lonely like the sun ✜ or rely on everyone

LINK TO THIS, MY FRIENDS! =D

hakuren — Mon, 24 Dec 2007 17:04:05 GMT

[Unknown LJ tag]milkfed!meme;

this is a meme for ★my twin★.

Now, by for my twin I mean FOR my twin, not for HER to do but for YOU to do FOR her. Confused yet? Okay, many of us know milkfed. We know she is awesome, she is sweet, she is talented, and she is reliable, and unique. WE know, but you know how when YOU know something about SOMEONE and it seems EVERYONE knows but OH MY GOD it just so happens that THE SOMEONE you know SOMETHING about DOESN'T KNOW. OMG. Really. So here's your chance to change that, with lovely Lynnface, milkfed, Lynn, and her other names if she has any. What do you love about Lynn? Maybe you don't say it all the time, maybe you say it all the time, but TELL HER HERE!!!!!

And NO RUNNING AND BEING LAZY.

Pimp this thing out, kids. You know she deserves it.

❤DO IT! ❤DO IT AGAIN! ❤MEME LAYOUT CODE, yes i know, fail xd;

milkfed , milkfed , milkfed ! YOU KNOW THE NAME. LINK BACK TO THIS POST. PIMP IT ON YOUR LJ, WHATEVER, JUST SEND YOUR LOVE THIS WAY.

Happy Christmas Eve day twinface, chin up, okay? =D

</div>

For Byn-chan.

hakuren — Thu, 25 Jan 2007 00:26:55 GMT

I hate being sick. >.<

BUT I HATE IT MORE when my friends are sick.

Feel better soon, BynLove.

For YOU I write.....hitsu/mom......... but a mere drabble, forgive me for not coming up with something more cheeringly....cheering. ~_~;;;; AND PLZ TO BE FORGIVING ME because I'VE NEVER WRITTEN these two before.

Title: The Little Ones
Rating: A [for all audiences, dur]
Pairing: Hitsu/Momo
Warnings/etc: potential spoilers, blah, blah, but vague as usual, blah blah, and DAYUM it's a short thing....bah....drabble...other drabbles on the way haha....

The Little Ones

She sat very close to him, leaning in a picturesque fashion against the tall, strong cherry blossom tree that was their centerpiece. It was a time like this once, when he had almost told her in a boyish haste unlike his normally reserved and intellectual behavior, that he loved her. But they were older now and he had spent his entire life knowing how to wait.

He sighed, attempting to cross his arms more firmly across his chest, but it wasn’t possible, so he settled for slouching further down the tree trunk, ever the sullen one, even in his cheeriest of moods. For all that they had aged in years, they both had been born with unnaturally youthful appearances, and so the years that showed in smile lines or eye crinkles on their colleagues did not show up on them as easily. If a person didn’t know Hitsugaya or Hinamori, the pair could have easily been taken for teenagers still.

Of course, everyone knew Hitsugaya and Hinamori. After the fall out of Aizen, it had seemed that the optimistic, loyal assistant captain would mutiny in favor of her favorite ex-captain. She had, it was rumored, begged Hitsugaya to try and reason with the man who had betrayed them all…she had maintained that fragment of hope that had fueled her dream of being a shinigami of stature for so long.

In the end her faith was misplaced, and in her most secret of dreams, sometimes, she could admit that.

It wasn’t fair when it all ended, she often thought, and this was her thinking as she blinked her eyes open slowly, wincing at the filtered sunlight beaming through the leafy branches above them.

And she hadn’t been fair, she frowned sadly at the edge of her sleeve, tugging on it absently.

But who could she have turned to then?

Who would stand by her…even after her many questionable choices?

…Toushirou…no…she had always had what she felt was a better name for him…

“Hinamori?” his voice echoed to her as if across an ocean with no visible shore.

“Shiro?” she replied, still a little sleepy, dazed with regret and other ponderings.

When she had turned to him, he knew himself a fool.

Don’t, his well honed logic had said.

Always, his heart had murmured.

It was too romantic…too hopelessly romantic for his taste, and he wondered a little dryly, if that made him a hypocrite or an idiot…or maybe both.

“Sleep well?” he asked, his very normal question filled with things that sounded more like: are you okay, and what do you dream about?

“Mm,” she nodded and moved closer to him without thought, smiling up at him in that same way he had grown so accustomed to over these many years…accustomed to the point of an unspeakable dependence.

Yet he kind of liked it, in his most honest moments.

“Hey…Shiro?” she stared up at him, doing her best to read him half as well as she knew he could read her. She constantly felt failing in this area, ever trying, ever falling short of success, always out of reach of what she had grown into wanting…grown into hoping for…grown into loving: to know him.

“What is it?” he returned, his clipped tone not doing anything to hide how his eyes were softer on her or how his lips were almost smiling.

She could tell him, she thought. He wouldn’t reject her at this point…would he? But she wondered. What if, like a missed boat, she was too late…if like that situation, he had been there, harbored, waiting…until he could wait no longer…what if? Cursing her inner fear and weakness in a way that no one would have thought her capable of, Hinamori retreated from her intention and flicked at Hitsugaya’s renegade bangs instead, giggling. His decidedly pained frown made her giggle even more, turning into a bubbled laugh.

I do like that sound, he thought gently, even if his scowl still remained.

“Hinamori!” he reprimanded without reprimanding and she muffled her laughter behind her hand, but her eyes were dazzling him without mercy.

“S-sorry Shiro…chan,” she joked. “Aw don’t be that way…you’re so old!” she grinned and went to repeat her gesture but he batted her hand away sulkily.

“You’re not sorry,” he replied and hook his head to hide the smile he could not help but let escape.

“…nope,” she admitted and she would have continued, except that she found her breath caught in her throat, her words caught half way to the air between them.

Hitsugaya had made a glorious effort, but his smile had been noticed.

Maybe he was more fortunate than he knew, as this unexpected look of…of kindness from him brought Hinamori back to herself…and something she thought would be a very good thing to do: underneath the new spring and the cherry blossoms. Well practiced at stealthy and quick movement, she tugged on Hitsugaya’s sleeve like a child, and before he could react, placed the most compassionate of kisses on his cheek.

His eyes widened.

“…Hinamori,” he stated blankly as she settled back to her seat beside him, not remotely flustered as she would have been in earlier years.

“Yes?” she quipped, impish in her maturing years.

“…work on your aim,” he said gruffly and uncrossed his arms, letting them fall almost limply to his sides as he did his utmost to compute the event, even as he heard a smiling sigh from the girl he had loved since forever.

But he was broken from these fruitless attempts when a familiar hand slipped into his, the slender, strong fingers intertwining with his.

“…okay,” she said and it was the sweetest of whispers that heralded the Hitsugaya’s first day of spring.</div>

[7 Days] [1:14:07] The Way You Say It

hakuren — Sun, 14 Jan 2007 14:07:10 GMT

Missed ALL the other ones, but will probably do them anyway :P tomorrow haha *rolls eyes* always so late! Anyways...happy birthday Rukia, darling. Here's to the hottest pint-sized shinigami with a penchant for all things chappy or strawberry-related [even if the latter is far more subtle.]

Warnings? Nah, 'tis a FAR future fangirl dream of a true Ichi.Ruki spaz. Er....hope you like it? >_>;;;

Title: The Way You Say It
Phrase: "That does not go there."
Words: 678

“That does not go there,” he tells her, doing his best not to sound too affected. If he fails, she does him the courtesy of not telling him so. Turning her head, she tilts a glance at him, a slow, steady, curious look that leaves very little space to breathe. The fact that she does not mean to do this, ever, only bothers him a little. He wishes, in private, sometimes, that the way she has started paying more attention to how she looks is because of him. He wishes, in private, many times, that the way she has started to laugh freely is, just maybe, because of him. Then he promptly squashes such wishes into the ground, quietly, but firmly.

“But why not?” she asks and he wishes it was as simple as explaining juice boxes and straws.

She has a set of straws now, washable ones that she adores almost as much as Chappy the bunny (but not quite). They are of the colorful plastic type, the ones that curl in funny shapes and amuse you while you sip your soda or milk or juice or whatever. They were presents, though not from him. It had been Ishida who gave them to her…oddly enough. He remembers being miffed that the quincy would even think to give her anything at all. Who was he to give things to his…well…to her?

“Rukia,” he says, and he could never be a singer but in this instant, the shape of her name on his lips is a song in her heart.

Her eyes widen. He has never spoken thusly to her…but wait, that is a lie as well. It is perhaps better, more accurate to say she has never noticed. She notices now.

It’s not just in the way he cups the soft arc of her face in his hands, nor kept solely to the number of times he just stares at her, stares deeper and deeper. Rukia feels Ichigo for the first time, not the boy or even growing boy she has always felt it safer to see him as. She feels him not as a substitute soul reaper, or even as someone with anything fascinating about his spirit at all. The feeling like this one cannot be neatly framed after all.

Yet she feels him.

“Why not?” she asks again and he stiffens perceptively, leaning back slightly. She swallows something that tastes like disappointment at his distance.

“I told you,” he rolls his eyes and grabs her hand. She revels in the strange magic worked by his flesh against hers, how this spark positively rolls through her very core when his fingers press against hers, removing the silver band from the table, placing it on what he calls her ‘ring finger’ with such seriousness. “It doesn’t go there,” he finishes and then releases her like a healed sparrow, allowing her to fly if she wishes.

“Oh,” she examines it, childlike.

He can only bite his tongue now.

“Mm…Ichigo?” she queries.

“What?” he replies.

“Ichigo,” she says his name differently this time and he meets those eyes he has learned to run from all these endless days together. All he can do is stare at her, most helpless, and most confused. But then she says it again: “Ichigo” and she smiles.

She smiles at him for, what seems like the first time.

“Ichigo,” she laughs and he must be making up in his mind that he thinks she’s about to cry…or is he? She hits him forcefully in the face with all available pillows and a book by accident. They are on his bed after all.

It takes him a while to understand.

The way she says his name these days…it’s like a promise.

His answer is a slow smile as she tilts her hand this way, and that way…the simple silver band shining like starlight in the middle of the day.

He takes heart and pulls her to his side.

And neither is too surprised to find that, truly, it is where she has belonged all this time.

</div>

notes: This is the shortest thing I have ever written. It nearly killed me. I think I'll write a longer one later. Just to make myself feel better.....but I won't double-post and spam it hahaha......'cause I think that's called er....well, I don't remember but it's unnecessary. That's just me being neurotic. Anyways, YAY Rukia!

Dear one, you are OLD. And we love you. [speaking for all rukia fans, ne?]

Fic

hakuren — Thu, 04 Jan 2007 17:27:54 GMT

Title: See Everything
Words: about 2,200 or so?
Rating: PG at most, for death I guess
Pairing: Implied, one-sided Kairi-Sora, and implied/stated mutual Riku-Sora
Notes and Warnings: Life is weird and death is weirder and it's all very scary, I realized. Or anyways, that's my explanation for this weird, possible ending/AU one-shot, mutant thing...I've never written for this fandom before, but I was listening to MUSIC and ya, you know how that goes most likely. It always gets the fangirl all emotional and wibbling. HOW pathetic. ::coughs:: Anyways, it's got statements/implications of a boy that likes a boy, slash, or whatever you call it. That's my only OTHER warning.

He winds his hands deep down into the sand, making it run through his fingers like water, back and forth, back and forth, thinking quiet dreams that spread out across the horizon like so many clouds. It has been forever since he knew this place, and he is grateful that he has arrived, even if his arrival was a late one. Sun falls like rain here, where it never rains, and he feels a little left behind by the mechanics of the weather, because it would be nice if, just once in a while, the clouds would gather and pour down in pieces to match his mood. But maybe it’s better this way. He cannot help but reminded of hope with the morning washing over him.

During his journey back, his journey in and out of darkness, he never bothered to cut his hair. It was a way to mark the countless days, even if eventually he stopped paying attention to it altogether.

Sitting on the shore, he feels his moonlight-colored hair brush his cheek and pushes it behind his ear. He finally cut it, that day. A memory of a smile shows on his face and he closes the aquamarine of his eyes so that all he can see is darkness. It’s still there, even in the midst of all of this light. That’s how it’s supposed to be, he knows, and after breathing in the softness of a space all his own, opens his eyes again…brings them to the sky.

Here he waits for something he is well aware will never come again.

It’s unnecessary to say those words he has in his heart, because really, what can it do? What do those things, he wonders with a slight scowl, really say for him? He has long since decided that things like “I miss you” will never do.

That doesn’t change the fact that he does.

But he won’t say it.

And it’s not like he hasn’t come to terms with the brutal departure of the boy he loved…loves still. He understands. He is old enough now to understand that with or without darkness, with or without light, there will always be some events in his history or his future that are untouchable. And maybe it’s a little inappropriate, but he smiles a bit here, because that suits the boy with eyes the color of forever…untouchable.

If he had it all to do over again, he thinks he’d change some things, but then better than thinking, he knows the truth is he wouldn’t. He would still be the same messed up, jealous child who marveled at the girl who stood so clearly between him and the sky, who envied her, and yet liked her too, because she was his friend and that has not changed. She is the one he can go to now, strange as it is. It’s not that she understands him, but she did understand their mutual object of affection…maybe better than he ever did, he admits to himself and broods, because it is in his nature.

“He’s never wanted people to follow him. He’d rather watch them fly to wherever they were meant to go, by the strength of their own hearts,” she says softly to him as she sits at his left side, and it’s meant to be comforting, but it breaks him in two.

Because he knows it’s the truth.

Well I won’t follow you, he thinks and is angry with it, hands fisting in the cuffs of his pants because sand just slips through them…like water…like air…like him.

“Yeah,” is what he says and the violet-eyed girl who will be as good a friend as she can, reads him like the stars: not quite aligned, but not close to burning out…not ready to give up.

Beneath them they feel the world revolving in contradictory ways, because that is the way it has always been, one thing pushing, another pulling, one person saying yes, another saying no, and all of them not ever sure they’re doing the right thing. But they do it anyway. Riku sees this with a clarity that many will never see it, because he has been there, and done that, twice. He doesn’t fancy a third time, but a wry expression makes its way across his face as he sighs. Unexpected and involuntary adventures seem to be a part of his fate.

Truth be known, he’s not sure if he’d rather have the chance to choose between a peaceful life and an unpredictable one, or not. It occurs to him that neither is quite satisfying and that that is one of the cruelest jokes life throws at you. Never was it up to you, but you can think it is, and do your best, and maybe, maybe things will work out. This has become more and more the way he feels about things since he found himself that night, realizing his closest person would never come back.

He remembers it with unfair vividness.

How stupid, he thinks and throws a shell into the shallows harshly. How ridiculous that the boy who saved worlds, crossed unspeakable boundaries, returned hope to everyone who never thought it was theirs to begin with….how ridiculous that that boy would be undone by illness. Part of him still does not believe it. After all that time, after all that he did, accomplished, the years of managing to survive just barely…after all of that, Riku thinks it’s twisted and cold that fate would let him leave so easily when it was so hard to get there in the first place.

And it’s not like he ever told him everything.

He regrets that most, probably. The girl next to him knows that, maybe knew it all those years ago when she first showed up, could see it in his eyes. Kairi doesn’t hold back on her own awareness and she has also always known that the boy they both cared for so deeply would never see her that way. It hasn’t done a thing to dwindle her love. But love is like that, and she knows that too.

They don’t talk often. There’s still a little friction between them as neither can figure out who is luckier. Neither of them, is a thought, but they don’t say it.

“I hate him,” Riku says as the sun rises higher into the endless blue.

“Yeah…me too,” Kairi says as the tide sweeps out, far, far away.

They don’t look at each other but anyone passing by will know what they’re seeing. The terrible shaking of the shoulders, the downcast heads, the way their hands grab at anything that will bind them to the earth…anyone passing by will know.

They will say “It was such a shame” and “I wish I could do something” and “Poor children”. Only the last holds validity.

The rest shows what it is that the strangers don’t see…won’t see.

They miss out on the way Kairi’s face is wet with tears that run down across lips that curve upward.

They miss out on the way Riku’s eyes are warm even though the rest of him seems like winter.

They miss out on the secret communication between hearts that have grown up knowing each other, hearts that never had to learn each other’s idiosyncrasies, hearts that can curse each other and love each other with all that they have to offer.

The two children sit there, and they don’t speak and they don’t hold hands for reassurance, and they don’t even make another movement that might indicate they know they’re not alone. He lies on his back eventually. She does not. Both their gazes follow as the stars flicker into the night. To both of them they mean something different, but to both of them, they have similar undertones, since that boy always liked the stars.

He always liked the light.

Maybe more importantly, he admitted he feared the dark.

Either way, he’s out there, and this is something the boy and girl left behind can agree on, unspoken of course. For she has lost that youthful mirth that came with knowing the sky, and he has never been much for sharing secrets anyway.

In the lights above, Riku traces a line that curves and sweeps until he’s looking into the eyes of his best friend. He attaches himself to that gaze so that he can hold onto it as long as possible, though not forever, since forever is a myth long since dispersed. He thinks that he’s grateful that Kairi is being strong, because he has never been good around girls that cry. Well, to be more specific, he’s never been good around girls, not that they noticed. He was always with him…with Sora.

As that name works its way into the hiding places of Riku’s mind, the silver-haired boy shuts his eyes again against the sting that is inevitable. He wonders briefly how Kairi handles boys that cry, and thinks mildly amused that it must be something like handling an unruly child or a badly behaved pet. Yes, it’s probably something like that.

“Riku, don’t stay out here too long,” she says and he feels her leave. Ah, so that’s how she decides to do it, he thinks and is surprised at how keen her instinct is. Yet maybe it’s not instinct. Even in their earlier years, Riku always preferred to be alone in times of…difficulty. She most likely guesses that now is little, if any different. She is right.

Minutes or maybe hours later he drags himself up into a sitting position, brushing the sand out of his hair that looks much like it did when he and Sora first met…and less like a girl, as Sora might less tactfully put it.

He remembers his best friend fondly even if he does hate him sometimes for leaving him behind to figure the rest of life out on his own.

But that’s not fair either.

Because sometimes…sometimes…

Sometimes it’s like he’s there.

Riku stands, walks the length of the beach and pauses at the dock that looks so much smaller now than it used to. Here he hears laughter and sees a younger him pushing a younger boy with brown hair and blue eyes into the water. He sees himself get pulled in as retaliation. He blinks. It’s gone and he is alone…except that he isn’t.

“I know,” he says in a voice so soft that most who claim to know Riku, wouldn’t recognize him.

The breeze wraps around him like playful arms and the stars show that same ridiculous attitude, twinkling in a knowing fashion. He sits at the edge of the dock and his feet dip easily into the water now, taller of course. There is no one else around, most having gone to sleep at this time, or at least retired to their houses. Riku is the only one here and he revels in the outdoor privacy. Now if he cries he does not need to worry about how anyone else will see it or handle it.

He can just let go.

It’s something he will never do except in the presence of one being, and that being is near, even if he can never see him. Sometimes he thinks he hears him saying stupid things to him, or funny things, or…or sweet things. Other times he thinks he feels a yank on his hair or a tug on his sleeve. Still there are even clearer times when he thinks he feels the distinct warmth of breath by his ear or his cheek, the heat of a familiar body curled against his side. Because he never told him, but that has never meant that Sora did not know everything to begin with.

Because if words like “I love you” were everything you needed, Riku thinks the world would have settled its numberless problems centuries ago.

Now is one of those last times, he feels the presence of that best-known shape and love and he embraces it, cradles it with every piece of him that he has left. It’s a beautiful feeling and it’s an awful feeling that can’t properly be described. Whenever he’s close to speaking aloud he stops himself. He didn’t say it while he was alive. Changing now would be cowardly, he thinks.

Sora has never agreed with him on many things.

“You know I love you,” the warmth against his closed eyes whispers with all the cheer in the world.

When he opens his eyes the presence has gone and he can never figure out if it’s his insanity taking hold, warping his reality so that he can handle being alive, or if maybe…maybe it’s really him, because of course they’ve both seen far crazier things. He’s a little too afraid to analyze it and a little too in need of it to ask questions, so he just immerses himself in it when it happens…when he’s there. As he leaves the dock, hands in his pockets, not thinking anything in particular for once, an unbidden understanding comes to him about the one he never says ‘I love you’ to: it could be that he’s been there all this time…it could be that in so many of the most important ways, he has never left.

And somehow Riku finds himself scratching the back of his head with a rueful smile, because honestly, he has to admit: he wouldn’t be surprised.

That’s how it’s always been.

It’s how it always will be.

</div>

theme 32: counting stars: ichi.ruki

hakuren — Mon, 01 Jan 2007 07:09:32 GMT

Happy New Year’s everyone. I greet with a plot bunny gone mad…apologies.

Rating: PG-13 at most
Warnings: spoilers? Maybe? It’s AU beyond a certain point since no one knows what will happen but Tite, and frankly this is all very much a fan’s artistic license…so yeah, that’s the warning. Oh, and death, but not in the way you might think.
Genre: some romance, drama, angst, and hope—though I guess hope isn’t a genre
Theme number 32

#32 - counting stars

Next to Me

I started out with one, two, three
Counting stars on New Year’s Eve
But fell asleep every single night
Before I had you burning in my eyes

His family is insane and if Kurosaki Ichigo has ever had any uncertainties on this notion before, they have now been effectively bulldozed into oblivion.

Isshin has made three more ode-to-Masaki banners that border the one he already had—one above it, and one apiece to the left and right. He alternates between crooning—or something horrendously similar—to the images and trying to show fatherly affection to Karin and Yuzu. Never mind that both of the girls are now 18, and never mind that Karin is more than ready to, as she puts it: “straighten out the world”, which Ichigo takes to mean “rule the world”, which worries him only a little. Never mind that Yuzu, though still a sweet girl with honey-brown eyes, has gained more of a sense of reserve, something almost elegant that seems out of place in her eyes. Yes, never mind. Isshin doesn’t anyway. Later he will explain to his son that whatever changes the beloved offspring undergo—example, incidentally becoming a substitute soul reaper—in the eyes of the ones who loved them most, they remain the same as the day they were born.

His best friend Tatsuki has already had a similar talk with him, telling him that it must be true that from the moment you meet a person, something comes alive, and it doesn’t have to be love and doesn’t have to even be like, but there’s something. One soul contacting another, two pairs of eyes connecting, these are the foundations of lifelong bonds, she has told him, in perhaps, less eloquent terms. He has always admired his best friend who stands tall—or as tall as she can—and has the strength to look behind her, no matter how painful it might be. It might be why she is his best friend in the first place, providing for him a window into himself, a window for he who can rarely manage to look over his shoulder, much less turn around and face the empty space behind him.

Crossing his arms, he sighs, doing his very best to maintain a sense of calm while blocking the random attacks his father throws his way. To this day, Ichigo cannot begin to understand what, if anything, is going on in that man’s debatable brain but he doesn’t dwell too much on it. It is, as far as he is concerned, mostly a lost cause. Karin teases him for being a drag and hurls a popcorn ball at him, some curious western confection that involves the popped kernels of corn and caramel syrup to stick them together. Eyeing it dubiously, still wrapped in its little plastic wrap, he holds onto it. He knows someone who will appreciate this more than he does.

“Going out, Ichi-nii?” his sisters ask in unison. They have reached a similar level of thinking whenever Ichigo leaves the house and tonight their shared tone cannot be mistaken. They are teasing him, dragging out the ‘nii’ in a telltale manner. He twitches, predictably so. Yuzu giggles. Karin snickers. Isshin is about to make a comment about youth, New Year’s eve, and grandchildren.

And Ichigo is so very out the door.

A deep breath reminds him of how cold it is and he wraps his scarf around him more effectively, adjusting his headphones so as not to disturb the delicate balance of things he insists on wearing—jacket, shirt over another shirt, scarf, goggles—what are you, an aviator? Karin wants to know—pants with a chain, shoes, and headphones with an unnecessarily long cord. This kind of style has always suited him, and maybe that’s why he doesn’t even have to think about what he wears. He just wears it and that in itself is very much a part of his natural being. His exhales hang in the air in front of him as he walks, idly tossing the popcorn ball…up and down, up and down…and as if by accident, his eyes find the stars and he pauses in his long strides.

They’re not as bright as he would like them to be but beggars can’t be choosers…well, not that he believes that for a second, but that’s what they say, he recalls.

Maneuvering through the city is quite the feat with all of the merry citizens roving about with no particular purposes, just floundering in laughter and jokes and general wintry cheer, which should be a contradiction, but it isn’t. Out of his peripheral vision, he catches news broadcast, international, coming from that place, Time Square in the city of New York. They are, as with every year, waiting for that stupid disco ball—this is what it looks like to him—to drop. Ichigo has never understood nor shared in the enthusiasm concerning said disco ball and thinks blandly: probably never will…whatever.

He’s half way through the busiest part of town when a gentle tug on his sleeve makes him stop again.

“Kurosaki-kun,” she smiles and he offers the same kind of smile he always has for her: well-meaning, and always with that slight question of “Am I missing something?”

“Inoue,” he nods and blinking dumbly at her for a moment, shifts like a child. “What…ah…are you doing?” he asks at last, and to Orihime, he remains as endearingly awkward as the day she met him. In all these years his people skills have yet to show even a spark of improvement, but she has the feeling she’d be sad if one day she woke up and Ichigo was a perfect gentleman. Actually, she’s sure of it.

After all, she has always loved him just the way he is.

“Not really much,” she shakes her head and her hair swings like a model’s must. Ichigo isn’t a total moron, and he isn’t blind. He knows she’s beautiful, just like he knows she’s kind, just like he knows she would move the earth and its heavens for the ones she cares about…he knows. She cut her hair at the end of that last, long, awful war…

His eyes close involuntarily. He hates that stinging sensation behind them and wills it away.

“Tatsuki-chan will be coming over,” Inoue says softly and reads his face like a neon sign. Almost, she dares to think she knows what he is thinking, but here she is selfish and her heart aches and she cannot begin to guess. It hurts too much when she already knows. “Would…” she stops, and banishes those feelings from high school, those insecurities that will do her absolutely no good now, and rushes, “…would Kurosaki-kun like to join us?” She wonders if the cold weather can possibly be a good excuse for the blush that stains her cheeks and she gets the feeling it is a little too similar to a stop-light to be overlooked. Luckily for her—or unluckily as it might be—Ichigo has never really picked up on those sorts of things, not back then…and not now.

“Ah…I…can’t…but, thanks Inoue,” he says and he looks up at the sky again, squinting slightly. She follows his vision.

“The town is so lit up, it is hard to see them here,” she says and fiddles with the ends of her lavender scarf, the fringe multiplying beneath her fingers.

“Mm,” he nods absently and she sighs but makes no sound. The only evidence is the tiny mist the heat of her breath leaves in front of her face. They stand like that, two still figures amidst many more rambunctiously moving ones, two people looking in the same direction.

Inoue Orihime knows they are not looking at the same thing.

She, as she has always been, is watching him. Her face is directed toward the bursts of light above them, but her eyes, her focus, they have long since been claimed by this young man with hair the color of oranges and eyes that burn right through you.

That’s why she stays, beside him, just a moment longer…for any moment is to be appreciated, she muses gently, even though…even if…that moment is irreversibly one-sided.

He cares for her, she knows. She knows when he tears his eyes from the stars, turns to her and asks her: “Are you cold?” Shaking her head she forces a soft laugh.

“Mm,” she shakes her head again and adds, “But, Kurosaki-kun, I will…I have to meet with Tatsuki-chan soon so…” she trails off, pushes a few strands of hair behind her ear. He nods at her. She does not move, and then very, very quietly tilts her head and asks, “…will you be okay?” How stupid, she admonishes herself, because how can he be? But she has to ask. She wants to know…that maybe there is hope.

Hope has always been the center of her world.

Even now, she holds it in both of her hands, but not for herself.

He takes a long time to answer, but for once, his gaze stays with her, firm and considerate, and she realizes, heart warming, he will give her his most honest answer. She will not ask for more than that.

“It always seems to end up that way,” he says at last and she finds that she very much wants to break down in tears. Right there, on the sidewalk, in front of all of those people, the strangers, in front of him…in front of everything…she wants to cry deeply and long. The way he answers her, she is so grateful for his truth, and yet…the sadness in him, it is cold…like the first pale snow of winter.

“Like the stars,” she notes to herself under her breath.

“Hm?” he asks and she shakes her head furiously, making her smile be real, because she needs it to be.

“Well…um, happy New Year’s Eve, Kurosaki-kun,” she says and bows slightly. He returns the gesture, and as she turns he grabs her shoulder without thinking. Her eyes widen as she faces him woodenly. He holds out the popcorn ball.

“Ah, figure you’ll like this more than I would,” he says and she accepts it like she might accept anything much finer: gold, jewels, a love letter.

“Thank you,” she bows again and to her surprise she hears him chuckle softly. Dumbfounded, she glances up at him, almost suspicious as if to say: who are you and where have you hidden Kurosaki-kun?

“You don’t have to do that,” he explains with a wave of his hands and adds, “We’re beyond that, don’t you think?” And he’s right.

She smiles and begins to back away.

“Okay,” she says and then, “Be…safe Kurosaki-kun.” And she is gone, disappearing into the increasingly large crowd.

As she walks away she knows where his eyes are.

Out of the corner of her eyes she can see him…watching the stars.

Impromptu gift delivered, New Year’s wishes exchanged, he thinks a little guiltily that maybe he should have gone with Inoue, at least to say hello to Tatsuki, but then, she’s never been any more for formalities than he has. So he lets it go. She won’t hold it against him.

Instead his feet carry him to the graveyard, to his mother’s place of rest. He kneels.

Alone felt fine in the sunlight
But counting stars not so kind
You were someone else to me
And I was stuck counting: one, two, three

From his jacket he takes a fragile gathering of statice, yellow and purple, which seem to suit his mother who was always so bright and beautiful. They look just right, he thinks, a little pleased with himself, perhaps.

“Happy New Year,” he says, and his hands are stiff on his knees. The quiet here can not contrast more with the bustle of the main streets. In a way, it is unnatural, he feels, for it to be as quiet as it is but at least it’s peaceful for the spirits.

And then he hears it, a scream and then an otherworldly roar.

So much for peaceful, he scowls and leaps up past the graves to stand behind a tree…the same tree she stood by once…watching him make that promise…

The scream is louder this time. He flinches and curses his need to be nostalgic tonight and sits down, back against the tree, quickly leaving his human body behind, his zanpakutou in hand. Rushing through the trees, toward the familiar sounds of hollow and victim, he swallows hard. The memories do not seem to want to leave him alone…

So he remembers.

It was the end of the world, and to be fair, there have been others to state the same thing and theirs would have been the exaggerations, while his stood as truth. The sky was lit with a thousand kinds of fire except the kind that one would expect and people were dying…so many people. Soul Society smelled of ash, blood, and burnt skin, looked like a hole in the universe for unsightly things like trash and other things no one wanted anymore. It was hell. They had been fighting for such a long time that no one knew exactly how long it had been. Their injuries were many more than their enemies and their casualties far worse. Squads had been obliterated, assistant captains finished in three frighteningly simple onslaughts…captains cut down by the hands of two men who saw everyone as their collective target.

All they had left was one final rush. Of the mentionable few remaining there was himself, Urahara, Inoue, Renji, Yoruichi, Byakuya, Matsumoto, and, as fate would have it, Rukia. All the others, save a few newly graduated soul reapers…all of them were gone…memories. Most had died honorably, trying to protect others. Some…some had simply been victims.

And so, there they stood, on the edge of a great flat land, the type on which vast armies might amass and do their best to do more damage to the other ten thousand while defending their own. But they did not have ten thousand. They did not even have ten.

Fire leaked down from the sky and at that time Ichigo had already had a notion of what it would be like to die. He just had not expected it in the manner that it greeted him.

They had a plan. It wasn’t a very good plan and all of them knew it but they had no more choices, none. Renji had volunteered to lead a distraction consisting of a triangle attack involving himself, Yoruichi—for speed had always been her specialty—and Urahara—who had always seemed to have a frightening sort of death wish for himself to begin with. Byakuya would follow up, attempt to finish at least one of their targets: Ichimaru Gin or Sousuke Aizen. At the beginning of the war they had focused on the various arrancar, attempting to work their way to the main bodies, but when that lost them more than it assisted, they finally started to go straight after the traitors of old. But that was easier planned and said than done and their poor remains were testaments to that fact. Byakuya stated vacantly that Ichigo had better plan on getting the other one and if he had felt like joking at the time, Ichigo would have remarked that it must be the end of the world if he was going to take orders from the likes of him. But it was, and so he held his tongue, for once. Inoue was to shield anyone and everyone from a distance and Matsumoto and Rukia were to defend her, since healing and other defenses were critically significant, especially now. Ichigo, as Byakuya had more or less ordered, was to go with him.

The sky was burning and it made his eyes water, acidic waves pounding down against them, erasing the heavens.

They waited as long as possible and when a moment presented itself Renji took it with the look of one who cannot afford to fear death and leapt into the air. On his heels were Yoruichi and Urahara. Several swings were deftly avoided by the psychotic ex-captain known as Aizen. His mouth twisted until he was leering at the red-haired man until he decided he’d had enough fun and blocked Zabimaru with one of his hands. He bled a little but not as much as he should have. Yoruichi took this time to deliver a slash to his head, which he evaded mostly, somehow. The blood dripping from a deep cut along his cheek was the only proof she had been to his side however, because a flash step later she attacked at Gin, who was already dealing with Urahara.

Maybe it was because this was the end-all and be-all of the war, but their movements came more quickly and their attacks were stronger. It still wasn’t enough, not enough to escape alive, but in the split second it took Ichigo to get behind Ichimaru Gin and dispassionately behead him, in that time, he managed to pierce one of the two. More frightened than she had ever been, had ever deigned to show, Yoruichi was at Orihime’s side in one step, Urahara in her arms. Was he dead? Ichigo had no time to think about this.

Byakuya was head to head with Aizen who didn’t bat an eye at the loss of his so-called partner, and Renji…Renji…?

Renji was below them, an unmoving heap of skin and bones on the unforgiving ground. Eyes narrowing, Ichigo flash-stepped behind Aizen only to have the bastard turn to meet his stare and to his horror and fury, the man laughed.

The captain of the 6th division decided that would be a good time to use his bankai. Had he consulted the teenager fighting with him, he would have agreed. Neither could predict that the bankai would reverse both where it came from and where it went. Neither could guess that Aizen had somehow manipulated Byakuya’s own zanpakutou from its spiritual insides.

Empty, Ichigo was aware of Rukia’s scream as her brother fell.

And then it was just him…him and…he didn’t have a name for what he faced.

Below, Orihime had just managed to bring Urahara back from death’s tumultuous edge when the elder Kuchiki fell to the ground. Rukia looked at her, a pleading look, the look of someone who blamed herself and couldn’t be bothered with details because her brother needed help and please, please, would she do this, please? Orihime would have gone even if she was unasked but as they ran she took Rukia’s hand in her own and squeezed it. She would save her friend’s brother. She could not save her own. But this…this she could do.

“Aizen!” Ichigo met him clash for clash and his anger increased as he realized how much of this fight was not him getting close enough to hit Aizen, but Aizen letting him get close enough…a play thing. Inside him he felt that dark presence…the hollow, but to let it out would mean the loss of everything. He couldn’t allow that.

“You think, truly, Kurosaki Ichigo, no…you believe you can defeat a god?” he asked and Ichigo gritted his teeth and swung again. “You think you can protect all of these…friends of yours?” his tone was so damn languid…sadistic bastard. “You think…” he paused and forced Ichigo to a standstill, neither blade moving. “You think you know what you’re up against.” He pushed the younger man back with terrible ease, sending Ichigo spiraling backward. “But the truth is,” his voice was a loud whisper as he made it clear he had lost interest in their game of swords, closed in. “You know nothing.” Ichigo couldn’t move, not even a centimeter. He couldn’t get out of the way. The most he could try to do was block. Willing his arms to move he prayed to zangetsu silently.

“Bankai,” a familiar voice said, a lot closer than he thought was reasonable, considering she was supposed to be on the ground with the others…safe.

Exactly why this stopped Sousuke Aizen, Ichigo could not begin to think…a sick decision on destiny’s part, probably. But the god stopped, stopped cold in the middle of what would have been the fatal strike to Ichigo as human and spirit.

Since when, both men wanted to know, could she do that?

Below them, all the others wondered the same thing…except for her brother. It was, sadly, the only thing she had ever asked of him. He wished, even more so in this moment, that she had asked him for worldly goods, for a more comfortable room, flowers, food, anything but things that dealt with becoming stronger as a soul reaper…because stronger meant more risks. He did not want her to have those. But she had never asked him for anything else. How could he refuse her this one thing and on the precipice, at the time, of the war to end all wars? He could not. So Kuchiki Byakuya had trained his adopted sister, who looked so much like his late beloved. He taught her with the patience of a true older brother, helped her hone other skills as well, because why do half-a-job she had pointed out rather stubbornly. She couldn’t reach the level she desired if it was only fifty percent, she argued, not as fast as she needed to learn…which still wasn’t as fast as some, she had noted dryly. At that he had had nothing left to refuse her with and they had gone through their own pioneering experiment, testing waters on how one could find the final release in a capped amount of time. It never seemed quite enough, Byakuya remembered, as she would fall slightly short of that spiritual power necessary for the tenfold type of power bankai rendered. It wasn’t surprising. Not many people were supposed to be able to do it in the ten years much less six days.

Somehow as he lay on the ground, unable to protect her, he knew she had achieved this on her own…he had never seen it until now but he had had a feeling, an intuition about her sudden change, though he never put a name to it.

Now she did that for him.

“Saishuu no mai... tsugomori.”

At first there was nothing and that in itself was enough to confound everyone around her as Rukia seemed to chant something under her breath. A kidou, Ichigo wondered…along with bankai? He didn’t understand. He had seen kidou-based shikai, heard of such bankai, but combining separate forms of bankai and kidou? What was she doing? He didn’t know then any better than he knew years later. Aizen had perhaps been right to that effect of knowing nothing.

And then it was cold…all the fire…all the smoke and cinder…seemed to roll away under a blanket of snow that whirled around them like so many arms, fingers trailing along their skin, leaving the burn of ice wherever they touched. All this was directed at Aizen who seemed discouragingly unaffected and began to walk toward her, the air as steady as any earth to him as he did so.

And Ichigo could not move.

…kidou.

He remembered this binding, but he had escaped it once when he was nothing but a convenient accident. He remembered and thought that it couldn’t be any different. He could escape. He had to.

But Aizen moved closer and he couldn’t.

She did not tremble, not even a little.

“Why such a waste, Kuchiki Rukia?” he asked her and his words slithered around like poison.

“I waste nothing,” she replied, all the nobility she had been raised with and some that she had learned on her own…for herself.

What happened next is anyone’s guess but Ichigo, maybe because he was closest, maybe because it was her…Ichigo saw…and heard the last whispers of the two before him.

“Ah I see,” from Aizen, looking like one who knew he had lost but would not admit it, eyes fixated on the one flaw in his plan that shouldn’t have made any difference…but somehow had.

“Sorry,” from Rukia, looking like one who did not understand forgiveness, eyes locked on the boy whose life she had changed…the boy who had changed her life…no…the young man, now, the young man who…foolish as it was…she…

Two swords. Two bodies. And pure, white snow.

Sousuke Aizen was nothing but a skeleton when they found him on the ground. Any trace of blood or organs had been…frozen away…from the inside out…and at his side lay Shirayuki…pale, dull, and lifeless.

Ichigo knew the moment it was over…even if he didn’t want to admit it. Finding movement, he ran to catch her and wasn’t even fast enough to do that well. He tumbled with her in his arms, rolling until he came to a natural stop, slowly sitting up with her hugged to his chest like a small child. Strange how they would end like this, all her power gone once again, her blood on the white of her robe…on him…on his hands and he framed her face with one hand, tilting it anxiously, gently, waiting to see a response, any response. When her fragile hand clutched at his own he had mixed feelings: heartbreak and the last drop of hope.

“Sorry,” she said again and he wanted…he wanted…

“What’s ‘sorry’?” he demanded fiercely and barreled on, “Don’t say ‘sorry’ like you did something wrong you idiot,” his breath came too quickly and he couldn’t stop to regain it. He risked hearing the inevitable then. “I…you…you’re stupid, you’re stupid, you’re the stupidest person I’ve ever met. Don’t say you’re sorry! Look at me!”

Open your eyes.

She couldn’t. He could feel her slipping beneath the snow…away.

And suddenly Byakuya was at his side, and Inoue and…and…and even Renji…everyone…Urahara…Matsumoto…

“Kuchiki-san!” the terrified voice of Inoue broke his thoughts and he looked up at the girl who loved him, looked at her and pleaded without words. She knelt beside him and held out her hands, the warm glow flowing around not only the limp body in his arms, but himself. He meant to tell her not to use any energy on him when a hand grasped Inoue’s wrist and the glow…stopped.

“Byakuya!” he raged, anger dripping off of everything: his tone, his look, his presence. “What are you—” he stopped short. Byakuya shook his head and looked away. This was too much like a scene he had already witnessed. He could not handle a second time.

Forcing his gaze down he almost cried out, but there was no sound that escaped him.

She was…disappearing.

“What…what is this?” he asked and Urahara stepped forward.

“It is…I have heard of it but…” he paused.

“What is it?” Ichigo asked murderously.

“When a soul of Soul Society gives all of their spirit there is no third life, Kurosaki-kun, you know this. But when a soul reaper gives all of…of her spirit and her zanpakutou…the spirits both…well, you see.” Urahara looked away even as he said this.

“But she can’t…she…she can be healed,” Ichigo insisted. His knuckles were white, clasping the dying girl to him.

“No,” Yoruichi said quietly and he knew it was true. Inoue shook her head and held out her hands again, placing them this time on Rukia, even as she became completely transparent. Her hands shook, though from fear or exertion, it was anyone’s guess. Maybe it did help a little.

She opened her eyes, very, very slowly.

“So serious,” she looked up at them and Byakuya did turn to her now, eyes more open than they had been since…since before Hisana died.

“Shut up,” Ichigo said and she smiled at him.

It was such a soft smile.

“Don’t tell me,” she whispered and her gaze went to the sky. “Oi, Renji,” she called and the stray pulled himself into view, ashen with the reality of the situation that faced them all.

“What?” he asked roughly and wanted terribly to reach out to her, to brush the hair behind her ear…something he had often thought of over their many years together. But even now something placed itself clearly between them.

Ichigo threaded his fingers with hers and Renji let his hand fall to his side.

“Glad you’re…okay,” she said and he nodded with a grunt that was mostly suppressing a yell, or tears, or both.

Silence covered them until she spoke again and it was: “They’re there again.” And she pointed up.

One by one stars began to wink back into the sky, as if they were rekindling, one burst of brilliant light after the other and the snow, falling all around them, seemed to burst with that light, a silver quality to everything in eyesight.

“How many?” she asked.

“Thousands,” Matsumoto said quietly.

“Millions,” countered Urahara with a tip of his hat.

“One,” said Inoue and they all looked at her. She had her own gaze fixed upward still. “One for…for every soul,” she said very quietly and let her gaze meet her dying friend.

“Yes,” was the smiling whisper and she stared at her hand sadly. She was now almost invisible. And Ichigo…he could barely feel her there…at all.

“Don’t…” he said and when she turned to see him, only him, he repeated, “Don’t.”

“Oi Ichigo, make a happier face,” she had the traces of a smirk, but it was the type of someone who was too tired to achieve a real one, and he saw much of the sadness lurking beneath it.

“Like I…like I’d ever listen to you,” he forced out and tried not to pay attention to how choked it sounded. “…Rukia?” her name came out even worse. “Rukia!”

I never knew what to do
Not with the falling stars and not with you
Not until counting those falling stars
Was all we had left, was all that was ours

His arms were empty.

And he was cold…colder than he could ever remember being.

Inoue laid a tentative hand on his shoulder, which he carelessly shrugged off. He missed the pained look the girl wore at his reaction but Matsumoto gently took her by the shoulders, leading her away. They left until it was only Renji, Byakuya and Ichigo, the first standing as if on an eternal guard, the second with eyes closed, and the third kneeling in the snow, hands held before him like hated things.

“…come on…Ichigo,” Renji said at last. He didn’t move.

“She didn’t die so that you could follow her, Kurosaki,” Byakuya reprimanded shortly and left swiftly. Renji followed soon after, casting one unsure glance over his shoulder at the unmoving human. But he was inconsolable…he had not had nearly half the time that Renji and Byakuya had had with her…no, a mere fraction…not even.

He yelled, screamed, many things, none of them words. They were too distorted to be mistaken for actual words. Instead it was anguish and confusion, some betrayal too perhaps—how could she leave him like that?

He had never even had the chance to tell her.

It was hours before he moved, all his physical body protesting at it, almost a walking statue of ice…so cold he didn’t even feel it. A step toward where he thought he was supposed to go was harder than he’d anticipated. He stumbled, fell, and his face landed in the snow. It was unusually soft, he thought vaguely and then his ear warmed, his right ear…just a bit…and he blinked, coming back to himself a little more. Warmth…?

“Nee…Ichigo…next time…” came the slightly self-righteous and always secretly kind voice he longed for.

The next time he dragged himself to his feet he managed to make his way to the nearest household—the Kuchiki one, as it were—and politely collapse on the threshold.

Later he woke to Inoue’s sleeping face beside him. He was told she stayed with him every moment and he didn’t disbelieve. All his wounds were healed…well, most of them. When he went home there was a clear change though no one but Tatsuki and Karin might have a real guess as to what and why.

One thing was certain though, Ichigo had lost part of himself…a part he could never replace, never regain.

He spent strangely long hours on the roof from then on as well, Karin noted without saying so. Often he would skip dinner and just go straight up there and…well, do what? At last she became fed up and followed him one night. She was startled to see her older brother as she found him…very still…very silent…arms behind his head and eyes glued to the heavens…but it was how his eyes looked that concerned her. They were glassy as she had never seen them before…as if…as if her older brother, her invincible, strong, Ichi-nii…what happened? She wanted to know. When she asked him it came out more like: what’re you doing up here, Ichi-nii, trying to catch a cold? It was the middle of winter at this point after all. He shook his head and grunted, pointing above him. She followed his direction.

“Counting…” he said.

“The snowflakes?” she asked.

“No,” he said.

“Well?” she snapped.

“…the stars,” he said and it was the way he said it that made her sit beside him, snatch his hand and hold it. At first he tried to take it back but eventually, when it became quite clear she would not relinquish it, he relaxed and then she squeezed it just so. She wasn’t any better than Ichigo himself at comforting words or gestures but she would do what she could for him. She would do what she could.

Ichigo spent more nights than his family knew on the roof, in fact, if one were to do a comparative ratio, it would have come out in startling favor of nights spent outside rather than inside. Each night he counted the stars and each night he looked for one that maybe, somehow, belonged to…her.

One for each soul, that’s what the idea had been.

He permitted himself, on every New Year, a few quiet tears in the privacy between him and the stars and the snow. Only human, even the well-trained person he had become could not deny a loss such as this one. This was the kind of loss that you mourned one lifelong, one day at a time. It was unfair, he thought frequently, that she would be taken from him when she had never been his to begin with. Would he have done things differently, he asked himself.

What things would those have been?

Ichigo often wondered.

He runs now, the scream is even louder and he knows he’s practically on top of them.

So why can’t he see them? Not the hollow, nor the spirit…what is going on? A giant force sends him careening into the furthest tree and he swears brilliantly. Gods, they would send a moronic brute on New Year’s, he thinks darkly and now the hollow is very obvious to him, large, as large as the Grand Fisher…maybe larger…with snake-like things coming out where its eyes ought to be and body-long talons on each of its six legs…and strange fur-like stuff that hangs off it like a rug. His lips curl in disgust. Why is it always here, he frowns angrily. This is supposed to be a sacred space for…for those who have passed on, he stumbles over the thought. The spirit has stopped screaming and he still can’t see it…wherever it is and so he lunges at the hollow, striking its right shoulder but doing only the mildest of damage. It swings out at him with two claws and he avoids them like child’s play except that then it comes around with that monstrosity of a tail and he flies through the air a second time, hitting a different tree of course. He groans and rubs his head as he gets to his feet. He must be really off his game, thinks ruefully. Then there’s that scream and he sees that the hollow has the spirit in its hand. The spirit is a she as it turns out, he notices and runs toward enemy and victim until the hollow turns and moves and the clouds roll away, leaving the moon unobstructed, shining down on the spirit…definitely a she…definitely…

But no…she…she is small…so unexpectedly small…and…her hair is longer but…and yet…her eyes are the same…and…and then she looks at him.

She looks at him.

They both hold their breath.

She is no spirit, he thinks.

And suddenly the hollow is nothing more than dust as it is cleansed and sent to Hell because a hollow such as that deserves no better. The girl seems…seems hardly frightened, more so…shocked. She picks herself up off the ground where she fell when the hollow dropped her and dusts off her pale blue dress…short loose sleeves, falls about to her knees…has accents of deeper blues…she faces him.

“Thank you,” she bows and pushes that familiar section of hair in the middle of her face behind her ear. Her eyes, they do not change.

“You…can see me,” he says carefully.

It can’t be, he thinks adamantly. It is an illusion, he tells himself. It will just…disappear too.

“What do you mean, of course I can!” she retorts and he remembers saying a similar thing…to a similar person.

Counting stars I’m starting to
Count three, two, one, one, three, two
This New Year’s Eve I’m counting any which way
‘Til the stars start falling on New Year’s Day

“You should…be…home…on……tonight?” he is struggling in so many ways, gripping the hilt for dear life—or death—and hoping the white of his knuckles is not too dreadfully obvious. He is at a very muddy crossroads and can barely make out the directions he has to choose from.

“Mm, well,” she says in a non-committal tone that translates to: what’s it to you? She then asks, “Do you care?”

Not really.

He once said that.

It seems…a lifetime ago.

“…yes,” he says this time and her eyes widen.

Those eyes…he swears inside.

“Well that’s your problem!” she says and pointedly drops onto her back, staring up…at the stars. He drops down beside her. She does not look at him. Minutes later what he should have known at the beginning becomes clear now: she can’t be her…and wasn’t he thinking that? It can’t be. She…died. He remembers.

He knows.

She died.

No, she didn’t even die but…she disappeared…her soul…her…everything…faded away…in his arms.

He clenches and unclenches his fists and he mutters to himself to such an extent that he gains interest from his accidental company and she pulls herself up on an elbow to stare at him. When he turns to sneak a glance he is caught by her and he can’t help but notice that though her hair falls below her waist and her eyes are much bluer than he remembers…well…he can’t help but notice…it’s that same kind of look she used to give him.

But that’s not her, he reminds himself in vain.

“Counting stars,” she says and he bites hit tongue so hard he tastes the iron of his blood.

“…what?” he mumbles.

“…it’s a game,” she explains and waves a hand at him so airily. He wants to grab that hand. He wants to pull her to him, see if she fits the way she looks like she will…in his arms…and if she does he wants also to never, ever let her go…he wants…he wants her to know him.

Know me, he begs in his mind, zanpakutou laid across his lap, eyes locked onto her slender frame, her soul’s similar presence…the way she turns her head this way or glares at him that way or pretends he’s not there in another way…he can’t look away.

She could be gone then.

It could be hours or seconds but his hand reaches out to her outstretched hand and covers it. She has the grace to look appalled and then the lack of it to look like she’s going to send him packing on a one way trip to the moon…and funny how that reminds him of her too.

“W-what?” she asks and snatches her hand away, holds it to her as if burned.

“…you…don’t…you don’t know me,” he says with difficulty and she snorts as she sits up, pulling her knees to her chest as she rocks back and forth.

“I think I’d remember,” she says dryly and there’s humor there so he lets it be. Maybe if he is quiet she will talk to him, tell him something that so clearly makes this all impossible that he will leave and it will be just like any other job. “What’s your name, huh?”

Maybe not.

“Kuro…” he stops. Does he need another link like this? Does he want it? Is this his second chance? What if he is making believe, some pretty return-to-me fairytale and in the end fails to tell her all those things a second time? Why is this happening?

“Kuro…?” she arches a brow and frowns at him. “You’re kidding,” she insists and he rolls his eyes at her. He cannot help it.

“I am…Kurosaki Ichigo,” he says. “Soul reaper,” he adds with a sigh.

And she nods as if she understands.

Maybe she does.

She offers her hand.

“Tsukishiro Rukia,” she says and he stares stupidly at her hand.

“What?” he asks.

“You got cotton in your ears, strawberry face? I said my name’s Tsukishiro Rukia,” she huffs and adds a little shiftily, “I can see spirits.”

“Ah…hm….nice to...meet you,” he manages a broken sentence. She nods briefly.

“…same,” she says, but no ‘thank-you for saving me’…because she wouldn’t do that, he thinks…not ever. “Don’t you have somewhere to be?” she hints, annoyed.

Who wouldn’t be with a complete stranger hanging around?

“It’s not ‘strawberry’,” he says, moody now. She sends him a dubious stare.

“Oh, what’s it for then, how does it read?” she inquires and her eyes waver back to the stars.

“Protector…protector…of one thing,” he says slowly. This actually makes her give a sound of approval and he wonders at that too, though she continues counting the stars.

“And what’s that?” she asks, a dangerously idle sounding question from a girl he must keep telling himself he has never met, a girl who however much she looks like…has the same damn first name…is a different person altogether…because she must be. She…what will he do if…he can’t finish this thought and tries to answer her question when he realizes that recognizing her and answering her are rather strangely…the same thing.

“You,” he coughs. Her head snaps toward him, eyes too wide.

“…excuse me?” she says and it’s a secretive whisper.

“…people….like you,” he amends and thinks her avid expression dims considerably, but then maybe he is making all of this up and will wake in his bed to find nothing has changed at all.

“…that’s good,” she says and then, “But I don’t need you to protect me.” She says it like a woman and a child all at once and he shakes his head as she counts under her breath, floating from star to star.

“Maybe you do,” he dares her. “You’re…just human,” he says awkwardly.

Without moving even the slightest bit, she replies, “…I’ve always been told that.”

Hello cryptic answer.

He cringes. What the hell is he supposed to do with that kind of reply?

“Why are you counting?” he questions and she sighs as if she has explained this too many times.

“…for every soul there is a star,” she says and that can’t just be coincidence he thinks now, desperate but so absolutely terrified that he cannot bring himself to say: is it really you?

“And…?” he prompts.

“I’m looking for mine,” she says gently and now she turns to him. “Maybe you know something about it, Kurosaki I-chi-go?” she separates his name in a sing-song manner.

It’s not her…but maybe it once was…

That’s what he’s thinking as he inches toward her and finds to his most mortal surprise that she is not moving away. That’s what he’s thinking as he stops within her breathing space and peers as closely into those eyes of hers as possible. That’s what he’s thinking as he draws away, hearing her release a soft sigh as he does so.

Maybe it once was…and what once was…may be again.

It is a new year and his world is either falling apart or falling back into place.

He just hasn’t figured out which it is.

And one of these years I think maybe I will find
Under the snow, on a pale moon night
Counting stars, just a private scene
Counting stars with you, right next to me

</div>

Theme 01: Ichi.Ruki: Fic

hakuren — Fri, 29 Dec 2006 16:14:55 GMT

Title: The Third Wall
Rating: PG at most...cursing? Only a bit!
Word Count: 5,479
Theme: 01
Notes/Warnings/etc: All quotes are property of Shakespeare. The cast of Bleach is copyright to and property of Kubo Tite. This is the first of the Ichi.Ruki 100 theme list, for me anyway. Wording isn’t exact, some liberties taken…spoilers for most of the series up through some of the arrancar arc, but vague in that particular part, really.

#01 - tiny cage for a golden bird

“The course of true love never did run smooth.”

She’s stepping on him…again.

“For God’s sake Rukia…GET OFF!” he flails and cannot, for the millionth time, begin to comprehend how such a very, very small being manages to not only send him face-first to the ground, but keep him there too. He thinks, sulkily, that probably it is with the added help of some expert-soul-reaper tool, and then, quite directly after that thought, he thinks even more sulkily that she is, more likely, just that strong. A strangled sigh escapes him and he hears her chuckle triumphantly as she uses more force than necessary to push herself off of his back. This of course causes him to almost choke on his own exhale and he drags himself up with no little effort, ready to begin round 672 of their own personal battle royale.

“Oh, Ichigo, I didn’t SEE you there,” she says and her smile is a little too self-satisfied for his taste. On top of that, she’s using her ‘school’ voice, and he knows that she knows that of all things, that is one of the easiest ones to use to push all his buttons…the wrong buttons, that is. It’s all sugar and chappy faces and he’s just about had it when she stops jabbering at him and levels out the playing field with one of those patented Kuchiki-looks. Of course he hasn’t met dear nii-sama yet so he’s not aware that this IS the patented Kuchiki-look. But all things will become clear in due time and for the moment, nii-sama isn’t the Kuchiki that Kurosaki Ichigo needs to be concerned with anyway.

Rather than dignifying her with an intelligible response, he mutters under his breath and starts to walk away, school case over his shoulder as usual, slightly put-out expression on his face, as usual…expecting her to follow him, as usual.

Footsteps that don’t realize they’re a little bit hurried catch up to him shortly, confirming his subconscious anticipation. He doesn’t have to turn his head to know she’s there. Only she has footsteps like those, the kind that sound very clearly, and yet a split second after he hears each one, he finds himself wondering if he heard anything at all.

Sometimes, he thinks, she’s just like them: another damned ghost.

But then she hits him in the face for no readily apparent reason and all his brooding is called off as he yells at her about indecent behavior and as she yells back that she knows PLENTY about REAL indecent behavior from her extensive research—MANGA he corrects her and receives another blow—and as finally, they both realize about half-way home that they’re attracting more than their fair share of roadside attention.

Rukia has the grace to look diminutively embarrassed. Ichigo does not. The rest of their walk is silent, save some more muttering from the strawberry, which goes pointedly ignored by death and for this short span of time, there is something like peace between them.

Oh but they know better.

Later that night they find themselves separated by the rickety wood of a closet door, and this is normal by now, so it doesn’t call to itself for awareness.

But Rukia is aware. She’s trying to read manga (it’s this really weird one with some guy after…what were they…rings of the dead…something like that) and failing, for once. She’s trying to distract herself with the chappy stuffed animal that she won for herself—with Ichigo’s money— at one of the normal world’s festivals, and even failing at that. She’s trying to distract herself from the way her gigai will not seem to cooperate, how it’s not functioning the way a typical faux body is supposed to, how she has this ever-sinking suspicion that Urahara (that sneaky little…) is keeping something from her and that now it’s too late either way, because she’s stuck like this. She’s trying to ignore the sense of losing herself in this different world…so large to its natives…so small to her…so very small.

Rukia is trying to avoid becoming entirely human.

Because, really, isn’t one felony enough?

She almost opens the closet door but her hand rests on the edge, and there it stays for uncounted measures.

The lights go out on the other side.

Her hand slides away and she closes her eyes but sleep does not come.

If she had bothered to even peek through the grates of wood, she would see that her first felony is not sleeping either.

He rests with his arms behind his head, staring up at his remarkably unentertaining ceiling, repressing sigh after sigh because when one gets down to it, sighs are not very manly. And Ichigo, though he doesn’t think of it in these exact terms, has the same type of sentiments, more or less. His thoughts are wandering, as always, but as more often than not lately, they keep returning to eyes the color of blue-violet and an inestimable love for all things bunny-related, as well as the inevitable connection to equally inestimable amounts of pain—for him, that is.

The girl on the inside of his closet…she has changed his life and he wonders if this is a “for better or for worse” kind of deal before smacking himself in the face for that comparison.

They’re not married.

Hell, they’re not even friends, he thinks stubbornly and the operative word there is stubbornly.

Because no one ever said he was right, but he never asks so it’s not like he needs to deal with those feelings right now.

Right now is a quiet night, not even a token hollow to bust down or a spirit to send…right now is just him on his bed, blankets thrown askew because it’s hot outside…right now is her LIVING in his closet, reading God only knows what horrible manga (he wishes she would try Shakespeare just ONCE)…right now is him, and her, and the space in between.

And it’s not much.

Space, that is.

He’s never really much cared for the company of…well, anyone, and much less that of girls. He doesn’t count Tatsuki because, really, she’s too bent to be a ‘girl’ and the role of ‘best friend’ also takes away from the ‘girl’ factor…the ‘girl’ factor being something akin to whatever it is in cat fur that makes people allergic to it. Ichigo is not allergic to girls…not exactly…but he’s close. Inoue Orihime has experienced this first hand on multiple occasions and rarely a day goes by when his so-called friends—Keigo or Mizuiro—fail to tease him about it. And he doesn’t care, for the most part. For the most part, he brushes it off with a non-committal “Ah” or “Hn” or “You think so?” These are sometimes accompanied by mild acts of violence in order to shut up the so-called friends, but they expect this type of reaction from a man in denial and take it with grains of salt or foolish grins or, more frequently: both.

The fact that his secret roommate—does that sound scandalous, he wonders—is forever dragging him off with totally lame explanations like the nurse’s office—after SHE punches him out no less—does absolutely nothing for his situation.

Oh he thinks he hates her sometimes.

But then, other times…

Well, there are other times, and that’s about as far as he can get his mind to go right now, 4 AM with no real coherent thoughts except that he is going to be a wreck in school.

Sleep is finally extending a hand and he’s more than willing to take it, just as he muses all too softly: is she ever going home?

It’s the fact that it’s a soft query that worries his dormant heart.

“Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or Bends with the remover to remove.
O, no! It is an ever-fixed mark,
That looks on tempests and is never shaken.”

She feels trapped again and it’s not his fault. It’s not his fault.

But it is!

And her mind is as enraged as her spirit.

She’s cold, damn it. No, more accurately, she is bloody freezing and that at least, is his fault. It’s not his fault—it is, she can’t make up her mind for the life of her—however, that she’s standing useless to one side as he falls…falls…falls.

Why are they always falling, she wants to know…the rain…the hope…the…feeling of closeness…the people she has that closeness with…why?

Her betrayal is all but neatly stamped across her like the pattern on a butterfly’s wings: transparent, fragile, and permanent. This, her nii-sama sees, but she can never read him and all she registers is that cold regard she has known all her life in the Kuchiki household. This, her supposed childhood friend—and at one point, sweetheart as the normal people of Ichigo’s world might say—also sees and she knows he sees it because she wants him to. She has the undeniable desire to wound him deeply, as deeply as that sword bites through the boy—for Ichigo is a boy still—who she now knows she is responsible for.

Perhaps she knew it from the beginning.

That look they shared…she thinks only now: it meant something.

And he is on his knees here, this 15 year-old prodigy soul with the heart of someone much greater.

He is defeated and she can’t help but want him to run.

Trapped, she’s between two insurmountable walls: duty and guilt…there might be a third wall, but she can’t bear to acknowledge it.

It has been many years since she has had to look at that wall of her own well-devised cage.

“Ichigo!” she yells his name as she hooks her arm in a laughable attempt to dissuade Renji from finishing him off. She knows it is only by a combination of confusion and understanding that the red-haired man does not immediately shrug her off like the rag-doll she has become. “Run!” It’s a demand, it’s a plea, it’s her only hope for redemption, that he might save himself from the mess she is utterly convinced she has placed him in, even though he would tell her at this very moment that she was full of it and that this was all his decision from the beginning…

…that he asked for it.

He asked her.

But she isn’t thinking of that right now. She isn’t thinking at all.

Her eyes sting awfully and as Renji finally discards her like an old coat she feels her knees turn traitor too, buckling beneath her almost non-existent weight. Even humans can’t be this frail she thinks, and curses the damn sandal-hat. If she gets out of this alive she’ll…

No, she won’t get out of this…not alive, she realizes but this thought ends as the impossible happens for her again.

Ichigo fights back. Ichigo begins to…to win.

She bites her tongue.

If she doesn’t she might make a sound…a sound suspiciously like that of one who is relieved…of one who is…is happy.

It is not something she can afford.

She knows that even before nii-sama steps in and in those two unfair strikes, it is all over.

Over…over and over…she remembers the rain from that night as she watches the boy’s blood pool around him. She is freezing still, more so now, she may as well be the snow her blade represents. Her world closes in.

My fault, my fault…selfish…couldn’t bear to see you like…that…my fault…why didn’t I…stop him?

Her past and present are melting together and the rain is blurring her vision…the salt on her lips is parching her throat.

“Ichigo!” his name is an abandoned star as she dashes toward him.

The first wall slams down.

Her neck…he holds it easily with one hand, his eyes burning into hers and she is further distressed by his own look of betrayal. It says the simple line of: how could you? And he means it.

He loves her.

She knows.

She does not want to know anymore.

“Is it so wrong?” she yells, yells as one of a noble family should never yell. She wrenches at his hand and she continues to yell all the while feeling endlessly useless…a nothing with nothing to give.

In case she has any delusions of…anything…the second wall cuts clean in front of her.

“I see,” her nii-sama says and he is colder than she remembers, that impassive face…beautiful and unforgiving. Even when she admits she cannot stand him now, she also admits she can never compare. Why did you take me in, she wants to know still. She will never ask.

A hand grabs her nii-sama’s leg and her breath stops…just stops.

Everything stops.

Then she catches that glint in her nii-sama’s eyes and that’s it. It’s all she has left.

She rejects him.

And her mind won’t say: you’re killing herself.

But her heart has learned a lot over these past two moons.

“How dare a human lay a hand on nii-sama,” she rebukes, cold enough to resemble the brother she has no blood relation to.

The stare through battered orange bangs forces her to look away.

“These actions have opened Kuchiki Rukia’s eyes. I will accept the full punishment for the crimes I have committed,” she says with frightening detachment. She misses the truly fearful look that Renji sends her way.

“Rukia—”

Oh…no…don’t…

She can’t have him calling her name…calling to her…telling her to turn around…to…to look at him.

Don’t.

He moves…moves to…to what? Save her? Prove something?

Keep her?

How foolish.

She remembers that rain…so much like this one…blood…blood on her hands…she won’t let it happen again.

I am still selfish, and her bitterness is not unwarranted as she does what she must.

“Don’t!”

He stops moving and she feels his gaze fluctuate because it’s not like she can bear to look at him. She just knows.

“Don’t move…don’t…just…just try following me…and I swear…I’ll…I’ll…”

She’ll what?

His eyes come to her, from that fateful night…his eyes on his family, his eyes on her…his eyes against the unknown…she’s seen this kind of spirit before.

And she knows, she thinks, how to break it.

“I’ll never forgive you.”

He reads her fairly enough: I do not need you.

She dares the sharpest, quickest of glances at him. It is her final undoing this night.

The invisible third wall moves in.

This world she lives in, it is even smaller than she first remembered…tiny…and filled with rain.

The stray can’t help his eyes from flitting from his best friend to…the boy…and back. He does not like what he sees.

The captain pretends to see nothing, seeing everything, thinking he is torn between the memory of the one he loved more than honor, more than protocol, more than anything…and the reality that her younger sister has a death sentence waiting for her back in Soul Society…where he will take her.

The boy…he is nine again as she walks away. He doesn’t mistake that water in her eyes. It doesn’t come from the sky…that’s all her own…and she’s walking…she’s fading…

No words…no action…no nothing…he’s spent and he hates that.

He hates being protected.

That hasn’t changed and probably never will.

But body so gone he’s almost dead, he’s having one of those life-death epiphanies, the kind you don’t consciously remember later when you find to your dismay that you are alive but stay in your subconscious, whispers of truth.

He’s thinking he hates being protected, sure.

But more so, he hates being protected by her.

“In thy face I see honor, truth and loyalty.”

Yamada Hanatarou has a kind face and she finds herself even more detestable when she realizes on the first day, he is afraid of her. Later she will find there are plenty of things poor Hanatarou is afraid of, but at the moment he is only afraid of her, as far as she knows and prisoner though she may be, damned if she’ll let that control everything about her.

Her spirit is not completely gone.

He is alive, she thinks, and in this she may seek the smallest of comforts.

No she has not had any word about him.

But she doesn’t need such things as disposable as words, so easily fabricated and thrown around.

He is alive, she is sure.

So when, more comfortable, she speaks to Hanatarou of juice boxes, and he asks her how she learned. She says: “He taught me.” And when he asks who, she says: “Kurosaki Ichigo…a…man,” she will allow the both of them this change, “Whose fate I have…ruined…twisted permanently…I…” she pauses. Hanatarou is looking at her with such honest, wide eyes. “…I cannot hope for true forgiveness…I cannot…” ask him for that, she thinks but will not say it.

It’s not like she’ll ever see him again.

Hanatarou is a gift she does not deserve, she feels. He is patient, and kind, almost like, she thinks, a little brother, so many questions, and an avid curiosity about those questions…he is a gentle soul. Almost, she does not understand how this foreign being stepped into her cage so clumsily but she is eternally grateful.

When she talks about Kurosaki, Hanatarou sees a change in Rukia-san. He feels the change too, though he cannot quite place it. It’s like everything about her breaks down into microscopic pieces, things that you need to put together in order to understand, but can let float freely and make educated-guesses at. She is remembering a better time, he thinks, and he wonders something of what Ichigo’s classmates teased him about. Things like that do not differ so intensely from that world and this one, oddly enough.

Yet she seems guarded…unnervingly so sometimes. She seems…resigned and Hanatarou cannot pay too much notice to this or he will get nervous. Surely her brother, the captain…Kuchiki Byakuya…surely he does not mean to let his sister pass under Soukyoku’s judgment. Surely not, he tells himself, an absolute mess from worrying about the lady who has, though she does not know it, won a place in his tender heart. Surely not…

But he reaches the bars to her cell and she is gone…gone to the white tower and he…he remembers now what he would rather not, something he heard Rukia-san herself say to the assistant captain Abarai Renji.

“I know very well what kind of person he is…”

He then remembers something he can never forget…the way her eyes lit up and her very being seemed to glow when the assistant captain told her that one of the intruders might actually be him…

The way she looked…he cannot forget.

Hanatarou knows what he must do. There is then only the matter of how to do it.

His luck is very good or fate has plans or something.

Ichigo is not quite what he expected (Rukia-san’s drawings were…less than accurate) but he is also much more. Something about him is…there’s a force around him, moving with him…more than the sword…more than the spirit…and Hanatarou realizes: it’s his will.

His will is leading him toward Rukia-san, Hanatarou thinks and this makes him more inclined to lead loud Ichigo and the louder Ganju through the passageway, makes him more open to telling this guy with orange hair all that Rukia-san had to say about him…things he can’t help but share because it feels like Ichigo really would never know how much she thinks of him otherwise.

Hanatarou is going on instinct and has no real idea why this might be important for Ichigo to know but it feels right to tell him. Things he does not say are the ones like: saving Rukia-san is important to me because she is the first person to make me feel needed…to me Rukia-san is that person that you do things for without asking why…she is my first real friend…Rukia-san.

“Please save Rukia-san,” is what he opts for and Ichigo seems quite intent on doing just that.

It’s that look, Hanatarou realizes as they’re running through the passageway…the slight spark of life that Rukia-san got back upon hearing of Ichigo’s possible presence in Soul Society…it’s that look that Ichigo wears now.

He’ll save her, Hanatarou believes, for that is a look of something stern…strong...unyielding.

Ichigo is not leaving without her…without Rukia-san…he won’t.

Hanatarou believes that Ichigo can be the one to break down the walls of the silent cage Rukia-san lives in…believes he will shatter them…for her.

They are friends, Hanatarou thinks and then thinks: they have confidence in each other…without even seeing each other…they know…they trust.

So why is it him and Ganju running to save her, Ichigo left behind to fight that madman with so many scars that he is more battle spirit than tangible man? Why?

But the ‘why’ cannot stop there.

Why did she have to be the shinigami who killed Shiba Kaien, older brother of Ganju? Why did she confess at all? Why…why does Rukia-san chase death so desperately?

Hanatarou feels clouds around Rukia-san, full of rain.

This is one why he can answer. This is why he will protect her…even against her brother.

He wants to see the rain disperse, see that glow on her again…a faint light of hope…he thinks he’ll see it if he can stall long enough for Ichigo to get there.

But it is long, and long in waiting…and by the time Ichigo gets there, Ganju is destroyed and he is entirely uncertain of what to do next as Ichigo lands, the strange wing retracting. To his puzzlement, Ichigo walks right past Rukia-san…to him?

He asks him if he is okay.

Hanatarou says yes.

And he watches as Ichigo goes to Rukia-san.

They bicker almost immediately.

Hanatarou is surprised and he can’t help but stare.

He’s never seen such an odd team.

But somehow they seem…relieved…very nearly happy.

She with those eyes…the ones most people have to fear drowning in…he with that unreadable furrow in his brow….between their childish exchange, they are having the real conversation...he is sure of that.

“Make a happier face. I’ve come to save you!”

You’re an idiot!

“I said I’d…I’d never forgive you!”

You’re an even bigger idiot!

"I don't care if you want to face the death penalty! I'm going to save you even if it I have to drag you back myself. From now on, all your opinions are ignored! Got that, dumbass?!”

You don’t care about yourself at all!

“W-what the hell?! You're going to ignore all the rescuee’s opinions? What kind of crappy attitude is that when you’re saving someone?!”

Why do you care?

“Shut up!! The one being rescued doesn't get to complain! All you have to do is stand around saying, oh, please save me!"

I’m taking you home, Kuchiki Rukia so do me a favor and shut the fuck up.

"‘Oh, please save me!’...My ass!! I do not tremble!”

…I’ve believed in you since the beginning, Kurosaki Ichigo…bastard.

They make faces at each other and the seriousness of their situation almost disappears. It is like the world has shrunk to be just him and just her and this, Hanatarou sees with such clarity, he winces.

Their…relationship…it is not an easy one.

But it’s not like either one of them is giving up any time soon.

They’re strongest when side-by-side, Hanatarou observes like a scientist jotting down the bare bones of an experiment’s results. They’re…formidable, staring at each other like that…making all kinds of wordless swears and vows and insults too, because they can’t get by on face value alone.

The healer realizes that if Rukia-san was held in the white tower anew every day, Ichigo would come to save her.

He also realizes that if, for some estranged reason, Ichigo was held in the white tower—or elsewhere—Rukia-san would do no less.

Rukia-san herself is having strange, contradictory, human feelings…the third wall of her cage…she’s starting to see it again…and it might be that this one is not as disheartening as the first two…maybe.

Ichigo cannot see this wall, but that is because it is her cage, not his. They exchange a few more words, idle threats, less idle promises.

Then there’s that look they give each other before Ichigo goes to make a fool of himself by fighting with Kuchiki Byakuya—again—and the meaning borders on translucent.

Only some people can make it out but Hanatarou, perhaps because of his unwavering faith in the goodness of a woman who sees no good in herself, perhaps because of his own kind heart, he can. He sees through the obscurities to what they’re saying without saying anything.

And it’s very much like: I’m here.

"I’ll follow you and make a heaven out of hell, and I'll die by your hand which I love so well.”

Inoue tells him.

“Kuchiki-san, she’s nowhere inside of Seireitei!”

He goes to the trouble of bothering not only Renji but Byakuya as well, and promptly runs off when it becomes clear that neither of them know where she is.

Then she can only be one place.

He knows.

She is there, standing in knee-high grass that sways against her legs like feathers. The filtering sun makes her seem even paler, still recovering, but she cannot turn back. It has been years since that night…and she is years late. She must not run.

He has taught her that.

But she lingers a distance from them, certain that the Shiba family can sense her anyway. She isn’t doing a thing to hide herself, but openly watching the scene before her. It is, no matter their past, filled with good-natured roughhousing, laughter, teasing…closeness. Her hand clenches at one side of her yukata, fisting in the cotton near her heart. Even nii-sama cared, she still can barely believe, remembering him all stained with blood…blood that should have been hers. Yet she knows herself fortunate. Where her nii-sama has survived, she most likely would not have.

The smell of this place is fresh, open, and in this rare space in time, peaceful. Certainly she’s wishing all kinds of painful death—and worse—for the likes of Tousen, Gin, and Aizen…but then…that’s got a sort of peacefulness about it too. It makes her feel better in any case.

Her stomach twists as she remembers the third division captain’s face.

She will be the one to end him, she promises her nii-sama…promises captain Hitsugaya and Hinamori…promises herself.

How dare he make her question her will to live.

How dare he.

The walls are pulsing.

And Aizen…that…she has no words for that detestable creature…not man nor monster…something worse…

“Experiments…” he called them.

She closes her eyes and the darkness is saturated with water from the sky…cold arms around her…the lifeless face of the first person who made her truly see that third wall…his name on her lips…in so many drops of rain.

This is not the aftermath; she begins to walk toward the platform on which the Shiba family stands.

It is just another beginning…I do not want it…she thinks.

But I need it, she knows.

A decision must be made.

“I’m…sorry, I’m…so sorry,” she says and is aware of how deeply insufficient her apology sounds…is.

Kaien’s sister will have none of it though and Rukia wants to be strong like that…a person who is only looking forward…not behind her anymore.

She has had a role model or two in her second lifetime.

Funny, she thinks, that they should be of the same line…but then, not unexpected.

Because she recognizes that spirit.

“Oi, Rukia!”

His spirit resonates with such similarity, it’s painful, but she has a feeling this has less to do with her late assistant captain, much more to do with the newness that has arrived in the hands of this person standing mere yards away from her.

Those yards feel like many long years.

“I have decided…to stay here.”

She watches him with the keenness of her blade, her eyes doing all the cutting.

He is only fifteen. The shock is evident. He is only fifteen. The recovery is quick. He is only fifteen but she sees someone much older in those burning eyes of his.

“Well if…that’s what you’ve decided.”

If that’s what you want, he thinks and she doesn’t know it. Ichigo has not known a death like this one before...it is quiet and strange to him...but it is the end of something. But it is her choice.

He will not take her from the familiarity of these walls.

They find themselves standing before the gate.

“Thank you…Ichigo,” she says and it should be no big deal. She’s been calling him by his first name since…since the beginning. But it just feels different…for her.

It is different for Ichigo as well.

Because of her…his own rain has finally stopped falling.

There are memories, but they are no longer ghosts.

This is what she gives him as he looks at her over his shoulder.

She is so small.

It is no wonder her confinement is that way too.

When he disappears with his friends that smallness is all she can feel but she deals with it because she knows now she can…she must.

She is no longer living just for others.

He has somehow taught her to live also for herself.

“Love is a familiar. Love is a devil.”

She’s sitting outside his high school, again, for the first time in a long time. Her arms are crossed and her legs dangle off the edge of the tree. She has always preferred high places.

The afternoon breeze carries all the voices to her and she almost laughs as she hears the bickering of her Soul Society comrades. They all look quite good in the uniform, she thinks, just barely smiling.

Poor Hitsugaya, she thinks also and smiles fully then.

His reaction she can feel and hear, could feel and hear even if she was a world away.

But she is not.

She is there, a decent leap to the window and she is there…but…she hesitates.

It should not matter to her that he might not wish to have her back in his life…hasn’t she done enough damage?

It should not matter in the least.

She has a mission to complete.

Duty first, she reminds herself.

But this world encourages something else so forcefully she cannot ignore it. Here she is not small, well, physically of course she is, but…otherwise…she is all-encompassing. She can do anything, protect anyone…she is the person who has changed someone else’s life…forever. Rukia has meaning. The sun shines differently here, as it always seems to wash out everything in Soul Society. Instead, here, it blazes a tempered gold, not gaudy but definitely brilliant. It warms her to the center of her being and spreads from there, from her heart through her limbs to her fingertips until she is positively radiant with it.

She will never see herself as radiant but as she makes the leap to the window, hand closing around its edge, she knows he knows. She is there. And when she pulls herself up onto the windowsill, she tosses him the cocky grin she has long since borrowed from him, finding it useful as he does to hide more troublesome emotions. Because it was his expression first, he sees through it just a little…and sees all of her glow.

Then again, maybe that’s just the damned sun, he thinks as her foot collides with his cheek.

She yells at him for such a stupid look. She will not be flattered.

She pulls out his soul, literally, ordering him around quite effectively. She will not let him see her smile like this.

She tells him he has been in her heart…all this time. She will let the walls fall around her like snow.

The winter is over. The golden bird does not need her cage any longer.

“Rukia...” he says her name awkwardly, as usual. Her gaze, clear and quite verbal, says plenty without her actually asking him: what?

She flattens the edge of her shirt, even though it is perfectly pressed.

He bites his lip, looks at her, looks away...

...and...

...

“Where are YOU staying?”

She arches an elegant eyebrow at him.

“Was there ever any question about that?” she asks, frowning at him, posture that of one ready to pounce on the unsuspecting prey.

“You can NOT live in my closet!”

Oh he argues but she ends up in his house anyway…and well…Yuzu and Karin seem to like her…

And frankly, Ichigo doesn’t have a leg to stand on...especially not when he catches himself watching her laugh with his sisters…especially not when he catches himself thinking about how normal it is to have her here…

She is thinking similar things.

They meet to fight, but not each other.

And in the end it is as simple as: I will be the one to protect you.

“Love goes toward love.”

</div>

ichi.ruki fanart??? oh god....RUN! :P

hakuren — Wed, 27 Dec 2006 01:01:43 GMT

So it's definitely winter and um.....I didn't feel like WINTER today....goshdarn.....stupid "i want to be snow but, oh woe is me, I am mere RAINSLEETSTUFF"....yeah. So some random, spring.summer dress rukia and fashionably questionable ichigo with headphones...and er....yeah.....

I think I need to stick to scribbles... :P

</div>
She's so...pale... -_- oh well I think she is compared to Ichi-stupidface anyway.

<3 comments and uhhhhhh.......hope you all had something good to eat over holidays? :)

::wonders what kind of 'holiday dinner' these two would have and comes to the vague conclusion that it would have something to do with Ichigo WEARING the holiday dinner......after putting his foot in his mouth about Rukia's ~~lack of~~ cooking skills.....or something.....probably....or maybe.......hmm okay i'm shutting up now....::

It's frightening how fast and completely this pairing has er.....absorbed my life?

:D

::celebrates with ichigo and rukia plushies::

icons post # 2 ... what an original subject line... >_>

hakuren — Thu, 21 Dec 2006 02:25:12 GMT

Under the cut, 27 icons, most of which are Rukia-centric or at least have the lovely shinigami in them.
Warnings: Spoilers? Maybe. If you haven't seen a certain someone's white blade, then you've been warned....and Ichi.Ruki implications for anyone who really dislikes them ::shrugs::

Preview:

1	2	3

4	5	6

7	8	9

10	11	12

13	14	15

16	17	18

19	20	21

22	23	24

25	26	27

</div>

Comments appreciated, etc, etc, etc, hee.

-hakuren

Addiction

hakuren — Sun, 17 Dec 2006 14:50:44 GMT

SO this pairing consumes me daily and rather than be academically productive, I chose to make some more random Ichi.Ruki centric banners.....because....um......well, just because!

I'll eventually make a color bar or two but I made th is instead because I wanted to put something pro Ichi.Ruki in my profile other than my information header......and came up with this. It's not exactly a pun but I might need to be shot anyway I guess..... ~_~;;;

And yeah they're not only friends but I like 'friends only' ichi.ruki themed FO things, because they seem to have their own way of communicating, their own 'inner circle' dedicated just to the two of them, so I re-used the manip from the 2nd one and made it a friends only banner as well :P

***

And that's it I guess for now. :P (I should ya know, probably actually go to work.... ::rolls eyes:: .... though I'd rather continue to fangirl myself into next week......) Heh! Thanks for looking :D And sorry if I'm making too many posts close together....it happens when I find something to initially obsess over....I lose my mind, that is.

::fangirl grin::</div>

In-Between

hakuren — Sat, 16 Dec 2006 14:36:29 GMT

Literal title, moments between actual points in the first part of the series, before Rukia returns to Soul Society, etc, etc, etc.

Disclaimer: Bleach wheeee not mine, ya know.

Ichi.Ruki pairing, duh.

Under the cut.

Moments In-Between

She remembers the rain whenever she thinks of him and it is all she can do to keep from curling into a ball, arms clutched to her to stop her inner tremble. She remembers him whenever it rains and it is the only thing she can do to not lose decades in a second childhood and let herself cry. She breathes, and stops, breathes, and stops, controls her fate. It is a simple exercise of course, but then, some complexities can only be undone by things of a simpler build.

The clouds roll over the sky like horrible, inhuman fingers with teeth marks as large as she is making up the uneven pattern in its black, blue, and gray weave.

Biting her lower lip, fighting to concentrate on something else, willing herself to move on as others are...to class. That is what she is here for after all, technically.

She shuffles her feet, but doesn’t move, doesn’t turn from the vacant clouds...doesn’t know when to stop.

“Don’t interfere,” she whispers and her own voice spreads ice through her veins.

-------------------------------------------------------------------

He remembers his mother when it rains and he doesn’t appreciate the guilt that comes as its wrapper. Though plenty deserved (he tells himself) it’s not like that makes it any less endurable. His insides crawl with ‘what-if’ and ‘why’ and ‘but it should have been me’...the last of which is surely one of the things that makes him so careless on the battlefield he is now frequenting. He remembers his mother and he feels absence...absence of her unending faith, absence of her smile...absence of her heart...absence of her.

But she wouldn’t want him to.

He moves through the hall, ghost-like, though he doesn’t care for the comparison much. At the end of this particular hall is a familiar person, her back to him, her hand on the windowpane.

“Don’t interfere,” he hears her say and he stops as if time has slapped him in the face.

Because it’s like she’s reading his mind without meaning to.

He can’t decide whether to go to her...or run from her.

His feet won’t go in either direction, so he settles for his usual greeting: “Yo.”

When she jumps, startled by his presence, he frowns, because she is not the type to be caught so unawares and he wonders what has brought her so far away from her body so as to not notice someone approaching. When she turns, he notices her hands unclench slowly, as if with great effort, like she’s been holding on to something for so long that letting go is like losing her life. When she faces him, wide dark eyes covered in many years of things he knows nothing about, many moments that don’t include him, have nothing to do with him, he grits his teeth.

What’s that look anyway?

She looks...looks vulnerable...like a girl who’s had her heart broken for the first time, like someone haunted by her own decisions.

Ichigo doesn’t know when he started examining her so.

It is not a comfortable focus.

---------------------------------------------------------------------

“Ichi...go...” she says without meaning to and it occurs to her that she does that quite often. She won’t begin to imagine why. It’s not her style.

Looking at him now, her thoughts of that beloved captain in the rain fade...or mesh with her thoughts of this hotheaded substitute soul reaper. Neither is very reassuring and she swallows hard, working to keep her hands limp at her side and her expression unreadable.

For the most part, success is hers.

Everyone else buys it anyway...the class act that is her school self.

Ichigo does not buy in.

He also is waiting for her to answer him with more than his name. She can tell from that exasperated look, the furrow of his brow and the thin line his lips have been pressed into.

“What do you want?” she asks, desiring deeply, with suddenness to be alone again with the clouds.

Kaien moves like a shadow with each tilt and turn of Ichigo’s head...each move of his arm, shuffle of his feet...probing look in his eyes.

He is not Kaien and she knows it to be very unfair to even begin to think such things.

But Rukia bleeds for a defense...any defense...even if it is, cowardly she admits, using the past as her distorting shield.

Because she can’t handle becoming so attached to this world that it aches inside her when she thinks of going back to Soul Society.

It is not right. She knows.

She has a job, a duty, an honor to uphold.

She is a Kuchiki.

Glancing back over her shoulder through the window, she bites her tongue.

“I hope it doesn’t rain,” she says at last and Ichigo’s nerves shatter. His face slackens into something expressionless and he brushes by her, eyes purposefully directed at their mutual friend: the ground beneath his feet.

Her chest is heavy with this show of disregard combined with what she knows is his own grief, his own despicable but permanent bond with memories in the rain.

She knows that and this is why she knows he understands, even without ever having mentioned the eldest Shiba.

Her fingers catch on the fabric of her skirt; she has been rubbing them anxiously in an unconscious show of uncertainty.

One more stare into the increasingly darkening clouds and she darts away toward her next class.

Don’t rain...please...don’t rain, she thinks.

It is not a day she is ready to face the cold that comes with the thousand recurring drops of regret.

Because that is what they are after all...to her.

They aren’t water, and it isn’t weather, and the way the sky folds in on itself...that’s simply not it.

Each raindrop is a tear and she’s not vain enough to see it as her own.

There is one for every loss every person, alive or otherwise, has experienced in the rain that she knows is coming, but hopes it won’t anyway.

One for Kaien, who lost his wife...one for Ichigo’s family, for losing the center of their world...many for Ichigo, whose stoic nature does a fine job of hiding why there are so many.

But Rukia can relate to the hundreds of drops and so she sees past his mask...just a little.

She won’t call him on it...yet.

She said she would wait, and she will.

But she won’t be able to stop reading him like the rain.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

In class he watches her without knowing in every second he isn’t watching her, she watches him, and it is just another of life’s strange coincidences that their eyes should meet when the first horrendous strike of thunder happens and the room loses power for a moment.

Coincidence.

Excited, immature whispers snake around like fumes until the lights return and Ichigo is still watching her now watching him.

He thinks maybe she is trying to say something but he can’t be sure.

The pour of rain is instant and dreadful. He hears it. So does she. He watches her instinctively shut her eyes as if she never wants to open them again.

But he would have missed it if he wasn’t scrutinizing her like a lab experiment.

Her typical Rukia scowl she sends him now for looking too long without apparent reason is less harsh than usual and he senses exhaustion behind her effort to be displeased with him.

Part of him thinks that hell if he’ll ask her why or prod her for her reasoning, which is likely insane anyway. Another part of him thinks prying is the only option left. The other part of him remembers the small girl with eyes the color of midnight, remembers her saying, in that moon-drenched sundress that she’d wait. She had said it already, he thinks dryly to himself but she said it once more…as if promising him something more than that.

He will not ask her what is behind that look of hers.

He will ask his normal: “What?” with just the right amount of annoyance.

She hurls a pencil bag at him, opened, filled with newly sharpened ones.

He ducks.

And things are, to the outside world, the same as they have always been.

It is only, Ichigo knows, in his world...in her world...in the world they now share, for better or worse that these memories grow from their marrow and seep into their skin like rain.

It is their secret, whether they like it or not.

He tosses the pencil bag back at her shortly, zipped shut of course.

-------------------------------------------------------

It is after school. Everyone is gone.

But not Rukia. She blames her weakness on the fading of her gigai, but she knows that’s not it at all.

It is raining, hard, and she can’t move, won’t move, except to let her knees buckle as she lowers herself to the steps, holding her knees to her, unconsciously rocking back and forth. She told Ichigo she had work to do and while he raised an eyebrow at that, she simply sent him packing with a swift kick and some typical, Rukia-the-harlot insults. It always works, and she can’t help but chuckle a little at his predictability.

She is familiar with his movements, mind, body, and soul.

Maybe it is because she gave him her power that she is so in tune.

Maybe it is just luck of the draw.

Maybe...something else.

“Oi,” he says and she looks up from her crouch. He stands there, umbrella over himself and her.

“What?” she asks, working so hard for that annoyed tone but it just comes off as petulant and she knows it. He proves he knows it too by reaching down, grabbing her wrist and dragging her upward. They are so close that she falls against him briefly before springing back and shouting at him some more. He blows her off and demands that she stand under the goddamn umbrella right now so they can go home.

And she freezes.

He blinks.

Her heart is in her throat.

“...home?” she repeats and it isn’t supposed to be a whisper but she blames it on the rain.

His heart, without his permission, goes out to her, and he is severely out of sorts. The hell is it doing anyway...is she doing?

She steps backward once and stops.

“Yeah,” he says and it is so gentle he’s horrified, so he adds quickly, “Idiot.”

This earns him a fast, hard punch to the gut and she catches the umbrella mid-air when he drops it as a result.

They stand now, too close again, so close it hurts. But why? She can’t say.

Neither can he.

It’s not time.

But it is time, Ichigo is right, to go home.

Not like she’ll ever tell him he’s right, but she starts walking away with his umbrella and he’s forced to take a few running strides to catch up. The rain is so fierce he’s half soaked anyway regardless.

He glowers at her, but not with animosity so much as habit.

She smirks back at him, her trademark smirk that lifts one side of her mouth in a teasing smile to say: ha, ha, ha.

Muttering under his breath, he stuffs his hands in his pockets as they continue on.

“Is it supposed to rain tomorrow too?” she asks half way home and Ichigo shrugs.

“I never look to see.”

“Why not?”

They stop moving and the rain is all around their small haven beneath the metal and plastic structure.

“If it happens, it happens.” That answer is not satisfactory but she lets it go.

It may be the best he can do for now, and it’s a far cry better than she’s doing, in her opinion.

Such a coward, she calls herself inside and the last straw is the comfort she desperately wants to seek from this person she has a growing notion will provide it.

And so she ignores him the rest of the way ‘home’.

Home is soul society she tells herself firmly.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

I’m going back, she says, looking in the mirror that night.

...I am, she is trying to convince herself.

“Oi, are you done yet? Geez, girls...” his voice reverberates through the door and she lashes back with something she aims to be witty and cutting. She hears him sputter and she knows it’s just about right.

The rain is still pouring and when she pads out of the bathroom, she pauses to stare past Ichigo and at the darkness falling. Shaking herself mentally, she heads for the closet, climbs in, shuts the door, and falls back, exhausted but not sleepy.

Shuffling is heard and then feet approaching her door.

“What?” she wants to add ‘strawberry’ to it but refrains.

“What do you mean what?” he bristles at her snippy tone.

“What do you want?” she asks as if talking to a child.

“...no rain tomorrow,” he says quickly and she can just see him hitting the light switch and tossing himself in bed in a huff, she can see without even actually watching.

Only hours later, awake, listening to the rain, does she realize what he meant.

No rain tomorrow...

“Thank you,” she whispers.

I’m going back, can’t get comfortable, she tells herself firmly.

But it’s too late.

She is home.

And she can’t stay.

Selfish coward, she berates herself, and her sleep is a fitful one that night...so fitful that it keeps the boy on the other side of the closet door awake, looking at that door with mixed feelings, mixed ideas.

He doesn’t go to her, but he stays up as if to watch over her unrest.

It’s not like she’s special, he says to himself.

He’d do this for anyone he was close to.

But his more well hidden self asks him when she became a person he was close to, and he has no answer to it.

Later in life he might tell it something like: from the beginning.

But this is not later. This is now, and Ichigo simply shrugs to himself and scratches the back of his head as if lost.

He can’t afford to figure himself out at this stage in the game.

-----------------------------------------------------------

As promised, there is no rain the next day...only a clear, palpably blue sky, dotted with sun.

“They’re together again,” students whisper.

“Look at that, did you see that?” others gasp.

“No way, what...since when...what?” the less observant exhibit their confusion.

“Oh shut up,” says an annoyed Tatsuki as she glances concernedly at her dearest friend. Orihime however, is otherwise engrossed, staring out the window at the sunny sky. She doesn’t notice the commotion, or the reason for it…not yet.

At the far end of the hallway, the objects of conversation stand against the lockers, side-by-side, and silent. Rukia has her arms behind her back. Ichigo has his crossed in front of him. And it’s a strange sight at first, but to anyone who has been watching closely enough, it pans out.

They are sharing peace.

Just a moment…because a moment of peace is all one can begin to expect in this world or the next, and even that is audacious to a degree.

She can feel the warmth of the sun through the window’s glass.

He can feel it too.

She is tired from her restless sleep.

He is exhausted from no sleep.

Her phone makes that sound.

His face turns to look down at her expectantly.

She meets his gaze, and uncharacteristically, pauses instead of hauling him like a sack of potatoes out to the hollow they’ve been assigned. She pauses and he realizes she is doing her best to read him.

But he can’t have that...not when he’s not willing to read himself yet.

He takes the lead, snatching her phone away, nodding, and then, grabs her wrist, dragging her behind him.

The role reversal catches her off guard and she swears at him internally for being the only one who can do that...throw off her senses to the point of surprising her over and over. It isn’t supposed to happen.

But he is dragging her out and telling her to do that stupid glove thing, and she’s rolling her eyes at him and explaining that it is a state of the art soul reaper tool, and he’s exclaiming he doesn’t give a damn when she does indeed do the stupid glove thing and they’re squaring off against a particularly nasty hollow.

--------------------------------------------------------------------

They escape mostly alright, but since her powers continue to dwindle, Rukia is the worse one off. Ichigo yells at her for being stupid. She returns that he would know plenty about being stupid, wouldn’t he? He plows on heedlessly, all the way back to school, to the point that they are still arguing when he is back in his normal form. They break apart in equally sulky manners and sit far away from each other at lunch.

The idiot, he thinks.

The fool, she thinks.

Does she think she can just do whatever she wants like that?

Does he think I don’t know w hat I’m doing?

Damn her.

Damn him.

They look at each other at the same instant, yards and yards away. Flushing, they both look away with record speed.

But the sun is shining and they’re both being exceptionally childish and they both, somewhere inside, know this.

Maybe that is why, at the end of the day, when Ichigo walks outside, ready to wait for her—not apologize, no way in hell—but to wait at least so they can go together, he finds she’s beaten him to it. Irked ever so slightly, he has to greet her with something less than cordial.

“You are an idiot,” he says but it’s a lot softer than he ever meant it to be.

“And you are a fool,” she returns and it is in this manner that they walk ‘home’ together.

Behind them, the gossip increases tenfold but Ichigo ignores it because it faces him with things he’d rather not consider right now, and Rukia, being Rukia, does not notice it at all.

--------------------------------------------------------------------

At home they have a close call, again. Yuzu comes in as usual to tell him dinner’s ready, which is fine. Rukia has his sister’s timing down to a science and discreetly closes the closet a second before Yuzu barges cheerfully in. Ichigo ruffles her hair affectionately and says he’ll be down soon. When his door is closed he opens the closet to be met with those eyes that undo him in a lot of disconcerting ways.

And it is early in their partnership.

He can’t imagine what it might mean if they know each other much longer.

But then he can’t imagine what it might mean if suddenly one day she’s gone, if suddenly one day it seems it was all one very long, very strange dream, if one day it’s nothing but his own memory.

“What?” she asks, her annoyed expression doing quite a good job of hiding her own discomfort.

“Hungry?” he asks blankly and she shakes her head. “You should eat something,” he insists and before he can be called a mother hen or worse, he continues, “You’re so scrawny.”

She sends him flying across the room with record speed. He is amazed he leaves no dents in the wall. But then, with his father’s way of waking him up, he’s amazed his room still exists. Rukia’s consistent actions like these are just testaments to his room’s resilience, apparently.

He is about to stand up when he realizes she is standing over him and glaring ice.

“So,” he says, carefully standing. He notices her flinch.

“So,” she replies cheekily.

“I’ll bring you some food,” he says as if he hadn’t just asked her, as if she hadn’t just kicked him soundly into a cement wall.

“...fine,” she says and a traitorous grumble from her stomach replies in kind.

He smirks. She looks away.

For whatever reason he takes a step toward her.

Then Yuzu’s voice pierces through and they both, for lack of a better phrase: freak out.

In split seconds Rukia is laying as flat as possible under a pile of Ichigo’s blankets and comforter. In split seconds, Ichigo is at his desk. In split seconds, Yuzu comes back in.

“It’s getting cold,” she says and fixes him with a stare only a little sister can accomplish and exits the room again, ladle in hand.

He shuts his door, again.

The slight lump on his bed does not move.

“Oi, Rukia,” he signals and she seems to have some trouble finding her way out of the tangle of blankets and stuff before she surfaces, hair all mussed and looking slightly like she just woke up. It’s kind of...

No, Ichigo, stops that thought right where it is.

“Doesn’t she ever knock?” she asks as she climbs out of his bed and makes her way towards the closet again. He doesn’t answer her at first as he wonders if the closet is comfortable for her, for the first time. It can’t be…it’s not a real bed after all...

But the alternative is obviously something that, when suggested will get him an early death, probably a slow one too.

On top of that, he doesn’t want to even know his own reasons behind that suggestion.

No, he thinks again and tosses some placid ‘back in a bit’ over his shoulder before making his way to dinner.

Rukia stands where she is, right in front of his closet, when he’s out of the room.

She stares back at the mess of blankets and sheets and comforter and is trying to place the warmth.

It’s him, she realizes and angry at herself, leaps into the closet, shutting the door with unnecessary haste. No one is there but her after all.

----------------------------------------------------------------

That night she is not fitful and Ichigo sleeps well. She is instead staring up into the darkness.

---------------------------------------------------------------

When he opens the closet the next morning when she doesn’t answer his ‘oi, Rukia’, he is surprised to see her eyes wide open, staring above her.

“What’s wrong?” he asks, without thinking.

“I’ll tell you later,” she says and shuts the door on him.

He hears the shuffle of clothes and he sighs, going to change into his uniform as well.

--------------------------------------------------------------------

The way to school does not have to be long but today it is. It is also a silent walk, and as they walk into the school courtyard, not bickering, the gossip from the day before, and the day before that, and so on, intensifies. There are even some wails from girls who, at the sight before them have given up entirely on the orange-haired boy who is, it would be a surprise to him, the object of many girls’ secret affections. Some moans come from the boys who also surrender to the fact that Kuchiki-san will never be theirs.

Ichigo, like Rukia for once, does not notice.

They are both, after all, otherwise occupied: stealing glances at each other.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Thanks for reading, and sorry if it seems vague, but then, that’s how I intended it :P

-hakuren</div>

ichi.ruki fanpost # 1

hakuren — Thu, 14 Dec 2006 03:40:08 GMT

Under the cut:

5 ichi.ruki icons
1 ichi.ruki banner: theme: "rolling star"

1	2	3	4	5

♥ for comments & credit</div>

+ !

hakuren — Thu, 14 Dec 2006 02:16:42 GMT

♕。✖ 。❤

Have something in common with me, please!
And then? If you want? Comment to be added~

icons, etc, ARE located at:
♫ ♬ ♪ fallingstars ♩ ♭ ♫