Post by lev on Jul 3, 2018 16:50:04 GMT -5
i
echoes
Wisps of moonlight illuminated his scrawny form that sought solace on the gnarled roots of a dying tree. It was on the garden that used to be, once a patch of greenery near the medical center, now left to neglect as people focused their restoration abilities to their fellow shinigami. His consciousness was sure there was once happiness here. His body had memories of happiness here. And yet the image of it in his mind's eye, recollections of bright days and smiling faces, clashed strongly against the image he now basked by himself.
Was it because he'd only experienced this place while sharing the consciousness of a soul who found such beauty in what it once was? Was it because her feelings always dictated his own? He was never quite sure, himself. He liked to think he had fond memories of this place, too. Something that was only his and not theirs. And yet, the more he searched the depths of his mind, the more the answers slipped from his grasp.
His shinigami spent too many days under the comforting shade of this tree. Sometimes with a book. Sometimes with a friend. Sometimes with a pet. It was near enough to the hospital that it would be easy to come when called, yet far enough that it felt appropriately detached to the hospital scene. If he closed his eyes focused just enough, he could recall those memories as if they were his own, vivid as though it's happening in his present.
Quiet days of poring over kaido books to solve a particularly complicated case. Soft hums in-between furious scribbling and constant self-doubting before arriving to possible solutions.
Uncontrollable giggling and wild banter with a white-haired friend over lunch breaks.
Curious inquiries over how much a teacup-sized kitsune knows about the ways of the arcane.
He could hear her, his shinigami, the distant echoes of her past intertwining with his present.
The lack of this body's capacity to heal.
The lack of a friend to laugh with.
The lack of curiosity over the furry friend who probably needs to go home.
He could hear her voice, echoing in the recesses of his mind, a dull ache growing in his chest knowing how long it had been since the last time he'd heard it for himself.
Seven years.
Even then, all he had of her were memories. Her memories. Every huff felt like they slipped from his own lips. Every laugh thrumming from his chest. Every statement echoing from his mind.
He never had the chance to see her, to view her world as a spectator detached from her own senses. He'd always experienced the world by how she experienced it. Heard her thoughts without any sort of restraint. Saw her feelings as it painted his world. Their world. He'd always experienced them with such honesty, such innocent clarity, that he found it difficult to recognize what was hers and what was his. He was sure, that of all those times he remembered her, protected beneath this tree, he had his own voice. His own words.
He always told her to just give up on her patients.
He always told her of his suspicions of that two-faced woman.
He always told her that Kokoro didn't belong in Soul Society.
And of all the times he reminisced what was left of her, he never heard his own voice. Not even once. That of all the times that had come and gone, across centuries they've been together, across lives their souls had been intertwined, is was as if she never acknowledged his existence at all.
Funny, that these thoughts never crossed his mind an awful lot before.
Whenever his efforts failed, he vowed he'd try better in the next lifetime. Over, and over again. That as long as they were alive, there was hope for him to be acknowledged as a part of her life. As a part of her soul. That one day, he, too, would have memories of her, rather than with her.
And with each passing day that her soul remains asleep, a fragment of his will chips away. With each passing day, his feelings intensify towards the three things left for him to hold on.
The knowledge. The traitor. The companion.
As the night deepened, he found himself curling against the craggy bark, pulling his hakama tighter around his body as the breeze nips at his skin. Of all the places in this world, this is still the most comfortable place for him.
A place that holds traces of her.