if my heart was a compass you'd be north

disclaimer: bleach is not mine.

i.

It's an impulsive thing – that's just how she is. Working like clockwork, twisting all the cogs. Spinning and shattering and wrecking the gears with a wrench. She's more head over heart than Ichigo and more heart over head than Yuzu, and she wonders if she's just a strange mixture of the two, adrenaline fuelling her veins and propelling her forward.

She grabs his collar and barely lets him react to her advance as she crushes her lips against his because the butterflies won't stop fluttering in her stomach, and this might be a way.

Fifteen years old and waiting for something to break between them, Karin's finally decided to take the initiative and roll with it.

He freezes for only a second; and she nearly pauses and pulls away, cheeks beginning to grow red.

But then he moves—both with his mouth and his hands—pulling her closer, and Karin kind of grins as she adjusts her arms around his neck, getting comfortable with their new situation.

… she'd only meant to say 'hello' but reckons that this is a better alternative.

(The best alternate.)

ii.

Laziness apparently knows no bounds when it comes to Kurosaki Karin. She smirks and snickers as he scowls and sighs, pulling her into an awkward dance; neither of them trying too hard to match the beat—especially now that a silent game of 'crushing the partner's feet by accident' rages between them.

She feels weird, all dolled up with smudged mascara, both of them burning against a horizon of burnt sienna. Dressed in blue, glossy silk material strange compared to her denim jeans and cotton shirts, framing her so differently. Balloons are a poor substitute for soccer balls, but that still doesn't mean they aren't going to play with them later.

Her heart's beating, flip flopping and somersaulting like it's been turned into a dolphin in an aquarium.

"Thought you weren't coming." Karin admits eventually when the melody is slow, her head resting on his shoulder.

"Don't be stupid." He scowls, and relief comes all too easily. But then it always has—with him—as he guides her into a twirl. "I'm here, aren't I?"

"Yeah." She can't help it, stopping, stopping, stopping, lost in her own world when he kisses her on the mouth, the nose, and the forehead, sweetly, chastely, and she thinks that maybe, just maybe, this is love. "You are."

Somehow, her grip is slipping, and she's afraid of letting go, but Hitsugaya Toushirou is still holding her hand.

iii.

"Hey Toushirou?" She's leaning on the balcony and letting the whole world pass her by, not really sure what she's waiting for. Petals plucked apart so simply in her hands, tossed into breeze—it's always nice, just staying here and thinking. "… I'm going to forget you, aren't I?" Speaking, quietly, she looks down, troubled by the thought. "When I die."

It's the last year of school, and it's finally gotten to her: life, death, and all that follows, life after death. He told her once, so long ago, that she would loose her memories when she crossed over. She'd forget everything, including him.

Tabula rasa.

Sighing, he nods, not happy. His hands fly in his hair, now tousled, and he's torn—Karin can tell—between looking at her and looking away.

It's inevitable, and he can't fight that.

"Even so," Toushirou shrugs, and it's already beginning to sound like a promise, their version of a limited forever. "I'll find you. I'd find a way… to make you remember…"

"And… you'd wait for me?"

She's being selfish and stupid and naive, but her heart is beating too fast. And she's wondering if she's relying on him too much; she wants to make a joke out of it, but can't. Not when she feels so vulnerable, and the world is in her hands, balanced only by his touch.

Azure blue eyes pierce her, intense and stormy, flickering with so many emotions; and that's more than an answer.

Her throat closes and Karin can't bring herself to speak.

Karin walks forward and simply hugs him, cherishing his scent and closing her eyes, willing herself to remember this one moment—if nothing else. The almost rumble in his chest and the way his arms slide around her back, pulling her closer until it's sealed with a kiss to her forehead.

It's their unspoken promise that they will hold each other.

iv.

He's not there when it happens.

But she thinks of him all the same, as her breaths slowly come to a halt and the world is fading, and she's so scared, so scared…

Stabbing. Really?

There are better ways to die.

Admittedly, a painless one is better a painful one; but if she had to choose a painful death, it would be dying in a car crash, gears revved up and speeding out of control, but she can't be picky now with only got a few seconds left.

But his face is clearer than the spots blurring her vision.

Karin closes her eyes one last time and tries to recall the press of his lips against her head.

v.

She's sitting on the rooftop and watching the clouds pass by when a not-stranger appears. She knows him and she doesn't know him—his name is fever on her lips, but she's too delirious to spit it out. He's got white hair and blue eyes. Her heart's racing, but she doesn't know why.

"Found you." He grins, a secret kind that has a story behind it.

Her eyebrows arch—is she supposed to be impressed?

"Do I know you?"

"No, not yet." The not-stranger shakes his head and tucks his hands in his pockets, and there's an emotion she can't decipher glittering in his eyes, a cross between amusement and despair and a wonderful thing called hope. "But you will."

And it's there—echoing emotions that flutter in her stomach as the corners of her mouth upturn.

The way he said that: she'd almost call it, maybe, kind of—

"Sounds like a promise."

"One I intend to keep."