Sakura no Hime
By Starian Princess

Synopsis: He doesn't call out to her, he won't tell anyone about them, he hasn't once smiled, and he says he doesn't care. She knows, however, someday that will all change. The love that could have been, if only given the chance to blossom.

I. Not So Ordinary

Life often catches you by surprise. Sometimes you see things that are certainly not there to begin with, or so you try to tell yourself. Sometimes you hear words that you never thought could be said. Sometimes you learn secrets that were kept too long, they've been revealed too late. And sometimes you get the oddest of pairs. One, however, would have wondered how a relationship like theirs was even the least bit conceivable.

There are no kisses in the morning when they wake up next to each other, there are no discreetly passed smiles as they take walks together at the park, and there are definitely no embraces when one of them experiences an especially painful kind of dilemma. These small gestures left forgotten never seem to bother him though, not one bit. She, of course, is a different story altogether.

She, with her distinct affectionate personality, is usually bothered by the fact that he barely acknowledges her when they pass each other in the hallways. She also worries that he might one day simply forget about them (or whatever they are) and never come back to her. Naturally, she tells him of her woes almost everytime he visits from the Soul Society, but he thinks it's absolutely ridiculous. He doesn't tell her this though; he hardly ever even speaks.

One look at it and you would probably come to the conclusion that there is nothing distinctly romantic about the relationship at all. And maybe you're right. There is nothing obsessive about it, nothing vulnerable about it, nothing desperate about it, and nothing quite so pathetic about it. And maybe, just maybe that's a good thing.

As two people who meet up (on the rare weekend) and spend an absurdly long time together in a normal bystander's point of view, they are still the same shinigami and ex-ryoka. Even as they spend time as one, they are still two different people with two different lives, who seemingly have nothing to do with each other.

And strangely enough, this doesn't bother them.

-OWARI-