Disclaimer: Only Bleach I own is NaOCl

Guilt is a subtle thing. It hooks its claws deep inside your soul. It builds a home of regret and recriminations (a house of cards, each placed more meticulously than the last), and then it waits. It lies dormant and silent until it is nearly forgotten. It fools you into thinking you are free of it. It tricks you into thinking you are healed, and then it strikes. It bites and slashes and the pain is as bad as the first time. And it never relents, never relinquishes a victim. Rukia knows this. She knows it well.

--

It's a stupid game the girls are playing, but then again it always is. Rukia doesn't understand the rules and knows she can't ask. She watches them carefully, listens intently. Based on their responses she builds a set of parameters to operate within, she approximates the lines visible only to them. She knows she must be cautious. She has to guess at their rules and she has to do it well or she will seem even less normal than she already does.

That's always what gets her into this trouble in the first place. One of the girls runs across her at lunch time and "Oh, Kuchiki-san, won't you join us?" and of course Kuchiki-san will join them because she's a normal 15 year old girl and that seems to be what normal 15 year old girls do. Rukia thinks maybe she just needs to hide better. If they couldn't find her in the first place she could avoid these situations entirely. Of course that doesn't help her at all right now, so she listens and watches and tries to deduce what she's supposed to say.

Mahana is first (she always seems to be first). "I guess I'd say my nose." She presses her hands against her face, fingers steepled between her eyes. "It's too big! Not cute at all." A flurry of protestations and giggling follow ( "Oh you can't be serious!" "I've always loved your nose." "You think your nose is bad, look at mine!"). Rukia makes herself smile part-way. They're all laughing; she should probably look less serious.

The tall girl whose name Rukia always forgets goes next. "My hair. Definitely my hair." She flips long dark strands over her shoulder. "It's just so straight and plain." The same response greets her ( "But I love your hair!" "Really, Ryo, you're lucky. Your hair grows so long!" "If you think it's plain you should let me braid it for you!"). Physical attributes, then. Something you don't like, or maybe something you wish you could change. Rukia thinks she's getting the idea but she doesn't like her answer. She hopes they won't ask her.

They turn to Tatsuki next, who predictably snorts and rolls her eyes and says she doesn't play these silly games. Rukia admires her for it. Tatsuki is very brave to be so different and Rukia wishes she could be, too. But Rukia is different enough already and these people must never know. Standing out isn't her prerogative.

Inoue Orihime claps her hands together and leans forward, wide-eyed and intense. "My torso," she proclaims. The other girls stare blankly and Rukia's smile becomes a little less forced.

Chizuru grins suggestively and says, "I think Hime-chan's torso is divine! In fact, I would say--" A sharp look and a sharper elbow from Tatsuki end whatever else she had planned to say.

"Umm, Orihime-chan," Michiru ventures. "What do you mean, 'your torso'?"

"Well I mean all of it, I guess." Inoue presses her hands over her stomach. "It just seems wrong, you know? Your rib cage ends up here but you have all these organs below it that just have skin over them. I think I need an exoskeleton! I'd be unstoppable then!"

Amidst the laughter and groaning and head shaking, Rukia smiles silently. Inoue-san is similar to her in some ways. She's just strange, without even the excuse of being a hundred years dead or from another world. Rukia can't help but like her for it, even when the rational part of her mind is whispering that she shouldn't like these people (these living, short-lived people), that liking them will only complicate things when it's time to leave.

"What about you, Kuchiki-san?" Inoue flashes a wide smile and looks straight at Rukia. Rukia mumbles a bit and pretends to be thinking.

She realizes they are all waiting for her and when speaks it is too quickly. "I suppose my hands." She hopes that will be the end of it but they are still looking at her expectantly. "I mean... they aren't clean." Once the words are out of her mouth she knows they were wrong. She sees their faces change, Tatsuki's eyebrows raised, Mahana covering her mouth, whispering with Ryo and Michiru ( "...knew there was something..." "...must be OCD..." "...always was weird...")

Inoue, beautifully oblivious, grabs Rukia's hand and inspects it. "I think you're wrong, Kuchiki-san. Even your fingernails are clean! I can't keep my fingernails clean, I don't know how you--"

Tatsuki interrupts her. "That's not what she meant, Orihime."

Rukia extracts her hand from Inoue and stands unsteadily. "Excuse me, please." She turns and walks away, forcing herself not to break into a run. Their whispers follow her and for a frantic moment she thinks could they tell? Did they know she lied?

She scrambles up a tree and huddles on a high branch, pressed against the trunk, arms crossed over her knees. She's always liked hiding in high places. So seldom people think to look up. Rukia takes deep breaths and closes her eyes tightly.

It's just a game, just a stupid game the girls play, and she said the wrong thing, sure, she said something stupid again (why does she always say the wrong thing?), but that doesn't mean they know. They can't see through her even if she is like a ghost in their world, they can't see inside her, but she shouldn't have to see, either. It's just a stupid game and it shouldn't matter how she answers, she shouldn't have to see it all over again, live those moments all over again, she shouldn't have to face it. But she does. Her mind, her soul, her conscience won't let her pretend. Her guilt will never let her go.

She lied. It isn't her hands, her blood-stained murderer's hands, at all. It is her heart she hates most. Her weak, weak heart, vessel now to something greater than itself. Kaien-dono left her his heart, and she lives with the shame that her own is not fit to carry it.