Disclaimer - I don't own Bleach. This was written for the Froday Flash Fiction Challenge, but sunset was the prompt for the last regular challenge for September.
As the Sun Sets
"It's beautiful."
Toshiro's attention was drawn away from the colors of the sunset yet he didn't turn his head to look at the person as his ears discerned the person standing next to him was Kurosaki Karin, the younger sister of Kurosaki Ichigo.
There was something about her, something that pulled him out of the dark funk his mind often went into just like sunsets did, although he did find her insistence he was an elementary school student to be irritating.
After all, he was the taicho of the tenth division and he hated being treated like a kid. Except, around Karin he found himself admitting he was one, that maybe there were times that being treated like a kid wasn't bad, such as when someone was showing they cared, or that they found the things one did to be amazing. He'd never thought of himself as one to like being praised, as it was always a given that he was smart, yet Karin—Ukitake as well for that matter—presented it differently.
"You're beautiful." The words slipped from his tongue and couldn't be taken back.
"You know, if that were coming from any other guy our age, I'd think you a pervert."
Toshiro frowned. "Shouldn't that be something you say to someone older than you saying that?"
"You—" Karin let out a laugh. "The way your mind thinks, it's—"
"I know. It's weird."
"It might be weird, but I like it. I like you."
"You know we can't." Toshiro continued watching the sunshine. Perhaps that was the real reason he didn't look at her.
"Why's that?"
His mouth opened, wanting to say something about the laws and how it just wasn't a thing, but then he said, "I won't grow old with you."
Saying the truth out loud hurt, but the feeling in his gut wasn't like anything he'd experienced before. In the back of his mind, he kept telling himself that they were too young to even be thinking about such things, though in a few years this wouldn't be the case for Karin; there was this voice in the back of his head telling him he didn't want to wait decade after decade for another chance.
"Life's unfair," he muttered. He didn't expect an elbow in the ribs which made him look at her, but he saw her smiling. "How—how can you smile?"
"I smile because I want to cherish what moments we can have."
He wanted to tell her she should find someone else, that she would, that she'd grow tired of someone who couldn't grow old with her who continued to be a child physically as she became an adult, but with Karin, you simply didn't argue those kinds of things.
She was, after all, beautiful and warm like the sunset, the exact opposite of his icy self, which might in truth be why he found himself drawn to her. He really couldn't explain it, the way he felt.