopfront is dark, but nobody comes out of the Onmitsukidō without night vision, and he weaves through shelves and stray boxes with nary a misstep on his way to the front door. Surely, to knock on his door at this time, it must be Soul Society — even after running him out like a beaten dog, they will never lose the sheer audacity of coming to seek his help. Karakura was recently assigned a new Shinigami, and they must be quite new to have run afoul of ill fortune so quickly.
Urahara Kisuke opens the door, prepared with his bucket hat and jovial mask, and his words die in the face of a half-raised hand. Of sunset-bright hair, and shards of white bone, and a smile far too tired. Far too fond.
“Yo, Getabōshi. Long time, no see.”