Pendulum - The Butterfly Effect (Bleach FF)

15: Many Moons Ago

The day after my performance Yuu was in an incredibly good mood and decided to take me into town and treat me to cake from the bakery. Even with my many refusals, she insisted and soon found out why.

Once we had chosen our cakes we took a stroll around the town enjoying the sunshine and suddenly Yuu walked ahead and turned to look at me with a glint in her eye.

"Yuu, if you're gonna tell me how amazing the dance was you can stop; I've heard it enough now," I said with an uninterested yawn trying to sidestep her.

"It's not that, well, it is but-" she sighed. "I know you're not going to like me saying this but... I think you should try to contact Hatsuka again- don't give me that look!"

I understood now. She had bought me a cake in an attempt to literally butter me up and put me in a good mood. Food bribes usually worked but not this time.

"Please just try... I think that after learning all of this new stuff you have gotten over all of your impatience- Kimi! That's what the problem was, no, please listen to me!" She said as I tried to interrupt angrily. "You aren't as hasty as you were, your timings in the dance were perfect so I think your timings in a sword practice would be better now, I think that... You would give him a run for his money and it serves him right!" She rushed the last few words as if it pained her to say them and the quicker she got them off her chest the better. She liked Hatsu a lot and never usually had a bad word to say about him.

I scowled. "You don't mean that. You're just telling me what you think I want to hear. You just want him back and you know that he won't if we don't get along." I said bluntly.

"No! I do mean it! You've improved so much in such a short stretch of time. You trained with him for longer and didn't achieve as much... But..."

"Doesn't that say a lot? You have seen that he sucks as a teacher, you've seen how mad he makes me and still want him to come back? If you miss him so much just tell him, don't use me to get to him!"

Yuu looked hurt and I felt a pang of guilt.

"I would tell him but I'm afraid he would say no... And even if he did say yes, I wouldn't want there to be so much tension between you two... I don't want to have to choose between the two of you... I want both of you... He really is nice if you get to know him Kimi."

"Funny, I knew him for a fair few months and only saw his nice side when I first met him, and even that wasn't particularly friendly."

"You're so freakin stubborn! Get over it already! Just get over what happened and move on, it's in the past!" She shouted causing a few passers-by to jump and stare in alarm. Now I was surprised enough to back away. Yuu rarely shouted even when she was angry so she must have been dying to get this off her chest for ages.

I hesitated and sighed. "Fine. But you're going to contact him for me and I'm not apologizing. I'm not even going to say hello. I'll just fight him to settle the score and get it over with."

She sighed. "That's better than nothing. Thank you." And we continued walking in silence. Then I decided to voice something that I had been wondering for a while now.

"Yuu? I've been thinking a lot since Hatsuka left and I have always wondered... If he isn't a Soul Reaper how does he know so much about them?"

Yuu pondered the question for a moment then took my hand and pulled me away. "Come with me. What? We have no plans so let's go"

And a few minutes later we arrived in the small abandoned clearing next to the river that was home to the dilapidated old tree house, the place where Yuu and I had once eaten sweets together.