It's been a while. Pls enjoy. =)
V
"Ruki-chan!"
"Kurosaki-san," she greeted the bustling man who made a full swirl before he clasped his hands around hers.
"You used to call me 'Daddy'!"
"It was years ago."
Isshin's lips curled into a scowl. "You can still call me that. You are the daughter I never had!"
She laughed. "You have two!"
He pouted impishly. "Three is even better!"
She smiled. This sort of conversation was all too familiar. Over the years, they had done this routine countless times, but somehow, it never seemed to get old.
In the shadows of the dim orange streetlamp, Rukia could see his expression softening as he paused in what appeared to be a rather fond thought. He sat himself down with his arm stretched along the length of the bench. "Ah, he came home this year."
She made no comment as she propped her sword against the bench and sat down quietly beside him. She was aware of the fact, and she was certain that Isshin knew that she was waiting naively with great anxiety. A part of her was already resigned to the belief that he would not forgive her departure and would no longer wish to see her. The past few years of waiting had not disproven her theory yet.
Neither of them spoke and Rukia remembered how Isshin's silence had an intellectual quality to it which she really liked. It was a charming sort of silence that was akin to the ebb and flow of waves, comforting and thoughtful, and it was a fine trait that had been passed on to his son. She smiled at the thought of how similar the pair of father and son was, even though they begged to differ.
"He misses you," he finally spoke, his tone quiet.
"He told you that?" She smirked at the absurdity of the possibility that Ichigo would ever admit to something so sentimental.
"He'll kill himself before telling me anything like that," he growled in disapproval. "But well, there are a few things a father always knows."
His head was tilted back and his eyes were closed. Rukia could see the shadows of his long lashes on his cheeks and the contours of his tall and narrow nose that led to a slightly surly-looking lips that was almost a little too wide for his face when he smiled. These features were one of the little things she remembered she found so endearing in Ichigo, things which he had inherited from this man, this man who had entrusted his son to her.
She looked away, wanting to hide her guilt. She had mulled over and tried to justify her reasons for leaving. They were from two different worlds, Ichigo and she. They were powerless to change the world they were born in and they were unable to merge the boundaries of the living and the dead. They had no happily-ever-after, for that illusion of a happily-ever-after would only melt into a pool of caustic acid that would burn her if she stayed.
They had so much love, but she held onto so much resentment and anger as well. She had crossed the infinitely vast space of the living and the dead, but what had she gained in the end? Only the realization that she was unwilling to sacrifice her past for a future in a world she did not belong. It was a future she had once believed lay in the palm of his hands that held her, but it was a future she no longer saw.
She failed them. She failed the people here who believed in her.
"I went away, I left him, without reason," she said. Rukia smoothed out the creased in her black kimono, brushing them repeatedly against her skin. Five years, she had sat here, waiting. Five years, she had imagined how the years would have changed him and how platonic their reunion should be like. She imagined him forgiving her obstinacy and greeting her in feigned politeness. "He won't come."
"You were terrified, Rukia."
She was staring down, surprising herself as a tear fell directly down onto her clenched left hand. For years, she made up so many excuses for leaving, but never once she wanted to acknowledge that she had been terrified. It was definitely not the only reason, but it was one of them. She was terrified of the uncertain future, of the happiness that came too easily to her. She had fought all her life and nothing had come to her so effortlessly. She was convinced - something that came so easily was bound to disappear just as easily as well. "I'm sorry."
Such adolescent infatuations; it was bound to disappear.
"Ah, look at the time," Isshin announced as he bounced out of the seat. "I've got to pick up my baby girls before some thief steals them away from me!"
He stopped to ruffle her hair and his warm palms lingered a little longer, like she was the daughter he never had, like he was the father she never had. "He'll come. Wait a little longer. I'm sure he'll come."
"It isn't right," Rukia stated quietly.
"There's nothing right or wrong, Ruki-chan," his smile was like a sigh. "He'll come," he said again, like a reassurance, before he waved and left.
She sat there in the humid air, surrounded in the smell of soil and grass that mingled with the mosaic of memories scattered throughout this town. Footsteps of their scintillating past that had become nothing more than a convolution of mistakes she should have never allowed herself to make. Yet, those three years had filled her fuller than the half century of shinigami days she had before he came into her life. Or perhaps, even more of her entire life than she could possibly remember.
Memories. They were nothing more than intangible, dubitable recollections that would not leave behind a vestige of its beauty or even evidence of its existence. They had no value to the people who did not make them. They were emotionally-laden and emotions were often like a ubiquitous fog that bleared the path ahead and allowed one to only see what was close. Memories were only the present of the past. Memories had no future.
She had already lost track of time when she heard the sound of chains dragging across the paved ground. She looked at the emaciated and pallid child, who was staring right back at her. "Hello there," she greeted.
He seemed a little startled, and then recovering quickly, he tilted his head quizzically, "Onee-san?"
"I'm Kuchiki Rukia. What's your name?" She asked as she patted the empty space beside her.
"Saito Yukio," he answered promptly and he plopped himself down by her side, with unexpected alacrity. "Onee-san, are you dead too?"
"I have been, for a long while."
Children were always the hardest for her to send off, for they were often disoriented and confused. They had barely grasped the idea of what being alive was all about and then they were already gone. They were always looking for their parents and crying and yelling. Rukia knew her job was not to comfort these children nor was it to explain to them the meaning of death, but she never had the heart to be harsh with them. Perhaps because they did not know how to grieve for their own deaths, so she wanted to grieve for them instead.
But this child understood what death was. She had seen enough of these type children to know that they must have been sick for a long time, and for some, even if they did not understand what it truly meant to die, when it happened, they would realize that it was an awaited release from their suffering.
"Papa and Mama cried a lot," Yukio said, swinging his tiny legs that did not reach the ground.
"They must have loved you very much."
Yukio nodded with certainty. "Did your Papa and Mama cry a lot too when you died?"
Rukia shrugged slightly. "I don't know. I'd never met them."
The boy's brows creased, like he felt sorry for her. Rukia smiled. "It's okay. I was just a baby. I wouldn't remember."
"Papa and Mama loved me very much. Papa stopped working and brought me here, away from the city, so that he can spend more time with me. I knew Mama was always crying, but she did not like to cry in front of me. So I tried to never cry in front of her too. I was very happy with them. I was very lucky to have them as my parents."
His overly jovial façade had fallen, but even now, this precocious child struggled not to cry. He did not speak for a very long time and then he asked abruptly, "Onee-san, why are you dressed funny?"
"When people die, sometimes they go places where they do other things to help people. And I'm here to help send you to a place where other people like you live."
"Is it heaven? Papa and Mama said that children like me go to heaven."
"I don't know if it's a place you can call heaven," she answered, "but it'll be a place where you can meet new friends and make new families. It isn't too bad a place."
"I don't need a new family," he stated resolutely.
"It's fine. You can wait for your parents there." Lies, half-truths and unspoken secrets. Her life was full of them. She did not want to explain the slim chances of them meeting again, or the years he would probably need to wait, or the possibility that he would no longer recognize them even when they do meet. There were so many uncertainties, yet holding onto false hope was easier than breaking down the reality of the truth.
"Going to that place, would it be like 'Night on the Milky Way Train'? An Onii-san who always came to the ward to visit us had read this book with me. It would be nice to have a Giovanni accompany me on a journey through the Milky Way, to meet a lot of people and see a lot of pretty things. It wouldn't be lonely then."
Rukia knew the book. It was a children's book by Miyazawa Kenji. It wrote of Giovanni and Campanella's experiences on a train that travelled across the Milky Way. On their journey, they saw violet gentians in full bloom, ran like the wind in golden sand that glistened like crystals, and awed at white herons that glided across the sky like fresh snow. And Giovanni had woken up from what seemed like a dream, to realize that Campanella had drowned the night before, and that dream, was him accompanying Campanella on his journey to death.
.
"Campanella," Giovanni said, turning towards Campanella, "we're going to stay together, okay?"
But there was no Campanella.
...
Where Campanella had been sittiing,
there was only the black shining velvet seat.
.
It was a story that spoke of happiness and intimacies that could not be eternal.
"Maybe Onii-san will take that train with me. Papa said I might still be able to meet him here, but I haven't. He was very nice and kind to everyone in the hospital. He would always bring us books and toys. I wanted to at least say goodbye to him…"
"Perhaps it'll be like the Milky Way Train. Maybe your Onii-san will be able to take it with you. I don't know what it's really like." This was neither a lie nor a truth. It was just another hope she wanted this child to have. To Yukio, the train would be a wonderful experience, and if it could be true, she would like him to enjoy that journey, without the anxiety and sorrow of knowing the ephemerality of joy and companionship.
"Onee-san, could I just stay here a little longer?" He asked meekly, his eyes brimming with tears. He wiped the back of his hand across his eyes that were now squeezed tightly shut. "Just a few more minutes."
Rukia took his hand and grasped it firmly as he finally cried, his tears falling down his pale cheeks like rain. "Sure, Yukio-chan. Why not."
- YL -