#39. I've got a secret, a good one.
Title: Questions Without Answers
Series: Bleach
Spoilers: Through most of the Soul Society Arc. So let's say books 6 through 21 just to be safe.
Characters: Unohana Retsu and Aizen Sousuke (yeah, yeah I'm writing last name first... It sounds better in my head.)
Pairing(s): Aizen x Unohana. Yeah, I know, random.
Author Notes: The fic in which I suck at clever dialogue, apparently. By the way, in my head this fic is set in a time where Byakuya and Renji have set out to retrieve Rukia and before the whole Rescue thing.
Prompt: #39. I've got a secret, a good one. That's a whopping 7 now with 18 (or 43?!) more to go until December 31st!
"It's a beautiful evening."
She turns towards him, her fingers curling around the collar of her robe self-consciously as she pulls it more tightly about her, feigning a chill. He is an unexpected guest but not an unwelcome one.
There is a soft turn of his mouth but as he turns away the moonlight catches the lens of his glasses and all she can see is white light.
She looks instead at the steam rising from her teacup still loosely clasped in both hands. She realizes that she is much too old to be feeling flustered.
So she responds, "Every evening has its own charm."
He chuckles and it is a rumbling rich sound that comes deep from his chest but he declines to answer further.
Rather than gazing at the white haori and the stark black strokes that form the number five there between his shoulder blades, she turns her gaze back up to the stars instead. Though she wonders many things, she keeps these questions and their possibilities to herself. The skies, she knows, offer no answers and will only open more questions if she lets them.
And she won't let them. She has also realized she is far too old to harbor any hope.
"Would you care for a cup of tea?" she thinks to ask, curious somewhat if he will accept her offered civility at such a late hour.
He inclines his head in her direction and the light skips across his glasses, like a stone across the water. "If you have a cup to spare." A full turn is taken, his back now to the garden and it becomes a matter of what she cannot see. "But I see you have only the one."
"It would be no trouble..." she begins, making a move to rise when he holds out a staying hand.
"It is late and I would not wish to trouble you," he says simply and when his hand drops to his side she can only make out the outline of the sleeve of his haori.
If she were younger, bolder, she might have offered him the very cup that she had sipped from. Propriety and expectations however required a very different form of inaction. She instead bows her head in consent to his wishes. She could offer him a cup again and he might accept--no, he would accept out of politeness.
Though she does not know why he has come here, she does know that it was not to solicit tea. She cannot imagine that the stars and the moon look so vastly different from his fifth division to her place here, in the fourth.
So she has no way of knowing what to expect when he speaks again. And he does.
"I've got a secret." And she thinks that he might have smiled because his voice is warm, pleasant, genial and conversational, as it always is. With his back still turned against the moonlight she finds she cannot make out his expression at all. Instead her eyes follow the outline of his wavy hair; it looks soft, she thinks, even in silhouette.
"We all have secrets," she responds as she absently turns the cup in her hand. She wishes, suddenly, that she were somewhere where the moonlight cannot touch her. She wishes that their positions were switched, that his face were washed in the light and that she were only an outline against the garden, a dim figure against the skies.
It is only later, much later, when she'll wish she had realized sooner what he truly meant.
Because later, on another night with a crescent moon in the sky and a cup of sake instead of tea cradled in her hands, she thinks that he truly had smiled when he said, "Ah, but it is a good one."
__________________________________________
[Go on to All That Is Left Unsaid]
Series: Bleach
Spoilers: Through most of the Soul Society Arc. So let's say books 6 through 21 just to be safe.
Characters: Unohana Retsu and Aizen Sousuke (yeah, yeah I'm writing last name first... It sounds better in my head.)
Pairing(s): Aizen x Unohana. Yeah, I know, random.
Author Notes: The fic in which I suck at clever dialogue, apparently. By the way, in my head this fic is set in a time where Byakuya and Renji have set out to retrieve Rukia and before the whole Rescue thing.
Prompt: #39. I've got a secret, a good one. That's a whopping 7 now with 18 (or 43?!) more to go until December 31st!
"It's a beautiful evening."
She turns towards him, her fingers curling around the collar of her robe self-consciously as she pulls it more tightly about her, feigning a chill. He is an unexpected guest but not an unwelcome one.
There is a soft turn of his mouth but as he turns away the moonlight catches the lens of his glasses and all she can see is white light.
She looks instead at the steam rising from her teacup still loosely clasped in both hands. She realizes that she is much too old to be feeling flustered.
So she responds, "Every evening has its own charm."
He chuckles and it is a rumbling rich sound that comes deep from his chest but he declines to answer further.
Rather than gazing at the white haori and the stark black strokes that form the number five there between his shoulder blades, she turns her gaze back up to the stars instead. Though she wonders many things, she keeps these questions and their possibilities to herself. The skies, she knows, offer no answers and will only open more questions if she lets them.
And she won't let them. She has also realized she is far too old to harbor any hope.
"Would you care for a cup of tea?" she thinks to ask, curious somewhat if he will accept her offered civility at such a late hour.
He inclines his head in her direction and the light skips across his glasses, like a stone across the water. "If you have a cup to spare." A full turn is taken, his back now to the garden and it becomes a matter of what she cannot see. "But I see you have only the one."
"It would be no trouble..." she begins, making a move to rise when he holds out a staying hand.
"It is late and I would not wish to trouble you," he says simply and when his hand drops to his side she can only make out the outline of the sleeve of his haori.
If she were younger, bolder, she might have offered him the very cup that she had sipped from. Propriety and expectations however required a very different form of inaction. She instead bows her head in consent to his wishes. She could offer him a cup again and he might accept--no, he would accept out of politeness.
Though she does not know why he has come here, she does know that it was not to solicit tea. She cannot imagine that the stars and the moon look so vastly different from his fifth division to her place here, in the fourth.
So she has no way of knowing what to expect when he speaks again. And he does.
"I've got a secret." And she thinks that he might have smiled because his voice is warm, pleasant, genial and conversational, as it always is. With his back still turned against the moonlight she finds she cannot make out his expression at all. Instead her eyes follow the outline of his wavy hair; it looks soft, she thinks, even in silhouette.
"We all have secrets," she responds as she absently turns the cup in her hand. She wishes, suddenly, that she were somewhere where the moonlight cannot touch her. She wishes that their positions were switched, that his face were washed in the light and that she were only an outline against the garden, a dim figure against the skies.
It is only later, much later, when she'll wish she had realized sooner what he truly meant.
Because later, on another night with a crescent moon in the sky and a cup of sake instead of tea cradled in her hands, she thinks that he truly had smiled when he said, "Ah, but it is a good one."
__________________________________________
[Go on to All That Is Left Unsaid]