Disclaimer: Bleach belongs to Kubo Tite.

Summary: Yumichika envies Christians for their belief in an all-loving and all-powerful Redeemer.

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Unredeemable

Redemption.

Complete and undeserved redemption.

What a strange and wonderful concept.

The idea that no matter the mistakes you have made, no matter how horribly you have messed things up, it can all be straightened out, simply because there is someone out there who has the power to rectify everything, and this someone wants to correct your blunders just because they love you...

How I wish I could believe that.

It must feel so lovely to spend an entire life thinking that being imperfect is acceptable, and that there is an omnipotent being keeping an ever-benevolent eye on you. It is no wonder, really, that they celebrate the birth of this supposed being. It must truly be a time of rejoicing for them...

If only I could join in that rejoicing... If only I too could believe that after even the most horrible life can come the most perfect, beautiful eternity...

But I am already living my after-life, am I not? And so I know for sure that it is not in any way like they imagine it is. There is no God here, no all-powerful, all-loving God with the magical ability to make everything fine again somehow.

The after-life is just like life itself. You must pay for every error you make, and nobody but you will clean after you if you screw up. You must fight tooth and nail for every goal you want to accomplish, and if you are unlucky and you get the short end of a deal, nobody will cry for you and offer to compensate. You must be strong and alert because nobody else will risk their own skin to defend you against those who prey on the weak.

And above all, you must always remember that nobody cares about you, who you really are inside. Even when you are rich, noble and powerful like Kuchiki Byakuya, still nobody cares about your feelings, your dreams, your fears. You might as well not exist, and nobody would so much as notice.

I know it is weak, and shameful and ugly, but sometimes I wish I had someone to turn to like they have - someone who would simply love me unconditionally, and listen to me without judging me or criticising me, someone who would tell me that everything is going to be okay in the end, no matter how awful life seems to be right now, and that I need not worry because they will take care of my troubles for me.

I wish I could pray like they do, with the assurance that this all-powerful and all-loving God is listening to them, and cares about them, and wants to help them, and is going to help them... I read they call it "faith", this inner knowledge and conviction, and that it gives some of them the strength and the courage to accomplish feats they never would have thought they could achieve. Is it not strange how a mistaken belief can still be so powerful, and so beautiful to behold?

I become so tired sometimes of fighting on my own, always on my own... I would give almost anything to have a chance to unload my troubles on someone else, just once, just for a while, just for a few minutes - a chance to believe, even if only for one single moment, that I am acceptable just the way I am, that I am not a failure and I do not have to keep struggling to change myself, that I am worthy of being loved just for who I am, no matter my shortcomings...

Che, listen to me: "loved for who I am"; how pathetic, how ridiculous indeed.

Love... Love is an illusion at best, a fraud at worst. Even if it were real, it would not be for people like me anyway, people who fail to provide what they are asked for, people who dishonour those they profess to serve.

I was so close... I had managed to follow him through thick and thin, all the way to the Gotei 13, all the way to the 11th Division, to that Zaraki Kenpachi he wanted to devote his life to. I am not strong like they are, I am not as powerful or as fight-hungry as they are, but still, I had managed to make it there with him, and I thought I could almost start seeing my goal looming in the distance. All that was left for me to do was to obtain shikai and bankai like him, and I could have considered myself worthy of his respect and attention at last. Just a couple more steps, and I could have allowed myself to think that I had honourably repaid my debt to him, I could have stopped seeing myself as a worthless leech hanging on to him; maybe I could even have dared hope to one day become his equal, his true partner...

So close... So far. Out of reach, forever, I know it now.

All my efforts ever since he took me in, all my hard work, all my determination - swept away with just one word.

Kidou.

Kidou. My zanpakutou's type. My nature. Me.

The one thing I was not supposed to be, the one thing I must not be, the one thing in the entire universe I could not be.

It hurts so much... I wish I could laugh at the irony of it all, but how do you laugh at the fact that no matter what you ever do, no matter how hard you ever try, you will never be acceptable in the eyes of the one person that matters to you? How do you deal with the simple, terrible truth that you will never reach your one goal in life, you will never fully honour your hero, simply because of your very nature, because of who and what you are? This is no laughing matter, really.

He does not know of course. He will never know, he must never know. I would rather die than have him know, and I mean that literally. I will kill myself before revealing this to him, and I will kill anyone who would dare try to tell him.

But that does not change the facts. Just because I am hiding the truth from him, does not change that truth. The facts remain, the truth remains: I have failed, I am a failure. I have failed at being the right thing. No matter how much I try to do what is right, what does it matter, when I am what is wrong??

That is why I envy them. They believe that they are fundamentally flawed, but that this God loves them anyway. They believe they are "sinners" who can never do anything right because they were born rotten to begin with, and that this perfect God loves them nonetheless, and can make them perfect in the after-life. They believe they do not have to make themselves perfect, because He will do it for them. They believe they cannot reach perfection in life or in the after-life but that it is still all right, because they do not need to, because He will just extend his own perfection to them.

How wonderful it must be to live life with such a belief. Of course, I know they will have a nasty shock when they die and discover just how wrong they were, but in the meantime, they will have spent years, decades maybe, living a happy, hopeful life. Me, I would give anything for just a few minutes of feeling like that...

Just a few minutes of believing that if I told him the truth, he would not be disappointed and disgusted.

Just a few minutes of believing that if I revealed everything about me, he would still want me around, he would still consider me worthy of his companionship.

Just a few minutes of reveling in the pure happiness that I imagine must come from knowing that your one person knows you, and accepts you, and yes, even loves you, fully and completely, without any reservations or conditions, and that nothing you can do or say will ever change that anymore.

I would give anything for just a few minutes like that. Anything.

And that is how they get to live their whole life!

How truly, deeply lucky they are...

***

"C'mon, man, let's go! We don't have all day!"

"... I'm coming..."

Yumichika threw one last longing look at the display before turning to follow Ikkaku out of the building.

As was now the custom since Yachiru had discovered the existence of "Christmas" a decade or so earlier, the Third Seat and the Fifth Seat had been sent on a mission to the Material World to collect all kinds of special treats and presents for their little Lieutenant's Christmas party.

And as was customary too by now, Yumichika had once again been enthralled by the Christmas displays in the streets and the stores. Ikkaku always grumbled that he did not understand what his friend saw in those ridiculous tacky decorations, but he always gave him time to admire them nonetheless.

There was one place in particular that Yumichika insisted on visiting every year, ever since he had studied the meaning of Christmas in a book he had bought on their second such shopping trip. The small and modest building in a quiet side-street of Karakura Town did not look like anything remarkable from the outside, and they almost never met anyone there, but there was always light and warmth inside whenever they came, as well as a soft, happy music spilling into the frozen street through the half-open door.

It was a Christian church, and every year, a different Nativity scene was displayed in a corner of the main room. Ikkaku had made it clear at first that he could not fathom why the little figures in the weird fake stable fascinated Yumichika so much, but after a couple of years of facing his friend's quiet and very silent smile for all answer, he had given up on ever obtaining an explanation, and had taken to just sitting on a chair while waiting for Yumichika to do whatever it was he was doing in his head while kneeling in front of the scene.

There was no way Yumichika could ever share with him the thoughts that crossed his mind as his gaze wandered over the family of three, and the shepherds and the kings, the animals and the angels. It was not because he thought Ikkaku would not understand, but because he was ashamed of entertaining those ideas to begin with. He was ashamed, and yet at the same time, he could not help looking forward to this moment every year. Like some strange addiction, the Nativity scene kept drawing him back year after year, luring him with an almost-promise of deliverance, even if deep down he knew he was only fooling himself.

Christianity, like all other religions, was dreadfully wrong in its beliefs, but Yumichika still found its concept of redemption utterly fascinating, and that was why he loved watching the scenes: because while he was looking silently and intently into the various faces of the baby Jesus, he could allow himself, for just one minute, to dream that maybe, maybe, somewhere in some universe, somehow, there was a way for him to stop being a failure after all. It was no more than a fantasy, an illusory reverie, but for one fleeting moment every year, in this small insignificant church flooded with light and Christmas music, he could almost, almost touch it...

His heart always nearly broke with despair when he finally had to wrench his gaze away from the peaceful exhibition and settle his mind back into reality, but still he could not stop himself, year after year after year, from staring once more into the face of baby Jesus and hoping desperately against hope, wishing against all odds, with all his heart, his soul, his entire being, that Jesus were real, just for one minute, and were able to make him right, to make him good, to make him acceptable...

"Yumichika, for pity's sake!!"

"I'm coming!"

I'm coming, Ikkaku, I'm coming... Even if I'll never, ever arrive... I'm sorry. I'm so sorry...

**

The End