Disclaimer: I do not own the series Bleach and probably never will (Unless the person who owns Bleach has a random fit of insanity and gives it to me). Woe is I.

Inspired by the book 'Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes'

3. A Thousand Paper Cranes


Hitsugaya had never cared much about what others thought of him. Pride was what he thought of himself – there was a sharp difference between caring about self-image and self-discipline. As long as he could match his own expectations, no one else's expectations mattered.

No one expected the rude and cold brat admitted to the Academy to be a genius, much less the youngest Captain in documented history. No one expected the fury of the dragon inside him. And no one expected how much pride he was willing to sacrifice or how much heartache he was willing to endure for the sake of Hinamori Momo.

When he could feel their surprised, sympathetic glances they gave him when they thought he wasn't looking, he knew they hadn't expected this either.

No one expected Hitsugaya Toushirou to fold Origami. It was too…frivolous, too time-consuming to be something he did regularly.

He didn't care.

He had read a book once in the living world – it had been about a girl who was ill with something called leukemia and had folded paper cranes to get better. A thousand; she had needed a thousand, but never lived to fold that many. But the idea had stuck with Hitsugaya as profoundly as the ending of the book had.

He would reach a thousand, even if he had to fold all his fingers raw. For her to be free, to fly away from her troubling dreams on the wings of the cranes, to be free of the illness that trapped her in her mind. He folded with an icy determination that only barely concealed an almost childish desperation.

As soon as he had any free time, be it at mealtimes or between meetings, he would come to the Fourth division hospital room with a stack of square paper. And it was beautiful paper – paper that came in dozens of vibrant colors, splashing the stark white hospital room with life as the delicate birds began populating the space.

It was no longer an uncommon sight for passing Fourth division members to see the usually cold Tenth division Captain folding delicate cranes in stoical silence, his eyes softer than anyone could have imagined possible.

Sometimes others would join him. People like Renji or Kira or Matsumoto would stop by and they would fold with him in silence.

But most of the time, he folded alone with no company save the unconscious girl attached to the life-support machines. The one all of the beautiful cranes were being folded for.

Fold. Crease. Fold. Crease.

Another small bird would flutter to life.

The cranes filled the room now, dangling from the ceiling and perching on every surface. The room was a shimmering mosaic of colors and life, willing the girl sleeping in it to open her eyes and see the world waiting for her to come back. And Hitsugaya would fold, and fold, and fold. He would fold until she was free of the dreams that trapped her, and she could open her eyes and see herself surrounded by the colors she loved so much. He would fold until his fingers were num and raw with cold, until every scrap of paper he had brought was transformed into a delicate bird.

It might have been foolish. It might have been waste of time. But every crane held another hope, another prayer, another drop of love directed towards her, showing her the path back. Back to him. No, a thousand wasn't too many – it wasn't even enough to express the feeling.

So he kept folding.

It took two years to reach a thousand.

And in that room, the room surrounded by a thousand vibrant cranes, each enclosing a piece of his heart became her deathbed.

She died.

He never believed in fairytales anyway.

In a way, his wish had been granted. She was free. So he buried the thousand cranes, the thousand beautiful, broken, useless scraps of paper, along with her. He let them carry her away. Let the thousand shattered pieces of his heart take her somewhere he could never reach.

Away with the thousand words of love he never spoke to ears that never heard.