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Ample Grace

Happiness is an attitude of mind, born of the simple determination to be happy under all outward circumstances ...

To most people, he seems to be rough, nasty, and downright rude.

But he's not.

Hitsugaya is exactly the opposite. He's protective, and sweet, and caring, even to a fault. He rarely says things as he really sees them, but if you're important enough to know what he means, then what does he care what anybody else thinks? He loves freely and can protect those he cares about. He cares about me, so why should I care if people think we're exact opposites? Even when we eventually came to Soul Society, people looked at us with looks of shock. Now he is Hitsugaya-taichou… rough, nasty, rude, incredibly smart, and incredibly talented.

But back then, he was scrawny kid with the biggest mouth anyone had ever seen. But to me, he was the most wonderful, the most enigmatic, the most complicated, and the most beautiful person I had ever met.

But he would never allow anyone else to see him that way. After all, appearances had to be kept up, words had to be said, and people just had to be provoked. But appearances were only for the hours of the day and not for the night. The daytime hours were full of awkward stares and rough words. The day was theirs, but the night was ours.

Night was the only time he let down all his barriers, walls, and left himself exactly as I had seen him the night we met. It's not like we did anything extraordinary. Sometimes we would sneak out of the house and lie up on the hill and look at the stars. Sometimes we would climb up on the roof. Other times we would just lay together side by side. Regardless of what happened during the day, when everyone was sound asleep, he would come into my room, take me by the hand and lead me somewhere else.

Sometimes we were silent and sometimes we'd talk. It was during this time that I gained such a great respect for his quiet solitude. He was one of those people who you could never begin to guess who he really was by the way he constantly acted. He could be surrounded by people, blasting off his mouth like usual, and actually be enjoying himself. You could never tell. He was unpredictable in the most unusual of ways.

I was the only one he would show his smile to. Not a smirk or scowl that he would later use as a means to provoke people in Soul Society, but an honest smile. When he smiled his eyes would change and they would reveal something extremely heavy. When I looked into his eyes, even in those days, I could see a person who was wiser than his age and someone who had suffered a great deal. But even though I saw sorrow and regret, I saw something else too.

Happiness. And that, I understood. Despite what may have happened in the past or even the things that will happen in the future, I will always be able to depend on him. As long as the two of us are together then we could be happy.

But even back then, I think I wondered if times like these could last forever-I wanted them to last forever. Change was not something I wanted and I now greatly cherish how easy life was and how uncomplicated we were. But happiness-especially our particular brand-a happiness that is kinetic and unrestrained, joyful and irrepressible-could not last forever. The unrestrained and overflowing emotional attachment we had for each other was not only rare, but was indescribable to everyone we came in contact with. They simply didn't understand. We were on a constant emotional high and there was no sense of how high this exuberance we felt would spread and we never once considered that everything that rises must also fall. Memories are funny like that. You look back and reminisce about how great the times were, but you are also able to look back and see the signs your younger self had missed. You know, as a person living in the future, that these times will never be repeated and you have no choice but to look back with regret. I regret letting such precious things slip through my fingers.

When I was living these days, every day seemed like a dream. I had someone who completely captured me. He was my best friend. But not in the way that we told each other every last thing. A lot of the time, words were unneeded between us. What was unsaid between us was clear while words were not. There were many things I did not know about him, but it seemed that what needed to known at the moment was already known. And if there were important things that needed to be said, he would gather the strength he had to tell me about them.

But many things that I'm sure he wanted to tell me would never be allowed to be said. We would never again be so comfortable to lay out on a grassy hill in springtime in the dead of night, staring into each other's eyes, fully embracing each other. I would never again be able to be swept away by his unguarded eyes, looking into them knowing I would never be rejected.

Only a few short years after we had met each other, something would throw us into turmoil. A catalyst of unprecedented proportions in which we had never experienced. It would be this that would make me choose to leave behind the boy that had loved me so earnestly and choose to run away.

It would be something I would truly come to regret …