Work Text:
Lacuna (n): an unfilled space or interval; a gap.
⁕ ⁕ ⁕
“When this’s over, let me take ya out to dinner.”
Shinji’s voice is low and soft, usual hints of humour or teasing completely absent. Ichigo doesn’t say anything, doesn’t even look at him. At his sides, his hands silently fist at his shihakusho, trembling with the effort of keeping the broken noise lodged in his throat from surfacing. He feels Shinji’s heavy gaze on the back of his neck and pointedly does not turn to meet it, afraid.
Their relationship has long since bordered on something more intimate than friendship, more intense than simple devotion—but, for months now and nearing a year, they have been deliberately dancing around that borderline, ever so careful not to actually cross it. Perhaps due to their shared experiences (a monster lurking at the back of the mind, a devastating betrayal by the people they trusted) or just the similarities in their personalities (fiercely protective of the things they’ve yet to lose, stupidly loyal to the ones they hold close), they felt naturally drawn to each other from the start. Pulling each other into shared orbit. Keeping each other grounded through the grief, the pain, the small victories, and the crushing loss.
Until now, neither had made any move to close that last bit of distance. There was just too much at stake. More important things at hand—things to protect, things to fight for, things to avenge. More important than themselves. And, if they were being honest, more important than each other.
After the war, was the unspoken promise. After everything is over.
Ichigo had tried not to think about what that ‘after’ would look like. What it would cost. Who would still be with him. But he had to, now, because tomorrow—
Tomorrow, Shinji was leaving to kill Aizen with Urahara’s newly completed hogyoku, and he was not coming back.
( “It should be me!” Ichigo had argued at the Resistance meeting, insistent, desperate, and almost crazed. “I learned the Final Getsuga Tenshou. I have more reiatsu than everyone in this room combined. I have a better chance than anyone else here of making it out alive!”
He looked frantically around the room, seeking confirmation from the other members, but getting only pity. Final Getsuga or not, Hollow-Shinigami hybrid or not, the collision of the two hogyoku will obliterate anything within a twenty-mile radius and rend it to pure nothingness. They knew this, and they knew Ichigo did as well.
“Please,” he begged. “Please, let me go instead. Shinji, I—”
“Ichigo, it’s okay. I can handle it.” Shinji offered him a small, resigned smile, and whatever arguments he had prepared stuck in his throat.
I can’t, he thought to himself . I can’t handle losing you.)
Ichigo finally turns to face the man beside him. Shinji’s hair has grown out since Ichigo first met him, pulled into a high ponytail that falls just past his shoulders. He’s breathtaking, golden hair catching in the evening light, and an unwavering gaze that knocks the breath from his lungs. It’s the first time Shinji has looked at him like this; like there was nothing else in the world around them, like he was giving himself wholly to him.
Like he loved him.
He can’t look away.
The silence stretches for a long moment. Neither of them moves. Ichigo sighs, breath shuddering.
Let me take you out to dinner. In his head, Ichigo translates it to let me love you before it’s too late. More promises they will never be able to keep.
“You’re a cruel man, Hirako Shinji.” His voice is hoarse.
“I know.” Shinji’s voice sounds so terribly, terribly sad, and Ichigo feels something inside him break.
⁕ ⁕ ⁕
Aizen is dead, and Ichigo is alone.
The grave is merely for show; nothing was left of him that they could bury, not a scrap of clothing or a lock of hair. The war had worn all of Shinji away.
One day in the far future, Ichigo will realize he can no longer remember the details of Shinji’s face. The harder he’ll try to remember, the more the edges of his features will blur together, and Ichigo will cry himself to sleep that night.
But for now, Ichigo plants sunflowers next to Shinji’s grave and clings to the last of what he has—the muted memory of golden hair and a piercing gaze in the evening light.