Prompt.6: Adore
He notices her first at the foot of the cemetery.
Auspicious indeed, Wabisuke mutters deep within, chains rattling.
"Kuchiki-san." He says in acknowledgement. The petite girl with short, sharp raven locks jolts faintly, turning cold dark blue eyes to him. It's then that Izuru knows she hadn't seen him. He's like a pale ghost flittering through the trees, treading lightly as though afraid his inner despair will infect the world.
At least he secretly disparages it so.
The little Kuchiki as she was known to most, Rukia to close friends, like his close friend Renji, had always painted her a tomboy-punch happy-loud mouth sort of female. Izuru was none of those nouns and smiled faintly whenever the subject came up, the image of her larger than life eventually.
But now Renji was gone.
And Kuchiki-san wasn't yelling-punching-or clambering up trees. She just looked...a little sad. Blinked. Nodded curtly from behind a porcelain mask of nobility that lead it hard to believe she had only been adopted into it. Izuru cleared his throat nervously, thought of a dozen different things to say - then came out with the lamest his mind could possibly think of given the circumstances.
"How are you...holding up?" He could stun himself with a kido spell had the action not been so obvious - in self-flagellation. But the tiny Shinigami nodded - jerkily, and stood there immobile, a slender shadow clad in black, white fingerless gloves extending to her elbow, bronze plaque seeming too heavy for her brittle arm to carry.
"Fine." She adds when nonverbalism made the air grow tense with things neither wished to say. Izuru half-nodded himself, remembering Momo doesn't help. He was almost worthless to repair a shattered friend let alone a friend- of a dead friend. He bit the inside of his mouth, watery blue eyes tracing the angle of Kuchiki-san's delicate profile.
There, the dark circles were more pronounced. The hollowness to her cheeks a lack of rosy sunlight. Izuru recalls - just in time who he's studying so closely, who's the brother to this young Shinigami and abruptly stops. Kuchiki-san doesn't appear to notice the close scrutiny and instead intones flatly, "you're in my way."
Izuru blinks and steps aside.
This time Wabisuke chortles a distant sound of mirth.
Kuchiki-san slips around him, within calling distance, out of range of a hand on her shoulder and she pauses.
"He was...your friend too." She said musingly - to herself, he was sure, then as her appearance had much surprised him beforehand, a quiet, "I'm sorry." A breeze ruffled the short strands of her boyishly cut hair. "For our loss."
And somehow that sentiment spoken out of a hundred others, touches Izuru somewhere...deeper, inside.
...
He walks up to Renji's grave and cries tears he thought he had long dried.
...
The second time he sees her in passing.
Trailing behind Kuchiki-Taichou's steps, animatedly telling him of something or other. The stern head of the Kuchiki clan excuses himself from her after a few more minutes.
Izuru who walked beside Hisagi across a different bridge, caught the crushed look that broke her facade of impassiveness.
Was he the only one who noticed these things?
...
"Kuchiki-san." He calls the third time, striding up the hill, a lilt of forced cheerfulness to his voice that somehow doesn't fit his kicked-puppy exterior. When the tiny Shinigami jolts again, her robes rustle, she jumps up to her waraji-clad feet, spinning about almost sheepishly.
"Kira-Fukutaichou."
They regard each other - warily almost. Izuru wishes slightly, vaguely that he could read the thoughts going through that petite raven head, Wabisuke merely shows a flicker of amusement and prodding.
Pushing his wielder to go forward.
Izuru does, holding up the paper-wrapped jug as a peace offering.
Kuchiki-san scowls - delicately, just like how everything about her tiny and perfect - Izuru refuses to think he just thought of Kuchiki-san in an admiring way; her motions are of the same breed.
"It was his favorite." Izuru says out of duty as the tiny Fukutaichou slips by, with an almost apologetic 'sorry'.
...
He doesn't mind, sitting at the marker that bore a name and rank.
Izuru toasted the moon drunkenly - alone, but with an extra cup nestled in the grass besides the one resting at the base of Renji's grave.
...
Later on Matsumoto berates him - upside the head and damned if her fist hurts; on drinking alone and why didn't he invite her! Hisagi stops ogling the spillage of her girls long enough to defend Izuru's silence by saying smugly. "He has his reasons, let him alone, Matsumoto-san."
Izuru chuckles half-heartedly at them - his friends, as Ise Nanao closes the meeting. It was more for keeping up the facade of importance than anything else. He can't help however from his watery eyes slanting to the lone figure of a petite girl standing alone by the window.
He wonders why none of the other Fukutaichous attempt to strike up a conversation with her?
...
Wabisuke suggests rather snidely that maybe he should talk to her- Izuru in the same breath of their shared link, balks at the thought of making that sort of personal contact- what if she rejects him- oh the despair of that halts his thought process temporarily.
Kuchiki-san leaves before he has a chance to change his mind.
In her wake, he sighed softly.
Matsumoto stopped flirting long enough with Hisagi, to notice and wonder.
...
The next time he comes upon her, by chance of course, he has employed a few techniques Hisagi jokingly calls 'ninja skills' an affront to certain Shinobi for sure, Izuru finds them perfect for slipping out of the trees and pacing to a stop just behind the kneeling black-robed figure.
"You never bring flowers." He remarked, noting the neatly trimmed blades of green grass feathering the stone, the absence of any flora on the other markers making his question seem slightly redundant. Or maybe it's just him.
Kuchiki-san snorts, relaxing from her praying position. "Renji. Flowers?" A helpless little giggle that sounds more girly than anything. "Nah. That doesn't go."
Izuru finds the humor in his own question a second tardy and smiles wanly in response. "Eh...maybe you're right." Then just because he felt awkward enough, lifted a thin hand to brush absently at the fringe framing his left eye. Kuchiki-san shifted a little, glancing subtly over her shoulder, her profile visible to him. "Do you...bring flowers?"
The question lingers incongruously, and somehow he manages more of a smile.
"Sake." He replies; her eyes flicker down and for a heart-stopping second Izuru thinks he's upset her - blast his mouth for always saying the wrong thing - then a moment later the tension fades from Kuchiki-san and she smiles, faintly.
Just enough for Izuru to wonder if there's something medically wrong with his heart - for otherwise why would it be beating so fast?
"Yeah...that sounds about right." Kuchiki-san mumbles to the ground then rises fluidly. Curse his eye for noting every detail on how her robes rustled, how the breeze lifted the tips of her hair. Kuchiki-san turns slightly, dips her head in brief excuse of her presence and turns to go down the way of the stairs built into the hillside.
At the landing, she calls back with more surety - perhaps just a casual sentence meaning no more than it was. "See you later."
Izuru smiles more despite the place of his spirits-lifting happened to be a graveyard.
...
He does see her.
Little snippets of running errands, a slow return of exuberance following the visit of Kurosaki Ichigo whose loud voice could be heard most of the way around Seireitei - often raised in argument with Kuchiki-san.
Izuru sees them once visiting the grave of their friend - his friend. Somehow the sight of the brash orange-haired substitute Shinigami flanked by the smaller yet no less solemn girl made him turn away with a sigh.
Wabisuke questioned if this was jealousy.
The question from the spirit came at no opportune time rather inopportune as his hands shook so badly he sloshed fresh tea all over the report from Tenth Division.
'It was not,' he informed, unsuccessfully trying to erase the image of Kuchiki-san leaning against Kurosaki-san's side, from his mind.
...
It was.
Or at least, Izuru pretended outwardly it wasn't.
A week later, Kurosaki-san left.
The Fukutaichou of Third Company breathed a sigh of relief.
Even Hisagi had commented on the increasing wan pallor of his friend's face, which mysteriously disappeared and his usual pale gloom returned once Kurosaki-san was no longer in evidence. This at least, Hisagi failed to grasp - the oh so delicate thing as a missing persona giving rise to Izuru's subtle mood lift - if it could be called that.
The ever street wise Hisagi-kun crowed quite smartly, "that it was 'cause of a girl, Kira-kun was in happier spirits for!"
Izuru blushes a furious red much to Matsumoto's squeal and Momo's quiet attempts to shush her already inebriated friend. He very much regretted then accepting their invitation to a night out. None the least since every little while he found himself looking for a pair of dark sapphire eyes and short raven locks.
...
Later on, he learned from a very reliable source that Kuchiki-san did not frequent dives such as the one he was invariably dragged to - improve his social life. That was their excuse for all-night drinking parties when reminiscences about the war proved unbearable with a sober face.
...
One night Hisagi tried to set him up with some girl with an unseated position in Ninth.
Izuru politely declined, flushing indelicately when his friend probed none-too discreetly, "that he'd already set his eye on someone - and who kami tell, was it?"
He said that was most not the case and slunk away quietly with Hisagi's guffaws about his denial echoed long up the street.
...
Wabisuke agrees for the most part.
His wielder is in denial about how badly he's been running Third Division lately. What with his sighs, wan color and dismal command; it's a wonder no one had stepped in to assume command.
Izuru sometimes, silently wishes someone would.
But then, then he wouldn't get to see Kuchiki-san look lonely at the window at every Fukutaichou meeting.
...
So he tries better.
Tries to smile more - though it feels and looks too much like a rictus grin on his pale morose face. His Squad members tell him so, obviously disconcerted by the effort 'Fukutaichou' is making.
Izuru feels a little of himself wither away inside when they tell him - not to smile - it frightens them and with fake encouragement, tell him that he's doing good.
Everyone knows he's not - including himself. Izuru's not delusioned himself that much.
And that just makes him descend deeper into depression.
Anyone can see he's a failure compared to Hisagi-sempai, and even little Momo smiles shakily and runs her Division better. Out of all his introspection, Izuru fails to connect the dots - the why he sits at his desk and stares out the window - the why of his eye scanning the milling Shinigami every place he goes, before dejectedly putting his head down and walking on.
It's Kuchiki-san.
- "Kuchiki-san." Wabisuke murmurs in Izuru's sleeping ear. - "Don't deny it. You miss her." -
It stays in Izuru's subconscious, though he grumbles and makes little noises of distress during sleep. Lees than contented, Wabisuke settles back in the shadows, snorting when Izuru mumbles something about, 'nobility.'
The Zanpaku-to spirit rolls his narrow eyes beneath the curtain of long black hair.
At long last...he mutters disconsolately. "You're too...gloomy, Izuru."
And that's the Kamis truth.
...
He doesn't remember Wabisuke's words in the morning. Just the impression of a glower and the distant rattle of chains. Only a face - Kuchiki-san's, when he probes hard enough.
A jolt when he realizes he hasn't visited his parents' grave in a month...guilt hits him hard then. Enough for him to leave the third seat in charge, enough to drag him to a halfway decent flower stand and purchase four red lilies - the color is what snares his eye.
A bright fiery red so like Renji's hair, that his eyes water when paying. Thankfully his shunpo is fast and carries him to their resting ground quite quickly. He spends the next hour in quiet meditation, drying his tears. He speaks to them in prayer, tells them of the person he thinks of most - unburdens his heart in any case.
And just when he's finished, he leaves two of the red lilies, their waxen blooms a spot of bright color against the grey stone and surrounding verdure. For a time Izuru feels peaceful - at peace, taking his usual way back to the footpath. Inadvertently, it takes him past the entrance to Seireitei's cemetery.
Perhaps it's always been his downfall - but at the soft catch of breath, a voice accompanying it, he looks up, startled as if guilt-ridden he was enjoying something as simple as a walk.
"Kira-Fukutaichou!"
- "Gloomy." Whispers Wabisuke, semi-tauntingly. -
Izuru can't deny it, not when he sees Kuchiki-san trotting down, taking two steps at a time to reach the bottom. He stares - by kami, he can't help it. No matter that her stride is off, her legs too short to gain much speed, her short strands of hair bounce messily and she swats them away with the hand she had used to wave at him with. Somehow everything is still an oxymoron of messy perfection that simply is...Rukia Kuchiki.
Wave - equals greeting. His mind equates that tardily.
"Long time no see." Kuchiki-san says finally, bossily, still breathing slightly hard. Izuru finds himself tongue-tied in her presence and nods dimly. Dumbly.
Kuchiki-san's friendliness creases into concern, "hey...you feeling alright?" She frowned, peering closely at him - too close, Izuru stumbled back a few steps under her intense scrutiny. Kuchiki-san touched her own cheek, "you're all...red?"
He finds that yes - one can turn five shades of fire engine red and not die of embarrassment.
"No-ah, I-I'm fine, uh..Kuchiki-san, um thanks for the uh-"
And just like that, he's goofed it.
She nods slightly, her look narrow. "Uh huh. I see..." then she turns on her heel to walk away. Izuru doesn't want her to go and fumbles for precious minutes, until the words forcefully leave his mouth..
"Wait! Don't- "
Then as the tiny imperfect Death Goddess spins about, waiting; Izuru does the only truly bold thing he's ever done in his life, thrusting a rather abused bloom from the bag into her near vicinity, blond head bowed as though he's repentant for offering her tribute.
Kuchiki-san stares at it in surprise, takes it and just as her tiny fingers curl around the waxy petals, Izuru releases it, lets go like he wants to so bad.
To let his fast beating heart lie.
Let go before his heart breaks.
He shunpos away before he can embarrass himself any further.
...
Later on that night, he hides in the sanctity of Third's office, surrounded by the smells of stale ink, faint persimmon spice and other things too unnamable; Izuru lets his mind trace every detail of Kuchiki-san's image from memory. She's ...he begins adoringly though silent -
...and oh kami. It's happened. Izuru Kira is in love.
The statement mortifies him to embarrassment, never mind it remaining unspoken.
For the rest of the night, he can't sleep.
In the morning it's no better.
He pauses before a mirror in the nondescript barracks of Third and sees a slight reddish color tinge his pale cheeks. Pale blue eyes widen fractionally, one hidden behind a sheaf of equally pale blond hair slides shut as does the other.
For the next hour he remains in the four walled room - like a coward. Afraid the sentiment will show- be painted in bright red letters on his characteristically pale forehead - somehow everyone will know - and...laugh about it.
Humiliate him on the hopelessness of it.
Because. Izuru adores Rukia Kuchiki, even though his own private label of despair renders it an impossible hope.
...
The last waxen lily lays disconsolate on the desk, like a slash of blood in the dreary four walls. Izuru muses over it and finally in the end gives in...peeling the petals off silently while outside his four walls, voices come and go with the sound of a Division starting the day.
She loves me not - he starts with, because it's depressing aspect somehow fits.
She loves me.
She loves me not.
He pauses at the midway mark and takes in a shallow breath. Three beautiful crimson petals lie wilting a slow death on his desk. Izuru continues; she loves me. She loves me not.
The final one stood like a valiant soldier in a devoid field.
Izuru's slightly trembling fingertips pluck it in a single motion then away, "she loves me."
His breath hitched.
"Yeah!" He mutters triumphantly.
Wabisuke discreetly rolls his eyes from the shadows of their mindscape.
- "Tch. Gloomy idiot." -
...
He makes a point with his fledgling confidence restored, to swing by the cemetery.
He's disappointed.
It's empty save for the wind rustling the leaves. Izuru spends a few quiet minutes apologizing to his friend that he had forgotten on this occasion to bring an offering.
Next time - he vows.
...
Next time comes a little later than he'd like.
Matsumoto drops by and suggests they all swing by together and have a drink while at it- but that she has paperwork to finish for Hitsugaya first. That, he's surprised by, but nods vaguely if only to get the woman's vivacious presence and girls from smothering him - away.
...
Izuru buys the usual Sake and treks up the lonely path an hour before sundown. He waits while night creeps in on silent feet. Waits silently for two hours until he reflects finally that his friends stood him up - just another long line of marks gouged into his heart.
When he's just about had enough, footsteps tromp up the stairs to his far left.
Izuru pauses, then begins setting out the cups. "You're late! I was just about to-"
"K-Kira-Fukutaichou?" Kuchiki-san calls incredulously, ending his quiet accusation effectively.
He jolts, freezes like a deer caught in the headlights - or however that human saying goes. Izuru prays to the kami above that they bless him - look favorably upon him and turns just as Kuchiki-san waves her arms around. "B-but Rangiku-san said-! She said we'd get together and...and..."
And it falls into place.
Izuru feels himself flush even redder but is thankful the moonlight washes everything pale.
"Eh..uh...why don't you um...join me?" It's bold of him, he knows. But Kuchiki-san drops her arms and walks over with her usual casual grace, shrugging, flopping down beside the jug of Sake, almost guiltily setting her basket of sweet-smelling treats near her hip.
She scowls cutely. "I brought a few things..."
He pours her a cup, trying not to shake. "Maybe Matsumoto-san'll show up yet." Dryly adding. "I've never known her to pass up on free Sake."
Kuchiki-san sighs and smiles a little, accepting the cup. "Thanks."
A paper thin smile forms on his mouth, Izuru resists gazing upon her and instead drops his gaze down to his own untouched cup.
Kuchiki-san's voice rouses him momentarily from savoring the moment.
"Shall we..."
He lifts his gaze.
Her smile dips a little - shyly somehow, but returns reassuringly with the gesture of her cup.
Izuru carefully picks his up, pausing before clinking it against the side of hers.
"-drink to...healing?"
He nods, seconding it gently with more hope than he's ever felt since his Academy days.
"To healing."
-fin-
Disclaimer: don't own Bleach.
AN: first time writing Izuru's pov. =.= I've been down lately, that's the reason for non-appearances on .
No flames!
Reviews loved :)