Disclaimer: I don't own Bleach. It's property of Tite Kubo.
Author's Note: Hi! Welcome back, everyone! Sorry I'm so late, but I took some allergy and sleeping pills last night, and I woke up feeling loopy and I've felt that way the whole day lol. I'm feeling better now so I sat down to write. I've honestly been looking forward to today's prompt. I thought hard on how I wanted to write it, and though it sounded better in my head, I liked the end result. Hope you guys like it too.
Again, thank you so much for reading! Thank you all for your support!
See ya!
inkwell
Prompt: social media
Summary: Each photo they upload becomes a puzzle piece which tells a story. Their story.
Ichigo, Rukia realizes, is not a fan of social media.
Not that she had known what that was beforehand.
She hadn't realized there were more uses for a cellphone besides calling, receiving texts, listening to music and maybe taking a few pictures.
She had had a more pragmatic view of technology.
And it is not until she overhears Inoue and Arizawa talking about the newest photograph the former had taken and posted to Instagram, that she takes an interest on all the other uses one can give to a phone.
"Ichigo, what is Instagram?" She asks the following day.
She had hardly been able to sleep as she thought about that mysterious Instagram thing.
Ichigo blinks and puts away the manga he had been reading.
It is obvious he hadn't seen this question coming.
"It is a cellphone app." He vaguely explains.
"I see."
(Spoiler alert: she hadn't)
"What is an app?"
She asks again.
Then he goes on a lengthy explanation about the many apps and their uses.
Turns out, Instagram is just one of the many apps you can use.
You can even watch movies on your phone!
Who would've thought?
And Rukia gets the gist of it.
Well sorta.
She just knows that you can use a phone for almost anything nowadays.
But he hadn't really answered what Instagram was, so she asks again.
"It's an app in which people post pictures, sometimes with messages, other times not." Ichigo tells her.
"So people use it to share their photos with other people?"
That sounded simple enough.
"That's the idea. Though attractive people use it for attention." He adds.
"Is that why Inoue has an Instagram?" Rukia asks out loud.
(That makes him crack up)
"So, to sum up, it is essentially a virtual album?"
"Yeah, I guess."
It then occurs to Rukia that if Ichigo knows so much about it, maybe he has one.
So she questions him about it.
As it turns out, Ichigo does have an Instagram account.
But he rarely uses it.
It's private, to begin with.
There are just a few people that Ichigo had accepted, including his sisters and his few high school friends.
He also doesn't follow a lot of people.
Besides that, he has only posted two photos.
The first one is a snap of the river bank as the sun sets.
There's no description below and it seems unasuming, but Rukia knows the significance of it once she looks at the date it was posted on.
The second one is just a picture of two very thick books by English authors.
Again, there is no description, but she guesses those are a few of his favorite books.
Other than that, there's not much on his Instagram.
Keigo did tag him on a picture with their other friends at someone's house about a year ago.
And that's pretty much it.
Yet, despite Ichigo's lack of enthusiasm, Rukia is intrigued.
She uses his account to browse through Instagram and realizes that he's right, many attractive people, from celebrities to ordinary teens, post pictures of themselves, some in very suggestive poses.
Then, there are other people who just share many things.
Their pets, the places they've visited, their significant others, their children and other family members, things they bought, their food, concerts, and so much more.
Rukia likes that.
It feels as if they were sharing an intimate glimpse into their lives.
She feels like she wants to share that too.
She expresses as much, and Ichigo ends up installing the app into her own human cellphone and tells her how to use it.
First things first, she needs a handle name.
Rukia decides that doesn't want to use her own name.
Ichigo had told her that she could use a pseudonym in social media.
She likes the anonymity of it.
So she chooses a very simple handle.
It is krchappy14 and instead of her name, she just writes her initials.
K. R.
She becomes just a random Instagram user.
And her first post is a snap of a drawing she had made, of a single white bunny waving hello with the hashtags #new, #hello and #bunny.
That is just the beginning.
Before long, her Instagram is filled with pictures.
Rukia takes photos of anything she likes and posts them on the app.
─ Of sunsets, scattered leaves, the river.
A stray snail, the white bunny she saw at a pet store, a hummingbird.
Rain drops on windows, clouds, rainbows.
A picture of her boots as she stands over a puddle.
The highest tree in Karakura Town. ─
There is not a single description in any of them.
But Rukia uses different emoji under them and hashtags relating to what they are and what she feels about them.
Soon, she gains a small following.
At first just Ichigo follows her, and then Yuzu and Karin.
Ishida, Chad, Mizuiro and Keigo end up following her too.
Then there are two accounts that seem too suspicious to be just random users.
( greenhats4laifu and _real_black_cat)
Yet there are other people ─ strangers ─ who follow her for the photographs she posts.
They like their simplicity.
How Rukia lets them speak for themselves.
There are, of course, more intimate ones.
Ones most people wouldn't be able to guess their true meaning.
─ Two coffee mugs sitting side by side ─ one light blue with a white bunny on it, another black with red accents.
Two videogame controllers.
A horror manga next to a copy of Shakespeare's selected works.
Pictures of a rainy day with sad face emoji underneath.
Board games on a table.
A plate of curry.
A festival.
Fireworks.
A rooftop overseeing the town.
The silhouette of a young man reading. ─
Her pictures are not only about things she likes.
Each one tells a different story.
And as time passes by, they multiply.
Eventually Ichigo takes notice and asks her about it.
"Why do you take so many pictures each time you visit?"
"Because I don't want to forget."
She simply admits.
And suddenly she feels raw as Ichigo stares at her.
"I… I never got to live as a human, so now that I get the chance, there are many things, many moments I just don't want to ever forget."
For Rukia Instagram is more than just an app and photos.
She uses it as her personal journal.
But instead of words, it is filled with glimpses of life.
Each photograph is a brief moment frozen in time that she wants to remember for the rest of her days.
Everything she gets to experience, everything that she gets to be, is there.
It is a testimony of her own existence.
"I just figured that if there comes a time I can't come here anymore, at least there'd be proof I was here, you know?"
That I lived, she wants to say.
Ichigo smiles softly at her.
"I understand."
On her next visit, she is surprised to discover that Ichigo has been uploading more photos on his account.
It's not just a few.
His account is still private, and the same people still follow him, but now there are more than just two lone pictures.
─ There's a snap of his university.
Pictures of Karin's recent games.
A photo of the Kurosakis all eating dinner together.
A picture of Yuzu focused on her cooking.
Birds flying through the window.
A stack of new manga.
Just a simple picture of his closet.
A photo of the new CDs he bought.
A snap of forget-me-nots. ─
And Rukia soon realizes why he's taking so many pictures.
They are not for himself or for other people.
They are for her.
Each picture is about something she had missed while she was away.
Events and anecdotes she gets to hear from her favorite people.
And that now she gets to see.
So she smiles at each them as she sees them.
She treasures them deep in her heart.
(Now she doesn't have to miss anything)
Eventually, their Instagram accounts get filled with photographs that you'd need to see together to get the full picture.
Each photo becomes a puzzle piece which tells a story.
Their story.
─ Movie tickets.
Two pairs of ice skates.
Starbucks orders.
Pink dresses and leather jackets.
Drawings and crayons.
Books and college essays.
A sunrise.
Black bracelets.
Silver rings.
A field covered in flowers.
Bunnies everywhere.
A kitchen.
Chocolate cake.
Two pairs of legs covered in blankets.
Sakura trees in full bloom.
Dandelions. ─
And one winter day, they post their best pictures.
Rukia's is a simple one.
She hadn't taken it, though.
It had been Yuzu who had snapped it when they hadn't been looking.
It has a black and white filter.
And in the picture, you can see the backs of a man and a woman wearing winter coats.
They are surrounded by a snowy landscape.
And the girl has her head on the guy's shoulder as he holds her close.
The caption is just a heart emoji.
Ichigo, for his part, posts two pictures.
His are more straightforward.
The first is a snap of Rukia grinning as she throws snow in the air.
In the second one, they are sitting next to each other.
As Rukia smiles and blushes, Ichigo is seen pecking her cheek.
The description simply reads,
"I'm still not used to the cold, but since she loves snow so much, I gotta learn how to enjoy it too. It's worth it, though. Just to see her smile."
Rukia gets a lot of comments saying she and her boyfriend look cute, even though you cannot see their faces.
Ichigo, meanwhile, is bombarded by comments from his friends.
He ignores them, though, as now he is more focused on the girl next to him.
"Guess this means we're now Instagram official, nee?"
She jests as he rolls his eyes.
"Rukia, please don't ruin the moment."
"You know you love it."
"Damn right I do."
A/N: So there you have it, Romantic Ichigo, canonical IchiRuki, and Instagram official to boot! This fic has it all lol.
As for the content, I use my Instagram very liberally, and yes I post selfies and stuff, but also I post pictures of sunsets, rainbows, insects, my pet and the like. So I took that as inspiration. Though of course for me it's just sharing stuff with my friends and other people who follow me, while for Rukia it is a journal, a photo album, something to look back and remember her days with Ichigo. And Ichigo takes her original idea to share everything she misses while she's gone.
As for the chronological order, this of course takes place very early on and progresses through that year and a half. Basically that last part is what happens at the end of the story, but the how they got together is something you're gonna have to wait and see.
This fic is pretty much what I intended it to be except I did cut off a scene in which Orihime asked Rukia about her Instagram. I felt it'd seem out of place given past interactions and the fact they haven't as of yet made up in any of the one-shots.
As for the title, that's the name of an Instagram filter, which, you guessed it, is black and white.
Hope you liked it!
This one has been one of my favorites so far.