haori | Cough 059 - [Accidental Video]

[The sun is setting in the distance amidst the drizzle of rain as Ukitake's normal song continues playing for him. All week, Rick Astley has been serenading him and anyone else who's been close enough to hear, and yet the Shinigami hasn't seemed to get too tired of it yet. Yes, it's possible he's insane. But when he approaches the pond out front with the intention of feeding the fish, the song ends.

Ukitake pauses and looks around, his hand held out mid-act. Where's...the music?

And then, softly, a new song starts up. Ukitake doesn't move at first, but as the singer tells his story, he quickly sprinkles the food over the water's surface and then slips his hands inside his haori sleeves.

If one watches closely, they can see that his expression saddens. What a note to end the week on. But is he sad because of the song itself and the man involved in all the pain? Or is it because the lyrics can apply to himself?

The feed times out after a few moments of watching Ukitake stand there in the rain, the sun slipping quickly behind the clouds and horizon.]

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[He takes his place across from the other, folding his legs under him before taking a piece of paper and getting to work, not nearly as fast as Ukitake, but still considerable for someone who's only just learned.]

About two hundred. [Plus a thousand that had already been wished upon.]

You said before that sometimes the wishes come true.

[One done, he sets it beside him, the paper bird sitting upright perfectly. Ukitake stars making another.]

Some have in my experience. Not all of them, but I still hold out hope that those haven't come true just yet.

Then maybe Hanna was right.

[He finishes his own a moment later, sitting it beside Ukitake's.]

We made a thousand earlier in the week. He let me make a wish on them.

I hope it comes true for you, if it hasn't already.

It won't until I go home.

...I see.

[And another crane finished.]

I've told you about my friend Sora, right?

[He keeps folding the one he's working on, trying to make sure the lines are perfect even while he speaks.]

You have.

I wished to see him again.

[Ukitake nods and continues working on another crane, not saying anything for a few moments.]

...It's possible he could arrive here.

[After all, he finally just got Kyouraku back after too many months apart, but at the same time, he knew it may never happen for Riku.]

And even if he doesn't, he is still in your world and I hope you do meet again.

I will. When they decide to send me back.

[His own crane finished, he placed it next to Ukitake's, taking a break to rest his fingers, which were already sore with various papers cuts in various stages of healing littering them.]

But neither of us will remember what happened here.

[And that is the fact that plagues everyone in this place. Why do anything to make yourself happy when it will just be forgotten eventually?]

This place isn't kind. It makes you wonder if anything we do is worth it, doesn't it?

When you'll just go back to the same moment you came from? What is doing anything here worth?

[But as much as he had tried to believe that, he still knew that it was worth something. Because it was to them, in that moment.]

That's why I've been writing everything down. No one knows if we can take stuff back with us, right? So it's worth a shot.

And then, if he comes back, he'll know what happened while he was gone.

The way I see it, is that even though we'll return to the same moment from when we came, we have this time now to live for. It may not mean anything later, but after having been here for as long as I have, I couldn't imagine not living, not caring just to protect myself from hurt.

[He pauses for a moment.]

We'll hurt anyway, no matter how hard we try to protect ourselves. The trick is how we deal with it.

We'll have to go back and live this time all over again.

[He'd going back to being three months younger, to not heaving learned the things he had here. He was a better person because of the people he had met here. He didn't want to give that up.]

It makes choosing between the two even harder.

...I know.

I have to go back. They need me there.

But Kairi needs me to be here.

I hate to say it, but at the end of the day, we really have no choice.

Then we'll find one.

I want to go home, Ukitake. I want to see Sora again. But not if the people who want to stay here can't.

We can't always compromise.

Then maybe it's better if we're never given the choice.

And yet here we are.

What we do here is our choice. Actually being here isn't.

[He takes another piece of paper to start folding.]

[He smiles softly, before taking another piece of paper and beginning to fold.

He waits until it's done, sitting neatly next to the others before he speaks.]

The song (http://youtu.be/N93fdnjZjMI) they chose for me reminds me of him.