Late last night, Rukia and Ichigo had shared a pack of tiny pretzels on the plane, he'd been quiet, studying her face for so long without speaking that she'd finally turned to face him.
"What?"
"What do you want to be when you grow up?"
She frowned. "That's a question you ask a four year-old."
"Not necessarily," he said. Everyone has to be something."
"What do you want to be?"
He shrugged. "I asked you first."
"An astronaut," she said. " A ballerina."
He smirked. "Seriously."
She crossed her arms. " You dont think I could be an astronaut?"
"You could be the first ballerina on the moon."
"I guess I've still some time to figure it out."
"That's true." he said.
"And you?" she asked, expecting another sarcastic answer, some invented profession having to do with his mysterious research project.
"I dont know, either." he said quietly. "Certainly not a lawyer anyway."
Rukia raised her eyebrows. "Is that what your dad does?"
But he didnt answer, he only galred harder at the pretzel in his hand. " Never mind all this." he said after moment ."Who wants to think about the future anyway?"
"Not me." she said. " I can hardly stand to think of the next few hours, much less the next few years."
"That's why flying's so great." he said. "You're stuck where you are, you've got no choice in the matter."
Rukia smiled at him. " It's not the worst place to be stuck."
"No it's not." Ichigo agreed, popping the last pretzel in his mouth. " In fact there's nowhere else I'd rather be right now."
-x-
Rukia is already out the door and across the street, the church bells tolling two o'clock in her wake, before she realizes she has no idea where she's going. A bus races past and, surprised, she stumbles backward a few steps before taking off after it. Even without her suitcase— which she left in the church—she's still too slow, and by the time she makes it around the corner, the bus has already pulled away again. Panting, she stoops to squint at the bus map that's plastered at the stop behind a thick pane of glass, though it turns out to be little more than a mystifying tangle of colored lines and unfamiliar names. She bites her lip as she studies it, thinking there must be a better way to crack this code, when she finally spots Shinjuku in the upper left-hand corner. It doesn't look all that far, but then, it's hard to get a feel for the scale of the thing, and for all Rukia knows, it's just as likely to be miles away as blocks.
There's not enough detail to pick out any landmarks, and she still has no clue what she'll do once she gets there; the only thing she remembers Ichigo saying about the church is that there's a statue of Mary out front and that he used to get in trouble for climbing it. She glances at the map again.
How many churches could there be in such a small patch of Tokyo? How many statues?
The stubborn map still refuses to give up its secrets, so she decides it's probably easiest to just ask the driver of the next bus that comes along and hope he'll be able to point her in the right direction. But after nearly ten minutes of waiting with no sign of a bus, she takes another stab at deciphering the routes, tapping her fingers on the glass with obvious impatience.
"You know the saying, don't you?" says a man in a soccer jersey. Rukia straightens up, acutely aware of how overdressed she is for a bus ride through Tokyo. When she doesn't respond, the guy continues. "You wait for ages, and then two come along at once."
"Am I in the right place to get to Shinjuku?"
"Shinjuku?" he says. "Yeah, you are."
When the bus arrives the man smiles encouragingly, so Rukia doesn't bother asking the driver. But as she watches out the window for signs, she wonders how she'll know when they've arrived, since most stops are labeled by street name rather than area. After a good fifteen minutes of aimless sightseeing, she finally works up the nerve to teeter to the front of the bus and ask which stop is hers.
"Shinjuku?" the driver says, showing a gold tooth as he grins. "You're headed in the direction."
Rukia groans. "Can you tell me which way is the right direction?"
He lets her off with directions for how to get to Shinjuku by train, and she pauses for a moment on the sidewalk. Her eyes travel up to the sky, where she's surprised to see a plane flying overhead, and something about the sight of it calms her again. She's suddenly back in seat 18A beside Ichigo, suspended above the water, surrounded by nothing but darkness.
And there on the street corner, it strikes her as something of a miracle that she met him at all. Imagine if she'd been on time for her flight. Or if she'd spent all those hours beside someone else, a complete stranger who, even after so many miles, remained that way. The idea that their paths might have just as easily not crossed leaves her breathless, like a near-miss accident on a highway, and she can't help marveling at the sheer randomness of it all. Like any survivor of chance, she feels a quick rush of thankfulness, part adrenaline and part hope.
She picks her way through the crowded streets, keeping an eye out for the Train stop. She passes a boy wearing the same blue shirt Ichigo had on earlier and her heart quickens at the sight of it.
When she finally spots the red and blue sign for the train she hurries down the stairs, blinking into the darkness of the underground. It takes her too long to figure out the ticket machines, and she can feel the people in line behind her shifting restlessly. Finally, a woman takes pity on her, first telling her which options to choose then nudging Rukia aside to do it herself.
"Here you go," she says, handing over the ticket. "Enjoy your trip."
The bus driver told Rukia she'd probably need to switch trains at some point, but as far as she can tell from the map, she can get there directly on the Circle Line. There's a digital sign that says the train will arrive in six minutes, so she presses herself into a small wedge of open space on the platform to wait.
She doesn't want to think about Dad and the wedding she left behind, and she's not sure she wants to think about Ichigo and what she might discover when she finds him. The train is still four minutes away and her head is pounding. The silky fabric of her dress feels far too sticky and the woman beside her is standing much too close. Rukia scrunches her nose against the smell of the place, musty and stale and sour all at once, like fruit gone bad in a small space.
She closes her eyes and thinks of her father's advice to her when they stood in the elevator, the walls collapsing like a house of cards all around her, and she imagines the sky beyond the arched ceiling of the train stop, above the sidewalk and past the narrow buildings. There's a pattern to this kind of coping, like a dream repeated night after night, always the same image: a few wispy clouds like a streak of paint across a blue canvas. But now she's surprised to find something new in the picture that's forming on the backs of her eyelids, something cutting across the blue sky of her imagination: an airplane.
Her eyes flicker open again as the train comes rushing out of the tunnel. Rukia's never sure if things are as small as they seem, or if it's just her panic that seems to dwarf them.
-x-
Hours by and Rukia arrives, she glances at her watch; nearly three PM, and she has no idea what to do now that she's here. As far as she can tell, there are no policemen around, no tourist offices or information booths, no bookstores or Internet cafés. It's like she's been dropped into the wilderness of Japan without a compass or a map, like some sort of ill-conceived challenge on a reality show.
She picks a direction at random and sets off down the street, wishing she'd stopped to change her shoes before bailing on the wedding. There's a fish 'n' chips place on the corner, and her stomach rumbles at the smells drifting from the door; the last thing she ate was that pack of pretzels on the plane, and the last time she slept was just before that. She'd like nothing more than to curl up and take a nap right now, but she keeps moving anyway fueled by a strange mix of fear and longing.
After ten minutes, she still hasn't passed a church. She ducks into a bookshop to ask if anybody knows about a statue of Mary, but the man looks at her so strangely that she backs out again without waiting for an answer. Along the narrow sidewalks are butch shops with huge cuts of meat hanging in the windows, clothing stores with mannequins in in heels much higher than Rukia's, pubs and restaurants, even a library that she nearly mistakes for a chapel. But as she circles the neighborhood, there doesn't seem to be a single church in sight, not one bell tower or steeple, until—quite suddenly—there is.
Emerging from an alleyway, she spots a narrow stone building across the street. She hesitates a moment, blinking at it like a mirage, then rushes forward, buoyed again. But then the bells begin to ring in a way that seems far too joyful for the occasion, and a wedding party spills out onto the steps.
Rukia hadn't realized she was holding her breath, but it comes rushing out of her now. She waits for the taxis to stop hurrying past and then crosses the street to confirm what she already knows: no funeral, no statue of Mary, no Ichigo.
Even so, she can't seem to pull herself away, and she stands there watching the aftermath of a wedding not unlike the one she just witnessed herself, the flower girls and the bridesmaids, the flashes of the cameras, the friends and family all wreathed in smiles. The bells finish their merry song and the sun slips lower in the sky and still she just stands there. After a long moment, she reaches into her purse. Then she does what she always does when she's lost: She calls her mother.
Her phone is nearly out of battery power, and her fingers tremble as she punches s in the numbers, anxious as she is to hear Mom's voice. It seems impossible that the last time they talked they had a fight and, even more, that it happened less than twenty-four hours ago. The departures lane at the airport now seems like something from another lifetime.
Her thoughts was cut off by the scene before her, her whole body going numb at the sight.
There on the small patch of lawn is a statue of Mary, the one Ichigo used to get in trouble for climbing. And standing around it, gathered in tight knots, is a crowd of people wearing shades of black and gray.
Rukia remains rooted a safe distance, her feet stuck to the sidewalk. Now that she's here, this whole thing seems like the worst possible idea. She knows she's always had a tendency to leap without looking, but she realizes now that this is not the kind of visit you make on a whim. This is not the end point to some spontaneous journey, but rather the site of something deeply sad, something irrevocably and horribly final. She glances down at her dress, the soft purple too cheerful for the occasion, and is already starting to turn away when she catches sight of Ichigo across the lawn and her mouth goes dry.
He's standing beside a small woman, his arm resting lightly around her shoulders assumes the woman must be his mother, He looks older in his suit, pale and solemn as he digs at the dirt with the toe of his shoe, his shoulders hunched and his head bent. Watching him, Rukia feels a surge of affection so strong that she nearly calls out.
But before she can do anything, he turns around. There's something different about him, something broken, an emptiness in his gaze that makes her certain this was a mistake. But his eyes hold her there, nailing her to the ground where she stands, torn between the instinct to run away and the urge to cross the space between them.
For a long time they just stay there like that as still as the statues in the garden. And when he gives her no sign—no gesture of welcome, no indication of need—Rukia swallows hard and comes to a decision.
But just as she turns to walk away she hears him behind her, the word like the opening of some door, like an ending and a beginning, like a wish.
"Wait," he says, and so she does.
A/N:
Okay , because of someone pm me , I should make this clear..
This story is not mine, the real author is Jennifer E. Smith but I've already said it in chapter one,
JUst COPIED this from the book but I admit i've change some lines to fit in IchiRuki setting.
and I'm posting it here because I want to share it! and well I just love IchiRuki so much and the characters are so like Ichigo and Rukia..and to inspire myself to write an chiRuki story of my own.
To Guest2 review in chapter 5: I've just read it and thanks for saying that.. I appreciate it and really, I'm happy that you enjoy this story..! I love sharing what I've read, thanks ms. Jennifer Smith for writing such a beautiful story..:D