Prologue: Please Return Her Smile
That night, she sat by her window watching the full moon as the unshed tears awhile ago were released. It was always like this… ever since he left… every night tears would involuntarily appear as she tried to recall everything about him. It had been five years already. Everyone seemed to have forgotten about a certain white haired shinigami who once saved their world with the help of the humans of the world called earth.
Yes, in those long years there was never a night that she never cried… tears were always there whenever she thought about him… whether it was their good times together or bad. It was as if the tears itself were a proof that sometime before… he existed.
"You said you'd return…" she whispered to the moon as she fought the urge to break down. That day, when a certain arrogant boy left their world with his whole squad, to defeat some of the strongest hollows ever regestered in the hollow base. 5 years... and not a single person from squad 10 had returned... before he left… he told her… as he looked straight into her worried eyes... that he would come back… he never did. Squad 10 as people knew it, didn't exist anymore. A new leader for squad 10 and a new squad now controlleed that part of Soul Society. It seemed as if everyone had forgotten him. The child prodigy.
Suppressing her sobs, she closed her eyes as she recalled how his voice sounded like when he called her name. Everyone calls her name and yet, when he calls her… it sounded different. It was as if he was calling her by a different, more beautiful name. "Momo," she opened her eyes abruptly as she remembered him calling her with his strong voice. "Toushiro..." she hugged her knees as her eyes never ceased to release her misery.
"Good Morning," Momo greeted her friends as she entered the training room for squad 9. A man with a few tattoes on him looked up from the one end of the room and greeted her back. He was holding his sword over his shoulder. Momo glanced her eyes on his one arm. "Looks like you went all out again," she pointed to the bandages. "Yeah, met some hollows a while back, we underestimated those guys, the hollows are getting stronger every damn passing year," Renji scratched the back of his head humbly, and yet with a touch of annoyance. "Well then, I have to get back home, our squad needs food for tomorrow... I'll be on my way then," Momo bowed formally. Renji nodded carefully, he had nearly forgotten that Momo was a squad captain.
She became a squad captain just about a year after him and Kira, Renji had taken Tousen's seat as the captain of squad 9. and Kira was the new captain for his own squad, squad 3. Since Aizen was killed, she had officially been given his place after a lot of judgement from the head-captain. Renji stared after her as she passed the street. "Such a waste, to see a beauty like that suffer," Kira mumbled from the roof. "Her smile was never the same since that day…" Renji lowered his eyes to the floor. "…And we might never see it again," he continued. "I'll try to cheer the lady up," Kira started and was gone even before Renji could stop him. He didn't know if it was a good thing to bring it up, even Kira was suffering from Matsumoto, but not to Hinamori's extent.
"Momo-chan," Kira said as he cought up to her. "Ki-Kira," the nervous woman blinked rapidly in surprise then stared at him. "Since no one is yet to be starving… why don't we take a walk?" he invited her.
"I don't want to go there…" immediately she stopped in her tracks as she saw where they were going. It was the same hill where he used to stay whenever he liked to see things differently. "When are you going to stop waiting for him?" Kira asked and slowly turned around pointing in the direction of the shinigami graveyard that was given to squad 10 after their expected death due to no return in the past 5 years. Momo's eyes widened in shock from his blatant question.
"I'M NOT WAITING FOR HIM!! I'm…not…waiting for him…because… I know… he won't…come back," her entire body shook as she fought every urge to cry. "He won't come back... it's been 5 years, he won't return... he won't come back." as she tried to force a smile, she felt as if her lungs were squeezed and her heart torn out. Slowly tears appeared out of her eyes and she fell down to her knees dropping her food that were earlier in her arms.
Kira noticed that he had done a terrible mistake, she wasen't ready, he held his one hand over her and knew that if he were to comfort her now… it would hurt more. "I was nothing to him anyway. I don't want him to stay just because I don't want him to go… I don't want to stop him from his shinigiami duties which he hated and liked so much. I won't do that… not to him, he never liked going on his missions, but he loved helping people, he just... never showed it." Momo whispered. She got to her feet, and dried her tears. "Forgive me Kira, it's not right for a squad captain to cry over something like this, forgive me." She repeated and started to walk away. "Momo-chan… were you in love with Toushiro?" the next thing he heard were the sound of her feet running away from him.
"I couldn't tell him to stay… I couldn't tell him not to go… I couldn't tell him not to leave me…" she repeated to herself again and again as her tears soaked her pillow and her sobs filled her room. Only tonight was she able to break down totally like this.
"You said... you would come back… TOUSHIRO YOU IDIOT!!" she yelled as she squeezed her pillow in her arms. "Well, sorry for being an idiot," her heart stopped a few beats as her mind refused to register what she heard. It was a strong, deep, arrogant yet confident tone that belonged only to him. A gust of wind made the curtains rise. The moonlight revealed a figure of someone behind the thin cloth. Her swollen eyes widen as she forgot how to breath. "T-Toushiro," right before her was a shinigami as she remembered him to be…with spiky white hair and snowy white skin. It was him.
"Momo," that was all it took for her to snap out of her trance and jump into his open surprised arms.