DEMURE
Chapter One
Keepsake

The first time Toshiro laughed – really, truly laughed to laugh, and not just to scorn someone who was just too unbelievably moronic – was because of her.

Not just because of her. With her. For her.

And all the other laughs after that –

– were they all from her, as well?

Smiles, too. Here and there, there were smiles, but the laughs were more important. The laughs were louder, so much louder, like smiles that couldn't be contained. That unimaginable, otherworldly, contagious euphoria of hers, he remembered. He remembered it so well.

But her, he couldn't. Where did this happiness come from, again?

Who's her?

There was something black. A figure, a silhouette, dark and big and shadowy, its face – if it possessed one at all – not even visible. Toshiro looked left, right, up and down – he was immersed in utter blackness, an abyss of nothingness without even ground, making his ability to stand upright quite questionable.

"Where am I?" he said aloud, and although he didn't expect the figure to respond, it did anyway.

However, he couldn't be sure if the response came from the figure or from another invisible, possibly disembodied voice. The figure certainly hadn't moved, and neither had its nonexistent mouth.

"In a coma. You're unconscious, and you're about to wake up with selective amnesia."

"A coma–?"

"—tell me, what is your name?"

Toshiro clicked his tongue disdainfully, feeling like his time was being wasted. "Hitsugaya Toshiro. Male, eighteen years old, citizen of Japan. Would you like more?"

The atmosphere shifted then, as though the figure were smiling. "Please."

Blinking, Toshiro bit his cheek and began digging up the facts he knew of himself: "Graduate of Seireitei High. Enrolled in Soul U with a General Science major. In tenth grade, I was named Rookie of the Year on my soccer team. In eleventh grade, I was Captain and MVP, and top in Math. In senior year, I was named valedictorian and received a Calculus award."

"Anything else particularly interesting in high school?" came the question, its tone a little too vague and knowing.

Somewhat annoyed, Toshiro shook his head. "What do you mean by that?"

"Tell me about your social life. What about your friends? Your girlfriends? Did any of your teachers give you trouble in particular?"
"What?" Toshiro took a step back. "Uh, no. And I never had a girlfriend. I was friends with an upperclassman named Kurosaki Ichigo, who was also on my soccer team, and his younger sister, Karin. I was on good terms with our team manager, Matsumoto Rangiku."

A snicker sounded, resonating off walls that weren't there. "Close, but no cigar, Hitsugaya-san."

"Tell me what you mean!" Toshiro demanded, running forward, but by the time he reached the figure, it had dissolved into the darkness. "Come back! What am I missing? And what are you?"

"You really want to know?" A pause. "I'm a Death god. I'm here because I certainly don't think you want to die, but I doubt you want to wake up right now forgetting some of the most important moments of your life. I'm here to give you another shot, Hitsugaya-san."

"Tell me what happened," begged Toshiro. "How did I get amnesia? And what have I forgotten? I really don't feel any different…"

"You got amnesia from a car accident. You weren't paying attention because you'd just separated with your girlfriend of three years."

"Whoa, wait – three years? That means I'd been dating her all throughout high school? Who is she?"
A silence ensued, in which the shinigami seemed to be digesting Toshiro's reply with distaste. "How sad, Hitsugaya-san. You really don't remember? Oh, and how she loved you, too…"

"Stop messing around with me!" Toshiro shouted. "I don't understand. Even if I had a girlfriend, I wouldn't let a stupid break-up fight nearly kill me—"

"—I think what really killed you was the regrets."

"Regrets?"

"There was a lot that happened between you two. Maybe the end wouldn't be so bitter if the both of you hadn't been so careful and awkward. Or maybe you just chose the wrong person."

"Please," Toshiro tried again, sinking down to his knees and almost ready to bow down, "please tell me who it was."

"Will it really change anything, Hitsugaya-san?" A chuckle. A smidge of sympathy, the kind that really stung to receive.

Toshiro swallowed, his voice coming out hoarse: "It'd change the fact that waking up without having asked you would just add to my regrets."

The shinigami laughs, a raucous and appreciative laugh that fills the abyss and rings painfully in Toshiro's ears. "Please, please, this is too good."

Toshiro waited.

"You're never going to forgive me now for dropping the bomb, Hitsugaya-san, but the very girl you mentioned – the younger sister of your upperclassman friend – is the one you dated. Frankly I'm not too sure how much you cared for her – after all, no one knows what you feel but yourself – but she did seem very smitten with you."

"Karin?" Toshiro mouthed, but nothing came out. He coughed, two times, three times, and then, "Impossible. No, no really. Karin?"

"The one and only." The shinigami gave a gleeful sort of whoop. "I can tell you're astonished. Were you expecting someone else?"

"There's no one else," Toshiro insisted, "and if there were, I doubt I'd remember."

"A shame." The shinigami smacked his lips on the last syllable.

"Do you really think she was the wrong choice?" Toshiro stopped suddenly, frowning. "Wait – you mentioned someone else?"

"Ha, ha! I'm not going to answer that. That'd just make it too easy. But here's a question for you, my good sir: would you rather have a second go at making all the decisions you've regretted, or would you rather have the chance to make an entirely different story for yourself?"

"If the original story ended in regret, there's always a chance it will again, right?"

The shinigami clapped, slowly, five times. "Well, well … I underestimated you. I told you earlier I was planning to give you another shot at your high school years up until this moment, but I'll go even one step further. I'll let you write down any one thing – the one keepsake you want to hold on to once I send you back – because once you're there, you'll be sixteen again, in mind, body, and soul. You won't remember a word of this conversation, and not a fraction of the future."

"Then how am I supposed to avoid regrets?" Toshiro scowled, the gears of his brain still working to piece together the shinigami's logic.

"The keepsake is all I'm giving you," the shinigami grinned. "It's your chance to rewrite your story. Take it or leave it, but if you ask me, it's your last hope, and a darn good one, too. Choose your words carefully, because they're all sixteen-year-old Hitsugaya-chan will have to live by."

Toshiro took a deep breath. He didn't even need to hesitate: he would take his best offer. "Alright then. How do I do this? Do you have a piece of paper?"

"I-di-ot," laughed the shinigami. "This is all in your head; do you really believe a piece of paper can be extracted from the depths of your consciousness and suddenly brought to life in reality? Just write it with your fingers – on your forearm, or the palm of your hand, or the back of your hand – depends on how much space you need for it, really. One sentence only. If you try to cram a list into one sentence, only the first will be paid heed. Understood?"

Toshiro nodded mutely. Anxiously, he curled his index finger and began contemplating his best option.

The second his finger dotted the exclamation mark at the end of his sentence, the abyss swallowed him whole, and his senses cut out entirely.

Toshiro awoke with a searing pain in the palm of his hand. Blinking rapidly, he found that he was not the least bit tired, and chalked it up to a fantastic night's rest.

Lifting his hand up to his eyes, he squinted at the little black words, seemingly made in permanent marker, on his skin.

Choose a girl you won't regret.

He scoffed. Who had written this on his hand? Probably one of his teammates, when he hadn't been looking, at practice the other day. Sometimes Toshiro began dozing after particularly harsh training sessions.

However, scrubbing with soap wouldn't budge the ink, and neither would running it under water and clawing at it with his nails for thirty minutes straight. By the time he realized it wouldn't come off, he was nearly late for school. Not wanting anyone else to see, he cleverly placed a fat Band-Aid over his palm and took off.

He had just stepped into the school building when his eyes met those of Kurosaki Karin's. She was a girl nearly equal in height to Toshiro, with a lean frame and athletic promise. Her hair was as vibrantly black as her brother's was vibrantly orange, sleek and parted in the middle, cropped bluntly at the chin – a tomboy at heart and at surface.

She waved to him and beckoned him over, and though he made to obey, he thought of the words on his hands, and of how Rangiku had mentioned just yesterday before soccer practice that Karin was probably going to corner him into a relationship sometime soon.

And honestly, Toshiro wanted a bit more time to consider that than he knew he would be given.

He returned the wave but instead turned to pass through the double doors leading into a passageway he never usually took to go to his locker.

His new story had begun.

A/N - Next chapter, enter Hinamori Momo. That's a promise.

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