Some internal monologue. He said.

Disclaimer: I wouldn't call it Bleach. Seriously. Why? 'Strawberry' would make more sense.


Chapter Two: Musings – Her

It was much later by the time Hitsugaya entered the apartment. Soul Society bought a permanent apartment in Karakura simply because the sheer frequency of Shinigami's visit necessitated it. It was rare that it wasn't occupied any given week.

The lights were on and Matsumoto, his 'trusty' fukutaicho was lounging on the couch, an open sake bottle in front of her. She was sipping modestly from a cup.

"Taicho!" She grinned happily at the sight of her captain. "How was your day? See any action?" She grinned, making sure that he caught the double meaning.

He ignored her for the most part as he crossed the living room and headed to his claimed room. "It was fine and no. I'm going to bed Matsumoto. Don't get too drunk. I trust you to be sober should anything happen during the night."

"Hai!" She waved cheerily as she continued to drink her sake. "Night~!"

He shut the door firmly, locking it quickly. Once she had gotten extremely drunk and wandered into his room, nearly suffocating him when she decided that he made an excellent mattress in her drunken haze. He made sure to always keep the door locked after that night.

He stood in his barebones room, nothing personal since it was really just a few days before they headed back. He hadn't even bothered to unpack his bag, which really only contained some spare clothes and paperwork. He had thrown it on the bed and left to find Karin as soon as they had arrived, leaving Matsumoto to take care of any of the hollows that might appear.

Strangely enough, lately Matsumoto took their trips to the human world more seriously. Normally he would have to fight tooth and nail to get her to not shop and actually work. But the last few times, she had actually done her duty, taking care of any hollows and reporting to him of her rounds. She still shopped and drank and visited friends but she always made sure she did the work first. Hitsugaya was glad. Less he had to stress about. He just thought it was strange. She acted like her normal, lazy self whenever they returned to Soul Society.

He made his way to the window, raising the blinds so he could once again look at the stars that peppered the sky.

He knew what he had to do. He was a captain. A Shinigami. She was human. Technically so much younger than him that it would have been considered illegal and just plain wrong in the human world. It could never work. There were always stories about those that defied the laws that kept Shinigami from getting into relationships with humans. It never ended well for them. The human couldn't live in Soul Society. Not for very long anyway. And the Shinigami would have to give up their whole world in order to stay. And why? Gigai's were enough to fool humans and meet most quick inspections but they couldn't reproduce. Even if they could, the chance of a Soul having offspring was something around less than a hundredth of a percent. The couple could never have a family. And even if by some miracle they survived Soul Society, the many hollows that would be attracted to them, and who knows what other obstacles life threw at them, the human would die. And the soul would be left.

Hitsugaya remembered one story in particular where the couple did in fact survive long enough that the human had died of old age. The soul had snuck back into Soul Society (where, if they were caught, they would have been executed immediately) and spent the next three decades wandering the regions of Rukongai, looking for their dead spouse. Well, he had found her. She had remarried a Rukongai native, no memory of her past spouse or her life before.

Hitsugaya didn't know if the stories were true or if they were just made up as a warning to deter Shinigami from pursuing forbidden relationships with humans. Even if they weren't true, there was enough logic in them to be considered. He had originally convinced himself that Karin's case was unique since she was the sister of the substitute-Shinigami, but eventually he had to admit to himself that it really didn't change anything.

He sighed, closing the blinds and plopping heavily on the bed, still in his full outfit. He stared up at the ceiling, the fan spinning fast enough to look as if it wasn't just a single circular ring around the light which he hadn't bothered to turn on.

He let his mind wander, and it went were it always did, to a certain dark-haired teen with a quick grin and a quicker temper. She wasn't technically a teen by human standards but since her age still had the word 'teen' in it, Hitsugaya considered it essentially the same thing.

She had matured overnight, at least, that's what it felt like to him. He had not visited her for quite a while due to the war, then rebuilding efforts, then just work in general. When he finally went back, he was shocked at her transformation. And devastated that it had involved a growth spurt that made her taller than him. He had sulked for months after but eventually he had his own mini-growth spurts. He was still shorter than her but only be about an inch or so now.

Her other 'growth spurts' had changed the dynamics of their whole relationship. Before, they were friends. They just seemed to click, to get each other on a level that neither understood or cared to investigate. Sometimes they wouldn't even have to say anything. After the transformation as he called it, things were… different.

On the surface level, things were the same. But underneath… now there was an underneath. Things that were once innocent were avoided for fear of a tell-tale blush or awkward pause. Hitsugaya experienced the pain and rage of jealousy. And the stupidity of it. He knew that they were just looking and would never approach or do anything, but they were looking. At Karin. His Karin.

She always reprimanded him for being so mean to her soccer friends but she was just oblivious. She thought that they still saw her as one of them. A guy. He would never say it out loud but even a blind man wouldn't be able to think of her as a guy. She had… grown. More than Yuzu. Quite a bit more.

Her style had not changed too dramatically but it definitely didn't hide her femininity. She was still sporty and athletic in her clothing but something about the clothes she picked or maybe the way she wore them was decidedly… girly. Attractive. In a mostly modest way.

Sometimes she seemed to forget that she was a girl herself. She seemed to have an aversion to shorts longer than mid-thigh at best and he couldn't recall the last time she had worn pants. And sometimes her shirts were just a little… tight.

He didn't think she really understood what she was doing, to him and the rest of the male population. But mainly him. Because he wouldn't allow anyone else near her. It's like she had no clue just how gorgeous her legs were. And that it was downright dangerous to leave them constantly exposed like that. She could seriously injure some poor sap who was too busy looking at her legs and walked right into traffic. Not that he had ever. …she had stopped him before any cars had hit him anyway.

And her hair. He was positive that it had something personal against him. Some kind of vendetta. It was always teasing him. Up in a ponytail, exposing her slender neck, tickling her face the way he wanted to. Down in cascading waves that seemed to absorb the light around it, telling you that any attempt to touch would suck you in and never let you back out.

Her eyes were either her best feature or her worst. Hitsugaya never could decide. They told everything. And nothing. They were fire. They were ice. They screamed at him. They whispered dangerous secrets. Things that couldn't be spoken in the light of day. They laughed and cried and begged and teased and yelled and everything else. They were bottomless pits that Hitsugaya was constantly falling into.

Her voice. Her laugh. Her hands. Her hips. Her wicked back slice kick that won her many a goal. Her temper. Her determination. Her independence. Her expressions. Her strange infatuation with gummy bears. Her lips…

That was a dangerous topic that he abruptly stopped himself from delving into. Again. He was having to do that a lot lately.

He groaned and rolled over, burying his face in pillow. Her. Something about her just kept him coming back. He couldn't even begin to count the times he had convinced himself that he would simply not go back to the human world. And then suddenly find himself exactly there. There were countless arguments about exactly why thinking about some random human girl was stupid and pointless and wrong and illegal and there was no real reason he should be thinking about her in the first place. But it didn't stop his traitorous brain from shoving memory after memory of their times together, however brief or seemingly inconsequential those moments were. They were priceless to him.

This wasn't helping.

He got out of bed and exited his gigai, leaving it on the floor. He swiftly opened the window and jumped out, shunpoing to the roof. He definitely wasn't getting any sleep tonight. Just like last night when he had been too excited to sleep. Or too busy reprimanding himself for being so excited. Or all those other nights where he found himself thinking about her instead of sleeping. Which happened too often to be healthy.

He decided to go on patrol. He had neglected his duties all day. Might as will make himself useful if he wasn't going to sleep anyway.

He shunpoed from rooftop to rooftop, no real destination. He was just making general rounds, on the lookout for souls or hollows. He stopped suddenly.

Of course his subconscious had brought him here. He needed to have a long conversation with his subconscious. Again.

Most of the lights were on, the family still active even with the late night. He knew exactly which room was hers. He had visited enough times but beyond that, he just knew. There were a lot of things about her that he could never explain.

He saw a shadow move across her window as she crossed her room. He was such a stalker. He frowned at himself and quickly left before he lost the ability to do so.

He missed the twitch of curtains from the very window that he had been looking at, revealing those same eyes that he had been lamenting over just minutes before.


Balcony scene this is not. Kind of angsty when I think about it. Ah, unrequited love. Motivating millions of plot bunnies worldwide.