Disclaimer: I don't own Bleach.
Author's Notes: Rather fluffy.
Winter Death.
Overture.
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Hinamori Momo was a normal girl of fifteen years, with normal brownish hair and normal brownish eyes. The only difference was that she couldn't go to school like everyone else, because she could get an asthma attack anytime, and had to stay in the security of home, where her servants could look after her under the supervision of her butler. Her mother had passed away a long time ago, when she was still a baby, and she lived with her father in the huge house he had bought when his wife had died.
Momo didn't see her father much; he worked for long hours, in order to upkeep their current standard of living, and to pay for her treatment fees. Personally, she would've preferred to live in a relatively small but cozy home, where everyone had to bump into one another somehow. In this house, one could actually get lost. But she never did say anything, because she knew that her father was doing all this for her, and that she would be a very bad girl if she objected to it.
The poor girl had few friends other than the servants in the house, whom she treated very nicely, because that was the way Hinamori Momo was. She was nice to everyone and everything around her, constantly smiling and bringing warmth to everyone's hearts because she felt guilty about troubling everyone with her sickness. Of course, her father provided education for her in the form of a personal tutor, whose name was Aizen Sousuke, whom she addressed by the name "Aizen-sensei". She liked him very much indeed, because he taught her many things, and was a very kind person who smiled often, with eyes filled with kindness behind the frames of the glasses which sat on the bridge of his nose.
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She learnt that her mother had been a renowned pianist when she was alive, and this sparked her interest in learning the instrument. She'd started learning the piano at the age of six from Kuchiki Byakuya, or Kuchiki-sensei, whom she feared because he commanded such an intimidating presence; nevertheless he taught her well in his own quiet way, patiently correcting her mistakes. Moreover, she was a talented little girl, and learnt fast.
Besides these two teachers, Momo probably didn't have any contact with the outside world, with the exception of those rare evening walks in which her father permitted Aizen-sensei to take her out. These walks excited her greatly, because it was during these walks that she could see how people outside her mansion lived; seeing the real thing was always very much better than just reading it in books. But Momo, being Momo, knew when it was time to go back to her secluded world and never threw tantrums like other bratty little girls.
But she did hope that one day she would recover from her ailment and be able to perform on stage, just as her mother had done so, a long time ago. This ambition was ultimately the oil that kept her fire burning, that kept her from giving up on her life totally, and to live on with that tiny sliver of hope that she would become healthy in time to come.
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One can imagine that she would be in utter shock when told that she had about a year and a half left to live.
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It'd happened one day when she was preparing for bed and brushing her teeth when she heard a series of soft thuds on the carpeted floor in her bedroom. Cautiously, she'd rinsed her mouth and tiptoed outside to see what the commotion was about. To her surprise, what came into sight was simply beyond her imagination.
Two human-like creatures were getting their faces buried in the carpet by another human-like creature. The term "human-like creature" is used because all three of them possessed wings, which sprouted out from their backs. Anyway, Momo felt that the one barking at the other two looked strangely female-ish, with her black locks resting on her shoulder. Her actions were far from lady-like, though, with her arms holding the other two onto the ground with an unnaturally strong grip. Momo's eyes traveled to the two victims.
One was rather tall, and had orange hair (she marveled about this phenomenon; she'd never seen natural orange hair before!), and was very much male, in her opinion, despite the fact that he was losing to the female in terms of strength, judging by the way he was struggling under her grasp.
The last one was the smallest of the three, with a shock of silver hair (another phenomenon!) and a string of curses at the tip of his tongue, which Momo was definitely not accustomed to at all, since her father and Aizen-sensei had never mentioned any of these crude words before. But it was this particular human-like creature who looked up from his position on the floor to gaze right into her eyes, and she found herself drowning in the intense turquoise pools of his.
This gaze was broken by a loud holler from the female winged being.
"If you guys hadn't been messing around, we would've gotten here safely through the portal I created and we would've landed at the damned door, not in her bedroom!"
"Excu-" Momo was about to interrupt, but the orange-haired male shot back at the female and they began to bicker at the top of their voices, leaving her very helpless indeed. Once again, those turquoise eyes met hers as he stared at her, a little coldly. She tried smiling at him but his deadly expression didn't change, and he looked away from her instead.
"Oi," he said to his two partners, who were currently too absorbed in their own argument to remember what they had come here for. Of course, he was ignored completely.
"OI!" he repeated, this time much louder than before, and with more irritation. It worked, and they turned to look at him.
"What?" they asked simultaneously.
"In case you haven't noticed, our topic of discussion is standing right over there," the silver-haired one continued, gesturing towards Momo, who blinked as all three of them shifted their gazes to her.
"You're Hinamori Momo?" questioned the female, in a gentler voice and her facial features softening as she addressed the confused girl. Momo nodded, unable to articulate her words. The winged being hesitated for a while before continuing.
"To begin with, we're Shinigami; or Death Gods, if you prefer. And we're here to take your life," she carried on, picking her words very carefully. Momo blinked again, attempting to grasp the current situation. She wondered if she was fine, or if she was seeing things. After all, it was probably not a very normal affair to meet three winged creatures that told you that they were going to take your life.
"In other words, you're going to die in one and a half years," came a curt voice from behind, as the girl's blood turned cold and her eyes widened.
"Shut up, Toushirou," the female Shinigami hissed, and strode over to the distraught girl, closing the distance between them. Momo stared at her, brown eyes filled with confusion and brimming with flustered tears.
"I'm Rukia, and this is Ichigo and Toushirou," the black-haired girl said, pointing at the orange-head and the shortest one respectively. Ichigo nodded in acknowledgement while Toushirou just scoffed and looked away.
"I'm afraid what Toushirou said was… true, and you're going to die in around two winters from now." Rukia looked down, wings rustling, as though she was ashamed of what they did. Because Momo was Momo, the niceness kicked in, and she completely forgot about her own plight; instead she smiled the brightest smile she could manage and said warmly, "There's nothing wrong with doing your job, Rukia-san!" much to all three Shinigamis' surprise.
"So you can talk," muttered Toushirou under his breath, earning a light knock on his head from his female partner. They heard a tinkling sound from the only human in the room, and realized that it was her laughter.
"Just to prove that I'm not going crazy, and that the three of you really exist, can I please touch one of your wings?" Momo asked, with a twinkle in her eye. One and a half years left. She might as well make full use of it, and become friends with these three queer beings, since she wasn't able to make any proper human friends anyway. Rukia was about to spread open her wings when Momo reached out and yanked at Toushirou's right wing gently.
He swore.
to be continued.
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To readers: Some of the ideas were ganked from Full Moon wo Sagashite, if you didn't notice. Did you like that? If you did, I will write the next chapter. If you thought it was useless fluff and should remain a stand-alone piece (even if it doesn't really make sense as a one-shot), I will probably leave this fic alone, or delete it. The plotbunny just refused to hop out of my brain, and I just had to open a Word Document to type this out. XD Kinda messed up on the dialogue bit – for those who read my fics, you should know that I suck at dialogue. :X Anyway, please review and tell me what you think!