Bleach 1. Chapter 1

_Small disclaimer: _I don't own Bleach. If I did, I would be rich. Rich, I say!

**UPDATE:** Thanks to a reviewer, it has come to my attention that there is a work of fanart that is similar to this fic. I didn't know such a fanart even existed! So please don't think this has anything to do with any fanart, because it really doesn't. It's purely coincidental. Thanks!

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She'd grown accustomed to the way people lived around there. It was startling how similar the people were to the ones she'd left behind back home. The thing that still got her was the architecture. The edo period style of the outlying districts was more comfortable to her than the sparse stone structures of the Seireitei. The white and grey buildings rose from the earth like monoliths, the structures growing larger and taller toward the center. They made her feel small, like the child she used to be not too long ago.

On her first day there, she found herself winding through the maze-like thoroughfares, trying not to look around with eyes wide like saucers the way her peers tended to. This place was very different from the shino academy she'd invested the past eight years of her life in, but she wasn't about to let that show in her eyes. Unlike many of the new recruits, she knew exactly where she was going. She'd practiced this journey in her mind a hundred times.

She was going to surprise an old friend.

This was a big damn deal.

After all, she'd navigated these past years carefully. She was staying under his radar if it killed her. She'd gotten a good starting position with Squad Eleven, knowing she'd be able to hold her own just fine with the hot-headed types that tended to gravitate toward that division. She also worked to keep her name quiet; which proved to be a heroically difficult task, considering her brother's fame. Eight years had felt like an eternity to her, because her mind still operated on Living World time. Time like that moved in the blink of an eye to most everyone else, but patience was still a costly virtue to her. Like her sense of time, her essence had remained the same after her passing. Her brother even noted once or twice that she hadn't allowed her circumstances to change her at all. He was wrong, of course.

It had all happened so fast, she was bound to retain pieces of herself. Her memories of the life before remained clear like an unstirred pool of water in her mind. The last day in her life before had been a mundane one. She had just been waiting for the train with her sister, the two planning to head to the city to find a birthday gift for their brother. Sometimes she could still hear the metallic clink of the coins in her wallet as Yuzu counted them, adding up their combined funds. That final memory would forever be the strongest one.

But things became choppy near the end. Shuffling footsteps, a cry that pierced through the veil of the crowd murmuring on the platform. There was the tear-streaked face of a child as they cut through the crowd, in the midst of a fit. The shouts of her pursuing mother were drowned out by the blaring of a horn from the approaching train. The noise seemed to swallow Karin whole as she watched the scene unfold. There was a gasp and a loud smacking sound as the child attempted to skid to a halt before the end of the platform, and an even larger collective groan as they failed.

All Karin needed to see was the kid's pin wheeling arms as they flew forward onto the tracks. She hadn't even thought to say anything to her sister before she sprang off of the platform after the child. The train's horn sounded more like a low-pitched scream echoing through the building and the ground hummed beneath her feet. She scooped the child up, shoving them back onto the platform roughly and into the arms of a grateful mother. But no good deed goes unpunished. The last thing her living eyes saw was a blinding light, the scream of the train melding with the screams of the onlookers until none of it made sense to her anymore.

It wasn't exactly an ideal way to go, but hey, it wasn't boring.

Her brother guided her to the next world himself, insisting than allowing her to lose her memory through konso would only add insult to the injury of loss. He took it pretty hard, but he hadn't shut down the way Yuzu had. Karin still had trouble sleeping at night when she thought about it. So she gave herself a goal to work toward, for morale's sake. She was going to make a grand entrance to a not-so-grand friend. And that goal was what drove her for the following years. To see that look on his face -to have him know that she'd avoided his detection for so long and fooled the boy genius- would be oh so satisfying.

After all of the fuss, the time had come. She entered the barracks she'd once been shown in secret by an all too willing Fukutaicho, and held her breath as she navigated the wide halls of the division. The heavy wooden doors marked the finish line for her and she vaguely wondered what she would set her sights on next once this was through. Fingers wrapped white-knuckle around the brass door fixture and she yanked it open roughly without even knocking. The door slid open with a loud shuffle and the fabric of her new black shihakusho rustled as she stepped into the office.

After everything that had changed, he looked the same. She couldn't help but find some small foothold of comfort in that, as stupid as that may have been. It was almost as if she could just pretend it was like the old days; just the two of them wandering around together after one of her soccer games. He didn't even look up from his paperwork as she approached his desk.

"Finally decided to finish up your work, huh?"

He thought she was his fukutaicho. This would be delicious. A small smirk blossomed across her lips and she leaned forward, placing one hand down on either side of his paper work. The wood grain of his desk was cool to the touch, and as his teal eyes flickered up to meet hers the temperature in the room dropped perceptibly. Her lips parted as she recited the greeting she'd decided on long ago.

"Hey, Toshiro. I'm dead."

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**AN: **This was originally written as a characterization exercise, hence why the ending is so open-ended. I just posted it in case anyone would like to read it. Meh. I may expand it into a two or three shot story.


	2. Chapter 2

**AN**: Hey look! I'm turning this into a series of AU one-shots that are loosely connected? Does that make this an actual fic? I don't know. Thanks for the reviews! I hope my writing style in this second chapter isn't too flowery or dense. Let me know what you think! c:

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"Hey, Toshiro. I'm dead."

Nothing would be quite the same after that.

She had always been like the sea to him: A place to go on a holiday and a retreat to fresher air. Their time together was fleeting, just as fleeting as the time it took for the tide to breathe against the golden shore. They had never been what one would consider lovers, or even friends. But they had shared some strange sort of companionship. That had always been enough. He indulged in her, however secretly and selfishly. He used her to recharge as well as to lash out against. He dipped his feet in her cool waters, but he also beat back her waves with impotent oars. They played games, and she was not ignorant of that. Her surface wasn't always glassy and smooth, but often churning with teasing provocations aimed dead at his heart. The sea could never be tamed, even if he was invited to swim.

They could never achieve balance, and that was what drove them away from each other.

But that had all been while she was alive.

So many years had passed since he saw her last. She had barely turned seventeen, and people had begun to ask if he was her little brother. They got shave ices and ate them in the park, doing nothing remarkable. When they parted ways, he gave no indication that he had no intention of returning. She had a life to live, and it was doubtful that there was room in it for him anymore.

He had lost the will to swim against the current.

Eight years. He spent eight years telling himself that he had a life to live too. They had their time together, but -as he'd learned from a book he had once borrowed from her- nothing gold can stay. He belonged with his division, and she with her family. That isn't to say he didn't think of her. He did so in the most unexpected moments. He imagined what she would be like at twenty-one and twenty-five; a budding romance with a poor kind-hearted guy who would be absolutely cowed by her, the beginnings of her own family, the foundation of a life. All of it was intended to seal off any strange foreign aching he felt in his chest. An aching that didn't belong there. If he told himself he didn't want it, it didn't hurt when he couldn't have it.

Eight years. He spent eight years lying to himself. And now Karin had reappeared as an unapologetic specter. Mere months had passed between their last meeting and her final breath. She never had any idea that he had tried to cut himself out of her life so easily as she'd never gotten the time to figure that out.

She haunted him in a way words could not capture. Though not a member of his divison, she had apparently been fast friends with his fukutaichou from day one. Her jubilant laughter filled his barracks during Matsumoto's nighttime drinking parties and her wordless smirks colored his dreams. She was everywhere. The tide he had tried to run from had rushed up the shore to meet him, this time refusing to subside.

The imagined future that he had constructed for her was crumbling away, and he was dismayed to find that he was thrown back into her affairs.

Two months after she critically disrupted his world, he discovered something he would never forget. Summer was bearing down on them, the air growing thick almost to the point of tangibility. Thunderheads gathered in the sky and the whole world settled into silence as if awaiting the burst of those first few drops of rain. When the storm began, the curtains of rain shimmered to the ground in a torrent that was a welcome reprieve from the still, heavy air.

"You're dripping all over my floor." Hitsugaya hadn't even looked up from his desk to reprimand her. He hated to admit it, but he'd recognize Karin's reiatsu anywhere.

She began to wring out her hair, letting a few extra droplets slide to the floor in a display that any of his other subordinates would be too frightened to perform. She caught his gaze, not looking away as she did it. "I can't control the weather, unlike some people."

He gave an exasperated sigh before getting up to retrieve a towel from a drawer across the way. He knew Matsumoto kept those around in case she spilled her hidden sake in the office. He made a move as if to toss it to her, but she met him halfway and plucked it from his hands with a shit-eating grin.

"Matsumoto's on an errand," He explained matter-of-factly, as she dried off her hair. "And knowing her she won't attempt to return until the storm passes."

Karin paused in her ministrations, "I can wait."

It was the first time they had been alone together since her arrival. It wasn't clear to either of them if they had consciously avoided this or not. He still hadn't learned how she died. It was a question he'd never had to ask anyone before, seeing as most shinigami had no recollection of their life on Earth. She studied his eyes for a moment, as if making some sort of decision. The air between them became charged with an energy that reflected the steady rolls of thunder overhead. It was the perfect moment for _something_. The tragedy was that neither of them knew what.

So she plopped onto the couch, and he returned to his desk. The moment had passed but it had not gone from either of their minds. She looked so at home there, eyes closed and arms folded behind her head as she listened to the storm. She had an easy way about her that proved irresistible to many. Perhaps even to him. But they'd gotten too close for him to believe that was all there was to her. He'd been teased too many times and heard her curse at too many people. But in his office, she had chosen to make herself vulnerable to him again. Her guard seemingly dropped.

It was only when she opened her eyes again that he realized he had been staring.

She didn't seem to notice, "What exactly had you been planning to do?"

His eyebrows knit together, "Kurosaki, I have no idea what you're-"

"You weren't going to come back." She said it easily, as if commenting on the weather. "If you had, you would have learned that I'd kicked the bucket and my trick wouldn't have worked."

The pen slipped from his fingers, "A taichou has duties and responsibilities to uphold."

"If you didn't want to hang out with me anymore, you could've said so." The words were delivered with a shrug and she closed her eyes once more. "I don't see why you think you need to use your duties as a taichou as an excuse or anything."

It was as if she could walk away from him as easily as he had tried to walk away from her. He could feel the tide pressing down on him, barely allowing him to raise his chin above the surface. She knew. She had known all that time and yet hadn't treated him any differently. At least not when they were around others. He had tried to push her away, and failing that she was considering slipping away on her own. Could he blame her? They had never been great friends, or enemies, or lovers. He made her feel unwanted, and in turn she'd reacted with as much grace as she could muster.

He wasn't supposed to feel like this. This aching in his chest that had been nursed by fictional ideas about her future was stoked to life again by her words as they twisted in his side. There was no melodrama in her voice. She sounded adult and mature, which only served to make the threat more real.

"Oh, Taichou~! My clothes are so wet and slippery my breasts almost popped right out!" Matsumoto put the tension to an end, arriving in the kind of excited flurry she carried with her almost everywhere. "Karin-chan! Sorry I'm late! I have an umbrella in the closet we could use on our way to the restaurant."

Karin stood and gave Hitsugaya a slight bow, "I'll see you around."

He didn't watch the women leave. He didn't look up from his paperwork to see the strange glances his fukutaichou sent to Karin or how her gunmetal eyes drifted back to him one last time. The sounds of waves were roaring in his ears, whitecaps frothing relentlessly.

He needed to learn to swim again.


	3. Chapter 3

**AN:** This chapter contains the most intimate/physical scene I've ever written. Wow. I don't know how to do this. It's not smut but...I tried, guys. I tried. I listened to "Too Afraid to Love You" by The Black Keys on repeat while writing this. I'd like to think that song helps set the mood. Oh gosh I am so insecure about this chapter. Don't even look at me. asdfghjkkjhgf

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"Haaappy birthdaaay, Hisagiiiii-san~! Happy biiiirthday to yoooooou~!" Rangiku's voice was loud and she was too drunk to care that no one had been singing along with her. She abandoned her post seated next to Karin in favor of sidling next to the fukutaichou she'd serenaded. Playfully wrapping her pink scarf around his shoulders, she led him to the makeshift dance floor. It wasn't much of a dance floor considering it had been crudely arranged by pushing tables aside, but it was enough to get the party going. There were enough shinigami crammed into the banquet hall to make the air heavy and warm and the free-flowing sake didn't help. The tenth's fukutaichou loved any excuse for a good party.

Karin downed the remains of her cup, watching as Hisagi followed the voluptuous fukutaichou around like a charmingly drunk puppy. She wasn't quite far gone enough for that yet, but perhaps she'd get there. It had been a while since she'd gotten truly, carelessly, drunk.

It was when she spotted the flash of alabaster hair that she decided that _yes_ she would definitely get there.

Hitsugaya hadn't been as sold on the idea of a large party as his fukutaichou had been. The summer air pressed down on him and the white noise of music and talking filled his head to the brim. These were not his ideal conditions, but he'd found himself unable to decline Hinamori's invitation. His feelings toward his childhood friend were mixed. For so many years she had been his reason to get stronger, a cornerstone of his life he had never wavered in defending. But there had always been those private moments where the task of protecting her had felt like a monumental weight upon his shoulders. _Get stronger._ That had always been his answer to the weight. But had it been the right one?

He dutifully sat next to her as she nursed the same cup of sake for an hour. Across from them, Izuru's face had flushed to an astonishing cherry and his words came a little looser. Hinamori laughed prettily along with what he had been saying, as if he wasn't on his way to drinking himself under the table. Her sweetness radiated from her every pore, like an oasis in the desert. The taichou glanced around the raucous room, feeling a kind of monotony creeping in. That was when he spotted_ her_.

She sat in the far corner of the room, partially obscured by the dancing figures. She was alone at her table, curled around a cup of sake. Inky tendrils of hair licked down her back, longer than they'd ever been when she was alive. The distant feeling of floating set in on him, making him queasy.

Hinamori's soft gaze followed his, her eyebrows crinkling when she realized just what had so diverted his attention. Her fingers brushed his hand. They lingered. That weight came suddenly back and he felt it pushing his head beneath the water he'd fought so hard to remain above. The oasis was a mirage.

"What's so interesting, Hitsugaya-kun?" The question was innocuous enough.

He moved his hand from hers, standing to excuse himself. "There's a matter I have to attend to. I'll be back."

When he approached, she didn't even turn around. She just seemed to sense that he was there, "You gonna sit down and have a drink or are you just gonna hover there like a creep?"

She wasn't quite drunk, but she was far from sober. The words had a hint of venom to them, but maybe that was all in his head. He planted himself by her side and allowed her to pour him a cup of sake. It wasn't often that he drank, though the fact that he had matured enough outwardly to match the appearance of a human in their early twenties helped. In the time it took him to drain half of the drink she'd already moved on to a fresh cup.

"So what's driving you to drink?" She questioned, possibly out of social convention.

_You. _The word stuck in his throat and he washed it down with a burning gulp of sake. When he didn't answer her, she gazed at him with iron eyes. Despite her state of near-intoxication, she still seemed to see too much when she examined his face. His quietness was a nuisance to her, and she felt herself running out of patience for him. A grimace temporarily painted her features as she polished off her cup and poured a new one. The figures dancing behind him blurred in the dim backlight and she couldn't find the will to care that soon enough she could be passed out on the table.

"If you have nothing to say, go do your tortured soul routine somewhere else."

The words stung. If he didn't leave first, she would. The realization sunk into his bones, and he had to do something to stop her. She shifted dangerously in her seat, eyes scanning the crowd for a familiar face to escape to. She was ebbing away from him, eroding something in his heart as she went. Vulnerability was a shocking thing.

"I wanted you to have a life."

That froze her. He noticed that her eyes ceased their searching, but she didn't look at him. In one lithe movement, she consumed what was left of her drink. Her eyes were slightly glazed, and he marveled for a moment at her alcohol tolerance. He took her silence as permission to explain himself.

"I wanted you have something that I couldn't fit into." The words were hard to say, and his voice was matter-of-fact. It would be treason against himself to give away just how much he felt. "A life spent living instead of waiting. A career, a home, a family of your own. I wanted you to have normal."

The smack of her palm against his face resonated in his ears, but the rest of the party went on none the wiser. Anger prickled up in his gut. Her temperament was as unpredictable as ever. But it vaguely occurred to him that he was lucky she hadn't punched him.

Her eyes finally met his, and the smallest smirk rested on her lips. "Normal? You should know better." She shook her head slowly and it seemed as if she had trouble finding the words she needed, "…you're not as shitty as I thought. But you're still pretty close."

While his back was turned, she had become a woman. It wasn't just the stubborn commanding presence that she'd always had. It was the subtle things. The maturity that ran beneath the surface, the ownership she had over her own life. She wasn't just the lanky teenage girl who may or may not have had a crush on him anymore. And he hadn't been there for any of those developments.

She looked him over as if trying to convince herself of something he would never comprehend. "Screw it," She sighed the words so that they were barely audible above the din.

A sure hand slipped around his wrist and tugged him away from the table. He was not nearly as drunk as he'd like her to believe, but he followed anyway as they slipped out the back door. A few staggered steps mixed in with her normally smooth gait made him wonder if maybe she wasn't as impervious to intoxication as he had assumed. The door slid shut behind her and the moonlight spilled into the small alley, giving her pale skin a glowing quality.

"Kurosaki, I'm sor-" The apology was chased away from his lips by the sudden warmth of being so close to her. One arm folded around his shoulders, pulling her up to his height. Her other hand found its way to his head, fingers mingling with the soft shock of hair. When her mouth met his, the hunger stunned him into submission. The trace flavor of sake somehow tasted sweeter on her lips. A small gasp escaped her as if she was surprised at herself. Her lips overlapped his, bringing his lower lip into her mouth and sucking on it softly. A new kind of fire erupted in his gut, one that could blaze out of control if she kept fanning the flames like that. If he'd ever thought he was close to understanding what was going on in her head, this was proving him very wrong.

As his arms wrapped around her waist to cinch her in closer, she pulled away. He eyes were at half-mast and her cheeks dusted with a dark shade of pink that could've been the result of desire, or sake. But he heavily preferred the first. She moved to trace her lips lightly along his jaw, ending at his earlobe.

The whispered words weren't exactly what he had wanted to hear, "Sometimes I hate you."

His eyes widened and he lost all hope of ever being able to keep up with her. But then she was back to her ministrations, drawing circles on his back with her fingertips as she coaxed his lips apart again. Why was he letting this happen? His intentions had been to speak to her. Right? Perhaps he _was_ as drunk as she believed he was after all. This was not a possibility he had entertained. At least not in his waking hours—

His hesitance was broken down, and he found his mouth moving along with hers. He molded her against him, the building's back wall their only support. The movements of her tongue, which had been smooth and cautious at first, took a turn for the teasing. She wasn't giving him everything. But he could feel the thudding of her heart against him, and knowing that he was the cause made something burn in his stomach. He caught her lower lip between his and bit at it gently. The small groan she let out gave him some strange satisfaction. Her breath was warm in the cool night and she returned the gesture, biting a little harder than before. This was driving him insane, his thoughts going fuzzier at her every touch. The party sounded miles away and he tugged at the white sash that was knotted around her waist, as if threatening to untie it.

And just like that, she stopped. She pulled away from his reach as if she hadn't just been shaking him to his foundation. As if the distance between them wasn't a cause for the aching in his chest. As if it was effortless.

She put a finger to his lips, "Not like this." And then she was gone, slipping back inside as if nothing had happened. She could tear him down as quickly as she built him up.

After one intense flash of heat, she left him cold.

Cold, but _closer_.


End file.
