So the prompt was Taylor Swift's "All Too Well". Since I don't really like Taylor Swift, this was the first time I had listened to the song. I kinda feel like I missed the mark completely with this one haha! I'm not happy with this at all. Still, here you go. I'm sorry in advance.

Prompt: All Too Well

Rating: T

It comes to her suddenly, the moment she first sees him. It's been four months since they've set eyes on each other, and in that time, he has only contacted her a handful of times—a few hurried texts. Even now, they're only allowed one day before he has to jet back to his responsibilities.

It's why, with a tremor in her voice, the first thing she says to him is, "This isn't going to work."

He freezes, arms halfway outstretched towards her. "What?"

"This." She gestures between them, fear slowly creeping into her. "This is not a relationship, Toshiro."

He doesn't try to negate her words—he knows she's right, has felt the same for a long time. "I thought you were okay with this."

"When I was thirteen." Years and years ago, when she was young and didn't know any better. Aging tends to kill delusions and smack you in the face with reality. "And I signed up for a long-distance relationship, not this Tanabata shit."

His face steels over. "You know I can't always get away."

"I know. I know." She has repeated this to herself a thousand times. She knows he's important, that he has so many responsibilities, so much on his shoulders. That he's already sacrificing to meet her these scant times. "But Toshiro, I'm human. I don't have much time left."

The And I'm wasting it waiting for you goes unsaid, but it is heard loud and clear.

Karin runs a hand through her hair, agitated. Toshiro takes it, runs his thumb over her knuckles carefully. "Maybe we just need a break," he says, his voice pained. "Some time away from each other to reevaluate things."

All they've ever had is breaks.

Karin rests her forehead on his. She nods.

~.~.~

The next time they meet is at the wedding.

Her brother chooses to have the affair in Soul Society—fitting, as it will be his new home. This means that Karin finds herself sitting at the same table as her maybe-ex-boyfriend, fighting the urge to kiss him senseless.

"I missed you," he murmurs, and she thinks she might cry.

It has been six months, half a year, a chunk of her lifetime. "I missed you too."

"Stay with me," he blurts, and her heart seizes.

"What?"

"Stay here. With me."

She can't believe he's asking this of her. Ichigo gave his life away without a second thought, positive that Rukia was all he really wanted, really needed. Karin isn't so sure.

She wants to go to college, to become a doctor, to get married and have children. She wants to watch her children grow, wants her mundane human life. She wants to grow old.

She wants Toshiro. But is she willing to throw away the rest?

Her silence speaks volumes, and Toshiro's eyes grow sad, distant. "I can't," she finally says. She is not ready to die. "But you can come with me."

He is just as mystified. He has built up so much, has accomplished so much, and is not willing to abandon it. "I can't."

"My father did."

"I'm not your father."

They stare at each other in silence, what is left of them crumbling before their eyes. Karin feels like her feelings are going to swallow her whole. "Okay," she whispers.

He looks away. "Okay."

~.~.~

She is sitting down to her morning tea when she feels him. She isn't surprised; she's felt him hanging around for days. She merely opens her front door without a word and returns to the kitchen. She hears him follow.

Mind racing, she pours a second cup of tea and adds a single scoop of sugar, wondering if he still drinks it that way. He takes it from her, gives her a small smile of thanks.

Time has shown itself on Karin—her hair is graying, her face is starting to have lines that weren't there before, and childbirth has softened parts of her that used to be taut. It's completely unfair that after thirty years, Toshiro looks pretty much the same. Time refuses to touch him.

"How are you?" he starts.

She sits across the table from him, wishing he would get to the fucking point. "Why are you here, Toshiro?"

He looks baffled at her question. "…I just missed you."

And she's missed him every single day. She knows it's unhealthy, that she will never really move on until she lets go, but she can't help it. She mumbles his name in her sleep, and when she makes love to her husband, it is his name that wants to leave her lips. When she looks at her children, she wonders what it would be like for their eyes to be impossibly blue.

But despite all this, she can't find it in herself to regret her choice.

She reaches over the table and interlocks their fingers, relishing in the familiar feel of his cool skin on hers. She remembers meeting him for the first time when she was only eleven years old, remembers the first time his lips brushed hers. He is such an important part of her life, so many of her firsts. Her middles and ends.

"This is the last time," she says quietly. "I don't want to see you again. I don't want to feel you again."

He swallows, nods. Leans over the table and kisses her hard on the mouth. "You won't."

And then he is gone. Karin sits there long after her tea has gone cold.

~.~.~

She dies when she is eighty years old, and it is her brother who comes to get her.

Always young at heart, her soul looks the same as she did when she was in her early twenties. The sight of her visibly startles Toshiro, and she wants to run to him and hold and never let go. But what they had has long been jaded. Fate has smashed their relationship into too many unsalvageable pieces, and maybe in a different lifetime, in different circumstances, they could have been together and happy.

As it is, Karin gives him a small smile and looks away, refusing to think about what could have been.