ᶠⁱᵗᶻᵖˡᵉᵃˢᵘʳᵉ »« 𝙱𝙻𝙴𝙰𝙲𝙷

one

Childe, childe, of thy shadow. Art thou wishing for thy peace?

Childe, childe, of thy night. Art thou adjuring for thy recompense?

Childe, childe, of thy darkness. Art thou praying for thine hallowed domicile?

Childe, childe, of thy death. Art thou reaping thy betrayal?

Childe, childe, born from blood. Childe, childe, born from anguish.

Childe, childe, do not cry. For thou an Angel of Death; thou an Angel Before the Lie.

•••

    There were many things that made Kurosaki Ichigo... Kurosaki Ichigo. Not necessarily different in his own eyes, nor in the eyes of his family, but different in the eyes of society and children his age.

  Right off the bat, the fact that Ichigo never really cared for gender norms or following what every other kid wears or likes or hates or wants brought a lot of attention to her. She wore shorts and t-shirts and skirts and dresses and even ribbons over her hats and sometimes no shirts at all. Sandals, boots, sneakers, Mary Jane's, pink socks, black socks, no socks, rainbow socks, unicorn themed socks, fire themed socks.

  And the fact that no one actually knew if Ichigo was born a boy or a girl created more waves in Karakura Town than what Ichigo's family actually cared for; which is none at all. Now, that caused a riot when the young parents purposely and wholeheartedly ignored the concerned "advice" from more experienced parents and grandparents without a hint of subtlety.

  Ichigo is Ichigo. The eldest daughter and son of Kurosaki Masaki and Kurosaki Isshin once he was able to articulate and understand what he felt about himself and the questions everyone always asked.

  Masaki just listened to when she says he's a girl or when she's a boy. And maybe it was just him trying to tell them that he wants to dress in a skirt instead of overalls, or wear a baseball cap instead of ribbons when she doesn't have the words for it, but Masaki doesn't mind. If it's him dressing how he wants to dress or if it's because she truly feels like a boy some days or a girl on the others, Masaki loves her child the most out of anything in the world.

  The very next thing is Ichigo's appearance. Brown eyes that glow like caramel with the specks of gold scattered in them like stars, and the hair. The hair physically held a beautiful scarlet sunset before twilight hits and always grabbed the attention of anyone in a three mile radius. Not even hair dye could get this mixed shade of beautiful orange and red.

  The next thing that snatched the attention of anyone who even came across the spitfire known as Ichigo is the fact that she was not only a Mama's crybaby, but was also heavily independent and opinionated when she was determined to do something or go somewhere. The exasperated and amused story of four year old Ichigo riding a bus all the way to Yokohama because she overheard her mother craving a specific dessert from a local bakery there is always brought up when asked for an example.

  A less adventurous, but no less incredible story is a close second to come up. Ichigo is five and instead of walking home with a new–and his very first–friend, the just as equally different Arisawa Tatsuki, Ichigo had walked five miles to the public library while crying the whole way. It was another day of name-calling and insults directed at Ichigo's hair. He had enough and decided to go to the library to find some answers. He did not like them.

  How many people in the world have orange hair?

  Apparently it isn't called orange hair, which is stupid, and it's called red hair. And apparently, only 10% of the world population had red hair and Ichigo had a shade of red hair that no one else had. Ichigo burst into tears when she realized she really was weird.