A/N : This was my submission for the IR Month 2020 Day 19 prompt by the same name. It's short and angsty and I remember tearing up a little while writing it so.. you've been warned. I was going to use the title I had thought of the first time, but I feel like the prompt itself fits this piece the best. Anyway, I was listening to Remembrance by Balmorrhoea while writing it, you might want to check the track out, it's beautiful.
I hope you enjoy this small write-up as much as I loved writing it.
Ichigo wakes up with a jolt.
His bed isn't empty and his heart sinks.
He's sweating, tiny beads on his forehead, hair slightly damp, breathing a little rushed.
Rushed like time ticking away; rushed like the transitions.
Transition of a memory to a dream to reality and back again.
He wakes up and there's a soft voice beside him, floating to his ears but never quite reaching him. Those mid-air arrests were a longstanding routine; the guilt of not having been able to alter it - a persistently burning presence somewhere in his mind.
The flame would waver though, his self-pity would overpower it at times and that's when he'd allow himself to dream –
He remembers her smiling. It helps slow down his breathing. He doesn't open his eyes. He knows he's awake but he doesn't open his eyes. Instead, he thinks of her smiling.
It's a green field, he's bidding her goodbye. She is saved, he gets to return to familiarity. Afterwards, he wonders why nothing feels familiar anymore.
Was he remembering wondering then? Or is he wondering now?
It's that smile again. She's standing on a window stool this time. Suddenly the classroom feels significantly more lit up. He wants to complain, wants to argue, wants to ask her if... he can't. He's left staring at her. Rooted to the spot; possessed by the smile and the light and the transition again. From a silent prayer to a dream to reality. It's happy this time and for some reason that unsettles him. The cycles must alternate their nature of terminations, he remembers thinking.
It's the same smile, oh she's holding a sword through him,(had she been relentlessly mumbling his name in dreams too? had she finally somehow managed to command the pattern to a stop? she's a miracle worker after all so she must have... she... please please let it end here, let the cycles come to a stop please... Rukia..); a happy cycle once again. He is possessed as usual. But he fears. She has returned to him, he's had two happy transition cycles in a row.
The next one might... the next one...
The next one is a smile, sombre and accepting. They both know what they're giving up, they both know what for.
He walks through the senkaimon, not turning back; as his world lay in front and hers lay behind – the space between a blackhole of endless yearning.
He remembers what he had set out to fight against – destiny. He remembers wanting the power to crush it. But like every other time, he had not thought about the cost.
He longed for simpler times when he believed his hollow was the demon he had to fight; one wearing a sinister smile as all demons do.
How long ago was this? When had that smile morphed into one of solace and when had it multiplied? He did not know. He had forgotten how to count time long ago.
She smiles now too, but it's not her own. She's careful not to let it house confessions or familiarity. Her adamant refusal to show him her brokenness infuriates him and he decides he had never known helplessness and despair of such manner or measure ever before.
He also remembers that one time he had given into his miserable rage and slammed her against the wall, caging her with his body, almost to the point of hurting her; begging for a crack.
"Say it. Say it goddamnit. Tell me you're miserable too."
Her head was pointedly turned away, he was getting impatient.
"Can't you hear me? I SAID SAY IT."
She had finally turned to look at him then, gesturing him to quiet down, her eyes purposely and resolutely void of emotion.
He must have been crying, for she had freed her arms from his grasp somehow to wipe something off of his cheek.
And then she smiled.