Orihime blinks in surprise "Ah! Really?" Her smile turns sheepish. "I don't have a Walkman though."

"Take mine," he insists, practically shoving it right into her hands.

Orihime tries to shove it back. "No, no. I couldn't just take it from you like that. I'm not so great with technology, and you had to go all the way to Akiba to buy it..."

"It's okay." Ichigo licks his lips. "I know you won't break it."

Orihime stares up at him from under her lids, uncertain. When she realizes his trust must be genuine, she gives him a sweet smile. "If you're sure."

"I'm sure," he tells her. "Take as long as you need. I don't want it back."

+

Orihime sits at the far back of the bus, staring down at her own lap. The Walkman is not heavy, but she feels the weight of its presence in a way that's hard to ignore. She tried to plug in an earbud a few times but felt like it wasn't the right time. Her mind drifted to Ichigo, his tense face under the light of his bedroom window. He tried to pass off the cassette with his usual nonchalance, but she could tell that this was important to him. Maybe even vulnerable. He'd certainly been in a hurry to rush her off home so he wouldn't have to see her reaction to it.

She pulls her gaze to the window and bites her lip. She wants to have the right reaction, wants to savor Ichigo's gift in a way that will please him. She feels equal parts touched and embarrassed that he went to such lengths for her. Between those wires is a tone she hasn't heard before, a sentiment she doesn't know. But he pulled it out too abruptly for any chords to have made an impression.

And here she was, thinking they were just going to listen to music.

When Ichigo had called her over earlier that afternoon, Orihime had been delighted. She clocked out of work and hopped to his neighborhood, humming a light tune as the breeze twirled her skirt. When she went upstairs to his room, they talked for a good bit like they always did—him leaning against his doorway, her aimlessly walking around his room like it was a museum of all things Kurosaki Ichigo. A fading ink stain here, a band poster there. She loves his room. She's charmed by its little trinkets, its scent. By the boy, and the quiet noises he holds in his throat when they kiss in it.

She bunches a hand into her skirt and flushes. Maybe she'd been too distracted by the chink on the shelf, because when she turned, he'd thrust a cassette into her hands and said, "Here. I made this."

"Woah! That's so cool." She examined it between her fingers gingerly, completely oblivious.

It was only when that he cleared his throat and admitted, "I made it for you," that the meaning clicked and Orihime's world fell away from her.

+

Orihime makes dinner completely distracted. Really, it's a miracle that nothing burned down or poisoned her. She eats through this muted distraction, then clears everything away and sits at her low table, carefully placing the Walkman right on top. Ichigo had shown her how to use it, so she follows the steps, pushing one earbud in, and then another.

She pictures Ichigo doing the same, lying down on his bed with a hand on his stomach. The drums beat down. The guitar swells.

I have to get back

the sun that’s being taken away, a woman sings.

Orihime's fingers hover over the keys. She didn't know songs could be made this way, made to say these things. She can't help but wonder what Ichigo thought, when he first heard this song. Did the feelings rush through his head, or his chest? Did he feel the same goosebumps she feels now, when the chorus kicked in?

It's a phantom sensation, the presence of Ichigo's feelings right beside hers.

She hits pause before the next song can roll in. She decides to go to sleep.

Oh my darling

Oh my darling

Give your power of love.

+

The next morning, she combs her hair and tucks her bangs neatly into their barrettes. She dusts off her uniform and pins her badge to her chest. Then she picks up the Walkman, pushes the earbuds in and steps out to work.

It's a new step in her routine. She walks down streets she always does, but she feels extra conscious of the world around her. The rays of light, the gazes of passers-by. Everything looks different now, vibrant. There are new sounds in her ears, new voices.

This next song is in English. Orihime is only mildly surprised by that, knowing just how much Ichigo admires English words, English music. A world away from their world, but the feelings are just as familiar. Orihime's English is not as good as Ichigo's, but the man's melancholy is evident in his delivery. His yearning infused within the tone.

You, soft and only

You, lost and lonely.

Orihime turns the volume up and carefully crosses the street. Her heart is full with an unexpected sensation, a strange ache. She wonders if Ichigo knows how to sing this song. If he attempted plucking the chords on his own guitar, with his lovely, careful fingers.

If he thought about her when he heard the words.

The swoop in her stomach is so intense she has to stop at a street light. It's presumptuous. Stupid, even. She scolds herself for jumping into the middle of the spotlight, for making it all about herself. A few pedestrians give her an odd glance as she physically tries to shake herself off.

I made this for you, Ichigo's voice rings in her head. His quiet, certain voice tangling with the wistful crooning in her ears.

Daylight licked me into shape

I must have been asleep for days

And moving lips to breathe her name

I opened up my eyes.

+

When Ichigo first asked her—without saying the words—if she wanted to be with him, she had to teach herself to believe in his heart, the surface of which she knew, but the depths of which were unknowable. She repeated words like faith and trust to herself and plunged. And of course, love. That goo-and-butterflies feeling. That bittersweet, awful ache. Everyone struggles to capture it, cup it with fingers and give it words. This is why she figures he took to language as a line of passion. The failure of words, the attempt. The spaces in between.

At night, after she washes her face and retreats to bed, she finds those spaces embedded within the music. Ichigo has never been good at creating words, but he has a knack for finding them. Orihime always wondered what he thought of her, what words he says when she's not around. What words he won't say to anyone, not even to her.

She lays on her stomach now and struggles to stand strong in the face of this storm. This confession. The man in her ears pleads with his lover to rain on him, admits that his heart is caught up in a noose. Orihime figures there must be a thousand languages in the world to express this feeling, and although none of them would be enough, the attempt is all they have.

Talk myself out of feelin'

Talk my way out of control

Talk myself out of fallin' in love

Fallin' in love with you, say!

+

Orihime's not sure how many songs there actually are on this playlist. She knows the cassette must have a limit, but she's not sure where it is. It's a sweet kind of tension, sitting in this car without knowing where she's really going. Listening, without a chance to speak back. There's a story within the rise of the music, its soft fall. The songs speak of loss and defeat. Of tentative, uncertain hope. Of peace and weakness. Humor and joy. Warmth. Desire.

There's so much she wants to respond to, so many sounds she wants to hear over and over again. But she has to let love lead her by hand, dropping each gift behind as she holds her hand open for the next. It's overwhelming. Vignettes of her own life pass her by, tangling with Ichigo's until they're a heap of wires, until they're a heap of feelings on loop, one song melting into the next.

Me too, she wants to say, to the sweet, sad song about giving up forever for a brief burst of love.

I want that too, she wants to say, to the man who sings about giving his woman pleasure, about making her his family.

I would do the same for you, she wants to insist, to the man who swears he would die for her, choose this one life for her.

She pictures Ichigo in his bedroom, carefully, painstakingly putting it all together, picking it all apart.

She bursts into tears.

+

Her breaking point is the apology. She didn't know it at the time, but it's the last song on the playlist, a guitar-heavy lament that stops her in her tracks. By this point, any pretense of objectivity has fallen away from her until the world is just her, Ichigo and their story. Until the Walkman in her palm is the heart that beats between them. The ticking of the song builds a sustained tension. An anxious waiting. She's not sure what to expect.

And then it cracks open, making her gasp.

I crumble completely when you cry...

Orihime stands in her hallway, completely still, and it takes a few minutes of silence for her to realize the song eventually ended.

Can I come over, she texts him hurriedly, flinging things into her bag before he even responds.

Sure, he texts back, just under a minute later.

+

Ichigo's been pacing around in his room for the last 30 minutes, anxious as hell. Just as anxious as he was the day she stepped out of his house with that ill-founded cassette—and their ill-founded feelings. He's spent the last week nervously picturing her in his head, her reaction to the words. The songs. Her judgment of his taste in music. His medium of expression. Ichigo's never been good with words. Never known how to tell her what she makes him feel, when she flips her hair or touches his knuckles or presses her lips to his. Every love song's been about her lately anyway, so he'd put it together on a whim, barking at his sisters to shut the door when they popped in to ask what he was doing.

And now Orihime's coming over, Walkman in hand, having heard it all. Having seen every last inch of him until there was no modesty left between them.

The thump of feet on the stairs are the only indication he has. Years of battle sharpen him, though, and he turns to the doorway, just as Orihime materializes.

When she catches sight of him, she breaks into a sprint, launching herself into his arms with a force. Ichigo barely has time to open up his arms, but he manages, and then Orihime is kissing him, her mouth messy and wet and clumsy under his. Ichigo grips the back of her thigh to brace himself, stopping just short of her ass. Then, he sets his other hand under her nape and tilts her head until he can control the kiss. Until he can bring them back down from wherever this is about to go.

"I listened to it," she confesses when he pulls away, and she's so breathless and pink he nearly forgets what she's talking about.

Memory returns, though, and he finds his heartbeat surging, fast and hard.

"Did you like it?" he asks her quietly, staring into her eyes with an intent as they begin to glisten.

"Oh, Ichigo, it's beautiful," she confesses in a half-whisper, her hand sliding over his chest. "It's so beautiful."

"I know I'm not so great with words," he begins.

Orihime shakes her head and pulls him into a hug. Her heartbeat is light and fast under his, her hand soft on the back of his head. Ichigo closes his eyes and buries himself in the feeling.

"It's okay," she whispers with a small smile, when they finally pull apart. "I hear you loud and clear."

+

This time, they listen together, one earbud with him, and the other with her.

"What's this one called," Orihime asks with earnest curiosity, her skin warm and bare under her shirt, under his fingers.

"Goo Goo Dolls," he tells her. She giggles at the name, softening into a smile when he leans forward to press a kiss to her nose. "It's called Iris."

"It's beautiful," she tells him.

Ichigo reaches out to kiss her throat. He lets his lips settle on the warm skin, feeling the rush of her life underneath. The rhythm of her body. Her hand climbs the back of his neck. The song switches over to the next on the list.

------

ichigo's playlist

power of love - judy & mary

just like heaven - the cure

oh love - green day

iris - goo goo dolls

hard to concentrate - red hot chilli peppers

i could die for you - red hot chilli peppers