I do not own Bleach.
It is the coldest day in winter.
In the absence of snow, the roads and narrow paths in between dead orchards have become hard like the carapace of a beetle. Life holds out, unable to move in the sheer cold. The villages clustering landscape seem to have shrunk like everything else, the wooden huts giving no warmth to those seeking it.
Those being born into that world are no more unfortunate than those before them. The only heat capable of melting frost that penetrates the ground and wrings itself around toes and hangs from the tips of boughs like tattered bands is the heat inside man's hearts. Bonfires ablaze at night, smoke rises into the sky but the hopes and wishes of the people sitting around those fires stay on the ground. They know that flying will not bring them peace, that weakness is always paid in death.
In this far-off, forsaken, weather-beaten place, names are a rarity. Whoever has one is lucky, has a destiny, a burden to carry around proudly for everyone to see.
The boy whose name means 'silver' is one of those strange creatures. The other villagers don't know what to think of him. Silently he slithers around, rustling through bushes, always occupied with something, though nobody knows quite what. Once or twice a day he climbs up the abandoned house at the end of broad street and stares into the distance where, even further away than any dream can extent, the Senzaikyuu looms set against a pale blue sky.
The boy knows of others like him. Strong ones, relentless warriors with abilities that exceed those of average humans. And while those in the little town who do not possess such powers may fear him, he takes pride in that, never letting the whispers, fingers and eyes get to him. They do not understand me, he says, one of the few times he ever speaks, and walks off.
He fashions himself as someone meant for a higher purpose but he doesn't know what purpose that may be. He keeps those thoughts a secret, like the sword he made out of bark that reminds him of his strength. He's young, too young in the eyes of other to be able to understand such things as honour or loyalty. Alienated and mysterious as he may be, never has he shown any hostility, never allowed an insult, no matter how great, to drive him over the edge.
With his white hair and squinted eyes he looks menacing, just a shadow passing through alleys like wind.
Like every other kid he steals to survive. In his case, food, only needed by those blessed with abnormal energy like him. His favourites are persimmons, exquisite and rather expensive fruits imported from other districts of Rukongai. He has no shame stealing them, utilizing a complicated and thoughtful pattern of diversions along the way to get what he wants. It is only in stock-taking that the merchants notice any theft at all.
Soon the end of winter draws close. The worst is over, relieved sighs echo around. Since the boy has no connection to anyone, such changes are meaningless to him. He knows only that is will get warmer, that his feet will feel better. The shoes he can't afford and the clothes that barely cover his elbows and knees are the only things protecting him from the cold. He doesn't quiver, he doesn't cry. At the end of the day he curls himself up inside the abandoned house and succumbs to sleep beneath a bright fire.
Like a last hurrah before the sun's victory, winter blows snow in large hurricanes over the fields and forests, coating houses and streets in white fluff. No doubt the rich ladies are now walking around under paper umbrellas, the boy thinks. No-one in the village possesses such an umbrella and they hurry around, entering their homes with wet hair and red noses.
For the boy, this snowfall is magical. Time has stopped. He wanders around aimlessly, touching the snow on branches and stones. The sky darkens, clouds turn as black as stray cats and yet a few rays of sunlight still undergo the journey to the earth and dance off of his hair and the white pattern on his kimono.
Overhearing conversations, he has learned how to dry persimmons for travelling without them losing their flavour. He carries some of those persimmons around with him now, cracking one open from time to time and eating the squishy, delicious pulp.
His foot butts against something on the ground. Enchanted with the view around him he has not noticed the small, black figure lying in the snow, almost motionless except for the slight shivers moving its arms and legs. He squats besides the person and listens to the whimpers.
It is not hard to see that the human lying before him is a woman. Her kimono is even shorter than his, torn, ragged. He wonders how anyone could decide to wear something like that and takes out another dried persimmon.
"Are you hungry?"
The glazed eyes turn towards him, the mouth the full lips moves. He does understand, without words, and gives the fruit to her, pressing it through her teeth and watching her as she chews and the colour return to her lips and cheeks.
He smiles, an honest, thin smile that not many children can muster and helps her up. She looks at him in wonder.
"If you collapsed due to hunger, than you must be special. Normal souls don't need food.", he says. His short hair moves in the wind.
She can only nod. Her throat is like an anchor, pulling her down, keeping her where she is. She eats another fruit from the boy's warm hands and strength returns to her body. He offers her a folded cloth from under his coat and points at her bare thighs, red and covered with dirt. Shyly but gladly she accepts his gift and covers herself.
She looks pitiful, he thinks. The seams of her clothes are coming loose, there are bruises all over her, marks and hints and signs. She is a bit broader than him but smaller in height. She looks older than he is, but in her unrefined state it is hard to guess her age.
The only thing beautiful about her is her head. Round like a plate, home to two big, shiny eyes full of hope. There's something remorseful in them, too, a memory she doesn't know of or chose to hide.
Pain.
"What's your name?"
It takes her longer than what should be normal to recall an answer to that.
"Rangiku. Matsumoto Rangiku."
He smiles again. He's impressed. He's found someone just like him, someone strong. He will see strong eyes like these only again one time in another being.
"Mine's Ichimaru Gin."
"Gin?" She blinks and laughs. "That's an odd name."
Together they return to the village, eating their shared persimmons. Neither of them talks. The girl doesn't seem to know anything about herself other than her name. Like him, she's been alone for as long as she can remember. He's fine with that. He asks no questions. Despite her body suggesting that she's anything but frail, he doesn't want to hurt her.
She's the only companion he has. Having no place to call home, she stays in his village and whenever they meet, they spend as much time dispelling loneliness and isolation from each other's shoulders as possible. The palace that sits firmly on the Execution Hill crawls nearer everyday. He doesn't know if it is because he has found someone like him and neither does he care. For the first time, both experience something remotely resembling childhood. They do not recognize happiness yet but they get used to it.
The pinnacle arrives far too soon. As is custom, fireworks are sent off into the sky at the beginning of a new year. It is still cold, snow clings now desperately in the form of hard, crusty frost to rooftops and accumulates at the side of roads with an iron resistance. But the people of Rukongai and the North Alley District know that soon spring will break the chains and free the land from winter's grip. The boy and the girl feel as if something will end the day spring arrives, they fear that day and grow more irritated with each passing hour. They do not know what makes them so afraid, though.
With an earth-shattering thunder the first rocket bursts into a thousand pieces, sending off sprays of colour and music into all four directions. Rangiku and Gin flail around, caught by surprise by the suddenness the festival's first fireworks. They sit on the roof of the abandoned house and stare with wide eyes at the cascading displays of slivers of purple, green, blue and yellow, whistling lines in the sky.
It has become night without transition. They're blinded by the lights glittering for seconds over and over again like stars, but they cannot look away. Numbly and flabbergasted they watch, their faces soon bringing forth grins and joy where once only apathy resided. On the ground, the people shout and yell in glee at each new explosion, toasts are screamed from doorstep to doorstep and bellied bottles are passed from hand to hand. The boy throws his legs over the roof edge and smiles.
"We'll have to make a toast, too." The girl knows that it's only his face that is smiling, not his heart. She's come to know those looks and habits of his and in return he's come to know hers like those of a friend.
Friend...
The word resounds in her mind. Unfamiliar.
"I know! To many more years of productivity, luck and birthdays!"
It's an empty phrase, overheard somewhere in the village, weightless. One thing, though, strikes her curiosity.
"Birthday?"
"Yeah. When's yours?"
She can only turn her head around and furrow her eyebrows. There's a hole in her chest but she doesn't listen to its wailing.
"I have no idea. I never really counted the days until the day we met."
As usual, there's no judgement in those eyes, eyes like brush strokes on paper.
"Then, from now on, your birthday is the day we met. You did look like you'd just been born, so it's only natural."
She doesn't answer and shoves her hands under her legs to sit more comfortably. A roof tile picks into her tailbone.
She's the first to take up the cup filled to the brim with a clear, odorless liquid standing between them. It was her idea to bring it. Earlier they had snatched it from a guy too interested in the girl on his lap to notice them stealing it and running off, giggling.
Now she looks at her own distorted reflection in the cup and wonders if it'll hurt, like Gin had told her it would. Then again, she can't fathom him every lying to her so she prepares herself thoroughly before setting the cup to her lips, gently, slowly, pouring the liquid into her mouth.
It stings like an insect bite. Her tongue feels weird and heavy and she pulls her face into a grimace, forcing herself to get it down her throat. Through narrow eyes she looks at Gin looking at her after putting the cup down.
"Blergh."
He chuckles lightly and takes a sip, slowly, just like her. No reaction shows on his face, she can only guess and hope as always.
They continue to look at the fireworks until the alcohol lays itself down on their small and feeble bodies like a blanket. They're hardly able to keep their eyes open and decide to go home.
They light a fire and wrap themselves up in the brown mantle Gin found when he first stepped into the abandoned house so many years ago. Their faces flushed bright-red from the sake, they cuddle against the wall until the fire burns down to cinders. Without thinking, the boy puckers his lips and presses a kiss on the girl's cheek. Soft snoring rises to his ears.
She's already alsleep.
The peaceful days are over soon after that, at least for Rangiku. She often has nightmares pinching her consciousness, waking her up in the middle of the night with a racing heartbeat and the starry sky above her.
Where they come from she doesn't know, she only knows the dark images they project onto her thoughts, memories, pictures in black and white. For the sake of her friend, she keeps those dreams to herself.
Time flies by, days filled with mock-swordfights and gatherings of bird bones, berries and flowers they find where they go. In the summer, the rasping and chirping of cicadas fills the air at day and the buzzing of moths around candles and glass lamps at night.
He collects firewood for both of them, silently, without complaining or demanding acknowledgement. She wishes she could stop him from going out on his journeys, from following this urge to get away from everything, including her.
He treads lightly. Rarely on his search for suitable scrubs is there an obstacle he cannot, through some climbing or scouting, overcome. Though his ankles may be cut when he returns he goes out the next day nevertheless, always that half-smile on his lips when he sees Rangiku's exasperated look.
It is already getting late when he picks up a last twig and turn around to leave. A coughing makes him stop in his movement. Murmurs can be heard between trees, not far away from where he stands. No-one ever comes here, not even once, so he instantly puts the wood down without a sound and crouches behind a bush to hide himself. As he pulls aside the leafs to get a peek, he nearly lets out a gasp.
In front of him three men kneel in reverence before a fourth one, their eyes closed. The tall man who seems to be their leader is a person with brown hair the most cruel aura Gin has ever felt. Glasses frame his eyes like a cage but in the soft, hazy light emanating from his right hand, Gin can see that they're fake.
He takes something out of the hand of one of his subordinates and puts it into a glass container. It's a small, pink light, almost like jewel, getting absorbed into something black in that glass box. But Gin has to hide again before he can see what exactly that black orb was.
He stealthily escapes as fast as he can. His heart beats as it has never before as he runs towards the village, long out of earshot of the group of men, the images of what he just observed burned into his mind. Somehow he cannot help but feel what the man did was something very wrong. He shakes off the creeps he got when he watched the light taken from the man's hand. He has seen that light before somewhere, somewhere...
He stops and catches his breath.
Why did I run?
There it is, the memory he has been searching for, no, the memory dear Rangiku has been searching for. With a clatter the pieces of wood he had hold on to all the time fall to the ground.
Men stand on a small hill overlooking the landscape. They stop in their dirty chatter as soon as they see the silver-haired boy arrive and hurry off, still laughing. The body the left behind has shoulder-long, orange-blonde hair like the mane of the sun and bruised lips. They have torn off the lower half of her kimono. They took something from her that day.
His eyes still opened in shock he runs back without the wood, only thinking of Rangiku's face, those eyes that have seen death and dread like his but which only ever show happiness.
She stands before him now and there's not one shred of that strength left to maintain those carefree eyes. Tears run down her face and Gin wonders if they're salty and hot like in the stories.
He does not dare to reach out, does not dare to make fun of her to make her smile again. He cannot bear this look of hers, those tears destroy him, break him, the sound of her sobbing and incomprehensible stuttering is like sword to him, being driven into flesh. They're the first tears he sees and he vows they will be the last.
She remembers what happened. He need not ask, every doubt, every uncertainty is banished by those tears. In a way he is thankful for them, for they make him seek the power to stop them right that instant.
Rumours of murders and disappearings abound everywhere and it doesn't take an intelligent child like him long to comprehend it all. Inside their houses, when they feel safe, the villagers tell stories of victims who where stripped of their powers and left to die where they are, only surviving by luck. To the boy listening to them they sound like frightened cowards, easy prey. He will not allow himself to become the prey, he will become a snake, evading danger until the last possible moment, striking with one lethal attack.. In more ways than one he is already dead so he sheds every last bit of humanity left in him until only his senses and instincts remain.
He disappears often. Sometimes for an hour, sometimes for days, and each time he return it looks as thought he's missing a part. Nobody hides their fear of that creepy child any more, that child that so effortlessly gets stronger everyday. Rangiku's attempts at making them think otherwise are always in vain. She grows sadder each day, her friend transforming right before her eyes while she stays the same, unable to move forward. He's now a stranger from a place he doesn't let her see. She imagines it must be a place of torture and pain, casting away all innocence.
One morning she sits in the rooftop alone again and spots him in the distance, cloaked, small, dark, taking the road fork into the opposite direction of the village. Fear grasps at her heart and she jumps down, ignoring the pain in her legs. She runs after him, screaming his name but he doesn't turn around. Her eyes become watery and she grits her teeth. She calls him again, her voice just a small boat in the raging sea.
"Where are you going? What are you do-"
At the sight of his outlandish clothes she stops. He wears a broad hakama in a shade of black she has never seen before, that reaches down to his ankles and up to the back of his head. He has pulled it tightly around his waist but she can see it is far too wide for him. He turns around. A speck of blood sits on his face under his eye like a spider.
"I've decided to become a shinigami. I'll end all this so that you-"
Don't leave me! Don't go! Her cry is silent.
"- will never have to cry again."
It is the last time he addresses her in such a way and though later, when she has overcome her loss and found enough resolve to follow him and become a shinigami like him, they spend much time in the same place, in a way one might say it was the last time they ever looked at each other.
In the future he will touch his arm where she held him and be glad he said it.
I'm sorry.