#ichihime

Orihime's mouth dropped open in protest. When she caught the light smirk on his face, she huffed. "Really, Ichigo-kun, shouldn't you be tired of that joke by now?"

"What joke?"

"Besides," she ignored him, her eyes twinkling, "if you really want me to cook for you more, you should just say so You should say, Orihime, I want to eat your cooking every day. Please cook for me."

"Orihime," he said quietly, meeting her eyes. "I want to eat your cooking every day. Please cook for me."

"Ka!" Orihime collapsed back with a swoon. "Too much!" She clutched her own heart. "It's too much!"

Ichigo pulled both her wrists away from her chest, embarrassed. "Stop that. I swear you get turned on by the weirdest things."

Orihime laughed, trying to snatch her wrists back, only to get drawn further into Ichigo's embrace and hauled over his shoulder. She went without resistance, surrendering hands and legs and swinging ponytail to the world around her. Ichigo, on his part, simply switched off the kitchen lights and took her to the bedroom, where he gently sat her down and moved to his side of the bed.

"Should we go to Soul Society this weekend?" She turned over her shoulder to stare at him. "Kuchiki-san texted."

"I forgot about that," he admitted, scratching the back of his neck. "Didn't Urahara say we'd have to wait or something?"

"Urahara-san said there was higher instability than usual, but that we'd be fine if it was just the two of us." Orihime folded her legs beneath her. "We really should go. It isn't often that Kuchiki-san and Abarai-kun are free at the same time as us."

"Yeah..."

"And it would be nice," she said, a bit softer, "to see how everyone's doing."

Ichigo's face softened too. They had lingered as much as they could, after the war. It was strange, trying to associate the powdered ruins all around them with the stark white towers and boxy grey barracks that once stood on proud foundations. When the war died down and there was no more fighting to be done, Ichigo was reminded once again of his true limitations—that his was a destructive force, more than a constructive one. One he wielded better than he did in his early teens, to be sure, but not one that a battered land needed. Orihime, on the other hand, had returned from one battlefield and surged right into another, holding hands, stroking foreheads, muttering incantations that brought comfort and gold warmth. Thick swarms of shinigami had lined up to lay their comrades at her feet, their faces caked with sweat and hope. Some survived, others didn't. Still, the dead worked hard to keep on living.

+

They went to Kuukaku's first, since Urahara's pathway had sent them straight to Rukongai. The woman herself was out on an errand, but Ganju came to greet them with a toothpick between his teeth.

"Bonnie-chan!" Orihime hopped off Ichigo's back and waved. "Ganju-san!"

"Greetings, little ones!" Ganju boomed. "Welcome to my sister's humble abode. Or should I say, welcome back!"

"Jeez," Ichigo muttered under his breath, while Orihime laughed radiantly and thrust a hand out to pet the incoming crowd of boars. Bonnie, the oldest, stood a fair distance from the group. The rest came to Orihime's legs, the wild scent of their fur thick and almost cloying. Ichigo gagged. Orihime's nose twitched, but she was far more tolerant of their vagaries, checking their snouts and making pleasant small talk as if they were old friends.

For this, Ganju rewarded her with a beaming smile and to Ichigo, he said, "Your wife is more Shiba than you."

Ichigo snorted.

"Ganju-san, what's this?" Orihime called out. Ichigo's eyes followed her hand, which had disappeared beneath the fur to cup the boar's belly. She gasped and drew it back. "Are you pregnant?"

"She is," Ganju said proudly, nudging another one with a gentle knee. "This one, too. It's a good time for gilts."

"Is it?" Orihime's strokes turned gentler, more tentative.

Ganju nodded. "Something about the balance, I guess. We're having a fertile year."

Ichigo considered that with a mild frown. He knew, vaguely, that souls had a harder time conceiving, a mischievous tip Renji had given him before Rukia sharply reminded both of them that you couldn't make assumptions with a reiatsu as powerful as Ichigo's and that he and Orihime had to be careful, whether he was in his human body or out of it. Blasé discussions of his private life aside, the fact had stuck, somewhere in his brain. He just hadn't thought to associate it with the war. With the thousands of deaths that had been tipping the scales of the universe as they knew it. He watched the swell of the sow's belly with new eyes. She was no young thing. There were streaks of grey in her brindle, a lethargy that made her move with less enthusiasm than the others. Ichigo hadn't grown up in the countryside, but even he knew that a gilt in the Living World would have been younger, with a shorter lifespan and more piglets to show year-round. Death had arrived in droves only years ago. Now, it seemed like life had finally followed.

A distant thunder rumbled along the horizon. Ganju invited Ichigo and Orihime in for lunch. By the time they were done and out, the afternoon sky had turned dark with clouds. The two bade Ganju and the boars goodbye and continued their journey towards the Kuchiki estate, passing rolling hills and villages along the way. Without Orihime on his back, he was certain the endless trees and winding roads would have gotten boring, but they made do, murmuring about this and that—as much as his shunpo allowed anyway. Eventually, the villages began to thicken, and the familiar gates to Soul Society finally came into view.

They were allowed in with quick permission. The route Rukia had given them was straightforward, but Orihime stopped at a post to confirm directions with a wide-eyed shinigami. Ichigo felt the press of multiple gazes on him as he waited. When he turned, he realized several shinigami had stopped in their tracks to gape and whisper. An old instinct rose, a discomfort with being scrutinized. But when several of them bowed, the discomfort turned into embarrassment.

"Orihime, let's go," he called out, giving them a shy nod in acknowledgement.

Orihime returned to his side. The rest of the trip was made above ground, his feet light on the poles and wires leading their way. This did not stop the shinigami from following his movement with their awed gazes, but at least it made things more bearable.

Luckily, the Kuchiki estate seemed to allow for seclusion. While the rest of the Sixth Division quarters were more modest in size, the broad, green pastures of the Kuchiki residences stretched across many acres to support Byakuya, his noble family, and of course, Rukia, who had chosen to stay on her brother's compounds but in a house several blocks away. A protective barrier of kidou detected their arrival and weakened to let them in. Ichigo and Orihime crossed a thicket and arrived at a clearing, where Rukia and Renji stood with their daughter in Renji's arms and a smile on each of their faces.

+

The rain began shortly after that.

Ichigo, Orihime, Rukia and Renji stayed out on the genkan, enjoying the cool breeze that drifted past them. Well-cut grass swayed and tickled their feet, while the rain rushed down in thin spindles. Ichigo was glad to see that Rukia had recovered well. Although she and Renji would both brush off their concerns if he mentioned it now, there had been some worry about Rukia's pregnancy, the fleeting arrival and retreat of morning sickness that left her bed-bound. Orihime, especially, had fretted over her condition and made frequent calls, but a trip up here had been out of the question. The war had turned pathways between the Living World and Soul Society more tremulous, less stable. The dangai was considered strictly off-limits. Ichigo and Orihime had respected protocol but spent many a bedtime consoling each other with reminders of their friend's dauntless strength.

Ichigo smiled now, knowing they had been right.

On Orihime's lap, Ichika Abarai was trying to swat down a moth with zealous intent.

"Ichika," Rukia warned.

The child pouted. Orihime gathered Ichika's hair out of her face and turned to give Rukia a knowing smile. "She seems to have picked that up from Byakuya-san, hasn't she?"

Rukia laughed out loud. "See, Renji! I told you!"

Renji scoffed, but without heat. An attendant arrived and dropped off a tray of tea, giving Ichigo a subtle look before she retreated back into the doorway. Ichigo blinked, confused, then remembered the scene at the gate from earlier and flushed.

Rukia kicked his ankle. "What's with you?"

"Ichigo-kun's still a bit self-conscious about all the stares he's been getting since we got here," Orihime answered for him. Ichigo grumbled under his breath but couldn't really deny her observation.

"Savior of the three worlds is bound to have a bit of a fan-base, though, right?" Renji nudged his shoulder.

"Tell him about that light novel," Rukia perked up gleefully.

"Which one? The Savior Who Saved Me or I Dream in Orange?" Renji grinned, breaking out into a laugh when Ichigo squawked out a startled, "What!"

Orihime's eyes, on the other hand, sparkled. "Are they available for sale anywhere nearby?"

"Orihime, at this point, you could probably write some yourself, couldn't you?" Rukia suggested. "What are you looking to buy them for?"

Ichigo pointed at Ichika. "Should we really be having this conversation around a child!"

Rukia and Renji shrugged. Orihime laughed and cupped Ichika's ears, her thumbs soft on Ichika's cheeks. With the wind swaying into her hair and her dress, she looked beautiful, but in a breezy way—without artifice—the way she did in the mornings, when they woke up beside each other and his heart felt full in his chest. He thought of the wistful way she told Rukia that Ichika's pout carried a bit of Byakuya in it and wondered if she thought of Sora. Ichika, whose hair was her father's and eyes were her mother's. Whose name was revealed to him as a proud tribute (Renji and Rukia proud, him just baffled that anyone would think to name their child after him, much less some of his closest friends).

Ichika was a child of the world, much like they all were. Much like they all carried the people they had loved, the people they had lost.

"Don't go planning for one just yet, idiot," Rukia said quietly, drawing him out of his reverie. She nodded at Orihime. "You two are still young. There's still time."

Ichigo felt his eyes drift to Orihime again. "Yeah."

The rest of the afternoon passed in a pleasant lull, with animated conversations and happy silences. The moth, which had long lay forgotten on the floorboards, twitched one of its wings, a feeble proof of life. Ichigo thought of the sows and gently nudged it with the edge of his nail, urging it to fly away. To live, as every little life was so desperately needed.

+

Monsoon arrived in Karakura and pattered at their windows. Orihime began wearing raincoats and gum boots to work, but in the event that she forgot, Ichigo went to her with an umbrella, waving away her apologies as they walked back home together. It was June. The sky had the same density of loss he always felt around this time of the year. But this year, he found himself noticing the fresh saplings that were starting to grow on the sidewalk too.

When they got home, Orihime took to toweling her hair, her voice quiet as she hummed under her breath. Ichigo waited in bed for her, warming it for her. As she turned out each light, he felt a quiet presence in the air, a certainty. The blanket lifted, and the gentle scent of Orihime's shampoo filled the room. Rukia's warning arrived to him, unbidden. And even though he hadn't been thinking about it then, a part of him wondered if maybe Rukia had read him correctly.

"Should we have a baby?" he asked his wife.

Orihime's hand paused. He felt it in the darkness, her movement—or lack thereof. "Does Ichigo-kun want to?"

Fear climbed up Ichigo's throat with a sudden rush. Oily, black fear, the kind that slithered over surfaces, a thousand eyes imprinted on the quilt of despair. It flew at him with a force, goading him, urging him to come out and gamble every single chance he had.

There was no other way but to face it, head-on.

He turned to her.

"It's like you said, right?"

"Mm?"

"It's nice to create something."

+

June gave way to July. Although they had broached the topic that night, Ichigo gave Orihime the time to think about it like he had. They were in no rush, after all. Here, in Karakura, life kept at the same pace it always did, each day feeling identical to the last until he looked back over his shoulder and realized just how many years had passed—just how much had happened. Just yesterday, he had hefted a sword over his shoulder and vowed to protect his little sister. Just yesterday, he stood at the brink of the world's collapse—and somehow managed to close it with his fist.

"Congratulations on getting older, Ichi-nii!" The beer glasses clinked, and a chorus of laughter followed.

Just yesterday...

When they returned home, it was a good half-hour shy of midnight. Ichigo's ears were still ringing with cheers, the haphazard unison with which Orihime, his sisters and his father sang him a happy birthday. The kisses pressed to his forehead, to his cheeks. The collection of candles glittering over his glossy chocolate cake—one for each year. He lay down in bed and stared at the ceiling, wondering who those boys were who faced the battles of yesterday, yet knowing deep down they were all him. An eternity passed in those minutes, and then he felt the gentle touch of a hand as it tipped up his chin.

Orihime stood bathed in the moonlight, smiling down at him, a little tender, a little coy. Her sheer nightgown revealed the shape of her body underneath—her body, which was both soft and strong. Her hands, which made beautiful things. Her mouth, which he loved for more reasons than one. Her eyes, which he hoped their children would inherit.

"Do you want to try it tonight?" she asked him, her fingertips soft as they landed on his thigh.

Ichigo cupped her face and pulled her down for a kiss.

+

Kazui came into the world with his father's hair, his mother's eyes and his late grandmother's chin, although sometimes, his laugh would resemble his aunts', and his toothy-grin his grandfather's. According to Orihime, babies were like shape-shifters. Each day, they appeared different. Each day, they represented a different valve of the heart, a different chamber.

Ichigo didn't know who Kazui looked like today, but he knew that all of his heart belonged to him. Carrying his son in his arms, he was acutely aware of the differences in their size, their strengths. He felt the responsibility of it settle on him, more feather than anchor, this new soul he had to protect among all others.

Yet, sometimes, when it was just the two of them, when Kazui's hand touched his face or his wide eyes gazed up in wonder, Ichigo felt himself growing small again. Selfish. He returned to the boy who couldn't comprehend the size of the world and found himself wanting to protect just one. Protect the one who felt bigger than all the world, all the universe.