It started out in a most innocuous way.
There was a ghost (not that it wasn't surprising) but it was one of a slender, taller than her by a head or two, had black hair trimmed to frame the sides of his face just ending chin length and with a stubborn bang (like hers) between two narrow green eyes.
Just when Rukia was debating on whether or not there was still time to ignore this apparition of recent days past and continue reading-
He spoke.
"Did I die?"
She sighed and buried her nose (proverbially) deeper in the shojo manga.
Eyes just beyond her visual line of sight stared intently, too intently at her. Rukia begun to feel a hint of nervousness with his stare. Ghosts couldn't harm her even though she could see them. It was just...well, just annoying!
And she hated annoying things.
"How the hell should I know? Do I look like a shrink to you?" She demanded roughly, rudely.
The ghost looked from her face to her folded body leaning against the grave marker, bright-colored paperback in hand.
"No." He said slowly, quietly. "Just strange. What are you doing reading in a cemetery?"
Here was when she reached into her duffle bag and pulled out a sketch pad, pen flying across the pages in a four-panel comic which upon completion she showed him.
"See? I see ghosts and they annoy me like you."
The first panel depicted a bunny (you guessed it) dressed like her in a yellow summer dress. The next panel showed him (a bunny with green dots for eyes and a woeful expression on his face) the bottom end vanished in a curlique like a specter in cartoons.
The third panel showed the ghost bunny bothering the girl bunny and the last one was the girl bunny alone in a cemetery (ghost free) The ghost whom had followed her pencil pointing, looked at her blankly, deadpanning.
"Your drawings are almost illegible." He commented; a tic appeared above her eye. "They look like a child's drawings."
"Well, excuse me!" she snapped, irritated when she had just been thinking to herself they were some of her best works. "Chappy is my character and sorry you're an idiot and can't see how cute they are!" She huffingly scrambled to her feet, cramming her sketch pad and pencil set into the duffle and stomping away from the impertinent ghost.
He looked after for a few minutes longer. Not because the girl was particularly fascinating, only that she was the first person who'd been able to see him and converse semi-intelligibly when she wasn't shoving her crappy drawings in his face.
"You forgot your manga."
She almost tripped on the stairs.
...
"Why are you still here?"
"Why do you come here?"
"Because! There weren't any ghosts until you came!" She shoved her finger rudely into his chest. He noticed everything she did seemed to have a crudeness to it. From how she sat on the ground like a boy to yelling and pretending to be tough despite her diminutive size.
And different manga (still with a hot pink cover) in her tiny hands.
"Why not?"
"I explained it yesterday." She said tightly, getting practically in his face. "Now shut up and let me read!" Too large violet eyes snapped to the purple plastic wristwatch on her skinny wrist. "I've got about twenty minutes 'til the next class starts..."
"So, you're a Uni student."
She fumed in silence that she had let it slip.
He found her the slightest bit fascinating on how easy she was to read.
...
It rained on the third and fourth days.
He stayed at a distance, watching her stand under an umbrella on a higher level, just gazing down at a grave.
Somehow he felt he shouldn't intrude.
...
When a rainbow cleared the sky, he stepped around the rain puddles, knowing he couldn't feel their coldness anymore and gazed down at the grave that had received her silent vigil.
A teacher, he saw immediately.
One by the name of Kaien Shiba.
...
"You were watching me." She accused, sitting in a tree branch above the usual spot.
He found her anyway. "Who was he?"
The girl's too large violet eyes slanted away, seemingly from the bright sunlight filtering through the trees. The manga rested on her lap, untouched.
"...just a friend." She said hollowly, but he thought Kaien Shiba might've been more.
...
It rained again on Saturday.
Had it been the fifth day or a month since she'd been coming to the cemetery?
He found it was impossible to remember.
Like the other times it had poured buckets from the sky, the girl wore a thin summer dress and a crocheted cardigan despite the chill. A matching yellow umbrella was held in one tiny hand tightly as she stood in front of the teacher's grave.
Like the other times, he remained watching from the side stairs, three or four down.
Then, the girl turned and motioned with a flick of her hand.
Did she mean him?
There was no one else who visited the cemetery on a rainy day except for her.
He decided to risk her censure and floated up the short distance and across to pause near her.
She was scowling, cheeks damp.
"Get out of the rain, idiot."
The umbrella tilted over him.
"Ulquiorra."
"What?"
"My name." He intoned. "Not idiot."
Her face lost her scowl then she laughed just a little bit.
"You're a funny one."
He didn't like the thought of being made fun of. "What is yours, girl?"
"Rukia." The umbrella was only meant for one person and as such raindrops splashed her short raven locks, dripping down her skin, soaking her clothes. "Not girl."
"Then, Rukia. You stay under the umbrella. I do not require it."
She made a face.
One of annoyance.
It was so easy to read her expressions.
"Get closer."
They stood under the umbrella together for a long time.
...
Rukia didn't like to talk much, was guarded very much about her life. Little by little he was able to glean glimpses like the multi-layered chapters of a book.
One older brother.
She didn't see him very much.
They lived in a spacious apartment in one of Tokyo's fashionable districts.
She attended Shino Uni to appease her brother but was really dreaming of becoming a manga artist as evinced by the artwork she regularly showed him of crudely drawn bunnies and rainbows.
He tried not to remark that they were the drawings of a five-year old.
The last he had, she hadn't spoken to him for three days.
Ulquiorra liked silence, but not when she was ignoring him.
...
"What about you?" She asked one day.
Silently, his look was questioning.
"I get that you're dead and all, but what about your family?"
...
Ulquiorra couldn't tell her he remained blank.
That he couldn't remember anything just a name Orihime and a smile like joy.
He wondered then if it mattered any differently?
He remembered Rukia even when she didn't go to the cemetery for days.
Her smile though rare was like the parting of the clouds on a rainy day.
But, Ulquiorra knew better than to tell her that.
She would just try to hit him like usual.
...
Rukia refused to admit she was curious.
She wasn't...well. Yes she was dammit!
He wouldn't answer her.
Just a name and something about a smile.
She hated vagueness!
"Was Orihime your girlfriend?" She tried one day.
"I don't remember." He answered shortly, gazing down at her sketchpad as though it held all the answers.
Then, she tried again the next day. Strangely unsure, faintly...uneasy at hearing the answer.
"Do you love...Orihime?"
The question hung between them, filling the silence with something unnamable. Somehow she didn't want to hear, her heart didn't want to hear but her mind responded that it was only logical to know.
"I did."
They stayed in silence for the rest of the short time before her class started.
...
It rained the next day.
During break, Rukia snuck up to the rooftop (which was relatively ghost-free) and stood beneath the showers.
Tears she couldn't stop, streaming down her face.
If asked, she couldn't have said why she was so sad.
And that angered her most of all.
...
I did...he thought, sitting beneath the tree.
I did love her, I remember that now...but something...something was always missing.
If he recalled correctly, Orihime had loved everything and everyone whether good or bad.
She was like...a kind princess from a fairytale.
Too lovely and kind to be real.
Rukia was...was rough, crude, drew bad manga panels and expected praise for them. She sat wrong, she never cried and always yelled when angry.
But she was...real.
Guarded. Rarely opened up to anyone and lonely...very lonely with her gift of seeing the dead.
As his form began to waver and grow hazy at the edges, he wondered when she would come back and he could tell her what he thought now.
...
Argh...I can't believe I let myself get sick.
Blurry-eyed, nose running and bundled up in sweats, Rukia glowered at the prescription counter of Shino private Hospital. It was the closest pharmacy within the next building of the University and the pharmacist was taking too damn long to fill her prescription.
...This is what I get for being stupid, she thought, her glares ineffectual. Turning from the wide Formica counter, she scanned the few milling students, seeing no one she recognized then past them to the wide glass doors.
A girl with streaming orange hair raced by.
Rukia wondered idly where she was going.
The white-coated pharmacist gave her a bland smile, "I'm sorry, Ms. Kuchiki but you're going to have to get a release slip from Dr. Ishida. Please go up to the fourth floor receptionists desk and ask for them to kindly fax it over to us."
She glared at the woman then haughtily turned on her heel.
Out in the nondescript beige hallway smelling faintly of antiseptic, she made her way blearily to the elevator where the orange-haired girl waited impatiently bouncing on her heels.
It turned out they were both headed to the same floor.
The girl was vapidly pretty with large doe-like grey eyes and a huge bosom evident in her pink shell cardigan. They exchanged nothing but vague smiles at each other (for Rukia it was a half-hearted grimace as her head ached dully) the girl's smile was somehow...how would one describe it?
The elevator ride ended.
The girl fairly ran out and to the receptionist's desk down the wide corridor.
Rukia more slowly in a fog, hobbled out.
Like...joy?
The reminder sent a fresh ache to her chest region.
...
"Is it true? The girl bubbled, "I got the call less than ten minutes ago! Is it true Ulquiorra's awake!"
The name...it was rare. Was it...
Rukia caught a fragment of the conversation, standing several feet away at the same counter.
"You are?" Asked the honey-blonde haired receptionist.
"Inoue. Ms. Ori-"
"Ms. Kuchiki," The receptionist helping her, spoke over the other's chatter. "Dr. Ishida will be down shortly. He's-"
Rukia wasn't paying attention, her bleary blood-shot eyes were focused on the orange-haired girl who suddenly had an identity and whose smile was much...much too familiar.
"-hime Inoue. I'm Ulquiorra's girlfriend."
Suddenly her chest felt tight.
Too tight.
Like she couldn't breathe.
Orihime smiled in heartfelt joy one last time and fairly bounced to the room number given to her by the smiling receptionist named Rangiku.
"She's so in love." Was the comment.
Rukia turned numbly from the counter, clasping the damp tissue in one cold sweating fist as she tottered after the girl.
"Ms. Kuchiki?" The receptionist- Nemu, called after her.
She ignored it - ignored it all.
She had to see...she had to know..
The door swung open then shut.
Room 204.
Inside there was a squeal of feminine joy.
Heart sick, Rukia pressed against the heavy door panel, pushing it open a crack.
Inside, a white room decorated with a thousand pink cranes, was a bed and a young green-eyed male being embraced by the joyful woman from before.
He wasn't...dead after all.
Violet eyes filled.
Seeing his thin arms creep around Orihime's waist was too much.
Rukia spun about and fled, refusing to think her selfish thoughts.
If only...if only he had been truly a ghost...then he could've...
She stumbled out of the building somehow, not able to see anything with the sheen of tears nor hear anything above the pain of her heart breaking.
Not the honk of the driver as she stumbled out into the pavement.
Belonged to me.
...
Ulquiorra let go of the strange woman.
He knew who she was, but knew instinctively it wasn't the one he wanted to see.
"Where's Rukia?"
The woman was too clingy. "Who's that?"
"A Uni student who can't draw well and wants to be a mangaka." Ulquiorra was never one to hide from the truth, rather mechanically he recited it.
"How do you know her?" Orihime was too innocent, too kind.
Though he felt weak, he felt he had to get up. Something was pushing him on...to find her. Was she in danger? Orihime tried to stop him when he shoved the covers away.
"Hey, hey! You need to rest! It's been three months since the accident!"
His vision swam.
"I...she...Rukia was someone I met in a dream."
It felt like a dream.
But was too real.
It had to be real.
"She's...the reason why I woke up."
Orihime's brow creased.
"I wanted to meet her in real life." He formulated with difficulty.
I wanted to be...a part of her life.
Sounds came from outside.
Then in the hallway.
The nurses voices were raised in panic.
"That's Ms. Kuchiki! She was just in here filling out a prescription!"
Why did he feel so strange then? As if he should know the name?
"Orihime...go and see what's happening out there."
Slowly, warily almost the girl rose and slipped out, returning within a few minutes. "Just some Uni student. I think we rode up together in the elevator. Apparently she got hit in the parking lot...her name was Ruka Kuchiki or something like that..."
He couldn't speak then.
Couldn't breathe.
She had been so close...and was now so very far away.
...
"Were you one of Rukia's friends?"
The nurses wouldn't let him into the prestigious top floor where only wealthy clients were admitted. At the desk, Ulquiorra turned, blank-faced to the handsome grey-eyed man carrying a chaste bouquet of white lilies. It was the dead of winter.
The flowers must've been expensive.
He slipped his hands in the pockets of his worn jeans.
The receptionist wanted to throw him out.
"Yes, Mr. Kuchiki. I am a part of your sister's life as much or more than you are." Ulquiorra said it boldly, quietly. A trace of soft courage in his voice. It wasn't a lie- exactly. Not that Byakuya Kuchiki knew anything differently.
One long stare, then a slight nod.
The nurses didn't ask anymore.
Rukia's room was large. Colorless like other rooms. Hooked up to many machines to regulate breathing among other things; the patient herself was tiny like he remembered.
Too large eyes closed.
Skin much too pale.
Byakuya rarely stayed above a few minutes, exchanging the flowers every three days. Their colorless cheer, a sedate elegance that only the wealthy truly appreciated.
He didn't remember her ever taking Kaien Shiba flowers.
But, he did think of her sketch book and her dreams.
He bought a pack of green paper, folding while he waited.
Byakuya Kuchiki said nothing the next time he slipped into the quiet hospital room. Only raised a thin aristocratic eyebrow at the lime green paper figures strung from the ceiling.
There were ten already.
...
Fifty.
His cell rang.
The pad of paper was balanced across his knee, a set of fine charcoal pencils on the bedside table.
The first time it was the Gallery PR asking when a new painting would be ready?
He had meant to tell her he was an artist but had quite forgotten in those days in the cemetery.
"I'm working on it now." Ulquiorra responded, sketching in part of the sleeper's face. After a few minutes of silence, the phone rang again. He turned it off with a sigh after seeing the name on the caller ID.
After a short time, she stopped calling.
The last he saw of her, Orihime was smiling hand-in-hand with bespectacled boy.
Rukia slept on.
...
Half a year later, he finished folding the paper figures and left the one thousandth one on the table.
"Wake up, Rukia." He intoned quietly, leaving with his finished sketch.
Byakuya awaited at the Art Gallery, sponsoring the event himself once he'd seen a few other pieces of Ulquiorra's art. For himself, the artist felt little pride only wishing that the subject of the newest exhibit would awaken.
...
The call came within an hour of the unveiling.
Sleeper dreaming, he'd entitled the image of a slumbering girl lying in a bed of white lilies.
It was received with critical acclaim.
Byakuya received the same call first as nearest kin.
Grey met emerald green.
The Kuchiki elder nodded that he go ahead.
The time seemed to evaporate, a breathless passage of streetlights, the mustiness of the taxi pulling up to the curb of Shino hospital. Then the elevator ride alone to the last floor. The few evening nurses smiled slightly and let him go ahead to her room where...heart racing he opened the door to find too-large violet eyes turned down to the one thousandth-one bunny in her hands.
"Rukia..." He said quietly, so many emotions conveyed in the single word.
The girl glanced up then down to the paper in her hands.
"What is this?"
"A bunny rabbit like your drawings." He deadpanned, surprised she hadn't seen it at first.
She looked at it for the longest time then up to the thousand green bunnies suspended from the ceiling instead of cranes.
"They look like bats to me." Rukia pronounced flatly.
He tried not to feel irritated she was criticizing his artistic style.
"I missed you."
"What about Ori-"
"She's gone. I woke up before because I wanted to be a part of your life."
She made a face. "I'm not...dead right?"
He went toward her and did what he had always wanted to do since the moment when they stood together in the rain-
Kiss her gently and hold her in his arms.
He was only a little bit surprised (pleased more) that she returned it.
-Finis-
:Disclaimer: does not own Bleach.
AN: for Halloween Challenge on BA. Not very scary...was it. Hmm. Anyway, thanks for reading!
No flames!
Reviews loved :)