Title: Some Days
Inspiration: My daily writing exercise and the impending Monday
Pairings/Characters: Kira and Ikkaku, Isshin,
Warnings: Hints of past Ikkaku x Yumichika, mentions of character deaths
A/N: Postwar in the Bleachverse according to peppermint quartz. I'm starting to really like KiraxIkkaku, no idea why.
Some days it is harder to go to work than others.
On those days Ikkaku loiters around the Third division, ostensibly to spend time with Kira. The blond understands the hidden reason. Ikkaku never speaks of it, but Kira can phrase his lover's thoughts in his own mind.
'Sometimes it is too hard to enter the Eleventh's offices without a pink-haired cannonball attacking you, or walking into a solid wall of murderous reiatsu, or listen to the confident promise to beat you to death from a gorgeous, glossy-haired, flawless-skinned lover.'
'It's hard because you remember seeing them fall and not standing up again. It's especially hard because you had to stand by and watch them fight to the end – because that is the code.'
'It's hard because that is how they wanted it, and now you have to be strong enough to carry the weight of memory to honor them.'
On such days, when Isshin finds Ikkaku sprawled in a seat opposite the third's lieutenant, the reinstated captain sometimes quietly carries his paperwork to his own quarters. Kira will nod in grateful acknowledgment, while Ikkaku stares aimlessly out the window behind Kira.
Even the strongest need time to rest from the strain of memory.