They've been in the air only a few minutes when Ichigo seems to decide it's safe to speak to her again. At the sound of his voice near her ear, Rukia feels something inside of her loosening, and she unclenches her hands one finger at a time.
She turns to Ichigo. "So, has your dad come over to visit you much?" she asks, and he looks at her with slightly startled eyes. She stares back at him, equally surprised by her question. What she'd meant to say was your parents. Have your parents come over to visit much? The word dad had slipped out nearly unconcious.
Ichigo clears his throat and drops his hands to his lap, where he twists the extra fabric of his seatbelt into a tight bundle. "Just my mom, actually," he says. "She brought me out at the start of the year. Couldn't bear to send me off to school without making my bed first."
"That's cute," Rukia says, trying not to think of her own mother, of the fight they had earlier. "She sounds sweet."
She waits for him to say more, or perhaps to ask about her family, because it seems like the natural progression of conversation for two people with nowhere to go and hours to spare. But all he does is silently trace a finger over the letters stitchedinto the seat in front of them: FASTEN SEAT BELT WHILE SEATED.
Above them, one of the blackened television screens brightens, and there's an announcement about the in-flight movie. It's an animated film about Chappy the Rabbit, one of Rukia's favorite movie, and when Ichigo groans, she twists in her seat and eyes him critically.
"There's nothing wrong with Chappy," she tells him and he rolls his eyes.
"Its a talking Rabbit."
She grins. "and sings, too."
"Don't tell me," he says. "You've already seen it."
She holds up two fingers. "Twice."
"You do know that it's meant for five-year-olds, right?"
"Five- to eight-year-olds, thank you very much."
"And how old are you again?"
"Old enough to appreciate our fluffy-eared friend."
"You," he says, laughing in spite of himself, "are very strange.."
"I'll take that as a compliment..," She says, smiling.
A fly appears near her ear, and Rukia tries unsuccessfully to swipe it away. A moment later it's buzzing nearby again, making infuriating loops around their heads like a relentless figure skater.
"I wonder if he bought a ticket," Ichigo says.
"Probably just a stowaway."
Ichigo waves a hand to shoo the fly away. One of the flight attendants appears in the dim aisle, a few dozen headsets strung from her arm like shoelaces. She leans over the lady on the end withan exaggerated whisper.
"Would either of you like one?" she asks, and they both shake their heads.
"I have one, thanks," Ichigo says, and as she moves to the next row, he reaches into his pocket and emerges with his own earphones, unplugging them from his iPod. Rukia reaches below the seat for her backpack, rooting through it to find hers, too.
"Wouldn't want to miss Chappy," she jokes, but he's not listening. He's looking with interest at the pile of books and magazines she's set on her lap while digging through the bag.
"You obviously do read some good literature," he says, picking up the worn copy of Our Mutual Friend. He leafs through the pages carefully, almost reverently. "I love Dickens."
"Me, too," Rukia says. "But I haven't read this one."
"You should," Ichigo tells her. "It's one of the best."
"So I've heard."
"Somebody's certainly read it. Look at all these folded pages."
"It's my dad's," Rukia says with a little frown. "He gave it to me."
He glances up at her, then closes the book on his lap. "And?"
"And I'm bringing it to Tokyo to give it back to him."
"Without having read it?"
"Without having read it."
"I'm guessing this is more complicated than it sounds."
She nods. "You guessed right, It's his wedding," Rukia says quietly. "My dad's."
Ichigo nods. "Ah."
"Yeah."
"I'm guessing it's not a wedding gift, then."
"No," she says. "I'd say it's more of a gesture. Or maybe a protest."
"A Dickensian protest," he says. "Interesting."
"Something like that."
He's still idly thumbing through the pages, pausing every so often to scan a few lines. "Maybe you should read it first."
"I can always get another at the library."
"I didn't just mean because of that."
"I know," she says, glancing down at the book again. She catches a flash of something as he leafs through, and she grabs his wrist without thinking.
"Wait, stop."
He lifts his hands, and she takes the book from his lap.
"I thought I saw something," she says, flipping back a few pages, her eyes narrowed. Her breath catches in her throat when she spots an underlined sentence, the line uneven, the ink faded. It's the simplest of markings: nothing written in the margin, no dog-eared page to flag it. Only a single line, hidden deep within the book, underscored by a wavery stroke of ink.
Even after all this time, even with all she's said to him and all she still hasn't, even in spite of her intention to return the book (because that's how you send a message, not with some unmarked, underlined quote in an old novel), Rukia's heart still flutters at the idea that perhaps she's been missing something important all this time. And now here it is on the page, staring up at her in plain black and white.
Ichigo is looking at her, the question written all over his face, and so she murmurs the words out loud, running her finger along the line her father must have made.
"Is it better to have had a good thing and lost it, or never to have had it?"
When she glances up, their eyes meet for the briefest moment before they both look away again. Above them, Chappy the Rabbit is dancing on the screen, along with its friends their happy little home, and Rukia lowers her chin to read the sentence again, this time to herself, then snaps the book shut and shoves it back into her bag.
A/N:
Forgive the mistakes.. I was writing this very, very fast.. :) Hope I'm finish tomorrow..