Chapter 2
I do not own bleach!
Yeah, I said that this was going to be an experimental, but I finally got a good plot/storyline. I thought of it while I was doing the summary… XD
Well, happy reading everyone, and Please do review!
By the way, sorry this chapter is so long. Plus, being experimental and all, I just wanted to warn you that there might be some minor and major changes by the end of the story! Thank you for reading!
P.P.S. (I changed everything from Bold to normal, sorry about that, I just wasn't thinking and posted it before I changed it back to normal. I was just trialing with it. XD)
-XHitsuKarinX316X
When I had finally reached the pavement, there was another grassy slope awaiting me. The slopes were slippery thanks to the sprinkler system that went off every two hours after the soccer team practiced. Seeing that I would probably slip before I got to the end, I sighed inwardly and began to make my way down the slick incline. Toshiro must have spotted me because as I looked down, watching my every step, I got the feeling that someone was watching me. I looked up at him just enough to lose my footing and fall head-first towards the rapidly approaching ground. When I thought that my next move would be peeling my face out of the mud, strong, steady hands were there to catch me.
"Whoa," The steady hands lifted me up and stood me upright. "You know kid, that was a close o-" As I looked up, Toshiro caught my eye.
Toshiro's POV:
It had been almost fifteen minutes, and I was getting worried Karin wasn't going to show up. She was never one to back out of a challenge, and considering how long I had been gone, I would consider this a challenge too. Suddenly getting a call from a friend that hasn't talked to you in almost three years and them saying 'hey, let's go to the park so we can talk about our feelings!' would be considered a bit hard. I didn't know if she would be mad at me, happy to see me, sad that I hadn't contacted her sooner, or just all of the above.
I sat on the blue railing that we used to sit on as kids and watch the sunset together. Three years ago, the last day that I saw her, she was wearing something different. She wore a skirt that day, and some black flats too. She wore a normal school girl's shirt, but she still looked a bit more beautiful than usual.
Something shifted out of the corner of my eye and I lost my train of thought. I looked back to see a raven haired girl sliding down the slope. She looked familiar, but I couldn't put my finger on it. She looked up at me just long enough to misplace her footing and trip over a little divot in the grass. Thinking fast, I wasn't about to let this poor girl get a face full of mud, where ever she was going, and whoever she was.
I jumped up from my perch on the railing and ran towards the girl. Before I could register, the girl rested in my arms. She even smells familiar… "Whoa," I shifted her upwards into a standing position. "You know kid, that was a close o-" I stopped mid-sentence as she looked me in the eye.
"K-karin!" The girl shrugged me off and spun around to face me.
"Thanks," she said hesitantly. "You look… taller." It was true. I was a whole head taller than she was. Something inside of me said, YES! But something else inside of me cracked. I had always enjoyed being shorter than her, but apparently, she wasn't going to be very tall, so I made up my mind to get used to it.
I looked at her harder, taking in every detail. Her once grey eyes had turned a light shade of violet, her once short hair was now down to the small of her back and up in a pony-tail. She was wearing a blue jacket and some skinny jeans, and if I was correct, she was wearing a hint of makeup.
Karin's POV:
He stood there for a moment, looking at me up, and then down, up and then down, making me feel abnormally uncomfortable. I looked him over too. He was so much taller than I was, his eyes were a new color, a deeper color, a warmer color. They were a darker green, but they still had the same brilliant glow about them. The thing that shocked me the most was that his hair was no longer gravity-defying. It was more of a relaxed style, where his hair shifted to the right over his eyebrows.
"What, are you just going to look at me you pervert?" I gave him a dangerous glare. "because I can still beat the crap outta' you if you encourage me." I said, taking a step towards him. He jumped back in surprise and then frowned. I stood there for a moment and waited for him to respond. Usually, he responded with something witty and stupid that would get him a punch or something, but this time, he was silent. "what the hell old man? Why are you so freakin' quiet?"
He looked at me and smiled. "sorry, did that bother you?" He didn't say it sarcastically, like he normally did, but he said it sincerely. I punched him in the arm.
"Hell yeah it did! I didn't come here to stare at you, and let you stare at me." He rubbed his shoulder and smiled again.
Toshiro POV:
Ouch, that hurt. I rubbed my arm. She may look more like a girl, but she's still got one hell of a punch.
"Karin, you look so different," I said, lost for words.
"What of it? Do you hate it?" she said, not sounding sure of her aggressive tone.
"Hate it?" I raised my arms innocently, trying to lift her mood and bring things back to the way they were three years ago. "No, no, no. I can't hate it, I was just thinking about how…" I stopped, searching for the right words. Beautiful. I wanted to blurt the word out to her face, let her know what I was really thinking.
"Well?" She said, squinting her eyes.
"…grown-up you look." I looked at her face. She registered what I said and her face softened a little. "C'mon and sit over here Karin," I said, motioning to the railing. "We can talk over there." I followed up behind her. When we reached the railing, I grabbed Karin by the waist to try to lift her onto the railing. She was unusually light for being her age. She slapped me away.
"Hey, hands off me!" She said, looking back at me. I pulled my arms away and gave her an apologetic look while she returned it with a furious, teenage girl kind of glare. She climbed up onto the railing and sat down, settling herself so that her feet overlapped with the second metal bar from the ground and her thighs rested on the top bar. I sat next to her.
"So, what did you notice was different about me?" I asked, feeling slightly self- orientated.
"Everything." She said bluntly. She looked down at her shoes. "Your hair, it's different."
"Okay, well, did anything change while I was gone?" aw crap… wrong words.
She glared at me from the corner of her eye. "Yeah, actually." She didn't seem to finish her sentence the way I heard it. We sat in awkward silence and watched the sun go down over the small town. I decided it was best to break the silence.
"Karin," I said, scooting closer to her. "Are you angry with me for leaving you?" She looked over at me, her forehead bumping into mine, that's how close we were. I groaned and held my head.
"Well, it isn't all sunshine when your best friend just picks up and leaves without them telling you." She said, rubbing her forehead. "Why?" she didn't sound as aggressive as she did a few minutes ago. I figured that was a good sign.
"Just because, you've been giving me the cold shoulder," She took a deep breath.
"I'm sorry it seems that way, but sometimes, leaving your best friend behind without any means of contacting them can leave a hole in their heart." She looked at me. "Toshiro Hitsugaya," Her tone was harsh, but I wasn't expecting what she was going to say at all. "I missed you so much, dammit."
"You still have your foul mouth, that's for sure." I said, captivating her beautiful face as I thought about holding her hand in mine, something I had planned to do long before I had left for the winter war, but no matter how inviting her hand was next to mine, I couldn't bring myself to do it.
Thanx Everyone! The next chapter will be coming out in three days! XD
-XHitsuKarinX316X
