"Death is not the greatest loss in life. The greatest loss is what dies inside us while we live."
-Norman Cousins
BYAKUYA remembers the smell of his home, the smell of what some might call his childhood. He remembers dusty lavender and wisps of rose. He remembers fine smoke from pipes and warm tea cups and festive foods with rainbow colors.
His hands were small and delicate and smooth like the petals of the orchids in the garden. Chopsticks in his hands were huge in size and difficult to eat with. The foods were like giant gem stones each brilliant in their color and unique in their taste. He didn't eat much. He was a small, fragile boy.
He remembers the lanterns that were lit at night one by one down the corridors that smelled like mint from the mountains. The flames incased within their paper cages flickered and made lonely twisted figures dance on the walls and the floor. He liked to watch them. Sometimes he talked to them. He talked to them about the birds and their pretty feathers, about the trees and their fruits, about the things he did that day. He hadn't minded that the shadows never talked back. He didn't have many friends.
He remembers parties with sparking lights and pretty presents in bows and silk. He remembers the smiles and gold diamond earrings like fake teardrops on tanned skin. He remembers lessons and books with no pictures and the thick ink of black and white words.
He liked to sit by the pond in the garden with the cherry blossoms and the hibiscus. He liked to sit under the linden trees that surrounded the pond and look into the dark waters to see the koi. He liked to walk over and squat down beside the rocks and the moss and gaze upon alabaster scales so pure that the sunlight seemed to pierce them and make them glow. He liked the way they swam, lazy and slow and gentle. He talked to them too and sometimes they would gather around him when he dropped pieces of cake into the waters. He talked to them; they never talked back. He liked to think they really listened sometimes though – he liked to think like that.
He remembered when his father dried out the pond of the ivory gem stone fish. He had felt like crying – he couldn't remember if he did.
He remembers the windows with their wooden bars that crossed and shut, creating a stable framework. He remembers that at the very eastern wing of his house, there was a window that could see all the way out to the village markets of Rukongai. He remembers the children. He remembers them in their bright kimonos and sashes running around yelling and jumping with no shoes. Their hair and their faces were wild and happy and splattered with dirt. They stayed in groups and played together. He often wondered what games they played.
He learned to write calligraphy, beautiful words with thick ink like the ones in the books with no pictures. He learned to hold the brush in his small, small hands and flick his wrist so the brush would fly across the paper in an elegant regal spin. The smell of the ink was intoxicating and made his head spin.
And he did that. And outside, the children played. And he talked to shadows from lanterns and fish with alabaster scales. And outside, the children played.
Byakuya sits near the window, now the captain of the sixth division and the heir of the most famous family in all of Soul Society. He sits near the window with his brush in hand, the ink dripping from the tip and smearing onto the surface of the paper. He didn't remember what he was writing. He smelled the ink and its spicy enthralling scent. He smelled the lavender and the flowers of when he was young and the food and grass in the gardens.
He looked down at his paperwork, dotted with wet black. He'd have to start over.
Outside, the children played.
