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rays-of-fire-and-ice · 7 months ago

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The Music Goes On and On

Rating: K/General

Setting: in the decade before the main story.

Synopsis: Shinji is going about his daily life at his job in a music store, until he sees an old face from the past.

AN: the winner of my first poll! This was fun to write, so thank you to everyone who voted for it!

I hope I did Shinji justice here. He's a character I love, and I've always wanted to know what he and Visoreds did after escaping the the Living world and before they introduced themselves to Ichigo. I've broached the topic before in As Months Go By, As Season Change part II, but I wanted to write a specific instance of his life in the World of the Living. I had intended this to be more comedic, but well...it's me, and it ended up more angsty with one sappy moment.

In terms of research, I looked into Japanese 1990’s music and the workforce during the 1970’s. I'll briefly go over it here, but if you want to skip it and get to the fic, continue to the line break before the story begins.

For music, I mainly used information from this article about Japanese jazz bands, doing Youtube searches for 1990s Japanese music, and searching for what records stores in Japan typically look like.

The songs, albums, and bands mentioned in this fic are:

B'z: a Japanese rock duo who sold millions of albums during the 1990's. They're one of Japan's best-selling artists even to this day, having sold over 80 million albums. Sasori ni sasa reta by Kimidori Review by Glay: this was one of the best-selling albums in Japan for 1997, and sold over 2 million copies in it's first week. Casiopea: a Japanese jazz fusion band who have created over 40 albums as of the time of writing this fic. They've been active since the 1970's, and have gone through four phases with different band members; in this story, they're in their second phase. Light and Shadow by Casiopea Casiopea by Casiopea Yasuko Agawa: a Japanese jazz and blues singer. Before releasing her debut album, Love-Bird, in 1978, she starred in movies in the early 1970’s. This included the Bloodthirst Trilogy, a Japanese horror film trilogy that involves unconnected stories about vampires. Agawa starred in Chi o suu bara, which is the final film in the trilogy and it's title has been translated to Evil of Dracula in English. Love-Bird by Yasuko Agawa All Right by Me by Yasuko Agawa Scenery by Ryo Fuuki (also mentioned in As Months Go By, As Season Change part II)

In terms of the workforce research, I had to change the timeline in light of what I found. Rather than seeing a coworker Shinji knew from 30 years ago, it's now 21 years. This is because the store they worked at together, Yodobashi Camera, opened it's first store in 1975, and in this fic Shinji got a job with the company a year later. In it's early years, the stores primarily sold cameras and photography equipment, but eventually branched off into other technology and home electronics such as TVs and PCs. Nowadays it's online version is incredibly popular and one of Japan's most visited online shopping platforms. Why a camera store? I can't explain why, but I have this weird feeling that Shinji might've worked in a camera store at some point. Maybe because old camera's used to have inverted lenses, meaning they could be upside down (and we all know how Shinji feels about things that are inverted).

Finally, there's a slight joke with the name Shinji chooses to use here. From what I saw in my research, ‘Mako’ can use the same Kanji characters as ‘Shinji’, (which are ‘真子‘ and if I’m not mistaken have the same meanings of ‘truth’/’sincerity’ and ‘children’) but both names can also be spelled using other Kanji characters too (but it changes the meaning of the name). While ‘Mako’ tends to be primarily a girl's name, it seems it can also be a boy’s name too, and from what I can see, the spelling of it can be same for both boys and girls when using the same characters as ‘Shinji’. If I got any of this wrong, please let me know so I can change it. My sources for all of this were here and here.

Anyway, I hope you all enjoy this!

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The bell above the music store’s entrance rings as the latest customer leaves. Shinji doesn’t glance their way, taking and unfurling a poster of B’z from his cart. After pinning it to the wall, he lifts out a box of CDs to restock the ‘New Releases’ display rack at the front.

Karakura Beats Records Store is empty save for him and Kana, who resumes pricing the latest shipment of vinyls behind the cash register. The morning sunlight pours in through the many posters and notices stuck to the windows facing out on to the quiet street, casting blocks of shadow over the many vinyls and CDs.

From the speakers high up on the walls, a tune he’s never heard before begins to play quietly through the air. Shinji drums his fingers on the CD rack to the tune in between stacking in copies of ‘Review’ – which will no doubt be gone by the end of the week if the hype around the album and the sales figures from other music stores are to be believed.

Eventually, he’s swaying his body to the beat too. “Yo, Kana-san!”

She looks up, her bright, dyed hair falling over one shoulder. “Yeah?”

“Which track is this?” he asks, still swaying as he tops up the rack the. “It’s a good one, I might buy the album if the rest is any good.”

“ ‘Sasori ni sasa reta’ by Kimidori.” She grins. “I knew I could get you to like something I like.”

“Didn’t think you’d like hip hop.”

“Not much of it, but I heard this one when I was in my last year of high school.”

Done with the CDs, Shinji returns to his cart and rolls it behind the cash register. “Ya done with those?” he says, pointing at the vinyls.

Sticking a price on the top one, Kana picks up the pile and drops them into the cardboard box that just had 'Review' in it. “Done now.”

He goes to pick it up, but blinks down at the cover. There’s three shadows on a white surface, and above them with is a de-saturated sky, and running along the middle is a dark lake and the silhouettes of hills and houses. The album’s title is in English, as is the band name. Even so, he recognises the name without having to read the blue slip on the vinyl’s side with a translation. “Huh, when did this come out?”

“In September. The old drummer came back, apparently.”

“Ya mean Jimbo Akira?”

“Yeah, but it’s got a guest drummer too.” Kana cocks an eyebrow at him. “I’m surprised you don’t know. You like Casiopea, right?”

Shinji shrugs. “Some of their stuff, sure. I can take ‘em or leave them, just surprised I didn’t know about this one.”

“They release something every year, right?” Kana says, moving on to the next stacks of vinyls and CDs to price. “Shouldn’t be too surprising.”

No, it shouldn’t. He’d been listening to their music since their self-titled debut album in 1979, and even though he’d lost some interest in their music by the late 1980’s, he still kept tabs on them. But then, even after being in the world for as long as he has, the passage of time is so different it sometimes escapes him.

Resisting the urge to shake his head, Shinji puts two other boxes of CDs and vinyls Kana had prepared into his cart, and rolls it down the right-side aisle.

Hecomes to a stop at his favorite section. Written above the display racks and cupboards is ‘Jazz’. When he’d started here three months ago, while he'd been impressed the store's collection was better than others he'd come across, the section had been smaller and in desperate need to of a wider range of artists. After showing his extensive knowledge about jazz and blues music had been one of the reason’s he’d been hired by he and Kana’s manager.

Aside from the usual roles in customer services, he’d been tasked with refurbished the store a little, putting up posters for bands and music artists on the walls and redoing the titles over each genre section. While doing the latter task, he had to withhold the temptation to write every genre name upside down – he’d tried to argue it would make them stand out from other stores, but backed down when Kana protested against the idea, saying ti would confuse customers.

The jazz section was his unofficial space in the whole store, the one where he got to arrange it as he wanted. The entire row against the wall has a wide variety of artists, from the famous to the up and coming to local talent. He goes to the where the rest of Casiopea’s discography is and clears a space for the vinyls.

The bell rings again. Kana greets their new customer from the counter and offers assistance. Judging from the voice that thanks her, the person is elderly.

Shinji doesn’t listen to the rest, but as he makes his way down the middle aisle to stack some vinyls and CDs in the ‘Rock’ section, the older man remains in his peripheral. He takes out the box, balancing it on the rack with his arm over the top, and unloads the vinyls two at a time into an empty space with the others. He frowns at the sensation in the back of his mind; something nags in the back of his mind, begging him to look at the man.

The bell rings again. This time by the sounds of it, it’s one of their regulars, a young woman who’s name doesn’t remember. She and Kana chatter away, discussing the weather and family. It’s so ordinary, so far away from all of the worlds he’s ever known. He hasn’t been in the Soul Society for decades, and yet there are times like now when it feels like only yesterday he was a captain.

With all the vinyls stacked in, he begins to lift the almost empty box back into the cart. However, his arm bumps into someone, clattering the records inside. Shinji turns to apologize, but his throat closes up involuntarily when he sees it’s the older man from before.

“Oh, sorry, please excuse…” The old man trails off.

Shinji frowns, that nagging sensation getting stronger now that he has a closer look at the man. He’s not as old as he thought. His hair is greying, but there’s still some dark hair on the top of his head and in his thick eyebrows. Wrinkles ring around his eyes and the ends of his mouth, but they aren’t deep, only just beginning to show more prominently. Behind his glasses, the man’s eyes are dark brown, and widened with probably the same strange feeling of familiarity as Shinji is experiencing.

Then, when the man tries to speak again, and his brows furrow into a frown, it hits Shinji.

He nearly has to bite his tongue from saying the man’s name aloud. “No harm done,” he somehow manages to say without any of the spiking nerves thrumming through him.

He tries to remain calm as he continues stacking the vinyls in, but he can feel the man’s – Keiji Mimura’s -- lingering gaze on him, even as he turns and pretends to browse the albums in front of him.

He has to get out of this fast. He can hear the cash register going; Kana must be ringing up the regular, which means she’ll be free any second now. He hoists the box back into the cart, planning to head back to the counter, then offer to take over the register for Kana. She’d go out on to floor, probably keep Keiji distracted and try to sell him some obscure rock album she likes. If he ends up buying the album, Kana will likely keep the conversation going all the way to register, get Shinji to move aside so she can ring Keiji up, and then he’ll be gone from the store, and Shinji’s life again.

Shinji doesn’t even make it three steps when Keiji speaks up behind him. “…Hirako-san?”

Shinji has no choice but to stop and turn around. In the face of the man’s shocked expression, Shinji somehow manages a smile. “Excuse me? Did you say something.” It sounds lame even to his own ears.

The man shakes his head. “Forgive me, it’s just…you look and sound like someone I used to know.”

It takes everything in Shinji to not drop the smile, but even then, the corners of his mouth twitch. How to get out of this?

He and the other Visoreds had managed to keeps their identities a secret up until now, switching jobs every few years, never getting close to any coworkers and never revealing anything about their personal lives. They mostly find work outside of Karakura Town in the major cities, countryside towns, and to a smaller extent the towns that surrounded Karakura. The commutes were a pain, but they needed to make a living and not expose themselves as being ‘ageless’ to local residents. This was his first job in Karakura Town, and it had partly been out of desperation when he couldn’t get another anywhere else.

He can dismiss Keiji, just treat this as an awkward encounter with an elderly man who had a case of mistaken identity. It happens, more often than he realized before being forced into the World of the Living.

It’s what he should do.

Later, as he's walking back to the warehouse and then while being lectured by the other Visoreds after telling them about his day, he will reflect on this moment where he chose to do something far more troublesome for himself.

Shinji’s widens his eyes, pretending to come to a realisation. “Ah! Wait. I think I understand your confusion.” He chuckles and shakes his head to himself for effect, leaving the older man bewildered. “I’m terribly sorry, sir,” Shinji continues. “Did you used to work with Hirako Shinji?”

“Y-Yes!” Keiji stammers out.

“Ah, ya see, he’s my father. I’m his son.”

The older man blinks, briefly scanning Shinji from head to toe. “He never said anything about children,” he murmurs under his breath.

Shinji pretends he didn’t hear it, remaining rooted in place, grin plastered wide over his face and a fisted hand on his hip. Seeing the man’s unfaltering skepticism, he bows slightly and holds his hand out to him. “I’m Hirako…Mako.”

Of all the names! He purses his lips and continues to stare at the ground, hard, as he inwardly begs, Please don’t think too much on it, please don’t think to much on it, Keiji-san, don’t think --

After a beat, the older man bows and shakes Shinji’s hand. “I’m Mimura Keiji. Forgive me for before, it’s just that you look so much like Hirako Shinji – your father, I meant.”

“That’s fine. I’ve gotten that quite a bit, actually. Everyone’s always saying I look like my old man.”

That gets a huff of a chuckle out Keiji; Shinji can’t tell whether it’s due to the comment, how informally he’d spoken, or how the way he spoke was identical to his 'father'. It's probably the latter.

Keiji lets go of Shinji’s hand and they both straighten back up. The store bell rings, briefly drawing Shinji’s attention to Kana. To his chagrin she doesn’t look his way, instead continuing her chat with their regular as she makes her purchases.

“I worked with your father a long time ago.” Keiji explains. “We were coworkers”

Shinji keeps his grin small as he returns his focus back to his old coworker. “Where did you work with him? The old man’s had a lot of jobs across his life.”

Keiji smiles. “So he said. We used to work at Yodobashi Camera together.”

“Ah yeah! He was a sales clerk there. He barely knew a thing about camera’s when he started, huh?”

Another huff of a chuckle broadens the old man's smile. “He learned on the job. I was no expert at the time by any means, but he even had to learn which button to press to take a picture.”

Shinji chortles, both from the memory and the embarrassment of those years. He’d been the World of the Living for several decades by that point. He’d known about cameras but was so concerned with training to control his Visored abilities and stay afloat money-wise he hadn’t ever learned about some of the most basic things for humans.

“He was all right with the other technology of course,” Keiji continues. “We often had shifts together. Every now and then we went for drinks at ‘The Golden Cup’ with everyone else.”

Despite himself, Shinji can’t help but grin wider as nostalgia flutters in his chest. He and the other Visoreds tried to maintain a certain distance between themselves and the cowrokers in whatever job they worked in. Regardless, on rare occasions, he’d indulge himself and go drinking with his coworkers. He did it more often with the employees of Yodobashi Camera than in any other job, and he’d never had a bad night out with them. They were a good bunch of hard workers who knew how to party even harder afterwards -- or at least as much as they could given that they all needed to wake up and go to work the next day.

“I -- He mentioned that too,” Shinji eventually says. “He always came home in a good mood after those nights, tripping over his feet."

Keiji gives a nervous snort. "I must admit, I did worry about how much he drank sometimes."

Shinji did too. He recalls the concerned pinch of Keiji's brows when he was about to leave, wobbling on his feet. He rarely got drunk, and he didn't always understand why he chose to get drunk with those guys.

"Nah, he was always sharp," Shinji says, "even when drunk. Heck, he could even play mahjong while drunk and still win." He let's Keiji's chuckle fill in the air for a pause. "He used to play that game with his coworkers too, right?”

“Ah, yes! I used to enjoy our games.” Keiji sighs. “It’s been a long time since then, and Yodobashi Camera has certainly grown bigger and bigger over the years.”

“Ya can’t escape them these days, huh? Feels like they’re at every railway station in the major cities.” Shinji leans back against the vinyls racks, trying to appear casual. “So, do you live in Karakura Town now?”

“Oh, no. My wife and I are visiting our daughter. I assume you live here?”

“Yeah, I moved here about a year ago.” A lie, so natural sounding from years of saying many more like it before.

He can sense the next question coming – something to effect of ‘Do your parents live here as well?’ – so he quickly continues, “It’s a small town, but there’s a few places I can recommend for visitors if your daughter hasn’t taken you to them already.”

“We only arrived two days ago. We visited one of the shrines with her yesterday. My wife and daughter are having breakfast at a cafe nearby. We’re planning to walk around the shopping district this afternoon.”

“All good ideas. There’s also Tsubakidai Park, it’s always nice to walk around there. There’s also a music performance happening there two days from now, local bands mostly.”

“Is there now?”

Shinji points to the most recent poster taped up next to the store’s entrance. He briefly glances at Kana, who had gone back to pricing the vinyls, but she’d stopped at some point, staring at their exchange. She eyes him with a raised brow. Her expression is asking him ‘Is everything okay?’

“See that there?” Shinji says, keeping Keiji distracted long enough to wink at Kana in reassurance. “It’s got the details for it if you’re interested.”

With a shrug and a good-natured roll of her eyes, she returns to her task.

Keiji nods. “I’ll be sure to look at it on my way out.” Turning back, he looks over Shinji shoulder. “Speaking of, I came here to get an album I was told would be here. I believe it will be under jazz.”

“Yeah? Which one?” Shinji asks as he leads Keiji to the ‘Jazz’ section.

“It’s often hard to find, but Umei -- oh, she's my daughter -- thought I should try my luck here. She said this store often sells music from older artists. ‘Retro’, she calls it.”

“She ain’t wrong.”

Keiji frowns thoughtfully when they stop in front of the rows of CDs and vinyls. He let’s out a sudden, ironic laugh. “Actually, now that I think about it, it’s from a singer your father introduced me to.”

Shinji already knew, and his heart squeezed for a moment. “Oh, yeah? Which one?”

“Agawa Yasuko.”

The memory comes to him. He’d gone drinking with Keiji and his coworkers, and they ended up discussing films they love. When the topic of The Bloodthirsty Trilogy came up, Shinji brought up how Yasuko Agawa had gone on to make music since then. Only Keiji was interested, and took up Shinji’s suggestion to go buy her debut album. He hadn’t seen someone as smitten with a jazz album as Keiji (and apparently his wife) was. They discussed her singing the next day during lulls at work, and for the first time in a while, Shinji felt relaxed, briefly forgetting the troubles that always weigh on his mind.

“Well, her albums are just here,” Shinji says, gesturing to the left-side display racks. “Were you after CD or vinyl?”

“CD,” Keiji says while steps around him. He bends over the CDs and thumbs through them. “You have most of her albums here.”

“It’s like your daughter said, we’re retro here.”

He takes out a copy of ‘All Right With Me’ with a grin. “This is the one! I listened to it last year, but haven’t been able to find a copy of it until today.”

“It’s a good one, she’s always had a great voice. I can recommend any of her albums, they're all good.”

“Ah, are you a fan of jazz music too? Just like your father?”

“Yeah, like my old man, jazz is one of my favourite genres. It never gets old.”

“He said the same thing.”

Then, because one of half of him is now stuck in the past, Shinji says, “My father mentioned you had a wife, a daughter, and a son. They doing okay?”

Keiji hums in ascent. “Yes, very well. I’m not sure if your father told you, but my wife, Kyoko, works in a bakery. She has worked in the same place for over twenty years now, and got promoted to manager five years in.”

“That’s incredible!”

Keiji nods firmly and returns to flicking through the albums. “She’s always been determined. Umei is a newspaper reporter for the local news here, and my son, Naoya, is an accountant in Tokyo.” He grins. “He’ll be having our first grandchild soon. My wife is eager to be there in the weeks before the baby is born, she already has gifts planned for him. He’s a lot like his mother, determined and hard-working. I have no doubt he’ll be a good father.”

Shinji has the sudden urge to reminisce with this man. To talk about their days in the store, where Shinji learned how to use a camera, and about their regular customers. To show he remembered the little details Keiji had told him about his life outside of work – how Kyoko would come to visit them with baked goods when she knew her husband hadn’t packed a lunch, or how happy he was about Umei’s first day of school, or when he was pleasantly surprised by Naoya’s sudden obsession with the new ‘Astro Boy’ anime. To talk about the music from that time, and see if he’d taken on other jazz and blues recommendations he’d made.

At Shinji’s silence, Keiji’s grin transforms into a bashful smile. “You’ll have to forgive me. I must seem like an old man rambling about my family and reminiscing about the past.”

“Nah, it’s fine. I get it. My old man worked at Yodobashi Camera over twenty years ago, and if I saw an old coworker, even if it was their kid, I’d want to talk about it.”

"Well, thank you then," Keiji says, “How is your father these days? I probably should've asked that first.”

Shinji knew it was coming, hovering over them from the moment Keiji recognised him without realising. Even so, the pit of his stomach plummets along with his grin. He’s at another crossroads.

He takes in the man’s features again. How the wrinkles gather deeper around his eyes and around his mouth as he speaks. The fact he wears glasses now, resting over the faint scar on his nose he got when he broke it during a high school baseball game – he’d tumbled after getting homebase and cracked it on the ground, Shinji recalls; it'd been a drunken confession made on one of the night he'd gone out with the coworkers.

He thought noticing age couldn’t affect him anymore. But seeing someone from his past, someone who he got along well with and truly wished the best for, it strikes something in him. He’d been a Shinigami for centuries, ferrying hundreds of Souls like him to the Soul Society. One day, Keiji will be met by a Shinigami when he passes on, and forget the life he’d lived by the time he gets to the Soul Society.

It’s then SHinji realises he's been living in this world for too long. That detachment, that knowledge that he was not like humans, has eroded over time, crumbling bit by bit, leaving only a thin slab behind. Hiyori was right; he should’ve left his job at Yodobashi Camera sooner. It's been one of the longer jobs he'd had, and he recalls trying to stuff down the bitterness of leaving it behind when he left on his last day.

It hadn't been right to drag Keiji along like this, for his own selfish whims of wanting to relieve the past. So he does the right thing this time.

Shinji looks off to the side. “He’s gone. So is my mother.”

In the pause, Keiji remains frozen in place, lost for words. “Oh, I…I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to bring up…I had no idea.”

“It was three years ago. He and my mother were involved in a car accident.” Like all his lies, it comes out smooth and natural, like he is the son reflecting on grief he's only just overcome. He hates it.

Keiji shakes his head in disbelief. “That's awful, truly. I really am sorry.”

“Thank you, but you don’t have to be. I’m sorry you found out this way.”

Keiji is silent again, staring at the ground for a long moment before raising his head. There’s a faint mist across his eyes. “Your father and I only knew each other at work, and on the occasions he came to drink with the rest of us. Even so, I could always tell he was a good man. He worked hard, but he always had time to help others around the store too. Not just his coworkers, but also the customers.” His smile faintly returns. “I always wondered what happened to him after he left the store. I always thought, though, that wherever he went, he’d do good work.”

Keiji always saw the good in others, and in a time where Shinji still hadn’t fully processed Aizen’s betrayal, he’d been wary of the man at first. He'd reminded him of his seated officer Genji Isawa: a hard worker who could bring a smile and laugh to anyone who met him. Maybe this is why he'd eventually came around to being a little less guarded with him.

In his last year with the store, it was only then he’d begun to take an interest in his personal life and the lives of his coworkers, whether it was the rowdy Takahiro, or the quiet but hard working Kaneshiro. In some ways, now that he thought about it, Keiji might’ve been the closest thing he’d had to a friend in many years. Still kept at a distance, still lied to, but still an echo of a friend, one he probably would've had in another life.

He can't tell him any of this, not without it sounding like he truly knew him rather than a son telling a father's old coworker what his old man thought of him.

He'd put what little detachment he still had between him and his past, but now it came bleeding through like a bruise. If only he knew he was speaking these words directly to him and not to the son he thought he was.

“Thank you,” Shinji says quietly, still unable to meet Keiji’s eyes completely. “He’d have appreciated your words a lot.”

A sombre awkwardness settles over them, only broken when the store bell rings. A young couple come in, with the woman goig straight to the ‘New Releases’ rack. Shinji looks to Kana, who now unabashedly just stared at the scene unfolding in the corner of the shop. She’s only distracted away when the man who just entered asks for assistance.

Keiji bows. “Thank you for your assistance and for listening to my ramblings today, Hirako-san. I’ll go purchase this now.” He rises, but doesn’t move to the counter. He hesitates to say something else, lips parting and closing. "And I'm truly sorry for your loss. You have my condolences."

Shinji can only nod. This will be the last time he ever sees Keiji. It’s just as well, given the emotions and reactions he’d undergone today. Who knew how he’d react to meeting some of his other old coworkers from his other jobs. If nothing, this has reiterated why he shouldn’t get close to any of the humans, not even asking them about or taking an interest in their personal lives.

But some part of him, a wistful part that he’d thought was buried under the cynicism and hurt of Aizen’s betrayal, urges him to do one last thing. His detachment tries to block it, but it shine through, clutching at his heart.

“Did my father ever tell you what his favorite record was?” Shinji asks.

Keiji frowns slightly and shakes his head. “He might have, but I’m sorry, I can’t remember.”

“Well, to be more accurate, it’s one of his favorite records.” Shinji takes a step backwards and scans the lines of CDs until he finds the one he needs. He fishes it out of the rack and presents it to Keiji. A copy of ‘Scenery’. “He loved it from the moment he heard it. I still have his vinyl copy of it.”

Keiji is slow to take the CD. “I’ve always been more into pop music, really. Agawa Yasuko is the only jazz singer I liked.”

“It came out in 1976, the same year he started working for Yodobashi Camera. He said that while listening to it, it’d remind of his life at the time, including his work and his coworkers. He always associated it with good memories.”

Keiji nods, and his smile returns, albeit with a sadder edge to it. “I’m glad, then.” As Shinji holds his hand out, planning to take the album and put it back, Keiji raises his gaze back to him. “In that case, I’ll be buying this too.”

Shinji let out a chocked chuckle. “Whoa, hey, I wasn’t trying to make a sale –”

“I know, but I want to buy this now.”

Keiji had to be guided by his sentimentality right now, this isn’t fair. Did he feel the need to listen to this to honor him? “Hey, look, it’s really not –”

“If you recommend it, and if your father would’ve recommend it to me, then I have no doubt I will enjoy it. I’m sure my wife would too. She also likes Agawa-san’s music, and a few of the other recommendations your father made.”

Somehow, that lightens the load on his heart. He even manages a grin. “Then in that case, it’s on me.”

“What? Oh, no, please, there’s no need –”

Shinji holds up a hand to silence him. “It’s no trouble. Think of it as a gift.”

Even as they walked to the counter, Keiji fretted about the idea. Kana is ringing up the couple, but as the woman counts out the money, she eyes Shinji and Keiji as they approach.

After serving the couple, Keiji comes up the counter and Shinji digs his wallet out of his pants pocket.

“He’s buying the Agawa album, the Fuuki Ryo one is on me.”

“Really, you don’t have to do this,” Keiji insists.

Kana only shrugs as she takes Shinji’s money. “If you’re sure.” She turns to Keiji with a smile. “Good choices by the way.”

Keiji hands her the albums and his money. While waiting for Kana to count up his change, Keiji reads the poster for the upcoming music festival. “I’ll tell Kyoko and Umei about this. I have a feeling they’ll be interested.”

“It’s looking to be a good line up this year,” Kana says while handing him his change and bagging his purchases. “They have a lot more local acts. It’s always good to support them.”

“Yes, it is.” He bows to her after taking the bag from her. “Thank you very much.”

She bows in return. “Have a good day, sir.”

Keiji then bows to Shinji. “And thank you so much, Hirako-san. I’m glad I got to meet you. Please, pay my respects when you next see your father and mother.”

Shinji bows in return. “Likewise, Mimura-san. I’m sure my old man would’ve been happy to see you today.”

Both rising, Keiji smiles broadly, before turning and leaving the store. There’s a still silence after the bell above the door rings. A few heartbeats later, Kana finally speaks. “What was that about?”

“One of my dad’s old coworkers,” Shinji says, ungluing himself from his spot and going back to get his cart. From across the store, he says. “My old man and I look a lot alike, so he thought I was him.”

“Huh,” Kana huffs. “That sounds like it’s be awkward.”

“It was, but…I’m glad I got to see him.”

Kana’s brows frown slightly, but she doesn’t say anything about him ‘seeing’ rather than ‘meeting’ him. “So long as you’re feeling okay about it.”

“Yeah, I am.”

The rest of the day continues as usual until closing time. The sky has turned to amber, with the last of the sun peaking out over the horizon, by the time Shinji and Kana steps out of the store.

After locking the front door, Kana spins to him and hitches her bag over her shoulder. She jerks a thumb in the direction of Karakura’s main shopping districts. “You want to go for a drink?”

She always offers, and just like every other time, Shinji shakes his head. “Nah, gotta get home.”

Kana shrugs. “Suit yourself.” Unlike other times, concern flickers across her expression. He’d tried to hide the sombreness that’d settled into him after Keiji left, but maybe he hadn't been convincing. Maybe he's losing his tough.

Kana bows. “Thanks for your hard work today. See you tomorrow.”

Shinji does the same in return. “See you tomorrow.”

They part ways, going in opposite directions.

Autumn is in the air, crispy in the wind that brushes against him as he walks the quiet streets of Karakura Town. The streetlight pop on, beaming down over him and the those either returning home or heading for a night on the town in the shopping district. He can blend in with everyone, dressed like them and walking like them, but never be one of them.

He never wanted to be, still doesn't, but like them, he'd let that small part of him, that sentimental part of him, get the better of him.

As he comes to the quieter part of town, getting closer to the warehouse, he contemplates quitting his current job. It's only a passing thought, one that he dismisses when he considers his and the Visoreds financial situation. Kisuke had been generous over the years for someone struggling almost just as much as them, but they can't rely on him.

They needed to make their own path back to the Soul Society. Back to Aizen, to take him down once and for all. The old fire returns in Shinji's, a determination he'd used to fuel his detachment form humans.

But he's been here for so long, more than a century now. He's been alive for too long, and been around humans for too long.

Their lives are so short; one moment they're here, and the next, they're meeting a Shinigami or another agent of death. Yet, he'd come to like some of the human's he'd interacted with over the decades. Keiji is clearly one of them, and for all of the grief today had caused him, he still can't deny he'd been glad to see him. But now he'd another person in his past, one he'll never see again.

And one day Kana will have to be one of those people too. He could still visit the store for next few years and get away with it, but there will come a time where he’ll have to stop visiting. And even then, he’ll have to watch himself more in public; Karakura is a big place, but there’s still a decent chance he’d run into her on the streets in the years to come.

When that time comes, she might wonder where he went, what he’s up to, or maybe she won’t. Maybe she’ll unintentionally spare him and move away, going back further north to be closer to her family and finally confess to that one highschool friend she sometimes calls on her breaks and still lives in her hometown. Maybe she’ll use the money she’s saved over the year for singing and guitar lessons, then start that rock band she’s always dreamed of and leave Karakura to go touring.

And maybe none of that happens, and she stays here until the end.

It’ll be a shame when it happens. Despite how small the store’s original jazz section had been, he always loved the store’s collection. He hadn’t found another like it in all his time in the World of the Living.