Author's note:
This is a product of my nocturnal lifestyle. It's a short drabble, an idea that I had as I was lying in bed listening to Someone Like You by Adele. It's nothing too great, but I hope you enjoy.
Disclaimer:
I do not own any of the following characters from Bleach. All rights belong to Kubo Tite-sensei. Additionally, all rights to the lyrics from Someone Like You go to Adele, a beautiful, wondrous singer.
I heard that you're settled down;
that you found someone and you're married now.
I heard that your dreams came true;
guess he gave you things I didn't give to you...
Easily, seven decades had passed by.
She was dying.
He held her dry, flecked hands in his smooth, youthful ones as she breathed her last. The color slowly drained from her face, wrinkled with age. Her hair lay in a white pool around her pillow, her body dried out like a raisin. He solemnly watched over her.
Outside behind the opened shoji screens, the first sakura blossoms had yet to bloom.
With a last squeeze of her hand and a smile on her lips, Kurosaki Karin left the world of the living.
He had waited for so long.
"Promise me..." she pleaded in his arms, weeping as they bid each other farewell. "When I die, promise me you will come find me." Theirs was something impossible; of two worlds and destinies.
Toushiro could only look at the girl he had grown to love, the woman who was now an adult, a simple human. She was at the ripe age of starting her own family. His existence and place in her life had no right to halt the natural course of life; to keep her from living. He could offer he no such future, no such life.
It is for the best, he told himself. Yet, he found it hard to step away, hard to take those two steps that would take him back to where he belonged. The hell butterfly swirled. His hold around her tightened, pulling her into his hard chest and last embrace. He had not changed in the past ten years, yet with their every encounter, she would be reminded of her own mortality, her humanity. Birth, childhood, adolescence, puberty, adulthood, menopause, age... and death. It was all that her life would be.
He gave her a curt nod, and his hand reached to take a hold of her crying face. He kissed her tears away, turned her face, and kissed the remainder of the salty streams from her other eye as well. He kissed her hand lovingly while his turquoise held hers. "I promise you this."
When she died, he would be there to send her off.
When her soul was ready, he would seek her out.
In Rukongai, in the Seireitei. No matter where, he would sweep her off her feet.
It did not matter that he would be a stranger to her.
He promised her this, so their souls could find peace in their impossible love.
Kurosaki Karin was 11 years old when she first met Hitsugaya Toushirou, jubantai taichou of the Goteijusantai. It was the meeting between a spiritually sensitive tomboy with a talent for soccer and a genius, young shinigami taichou.
Who would have known... how bittersweet this would taste?