'Tis The Season To Be…?
Title: Echoes In The Snow
Author: Wait-For-Sleep
Pairing(s)/character(s): Tatsuki, Ichigo, mention of Orihime, mention of Renji. If you squint very desperately, you can see some RenTat, but no real pairings in this particular…whadjamacallit.
Prompt: Echo
Word count: 513, not including titles, page breaks, author notes, etc.
Summary: Reaching out for an echo she knows the white shards of glass falling softly into her eyes can't give her.
Disclaimer: If I owned Bleach or any of it's characters, I'd be a self insert who gets hitched to Renji, Urahara, Kaien and Gin. (Oo-er, that would be rather odd.)
------merry-crimbo------
Tatsuki loves the snow.
Everyone, at some point in their lifetime, is bound to hear or see an echo – the ghost of a reminder they thought they had long forgotten.
Whether hearing such an echo puts a smile on your face as you are reminded of a good memory, or it kills the life in your eyes as guilt is thrown into you really depends, doesn't it?
She walks aimlessly through the snow, clad in nothing but thin karate training gi and running shoes that are growing soggier by the minute, but she doesn't care at all - - she couldn't be cold if she tried. She never was a cold person by nature; aggressive, egotistical, overprotective, yes, but never cold…
…Never cold like the snow, but she is walking through it once again, as she always does this time of year, reaching out for an echo she knows the white shards of glass falling softly into her eyes can't give her. It is this time of the year that she feels particularly nostalgic, as her gaze wanders towards the white death that was once Karakura Park, and her eyes slip closed as in her mind, or imagination, – no, her memories - a small, raven haired girl and equally small orange haired boy run around in the frozen rain, the joy and innocence on their faces a stark contrast to the sharp, white bitterness which they sweep up and mould in their thickly gloved hands. Fists simultaneously draw back and then throw themselves forward, a snowball that hits the small boy square in his thickly padded chest and another snowball that lands a few feet short of the girl's warm snowboots. "Ichigo, you suck!"
And her eyes dart open once again as the echo of a small, happy boy's innocent laughter rings in her ears, and a scream disguised as her own laugh leaves her throat.
"Ichigo…weren't we friends, once?"
Arisawa Tatsuki doesn't know if such echoes are good or bad things - - on one hand, on days where that red-headed, tattooed freak isn't around for her to beat sense into (and beat sense into her, although she will never admit it), the presence of such a memory is a good thing to possess, reminding her that despite her non-existent ways of showing how much she loves her friends, Ichigo really has always been her friend, her first friend, just as important to her as Orihime is now.
On the other hand, it always makes her realise with slight shock that she and Ichigo are not the friends they were. Sure, they remained friends and always will be, but they no longer have the bond that made them inseparable once, they are good friends, but they are no longer best friends, and Tatsuki realises with a sudden rush of the familiar feeling of uselessness, that maybe she's just not good enough.
The second strongest girl in Japan kicks out angrily at a well-wrapped up snowman; scorn, resentment, sadness, anger, and helplessness etched in her eyes, getting stuck in her throat.
No…Tatsuki hates the snow.
------merry-crimbo------
A/N: Hey ho hum. Hope someone liked that.
I think the next ficlet might be IshiHime or IchiRuki, but it's most likely going to end up being ByaHisana. So far the pairings for these ficlets are going:
IchiRuki
IshiHime
ByaHisana
RenTat
UraYoru
GinRan
HitsuKarin
KaienRuki
If you have any requests, don't hesitate to ask.
Of course, I'll have to put Keigo in here somewhere. Don't worry, I'm not forgetting all our favourite goofball characters.
If you don't wanna review, then use your time alternatively - - go decorate your Christmas tree.