Characters: Nanao, Shunsui, Lisa
Summary: She wonders what he sees when he looks at her.
Pairings: Shunsui x Nanao, Shunsui x Lisa
Warnings/Spoilers: Spoilers for Turn Back the Pendulum arc
Timeline: post-Turn Back the Pendulum arc
Author's Note: I may or may not have completely played this out. Stop me if you feel you have to, but until then, I'm gonna keep writing.
Disclaimer: I don't own Bleach.
She wonders what he sees when he looks at her, and that's what makes Nanao so reticent to start with. What does he see when he looks at me? This is the question that maddens her, the one she simply has to know in order to be able to act on—or not act on—anything, any of Shunsui's advances, any of his overtures.
What does he see?
Does he see a pale, young girl born in Rukongai who has subsequently never known death (the same as him) and can not fathom the depths of that final sleep? A girl who tries to keep the division from falling apart at the seams since he can no longer be bothered to care? Someone who just wants some help, who's waiting for him to help her—in many different ways?
Or does he see a dead woman? Does he see the pale imitation, the utterly poor and cheap imitation, of a woman whose intimacy he shared long ago?
These are the questions that sap Nanao of her confidence—not that she had any in Shunsui; she hasn't had confidence in him for over a hundred years, so why should now be any different?—the ones that make her think twice. The ones that give her pause, and tell her to think, and think hard, before she does anything, before she puts a foot to either path.
Is it worth it?
Is it worth the risk that maybe, all Shunsui sees in her is the shadow of Yadomaru Lisa, that all she is to him is his chance for redemption, his chance to do right by her this time around?
Maybe Nanao is just a substitute to him and maybe she's not, but she can't be sure, and so long as she isn't sure, she will tread lightly, and try not to lead him on in either direction.
This is what their relationship is for the present: quasi-romantic, the romance for more on his side than on hers, Shunsui pursuing, Nanao beating him off but not in such a way as to deter him entirely. Obeying him in her role as fukutaicho but never going any further than that. This is what Nanao is, or what she projects herself to be: ambivalent, going back and forth, sometimes hot and sometimes cold, and maybe, just maybe a touch shy. Something for Shunsui to think about, she supposes.
And this is where their "relationship" will stay, until Nanao has her answers.
She doesn't ask Shunsui; she doesn't dare ask Shunsui. Nanao has little fear that Shunsui would grow angry or violent for he is almost never these things, and certainly never towards her—Nanao can give him that much credit; in this, at least, he behaves as the gentleman he proclaims himself to be. Instead, Nanao doesn't want to cause him pain, for all that she wishes he would back off a little, and she knows that this is the question that would cause him more pain than anything else.
'What do you remember of Yadomaru-fukutaicho? Do I remind you of her? Is this something that has grown on its own, or do you just chase me out of remembrance of her? Is that all I am to you, a shadow of another woman long dead?'
How can she ask that question, of anyone?
So, instead, Nanao keeps her keen, observant eyes open, and waits and watches for some gesture, some slip of the tongue, some inadvertent phrase by which Shunsui will give himself away in either direction. She sits quietly, and waits—just as she always has, for Nanao is patient when she needs to be and she'll wait for all eternity if she has to. But she hopes she won't have to. She hopes she'll have her answer sooner than that.
Because this is purgatory to her. No, this is Hell to Nanao, to be caught between one impulse and the other, to be torn in two different directions, to never know whether she should flee for her own safety or just stay, and maybe take a risk and take the plunge and possibly be happy.
Because Nanao can't be sure, and this conflict just serves to deepen her own doubts about the nature of her identity, whether she even has one at all.
Trying to keep her head above water has never been easy and it's harder now, since memory of Lisa grows stronger and more hellishly difficult to ignore when Shunsui's behavior towards her perfectly mirrors that which he exhibited towards Lisa, albeit with an element of desperation in it that was never there with Lisa.
Lisa's memory, Lisa's shadow has always hung over Nanao's life, putting pale, bony hands with fingernails like talons on her shoulders to remind her that she's still not free. Will it have to be the same with this, too?
Nanao just wants a way out. She wishes she didn't look so much like Lisa, wishes she didn't remind people of her the way she does—it's not like she's trying to emulate her predecessor's style and presence. It just happens that way.
She's desperate enough for an identity of her own that she'll dismiss Shunsui out of hand to have it, if it comes down to that. Nanao isn't sure what this makes her or if she's behaving like a human or an animal to think this way, but there it stands.
She wants to know that she's more than just a poor imitation of Lisa, more than the pale reflection of the former lieutenant of the Eighth.
And she wants to be more in the hearts of others, than just the shadow of Yadomaru Lisa.