Ichigo hasn't lived that long, not fully - not in the same way that other people have. Because Ichigo never really found his feet in the world, not until Rukia came and forced him onto them in the most real way he'd ever felt before.

He's not totally an idiot. He can see how Orihime has felt about him. But it's precisely because he lives thinking he's a disappointment to her that he can never return those feelings. She's just not meant for him. She'd have been a great girl for someone like his dad, but she's just ...

He can't meet her expectations. Maybe he can't meet Rukia's either, but there's a part of him that honestly believes she would force him to.

But it's everything else that keeps him from acting on whatever it is that she's starting to mean to him. Not the least of which being that before Darrow, they couldn't even be together, live together, meet each other on equal terms.

The space between their lives was very real.

Now it's a few feet of kitchen linoleum. And he doesn't know what to do.

"I'm not embarrassed," he argues, hazarding a look back to meet her face, with its usual forceful confidence. "And I'm definitely not cute. The only person who's ever wiped my face off with their own spit before is Yuzu. So don't look at me like I should just expect it to happen."