Happy New Years everyone! Thanks to betaes QianYun and Enchantable, may you enjoy success in the new year.
DISCLAIMER: I do not own Bleach or any of its characters. I'd like Hitsugaya for my birthday present, though.
Summary: An unexpected meeting turns the ordinary rounds everyone makes on New Years extraordinary.
The sky was a cloudless blanket of blue.
It had snowed the day before, and now the snow was slowly melting under the sun. Traces of silvery white still remained on the streets, and tiny crystal stalactites hung from small sprigs on the bare trees.
It was New Year's Day, and the city shrine was packed with people coming for their Hatsumoude – the first shrine visit of the year – their faces glowing with anticipation and joy for the upcoming year. The bells hanging on the eaves of the temple rang clear through the noises of everyday life. Excitement was heavy in the air. All wondered, 'what will this year bring?'
"Urgh! I'm so disappointed! I didn't have a Hatsuyume this year!"
"I dreamt that I climbed all the way up the Tower of Tokyo, isn't that strange?"
"Orihime, since when has your dreams been normal?"
"Hmm…maybe it means that you'll get accepted by the University of Tokyo this year."
"…we don't graduate until next year, Rukia."
Amidst the sea of people, three high school girls clad in kimonos were casually chatting with each other while squeezing their way to the shrine. The Hatsuyume was the topic of interest, as most people believed the dream a person had on the night of New Year's Eve will affect the following year.
"And Momo? Did you have a Hatsuyume?"
"Huh?"
The brown-eyed girl in question jumped slightly, her expression imperceptibly becoming guarded as she stuttered out a response.
"Um…may-maybe…just, just a little…"
The two other girls exchanged a knowing glance and the shorter one with black hair grinned with playful malevolence.
"Momo-chan, who did you dream of?"
- Orihime's soprano coaxed and wheedled.
"Was it the kendo hottie?"
- Rukia's alto was more direct.
"Wha-what!? Stop it, you guys!"
- And that was Momo's embarrassed squeak.
Shaking her head and waving her hands as if her life depended on it, Momo was aware her face was quickly turning red, the furious flush silently confirming her friend's accusation.
So predictable. Her companions sighed.
"Seeing your Prince Charming in the Hatsuyume, how romantic!"
"It's a start. Maybe he'll ask you out, Momo."
"Orihime! Rukia!"
Unable to think of an effective retort to her friend's verbal cavorting, Momo turned away and averted her eyes, trying to will the blush staining her cheeks back.
"But really, Momo, we're going to be seniors next year. Are you really planning to graduate without saying anything?"
Momo looked at Rukia's serious face and smiled wryly. She was sure that the feelings she harbored were not reciprocated. After all, Prince Charming belonged with a Princess, not with her.
Love, in her definition, had to be mutual. If only one person "loves", then it was not really love.
The object of her affection was her classmate and the captain of the kendo team, Hitsugaya Toushirou.
Their freshmen and sophomore years were spent with her hanging around her girl friends and him as a cold and distant jerk with very few friends. Their paths had never crossed.
In her junior year, Momo was made the manager of the kendo club by a series of fateful accidents and mistakes in the form of a misplaced application form, a stubborn teacher, and an accidental match between her and the third captain. After watching countless spars week after week, month after month, she was drawn to his sharp and intuitive playing style. With the passage of time, "admiration" morphed into "infatuation".
After realizing this change in her feelings, she found it difficult to face him for a very long time. She would be flustered and distracted around him, and the frequency of her mistakes during work increased around him – as did her already frequent bouts of clumsiness. Gradually she learned to control and suppress her emotions around him. She imagined he thought of her as a clumsy, quiet girl, so it was not hard to bury her infatuation deep inside her heart.
The only people that knew about it were her two best friends and the assistant coach of the kendo club, Matsumoto Rangiku.
Despite their support, she did not want to confess to him, not even now with the prospect of graduation. For one thing, he did not seem to be interested in girls, much less in girls like her. Besides, if managing the kendo club had taught her one thing, it was how to choose her battles, and Hinamori could see that pursuing Toshiro Hitsugaya was a losing one.
Momo had long accepted that her feelings were one-sided.
The last year of high school… it should be focused on school work and applying for university and other important things. Although she knew sometimes persistence was not necessarily a good thing, especially in the "secret crush" compartment, Hinamori couldn't help it.
She believed that she could let her feelings go. Even with her friends constantly prodding her, she believed that if she denied it enough, her heart would eventually believe what her mind knew. The problem was that her heart wasn't co-operating and at the moment, Orihime and Rukia were not helping.
Tossing money into the slot, Momo rang the giant bell and clasped her hands to pray to the gods. She asked for good luck and happiness for her friends and family, and then for herself to have a safe and successful year. The rest was a secret.
She closed her eyes and made a wish. It was an unpretentious wish, for a small bit of hope in the rest of the year.
"Auspice Minor…oh well, at least it's not Adversity." Rukia flicked her slip of paper and shrugged her shoulders.
"Oh wow! I got Auspice Major…" Lucky girl Orihime jumped excitedly and decided to sleep with her blessed draw tucked under her pillow, just like last year.
"…" Momo drew a folded slip from the box and silently stared at it.
"Momo, what's wrong?"
"What d'you get?"
The two girls squeezed over to her and craned their necks to see what she had drawn. Scanning the ink calligraphy on the slip of paper, they gazed at Momo sympathetically.
Pursing her lips and rereading the ominous words one last time, Momo turned towards the tree behind her. Many other draws of Adversity, both Major and Minor, had been hung on its branches in hopes of neutralizing the bad luck.
Hitsugaya had appeared in her Hatsuyume. In the dream, they were sparring in the gym. She had only learned and practiced kendo in junior high, and had virtually stopped after starting high school, while he was the national champion in the high school division with a three-Dan ranking. The dream-spar only lasted for five minutes, and he was being soft too.
"You lost."
"…yeah…"
"Don't forget, 'kay?"
"…uh-huh."
"Tomorrow, ten o'clock, I'll pick you up."
She never found out what the dream-her agreed to, for their conversation was interrupted by the alarm clock; the subtle atmosphere in the gym and his face disappeared in an instant. She lay motionless in the din of the alarm, until her brother Renji finally banged on her bedroom door, telling her to turn the damn thing off.
It was a dream, it was not real. It was a self-fulfilling fantasy.
The Hitsugaya in the dream was less cold and warmer than real life. It gave her a dreamy feeling of happiness that refused to go away.
Momo, like most other girls, always wanted to find someone who was exclusive in their gentleness and concern. She knew it was selfishness, but it hurt when the one she cared about showed tender concern to others.
If only she could find someone like that…
If only it was him…
"We're going to get our fortunes told, coming?" Rukia pointed at a spot beside the shrine where a group of people was crowded around an old man.
"Um…no, you guys go ahead."
"But the wait's going to be so long! Won't you come and keep us company? Please, Momo?"
After having her high spirits from the Hatsuyume dampened by the adverse draw, she lost some of her enthusiasm.
"Hold on, you guys, I'm going to buy us drinks." With that, Momo dashed away.
"Momo—!"
She walked carefully but rapidly down the stone steps of the shrine, sidestepping and passing other visitors. The customary smile on her face faded; in its stead was her effort to prevent her emotions from getting out of control.
She was halfway down the flight of stairs, but many people were still coming to their Hatsumoude, and she had walked into several passersby.
Momo kept her eyes on her feet, afraid that she might fall or stumble in the wooden geta she wore. After all, it was not simple to walk around in traditional garb.
At the very last step, a small girl running around with her friends crashed head-first into Momo, who, at the time, was intent on keeping her balance as she lifted one foot and stepped down to the next step. Her centre of gravity shifted and when the little girl made contact, she was knocked backwards onto the steps behind.
What!?
At the last moment, Hinamori managed to pull the girl onto her lap so that she cushioned her fall. It hurt, but she stuffed the pain aside and offered the girl a soft smile.
"Are you okay?"
The little girl nodded before she began to apologize profusely in a soft child's voice, so Momo merely reminded her, "there are a lot of people here, be careful next time."
After the group of kids left, Momo stood up with some difficulty and twisted around to dust the dirt and sand off her kimono, and to pull her askew obi into place. When she straightened, a person was standing in front of her.
"Hitsu…Hitsugaya-kun?"
He, he didn't see her falling on her butt, did he? Please say no!
"Are you alright, Hinamori?"
Nope, he saw it.
Screaming inside, Momo squeezed out a polite smile and bravely looked at the handsome face ahead of her.
"Thank you for your concern. I'm fine."
He was silent for a couple of seconds, and then to her surprise, he abruptly grabbed her left hand.
"Wa-wait! What are you–" she helplessly watched him hitch up her kimono sleeve.
"Did you know you hurt your elbow?"
"Huh?" Momo examined her arm. The skin on her elbow was scraped off and there were a few tendrils of blood.
She frowned and looked at the cut. It wasn't bad, but at the mention of it, it began to sting and throb. It was a discouraging day: she had a bad dream, she fell in front the one boy she wanted to appear somewhat graceful to and she was sure she trashed her kimono. Not to mention she was going to have a bruise tomorrow. So much for a better year. She was aware that Hitsugaya was still holding her arm.
"Come on," Hitsugaya said while leading her to a bench, "I'll help you wrap it up."
"Actually, Hi–" she began.
It's just a tiny scrape, I could just go home and clean it up…it's really not worth the trouble.
He gave her a look that had her swallowing her explanation. Momo obediently sat down beside him on the cold slab of marble, watching his hands deftly wash the wound with a bottle of water and then drying and wrapping the elbow up in a clean handkerchief.
During this short interlude, her heartbeat uncontrollably quickened. His hands were rough from practice but were still somehow impossibly gentle on her skin. Trying to distract herself from the imminent blush, she struggled to make small talk.
"How did you know I hurt my arm?"
"Your elbow came down on the ground and slid when you fell. The fabric on the sleeve got torn up pretty bad, so I figured," he trailed off with a motion towards her elbow.
They both got to their feet, neither saying anything. He was so composed and all Hinamori could do was wish for the ground to swallow her up and save what little dignity she had left.
"Umm…thank you." Even after he took a step back, she was still feeling flustered and embarrassed.
His handkerchief was around her arm – something that belonged to him was pressed to her arm. He was actually standing close to her, so close that she could see his hands half hidden in the folds of his kimono.
This was not a dream. This was reality, this unexpected meeting at Hatsumoude.
If the fall and injury was the bad luck brought on by her Adversity Major, then meeting him was the good luck from the Hatsuyume and the gods granting her earlier wish.
"Is Hitsugaya-kun here for the Hatsumoude? By yourself?" Why wasn't he here with his parents?
"No, my parents are still at the shrine. My mother wanted to get her fortune told. I was heading home." And coincidentally saw her get ran over by a kid…
"Oh, Rukia and Orihime are there too. I wasn't interested, so…Ah! I forgot! I came down to buy drinks!" Momo suddenly recalled her mission and frantically picked up her bag and dug around for change.
"I-I wasted so much time, they must think that I ran all the way to Kyoto to buy pop…"
She barely recognized the deep chuckle. Her hand closed around some coins as her head flew up to see Hitsugaya fighting back a smile.
I'm being laughed at…
Once again screaming inside, Momo could not retain a calm façade. She grabbed her wallet and almost stomped over to the nearest machine, wanting to bang her head against the big hunk of plastic.
Dying inside, she bought Rukia's strawberry Ponta, Orihime's orange juice, her cream soda…
Gazing at the coins in her palm, she stole a sideways glance at him and blushed when their eyes made contact.
God…he's still smiling…
And all she wanted was another chance to be close to him. It wasn't too much to ask for, was it? She shoved more coins into the machine and bought another soda. She had spent enough time at the kendo club to know what he drank, even though he should have drank water after his matches. She turned around and held out her hand. If nothing else, it got him to stop laughing at her.
"For me?" Hitsugaya hesitantly accepted the can she offered him.
"As a thank you gift."
It wasn't that bold a move, hardly a move at all really. After all, he was not aware of her feelings.
"I'll be going now. See you at school." Momo reluctantly turned back to the stone stairs.
"…don't fall again, 'kay?"
Hinamori stiffened and turned to see him. His lips were in a faint smile, but it showed far more in his eyes. In his hand, he was holding the soda she bought him. On her arm, was the handkerchief he used to wrap her wound. It felt like they were standing at a crossroad, as though after this night, something was going to change. Hinamori squared her shoulders and prepared to meet it head on.
"I'll be careful," she said.
"Oh, I forgot to say… Happy New Year, Hitsugaya-kun," she added with a bright smile.
"To you too. We're depending on you to organize the club again, manager."
"So, bye," she said, turning around to go again. Both the Hatsuyume and the Hatsumoude had him in it. Maybe this year will be a great year.
"Hey, Hinamori," she turned back at the sound of her name. Hitsugaya's fingers had tightened around the can of soda and his eyes seemed almost – almost nervous as he looked at her, "If you have time, wanna get something to eat?"
It was New Years, and Hinamori Momo's luck, was sky high.
Nymph: okay, an attempt at minor, minor, not-even-there fluff (can you even call it fluff?). Really, I tried.
Will be working on another oneshot for... maybe Valentines?