Title: In Their Reflections Undefined
Time line: None given
Summary: Because she can't see him without seeing another version of Gin, he refuses to see her as anything more than his subordinate.
Rating: T
Pairing: Ichimaru/Matsumoto/Hitsugaya/Hinamori
Chapters: 1/1
A.N.: Written in 20 minutes. Reaaally fast bit of writing, surprised myself actually, I like it.
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She doesn't remember how they met, she only sees the pale—almost white—hair and frozen green eyes.
She fails to see him the first time. She knocks her future captain against the counter before manhandling him and venting all her earlier frustration out on him. She sees the similarities between them—the cool, simmering anger before he lashes out and runs away from her.
She remembers the small of his back as he disappeared out the front door, frost still painting the pads of her hands, the shopkeeper ringing his hands and muttering how children were so rude these days. She remembers forgetting about why she had come inside in the first place and stumbling forward to follow, her legs impossibly weak with an old dream relieved.
She wandered around the Rukon district for hours, her hand damp and wild flowers and grass swinging from the other. She remember looking at the happy, dirty-faced children before thinking no, he wouldn't be there amongst them. He was too different, even then. He might have not been smiling but he was still similar and therefore very much same in her eyes.
She found the boy following a string of reiatsu tugging at her heart. It was like a whisper to the pink shell of her ear, gentle in a way Gin's had never been, soft and imploring where the other was sharp and demanding.
She opened the door and found him breathtakingly powerful as young as he was, just like he was back then, just like when he stood up ten to one with little odds of actually fending them off. She remembers that he did in the end and she tended to him for weeks, fed him mouth to mouth because he had broken nearly all of his teeth. Slapping him and pronouncing him sound when he made a remark about her growing breasts.
She remembers recruiting him on the spot. How she had stretched her hand out towards him like he did her. How he refused at first but left with her in the end, young, fresh, innocent, too much so for her to push him into the mechanical systems of Shinigami training. But they were so much alike and similar; she wanted to see if it was possible. To mold another in his footsteps, she just wanted to see if she could beat the record, she couldn't really see the boy beneath him yet, not then at any rate.
She couldn't see anyone beyond Gin even as she explained the white-haired boy to him, enthusiastically proclaiming his accomplishments even though she knew they had been done already. Even when she knew he knew that beneath her excitement, she saw another him in the boy.
He took very little interest in him at that time. She hoped that he was jealous though the thought was beyond her. She had seen them greet each other once, how the little boy-version had shuddered deep, how the man-version's smile had split wide sickeningly like a halved watermelon.
She remembers him, oh both of them, passing test and exams in flying colors. She remembers one being offered a seat fresh out of the academy and the other offered a substitute-lieutenant's position in the thirteenth division. She remembers how each had climbed ranks; each had made a mark in history and became the captain of their respective divisions.
She remembers one boy who became her captain and one who did not.
She doesn't remember which is which though, lines blurred and she cannot remember. Sometimes their names run as IchimaruHitsugayaToushiroGin. She cannot see the other without seeing both though she tells herself; it's really Gin she's seeing all the time even after his betrayal. Even though the one who remained has eyes like the green oceans and the departed, eyes like shards of green metal.
She kisses him once in a drunken fit, rough and biting just the way he liked it before softening because this was not he and it was him. Or perhaps it was the other way around because alcohol was addling her brain. She remembers him kissing her back on her forehead before gently reprimanding her for getting into such a state.
She wanted to laugh, what of him and the fifth division's mistress?
But she kept her tongue still and silent because the damage had been done. Because he had seen the glasses and film in her eyes transforming him into something he was not. Because she can't see him without seeing another version of Gin, he refuses to see her as anything more than his subordinate.