I'm Jealous Of....

I'm Jealous Of....

Everyone is jealous of something, or someone
And to put aside that jealousy or more over to walk alongside it
Takes a person of very strong intellect and heart, for not just anyone can overcome their jealousy

Rukia is jealous of....

Rukia never had a real family; as a baby she was abandonded by her only living relative, as a child she forged relationships with other children who all ended up dieing untimely deaths anyway, all but one, as a teenager that one abandonded her in the hands of a group of strangers, who never treated her like family anyway... or maybe the Kuchikis DID treat her like family... maybe that was how they treated their family, coldly and unloved, as if they had no emotions behind their connections, but it didn't matter, because as an adult she learned to get over her craving for a family, for someone to hold her at night, and for someone to encourage at her when she was unsure, as an adult she became a Kuchiki, she became part of a clan, not part of a family, and in adulthood she began seeking parent-figures, against her own will, in the Shibas, her teacher and her role-model, and they died too, leaving her alone once again, as she grew older she gave up more and more of the hope she had of ever getting a family, the things that swam around secretly in her mind as a child, before falling asleep in the slums of Rukon, of a real, actual, family, like the kind she heard about that lived in the big cities and the rich parts of town, she dreamed of a mother, a father, and maybe some siblings, but as she grew older, her picture, her dream, got smaller and smaller, as if age shrunk childish dreams, one ounce per year that she grew, but now, as she watched Ichigo and his family, she found herself craving the same thing she secretly craved as a child, the things she never told Renji about, the things she found herself wanting yet knowing she could never have, she found herself dreaming once again of a family to come home to, to lean on, to fall back on when everything else in the world was dark and bleak, and this time, unlike every time before, the family had faces, a father or uncle figure with black hair and stuble that brought him much greif from his flesh-and-blood family, two little sisters, one with dark hair, one with light, almost representing their yin/yang personalities of sweet, innocent, feminniinty, and tough, knowing, tom-boyishness, and then there was him; there was Ichigo, and she didn't really have much of a word for him, she wasn't sure where he fit in her family portrait, because before she met Ichigo she had never even dreamed, never even hoped that she would find someone like him, she dreamed and hoped of a family, and that was all, but Ichigo had brought more to her than just family, he brought her love, not just the kind of love she dreamed about either, he brought her the love she needed to start her own family, one who would have the pillars needed to have the family she always dreamed of, a mother, and a father, and with any luck a sleu of siblings, but that was in the future, not in the present, that was time away, and as of right now, she still didn't have a family, not a real one anyway, it all looked so natural for the Kurosakis, as if being a family was something that was in their blood, something wich Rukia thought only the luckiest of people had and only the most skilled of people could master, but this group of people were neither, maybe it was luck or maybe it was fate or maybe it was something else, but the four people currently fighting over a phone book and a pizza number had been brought together by something in the universe and as it would be.. they fit, Ichigo was on the phone, starting to dial it and then hanging it up and repeating the process atleast seven times, atleast by Rukia's count it was seven or higher, by anyone else's it was probbably twelve or higher... Karin was chasing Isshin around the kitchen with a phone book and a good aim and Isshin was screaming at the top of his lungs about pineapples... and Rukia wondered why pineapples...? And then there was Yuzu, the referee, trying to direct her poor, confused, brother and stop her twin sister from committing patricide at the same time, wich from what Rukia could tell was hardly an easy task, and somewhere in the distance she heard a dog barking.... because this family needed a dog, because everything she had ever heard about families was how there were four or five people.... and a dog.... always a dog, and this family looked like they could definatly use one.... but amoungst these four people (and the pseudo neighborhood dog who was likely barking for the sake of it) there was room for a fifth, "Oi Rukia! What do you want on your pizza?! And I SWEAR if you say 'pineapple' I am hanging up right now and leaving you all here to starve wile I go over to Chad's," and she found herself laughing a little as she walked towards the kitchen from the hall where she had been standing and found herself fitting quite oddly, but somehow nicely, in with the bizzare picture, "I want pepporoni, and I thought you said Chad burned the microwave dinner last time you were at his place?" she asked with a light laugh and raised eyebrows as she put her hands on Ichigo's shoulders, the orange-haired man scratched his cheek lightly and shook his head, "Well... that as it may be.. I'd rather eat burned food than stand here and get a migrane..." he said with a chuckle, Rukia was jealous of families, of something she never had, and something she never would have, atleast, not in the way that one would typicaly expect, both her biological and adopted family weren't really real but she would take the Kurosakis and their strange form of love and she would later build her own family with Ichigo, and then, maybe, the jealousy would start to subside

Ichigo is jealous of....

Ichigo always wondered what it would have been like if his mother was still alive when he met Rukia, he knew without a single doubt that they would get along, because his mother just had that something about her that made her impossible not to like, and Rukia... well... she was Rukia, and she was a bit of a wild child... and without a doubt, she would find a kindred spirit in his mother, a nurturing, maternal woman, a mother, for a motherless child who had the same nurtering attributes, so no, that is not why he wondered, he wondered if she would have approved of his Soul Reaper powers, wondered if she even knew about them, wondered just how much she would have put up with him and his constant running off and coming back half dead... and then he wondered about himself, he had never been a brave child, he had never been one to take risks before and he had always been very attatched to his mother, clinging to her skirt, and looking up to her as if she were the epitimy of what a propper human being should be, and he still believed that, he wondered if he would have had the determination or the stubbornness or the bravery to step in front of that hollow that night and take Rukia's powers from her, he wondered if, with his mother standing behind him cheering him on, he would have had the resolve, the drive that he needed to push forward and claw his way out of death three times because he lived for his ability to protect, he wondered, if he had still had that other thing, other person, to live for and had never HAD to protect, never had the NEED, would he have grown so much? Or would he, at most, be another averge Soul Reaper? In a way her death was a growing point, it made him a brave, strong, man and hardened his heart to the fear of pain, or the fear for anything else for that matter... except loss... he will always fear loss... but still, despite this, he will never stop being jealous of those who had their mothers, and when he took over for his old Sensei at his old Dojo when his Sensei had a cold, he had no idea the flood gates that that would open, ofcourse, teaching the kids was easy enough, he didn't even break a sweat, but when the first class ended and they started to go home, that's when his heart started to clench, one after one a child ran up to his or her mother, gave her a hug, and started talking about the day's events, sometimes asking her how her last hour was, not a care in the world, not at all aware that he would never run to his mother again, never hug his mother again, never speak to his mother again, that he was alone, there was a gap, an empty space in his family where she used to be, and that gap will never close, no amount of trying or time or hoping will get him past that, when it first happened, he wondered if she would come back, he had expereinced death before, ofcourse, he once had a goldfish as surely every child did and the goldfish died one day, and his mother explained to him that the goldfish would not come back, but his mother was not a goldfish, to him, his mother was a magical, all-powerfull being, and surely SHE would come back wouldn't she? Surely SHE would come back from this "dead" he had heard of wouldn't she? He had seen that kind of magic before at his cousin's funeral, there she was dead one minute and standing in front of him the next, she said that she had to go away for a wile, but that she would see him again, and he left it at that, but days passed and she didn't come back, and she didn't come back... and she still didn't come back... he eventually decided that she never would, and accepted her death, but it didn't make it any easier to watch other people going on with their mothers without even realizing that they had something so precious in front of him, he loved his mother, and he appreacited her, but when he was little he had never thought to take in every moment with her, to tell her just how MUCH he loved her, or to do that crossword puzzle today instead of tommorrow with her... because there may not be a tommorrow... that's one reason he never liked birthday parties, when he was little he was a bit of an attention hog, he didn't like the focus being on someone else, but after her death he began not liking them because the kid's mother was always there, always had the best present and the coolest cake, and he realized he would never have that, he didn't even know he was staring until someone snapped him out of it, or atleast tried to, "Ichigo are you alright?" he heard, blinking a few times and looking into a pair of purple eyes wich he swears wasn't there a moment ago, "Fine," he muttered back, he noticed out of his periphrial vision as she stared at the leaving children, then him, then back at them, then back at him, "Oh," she finally wispered, sitting down beside him and staring along with him, there was Rukia, understanding something without really knowing what she was understanding, it amazed him, she never had a mother to begin with, so in a way she could never feel the same loss he felt, because she never had the same joy he once had, but at the same time she had her own pains and understood everyone else's anyway, her pain or no, he felt her hand light on his back and start to swirve in slow, calming circles and he wondered if she knew just how good that felt or if she was just winging it... knowing Rukia it was more than likely the latter.... Ichigo would never have a mother again, and he would always be jealous of those who still had their's, always desperate to grip at strings, but as he glanced at Rukia, who was soothing and comforting without really having to try, he realized that what he didn't have, his children would have, he would never have a mother again, never get over his jealousy of those who did, but he would come to terms with it one day, because the weight on his chest would get lighter as his position changed and he became a parent, he knew he'd never stop being jealous, but he also knew that the jealousy was going to become a smaller and less frequent feeling soon enough

Orihime is jealous of....

As a child, Orihime often read fairytales, stories about how a hero rescues a fair maiden and a knight in shinning armor saves a princess, and then the hero or the knight will marry the princess or the fair maiden and they will live happily ever after, never to be bothered by dragons or monsters or evil step sisters again, Orihime always wanted to be one of those princesses, always wanted her hero to come for her and fall in love with her and she wanted to live happily ever after, she didn't care how or where or when... but she just wanted it that way, when she first met Ichigo she didn't really think of him as a hero, she thought he was interesting, even though all the other girls didn't, as they got older and Ichigo became more mature, both physically and emotionally, she started to see him less as "interesting", and more as "Prince Charming", maybe he wasn't a "hero", but he was a stand-up guy anyway and she admired that, who needed a hero these days anyway? But then Rukia came along.. and everything changed... Ichigo became a hero, and she went from having a crush on him to becoming absolutely infatuated with him, and she started to realize that her hero did not fancy princesses as all the fairytale books said, this hero wanted a heroine for himself, he didn't want to be higher than his princess; he wanted to be equal to her, or for her to be equal to him.. something like that.... this hero didn't seem to have read the rule book of step A, battle dragon, step B, save princess, and step C live happily ever after with princess; this hero, as kind and loyal and dapper as he was, did not pop out of one of her old fairytale books like she first thought at all, he did not slay the dragon; he made freinds with the dragon and kindly asked it to help him save the princess in need, though, he could not always be QUITE so kind; he did not rescue the princess and take her back home to his castle, he helped the princess and let her make her own decisions, and he did not live happily ever after with a bride-to-be, he charged right back into battle because saving the princess, unlike in the fairytales, was not his goal; his goal was to protect, not to get something or someone from it, but to protect, that was all, and most crushing of all it seemed she was not his princess, she was a princess, she was locked in a tower, and she needed saving once upon a time, but in real life fairytales aren't that simple, her hero saved her, and then without so much as a goodbye, charged into battle once again and got beaten to bits, but still, despite these flaws wich in her eyes really weren't flaws at all, there stood a perfect man, a man who was kind and gentle and nurtering like a mother bird, but also a man who was determined and strong and tough like a bull, and a hero, or a knight in shinning armor, or a prince, has to be all of those things, and he has to have a smile brighter than the sun and a body that any greek god would envy, he had to have charector and he had to lay praise to the princess he rescued, he had to cherish her, he had to value her, and he had to love her, and Ichigo was and did all of these things, but not to her, Ichigo was and did all of these things... to her best freind, Rukia, who in turn was not a princess at all like Orihime wanted to be, Rukia was as much a hero and as much a knight in shinning armor as Ichigo was, Rukia fought along side him, they saved princesses and damsels in distress together, they rode on wite steads along side eachother, not her behind him as the storybooks dictate, the stories always tell about how much the princess needs her hero, weather to rescue her from her evil family or show her a life she had never had, but they never say that the hero needs the princess, never, not once, and Ichigo, as Orihime has agononizingly witnessed over the last three years, very much needed Rukia, as much if not more than she needed him, he needed her warmth, her protection, her smile, and her stance in front of him when he was too weak to protect himself, he needed from her everything that she needed from him, they shared and fed energy off of eachother like two koi in a pond; in perfect harmony, and Orihime, despite her dreams and frequent diary entries, had seen that this hero did not at all desiere a princess; he desiered a partner, a partner who he found in Rukia, and as time went on Orihime saw this more and more, and accepted it more and more, Orihime was jealous of Rukia, for having the knight in shinning armor she had always dreamed of and yet not stealing him away from her, not maliciously taking away her prince charming, not even seeking a mate for herself, Rukia did not take from her at all like some stories had as a sad twist, but this prince charming sought after her and not the other way around, and for that, Orihime could never be angry, she was jealous of Rukia for having Ichigo, jealous of her best freind yes, but she would never act on her jealousy, she was too much of a good freind for that, and romance or not, Rukia had a bond with Ichigo that developed and bloomed uncontrollably, a bond wich even the most stupid of people could see, and Orihime saw it very clearly, she decided, as she watched Ichigo and Rukia run out of the school to fight a hollow, together, fingers intwined, that she needed to find a new prince charming, she would never get over Ichigo, and she would never stop being jealous of Rukia for having him, but she figured with time she could put that aside, and maybe she could even burry her jealousy deeply enough that she could fall in love with someone else, with a Prince Charming who wanted a princess

Uryuu is jealous of....

Uryuu never had freinds as a child, then again he never had much for family either, at a young age he learned to adapt to the lonliness, not that he was very keen on having lots of people around anyway, but as is a quality of Scorpio, they aren't overly social people to begin with, but still he longed for some kind of attention, after his grandfather died he tried harder to get in touch with his father, to have a relationship with him, but it just never happened, it was as if his father wanted as little to do with him as legally possible and he vaguely wondered if he had ever considered just giving him up for adoption, not having knowen much about his mother as she left when he was too young to remember, he wondered what had anchored him to his family, if they had ever considered giving him up, and then ofcourse there was the matter of freindship, he'd make a freind occasionally, not very often as he was a socially awkward child and spent most of his time reading or practicing his Quincy abilities anyway, but when he did find a connection with someone they were always dissaproved of by his father and told to stay away, wich ultimately left Uryuu with no one, and as he went from being a child to a teenager, he became aware of the fact that he was content with being alone, he didn't need people, he could make it by himself, however, after meeting Ichigo and developing a strange relationship with him, he came to realize that people weren't always all bad... he was far from liking the orange-haired man ofcourse, but it didn't mean that their rivalry didn't have an electricity that made him crave more interactions and then there were the others he was slowly introduced to, like Orihime who he had always admired secretly but never quite felt so charmed to until recently, or Rukia, who he thought he would hate immediatly given what she was... but found that of the small group of nakama Rukia was the one who he got along with the most, Rukia understood his need for space but also his need for company and made sure that the others (who could be quite dimwitted to these things) were atleast usually aware of it as well so as not to overcrowd him but not to leave him in the cold either, though still, after building bonds with these people, he felt he wasn't quite so connected with them as they to eachother, he was the innerloper of sorts, Rukia was tied down to this world and to her relationships in it by Ichigo, a Cancer who used his crab claws to hold onto the wandering Capricorn for dear life, then there was Ichigo himself who was very much in a way the center of the group; he had an attatchment to everyone somehow, and Orihime, she was quite clearly bonded with Ichigo, but with Rukia too, in fact Uryuu sometmes wondered if Orihime wasn't there keeping them all in contact with eachother if they would have split off seperatly by now, but she was always chasing atleast one of them down... like a mother hamster trying to keep her blind babies out of the dish of soakie... Chad was anchored to Ichigo, they were bonded long before the little pseudo family ever became a pseudo family and were likely freinds for life, Renji was Rukia's connection.... at first, at first he was just Rukia's freind who had to tag along with her but with little effort he became Ichigo's freind too and even developed a rivalry with him, Orihime was freinds with everyone quite easily.. so where did that leave Uryuu? He was there... but was he needed? Who was he anchored to if anyone at all? Did he matter like the rest of them did? He was thinking these things over in a bout of insomnia when suddenly there was a loud banging on the door, a bit startled, he reached for his glasses and got out of bed, running to the door to see what the emergency was, and then he came into the sight of everyone else standing in what may have been their pajamas, may have... may not.... it really depends... did Rukia always wear one of Ichigo's huge t-shirts and a pair of shorts out at 11:00 P.M. for the heck of it? He thought not.... "Uryuu," Ichigo said gruffly and in a voice that quite clearly said "I wish I was sleeping, three guesses why I'm not", "Rukia and Orihime are dragging us to this stupid-" "We're going to a book preimere party!" Orihime nearly shouted in glee, putting her hands up and showing everyone the bellybutton hidden under her pink tank top, "Not so loud Orihime, some people are trying to sleep," Rukia said with a soft, motherly tone as she glanced an apologetic look at Uryuu, "We figured if we're going to be tortured by these two you should be too," Renji said as he stuck his finger in his ear, "Yes and if I had knowen you weren't wearing deoderent today I wouldn't have dropped by to wake you up," Rukia muttered with a roll of her eyes, "Er.... what kind of book?" he asked hesitantly, "It's about ALIENS!" Orihime giggled happily, "It's by a popular author and it's supposed to be very realistic, it's been out in English for some time but it's only being released in Japan now," Rukia clairified, "So you comin'?" Ichigo asked, he sighed and reached for his jacket, "A bookstore open this late can't be too bad of a decision...." he mused, shutting his door behind him, yes, Uryuu was jealous of close relationships, with family or with freinds, he would take either, as long as he wasn't all alone, though that jealousy may never completely go away, as it was instilled in him since childhood, he had high hopes that it was clearing quickly, after all, he had found some freinds to fill that void

Renji is jealous of....

Renji had always wanted a family, but never as much as Rukia did, for Renji it was all about proving things, proving that he wasn't Rukon scum, proving that where you come from doesn't give you a filthy slate for what you can become, proving that he was worth it, though he never knew worth what exactly... just "it"... he always set goals and expectations high for himself, where as Rukia set herself very low expectations and surpassed them easily, he didn't know, however, if that was because she set her standards for herself so low, or because she freed herself to gain something at her own pace and wasn't trying to get something out of it, Renji gained Bankai to defeat Byakuya Kuchiki, to impress him, to impress Rukia, Rukia gained Bankai for the sake of having Bankai, to be stronger, and that was it, Renji worked to become a lieutenit to surpass Byakuya Kuchiki, to prove his worth as a Soul Reaper, to get that much closer to being a captain, Rukia became a captain because it was a step up and she just happened to fit the position, they were quite diffrent that way, Renji was jealous of those with status, he wanted a name or a title of a power that no one else or very few others had, that made him strong, made him important, but most importantly made him special, because no one was ever special in Rukon; in Rukon he was just one of the many kids with no family, no home, and no life, Rukia should have been in the Advanced Class in his opinion, but Rukia never did well on written exams, she always pulled a oppossum and froze in the headlights when it came to writing things down, that was the only reason why she was not in his place, Rukia always had more spiritual powers than him... yet she never really cared about being a Soul Reaper, she did it out of a need to live, unlike Renji who did it because he wanted to be something, to be someone, to get some well earned attention, Rukia then was adopted as a Kuchiki, but she didn't want to be, as he only realized years later, and since then he raised the bar even higher for himself, he wanted to be reckognized, he wanted to have a name that everyone knew, he wanted respect and for people to realize that he wasn't worthless... but the more he wanted those things the more Rukia got them, even when he seemed to be in a clear "lead" in the game she didn't know she was playing, she still maneged to trump him eventually, and the worst part was she never WANTED the status that she had, she wanted to be rid of it, he found it bitterly ironic that she wanted his life, and he wanted her's, she would be so much more content living alone and making her own name, her own status, her own personality where as she was automatically seen as a Kuchiki and everything that went with it; Renji just wanted a name, that was all, he had made up his name as a kid, and he wanted it to mean something, where as Rukia never cared if her name meant anything or not, she just wanted to live, that was all, that was simple, and as he looked out the window of his lieutenit's office, watching as countless people came up to her and bowed, weather it be her Kuchiki-now Kurosaki-name or her status as a captain, it didn't seem to matter, it never really did, if she didn't have a position she had a name, if it wasn't a Kuchiki it was a Kurosaki, the name of The Saviour, he recalled when he was in the academy that everyone called her the Rukongai Princess, the truest story of rags to riches and she didn't want any of it, not like Renji cared about the money ofcourse, he didn't, he wanted the name, and he started to wonder if he'd ever have the name he longed for, a name that meant something, "Leiutenit Abarai!" he heard, looking over to the sliding door as it swung open and a young girl with braces ran in with a stack of pappers, "H-Hi! You don't know me but I'm new to this squad and my name is Usaki and wow... I'm such a big fan of your's!" she said, giggling childishly at him, "Could you sign this for me?" she asked, he snorted and rubbed his chin as he grabbed a pen, "Sure," he said, he would never get over his jealousy of those with status, especially Rukia, never stop longing for a name that everyone knew, a name that meant something, but over time maybe that jealousy could go away... because maybe he could have his own name, not the same that everyone else had, but his own name with his own group of people who admired him