3. Outliers
Shuuhei and Nanao
Everything that Shuuhei has ever been, has been a shadow along the path of another.
Sometimes; when he sits alone atop the hills of the great world, expansive and endless in its possibilities, he wonders if he's not just the result of a hundred other lives. Somewhere along the way he lost his self among ideals of justice and hero worship. He feels tired. Tired and useless and foolish.
Shuuhei picks at the grass at his sides and falls back, heavy, onto the hard earth and watches the way the clouds roll across the blue sky. Soul society's sky is unearthly in its color - it is like looking at a painting of what a perfect sky should be. The sky is perfect and all the people under it are also perfect. And everyone has a perfect foil. And a perfect idea of what they are and who they are to others. The kenpachi, Zaraki. The healer, Unohana. Izuru's sword mimics the wielder and neither can bare their own weight so they befriend the woman who cannot be weighed down, Rangiku, whose life and sword slips through the cracks like sand and they are perfect companions. Momo has Captain Hitsugaya, they are fire and ice. The twin sword duo are as old as the shinigami themselves. Everyone has a place, thinks Shuuhei. They all serve a purpose.
Maybe Shuuhei's purpose will always be to play the pawn. Maybe he will vanish in the history books of a great power and his destiny is not to leave the mark, but to be the stepping stone for the person who will. Somehow, that seems fitting and it only stings half as much as Shuuhei expects it to.
"Good afternoon Hisagi-san," says Nanao. She is graceful when she sits beside him; she has a book in hand, she pushes her glasses up the bridge of her nose and she looks at him with a mirrored expression, like she knows every thought in his mind and all of those that have ever been.
"Ise-san," says Shuuhei and does not sit up. They don't run together, nor even in the same vicinity though they are roughly the same age. Nanao has been a solider all of her life… Shuuhei has not.
"Ise-san," says Shuuhei again, several minutes later after her book is open and she has made progress through its first few pages. She glances at him over the rim of her glasses, a question in her eyes and she waits for him to continue, but he falls short.
"You seem like you have a lot on your mind," says Nanao, saving him.
"Only recently," Shuuhei admits.
"Would it have been better if I hadn't intruded on you?" Asks Nanao, not unkind. She dog-ears her book and sets it aside. She is sitting with her legs folded under her and it is an art to maintain such a position for any length of time but she keeps it like a priestess and shows no sign of being bothered.
"It's hard to intrude on something that isn't anything," says Shuuhei. And then, after a pause: "I just wanted distance, sometimes I can't stand to be in the soul society." Nanao smiles secretly at him and he nearly misses it.
"It's the structure of it, isn't it?" She says. Shuuhei doesn't know how to respond but Nanao moves forward, to the precipice of their hill and gazes out to the white tower in the far distance. "Sometimes I forget that all of it is just a vast network of military precision. Every solider is a cog and it all moves effortlessly toward a task. I hate it, truthfully."
"Are you allowed to say that?" Shuuhei grins, joining her at the edge.
"No," Nanao smiles, "no I don't think the captains, or other vice captains would think well of it. But I think I know you…" Nanao stops short and looks at him, " I think everyone comes together just a little too well down there. I don't often feel as cohesive. I have always been an outlier … Partly by choice," Nanao admits.
"I think I might be an outlier too," says Shuuhei, thinking. It feels like there's no reason to stay and no place to go if he leaves. The world has taken his life and there's nothing to do with it now but to dwindle it down and pray that someone, anyone, finds worth in him and wants him and wants to know him too. Shuuhei doesn't want to be a person dependent on other people but he doesn't know that he can be anything without them. Just a shadow on a path with no shape and form of its own.
"Even so," says Nanao, saving him again.
