Disclaimer: Bleach is © Kubo Tite, Viz Media, Studio Pierrot, Shueisha, etc. This is a nonprofit fanwork. Originally written on 3/11/06.
If she had words to say to him
by Fushigi Kismet
If she had words to say to him, perhaps she would say this:
Thank you for everything. I loved you once and part of me will always carry those feelings with me. You taught me many things. Because of you, I was able to become the person I am today. Because of you, I am able to carry with me the hearts of others. I truly thank you from the bottom of my heart. And I am truly sorry.
She had other words, once, but she could never say them aloud. Now, she thinks, given the chance again, she would still not speak them, but her reasons are different. She does wonder, sometimes, if he knew, after all.
A laughing voice calls out from behind Rukia as she makes her way home. "Is there something on your mind, Kuchiki? Love problems? You looked a little woebegone at drills today."
The look she turns to him is stricken and his expression changes. "Sorry, I didn't mean to pry. I just get worried when my cute subordinates are troubled. But remember, you should feel free to come to me about anything. I might not be able to help, but I can always listen."
"Kaien-dono, I . . ." She swallows, looks down. "It's nothing. Please do not concern yourself."
His expression softens. He gives her a rough pat on the head and moves past.
Walking quickly, he soon catches up to Miyako, who spares a sidelong glance for his face and, behind him, Rukia's troubled expression. Rukia, seeing her looking, manages a smile and polite bow before turning away and going off in the wrong direction. Miyako turns back around. "Are you afraid of hurting her, my love?"
She finds his answer in his silence and her smile is tender and wry. "My love, she is a woman, thus, she is no stranger to pain. It comes to us more easily than to men, and knowing it, we," she lightly touched his cheek, "do not merely live with it, but walk hand in hand with it."
"She's a child," he says helplessly. "My subordinate."
"Not so much the child, I think. She loves you the same as I did at that age. To the me of then you were the sky."
"And to the you of now?" he says, the words falling a little more heavily than he meant them.
"To the me of now it does not bear asking." She looks up at him, brushes his bangs out of his eyes, and a corner of her mouth tugs upward. "You are the whole world."
He embraces her then - he cannot help it – this woman who saved him with her love. Of all his undeserved blessings he thinks that she is the only one he cannot bear to part from because she is the only one he fears to lose.
"Kaien," she says simply, and he pulls away, his hands lingering on her shoulders, their robes creased. Her expression is composed, her eyes calm. "There is no unease in me. When it comes to you, I will not lose to anyone."
He glances away abruptly. His hands leave her shoulders.
She waits, patient.
"Must you always tease me so?"
"Husband," she says lightly, turning away, "if it weren't so easy, it wouldn't be so much fun."
He falls into step beside her, and despite himself, he grins.
They laugh and he thinks that happiness stretches like sunlight. She knows that shadows live within the light.