Hiya! :X
I'm back! Tehe~! :X
It's been what?...one year and a half or so since I last been back here?
It's been a whack of a life dears so it's only now that I got the time
to be writing fanfic again and to be even into IchiRuki again for that matter.
*Gasp!* Shocking I know. XD But it happens.
Soo...the pale faced, golden eyed demon in a monkey suit kept crashing his cymbals
between my ears and the noise was splitting my head open.
And I remembered I was trying to write this story before everything went *whack!*.
So here I am and here it is. :)
Although I don't think the first draft I did went like this...hehe.
To get to the fact...my stupid laptop crashed and me, stupid, idiotic...bummed out me
did not make a back-up. TT_TT
So everything went *poof!* and I just lost interest to tell the truth
it's been real slow back then...yeah. Too much sameness. :P
Still I dedicate this to those people who enjoy reading new and outlandish stuff.
I know you know who you are and I want to thank you for being interested
and for enjoying my stories (if you do that is* *)
even if I eventually find out in some other social sites. :D
I am working on some new stuff though really
and the old stuff...well, at least one of them. :)
Anyway, enjoy and happy reading!
Disclaimer: Kubo Tite (you dork!) owns Bleach (tm) I'm only using his
characters for entertainment purposes and I am making no money
from this at all. :D
†.00.01.1.†
*.Three weeks earlier.*
A blast of cold stale air hit the right side of my upturned face as the heavy-duty steel door slid open with a smooth whispering sound. The fluorescent brightness from the corridor spill indistinct through the half-darkness I was immersed in. It wasn't fully dark outside, a sliver of orange and gray made every shadow flicker unstable: my companions.
I turn my head jerkily towards the impeccably attired figure of a woman who stepped inside my sterile room. Four bare corners, a two by two feet window to my left directly facing the door with bars to make the scenery even more cut up and dreary through the bars inside to mirror it. Safety is as safe as can be. Which does not mean necessary protection of but rather protection from of protection of. And that would be me-us; faithful recluse of this Safehold.
Even before the muffled 'thud' of the package hit the marble floor I already knew what it would contain. Books. For two months that's all I've been getting. Every week I get them. Almost like subscription overload but with sensible tastes. I wouldn't waste it on the prolific sender to do otherwise. Against principles and covert instruction to be better. I push on. Mental weight-lifting to be tested on weekends. Intelligence level evaluated, information retention capacity in multiple choice. And finally subliminal brainwashing from socially offended sender/brother/adoptive/-in-law: Get your act together. That's how I usually spend my time around this arena. Though I never get to compete. My case was too special, too sensitive to be walking around mundane insanity.
But I wasn't thinking of my next noteworthy reading assignment or the praise worthy essay that I was supposed to compose in my head. I was squinting against the sudden illumination for another sort of package. It was set to arrive also today and my insides have been folding and folding into itself for the last nineteen hours. To say that I have been waiting for it would definitely be correct.
I flinch when the light in my room was switched on but I did not close my eyes and was rewarded by seeing absolutely nothing for ten seconds while my eyes adjusted to the sudden bright intrusion. And of brightness my thoughts flew a thousand miles, a hundred memories behind. Too soon to remember. I set my jaw against the sudden intensity of the glaring light, my brows furrowed to shade my still-open eyes. It was less than I felt yesterday evening.
The 'warden' gives me a pointed look and another to the reading lamp on the bedside table. Never enough light for them and never enough half-darkness for me. I nod, barely acknowledging the reminder as my line of sight was drawn to the pile of packages near the door. I did not notice the door sliding shut in another soft whisper.
I recognize the neat handwriting immediately and felt a surge of warmth in my chest. Not nearly registering the emotion I reach for the package with trembling hands. The characters were written with a slightly off precision it seemed as if by two different hands. Which was likely true. My chest tightened, the heat spreading through my body in waves. Affection. I could recognize it now. This was Yuzu's and Karin's handwriting. To Rukia nee-san, it said. A smile almost made it to the corner of my lips.
I open the package with unsteady hands making it harder for me to get an even grip to tear the wrapping paper off until a black leather-bound notebook fell on my lap. A choked sound escaped from my parted lips at the sight, my eyes widening in almost too many emotions at once to differentiate any or at all. Tentatively my fingers traced the ragged soft cover. It was finally here. I could finally take a look in with certain authentic permission.
Then the nerves attacked me. I dropped the notebook like it was a disgusting and poisonous insect about to pierce me with its deadly pointed pincers. The bleak, black smoke curled upward near my fingertips wanting to grasp my tiny wrists and control my movements. As if it was urging me to pick it up, take it in my hands and turn the cover.
Take it! Take it! Her voice again-my/our voice discordant and barely audible like the sound was coming from a far off place and yet echoing so loudly within my head. The first alarm bell among many that followed. Talking to yourself by principle did not account for it but hearing voices while talking to yourself was what sweetened the deal. Gone, gone, gone. Dear child you are gone. She was even singing to me. What was indistinguishable for me before was now more than clear. And now I hear her more and more.
But the notebook was before me now. Waiting to be opened. Waiting to be had said I should be the one to read it. He had said I should be the only one to read it. He had said no one else should ever attempt to read it and so he'd wrapped it up nice and neat so that I should be the one to tear all that paper to shreds just to get to it. To get to him.
As carefully as my trembling fingers would allow I turned the cover to look into the very first and very-almost blank first page. There was a bit of writing at the lower right corner and the characters spelled out a name so familiar I could write it with my eyes closed. And beside it was a year and not just any year. It was the year when we first met; the owner of this journal and I. That was two years ago. And indicating said ownership was the name written in an almost elegant script:
Kurosaki Ichigo.
They say the dead cannot reveal nor share secrets with the living. I was so sure that he had not done it by choice. I was so sure I would be the one who did. But he beat me to it and now I was in isolation. I was in shell-shock therapy an hour and a half twice a week and a shopping list prescription that made this perpetual haze a mediated sort of comfort to know that once it clears I might actually have gone the wrong end of the tunnel and be free to go searching for that guiding white light. Free to go searching for him.
But not just now. At the moment I was reliving the first day of our amped-up two year lifetime together. Back to that time where no one left anyone behind. Back where no one could hear their own voice weeping and screaming in their heads. Back when the pale phantom face masquerading as the boy I loved did not haunt my waking dreams. Back to the time when we believed in the fucked up chemistry of timing.
Thanks for reading! :)
How did you find it? Reviews, comments, suggestions, reactions, admissions, inconsolable misery to how the story is? Please feel free to hit that button! You know which. :X
Well, until next time!
If you guys want there to be...very uncertain about this as always.
Much love. :D