Is this Remembering?

He's waiting. Even though it's so cold that it burns.

Swim. Swim.

He can't feel the water anymore. It feels like needles.

He is so useless. All he can do is wait for him. That is all he can ever do.

He wants to prove them wrong. That he can be someone strong, just like him.

But he can't.

All he can do is fall and fall and fall…

He's alive. He's alive. He sits up and breathes, chest heaving.

It's the same nightmare.

He's been having it every night. Sometimes even twice because he finds himself trapped in it after hours of trying to convince himself to sleep.

As always—ever since he has come here—he mocks himself for it. It is just a child's nightmare. He is eighteen. Too old to be frightened.

Yet he is anyway.

He looks at his alarm clock. Usually, he wouldn't have to worry about time. His mother kept him at home after he returned from the hospital. But today is when he tries to return to the normal clockwork of high school life.

After running through usual routines, he heads for the high school. But as he walks to the sidewalk, he remembers that Jushiro did not give him directions.

"It'll come to you."

He told him that reassuringly before. But he doubted it. He can't even remember Jushiro—the fact that he is an old friend of the family comes from his parents.

But suddenly, he feels a tug on his school uniform—maybe a breeze. Something beckoning him to follow. He is usually the type of person to handle situations with exact rationality, but this time is different. Something—it feels like even someone—is leading him and he follows. Whatever or whoever it is, he trusts it to such a degree that he cannot understand himself.

As he walks, he feels distant memories coming to him. He remembers the café he used to eat sweets in while watching people walk by outside. He remembers that swing in the park he liked to sit on and look up at the sky while kicking his legs underneath him.

He stops and finds himself in front of a large complex. Other people around his age, wearing the same uniform walk by him, towards the front door. Taking a breath, he walks into the crowd.

Girls gossiping at lockers, athletic jocks talking about last night's game…the noise and commotion is almost dizzying. He finds his way to the teacher's office.

"Oh, Hitsugaya Toushiro-kun…right?"

He nods at the female teacher who just called his name.

"Follow me."

The crowds are starting to disperse, with the exception of a few groups with the mentality of ditching class. The teacher stops at the room 3-A and slides the door open. Once she walks in, all the senior students scramble to their respective seats.

"Alright, alright. Settle down. We have a new student. Most of you probably know him from a few years ago. He's come back to join us." She looks over at the door, "You can come in now."

He walks in to find his new classmate's faces staring at him.

Before he can introduce himself, the student in the back with long red hair tied back in a ponytail stands up and excitedly yells:

"Toushiro!"

His stomach twists and turns. Staring at all these new faces makes him nervous. And being in the front of the classroom was even harder. He wonders why new students are always forced to introduce themselves like this.

But he when he looks around after returning to his seat, he tries to find a hopeful—a friend. Maybe someone else who is as curious as he is about the rest of them.

Oh, there's one. And two. Two pairs of eyes.

But he can only bring himself to smile shyly back. At least, he thinks he's smiling back. His whole body feels so stiff and fluttery that he can't tell. Yet even though meeting new people scares him, he really wants a friend. Someone to know who he really is past all that scaredy-cat everyone passes him for.

At last it's lunch time.

He looks for the girl that seemed friendly from before, but it looks like she has already forgotten about him and gone on to share her lunch with the friend she already has. Everybody else is going outside to play and he wants to join them. But how?

He's no good at soccer. Or tag. Or hide and go seek.

After wandering and waiting for someone to invite him, he gives up and sits alone on the swings to watch them. Maybe kinds of things just have to wait.

Now it's two months later.

And he is still on the swings during lunch, watching. Sometimes he helps the boys get their ball and helps the girls swing the ropes for jumping. But they never ask him to participate because there are always too many people. And he doesn't want to get in the way of anyone's fun. So he never asks to join either.

He has noticed that fights and arguments always start because someone took too long on the slide or didn't play the game right. He doesn't want to take the chance of doing that. He doesn't want anyone to be angry at him.

So he still watches.

During these times, he likes to close his eyes and pretend he is friends with everyone. In these daydreams, he can call everyone by their names—just as friends would—and everyone would know his. Except in real life—right now—he has yet to hear anyone call his name. Sometimes they smile and say "thanks" when he helps them with reading the picture books, gives them all of his lunch when they forget theirs, or hands them his toy if someone else stole theirs.

But then they forget and run forward with their lives while he waits.

Now his first year in his new school is almost over.

He is still dreaming.

"Abarai-kun, sit down!" The teacher commands.

Ah. So this is Renji-kun. She remembers him. And as she looks around at the rest of the class, she can recognize all the faces (except for the ones that moved here after she died). Looking at them, all so much grown-up…she is almost really excited.

She tilts forward a bit to sneak a look at her friend's face. It seems blank, almost a bit confused. It is the same look he had when he had tried deciding which room was his…and when he walked out of the door this morning, trying to decide which way to go. Good thing she helped him both times. She thought she understood then. Maybe three years away from home is a lot.

But now she really understands; he doesn't remember. This is Shiro…but this Shiro has lost a piece of himself—the old Shiro-chan.

She smiles.

The other spirits were right when they told her knowing how to find one's peace comes naturally.

The ring of the bell blares over the intercom, interrupting Toushiro's thoughts. With this, he is almost glad to be relieved of the images that kept flashing through his mind, distracting him from the lecture. But before he could make sense of what they all meant, he heard his name.

"Oi! Toushiro!"

He feels an arm over his shoulder and looks to his left to find a red-headed student—the same one who shouted his name when he walked in. A sudden flash before his eyes revealed a loud, elementary school boy with the same red hair. He can recall him from some foreign memory.

"Abarai…Renji."

"Well, nice to see you too, Hitsugaya Toushiro. Why didn't you turn around and say hi to me before?"

Were they friends?

"Toushiro, unlike you, Renji, has actually matured and cares for his education." Another student—a blonde young man—appears by Renji.

Another image impedes his vision, displaying a somewhat-timid, blonde-haired boy.

"Izuru Kira." He hears himself say.

"See? I told you Kira, all those rumors about him losing his mind were bullshit. He still remembers his childhood friends!" Renji nudges Kira roughly.

He looks at them and replies blatantly, "Well it's true, I am suffering from amnesia."

"Yeah Kira, he's just suffering from amee-nee—wait what's that?" Renji obnoxiously asks.

Kira sighs. "It's a condition of memory loss."

Renji continues. "Whatever. I guess that accident really banged you up. But that's cool. We've got your back. No matter how screwed up your head got."

Somehow, Toushiro does not feel reassured from this promise.

"Well, your amnesia can't be that bad." Kira speaks for his flippant companion as he notes, "You seem to remember our names."

He is right. The subconscious whisper inside him did allow him to correctly call them by name. At realizing this, his eyes widen.

His memories.

They were coming back.

She sits at the desk in his bedroom, facing the window filled with the night sky. The light inside the house is almost yellowish compared to the darkness outside. Unlike the cemetery—which usually had many people passing by in the evening—there is no one outside to watch or observe here. She gets bored easily and decides to read the literature assignment on his desk.

It's the book she had always wanted to read, but waited because she had heard that she would be able to read it in high school. Only, at the time, she didn't know that she wouldn't have that chance to even go to high school.

She shrugs happily. At least she can read it now.

Looking over her shoulder, she can see Shiro sitting at his bed, talking on the phone. She closes her eyes. Ever since she became like this, she can hear incredibly well. Right now, she can hear a woman's voice on the other end of the phone line.

"How was your day?"

"Fine, 'Kaa-san."

"Did…did any of your friends remember you? Do you…"

"I remember some of them. Like Abarai and Kira."

"Good. I'm glad."

Silence.

"'Kaa-san…did we ever live somewhere else before we lived here?"

"No. No. Toushiro, you were born in that town. We never moved until you turned fifteen."

"Okay. Thanks 'Kaa-san."

"Toushiro, why are you asking this?"

"Nothing. I must have gotten confused."

A/N: This chapter is a bit longer, as I promised it would be :)

Thanks for reading! Any comments are extremely appreciated!