#ASWHNEDJM

[godkilller]

“It’s the fact you were not that much taller than me years ago and you grew several inches after that. Then you literally made me half of a woman. No I’m not bitter in the least.”

❝ Ya talk lots for a cut-in-half corpse, I'll lead with that. But -- also, I grew way more than just 'several' inches since over a century ago, y'know. All in all, this sounds exactly like somethin' someone who's really bitter would say. ❞

[godkilller]

@keikoh​

"dad, how'd you meet mom?"

          BLINDSIDED; GIN REALIZED, ABRUPTLY, HOW HE HAD YET TO EVER MENTION THIS TO HER.  He was not so secretive anymore to hold such stories in him until thy ached, no. Keiko was old enough to wonder, to contemplate, he’d just have to omit certain parts; the state he found Rangiku in, what happened to her.

           ❝ — we were jus’ about your age, actually. Out ‘n the Sixty-fourth district. Your mother wasn’t feelin’ so good, she was reeeeeeal hurt, hungry and tired. I shared some of my snacks with her ... ‘n she got stuck with me ever since. ❞

          The sly smile he sported carried a sad nostalgia, a fondness, the first winter’s snowfall melting away and the mourning that went with it; so much, and it was simply gone, faded away. THERE WAS NO HELPING IT, what Gin proceeded to do with his childhood would forever stain his meeting of Rangiku. He turned into that snake, he marred those memories with his own hands. Smashing stone against skulls, stealing away Shinigami robes in the chill of winter. SNOW DYED CRIMSON, FOOTSTEPS SWALLOWED UP, a name called out into the winds. And again, cleaving through the Third Seat of the Fifth Division, he felt the way body and bone could cave. Hypponzashi, they called him, carrying a hundred blades on him, a hundred different deaths. AND AGAIN, AND AGAIN, he killed whilst coveting that day they met in his cold heart, as though it could still offer some semblance of warmth within. How foolishly selfish, masquerading as selflessness, as he became a monster. He couldn’t look back on that day, from the cusp of a hilltop, twigs jutting against his midsection as he looked on into the clearing and saw Shinigami crowded close. Saw the girl discarded down the dirt path.

          Gin wished for purity in a memory his own actions tainted. But the mangled mess of his deeds entangled into it, around Rangiku herself, and he’d yet to find a way to dissect his feelings on the matter. This would simply be something Keiko still didn’t, and never would, fully understand.

          His smile wasn’t necessarily faked, wasn’t like those days of old where he twisted it, sneering, wielding intimidation as though adorning himself with a demonic mask so terrible and damning. BUT IT STILL ACHED A BIT, how even the first words his wife spoke to him were shrouded by his mistakes.

          ❝ Didya know she called my name weird when I introduced myself ?  Rude, right ?  But not wrong... ❞