'Keep giving me hope for a better day,
Keep giving me love to find a way
Through this heaviness, I feel I just need
Someone to say "everything's okay".'

Momo sighed in resignation as she glanced at the clock in the library.

There was really no point in rushing; she would already receive a late mark and all their History classes from now on were independent revision anyway.

Momo took her time packing her things away, and even paused to chat with the librarian briefly before she left. As she pushed her way out of the doors, she noticed from the corner of her eye a pair of students rounding a corner to her right.

Class had begun, so the hallways were empty save for the three of them. Momo glanced quickly at the two; she recognized them from the times she used to watch the soccer team practice at lunch.

The very tall and broad fellow had vibrant orange hair, an angular face, and sharp features that somehow weren't daunting at all. He had a very open and friendly air, and he was walking and talking with the girl who Momo knew to be his younger sister. Her cropped black hair was familiar to Momo, and she recalled that this girl had some obvious feelings for Toshiro.

Momo had no reason to avoid them, and they were approaching from the direction she was headed. While she figured they would simply pass her by without a second glance, she was wrong.

She was recognized.

"Hey, aren't you that girl from the soccer game last night?" came a female voice, louder and deeper compared to Momo's, but not unkind.

She and her brother stopped walking, and Momo simply slowed her pace, hoping she wouldn't have to waste too much time talking to them.

Momo managed a soft smile and said, "Sorry, have we met?"

The other girl appeared somewhat taken aback by Momo's politeness, but she leaned forward around her brother and shook her head. "No, but I saw you talking to Toshiro after the game," she explained. "He said you're his friend."

Momo felt a surge of happiness from hearing that, but was determined not to let it show. However, she couldn't stop her smile from twitching a little wider.

"You're Toshiro's friend?" said the boy, looking surprised. His voice was rougher, a tad scratchy. He tilted his head and surveyed Momo. "Huh. I didn't think he could get along with a cute girl."

Momo turned her smile on him. "Oh, you're sweet," she said, off-handed.

He flashed a cocky grin in response, making her think that perhaps he wasn't sincerely sweet, but then he held out a hand. "Ichigo Kurosaki," he said. "Any friend of Toshiro's is a friend of ours."

She took his hand and shook it calmly, nodding and adding, "Momo Hinamori."

"And I'm Karin," piped Ichigo's sister, her mouth half-full. Momo glanced down to see that she was clutching a little plastic bucket of store-bought mini chocolate doughnuts. They must have spent their lunchtime walking outdoors, and were enjoying a spare period right now.

Unfortunately, Momo didn't have that luxury.

"Well," she said, bracing herself to leave, "it was nice to meet you both—"

"—hey, wait," Ichigo interrupted, stealing a chocolate doughnut from Karin's bucket and popping it whole into his mouth. She waited patiently for him to chew (just three times) and swallow. "We're throwing a party tomorrow night at our place. Why don't you come?"

Momo's fingers went cold. It had been a while since she'd last been to a party, and she didn't have very fond memories of high-school parties. They usually involved liquor and drugs and she had seen, and experienced, firsthand the effects of such things on some people.

"Oh, no, thanks," she began, "I'm not even a soccer player—"

"That doesn't matter," Karin cut in. "You can come, since Ichigo and I say it's alright. And if you're Toshiro's friend, you count as one of us."

"That's really not—" Momo waved her hand lightly in front of her, dismissing the invitation. "—you see, I'm not interested in parties—"

"Oh, come on," urged Ichigo. "You know Toshiro, Hinamori? He almost never comes to my parties. He's a stuck-up little bastard and he never has any fun."

Momo blinked, her lips squirming from indecision over whether to grin or frown.

"If you go, he'll definitely go."

She highly doubted that. Toshiro Hitsugaya was one of the most stubborn and independent people she had ever met.

But she knew what Ichigo was doing. It was the guilt trick. Come on, Hinamori, he was practically saying. Do it for Toshiro. It's for his own good. She hated this kind of thing, because she had always found it hard to say 'no' to earnest people. It went against her nature to deny good people anything that she could do for them.

Momo glanced at Karin as Ichigo sucked another chocolate doughnut in between his lips. Karin didn't look like she particularly agreed with Ichigo's last statement, and the ounces of her that might have believed it were not happy to hear it.

Being a girl as well, Momo understood immediately, and without doubt. Karin had a crush on Toshiro, and Momo was a potential roadblock in her way.

While a part of Momo felt inclined to oblige Ichigo, another part did not want to make an enemy out of a girl she hardly even knew. Not to mention this girl was a friend of Toshiro's, and the least she could do was try to get along with her.

"I'm really busy," she said, shaking her head gently. "I'm sorry, I really can't. I mean, I'd like to" – this was a lie – "but I'm trying to put together my application for university right now, so it's just really not a good time."

Karin bit into a doughnut, nodding. Momo couldn't help but see it as a nod of approval.

Ichigo swallowed the remains of his doughnut and grimaced. 'Aw, that's too bad then," he said, shrugging lazily and shoving his hands in his pockets. "But try to convince him to go, alright? We wanna see our Captain there!"

Momo smiled and gave him a thumbs-up. That she could probably handle. "Will do."

"Thanks. It was nice meeting you," Ichigo said, raising a hand. Beside him, Karin gave a smile that was friendly enough (despite her cheeks being stuffed full of food) and Momo mirrored the gesture.

"See you," she said to the pair of them, and took off for her classroom, already extremely late.

As she knocked lightly on the door and turned the knob to let herself in, Momo wondered if anything would change if she decided to take Ichigo up on his invitation. A party sounded like great fun, but she tended to associate them with her past.

After receiving a warning from Kurotsuchi-sensei not to let her tardiness happen again, Momo retreated to her desk. Toshiro was slacking off, Chapter 9 open in front of him but completely ignored. He was slumped down in the seat, ankles crossed, fingers drumming noiselessly on the textbook's pages.

"Where've you been?" he asked her, eyes flickering to the clock on the wall.

She read the time from the clock at the front of the room. Class was nearly half-over. She sighed, "Whew, I'm really late, aren't I? But … it wasn't entirely my fault."

"Whose was it?"

Momo glanced sidelong at Toshiro and said, "Your friend Ichigo and his sister held me up for quite a bit."

"Ichigo?" Toshiro sat up and looked at her. "What did he want?"

"His sister somehow recognized me from last night's game," Momo explained, still perplexed at how this detail had come to be. "Ichigo invited me to his party that's tomorrow night, and he really wants you to come. I said I'd try to persuade you."

"Forget about it," Toshiro advised flatly. "I never go."

"Why not?" Momo demanded. "It's your victory. And you're the Captain. I think you have a responsibility to go!"

"Responsibility?" he scoffed.

"For morale, or something," she said. "You won together, you celebrate together. Team spirit, right?"

"Trust me, they have enough spirit without me."

"Come on," she prompted. "I told Ichigo I'd persuade you to come."

The corner of his mouth lifted. "Then I hate to tell you, Hinamori, but you're fighting a losing battle." Toshiro stifled a yawn, looking once again at the clock. "What about you? You said he invited you too, right?"

"Right," Momo said carefully, "but I don't think I can. I have a long list of things I want to get done before the weekend."

Toshiro didn't even have to spare her a glance to say with confidence: "That's a lie."

"It is not a lie!" she said. "I do!"

"You don't want to go just as much as I don't want to go," he said, his tone triumphant. "Just admit it."

Momo frowned at him for a few moments, but then told him in a small voice: "I do, I kind of want to. But …"

She trailed off, unable to finish. It wasn't that she didn't know why she wouldn't let herself go, but she didn't know how to put it into words. If she could, he probably wouldn't understand, anyhow.

Toshiro held up a hand. "Don't push yourself," he said calmly. "If you're not ready, you're not ready." He let his hand fall to the desk again, and after a few beats of silence, resumed his drumming rhythm. "Besides, it'd be a lot to take in. You'd hardly know anyone there."

Half of her heart was itching to meet these people, new faces and new smiles, to make more friends and secure herself a place in this new life. The other half was still desperate to keep hidden, to keep safe. Unsure of which to listen to, Momo simply took Toshiro's words for truth and nodded. "Yeah, you're right."

As Toshiro fiddled restlessly with his pens and his pages and his papers, Momo watched him. He was so reserved for such a popular person. She couldn't fathom how he managed to attract so many people just by keeping to himself. It was extraordinary to her. When she had been considerably popular, in her previous school, it had taken some effort on her part, to be as outgoing and likeable and charismatic as possible. Back then, most of it had come naturally, though.

"Hey Hitsugaya-kun," she said, slow and contemplative. "Why do you avoid parties?"

His hands paused in position, holding a mechanical pencil like a dart, drawn back and poised to throw. Wordlessly, he set the pencil down and turned his eyes on her.

"All the teenage excitement," he said, sounding resentful. "I don't handle that well."

Thinking that he sounded very much like an old man, Momo bit back a giggle and smiled what she hoped to be an understanding smile.

"I don't get along with people that great, either," he added dully.

Momo's smile faltered. It was a straightforward comment, mostly true, and so unconcerned that it bothered her. "I think we get along just fine," she countered.

"Not you," he said, waving a lazy hand dismissively. "Other people. I get easily annoyed, and easily bored, and then I get rude."

"You're not rude," Momo assured him.

"Actually, the girl who sits behind the sensei would beg to differ."

Momo craned her neck over the projector for a better look. "The girl with braids?"

From the corner of her eye, she saw him nod. "You were so late that she thought you weren't coming. She asked if she could take your seat for today."

"You could have said yes," Momo said. "I wouldn't mind, really."

"I would've minded," Toshiro snapped. "And I told her so. Then she said that she's come to all of my games and really wants to get to know me and I told her that I didn't care and I didn't need her to know me. So then she called me rude."

Momo smiled sadly. The girl kind of had good reason to react the way she had, but Momo would never say that aloud to Toshiro. Instead, she said, "Why wouldn't you want her to know you?" She found this comment peculiar in particular.

Toshiro shrugged. "I've got you to know me," he told her, frank and unembarrassed. "I'm fine with that."

A spot of warmth touched Momo, but it faded as another thought occurred to her. "It doesn't matter if you're rude sometimes," she said. "You're a good person."

Toshiro scoffed. "Never heard that one before."

Momo stared at him. "Believe me," she said firmly. "I knew someone who was so kind. But he wasn't a good person at all."

Here she closed her eyes, but she could sense him moving at her side, shifting in his seat, positioning his elbows on the desk.

"Who – who are you talking about?" he asked, so obviously curious, but trying to sound indifferent. Momo would have smiled at his attempt had she not been in the midst of a nostalgia she didn't like to feel.

"His name," she said quietly, "was Sosuke Aizen."

Toshiro was silent. Unmoving. She couldn't tell if that unnerved her more than the thought of Aizen right now.

"He was already a senior when I met him, and he was so nice, so gentle, so smart."

Everyone had admired him, respected him, swooned over him. He epitomized perfection and his calm demeanour and kind eyes had drawn not only Momo, but the entire student body and even the staff, under his spell without difficulty.

"He was a total charmer. He had everyone's – everyone's approval, everyone's attention. Somehow, it seemed like he could always understand everything," said Momo aloud. "He would never hurt anyone." She opened her eyes, and then said, "Except for me, I guess."

She gave a small shrug and leaned forward in her seat, running her hand along the surface of her textbook and splitting the pages at a random spot.

He must have realized that that was where she was leaving it, because he didn't press the matter. Instead, he tapped her on the elbow and said, "Hinamori."

Momo was starting to feel sick to her stomach. She could hardly believe she'd actually just talked about that. It was like a sacred wound, something she had never intended to open again, and now that she had, it stung. She could feel it in her, throbbing, coming back to life, and she had even dared show it to someone else—

"Hey. You okay?"

Throat knotted with nausea, Momo turned in the direction of his voice. For some reason, her vision had gone distant, sight lost in another world; she could hardly even get his features into focus.

It didn't really matter, though. She already had every last detail of his face memorized.

She tried to nod. It felt jerky, her neck was too tight.

"Here," Toshiro said, sliding a scrap of notebook paper onto her desk and patting it with his hand. "It's my number. You need anything, you call me. Alright?"

She stared down at the gift, the scribbled little digits in his familiar hand, and slowly brought her fingers around it. Enclosed in her fist, trapped like a treasure.

Momo devoted the rest of her day to relaxation.

She had killed several hours after school at the downtown mall, hoping to clear her mind and fill it with the shallow and carefree interests of normal adolescents. She'd mostly window-shopped, found a few bargains, ate French fries and ice cream from the food court for dinner, and then proceeded to browse some of the indie boutiques that ran along the edge of downtown.

She even found herself slipping off to sleep at intervals of the train ride home.

When she returned to her apartment, her spirits were lifted considerably and she was no longer feeling sick.

"Hinamori-kun."

Momo jumped at the unexpected sound of her name. The key in her hand, poised to enter the lock, clattered against the silver knob and dropped to the ground in barely a second flat. A gasp escaped her.

"Sorry, I didn't mean to scare you," said the voice from behind her. It was beginning to sound familiar.

Without turning around, Momo began to formulate the speaker's image in her mind, matching that low drawl with the glum expression that had stuck in her memory the first time she'd seen it.

It was the blond boy, who had been with Gin that day.

"You," she said softly, spinning on her heels to face him. Shakily, she lowered herself and picked up her keys. "Who are you, again?"

"Izuru Kira," he said, immediate. His eyes flickered to her closed apartment door. "Mind if I invite myself in for a bit?"

She was slow to respond. "Um … r-right, sure. Just for a bit, though … it's kind of – um – late …"

"I understand. Pardon my intrusion."

Momo led him inside, the heavy footfalls that followed her feeling somehow ominous. She couldn't discern his intentions from that dry look he constantly wore, so she steeled herself, ready to meet with any aggression. For that reason, she left the door open wide.

"I'm only here to talk to you," he said, sensing her hostility.

Momo wanted to send him away. She wanted to slam her hand down, hard, on the tabletop and tell him that she had nothing to say to him. But a curiosity burned in her to know who he was, precisely, and how he had become involved with Gin, and with her. But first—

"How – how did you know where I lived?"

Kira laced his fingers together and cast his gaze upward. "Honestly?" he said, slow and unwilling. "I've .. well, I've kind of been tailing you for a while."

Momo's mouth fell open in disbelief. She could feel a headache brewing from all the noises inside of her, noises of incredulity, anger, confusion and panic. She spread her arms wide apart and glared at him as hard as she could.

"You – what, you've been tail– why? What do you want to know? What do you want from me?"

"I don't know!" Kira said, on the defensive. He raised his hands in innocence, in surrender. "Really, Hinamori-kun, I don't! I'm sorry, I'm sorry! I don't know why!"

"Then what are you tailing me for if you don't even know why?" Momo spat, exasperated.

"I – well, see, Gin kind of put me up to it."

Gin. Of course. She should've known.

Momo eased her glare, and studied Kira intently. She was starting to see it now, that he didn't seem so much like a villain. He looked almost pitiable, just as confused as she.

Even still, that didn't change the fact that he was the villain's spy. She remained on her guard.

"What does Gin want from me?" she asked. "Do you know?"

Kira shrugged. "I don't. He did tell me a bit about you, but not about what he wants from you…"

"What did he tell you?" she demanded.

"Well … you know, we were friends since middle school. We met in a soccer league. We hung out a bit, but I moved away and we hadn't talked since senior year. He contacted me to ask specifically whether or not a girl named Momo Hinamori lived in this town or went to my school."

Momo narrowed her eyes. So they'd been looking for her.

Kira continued, "I found out that you did, so I told him. Then he started asking me questions about you. He wanted to know how you looked. He wanted to know where you lived. He wanted to know how you acted, who your friends were, and he wanted to know what you talked about to other people."

"What," Momo whispered, taken aback, "what, is he afraid I'm going to give up all his secrets?"

Kira paused and raised an eyebrow. "You know Gin's secrets?"

Momo said vaguely, "Not his. Someone else's." She shook her head and said, "Continue."

He complied. "So I asked him who you were and how he knew you, and he explained that you used to go to his school."

"Which is true, but we weren't friends or anything," Momo was quick to clarify. "Don't get the wrong idea."

Kira frowned. "Sorry to tell you, but that's the idea he gave me."

She sighed in frustration. It was just like Gin to do that.

"He said that you were friends, that you were his best pal's girlfriend."

Momo kept quiet. She felt almost ashamed to claim that as truth.

"Sosuke Aizen?"

He didn't seem to want to continue without her approval of his statements, so she impatiently nodded, arms folded across her chest.

"Yeah, I heard a lot about that guy, too." He took in a sharp breath, and it came out slow. "Quite the ... interesting character."

He looked at her furtively, almost as though he were waiting for her permission to keep talking about Aizen.

Momo bit her lip and nodded. "Interesting," she repeated. "Not the word I would use."

Kira swallowed. "I – I know," he said, "how he was to you. I – I mean, I don't know, I got the, like, the gist of it, from Gin—"

"He was abusive," Momo said loudly, feeling hateful. "He was two-faced and manipulative and completely psycho." She uncrossed her arms and brought her palms down hard on the countertop. "You wanna know something? That gang you're a part of—"

"—hey, okay, I'm not a part of that gang!" Kira practically shouted, astonished. "Everyone's suspecting me just through association with Gin! Sure, I know all the names of the people in that crowd, but I've never even seen one of their faces other than Gin's!"

Momo ignored him. "That gang isn't Gin's at all. Aizen started it. It started with this group of boys who he had all wrapped around his finger in freshman year, and they started following him like pups, then they all but god-worshipped him—"

"Yeah, I heard that Aizen was the gang founder, and that the other guys in there sometimes won't listen to Gin."

The clock in her kitchen read nine-twelve. Momo wondered when Kira intended to leave.

"I'm aware that I'm on the bad guy's 'side' right now," Kira said quietly. "I understand that you're the victim here, Hinamori-kun."

Momo narrowed her eyes, unconvinced.
"The victim," she said slowly. "Are you sure you understand?"

Kira gave her a pointed look, one that said he had expected this response. "Hinamori-kun. I understand all of it. And none of it was your fault. You weren't responsible for any of it, Aizen was. He's the kind of guy who can't be changed – he just hid himself, temporarily, to get what he wanted."

Momo sniffed, nodded. "Yeah," she agreed. "But to this day, I'm still not sure what it was he wanted." She paused to glance at the time once again, and opened her mouth to inform Kira that it was past her self-set bedtime – she was even starting to feel slightly drowsy – but something else poured out instead.

"Uh – so, um, you do know all about me, I guess … it – I'm not gonna lie, it's kind of … well … it makes me a little nervous, to think that a total stranger just, like—"

"Sorry," Kira blurted, getting up from the table so urgently that his chair wobbled precariously on its hind legs as he stood. "Uh – yeah, sorry, I didn't think about you at all – I'm probably making you really uncomfortable right now … and scared, I bet … I mean, I'm really sorry if you feel like I've invaded your privacy—"

Yes, you have, and on multiple fronts, Momo wanted to point out, but she bit her tongue with that one and forced a smile. At the very least, he was trying, and he was apologizing, and he seemed rather sincere, for a stalker.

"It's okay," Momo told him, despite still feeling a little unsettled. However, most of the uneasiness was beginning to wane into something like assurance, relief. "It's … I'm starting to feel a bit … I don't know, glad, that someone actually … knows. I suppose you've figured it out by now, but I've kind of been avoiding other people this year so that I could keep my—" (secrets? Crazy past?) – "keep all that dark stuff down. It's … been hard."

Kira lowered his eyes, not looking at her. There followed a stiff silence.

"Um … Hinamori-kun," said Kira, and took a step towards her door. "Now – now that we – well, after all this, do you think you could … trust me?"

Momo raised her eyebrows. Was this a trap?

His expression sure wasn't making it seem like one. Those pitiful eyes, that long face, the voice gone slightly sour with tension and faint desperation.

"You want me to … trust you," she repeated, in disbelief. "To trust you."

He swallowed visibly. "I can see why you have a hundred reasons not to, at this point," he said, "but I – I want us to be friends. Now that I know all that troubling stuff about you, I want to help. I've never really been Gin's underling or anything like that, so don't misunderstand – I only kept my eye on you all this time because I thought it was more like doing a favour for a pal; he just asked me to, so I did – and now that I, like, know all of this, it—it's gonna bother me. I see the way you struggle and I know that it's hard. So … if you ever need to talk about it – I mean, I'm guessing Hitsugaya doesn't know?"

Momo paused, and frowned. "Not yet," she said quietly. "I don't want him to know everything yet."

"Then," said Kira, "in the meantime, you can come to me about it when something comes up?"

It wasn't poised like an open invitation; it was more of a request, waiting for a sure answer.

"A-Alright," Momo said, pressing her lips into a mild smile and escorting him out into the hallway.

As she stood by her apartment door, waving half-heartedly and watching Kira turn the corner at the end, she realized that she was no longer tired. In fact, she was wide awake. She felt her insides warming as her wave fell still and she lowered her hand. It was a nostalgic feeling, sweeter than it was bitter, and a feeling she hadn't felt since she'd first spoken to Toshiro: it was the feeling of making a friend.

She wanted to feel it more. She realized that she enjoyed being known, and recognized, having people like Karin and Ichigo call her in the corridor, or having Kira assure her that she hadn't been the problem.

And with that realization, Momo's mind was made up.

"I'm going to go to the party tonight."

Toshiro paused in eating his food. He had joined her for another quiet breaktime in the library today. It was Friday, though, and breaktime was cut shorter than usual.

"Kurosakis' party?"

Momo nodded, and forked another morsel off of her cinnamon roll. "Yes. I was thinking about it last night. I want to go. I might actually have fun. I want to meet more people."

Toshiro didn't hesitate. "Then I'll go, too."

She glanced up, shocked, the fork halfway to her mouth, still in midair. Wrinkling her brow, she said slowly, "But I thought you didn't like parties."

He met her baffled eyes. "I thought you didn't, either."

"Then," she said, with a coy smile, "maybe I'm a masochist."

Toshiro polished off his last sheet of snack seaweed and tossed the wrapper on the table. "If you're a bird, I'm a bird."

"What?"

He frowned, looking slightly surprised. "You've never heard that?"

"Heard what?"

"That quote."

"No! Where is it from?"

"A movie."

Momo stared hard at Toshiro. She hadn't really pegged him as the sort to watch movies in his spare time. She could much more easily envision him calling it a waste of time.

"What does it mean?" she asked.

"I am what you are, I do what you do," he said simply. "I go where you go."

Momo blinked.

She watched him lean far back in his seat and reach back behind him, dropping his trash into the rubbish bin and stifling a yawn.

A tiny laugh escaped her.

Toshiro returned to a proper sitting position and raised an eyebrow. "What's so funny?"

She merely smiled, ducked her head and shook it slightly.

It was just that Ichigo had been right about that, when Momo had doubted it.

And never had she been happier to be proven wrong.

Thanks for all your support for this story! To answer one reviewer's question, this story has roughly 17 chapters mapped out for it. Please look forward to them!

As always, please leave me your
thoughts/comments/feedback in a review!