Hisana paused, the brush hovering above lines of feathery script. The hand was ugly; the sentiments were far from profound. She wished she could think of something worthwhile to write.
"What are you doing, Hisana?"
She looked up with a gasp. Byakuya had been away and, where she might once have run to him, she now levered herself up slowly, while he crossed the room and encirlced her in his arms. Every time he was gone, she was afraid she grew a little older. He never changed though; his features smooth and always so calm.
Three months had passed since she'd woken in a hospital bed. Unohana's medicines had worked, clearing the infection in her chest, but she was weak. Other sicknesses ate at her body; petty complaints, but each one seemed to consume a little more energy. She didn't yet believe in this half-life, in which the colours had faded from her existence. When she dreamed, she was still the girl who had survived Rukongai; she was young and strong and running through the rain-soaked streets of the sereitei with a man who swore he'd marry her one day. When she woke, her world had become bounded within the walls of the mansion. For all the beauty here, she was a prisoner, though she felt neither trapped nor restrained; she had just lost her way somehow.
Still holding her, Byakuya glanced over her shoulder at the writing desk. She put her hands on his cheeks and kissed him, pulling his attention back to her. An unexpected side effect was that she left inky fingerprints on his face, and she giggled.
He wiped his face, found the ink on his fingers and gave a rare smile: "What are you writing?"
"I thought I'd start a diary."
"Can I read it?"
"It's very poor and my hand isn't steady, Byakuya-sama."
"I don't care."
"Let's walk in the garden, instead, while it's still daylight and I'll tell you everything that's happened here. You won't need to read it."
"It's cold," he said.
"I'll be fine."
How well we lie, she thought. Maybe we could start to believe the very stories we are telling. I will say that I am happy and have everything I desire and you can tell me that I am beautiful and that you are not waiting, one way or another, for this perfect world to split open like a rotten fruit. Lies were so much easier to believe when you told them to yourself. She should know; she'd become an expert.
She went to her wardrobe and took out the white haori with the cherry blossoms embroidered on the sleeves.