A Glitch in Perfection
By Et3rn4l D4rkn3ss
Chapter Three: The Edge of the World
He watched her back as her figure danced under the falling cherry blossom pedals. She looked like a princess, with her snow white dress and the angelic look on her face when she turned around to smile at him. His breath caught in his throat and made a lump. She walked in front, her face of an expression so pure and gentle. She was content, childish if you may, and her mind stained with none inappropriate thoughts. He, on the other hand, felt guilty. His guilty pleasure was what spinning around his mind.
"Rukia…" he said dazedly, mesmerized by her beauty. Her violet eyes captured his alluringly. She looked at him in wonder, praise, and respect. He wished she wouldn't… for all he could think about was how it would feel to take his sister under his arms. He never got to finish his sentence.
His eyes were taking in every detail of her grace as he let her lead him through what seemed like an endless utopia of cherry blossom trees raining down their pedals upon them.
He was too concentrated to have noticed something wasn't right. The happening was too sudden, even for him. His eyes widened in horror as he came to realization. He heard her scream—too loud and too clear that it stung his ears. Her scream faded quickly. Byakuya rushed over to where Rukia had been last standing, and saw the edge of the world. Only darkness could be seen beyond. His heart stopped beating.
And then he woke up.
Byakuya sat up with a jerk, hand clenched in a shaking fist against his forehead. His forehead was wet—drenched in cold sweat. He felt overwhelmed with fear and sadness that he couldn't tell which was more dominant. His breathing grew heavy—he was almost panting. He couldn't help but notice the uneasy feeling inside his chest.
Rukia's eyes were sleepless. The rest of her body was sore from the day's training, but the something inside her head that told her things weren't quite right was keeping her up. She stepped outside the pitch blackness of her company into the monotone glare of the moon outside. Aimlessly, she wandered, as if she was sleepwalking. When her eyes came into focus again, she saw that her feet had taken her in front of her brother's room. Why here of all forbidden places…?
She kneeled down; doodling randomly with her finger on the ground in front of the bedroom door, but soon grew tired of such pointless activity and stood up. She leaned close to the door with her ear almost in contact with it, gently laying a hand on the door, as if she could feel Byakuya if she did so. He's so close… it's like I can almost hear him breathing… So close… Nii-sama is so close…
Rukia wanted to feel secure. Her loneliness was easier to ignore when she was with Renji, but Renji couldn't possibly be with her all the time. He was surely more than just a normal friend, but there were no sentimental feelings between them. She wanted to feel the arms of someone around her, and a whisper in her ear telling her "I'll be here when no one else is, I'll love you when no one else does, I can be the one." Not that she wanted that whisper to belong to her brother… She just wanted to know the feeling of safety. She had never felt so insecure before while growing up with Renji, but as they grew older, they could never be as innocent as the little kids they once were, and the distance between them grew further apart. Especially after she entered the noble Kuchiki family, she couldn't play the night away after the sun set with Renji. Nii-sama expected her to be home everyday for breakfast, for dinner, and obviously the Kuchiki house was where she was expected to spent her nights—alone. She missed the days with Renji, but she knew in her heart that it couldn't last forever. As children of different genders grew up, they couldn't take baths together anymore, they couldn't hold hands anymore, they couldn't sleep in the same bed anymore…
Rukia felt so alone in the Kuchiki house. The question came back: How could Nii-sama have loved my sister? Did he know was love was? Does he love me? I wish I can somehow connect with him. I want to feel his heart…
She let out a sigh, and walked back to her own company.
Breakfast the next morning was the same routine, no different than any other day, but Rukia sensed tension in her brother's actions. She couldn't help but notice the way he gripped his spoon, as if it were necessary to hold on tight enough until the point where his knuckles turned white. Her curious eyes moved from his expressionless face to his hands—What long, beautiful fingers he has…—to his face again. She couldn't understand. Being with him had never been less nerve wrecking, but that morning felt particularly uneasy. Was there something she was missing out on?
She tried gripping the spoon the same way she studied her brother doing so. She found it an extremely inconvenient way to hold the spoon as the sides of the metal handle uncomfortably dug into her skin. When she looked up again to glimpse at her fingers, she realized he was no longer sitting in front of her, but his arms were by his side, and his hands at the same level of her back… The wind of his movement brushed her hair as he walked past. It sent a shiver up her spine.
"Your breakfast looks untouched, Rukia." His cool, disapproving tone made Rukia doubt her earlier witnessed tension in her brother
Rukia spun around, only to find him half way out of the dinning room by then. She stared until the last sight of his captain's cloak disappeared. How she wished to feel the breeze of his movement again, tainted with the smell of cherry blossom pedals.
How come she never noticed the way he smelled before?
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