Wild, a bleach fanfic

Disclaimer: I do not write for profits

Wild
There is no black or white; only grey

'A-are you mad?'
'Oh, no, only slightly unhinged.'

The bookstore was a heavenly reprieve from the rapidly sinking temperatures of early winter. Ducking in, the tall teen let the white door swing shut, its grid of glass panels reflecting his figure in sixteen small windows while the small golden bells chimed angelically against the polished wood. The place was reminiscent of a country cottage, except for the electric heater that buzzed away with mechanical regularity from its position tucked away in a corner where two rough brick walls met.

Ichigo ran his fingers across the rise and fall of the spines of a row of books - it brought a strange euphoria bubbling up within him - and he perused slowly, soaking in the homely air that held a tinge of the musty smell of books that had not been touched in years. The scent of freshly-baked cookies would not have been out of place. He lazily flipped a book open, languidly scanning the rows of neatly-printed text surrounded by tattered but crisp yellow edges. He closed it with a gentleness he displayed only towards books, and carefully returned it to the shelf before taking a step to the right for another book.

When the door inched open to the sweet jingling of the small bells tied to its doorknob, letting in several seconds' worth of dry draft, Ichigo peered over the shelf in curiosity at the newcomer - it was a boy no older than twelve, dressed altogether too thinly for the weather. Ichigo watched with a fascinated rapture as the boy pulled off his black beanie to release a head of shocking white hair that rose voluntarily into gravity-defying spikes. His large, emerald-green eyes drank in the scene before him almost lazily, sparing a glance for the teen with the orange hair before settling on a shelf of books.

Upon his arrival, the old lady seated behind the counter brightened up from within the gentle brown shades of the patchwork quilt she had swathed herself in. Her wispy silvery hair was tucked into a haphazard bun while free strands framed her aged face, and a genuinely pleased smile decorated her lips.

'Ah, Hitsugaya-kun,' her voice was soft and calming - Ichigo could imagine her comforting young children, or rocking babies to sleep. 'It's much too cold to be outside dressed like that,' she reprimanded, though the smile still tugged her face into a healthy glow.

The boy - Hitsugaya - grumbled, but otherwise showed no disagreement, choosing instead to pick lint off his maroon turtleneck.

'Back for more books? Have you finished those you bought last week?' the elderly woman dropped the subject of the weather. 'Make yourself at home, and be nice to the gentleman over there,' she said, but Ichigo guessed the boy was already at ease, and realised only belatedly that he was the gentleman in question. He shrugged it off - there were books to be read.

The three occupants in the small bookstore fell into a comfortable silence that lasted for only a few precious moments before the sound of several books hitting the floor cast them into temporary chaos.

Perhaps it was a reflex, but Ichigo whirled around to pick the books up from where he had heard them drop behind him, and the scene the met his gaze was a slightly stunned kid on the floor by an upturned stepping stool, covered with splayed books.

'Here,' he grabbed the boy's wrist and pulled him up, gathering the fallen books into a stack before setting the stool right again. As Ichigo returned the stack of books, he asked, 'did you get the book you wanted?'

The boy looked away, toying with the knitted seam of his beanie. 'Um, thanks,' he spoke in a voice barely above a whisper, but made no move to step away.

'I'm Kurosaki Ichigo,' he decided to introduce himself. 'And you are...?'

'Hitsugaya.'

'Come on, your name, not your family's.'

'...Shinjiro,' he supplied reluctantly, shuffling around the corner with a little hesitance.

Ichigo turned his gaze upwards to the highest shelf that the bookstore had to offer, and easily spotted the crevasse in the immaculate row of leatherbound spines where Shinjiro had taken one. Purely out of curiosity, he pulled the book adjacent to the gap out. its gold-stamp lettering stood out against the unorthodox frosty-blue of the cover, and it looked uncannily similar to one of the books he had picked off the floor for the boy - it was a deep forest green, he recalled with strange ease and clarity. Turning the thin blue book in his hands, he fingered the embossed gold lettering on the front.

Booke.

Odd. He was pretty sure the green one was exactly the same.

With a shrug, he added it to his growing pile of books despite the curling feeling deep within him.

Curiosity killed the cat, he reminded himself, and very nearly returned it to the shelf, but something else drove him against his better judgment, and he proceeded to the counter with his books in tow.

Satisfaction brought it back; I want to know what's in it.

Ever since his encounter with Shinjiro and the falling books, Ichigo was vaguely aware of the boy tailing him around the shop, but it only set the alarm bells in his head clanging away with much urgency when a much more gentle chiming of another set of bells told him that he had been followed right out of the shop.

He had barely placed ten steps' distance between himself and the bookstore when the sound of worn-out sneakers hitting the stone walkway caught up to him, and a flying weight tackled him to the ground - it was a miracle the brown paper bag he was carrying had not split open upon hitting the harsh ground.

'Give me the book,' the boy demanded without letting Ichigo recover his wits.

'What? No! I just bought them!' Ichigo found his mouth rattling off without consulting his brain. 'I haven't read any of them yet!'

'I want that book,' he insisted. 'Give it to me!'

'What the- get off me, you brat! Buy your own books!'

Shinjiro froze, his jaw slack.

'I thought you were nice, but it seems you're not.'

'Don't judge my niceness on me and my books,' Ichigo retorted.

A prolonged pause settled between them, two clouds of warm breath misting over in the cold air as each boy waited for the other to carry the conversation.

Retracting ever so slightly, Shinjiro asked, 'you like books?'

Ichigo tightened his hold on the crumpled paper bag that held his new acquisitions. 'Good guess,' he huffed.

Almost instantly, the boy shot back, 'do you read them?'

'What? Of course I-'

'Or do you feel them?'

Ichigo paused, but Shinjiro spoke again - this time, so quietly that Ichigo could barely hear him over the pounding of his own heart in his ears.

'Do you believe in fairytales?'

Ichigo exhaled slowly, and he suspected that there was magic in the air that only he could feel, for it was the only reason he could come up with to explain why he followed when the smaller boy said, 'follow me.'

A pair of thick black gates opened a path shrouded with large evergreens, their pine-like leaves lining the stone-coloured gravel in a wide driveway that led to a dry stone fountain. The entire setting was devoid of movement, as if no life had disturbed it for years. Behind the immaculate marble fixture that once had to be grand rose an imposing manor with countless windows and flower gardens that were once well cared for. Ferns crept up its derelict walls, an air once of grandeur washing away into the background, leaving a heavy fog of eeriness to blanket the sprawling grounds of dying greenery.

Ichigo followed the diminutive boy through a set of imposing double doors, into a room with a flooring that crunched crisply beneath his feet like freshly-fallen carpets of autumn. Looking down, he was slightly perplexed to find the cream marble littered with strewn sheets of aged paper that tore along the edges, ragged with wear. Before he could ask, the child before him lifted the palpable tension just slightly.

'Do you like dolls?'

'Dolls?' It was then that Ichigo noticed the couch - another boy, an exact replica of the one that stood before him, lay - asleep? - curled up among the cushions - no, it wasn't exact. The one on the couch was distinctly thinner, and his face was unhealthily pallid. The long sleeves of the sweater he wore extended past his fingertips. the material was the colour of a cornflower at dusk; its dullness only emphasised how pale and emaciated the boy was, how his high cheekbones protruded more than they should have.

Slightly to the side, a book with ragged and torn pages not unlike those that covered the floor stood carefully atop a high wooden stool. Ichigo recognised its deep champagne-coloured cover and spine with the golden lettering as yet another replica of the mysterious book he had just purchased not hours earlier.

'I don't understand,' he began, but quickly snapped his jaw back up.

'Of course you do,' the boy replied. 'This is my baby brother. You like him?' he asked quietly, his tone brimming with innocence.

'Baby? He doesn't look much younger than y-'

'Twins,' Shinjiro bit out. 'Ever heard of them? He's the baby, and I'm the big brother. I'm in charge.'

Ichigo clamped his mouth shut - perhaps if he stopped playing along with the boy, everything would return to normal; yet the unearthly chill that swept through the expansive manor's main hall told him otherwise. The barely-furnished room was drab and shabby; it was obvious that it was once resplendent in majesty but had faded in neglect to a dusty palette of greys and browns and rose pinks. Ambient light flooded the place through the ceiling-high windows, casting a gentle glow that softened the edges of the scene before him.

'He, unlike you, Kurosaki, listens to me.' Shinjiro paused, then leaned forward on the balls of his feet, much like an eager child receiving a reward. 'Toshiro,' he called with impeccable enunciation, the name rolling off his tongue as if it were well-practised.

With the crinkling and rustling of pages turning in the wind - there was no wind; the hair along the back of his neck stood - a single yellowed page dislodged itself from the book on the high stool and drifted slowly down. The moment it hit the smooth, cold floor, the boy on the sofa blinked his dull green eyes open owlishly as he pushed himself upright. Silvery threads spun heavenward from behind him, glimmering as if they had been dipped in moonlight.

Like a marionette, Ichigo realised.

'Look, Shiro, I brought a guest,' Shinjiro laughed drily as he seated himself comfortably next to the other boy. 'He's called Kurosaki, but he doesn't listen to me. Maybe he'll listen to you?'

Toshiro's face remained blank; his open eyes looked unseeing, yet seemed to be trained on the intruder.

'I don't change my mind so easily,' Ichigo levelled at the pair of children resolutely.

'Oh, don't you?' Shinjiro smirked before turning to whisper to Toshiro, whose eyes were beginning to slip closed. They looked like best friends sharing a secret, Ichigo thought, but the plummeting of his gut told him something much more sinister was burning at the heart of the unearthly matter. He took a step back, turning towards the door when the ornate handle and lock frosted over.

'You're not going anywhere,' the older of the two children smiled mirthlessly. 'I'm still young,' he began, 'I need to play.'

The layer of ice over the door crackled with an air finality; yet another yellowed page floated to the ground.

'Don't you think,' Shinjiro trailed dreamily, running a thin hand through Toshiro's hair, 'that two dolls are better to play with than one?'

'A-are you mad?' Ichigo felt all his previous bravado vapourise instantly.

Shinjiro's smile widened. 'Oh, no,' his voice echoed like hollow glass. 'Only slightly unhinged.'

Ichigo squirmed uncomfortably in the high-backed heavy cherrywood chair that had been offered to him.

'Toshiro,' the smooth voice of Shinjiro echoed through the sparsely-occupied hall. 'Why don't you tell our esteemed guest about what happened the last time someone chose not to listen to us.'

'They died,' Toshiro's voice was identical to his brother's, not waivering the slightest, as impassive and devoid of emotion as his brother's.

'He can't lie,' Shinjiro supplied distractedly, his gaze tracing the swirling dust in the yellow light. He brought his knees up to his chest and, disinterestedly, prompted the other child, 'Tell us more, Toshiro. Who were they?'

The heart-stopping silence seemed to screech in its eternity.

Finally, a quiet voice said, 'Father...and Mother.'

More aged pages slipped seamlessly from the book atop the stool, fluttering down with an unearthly grace.

'Very good,' Shinjiro praised. 'Why don't we show Kurosaki over there how it happened?'

A gale swept through the room despite the closed windows, stirring the pages on the ground - the rushing of a million ancient books being flipped through filled his ears, and the surroundings gained a white glow that emanated warmth. When the pages settled back to the ground, Ichigo recognised the furnishing as another room of the manor, likely back in one of its finer days - the wood was polished, the wallpaper was not peeling; a large double bed covered in soft blankets occupied the centre of the room, while a ceiling-high shelf hugged the wall, filled with books.

One of the twins was huddled under the covers, watching silently as his brother confronted the pair of adults standing by the bed. Both children were young, no older than ten. As much as Ichigo tried to squint, he couldn't see the parents' faces - the light was bright, as if he were spectating through a filter. When the boy spoke, his voice was distant, as if he were listening from underwater.

'I don't understand,' the child protested loudly. 'Why won't you let us-'

'No,' the father interrupted. 'Magic is not something children should be resorting to.'

'Don't you get it?' the more loudspoken of the two boys nearly screamed. 'Shiro's dying! He's been sick and dying for two years, do you really want him to die?'

The parents were taken aback, but the mother responded quickly. 'I would not wish for any child to live forever either, Shinjiro.'

'You don't get it,' Shinjiro insisted. 'If we joined our souls, He'll live as long as I live! There's nothing bad about it, right, Shiro?'

Toshiro spoke for the first time, his voice paper-thin and flimsy. 'If I die, Shin will get lonely, won't he?'

The mother's expression contorted, as if she were in pain. 'We just want the two of you to make the most of your time left,' her voice withered slightly towards the end of her sentence. 'There's no need to distort the humanity of either one of you.'

'Are you saying that Shiro's life is not worth living? Because I know of two lives that I would gladly trade for his.'

'No,' the father scolded firmly. 'Neither of you will find out any more about magic. This matter is closed.'

As the parents turned to leave, Shinjiro blurted, 'It's too late for that. We know everything there is to know.'

'Magic comes from Bookes,' Toshiro began. 'And those can be found anywhere - you just need to know how to use them.'

'As you use up its power,' Shinjiro continued, 'the pages come loose, until all you have left is the cover.'

Shinjiro pulled a dark ochre book from the centre of the shelf - perfectly unnoticeable, unless you were hunting for it. He placed it upright on the bedside table, spreading the covers slightly ajar so that the pages fanned slightly. Ichigo could see this clearly - there was the gold embossing, and the clear print across the front that read "Booke". To the horror of his parents, Shinjiro remorselessly swiped a letter opener across the pads of his left fingers and smeared the dark red blood over the sides of the pages.

'Now its power is mine,' he intoned calmly. 'You can't stop me.'

A swift rush of drearily cold air aerated the room while a layer of thick frost shot across the parquet towards the parents - Ichigo felt the hairs at the back of his neck stand as he realised that neither child spared the lifeless adults a glance while several sheets of paper - the first of many - began to drift to the ground.

'Are you sure about this?' Toshiro was saying, his voice laced with slight uncertainty.

'I can keep buying more Bookes,' Shinjiro replied, not bothering to look his younger brother in the eye. Instead, he was drawing runes on Toshiro's palms in the blood that still stained his fingers. 'I know where to get them. Keep still,' he warned, using another ornate letter opener to tear the sickly, transluscent skin of Toshiro's fingers. Holding his hand, he guided the younger child's fingers to trace similar runes on his own palms, and when he was done, wiped Toshiro's fingers onto the pages of the yellow Booke.

'You will live on my soul, Shiro. You will be a doll with my soul - you will live as long as I live, and you will die only when I die. There is no loneliness with the two of us.'

'...Let's do it.'

In an explosion of brittle paper and glaringly bright light, their surroundings aged and deteriorated, the glow faded, and Ichigo found himself back in the high-backed cherrywood chair in the hall, facing two brothers curled up on either end of a plush sofa.

'You see, Kurosaki,' Shinjiro spoke like a snake charming its way into getting what it wanted. 'The two of us are unstoppable.'

'Two?' Ichigo spluttered. 'There's only you, you sick child!'

'Oh, very good. You're quite perceptive.' The sinking sun beyond the crystal glass windows cast Shinjiro into a deep shadow, but the gossamer that hung behind Toshiro glowed a magnificent gold. 'I brought you here for second opinion. You see, I've been thinking, and let me ask you a question.'

Ichigo dared not blink; he consciously inhaled but waited for the boy to finish.

With the fluttering of a few pages, the forest green Booke appeared in his lap. Questioningly, he turned it over between his palms, not tearing his eyes from Shinjiro - watching his every move.

'...If you could kill one of us,' his voice was beneath a whisper, yet echoed crisply throughout the room. 'Who would it be?'

'What?'

'You know how it works,' and a polished Swiss knife settled atop the green Booke in his lap with the descent of another page from the purple one on the stool.

'W-why...'

'Decide!' Shinjiro roared, 'or I'll kill him first!'

'Why must-'

The boy's eyes glowed with a degree of insanity that seemed to throw the room into disarray the way a hurricane would.

'Poor Kurosaki,' Shinjiro sighed as he ran his thin fingers through his unkempt hair. 'He doesn't know that two people living on one soul can't be healthy.'

Ichigo felt his throat constrict, as if an invisible power had a vice grip around him. He swallowed hard, but his mouth remained dry - everything was so, so foreign, and he couldn't tell if the cold clawing from the deepest of depths within him was of fear, or of - of what, he didn't know either.

He tested his voice. 'You're setting me up for a gamble,' the shaky quality of his own cadences chipped away at whatever was left of his confidence and fearlessness.

'Maybe,' the boy shrugged offhandedly. 'If Shiro's dead, then I'm the only one keeping him alive. He has no soul; if you kill him, nothing changes, does it?'

Ichigo refused to nod, instead continuing with Shinjiro's endless tirade. 'If the illness hasn't killed him yet, I'll be a murderer, and I won't even know.'

'True,' the child agreed as he swept a lock of Toshiro's hair aside. 'If he has no soul, and you choose to kill me, we'll both be gone.'

'Very romantic, don't you think?' Ichigo found himself saying. 'But if he's alive, and I kill you, I'll be a cold-blooded murderer with a sickly orphan on my hands.'

'Such a dilemma,' the feigned sympathy bled through Shinjiro's tone unconcealed. 'It tears at your morals, doesn't it? But this isn't about that,' his coolness of tone was reflected in the breeze that let the moth-eaten curtains float like ghosts against a brilliant canvas of the sky and its rapidly sinking sun. 'I don't care about your morals! What I want to know is if both of us were alive and well and begging for the one soul between us, who sould you give it to?' His voice had escalated to a shout that sounded almost painful as it echoed hollowly through the manor.

'I can't-'

'It's Shiro, isn't it? I'm the bully, and he's the poor, sick boy. He's the baby, and I'm the older brother who always has to give in, isn't it? But this isn't about the last cookie in the box! It's about the life I traded in for the brother who's not who he used to be! What use is it if this shell isn't my brother anymore? Who am I feeding my years to?' By now, he looked deranged, his dull fingernails clutching the Booke until his knuckles were white, but Ichigo could see the telltale glisten in his wide eyes that pulled the boy's facade into pieces.

'Shinjiro, stop, this isn't going to help anyone.'

'I don't need to help anybody. There's only going to be me left,' he ground out bitterly. 'I'm already the only one left.' His voice was choked and strained.

'Stop! Didn't you kill your own parents just so that Toshiro could live? What about Toshiro? Didn't you do everything just so that he could live? Are you going to turn all those sacrifices into ash to throw in the wind tomorrow morning?' Ichigo had never heard his own voice laced with such panic before - the drama unfolding before him was painfully unstoppable; everything would come crashing down upon their heads like a decayed ruin in a storm, like shattering rocks at the bottom of cliffs.

'Don't,' Shinjiro's voice waivered, 'come any closer. I'll kill him, and then I'll kill you!' Pages fell to the floor as a palm-sized knife materialised in his hands. He raised his arms high, poised to slash the gracefully still threads that suspended behind Toshiro and extended beyond the air, but when the sharpened blade tore the first silvery fibre, the deep purple Booke atop the stool burst open with an explosion of pages while a heart-shattering scream shook the air.

The atmosphere seemed to snap, something palpable yet invisible tore into two and left a frigid void in its place.

Toshiro was awake, his teal eyes dangerously clear as the last of the threads fell away into silvery stardust that floated away in the still air. Behind him, the empty covers of the purple Booke fell to the floor as lifelessly as its owner.

'...Shin?' The boy remained unresponsive, his head lolling lifelessly as eerily crimson blood spilt over his jaw.

Toshiro seemed frozen for just a split second, but he recovered quickly. His movements were swift, but unsure, yet they tore an excruciating feeling of deja vu from the back of Ichigo's numb mind. He recognised those actions - the way he was drawing runes on his palms with Shinjiro's blood, and the way he reached for the knife that clattered nearby to slash his own fingers into ribbons before reaching to trace the same markings onto his brother's palms.

'I'll bring you back,' he was saying. 'You'll live, and we'll both live until I give out,' his small voice shrinking further into a hushed whisper as he worked. Frantically, he whirled around for a Booke, and noticed Ichigo for the first time.

'I... You-' his eyes fell to Ichigo's lap. 'Give me that Booke,'

Mutely, he complied, too lost for words and too confused to do otherwise.

Toshiro spoke without looking at Ichigo, yet he knew he was being addressed. 'Tomorrow, this will be nothing but a distant dream. Hope that you will never encounter magic again.' Ichigo knew exactly what would happen next, and he knew that he it was a re-enactment of a scene he didn't want to watch, but a morbid tug kept him riveted.

Toshiro pulled Shinjiro into a tight embrace as yellowed papers tore themselves from their deep-green spine and a thick fog settled in the air. Between the swirling of the air and the rushing of the fluttering pages, the last thing Ichigo heard was a quiet, broken whisper.

'We'll be okay.'

When the door inched open to the sweet jingling of the small bells tied to its doorknob, letting in several seconds' worth of dry draft, Ichigo peered over the shelf in curiosity at the newcomer - it was a boy no older than thirteen, dressed altogether too thinly for the weather. Ichigo watched with a fascinated rapture as the boy pulled off his jacket hood to release a head of shocking white hair that rose voluntarily into gravity-defying spikes. His large, emerald-green eyes drank in the scene before him almost lazily, locking onto the teen with the orange hair for a strangling moment - where had he seen this boy before? - before settling on a shelf of books.

'Ah, Toshiro-kun,' her voice was soft and calming - Ichigo could imagine her comforting young children, or rocking babies to sleep. 'It's much too cold to be outside dressed like that,' she reprimanded, though the smile still tugged her face into a healthy glow. 'Back for more books? Have you finished those you bought last week?' the elderly woman dropped the subject of the weather. 'Make yourself at home, and be nice to the gentleman over there,' she said, and a rush of nostalgia began to wash over Ichigo like a tidal wave. He staggered slightly, but kept his cool as Toshiro - where had he heard that name before? - nodded in acknowledgement of the old lady.

Ichigo trailed Toshiro around the shelf and watched curiously as he mounted a stepping stool to reach for the highest shelf, where a row of colourful books were lined up. When the younger boy came away with two thick volumes, each inscribed with old gold lettering that read Booke, memories surged forth within Ichigo. Pictures, thoughts, scenes, emotions from that day nearly a year ago, all of them crashed through his mind like floodwaters smashing a dam.

'I- uh-' he remained speechless as Toshiro clambered carefully off the stool. 'Toshiro,' he finally schooled his tongue into motion.

The child turned, observant oceanic eyes waiting patiently for the older teen to form his words - no surprise showed within their crystal-clear depths, only a uniform sadness.

'What happened to Shin?' the words that tumbled from Ichigo's mouth seemed to hurt Toshiro more than any physical blow could.

'Do you believe in fairytales?' his quiet voice asked simply.

'Fairytales always begin once upon a time, and always end happily ever after,' Ichigo supplied.

'Do you?' Toshiro prompted, his voice fading into the ambient noise.

He paused to inhaled deeply. 'Yes. Yes, I do.'

Toshiro squeezed his eyes shut and turned away, his gaze turning to the tranquil evening street, his chest rising and falling evenly as he swallowed what Ichigo knew had to be tears.

'I don't.'

end

A little on names, which I spent a whole afternoon researching on and deciding on and decoding:
Toshiro - 冬獅郎, and Shinjiro - 森獅郎
They had to rhyme. Really. They're twins!

Note that "shi" and "ji" are the same character - that of lion, which confers eloquence to those who have this character in their name. This is perfectly acceptable, because "shi" and "ji" are very closely related syllables in Japanese and in naming, and can be used almost interchangeably, at the discretion of the parents.

"To" is "winter", implying a certain coldness or distance, or an unwillingness to open up. There is stubbornness and a "go-my-way" attitude.

"Shin" is "forest", meaning the child is solemn and serious, also implying lonesomeness. Poor thing.

"Ro", as we all know (hopefully), means "guy". Not very deep, is it?

Looking at Toshiro's name, it's kind of stunning how it fits his character to a T. Kudos to Kubo, maybe he did research too.

Author's note:
My first fairytale! /shudders/ please review.