Characters: Yuzu, Masaki
Summary: I have become you.
Pairings: None
Warnings/Spoilers: no spoilers
Timeline: pre-manga
Disclaimer: I don't own Bleach.
Someone had to do it, I suppose. Dad couldn't do it; he was too busy making sure the rest of us didn't have nervous breakdowns. Karin wasn't equipped to be anyone's mother—still isn't—and Ichigo… I wasn't going to make Ichigo do it. So it could only be me, I guess.
I was just wondering what you would say if you ever had occasion to see us and you found a home in ruins. I was the one most like you, I was the one in your image, and I was the one who ought to take care of them after you're gone, and clean up the mess you left behind, because you left a horrific mess indeed.
It's your blood singing in my veins anyway, it wasn't difficult.
I made sure lunches were made, that the house remained clean, that Dad didn't go off the deep end (not that he wasn't crazy before, but still), and that Karin and Ichigo didn't completely sink beneath the surface of that brooding funk the two of them seemed to share. Before I knew it, I was taking care of everything, just the way you did. I was Mom even though I had no children and even though I was a child myself.
Wait, that's not exactly true. I stopped being a child the day I became your replacement.
I became you. I have become you. I have resented you for dying, for leaving it all to me, and have only just stopped, knowing as I do now that it couldn't be helped. And my resentment has never helped anything. It won't bring you back; it won't call you back from the abyss.
Someone had to do it. And I was the one with your blood singing in my veins.
Someone had to do it, in order to keep everything from falling apart, but I still wish it was your voice calling for everyone to wake up in the morning, just so I could hear you again.