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“Every man has his secret sorrows which the world knows not; and often times we call a man cold when he is only sad.” – Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
He didn’t recognise me…
It is the thought that haunts his waking hours. Paperwork done, office empty, alone in the tenth division barracks. Alone.
If Hyourinmaru hadn’t remembered him, would he still be alone?
It’s not a thought he likes to contemplate for long, if at all, but it’s the one that keeps coming back. The doubt that creeps to the front of his mind when he lets his guard down. And then he remembers again:
He didn’t know who I was
Followed closely by:
I would know him anywhere
Then, born from freshly unearthed doubts and nurtured in long-suffered loneliness:
Maybe he was never meant for me
The thought weighs the Captain down. It sits on his chest and makes it hard to breathe. He clutches at his chest. He breathes deeply and closes his eyes, focusing inward and trying to gather his bearings. When he has himself under control again, Hitsugaya stands and thinks that maybe a walk through the gardens might help clear his head.
He hasn't seen Hyourinmaru since this morning, but the zanpakuto is never far from his side so he isn't worried. He’s actually relieved. The thoughts plaguing him are immature and embarrassingly simplistic in nature. He doesn’t need an ancient and refined zanpakuto like Hyourinmaru being privy to childish thoughts like those.
Hitsugaya makes his way through the gardens of the tenth division, passing by his fifth seat’s red and white rose bushes on his way to the koi pond by the ninth division boundary.
The Captain walks soundlessly towards the pond and kneels by the water, watching the koi swim and the frogs jump between the lily pads. A gentle breeze sweeps over the area, making the tall grass sway and the reeds bow to kiss the water. Hitsugaya turns his face up into the breeze and finds it’s a welcome relief on his heat-flushed skin.
Hitsugaya sighs then and an odd kind of zen falls over him in his moment of seclusion, unlike anything he’s ever felt before. It almost feels like he's meditating, but there’s a heaviness to his limbs, to his heart that runs parallel to his calm that confuses the young captain. He doesn’t know quite how to place the feeling. Hitsugaya frowns and It takes a minute for the captain to realise why he feels so off kilter- to come to the conclusion that it’s sadness he’s feeling in place of peace.
Hitsugaya rubs a palm across his chest absently, fingers grasping at nothing.
He’s alone now. No outside influences, no vexations, no duties. He’s alone for the first time in weeks outside of sleep, and he’s sad.
He feels sad.
It takes the wind right out of the captain and he slumps a little bit further towards the ground in confusion, shoulders hunching inwards and down, hair hanging to obscure his eyes. Despair closes in, unanchored and overwhelming his diminutive form.
It’s sadness beyond tears, nothing immediate or urgent about it. Just pure, weary, bone-deep despair that makes him feel heavy and timeworn with grief.
Hitsugaya feels old. He feels old all the time- and what does he have to show for it? A captaincy rife with public doubt. A child’s body. A soul so childish and unremarkable that his own zanpakuto didn’t even remember it…
Sometimes, in his most cynical moments, Hitsugaya wonders if he’s cut out for this. The Gotei thirteen. Captaincy. If it wouldn’t just be better to go back to Rukongai and live out his afterlife in isolation… If his own zanpakuto didn’t recognise him, maybe it’s a sign he doesn’t deserve to wield one in the first place.
The captain sighs and runs a weary hand over his face.
“You doubt me.” Says a deep baritone voice from behind his kneeling form.
He shouldn’t be surprised that his zanpakuto can somehow still get inside his head without actually being anywhere near it, but a lot of things have been surprising him lately.
“I doubt myself.” He admits.
“Then you doubt me.”
Hitsugaya turns slightly and pins the green haired man with a look. Hyourinmaru looks back, steady and unintimidated, his ancient eyes probing.
“You and I are not one person.” Hitsugaya says, cold.
It hurts to admit.
Hyourinmaru nods slowly, his eyes acquiescing, but careful.
“That is true. But our souls are in symbiosis. We are one in the same Hitsugaya Toushiro. Two souls housed in one body. We complement and enhance one another. You are not complete without me, nor I without you.”
“Please.” Hitsugaya says, bitterness rising in his voice like acid, surprising both of them. “What could I possibly give you? I’m a child.” He spits. “I am nowhere near anything resembling your equal. Don’t pretend I am.”
Hitsugaya turns back to the water, trying to pretend like his eyes aren’t burning. He feels stupid, truly like a child for the first time in many, many years.
“I have hurt you deeply.” Hyourinmaru observes after a few moments of heavy silence, his voice grave. Hitsugaya bows his head. “For that I am deeply sorry.”
“You haven’t hurt me. You haven’t done anything wrong.” He says, voice brooking no argument. But it sounds rote, like the lines of a play carefully memorised. Dutifully performed, but entirely unconvincing.
Hyourinmaru doesn’t say anything for a long time, but Hitsugaya can feel him staring as the seconds crawl by.
The captain doesn’t sense him move, but one minute Hyourinmaru is a few long strides away from him, the next he has his arms around his captain, cradling Hitsugaya to his chest like he’s an infant. Hitsugaya wants to struggle, to be indignant, to rip away from Hyourinmaru with all the self-possession of a true Captain of the Gotei thirteen, but he sags instead. He goes loose and pliant in his zanpakuto's embrace, surrendering.
Hyourinmaru stokes a hand through his hair and rests his cheek atop of his head, sighing regretfully. “I am truly sorry.”
His head resting against his zanpakuto’s chest, Hitsugaya closes his eyes. “Please stop saying that.”
“Why?”
Hitsugaya shakes his head and tries to pull away from the embrace, knees slipping on the dewy bank.
Hyourinmaru sighs and loosens his hold obligingly, but still doesn’t let him pull out of the circle of his arms. “It is okay to be angry with me.”
“No it isn’t,” Hitsugaya whispers quietly, then louder, “You haven’t done anything wrong.”
“I forgot you.”
Hitsugaya freezes, scrunching his eyes shut against absurd tears, willing them desperately not to fall, and Hyourinmaru’s head bows, mouth moving to press a kiss to his wielders forehead, reverent and remorseful.
“I should have remembered you. Not because I am obligated as your zanpakuto, but because you’re worth remembering.” Hyourinmaru whispers softly and his voice breaks the captains heart. He draws in a shuddering breath and it comes out as a sob.
Hitsugaya begins to cry, previous efforts not to do so all but forgotten in the whitewash of Hyourinmaru's words. He cries silently because it’s the only way he can, shoulders shaking, his face hidden away momentarily in the folds of Hyourinmaru’s robes. Hyourinmaru merely holds him tighter again and closes his eyes. The captain sinks forward until there’s practically no space between them and rests his forehead in the soft cradle of his zanpakuto’s collar bones, breathing harshly against his chest.
“I am truly sorry for the pain that I have caused you.”
Hitsugaya clenches his hands desperately in the folds of Hyourinmaru’s robes and makes a lost sound in the back of his throat. Hyourinmaru calms him gently, a warm, soft hand cradling the back of his neck and stroking the downy hairs soothingly until the captain begins to quiet.
“To answer your question,” Hyourinmaru begins some time later, after Hitsugaya’s shoulders have stopped shaking and his breathing has evened out, “you give me a heart.”
Hitsugaya looks up at his zanpakuto, confused, and Hyourinmaru takes the opportunity to catch his face gently, brushing a worshipful thumb across his wielders cheekbone.
“I lend you my powers and you give me a home in your heart, in your soul. It is a partnership stronger than any other. It is a sin to have forgotten you the way I did, but it was not a reflection on your worth, merely your buried desires.”
“I don’t understand.” Hitsugaya whispers.
“I am a part of your soul Toushiro. Your desires are mine, your instincts are mine. When I was released my instincts told me to look for a home, for a family, because that is what your heart has been telling you all these years. And your heart is mine.”
Hyourinmaru cups his cheeks and presses their foreheads together. Hitsugaya breathes in the closeness and the affection like a starving man, and feels absolutely floored by revelation.
“You want to belong Hitsugaya Toushiro. Right down to the centre of your being your soul wants to belong somewhere. Yet what you do not realise, what you have been unwilling or perhaps unable to see all this time, is that you already do.”
Hyourinmaru shakes his head at the young captain, an uncharacteristically fond expression on his usually impassive face, and Hitsugaya finally begins to understand what his soul has been trying to tell him all this time. What it is he’s been denying himself.
“You belong right here with your friends Toushiro. Protecting the innocent living, guiding the souls of the dead to their final rest. What your heart cries out for the loudest you already have. You belong here Hitsugaya Toushiro. You belong here with me."
The captain shudders, his eyes wide open for the first time in decades.
“I have been blind.” Hitsugaya whispers and Hyourinmaru shakes his head, drawing back a small distance to look his bearer in the eye.
“No. Merely weighed down by fear and sorrow, but you need not be afraid anymore Toushiro. I will take care of you.”
“I don’t need-”
Hyourinmaru cups his face again, but this time he presses a soft, lingering kiss to his lips instead. The captain’s lips part obligingly under Hyourinmaru’s coaxing tongue and the zanpakuto takes a moment to taste the welcome crispness of his wielders kiss before drawing back and using the opportunity to pull the captain more firmly against his chest so he can support him fully.
“Let me take care of you.” Hyourinmaru whispers. Hitsugaya presses surprised fingers to his mouth and can only nod clumsily, eyes dazed.
The captain rests his head back against Hyourinmaru’s broad chest, still vaguely dazed, and closes his eyes.
“Okay.” Hitsugaya says softly and sinks down fully into the welcoming embrace of his zanpakuto, going loose and languid in the cradle of his arms, sighing contently against his collarbone. “Okay.”
The two stay entwined with each other by the pond for a time, until the moon is rising in the sky and the frogs have begun croaking with the encroaching night. When they can stay no longer, Hyourinmaru secures his hold on his Captain and begins to stand.
“Don’t drop me.” The captain whispers, already half-asleep, and Hyourinmaru brushes the hair out of his eyes, thumb dragging across the untroubled line of his captain’s brow, smiling softly.
“Never.” The zanpakuto promises.
Hyourinmaru stands and carries his Captain back to his quarters, never once letting go of him until morning light.