Characters: Uryuu, Soken (mentioned), Ryuuken (mentioned)
Summary: What happens to someone when they lose their safe haven?
Pairings: None
Warnings/Spoilers: None
Timeline: Pre-manga
Author's Note: Just a pointless little drabble.
Disclaimer: I don't own Bleach.
The day was cold and overcast, with no wind, but bitingly chill. The grass was brown and dead, the trees stripped of their leaves, caught in the awkward, ugly stage between life and death.
The trees alone, with their branches casting long shadows, bore witness to the small headstones that littered the ground there, in neat rows, never too close to each other, always one headstone a respectful distance from another. The inhabitants were dead. There was no need for them to be cramped.
And the trees alone bore silent witness to the boy who came, has come for two years now, and sat on his knees and talked to a gravestone.
Uryuu sat on his knees, wishing his jacket was a little thicker as he drew his scarf more closely about his throat. He was ten now, but not much bigger than he had been at eight, and his small bones did not take the cold very well.
"It's cold today, isn't it?" he politely addressed the gravestone. Predictably, there was no reply. No matter how much he cast words to a hunk of rock, no words ever came back to him. "I'm wearing my warm clothes like you always told me to in cold weather. I haven't forgotten, Grandfather."
Uryuu smiled weakly, a painful mockery of a smile that made his jaw hurt, and it soon faded. "We had a test in math class today." He grimaced. "Long division. I think I did alright, though."
A crow cawed in the distance; Uryuu's hands tightened ever so slightly on his knees. "I hope it's warm where you are, Grandfather. It's really very cold here, and Father always keeps the thermostat down."
More than ever, Uryuu wished he could hear his grandfather's voice again. Something to fill in the silences between his halting, falsely cheerful sentences. A sick weight settled in his stomach, threatening to swell shut his throat.
"Father and I fought again yesterday. You know, I can't even remember what it was about." Uryuu's voice cracked. "We're… we're fighting even more than when I came here the last time, if you can believe it. We fight all the time now."
It was true, and Ryuuken had come to a belated, highly unpleasant realization. Far from undermining his relationship with his son, Soken had in fact been trying to preserve it, had tried as best he could to soften Uryuu's views of his father, tried to make him see that Ryuuken had his reasons for choosing the path he had. Now, he could be secretly grateful to his father, if only for that.
At that point, all Uryuu's faltering attempts at composure dropped and failed. "You know," he whispered, "I really don't want to fight with him all that much. I'm tired of fighting. I'm tired of being afraid that something I say or something he says will turn into arguing, all the time. I don't want to face him when I come home from school. He used to be kinder; he isn't anymore. Father scares me, just a little bit.
"I…" Uryuu broke off, and stared at the stone, willing it to speak. His throat constricted; his eyes burned, tears clinging to his eyelashes but refusing to fall.
"I don't want to go home."
A small, still slightly babyish hand found itself pressing against the smooth stone, fingering the characters that spelled out his grandfather's name. "I wish you were still here, Grandfather. You always knew what to say. You always knew how to make everything seem better. You always said…" Again, his small voice failed. "…You always said that everything would seem better tomorrow."
Tomorrow hasn't come for Uryuu since his grandfather died.
A roll of thunder, distant but still highly audible, came from the east. Uryuu stared at the gathering storm clouds, and stood up, shivering a little bit. His knees hurt from kneeling.
One final time, he attempted a smile, a broken thing, which died as soon as it came into existence, a stillborn smile. "I'm sorry, Grandfather. I have to go; it's going to rain." He bit his lip. "And Father…Father will be angry with me, if I'm not home soon.
"Grandfather? I still miss you. I miss you now, more than ever."