I'm in love with this wildly under appreciated couple.

Some people had one.

Some people didn't.

Ichigo had one. He didn't advertise it, didn't try to search. He wore a wristband around his wrist and only took it off before he went to bed. That was all there was to it. It never bothered him, and people didn't pester, mostly because they didn't know.

When he was fifteen, he really looked at it for the first time. As the days, years, had gone on, of course, the timer had counted down. He just hadn't realized how close it was to zero until now. And for the first time, he allowed himself to dwell on it, even as he fastened the band over the tattoo and followed Rukia out the door to school.

It had only an hour left.

…

There was a new student. He wrote his name backwards on the board and caused laughter to ripple through the class. Ichigo noticed that the blond had a wristband, too, and that he kept picking at it, like the tattoo was itching and burning underneath. The gray eyes scanned the room quickly, obviously not occupied at all with the teacher.

Some part of Ichigo knew that he was it.

And when the blond sat in the empty chair beside him and introduced himself as Hirako Shinji, Ichigo felt the tattoo flare under the band and then cool to a freezing temperature. Unlike Shinji, however, he made no movements towards it once.

He saw the slight stab of disappointment flare in gray eyes before it vanished without a trace, and vowed to talk with the blond later.

…

"You're still searching, aren't you?" Ichigo questioned, and Shinji jumped a foot into the air and swung around to face him, something almost feral and wild in his eyes and posture. He merely raised an eyebrow and watched the blond relax, a question forming. "For your soulmate," Ichigo clarified.

Shinji suddenly looked almost shy, his hand moving to his covered right wrist as he stumbled to answer. "I, uh, no…"

"Don't lie to me," Ichigo said, and watched Shinji's eyes widen. "I know you felt it, too," he continued, and unclipped his wristband. Gray eyes snapped to his bare wrist, and a hint of disbelief mixed with relief and hope entered the gaze.

Hirako Shinji was written in elegant writing across Ichigo's skin.

…

It took two more weeks for Rukia to leave, but as soon as she did, Ichigo ripped off the wristband and marveled at the beautiful cursive tattoo. The numbers had been straight and bold, always shifting, always ticking down. But they were gone now, and Shinji's name would be the only thing left of it. He brought his hands to his chest and rolled his eyes backward, staring at the ceiling.

He and Shinji had seen each other every day since their meeting. Normally, it was just at school, but the day before they had spent an hour at the arcade down the road, talking and laughing freely. It was a thrilling feeling, finally being able to feel Shinji. Everyone who had soulmates could feel their presence, in the back of their minds, for their entire lives.

But it was so much nicer, so much more real to be able to reach out and feel the blond next to him.

Ichigo felt as if he could die at any moment and be happy. He knew he was being sappy and acting like a love-struck girl, but he had been quietly, privately waiting for that moment since he knew what the numbers meant. He traced the letters of Shinji's name on his wrist, mouthing them as he went along.

He opened his eyes and pulled the wristband back on, just as his father called for dinner.

…

"When are you going to meet them, Nii-san?" Yuzu asked, staring at her own wristband.

"Hmm?" he asked, looking up from his food and resurfacing into the here and now. "Meet who, Yuzu?"

"Your soulmate, stupid," Karin informed him oh-so kindly, and a crease formed between his eyebrows.

He hesitated, and saw that his father had tuned into the conversation, his interest clearly piqued as well. Despite the fact that he already knew Shinji and was (almost) dating him, he hadn't told anyone about it. "I, er…" he said elegantly, and inwardly panicked when his father whipped around to stare with wide eyes.

"You've met them!" he declared, and Ichigo couldn't hide his wince, or the instinctive grabbing of his covered wrist. "When?" his father demanded.

Ichigo ducked his head in an unsuccessful attempt to his heated skin, and said, "Two weeks ago," in a quiet tone.

"When?" Yuzu repeated, dropping her chopsticks on her plate and leaning forward slightly. She hadn't heard him.

"Two weeks ago," he said again, louder, and looked up, annoyed, when his father let out a wail and flung himself at his late wife's picture.

"Ahh! Masaki, our son is all grown up!" the man cried through a flurry of tears, and Ichigo rolled his eyes and relaxed, determined to finish his food so that he could go and lock himself in his room and possibly die of mortification.

While their father occupied himself by clinging embarrassingly to the wall, Karen turned to her older brother and prompted, "And? Who is it?"

Suddenly feeling cornered again, Ichigo shook his head. "Ah, no. Not telling you that. You'll meet them when we're ready for you to."

Karen rolled her eyes. "Fine, fine," she agreed reluctantly, and Ichigo grinned at her, standing and leaving the room at something not unlike a run.

…

Six months into their relationship, Ichigo leaned on Shinji's shoulder and held the blond's hand loosely, inwardly loving how perfectly their fingers fit together. Some part of him was still in shock that it had worked out the way it did.

While soulmate timers were usually fairly accurate, sometimes things went wrong. Sometimes someone died too soon. Sometimes they fell in love before meeting their mate. Sometimes the timers didn't go off when they were supposed to, and people were left wandering, looking for someone they already met. Sometimes someone got the timer while their mate didn't and both were left lost and confused.

But sometimes, things turned out all right. Ichigo lifted his head and placed a hand on Shinji's head, turning until their lips met. Shinji smiled slightly into the kiss, pulling Ichigo closer and kissed back with equal power. But then he pulled away, and Ichigo opened his eyes to give his soulmate a confused look. Shinji shifted.

"I've somethin' to tell ya," he said, and before Ichigo could respond, he rushed on, "I actually was supposed to collect ya and persuade ya to come train with the rest of my roommates, but then I realized whom ya were, and I just sorta… gave you the training secrets in other ways."

Ichigo blinked. "What?"

"Yer like me," Shinji said, and Ichigo felt like he was missing something very, very important. Evidently Shinji caught onto that, and he explained, "A Shinigami with a hollow in their head."

For a moment, Ichigo didn't register the meaning of Shinji's claim. He hadn't known that Shinji knew anything about that part of Ichigo's life. Then the words set in. "You're a Shinigami?" the question fell from his lips without permission.

Shinji winced. "Ah, sorta. I was exiled in 1901."

Ichigo blinked. In the span of a few sentences, his entire view of Shinji changed abruptly. "Whatever for?" he demanded.

"The hollow. C46 didn't believe us when we said it wasn't willing. That Aizen had done it to us. We were all sentenced to death and that was it. We got out that night with Urahara and Yoruichi's help."

It was the oddest feeling of the world flipping upside down. "…What?" he repeated.

Shinji winced. "Ah, love, work with me, here," he said. "I can help ya with that spirit a yers in yer head." Shinji shifted so that he was sitting in front of Ichigo. "I want ta introduce ya to the rest of my friends, too. They're dyin' ta meet ya."

Ichigo still felt the same vague sensation of drowning, but he nodded nevertheless. "Ah, yeah, okay," he agreed.

…

"Two hundred and fifty years, it took, for Shinji to find you," Lisa told him later.

He had been introduced to the Visored later that evening, and now sported a black eye from Hiyori and an open invitation to return anytime from everyone else. If it weren't for Shinji, Ichigo would've high-tailed it ages ago. These people were lunatics.

He glanced over to the tamest of the Visored family, finding the piercing jade gaze focused intensely on him. "Did it really?" he asked, eyebrows furrowing. It was hard to think of that many years.

Lisa nodded and put her book aside- a graphic porn novel, he saw- sliding under the rim of the staircase to land next to him on the couch. She folded herself up neatly next to him, saying, "Yes. Rose and I met one hundred twenty years ago, and Kensei and Mashiro twenty years prior to that. Kisuke and Yoruichi met when they were children. The others don't have timers," she confided. Ichigo stared. "Shinji was the only one who had a timer still ticking, and he was terrified when he woke up and saw that it had less than a day. I think he forgot about it, honestly. He always got real depressed when he thought of it, I remember. I don't think he thought that you would be so many years younger than he is, so I have been wondering if he thought he missed you somehow, when we got exiled."

The thought made Ichigo pause, a jolt of grief shooting through him. He felt Shinji respond through the bond, and sure enough, footsteps sounded on the stairs a few moments later. "Ya alright?" Shinji called, leaning over the rail. Ichigo looked up and nodded, smiling. It took a second, but then the blond nodded and disappeared again.

Ichigo's hand made its way to his wrist, where the tattoo inscribed with Shinji's name resided. Lisa's gaze followed his movements, and she smiled. "He won't ever say this," she told him, "but I thought you needed to know. He loves you, in every sense of the word," she finished, standing.

Ichigo stared at her as she walked away, meeting up with Rose and not looking back.

…

Isshin was horrified when Ichigo brought Shinji home for dinner for the first time a few weeks later. "A Visored?" he demanded, eyes wide, while Shinji suddenly looked very unhappy with the entire situation. Ichigo, meanwhile, felt like he was missing something again. It was an annoyingly common sensation since he had met Shinji.

"Uh, yes?" Ichigo responded, hooking his arm through Shinji's and standing a little closer to the blond. Shinji's heart was racing, but Ichigo couldn't tell if it was from fear or anger.

Isshin rolled his eyes and stalked off, muttering about traitors and damned souls. Ichigo narrowed his eyes at his father's retreating form. Yuzu came in just as Isshin disappeared, and so Ichigo and Shinji spent the evening with the twins.

They didn't seen Isshin for the rest of the evening. Shinji requested that he never come back to Ichigo's house as long as Isshin lived there. It was an odd request, and Ichigo couldn't deny the stab of hurt he felt when he heard it, but while a flash of regret flashed through Shinji's eyes and their bond, Shinji didn't take back his words.

…

Shinji leaned into Ichigo, and he allowed himself to be pushed against the wall, his fingers laced through blond strands and his soulmate's hands running over the hem of his shirt. Shinji broke their kiss to start trailing kisses along Ichigo's jaw and down his neck, and Ichigo leaned his head back to allow it. His eyes fluttered closed, his fingers tightening in Shinji's hair when the blond bit harshly on his neck. "God, I love you," Ichigo breathed, and Shinji stopped abruptly.

When Shinji pulled away to stare, Ichigo found, for the first time, he couldn't get a good read on his soulmate's emotion. Anxiety rushed through him, "I, ah…" Ichigo stuttered, pulling out of Shinji's grip, which was loose with shock. "I'm sorry," Ichigo muttered, walking swiftly away in the direction of his house.

Shinji, much to Ichigo's disappointment, didn't follow.

…

Timers ensured the meeting of two people destined to fall in love. That wasn't a guarantee. It only made certain that those people loved each other more deeply than they would ever love someone else, but it wasn't impossible to fall in love with someone else, nor was it impossible to break up with one's soulmate and never rekindle the relationship. The broken pair would never be the same, lost for the rest of their lives, but they both would survive and maybe find a life to live again.

It was the ending Ichigo feared more than anything in the world.

He lay on his bed, staring at his ceiling and cursing the timers and everything that could go wrong with them. It appeared that Lisa had been wrong.

It had been a week and a half since Ichigo had told Shinji that he loved him, and he had heard nothing from the blond since. Not a single text, phone call, or appearance at the school. Ichigo, however, texted Shinji at least two times a day and had left at least seven messages on Shinji's phone. It sickened him how desperate he was coming across.

At least Shinji hadn't closed the bond. That was a possibility, too, when soulmates broke up and never got back together. The cool touch of the bond in the back of Ichigo's mind was the only thing that kept him going. He could feel Shinji there.

What exactly Shinji was doing, however, was another story. In the past, Ichigo had had a vague sense of where Shinji was and what he was doing, what he was feeling, even though the former two had never been very clear. Now, that link to Shinji was closed to him. It was a scary feeling.

…

It took another week before Shinji answered one of Ichigo's texts. The park, six pm.

It was hardly anything and it gave nothing away, but Ichigo could've cried with relief. However, six pm was only a half hour away, and the walk there was at least twenty minutes from his house, so he had no time to even process anything before he was out the door, much to the disgruntlement of his family.

He found that he didn't really care all that much.

Shinji was waiting on the swing set when Ichigo arrived. He was alone, the park deserted. Ichigo sat on the swing beside the blond, rocking himself back and forth gently while he waited for Shinji to speak. He himself couldn't start the conversation through the lump in his throat.

"I'm sorry," Shinji said eventually, and Ichigo stared.

"What?"

Shinji looked annoyed. "I'm sorry," he repeated, "for how I've treated ya lately."

Ichigo hummed under his breath. A flash of fear echoed through the bond, and Ichigo wondered briefly what Shinji was afraid of. Shinji continued on, scuffing his toe in the dirt. "Ya didn't deserve that. Ya just surprised me, is all, and then ya ran off like that and I didn't know how ta react."

Ichigo's eyebrows furrowed and he opened his mouth to speak but Shinji interrupted. "I just want ya to know that I love ya, too, and I understand if ya'd rather not~"

Ichigo suddenly understood that Shinji was afraid of the same thing he was. Before the blond could talk himself into doing something stupid, Ichigo leaped up and knelt in front of him, seeing how Shinji cut himself off abruptly. Ichigo tugged the blond onto his lap, and Shinji straddled him with an unreadable look on his face. Ichigo kissed it off.

Shinji wrapped his arms around Ichigo's neck and kissed back harshly, indescribable relief coming from the both of them. Ichigo broke the kiss this time, leaning his forehead against Shinji's and gripping the blond hair desperately. "I love you," he whispered, and felt Shinji take in a sharp, shuddering breath. "I love you, I love you," he repeated, cradling Shinji close.

"I love ya, too," Shinji whispered in response, and sought Ichigo's lips again. The tattoos on their wrists burned.