Chapter Text
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I love you as certain dark things are to be loved
in secret, between the shadow and the soul.
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Rukia has always known herself to be strange.
Stranger than the humanity surrounding her every morning on the streets, every afternoon on the campus, every evening in the café; flowing and parting in waves of diversity, leaving whispers, laughter, hurried footsteps, in its wake. Stranger than the balding man who routinely shows up at the door next to hers, pacing and mumbling and longingly staring it down before making his way back. Stranger than the freckle faced kid who talks to swings and slides in the garden that can be overlooked from her window. Stranger than her brother-in-law who endorses the kids’ idol “Seaweed man” with the same stoicism he deals his petrified clients.
Well, some habits die hard. Apparently even when crossing over a lifetime.
She looks to her right, where a girl is peacefully snoozing off, her blonde locks splayed and drool collecting on her open notebook. The professor is droning about Egypt and hieroglyphics and trade, his voice soothing almost the entire class to sleep. There is little she can say in her defence, the bunny doodles spilling all over her notes. She does not find the subject boring, no, and nor him, but maybe Mr. Higgins could do with a voice a little less benign and maybe a bit more rousing.
She thinks of her piano, the symphonies playing in her mind. A glance at the clock shows she is mere five minutes away from recreating the music filling the insides of her mind with her fingers in that dusty, rarely visited on campus room.
Five minutes lag on, slow but sure, and the bell has barely finished ringing before the entirety of her class rouses from the spell of the languor, hurriedly shifting and pushing and filing out the doors into the sea of students. Rukia takes her time, carefully arranging back the chappy pencils in her box, one two and three, side by side, picking her shoulder bag and making her way ahead of the last few students lingering about into the long, beige walled corridors.
She is thinking of the 55th Chappy anniversary festival bonanza beginning in a week at the Karakura Mall to the highs and lows of Beethoven’s fifth symphony floating in her head, and even though her eyes are trained ahead, she is looking and not seeing, body dodging people and lockers out of mapped memory of weeks.
And for some reason, her eyes suddenly focus, focus on a ginger head – no wait, orange, that is a ridiculously bright mop of orange, and a ringing begins in her ears. Beethoven notes bleed into this cacophony, chappy’s face disperses into nothing, and her entire being is filled with vibrations so immense she stumbles and keels over. It is not unfamiliar, it is not shocking, it is not scary, but it is ridiculously loud compared to the other times, and she is afraid, so very afraid of letting her eyes map out the face atop which rests that bright orange mane, but much like the other times, this is not in her control either.
So her eyes follow the tan complexion, climbing across the frown to the amber eyes, to the thin lips, to the clothed flat chest, to the strong biceps covered in white cap sleeves, to the denim-ed legs carrying him towards her.
Her breathing is getting shallower, the ringing louder, the vibrations stronger, and when she snaps her eyes back to his face, that scowling face is flashing in her mind, in front of her eyes, just not scowling, but smiling, then grinning, then crying, then yelling, then glaring, then saddening, then calling, then laughing, and then those lips are opening, mouthing R-u-k-i-a-
And then she knows she can’t distinguish reality from memories anymore, so she stumbles back, one step two steps three steps and squeezes her eyes shut, turning around and blindly charging into the thinning crowd, far, far away from him.
Her brain is weighing from all the buried memories and feelings gushing over, floodgates of emotional hell wrecked open by a man she doesn’t know in this life, but knew in the last one. It is so strong, the whiplash, the waves, the flood, that she knows he is different, he is not her brother, nor Renji, nor Kaien, nor her squad-
He is Ichigo.
And in this life, he is her soulmate.
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“Congratulations on your wedding.”
Rukia opens her eyes, the surprise in them thinly veiled. She twists her head from where it is resting in the grass to the left, seeing him standing there, in all his Ichigo glory, not looking a day older from when she last saw him.
Two years ago.
There is suddenly a rock weighing heavily in her chest, the rock she thought had faded into nothing from the happiness of her marriage.
“You never showed up for it.”
Ichigo is giving her that smile, the one he did the first time she told him she wanted to stay back in Soul Society. And then that smile is gone, replaced by a lopsided smirk.
“I was busy getting married myself.”
Rukia rolls her eyes. “Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. But you didn’t have to go so far.”
Now he is scowling. “I didn’t marry to copy you, stupid.”
“I know.” She grins. “How is Inoue?”
“She’s good.” A pause. “Yuzu keeps bugging about you. Says it’s been a while since she saw you.”
“That was such a roundabout way of saying you miss me.”
“What? That was not-”
“Lies. Such lieeeeeees.” Rukia sings, smile on her face and laughter in her eyes.
But for some reason, the rock remains in her chest and if she listens closely, she can feel it sinking further in.
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Word: Soulmate, noun.
A person you are emotionally bound to in your present life, whose unconditional love you repaid with betrayal in your previous life.
Scriptures dating back to the earliest known civilizations call this ‘karmic cycle’. In more recent times, studies have shown a metaphysical connection of past life with the present.
Soulmates exist only for the ones expected to ‘repent’. The repenting person will be emotionally bound to his soulmate for life, but the soulmate shall not experience any such reciprocating pull.
Scientists believe this completes the so called ‘karmic cycle’. The wrong done to another is received in turn. Once the repenting person has lived his life loving his soulmate one-sidedly, the bond is terminated and both parties are no longer bound to each other.
Various persons have reported-
Rukia shuts her laptop.
Un-fucking-believable.
The silence in the library is deafening in the wake of this terrifying realization. She has read up on this word multiple times in the past hour. Tried every site, every dictionary, every book that has promised knowledge to the contrary.
Maybe this is a panic attack I am having. Or maybe I just found him so unbelievably hot that my brain short-circuited.
She sighs.
But her memories cannot be a lie. The face she saw in those moments cannot be a lie. The memory she flashed is not a lie. The smell of wet grass, the heaviness in her chest, the confusion in her heart – if she closes her eyes long enough, she can almost taste the moment on her skin.
More than anything, this feeling cannot be a lie.
There is a wave in her, surging uncontrollably with the need to see him. She ran away from him, but her heart is aching to find him again. There is this ridiculous curiosity about him eclipsing all other thoughts; her mind is blank save for his name – Ichigo.
What music does he listen to? Which is his favourite colour? What makes him laugh? How many siblings does he have? Where does he hangout on weekends? What does he do in his free time? Does he always scowl? Does he watch crime thrillers? Is he a book buff?
She places a hand on her chest, fingers clutching at the fabric of her shirt in a half-hearted attempt to calm her wildly racing heart.
“Hey.”
And then her chair’s falling backwards, eyes widening, hands flailing, and she makes unsuccessful attempts to stay upright -
Which, like every recycled rom-com, are cut off by the intruder holding off her chair.
Her eyes close and she inhales deeply. One, two, three, one, two, three, it’s okay, not falling, not fallen-
“Hey.” The voice is closer, mild confusion radiating off it. “Are you okay?”
Her heart nearly stops; she knows that voice.
Her brain is blaring alarms, and yet her eyes flicker open in unabashed disobedience.
There is a face leaning over hers, all sun-kissed skin and frown lines. She can see the light stubble on his chin, count the flecks of light in his eyes, taste the minty breath on her skin –
She gets up abruptly, successfully knocking him back with her forehead. This elicits an unappreciative grunt, which she promptly ignores, too busy opening the browser tabs and deleting her search history. She is nearly done shouldering her bag, and the exit is a mere eleven feet away-
“What the hell!”
-but her stupid, stupid feet are glued to the spot and for the life of her, she cannot get them to move. Her will to escape vanishes when another painful grunt sounds from behind her, and then she knows, she knows she is doomed, there is no getting out of this. So she takes a deep breath, counts one chappy two chappies three chappies and whirls around to angry, simmering, amber eyes.
“Hi.” She can only hope it does not come out as breathless as she feels.
Ichigo is looking her, annoyance mixed with confusion, but mostly annoyance. He opens his mouth to say something, but shuts it again. There is silence, an awkward one, and Rukia is taking this time to drink the sight of him in.
He is wearing a white t-shirt with Sure, Just Not Until I’ve Had My Coffee printed in bold Impact font. His jeans are jet black, a silver chain circling his left pocket and there is an evident bulge on the right pocket which she guesses is his phone. There is a red and white plaid cotton jacket hanging off his right arm, a beige backpack shouldered on his back. His sneakers are white with black streaks, and she can see them shifting right and left as though undecided. When her eyes trail up towards his face, she sees amber eyes, the flecks noticeable now that she has discovered them, and they seems to cluster together to form a constellation she can spend her life tracing.
She does not remember him.
There are flashes of someone with his face and his hair and his eyes, coloured in the memories of another time, but that’s all. No matter how much she stares him down, her brain comes up with nothing. Some wild instinct – or maybe a buried memory – tells her his name is Ichigo, the recollection of which does nothing to jolt any other memory.
And yet, her eyes are growing warm, her chest heaving, her fingers twitching to touch him. He feels like the mirage of an oasis in a desert. An illusion of the past, a past she has no memory of, but overwhelmingly irresistible, her body seeking it like a familiar comfort. And she is dying, dying of the urge to touch him once and just-just-
“You are weird.” His mumbling voice drifts over, and Rukia hits a brake on her urges. There it is, her hand, halfway extended towards him, palms outstretched, fingers trembling.
“I-I,” what? What? “I am leaving. Good talk. Bye.”
And then she turns away from him and runs.
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“Nice meeting you, Rukia Kuchiki.”
Rukia looks up from her plate of greens at the raven-haired man placing his food opposite hers, confidently seating himself with the air of someone who has done it a million times before.
Her hand holding the fork pauses from where it has been twirling the veggies as she concentrates on this intruder. Black hair, glasses, tall, lanky frame, insincere expression.
Nope. No flashes. Not this life, not the previous one. “You are-?”
“Ishida Uryu.” He places a napkin in between, almost as a piece offering. “We share Biology 351.”
A class with one-fifty students, she thinks. The whole unremarkable appearance not helping jog her memory either.
He gives her a small, calculated smile. “Humour me? I feel like making new acquaintances.”
Rukia looks back at her plate. “You don’t seem like someone who’d make an acquaintance for no reason.”
“That’s a smart observation.”
Annoyance is beginning to replace mild curiosity. “So what do you want?”
He adjusts his glasses, because of course, that’s a classic novel-style move, and Rukia is thinking she needs to cut down on her fiction reading for a while, when suddenly his eyes are trained on her.
“I need your help.”
Curiosity wins. “With?”
“I need you to help me with psychology.”
What? “Wait what? Me? Why?”
“You have the top grades in that lecture.”
“And you know this because?”
“A man in dire need of resources would take every effort to seek them out.”
It is a lousy excuse, so absurd that she half expects a justification, a cover-up. Except that never comes. He is just sitting there, looking her in the eye, small smile plastered on his face.
Because that’s exactly how it looks. Something cut from another face and stuck imperfectly on his.
She gets up. “I don’t believe it.”
“I need it for a Soulmates Continuum experiment.”
The plate slips and her hands flail about for a few seconds, trying to catch it. Her fingers manage to shakily grip it, the veggies pausing in their down town slide.
She inhales deeply, trying to calm her heart and gather her thoughts.
He is still watching her from his seat, smile in place. His eyes are a blue sea of calm, almost purring satisfaction. “I am performing a project for this semester.” he begins, breaking his bread into two halves. “Would you like to hear about it?”
Run, her brain screams.
She stays, narrowing her eyes at him. “You have a minute to explain.”
He shrugs, noiselessly biting into the bread. “Fair enough,” he mumbles, making an effort to chew. His eyes are back on her. “I am a psychology major. I work part-time in the research lab of the university. Given your reaction, I am guessing you are aware that our university is affiliated with the NSCP - National Soulmate Continuum Project. As a part of my academic course this semester, I plan on conducting a series of experiments to explore one extremity of the whole soulmate-” he pauses, jaw working around for a few moments. “Phenomenon. Interested enough?”
Rukia is still standing. “And you need me because?”
“I need a second brain to keep questioning and brain-storming. An A grader in psychology labs would work wonderfully.”
“There are at least seven other students.”
The smile grows. “None as approachable.”
Rukia rolls her eyes. “I can introduce you to them.”
“None of them would be as interested.”
“And what makes you think I am?”
There is a premonition, digging at the edges of her consciousness, and she knows she asked the wrong question, because he is saying-
“You have a soulmate.”
This time, she lets the plate fall.
“You don’t want your soulmate, do you?” he trudges on, eyes trained on her. “I could help you with that.”
“Right.” To her credit, Rukia maintains a calm, almost conversational tone.
“Is that a yes?”
She looks away from him, down, at the spilled plate. Bending down, she places all the carrots and capsicums, piece by piece, counts of one two three flitting in her head. Once everything dry and salvageable is in her plate, she straightens up, fixing the dark-haired boy with the worst look she can muster.
“No. Because I don’t have a soulmate.”
Her heart is hammering in blatant disregard, but she turns around anyway, walking away before he can get another word in.
She knows it was the wrong move when Ishida Uryu finds her again in biology the next day, sliding next to her on the bench.
“I know Ichigo Kurosaki is your soulmate.”
“Don’t know anyone with that name.” she lies. Her brain is screaming bloody murder and playing background score of how did he know how did he know how did he know-
She can see him raising an eyebrow at her, from the edges of her vision. “Do you not, now.”
“You need to leave before I punch you.” She lies again. Half-lies, given the direction of the conversation.
“I may be able to help you live a normal soulmate-less life.”
She can’t help the snort that escapes her. “That sounds like murder.”
“By helping you nullify your bond.”
She slams her book shut and gets up. “I am out of here. Don’t try to find me again.”
He finds her again anyway, later in the day in the piano room, because he is an asshole of the persistent variety. It is late afternoon, few students milling around on the campus, and the piano room is silent, awash with a calmness Rukia has grown to crave. It quietens the constant buzz in her head and makes her feel almost normal. Like any other girl, playing the keys to the rhythm in her soul.
“You should reconsider it.” Ishida is saying, daintily wiping the sweat collecting on his brows with a napkin. “This will be beneficial for you. I want to conduct this experiment to help people like you.”
Rukia has half a mind to sock him in the face, and her hand is raised to hit him where he is standing next to her seat-
“- And people like my father.”
Her hand pauses mid-air, almost jerkily retracting, and she looks at him. Looks at him, properly, his strained eyes, grimacing mouth, till her ears start ringing, and there is a flash, the same face, the same glasses, the same hair, smiling smugly, all white clothes, a bow and arrow, holding out a green dress, lips mouthing Kuchiki-san-
She knew this man. The way she knew Renji, the way she knew her brother, the way she knew Kaien… the way she knew Ichigo.
Her hand retracts completely. Warmth courses through her body, like hot chocolate in her hands on a winter day. All wariness scarily dissipates into nothingness, instincts overtaking her brain commands. Her heart is calm, body relaxing, and as beautiful as the sensation is, she can’t bring herself to bask in it.
He must notice the change, for his eyebrows furrow, studying her with wariness.
As he should be.
“No.” she grits out, when a few moments pass and it is clear that he is not going to be saying anything. “This has nothing to do with me.”
He stays silent. And then, in the most surprising turn of events, shrugs and bows slightly.
“I will respect your decision. But if you change your mind, let me know.”
She thinks, finally.
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“Do you like the outfit, Kuchiki-san?”
She can hear the smugness in his voice, and it reminds of her how much this riles Ichigo, and she nearly laughs. “I love it.” She says, turning around to look at Ishida, whose smug smile is melting into a warmer one.
“I am glad, then. Very surprised that your brother was alright with this, though.”
She nods, recalling her brother’s grimace, the first time she told him about getting her wedding kimono stitched by Ishida. Hisana’s wedding kimono had been her first choice, but there are so many feelings attached to that kimono, the weight of which she and Byakuya were in over their heads to bear.
Her palms caress the kimono’s material, feeling its smoothness. This is going to be her wedding dress. She is going to be marrying her lifelong friend, in less than two weeks.
Before the uncharacteristic giddiness filling her chest can show on her face, Ishida’s voice cuts in. “I stitched a similar one for Inoue.”
She looks at him this time. His eyes are giving away nothing, but the smile on his face is no longer. His gaze is stuck on where her palm meets the kimono’s fabric and she knows he isn’t seeing her right now. “She also loved it.”
And she thinks, not for the first time, how brave humans are.
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That weekend Renji shows up with twin lattes at her apartment, never mind that it is seven a.m. in the freaking morning and Rukia has barely caught two hours of shut eye. He lets himself in with the spare key, making his way through the silence of the house and gawking stupidly on finding her blinking up blearily at the ceiling.
Rukia is a morning person, really, she is; by now she’d be singing and twirling to tropical chancer in sync with the whirring of her vaccum throughout the house. But she is not, no thanks to the week from hell that was, with the supernatural karmic bonds and reincarnation overload. Last night was an unsuccessful attempt in dozing off, and she can’t figure out whether she spent the night sleeping or dreaming with open eyes.
“You are on bed.”
She glares at Renji. “No shit, Sherlock.”
His eyebrows go higher. “And you are grouching out on me.”
“Yes, your point?” she snarls.
He shrugs, placing the coffees on dresser next to her bed. His eyes rake over her bedraggled appearance, the twisted sheets and he grins. “Ms. Perfection Incarnate had a sleepless night in New York?”
He should have seen the pillow coming for his face. “Shut up.” She grumbles, leaning heavily on her elbows and blinking at the vestiges of sunlight filtering through the spaces in the curtains. It is an exercise of herculean proportions to get herself to sit upright and with that accomplished, she swings her feet off to one side of the bed, sighing.
Renji places himself next to her, concern colouring his voice. “You okay?”
There is silence for a few moments while Rukia contemplates on what to tell him. She licks her lips, tasting the morning breath on her tongue and sighs. Her hands reach for the breath mints aligned with the lamp on the dresser, and she pops two in her mouth, chewing thoughtfully.
“I might have found my soulmate,” she begins slowly, looking at the cream tiles beneath her swinging feet.
Even as she says it, she knows it is a lie.
“What?” Renji’s voice is a mix between the what-I-didn’t-hear-you and what-are-you-for-real?
“I flashed on him,” she continues, her eyes trailing from where the floor meets the wall, crawling up its expanse of pinkness. They fix on a framed portrait of her and her brother, dressed in formal black tie event clothes, smiling faces staring back at her. She vividly remembers the day it was taken, a good four years ago, back when memory flashes had been the stuff of magic and role-play.
She looks at Renji when he garbles an incredulity filled “What?!”
Her fingers find his, and she breathes in his familiar cologne. “And I met someone who wants to make me a guinea pig for his NSCP experiments.”
“Wait, wait,” Renji is shaking his head, concern and confusion swimming in the blood red of his eyes. “You found your soulmate? And you flashed on him?”
“Maybe. Yes.”
“How do you know he is your soulmate?”
His eyes mirror the confusion in her heart, and she has to remind herself to breathe. “I just do. I can’t explain it, and maybe, oh god, I pray I am wrong, but it feels just the way they all describe it. ”
Renji is spluttering now. “If you think it’s the flashes of memories, it means nothing. You experienced the same thing with me and Byakuya and Kaien-”
“This flash was different. The feelings I had when I flashed on him- ” her mouth runs dry and she has words, she does, but she doesn’t want to say them out loud, make this more real than it already is, and so she finishes with a strangled “- it felt different.”
Renji is silent. He looks torn between irritation and concern, the expression on his face very baboon like. In any other situation, Rukia would probably laugh at him, shove a mirror in his face, but in this moment, she simply stares at him, waiting for him to tell her how to walk away from this.
His eyes find hers, and she can see the gears turning in his mind.
“Are you sure?” he asks quietly.
She doesn’t answer.
He grunts a little, and pulls her into a rough hug. “We are spending today researching this shit and proving your over-reactive imagination wrong.”
She smiles into his embrace, lightly smacking his arm. They sit there for a long time, comfortable, easy and familiar; and not for the first time Rukia wonders just why she couldn’t fall in love with Renji in this life as well.
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“Rukia.”
“ Hm?” she looks at Renji. His face is a little red, sweat trailing down his forehead, eyes flitting about like a shoplifting kid.
The one she had encountered in the Living World had been pulling it off much better though. That had been one hell of an afternoon that ended with a red-faced Ichigo, an annoyed police officer and a smug kid.
But she knows Renji is no shoplifter, not anymore and she wonders if the sun is getting to him. They have been out all afternoon, clashing swords and practising kido spells.
He looks nervous, though. And his fidgeting is beginning to irritate her.
So she smacks his head upside down.
“What the fuck!” he grunts in annoyance, glaring daggers her way.
“Spit it out!” she yells back, equally irritated. The heat is beginning to get to her too, it seems.
“Spit what out?!”
“I know you want to say something. So say it.”
“How do you know-”
“I am going to go bakudo on your ass right this moment-”
“Will you marry me?”
For one moment, everything goes blank. Rukia heard him; she thinks she heard herself asking “what” but she is not too sure. Her brain is busy processing Renji’s sullen face, his slumped stance. He is looking at her with uncertainty, and his eyes remind her of the time she first told him about moving away to the Kuchiki manor.
And somehow, somehow she knows that if she says the wrong thing, he is going to smile at her the way he did back then, pat her, and let her go.
He is already beginning to backtrack; she can see the smile which is all shades of wrong blooming on his face.
“You don’t have to answer me right now.”
He pats her on the arm.
“I will be waiting. Take your time. But if it is a no,” he pauses, and he is so close she can hear him swallow, “tell me right now.”
Rukia thinks back on when she first met Renji. They were both kids, homeless, loveless, manner-less. Petty thieves, transformed into spirits with a humanitarian streak on loss of their loved ones. In the shivering rains, the harsh sunlight, the bloody confrontations, the steal jobs, the academy trainings – they had always, always been together. Except for those few odd years in between, he had always been by her side, standing back, letting her wage her wars, but there to catch her. Always watching out for her, chasing her when she got too far away-
There is a heat blooming in her chest, probably on her cheeks too, but she knows. This is natural. This is what their friendship had been leading up to. Renji has always felt like home; comfortable and familiar. Being with him was as easy as breathing, and she wonders why it took her so long to realise this.
She clutches his arm, fighting the smile blossoming on her face.
Her eyes find his, and she says the magic words.
“Of course, stupid.”
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