Chapter Text
The winter snow fell onto his father's grave in delicate, fractal flakes like a choreographed dance. He stood from a distance and watched the two most important women in his father's life mourn together; their tears sliding into nothingness.
The funeral had been over for awhile now, and the very last stragglers had gone home; and there was nothing left but the whistling of the wind in his ears. From the corner of his eye, a black cat underneath a lamp-post meowed in the cold.
He’d met more people than he’d ever care to meet again in his life— for some reason, a blond man with an unnerving grin with a smaller blonde woman in tow wanted to know about his spirit power, or whatever he’d been babbling about, before being hustled away by some other equally strange looking people. The last man, a large, pink haired individual had patted him heavily on the head and given him chocolate like he was a child. Chocolate never stopped tasting good, even though he was twenty four years old.
“Hey kid, sorry I’m late.” a well worn hand ruffled his hair and he was greeted by a familiar smile. “The plane was delayed by the damn snow.”
Out of all his relatives, real or adopted, his favourite had always been his aunt Tatsuki. Her work as a journalist had made their visits infrequent and at times quite short, but he would never cease to be enthralled by her tales of countries other than their own, escapades that seemed so unreal and yet so visceral, with her storytelling style. His mother still had a scrapbook filled with Tatsuki’s pieces, from the time she just started working as a journalist.
“I tried to get here as soon as I could, practically had to bribe the damn pilot just to—” she stopped suddenly, following his gaze, which landed on Rukia’s form.
He watched her expression turn cold, as if she didn’t quite know what to feel.
“Do you know her too?” he asked curiously. How many lives had Rukia touched?
“I used to,” Tatsuki said shortly. “Not too well, though.”
And then as if on cue, his mother turned around and caught sight of Tatsuki, and before long, she was rushing up to give her best friend a tight hug, tears of happiness spilling out of her eyes.
“Don’t run, you silly thing,” Tatsuki mock-chastised. “Don’t you have some kind of knee injury?”
“That was last year, Tatsuki. It’s been too long.” his mother said, still hugging her.
Rukia had followed at a much more leisurely pace, tracking through the snow.
“Rukia,” Tatsuki nodded curtly, holding Orihime tightly in one arm. To Kazui, it looked like she was showing some form of dominance, protecting his mother from a perceived threat.
“Tatsuki,” Rukia said with a small smile. “How nice to see you again.”
“It’s been a long time,” his aunt replied. “Hasn’t it?”
“Too long.” Rukia said.
Oblivious to the growing tensions, his mother perked up and took hold of his hand, smiling at him. Kazui smiled back, but he couldn’t help but feel a pang of sadness at the lines on his mother’s face.
“Shall we go home then? I have a lovely red-bean and cucumber soup waiting on the stove for us.” she gestured to the other two women. “Oh, but I think we need to stop by Urahara’s shop and get those special plums…”
“I’ll do it,” he volunteered. “You should go home and rest, mother.”
“My sweet boy,” Orihime said, and patted his cheek. “So thoughtful.”
For a moment, he thought that she was about to cry again, but she turned away and extended her hands to Tatsuki and Rukia. “Shall we?”
“I think I’ll go with Kazui to Urahara’s,” Rukia said. “I should go say hello, since I’m in town, and you two should have time on your own to catch up.”
She looked expectantly at Kazui, who shrugged.
“Alright,” Orihime agreed, and took Tatsuki’s hand. He watched them walk down the snowy steps, his mother resolutely not looking back. She’d told him stories about how Tatsuki had always had her back, as a protector, the best of friends. She’d talked about always standing behind her, being protected— but now they were walking side by side as equals.
When he turned back to face Rukia, she was looking at him with a slight smile on her face.
“Shall we?” she gestured, and they started off on the familiar route to Urahara’s shop.
“When was the last time you were here, Kuchiki-san?” he asked neutrally as they trudged through the snow.
“A long time ago, before you were even born, actually.”
The age gap didn’t make sense at all— she looked barely older than him.
“How did you know my parents?”
“Well, I knew your father first, and it’s quite a funny story, actually,” she laughed quietly to herself.
He pounced eagerly on the tidbit of information and asked, “Will you tell it to me?”
“Maybe one day,” she continued looking at the ground as they walked. “We have a while until I go back, and I have many more stories to tell.”
He had more questions swimming up to the tip of his tongue, but they were quickly extinguished by the falling snow and the fact that they were quickly approaching the familiar wooden structure that was where Urahara lived.
The door to the shop jangled open, and a swirl of snowflakes followed them in.
“Ah, Kazui— and Kuchiki-san.” Urahara pushed himself slowly down the ramp on his wheelchair, face spreading in a wide grin. “What brings you here today?”
Yoruichi and Tessai appeared in the doorway as well, waving at them.
Urahara took Kazui’s hand in his, and patted it. “I’m so sorry I couldn’t be there for the funeral, but I find it difficult to travel, in this weather.”
“And he has a cold,” Tessai warned. “So we made sure he couldn’t go.”
Urahara chuckled sheepishly. “These two take good care of me.”
“It’s quite alright,” Kazui said, feeling slightly embarrassed. “We’re practically family, you don’t need to explain anything.”
“Get out of the doorway and come have some tea,” Yoruichi said, coming over to manhandle Urahara’s wheelchair and push it out of the way. “Kazui, I have those plums your mother always wants. Tell her not to eat them so quickly this time, plums are so hard to get in the winter.”
He didn’t ask how she knew that— people around here just knew things.
Kazui went to the back to help Yoruichi & Tessai get the tea things while Urahara and Rukia chatted outside privately.
“So Rukia will be staying at your house for the next few weeks?” Tessai asked him, deftly arranging a plate of sweets.
“Looks like it,” he replied.
“Ah, you two can get to know each other better then,” Yoruichi smiled at him. “She probably has a lot of stories about your father, and she’s always been a good influence on your family.”
In the dim light, Kazui’s brow furrowed. So far, everything he’d heard about Rukia had painted her out to be some kind of saint, a guardian angel or someone that came into people’s lives and touched it, leaving them changed forever after.
They brought the tea things out, and spoke no more about it.
That night after dinner, he retreated for an early night to his room, and dug out the short stack of letters once again.
“Well?” Kyoko said expectantly, already on his bed the moment he walked through the door.
He flopped onto the bed with the letters and a sigh, words muffled by his pillow. “I didn’t really get anything out of her.”
“You weren’t asking the right questions,” Kyoko told him with a sniff.
“Maybe I’m not quite sure what to ask,” he admitted. “I feel like people have been hiding this big secret from me for my entire life, and— well, I’m not quite sure if I want to find out, or force them to bring up these bad memories.”
“You, the only child from a generation of warriors…” she trailed off thoughtfully.
“I don’t know where to start,” he said.
“Ask her about herself,” Kyoko suggested. “About her past, things like that. People love talking about themselves, it gives them a comfortable place to start.”
“I think I will,” he nodded, and carefully unfolded a letter.
Dear Rukia,
The snow is falling like shooting stars to the ground, and even though I’m not a poet, I think it looks pretty damn beautiful, and I sure wish I had the words to describe it to you.
Today Orihime and I went on our first date, to the ice-skating rink. We held hands and laughed and did all that crazy couple stuff. And well, since I’m never going to send this, I did like it. If it was possible to be in love with two people at once, I think this is the closest I’m ever going to get to it.
If you were a thunderstorm, coming into my life like a whirlwind and changing it for good, Orihime is like the fireplace I come home to at night, when the rains have left me. I do love her, but I can’t say it’s exactly the same way I love you.
But then, she loves me so unwaveringly that I almost hate myself for it— she deserves better.
She deserves someone that can love her the way that I love you.
And us?
Well, we deserve each other, strange hybrid creatures that we are, living in separate worlds and fated to never touch again.
God, I really miss you.
Ichigo.
“Kyoko,” he asked, lying there in the darkness. “How did you die? And before that, how did you know that you were in love?”
He couldn’t quite see her face, obscured by the long dark hair that framed it, but her hands glowed ghostly pale, working smoothly on a piece of embroidery that never seemed to be finished, even when he was younger.
“I died for love,” she said, still working busily. “And I knew that I was in love because I would die for her.”
He stared at her needle moving in and out of the cloth, and then fell asleep, dreaming of pale hands clutching at his throat.