Title: Never again
Series: 50scenes Prompt table No.2 (#035-Overdose)
Author: Kanon
Genre: G
Rating: Romance/Angst
Pairing: Kurosaki Ichigo x Hitsugaya Toushiro, ?implied Kusaka Soujiro x Hitsugaya Toushiro?
Disclaimer: Bleach sovereigns over me, not the other way round.
Distribution: Fanfiction and LJ
Summary: It is one thing he cannot bear to hear coming from Kurosaki Ichigo.
Spoilers: Diamond Dust Rebellion
Warning: I wrote it? A lot of repeats. Quite aimless. Lunatic fangirl's interpretation of this BL-laden film.

-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-IchiHitsu-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-

Author's Note:

Diamond Dust Rebellion is a wondrous thing and we IchiHitsu fans all agree. As for the lines, I used the Dattebayo subs even if I would translate it differently.

Never again by Kanon

"How's this guy Kusaka important?"

"!!"

For a moment, the entire world and time stop around him. And for a moment, he truly wishes he is a deaf that no sound waves can pierce his eardrums and reach his brain. The pale blue cloth wrapped around his --his but his and theirs-- zanpaktou's hilt feels damp in his hand that has tightly clutched it as if it is his last lifeline. His throat feels blocked without a tiniest space of mercy and his already strained lungs are on fire that tears his chest but the roaring pain does not feed on the fatal lack of oxygen.

The dawn is yet to grace the world and the air is serene and hushed. With the time too early for any of the inhabitants to be up and about, all that whirls around them is sheer silence. But for him, it is so thunderous that his illogical part wonders how on earth the other cannot hear it. The question rings in his ear, echoing itself over and over again as if his ear canal is a miles-deep cave with no obstacles to dissipate the maddening sound. There is no stopping the repeats in that voice bouncing off the stunned darkness, every syllable prodding his frantic mind and adding its extra churn, until a new one smashes the Moebius strip.

"Who is he?"

The frosty air suddenly rushes into the deprived lungs and he almost chokes on nothing; and he hates himself for it. He hates how much it can affect him. He does not want it to but it does and there is no helping it. If he could, if the time spared, he would have thrashed against the tidal waves of unexpected shock and-

-and the anger; the anger at himself for letting his failing body to follow his subconscious towards the untamed reiatsu after leaving the wrecked parade, the anger at himself for uttering what the substitute shinigami should not have heard, the anger at himself for failing to make a stealthier escape from the clinic -- the anger at himself for being so heavily stricken by the mere sound of it. He detests how easily it creeps into his crumbling ice fortress but he cannot help the reaction because he has not been ready to hear it so instead, with effort from his entire being, he settles for gulping down the suffocating lump caught in his throat. He knows the cloak hides the thick swallowing just like how it hides the still bleeding wound and takes another veiled mouthful of the coldness hastily and desperately but so painfully as if the intake scorches his inside before narrowing his eyes as he should be doing, because he must leave; leave Kurosaki clinic, leave Karakura village, leave Soul Society, leave Gotei 13, leave his captaincy -- leave Kurosaki Ichigo.

His perforated gut hurts no longer.

But his frantically thumping heart does.

"The person who attacked you, the person who stole the King's Seal, was it this Kusaka guy?"

It comes again --was it just a wishful imagination of his if he thought he had heard a tone of worried, vengeful ire in the question?-- and he grits his teeth hard, harder than he has ever had in his long afterlife, because if he does not, he is going to shout out something that he knows he will regret. It is a precarious, unstable barrier, his tightly pressed lips; the words of urgency hang just at the tip of his tongue.

Don't say his name in your voice.

Because the one word, the one name, that the other so casually voices is one old but cruelly re-opened wound rawer than the puncture in his stomach that is throwing up crimson liquid, and he is not yet ready to hear that name in that voice; anyone but him.

So he quietly utters, promptly and swiftly, loud enough for the other to hear, quiet enough for him to hide the trembling.

"That's the name of a man who was killed long ago." And please, don't say his name; never again, not with your voice.

Because it is so wrong; so wrong for so many reasons. This is not how the name of Kusaka Soujiro should have entered their lives, when everything between them is still so tender and fragile, a defenceless newborn with untainted, sparkling eyes that have just started shining with coy happiness. This is not how the name should have come into the other's acknowledgement, in a broken whisper murmured while in a darkening limbo between pain and confusion. This is not how he should be hearing that name tumbling out of the other's lips; not when he is tittering on the edge of consciousness from the injury inflicted by Kusaka and is about to cross his blade with Kurosaki to finish everything by himself.

This is all so wrong and the helpless disintegration of his everything --because he is leaving and because he is not going to be able to come back; to his division, to Kurosaki-- almost makes his eyes swim with what he dares not shed. The chill of the winter night dries off the moisture that do not flow from the orbs fiercely looking at the empty air just next to the orange tuft, a speck of colour in the dreary darkness.

Quickly, quickly, quickly; he needs to get out quickly and so, he does not linger any longer. The short moment of delay is not to be labelled as wasting because since the ice received the chance to glimmer under the black moonlight, he has never once thought of their time as squandering, but it does not change the fact that he needs to depart, now more than ever.

Before he hears the name again coming from him.

Something else is muttered but he does not hear it. He knows that it is not what he refuses to hear and that is good enough. But the next one does not miss him.

"Toushiro!!"

Something of relief and bitter derisiveness burst through him as he almost smiles at the familiar syllables perturbing the tense tranquillity violently; he has never been so glad to hear that particular name and probably never will be.

And as he grabs and swings his zanpaktou around, he inwardly, secretly, desperately wishes that he could hear it just a few more times.

Just enough to erase out that name resonating endlessly in his mind in that voice.