Rukia in sleep: drifting, dreaming. In the small, faraway corners of her mind—humming, even as the rest of her has gone limp with exhaustion—she's on another flight, the one she missed, three hours farther along and seated beside a middle-aged man with a twitching mustache who sneezes and flinches , never saying a word to her as she grows ever more anxious, her hand pressed against the window, where beyond the glass there is nothing but nothing but nothing.
She opens her eyes, awake all at once, to find Ichigo's face just inches from her own, watchful and quiet, his expression unreadable. Rukia brings a hand to her heart, startled, before it registers that her head is on his shoulder.
"Sorry," she mumbles, pulling away. The plane is almost completely dark now, and it seems everyone on the flight is asleep. Even the television screens have gone black again, and Rukia pulls her tingling wrist from where it was wedged between them. She runs a hand through her hair and then glances sideways at Ichigo's shirt, relieved there's no sign of any drool, especially when he hands her a napkin.
"What's this for?"
He nods at it, and when she looks again, she sees that he's drawn Chappy the Rabbit from the movie.
"Is this your usual medium?" she asks. "Pen on napkin?"
He smiles.
She tucks the napkin in the top of her bag. "You don't sleep on planes?"
He shrugs. "Normally I do."
"But not tonight?"
He shakes his head. "Apparently not."
"Sorry," she says again, but he waves it off.
"You looked peaceful."
"I don't feel peaceful," she says. "But it's
probably good that I slept now, so I don't do it during the ceremony tomorrow."
He looks at his own watch. "You mean today."
"Right," she says, then makes a face. "I'm a bridesmaid."
"That's nice."
"Not if I miss the ceremony."
"Well, there's always the reception."
"True," she says, yawning again. "I can't wait to sit all by myself and watch my dad dance with a woman I've never met before."
"You've never met her?" Ichigo asks,
"Nope."
"Wow," he says. "So I take it you aren't all that close?"
"Me and my dad? We used to be."
"And then?"
"And then that stupid city swallowed him whole."
Ichigo laughs a small, uncertain laugh.
"He went over to teach for a semester," Rukia explains. "And then he didn't come back."
"When?"
"Almost two years ago."
"And that's when he met this woman?"
"Bingo."
He shakes his head. "That's awful."
"Yeah," She says,
Ichigo frowns. "I think it's brave."
"What?"
"That you're going. That you're facing up to it. That you're moving on. It's brave."
"It doesn't feel that way."
"That's because you're in the middle of it," he says. "But you'll see."
She studies him carefully. "And what about you?"
"What about me?"
"I suppose you're not dreading yours half as much as I'm dreading mine?"
"Don't be too sure," he says stiffly. He'd been sitting close, his body angled toward hers, but now he moves away again, just barely, but enough so that she notices.
Rukia leans forward as he leans back, as if the two of them are joined by some invisible force. It's not as if her father's wedding is a particularly cheery subject for her, and she told him about that, didn't she? "So will you get to see your parents while you're home?"
He nods.
"That'll be nice," she says. "Are you guys close?"
He opens his mouth, then closes it again , then he sighs a sound that comes out almost like a groan. "Let's see," he says eventually. "I have two younger sisters"
"Do they all still live in Tokyo?"
"Right. What else? My dad
wasn't happy when I chose Karakura University over Tokyo University, but my
mom was really pleased..."
"Is that why he didn't come over with you at the start of school?"
Ichigo gives her a pained look, like he'd rather be anywhere but here, "You ask an awful lot of questions."
"I told you that my dad left us for and that I haven't seen him in over a year," she says. "Come on. I'm pretty sure there's no family drama that could top that."
"You didn't tell me that," he says. "That you haven't seen him in so long. I thought you just hadn't met her."
Now it's Rukia's turn to fidget in her seat. "We talk on the phone," she says. "But I'm still too angry to see him."
"Does he know that?"
"That I'm angry?"
Ichigo nods.
"Of course," she says, then tilts her head at him. "But we're not talking about me, remember?"
"I just find it interesting," he says, "that you're so open about it. Everyone's always wound up about something in my family, but nobody ever says anything."
"Maybe you'd be better off if you did."
"Maybe."
Rukia realizes they've been whispering, leaning close in the shadows cast by the yellow reading light of the man in front of them. It almost feels as if they're alone, as if they could be anywhere, on a psomewhere or in a restaurant, miles below, with their feet firmly on the ground. She's close enough to see a small scar above his eye, the ghost of a beard along his jawline, the astonishing length of his eyelashes. Without even really meaning to, she finds herself leaning away, and Ichigo looks startled by her sudden movement.
"Sorry," he says, sitting up and pulling his hand back from the armrest. "I forgot you get claustrophobic. You must be dying."
"No," she says, shaking her head. "Actually, it hasn't been so bad."
He juts his chin at the window, where the shade's still pulled down. "I still think it would help if you could see outside. It feels small in here even to me with no windows."
"That's my dad's trick," Rukia tells him. "The first time it happened, he told me to imagine the sky. But that only helps when the sky's above you."
"Right," Ichigo says. "Makes sense."
They both fall silent, studying their hands as the quiet stretches between them.
"I used to be afraid of the dark," Ichigo says after a moment. "And not just when I was little. It lasted till I was nearly eleven."
Rukia glances over, not sure what to say. His face looks more boyish now, less angular, his amber rounder. She has a sudden urge to put her hand over his, but she stops herself.
" I remember I'd go into my parents' bedroom in the middle of the night and he'd
tell me to stop being such a little girl. Or he'd tell me stories about monsters in the wardrobe, just to wind me up. His only advice was always just 'Grow up.' A real gem, right?"
"Parents aren't always right about everything," Rukia says. "Sometimes it just takes a while to
figure that out."
"But then there was this one night," he continues, "when Iwoke up and he was plugging in a night-light next to my bed. I'm sure he thought I was asleep, or else he'd never be caught dead, but I didn't say anything, just watched him plug it in and switch it on so there was this little circle of blue light."
Rukia smiles. "So he came around."
"In his own way, I guess," Ichigo says. "But I mean, he must've bought it earlier in the day, right?
He could've given it to me when he got back from the shop, or plugged it in before I went to bed. But he had to do it when nobody was watching." she's struck by how sad he looks. "I'm not sure why I told you that."
"Because I asked," she says simply.
He draws in a jagged breath, and Rukiia can see that his cheeks are flushed. The seat in front of her bobbles as the man readjusts the doughnutshaped pillow around his neck. The cabin is quiet but for the hum of the air-conditioning, the soft flap of pages being turned, the occasional snuffling and shuffling of passengers trying their best to endure these last hours before landing.
Rukia thinks again of her mother, of the awful things she said to her.
Beside her, Ichigo rubs his eyes. "I have a great idea," he says. "How about we talk about
something other than our parents?"
Rukia bobs her head. "Definitely."
But neither of them speaks. A minute ticks by, then another, and as the silence between themswells, they both begin to laugh.
"I'm afraid we might have to discuss the weather if you don't come up with something more
interesting," he says, and Rukia raises her eyebrows.
"Me?"
He nods. "You."
"Okay," she says, cringing even before she's formed the words, but the question has blooming inside of her for hours now, and the only thing to do, finally, is to ask it: "Do you have a girlfriend?"
Ichigo's cheeks redden, and the smile she catches as he ducks his head is maddeningly cryptic; it is, Rukia decides, a smile with one of two meanings. The bigger part of her worries that it must be charitable, designed to make her feel less awkward about both the question and the coming answer, but something else keeps her wondering all the same: Maybe—just maybe—it's something even kinder than that, something full of understanding, a seal on the unspoken agreement bbetween them that something is happening here, that this just might be a kind of beginning.
After a long moment, he shakes his head. "No girlfriend."
With this, it seems to Rukia that some sort of door has opened, but now that it finally has, she isn't quite sure how to proceed. "How come?"
He shrugs. "Haven't met anyone I want to spend fifty-two years with, I guess."
"There must be a million girls at the University."
"Probably more like five or six thousand, actually. but I've never dated one."
"That's not part of your summer research?"
He shakes his head. "Not unless the girl happens to be afraid of mayo, which, as you know,dovetails nicely with my study."
"Right," Rukia says, grinning. "So did you have a girlfriend in high school?"
"In secondary school, yes. She was nice. Quite fond of video games and pizza deliveries."
"Very funny," She says says.
"Well, I guess we can't all have epic loves at such a young age."
"So what happened to her?"
He tilts his head back against the seat. "What happened? I guess what always happens. We
graduated. I left. We moved on. What happened to Mr. Pizza?"
"He did more than deliver pizzas, you know.."
"Breadsticks, too?"
"Rukia makes a face at him. "He broke up with me, actually."
"What happened?"
She sighs, adopting a philosophical tone. "What always happens, I guess. He saw me talking to another guy at a basketball game and got jealous, so he broke up with me over e-mail."
"Ah," Ichigo says. "Epic love at its most tragic."
"Something like that," she agrees, looking to find him watching her closely.
"He's an idiot."
"That's true," she says. "He was always sort of an idiot."
"Still," Ichigo says, and Rukia smiles at him gratefully. He glances over at the old woman, still snoring in uneven rasps, her mouth twitching every now and then.
"I have to go to the bathroom," he admits, and Rukia nods.
"Me, too. I bet we can squeeze past her."
He unbuckles his seat belt and half stands in a jerky motion, bumping into the seat in front of him and eliciting a dirty look from the woman seated there. Rukia watches as he tries to maneuver past the old lady without waking her, and when they've both managed to make it out of their row, she follows him down the aisle and toward the back of the plane. A bored-looking flight attendant in a folded-down jump seat looks up from her magazine as they pass.
The OCCUPIED lights are on above both bathroom doors, so Rukia and Ichigo stand in the small square of space just outside. They're close enough that she can smell the fabric of his shirt, and his warm breath; not so close that they're touching.
She lifts her chin to find that he's looking down at her with the same expression she saw on his face earlier, when she woke up with her head on his shoulder. Neither of them moves and neither speaks; they just stand there watching each other in the darkness, the engines whirring beneath their feet. It occurs to her that—impossibly, improbably—he
might be about to kiss her, and she inches just the tiniest bit closer, her heart skidding around in her chest. His hand brushes against hers, and Rukia feels it like a bolt of electricity, the shock of it moving straight up her spine. To her surprise, Ichigo does not pull away; instead, he fits his hand into hers as if anchoring her there, then tugs gently, moving her closer.
It almost feels as if they're completely alone—no captain or crew, no rows of dozing passengers stretching the length of the plane—and she takes a deep breath and tips her head to look up at him.
" Rukia.." he whispers, leaning closer and closer.
But then the door to one of the bathrooms is suddenly thrown open, bathing them in a too-bright wedge of light, and a little boy walks out trailing a long ribbon of toilet paper from one of his red shoes.
And just like that, the moment is over.