Title: High Windows
Summary: In a different world, Hitsugaya Toushiro dies young, merely a day after his grandmother does one sunny afternoon. Twenty years later he reemerges in the world of living with no memories of what happened that day.
Rating: T
Notes: Yes, I have several unfinished stories floating around in cyberspace. Yet I couldn't help it what with the bunnies nibbling at my toes every second of the day. So here's yet another AU of our dearest Shiro-chan.
Disclaimer: I no own, yadda

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In a different world, fifth seat Matsumoto Rangiku is held up at her office, pinned by the neat dressing down from her then captain. She never gets to visit Rukongai and perhaps venture near the farther districts where she was born. The boy who could have been her captain visits a shop and returns uneventfully.

His grandmother dies that night.

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Chopsticks sift through the ashes even though it is bad luck to only have one pair. But Hinamori is lost to the walls of Seireitei; by the time she receives his message, it will be too late. It falls upon him to pick out the pieces of bone, the curvature of skull and the hint of teeth. His shoulders shake and it is all he can do to stop himself from breaking into tears.

Whispers reach him eventually, like horseflies in the middle of summer. He is neither deaf nor stupid; he knows what the neighbors say of him when they catch glimpse of his eyes and the snowy flare of his hair. His only saving grace had been Momo and Granny, one who left and the other gone forever. It is only out of respect for the dead that the neighbors keep mum, silently helping but never addressing him directly, speaking over his head as though he was a child or even less—a ghost of one.

His grandmother had been ailing of late, ill and frail, suffering from an early summer cold that wouldn't quit. He brushes his grandmother's ashes into a small porcelain urn, a strictly symbolic gesture since bodies in Seireitei last no longer than smoke. She will soon be reborn in the arms of her new family in the physical realm, only a grave marker and memories to remember her passing.

Swiftly, he steps out into the sun, his held up high as though he is unafraid. Granny died today but there are chores to be done, messages to be sent and items to be burned. In short, life goes on and Toushiro unwillingly with it. He doesn't stumble when a pebble strikes his shoulder, then another, and another. Even when boys, snot-nosed and dirty-faced, safe weaving in and out of the shadows of their parents, pinch him, shove him and spit at him, Toushiro does not retaliate—he can't.

The crowd closes in, looming like they'd like nothing better than to swallow him up now that Granny is gone. There is roaring in his ear that is unlike any song of the earth. Toushiro breaks out into a run, afraid. Dumbfounded, people stop before several takes up the chase like mad dogs after a hind that has made the misstep of appearing in plain sight. He doubts that any of them know why they are running. If anything, the thought makes him run faster.

A rough hand, easily capable of wrapping around his torso, wrenches him sideways and causes him to crash into the dirt. Toushiro instinctively curls up as he catches a foot in his ribs, the owner screaming as he grabs the ankle and twists. Someone stomps on his hip and he cries out, something broken and jagged inside of him as he rolls past the clawing hand and on one knee. A man whimpers, blubbering like a child. His mind blanks when he sees the rim of frost on the other man's face, like an icy glaze across the skin.

The crowd falls silent and he stops resisting.

He knows now.