An Answer
Disclaimer: Bleach by Tite Kubo
Pairing: Ichigo-Rukia
Genre: Romace
Rated: T
Warning: IchiRuki, love and taboo in a different way.
Song To Be Played: Angels Brought Me Here-Guy Sebastian
He remembered clearly this place. The beach where he first met her.
15 years ago.
The soles of his feet feels the brush of soft sands. Reminding him of a touch he always long for since then.
15 years ago.
He turns his head toward the sun set. Where it is going back to its haven. Diverting all his senses on the memory that can never be devoured by the time.
Kurosaki Ichigo, 44 years old, Cardiologist, 1 Wife, 2 Children.
Anyway, I'm not here to carry all those statuses. For this time, after 19 years of marriage, I want to take a leave of all my routine. As a cardiologist, a husband, and as a father.
It's my vacation, in a place unusual to visit at this time.
On a beach, and this is spring.
While people are enjoying the beauty of the cherry blossom in some other places, I sit alone on the beach. Well, let it be. I want to enjoy this solitude.
I lay back on the sand, not knowing what makes me dare to take a day off just to lay on a sandy beach, enjoying the last moments of the sun today, then tomorrow, go home again.
"Sir, are you okay?" suddenly a voice wakes me from the comfort of lying on this white sand beach.
"Ah," it's a woman. I thought it was a man a moment ago, the voice is somehow, well…heavy.
"It's okay, miss. I was just laying there," I then wakes up. Which sane old man would continue to lie when there is a stranger, a girl, next to him.
"Ah, sorry. I thought you were... err. It is not look like you were ..." she thinks for a moment, "sunbathing."
"I'm not sunbathing, Kid. I was laying," I reiterate my statement earlier.
"Oh, I see. May I sit? In fact, you're on my favorite spot," she points at me. Actually she point to my sitting place.
Jeez, young people nowadays. Do not they know manners? Does she think this place belongs to her grandmother who then pass it on to her?
"Ah, why not?" I shift a bit. Surprised? I am also surprised by my actions. It makes me look like a Lolita who tried to flirt to a girl who may be less than half my age.
She smiles and sits down next to me. Only a few inches from me.
"What brings you here, sir? You are not like the residents since I've never seen you before. Are you new?" she puts her chin on her knee.
"I was just ... enjoying my day off," silence fills the space between us. I feels like being alone, but this is a whole different thing. I am not lonely, but surely I feel contempt. Oh my, I digress again. It must be because my work pressure and overly long working-hours. Oh, I believe accompanying my wife and children is also a job instead? Job as a husband and a father.
"You come here often, Miss ..."
"Rukia, Kuchiki Rukia. Call me Rukia, don't be too formal. This is your day-off, isn't it?" she shifts her gaze from the shore toward me.
I noticed something in her eyes.
The eyes. The sparkle that radiates from the eyes, it looks like something familiar.
"Ah, well. Rukia. Call me Ichigo, Ichigo Kurosaki, and do not try to ask anything related to my job," I begin to start a conversation with an intonation of a certain level of closeness, like we were old friends who had just met after a long years apart.
"Do you think I'll ask you things like that?" she glances at me, snorts.
I shrug my shoulders, "Who knows?"
"So, you're a resident?" I continue to talk, "Tell me about something interesting here."
"Hmm," she glances upward, as if thinking of something, still hugging her knees.
"This beach during the spring," she says, "is the most interesting thing to me," I hear the waves sing, filling the pause between her sentence, "May I call you Ichigo?" she asks as she looka at me quickly.
"Of course. As long as my wife and daughter don't find it," I gave her a friendly smile. A reassuring one, and then our eyes meet. Diving and exploring each others'.
She frowns, "So what if they know?"
"My dignity will fall."
"Then why did you let me?"
"Well, let's just say we are old friends, Rukia," she, again, leans her chin on her knees.
"All right. Look, this beach on spring is the most interesting thing here. You see, it's quiet here. I find it's cozy to be with the wind. Only the sun, the birds and the waves that keeps you company," one of her hands grabs the sand between us. Playing it like a baker who was going to choose flour for her bread.
"Your heart and soul will be soothed by the beat of the sea. Done," she raises her head, looking out to sea.
"You want to take literature majors in university, huh?"
My question is answered briefly by her, "I am in business major. Second year."
Eh? Second year? This tiny?
We sink back into silence. I follow the direction of her gaze. This huge mirrors made by the All-powerful creator reflects the warm sunlight.
The wave tunes that flirt with each other, the birds which are seducing and greeting each other, the wind that intertwine are tuned into coherent. A symphony you can not find anywhere.
She's right, my whole body and my soul is being indulged by the pulse of the sea.
"Hey, Ichigo. How do you know this place?" she asks in a sudden.
"Following the road signs," I sense she turns her head toward me. I sigh. "This trip is not planned. Once I was at the junction with beach signpost, I immediately turned."
"You..." she pauses, "Do not you have a purpose in life, stupid, or what?"
One of my eyebrow raised. This kid makes me angry.
"Heh, isn't that impolite to say that in front of an elder?"
"What is 'Polite'? Hiding all our thoughts from an older person? Saving a wide range of questions that may not be answered without being asked?"
"It's not like that, Rukia," I touch her head. Maybe it's my fatherly instinct, "Sometimes the choice of words must be picked carefully when talking to older people."
"Hey, Ichigo," she doesn't move from her position. At first I thought she will get rid of my hand, but she doesn't.
"Hmm?" my hand is still on top of her head.
"Do you believe in a coincidence?" she adjust her sitting position. I don't know why but my hand is on her shoulder now.
"No," this time the distance between us narrowed.
"Same," our clothes touch, my shirt and her dress.
"Same?" our views are mapped onto a same point. A crab walked sideways toward a direction. It can be whether west or east, north or south. All I know now, I feel a tenderness that I had never felt. A feeling that is always there in my dreams. My beautiful dreams.
"It's same with me, uncle," her shoulder lean on my ribs, and I felt a perfection. Fullness. Aas if Something has gone from me returns to me.
"Since when do you start calling me uncle?" I turn, instead, look down at her.
"Just now," she looks up. Our eyes met again. The eyes, seem to be an endless cave, calling out my curiosity, What is it there in the end?
Her eyes slowly close, that amethyst was slowly faded, my eyes follow her. I follow the amethyst, and our lips met.
This is not a fatherly , no.
Our lips become one, melting into each others. The warmth. The softness.
There is nothing strange.
Every breath is bound together, every heartbeat, stitched into a sanctuary for my heart and years to come.
I miss her.
"You do not believe in coincidence, Ichigo?" I still close my eyes. Our foreheads meet.
"No," I opened my eyes slowly, her eyes still closed.
"Then what is this?" she touched my arm, slowly to my hand and my fingers on her cheeks.
"Maybe this is just an answer, Rukia. An answer to an unspoken prayer. An answer of prayer without words ... Rukia."
That afternoon the sun sets, leaving the two silhouettes lost in an answer. The answer to prayer that they never say. A prayer of love.
The sun is setting, going back to its haven. Diverting all his senses on the memory that can never be devoured by the time.
The soles of his feet feels the brush of soft sands. Reminding him of a touch he always long for since then.
He remembered clearly this place. The beach where he first met her.
.
.
Fin
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A / N:
TBH I used google translate for the first version of this fiction. SHAME ON ME! AS A LANGUAGE PROGRAM GRADUATE, I AM NOT SUPPOSED TO BE DOING THIS KIND OF THING!
Anyway, I took care of it since it was terrible. I never really pay attention to every single words in it. #Iamsosorry. FYI If you are Indonesian, I think the story will reach you better in Bahasa. Visit my profile and look for "Sebuah Jawaban"
Yes, I write better and am able to maximize my lingua franca in my native language.
BTW thanks to even peek into my fic.
Cheers,
Naoki Arashi.