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Saturday, May 03, 2008,
"I have to go, Ichigo. I don't have any choice in it." If she hadn't added that last part, perhaps it wouldn't have hurt so much. If she hadn't said that, he would have just waved her off, because that would have meant she wanted to go. God help him, he could send her anywhere, anywhere but a place she didn't want to go. He could even leave her in Soul Society. He had. She'd wanted to stay there. "When?" He swore harshly at himself. Yes, very nice. His voice was scratchy. "When do you have to leave?" he said again, more indifferent this time. Much better. "Soon. A couple days." Ichigo nodded gruffly. "Rukia," he said. Her face turned up toward his, its gentle demeanor creased with a question. "Hmm?" "Follow me, okay? I have something to show you." They both stood. They did so carefully, because the sloping roof of the little clinic was covered in a thin sheet of snow. Rukia tightened her scarf around her face as her breath and Ichigo's billowed into the air, joining briefly before dissipating into nothingness. He crawled into his window and waited for Rukia almost impatiently before his long-buried chivalry won out for the briefest moment and he helped her inside. "Ichigo, what was—" "Shh. Stay here. I'll go get it." "Ah...but—" He slipped from the room, leaving only the whistling breeze as Rukia's company. She played with the scarf that Ichigo had given her, allowing herself a small smile. It reminded her of her brother's. Sure, it wasn't white and it couldn't fund the construction of ten houses, but she liked it. It was very soft and the cloth it was made out of had been fluffed so the scarf felt like warm clouds against her skin. She'd never tell anyone, but she'd once played with her brother's scarf. It wasn't very soft. Ichigo opened the door and caught her toying with the smooth cloth. She immediately dropped it, but her hands had no time to do anything. A small box-shaped thing was shoved into her hands. "For you," Ichigo murmured in a monotone. Rukia looked down at the boxy thing. "Ah. Very nice. But what is it?" Her scarf was more interesting than the ugly, malformed black box. "It's...a camera." "I see." Silence. "Ichigo...what's a camera?" He let out a monstrous sigh and stole the camera thing from her, rolling his eyes as if he was being forced to stay in her company. "It's...just look." He pointed the camera at her and pressed a button. It made a startling snap, click sound, and a piece of black and white paper was thrust through the little opening. "Oooh..." Ichigo stole the paper from it and laid it down. "It takes pictures," he said. "So why are you showing it to me?" "Not showing. I'm giving it to you, dumbass. So you can take it back with you. While you're here, take some pictures, okay? That way you can remember us all." Rukia nodded and took the camera from him. Ichigo nodded and looked away. Snap, click. "Rukia!" Ichigo spluttered. "What did you—" "I took a picture of you," she said. She sat down on the window sill. "It's scientific evidence that you can blush!" Grinning, she looked at the paper. "Wait, it's..." She started shaking it. "Darn—!" Finally she smiled, looking at the photo with a satisfied grin. "There we go. It's just...appearing! It's like magic!" Ichigo swore heartily and tried to snatch the picture away from her. She quickly slipped it into her pocket. "Ah!" She said sharply, sticking a finger up in his face. "You said I could take pictures." He nodded grudgingly as she wandered around the house, taking pictures of the inside of a microwave and of Yuzu's stuffed bunny rabbit. She got a closeup of a puppy just as it licked the camera, and she took a picture of her favorite branch in the tree across the street. It was midnight before she packed the camera away and wandered in to bed. "I like this...camera," she said softly from behind the closet door. Ichigo grunted in bed, moaning something incomprehensible. "Yeah, whatever," he murmured. She could hear something like satisfaction in his voice, though. Several moments passed in complete silence. "Memories. It's...that's what she said, when she gave it to me. Pictures are memories that are special because each time you look, you see something new. It's...darn. What did she say? Like a firefly in a jar. 'A captured moment.'" "She?" Ichigo didn't reply for a while. "Mom. That was the camera she gave to me. It's really old..." It was Rukia's turn for silence. "I'm sorry." Ichigo's voice held a faded smile. "Just go to sleep. I'll..." But he couldn't finish the sentence, because he wouldn't see her in the morning. When he awoke from a waterlogged nightmare at four in the morning, he knew she was gone without even looking. He felt it, like a hole in the fabric that made up his world. A weight at the end of the bed startled him, and he sat up. His camera lay there, and atop it, a small picture with a note attached. Her writing was smooth and beautiful for one whose drawings sucked beyond belief. He read the note. "Hope you don't mind. I took one last picture of you while you were sleeping. Oh yeah! And I left something for you." He picked up the picture to find a tilted close-up of her face. She had a happy smile on, one of those childish grins that denied her age and her pain. Her small face smiled and those huge indigo eyes were stretched wide, the dark lashes embracing the curve of her ethereal irises. Her lips, so light-colored, had slid easily into a smile just slightly tainted with confusion. She'd taken the picture while holding the camera herself, thus the odd angle. He saw a billion things inside of her eyes. Slowly, he turned the photo around. As an afterthought, a note had been scrawled. "A memory for you, Ichigo." By -Alaena Night- Labels: Memories for you .. Rukia n Ichigo
6:59 PM
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