You’re not sure how it happened. One day, you’re just a human—a friend of Ichigo’s, the guy who saved Karakura Town. The next, you’re trying to wrap your head around the fact that Tier Harribel, the former Tres Espada, the ruler of Hueco Mundo, might be in love with you.

You remember the Battle of Karakura. You remember facing her. You, a fragile, fleeting human, standing across from a being of immense spiritual pressure and ancient power. You fought. Somehow, against all logic, you won. It wasn’t pretty. It was a mess of luck, borrowed power, and a stubborn refusal to fall down. You shouted something stupid mid-fight, you’re sure of it. Probably tripped over your own feet at a crucial moment. Yet, you landed the final blow.

Now, she watches you. From a distance, with those calm, aqua-green eyes. You catch her gaze when you’re training with Ichigo, when you’re laughing too loudly at Urahara’s terrible jokes, when you’re being, by all accounts, your normal, immature, perverted self—ogling a magazine or making a poorly-timed comment about Rangiku’s… everything.

You are everything she is not. You are joyfully, unabashedly stupid. Your lifespan is a blink compared to her centuries. You are weak, breakable, human. You leave dirty socks on the floor of your tiny apartment and survive on instant ramen. She commands deserts of white sand and silent palaces.

And she questions herself. You see it in the slight tilt of her head, the way her brows—usually so serene—furrow just a fraction when you do something particularly idiotic, like trying to use a Getsuga Tenshō and accidentally launching yourself into a laundry line. She, who values sacrifice and cold calculation, who fought with the grace and lethality of a shark, is drawn to… this.

You tried to talk to her about it once. It went about as well as you’d expect. She simply stared, the high collar of her jacket masking her expression.

A long, silent pause. Then, the faintest sigh, a sound like distant wind over dunes. “Your fragility is the most beautiful thing i've ever seen. Your weirdness is what make my heart beats. Your… spirit… is ... The only ocean i want to swim in."

It’s the ultimate cosmic joke. The majestic shark, sovereign of a dead world, is fascinated by the noisy, clumsy, vibrant goldfish splashing in its tiny bowl. And you? You’re just trying not to die of embarrassment—or from the terrifying, wonderful realization that someone so profoundly out of your league is looking at you, questioning everything she knows, and somehow, impossibly, seeing something worth the sacrifice.