One Step Forward, Two Steps Back - Bleach
For lurk_stiltzkin. Gin/Rangiku, takes place after chapter 417. Bleach © Kubo Tite, et al.
Finding someone was as easy as arranging chance encounters. All he had to do was glide along faster, reach out for her reiatsu, in this world where billions of reiatsu collide and recede like round-the-clock fireworks. Mistaking someone else's reiatsu for hers, too, would be ridiculous, and yet -
He walked against the current of pedestrians, some of whom were pulling their coats more tightly around their hunched shoulders, while others brushed snow off their sleeves. Somewhere down the road a horn honked, followed by a string of curses. Above him, a billboard flashed and a giant smiling face began reciting empty promises. This scene was both alienating in its banality and utterly familiar: wintery sky, lost boy. Only this time he was following an old track, back to the girl.
She had just closed the door of a coffee shop behind her, paper cup in hand. He watched this version of Rangiku, this shinigami given the facade of a mortal woman, inhale the steam rising from the cup. Despite the unforgiving cold, her hair bounced off her back and her gait was light. Even when they were young he had known she would grow up unscarred by his vanishing, his betrayals; he would never have left her otherwise.
"I was wrong," he admitted as she sauntered past him, oblivious. She sipped at the coffee, and her grimace told him of her sudden yearning for the comfort of heated sake. "You could've stopped your tears all by yourself, whether I was there or not."
Today was her last day in Karakura before she returned to Seireitei, where he would remain a memory for her - a substantial one, but still no more than part of the shadows. When or if she wanted to find him, he had to go to her instead. And even then she might not be aware of him, reiatsu-less being that he was.
So he stood there, just off the sidewalk, toying with the old and endlessly fascinating idea that she only needed him out of habit. How sensible and convenient that would be. After all, it had been impossible for them both to survive the war against Aizen. Her life without him would infinitely be more peaceful.
That's my decision to make, the Rangiku that lived in his head shot back.
"But habits can be whittled away, you know," he called out, teasingly, and she disappeared around the bend - leaving him for good, it would seem.