Glass and Bone

Chapter 1

I dream of a plain of ice.

There is nobody there – only an endless expanse of white on white, of snow and ice and depthless bleak skies. For some reason, his feet leave no prints in the snow.

A biting wind blows cruelly and relentlessly, threatening to throw him askew, but he is determined to hold his ground. Snow and ice fly in the air as if they had life of their own, spiralling and rising and falling patternlessly yet rhythmically. It is, strangely, lifelessly breathtaking.

His face is numb, but he feels no cold.

And on that plain of ice,

There is nowhere to go, no way out – just clinical, beautiful destruction from horizon to horizon.

And yet, he is captivated. The snow is light and crumbles daintily between his fingers, and smells faintly like soil. The ice is clear as diamond and the air is violent, but everything is still, everything is silent.

On that plain of ice…

There is nobody there but him. For all its desolate beauty, he is devastatingly alone.

…I die.

.

.

.

Winter was melting away into spring. The waters of the river were no longer too cold to wade in, new leaves were showing on trees that were once bare, and birds were beginning to sing. Hitsugaya was sitting cross-legged in the dirt, in a corner of the small park where the other children played. It was mostly a flat patch of ground, barren and dusty from being trampled upon almost daily, though somehow the others always managed to find ways to amuse themselves – some days they would run tirelessly, other days they would fish by the river, and still other days they would gather and spin tops in the dust until they were dirty and tired.

It had been years ago, long before Hinamori had left for the Academy, that he had effortlessly trounced them at spinning tops every single time. Naturally, they hated him with a vengeance.

Laughter, voices, footsteps approached from the path, and he glanced up to see three boys noisily enter the park, each holding his own prized wooden top.

It was almost exactly five years ago, he thought, when Hinamori left and they stopped begrudgingly including him – not that he was counting, and not that it bothered him that he didn't even know where he had left his own top. He should have known better than to think even for a second that they considered him one of "them".

'Hey!' One of the boys shouted from a distance away. 'We said you can't play here!'

Hitsugaya was immediately on his feet and ready for a fight. 'Does it look like I'm playing, you moron?' He fixed their ringleader with an icy glare, and most of the older boy's bravado vaporised, though he stood his ground firmly.

The other children were afraid of him, too afraid to lay a finger on him. Which was just as well, since he was easily the scrawniest among all of them in Junrinan, and if it ever came down to an actual confrontation, there would be no doubts about whose body would end up in the riverbed. Instead, they picked on him by throwing things and hurling insults.

Hitsugaya did normally try to be a pacifist, but somehow usually found it to be beyond his capabilities. He charged them, kicking up as much dust as he could while flinging both his slippers at the group of petrified boys. One of them dodged a second too late and a dirty slipper hit him in the shoulder, and instantly the small group was up in arms.

'He hit me!' the casualty cried. 'I've been jinxed!'

'Quick, wash it off in the river!'

Children were stupid, Hitsugaya thought, and he fled, not caring that he was going to lose a second pair of shoes in just as many days.

Normally, he would have spent the rest of the day wandering aimlessly and return home only when it was dark, yet today, for some strange reason, he found his feet carried him straight back to the simple house he had come to call home.

His grandmother was washing the rice she would use for dinner, and she smiled when she saw him approach from the path. He felt his insides twist with an emotion he couldn't pinpoint when he saw how much older, how much weaker she had become since he first knew her. He forced a smile.

'You're home early today,' she sounded happy, though Hitsugaya couldn't quite fathom why. 'Did you have fun?'

Hitsugaya grimaced. He had never told her about the way the other children treated him, or how he never spent even a fraction of the hours he was out of the house playing.

'Yeah,' he lied. 'I did.'

'That's good.'

Nothing was good, he wanted to scream. Not the way he couldn't stop spinning lie after lie to his grandmother, not the way he woke in cold sweat every night with an empty aching in his heart, not the fact that he was constantly being haunted by visions of blizzards and a ghostly, thundering voice he couldn't hear.

He was about to hoist himself onto the porch, dirty feet and all, when a frigid gust swept over him, and all he saw was white.

Come

He knew the voice was calling him.

Come

Go where?

Come to me, the wind howled in his ears. Was it a voice? The eerie urgency jarred his nerves, but he didn't understand, couldn't see beyond the swirling snow and hail, couldn't grasp the words in the air as they faded in the wind.

Call my name, the wind commanded, this time no louder than a whisper amidst the building storm.

I don't know your name, he thought desperately. Who are you?

My name is- a gale whipped around him, a screeching howl in the engulfing snow.

Then it was gone. He was left standing in the dirt in front of the house to catch his breath, one hand outstretched and grasping at air, the warm spring breeze burning his skin as if it were fire. None of it was real, he told himself.

'Toshiro?' his grandmother called from the dim interior of the wooden house. 'Is something the matter?'

He hastily wiped his clammy palms on his clothes and scrambled for something – anything – to say. He wanted to tell her everything he had been hiding, wanted to believe that telling people things would magically fix his problems.

Instead, what tumbled from his mouth was, 'Can I go to the market? We ran out of amanatto yesterday.'

It was another lie, another excuse to push people away from him. He didn't know how to stop himself, didn't know how being honest with himself even felt anymore. No wonder the other children were terrified of him.

His grandmother's soft hands pressed money into his own bony hands, and she kissed the top of his head as if he were still little. 'Run along,' she said. 'Buy whatever you want.'

He looked at the silver coins he held, counting enough for at least three bags of sweets, and shuffled back down the path.

The store he visited was one of the few he had yet to be kicked out of. He peered in cautiously before stepping in and heading for the shelf where they kept the sweets. In less than ten seconds, every other customer had made a speedy retreat and hurried out of the store, and the shopkeeper cast him a dirty look that was difficult to ignore.

Hitsugaya quickly picked out two of his favourite, and brought them to the counter, where the shopkeeper was still eyeing him with great suspiscion, as if he expected him to slip something into his pocket at any moment.

He paid the shopkeeper little regard as the man warily wrapped up his purchases and counted his money, and instinctively held out one hand to receive the change.

The shopkeeper visibly hesitated, obviously reluctant to touch the jinxed child of the village. Eventually, he dropped the copper coins onto the counter and folded his arms impatiently.

'Go on,' he urged gruffly. 'You're done, aren't you?'

Hitsugaya sighed, but he didn't even have the chance to pick the coins off the smooth wood of the counter before a considerable force smacked him in the back of the head. He felt himself lurching forward, and couldn't stop himself from flyng straight into the corner of the counter, bouncing off with a painfulthwack and falling backwards onto the ground, one hand clutched to his nose.

His first thought was that the idiots from earlier had found him and thrown a rock at the back his head. Sneaky monsters. But no, whatever had hit him had been…softer than rocks. Actually, softer than most things he'd had thrown at his head. It was his nose that was in pain.

He was just about to peel himself off the floor when a woman began shouting.

'Is that how you treat your customers here?' she demanded. 'Just because he's a kid doesn't mean you can treat him however you want!'

The shopkeeper gibbered, and Hitsugaya was going to run, but he moved a second too late.

He was yanked unceremoniously off the ground, and found himself face to face with a blond woman dressed in the black of the Shinigami. There was a sword at her hip, and he briefly wondered if she was going to arrest him for existing, because it seemed like the kind of thing they would do.

'And you!' she practically shouted at him as she shook him by the collar. 'You call yourself a man? You can't spend all day lying on the floor crying!'

Rich, he thought, coming from the person who had knocked him to the ground in the first place. It was then that he noticed the lady's ample bosom, and he finally realised what exactly had hit him in the head.

Hitsugaya checked his hand to see if his nose was bleeding, and yelled right back in her face, 'I wasn't crying! Let me go!'

A feral howl echoed in the back of his mind as he wrenched out of the shinigami's grip, sending chills down his spine, but he paid it little heed as he scooped up his sweets and ran out of the store.

After that encounter, he had spent the rest of the day on the roof of the house, hiding from his grandmother so he wouldn't have to explain to her how he'd managed to lose her money and get a nosebleed in one simple trip to the market. Eventually, though, she'd found him and coaxed him down, insisting that he clean his face on a damp towel.

'No, I'm fine,' he said when she asked if someone had hit him, and batted away her hand when she tried to smother his face with the towel. 'It stopped bleeding hours ago.'

His grandmother never grew impatient with him, he marvelled as she finally settled on leaving the towel in his hands, and taking his candy away to the kitchen.

'I know it's spring,' she said gently but firmly as she forced him into an oversized wool-lined haori, 'but the nights have been very cold recently. You must keep warm, or you'll catch a cold.'

Hitsugaya didn't have the heart to argue, so he let her roll up the sleeves and mutely ate dinner at the table, which ended with him mindlessly picking at the fish and listlessly pushing rice around his bowl without really eating anything.

About three mouthfuls of food into the meal, he gave up and returned to the roof.

.

That night, he dreamt of ice and snow again.

It was the same place, the same dream. The familiarly uninviting carpet of arctic tundra unfurled before him, and immediately he was met with swirling winds and biting cold. His fingers were beginning to hurt from the sheer cold, and he coud feel fear begin to bubble up within him.

This was different.

Before, he had always felt a strange disconnection, that what he saw and what he felt contradicted – he had always felt safe, far enough away that he was beyond the destruction. As if the winds couldn't touch him, couldn't hurt him, as if they were never really real.

This time, he felt so very vulnerable. The wind was cruel, and the ice was sharp. His senses were keenly aware of the fact that he was in danger, that one wrong move could send him beyond rescue. He was too terrified to move a muscle, and painfully aware that he was here alone. Perhaps he would die again.

He was beginning to curl in on himself, skinny arms wrapped around his torso in a flimsy attempt to fend off the cold. He could feel his body tremble uncontrollably, could see his breath coalesce into ice before his own eyes. The crystals of his breath shimmered in the faint light and scattered in the wind like dust, taking his strength away with every passing second.

It felt all too real, the fear in his veins so frighteningly palpable that perhaps, he thought, it might just be another dream – just a hallucination. Just another sign that maybe he was actually going mad.

He was crouched on the ground, snow hotter than fire burning his skin and blinding his sight. In the midst of the storm, he heard the familiar sound of ice cracking and freezing and crystallising, like glass and bone shattering over and over again.

Before him, an immense dragon of ice appeared through the mist. They were separated by a storm of a scale he had never experienced before, and despite the murderous combination of wind and snow and ice whipping at his entire body, he found himself able to rise, entranced by the apparition.

The excruciating pain of being overwhelmed by the elements compounded upon him, and though his breath came with difficulty, he found himself still standing, albeit unsteadily, and unable to take his eyes off the majestic mythical creature. It was bluer than the sky, and towered over everything. The dragon had rubies for eyes and an enormous wingspan, and its jaw was open, as if it were roaring into the winds.

It took him a while to realise there were words in the storm, whispered under the howling of the gale, dissolving into an indecipherable murmur before they reached his ears.

Toshiro, call my name.

This voice, the voice of the air, the voice that had been calling him all this time, it belonged to this dragon. The realisation seemed to lift a weight off his chest, because for some reason it felt right.

'I don't know your name!' he shouted into the storm, though his words were swallowed so quickly he hadn't even heard himself.

My name is-

A roaring shriek of wind ripped the dragon's words away from his ears.

'I can't hear you!'

It was so frustrating he wanted to hit something. He took a step forward, though he knew nothing would change.

My name is-

Hitsugaya woke with a start to a hand on his shoulder. He shot upright, his skin burning under the stack of blankets his grandmother had heaped upon him, and in the pale moonlight of the night, he saw the last person on earth he'd ever expected to see in his home.

The shinigami he had run into at the store that afternoon stood in the room, all shadows and darkness except her eyes, which glowed eerily with an unearthly power.

She was staring at him, and he stared straight back, still reeling from the shock of being jerked out of the snowstorm and landing back down in reality.

'Kid,' the shinigami said in a grave tone he didn't think the crazy lady from the afternoon would ever possess. 'Pull back your power.'

His what?

Hitsugaya squinted at her and blinked furiously, as if it would make her disappear from the room.

The hard look on the shinigami's face softened, and she gestured to the nearby futon where his grandmother slept.

'Your grandmother looks cold,' she informed him, the stern edge from her voice suddenly gone. 'Pull back your spiritual power, or you'll end up killing her.'

Her words struck him painfully in the heart, and sure enough, he turned to see the one person in the entire village who loved him shivering in bed and looking extremely sickly.

He recalled how he had noticed her slowly growing thinner and weaker as the days passed, and yet had not done anything, had not drawn the correlation between the onset of his disturbing dreams and his grandmother's declining health. Then he noticed how the air stung the way only the crisp air of midwinter dawn did, and how a layer of frost had cast intricate flowers of ice across the floor.

Surely he didn't do that – couldn't have done that.

'I-I don't know what you're talking about,' he stammered.

This time, the shinigami knelt kindly in front of him. 'You hear a voice, don't you?' she asked gently, with a strangely bittersweet smile on her face, and placed a warm hand over his aching heart, where the storms raged and the dragon roared in silence. 'In here.'

Hitsugaya looked at his hands, at the floor, at anything but the shinigami's blazing eyes.

'I hear a voice,' he began softly. 'I dream of ice and snow, where a dragon calls my name.' He let out a long, puffy breath, and spoke as if he didn't care if anyone heard him or not. 'The calling doesn't stop. The visions hurt. Nothing makes sense.'

'There is only one way out.'

Hitsugaya raised his gaze, slightly surprised at not being accused of insanity.

The shinigami looked him in the eyes, her stare piercing through his soul. 'Become a shinigami, kid, and answer the call.'

.

The crazy lady had dragged him out of bed, left a note for his sleeping grandmother and forced him out into the chilly morning air of early spring.

'It's not kidnapping,' she reassured him as he sceptically followed her out into the pale blue dawn. 'I fully plan on returning you home in one piece before the day ends. There's just someone I want you to meet, and some errands we need to run. Tell me, have I introduced myself?'

Hitsugaya shook his head. He was perfectly fine with calling her "crazy lady" or "weird shinigami" all day, though.

'Right!' she laughed lightly, and smiled brightly at him. 'I'm Matsumoto Rangiku, and you are?'

'Hitsugaya Toshiro,' he mumbled as he shuffled down the path after her in an old pair of slippers. 'Where are we going anyway?'

Matsumoto clasped her hands together almost gleefully. 'To the pub, of course!'

'The pub?' Hitsugaya echoed, horrified. The pub was where old men went to get inebriated. It was a temple of drunkenness and debauchery, and also where nosey kids got beaten up.

'Yes,' Matsumoto said, all his apprehension bouncing off her. 'With luck he'll still be there.'

As it turned out, the "he" that Matsumoto spoke of was not the pub's manager or member of staff as Hitsugaya had suspected. As they entered the dank establishment, one of the waiters waved her in with a wide smile.

'The captain is in the back, Miss Rangiku. The usual room,' he said through his unfaltering smile, and not once did he or any of the other staff or even the other customers mention the conspicuous minor she had in tow.

Hitsugaya supposed it was the kind of power shinigami commanded.

The room they entered was dim, and in one corner was a man in violently pink garb, lying across two cushions with a large straw hat over his face. He lifted one corner of the hat and peered at them.

'Oh, Rangiku!' he slurred, reaching out for the bottle of alcohol on the table but froze when he noticed Hitsugaya. 'You know, it isn't fun if one-third of the party can't drink. Unless, of course, he is already hardened in the ways at a tender age, in which case I will gladly oblige to purchase another round…'

So far, Hitsugaya was not impressed. Drunkenness, check; debauchery, check.

'Captain Kyoraku,' Matsumoto said as he trailed off. 'We are here on business today.'

'Oh?'

Matsumoto shifted slightly uneasily. 'Do you know about the reiatsu disturbances in Rukongai that the Tenth has been investigating?'

Kyoraku nodded, although he could have just been nodding off, Hitsugaya couldn't be sure. Matsumoto took it as permission to continue.

'I, uh,' she gave Hitsugaya a sidelong glance. 'I kind of found it,' she said, gesturing helplessly at him.

The captain burst out in uncontrollable laughter. 'This kid's the one that's been throwing all our radars off?'

'I need you to authorise his entry to the Spiritual Academy for the upcoming term. We can't let him roam with his powers unchecked any longer, but applications are over.'

'I may be on the board of education,' Kyoraku said sombrely, and Hitsugaya realised that perhaps he wasn't drunk at all. 'But he'll still have to take the test.'

Test? What test? He'd never taken a test his entire life.

Matsumoto nodded confidently. 'He'll pass whatever entrance test they have to throw at him.'

And on what experience was she basing that assumption on?

Kyoraku gave him a sharp once-over, then sat up with the disgrace of one who had been rolling on the floor for hours and couldn't tell up from down. 'I'll write a letter, and have them conduct a private test.'

He then proceeded to scribble a rather illegible note, stuffed it into an envelope, and handed it over to Matsumoto, who promptly stowed it away somewhere in her bosom. Met with such a mind-boggling situation, Hitsugaya was beginning to despair, and desperately hoped he would never become one of these pub-frequenting types.

.

The test had turned out to not be much of a test.

The lady at the Academy's administration office cringed when Matsumoto procured the letter from her robes, and gingerly accepted it. Then they had taken him into a room and spent a good minute alternating between scribbling on paper and whispering in hushed tones about spiritual pressure levels or something or the other before finally inviting him to sit at the table.

'Is he literate?' One of the teachers asked Matsumoto, who had been standing behind him all the while.

'Of course he is,' Hitsugaya interrupted rudely. 'He also speaks.'

The adults in the room exchanged weary glances, and the head teacher fixed him with an intimidating look. 'Very well, I want a demonstration of your powers.'

Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Matsumoto gesturing wildly in some form of protest, mouthing rapidly and her eyes bugged out. Ignoring her, he levelled the teacher with a glare of his own, which was slightly difficult since the man was about twice Hitsugaya's height and had arms the size of his torso. Hitsugaya didn't let his nervousness show.

He closed his eyes, and before he could even summon the thought, the ever-persistent plain of ice swallowed him up with ease, as if it were a fresh and vivid yet ever-changing memory. He let the cold wash over him, let the wind eat away at his senses, but no matter how long he waited, the dragon never appeared. The whispers in the wind brushed past him, rustling and dissipating simultaneously as he willed the storm to strengthen, willed the dragon to present itself before him once again.

The bone chilling sounds of the dragon coiling and uncoiling met his ears, grating and brittle and eerily melodious, but before the mist even began showing signs of clearing, a heavy hand landed on his shoulder, hauling him back to the heat of reality. The moment had been too short, and he was left feeling dissatisfied and empty and disoriented.

Hitsugaya noticed that everyone in the room was lightly coated in frost.

'Okay, stop,' he was told, while he was still blinking the mist out of his eyes. 'Given the circumstances, we'll take him,' the head teacher said to Matsumoto, and he took the letter Kyoraku had written from his assistant and slid it into a large file.

Hitsugaya wondered if he knew where it had been, but was quickly whisked away from that train of thought when a large bundle was shoved into his arms.

'Term starts on Monday,' the head teacher said gruffly before turning to Matsumoto. 'Vice-captain Matsumoto, I will need you to fill in the necessary paperwork by today.'

Matsumoto made a strangled noise, and one of the other teachers ushered Hitsugaya out of the room.

Once they were in the corridor, that outrageously tall teacher crouched before him in a somewhat demeaning manner. 'Now, just because you've been accepted on special conditions doesn't mean you can act like you run the place. If anything, we expect you to be more than excellent in both your studies and your training.'

Not knowing what to say, Hitsugaya nodded.

'And that,' the teacher continued, jerking his chin at the humongous bundle Hitsugaya was struggling to handle, 'is your uniform and training gear. It is the smallest size we have, but I expect you will need to do a little hemming before Monday.'

This was all happening too fast, he thought. He hadn't even decided if he was going to show up on Monday, or if he was going to let the rhythm of life he had fallen into continue its endless course. He had gotten used to dodging people, ignoring the taunts of the other children, passing time by himself. He didn't want change, not here, not now.

'Yeah, okay,' he mumbled.

'In military academy, you say "yes sir".'

Hitsugaya gave a wry smile. 'Yeah, okay. Starting Monday.' If he showed up.

.

He did not know how to broach the subject with his grandmother. Hi, just to let you know, I'm leaving for pretty much ever in, like, four days. Bye? So long and thanks for all the fish?

No.

He was almost home now, the uniform weighing heavy in his arms, the sun setting into the horizon with blinding colours splayed over the sky.

He didn't have to go, he reasoned. He could dump the uniform in the river and pretend nothing had ever happened. He could continue living the blissfully ignorant countryside life, could get used to the awful dreams of the snow and the ice and the dragon. He didn't have to "answer the call", as Matsumoto had put it.

He could let it all pass him by – his one chance to break free, to start over, to leave behind this dull life of calm monotony and unsettling stability. He didn'tneed the life of bold adventure and evil-slaying – he wanted to stay here, here where he knew nothing would change, where everything would be the same, where it didn't matter that no one cared about him because there was one person who did.

Pull back your spiritual power, or you'll end up killing her.

He shivered, and hated himself for feeling cold.

He needed to go, he realised, if not for himself then for his grandmother, for the further he stayed from her, the safer she would be. The further he kept the dragon from her, the safer she would be.

Like clockwork, he clambered onto the porch and shuffled inside, kicking his shoes off by the door.

'Granny?' he called out, his footsteps echoing hollowly around him. The house had always felt strangely empty, a little too big ever since Hinamori had left. He wondered how it would be when he was gone.

He deposited the load of uniform he didn't know he had been gripping so tightly in the corridor and stepped into the room where his grandmother was seated by the table, a mug of tea raised partway to her lips. He met her questioning gaze for a moment, and quickly tore his eyes away from her, choosing instead to look at the ground, counting the grains in the weave of the mats. 'Granny, I…'

He heard the clink of her mug being placed back in its saucer. 'Toshiro,' he heard her kind voice say. 'What's wrong? You look so upset. Did something happen?'

He hated that she was concerned, hated that she cared for him in this moment where he wished she did not. He knelt before her so quickly he was certain it looked as if he had collapsed to the ground.

'I…' he started hesitantly. 'I'm going to the Academy,' he said so softly he wasn't sure if his grandmother could hear him.

I wish I didn't have to go.

'I…I want to be a shinigami.'

No, I don't want to, not if it means leaving everything behind.

He was surprised he had managed the words.

Hitsugaya found himself half wishing that he could take his words back, run to the river and drown the uniform, drown his memories of the past day, and most of all drown the dragon that was ruining him.

Unsure what to expect of his grandmother's reaction, he jerked with shock when she wrapped her arms around him in a warm and familiar hug – and it was then that he realised his vision was blurred by tears that had brimmed in his eyes, and he tried his best to blink them away.

'Oh, the Academy! I'm so glad for you,' she exclaimed – kindly and gently, as if they were the only tones she had used in years. 'I've heard such wonderful things about Seireitei,' she said through the smile beaming on her face, crinkled with wrinkles and crows feet but ever so radiant. 'I'm so proud of you.'

Every word of her joy seemed to tear him up, to twist up his insides until he didn't know how to breathe, how to feel. He raised his head to meet his grandmother's gaze, awkwardly extricating himself from her embrace. He couldn't quite see her face, for the more he tried to blink away the tears the harder and faster they came.

'Really?'

'Of course.'

'You won't be lonely?'

'No, of course not,' she reassured him, wiping his tears away with her soft fingers.

'I'm going to be so, so lonely,' he choked on the last word, and before he knew it, he was sobbing uncontrollably and hiccupping until his lungs hurt, clinging desperately to his grandmother's shoulders, wishing he could turn back time and change everything.

'Oh, Toshiro, don't be. Everything will get better,' she promised, though the sparkle in her eyes had gone, replaced with a deep sorrow Hitsugaya knew he had caused. He thought of the dragon, of how it was tearing him and his grandmother apart, and wondered if anything would get better at all. His own distress was breaking her heart, he thought, and he couldn't bear it.

Wiping his face on his sleeves, Hitsugaya swallowed his fear, his doubts, and his despair. He wouldn't – couldn't – let himself drag others into his own anguish, wouldn't shed another tear if it meant placing his own burden upon someone else's shoulders, couldn't bare his weaknesses and foolishness to anyone else ever again.

There was only one way out.

tbc

A/N: I have a confession to make. I'm only posting this chapter as a trial, so I'm not putting it on ao3 yet, because I want to gauge everyone's reaction before I go on and write everything else. I haven't written a single word beyond this chapter, which is dangerous because I am sooo bad at multichapter pieces. As you can tell from the summary, the crux of this story is the double Hyorinmaru saga, but it'll take a while for us to get there, and I am (once again) not sure what exactly I'm doing. In the meantime if you could give me some feedback that would be really great?

So, please tell me:
1. More details, deeper exploration of character growth, ridiculously slow updates or
2. Skim over the less important details, higher chances of me actually completing this story?
(Even with option 1, I don't expect this fic to cross 10 chapters)

(2016/10/23 Poll closed; thank you for your opinions! They have made me...more confused. I still don't dare put this on ao3. I'm really bad at this)