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“I’m leaving tomorrow,” is the first thing out of Shinji’s mouth as he finds Kisuke outside the shouten, sitting down. He’s taken off the geta, has them by his side and when Shinji goes around so that he can sit by him, the sight of Kisuke’s bare feet catches him by surprise. He looks… younger. But tired.
“France?” Kisuke asks and he turns to Shinji with a smile. The fan is nowhere to be seen either. Shinji just nods. “I hope you have a wonderful trip, Shinji-san. And that it ends up being everything you have been waiting for.”
Shinji doesn’t reply. His first urge is to scoff and say, “now it’s definitely not going to, you’ve cursed me” but he thinks that might genuinely hurt Kisuke’s feelings, when he’s being honest. His second urge is to simply say, “I hope so too” but he keeps that one inside as well.
“Hiyori is going to the US. She wants to go to the craziest festivals. Kensei and Mashiro are thinking of going with her too, then maybe up to Canada. Love and Roujuurou want to visit South America.”
“And Lisa?”
“Kyouraku is talking to her.”
“Ah.” Shinji doesn’t bother mentioning Hatchi; he’ll be staying in Karakura. “I’m surprised no one punched the Captain-Commander,” Kisuke has a smile playing around his lips, but Shinji doesn’t reply in kind. Instead, he squeezes his hands once, forces them to relax. Kisuke doesn’t look bemused anymore.
“He said we can go home,” Shinji doesn’t bother disguising the venom he’s feeling. “That we were no longer exiled. He… apologized for the misunderstanding. He hopes we can put that behind us, that our Divisions are ready to welcome us back.” Shinji lets out a bitter laugh. “Like the last one hundred years never happened. The fucking hypocrisy.”
He takes a deep breath, feels Kisuke lay a hand on his knee. He looks down to look at it, but it’s a quick glimpse before his eyes turn upwards to the night sky.
“I want to go to France,” Shinji says.
“I know. Everyone knows. You haven’t shut up about it for at least eighty years.”
Shinji feels his lips twitch at that, even as he tries to keep the smile from breaking out. But Kisuke’s always been good at getting him to relax.
It’s true, anyway. Shinji remembers being new in the human realm, pretty much trapped in one small town in Japan, and the things he’d done to try and keep himself sane, such as learning French. A new alphabet, words completely unknown, completely different. There was nothing about French that reminded him of home, still isn’t.
And now here’s his chance.
Shinji doesn’t bother to ask Kisuke if he’s going to stay. The answer is obvious. Shinji – and the rest of them – have waited for Ichigo to wake up before making their different plans and now, without his powers, the kid is going to need someone to watch out for him even more.
What Shinji does say is, “don’t keep yourself hidden. You’ll hurt him more if you do that.”
Kisuke sighs, immediately knows what Shinji’s talking about. Another thing he’s always been good at.
“It might be the better option. Let him forget about us. Move on.”
“You’re such an idiot,” Shinji says and Kisuke, of course, sends him an insulted look. His hand is still on Shinji’s knee. “The Shinigami are already going to keep their distance, I’m sure, and his friends are probably going to act like everything is fine, like nothing is different. But it is. Kisuke… If everyone starts pretending like nothing happened, he’s going to start doubting reality itself. It might hurt but… it’s for the best. Trust me,” Shinji finishes, seriously because he does actually like Ichigo; he’s got spunk and he gave up more than he ever should have and the least he deserves is for people not to ignore that.
Kisuke nods. It isn’t quite a promise, but Shinji knows he will at least think on his words.
“Send me letters,” the change of subject is abrupt, but Shinji accepts it easily.
“Haven’t you heard of cell phones, old man?” Kisuke laughs at that and Shinji feels warm for how light and free it sounds.
“Letters are more personal. You can keep them and reread them more easily.”
Shinji almost asks, “is that something you want to do? Reread my letters?” but what he does say is, “okay, I’ll send you letters.”
He lowers a hand so that it’s on top of Kisuke’s on his knee, leaves it there.
.
Shinji lands in Paris. After sleeping in the hotel – jet lag is no joke, even when you’re dead (of course, he’s come in the gigai) –, he immediately starts the next day by going to the Eiffel Tower. He has to wait three hours for his turn to climb, but he doesn’t care.
He also pays for a ridiculously expensive meal at the top but when in Paris, right? And it’s not like he doesn’t have enough money.
The postcard Shinji sends Kisuke looks like a hand painted Eiffel Tower. It’s incredibly cliché, but Shinji likes it.
On the back, he writes, “Made it here.”
Shinji stays two weeks in Paris. Kisuke had made him a French passport, as well as a Citizen Card, and made him twenty-two years old, so Shinji gets to see the Louvre for free.
He does send a letter to Kisuke next, but only because there are too many postcards to send one by one. The serious one is an image of Versailles, kind of old style, while the others is a series of serious Marie Antoinette drawings with funny texts in English. On the back of the one that says, “I’m useless until I have my grande half-decaf nonfat no-foam whipped cream extra hot caramel upside down macchiato,” Shinji writes, “This you.”
He makes it to Bretagne (everything is done by public transport because although Shinji does have a driver’s license, he isn’t particularly fond of driving), doesn’t actually cross it to Jersey and Guernsey, even as he realizes how stupidly close they are, then follows the sea, passes by Le Havre, up to Calais, then down to Lile, continues the trip, moves back to the interior, gets confused because he thought Bourges was in Belgium, and turns out that one is Bruges.
Meanwhile, he continues to send postcards and letters to Kisuke. To the other Visored he just sends photos from his cell phone, considering they change addresses as quickly as he does. (From Hatchi, he receives photos of Kisuke’s household; the kids arguing, the kids playing, Ichigo coming by to visit, dark circles under his eyes but at least once a smile on his face, Yoruichi as a cat, as a human. And then Kisuke. Kisuke sleeping on a hammock in the backyard (that’s new), Kisuke drinking, Kisuke playing cards, Kisuke in his lab. Kisuke smiling.)
Eventually, it’s been months and Shinji has zigzagged his way across France and made his way to the further end, to Nice.
From there, it’s a barely thirty minutes train ride to Monaco. It’s also a short ride to Italy, but if he’s willing to travel just a bit more, he can also easily make his way to Spain and Portugal to the south, Switzerland and Germany west and north and Luxembourg and Belgium just to the north. He can even make it to the UK by ferry.
Instead, Shinji buys a postcard that shows the Promenade des Anglais, writes on the back, “Wish you were here.” and sends it off.
The next day, just as Shinji is debating which country to go to next – he can even switch continents, go to a wild party with Hiyori in the US or maybe go on a safari with Lisa (she’d ended up not going back to Soul Society either, had said it didn’t feel right without them) –, there’s a knock on his hotel door.
It isn’t the first time the cleaning person has come by when he’s in too, so he just opens the door with a polite smile. It freezes when he sees who’s on the other side of the door.
“Hello,” Kisuke is smiling; he has his regular hat on, but he’s put on a Hawaiian shirt, khaki shorts and regular flip flops. He raises Shinji’s last postcard to show it off, “I got your message. I thought you’d never ask.”
Shinji blinks. Then he starts laughing, pulls Kisuke inside by his shirt.
.
Later, Shinji leads Kisuke to the sea. They eat at one of the restaurants right on the beach, one that brings a whole tray of desserts to their table so they can choose – Shinji has the mille-feuille, Kisuke a three-chocolate mousse. They share a bottle of white wine and the conversation is easy. Shinji feels truly content.
It’s as they’re walking aimlessly – Shinji can’t wait to show Kisuke the path on the rocks with the sea right below when it’s light – that Kisuke says, “I can’t stay for long.”
He sounds apologetic. But Shinji just smiles at him, takes a hold of his hand and interlaces their fingers. “Let’s go home, then. But later. First… Let’s go to Italy. The ravioli here are amazing, but I’m not leaving Europe without eating pizza in Italy.”
Kisuke laughs, squeezes once, keeps their hands connected. “Let’s go eat pizza in Italy, then.”