Standard disclaimer applies.
Author's notes: This is my belated tribute to chapter 181, plenty of spoilers, I guess. Thanks to everyone keeping up with this collection! See you soon.
Ellipsis
21.07.2005
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Ellipsis: n. In grammar, the intentional omission of necessary words.
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They walk back together through the streets of Sereitei to the grounds of the Kuchiki manor. Orihime has long left them alone, gone in her quest to find Ishida and Chad. Ichigo finds himself looking down at Rukia, registering her quiet profile, the fading marks where the red collar had been almost choking her, the dark, dark hair billowing with the wind, and the cool summer yukata that hugs her body gently.
"Ichigo, is something wrong?" Her big, blue eyes search his questioningly when she notices that he's been observing her for a long while now.
"No," he mumbles in a somewhat irritated fashion. In truth, he's startled and a little bit embarrassed to have been found staring at her. Then he looks away, not so-subtly ignoring her but effectively hiding the now fading blush on his cheeks, and his eyes scan through the wooden houses and the pure white, marble walls. "So you're really staying, huh?"
She nods at him.
"I'm staying." Rukia looks away too, her thumbs rubbing each other idly. She knows well that he is not asking her to reconsider or anything like that; and as they continue walking down the stone path, she stares at the concrete ground and at their feet instead.
A moment of silence overcomes the two for a long while, in which they simply walk next to each other in apparent comfort, before she allows herself to break it with a wistful remark. "Back then, you didn't ask me about it."
He turns to her, mildly interested in her statement, and opens his mouth to reply with a question of his own. His orange hair sways with the afternoon breeze. "Ask you what?"
Rukia fiddles with her robes, unusually hesitant as how to carry on. She takes a deep breath and answers. "Ask why I'm staying."
He pauses then, his amber eyes falling at the grand gates that are bound to separate them in a matter of minutes. He has been following her absentmindedly, too concentrated in his own thoughts to actually realize that the estate that comprises the Sixth Division Captain's household is standing regally right before them. When Ichigo finally responds, he does it with a gentle tone about his voice that she has only heard very few times, as though he had been expecting her to say this.
"Do I really need to ask?" He says.
The answer comes clearly to her at last. The black-haired woman does not grimace, nor does she smile completely; but she just holds a saddened, knowing look upon her face. "No," she says, a little small smile tugging the corners of her lips then, "not really."
"Thought so," he tells her, allowing his hand to pat her head softly and fondly and making her look up at him in wonder. Ichigo smiles at her in what she believes to be understanding, a rare grin that spreads over his face and over his scowl. It is the same smile that had startled her earlier that day.
Seeing Ichigo as he leaves her there, standing in front of the door and looking at his back, Rukia thinks she could get used to it. To that kind of smile, that is. And so, as she walks through the long halls of the ancestral house, Rukia promises herself that when he leaves tomorrow, she will smile for him too, because she wants him to remember her that way. She wants to show Ichigo that everything he had worked so hard for was really worth it.
She can only hope he'll smile again for her in return.