Waiting
T_T I really want to cry over 423. KUBO! You better do something about it! T_T I think this is longer than I thought it would be. Enjoy~
P.S.: I almost cried while writing this. I hope it's not that sad.
DISCLAIMER: If I owned Bleach, the following scenario would happen. Heh heh. T_T
XXX
It was an unspoken rule among them. After all, only the densest would approach him. He had to learn on his own how to cope with 'sadness'. That word may be too mild to describe his situation though.
He still went to school, half-hearing Inoue blubbering away sometimes. He had to go through the motions of 'living'. Somewhat hoping she would appear at the window, like that day.
Hell. Ishida, Chad and Inoue could see her. Even Tatsuki, Keigo, Mizuiro and heck, Chizuru if they wanted to. He wanted to smash doors at the unfairness. They didn't fully appreciate her. He wished he did more.
Zangetsu ossan or Tensa Zangetsu isn't there anymore. How his inner world is now, he has no idea. Maybe they have all crumbled, the very person – persons – he wanted to protect most, all gone.
Even that father of his quieted down his antics. Sometimes he told stories of his mother, and how he coped after her loss. After knowing your father is a shinigami, well, he could've protected her. However, she ended up slipping through his fingers.
"Rukia. You there?"
He stood in front of the cupboard like he did when she didn't return the first time. No one replied as he posed his question; after the cupboard, he asked it to the moon. How its glow reminded him of her. With his eyes closed, he could just imagine Sode no Shirayuki's form, as graceful as its wielder, as beautiful.
The moon would be hardly visible during the day, of course, when the sun hogs all the attention. At night, it reigns the sky... why he thought of this, he didn't know. He just felt dead.
Times like these were to reminisce. Everyone didn't escape unscathed, but still they were together. Now... he guessed a once bubbly Inoue is now broken and dissolved into a child. The others... he wasn't really sure, having immersed himself into despair.
He imagined Rukia calling him 'idiot' or other variations and tell him to get his ass into gear. He imagined her standing behind him right now, unsure to touch him. He also imagined holding her so hard, swearing not to let go, only to have her body crumble on his touch.
He found he could not cry, all his emotions bottled up with nowhere to go, slowly crushing him and killing him from the inside.
Then he woke up on the floor, a blanket over him. His door was locked, the window slightly ajar. He dreamt of her being angry at him for being this way... the soft look on her face as she mock-punched him. The pained look. The softness of the blanket as she pulled it over him. The lingering dampness on it where she buried her face into to cry. An unusual goodnight greeting of "You fool! You're not the only one suffering..." that she whispered into his ear.
With this, there was also the certainty he had to stop this. He lay still. "Rukia, you win. I'll stop. Oh and by the way, I love you."
He smiled imagining the flush on her face as she tries to respond on his insistence when he can see her again.
I'll be waiting.