Damage History - polynya - Bleach (Anime & Manga) [Archive of Our Own] (2024)

Chapter 1

Chapter Text

“I don’t know if they’re trying to capitalize on Boy’s Day, or what,” Rukia said, idly inching her hand toward the plate of hot, steaming gyoza sitting on the countertop next to Renji’s stove, “but they’re having some sort of Seafood Festival out in East Sixth.”

A dish towel appeared out of nowhere, the tip whipping painfully against Rukia’s hand.

“Ow!” Rukia howled.

“They’re hot! It’ll hurt worse if you jam one of those in your mouth whole like I know you were gonna,” Renji replied, stuffing the dish towel back into his obi, and juggling the pan of gyoza he was currently frying. “What about a Seafood Festival? Why the Hell is the East Sixth having a Seafood Festival?”

“It’s being put on by the Train Museum, I hear,” Rukia continued grumpily, rubbing at her hand. “I guess they’re hauling a bunch of spring fish up from the Shiranui Sea at the other end of the line. It only takes a few hours to get out to Six. There’s probably carts making the run that we could take, but I would honestly just flash-step, at least on the way out. I want to eat my own body weight in katsuo. Possibly your body weight in katsuo.”

“Mmm,” Renji replied noncommittally, dumping the rest of his gyoza onto the plate and turning off the stovetop.

“I was thinking of asking Hisagi if he wanted us to take some pictures and do a little write-up for the Bulletin,” Rukia went on. “Get us a little walking-around money.” Not that Rukia lacked for pocket money, but it was a little more expensive than their usual weekend activities, and Renji got a little cagey when she tried to treat him to things.

“That’s a bad idea.”

“Why? We had fun the last time we played reporter!”

“Grab the bowl of sauce, would you?” Renji gestured with his chin as he picked up the plate of dumplings and the teapot to carry them to the table. “Don’t you remember when they built that damn train line? Took ‘em over over thirty years, and there were three to four articles every single Bulletin about the delays, the graft, the politics, the environmental impact, whatever. People got so mad about the idea of a train inside the Seireitei that it doesn’t even go anywhere useful. I didn’t even know they used it for anything aside from twee holidays for bored nobles.”

“I heard a story from my friend, Lady Akizuki, that the old head of the Seshimo clan actually lives on the train! He hasn’t set foot outside it in fifteen years!”

Renji co*cked an eyebrow at her. He looked like he desperately wanted to hear about the Train Noble, but also did not want to be a guy who cared about Train Nobles. “Anyway, don’t mention the train to Hisagi unless you got six or seven hours to kill. Preferably when I’m not there.”

Rukia picked up the big, fragrant bowl of ginger dipping sauce with both hands. “It was just an idea. So what do you think? Do you want to go?”

“When is it again?” Renji asked, frowning.

“It’s running for all of May, but the weather has been so nice lately, I thought maybe we could go next weekend,” Rukia suggested.

Renji was quiet for a moment, but Rukia figured that maybe he was just focused on serving her dumplings, which was, in her opinion, very important.

“Ru,” he finally said slowly, as he poured her a cup of tea. “There’s something I need to tell you.”

“Is it that you want to go to the Seafood Festival with me?”

Renji took a big breath through his nose and let it out again. “If things work out, I’d love to go later in the month. Next weekend’s not gonna work, though.”

“Oh.” Rukia frowned. “That’s fine. That’s no big deal.” She looked down lovingly at her gyoza and then up at Renji hopefully. “Itadakimasu?” she asked hopefully.

Renji blinked. “Huh? Oh, yeah, please help yourself. That… that wasn’t the thing I had to say.”

“Well, spit it out, already,” Rukia groused, her mouth already crammed with gyoza. “Why are you being weird?”

Renji still hadn’t touched his own food. He had circled his right wrist with the thumb and middle finger of his left hand and was rotating it back and forth. He used to make that gesture a lot when he was young, and Rukia realized that she hadn’t seen him do it in years.

“I’m having some surgery,” Renji finally said.

Rukia froze. After a long moment, she slowly finished chewing her dumpling and swallowed it. “Are you okay? What’s going on?”

“I’m getting my arm fixed.”

Rukia watched him rub his wrist for another few seconds. “Did it not heal correctly after the, um, accident?” “The accident” was when Byakuya had stabbed him through the forearm during a demonstration fight the week prior. Everyone was being very polite about it.

“Wellll…” Renji drew out. “I mean, no, that healed up fine. Very clean cut, Senbonzakura, as always. But, uh, while I was at the Fourth, the topic of my burnt-out kidou ducts came up. Captain Unohana thinks she can fix ‘em. And I’ve decided to, um, let her try.”

“Oh,” said Rukia. Her chest was filling up with a lot of strange feelings. “Oh.”

It was early spring, the time of year when Inuzuri started to return from the dead. It had been a long, lean winter, and like the animals emerging from their dens, the citizenry was even more bad-tempered than usual.

Rukia had been watching the man for over an hour. He was already drunk when she'd spotted him, and he'd done nothing but throw back more drinks in the time since. Judging by the frequency of his refills, the purse at his side must be pretty full, or at least it had started out that way. He was a big guy, and had a short wooden kanabou that he'd waved at the bartender a few times. It was a serious weapon in Inuzuri. Rukia didn't recognize the man. Perhaps he was a recent arrival. Perhaps he didn't yet know how light-fingered the street rats of Inuzuri could be.

If one of the other boys were around, the decision would be easy. A two-man job was much easier and safer. But only she and Renji had come to Inuzuri-town today, Fujimaru had stayed home with Mameji, who was unwell again. They'd split up nearly immediately, in the hopes of making the most of the scarce daylight hours. If she went off to go find Renji, the drunk would surely be gone by the time they got back.

The risk was too high, but the winter had been long and harsh, and Rukia was so, so sick of being cold and hungry.

The drunk lurched to his feet and shouted something rude at the bartender. He shoved the kanabou into his obi and stumbled out into the dusty street.

Rukia's feet were moving before she had made a conscious decision. She dashed across the street, giggling loudly. The drunk, disoriented, tried to swerve to avoid her, but she veered in the same direction. In the moment of collision, she slid her tiny, razor sharp knife across his money pouch, and the comforting weight of a few coins dropped into her hand.

"Damn kid!" the man yelled after her as she scrambled away, but he didn't give chase.

Perfectly executed, Rukia congratulated herself. He didn't even notice. What was I so worr--

A giant hand snatched hold of her upper arm, and she spun wildly.

"I told you, Takami!" a booming voice announced. "You can't go off your guard in this sh*thole. Even the vermin bite hard. You just lost half your coin purse, there."

Rukia craned her neck behind her. sh*t. A large, hatchet-faced man had her by the arm, and looked like he had no intention of letting go. She didn't know the guy personally, but she recognized the big scar across his forehead. He was one of the higher ranking members of the Mamushi-kai, the third nastiest gang in Inuzuri.

The drunk, Takami, looked down at his purse, did a double take, and burst into an explosion of profanity. Rukia tried to twist out of the Mamushi's grip, swinging her tiny knife at him, but he twisted her right arm painfully behind her back, and expertly pinned the other against her side.

Takami had drawn the kanabou from his belt, and was tapping it in his hand as he stepped slowly forward, slurring out a stream of threats that Rukia was glad she could only half-understand.

There was no way to physically escape the trap she was in, but Rukia wasn't above resorting to unpleasant tactics if it meant staying alive another day. "Please, mister!" she wailed, summoning up some waterworks. "I'll give it back! I'll do anything!" If she could just get him to loosen his grip, just a little…

"Whaddya think, you gonna fall for this sh*t, too?" the Mamushi chuckled, jerking his chin at the other man. He pulled Rukia up onto her tiptoes. "You want in the Mamushi-kai, I want to see you smash her brains all over the street." f*ck. They were too wrapped up in their gang horsesh*t, nothing she said was going to get through to them. Rukia's brain scrabbled for possibilities. Her eyes scanned the street. People were stopping to watch. A public beating always made for an interesting spectacle in Inuzuri, a murder even moreso.

Takami hefted the kanabou before taking it into a two-handed grip and raising it for the swing.

Rukia squeezed her eyes shut and braced her entire body. Stupid. After all these years of scraping and scheming and surviving, she was going to die in this incredibly stupid way. I'm sorry! she thought desperately. Mameji, Fujimaru, I didn't mean to leave you. Renji, I--

"Don't you f*cking touch her."

Rukia's eyes flew open as kanabou swung down, just in time to see Renji catch the blow on his forearm. The moment hung in the air, like time itself had stopped to watch. It seemed to reach her ears before her eyes, the sound of lake ice cracking as it gave way underfoot. Rukia stared, waiting for the spray of blood, for Renji to collapse in pain. The realization hit her suddenly. It was not Renji's arm that had given.

"Wh-what the f*ck?" the drunk sputtered, gaping in disbelief at the splintered remains of his weapon, cracked in half over Renji's forearm. The Mamushi's grip on Rukia's wrist went slack, but she was too stupefied to take advantage of it. The air seemed thick and strangely soupy, and Rukia was having trouble catching her breath.

Fortunately for her, Renji didn't seem the least bit fazed by the miracle he had just performed. He swung his left fist, smashing it onto the drunk's face with a loud, wet crunch, then spun around to deal with her captor.

Rukia had gotten a hold of herself by this time. The Mamushi had already forgotten about her in favor of gaping at Renji. Rukia dropped out of his slack hands, twisting as she fell, She drove one foot upwards, nailing him directly in the nards. Just as he started to fold over in pain, Renji followed up with a knee to his face. Rukia rolled clear, kicked up to her feet, and hit the ground running.

For the briefest of moments, Rukia worried that Renji wouldn't follow. They had stayed alive in this awful place for over eight years by being small and quiet and very, very quick. The first certainly didn't apply to him anymore, and perhaps he was no longer interested in the second. He was still quick, though. The tightness in Rukia's chest eased as she heard his heavier footfalls just a heartbeat behind her own, and felt his presence in her wake in a way that, as far as she knew, only the two of them could do.

She ducked between some decrepit buildings, under some hanging laundry, around the stench of the tanner’s, and skidded to a halt in a dank alley illuminated by a thin shaft of dirty sunlight.

For a long moment, she breathed in and out, watching the dust motes hanging in the air, afraid to turn around.

"Rukia?" Renji panted. "Are you…are you okay?"

She squeezed her eyes closed for a moment, then opened them again before turning to face him. "I'm fine," she said crossly. "How long have you been able to…" Cold horror began to seep into her veins as she realized he was cradling his right arm in his left.

"Um," said Renji. His face was beginning to look a bit pale.

"Let me see it," she demanded.

Sheepishly, he held the arm out for examination.

It looked terrible. It should have been a bruised lump of blood and pulp, but instead, it just looked wrong. The bones were not in the places where arm bones should be, nor were they the right shape. The skin was miraculously unbroken. He could move it around and flex his hand well enough, although this caused things to shift around sickeningly beneath his skin. The entire arm was slowly turning a deep purple.

“I think…" he said, slowly, "it might be broken?"

“Oh, cripes, where did you find that?” Renji grumbled when he returned from washing the dishes.

“On your coffee table,” Rukia replied, flipping to the next page of the paper packet she was reading.

“I’m pretty sure it was under some things,” Renji noted dryly as he dropped onto the other end of the couch and waved a bottle of beer in Rukia’s general direction.

“It was under some things,” Rukia agreed, accepting her beer. “I told you that you should have let me help with the dishes.”

“What, and have your brother yell at me for lettin’ you get dishpan hands?”

“Did you read this?” Rukia asked, waving the packet at him. It was a set of pretty extensive pre- and post-surgery instructions from Squad Four. Rukia thought she recognized Hanatarou’s tidy handwriting and penchant for adding too many "pleases", but that might just be a Squad Four cultural thing.

“Yes,” Renji replied irritably. “Didn’t you notice I had to sign every page?”

“Just because you signed them doesn’t mean you read them,” Rukia pointed out. “You’re only detail-oriented about things that don’t affect you personally.”

Renji made a grab for the packet. “C’mon, enough about my dumb surgery. I don’t even want to think about it, I don’t see why it’s gotta ruin our hang-out night. I want the Squad Thirteen Weekly Hijinks Round-up.”

Rukia managed to evade both his grasping hand and his attempt to change the subject. “What’s this?” she demanded, waving the page at him. “‘Please provide contact information for the person who will be responsible for your care during your five-day convalescence period. You must be supervised during this time, preferably by someone with at least a Level Two Kaido certification.’”

“Rukia, seriously,” Renji groaned.

“You be serious! Why do you need someone looking after you? It’s arm surgery.”

“I don’t know,” Renji flopped back against the couch and took a long drag on his beer. “It doesn’t matter. Look, I checked the box down at the bottom, where I can just stay at the Coordinated Relief Station instead.”

Rukia frowned. “Five days at the Coordinated Relief Station? That sounds awful.”

Renji shrugged. “My impression was that they’re gonna hop me up on goofballs for most of that time. I probably won’t remember anything anyway.”

“Wouldn’t it be nicer to be hopped up on goofballs at home in your own bed?” Rukia pointed out.

Renji started to take another sip of his beer, and then abruptly, his arm shot out and snatched the packet out of Rukia’s hands and stuffed it into his kosode.

“Renji!”

“Yes, probably,” Renji answered very seriously. “But I’m not asking Rikichi to come over here and babysit my dumb ass for five straight days. He’d do it, I’m sure, but it’d be embarrassing for both of us, and I don’t want him using leave on me.”

“I could do it,” Rukia replied. “I have a Level Five kidou certification. Renji, I would. I would be glad to do it. The only reason--”

“Rukia,” Renji said. There was an edge in his voice that Rukia couldn’t remember hearing since the war. Renji caught it, too, and immediately cleared his throat nervously and looked away. “You know that wouldn’t fly,” he said softly. “Can you please just drop it?”

Rukia dug her fingers into her knees. Her stomach twisted uncomfortably, which wasn’t made any better by the large volume of dumplings she had consumed earlier. “Maybe-- maybe I could--”

Suddenly, Renji’s arms tightened around her, and she found her cheek smashed against his distractingly warm chest. “Rukia,” he murmured into her hair, “I know why you’re bein’ like this. And I appreciate it. But if you really wanna help, just… let me handle it. It’s not a big deal. The only reason I even told you was so you wouldn’t wonder where I went for a week, okay?”

“Okay,” Rukia agreed in a small voice.

“Great!” Renji said, and planted a loud, wet kiss on top of her head before letting her go.

“Gross!” Rukia announced.

“I just remembered!” Renji shouted, hopping to his feet. “Momo was workshopping cookie recipes this week and she gave me a bunch of the rejects! You want to eat some weird cookies?”

Rukia didn’t want to let it go. But Renji had asked her nicely, and now he was shouting, which was his invitation to move past it with no hard feelings. They were grown-ups now, Rukia reminded herself. Grown-ups who trusted each other and respected each other’s privacy.

“Can we send Momo our reactions?” she shouted back.

“I was planning to post them to my Momo-Izuru-Shuuhei group text!”

“It’s a deal!”

"You are the stubbornest bastard in all of Rukongai, you know that, right?"

Renji groaned and leaned back against the outside wall of the squat. "Takes one to know one," he mumbled.

"What was that?" Rukia roared.

"If you're so damn concerned about me, maybe you could let me go to f*cking sleep," Renji shot back.

"You can go to f*cking sleep as soon as you agree that we're going up to Waretsubo tomorrow."

There was a healer up in District 76. They'd had to go there once before. There hadn't been a choice, then.

"What if my arm's better in the morning?"

Rukia put her hands on her hips and shot him an absolutely scathing glare.

"I don't mean…fully healed, obviously. I just think it looks worse than it is. Once the swelling goes down, we can decide whether or not it'll heal okay on its own."

"Is he still being a dick about this?" Fujimaru asked, closing the door to the squat behind him and sauntering out into the yard.

"Yes," Rukia said, at the same time Renji insisted, "I'm not!"

"Mameji just fell asleep, by the way, so try to keep the shouting down, okay?"

"Sorry," Rukia apologized.

Renji just frowned quietly. The pain in his arm was intense, a constant, red-hot roar on the edge of his consciousness. Rukia had gone into the woods and found some late-season ice to put on it, but that had only taken the edge off. Also, now he was damp and cold. Furthermore, maybe from the shouting, or maybe because he was tired, or maybe because the pain was just too big to stay contained in his arm, a pounding headache had begun to bloom somewhere behind Renji's eye sockets. "I just don't see what it hurts to put off the decision for a few hours," he pressed.

"Because if you don't agree now, you'll find some excuse to put it off again in the morning," Fujimaru pointed out.

"Is that so bad?"

"It is if it gets infected and you die."

Renji blew out a hard breath. "I'm too hard-headed to die, you know that."

"It's not a normal wound, Renji," Rukia added, her voice low and serious. "You know that. And that rotten old apothecary knows about…you know. Whatever we are. Maybe you're right. Maybe it will heal on its own. But maybe it needs the demon healing, and it seems like the sooner he can look at it, the better."

Renji let his head fall back against the wall. "I just…I hate that guy. I don't think he'll help us again." I don't have any way to pay him, is what he meant. The last time they'd gone to Waretsubo, when Rukia had been injured, Renji had worked off their debt. He couldn't bring himself to say it, but there was nothing Rukia could do to interest the old man. While Renji knew full well how scary she was, her appearance wasn't intimidating enough to bully delinquent customers. She could read and write a little now, and he knew how hard she had worked at it, but it wouldn't be good enough to keep the old man's records the way he had. Stupidly, Renji attempted to wiggle his fingers, which only sent fresh spikes of pain shooting up his forearm. Apparently, he wouldn't be doing too much writing in the near future, either.

Rukia's face twisted. She had heard his unspoken thoughts all too well. "I'll worry about that," she growled. She sniffed. "For as badly as all that went, we did walk away with 3000 kan. Maybe it'll be enough."

"I can think of a lot better ways to use 3000 kan than wasting it on me," Renji muttered.

Rukia's face flushed angrily. "Oh, don't you even--"

"How dangerous is it?" Fujimaru broke in. "Going up to 76. Especially with you being injured an' all." He was very pointedly addressing Renji, not Rukia.

Renji's stomach plummeted. He could just lie, say it was far too dangerous, not worth the risk. But sneaking up-district was a thing that he and Rukia did without the other boys. He didn't want to lie to them about it. It didn't seem fair. "It's fine," he muttered. "I mean, it's not perfectly safe, obviously, but that's not the part I'm worried about."

"You should do it, then," Fujimaru replied, very seriously. "You're the strongest one in the gang, Renji. We need you. If it's worth the risk of going, the money isn't even worth discussing. Stop being a baby about it."

Rukia's mouth was still hanging open. Very slowly, she closed it. "That's not fair. That's not why--"

"He's right," Renji said, lurching to his feet.

"Renji!" Rukia protested.

"Save it," Renji said, "you won. We can go in the morning." He staggered toward the door of the squat, not straying too far from the wall, in case he fell over.

"Do you want some help?" Fujimaru asked.

"I do not," Renji bit off.

Rukia started to say something else, but Fujimaru grabbed her shoulder and said something softly to her that Renji didn't catch.

Renji slipped inside the dark squat, and pulled his blanket from the pile. Normally, they slept Fujimaru-Mameji-Rukia-Renji, with Renji closest to the door. In a rare moment of petty spite, Renji lay down near the wall instead, on the far side of Mameji. All of this was stupid, he thought to himself. Leaving Mameji alone when he really ought to have someone else's body heat. He listened to the air rattle in Mameji's lungs as he curled himself around his smallest friend. Even Rukia was bigger than Mameji, now.

"What'ja decide, Renji?" Mameji's sleepy voice drifted through the darkness.

"You're s'posed to be asleep," Renji replied.

"Are you going?" Mameji pressed.

"Yeah. I guess."

Mameji rolled over on his side to face him. "Good. I'm glad."

It seemed so very, very stupid to spend so much money fixing something that had happened in the blink of an eye, a thing that had happened because he was an idiot, a complete f*cking moron. Renji wished they could spend that money to fix Mameji's cough. There was no medicine that would fix a wasting cough once it had taken root in the lungs, though, at least not one that could be had out here in the sh*t-end of Rukongai.

"I want you to get better," Mameji whispered.

"I'll try," Renji whispered back.

It was an absolutely stunner of a spring evening. Even though it was well after dinner, a big chunk of sun still showed over the horizon when Renji picked Rukia up from her house so they could walk to Izakaya Kamenoya together for Saturday Night Boozing. They made their way into town proper against a backdrop of brilliant pinks and orange, fading into a dusky purple at the horizon. The pinpricks of stars were just becoming visible.

Down at his side, Rukia was regaling him with the details of a mahjong party she had attended that afternoon. Despite the fact that Renji knew as much about mahjong as he knew about women's hair ornaments, he normally would have devoted more of his brain to following the thread of her story. Instead, he kept getting lost in Rukia's smile, the bright joy in her voice.

She was wearing a very handsome kimono this evening--boldly striped in navy, cream, and lavender. Her obi was also navy, embroidered with elegant irises. The whole get-up was surely fancier than what any of the other girls were wearing to the bar, but it was pretty casual by Kuchiki standards. It didn't matter anyway, because Rukia managed to look correct in whatever she wore, wherever she went. Mikan had been experimenting again, and part of Rukia's hair was pulled up into a cute little ponytail that was taking all of Renji's willpower not to tug on.

He ought to be happy.

He had every reason to be happy.

Here he was, his best girl by his side, going to get toasted with his friends on possibly the most beautiful evening of the year. They were both supercool, badass lieutenants now, and if Byakuya hadn't exactly waved at them out the window as they left, at least he didn't seem to mind.

Renji just wished he could stop thinking about his dumb arm surgery.

It was so dumb. It ought to be nothing. People got surgery all the time. It was a great big non-deal. He only kept thinking about it because he knew that at some point this evening, he was going to have to casually slip in some excuse for missing next week's debauchery.

"You aren't even paying attention to me," Rukia accused cheerfully.

Renji's brain clawed desperately for the last thing he remembered before his attention had drifted, and came up with nothing. "I tried," he admitted. "I got lost in the mahjong. Personally, I would have started eating the pieces."

"You know, I considered it!" Rukia agreed.

"I'm sorry," he said, genuinely meaning it. "My head's not…"

"It's fine," she reassured him. "Hey. Can I ask you something?"

"Yeah, of course," he frowned.

"It's about next week," she said. "I assume you were thinking about next week."

"I wasn't," Renji immediately lied. "I was thinking about…drills."

Rukia made an extremely skeptical face. "If you say so. Anyway, since most of your friends are going to be there tonight, I was thinking about talking to Momo about drawing up some sort of rota for visiting you while you're at the Coordinated Relief Station. I mean, I'm willing to do it myself, but she's so good at that kind of thing. She probably already has, like, a copy of everyone's calendar and little stickers to represent all of us vice-captains. Or maybe Izuru would be interested? I don't know. Is he actually organized? He seems organized, but he doesn't even take notes at Vice Captains' meetings--"

"He's not, he just has the face of an organized person. He keeps everything in his head, which makes him look smart, except that half of it just falls out again. Also, Rukia, no."

"Hmm?" She blinked at him. Mikan had done her eyes up in pink and gold, and it made them look so big and blue that it made Renji feel double-awful to have to say this.

"You're not coordinating anything with anyone, because no one's coming to visit me, got it?"

Rukia stopped in her tracks and stared at him, aghast.

Renji squeezed his eyes shut. Damn her stupid, pretty eyes. "I didn't…mean that."

"I should hope not!"

Renji jammed the heels of his hands into his eye sockets. "Rukia, it's Drinkin' Night. Maybe can we not talk about this on Drinkin' Night?"

"Stop that!" Rukia shouted, swatting at his elbow. "You're going to ruin your eye liner and you did such a nice job on it! And when are we going to talk about it, then?"

Sighing, Renji pulled his hands away from his eyes. "Maybe…a week or two after it's over?"

Rukia was regarding him with a look of deep disappointment. Renji's heart plummeted. There was no way around it. He was just going to have to take the L on this one. "Ru, you're worrying so much about this. I don't need much company. Just come when you want. You don't need to coordinate with anyone. You don't really need to come at all, to be honest. I know how hard it is, getting your feet under you as vice-captain, you don't have the time--"

"Don't you 'Ru' me and then tell me to blow you off in the same sentence!" Rukia snapped. "As if I wouldn't even come visit you." She pressed her lips together for a long moment. "You haven't told anyone else, have you?"

Renji opened his mouth and then closed it again. "Kotetsu…Isane knows? Do you think she'll be at drinks? She never comes to drinks. She should come to drinks."

"Your medical team does not count, you asshole. That being said, Isane should come to drinks, and you're going to use your dumb charisma to get her to come to the next one after you're better, you hear me?"

"Sure," Renji agreed easily, and casually started walking again, in hopes that maybe they could leave this conversation behind, as well.

Rukia hung back for a moment, then caught back up with a little hop, skip and a jump. "Don't act like that's getting you out of trouble. C'mon. It can't really just be me. You've told Rikichi, right? You must have told Rikichi."

Renji said nothing.

"Renji! I don't believe you!"

He sighed, and rubbed his forehead. "Rukia, listen to me. I understand where you're coming from, I really do. The thing is, I can't tell anyone about my dumb surgery because…I've…never told anyone about my bad arm in the first place." There. That wasn't so hard, was it?

"No one?" Rukia asked, her voice cracking with disbelief.

Renji thought for a moment. "You know what, that's not true. I forgot. Ikkaku and Yumichika know. Iba might also. It's hard to tell what that guy actually pays attention to. It doesn't matter. None of them are setting foot in the Coordinated Relief Station unless half their blood has fallen out of 'em, and I'd take a pass on their sh*tty bedside manner anyway."

"Ayasegawa…could…come give you a manicure or something?" Rukia offered hopefully. "He can be nice when he feels like it."

"I mean, he might, but he also might just sit next to me for three hours and unload an entire year's worth of Squad Eleven wardrobe sins that he regards as personal slights. I'd rather just sleep."

Rukia scowled. "Why would you tell those guys, but not Kira and Hinamori? Or Hisagi?"

Because it's a goon wound, Renji wanted to say. Because in Squad Eleven, everyone's broken themselves in one way or another, and no one looks at you with pity in their eyes over a thing that can't be helped. You admit that there's a thing about you that doesn't work quite right, and you just find some way to get around it. You just find a way to move forward.

"I dunno," he muttered, instead. "It was a weird time. I guess I had sort of stopped caring what people thought about me. Ikkaku was teaching me to fight at the time, and I was hitting a bunch of walls with Zabimaru because I wasn't good enough at controlling my reiatsu flow in that arm."

Rukia was regarding him with that look in her eyes, like if she just squinted at him hard enough, she could make sense of the idiot he was in his Squad Eleven years. Good luck with that, he thought.

"You got it figured out, though," she finally said.

"Yeah." He sighed. "In the way I never did at Squad Five. In the way I never got my kidou figured out at all."

Rukia stuck out her lower lip. "You're being very dramatic right now."

"I know," Renji admitted. "It's just awkward, is all. My surgery is in a week. I shoulda told Momo and Izuru ages and ages ago. I didn't, though. I can't ask them to come by the Coordinated Relief Station and be extra nice to me right after I dredge up a bunch of bad sh*t we've all just barely gotten past, y'know?"

"I…guess," Rukia shrugged. "I still think you're making a bigger deal out of it than it is."

"No," Renji corrected. "You're making a bigger deal out of it than it is. You agreed to let me handle this, remember?"

"I remember," Rukia acknowledged glumly. "You should tell Rikichi, though. You don't have any of that history with him, and he'll be hurt if you don't. Also, if you need anything from your quarters he can get it for you. I'll support whatever dumb excuses you're giving people for why you're not around, but I'm not sneaking around the Squad Six barracks for you."

"That's fair, I guess. If you promise we can be done talking about this for tonight, you've got a deal."

"Well, just to be clear, I am allowed to come visit you, right? That got a little glossed over in there in a way I didn't like."

Feeling a tiny bit petulant, Renji reached out and tugged her little ponytail. "If you must, you can come visit me."

"Of course I must," Rukia insisted in her best Kuchiki voice. "Someone's got to bully you into actually following the doctors' instructions."

Renji huffed. Exactly what he wanted.

"Besides," she added, looking up at him out of the corner of her eye, "we're in it together these days, right?"

Renji sucked his teeth for a long moment. "Right," he finally agreed.

In theory, it wasn't that hard to cross district lines in deep South Rukongai. Rukia and Renji went up to 77 fairly often for thievery purposes. They were too well known in Inuzuri, and there was better stuff to steal up there. They didn’t take the others with them, not anymore. One border crossing was a calculated risk, less so when you could use your spiritual pressure to lighten your feet and keep air in your lungs. Two was exponentially more dangerous.

When you arrived in Soul Society, they branded a number on your soul with demon magic. The Seireitei deputized a certain number of locals to deal with anyone caught in a place that didn't match their number. Presumably they received bounties or something. For all Rukia knew, the border pigs did it simply for the love of the game (where the game was publicly beating the sh*t out of people). That being said, they were, for the most part, lazy. It's not like they patrolled the district boundaries or demanded to see paperwork for everyone who walked into town. By the very nature of Soul Society, people came and went all the time. If you kept your head down and didn't cause trouble, odds are that no one would bother with you.

In theory, they could have applied to the border cops of their own district for a travel pass. Seeking medical attention was a legitimate reason. It would have taken a hefty bribe though--they probably made more money on bribes than bounties, now that Rukia considered it--and that would take away from the money they had to offer Kitajima, the apothecary.

Rukia was beginning to question the wisdom of that decision.

They had set off before dawn. The first part of the trip had been easy enough-- a few hours' journey, sticking mostly to wooded areas. Renji had been uncharacteristically quiet for most of it. Rukia had assumed he was still sulking over having to go at all. Rukia wasn't much of an early riser, so she'd been just as happy to travel in grumpy silence. It wasn't until they were in sight of their destination that she noticed how pale Renji's face was, aside from two bright, feverish spots on his cheeks.

Maybe they could just push through. "Is that it?" Rukia asked, pointing at the clump of moldering wooden buildings up ahead, nestled in the curve of the river. District centers tend to be built along the river. That's the only clue Rukia had to where they were going.

Renji blinked blearily. "I think so. It looks familiar." He'd been doing okay while they were moving, but now he was swaying on his feet.

Rukia never saw much of Waretsuba-town on their previous trip. The only time she saw anything outside of Kitajima's shop was when they left. Furthermore, it had been dark and she hadn't assumed there would be a quiz later.

"How did you find this place last time?" Rukia pressed.

"I…don't really remember," Renji admitted. "I just had to. So I did."

Based on the sun's height in the sky, Rukia estimated it was early afternoon. They had a little time. "I think we should take a rest."

As they settled down at the base of a big tree and Rukia dug out the water, she realized that was probably the most Renji had said about their last trip to Waretsubo since it happened. She snorted. "Their" trip, as if she had been more than a particularly gory piece of baggage.

Close to two years earlier, at the height of summer, she'd tried to fight a wild boar and had her side ripped open for her trouble. It was admittedly not one of her finer moments, but the boar probably would have killed Fujimaru if she hadn't. A normal person would have tried to make her comfortable in her last moments, and spun a really good story about her death. Renji had thrown her onto his back and hauled her across two districts in the middle of the night. This was after killing the boar, naturally.

"Here, drink up," she said, pushing the water gourd into his hands.

Renji grunted, and his eyes fluttered open. He must have fallen asleep the second he sat down.

"Are you okay?" Rukia asked gingerly, all too aware of what the answer was.

"Yeah, m'fine," Renji declared.

"You should eat this, too," she announced, digging a small, wrinkly apple out of the pack.

Renji shook his head. "I had one this morning."

"Well, I think you should have another one," Rukia insisted.

"I don't really feel like--"

"Would you rather have a knuckle sandwich?"

Renji sighed and took a long slug of water. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, and then traded her the water gourd for the apple.

"Thank you," Rukia said, in a very tiny voice.

Renji looked away.

Rukia chewed her bottom lip. She wasn't good at this.

Before she joined Renji's gang, she'd known kids who left without a goodbye, kids who didn't think twice about betraying her, kids who'd died. That was just the way it went in Inuzuri. Rukia didn't like to think of herself as a hard-hearted person, but she'd learned to hold herself apart, to avoid getting too close to anyone. She was pretty sure it was Renji's fault that she had let her guard down. He was strong, like she was. He wasn't nice, but he was honorable and honest about things that mattered. He was tough and good at surviving, and she'd tricked herself into thinking it was safe to care about him, and his friends besides. They'd lost Kosaburou in a mudslide the fall before, and it had hit Rukia much harder than she had expected. Maybe she should have learned something from that, but she hadn't. She was in too deep now.

It's not that she cared about Renji more than the others. They all meant the world to her. There was just something solid and dependable about him. Whenever things went to sh*t, he was the one who held it together. It wasn't that he was optimistic, because he certainly wasn't. It was that he always found a way to keep plowing forward, in a way that was very difficult to argue with.

Rukia didn't know how she would get through it if…if…

"It's not that much further," she announced. "How much rest do you think you need? I think it would be better to push through, if you can."

"I didn't hurt my leg, Rukia," Renji managed around a mouthful of apple.

Rukia scowled. "You don't look good, okay?"

He looked at her for a long time while he slowly chewed and swallowed. "I'm pretty sure I remember how to get to the old rat snake's shop. I'll know for sure once we get down there. It shouldn't take long. He'll be pissed to see us, either way, but the earlier we get there, the better. He hates when people show up near closing time."

"You can make it, then? You can lean on me if--"

Renji scoffed and tossed her the rest of the apple. "Thanks, but I'll be okay on my own."

"I think," announced Matsumoto, "that next week, we should do Outdoor Drinkies." They were several hours into Saturday Night Boozing, which was about the time that she started to get what she considered her best ideas.

"I like the way you think," Hisagi shouted back, jabbing a finger at her. Hisagi's ideas weren't good at any time of day or night, but at least he was enthusiastic about them.

"I will host it at Squad Ten, and everyone else can bring snacks and booze."

"Don't you think you should clear that with Toushirou first?" Hinamori frowned.

"Momo will clear it with Captain Toushirou!" Matsumoto hiccupped. "Thank you for volunteering, my sweetest! Is someone writing this down? Nanao, write this down."

"I will not," said Ise.

Hinamori sighed. "I'm sure we can do it at Five if he says no."

"If you tell him you're going to have it at Five," Matsumoto flapped her hand at Hinamori, "he'll insist we have it at Ten."

Rukia shot Hinamori a sympathetic glance. She was just grateful that Matsumoto never tried to get her to rope Byakuya into lieutenant shenanigans. She imagined it would go over about as well as it went with Captain Hitsugaya.

"You know…" Ise said, pursing her lips. "Aaaaaages ago, we used to have our outdoor drinking parties at the lake at Ugendou. It’s so beautiful there."

Rukia's ears pricked up.

"Oh, it was!" Matsumoto cried. "But we have Kuchiki now! Kuchiiiiiiiiikiiiiiiii, you look so cute! I love the way you always dress up so cute for our Saturdays! You make Renji dress up, too, although he's not as cute as you."

Rukia felt her cheeks go warm. Even though she knew she was being buttered up, she was a sucker for a Matsumoto compliment.

Renji looked up from refilling Kira's sake. "What are you talking about? She doesn't make me do anything!"

Matsumoto sighed dramatically and pretended to ignore him. "He used to dress up cute, when he was a young and carefree Sixth Seat, but as soon as he became a Very Serious Lieutenant, it was uniform, uniform, uniform, all the time!"

"It's because I work late and don't always have time to change!" Renji protested.

"Even now!" Matsumoto made a little frame with her hands. "That's a nice kimono, Renji, but I can barely even see the tips of your tattoos. You used to let your boys be free on a Saturday evening, y'know?"

Rukia couldn't help but let her eyes drift down to the closure of Renji's kimono. To be honest, there was a not-ungenerous amount of tanned pecs on display. Not that she would have minded a little more. She wondered how much Matsumoto was exaggerating, and not for the first time, felt sorry about all that she had missed.

"Weren't you saying something about Ugendou?" Renji said loudly.

Matsumoto blinked her big blue eyes. "Yes! Ugendou! Kuchiki! You can arrange that for us, right? You can invite Captains Ukitake and Kyouraku, if you want, they're fun!"

Rukia reluctantly stopped trying to picture Renji with his kimono open to the navel. Ugendou, right. Oh! Her captain would love that, actually. Not only was he very keen on her "strengthening our relationship with other squads", but he simply loved to be included in social events. It sounded like a great idea, except--

"I'm sure I could arrange that," she nodded eagerly. "Not for this coming weekend, though."

"It wouldn't have to be anything fancy," Matsumoto said, sounding a little disappointed.

"Oh, it's not that!" Rukia excused. "I have an obligation."

"Well, that's crummy!" Matsumoto announced.

"That's the noble life," Ise sighed, slinging back her drink. "I just remembered, I think I might be hosting a fundraiser garden party for the Museum of Soul Society Art and Culture next Saturday."

Kira visibly wilted. "Oh, is that next week? My sister wanted me to take her."

"You're such a complainer," Hinamori declared. "I bet Nanao throws wonderful parties."

"I have good staff," Ise waved her off. "You can come if you want. I'll send you an invitation."

"Hmm," said Hisagi. "Do I have someone covering that?"

Matsumoto slumped forward, her chin thumping into the palm of her hand. "At this rate, we aren't even going to be able to do regular drinkies next week. Renji, can you find out if Squad Eleven is up to anything fun?"

"I…can," Renji said slowly. "But. Uh. I also have an obligation next Saturday."

The entire table fell silent.

"What do you have?" Hisagi finally demanded.

"An obligation," Renji repeated.

"Yeah, we all heard you. What is it?"

"The obligation?"

"Yes, the obligation."

"It's just…a thing I have to do."

"That would be the usual definition of 'obligation'," Kira pointed out unhelpfully.

"Is it the same obligation Rukia has?" Hinamori asked.

"Yes," said Rukia, trying to be helpful.

"No," said Renji, at exactly the same time.

They looked at one another.

"No," they repeated in unison.

"It's a work thing," Renji said, finally landing on something believable. Rukia wondered if he'd thought out any of this ahead of time. He was usually a much better liar than this.

"Mine's family stuff," she tacked on, and took a sip of her drink to avoid going into detail.

"A work thing! On a weekend?!" Matsumoto exclaimed. "That's reprehensible! Here's what you should do: Quit on Friday afternoon, and then reapply for your job on Monday morning."

"My captain tried that once," Ise announced.

"Did it…work?" Kira asked, suddenly intrigued.

"Well, I never actually submitted his resignation notice to the First. I just told him that the Head Captain had appointed me captain in his place and that I refused to rehire him. Unfortunately for me, he was delighted at this turn of events. Ruined the bit entirely."

"It's…fine," Renji shrugged. "It's not a big deal."

"Are you getting sent on a mission, or are you stuck around base all weekend?" Hisagi asked. "If you're just stuck on home-duty, Rangiku and I could bring you by some take-out."

Renji opened his mouth and closed it again. "Ah…that's nice of you to offer. Actually, Captain Kuchiki and I are planning out our Summer Training Extravaganza. We decided to put in a long weekend together so we wouldn't get interrupted with any of the usual weekday crap, y'know?"

"You're. Insane," Matsumoto informed him.

"I would simply never be in Squad Six," Kira declared.

"Sometimes I fantasize about having a captain who works hard," Ise put in. "Thank you for dissuading me of the notion entirely."

Hinamori fished a fried lotus chip out of the bowl in the middle of the table, and bit into it with a loud crunch. She regarded Rukia coolly. "How do you have family stuff if your brother is holed up with Renji all weekend?"

"What I meant is that I'm handling Brother's usual obligations so he can go…make battle maps…or whatever…with Renji," Rukia explained smoothly. "Believe me, once you've been to a few dinners with the Kuchiki aunts, you'd want to go plan a Summer Training Extravaganza, too." She turned a skeptical eye on Renji. "Which one of you came up with the word 'Extravaganza'?"

"It was Fourth Seat Kuchiki."

"It absolutely was not." She turned a sunny smile back at Renji's friends. "Anyway, don't take pity on him. He loves that crap. We'll send food over from the Manor. I might even swing by if I can get free. Yell at them until they take a break."

"Rats," said Hinamori. "I was hoping you were secretly going somewhere in matchy outfits again. Renji always holds out on us."

"That happened, like, once!" Renji protested.

"And did I get a selfie? I did not!"

"You want to be on our selfie list?" Rukia asked, primarily to rile Renji up. "You can be on our selfie list."

"We do not have a selfie list," Renji corrected.

"We do now. It consists of Hinamori."

"I thought you two had declared yourselves archnemeses or something," Kira frowned.

"Don't remind her," Renji begged.

"Sending each other pictures of our hot girl swag is archnemesis behavior," Rukia replied. "It's like you've never even had an archnemesis, Kira."

Kira started to say something, then thought better of it, and took a drink instead.

Rukia felt that she had sufficiently steered the conversation away from Renji's pathetic cover story, but she also felt like she deserved to make fun of him a little more. "Boys love dressing up matchy-matchy, by the way. You should make Captain Hitsugaya go to Ise's garden party with you."

"You can't just keep inviting people to someone else's party," Hinamori said, her cheeks going a little pink.

"Oh, it's fine!" Ise waved a hand. "Nobles love it when shinigami captains come to their parties, for some reason. Bring him along, if you can."

"He won't dress up," Hinamori pressed.

"He might," Rukia shrugged. "You remember how my brother introduced him to our family tailor when he needed an outfit for my promotion party? Anyway, last I heard, Mr. Koshino is obsessed with him, and keeps designing kimono for him."

"Excuse me, why is this the first I'm hearing of this?" Matsumoto choked out.

"Well, you didn't hear it from me," Rukia announced loftily. "Anyway, if it works, you should send me a selfie, Hinamori."

"Hmm," said Hinamori.

"Can I get on the bitter rivals selfie list, too?" Hisagi asked.

"Absolutely not," replied Renji.

Chapter 2

Chapter Text

"Good news, Lieutenant Abarai," Kotetsu Isane announced cheerfully. "All your blood panels and reiatsu scans came back, and everything looks great. You're clear for your surgery on Friday."

"Great," said Renji. He felt distinctly not great.

"Normally, we would take an autologous reiatsu donation prior to your surgery, but according to the transfusion lab, they already have…a lot…of your reiatsu on hand. Apparently."

"I give every eight weeks," Renji pointed out. "That's what they recommend, I think."

"That's…the minimum recommended time between donations," Kotetsu corrected.

"They always seem happy to see me," Renji shrugged. "One of the techs told me I have an abnormally fast regeneration period. I assumed that was just flattery, 'cause I'm a universal donor and they want me to keep coming back. I think I get extra cookies, too--Shuuhei says they only let him have two, but they usually give me three, sometimes four!"

"Hmmmm," said Lieutenant Kotetsu. "Well, the entire lab wished you luck on your surgery!"

"Thanks." Renji scratched his head. "I guess."

"There's one other thing we need to do today," Kotetsu said, setting his folder aside. "Your damaged ducts have ossified significantly over the years."

"They've what?"

"They've hardened. How did Captain Unohana put it? Your body wasn't quite sure what to do with them, so it sort of tried to turn them into extra bones."

"That sounds…" Renji trailed off. He had nothing.

"Don't think about it too much," Kotetsu suggested cheerfully. "Hold out your arm, please?"

Renji held it out.

Kotetsu pressed a slightly warm, damp poultice against his arm. Then, she pulled out an ofuda, and pressed it into the poultice with her index and middle finger. She chanted a quick sealing kidou, and the ofuda stretched into a long ribbon of green energy. It wrapped itself around Renji's arm, sealing the poultice against his skin, and then faded into invisibility.

"That's a slow release medicine. I want you to leave it on all day and overnight to get absorbed, and then it will continue softening up your ducts for the next few days, so they'll be easier to remove on Friday." Kotetsu explained, pulling out a roll of bandages. "I'm going to cover it up, just to protect it. Try not to get it wet."

"All right," Renji agreed.

"You can take the patch off any time after you wake up tomorrow morning. Kaijou #4."

"Okay," Renji said, trying to remember if he knew that binding release. He probably had it in a book somewhere.

He must have made a weird face or something, because Kotetsu quickly amended, "What I meant is, get someone else to use Kaijou #4 to take it off for you."

"I can do it," Renji insisted.

"If you can help it, it's always better to get someone else to dispel wards that are cast on you," Kotetsu pointed out. "Especially ones that are attached directly to your own reiatsu system." She picked up his file again and flipped through the papers inside until she found the page she was looking for. She read quickly for a moment, then frowned. "Hmm. We still don't have anyone down as your designated care manager. Have you picked someone yet?"

Renji cleared his throat. "I'm staying at the Coordinated Relief Station for my recovery, so I don't need one."

Kotetsu fixed him with a hard stare. A lot of people tended to write her off as wishy-washy, but Renji had been her patient before, and knew better. She was quite capable of channeling her captain when she needed to. "The nature of the reiatsu system, Lieutenant Abarai, is such that it can be very difficult to tell when something is going wrong with your own body. You're going through some very delicate surgery with an extended recovery period. All we're asking is that you have someone that you can check in with regularly for little things like this. Why not ask Yuki? You see him all the time and he's been very interested in practicing his kaidou recently."

Renji rubbed the back of his neck. He definitely meant to tell Rikichi about the surgery, he just hadn't had the chance yet. "Felt like a weird thing to ask a subordinate. Can't I just come back here to get the patch removed?"

"You can, but it's a pretty silly thing to sit around in the walk-ins queue for." Kotetsu tipped her head to one side. "You're friends with all of the other lieutenants. I'm sure any of them--"

Renji wrinkled his nose. "They're busy."

"Abarai, people make time for their friends." She made an embarrassed little huff. "What about Kuchiki?"

"There is no way I am asking my captain! Absolutely not!" It would serve the guy right, Renji thought to himself. He wouldn't even be doing this if Captain Kuchiki hadn't point-blank ordered him to. He tried to imagine showing up at the captain's house outside of work hours and asking for help getting his medicine patch off. "He wouldn't do it, anyway."

Kotetsu gave him a look. "I meant Lieutenant Kuchiki."

"Oh," said Renji.

"Please remember that my sister is Kuchiki's Third Seat, and she's a huge gossip. Don't try to pretend that stopping by the Thirteenth would represent some sort of burden to you."

"Er, right."

"Just think about it, please," Kotetsu sighed, checking her calendar. "Speaking of your recovery plans, you know Captain Unohana was not very happy about your decision to--"

"Yeah, yeah, I know. She told me. It can't be helped. Look, we're done, right? I can go?"

"You can go," Kotetsu agreed. "Ask Kuchiki for help with that patch."

Renji was already halfway out the door. "I will, if I see her!"

"You ought to," Kotetsu said dryly. "She's my next appointment."

It was a testament to Renji's finely honed battle reflexes that he managed to grab onto the doorframe, instead of just falling face-first into the waiting area. Sure enough, Rukia, looking crisply put together and ready for the workday, was sitting on one of the crappy little couches, flipping through a magazine. "Rukia!" he sputtered stupidly.

Rukia looked up and blinked. "Oh! Hi, Renji!" Then, she smiled. All of the thoughts flew out of Renji's head.

Lieutenant Kotetsu politely, but firmly nudged Renji out of her doorway. "Good morning, Lieutenant Kuchiki! I'm sorry, I'm running a little late. I have to write up a few notes, but I'll be with you in just a few minutes. I believe Lieutenant Abarai has something he needs to ask you, anyway."

"No problem, take your time!" Rukia replied, closing her magazine.

Kotetsu shut the office door, nearly catching Renji's ass in the process.

Rukia just watched him curiously.

Gingerly, he made his way over to where she was sitting. "Ah, good morning!" he said stupidly. "I didn't…uh, I didn't feel you."

"They probably have privacy wards in the walls in the consulting areas," Rukia said.

"Oh. That would make sense."

Just as he was wondering if he should sit down or not, Rukia scooted over, making room on her couch for him. Reluctantly he sat down. It wasn't a very big couch.

"What are you doing here, anyway?" he asked. "You feeling okay?"

"Hmm? Oh, yes! Now that I'm lieutenant, Isane's been giving me the advanced course on the various specialty kaidou they use for Captain Ukitake."

Renji snorted. "Hard to believe we have the same job title, sometimes."

Rukia laughed her pretty laugh. "That's for sure. I don't mind this at all, though. It's interesting. And you have enough 'specialty duties', yourself. So what did you want to ask me about?"

Renji ground his back teeth for a moment. "She just said that, I don't--"

Rukia's face fell.

Dammit. Dammit. "Are you busy tomorrow morning?" he mumbled. "Early?"

"No," Rukia replied, perking up. "I'm available."

Renji sighed, and pointed to the bandage on his arm. "I need someone to take this medicine patch off. I'm not supposed to do it myself."

"I can do that," Rukia said warmly.

"It's Kaijou #4."

"I happen to be quite skilled at Kaijou #4."

"I can come by your office. Just let me know when you're not busy. I don't want to waste your time."

"Pbbt. I don't see any reason to disrupt your day, either. How about I swing by your place before work, instead? It's on my way."

Renji rubbed the back of his neck. "Forget it. I'll ask Rikichi to do it. I just didn't want to say I was going to ask him to do it, because I haven't had a chance to tell him about…" he waved his hands. "All of this. Y'know. I'm going to, though. I really am."

"I really don't mind," Rukia reassured him. "Look, tell you what. If you catch up with Rikichi and he can do it, just text me, okay? Otherwise, I'll see you around…6:30? 6:45? It should only take a minute, right?"

"Come by at 6:30," Renji announced. "I'll cook you breakfast. I'll make eggy rice."

Rukia co*cked an eyebrow at him. "That's wholly unnecessary. However, I would do anything for your eggy rice, so it's a deal."

Renji knew she wasn't exaggerating, but all the same, he couldn't help feeling a tight knot in his chest. "Thank you, Rukia," he said. "I really appreciate it."

"You're so weird, sometimes," Rukia said, poking him in the nose. "That's what friends are for, right?"

"Of course I remember you two." Old Kitajima, the apothecary, glowered at them. "Get the Hell out of here."

"Renji's hurt," Rukia growled back at him. "We need your help."

Renji's skin crawled as Kitajima let his cold, colorless eyes drift over him. He held his arm out, trying to make the motion seem effortless, but it throbbed painfully under its own weight.

The old rat snake made one of his off-putting gurgles. "Unfortunately, I'm not interested in customers who can't pay me."

Kitajima hadn't looked great the last time they saw him, and now he looked downright terrible. His skin was pale and papery. There'd still been some black in his hair before, but the tufts that fringed his bald head were pale and stringy. Most residents of Inuzuri met their end through violence or misfortune long before their souls started to break down from age, but Renji had met a few who had managed the feat and he knew what it looked like. The shop was dark and dusty, but Renji would bet all the kan he had that if they were outside, he'd be able to see the sun shining through the old man.

"I can read and write now," Rukia announced. She gave the old snake the same onceover he'd given Renji. Her eyes lingered on his hands, gnarled from arthritis. "I'm good at following instructions, too. I can help you mix up medicines."

"Barely have any business these days,” he sniffed. “Don’t need any help.”

Rukia ground her back teeth so hard that Renji could hear it. "We…do have some money." She thrust out her fist, opening it just long enough for Kitajima to see the coins, but not long enough to count them.

A spark of life flashed in the old ghoul's eyes. "I will take a look," he agreed.

Much like Kitajima himself, the shop had looked a lot better the last time Renji had seen it. There was dust and cobwebs everywhere. Most of the shelves were half-empty.

"Take off your shirt," Kitajima instructed, dragging out a stool for Renji to sit on.

"All the damage is below the elbow," Renji said quietly.

"Oh, look who's a medic now," the old man burbled.

Renji took off his shirt.

Kitajima pressed one of his clammy hands in the space between Renji's shoulder blades. A cold, nasty feeling bled down Renji's arm. He wanted to vomit. After a few moments, Kitajima felt his way down Renji's arm, squeezing at his flesh and shooting painful little sparks into his nerves. When the old rat snake got past the elbow, his fingers pressed against the end of the broken bone and Renji nearly passed out.

"Hey! You're hurting him!" Rukia barked, bracing her entire weight against Renji's shoulder in an attempt to keep him upright.

Kitajima ignored her.

It wasn't pain, not exactly. Well. It was painful, but it was more like Renji's body was burning through all of his energy as quickly as possible. It felt like dying.

Kitajima finished his palpitations, then fetched something from one of his dusty jars. "Eat this," he said, pressing it into Renji's hand.

Renji remembered these things all too well. He'd eaten a lot of them during the period when he was working for Kitajima. It was a pill made up of mashed rice and various dried roots and seeds. They weren't the tastiest thing in the world, but they packed a lot of energy and they lasted forever. He bit into it gingerly.

“As I told you the last time you were here,” the old man growled, “you have the demon magic in you. The shinigami use it to cast spells, but also to push their bodies past what is normally possible. Like a fool, you have done this without proper training. You have broken and healed yourself simultaneously, but with no skill, and you have made a hash of it.”

“I wasn’t trying,” Renji excused.

“Can you repair it?” Rukia pressed.

“I can rebreak it,” Kitajima replied. He had a tendency to address Renji only, as though Rukia were an annoying ghost that he was studiously ignoring. Renji had a feeling she was going to murder the old rat snake. He hoped she did, actually.

Kitajima locked eyes with Renji. “I need to set the pieces properly. It will take all your kan. I don't have much in the way of painkillers. I will need the girl to help. It will be terrible." He sniffed. "On the other hand, if you get out of my shop right now, I won't even charge you for the ration pill.”

Rukia was still hovering closely, like she was worried he was going to tip over again at any moment. "Renji…" she said softly.

They hadn't come all the way here just for him to chicken out at the idea of a little pain. The gang needed his strength. "Break it," he said.

“So, theoretically--” Rukia started.

“Yes?” said Hanatarou, arranging the tomato slices on his salad into a circle.

“--if a person had to have their kidou ducts repaired--”

“Mm-hmm,” said Hanatarou, drizzling dressing onto the salad in the shape of a flower.

“Well, that ought to be outpatient, right? You could just go home the next day?”

Hanatarou looked up at her with his big, baby-blue eyes. “Rukia, did you invite me to lunch so you could trick me into violating doctor-patient confidentiality?”

“I invited you to lunch because I know how much you love the Squad Thirteen salad bar."

"It's such a good salad bar!" He leaned forward, and said in a low voice, "Captain Unohana is a wonderful healer, but she has some very strange ideas about nutrition."

Rukia crossed her arms on the table in front of her. “Does he still have me listed as next-of-kin? He used to have me listed as his next-of-kin.”

Hanatarou sighed and gave her a fond, long-suffering look.

Rukia blew at the chunk of hair that was always hanging in front of her face. "I've been trying not to be nosy, but he's being so weird about it, Hanatarou. I'm worried that he's going to do something really stupid. I think Isane is worried, too-- she kept hinting that maybe I should be doing something that I'm not doing, but I don't know what."

Hanatarou took a bite of his salad and chewed it contemplatively for a moment. He glanced around the mess hall, then back at her. "If you want to know about the process of rebuilding reiatsu ducts, I don't see any harm in telling you about it. You know, generically. It's something I've been doing some reading on lately, and it's pretty interesting."

"Sure, yes!" Rukia nodded eagerly. “Tell me everything.”

Hanatarou cleared his throat. “Something that's particularly interesting is a case of really severe, old damage. For a more recent injury, there would be special procedures involved, but it would certainly be easier than regrowing an entire severed arm, and we do that all the time, right? In fact, in some marginal cases, it's actually easier to, um, amputate and grow a new one."

"Here. Bite down on this. You'll likely pass out from the pain. You, girl. You're going to have to hold him down while I break the arm. You will have to use your spiritual pressure. Do you even know how to do that?"

"I can do it."

"Rukia?"

"Huh?" Rukia snapped back to the present.

"I'm sorry, that was too gross. We're not going to do that, I promise! I shouldn't have even mentioned it."

Rukia shook her head. "No, no, it's fine. I'm fine. I love gross stuff. Go on."

"Are you sure?"

"Very sure."

Hanatarou looked skeptical, but he continued. “It wouldn't work, anyway. That's always a problem with fixing old wounds. Healing systems are tied very strongly into memories. Your body has a tendency to want to revert to what is familiar, and this is even more of a problem in a captain-class patient, whose body is going to keep trying to re-build his horrifying, old, scarred reiatsu ducts. We call that 'healing to form', and it's normally a good thing, just not in this case."

"I see," Rukia frowned. She remembered that from the one healing class she had taken in school. The thing that separated shinigami from other kinds of ghosts was not spiritual power, actually, but a certain strength of existence, a persistence, the ability to force one’s will onto the universe, to create a Rukia- or Renji- or Hanatarou-shaped dent in the fabric of reality. That is why shinigami could exist stably in the Living World while Pluses could not. It was also why high-powered shinigami could heal even the most severe wounds.

"So here's what we're going to do instead. First, we go in and cut out the old, damaged ductwork completely. Next, we, the healers, create a basic scaffolding out of kidou. It's a really cool spell, actually. It gives the healing system something to start with, so it starts building up new ducts based on the correct pattern, skipping past the part where it has to try and remember what reiatsu ducts are supposed to look like."

"Oh, that's kind of neat," Rukia commented, while Hanatarou paused to take a bite of his lunch.

"It really is! There are a few more problems, though. The first is, you really need this to happen slowly. This would not be a problem for most of the patients we see, but if we were talking about someone, you know, who had reached bankai, or say, had a particularly remarkable ability to recover from grievous injury, there's a solid chance that their regenerative system is just going to do what it wants."

"I don't know anyone like that," Rukia lied.

"We would probably take this precaution for anyone vice-captain level or above, and seated officers on a case-by-case basis," explained Hanatarou. "Because even beyond that, these little baby reiatsu ducts we are building are very, very delicate, a problem that is once again exacerbated by a patient with high levels of reiatsu and hair-trigger battle reflexes. If the patient were, say, startled by a loud noise, it would be very easy to accidentally burn through all our hard work… and probably physically injure their arm very badly in the process.”

“I see,” Rukia frowned.

“So what we do,” Hanatarou went on, “is bind up the patient's saketsu and hakusui for about a week. This will turn off most of the ability to generate reiatsu, and also disable the more powerful part of their healing capabilities until the new reiatsu ducts have a chance to get established.”

“Oh,” Rukia blinked.

"This gets to your question about whether or not the procedure is outpatient. Because all of this is so tied into your memory and self-concept, one of the side effects of the binding is that it’s going to affect his cognitive capabilities: he’s going to be forgetful and clumsy and may get disoriented at times. With his high speed healing system mostly out of commission, we’ll need to keep him on a regime of infection inhibitors and reishi conversion enzymes, plus it’s very important that he’s eating and hydrating properly. Strict medication schedules and brain fog don’t go together very well, which is why we require a care supervisor. For our theoretical patient, I mean, obviously I’m not talking about anyone specific.”

Rukia exhaled through her nose. “That sounds complicated. Maybe he is better off in the Coordinated Relief Station.”

“Well, none of it’s very hard,” Hanataro shrugged, digging into his salad. “He could have a same-day discharge if he'd just designate someone to keep him at home and stick pills in him on a schedule and feed him and maybe check up on the binding once or twice a day. To be honest…well…Captain Unohana doesn't want him staying at the Coordinated Relief Station. She strongly encouraged Lieutenant Kotetsu and I to try and get him to change his mind." Hanatarou shook his head. "I don't understand it at all. I got the distinct impression that the hang-up was asking someone for help. It doesn’t even have to be one person, although it would be good to have one person in charge. He’s got so many friends, I suggested that he ask a few of them to take shifts, but he…didn’t seem very interested in listening to me.”

Rukia heaved a big sigh. “He doesn’t like to talk about the injury. Most of his friends don't even know about it.”

“Oh. That explains a lot." Hanatarou chewed thoughtfully for a moment. "Obviously, you know about it, though." He didn't have to say the rest.

"I offered!" Rukia defended. "He thinks it would be inappropriate for me to stay at his place."

"To be fair, that's kind of true, and also your brother is very scary," Hanatarou pointed out.

"I knoooooow." Rukia poked half-heartedly at her lunch. “Why doesn’t Captain Unohana want him there, anyway? Are you full-up? Or is it just because he’s a bad patient?”

Hanatarou chuckled. “It’s not that at all. It’s more that-- well this is true of all injuries, but especially damage to the spiritual throughways-- that you heal better when you’re around people who know you well and care about you. Comfortable and familiar surroundings don’t hurt either, but mostly it’s the people. You’ll be able to visit him at least, right?” Hanatarou frowned. “I was hoping some of the other lieutenants would come by, too, but I guess that’s a no-go. Gosh! He made me promise not to tell Rikichi, and I assumed it was because he wanted to explain it himself, but I bet he never did.” Hanatarou made a very frustrated face.

Rukia flapped a hand at him. "Don't worry about that. He promised me he would tell Rikichi." She leaned forward. “Is that really true? The thing about being around your friends?” A memory tugged on the back of her brain, a memory of being healed, of feeling surrounded by love, her own heart full to the brim.

“Oh, yes,” Hanatarou nodded. “It’s not often practical with trauma medicine, obviously, but it can make a difference in some cases, especially in long illnesses or surgical recovery. Captain Unohana’s pretty worried that, uh, our theoretical patient’s first day or two will be really touch-and-go, so if you can make time on Friday to come by and see him, we’d all appreciate it.”

Rukia’s fingers tightened around her chopsticks. “What do you mean, touch-and-go?”

“Oh! I made it sound worse than it is,” Hanatarou apologized. “Just that his body might reject the scaffolding or that it could rupture. If that happens, we can probably make one or maybe two more attempts. Worst case, we rip it all out and take off the binding, and he’ll just heal up to the way he is now. That’s not great, obviously, but it’s not dangerous. He’s not going to end up worse off than his current state.”

Rukia shook her head helplessly. She didn’t understand any of this. Renji was so sensitive about his stupid busted ducts. He’d let people drag him for being bad at kidou for the last fifty years, rather than acknowledge that he had a pretty significant disability. What had made him suddenly decide to get it fixed? And furthermore, if he was even going to bother, why wouldn’t he be doing everything in his power to make sure it was a success? It didn’t make any sense.

“If it helps any, Captain Unohana is really excited about it! She’s never gotten the opportunity to perform this level of reconstruction before. She’s even been consulting with some private noble surgeons over it. He’s in good hands with my captain, Rukia, I promise.”

Good hands.

Rukia had a terrible idea.

It was over.

Rukia's head spun. She'd seen some pretty horrible things during her time in Inuzuri, but this had hit her in a way that none of it had before.

Renji's screams still rang in her ears. She wondered if she would ever stop hearing them.

He was quiet now, laying on his back with his head in her lap. Rukia wasn't sure if he was asleep, or just in some state of semi-conscious delirium. She suspected it was the second, based on the rough rhythm of his breathing. It was still better than it was before. It had taken far longer than Kitajima expected before he passed out from the pain. Rukia knew him too well to be surprised by that, though.

Kitajima returned from his washing up. He tossed a few paper packets at Rukia. "Mix half a packet with hot water and give it to him every six hours. Might help with the pain. It's meant for muscle cramps, but it's the best I have."

"Where can I--" Rukia started.

"That's your problem," he cut her off. "You can't stay here. This town has become even more rotten than it was. I won't take the risk. As soon as he's on his feet, I want you out."

Rukia took a deep breath through her nose. She had hoped he would at least let them stay overnight. Slowly, she nodded. She couldn't seem to get any words to come out of her mouth.

"The greatest danger will be fever," Kitajima warned her. "Make sure he drinks and that the water is clean. Bathe his forehead. Do not immerse him in cold water, that will make it worse. If you can keep the fever from killing him, the arm should heal fully by summertime. Keep it splinted and encourage him to use it as little as possible until then. Not that I expect him to listen."

"I'll take care of him." Rukia glared at the old man, willing poison into her gaze.

Kitajima regarded her for a long moment, his wide, ugly mouth curled into a sneer. The old snake didn't move much, but when he did, it was lightning quick. Suddenly, he was crouched at her side, her wrist clasped in one withered claw. Despite herself, fear coursed through Rukia's veins.

"You should know this," he hissed, as though he were afraid of being overheard. “There are ducts in the arm. They are not real. They cannot be seen without the second sight. It is how the demon magic runs through your body, from your heart to your hands. His were injured, possibly ruined. I have fixed his bones, but this cannot be fixed.”

Rukia tried to pay attention to what he was saying, but all she could think about was getting her arm out of his grip, even if she had to rip his hand off at the wrist to do it. "I understand," she said quickly, even though she had no idea what he was talking about. It could be nonsense, anyway. The old man had suffered from paranoia for years. Who knew what else was going on in his worm-eaten brain?

The old rat snake narrowed his eyes, then dropped her wrist. "I hope I never see either of you again."

"You were happy enough to take my money," Rukia spat back.

"You're both so much stronger than you were before. It isn't right, having so much spiritual energy all the way out here," Kitajima replied. "Nothing good comes of it."

"What, exactly, do you want me to do about that?"

"I told you. Get the Hell out of here." Kitajima hauled himself to his feet. "Leave out the back. If I find you here in the morning, I'll kill you."

He took the lantern with him as he disappeared into the upper story of the shop.

Rukia shuddered. She wasn't scared of the old man's threats, but she didn't particularly want to test him, either.

Renji groaned, and shifted his weight. Rukia reached down to smooth his hair away from his face. It was damp with sweat and his forehead was warm to the touch. Rukia didn't actually know how to feel for a fever--Renji always handled stuff like that. She didn't like it, though, not after all Kitajima's warnings.

Rukia was not in the habit of being kind to Renji. She wasn't in the habit of being kind to anyone, really, but she would make an exception for any of the other boys when they were hurt or sick or sad. Mameji and Kosaburou both melted over being doted on. Fujimaru pretended like he didn't--he admired Renji deeply, and often tried to affect his cool stoicism. Rukia could still get a shy smile from him by slipping him an extra treat or taking his side in an argument. Not Renji, though. When Renji went down, he wanted everyone else to respectfully ignore it. Kindness was too close to pity for his tastes.

He'd never been down this bad, though, at least not in the time that Rukia had known him.

They were alone.

It was dim in the unlit shop. From the angle of the remaining light coming through the windows, the sun was just starting to go down.

Maybe Renji could stand a little bit of pity. He'd certainly earned it.

Rukia tried to rearrange her legs to make her lap more comfortable. "We have a few hours," she said softly. "You can go to sleep. Everything is fine. I'll keep you safe."

A lie and an empty promise, but what else could she say? Rukia continued to run her fingers through his hair, willing her hands not to shake.

"You deserve to rest," she said. "You were so brave. You're the bravest person I know. The stupidest, too, but we're not going to talk about that right now. It'll take some time, but you're going to heal up just fine. We'll all take really good care of you, and you'll be beating Fujimaru and Mameji at arm-wrestling again in no time. Not me, though. You'll never beat me."

She looked down at his face, trying to make out his features in the low light. His cheeks scrunched, and he tried to open his eyes. "Rukia?"

"I'm right here," she said. "What do you need?"

"Rukia," he repeated, plaintively, as if he hadn't heard her. "Don't go. Please. Don't leave."

"I'm not going anywhere," she reassured him. "I'll stay right here with you the whole time. I promise." She thought for a moment. "I'm gonna sing you a song, okay? Then you'll know I'm still here."

"I don't wanna sleep. I've been sleeping and sleeping."

"Shh. You haven't, actually. And don't worry about it. Just relax, okay?"

Rukia cleared her throat. She didn't know very many nice songs. Inuzuri's rich, musical tradition tended more towards bawdiness, violence, or both. She knew one, though, or at least half of one. She wasn't sure where she had learned it-- she'd been passed around a lot in her infant years, and one of those faceless adults must have pressed it into her memory. Maybe it wasn't even a nice song. She knew most of the tune, but only half the words, at best. It felt nice, though, it felt like the sort of song you would sing to comfort a child. Rukia had sung it to herself enough, and Mameji liked it too. Even if it hadn't been originally, it had become a nice song through enough use.

It certainly worked on Renji. As soon as she hummed the opening bars, his entire body relaxed visibly. "'Let this be a warning'", Rukia sang, when she hit the first line she knew, "says the magpie to the morning. Don't let this fading summer pass you by."

Renji was asleep by the time she was halfway through the song, but she sang it through to the end. She paused a moment to listen to his soft, even breaths, and then she started again, from the top. Just so he would know she was still there.

Usually, Renji enjoyed a morning packed with drills. The weather was glorious, and it was so much nicer to be out in the sunshine with his troops than being stuck behind his desk. However, the exercise he had run with the greenest of the unseated kids had gone long, and then none of them knew the proper way to put the equipment away. It was already well into the lunch hour and he had a pounding headache by the time he made his way back into the office.

Renji was not a skipper-of-lunches, but he wasn't sure he felt up to braving the din of the mess hall. He could wait a bit, he supposed, and grab a late one. His stomach didn't love that idea. Maybe he could ask Rikichi to pick up…

sh*t.

Rukia was right. He should talk to the kid.

Probably.

Rikichi did stuff for him all the time, but it wasn't personal. It was the same sort of stuff he used to do for Ikkaku. Ikkaku would have died before he asked Renji to do something personal for him. Renji grimaced. Any time he started comparing himself favorably to Ikkaku, it was time to give up. Rikichi's feelings would be hurt if he somehow found out later. Renji didn't want that.

Renji walked down the hallway of the administration building and stopped at the large office shared by the 16th through 20th Seats. He gave a few quick raps on the doorframe, before poking his head in.

"Oi, Rikichi!" he shouted. "You had lunch, yet?"

Rikichi was leafing through a book that Renji remembered loaning him on isometric exercises. He slammed the book shut and looked up immediately. "Oh, hey, Renji! Are you finally done with those drills?"

"Yeah, took forever."

"I could tell they were gonna," Rikichi hopped up and grabbed two furoshiki-wrapped bundles off his desk, "so I got us lunch." He shoved one into Renji's hands. "You wanna eat outside? It's really nice out today!"

“Uh, yeah,” Renji said, looking down at his bento. It was warm and amazing smells were emanating from it. “What is this? You shoulda just picked a cold bento from the mess!”

Rikichi was already halfway down the hallway. “I felt like katsudon, and I know you like it, too,” he shrugged, trying to look casual and not entirely pulling it off.

Renji slowly started after him, suspicion building in his hindbrain. “This is from the place I like, down by the Eleventh.”

“That place is great!” Rikichi protested. “Also very quick.”

“You’re up to something.” Renji added his best stern-vice-captain scowl for good measure.

Rikichi stopped and sighed, his shoulders sagging in defeat. He pulled a folded piece of paper out of his shihakushou and handed it over. “I know I should have turned this in earlier, but please approve it, sir.”

Renji shook open the slip of paper to reveal…a perfectly ordinary leave request. Friday through Monday. Normally, Renji didn’t ask his subordinates what they intended to use their leave for, but this felt a little too convenient. “What’s all this?” he demanded gruffly.

Rikichi swallowed. “I’m sorry, sir. I don’t know, I guess I just got nervous about telling you. I’m going on a training trip.”

Renji almost dropped the leave slip and his lunch along with it. “A what?”

“A training trip,” Rikichi repeated. “With my brother.”

Renji blinked. “The one at the Academy?”

“Yessir. He’s starting his senior year. He's going to need a strong finish to get a good placement. So I am taking him on a good, old-fashioned Rukongai training trip! There…there was a special, double-sized ‘Let’s Do Shikai!!’ about it.”

Renji felt his jaw drop open. “Why wouldn’t you tell me? Rikichi, that’s awesome!”

Rikichi sucked his teeth. “I don’t know,” he admitted. “Because I knew you would have a lot of really great ideas, but Ryuunosuke’s my brother, and I…just…wanted to come up with everything myself…which isn’t even true, because I used the Squad Six Drill Binder and a bunch of ‘Let’s Do Shikaii!!’ backprints and everything I know, I learned from you anyway…”

“You used the Drill Binder?” Renji asked. He could feel tears coming to his eyes. All of his top seats hated the Drill Binder.

“I can show you what I came up with, if you want to see it,” Rikichi managed, his cheeks red with embarrassment.

“Nope,” Renji replied, slapping him on the back. “This is your party. Teaching others is the best way to get really, truly good at something. A big part of that is just going out on your own and doing it. I do want to hear all about it when you get back, though.” He tucked the leave slip carefully into his kosode. "I promise I'll sign that as soon as we finish eating lunch. Which I would like to do immediately, because I'm starving."

"Ha ha, right," Rikichi said, as they started walking again. He was obviously still working on expelling all the nervousness from his body. "Don't forget to, y'know. Check the schedule. Make sure I can be spared.”

“Oh, I know you can, because you and me are always on the same roster cycle and I’m…” Renji trailed off.

Rikichi had already started to open the door to the rear courtyard, and he stopped to look back at Renji. “You’re…?”

Renji took a deep breath. He was a responsible, emotionally mature adult. “I’m taking a long weekend, too. I shoulda told you earlier, too.”

“Oh,” said Rikichi. “I mean. I’m just your subordinate. You don’t have to tell you what you do.”

“You’re not,” Renji insisted. “You’re also my friend." He steeled himself and then he said it. "I’m getting my arm operated on. I mean, it’s not a secret, it’s gonna be in a cast for six weeks, afterward. I plan on telling everyone it was just some outpatient tendon surgery to fix up an old battle wound. It’s not though. I f*cked up my own reiatsu ducts back when I was a kid in Rukongai. I’m getting ‘em fixed.”

Renji felt vaguely lightheaded as they stepped outside into the sunshine. Aside from when it first happened, Renji had never told anyone about his stupid arm. Like he'd told Rukia, Ikkaku and Yumichika and maybe Iba knew there was something wrong with it, but he’d never been forthcoming with details. In the last week, Captain Kuchiki had bullied him into explaining himself, and then he had to explain it again to a number of doctors. And of course, Rukia had insisted on bringing it up. She had been there, so it’s not like he could do anything about that. But this was the first time he had chosen to tell anyone about it. Now that he thought about it, even back when it happened, Rukia was the one who told the story to the gang and to that crooked medicine seller, too.

Rikichi blinked. “Oh. Oh! Hanatarou had a book on the physiology of the reiatsu system the other day! He said that’s not something he normally deals with but Captain Unohana had a special patient he was helping with. Is that--?”

“Probably?” Renji cringed, hoping he hadn’t just caused any relationship strife.

Rikichi nodded firmly. “Well, good! I’m sure he’ll take really good care of you! Oh, gosh, Renji, I’ve never even heard of anyone getting surgery on their reiatsu lines. How big a deal is this?”

“Well, the surgery isn’t that big a deal, but the recovery is really long and twitchy,” Renji admitted, as he plopped down on one of the courtyard benches. “I’m gonna be in the Coordinated Relief Station all weekend. I was just trying to work myself up to telling you about all this so I could ask you if you’d come visit me.”

Rikichi’s eyes widened. “Oh, no! You know, I can move the trip. Ryuunosuke has a pretty busy schedule, but–”

“No,” Renji insisted firmly. “I’m gonna need your help a lot more once I’m back at work. Besides, thinking about you, out in the woods, sharing your wisdom with your brother…that’s gonna sustain me all weekend, I tell you.” He unknotted the furoshiki on his lunch. “Speakin’ of things that are gonna sustain me…”

Rikichi laughed, and started untying his, too. “Renji…” Rikichi said slowly. “I understand that you feel weird about it, but I think it’s not nearly as embarrassing as you think it is. People get injured, y’know?”

“I know,” Renji sighed.

“And what I mean by that is…you do have someone coming to visit you, right?”

Renji made a noncommittal noise.

Rikichi gave him a judgmental glare. "You did tell Lady Rukia, right?"

"Yeah," Renji admitted. "She knows, all right."

Rikichi gave him a side-long glance. “You said it happened back in your Rukongai days. So I guess…?”

“Mm,” Renji grunted, shoving a big bite of pork into his mouth in order to avoid elaborating. He wasn’t in the habit of telling Rukongai stories to Rikichi (or anyone from Squad Six, really), aside from the occasional illustrative example of grit-building. The Yuki family ran a pretty successful trading business, transporting food and other goods from Eastern Rukongai for sale in the Seireitei. Rikichi knew that Renji and Rukia had grown up together, but Renji couldn’t imagine that his mental image of their childhood resembled anything close to reality.

"I'm sure she'd come visit you, if you asked."

"She is apparently coming to visit me, even though I didn't ask," Renji sighed.

"You don't want her to?" Rikichi asked, sounding confused.

Renji had to admit, it did sound kinda stupid out loud. Rukia was his favorite person in the entire world. "It's…it's just embarrassing," he excused.

Rikichi chewed thoughtfully for a moment, looking up at the bright, cloudless sky. "Renji," he said, in the manner of a grizzled veteran about to dispense some hard-won advice to a subordinate, "I haven't told you about the flu I got this past winter, have I?"

"W-h-a-t?" Renji drew out.

"I got the flu, midway through January. While you were gone on that long mission. At first I thought I could just push through it, but it hit me pretty hard. Finally, Fourth Seat Kuchiki said he was tired of listening to my sniffling and hauled me down to the Coordinated Relief Station."

Renji almost choked. "Fourth Seat Kuchiki Choei?"

"He said he only did it because he knew you would have done it if you were there and that if he let me die, you would be mad at him when you got back."

"What the f*ck," Renji muttered. You thought you knew a guy.

"Anyway, he ditched me almost immediately to go flirt with Ogidou. You know, their really hot Eighth Seat?"

"Oh, yeah, I know who you mean. That sounds much more like Choei."

Rikichi chuckled. "Yeah, no kidding. But while I was sitting there, shivering and oozing snot and being generally gross and miserable, Hanatarou happened to walk by. His shift had just ended. Talk about embarrassing."

"You had a crush on him way back then?"

Rikichi contemplated this. "It's possible that was the exact moment I realized I had a crush on him. It's hard to say because I was also dying at the time. In any case, he hung out with me until I got called back. I thought that was gonna be that, but when I got done, he was waiting to walk me home."

"That was nice of him."

"I was very pathetic and Choei was super gone by this point. At the time, I thought Hanatarou was only doing it because otherwise I would collapse and die on the way. I'm sure I would have been completely mortified, but I fell asleep for twelve hours instead. Then, the next day, he showed up again. He brought me soup and made me tea and hung out with me while I lay there like a soggy corpse."

"I love everything about this story, but you should know it is not supporting your case that it's a good idea to let Rukia come visit me."

"I'm getting to that! Eventually, I got around to asking him while he did all that for me, and you know what he said?"

"I would've assumed it's because he's a healer and loves treating sick people."

Rikichi gave him a look. "Not everyone loves doing their job as much as you love doing your job, Renji."

"I think Hanatarou might, though."

Rikichi frowned. "Okay, maybe you've got me there. But that's not what he said! He told me that people tend to recover better when they are surrounded by the warm affection of people who care about you. He told me that he didn't want me to be all alone, especially with you being gone."

Renji co*cked a skeptical eyebrow. "Captain Unohana tried to feed me that same line, you know. Sounds like a bunch of Squad 4 hokem to me.”

"Oh, yeah, yeah, of course it is,” Rikichi flapped a hand. "But I'm telling you, it was very smooth and I think Lady Rukia would go real soft for it. You wouldn’t think a tactic like that would work on someone as tough as Lady Rukia, but, well….” He leaned forward. “I’ve seen you when you’re being really earnest. It would take a heart a lot harder than hers not to melt into a puddle.”

Renji felt his face go hot. “You’re lucky this katsudon is so delicious, or I would kick your ass while I’ve still got the use of both arms!”

“I’ll fight you if you want, old man,” sniffed Rikichi, who might last fifteen entire minutes in Squad Eleven. “Might be your last chance to win, period, since I plan to surpass you on my training journey.”

Renji guffawed. “I hope you do, kid.”

To be honest, Renji didn't remember much of the trip back to Inuzuri, and he wished he could remember even less. They left just after nightfall, sticking to the woods, away from where people lived. The winter had decided it had one good freeze left in it, after all, and the temperature dropped precipitously after the sun went down. The moon was whittled down to a thin, ghostly sliver, and a thick fog wound between the trees.

Renji's brain swam in and out of reality. Sometimes he felt so hot that he imagined tongues of flame rising off his body. Other times, it felt like all the heat was being drained out into the night. His muscles locked in violent shivers so bad that they had to stop frequently for Rukia to rub her hands over his arms, or to hold him close to her.

Sometimes the woods became a different woods, a woods that he both knew and didn't know. A woods he had forgotten. The woods connected a house whose windows spilled over with warm light to a peaceful little pond where a boy could while away an afternoon catching fish or chasing frogs. He wanted, desperately, to get back to the house, but the woods kept changing and shifting on him, growing wilder and more overgrown every time he looked away. Once, he thought he had made it back to the pond, but it wasn't the way he remembered it. Everything was frozen over, the cloudy sheet of lake ice glowing pale in the meager moonlight. Icicles hung from the tree branches and snow powdered the ground. "I don't want to be here," Renji sobbed. "I want to go home."

(that's not a place you can go back to.)

(we are doing our best.)

"Renji. Renji!"

Renji swam up through dark waters, focused on the sound of Rukia's voice. He couldn't surface-- there was ice in the way, faint rays of light leaking in from the other side. He smashed and smashed and smashed with his fist until it let him through, gasping and dripping.

"I'm…here," he wheezed, lurching forward.

"Easy, easy!" Rukia had already been supporting nearly all of his weight over her shoulders, and it was all she could do to keep him from falling over and taking her with him.

"What's…wrong?" Renji jerked his head upward, scanning for trouble. He tried to pull himself upright. His body barely responded, but if he had to fight something, well, he would just have to do it, right?

"Calm down, nothing's wrong. We've crossed the border, is all. We're in Inuzuri. We're…back. You wanna take a rest?"

It felt like they had been walking for nine hundred years. The sun was already well over the horizon. "Yessss," Renji managed.

In an act utterly devoid of grace, Rukia managed to get him down to the ground at the base of a huge oak tree. They lay, side by side, arms splayed wide like starfish, sunk half-deep in decaying leaf litter. This is what being buried must feel like, Renji thought to himself. I've been dead for so long. Death was supposed to be restful, wasn't it?

Morning sunshine washed over him, warming the leaves. Renji imagined lying there forever, turning into warm and peaceful skeletons with Rukia. That would be okay by him, he decided, then fell into a deep and dreamless sleep.

Byakuya was painting. In the garden.

“I didn’t know you painted, Brother,” Rukia admitted.

“It has been some time,” Byakuya replied, squinting judgmentally at his canvas. “Aunt Tsukasa’s visit last week reminded me that it was something I once enjoyed.” He sighed and put his brush down. “Attempting it has reminded me that it is something I am ill-suited for.”

“Well, I like your colors,” Rukia declared. “Aunt Tsukasa says that not all paintings are for looking at, anyway.”

“This one certainly isn’t,” Byakuya agreed, putting his brush aside. “Please tell me there is something that requires my attention so that I may have a good excuse to give up on it.”

“I wanted to ask you something,” Rukia confessed.

“Of course.”

“So, I’m sure you know that Renji is taking leave at the end of the week.”

“You did not say it was about Abarai. I do not wish to answer any questions about Abarai.”

Rukia decided this was a joke and plowed grimly onward. “Did he tell you why?”

“I am aware of the reason for his leave, yes.”

“Oh!”

Byakuya frowned, but it wasn’t his default frown. There was some genuine… regret?... behind it. “Rukia. I cannot, in good conscience, share a thing told to me in confidence, even with you. If he does not wish to tell you, you should respect his wishes.”

Rukia shook her head. “No, he already told me. I just…I didn’t expect him to have told you.”

Byakuya’s face relaxed. “Ah. There is a simple explanation for that. I ordered him to have the surgery.”

Rukia could tell that Byakuya was watching her, waiting for some sort of reaction, but really, the only thing she could think was well, that explains a lot.

“Perhaps you feel it was an overstep,” Byakuya finally said.

Rukia shook her head to clear out her daze. “I mean, it probably was,” she agreed. “But…well… thanks. I’m just glad someone was able to bully him into it.”

Byakuya snorted (delicately). “I believe that paying for it was the operative inducement.”

“Brother!” Rukia yelped.

“Through squad funds, obviously,” Byakuya dismissed, as though it was going to go on some Gotei line item, instead of the hefty bucket of discretionary funds that the Clan provided to Squad Six. “Do you expect me to issue an order that would represent an undue financial hardship?”

“That’s not… the point,” Rukia managed. Ohhhhh, she bet Renji had hated that. For about the thousandth time, she tried to picture what Byakuya and Renji were like in their office by themselves. She simply could not. “The point is-- you’re invested in this, then? You want his operation to be a success, right?”

Byakuya raised one eyebrow. “Rukia, if five years of marriage to your sister taught me anything, it was to be very careful about agreeing to statements that appear to be innocuously self-evident.”

“I am just very concerned that he’s not going to take proper care of himself during his recovery period because he’s worried about imposing on people.” Rukia twisted her hands together nervously.

Byakuya regarded her for a moment. “I am sure he could arrange to convalesce at the Coordinated Relief Station.”

“Well, he has actually,” Rukia admitted. “But Hanatarou says that he’ll heal better if he’s around people who care for him.”

“The Fourth always says that,” Byakuya replied. “The evidence for the effect is extremely dubious. I have no doubt that Abarai is a dreadful invalid. Yamada is likely trying to have one over on you.”

“Brother,” Rukia glared at him from under her eyelashes. “I’m not sure Hanatarou even can lie.”

“No, but he can certainly be lied to,” Byakuya nodded knowingly. “His captain is not to be underestimated.”

Rukia shook her head. “In any case, don’t you think Renji would do better to rest up somewhere more comfortable?”

Byakuya looked extremely skeptical. “The squad barracks are only a marginal improvement over the Coordinated Relief Station.”

“Exactly!” Rukia agreed. “That’s why I think we should invite him to stay with us!”

To his credit, not a single muscle in Byakuya’s face moved. “Absolutely not. Rukia.”

“We certainly have the space! Grandfather was just telling me how they had visitors all the time when he was a child!”

“It was different then. When Grandfather was a child, the manor housed upwards of fifty people normally. A few more here and there barely made little impact.”

“You’ll hardly know he’s here! There’s always extra food in the kitchen, and Mikan can give him his medicine when I’m not around to do it. Her last job was for an elderly woman, and--”

“A man should have a valet, Rukia, not a lady’s maid.” Byakuya paused suddenly, recognizing the spike trap he was about to place his foot on. “If he were staying here, which he is not.”

Rukia crossed her arms over her chest. “Fine. That’s what I thought you would say.” She took a deep breath through her nose. “In that case, I will be going to stay with Renji.”

Byakuya gave her a very Byakuya look. “In the barracks of my own squad? I think not, Rukia.”

“I’ll camp out in the Coordinated Relief Station, then.”

“Have you informed him of this? Does he even want you there?”

“That’s his problem,” Rukia grumbled.

“Rukia,” said Byakuya.

“Brother,” Rukia echoed grumpily.

“You know that I prefer to do you the courtesy of taking the things you tell me at face value,” Byakuya said, very calmly, “but I cannot help but think that perhaps your desire to micromanage Abarai’s recovery has more to do with you than him.”

There was a feeling, like molten lead pouring into Rukia’s stomach and cooling into a thick, heavy lump.

“Abarai refused to tell me how he damaged the arm in the first place,” Byakuya said gently. “He especially refused to tell me if you had anything to do with it. I am not asking, I am merely suggesting that perhaps--”

“Have you ever noticed the big scar on the left side of my stomach?” Rukia asked suddenly. “Or the matching one on my back?” She and Byakuya didn’t make a habit of walking around in a state of undress, but she suspected he had seen it when she had to be healed in Hueco Mundo.

Byakuya made a noncommittal noise.

“I was gored by a wild boar,” Rukia said flatly. “As a child. Renji saved my life. He killed it.”

“And injured his arm in the process.”

“No, the boar thing was several years before the arm incident.”

Byakuya stared off into the middle distance for a long beat, and then looked back at her. “Is this absolutely necessary? I understand that you feel indebted to him for saving your life. I do not need the details--”

“It’s not about saving my life,” Rukia protested. “It’s about what happened after. And it’s important.”

Byakuya folded his hands in his lap. “All right,” he said. “I am listening.”

Chapter 3

Chapter Text

“He took such good care of me when I was hurt,” Rukia sighed. “And I…” she threw up her arms. “I couldn’t do anything for him! We didn’t have any medicine, we had barely any food. He took a fever twice. The second time, I honestly thought he was going to die. He pulled through, though, like he does. It took him months to heal. We couldn’t baby him, either, we couldn’t afford to.” Mameji’s illness had taken its big downturn that summer, as well, but Byakuya was already being extremely tolerant of this conversation. Rukia didn’t see the need to bring up Rukongai wasting diseases if she could help it.

Byakuya co*cked his head to one side. “Rukia. Surely you must see that you were not to blame for any of that. You were in terrible circ*mstances. I cannot imagine that Abarai has directed a single harsh thought toward you over it.”

“Of course he hasn’t,” Rukia replied glumly. “But that’s exactly my point! I couldn’t do anything then. Am I supposed to sit by now, in this beautiful and comfortable house, while he eats hospital food and stares at the ceiling, waiting for someone to come by and jam horse pills down his throat?”

Byakuya fixed her with his steely gaze, and Rukia knew this was a lost cause. It always had been. It was a testament to Byakuya’s affection for her that he’d even sat through all that. “Rukia. We can…” Suddenly an odd look came over his face.

Rukia frowned. Some strange calculus was going on in Byakuya’s head. She had no idea what.

“You may invite him to stay here,” Byakuya said, his eyes finally coming back into focus.

“What?” Rukia echoed.

“I said he may come,” Byakuya snapped, sounding more irritated at himself than at Rukia. “I will have Seike find someone appropriate to manage his care. It will not be you. He is a grown man, Rukia. He does not want or need you to baby him. You may…play your shamisen for him. Quietly. If you so choose.”

Rukia couldn’t help it. She threw her arms around Byakuya’s neck. “Thank you, Brother! Thank you, thank you, thank you!”

Byakuya gave a few stiff pats to her back. “If I hear nothing further of this, it will be thanks enough.”

Five minutes ago, Renji had been asleep, dreaming deeply and peacefully. Inuzuri-town in the summer was a cesspool of humidity and violence, so he and his gang had decided to f*ck it all and go live in the woods like yokai children. They intended to find or construct some shelter eventually, but so far they had simply been falling asleep in a grassy clearing like a handful of scattered seeds.

Four minutes ago, Renji was ripped into wakefulness by an ear-piercing scream, almost human in quality. It was not human, though. It was a boar, grown huge and mossy, as animals that live too close to the edge of Soul Society sometimes do. Rukia, already awake and on her feet, was screaming back at it and hurling rocks at its tiny, piggy eyes, even as it bore down on her.

The night was dark, the moon a pale sliver. It wouldn't be until much later that Renji would question how clearly he was able to see. Mostly, what he saw was the boar's tusks, long and sharp and pale. This boar had grown an additional, smaller pair, curving out and down from the upper jaw like an oni mask.

Three minutes and forty seconds ago, one of those long, white tusks caught Rukia in the stomach. Time slowed, thickened into honey as she was lifted off her feet, her eyes opening wide with surprise. The tip of the tusk emerged from her back, black with blood.

Three minutes and thirty seconds ago, time snapped back into its normal flow. The boar slammed Rukia up against a tree, its tusk wedging fast into the bark.

Three minutes ago, Renji leapt at the boar. He had a stick in his hand that he didn't remember picking up, and more hate in his heart that he'd even known, even after a decade of living in Inuzuri. Rukia often teased him for acting without consulting his one working brain cell, but in this case, there was no conscious thought, no actual decision. His body moved of its own volition, his spiritual pressure driving his muscles in a way he hadn't known it could do.

What good did he think he was going to do with his rage and his stick? (anything can be a sword as long as it's pointy and you put your heart into it.) But when his feet made contact with the beast's wiry hide, he realized that spiritual pressure was a thing that could kill on its own. The reason he realized this is because he could feel Rukia's, tangled up in the boar's nervous system, grappling and squeezing at its brain and heart and lungs, choking the thing to death.

Maybe Renji should have tried to help, but his body was still caught up in its own ideas. He swung his stick vertically and thrust it downwards. A heavy slug of his own spiritual pressure dropped into the boar's skull. The pig was already thrashing madly, but it was too late. The second Renji's reiatsu touched Rukia's, they ignited into an ice-cold ball of flame.

Two minutes ago, Renji and Rukia were falling backward through the sky in opposite directions. Rukia, with her more shallow trajectory, hit the dirt and rolled, leaving a trail of blood and leaves in her wake. Air rushed through Renji's hair until his back slammed abruptly into a tree. For a moment, the world spun.

One minute ago, Renji stumbled to Rukia's side. The boar was dead. She wasn't, but she would be soon. There was blood everywhere. The other boys were already gathered around her, sobbing and petting her hair.

"Out of the way!" Renji bellowed, and dropped to his knees.

Rukia didn't gasp or cry out in pain. Her jaw was clenched, and her hands were balled into fists. Her eyes were wide open, staring wildly at the sky.

The wound gaped sickly. The boar's tusk had ripped the rest of the way through her side when it tossed her loose. No one could live with such an injury.

Except--

Except that the gouge hummed and fizzed with Rukia's spiritual energy. In typical Rukia fashion, she was trying to live, even when the circ*mstances dictated that it was impossible.

It was impossible. It was early summer and they were about as well-fed as they ever were, but even if she hadn't nearly exhausted herself fighting that boar, the damage was simply too much. Either her blood or her reiatsu would run dry long before her flesh could knit itself back together.

If he had taken the time to think about it, maybe he wouldn't have done it. If he had paused for even a second to think the words Rukia is going to die, to consider the possibility of an Inuzuri without a Rukia in it, how it would be like the same wound ripped out of his own side, Renji probably would have become overwhelmed by fear and grief.

There was only one tiny thought in his head, which was the memory of what it felt like when he helped her kill the boar, the way their powers had flowed together like old friends.

The moment had come. There was no avoiding it. If he waited any longer, Rukia would die. He didn't wait, though. He was exactly on time.

Renji put one hand on Rukia's chest and one on her stomach. His face felt very hot and wet. “Hold on, Rukia,” he said, “I think this is going to hurt real bad.” And then he pushed some of his own life into her.

Renji jolted awake, and for a moment, lay in bed, trying to remember where he was and more specifically when.

There was a horrible memory he hadn't bothered to think about in years. What had churned that up out of his subconscious? Surgery anxiety, perhaps, inspired by first-hand knowledge of what happened when a kaidou was horrifically mis-cast? Exactly what he needed.

It was ten minutes before he had to get up, but he didn’t feel like lying in bed surrounded by the remnants of the dream. He threw on a clean uniform and made his way out to the kitchen.

Making rice was the longest part of making tamago kake gohan. While he waited for the water to come to a boil, Renji thought about what he could do to dress breakfast up a bit. Maybe he should have gone shopping, but it was too late at this point.

Rukia was a great fan of condiments of any type, but sauces were her particular favorite. It was too early in the morning to trust any creative ideas he might have, so Renji decided to go for something classic and mix up some mentsuyu. If she didn't like it, he could just work it into a soup for dinner.

Renji tried not to think about Rikichi's terrible suggestions, but he couldn't help it. He was not…oblivious to the romantic potential inherent in caring for someone in a state of vulnerability. Every time he tried to picture it, though, it played out like one of those trashy romance novels Rukia loved, overblown and silly. He grimaced as he finished mixing up the sauce and put it on to simmer. He was 100% certain that she enjoyed those things unironically, but he had always assumed that she read them for entertainment and not in an…"I want this for me" sense.

It was definitely too early in the morning for these sorts of thoughts.

Renji made a quick survey of the contents of his fridge. Green onions, that was an easy one. Ever since he'd started cooking, it seemed like there was perpetually half a daikon in his fridge, even though he never actually remembered buying them. He could grate up some of that. Oh, he had some leftover boiled shirasu, that ought to go pretty well.

By the time the familiar knock came at the door, all of it was on the table, including all three kinds of pickles he currently had in his fridge, and a jar of chili threads he'd bought specifically for Rukia because the label featured a dead tanuki lying on its back with little X's for eyes.

"You're pretty bright-eyed for this time of day," Renji remarked, watching Rukia take off her teeny tiny little sandals and line them up next to his in the genkan.

"I was promised eggy rice," Rukia declared loftily.

"It's on the table," Renji replied, jerking his thumb towards the interior of his quarters.

"First things first," Rukia said. "Let's get that medical patch off."

"Oh." Renji pushed his sleeve up to the elbow and started to peel off the outer bandage. "I kinda forgot about that."

Rukia shot him a severe look. "And you wonder why I worry about you."

"It's just a med patch," Renji huffed.

Rukia ignored him. She grabbed his arm and jerked it out in front of her. Then, she pressed two fingers from each hand into the patch. "Kaijou #4!" she announced, forgoing the chant. With a brief green flash, there was the sensation of something loosening, even though the bind itself hadn't actually felt like anything.

"Show off," he muttered.

"It's just a sticky spell. It's meant to be easy to remove." Rukia grabbed the remaining scrap of cotton and ripped it free, taking half his arm hair with it.

"Ow!" he howled. And she wondered why he was skeptical of her bedside manner.

"Let's go eat egg!"

Renji sighed and followed her to the table.

"Why did you make this so fancy?" Rukia laughed, settling herself on her zabuton and making eyes at the bowl of mentsuyu.

"What are you talking about?" Renji scoffed. "This is a very normal breakfast. Standards must be slipping over at Kuchiki Manor."

They both laughed and said their "itadakimasu."

"You really didn't have to go to all this trouble," Rukia pointed out, as she methodically piled her bowl with a heaping serving of everything on offer.

Renji grabbed a big pinch of the shirasu before passing it over to her. "It's fine. I'm not sure when I'll be up for cooking again, so I'm trying to clean out my fridge."

"Oh, so I'm helping?"

Renji grinned. "Sure."

"I love helping! If you need me to take this pickled ginger with me, I could take it off your hands."

"I think the pickles will probably keep for a bit."

"Hmmph," Rukia replied skeptically, and scooped some more into her bowl.

It was always difficult not to just sit and watch Rukia eat, in part because she truly did have an extraordinary talent for shoveling food into her mouth, but mostly because it reminded Renji of why they had come to the Seireitei in the first place, of how lucky he was these days. You have to go to work, too, this morning, he reminded himself, and dug in.

"You know, speaking of helping…" Rukia said a few minutes later, once she'd managed to eat enough to shave the edge off her morning ravenousness. "There's something I want to talk to you about."

The pleasant feelings in Renji's chest abruptly turned cold and gloppy. He frowned, and raised one eyebrow skeptically. “Yeah?”

Rukia looked up at him with her big, stupidly blue eyes. “Do you remember when we talked about how important it was for you to have a comfortable and peaceful recovery from your surgery?”

“I do. I distinctly remember asking you to drop it and not bring it up, again, actually.”

“Right, well, I never actually agreed to that. I think that you should come stay at my house.”

Renji gave her an incredulous look. “Your house? Kuchiki Manor, you mean? Your house that is actually my captain’s house?”

“It’s very nice there, as you know. The food really is very good and we have a million servants with nothing better to do--”

“I am sure they have better things to do, Rukia.”

“--and you can sit in a sunny spot in the garden and I’ll read you books and it will be so much nicer than staying in the Coordinated Relief Station!”

Renji heaved a huge, exasperated sigh. “It’s a nice idea, Rukia, but think about the look on Captain’s face if you even--”

“He said it was okay.”

Renji felt all the blood run out of his face, possibly out of his body entirely. “You asked him?”

“I know you’re only getting it done because he ordered you to. He obviously wants you to do your best to heal up well. He cares about you, too, you know, in his own way.”

Renji stiffened, his fingers tightening on his chopsticks. “You probably told him the whole story, then? How I broke my arm in the first place?” His voice sounded like it was coming from somewhere far away.

“Not the whole thing!" Rukia shook her head vehemently. "He knows you broke it saving me, that's the only important part.”

Renji drew in a deep breath and squeezed his eyes shut. All he could focus on was the sound of his own blood pounding in his ears. “Why do you always have to do this?” he finally managed through gritted teeth. “I asked you to just leave it, but you never can.”

Rukia shoved out her lower lip. “Maybe if you took care of yourself half as well as you take care of everyone else, I would!” she protested. “Just let me spoil you for a few days, would it be so terrible?”

“Yes.”

“Renji!”

Why was she always so f*cking stubborn? Renji’s shoulders slumped in defeat. “Not that it’s any of your business, but this isn’t just some case of me chugging pain meds and avoiding using my arm. I guess they have to--”

“I know,” Rukia interrupted. “I made Hanatarou tell me.”

“You what?”

“Oh, you would have done the same.”

“I would not!”

Rukia put her hands on the table and leaned forward. “Renji, when I got gored by that boar, you changed my bandages twice a day yourself, even though it was super gross! You measured out my medicine, you mashed up food for me. You slept on the bare floor next to my bed. You saw my guts, Renji, it's not going to kill you to let me see you a little dopey.”

The absolute last thing Renji wanted to hear about was that stupid f*cking boar. “Is this some kind of contest? Also, that was a million years ago and has nothing to do with this!”

“Are you joking? It has everything to do with this!”

"If you think so, that's on you, Rukia. I don't owe you--"

"Owe me? You think you owe me? That's rich!"

"Well, what the Hell else do you mean?"

"I mean that you're being really stupid right now! I'm just trying to be a good friend and you won't even let me do that!"

"If you really wanted to be a good friend, maybe you could actually listen to me for a change!"

Rukia froze. All the anger fled from her face, her mouth dropping open in soft surprise.

Renji realized what he had just said. "I didn't mean that," he backtracked frantically.

Rukia pushed herself away from the table and stood up. "I should go to work."

"Rukia, listen--"

"I've listened enough," she said. "You win. Go have your surgery by yourself. No one will look at you or bother you or even think about you. I promise. I hope it goes great."

"Rukia…" Renji started, and abruptly didn't know what to say. He was certainly sorry her feelings were hurt, but he wasn't willing to back off, either.

She stared at him, waiting.

"You didn't even finish your breakfast," he finished lamely.

Rukia looked down at her half-full bowl on the table, and made a huge, deep frown. She snatched it up and clutched it to her chest. "I will wash your bowl and bring it back later!"

"Uh, okay," Renji replied. "At least that means you'll be coming back later."

"Of course I will come back later!" she snapped. "Like I would stop being friends with you just because you're a stubborn asshole! As if that were something I didn't know!"

Renji swallowed down the awful comeback sitting on the tip of his tongue. He didn't know how to make this better, but at very least, maybe he could not make it worse. "Okay!" he shouted. "Fine!"

Rukia stared at him for a moment, clearly also struggling to keep from saying something she really wanted to say. "Good!" she finally declared with an angry nod, and then stomped towards the doorway.

Renji sat very, very still until he heard the door finally swish shut behind her. Then he pushed his bowl aside, and let himself fall forward until his face hit the table with a loud thunk.

There were dried herbs hanging in the rafters.

Rukia had been staring at them for some time before realizing she was awake. Her side hurt enormously, a horrible pounding throb. She remembered the boar. She remembered the feel of its tusk driving through her flesh. It hadn’t hurt as much then as it hurt now.

There were quiet, unfamiliar noises coming from off to one side. With painstaking slowness, she managed to turn her head.

Renji sat barely an arm’s length away. He was bent over a little portable desk, writing in a book of some sort with a brush and ink. Rukia frowned and squinted at him. “What are you doing?” she croaked.

He glanced over at her and did a double take, nearly splattering his ink everywhere. “Rukia!” With slightly more care, he stowed his brush, and pushed the table off to one side. “You’re awake!”

“I guess.” Rukia tried to swallow, but her throat was very dry. “Did we…did we die? Again, I mean? Are we more dead?” It still felt like Soul Society, but they didn't have paper or ink in Inuzuri, or nice houses with herbs hanging in the rafters. Maybe they'd moved on to some new afterlife. Rukia didn’t like the idea of meeting her own end, or Renji meeting his, for that matter, but if they had to go, she'd prefer to go together.

“No, you dummy,” Renji replied fondly, pouring something from a jug into a cup. “We’re the regular amount of dead. Well, I am anyway. You came pretty close, you know.” He slid his hand under the back of her head, and raised it up a little. “Here, drink this.”

“Gimme a minute, I’m not ready,” Rukia protested, trying to twist away.

“Nuh-uh,” Renji insisted. “Do you know what a pain it was, trying to make you drink this while you were unconscious? C’mon. Just this much before you pass out on me again.”

“Ugh, it’s salty,” Rukia protested. “I thought it was water!”

“It’s broth,” Renji clarified. “You need the nutrients.”

“I just wasn’t expecting it,” Rukia excused. She tried to take the cup from him, but her hands weren’t working very well. The broth was delicious, rich and savory, with a sort of mushroomy flavor. It was hard to not drink it all in one go, but Rukia managed to push the cup away half full. “Did you have some?” She didn’t know how long she had been passed out, and it would be just like Renji to sit next to her this whole time without taking care of himself.

Renji chuckled and shook his head. “I ate earlier. This is yours. Unless you’re feeling up to some porridge? It’ll take a minute, but I’ll make it up for you, if you want.”

Rukia started to consider the state of her stomach and decided she’d rather not think about it. She shook her head. “Nuh-uh.” She finished the rest of the broth and Renji took the cup away.

“You want some water, too?”

“In a minute,” she said. “Wanna lay down again.” Renji eased her head back down onto the pillow. “If we’re not double dead, where are we then?” she grumbled. “And where did you get all this food?”

“We’re in District 76,” Renji replied. “Waretsubo. You know how people always talk about the doctor that lives up here? Well. He’s more of a medicine seller, but he can do healing magic if you can talk him into it. I think he might have gotten kicked out of a higher district. Anyway, this is the back room of his shop. He’s letting us stay here for now.”

Rukia almost choked. “You hauled me across district lines?!”

“You were dying,” Renji replied simply.

“I--” Rukia started to protest, and then remembered the part after the boar shook her off. Lying in the dirt, her body desperately trying to piece itself back together. Renji’s face hovering into view, his eyes wild and terrified. He had put his hand on her wound and she realized he was trying to give her some of his spirit energy. For a very brief moment, it felt very nice. Warm and familiar, and helpful. Then it wasn’t warm, it was burning, it was burning her up. “You…” she started to say.

Renji shook his head and looked away. “Don’t worry about it. You hardly weigh anything.”

“That wasn’t what I--”

Renji started refilling the cup with water. “We can fight about it later, okay? You need to rest.”

Rukia did feel very, very tired, and she let Renji hold the cup to her lips again. Normally, she wouldn’t put up with him bossing her around, but there was a strained brittleness in his voice that she didn’t want to poke at. Also, he was probably right.

“Thank you,” she managed, when she’d finished drinking. “Renji.”

For the briefest of moments, his face softened into an expression she had never seen him make before, not even at Mameji. Delicately, like he was afraid to actually touch her face, he brushed back that stupid chunk of hair that would never stay out of her eyes.

“Don’t mention it,” he replied.

Rukia pushed her dinner around her bowl with her chopsticks. She was sure the food was exquisite, as it always was at Kuchiki Manor, but every bite turned to sawdust in her mouth. She would have been hard-pressed to even identify what it was she was eating.

She hadn't heard from Renji all day.

She suspected he wasn't talking to her.

Of course, she could have texted him. She didn't know what she could say, though, that wouldn't make things worse. She wished she hadn't blown up at him. Not because he didn't deserve to get yelled at, which he did, but because she regretted retracting her offer to come visit him at the Coordinated Relief Station. If she apologized, he'd think she was trying to worm his way back into his business. Which she kind of was, but only back to the point that they had already agreed on.

Rukia picked up exactly two grains of rice and stuck them in her mouth. She chewed them very carefully.

Renji hadn't even really wanted her to come visit him in the first place, had he? Maybe he was relieved by this turn of events.

The little stoneware bowl with camellias painted around the rim that she'd stolen from his place had sat on the corner of her desk all day. She ought to have dropped it off on her way home, but if she couldn't even think of what to say in a text, what was she going to say to his actual face? Rukia had brought it home with her. It was currently sitting in her room.

This was so stupid. She'd already spent most of the day moping about this and for what? She needed to think about something else. She should try to enjoy her dinner and pay attention to whatever Byakuya had been talking about for the last twenty minutes. Mountain asparagus? She was pretty sure he was talking about mountain asparagus. She glanced over her dinner. It definitely did not include any mountain asparagus.

"--but enough on the topic of seasonal produce," Byakuya declared. "Have you settled things with Abarai, yet?"

Rukia's heart sank.

"Seike has selected a young man to act as his valet. I thought he might have some difficulty with the matter, but apparently, there was quite a bit of interest in the position. In any case, please tell Abarai to come by tomorrow so that they can coordinate…whatever…they are doing. You may invite him to dinner, if you wish."

"Did you…not see him today?" Rukia asked.

"Yes," Byakuya replied. "But we were at work."

For a moment, Rukia stared at her brother, the strangest man in Soul Society. Then she remembered what he had just asked her. "He's not coming," she said quietly, and went back to poking her dinner.

There was a long silence, then, "You offered and he refused?"

Rukia nodded. Her throat felt too thick to make words come out.

"I see. I cannot say I am surprised."

Something inside Rukia snapped. "I know! You told me so, and you were right. You don't have to rub it in!" Horrified, she clapped a hand over her mouth. "Oh, Brother! I'm sorry! I didn't mean that. I’ve had a really hard day."

There was no anger in Byakuya's expression. In fact, his eyes had widened, ever so slightly. He was clearly shocked by such a display of insolence at his own dinner table.

"No, Rukia," he said, very seriously, and then, to her utmost shock, continued on. "I am the one who is sorry. I shouldn't have said it that way. You…you know that sometimes I say things…badly."

"Oh," said Rukia.

"What I meant is that…" He trailed off and frowned. "I think I had forgotten, actually. The sting of being pushed away. Perhaps I have had too much experience in losing arguments with people who refuse care when it is offered. I spent a lot of time learning to…choose my battles, as it were."

"You mean Hisana?" Rukia asked in a tiny voice.

"Primarily," Byakuya sighed. "My father, too, in his own way, was quite skilled at weaseling out of his doctor's orders. I don't even want to speak of the last few years of my grandfather's captaincy. All this is to say--Abarai is young and otherwise perfectly healthy. He is under the care of the Gotei's best healers. While I understand that you would like to have him here under your personal care, do you really fear for the success of his procedure if he is not?"

"Well…I guess not when you put it that way." Rukia frowned. "It just seems really miserable, when it doesn't have to be."

"It can certainly seem so, from our perspective," Byakuya agreed. "But there may be other things at stake. Your sister feared the loss of her independence. My father wanted to fulfill his duty, and knew the ins and outs of his own condition better than it might appear to those of us on the outside. I was not able to appreciate these things until after I was able to put my own feelings aside, and give them space."

"What about Grandfather?" Rukia asked. She knew what the answer was going to be, but she also knew that Byakuya very much wanted an excuse to say it.

"He is simply a cantankerous old egotist who loves making himself miserable and everyone else besides," Byakuya replied. He paused thoughtfully. "Perhaps that is also the case with Abarai."

"I actually kinda doubt that," Rukia replied, feeling the tiniest bit better. "At very least, what he's been asking for is mostly just to be left alone so he can enjoy his misery by himself."

Byakuya sighed and looked off into the middle distance. "You made the offer, generously, and from the heart. That is all you can really do."

"I suppose you're right." Rukia let out a big sigh. Her heart still hurt. She still didn't know what she was going to say to Renji. But at least she felt a little bit less alone. It was…nice to have a brother. And everything Byakuya said rang true. She couldn't yell Renji into accepting her care. But still… "I hate having to be the bigger person," she grumbled.

There was a long, silent pause. "Hmmm," said Byakuya.

Rukia looked up. There was a funny expression on her brother's face as he concentrated very intently on his soup. She rewound what she had just said. "Did you just make fun of my height?"

"I just remembered something else about mountain asparagus," Byakuya said.

Rukia decided that having a brother was terrible, after all.

Renji leaned against a side of a building, watching the busy market square of Waretsubo. Specifically, he'd been watching a fellow who had shown up earlier that morning with a string of fish. They were pretty good looking fish, in Renji's opinion. Even the scrawniest ones were about as big as he was ever able to tease out of the murky river that oozed its way through the center of Inuzuri. The prices weren't exorbitant-- the fishing must be pretty good around here, Renji supposed, and people could just go down to the river and do their own fishing if they didn't like the going rate at the market. He was keeping count, though, and by the time the last fish was sold, Renji figured the guy had made a pretty fair day's wage.

As the man packed up his things and headed home, whistling cheerfully, Renji kicked off the wall and followed, lingering half a block behind. The man turned down a quieter street. Renji cracked his neck and stood up straight, bristling up into his best goon posture.

"Oi!" he barked. "Your name Nishida?"

The man's shoulders stiffened. He froze in his step, and slowly turned, sizing Renji up. He was an adult, but he wasn't as tall as Renji. He looked to be in decent health, but his arms and legs were thin, and Renji had noticed a slight limp to his walk. "Broken femur," had been written in the ledger, next to a rather exorbitant sum that had already been whittled down by several previous payments.

The man's eyes lingered on Renji's hair. "You're Kitajima's new guy, ain'tcha?" the fisherman jerked his chin. "My neighbor told me he had one."

"That's me," Renji agreed.

Nishida's nostrils flared. "I don't want any trouble. What do I owe?"

"Three thousand kan."

The man's lip curled in distaste. "What if I give you half?"

"That'd be fine. But I'd be back to talk to you next week, and it'll be an extra hundred in interest."

Nishida made a face. Renji just waited patiently, with his arms crossed over his chest. He knew the guy could cover it. To be honest, he didn't much care either way. Fifteen hundred kan was a pretty good collection, especially if he didn't even need to rough anyone up.

Nishida counted out a number of coins and held them out. "Here," he grunted. "My wife's been on me to get it cleared up before winter, anyway. The old bastard wouldn't sell us any medicine last year because we were carrying a balance."

Renji accepted the coins and hauled out the collections ledger, which he carried tucked in his obi. "Well, you're clear now," he said, opening his little portable writing set. Nishida watched with interest as Renji marked the debt paid in full, and added his initial.

"Usually," said Nishida slowly, "he gets some gang thugs to do his collections for him. Lets 'em work off some of their debt when he puts them back together after a fight. Are you some sort of apprentice or something?"

"Huh?" Renji said, tucking the ledger back into his belt. "No, I owe 'im, too."

Nishida looked disappointed. "That's too bad. That old rat snake is mean as Hell, but three-quarters of Waretsubo owes their life to him. It'd be nice if…" He trailed off. "Anyway, stay on your toes. He'll cheat you if he can."

Renji snorted. 'That old rat snake' felt pretty apt. "You don't need to tell me that," he agreed.

Kitajima didn't like it when Renji came back to the shop before finishing his full day of collections. Renji had a variety of excuses at the ready--the midday heat was unbearable, he didn't like carrying too much money around, he needed something to eat because he'd used up too much energy fighting. The truth was, he just didn't like leaving Rukia alone for too long. She was waking up for a few minutes at a time now. He'd explained about the various jobs Kitajima had him doing, and that he had to go out sometimes. The pain made her head foggy, though, and he worried that she would forget. Or what if she was thirsty or bled through her bandages again, like she had in the first few days? Kitajima had saved her life and was letting them stay in the back room, but he had made it very clear that Rukia's care was Renji's responsibility.

Renji slipped in through the back entrance of the shop. As soon as Kitajima knew he was back, the old rat snake would demand help with some stupid task or another. Renji wanted to make sure Rukia had what she needed first.

It felt very strange to take care of Rukia. The rest of the boys were pack animals. Renji had known it as soon as he met them. They each had their own skills and talents, but they weren't built for a solitary existence. None of them would have survived a year in Inuzuri if they hadn't found each other and clung fast. Renji never knew whether or not to include himself in this assessment. Most of the time he tried not to think about it.

Rukia was a different creature entirely. She'd spent years on her own. There might be a few things that one of them was better at than her, but there was nothing that Rukia wasn't capable of. She stayed with them purely at her own indulgence. Renji could still remember hesitating when they first met, afraid to let himself like her. He kept expecting her to grow bored of them and disappear into the night as abruptly as she had arrived in the first place.

Rukia was curled up on her uninjured side when he came in, her blankets kicked away to one side. Up until now, she'd laid flat on her back and moved very little in her sleep, which was not at all normal for her. Renji wondered if maybe this was a good sign. He picked up the edge of the blanket and started to pull it back over her.

One of Rukia's eyes cracked open. "It's hot," she growled.

"Hello to you, too," he said fondly. "You want some water? The old guy keeps some in that hole in the floor he's got spelled to stay chilly. I'll get you some." To be honest, that sounded pretty good to him, too.

Rukia's face scrunched up into the crabbiest expression Renji had ever seen. She looked like a cabbage. Renji's heart did an unexpected flip-flop in his chest. It had been doing that a lot lately. He'd almost lost her. She could have died, but she didn't. Renji had always known that Rukia wasn't the kind of person you could hold onto, but some part of him now felt desperate to try.

"Isn't there some water here?" she whined. "If you go in there, he'll make you get stuff down off of shelves for him for, like, an hour."

"It's right here," Renji said, holding up the water gourd he'd left three inches from her bedside.

"Yeah, that," she said.

Renji uncorked it and held it to her lips. Rukia was able to lift her head a little now. She put her hands on the jug to steady it, but let him manage its weight.

Renji was glad he'd come back early.

"Renji," she said, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand after she'd finished.

"Yeah?" Renji asked, then took a small mouthful for himself.

"Do you think the boys are okay?"

"I told you before," Renji said gently. "You were the only one that got hurt." The huge, purpling bruise on his back and the skin he'd burned off the grip of his palms didn't count.

"I know that," Rukia sighed. "But how are they doing now?"

To be honest, Renji had been trying not to think too hard about that. He trusted the guys to lay low and take care of each other until they got back, but the entire reason they'd been kicking it in the woods was because Inuzuri-town was a powder-keg this time of year. Before he left, they'd agreed to go back to a run-down cabin they'd all squatted in a few years earlier, even though one of the walls had collapsed in a bad rain. Renji hoped it was going okay. "I'm sure they're worried about you," he tried to avoid the question.

"Hmmph," said Rukia, closing her eyes again. "I bet they don't even remember me. It's been a hundred and fifty-seven years."

Renji chuckled. "It's been four days." There was more he wanted to say, but he wasn't sure if he should. He was sure that being fussed over was hard enough on Rukia. The last thing she needed was him going mushy on her. But then a loud snore rattled through her nose, and Renji realized she'd fallen back asleep again. So he said it anyway. "Dummy. Like anyone could ever forget about you."

As he did most days, Renji rolled into the Squad Six Captains’ Office just before seven a.m. He settled Zabimaru on their sword rack, took a long glug from his extra-thick protein shake, and plopped down in his chair. He pulled off his sunglasses and tossed them in his desk drawer. He contemplated his pile of paperwork.

Still catching up from his grandfather's week-long visit two weeks prior, Byakuya had not been generating paperwork with his usual hawk-like alacrity. Renji was about as far ahead as he could get. He had the payroll to turn in at the end of the day. He’d started making up some to-do lists for his upper seats while he was gone.

Renji breathed out a long, tired breath as he looked over his notes for the lists. What if I didn’t? he wondered idly. This place runs like f*cking clockwork. My goons know what they are supposed to be doing. Whether or not they do it when I’m not around to yell at them is up to them. Might be a fun test. See if anyone even misses ol’ Assistant Captain Abarai while he’s gone.

Renji had been trying to avoid throwing a pity party for himself, but maybe he could spare five minutes at seven a.m. in his empty office and get it out of his system.

Despite his own noises to the contrary, he was not looking forward to lying in a hazy lump in the Coordinated Relief Station for five days. He’d done that in December, when he had to have a number of his organs re-replaced after the Winter War. Apparently Squad Twelve Battlefield-Ready Replacement Organs were not rigorously tested for long-term use and the level of heavy metals in Renji’s blood scans had been coming in rather high. That had been bad enough, and he had slept nearly the entire time, courtesy of the extra heavy-duty painkillers Hanatarou decided he merited. The only saving grace of the entire thing was that at least half of the times he had woken up, Rukia had been there. Usually, she would be reading a book or staring out the window, but she would always look over when she noticed he was awake and give him a smile and a “Hey there, Big Guy!” He knew that, at the time, she was really thinking about the Living World, where Ichigo was busy sleeping through the process of losing his spiritual powers, but he had appreciated the “Hey there, Big Guy!”s all the same.

He was a moron.

Rukia had just wanted to fuss over him a little and he should have just let her. He'd been cagey, though, mostly because he didn't actually want any of this. Being put off made Rukia ornery, which had made him defensive, which made her even more ornery and it had escalated it into a whole thing. Now they weren't even talking to each other.

It sucked because they had been doing really f*cking good at friendship lately. He felt like he should have seen this coming, or at very least, seen it while it was happening, but he somehow hadn’t. Maybe he’d been getting too used to mature, well-mannered, supercool Lieutenant Kuchiki Rukia, and right now, she was acting a lot more like her old stubborn, argumentative Inuzuri self.

Maybe he was, too.

Renji ground the heels of his hands into his eye sockets before slumping down into his chair.

Her earlier idea of coming by his place to take care of him was bad enough, but why the Hell would she even mention the idea of staying at hers? Renji could only imagine that what she meant by “Byakuya said it was okay” was that Rukia had gotten Byakuya to agree to something tangentially related, which she was planning on spinning out like one of their cons of old.

It was so stupid because of course he wanted Rukia to take care of him. He wanted to feel her cool hands brushing his hair off his forehead, to hear her humming little bits of the magpie song as she puttered about his place and he drifted in and out of sleep. But at the same time, he couldn’t stand it, because he didn’t deserve it, he didn’t deserve even one “Hey, there, Big Guy,” just like he didn’t deserve to get his arm fixed at all because--

Renji squeezed his eyes shut. He’d had his five-minute pity party, and if he went down that road, he’d be here all day. He drew in a deep breath and let it out again, then pulled out his ink stick and stone so he could get started on those to-do lists.

Then, the door opened and Byakuya walked in.

Renji’s eyes darted frantically to the clock on his phone, wondering if he had really managed to daydream away an entire hour, but, no, it was only 7:08. He slammed to his feet and bowed. “Good morning, sir! You're early today, sir!”

“At ease, Lieutenant, I am not actually in the office at the moment,” Byakuya replied.

Renji slowly straightened up, frowning. He noticed that Byakuya wasn’t actually wearing his haori, but had it draped over one arm. “I…don’t follow, sir.”

“Obviously, I am here,” Byakuya went on, hanging up the haori. “But not in my official capacity. I am not on duty. It is still my Leisure Hours, you see.”

A chill ran down Renji’s spine and he slowly sat back down. “Then, uh, what are you doing here? Sir.” Maybe Byakuya had finally decided to try out the on-base gym, Renji hoped desperately.

“Oh, I wished to talk to you,” Byakuya said pleasantly. “Man-to-man, as they say.” He sat down at his desk, folded his hands in front of him, and leaned forward slightly. “You have upset my precious sister. Renji.”

Renji gripped the edge of his desk. “I didn’t do anything, sir! I swear!”

Byakuya’s eyes narrowed. “My understanding is that Rukia extended an invitation to you to recover from your surgery at our home and you turned it down.”

The tips of Renji’s fingers were going white. “Well, yes, that happened, but I think you can see, sir, how inappropriate that would be.”

“You lack a family home, and Rukia happens to have a very pleasant and well-outfitted one. Do you think I would have given my permission if I felt it was inappropriate?”

“Yeah, but…it’s your home, too, sir.”

“That is true. I was less keen on that aspect of the plan. It is a very big house, though, and I think that with a bit of care, we can avoid seeing each other and pretend to ignore it, should a slip occur.”

This was his own fault, Renji reminded himself, for weaponizing their staggered work schedule. He had started this by confronting Byakuya about personal issues at 5 pm, when he was getting off work, but Byakuya still had an hour to go. He had only done it once. Well, twice. In any case, he wasn’t about to let his captain use his own special technique against him. He strategized frantically. Byakuya had made one key mistake. Starting at the beginning of his Leisure Hours gave Renji basically unlimited time, whereas Byakuya was at the tail end of his. All Renji had to do was spin this out until 8 am, at which point, Byakuya would be forced to give up in favor of starting the workday. Renji glanced at his phone again. It was now 7:11.

“Lady Rukia is a very important person,” Renji pointed out. “Don’t you think this is a bit of a waste of her time?”

“Lady Rukia is a very important person,” Byakuya agreed, “which is all the more reason for you to indulge her in whatever flight of whimsy takes hold of her heart.”

Oh, Renji had a reply for this one. “You made me sign a thirty-page manifesto before I was even allowed to hang out with her! There was an entire section on not indulging her flights of whimsy!”

“I did, didn’t I?” Byakuya mused. “Not that it matters. Because if this were a difference of opinion between Lady Rukia and Lieutenant Abarai, it would have been resolved long ago. It would not have required my intervention, and certainly not during my Leisure Hours, now would it?”

Renji could feel himself shrinking down into his kosode, trying to pretend like he had no idea what Byakuya was talking about.

“You accused me, a few months ago, Renji, of forgetting that Rukia existed before I met her. It seems to me that you are trying to capitalize on that fact in order to win this argument. But perhaps you have a similar blind spot, in the sense that you assume a gap between Inuzuri Rukia and Kuchiki Rukia, some discontinuity, during which all debts and obligations were wiped clean. I assure you, she does not.”

“That’s what I don’t get, sir!” Renji protested. “That kinda stuff never mattered between us! There were five of us, not just me an’ Ru--Rukia. Windfall or misfortune, we shared it equally! It’s not her fault I got hurt, and I’m sorry if she feels guilty that it was! I seriously doubt a week of babying me is gonna make her feel any better about it, and it probably stands a good chance of making it worse.”

Byakuya regarded him coolly. “That is not what she feels guilty about.”

Renji blinked at him. “It’s not?”

“There was a prior incident. With a boar.”

Renji scowled. “Cripes, she told you about the boar thing, too? She keeps bringing it up, and I just don’t see--”

“The origin of her guilt is that during the boar incident, you both saved her life and provided exemplary care for her. In the subsequent ‘kanabou incident’, as she put it, you saved her life a second time, and she was not in a position to properly care for you in return. She is in that position now. I sincerely do not know why I am explaining this to you. This feels like something the two of you ought to be able to work out on your own.”

Renji frowned, digging through old, moss-covered memories he generally tried not to revisit. “I didn’t save Rukia from the boar. She saved us. It would have eaten Fujimaru for sure if she hadn’t woken up when she did.”

“She told me that you killed it after it pinned her to a tree.”

Renji screwed up his face. “To be perfectly honest, sir, my memories from that night are pretty jumbled, and I imagine hers are, too. We both got some hits in, I know, but I was late to the party.” He sucked his teeth for a moment. “I wasn’t in a real good state afterward, but Kosaburou told me, later on, that the carcass was frozen to the ground. It died of an icicle through the brain. This all happened in the middle of summer. So I think it’s pretty definitive which one of us killed that boar. In retrospect.”

“Does it matter?”

Renji furrowed his brow. “Not really, I ‘spose. Like I said, we didn’t keep score on that sorta stuff.”

“She said that you carried her across district lines in order to obtain medical care. That you stayed with her during that time. That you worked off her debt to the doctor.”

“Calling that guy a doctor is pretty generous, but yeah.”

“And you would have done all that, even if you had killed the boar yourself, no?”

“What kinda stupid question is that?” Renji demanded. “Of course I would have!”

Byakuya steepled his fingers and raised his eyebrows serenely. “Then no matter how inadequate you feel for having broken yourself in the course of trying to protect Rukia, you can acknowledge that her desire to tend to your injuries and frustration at being unable to do so is both rational and valid, no?”

Renji’s jaw dropped. “Did she-- did she tell you-- is that why she thinks I turned her down?”

Byakuya tilted his head to one side. “Of course not. You are just very transparent.”

People told Renji this all the time, but that didn’t mean that he liked it when Byakuya said it. He liked it even less that Byakuya had just about hit the nail on the head.

“You needn’t be concerned about it,” Byakuya went on. “My usually perceptive sister is, for some reason, utterly mystified by your reluctance in the matter. She has, instead, chalked it up to stubbornness." He thought for a moment. "To be fair, you are very stubborn.”

Renji looked down at his hands. “I hate this conversation.”

“I hate it, too,” Byakuya replied, very conversationally. “So, are you available this evening for a brief meeting with the servant I have designated as your chief caretaker to discuss food preferences, etcetera? You can bring over any personal items you wish to have during your convalescence.”

Renji groaned and rubbed at one eye with the heel of his hand. “Hrrrrnnnggggh. Fine.”

Byakuya sat back in his chair, looking immensely pleased with himself. He glanced over at the ridiculously expensive mechanical clock he kept on his desk instead of having a spirit phone like a normal person. “Goodness. That took less time than I expected. What am I supposed to do until eight?”

“You could…start working?” Renji suggested.

“Abarai, it is my Leisure Hours.”

Renji looked down at the to-do lists he felt even less like writing. It would serve Byakuya right if Ohno and Kuchiki made an entire co*ck-up of things while he was gone.

“You…want to go to the gym?”

Chapter 4

Chapter Text

In Rukia’s opinion, with his bulging eyes and loose jowls, Old Man Kitajima looked a lot more like a fish than a snake, but Renji's nickname for him had become irrevocably lodged in her brain.

Three days after she woke up, the old rat snake came to check on her progress. He didn’t seem to do this out of any particular care for her welfare, but simply because he was curious about the results of his own efforts. (Rukia also strongly suspected that Renji had bullied him into it.)

Kitajima checked a bunch of things that Rukia didn’t think had very much to do with being stabbed by a boar-- her pulse, her temperature, the whites of her eyes, the color of her tongue. Then, he pressed his fingers into the tender mess of her side, an action that made her nearly pass out from pain. His lips thinned into a long horizontal line and he narrowed his pale, wet eyes.

“It appears my efforts were worthwhile,” he declared, sounding oddly grumpy about this.

“What does that mean?” Rukia croaked.

The old rat snake sniffed. His eyes darted to Renji and back again. “There are two kinds of souls that come to Rukongai. Most are truly ghosts-- mere memories of the people they once were. When these are injured, their body attempts to heal in the manner of a human. If you were that sort of soul, you would have permanently lost half your stomach, a kidney, a chunk of intestine. You would continue out the short remains of your existence in great pain. More likely, you would be dead already.”

“What kind of soul am I, then?” Rukia asked.

“The kind that has its own memory,” Kitajima replied. “The kind that, when injured, knows how to put itself right.” His gaze swiveled to Renji. “Her progress will be slow until she can handle solid food. Her body does not have enough energy to do its work. I can use the demon healing on her again. It will accelerate matters significantly.”

Renji’s face was impassive. “How much will it cost me?”

“Two more weeks,” Kitajima replied.

“That’s six altogether,” Renji replied. “That’s a long time. It’s dangerous for us here.”

Kitajima made a rattly grumbling noise in his throat. “Don’t worry about that. I’ll take care of the bribe.”

“Room and board included?”

Another grumble. “I told you before that it was.”

“Just making sure that’s still the deal.”

“You won’t be able to move her much before then, if I do nothing. You'll be the one begging me to extend our arrangement, four weeks from now.”

“The better she feels,” Renji said, with a hard edge in his voice, “the better I’ll feel about leavin’ her to go bother the deadbeats for you. Just in case you were thinking that maybe it was to your advantage for her to take a backslide.”

The old man’s lip curled. “Is it a deal or not, you little sh*t?”

“Two more weeks,” Renji agreed coolly. “It’s a deal.”

The old rat snake cracked his knuckles with a disgusting series of pops.

“Hold on, hold on!” Renji scrambled over to sit on Rukia’s far side. “Here,” he said, offering one of his hands for her to hold. “If it hurts, squeeze my hand.”

The rat snake looked like he wished he had held out for three weeks. “This doesn’t hurt when you know what you’re doing,” he sneered.

“It hurt last time,” Renji mumbled, working his hand into Rukia’s clumsy grip.

Under normal circ*mstances, Rukia would snatch her hand away and yell at him for this insulting lack of faith in her. Not in front of the rat snake, though. In front of the rat snake, they had to be on the same side. Besides…she wasn't exactly sure she liked the sound of ”demon healing.”

Old Man Kitajima spread his knobbly fingers, and a green glow flared into existence, like a piece of kindling suddenly catching. It didn’t hurt exactly, but it was deeply unpleasant, invasive and itchy in a way that she kept expecting to boil over into pain. At first, she didn’t want to squeeze Renji’s hand. She wanted to prove to him how tough she actually was. Then, it occurred to her that he had no idea if it hurt or not. She might as well squeeze, so she squeezed until his fingers turned white. To Renji’s credit, he said nothing, just set his jaw and glared daggers at the old rat snake.

Later, once the old man was gone, Renji told her he thought she had been very brave.

“It wasn’t so bad,” Rukia admitted.

“Good,” said Renji.

“Is it shinigami magic, do you think?” Rukia asked, trying to stretch out her side. It felt very tight. “They can do healing, right?”

“Dunno,” Renji replied. “I mean, I think you’re right about shinigami, or at least that’s what people say. People say all sorts of stuff about shinigami, though. I know that the old guy hates ‘em, for whatever that’s worth.”

“You should…” Rukia started slowly, rolling the idea around in her brain, “you should see if he would teach you. He probably would, if you offered to work more weeks.”

“No f*cking way,” Renji replied immediately.

“I know you don’t trust him but it would be--”

Renji shook his head. “It’s not that. I…I can’t. I won’t.”

Rukia studied his face for a long time. Renji wasn’t usually one to shy away from a challenge. “So your first try went for sh*t. It’s not like you knew what you were doing. All the more reason to learn, right?”

Renji dropped his head into his hand, pressing his palm against his forehead. “I wasn’t sure how much you remembered before you passed out.” His voice was barely audible.

“I remember enough,” Rukia replied. “I’m not mad at you. I know you didn’t mean to hurt me.”

Renji took a deep breath through his nose and looked up. “It’s not just the pain, Rukia…and I don’t think you do remember it, because it was a lot of pain.” His voice lowered again. “I f*cked your side up pretty bad. Kitajima had to rip you open again, undo everything I did, before he could even get started on healing you. I could have killed you.”

Rukia glared at him. “Well, it must have done something helpful, because there’s no way you could have gotten me up here, otherwise, bleeding like I was. True or false?”

Renji said nothing, just looked away, his bones of his jaw sticking out, the way they did when he ground his back teeth.

"Would you rather I had just died back there in the woods?" she demanded.

"No!"

"Then stop beating yourself up over it, already!"

Renji stood up. His hands were balled into fists at his side, and for a second, Rukia thought he was going to yell at her. "I gotta go," he said. "I got more collections to do."

"Renji!" she protested.

"Stop getting so worked up," he said, his voice cold, like ice. "You need your rest. I'll see you tonight, okay?" And then he walked out, leaving her alone.

"Ahhhhhh, Rukia-chan, exactly the person I needed to see!"

It wasn't unusual to hear Captain Kyouraku's gravelly drawl echoing through Squad Thirteen's administrative wing, but it was unusual to hear it any time before noon. Rukia looked up from the pile of paperwork she had been grinding through in order to avoid thinking about other things. "Good morning, sir," she said, trying to sound cheerful, rather than flabbergasted. "Captain Ukitake isn't in yet."

"Yes, I know," Kyouraku said. He came in and sat down in Captain Ukitake's chair. This was a thing he did fairly often, although usually, he leaned back and let his hat slump over his eyes. Today, he leaned forward, eyes scanning over the neat piles of reports, a frown of mild disgust tracing his lips. He looked up at Rukia and gave her one of his winning smiles. "I made him take the day off."

"Oh," Rukia said. "Is he all right? He seemed tired yesterday afternoon, but he said he thought a good night's sleep would take care of it."

"He'll be fine if he takes it easy for a few days," Kyouraku explained. "He doesn't want to, of course. I had to promise to come by and pick up some of his paperwork, so his day isn't 'a total waste.' Why is he like this, Rukia-chan? How have I put up with this man for a thousand years?"

"He's very good-looking and tells funny jokes," Rukia replied.

"You are absolutely correct on the first point, and extremely wrong on the second," Kyouraku declared. "But a lieutenant who laughs at her captain’s jokes is a gift from the universe, and Ukitake doesn't get nearly so many of those as he deserves, so I won't argue with you."

"Do you want me to send Kiyone or Sentarou over to help out?" Rukia offered. "They're not in yet." They rarely were, at this hour.

"I know they're not in yet, that's why I dragged myself over here so early," Kyouraku groaned. "They are lovely people with enormous hearts, but what Juushirou mostly needs today is to be left alone."

Rukia frowned. "His downswings come quickly, sometimes. He should probably have someone checking in with him."

Kyouraku laughed his handsome, throaty laugh. "So responsible, just like my Nanao-chan! But when I said alone, I didn't include myself. Of course, I am using the excuse to take the day off, too."

Rukia could just hear Ise's grumbling voice, At least he's taking paid time off, instead of wasting squad funds lying around doing nothing like he usually does. Rukia was rapidly learning to tell when Ise was really irritated with her captain, and when she just pretended to be. Time he spent with Captain Ukitake nearly always fell into the latter bucket. Fortunately for Rukia, Kyouraku wasn't her captain, so she felt free to be amused by his antics. "Oh, that's good!" she agreed brightly.

"It's taken a lot of practice," Kyouraku went on, "but he's gotten pretty good at barely even noticing me when I hang around his house and make him tea and put blankets on him. I'm thinking of making some rice soup today. Doesn't it seem like a good day for rice soup?"

"It does," Rukia agreed, with a small smile. She was the kind of person who needed her alone time, too, and she knew how rare and special it was to have someone she could share solitude with. Rukia felt a hard pang in her chest. A few days ago, she would have counted Renji as probably the number one person in that category, but he clearly didn't feel the same way about her. Well. Maybe, maybe not. It had seemed like he was okay with her coming to see him, even when he didn't want anyone else, up until the point where she pushed too hard. Rukia didn't know what to think.

"Don't look so sad, Rukia-chan!" Kyouraku said, and Rukia realized she must have been making some sort of face. Fortunately, Kyouraku misinterpreted it entirely. "It's not you he's avoiding! I've never seen a man who loves his subordinates so much! He'd rather be here, I tell you, but if he comes in, he can't help but try to do too much."

Rukia waved her hands. "Oh, no, it wasn't that!"

"In some ways, you're an even bigger help to him than I am," Kyouraku pointed out.

"Me?" Rukia frowned.

"Of course! Goodness, he gave in so easily this morning. 'I suppose Kuchiki can handle things without me,' he said. I almost fell over."

Rukia felt her cheeks color. "Well, the plan is for me to take over the day-to-day responsibilities of managing the squad, eventually. It'll take a while to get there, but I can certainly handle a day or two, especially if you can take him some things."

"That's exactly what I need your help for," Kyouraku said, poking at a budget report like it might be bursting with poisonous spores. "Can you find me some things to take him that won't stress him out too much?"

"Maybe some things that he just needs to read through and sign?" Rukia suggested, hopping up to go look through Captain Ukitake's piles. Fortunately, she had put most of them there herself and knew just what to look for. "I can think of a few that would be very helpful, things I'd like to keep moving through the pipeline."

"Yes, perfect!" Kyouraku nodded, obviously very pleased to not have to look at or touch too much Gotei paperwork. He pursed his lips thoughtfully. "I don't suppose you could also…keep Kiyone and Sentarou busy today?"

"Keep them from noticing he's not around, you mean?" Rukia said, extracting a few reimbursem*nt forms and an incoming transfer request from the piles. "Not a problem. They're easily distracted." All she had to do was attempt to give them a task they didn't want to do, and they'd do the work of making themselves scarce for her. Rukia was getting very good at managing Kiyone and Sentarou.

"Ahhh, you're such a treasure, Rukia-chan!" Kyouraku sighed. "How will I ever make it up to you?

She knew that he didn't mean it literally, and of course, she didn't need anything in return for helping out her captain, but Rukia was seized with a sudden idea. "Can I ask you something? You don't have to answer if it's too personal."

Kyouraku raised one shaggy eyebrow. "I love to answer personal questions."

Rukia took a deep breath. "Was it hard, at first, for Captain Ukitake to let you be around him when he wasn't feeling well? How did you…" She suddenly felt very stupid. "Never mind. I'm sure he was always nice about it."

Kyouraku burst out laughing. "He absolutely was not." He leaned forward, resting his forearms on Captain Ukitake's desk. "Is this a question about Juushirou in particular, or people in general?"

Rukia sucked her teeth for a moment. "The second."

Kyouraku nodded thoughtfully. "It is a very nice thing to be close to another person," he finally said, "except for all the parts where you have to get closer to them. Some of them are nice, I suppose, like when you go on trips and eat noodles together or you get to see them naked for the first time."

Rukia tried not to make too much of a Nanao face, but it was difficult.

"But a lot of parts of getting closer involve letting the other person see things about you that maybe you wish they wouldn't. Those are very scary and horrible, and sometimes result in people saying things they regret later."

"There's no way around that?" Rukia asked hopefully.

Kyouraku wagged a finger. "Avoiding difficult situations is exactly the wrong idea. You'll never get closer that way. The only way is through."

"Oh," said Rukia.

"The answer to your question," Kyouraku said, "is that we fought about it a lot, and then we made up. Making up is a very underrated skill, in my opinion. It's worth the practice, though. After a thousand years or so, we're so good at making up that we usually skip the fight entirely."

"I see," said Rukia, tapping the stack of papers in her hand against the desk to line them up.

"I'm sorry I didn't have a nicer answer for you." Kyouraku gave her a sympathetic look.

"No, it was very helpful, actually," Rukia said. "Thank you very much, sir." She handed him the stack of papers. "He'll know what to do with this."

"Oh, thank goodness," Kyouraku groaned dramatically.

"Please tell my captain that I have everything under control and that I hope he has a relaxing day."

"Aye-aye, ma'am!" Kyouraku tipped his hat to her. "And thank you, again."

"Any time. Good luck with the soup!"

Kyouraku chuckled, and departed in a swirl of pink silk and spring breezes.

Slowly, Rukia sat back down at her desk and pulled out her phone. She knew this was the right thing to do and she was sorry she had put it off for so long. Slowly, she typed out a long text message, editing it a number of times.

"Hey," it said. "I'm sorry about yesterday. I would really like to still come visit you at the 4th this weekend, but I understand if you don't want me to." She hit send and stared at the screen for a moment before adding, "Also, I have your bowl."

Renji didn't answer right away, at least not for him. He's probably busy, Rukia thought glumly. He has better things to do than sit around and wait for me to text him.

After a few minutes, though, her phone beeped. "I'm sorry, too, and don't worry about the bowl. As far as visiting………..I guess the captain didn't tell you?"

Rukia stared at her phone in horror for a long moment. What in Soul Society had her brother done?

Renji cleared his throat and repeated himself, a little louder. "I said, Mr. Kitajima should be back any time now! I don't know much about the medicine! Maybe you should wait for him?"

"Oh, no, it's definitely this one!" the woman shouted back, tapping a jar full of little paper packets. Not to be outdone, the baby balanced on her hip just wailed louder. "He's teething! This stuff worked like a dream last time. I just need to know how much it is!"

"60 kan each," Renji replied. He was trying not to stare, but it was rare enough to see anyone in Inuzuri caring for a baby at all, let alone someone willing to spend 60 kan to ease their discomfort.

The woman glanced at the door. "I'll take three!" she said with a sunny smile, and slid two hundred-kan pieces across the counter.

Renji made change and watched her go before he carefully recorded the sale in the big inventory book. The rat snake had started leaving him in charge of the shop, sometimes for a few hours at a time. Renji got the feeling that before he got there, Kitajima had left the shop as little as possible, mostly out of fear that someone would try to break in while he was absent.

It's not that he trusted Renji, but with Rukia's condition still so touchy, the old rat snake knew that Renji wouldn't dare to cross him. Yesterday, he'd gone out foraging for herbs--apparently a thing he used to do all the time--and had come home absolutely giddy. It would have been kinda heartwarming, if Kitajima weren't such a horrible old worm.

Renji had noticed something else, too. He got customers, a different sort than usual. When Kitajima was around, the shop got very little foot traffic. Most of the people who did come in were injured or sick or there on behalf of someone who was. They needed Kitajima's knowledge as much as they needed his pills and powders. Also, they were usually desperate.

Renji's customers, on the other hand, wanted headache remedies and powders for rashes. They came in knowing what they wanted and bought more than they needed. It didn't take a genius to figure out what was going on. The people of Waretsubo didn't like Kitajima any more than Renji did, but his medicine was good, so they were stocking up while he was out. Renji hardly knew anything about the stock. He didn't put any particular effort into talking up products or charming the customers. A few of them made attempts to bargain with him, and never got more than a stony scowl for their trouble. Still, every time he got put on shift, more and more of them showed up.

Someone pushed through the noren at the shop entrance. Renji looked up to greet them, but it was just Kitajima returning. There was a strange look on the old man's face--like he was happy about something, but trying not to show it. "Happy" wasn't quite right. Smug, maybe.

"Any nonsense while I was out?" he demanded.

"Bunch of sales. I wrote them down in the book."

Kitajima narrowed his eyes. "Before you sell someone anything, you should check to make sure they don't owe me."

"I'm not doing that," Renji replied immediately. "I don't know anyone and I'm not going to bother them for their names." Asking a stranger for their name was a pretty aggressive thing to do in Inuzuri, and it didn't seem too different up here. In particular, Renji didn't want to give anyone a reason to look too closely back at him, not while he was here out-of-district. "None of the deadbeats I've been chasing down have tried to come in here, though," he tacked on as a consolation.

Kitajima shooed Renji off the stool behind the counter, and clambered onto it himself. He pulled the book over and squinted at it, running his finger down the column of sales.

"I'm going to check on Rukia," Renji said.

"Hold on, boy," the rat snake said, the inventory log suddenly forgotten. "Do you know where I've been this morning?"

"No," said Renji. He also didn't care.

"I was talking to Ataka down at the Records Office," Kitajima said slyly. "I wanted to know how much a resident worker’s permit would run me."

Renji stared at him for a moment, uncomprehending.

"It's exorbitant, of course," Kitajima said, half to himself. "He wants a bribe on top of it, too. Those permits are only meant for those with special skills. You're just a set of muscles with half a brain attached." He made a wet sniff. "Although even half a brain is rare enough around here."

"Why are you telling me this?" Renji asked. He wasn't so stupid that he couldn't tell what Kitajima was hinting at, but this could just as well be one of the old rat snake's stupid tricks.

"I'll be plain," Kitajima snarled. "The permit would allow you to stay here in Waretsubo as long as you maintain a job. After ten years, you're considered a resident and can stay permanently. If you agree to work for me for the full time, I'll front the cost of the permit. You can work it off as your wage."

"You want me to stay here and work for you for nothing for ten years?" Renji repeated, co*cking a skeptical eyebrow.

Kitajima waved a hand. "Obviously not nothing. I can continue to offer room and board for you and the girl in the near term. I don't particularly want you here, so we can renegotiate if you move out."

Renji was still caught a sentence back. "Rukia could stay, too?"

Kitajima rolled his eyes. "You'd have to register her as your wife on the permit, but yes."

The blood pounded in Renji's ears. It was only two districts, but the quality of life in Waretsubo was leaps and bounds above Inuzuri. Not only that, but he was being offered a job by a man who was downright wealthy by the standards of the deep Rukon. Even if Renji was just working for room and board, the apothecary's shop was one of the biggest and nicest in town. Kitajima needed help, though. The place had been going downhill for some time, Renji could see the cracks everywhere. The old rat snake couldn't hire anyone from Waretsubo, because he thought everyone had it out for him. He could count on Renji, though. Even after Rukia was better, Kitajima would be able to threaten him with getting his work pass revoked. But maybe that was okay, because Renji was pretty sure he could keep this place running. It wouldn't be nice, but they would need each other badly enough that maybe it could work.

The old man hadn't included Rukia in any part of the deal. But after she was well, maybe there was something Kitajima would pay her to do. Kitajima didn't seem to think much of her, which was pretty stupid of him. Rukia was good at a lot of things, more useful than Renji was, most likely. But if they couldn't convince Kitajima of that, she could always look for a job elsewhere. Even if she just spent her days hunting or foraging, that could add up to a pretty nice life for both of them.

Assuming she would agree to…well…at least tell people they were married. A week ago, Renji would have laughed in Kitajima's face for even suggesting it. Back in Inuzuri, he'd still thought of himself as a kid. He'd been a kid for a long time, sure, and he'd gotten kinda tall and strong recently, but he ran with the kids and everyone knew he was a kid.

Except that everyone in Waretsubo treated him like an adult.

Rukia was small and lithe, but by the way girls measured these things, she wasn't actually a kid anymore either. She'd started binding her chest a year ago, to avoid unwanted attention. Renji had seen her without the chest wrap, though, and while they weren't big, the difference was noticeable. Rukia was a good actress, too. Renji was sure that she could figure out something with her voice, a way to carry herself, that would convince people that she was old enough to be somebody's wife.

Yeah, they could pull it off, most likely. In fact, Renji rather suspected that once they started living like grown-ups, their bodies would probably catch them the rest of the way up pretty quick. That was the nature of child souls. He'd seen it happen to a number of the other former street kids after they'd joined up with a gang or managed to get a steady job. It was just a matter of whether they wanted to.

For a long, stretched out moment, Renji did want it. He didn't like Kitajima, but he could see that the shop was important to people in town. Maybe he could even learn enough of the trade that he could take over the business someday. Not the healing though. He wasn't lying to Rukia when he said he didn't want any part of that. And he'd be able to take care of Rukia, in the way he'd never been able to take care of anyone. She would have a place to sleep and food to eat and the best access to medicine in town if they ever needed it.

And he'd never see Mameji or Kosaburou or Fujimaru ever again.

“Thank you,” he said, the politest thing he would ever say to the old rat snake. “But I got friends depending on me back home.”

Kitajima's face went stiff and angry. “You’re a moron.”

Renji didn't feel like a moron. He didn't even feel like a moron a few hours later, when a howler of a thunderstorm blew up, the knife-like wind whipping rain against the walls of the shop. He was nice and cozy in the lantern-lit back room of the apothecary shop, all too aware that he could be huddled in a drafty, run-down squat in the woods. He and Rukia sat on her pallet, a blanket wrapped around both their shoulders, more for comfort than warmth, as they flipped through one of Kitajima's books.

Kitajima had a lot of books and he didn't care if Renji looked at them, as long as he treated them with care. Renji hadn't gotten to touch a real book since he died. He was momentarily disappointed (but unsurprised) to find that they were all non-fiction. Kitajima was not a man who cared for stories. He had plenty of interesting things in his collection, though, including the book they were currently working their way through, a field guide to wild herbs and their useful properties. Renji had been reading it out loud, but they'd paused for a minute to look at a diagram showing the parts of a ginseng plant.

"Hey, Renji?" Rukia asked hesitantly.

"Huh? Oh, were you ready to start reading again?" Renji had to admit that he was pretty tired. It was possible that he had started drifting off.

Rukia put a hand on the book. "No, I…I'm sorry, I haven't been paying the best attention. I've kinda had something on my mind."

"What is it?" Renji frowned.

"Well…I really like when you read to me like this, I do. But I've been getting bored during the day, while you're out threatening people."

"I know you've been feeling better, but you're not allowed to come threaten people with me yet. You need your rest, I'm sorry."

Rukia laughed, and bumped her shoulder against his. "I want you to teach me to read."

Renji looked over at her, surprised. "Really?" He offered, years before. 'Offer' was perhaps a bit of an understatement. He'd tried pretty hard to convince her that it was worthwhile, even if writing wasn't a thing you saw much around Inuzuri. It was boring, Rukia had argued, and if she needed something read, she'd get him or Kosaburou to do it for her.

"I figure you could teach me in the evenings, and I can practice during the day. Writing, too, maybe, since the old rat snake lets you have his paper scraps."

"Sure," said Renji slowly. He wondered if something had brought this on. Specifically, he wondered if she'd overheard his conversation with Kitajima earlier. She hadn't said anything about it, but Rukia was a consummate sneak and eavesdropper, and what would she say about it anyway? Maybe she'd noticed the pathetic way he had hesitated before turning the old man down. Maybe she thought he really wanted to stay, and was throwing him a bone because she felt bad for him. If that was the case, Renji certainly didn't want to talk about it, either. "We can get started, anyway. I'm not sure how far we'll get in a few weeks, but you're right that it'll be a lot easier with all these books around."

Rukia nodded decisively. "I'll work hard at it, I promise. I'm sorry I was a dick about it before. I can see how useful it is now."

"Well…" Renji drew out. "It's been useful here. You're honestly right that there's not a lot of use for it in Inuzuri. I don't think there's much use for it here in Waretsubo, either, outside of this shop."

"Maybe…" Rukia said, pulling the blanket a little tighter around her. "Maybe this won't be the last time we leave Inuzuri. We were lucky that you knew how, this time. I don't like leaving things to luck."

Before the phrase 'maybe this won't be the last time we leave Inuzuri' had even the slightest chance to sink into Renji’s brain, Rukia stabbed a finger at the book, under a list of ailments that ginseng was good for treating. "What does that one say?" she demanded.

Renji looked at it. He looked at it for a long time. "That," he said, "is the word for 'erection'."

"Excellent!" Rukia pronounced. "I love reading already."

Officially, there was no seniority system among Gotei captains.

Byakuya mostly blamed this on the personalities of the oldest captains. Ukitake always wanted to cultivate an atmosphere of camaraderie and openness. Kyouraku would rather expire on the spot than be seen as an authority on anything. And Unohana…well, there was exactly one acknowledgement of respect that the second oldest captain asked of her juniors, namely that when she called, you came.

It was a perfectly reasonable request, even disregarding her status. Unohana’s business was at the Coordinated Relief Station, a place to which every officer owed their continuing existence. Byakuya was certainly no exception.

That being said, receiving a summons from her still had something of the quality of being forced to explain to his grandfather that he had been kicking a ball in the corridors and had only avoided breaking a priceless heirloom vase by virtue of Grandmother’s surprisingly nimble reflexes.

He was pretty sure he hadn’t done anything wrong.

Lately.

Well, he had stabbed his adjutant, but really, who among us, right? Besides, that was nearly two weeks ago.

Captain Unohana looked up when he announced himself, her eyes friendly and gentle. She placed a bookmark in the report she had been reading and set it off to the side. “Oh, Captain Kuchiki!” she said warmly. “Thank you so much for stopping by! Come in and sit down!”

“I am at your disposal, Captain Unohana,” Byakuya replied, gingerly taking the visitor’s chair across from her.

“This is about your lieutenant, of course,” Captain Unohana said pleasantly, folding her hands on her desk.

“Of course,” Byakuya agreed, determined not to say anything incriminating vis-a-vis the stabbing.

“It was my understanding that you have examined the interior of his arm?” Unohana’s eyes were almost…sparkling…with excitement. “Have you ever seen such a thing? Absolutely horrifying! And yet, he says he’s able to successfully cast kidou, even hadou like shakkahou, which rely on bulk power-channeling. Have you seen him do it?”

“Well, yes. I also have seen him unsuccessfully cast shakkahou many times. But Abarai has never been one to let grievous injury dispirit him.”

“Oh, yes, I am aware,” Unohana nodded. “We’re quite fond of Abarai at the Fourth, you know. When he was Sixth Seat at the Eleventh, he often escorted injuries over here and kept them in line if they tried any disrespect. Lieutenant Kira was Third Seat here at the time, maybe that was why. Or perhaps it was because he’s spent so much time in the Trauma Department himself. He has quite a remarkable capacity for self-healing, you know. One of our trauma medics actually developed a kaidou based on a thing he saw Abarai’s body do by itself once.”

“I did not need or wish to know that,” Byakuya pointed out.

“I would not have agreed to attempt this surgery on just anyone, is my point,” Unohana went on. “And I cannot tell you how relieved I was to hear that he’ll be recovering at your home.”

“It is also my sister’s home,” Byakuya clarified. “Specifically, for the purposes of Abarai being there, it is my sister’s home. Obviously, I also live there, but not anywhere near the parts where Abarai will be while he is there. It is a very big house.”

Captain Unohana regarded him, serenity glowing from her eyes. “This is why I asked you to come speak with me, Captain Kuchiki.”

Ah. Byakuya assumed that Abarai had been obligated to inform the Fourth of his updated recovery plans. He was somewhat surprised with the speed at which the news had reached Unohana, and also, that she cared at all. Clearly, she imagined it to be a much bigger deal than it actually was.

“I could possibly even go somewhere else for the weekend,” Byakuya mused. “I couldn’t leave the city, obviously. If an emergency arose with the division, there would be no one else to handle it. Now that I think of it, the captains’ quarters at the Sixth could probably use some airing--”

“Captain Kuchiki,” Unohana interrupted. “As I have told you many times, mental disposition is a critical factor in healing.” She took a deep breath and frowned. “Abarai usually powers through his injuries on sheer determination and stubbornness. This is a very different circ*mstance. I had similar concerns this past winter, when I had to regrow all those organs for him after the war. As it turns out, Rukia has a remarkable influence on him. I could show you differences in his charts on the days she was there versus the days she wasn’t.”

“Please do not,” said Byakuya. He was already trying very hard not to think about the thing that happened after the stabbing incident. How, after dumping half of his blood supply onto a Squad Six training field, Abarai had visibly improved just because Rukia placed her hand on his back. It was difficult enough for Byakuya to pretend he didn’t see these things when they happened right in front of him, he certainly didn’t need Unohana providing records.

“Why did it take Abarai so long to work out his convalescence arrangements?” Unohana asked suddenly. Byakuya was surprised at the genuine concern in her voice. This wasn’t one of her usual rhetorical traps. “He was very cagey about discussing the circ*mstances of the initial injury. When I agreed to do this, I assumed he would have your sister’s support, but I get the sense that there’s bad history tied up in this, and--”

“It was my fault,” fell out of Byakuya’s mouth, completely unbidden. “I did not want Abarai bothering my sister with his frivolous personal matters. I told him to keep her out of it.” He cleared his throat lightly, and then proceeded to spew out further ridiculous falsehoods. “It did not work, of course. She found out about it. As I am sure you know, I am entirely too permissive when it comes to my precious sister, which is why I am now faced with the very real and unpleasant possibility of having to look upon my vice-captain on a weekend.”

Unohana stared at him blankly for a moment. “Really?”

“Am I known to lie?” Byakuya said, feeling like he had become entirely unmoored from himself. He was perfectly aware that ghosts could not possibly exist in Soul Society, and yet, somehow, had the distinct sensation of his beloved wife cackling at him from beyond the grave.

“Of course not,” Captain Unohana replied, as if she had to remind herself how ridiculous the possibility was. “That’s very reassuring, actually.” Suddenly her brow creased again. “That being said-- you cannot expect Rukia to carry the entirety of Abarai’s well-being on her shoulders.

Byakuya’s body stiffened. “Do you mean that I must allow his horrible compatriots into my home, as well? Other people’s vice-captains?”

“Well, that would be nice,” Unohana frowned, “but that’s not what I meant. Lieutenant Abarai is your vice-captain, Captain Kuchiki, and he looks up to you a great deal."

"Many people look up to me."

"Captain Kuchiki, I need you to stop being purposely difficult."

"Am I?"

Captain Unohana's eyes narrowed, and Byakuya realized that he should tread carefully.

"Are you, or are you not capable of being nice to your vice-captain?"

"I assure you, Captain Unohana, that he shall receive the finest hospitality in Soul Society while he is at my home, and that he will be treated with the respect and courtesy accorded by his rank."

Unohana's face didn't budge. "Are you capable of being nice to your vice-captain?"

Byakuya squirmed. A series of utterly uncalled-for images flashed through his head.

Abarai, forcing all the Squad Six top seats to run laps around the barracks, shouting "Fight on! Fight on!" at the top of their lungs while Byakuya sat in his office and felt his heart overflow with peace. Abarai lying on the ground laughing "You got me that time, sir!" after Byakuya had knocked him on his ass in a spar for the eight-thousandth time in a row. Abarai wordlessly dropping a bag of homemade, extra-spicy shrimp crackers on his desk. And then…Rukia, poking her head into their office, and a giant smile breaking over her face when she caught sight of the both of them. "Brother! Renji!" she exclaimed in a single breath.

"I," said Byakuya, "will be nice," he took a deep breath, “to my vice-captain."

"Wonderful!" replied Captain Unohana.

"Rukia!" Mameji shouted, tackling her. "Rukia! You're okay! You're okay, you're okay!"

Rukia felt a pair of strong arms tighten around her from the back, hugging her so hard it lifted her off onto her tiptoes. "We thought we were never going to see you again," Kosaburou mumbled into her hair.

"Ease off!" Renji bellowed. "She's still recoverin'! And what's all this bellyaching? You dummies should have known everything was going fine, since I hadn't come home, either."

"She wasn't the only one we thought we might never see again," Fujimaru pointed out dryly. The corner of his mouth quirked upwards. "Glad to see we were wrong." He and Renji then proceeded to exchange a few ceremonial shoulder punches.

"I'm sorry, Rukia," Kosaburou said, setting her back down on her feet. "I didn't hurt you, did I?"

"No, he's just a big worrywart, as usual," Rukia said, turning to hug him back, which was a little bit difficult, because she was still trying to hug Mameji at the same time. "I'm right as rain, now. I'll show you the scar later, if you want. It's gnarly!"

"Did you find that apothecary?" Mameji pressed. "Did he help you? Was he kind?"

"He was not!" Rukia declared. "He was awful, like an ogre in a fairy tale! He healed me, but in turn, required Renji to perform a series of impossible tasks! But like the beautiful, pure-hearted peasant girl that he is, Renji was able to complete them all, mostly with the help of a number of talking animals he befriended!"

"These are lies," Renji said. "She's lying."

"Anyway, he had to let us go, so here we are!" Rukia announced.

"Rukia's much better, obviously," Renji threw in, with significantly less enthusiasm. "But she's still got some healing to do, so please don't encourage her." He surveyed the cabin where the boys had been staying. "How's it been with you lot? This place salvageable at all?"

"It should be good enough for the summer, we think!" Fujimaru replied. "It needs at least one new support beam. Mameji found a felled tree down by the creek that should be perfect, except that…" he pursed his lips, "well, it was a little heavy for the three of us. But, hey! You're back, now!"

Renji regarded him with lowered eyelids. "I told you, Fujimaru," he said, dead serious. "Rukia is still recovering. I don't think she's up to lifting trees right now."

Fujimaru managed to make a serious face back at him for all of three seconds before both their faces split into big grins, and they were laughing, they were all laughing.

Rukia felt incredibly tired, even though she'd been carried piggyback at least half the trip back. Her side hurt more than a little. She wanted to lie down, desperately. It could wait, though. They were back where they belonged, where she could brag about herself and Renji could pretend that all he was good for was picking up heavy things, and they were together with their friends again, as it should be.

Kosaburou leaned forward and gave Rukia another hug, much gentler this time. "We missed both of you so much," he murmured, underneath the sound of everyone's laughter.

"Me, too," Rukia replied.

It wasn't that Renji hadn't expected to see Saejima Hiroyoshi when he went over to Kuchiki Manor that evening. He saw Saejima more often than not when he went over to Kuchiki Manor. Saejima was a footman who was frequently on front door duty, a nice kid out of the upper Rukon. He didn't have the silky smooth manners of the senior servants, but he was outgoing and good-natured and had big muscles that were good for carrying stuff. Renji was always glad to see him on duty, and they often exchanged congratulations or condolences on the performance of their preferred teams in the Seireitei professional football league.

What Renji hadn’t expected was that he would be going to Kuchiki Manor to see Saejima.

“How thick a futon do you like?” Saejima asked. “And what about blankets? Heavy? Light? How many? This time of year it’s warm during the day and cold at night. I’ll be sure to have a variety on hand.”

Saejima had been peppering him with these sorts of questions for the last twenty minutes, carefully writing down the answers in a large notebook. Renji was trying to be helpful, but this was honestly getting pretty awkward.

“Look, Saejima—“

“I told you, Lieutenant Abarai,” Saejima interrupted. “You can call me Hiroyoshi, since I’m going to be your personal servant.”

“Right,” said Renji. “But, ah, that’s the thing. You don’t need to go to so much trouble. I’m sorry they stuck you with this. I really do appreciate that you’re trying to do a good job, but you don’t need to. Just give me some out-of-the-way place to sleep, and follow that medicine schedule I gave you. That’s really all you need to do.”

Saejima stared at him blankly for a second, then grinned. “Lieutenant Abarai, you know I volunteered for this, right? I even got Mikan to talk me up to Mr. Nobutsune.”

“What?” Renji sputtered. “Why?”

“Well, you’re always been nice to me, of course, and I’d be happy to help in any case,” Saejima hedged before getting to the real reason. “Personal servant is a pretty big step up from footman. It’s not an easy jump to make when you aren’t, ah, born into a family with a history of service, you know?” When you came to Soul Society by dying, is what he meant. Renji was familiar enough with that one. “Acting as a guest valet is a big opportunity for me and I want to do a good job!” He gave a curt nod, as if he were trying to convince himself. “But if what you want is to pretend like I’m not even there, I can do that, too!” Saejima flipped his notebook closed. “I'll just have everything to Kuchiki standard guest procedures, and you let me know if anything’s not to your liking!”

Renji stared at Saejima, trying desperately to process the fact that he represented some sort of path to promotion. He thought about arguing that surely this wasn't true, but Saejima likely knew more about it than he did. Renji sucked his teeth for a moment. He didn't like the idea of having a valet, but he supposed he didn't mind helping someone improve their career prospects. Maybe he could think of Saejima sort of like a subordinate. That might work. Renji cleared his throat. "Actually, ah, Hiroyoshi, I'm a Gotei man, you know? Nothing too cushy for me. Whatever Kuchiki standard guest procedure is, scale it back about three notches."

Hiroyoshi bobbed his head. "Absolutely, Lieutenant Abarai!"

Renji pressed his lips together for a moment. There was a time to play it cool, and a time to ask for help. The fact that he was even here was proof that he'd already lost the war. The best he could do at this point was try to minimize his losses. "I lied before," he blurted out. "I do need you to do something. I'm bad enough at this nobility stuff when my brain isn't soaked through with Squad Four painkillers. You have to keep me from screwing this up too bad."

Hiroyoshi made an extremely skeptical face. "You're a guest, sir. The only thing you're expected to do is to come here and rest. I don't really see any way you can screw it up without actively trying."

"I am capable of some pretty amazing things," Renji pointed out.

Hiroyoshi leaned forward and looked at him very seriously. "Lieutenant Abarai. You said yourself that you aren't used to the workings of a noble household. I've only been here twenty five years myself, but I have heard a lot of stories, and let me tell you: if you think you're going to rank in the top ten worst visitors this house has ever seen, you're flattering yourself."

Renji shook his head and laughed. He'd been at Squad Six long enough to suspect the kid had the right of it. "All right," he agreed. "Just don't say I didn't warn you."

Finishing up the rest of the details didn't take too long after that. Hiroyoshi offered to see Renji to the door, but Renji said he knew the way. In actuality, there was something else he needed to take care of while he was here, assuming she was willing to talk to him. Renji realized belatedly that maybe it was bad manners to go find someone in their own house by sniffing out their reiatsu like some sort of hound dog. Maybe he should have just asked Hiroyoshi to tell Rukia he'd like to speak with her.

It turned out to be a non-issue. When Renji stepped out into the hallway, Rukia was standing there, waiting for him. "Oh," he said stupidly. "Rukia. Hi."

"Hi," she said back, her voice much smaller than usual. Her hands were clasped together so tightly her knuckles had gone white. "Can we talk?"

Even though he'd been prepared for this, Renji's stomach twisted uncomfortably. "Guess we probably oughta."

"Maybe we could go outside?" she suggested. "It's really nice out."

"Sure," Renji agreed.

If he weren't an idiot, Renji would have used the extra couple of minutes it took to walk out to the garden to figure out what he could possibly say to her that would keep the next week from being an awkward mess. Instead, all he could do was look at her out of the corner of his eye and feel his heart ache in his chest. If he weren't an idiot, he supposed, they wouldn't be in this awkward mess to start with.

It was a nice night. There'd been a thumbnail of sun left above the horizon when he'd arrived, but now the sky was velvet blue, glittering with stars. It was cooler outside, but the air hadn't entirely lost its daytime warmth.

Rukia plopped down on the engawa, and Renji sat, more gingerly, beside her.

"I didn't put Brother up to it, I swear," tumbled out of Rukia's mouth.

Renji snorted. "You said that already, in your text."

"I know I did. I just--I need you to know that I had no idea he was going to bully you into staying here. I would have talked him out of it, if I had."

"Rukia, it's fine. I know how he is."

"It really isn't! I…I already overstepped. You asked for space and I didn't give it to you. I was just worried about you and I know how you--" She stopped abruptly, squeezing her eyes closed and her hands into fists. "What I meant is--"

"What you meant is, I was being a baby," Renji cut her off.

"Well, yes, but that doesn't excuse me being up in your business. You were right. I was being a bad friend, and I'm sorry."

Renji took a deep breath and stared out into the night. "I'm not so sure about that. Everyone says I'm a good friend, but I'm not really a good friend. I let people get kinda close to me, but I never let them get too close. That's the real reason Izuru and Momo and I got in that big fight when I left Squad Five--they were worried about me and I reacted by pulling away completely. My Squad Eleven pals are all the kinds of guys who don't mind when a guy wants to keep some stuff to himself. But that's not the kind of friendship I want to have with you. We were constantly up in each other's business when we were kids. It feels…horrible…having some sorta mature, detached, respectful…" He grimaced. "...whatever. I think you should feel free to get up in my business when I'm being an idiot. In return, I will try to be a better listener when you do. Which is to say, I'm sorry, too."

Rukia gave him a tiny, uncertain smile. "So…are you okay with staying here for the weekend? I really do think it's for the best, but not if you're going to be unhappy. If you don't want to be here, you don't have to. I'll talk to Byakuya."

"No, I do," Renji said. "Or at least, I want…" He swallowed. "I want you to keep me company."

"Oh," said Rukia, very softly. "Are you sure?"

"Yeah, I'm sure." Renji didn't exactly want to say the next part, because it felt like making excuses. On the other hand, Momo and Izuru always told him that people sometimes appreciated explanations with their apologies. "The captain didn't bully me, by the way. Mostly, he just pointed out that I was only doing it to be mean to myself, which was true. He also pointed out that I was hurting you in the process, which is the thing he cared about, and obviously, I do too. So, I'm also sorry for that."

Rukia made an exaggerated scowl at him. "You should be sorry! You know how I feel about people who are mean to you."

Renji certainly remembered an incident back at the Academy, when some guy whose name he'd long since forgotten had loudly made a joke about what a yokel he was. Rukia had trailed the guy for three days, and tripped him so that he fell face-first into a mud puddle right in front of a girl he liked. Renji wondered if she ever thought about that.

Rukia bumped her shoulder against his playfully. "So what gives? Why are you being mean to my best friend, huh?"

Renji snorted. "It's dumb."

"That's what I'm supposed to tell you, after you tell me what it is."

Renji leaned his head back and looked at the stars. "I think…I think a lot of it is that I never really liked the guy I was in Inuzuri. I feel like I deserved that broken wrist. And letting anyone be nice to me right now would be like being nice to the me I was back then."

Rukia's face softened. "Oh." She frowned and gave a sad little sigh.

Renji looked at her out of the corner of his eye. "Isn't this the part where you're supposed to tell me that I'm wrong and that I was perfectly great back then?"

Rukia looked at him gravely. "I would, if I thought it would help. You feel the way you feel. Doesn't feel very nice to just say you’re wrong and shouldn’t feel that way. Besides. I knew that you didn't like yourself back then. My opinions on the matter never seemed to make much difference."

Renji started. What opinions? he wanted to ask. But they hadn't made much of a habit of saying anything out loud to each other in those days. He'd certainly never told her about black knots of self-loathing that tightened around his heart every night when he lay down to sleep, but somehow, she'd noticed them all the same.

Rukia put her hand on the back of his, and squeezed his knuckles. "You know," she said, "I've thought a lot, in the last year, about how you've managed to turn yourself into the person you always wanted to be."

Renji snorted and looked away. "It's a work in progress."

"I don't think most people know how much work you've put into it," she pointed out. "You're pretty easy to like these days, I think."

Renji felt his cheeks go hot.

"You're friendly and forthright. You try to make things fair and you stand up for what's right. You care about everyone and try to do your best by them."

"I thought you weren't gonna say nice things about me," Renji mumbled, feeling more than a little embarrassed.

"What I'm trying to say is that those things are easy to do when you're a lieutenant in the Gotei-13. They're nearly impossible to do when you're a kid in Inuzuri. But it was the kid from Inuzuri who put in all that work to become a lieutenant in the Gotei-13. So I think that maybe you should be a little more generous to him."

"Maybe," said Renji. He squeezed his hands into fists, feeling his fingernails dig into his palms.

Rukia rubbed her thumb over his knuckles. "You know what else?"

"What?"

"I know you're worried about losing a few steps. Relearning your sword, your bankai. Everyone's going to expect you to get good at kidou, now."

"Anyone who expects that should probably get ready to be disappointed."

"I'm not so sure about that, Renji. I know it feels like you're getting kicked back to square one, but you're not, you know? You're not a kid, you're a senior officer with forty years of experience. You've trained and coached dozens of people. I know Zabimaru is a pain in your ass, but think about what your relationship is with them now, compared to what it was a year, ten years, forty years ago. Yeah, you've got a lot of hard work ahead of you, but you've never been afraid of work. And at the end of the day, you're going to come out of this stronger than you've ever been, right?"

Renji nodded slowly. That was a good point. He should focus on that. On the end goal and how to get there. Renji opened up his fisted hands again, watching his fingers stretch out underneath Rukia's. "You're right," he said. "Eyes on the prize."

"Also," Rukia said softly, "you're not in Inuzuri anymore, or even Squad Eleven. You're not going to lose your place in the world just because you're not strong enough to defend it for a little while. Your job is very secure and you have built up a lot of professional capital. Your friends are not going to stop loving you and your co-workers are not going to stop respecting you." She reached up and tugged his ponytail. "And most of all, I am here for you. I want you to be strong, because I know that's important to you, but it's not why I like you, got it?"

"I know," he said.

Rukia threw her arm around his waist, and squeezed herself against his side. "I'm glad we're not fighting anymore. You're my favorite person," she murmured into his ribs. "I just want nice things for you."

There wasn't a word for all the feelings Renji had in his heart. Or maybe there was? Some super-specific thing that Kira would put in a poem. Renji had no intention of ever asking him. Instead, he wrapped his arm around Rukia's shoulders, and gave her a gentle squeeze back. "You're my favorite person, too," he said. "So let's give it a try."

Chapter 5

Chapter Text

Renji stood in the middle of his living room and looked around his quarters.

It was six in the morning. He was due at the Fourth in half an hour. He felt strangely unburdened. He wasn't even carrying his trusty Overnighting at the Fourth duffle bag, because he'd dropped it off at Rukia's house the night before.

Renji had been making small efforts over the last week to tidy the place up. His weights and his futsal gear were packed away, since he wouldn't be using them for a while. He'd skipped his weekly grocery run, and tossed out or gave away everything that might go bad. It'll be nice to come home to a clean place, he'd told himself while he was doing it, but now, it reminded him of how painstakingly neat he used to keep his side of the room in Squad Eleven, because he didn't want Iba to have to deal with his sh*t if he ever didn't make it back from a mission.

Renji thought about his couch and his table. He thought about his kitchen knives and his bowls with the little flowers painted on them (Rukia said they were camellias, but he thought they were just red flowers). He thought about his very classy gallery wall of terribly lit pictures of Rukia and himself at various degrees of drunkenness, and the other very classy gallery wall in his bedroom of things that Rukia had drawn for him. He thought about Zabimaru's sword stand and how happy it made them when a puddle of sunshine came in through the window just right. He thought about Rikichi next door, and Choei down the hall, and Shirogane and all of his other officers, even Ohno.

"It's just a few days," he said out loud, whether to himself or to his quarters, he wasn't entirely sure. "Of course I'll be back."

Suddenly, there was a knock on the outer door that nearly sent Renji jumping out of his skin. He wondered if it was Rikichi. The Yuki brothers had been planning to ship out at a similarly ungodly hour, although Renji had to admit he'd be pretty surprised if they actually managed to accomplish it.

It wasn't Rikichi, though. It was Rukia, wide-eyed and windblown, as though she'd rolled out of bed and gone directly into flashstep. She hadn't even brushed her hair, and it stuck up charmingly on one side. "Oh good!" she exclaimed. "You're still here!"

"Y-eah…" Renji said, trying to get his brain into working order. "I was just getting ready to go. Is something the matter?"

"Yes," Rukia announced, ducking under his arm and tromping into his quarters. "I should have done this last night, but I forgot." She tossed her sandals unceremoniously into the genkan and kept going. "I won't make you late, I promise."

"It's fine, I don't need to leave yet," Renji assured her, shutting the door and following her back inside. What the Hell was she doing?

Rukia strode back toward him, carrying the little step stool that he kept tucked next to the entrance to his kitchen for her. She plunked it down on the floor directly in front of him, and stepped up onto it, so that they were face to face. "I came over to wish you good luck," she informed him.

Renji snorted, but he couldn't keep from grinning. She came all the way over here for that? Rukia hated getting up early, and she'd probably had to stuff Mikan in a closet in order to get out of the house looking like that. Renji knew that Rukia only tolerated being called cute when she was actively trying to be cute, but at the moment, she was being extremely adorable. "Thank you," he said, very indulgently. "I appreciate it."

Rukia blinked. "That wasn't it."

Renji stared at her. "It wasn't?"

Rukia's lower lip wobbled. "Did you forget? That we have a thing that we do for luck now?"

Renji stared at her some more. "A…a thing…oh! The thing! The thing that we do for luck!"

"Right. Because I passed my vice-captain's exam, and you said--"

"I remember what I said!"

What Renji had said was that if Rukia passed her exam, then kissing could be a thing they did for luck. He had only said it because he had just kissed her in a moment of panic. At the time, he would have agreed to literally anything in order to make things less weird, given that Rukia was minutes away from taking a difficult and important exam she had spent months preparing for.

Rukia regarded him, looking very serious with her big blue eyes and her bird's nest hair. "Well?" she demanded. "Do you want the luck or not?"

"I…do," Renji said pathetically, because he very much did want Rukia to kiss him, but he didn't exactly want to let on how much he wanted her to kiss him. He'd had to skip breakfast because of the surgery, and his own reactions felt very hard to calibrate at the moment. "It's just…" he waffled, "am I supposed to kiss you back? I mean! Last time, I just kissed you! Very one-sided! It's not that I mind kissing you back! It's just, you know, I wanted us to be on the same page!"

Rukia considered this. "Well, I wasn't really expecting it, last time."

"Right!" Renji agreed. "So it made sense that you didn't kiss me back. But I know it's coming, so it seems like it would be…weird…not to? Rude, maybe?"

"I don't think it would be rude," Rukia frowned. "It does seem like it would be a little awkward. I think it would be okay for you to kiss me back a little. Not, like, tongue or anything. That would be too much."

"No! Of course not, come on!"

Rukia pursed her lips thoughtfully. "I mean, if we were going into some life-or-death situation where the odds were really stacked against us, there could be tongue. Like, if there were another war."

"Right, sure. We gotta reserve that extra level for when we need it. This is just arm surgery."

"Exactly! We are in perfect agreement on this."

They nodded at each other. They were, in fact, in perfect agreement.

Renji stood there, waiting to be kissed, he supposed. It was not an unpleasant feeling.

Rukia made a small throat-clearing noise, then reached out and took his face in her hands and pulled him towards her.

Rukia was, in Renji's experience, a very aggressive kisser. This wasn't a bad thing. It was pretty exciting actually, but he had to be prepared. Renji had even developed a method for dealing with it. He forgot that at first, and found himself listening to old instincts, his muscles tensing and bracing for impact. Then he remembered that he was not a kid in Rukongai anymore, being kissed for the first time. He was a grown-up, a guy who had kissed lots of people and was very easy-going and cool about kissing. He just had to roll with the initial shock of it, to ride the wave, so to speak, and focus on not getting overwhelmed before--

Rukia's lips met his, soft and inviting. To his stupefaction, there was no challenge in it, no competition, only tenderness and affection. She tasted like cherries, or more specifically, like cherry-flavored Chappy-brand moisturizing lip gloss. Had she put on the lip gloss for him? The thought of it made Renji's head spin. He felt like he was being kissed for the first time.

Renji had already committed himself to kissing her back though, so he did. Keep it normal, he chided himself, and focused on reflecting her own sweetness back at her. A "thank you" to her "good luck".

After a few moments, Rukia pulled away, her cheeks pink and her eyes sparkling. "Was that…okay?" she asked, sounding almost shy.

"Y-yeah," he sputtered. "It was nice." If it had gone on much longer, his knees probably would've given out, it was so nice.

"It's…not the way I usually--"

"Ah, yeah, I noticed!"

"Well, because it wasn't a real kiss, you know, it was a good luck kiss."

"It felt very lucky!"

"Did it? Oh! Good!"

Renji rubbed the back of his neck. "I think it was still a real kiss, though. Just a different kind of kiss, right?"

"Hmm," replied Rukia. "I see what you mean. Less of a…" she made a vague hand gesture, which Renji interpreted to mean an outlet for expression of physical attraction, "and more of a…er…" she made a different hand gesture, which clearly enough conveyed an intimate act of bonding, to show care.

"Exactly!" Renji agreed.

They nodded at each other again. Still in perfect agreement.

"Well, in any case, I'm sure everything will go great, and I'll be thinking about you all day, and I'll see you tonight!" Rukia prattled. "You may or may not be too loopy to see me, but it's fine, we'll catch up eventually. Now, you should go! I don't want to be responsible for making you late."

Renji smiled at her, his heart feeling very full. He had a million things he wanted to say, but he had to go get his arm taken apart instead. So, instead, he just said, "Thanks, Ru," and by the look in her eyes, he knew she understood all the same.

"Tsumi," Captain Hitsugaya announced, dropping a gold general directly behind Byakuya's king.

Byakuya frowned at the shogi board and wondered how this could possibly have happened. "Well played, Captain Hitsugaya," he finally declared. "We should have another match. I will not be satisfied until I have bested you at least once. You are proving an especially fiendish adversary today."

Hitsugaya drummed his fingers against his cheek. "I hate to say this, Kuchiki, but I really don't think that I am. I've actually been pretty distracted this morning."

Byakuya sat up a little straighter. "Is that so? Is there something weighing on your mind?"

"That wasn't my point, my point was that--"

"Because I am happy to lend an ear, you know. Even if it may seem that the situation is not one on which I might provide insight, perhaps I might offer…" Byakuya paused. Emotional support sounded entirely too forward. "Solidarity," he concluded.

Hitsugaya made a face. Perhaps even "solidarity" had been too forward. "I guess it is something you might be helpful with, actually." He stretched his arms and then settled both of his hands at the back of his head. "So, I've been asked to go to this museum fundraiser-party-thing that Ise is throwing this weekend. It sounds like it's going to be pretty classy."

"I see," Byakuya nodded eagerly. "This is an easy one. It is absolutely acceptable to just send a donation and your regrets. A fundraiser is not like a regular social event; it will not be regarded as a snub. Ise is a particularly pragmatic woman, but the organizer of any fundraiser will always be perfectly happy to just have the money."

"Uhhh…good to keep in mind," Hitsugaya hummed. "But I actually want to go?"

"Oh!" said Byakuya, surprised.

"What I mean is…Momo wants to go. And she asked me to go with her, and it seemed like…well, the weather's been very pleasant lately. Should be a nice day to hang out in a rich person's garden. I've never been to Ise's, but your garden was very nice. I imagine the food will be good?"

"My garden is exquisite," Byakuya pointed out reflexively before turning his attention to the rest of the question. Recently, Hitsugaya had expressed concern about a distance he sensed growing between himself and Lieutenant Hinamori, a thing neither of them desired. "It sounds like a non-unpleasant opportunity to spend time with a cherished acquaintance," Byakuya summarized.

Hitsugaya's cheeks colored. "You think so?" he asked under his breath. "That's what I was thinking, but then I started second-guessing myself."

"Which museum is the benefit for?" Byakuya asked, narrowing his eyes.

"The Museum of Soul Society Art and Culture?"

"Hmmm," said Byakuya.

"'Hmmm'?" Hitsugaya repeated. "What is the 'hmmm' for? I thought you liked art museums!"

"I do like art museums," Byakuya replied. "The Seireitei has many excellent ones. Some of them focus on important historical pieces or showcase works of great artistic merit."

"What's wrong with the Museum of Soul Society Art and Culture?" Hitsugaya asked, his voice extremely dry.

"Nothing. I love the Museum of Soul Society Art and Culture." Byakuya paused, because he did love the Museum of Soul Society Art and Culture and he felt he should leave a little pause before he said the rest. "But they are very…inclusive in their definition of what constitutes 'art.' There is a lot of…'folk art.' 'Found objects.' 'Non-traditional media.'" The fact that it was the Museum of Soul Society Art and Culture and not the Museum of Seireitei Art and Culture was also a non-trivial distinction, but Byakuya didn't want Captain Hitsugaya to take that one the wrong way.

"That sounds…fine?" Hitsugaya frowned.

"Yes, but consider the type of person who considers these things of such importance that they would devote their time and energy to raise money for them, and also to stand around breathlessly discussing them on a perfectly beautiful Saturday afternoon."

Hitsugaya stared at him. "They're art weirdos? You're saying this party will be full of art weirdos?"

"Yes," Byakuya replied. "'Art weirdos.'" The phrase seemed like it should be derogatory, but it hadn't sounded that way coming out of Hitsugaya's mouth. Instead, it simply sounded…descriptive.

"That's fine," Hitsugaya repeated, sounding more reassured this time. "Better, actually. I don't know anything technical about art, and I was a little worried about embarrassing Momo. But you can say anything to an art weirdo."

"That is very true, Hitsugaya Toushirou," Byakuya nodded. He had never thought about it that way. Not that he would compromise his own standards of conduct, but it was interesting to consider. You could say anything to an art weirdo.

"Also, Momo's been letting her art get a little weird lately. I think it's because…" Hitsugaya trailed off.

Byakuya gave him a little dismissive nod. He did not need to say it. They both knew.

"Anyway, I think it's been good for her and I think she'll like spending an afternoon with art weirdos." Hitsugaya nodded, as if approving of his own decision. Then, he was quiet for a moment. "There's another thing."

Byakuya raised his eyebrows.

"Well, Momo asked me to wear something in blue-green, if I had it. And I do, it's this thing your tailor made for me."

"It is hard to go wrong with a Koshino original."

"It's a beautiful kimono, don't get me wrong, but it's also very eye-catching and it's got, um, a giant bird embroidered on it? I think it might be a kingfisher. I don't even know what I'm asking you. I made the mistake of showing it to Momo, and of course she loved it. I have to wear the thing whether I want to or not."

"Hitsugaya," Byakuya said very seriously. "Where else could you possibly wear your ostentatious bird kimono, than a party full of art weirdos?"

Hitsugaya took a long, deep breath through his nose. "You know what? You're right."

"You will still be embarrassed," Byakuya pointed out. "But you will not be inappropriate."

"I can be a little embarrassed, if it makes Momo happy," Hitsugaya said quietly. He cleared his throat and said a little louder, "Thank you, Kuchiki. I'm feeling a lot better about this thing now."

"It is what I am here for," Byakuya said, feeling very pleased with himself.

"Speaking of which," Hitsugaya went on. "Why are you here?"

Byakuya stared at him blankly. "To play shogi, of course. But also for…" he made a small, magnanimous hand gesture that he hoped conveyed whatever had just gone on.

"Usually," Hitsugaya said slowly, "when you want to play shogi, you send me a message on Monday morning with which day and time you are free. We play one game, and then I know you work late to make up the time. You do not show up at 10am on a Friday, lose three games in a row because you aren't concentrating, and then ask me about my personal problems." Hitsugaya rested his chin on his fist. "So what's bothering you today?"

"Nothing is bothering me…" Byakuya said slowly. "It is just that…" He glanced out the window. "Abarai is out of the office today. Everything is chaos. The seated officers keep coming in and out of the office. Asking me things. Nothing important is scheduled for today, it is all catching up on non-critical paperwork, and I find it impossible to fix my attention on it. It is so loud there, but also the wrong kind of loud."

"Wait, where's Abarai?" Hitsugaya frowned. "Aren't you guys doing some weekend-long planning activity? Something about a Summer Training Jamboree?"

"Summer Training Extravaganza," Byakuya corrected automatically. "We have no such plans." He frowned. "A dedicated work session does sound like an excellent idea. I should float that past Abarai."

Hitsugaya looked perplexed. "I was sure Momo said…oh, well, maybe she misheard."

A cold, horrible feeling suddenly washed over Byakuya. He knew Abarai had been playing things close to the vest with regards to his surgery. It had not, however, occurred to Byakuya that Abarai would invent a cover story, nor that he himself would be included in it. Abarai should have taken me into his confidence, Byakuya though scornfully, before realizing that the man had absolutely no reason to do so. How could he have known that Byakuya would shirk his duties in order to go idle with Captain Hitsugaya?

"Er," Byakuya said frantically. "Forgive me, that was incorrect. Which is to say that you were correct. We are, indeed, having a work weekend. It had slipped my mind amid the heartache of losing three consecutive games of shogi with you. Speaking of which, shall we start a fourth? I am determined to defeat you."

"Did you just lie to me?" Hitsugaya asked, aghast.

Ice-cold shame flooded through Byakuya's body. "I did," he blurted out, horrified at himself. "I apologize. I have betrayed your trust."

"I don't care," Hitsugaya replied. "That was just the worst lying I have ever personally witnessed, which is impressive, because Matsumoto gets very lazy when she's tired."

"Please don't spread this any further," Byakuya implored. "Rukia will be disappointed in me if it gets around."

"Spread what any further? You haven't actually told me anything." Hitsugaya's brows furrowed. "This has something to do with Abarai's day off?"

Byakuya tried to maintain his perfectly neutral expression. He spent 98% of his time with his face composed in the perfectly neutral expression. He had no idea why it was proving so difficult at the moment.

"Momo thought he was being weird about it," Hitsugaya mused, mostly to himself. He looked up at Byakuya's face. "You know what? Never mind. It's none of my business." He frowned. "He's okay, right?"

Byakuya couldn't stand it any more. "He is at the Fourth. He is having surgery on his arm."

Hitsugaya raised his eyebrows. "Is this from when you stabbed him last week?"

Byakuya took a deep breath, and willed himself calm. "It is not. That was a very light stabbing. He hardly noticed it. This is to correct a long-standing issue stemming from an accident in his youth."

Hitsugaya considered this for a moment, then his eyes went wide. He leaned forward, placing his hands palm down on the table. "Is Abarai getting his kidou ducts fixed?"

Byakuya nearly choked. "How do you know about that?"

Hitsugaya flapped a hand. "Everyone knows about Abarai's bad ducts."

"Everyone?" Byakuya echoed.

"Well, not everyone everyone." Hitsugaya crossed his arms. "Momo and Kira aren't idiots. You don't spend a decade trying every trick in the book to teach a guy to cast a decent shakkahou without noticing there's something seriously off in his plumbing." He rubbed his chin. "You know, after all these years, I guess I started taking it for granted that they were right and not just wildly speculating, which is a thing they do all the time, on all manner of topics. That's kind of incredible, now that I think of it. Do you know how it happened? Momo was convinced it was congenital. Kira thought it was the result of a particularly bad mis-cast."

"Precocious reiatsu surge coincident with comminuted fracture of both bones of the lower arm," Byakuya replied emptily. "Several years before he attended the Academy."

It took a moment for Hitsugaya to thoroughly wrap his head around the nature of the injury. The arm, shattered. Loose bone fragments distorting the ducts, causing localized hot spots and recirculation zones. For a split second, young Abarai's arm had been a truly unbreakable object, a solid core of reiatsu, encased in the fused rubble of his former radius and ulna. Byakuya had found himself turning the injury over in his own brain far too many times since it had been described to him.

"That sounds…horrible," Hitsugaya finally remarked.

"My understanding is that it was quite horrible." Byakuya sighed. "Captain Hitsugaya. I am asking you as a…a friend. I should not have spoken. Please do not share this information with anyone, even Lieutenant Hinamori. I know you are close."

Hitsugaya looked at him very solemnly. "Obviously, he's sensitive about it. Everyone knows that, too. It's why Momo and Kira have never actually told him that they figured it out. I'm glad he's getting it fixed. I hope that once everything is said and done, he'll feel like he can tell them. But in the meantime, none of this will leave this office. I promise."

Byakuya let out a huge sigh of relief. "Thank you, Hitsugaya."

"It's really nothing. You feel better, getting that off your chest, I hope? Maybe you can go back to your office instead of making me play shogi with you all day?"

Byakuya frowned. "It really is very strange in the office. I don't like it. Also, I cannot possibly be expected to leave three defeats unanswered."

"Okay," said Hitsugaya. "One more game."

Rukia breezed into her squad administrative offices, ready for lunch time. She'd filled her morning schedule with drills and one-on-ones because otherwise, she knew she'd spend the entire time obsessively checking her phone.

So far, she had received two texts on the matter.

The first one was from Renji, and came in at 7:30. It read, "I passed all my pre-surgery checks, and they're about to take my phone away. I guess this is really happening. If I die (from hunger) I need you to know: Being tall is really cool and I'm sorry you'll never get to experience it. Also you can have all my stuff." She had responded with two middle finger emoji, and then immediately regretted it. Unlikely as it seemed, what if he did die under the knife and the last thing she said to him was a rude emoji? Fortunately, the cheeky bastard replied immediately with two more middle fingers and a kissy-face emoji, and she realized how silly she was being.

The other one, which was actually about ten texts in rapid succession, had only come in only a few minutes ago from Hanatarou. "It went super great!!!" it read. "Captain Unohana is so cool!!!!" It continued on at some length about how cool she was, and ended with, "Patient doing well, sleeping now. Keeping under observation for a few hours, should be clear to discharge this afternoon. I'll keep you updated! ::thumb's up emoji:: ::chicken emoji::" Rukia wasn't entirely sure why Hanatarou habitually ended his text message chains with ::chicken emoji::. He liked chickens, she obviously knew that. Was the chicken supposed to act as some sort of END OF TRANSMISSION signifier, though? Did he just use them in the place of a heart emoji? Maybe she should ask him sometime.

Rukia tucked her phone back into her shihakushou, before opening the door to the office she shared with Captain Ukitake. "I'm back!" she called.

He'd come in late, a little tired, but cheerful. "It's Friday!" he'd waved her off. "I just wanted to put in a few hours and see some of my favorite faces. I can take it easy all weekend."

Rukia wouldn't have been surprised if he'd gone home already, actually, but instead--

"Kuchiki!" he exclaimed as she walked in. "Look who's here to see you!"

Rukia blinked in surprise. Lieutenants Hinamori and Kira were standing in the middle of the office. Hinamori was carrying a large knapsack. Kira looked vaguely wretched. "Hello, Lieutenant Hinamori, Lieutenant Kira," she said, and they exchanged bows.

"Did you know," Ukitake asked breathlessly, "that Lieutenant Kira also dabbles in bonsai?"

"I…did not!" Rukia replied.

"I have an uncle who is quite devoted to it," Kira excused. "I spent a few summers at his house as a child. He is also an incredible kidou scholar with an amazing library, so I didn't mind, but the proportion of pruning to hadou was always much higher than I would have preferred."

"Maybe you should show Lieutenant Kira your collection, sir?" Rukia suggested.

"Oh, I would love to! Maybe you could give me some tips…I have a few that aren't doing so well!" Captain Ukitake laughed sheepishly. "But you're here to see Rukia, of course! Something about a subcommittee?"

"Oh, go look at the bonsai, Kira!" Hinamori suggested with a cheery smile. "I can tell Rukia about the shunpo certification guidelines update." Hinamori was good, Rukia had to give her that. No one but Rukia could have detected the faintest edge of slyness in the excuse.

"Ha, ha, I'm sure my efforts will seem pretty amateur, but I do love my little guys," Captain Ukitake said, but his face was bright.

"That's really the important thing," Kira said philosophically. He trailed out of the office after Ukitake, who was practically skipping.

Rukia pulled Sode no Shirayuki out of her obi and settled the sword onto her stand before throwing herself into her desk chair. "There is no shunpo certification guidelines update, is there, Hinamori?"

"Oh, there is, actually," Hinamori nodded eagerly. "I got a hot tip from Lieutenant Ise that Lieutenant Sasakibe is going to be asking for committee volunteers at the next lieutenants' meeting and we really need you to volunteer."

"Me?" Rukia asked, shocked. "I don't know anything about writing certification guidelines. Don't you think you should pick someone who's been a lieutenant for more than a month?"

Hinamori flapped a hand. "We have plenty of those. We need someone who's really good at shunpo, and can test stuff for us. We might even need you to sweet talk Captain Kuchiki into helping for some of the highest tier ones. If you don't volunteer, Oomaeda will and then the entire project will turn into a nightmare."

"Oh," said Rukia. That sounded kind of rad, actually. "Okay. I can do that."

"Wonderful!" said Hinamori, slinging her knapsack off her back. "Perfect! That's obviously not why I'm here, though."

"I knew it!" Rukia crossed her arms and leaned back in her chair. "Using Kira to create a diversion? Really?"

Hinamori's cheeks flushed. "I didn't have much notice and we were trying to get this done on our lunch break, but we didn't want to make you look unprofessional in front of your captain! I'm working with what I have!"

Rukia made a flicking motion with her hand. "It's fine. Go on, go on."

Hinamori cleared her throat. "Well. The thing is. Izuru and I were just…thinking…about Renji."

"About Renji," Rukia repeated.

"Yes. About Renji. And how he has to work all weekend."

"Right," said Rukia.

"And it just seemed like…like it might be very lonely."

"Well, my brother will be there," Rukia said. She wasn't exactly sure what Hinamori was going for here, but she was going to keep shoring up Renji's sh*t-ass story because that's what friends did for each other.

"Right…and you'll be visiting him, you said?"

"Yeah, I'll be around." Rukia sucked her teeth for a moment. "He might have his phone off. My brother hates phones. If you need to get a message to him, you can text me and I'll make sure he gets it."

"Oh! That's good! Thank you! But, um, also, while we were, um, thinking fondly of Renji, Izuru and I remembered that we both had some books we wanted to loan him. Do you think maybe you could give them to him?" She had already started pulling paperbacks out of her knapsack and piling them onto Rukia's desk.

"Hinamori, he's working," Rukia protested.

"But maybe he would want something to do in the evening. Captain Kuchiki's not going to make him pull an all-nighter, is he?"

"Well, no…"

Hinamori pulled something out of her bag that was not a book. She looked at it for a moment, then laughed. "Speaking of all-nighters…" She placed it on top of one of the stacks of books.

Rukia picked it up and was instantly hit with a wave of nostalgia. It was a tidy little packet wrapped in mulberry paper, beautifully fragrant. "That's the tea Kira's aunt used to send him, back when we were in school, isn't it?" Rukia said.

"She grows it, actually," Hinamori replied. "I wasn't sure if you would remember, but gosh, we drank a lot of that stuff over the years. Just the smell makes me think of Physics of Other Realms."

"I do remember," Rukia replied. Hinamori had invited her over once, for a study sleepover before their first-year finals. Whether Kira and Renji had also been invited or whether they had just shown up was debatable. It had been very weird and awkward at first, but it was very hard not to fall in love with Kira and Hinamori, at least a little bit, once they started pressing cookies and tea on you and shouting about their favorite kidou. Rukia wondered if there would have been more invitations, if maybe they would have gotten easier, if she hadn't…

"Anyway," Hinamori said. She was producing more books from her bottomless bag. "We've been meaning to loan these to him for a while. He can read them later. Whenever."

"This is a lot of books," Rukia commented, picking one up. The girl on the cover had bright red curls and sparkly purple eyes and wore some sort of period outfit that had far more ribbons and flouncy bits than it probably should. She was holding a sword in one hand and casting a spell with the other. There was a squirrel perched on her shoulder. Rukia tried to imagine Hinamori pressing it into Renji's hands, extolling its literary merits. She could picture the exact face he would make.

"He can pick and choose which ones he likes," Hinamori went on. "We wanted him to have a lot of variety to pick from. Some of these are old favorites. You know how it is when you're…busy at work, and sometimes you just want something familiar." She tucked a piece of hair behind her ear. "Mostly, we…just wanted him to know that we were thinking of him."

Rukia's heart twisted like a dishrag.

Hinamori glanced at the cover to the last book and set it on top of the pile. "That's why I let Kira pick out some books, too, even though the only books he ever loans Renji are melodramatic sausage-fests."

Rukia decided that she was going to hold the experience of Hinamori saying "sausage-fest" in her heart forever. "Sometimes he likes those," she pointed out. "He likes the books you loan him, too. I'll make sure he gets them."

"Thank you, Rukia," Hinamori said softly.

Rukia's throat felt tight. She'd always asked Hinamori to call her by her given name back when they were in school, because she didn't think "Inuzuri" was a very nice thing to be called, even if it was her Academy-assigned legal name at the time. "No problem," she replied.

Hinamori peered into the knapsack again and looked deeply conflicted. "I have…something else. I was going to give it to him for his birthday. Well. Actually. I was probably going to make him a better one and give it to him for his birthday, because this one isn't very good, but it just seemed like…" She set her jaw and suddenly started pulling something very large and very orange out of her bag. "I've been learning to crochet!" she announced. "Renji really likes it when you are learning to do something new and you give him your terrible first efforts! That's what this is!"

Hinamori started shoving it at Rukia, even though more of it was still coming out of the knapsack. It was a blanket, Rukia realized, and it was very, very soft and squishy. It was mostly orange, but had zigzaggy stripes of white and brown, at least at the one end. "I ran out of the brown," Hinamori excused, as other colors started to make their way in.

"Hinamori, it's so soft!" Rukia exclaimed, her arms full of the thing.

"Well, the yarn was very nice," Hinamori excused. "It's not exactly a rectangle and it's far too large. It was nice to work on, and sometimes I would forget to stop and check how much I had finished."

"He's far too large," Rukia sniffed, hugging the blanket. "He'll love it. I promise."

Hinamori gave her the hairy eyeball. "You have to actually give it to him. Don't just steal it."

"I would never!" Rukia protested. "It wouldn't be any fun to steal it from him unless I gave it to him first. Otherwise, how else would he know I had stolen it from him? I promise I will give him a fair chance to defend his property."

"I guess…that's okay," Hinamori frowned. She took a deep breath. "I would have made some cookies, but I have this party to go to tomorrow and I'm just not going to have time. Shuuhei said he would do it." Hinamori looked hesitant.

"Sure!" Rukia agreed. "Tell him he can text me and I'll come by." She frowned. "Or I can text him." It's not like she made a habit of texting Shuuhei, but he had texted her before, when they played that horrible coffee house gig together. She could text Shuuhei. This was definitely getting weird, though.

"Are you sure?" Hinamori asked. "I can talk him out of it."

Rukia wondered why Hinamori was being so cagey about this, when it suddenly hit her. "I know," she said, with a reassuring smile, "that they used to date. Renji and Shuuhei, that is. It's really not a big deal."

Hinamori stared at her blankly for a moment. "Oh! I didn't even think of that! I always forget! They didn't even act like they were dating when they were dating aside from…you know. Going home together. No! Was I making faces? If I was making faces, it's because Shuuhei is not a great baker. He never measures anything."

"Oh!" Rukia considered this for a moment. "I think it's fine? Renji has a pretty big tolerance for mediocre food and he always speaks very fondly of Hisagi's cooking. I think it'll make him feel like people are thinking of him, as you said." Rukia paused. "During his…arduous work weekend." She was definitely going to have to come up with a better cover story for Renji as to why everyone was sending him all this stuff, but perhaps that was the special skill she brought to his friend group.

"Yes," Hinamori agreed. "During his…arduous work workend." She looked like she wanted to say more, but wasn't sure if she should.

The rattle of the shoji in the frame startled them both, and Captain Ukitake and Kira trotted back into the office. An extremely pathetic-looking bonsai was cradled in the crook of Kira's arm.

"--I'll do my best, but it's honestly been forty years--"

"I'm very grateful for your efforts, Lieutenant Kira! I think maybe a change of venue will be good for it. Also, I heard once that music is good for plants?"

"Well, at Squad Three, the music is obligatory, so I hope that turns out to be true," Kira said in that dry way of his that might be sarcasm, but with enough plausible deniability to not-quite come across as rude.

Captain Ukitake looked over at Rukia and Hinamori, and Rukia realized that her desk was covered in novels, and she was holding two armfuls of home-made afghan.

"Kuchiki!" said Captain Ukitake. "That is a stunning blanket!"

Hinamori abruptly turned pink.

"Thank you, sir," Rukia replied. "It was a thank you gift for agreeing to serve on the shunpo certification guidelines update committee."

Byakuya had been pretending to fill out the same expense authorization form for the last fifteen minutes. What he was actually doing was watching his Third Seat's face rotoscope through the entire spectrum of emotion while trying to read through one of Abarai's binders.

After returning from his morning truancies at Squad Ten, Byakuya had received an explanation of all the disorder from Ninth Seat Shirogane. Apparently, prior to Abarai's departure, the upper seats had felt quite confident in their ability to carry on in his absence, and assured him thus when he checked in with them. However, this confidence was predicated on the assumption that if they had any questions or needed to find something, they would simply ask Sixteenth Seat Yuki. None of them had bothered to verify that Yuki was actually working today. He was not, and in fact, had left town entirely, an action that Abarai had personally approved.

Byakuya received all of this information with a perfectly straight face, but it was, in his opinion, the funniest thing to happen at Squad Six in his tenure, if not the entire history of the Gotei. Byakuya had been skeptical at Yuki's recent promotion, but now he wasn't sure if the young man had been promoted enough. He was very much looking forward to relating all of this to Abarai, the only person in Soul Society who could possibly find this as funny as he did. (He also intended to tell it to Rukia, although he felt the story had a certain You-Have-to-Work-There tinge to it.)

Oddly enough, during his absence, his two top seated officers had managed to overcome their initial floundering and had since been attempting to deal with it (which they, Byakuya, and in fact, every officer in the company knew was what Abarai would yell at them to do, were he here).

Fourth Seat Kuchiki had been running drills all afternoon. Some of them appeared to actually be futsal drills. Some of them seemed to have sprung from his own fevered imagination. At least everyone seemed to be getting plenty of exercise.

Third Seat Ohno, on the other hand, had been handling the administrative duties. Byakuya strongly suspected that they may have come up with this division of labor so that they didn't have to see each other all day. As far as he was concerned, that was their business. The first thing Ohno had done was to yell at everyone to stay out of the captains' office and that if they needed anything from there, to go through him. This was the most impressive act of leadership Byakuya had seen out of Third Seat Ohno in years.

What he had seen since had been distinctly less impressive. Ohno would wander in, clutching a piece of paper in his hand. He would rifle through Abarai's anarchic filing cabinet for a bit, or pull a binder or two down from the bookcase. Once he'd collected the three or four things he needed, he would retreat back to his own office for a bit. Twenty minutes later, he'd be back for something else. He greeted Byakuya politely and properly every time, but hadn't said another word to him.

Byakuya wasn't entirely sure why he was putting up with this. It was probably guilt from the fact that Ohno wasn't actually interrupting much of anything--his visit to Captain Hitsugaya may have relieved a bit of his loneliness, but it had done little to improve his motivation. Also, the fact was, Ohno was trying to struggle through something by himself, a character-building activity that he had possibly never experienced before. Ohno was the scion of the largest Kuchiki branch family, but he hadn't been raised with the demanding expectations of character and personal strength that Byakuya himself had.

It occurred to Byakuya that Ohno had taken a bit of a drubbing during Grandfather's recent visit. Grandfather had displayed his usual favoritism for the members of his own line over the branches, despite the fact that Squad Six would be distinctly anemic without their contributions. Rukia had outclassed Ohno in a Kuchiki-sword form exhibition match, even though the victory had technically been his. Worst of all, the marriage alliance Ohno's father had been trying to cinch for him for decades had slipped through his fingers when Byakuya's cousin Shizue decided that she was more interested in attending the Academy than marrying anyone at the moment. Byakuya knew for a fact that Lord Ohno had been grinding his teeth about this ever since, but young Ohno seemed to have just accepted it with something resembling grace.

Whether he was feeling a modicum of generosity toward Ohno, or because he was just bored, Byakuya decided to throw the man a bone. "So. Third Seat Ohno," he said, without looking up from his form, "it is nearly 'the weekend.' Any interesting plans?"

Ohno's head shot up, and he glanced wildly around the room. "Me, sir?"

"You are Third Seat Ohno, are you not?"

"Er, um, yes. Yes, of course, I am. Sir. And I do have plans, actually, yes."

Byakuya placed his brush in its tray, and folded his hands in front of him, expectantly.

Ohno swallowed, his Adam's apple bobbing. "Er. Tomorrow, I will be attending a fundraising event hosted by the Ise family to benefit the Museum of Soul Society Art and Culture."

Byakuya's eyebrows rose gracefully, to indicate his surprise. "Really?" he asked. "This must be quite the event. Captain Hitsugaya was telling me about it earlier."

"Captain Hitsugaya is attending?" Ohno asked curiously.

"And Lieutenant Hinamori, as well, was my understanding."

Ohno's face brightened. "That's wonderful!"

Byakuya had to admit that his curiosity was fully piqued. This wasn't Ohno's usual oily, ingratiating smile. He seemed genuinely happy to hear this news. "Do you…know Captain Hitsugaya?" he asked.

"Oh, no, sir. I just want the event to be a success. A good friend of mine, you see, is very involved in the museum. She's proposed an exhibit for next year on the history of architecture in the Seireitei as a reflection of aesthetic trends of the time. She's very excited about it, and I hope they raise enough money that it will be funded."

"An intriguing topic," Byakuya agreed. "I would be interested in seeing that myself. Who is your friend? Do you know if she already had a contact among our family archivists?" The offer was entirely sincere--Byakuya was always happy to connect promising young history enthusiasts to his family's private researchers. If Ohno saw it as an olive branch for the recent personal slights, all the better.

Ohno cleared his throat and looked slightly abashed. "Lady Ishibashi Ayaru," he replied.

"Ah," replied Byakuya. "Then I suppose she does."

Byakuya had expected Ohno's friend to be one of the fluttering young things that overflowed the noble social scene. He'd spent more than enough time trying to avoid them before his marriage. To be honest, he would have been overjoyed to find one that had an actual even-vaguely intellectual interest.

Lady Ishibashi was in a different weight class entirely. She was the First Daughter of a family that sat at the tier just below the great houses. The Ishibashi were architects who had designed and redesigned the Seireitei over the course of its long history. Her father, who had recently been appointed as one of the six judges of the Central 46, was a widower, which put Lady Ayaru as effectively the acting head of her clan. Byakuya had met her a few times. She was an artist by avocation, and protected and promoted the cultural landscape of the city with all the zeal of a Gotei captain. Hisana had been a great fan of her scathing missives to the Bulletin's Letters to the Editor section.

"I wasn't aware your family had ties to the Ishibashi," Byakuya said, trying to keep his tone interested rather than accusatory.

"Ahahaha!" Ohno laughed nervously. "Nothing so formal as that. I met her socially through some shared interests."

Byakuya found it mildly surprising that Ohno found time to socialize with someone who hadn't been hand-picked and thrust in front of him by his family. Goodness, he did not miss those days. Not to mention-- "That's a valuable connection, Ohno," he pointed out, though he sure didn't need to. "Maintain it well. Her family's star is on the rise."

Ohno gave a small bow. "Of course, sir." Then he looked up at Byakuya with a strange, uncertain look in his eyes. "I would anyway. I--I like her."

It hit Byakuya like an arrow to his chest. Truly, had he become like one of his elders? Scrutinizing any potential friendship for how it might be wrung out for benefit to the clan? He'd always thought of young Ohno as a shameless social climber in the model of his father. Whether this represented a new leaf, or simply a side Byakuya had long overlooked, he wanted to make his approval clear.

"Even better," he remarked, trying to sound friendly. "I, too, hope the party is a success. I will be sure to have Seike send over a donation, although I suspect there the museum won't have much trouble meeting its fundraising goals." He picked up his brush and turned his attention back to his form. Unfortunately, he had already filled out all of the lines that needed to be filled out. Determined not to show weakness in front of Ohno, he forged Abarai's signature on the secondary approval line, just so he would have something to write. It meant he would have to fill the entire thing out all over again. It was so stupid. This form didn't even require secondary approval when filled out by a captain or vice-captain.

"Er, Captain," Ohno said hesitantly. "Ah, I hate to ask, but I have been looking and looking and I just can't find it. Do you have any idea where Assistant Captain Abarai might have put next year's staffing projections?"

Byakuya looked up. "Oh," he said. He dug halfway down one of the piles on his own desk and extracted the document in question. "You mean these?"

It was around three o'clock in the afternoon. On one hand, Rukia really had expected that Captain Ukitake would have gone home already. On the other, he seemed very comfortable, curled up in his desk chair, poring over a three-hundred-year-old treatise written by some former member of the Kidou Corps who was trying to boil all of the kidou chants down into strings of numbers. Ukitake was taking a lot of notes and would read bits out loud that he found particularly interesting. As far as Rukia could tell, her captain disagreed with nearly everything Mr. Long-Dead-Kidou-Corpsman had to say, but at least he was having a good time. Kiyone would come in from time to time to replace his cold cup of tea with a warm one.

Rukia had been plowing her way through paperwork at a pretty impressive rate, if she did say so herself. She had a feeling that Captain Ukitake's constant interruptions would have driven her brother absolutely up the wall. She wasn't working on anything that required a great deal of concentration, though, and it actually kept her attention close to the work at hand, instead of getting too tangled up on what was or was not happening over at the Fourth.

All told, it was shaping up to be a very peaceful Friday afternoon, when Kiyone stuck her head in again. "Visitor for you, sir! Fifth Seat Ayasegawa of the Eleventh! Are you feeling up to it?"

Captain Ukitake sat up a little straighter, his eyes brightening. "For Ayasegawa? Of course!"

Rukia frowned deeply. After close to forty years at Squad Thirteen, and a lot of those spent in and around the administrative offices, she thought she had a pretty good idea of how things went around here. In the month since she'd been appointed lieutenant, though, she'd been finding out all sorts of things.

"Good afternoon, Captain Ukitake!" Ayasegawa greeted warmly. "Lieutenant Kuchiki."

"Good afternoon, Fifth Seat Ayasegawa!" Captain Ukitake replied. "As soon as the First put out the Request for Proposals for next year's standing assignments I started wondering when we might see you!"

Ayasegawa flung one hand against his forehead. "Have I become so predictable?" He glided into the office, sliding a rectangular box onto Rukia's desk as he passed.

Captain Ukitake laughed. "I'm a little surprised you still need my help with these! The ones you submitted last year were excellent. And you won, what three of them?"

"One of them was a continuation," Ayasegawa replied modestly. "And your advice is invaluable, you know. Obviously, I don't want to impose, but as long as you're willing to give it, I'm going to keep showing up."

Captain Ukitake had put his kidou book aside, and was rifling through his desk. "Kuchiki, did I give the RFP to you? I brought it back from the captains' meeting on Tuesday. I may have suggested it would make a nice doorstop."

"Oh! Yes!" Rukia pulled the giant bound booklet from the bookshelf where she'd stowed it. "You said we would look at it next week."

"That might have been optimistic," Captain Ukitake admitted. "They aren't due until July."

"Um, I'm not sure how to say this without sounding rude," Rukia said, as she brought it over to him, "but…aren't these competitive, sir?"

Captain Ukitake's eyebrows lifted. "You're wondering why we're helping Squad Eleven beat us out of that sweet First Squad funding, eh?"

"Er…"

"It's a very natural question," Ayasegawa added. "I'm still not entirely sure why he helps me, myself."

Captain Ukitake flapped his hand. "For starters, our squads aren't generally suited to the same kinds of work, so we aren't really each other's competition. Secondly, I've never been a big fan of the way this process favors the older and more well-connected captains. These standing assignments can really make a difference in squad funding, but it's not like there's any way to learn how to write proposals, aside from getting a more experienced captain or vice-captain to mentor you. Squad Eleven's situation has always felt a little…unfair to me."

"So you're just being a softie, as usual, sir?"

"Exactly right, Kuchiki!"

Ayasegawa heaved a sigh. "I do wish you wouldn't put it that way."

Captain Ukitake tipped his head to one side. "I always put off writing my own proposals, and helping you with yours makes me feel a little more enthusiastic about it."

"That, I can work with," Ayasegawa nodded.

"So, which ones did you have your eye on?" Captain Ukitake asked, flipping to the table of contents."

"H10.02, for sure," Ayasegawa said, tapping it with his finger. "It's just a new patrol area in the Rukon, but there were a bunch of rockslides last year, and there have been recurring Hollow infestations ever since."

"Oh, yes, that should be a shoo-in for you!"

"I was wondering if I could borrow your copy of the most recent survey of the Eastern Rukon. If we ever had a copy, it's long gone now."

"Of course! Be careful, though-- the publication date doesn't mean they actually swept that part. The notes for districts in the sixties are liable to be three or four hundred years out of date."

"I know," Ayasegawa sighed, "but those Squad One fogeys just like to see that you did your homework, they don't actually care if you got the right answer."

"Good point," Captain Ukitake agreed.

Rukia listened as they chattered rapidly, half in bureaucrat-ese, about the various projects that might be appropriate for Squad Eleven. She tried to take it all in, realizing this was one more thing she was going to have to learn. Kiyone and Sentarou had asked her to help compile some numbers to go into proposals before, and she'd even gotten to make a chart once, but it was obvious that spearheading the process was a different animal entirely.

"--no, you don't have a chance with that one, I'm sorry."

"No, no, I have a plan, you see! We're going to do a joint bid with Seven. They're going to provide the kidou expertise. Iba has some combat magic experts that my folks don't mind working with."

"I don't doubt that you could do it, but I happen to know for a fact that Byakuya's got his eye on that one and you do not want to go up against him."

"Squad Six is so conservative, though. On a job like this, they'll add too many guards. They'll never come in under the budget for…" Ayasegawa trailed off and he suddenly clenched his fist. "Argh! See, Captain Ukitake, this is why you should never teach other people anything. It's bad enough I have to write up my own staffing justifications, it's simply unconscionable that I should have to compete with my own kohai."

Captain Ukitake chuckled.

"That reminds me!" Ayasegawa declared, his head whipping toward Rukia. "I was cleaning out my manicure supplies, and I found a bunch of colors that were perfectly unsuitable for me. It's going to be sheer tones this summer (make a note, both of you). Abarai never cares about trends, though, so I packed up all the bolds and metallics and twelve different shades of black." He gestured towards the box he'd left on Rukia's desk when he came in. "I don't have time to go all the way up to Six today. I assume you'll see him sometime this weekend, Kuchiki? Would you mind being a dear and passing those along?"

Interested, Rukia slid open the lid of the box. It was full of little segmented trays, neatly organized. Rukia pulled out a little bottle of nail polish and examined it. It was glittery gold. There were also a number of other supplies in the box-- cotton balls, hand cream, nail files, cuticle sticks. "Sure," she said slowly. "I'll see him."

"Oh!" Captain Ukitake exclaimed. "Is nail polish back in? You know, when I first joined the Gotei, it was required as part of the uniform. It had to be black, which only shinigami were allowed to wear. Nobles could have red, and the Five families could have gold. Nobles who served in the Gotei would paint one finger red or gold and the rest black-- was it the fourth finger or second? It was on the right hand, I remember that. It got pretty confusing at some point and then it got banned for everyone. I remember when it became legal again, but it was still considered very uncool. Maybe that was just for men. I'm glad it's back!"

"That had to be…seven hundred years ago?" Ayasegawa guessed, sounding mildly aghast. "The ban, I mean."

"Seems about right!"

Ayasegawa appeared to need a moment to process this. Rukia didn't. No matter what era a trend was from, Captain Ukitake could manage to miss it entirely. She was pretty sure this would still be true, even if he weren't as old as he was.

"Yes, Captain," she replied. "It's in again."

"And you can wear whatever color you want now?"

"Within reason," Ayasegawa said, his voice sounding a little strained. "Sheers would suit you so well, though, Captain! It's such a light, summery look! Green, perhaps? I think you would look stunning in green!" He turned and made very intense eye contact with Rukia, flicked his eyes to the box of ostentatious Renji-colors and back again, and then made several throat slashing gestures. Rukia nodded frantically in acknowledgement.

Fortunately, Captain Ukitake did not appear to notice any of this. "Oh, I can't wait to tell Shunsui!" he declared. "I wonder if he knows!"

Eventually, they were able to get the conversation steered back onto the proposal solicitation, and Third-Seat Ayasegawa departed half an hour later, carrying a stack of reference material and a list of things to go look up at the central library.

On his way out, he leaned over Rukia's desk. "You know what all that stuff is for, right?" he whispered.

"Yes, of course," Rukia replied. She kept her own nails short and plain for work, but Mikan gave her the full spruce-up for parties and other fancy events.

"Excellent," he replied, under his breath. "A manicure is truly one of the most intimate acts of care we can do for one another." Then, louder, "Have a lovely weekend, Kuchiki! Ikkaku says to tell Abarai he's turned into a big square and he should come back to Squad Eleven. As if we would let him back in!"

Halfway through forming a scathing comeback defending the honor of both Renji and Squad Six, Rukia's brain suddenly screeched to a halt and rewound three sentences. All the extra stuff in the manicure kit suddenly made sense. Ayasegawa was expecting her to… to…

"Er," she sputtered, but Ayasegawa was already out the door.

Oh, well. Rukia sighed. She would…figure something out.

Captain Ukitake was looking at her curiously. "A lot of visitors today, eh, Kuchiki?"

"Mm," she agreed. "It's Friday, I guess?"

Her captain nodded, then cleared his throat gently. "Kuchiki. Tell me to take a hike if I'm out of line, but is Lieutenant Abarai all right?"

"He's fine," Rukia replied, "he's just--" Suddenly, she swallowed back the phony story about working. Captain Ukitake hadn't asked for that. He'd only asked if Renji was okay. "Lieutenant Abarai is currently suffering from an overabundance of people who care about him," she finished.

She had expected Captain Ukitake to chuckle at that, but he didn't. Instead, he nodded solemnly. "Sometimes, that's a lot to take." He smiled. "It's really nice, actually, having someone who can act as an intermediary, when you aren't entirely available. He's lucky to have you, Kuchiki."

Rukia wondered, suddenly, if Captain Kyouraku had mentioned anything about their conversation the day before. Captain Ukitake didn't say anything further, though, he just went back to his book.

Five minutes after that, Kiyone came back in with fresh tea for the both of them.

Ten minutes after that, Rukia got a text from Hanatarou. "I've sent a message to your house for someone to come pick him up," it read. "He's clear to go home!! ::chicken emoji::"

Finally, finally, five o'clock arrived!

Rukia had been a little worried that she was going to need to bully her own captain into going home, but fortunately, Captain Kyouraku showed up at quarter 'til, whining about how the week had gone on long enough. Captain Ukitake forced him to admire Hinamori's crochet project, which he did dutifully, and then the two of them headed off, the kidou book tucked under Kyouraku's arm.

Rukia spent the next few minutes tidying her desk. The second the clock flipped to five, she was out the door, wings on her feet.

Well, not quite. She was a little bit burdened down by all the things from Hinamori and Kira and Ayasegawa, stuffed into a borrowed field bag. But perhaps, if she'd been any faster, she wouldn't have bumped into Lieutenant Iba right outside the gates of the Thirteenth.

"Yo! Lieutenant Kuchiki!" Iba called, waving at her. "Glad I caught you! Gotta second?"

Rukia wanted to say no, that if she had to wait one minute longer to go home, she was going to vibrate out of her skin, but she reminded herself that she was a professional. "Of course," she replied, shifting the rucksack higher onto her shoulder.

"You going on deployment in the Rukon or something?" Iba asked, presumably eying the bag. Rukia couldn't tell behind his dark sunglasses.

"Ahahaha, just some stuff I needed to bring home from the office!" Rukia said. "Been moving things around, you know, with being promoted and all."

"Mm," Iba nodded, as if that had made any sense whatsoever.

"So, ah, what can I do for you?" Rukia quickly changed the subject.

"Oh, right!" Iba cleared his throat. "Look, I know this is a little weird, and there's no way I can explain it that makes it any less weird, but Abarai and I got this tradition--"

"It's fine," Rukia assured him. "I have heard about you and Abarai's weird traditions."

"Yeah, well, whenever a guy has to work late or through a holiday, or whatever, you gotta offer him your condolences. And I got my condolences ready, but it turns out he's already unavailable. I got somewhere I gotta be this weekend, so I was wondering if you could pass 'em along for me."

"Uh, sure," Rukia replied. That wasn't so weird.

"Great!" Iba replied, and shoved a manilla envelope into her hands.

Rukia looked at it. It was the size and shape for holding a magazine. It was about the weight of a magazine. It definitely felt like there was a magazine inside. The word "Condolences" was written on the outside. "Oh," said Rukia, her voice coming out slightly higher pitched than she had intended.

Iba didn't appear to notice. "Thanks, Kuchiki! You're a real one! Have a great weekend!"

"Yeah, no problem," Rukia said, still staring at the envelope.

She continued to stare at it most of the walk home. It had to be p*rnography, right? There was no other possible explanation. From Renji's stories of his time rooming with Iba, it was most likely horrific. On the other hand, it was none of her business, is what it was. It's not like it was even some sort of reflection of Renji's tastes, since most likely, it was meant to horrify him, too.

Maybe, Rukia thought, maybe she should look. Renji was going to be half out of his gourd, and the last thing she wanted to do was confuse or embarrass him with Iba's rancid smut. She wasn't judging, she just wanted to be prepared.

Gently, she unfastened the envelope, and eased out the glossy magazine inside.

It was a Living World sportscar magazine. Rukia wasn't positive, but it appeared to be written in French. It was dated 1986. There was a very angular car on the cover. It had an enormous spoiler and doors that opened by swinging upward, rather than out.

"Superb," said Rukia, and slid it back into its envelope.

Renji cracked his eyes open. His entire body felt very heavy, but also very comfortable. He wasn't entirely sure where he was, but late-afternoon sunshine was spilling across the floor. Late afternoon? That was no time to be sleeping. He should get up, he decided, except that he felt so warm and sleepy.

A cool hand brushed his hair away from his face. Renji managed to turn his head, and Rukia's face swam into view.

"Hey there, Big Guy," she said with a soft smile. "I didn't mean to wake you up. I just wanted to see you. You did great. Now, go back to sleep, you big dummy."

"Okay," said Renji, and because Rukia had told him to, he did.

Chapter 6

Chapter Text

In Rukia’s dream, she was competing in the final round of an all-lieutenant drinking competition. Apparently, there had been a great degree of cheating and disqualifications earlier on, so it had unexpectedly come down to her versus Kotetsu Isane. In real life, Rukia didn’t think she’d ever even seen Isane drink alcohol, but for the purposes of the dream, the lieutenant of the Fourth had been employing some esoteric kaidou technique to stave off her own intoxication. Rukia had only her devotion to the Thirteen Division and her own cussedness driving her forward.

Rukia.

“Not now, Sode no Shirayuki,” Rukia said, staring Isane in the eyes and sneering sexily as she downed another saucer.

Rukia! I need your help!

Rukia paused, the saucer still in her hand. She hadn’t been aware up until this point that she was dreaming, but it suddenly became very obvious. “What…ah…what do you need?” she said vaguely, out loud. Everyone else in the dream had frozen, their voices faded into a low, unintelligible babble.

Inner world! Hurry! Please!

Rukia frowned. Sode no Shirayuki had never had trouble pulling Rukia into their inner world while she was dreaming in the past. Her zanpakutou’s voice had sounded oddly rough, almost a growl. What the Hell was going on?

“We’ll finish this later, Kotetsu,” Rukia announced, and willed herself to wake up.

Her bedroom was dark and quiet. She wasn’t being attacked. Sode no Shirayuki was on her stand, exactly where Rukia had left her when she had gotten home the evening before. She barely had the blade from its sheath when she tumbled headlong into the chilly, bright blue sky of her inner world.

There seemed to be a lot more yelling than usual.

“You need to calm down, you great double-headed oaf! You don’t belong here, and you are making a dreadful mess!”

“You are not listening to us, you awful woman!”

“He is gone! Something terrible has happened!”

“You are not listening to me! And it has not!”

Rukia stood in stunned silence, watching her zanpakutou spirit, who was currently in the form of a massive, shaggy polar bear, crash through a stand of trees as she grappled with a second enormous, white-furred creature, this one barred in black, with the face of a baboon and the furiously hissing tail of a snake. Rukia had seen this beast once before, not that it mattered, because she recognized their reiatsu immediately, even split free from that of their owner’s.

“Zabimaru?” she echoed stupidly.

“Rukia!” Sode no Shirayuki cried, her great square head swinging around. “I am sorry! They are being very unreasonable! OUCH!” Zabimaru had latched their long yellow baboon fangs into the thick fur of Sode no Shirayuki’s neck.

Rukia’s muscles unlocked, and without thinking, her legs jolted into motion. Logically, one thirty-three kilogram woman ought to make no difference whatsoever in the battle between these two goliaths, but Rukia had two advantages. One, this was her inner world, and she knew better than anyone that the rules here were made up. Secondly, she had spent approximately one million hours fighting Renji, and an additional two million hours listening to him talk about various techniques he had developed for fighting his own zanpakutou.

By his own admission, Renji had never actually successfully landed this particular strategy, but Zabimaru’s front half was distracted by Sode no Shirayuki, and Rukia knew her small size was an advantage here.

She took a running leap and slung herself up onto Zabimaru’s back. You gotta take care of the snaketail first, Renji’s voice echoed in her head as she snatched its throat in her left fist, holding it at arm’s length. Swinging in a wide arc, she jerked the snake dizzyingly to one side as she slammed a haymaker into the side of the baboon head. It surprised Zabimaru more than anything else and they lost their grip on Sode no Shirayuki, who roared and clouted them in the shoulder. Zabimaru went skidding through the snow on their side and Rukia went with them.

The moment they came to a halt, bonking up against a pine tree, Sode no Shirayuki was there as well, planting one paw against their shoulder and one against their hip, pinning them to the ground. “You stupid things!” she roared. “You almost sent us both through the lake ice, which I shall remind you, I can survive, and you cannot!”

The snake head was gagging and coughing in Rukia’s hand, mostly from all the snow their skid had kicked up. Its skin was also very cold, which didn’t seem very healthy for a snake. The baboon’s fur was soaking wet where it hadn’t frozen into crusty spikes.

“If I let go, do you promise not to bite me?” Rukia said very firmly to Zabimaru’s tail.

It nodded frantically and she loosened her grip.

“Rukia,” the snake head gasped desperately. “Please, you must help us. Something has happened to Renji.”

Rukia pushed away the initial spasm of panic. Renji was just down the hall, sleeping off his pain meds under Saejima’s watchful eye. He certainly wasn’t getting himself into any trouble, and if there was some disturbance at the house, she surely would have woken up. “What do you mean?” she asked.

“We cannot feel him!” the baboon face groaned miserably. “It is very hard to feel outside of ourselves, much harder than usual, but we think we are not at the squad barracks where we should be.”

“That is hardly an excuse to go bursting into someone else’s inner world,” Sode no Shirayuki scolded.

“We did not burst anywhere,” the baboon defended. “And what were we supposed to do?”

“You’re supposed to be asleep,” Rukia realized suddenly, puzzle pieces falling into place. “Captain Unohana bound Renji’s hakusui and his saketsu. She said that without a conduit to his spiritual power, you would go dormant.”

“Why would she do such a thing?” the snake sniveled. “Has he been thrown in jail again? What stupid law has he broken this time?”

“Nothing!” Rukia had to hold back a laugh. Both of Zabimaru’s faces looked so truly wretched. “He had surgery. For his bad ducts. She did it to help make sure he heals correctly. Don’t worry, we’re taking very good care of him. He’s at my house.”

“Your house! But where are we? We ought to still be able to feel him, even weakened!”

Rukia frowned, considering this. “You’re at my house, too. You’re in the armory. You’ve been there before, right?”

Neither of Zabimaru’s faces were capable of a very wide range of facial expressions, but their opinion of the armory was quite evident.

“You don’t have to stay in the armory,” Rukia said quickly. “We thought you’d be asleep.” She did not add that Renji had no business being anywhere near a sword in his current state. Captain Unohana had recommended that Zabimaru be stored somewhere separate from him, but maybe this was a bigger concern. “If you can promise to behave yourself, I’ll go get you and take you to him, all right?”

“Can you? Please?”

“We will behave. We promise.”

“Thank you, Rukia! You are a very good friend to Renji and also to us, even though your zanpakutou is—”

“Perhaps you should stop while you are ahead!” Sode no Shirayuki warned, flexing her claws.

“Be patient with them, Sode no Shirayuki,” Rukia begged, giving her zanpakutou an affectionate scritch on one big, furry shoulder. “They’re just worried.”

“They could go back to their own inner world to wait,” Sode no Shirayuki pointed out with a growl.

Rukia considered this. “I think maybe it’s better if they stay here. Just until we see if this works.”

Sode no Shirayuki heaved a deep, ursine sigh. “I suppose. But if they misbehave, I shall throw them down the waterfall. See if I don’t.”

Rukia gave Zabimaru a comforting scritch, too, for good measure. “You heard her. I’ll just be a few minutes.”

She concentrated, and suddenly found herself back in her own room.

“Lady Rukia?”

Rukia’s head whipped around. Mikan’s pale, freckled face peered in through the doorway.

“Are—are you all right? I…heard a noise.”

Rukia realized she was holding her naked sword in one hand, and the scabbard in the other. Quickly, she resheathed Sode no Shirayuki. “Yes,” she decided. “Fetch my bathrobe, Mikan! We’ve got a job to do!”

“Oh, thank goodness you're here, Lady Rukia! There’s, um, a problem,” Furuya, the young guard on night duty at the armory stammered.

“What now?” Rukia demanded, resting her hand on Sode no Shirayuki’s hilt, which probably would have looked a little more ominous if her zanpakutou weren’t currently tucked into the sash of her purple silk bathrobe. Mikan crossed her arms over her chest and scowled.

Furuya gulped. “Um, well…maybe you had better come look.”

Kuchiki Manor actually contained several armories. Most of the family's historic and magical weapons were stored off-site, but there were a few especially precious ones here, kept in a room so heavily locked and warded that she couldn't even find it without Byakuya's help. She hadn't even known it existed until a few months ago. There was also the main armory, where the house guard kept their weaponry. This one, though, was more like a cloak room for swords. Renji, as Byakuya’s adjutant, was one of the few people who was allowed to keep his zanpakutou on him while visiting the house, but at large events, like parties, even he had to park Zabimaru at the door.

To be fair, Byakuya kept what Rukia had always assumed were very nice accommodations for visiting swords. The room was filled with elegant, individual sword racks, partially out of respect for the eminent sorts of people who might leave a sword here, and partially because sometimes zanpakutou didn’t like being kept too close to other zanpakutou.

There weren’t any other visitors at the moment, so Zabimaru wasn’t hard to find. They were near the front and most of the other sword racks were empty. Also, there was a huge cloud of reiatsu boiling off them like flames, lighting the room up in flickering red and white.

“That doesn’t seem good,” Mikan frowned.

“It singed my glove,” the guard admitted, holding out his hand and flexing his fingers. Sure enough, the fingertips of his glove were black and partially burnt away.

“You touched them?” Rukia asked.

“No, I couldn’t even get close!”

“Hmm,” Rukia said, holding her chin in her hand and rubbing her thumb over it idly. “Hold on a second.” She closed her eyes. Sode no Shirayuki! Can you hear me?

I am here.

Can you see this?

Unfortunately, yes.

Can you get Zabimaru to do anything about it?

There was a long pause. No. That buffoon has come unmoored. If this goes on much longer, they’ll likely unseal themselves as well. That would be very bad.

“This is worse than I thought,” Rukia said out loud, opening her eyes again.

“Should we wake up Lieutenant Abarai and make him come here?” Mikan asked. “You said his sword was looking for him.”

Rukia thought about Renji and his delicate little baby reiatsu ducts. Presumably, this was his own reiatsu, in a way, so maybe…? No, Hanataro had said that the entire point of sealing his hakusui and saketsu was to protect him from his own reiatsu. She frowned. Was it Renji’s reiatsu? Renji’s reiatsu was red. Before tonight, she’d only ever felt Zabimaru as a subset of Renji. They didn’t feel any different now, but why the white? Her reiatsu was whi—wait.

Sode no Shirayuki.

Silence.

Sode no Shirayuki, how is Zabimaru awake if they’re cut off from Renji’s reiatsu?

Silence.

Sode no Shirayuki, is Zabimaru buddying off my reiatsu?

Rukia shook her head. She couldn’t feel her own reiatsu, of course, which is why Renji’s sword didn’t feel any different to her. She was half tempted to go wake up Byakuya and ask his opinion. He spent hours a day in the same room as Zabimaru, after all. There was no time, though. She really didn’t like the idea of Zabimaru “coming unsealed,” whatever that meant. She needed to take care of this.

Rukia realized suddenly that Mikan and Furuya were still staring at her. “Er, no,” she said, belatedly addressing Mikan’s suggestion. “We don't need to do that. I’m just going to pick them up. You two stay back.”

Furuya looked like he wanted to protest, but Mikan shot him a very stern glare and his mouth snapped shut.

Rukia took a deep breath and put her left hand on Sode no Shirayuki’s hilt. She raised her own reiatsu and stepped forward, extending her right hand. At first, the wild flames engulfing Zabimaru seemed to dance away from the layer of cold, white energy surrounding her arm. Then she realized that they were shaping themselves around hers, the sword’s aura curving around her own like a shell.

Why does this feel so familiar? Rukia wondered, her steps becoming surer. It’s like…it’s like I’ve done this before. In fact, she wasn’t even surprised as her fingers closed around Zabimaru’s scabbard, and their reiatsu was suddenly her reiatsu. Or maybe her reiatsu was theirs. Or maybe there was no hers, only theirs, this Rukia-Zabimaru-Sode no Shirayuki chimera they had become. She felt swollen, overstuffed, and yet, yearningly, achingly empty. “Let’s go find Renji,” the Rukia-part of her said, her voice coming out as a chord.

Rukia was not in the habit of striding the halls of Kuchiki Manor like she owned the place, certainly not in her bathrobe in the middle of the night, but with every nerve buzzing with two zanpakutou worth of reiatsu (she was trying hard not to think about the fact that the one that wasn’t hers was captain-class), there was really no other choice. Mikan scurried along behind her, shooing away sleep-squinty staff members who kept appearing to inquire if Lady Rukia needed anything. Rukia appreciated it, even if she was only half aware of what was going on outside of her own head. She was too focused on trying to pull Zabimaru’s wild energies into herself and tame them down into something manageable.

Zabimaru, she directed inward, hoping this would work. If it didn’t, she would either have to count on Sode no Shirayuki to relay messages, or she would have to go back into her inner world. She didn’t like the idea of leaving Zabimaru’s physical form unattended. Can you hear me?

Yes, Rukia?

Well, that was a small relief, at least.

Can you feel your sword again?

We can, but we cannot go back inside without losing our connection to you.

That’s what I figured. I am taking you to Renji, but you have to listen to me. You must control your power. He’s just had his reiatsu ducts rebuilt and if you cannot dial it down, you will hurt him very badly. You will not, actually, because if you cannot dial it down, I will not give you to him. Do you understand? Can you do that?

We can. We can make ourselves small. We will not hurt him, Rukia, we promise.

Suddenly, Rukia’s step faltered. You did, though. You’re the one who burned up his ducts in the first place.

Prior to this, Zabimaru had spoken in her head as one combined voice, but they suddenly split into two, talking rapidly over one another.

No! We did not!

It was not our doing!

Please, we were not the—

Rukia, Sode no Shirayuki interrupted, the other two voices going silent. It was not their fault. It was an accident. They weren’t even really Zabimaru back then. That came later. They are only overflowing because there is not enough room in you to hold all of us. I shall…try to give them more space. They are good for their promise. You can trust them.

“Lady Rukia? Is all well?”

Rukia blinked as she realized that the voice was coming from outside her head and that it was Mikan. “Yes,” she replied, “all is well,” and started walking again.

Renji had been put up in the visitors’ wing, in a room that had an attached servant’s room in a sort of antechamber configuration. Rukia wasn’t sure if it was intended for bodyguards or overzealous chaperones, but it was convenient for Saejima to keep an eye on Renji during the night.

The young manservant stuck his head out into the hallway at Mikan’s businesslike knock. He squinted blearily and held up a hand to shield his eyes. “What’s going on?”

“Lady Rukia needs to see Lieutenant Abarai,” Mikan announced.

Saejima glanced back into the dark room behind him. “I just put some medicine in him, not an hour ago. He’s really asleep. Is…is something wrong?”

“His sword—” Rukia cleared her throat when she realized her voice was coming out in triplicate again. “His sword misses him.”

Saejima tried to stand up a little straighter. “My Lady, Dr. Yamada specifically said we should keep his zanpakutou stored away.” His voice wobbled a bit at the end, and Rukia realized that she must make a pretty intimidating sight at the moment.

“It can’t be helped,” she replied. “I will send Dr. Yamada a message in the morning. I promise.”

Saejima sighed and pushed the door fully open. “Do you want me to try to wake him up, Lady Rukia?” he asked, already knowing what the answer was going to be.

“Better let me do it,” Rukia replied. “There’s probably no sword stand in there, is there? Go scare one up, will you? A comfortable one. With a little luck, Zabimaru should be sleeping through the next few days.”

Saejima opened his mouth and then closed it again. “Yes, Lady.”

“Better stay out here, Mikan,” Rukia suggested, opening the door to the inner bedroom. “I’ll call if I need anything.”

“Of course, Lady Rukia.”

When Saejima said that Renji was really asleep, he wasn’t kidding. Renji had never been a particularly light sleeper, but even before he was a soldier, Rukia remembered him snapping awake instantly at the smallest disturbances. Not that she knew much about his sleeping habits these days, aside from a night of splitting watch in Hueco Mundo. Tonight, though, he didn’t even stir as Rukia walked into his bedroom, glowing with the brilliance of a small star. He was sprawled on this back, giant feet sticking out of the bottom of his blanket, arms flung wide. The right one was swaddled heavily in bandages and splinted. Rukia knelt down beside his futon. His hair was tied in a low ponytail instead of his usual sleeping braid, although it had at least been tied off twice more lower down, to keep it under control. His mouth hung open, breathing deep, even breaths, like the tide heaving in and out.

“Renji,” Rukia called firmly. She frowned. There was no way she was going to be able to wake him up without touching him, which she didn’t want to do, not while she was still carrying Zabimaru. “Renji, it’s me. I need you to wake up.” She hoped she didn’t need to get Mikan to come in after all.

Fortunately, Renji’s eyes squeezed closed and he took a big, snorty inhale. “Huh? Wha? I’m ‘wake!” He started to lurch upward.

“Shh! Shh!” Rukia waved her free hand. “Don’t get up! It’s me, it’s Rukia.”

“Ru?” he frowned, struggling to get his eyes open. “I overslept. The—the alarm… I gotta get up. I gotta make you rice.”

“You don’t. It’s the middle of the night. I think you were dream—watch your arm!”

“You’ll miss your bus and be late for work.”

The bus? “I will not, Renji. It’s—it’s Saturday.” Rukia had no idea why she thought this argument would work against Renji’s poor, painkiller-addled brain, but evidently, it did.

He stopped trying to get out of bed and squinted at her instead. “Why am I awake, then?”

“Zabimaru needs you.”

“Oh,” said Renji. “What are they into now?” He frowned. “I can’t…I can’t…”

“They’re right here,” Rukia said, quickly realizing where this was going. “Here, hold out your hand. The left one.”

“What happened to my other one?” Renji asked, staring blankly at the splint.

“Let’s worry about that later.” Rukia took his left hand in her own and flipped it palm up. “Here we go, open up those fingers.” She took a deep breath, pulled as much of Zabimaru’s reiatsu into herself as she could, and pressed Renji’s sword into his palm.

Rukia wasn’t sure exactly what she had expected to happen, maybe for Renji to slide into that awful lonely place in her soul. Instead, with a burst of joy, something the size of an ox lurched inside of her. Shifting and shrinking, it swam into Renji, the size of a housecat.

“Oh!” he said. “There you are.”

Rukia’s ears were ringing. The empty, lonely feeling in her head was briefly magnified to staggering, stultifying heights before fading away completely. The flames of reiatsu that had surrounded her dimmed and then died away. The room was suddenly quite dark, lit only by a lantern in the next room over.

Renji yawned then, a long, loud Renji-yawn that made Rukia realize how tired she was.

“Here, I’ll take that back.” Rukia carefully lifted Renji’s sword out of his grasp. “Did Zabimaru stay put?”

Renji made a vague noise and Rukia suspected he was nodding, although it was too dark to tell for sure. “They’re sleepy,” he reported. “I’m sleepy, too.”

“Me, three,” Rukia added. “Saejima’s getting them a sword stand, so they can stay here with you, okay?”

“They can sleep on the flooooor,” Renji slurred out.

“Not in my house, they can't,” Rukia corrected. “But you can go back to sleep. I’m sorry we had to wake you up for that.”

‘’Sfine. Thank you, Rukiaaa!” he singsonged.

“You’re very tired,” Rukia started to say, when suddenly, she felt his hand on her face, cupping her cheek in a move that seemed both far too familiar and practiced, especially given that it was too dark for him to even see what he was doing. She didn’t have much time to think about it, though, because then he was kissing her.

Rukia wouldn’t have minded at all, if it were just some chaste little ‘thank you, my beloved best friend Rukia, for dealing with my awful zanpakutou in the middle of the night’ peck on the lips. She probably would have minded a little, if it were one of the dreadful, overblown, too-much-tongue kisses they occasionally inflicted on one another when they were drunk or felt like being an asshole or just thought they could get away with it. She liked those, actually, even when she was the one who got tricked into receiving one, but seriously, Mikan was, like ten feet away, and possibly Saejima, as well.

This, on the other hand, was wholly unfair. It was brief, barely more than a brush of lips and sweet exhalation of sleepy breath and affection. At the same time, in a way that only Renji could possibly achieve, it was like he had pressed the whole of his heart into her hands. It drove the air from her lungs, sent the blood pounding in her ears. Just as she felt like she would collapse from the weight of it, he pulled away, taking his heart with him. Renji flopped back into the futon, pulling his blanket over his shoulder. “G’night, Ru,” he yawned. “See you in the morning.” And then he said something else, half into his pillow, muffled just enough that Rukia could pretend that maybe she hadn’t heard it correctly.

“Lady Rukia?” Mikan’s voice snapped her back to reality. “Oh, goodness, it’s dark. Saejima found a sword stand.”

Rukia had no idea how long she had sat there, paralyzed. “My reiatsu went out,” she whispered back, clambering to her feet. “Have him bring it in,” she instructed. “Carry a lantern for him, Mikan. Renji’s out cold again, it won’t bother him.”

It occurred to Rukia as she watched Saejima wrestle the sword stand into the room that maybe this wrung-out dishrag feeling had less to do with getting smooched and everything to do with having to host two zanpakutou, even temporarily. She distinctly remembered this rubbery legs feeling after training in her early days after getting shikai.

“Lady Rukia?” Mikan said softly, and Rukia realized that she and Saejima were waiting for her.

“Oh, here,” Rukia replied, holding out Zabimaru for Mikan to take.

Mikan stared at the sword for a long moment, wide-eyed. She swallowed, and tentatively reached out both hands, before looking up at Rukia. “Are they…safe? To touch? F-for me, that is.”

It suddenly occurred to Rukia that this had been a rather exciting evening for Mikan. She’d held her composure so well that Rukia had forgotten that flaming, out-of-control zanpakutou were entirely outside of Mikan’s wheelhouse.

“They’re just a sword again,” Rukia replied, “but I can do it.” She managed to take a few shaky steps across the room. Saejima scrambled out of the way so she could set Renji’s zanpakutou on the stand. “There you go, you great pair of lunkheads,” she said, the fondness in her voice belying her words. A faint wave of sleepy gratitude pushed back at her.

“Are you all right, my Lady?” Saejima asked.

“That was very impressive,” Mikan added. “What you just did.”

“I am very tired,” Rukia admitted.

“Oh, oh!” Saejima put in. “Do you need some milk? In Lieutenant Abarai’s notes, it says that if he gets tired from having his reiatsu suppressed, I’m supposed to give him milk or protein shakes. Chef got some extra to have on hand for me.”

“I can duck down and fix some for you, Lady Rukia,” Mikan offered.

“You know what?” Rukia said. “That would be great. But maybe you could get me back to my room first?”

“I hear,” said Byakuya over breakfast the next morning, “there was some excitement in the night.”

Rukia had been staring blankly into her rice and thinking about the soft press of Renji’s lips against her own. The more she thought about it, the more she felt it had been super unfair of him. She had spent, like, an entire fifteen minutes the morning before strategizing his good luck kiss. It had to be earnest and caring, but not passionate. Lighthearted, but not dirtbaggy. She'd pretty much nailed it, in her opinion. Then, he had gone and done that. Entirely unfair.

"Rukia?"

“Eh?” she said stupidly, looking up. "Oh, yes. The excitement. Last night."

“I understand you took care of it,” Byakuya added mildly. “You seem tired this morning.”

“Zabimaru got…lost,” Rukia tried to explain, but her brain refused to come up with a more cogent explanation.

Byakuya studied her for a long moment, then picked up his miso soup. “That is what Senbonzakura said. I admit that I did not entirely believe him.” He took a dignified sip.

“Senbonzakura felt that?” Rukia asked, horrified. She knew, intellectually, that zanpakutou were aware of each other, and some were able to communicate with each other on some frequency that their shinigami were not privy to. That being said, she had assumed that Zabimaru had come to Sode no Shirayuki for help because…well…it had just seemed recently like maybe there was something…

“He told me Zabimaru was ‘being a bad houseguest,’” Byakuya shook his head. “He said they bothered your Sode no Shirayuki over something. I do not see how it was any of his business.” He looked thoughtful for a moment. “How did you manage to resolve it? Did you have to wake Abarai?”

“Mostly, they were just upset because they didn’t understand what was going on.” Rukia poked at her rice. “I explained things and then I went and got their sword out of the armory and took it to Renji. I did have to wake him up, but it was only for a minute.”

Byakuya stared at her for a long moment. “You spoke with Abarai’s zanpakutou? Did they manifest?”

Rukia rubbed the back of her neck. “No…I think I was only able to do it because Sode no Shirayuki was acting as an intermediary.”

“Ah,” Byakuya nodded, as if this explained things. “I certainly do not mean to pry. It is just…highly unusual.”

“No, it was weird, for sure,” Rukia agreed, trying to replay her interactions with both zanpakutou the night before. The truly weird thing, which she wasn’t sure she wanted to say out loud, was that Sode no Shirayuki did not, under normal circ*mstances, speak inside her head. She could appear in dreams, and Rukia got feelings from time to time, longings, or a sense of approval or disapproval, but never words. On the other hand, Zabimaru spoke to Renji all the time.

Sode no Shirayuki? she directed inwardly. Can you hear me? Can you talk to me? I bet you can’t. If you don’t answer me right now, I’m going to assume that the only reason you spoke to me last night is because Zabimaru can do it and you can’t.

There was only silence in response. Maybe this would mean something, if Sode no Shirayuki ever did anything she was asked.

Rukia sighed. “I’ve sent a message over to the Fourth, and Hanatarou said he would swing by later today to make sure everything’s still on the up-and-up. Maybe he’ll have some ideas.”

Byakuya’s eyebrows raised a fraction of a millimeter, which Rukia had determined was his equivalent of rolling his eyes. “Perhaps,” he said, “he will.”

Renji woke up in a state of extreme confusion.

He was not in his quarters. Either that, or someone had made off with his extensive collection of first edition Kuchiki Rukia rabbit doodles, most of which he kept tacked to the wall next to his bed. The ceiling was not his ceiling, though, and the bedding was far nicer than his own.

It had been a long time since he woke up in a place he didn't recognize. Did I…did I sleep with someone classy? he wondered to himself, with a small pang of horror. There was only one person he was interested in sleeping with these days, who, to be fair, was very classy. If that had happened, he would have remembered. He was sure that if that had happened, he would have remembered it.

He lurched upright, which turned out to be a mistake, because it sent his head spinning. “f*ck,” he muttered.

The room did not look to be anyone’s personal living space. It was definitely a very nice room, though. The rice paper in the shoji softened the light pouring in from outside into a pleasant, muted haze, but it was clear the sun must be pretty high in the sky. That was odd, too. Renji wasn’t one for sleeping in much past dawn.

Maybe I’ve been kidnapped, he contemplated. Who would want me, though?

There was a slight shushing noise as an interior door opened, and a curious face poked in. “Good morning, Lieutenant Abarai! I thought I heard you up.”

Renji squinted at the young man, who definitely wasn’t one of his subordinates. “I…know you…” he said, rather stupidly.

“Hiroyoshi, sir. Saejima Hiroyoshi,” the kid reminded him in a tone that suggested he hadn’t really expected Renji to remember. He did, though, Saejima. No, that wasn't right. Hiroyoshi.

“You, ah, you work at Rukia’s house,” Renji managed, which jogged his memory a little further. “I am at Rukia’s house. I am at Rukia’s house because…” He picked up his right arm, which felt rather heavy and sore, and turned out to be encased in a standard Squad Four outpatient volar splint. “Because I had arm surgery.” He felt very proud of himself.

“Mm-hmm,” Hiroyoshi nodded. He didn’t seem to fully appreciate the magnificence of Renji’s cognitive feat. “Are you hungry?”

Renji considered this. His body felt really weird. He was alert enough, but all of his muscles ached with fatigue. It was a lot like coming out of bankai under the effects of a power restrictor, except there was none of that desperate, starving feeling of his body trying to scrabble reishi out of the air. “I’m not sure,” he admitted.

“You haven’t had anything solid in the last twenty-four hours, so you should probably try, if you feel up to it,” Hiroyoshi suggested.

“Oh, I can definitely eat,” Renji agreed. Circ*mstances had to get pretty dire before he was incapable of shoveling food down his gullet.

“Excellent, sir! I’ll be back shortly!”

Hiroyoshi’s head disappeared again, and the door shut softly.

I should have asked him where my clothes are, Renji realized. He couldn’t eat in his nightclothes in someone else’s house. Or could he? He was here because he would otherwise be at the Fourth, where they would most likely make him stay in bed to eat. He had no idea what any of the rules were in this situation.

He wished Rukia were here.

Glancing around the room, he was somewhat surprised to see a familiar sword sitting on a sword stand set up rather haphazardly in the middle of the room. “You’re not supposed to be here,” he murmured. He distinctly remembered talking with Captain Unohana about having to keep his sword stored separately. It was also extremely disconcerting to have seen his sword before he felt them. He was surprised, actually, that he hadn’t noticed their absence the moment he woke up. Zabimaru’s noisy buzz was just part of the general static of his daily life, an ever-present bassline to the cheerful, efficient hum of Squad Six going about their business.

That’s when he realized that he couldn’t feel anything. It was like his head was stuffed with cotton, like having a terrible head cold. Kuchiki Manor was quieter than most places he spent his time, true, and the captain had a peculiar habit of keeping his reiatsu contained to very low levels (probably so that he could sneak up on people). Hiroyoshi wasn’t a shinigami, but he was a pretty sturdy soul. All of the Kuchiki family staff had to be, in order to work here. Renji ought to have been able to feel him. He ought to be able to sense the low-key current of servants going about their work. Most of all, he ought to be able to feel Rukia, his lodestone, his north star. Since the war, since her powers came back after she was nearly executed, she’d been nearly as constant a presence as Zabimaru. Renji could feel his heart starting to pound. Not being able to feel her was like being back in the Living World, waiting for the Arrancar to attack, while she trained with Orihime in Soul Society. Not being able to feel her was like going to Vice-Captains’ meetings with his blood hammering in his ears, while she sat alone in the Penitence Tower.

Suddenly, there was a huge yawn from somewhere within his chest, with a second one following behind it on brief delay. What is all this drama, Abarai Renji? Zabimaru asked.

A sense of relief washed over him. I couldn’t feel you, he excused stupidly. It was half true, at least.

There was a dry, snakey burst of laughter. Liar. You are so obvious. She is only on the other side of the house, you fool. She will come see you once she knows you are awake.

There was the very distinct sensation of going back to sleep, but not before Renji’s attention was jerked very strongly to Rukia’s faint, but reassuringly familiar reiatsu.

“Thanks,” Renji murmured, his heart retreating out of his throat and back down into his rib cage where it belonged.

The door slid open again, and Hiroyoshi walked in, carrying a tray. “All sorts of good stuff for you here, Lieutenant Abarai,” he said brightly.

“I haven’t managed to get out of bed, yet,” he admitted. “Do you know where my clothes are?”

“You’re on bedrest, sir,” Hiroyoshi said, very practically. “No need for any of that.” He set the tray down over Renji’s lap. “How does that look?” he asked. “Just eat the parts you want. Be sure to take your pills, they’re here in the little cup.”

Renji’s eyes went wide. There was miso soup, a grilled mackerel, and various bowls of pickle and seaweed salad. There was a bowl of hot rice, and a raw egg on the side to crack into it, even though Renji had it from a reliable source that tamago kake gohan was considered too rustic for the formal Kuchiki breakfast table. There was a banana. There was an entire pot of fragrant tea and a tall glass of—

“You made me a protein shake?” Renji exclaimed, feeling emotionally overcome.

Hiroyoshi looked abashed. “I did. Chef Ohari took one look at that tub of protein powder and told me to get it out of his sight. I think I mixed it up correctly. Sixteenth Seat Yuki’s directions were very straightforward. He said I could add fruit to it, so I put in a few strawberries. They’re in season. The kitchen is full of them.”

“It’s so good,” Renji sighed, after chugging half of it straight. “I think I’m going to cry.”

“That’s really not necessary, sir,” Hiroyoshi reassured him. “Will you need help with that egg?”

“Don’t think so,” Renji said, hefting it with his left hand. He tossed it in the air, caught it, and in one smooth motion, cracked it one-handed against the side of the bowl. He managed to tip the egg into the bowl without any of the shell following along.

“Wow!” Hiroyoshi exclaimed, clearly impressed. “Are you left-handed?”

“No,” Renji replied, picking up his chopsticks with his left hand and whipping the egg into the rice until it was foamy and thick. He had to hold the bowl steady with the fingers of his right hand, but the brace allowed for that easily enough. “I just practice stuff with both hands. Never know when you’re gonna smash one or the other, y’know?”

Hiroyoshi looked like he was trying very hard not to look horrified, a facial expression Renji would soon become very familiar with. “Well, I’m here to help, so don’t strain yourself, please. I would really like to avoid getting on Dr. Yamada’s bad side.”

Renji stared at him for a moment. “Have you met Dr. Yamada?”

“Well, no. He'd been called away when I came to pick you up. He’s a shinigami, though, right? The Seventh Seat of the Fourth Division? I’m familiar with the Seventh Seat of the Sixth Division.”

Renji stared at him harder. The Seventh Seat of the Sixth Division, Gotou Eiichi, was taller than Renji himself, and half again as wide. Hanatarou probably weighed as much as Gotou’s arm.

“I’ll have to meet him today, in any case,” Hiroyoshi excused. “He’s coming to make sure there weren’t any ill effects from last night’s adventures.”

“Last night?” Renji echoed after swallowing a bite of rice and egg. It was really good. “What happened last night?”

“You don’t remember?”

“I remember I had a bunch of real weird dreams.”

“Oh. Um. Well, you’ll have to get the details from Lady Rukia later, but your zanpakutou didn’t go dormant the way it was supposed to, so she brought it—them?—in here to be with you.”

“Huh,” Renji said. “I wondered why they were here.” He gave a hard shove toward the part of his soul where he’d felt Zabimaru earlier, but all he got was a loud snore in return. “And yeah. They’re a them. They’re also a menace.”

“Lady Rukia didn’t seem to think they did any lasting harm and Dr. Yamada will know for sure,” Hiroyoshi offered optimistically. He cleared his throat. “I don’t mind staying, but if you don’t need help and you’d like to be left alone to eat your breakfast—”

“The company’s nice,” Renji interrupted him. Suddenly, something occurred to him, something of vital importance. “I have to see people later?”

“Just Dr. Yamada,” Hiroyoshi shrugged. “Well, I imagine Lady Rukia will be there, too.”

Renji set his jaw. “Hiroyoshi,” he said, “there is something I'm probably gonna need your help with.”

"I just think," said Rukia, "that maybe I should go check his seals again."

"You checked them this morning," Mikan replied, threading a needle with embroidery silk. "You woke up at five in the morning and insisted on it."

"I should have checked them last night," Rukia muttered. "Hanatarou is going to be disappointed in me."

"You said they were fine," Mikan reminded her.

"I said they were intact," Rukia corrected. "I know they aren't supposed to be super tight, but I think they were tighter yesterday. I want to go check again."

"I don't know very much about seals," Mikan admitted, not looking up from her needlework. "But it doesn't seem like it would make much of a difference, since Dr. Yamada is coming over in a few hours anyway."

"A few hours?" Rukia frowned. "I thought he was coming at ten. It has to be at least nine-thirty, right?"

"It is eight-oh-seven, miss. Saejima promised he would have Lieutenant Abarai up and breakfasted in time for his appointment. I think it's probably for the best if we don't bother him before then."

"What do people even do at eight in the morning, besides go to work?" Rukia griped.

"Sometimes you get up early to practice swords," Mikan reminded her. "You could go do that."

Rukia wrinkled her nose. "I want to be available."

"Would you like me to do something fun with your hair?”

Rukia sighed. "That's too much sitting still."

"What if you took one of your 'power naps'?" Mikan suggested. "I promise to wake you up if there's any news."

"I'm not tired," Rukia replied.

"Are you…sure?" Mikan asked, in a way that suggested the presence of eye circles.

"I am overflowing with vim and vigor!" Rukia announced, perhaps a tad optimistically.

"Because it would be very natural to be tired after waking up so early," Mikan pointed out. "And being woken up in the middle of the night. And possibly also from wielding someone else’s zanpakutou. You know, I asked my friend Shinaka in the House Guard--she went to the Academy, you know--I asked her if that was a thing shinigami could do. She said categorically not, unless they were a captain, because captains were always doing things that people aren’t supposed to be able to do. Isn’t that interesting?”

“I didn’t wield Zabimaru,” Rukia argued. “I just…carried them around a little."

Mikan raised her eyebrows at her embroidery. "I see!"

Rukia drummed her fingertips against her knees. "You know, Renji might be awake. He likes to get up early, even on weekends."

"That may be true," Mikan admitted. "But we wouldn't want to risk it, would we? Convalescing is serious business." She shot Rukia a sympathetic look. "I am sure Saejima will come get you, miss, as soon as Lieutenant Abarai is ready to see you. I imagine you'll be the first thing he asks for after he wakes up."

Rukia blew the air out of her cheeks. She let her gaze drift out the open doors into the garden. It was so irritating, having Renji right here in her house, and not being able to see him. Most of the time, he was so kinetic. She just couldn’t wrap her brain around the fact that he needed his sleep more than he needed her pestering. “You’re probably right. We should leave them alone. I’m just antsy. Did you…did you have ideas for hairstyles?”

Mikan immediately shoved her embroidery back into its basket. “There was an article on accent braids in this month’s Court of Pure Style!”

Rukia sighed. “Sure. Why not?”

“You’ll be so cute. I promise!” But before Mikan had even managed to stand up, there was a soft rap on the door. "Oh," she said. "I'll just go see who that is."

Rukia was aware that the entire point of Mikan answering the door was so that she didn’t need to stop what she was doing. But what she was doing was fretting, and trying to figure out who was here and what they wanted seemed perfectly in line with that.

It was Saejima, Rukia could tell from the timbre of his voice. Rukia’s body tensed for action. It was time.

“Are you sure?” Mikan asked.

Saejima’s reply was too low to catch.

Mikan heaved a big sigh, and turned back to Rukia.

“Does he need me?” Rukia breathed.

“Er,” said Mikan, “apparently he needs me.”

Not that he had ever really doubted it, but Renji had to admit that Rukia was right. Kuchiki Manor was kind of awesome.

At the Coordinated Relief Station, it would usually take at least two days of stubble and a lot of sweet-talking the nurses in order to get a shave, but Hiroyoshi had indulged him with a smile. The extreme care that he took with each stroke of the razor and the intense look of concentration in his eyes betrayed the fact that he didn't shave other people's faces very often. Renji had no complaints with the end result, though. He'd even sharpened up the sideburns.

Renji said he could handle washing his own face while Hiroyoshi went off to "find some advice," as he put it. It took a little longer than usual, since he had to do it one handed, but he really didn't mind. The big, steamy tub of water Hiroyoshi had hauled in for him was fragrant with yuzu and mugwort. Renji wouldn't say he felt like his usual self, but there was a lot to be said for feeling clean and fresh.

"How are you doing, Lieutenant Abarai?" Hiroyoshi's voice called through the shoji.

"Going great," Renji replied, leaning to one side so that his hair would fall out of the way while he rubbed the washcloth against the back of his neck. "You can come in."

Hiroyoshi said something more softly that Renji didn't catch, and then there was the sound of the door sliding open.

"--he just would feel better if--oh! Oh, his shirt's off! I didn't know his shirt was going to be off, close your eyes, don't look, don't look!"

Renji tossed his hair back and looked up, curiously. "It's not a big deal!" he called. "I don't really care who sees me without my shirt on."

"I care!" Hiroyoshi yelped. "Put it back on, please!" He was desperately trying to shove a young woman in the lilac kimono of a Kuchiki family personal servant back out into the antechamber.

Oh, right. Propriety. Renji shrugged back into the top of his yukata, and tugged it closed. For extra measure, he made sure it crossed up near his clavicle.

"You're being very silly, Saejima!" the other servant was scolding him. "It's just shoulders."

"I'm decent again," Renji admitted. "Relatively speaking." In his pink-flowered sleeping yukata, with his hair down and not a bit of makeup on, he wasn't sure having his chest covered made much difference, but what did he know?

Hiroyoshi craned his head behind him and evidently agreed that Renji passed muster. He let his arm down, and the maid scrambled into the room, shooting him a not-very-effective death glare. She was fairly short in stature and very cute, with bright amber eyes and a constellation of freckles across her nose. Her dark brown hair was clipped up with a set of pins that looked like dragonflies. Despite the fact that they had never actually spoken to one another, Renji recognized her instantly.

"Hi," he said. "Mikan." There was a loud, staticky buzzing in his brain. Mikan was Rukia's personal maid. Rukia adored her and counted on her for everything. From what Renji knew of her, she was proper and patient and very sweet and a little shy. And now she'd seen his tit*. Maybe propriety wasn't such a bad policy after all.

She gave a deep and reverent bow. "Lieutenant Abarai. You're looking well!"

"We're working on it," he admitted.

"Well, I'm here to help!" she said cheerfully.

"I didn't know there would be make-up," Hiroyoshi excused miserably. "I would have practiced. I don't wear it myself, and I really don't want to risk poking your eye out."

"I didn't think to mention it," Renji admitted. "I'm sorry about that."

"There's no need for a pity-party," Mikan declared, settling herself on her knees next to Renji and giving his face a very professional once-over. "This is an opportunity to learn. Not all noblemen wear make-up, and many only do so for formal occasions, but it's a good skill set for a valet to possess." Her eyes roved curiously over the tray where Renji had laid out the supplies for his minimally acceptable make-up routine.

"This is just my sick-day face," Renji added self-consciously. "Usually, there's a bit more to it."

Mikan looked up at him, trying and not entirely succeeding at hiding her delight. "I was just wondering if the foundation was entirely necessary. Sometimes it's good to give your skin a day off to breathe."

Renji raked his fingers through his air. "You're not wrong, but, uh…" He leaned forward, and lowered his voice, although he wasn't entirely sure who he was worried about overhearing. “Mikan, I have freckles.”

Mikan glanced up at his face for a moment. “Lieutenant Abarai, so do I.” She paused for a moment, before adding, “Lady Rukia has told me they are very cute.”

Renji felt his cheeks go warm with embarrassment. “It’s different. You’re…you’re a girl.”

Mikan was a portrait of innocence. “Lady Rukia likes boys, too, you know.” She cleared her throat primly, and looked down at the tray again. "Think about it. You have a few minutes to decide. So how far along have you gotten? Are you done washing up, or do you have more to do?"

"Nah, I'm done," Renji said, his voice sounding very far away. He wondered if Rukia had meant that comment generally, or if it was just Mikan's freckles in particular.

Mikan turned to wag a finger at Hiroyoshi. "Washing is always the first step! It is both healthy for the skin and gives you a clean canvas to start with!"

Normally, Renji was all for skincare chat, but his brain just wasn't ready to move on.

Did Rukia like his freckles? If she'd ever expressed an opinion on them, he certainly didn't recall it. She knew he had freckles, he was positive of that much. He'd gotten enough taunts about them, back in the day, usually from people trying to goad him into a fight. Rukia never had, though. She'd certainly ripped him about enough other things. Maybe the fact that she hadn't was telling enough.

On the other hand, that was years ago. He'd started covering them up during his student days, but that had been after she'd left. Maybe she'd forgotten about them, or assumed he'd outgrown them. Renji wished he'd outgrown them. They were the second-most embarrassing thing about his face, right after his stupid red eyelashes. Not that Rukia didn't have atrocious taste in plenty of other stuff.

"Are they cute?" he blurted out.

Mikan blinked at him. She was holding up his jar of moisturizer and pointing out something on the ingredients list to Hiroyoshi.

"His brain gets stuck sometimes," Hiroyoshi explained. "Are you still back on the freckles, Lieutenant?"

"Yes," Renji replied.

"Oh!" said Mikan. "Well…by accepted beauty standards freckles are considered undesirable, true. But I've always been very fond of mine and I think yours are very charming, as well."

"I think they're cute," Hiroyoshi shrugged.

Renji took a deep breath in through his nose and let it out again. "Okay. We can skip the foundation for today. But the mascara and eyeliner are non-negotiable, got it?"

"Absolutely," Mikan agreed.

"I'm back, Lady Rukia!" Mikan called from outside the door of Rukia's chambers. "I'm sorry that took longer than expected. The good news is, we got Lieutenant Abarai all squared away and you're welcome to go see him now." She paused. "He's actually quite looking forward to seeing you, miss." She paused again, and frowned. There was no response from inside the room. That was funny. Had Lady Rukia been called away? Mikan couldn't imagine she would have left, otherwise.

Slowly and carefully, she eased the door open and peaked inside.

Lady Rukia had fallen asleep in the middle of the floor.

Chapter 7

Chapter Text

Rukia was not running through the hallways of Kuchiki Manor. If she ran in Kuchiki Manor, she was pretty sure the angry ghosts of twenty-eight (give or take a few) former Ladies Kuchiki, including her own sister, would materialize, combine into the fanciest Menos there had ever been, and cero her into next week.

Stop panicking, Rukia told herself. You haven't actually screwed anything up. Hanatarou is not going to make Renji go back to the Coordinated Relief Station.

Hanatarou was definitely going to make Renji go back to the Coordinated Relief Station.

Everything would have been fine if she hadn't fallen asleep on the floor, which had both wrinkled her kimono and smashed her hair down on one side. Fortunately, Mikan had gotten her put back together at a speed that was truly worthy of the Kuchiki household staff.

"You're fine," Saejima reassured her when he opened the door. "Dr. Yamada isn't here yet. It's only ten of."

"He's always very prompt," Rukia pointed out.

"Well, since you're here," Saejima said, glancing over his shoulder. "Do you mind keeping an eye on Lieutenant Abarai, just for a minute? I'll go fetch a fresh pot of tea. I want Dr. Yamada to see that we're taking good care of him. Last night notwithstanding."

"Great idea!" Rukia nodded eagerly. "Make something with a lot of caffeine. Hanatarou usually needs it." She glanced at the door to the inner room. "How is Renji this morning?"

"He seems good," Saejima assured her. "Cheerful. Easygoing." He paused for a moment. "He's been looking forward to seeing you, Lady Rukia."

"Oh," said Rukia.

"I'll tell him you're here."

"You don't need to, it's just me," Rukia waved him off. "Go get the tea."

Saejima looked hesitant. "He was decent a minute ago, but I should probably make sure."

"He's never decent, but if you mean he might have his shirt off, I've seen it."

"But if Lord Kuchiki--"

"Brother has seen it, too. Tea!"

Saejima sighed, but departed.

Rukia smoothed her kimono again. She'd picked a pretty one this morning, silvery-pink dusted with brighter pink and purple hollyhocks. It wasn't particularly fancy, but she usually got a compliment or two when she wore it on social calls. Rukia felt a pang of self-consciousness. Renji was probably going to laugh at her for showing up to see him looking so girly. Oh, well. There was nothing for it now. "Renji, it's me," she called. "I'm coming in."

Renji certainly looked like he was ready for visitors. He was sitting up on a zabuton, his hair tugged into its usual daytime spiky ponytail, although it was starting to look slightly more sedate, now that it was long enough to hang down under its own weight. Several other zabuton had been set out, for herself and Hanatarou, presumably. Renji was wearing that ridiculous pink-flowered yukata that Rukia had sworn to herself that she was going to steal from him one of these days. He had a light blanket tucked around his knees, as though Saejima was worried about him taking a chill from the pleasant morning breeze coming in through the partially open outer door.

Renji's expression, however, was one of complete shock. His eyes were like dinner plates, his mouth slack. "R-rukia?" he sputtered.

"Who else would it be, silly?" she replied brightly. She shut the door behind her before walking over to sit down on one of the extra cushions.

Renji's eyes tracked her like he expected her to disappear at any second. There was something about his face, maybe something in that wild-eyed expression, that made him look oddly young. "I wasn't-- I wasn't sure when I would get to see you again. What are you doing here?"

The binding would affect his memory. Rukia remembered Hanatarou telling her this. He’s going to be forgetful and clumsy and may get disoriented at times.

"I thought you were expecting me," Rukia prompted gently, trying to throw his brain a few clues. "And this is my house. I live here."

Renji frowned and blinked. f*ck, there really was something different about his eyes. Was it…was it his eye makeup? It was. Instead of his usual knife-sharp wing, someone had done his eyes up big and round and soft. No, not someone. Rukia knew exactly whose work this was.

"What am I doing here, then?" Renji mumbled to himself, looking down at his hands in his lap. "Never mind. Don't waste this, Abarai--you're probably going to get kicked out in about two minutes." He clenched his hands into fists, cleared his throat, and looked up, his eyes flashing with determination. "How have you been, Rukia? Have the Kuchiki been treating you well?"

"I've…been fine," Rukia said slowly. "And of course they have. You know that."

"You look-- you look really good," Renji plowed on, undeterred. "Pretty, I mean. In that kimono. It looks very pretty. On you."

Rukia closed her eyes and took a deep breath through her nose. Don't get distracted by the compliment, she told herself. His brain is malfunctioning. He's very confused. Just try to get him back from wherever he thinks he is. She opened her eyes again and smiled very pleasantly. "Thank you, Renji. How are you this morning? Did you sleep well? How does your arm feel?"

"My arm?" Renji frowned, and looked down at it. "Oh. Don't worry about that. I'm sure it was nothing. Injuries happen, y'know?"

Was he back in his Squad Eleven days? The thought was mildly horrifying, but it was slightly less horrifying than the idea that he had been like this before he got to Squad Eleven.

"The fact is," Renji went on, looking at her with his stupid, earnest brown eyes, "I've missed you, Ru. I've missed you so bad. I mean--it's not that I didn't think I would. I definitely knew I would. I just didn't-- I underestimated-- Rukia, it's been so hard. If I'd known, I would have-- I would have--"

Every muscle in Rukia's body had locked up. "I know," she cut him off, desperate to not hear this. "Renji, I know. You don't need to tell me this."

Pain flashed briefly over Renji's face before that mask of determination was back in place. "You got me wrong, Rukia. I'm not askin' anything of you. You got a new life now and I am so, so proud of you. I just feel like…I feel like that last time we talked, I gave you a wrong impression. Maybe it's selfish of me, but I can't leave it like that. Just once, I wanted to tell you. You don't have to--"

"Shut up!" Rukia hissed. "It's not selfish! Of course I missed you back, you big dummy! I missed you like crazy!"

Renji leaned forward, his eyes widening hopefully and the corners of his mouth tipping upwards. "Really?"

Rukia huffed. "Yes, really. But that was a long time ago. We're past that now--"

Renji suddenly grabbed her hand in his. "I've got a plan, Rukia."

"Are you even listening to me?"

He squeezed her hand like he was afraid of her disappearing. "I'm workin' real hard, Rukia, and I'm gonna make rank. It's probably gonna take a while, 'cause nothing happens fast in the Gotei--"

"--except when it does," Rukia reminded him, thinking very specifically of the landslide of events that followed shortly after his promotion.

"Right, except when it does, and then it's usually bad. My point is, I'm working hard every day and I'm gonna get there, I promise. I'm gonna stand at your side again."

"Renji," Rukia said, very firmly, squeezing his hand back. "Listen to me. You are…stuck somewhere in your own past. You did all that. You can stand at my side whenever you want."

"I…did?" Renji echoed.

"Yes, you did," Rukia reassured him. "Don't you remember the years you spent in Squad Eleven? Making Sixth Seat and then getting promoted and becoming my brother's--"

"Lieutenant Abarai!" Saejima's voice suddenly called through the shoji. "Doctor Yamada is here!"

Renji's entire demeanor abruptly changed as the door slid open. He sat up straighter, and his facial muscles relaxed. Her hand dropped from his, forgotten. All at once, he looked older again--less anxious and more confident. He had turned back into the man Rukia had gotten used to looking at for the last year, even minus the winged liner and plus--holy sh*t, he had not covered his freckles!! Was that on purpose? How had she not noticed earlier?

"Yo! Good morning, Hanatarou!" Renji boomed.

"Good morning, Lieutenant Abarai!" Hanatarou beamed back at him. "How are you feeling?"

"I feel great, actually," Renji replied. "They're treatin' me real well, and this guy--" he jerked a thumb toward Saejima, who was setting out a tea tray, "--made me a killer breakfast."

Saejima nodded, but was clearly trying to use a Kuchiki servant secret technique to blend into the background.

Rukia's eyes ping-ponged between the three of them, unsure of exactly what had just happened.

"I hear there was some excitement last night," Hanatarou said, unslinging his medical bag.

"Oh, yeah, Hiroyoshi mentioned something about that. I slept through most of it. He said Rukia could--" Renji looked over at her and blinked with surprise. "Rukia! How long have you been here?"

"A few minutes," Rukia replied dryly. "We had an entire conversation."

Renji froze, horror slowly washing over his face.

"Don't worry about it," she reassured him. "It wasn't--" she started to say 'important', but couldn't bring herself to, "--anything new." Her mouth felt very dry, and she gladly accepted the cup of tea Saejima offered her. "So, you don't remember anything from last night, either?" she asked Renji. "Not even waking up?"

"No…" he confirmed, watching her face carefully even as he reassumed his usual Loud Friendly Guy demeanor. "Had a ton of super-weird dreams last night. I think my brain might've just filed away whatever happened in between the one where I was a tattoo artist who specialized in drawing skeletons and the one where a cat made me go to a cursed beach."

"Was the cat Yoruichi?" Rukia teased, so he would know everything was okay between them.

Renji got the message, loud and clear. "No, but I'm pretty sure he knew Yoruichi."

"That's fair. Yoruichi knows everyone."

Well, that was a bright side to Renji's wonky memory, Rukia supposed. He didn't remember kissing her in the middle of the night. The whole thing was just an accident, a misaddressed missive from his dream-brain. It meant nothing. They were not going to be required to have an awkward conversation about it. At least some of those things were good, anyway.

Rukia cleared her throat. "So what happened is: Zabimaru didn't go to sleep, or maybe they woke up again. I'm not sure. In any case, they got very upset when they couldn't find you."

Renji snorted. "You'd never guess it from the way that asshole was talking this morning."

"They're still awake?" Hanatarou frowned, his forehead creasing with concern. "You're in full communication with them?" He waved away Saejima's offer of tea. "Oh, that looks lovely! In a minute, perhaps."

"They're asleep again now," Renji scratched his head. "It was a short conversation."

"These sorts of things are always unpredictable with captain-class patients," Hanatarou said, "but if your zanpakutou is that active, I'm concerned that the binding isn't doing its job. Do you mind if I check it?"

"Knock yourself out," Renji replied.

"Er…about the zanpakutou thing," Rukia hemmed as Hanatarou moved around Renji's back. "I…I probably should have mentioned this earlier. You explained the whole process to me and I just didn't think of it." She took a deep breath and said very quickly, "Sometimes Renji and I can share reiatsu and I'm pretty sure the reason Zabimaru didn't go to sleep is because they were using mine."

Hanatarou leaned over and squinted at her from around Renji’s back. "You can…what?"

"'Share' seems strong," Renji corrected. "You used mine. Once."

"Right! It was in a fight. We tried again, later, and our zanpakutou refused to do it. It's definitely not a thing we can do on command!"

Hanatarou pressed his hand between Renji's shoulder blades, and murmured a soft spell that lit up his fingers in green. "You used his reiatsu, though?" he confirmed in a louder voice. "Like…a soulbond?"

"No," Rukia and Renji chorused together.

"Entirely unlike a soulbond!"

"Akon examined us pretty thoroughly and said it's definitely not a soulbond!"

"Did he say what it was?" Hanatarou asked. He squinted, and the green glow of his spell momentarily brightened.

Rukia and Renji eyed each other uncomfortably. "He called it a 'dirtbag soulbond,'" Rukia finally admitted. "But if Akon were any good at describing things, he would be in Squad Nine, right?"

"I think describing things is a pretty important part of science, actually," Hanatarou pointed out. "Lieutenant Abarai, if you could try to flex your reiatsu? Very gently, if you will."

"Like that?"

"Yes, very good. Now just a little bit more? Perfect. Hold it right there."

"Anyway, normally, our zanpakutou don't get along," Renji explained. "Mostly they just cause our reiatsu to resonate real bad. I'm not sure I would classify this as 'a thing we should have expected.'"

"True," Rukia agreed. "But when they do work together, it's always because they feel backed into a corner. Which is what I think happened here. In any case, Zabimaru promised me that they will stay small and not hurt Renji's ducts. For whatever that's worth."

"You spoke to his zanpakutou, too?" Hanatarou asked, peering from around Renji's back again.

"Zabimaru's chatty," Renji shrugged. "They'll talk to anyone."

Hanatarou shook his head and dismissed his kaidou. "So, the binding is still there, but it's letting a lot more through than it's supposed to." He shuffled back around to Renji's side. "The bigger question is, has it done any harm? Let's take that splint off and have a look, shall we?"

"I'm sorry I didn't notice it was loose last night," Rukia apologized. "I should have called you earlier."

Hanatarou started extracting Renji's arm from its splint. "Oh, I had to undo the outermost layer of the binding to be able to check it. I didn't tell you how to do that. I wouldn't have wanted you to, anyway. If any damage was done, it likely happened at the same time the seal loosened. Me finding out earlier wouldn't have made any difference. Honestly, if what you described had happened at the Fourth, I doubt we would have resolved it nearly so quickly."

Rukia wasn't exactly sure that made her feel any better.

"Hey." Renji jerked his chin at her. "Stop it."

"Stop what?" Rukia grumbled, pretending to pay attention to her tea.

"Blamin' yourself for something my dumb zanpakutou did." Then he flashed her a smile, warm and reassuring, as if he were the one who was taking care of her. "After forty years and bankai, they barely listen to me."

"Oh!" Hanatarou suddenly exclaimed, and everyone immediately turned to look at him.

"Something wrong?" Renji frowned.

"Are they ruined?" Rukia gasped.

"There is…a lot of duct in there," Hanatarou wrinkled his nose, his eyes gone vague and unfocused as he felt around the insides of Renji's arm with his reiatsu-sense. "This is probably two or three days worth of growth."

Rukia did the math in her head. "It's only been twenty-two hours."

"Exactly," Hanatarou agreed. "It's only been twenty-two hours."

"Is that…good?" Renji asked. "I thought we didn't want 'em growing back too fast."

"We didn't want your body doing a rush job and botching it up," Hanatarou clarified. “But this seems like good, healthy tissue. It's following the scaffolding properly. I don't feel any weird lumps or offshoots. Unfortunately, it's not strong enough yet to stress-test by letting you run any significant amount of reiatsu through it. We won't know for sure until then. But there's certainly no sign that anything's going wrong. I don't see any reiatsu flare damage at all. No holes, no burnouts."

"Oh, thank goodness!"

For a second, Rukia was surprised that she wasn't the one who had spoken. Saejima stood in his position by the door, a hand over his mouth. "Sorry," he mumbled, cheeks pink.

"I would have said it if you didn't," Rukia admitted.

Renji shot both of them an amused look. "Worrywarts, the both of you. Makin' Hanatarou come over here on a Saturday morning, all for nothin'."

"I wouldn't say that," Hanatarou corrected. "Your binding is letting through way more reiatsu than I like. Just because you haven't ruined your new ducts yet doesn't mean it can't still happen. Which it won't, because I'm going to rip out the old binding and cast a new one."

"Oh," said Renji.

Rukia squeezed her hands together in her lap. "Won't that cut him off from Zabimaru again?"

"That's the idea. I don't suppose you have any ideas for cutting them off from your reiatsu this time? So they actually stay asleep…?"

All Rukia could think about was the way Zabimaru had felt in her head when they were looking for Renji. That awful, lonely ache, like half of her had been chopped off. "I just think…" She sighed, not sure this constituted an actual argument. "They were very sad without him."

Renji was giving her a very skeptical look. "I don't particularly love being cut off from them either, but Zabimaru is usually full of sh*t, Rukia. I think you might have gotten conned."

Rukia shook her head. "I don't doubt that they're full of it, but this was very real. You've told me a hundred times how hard you've had to work to get yourself integrated into their chimera. That's not…it's not something easily undone."

Renji stuck out his lower lip thoughtfully. "The fact that my ducts are growing back so fast is probably because my body's making more reiatsu than it's s'posed to, right? Or some combination of that and the fact that I'm still in contact with my zanpakutou?"

"Probably?" Hanatarou shrugged. "This procedure isn't something we have a whole lot of data on, and certainly not on patients with bankai-level zanpakutou. But that's not the point-- the point is the risk--"

“Well, but think of it this way!" Renji interrupted. "The more delicate my ducts are, the easier they are to injure. But! The faster I can grow 'em back, the sooner they'll be nice and beefy again and we can just stop worrying about 'em, right?"

"Hmmm," said Hanatarou. "That's kind of a good point."

It sounded like bullsh*t because Renji had used his Bullsh*tting Voice when he said it, but it did sort of make sense. "Are there additional risks in removing the binding and replacing it?" Rukia asked. "I mean, it's working okay now, right?"

Hanatarou frowned. "I mean, yes, of course. There's always a little risk in taking things like that on and off. Also there’s the fact that Captain Unohana cast the original binding. Normally, I would be pretty confident that my replacement should be adequate, but the fact is, you've already bent hers." He picked up his bag and began rummaging through it. "There is another option, I suppose." He pulled out several little bottles, and looked through them for a moment before looking back at Renji. "I can knock you out."

"Oh," said Renji.

"You said you slept well, right? Aside from vivid dreams?"

"I…think so? Hiroyoshi, you said I woke up in the night? I don't remember it."

"Lady Rukia woke you up when she brought you your sword," Hiroyoshi clarified. "I also woke you at least four times to give you medicine. I don't think you were fully awake for any of it. You've been pretty much out cold from yesterday afternoon until when you woke up this morning."

"Oh," said Renji. "Hm."

Hanatarou nodded. "Well. You slept all that time and healed up an awful lot of duct. I think there could be some wisdom in sticking with what works."

Renji rubbed the back of his neck. "I…guess. That was Kaido #14, though, right? That you used to put me under for the actual surgery? I can't have another sleep kaidou for forty-eight hours after that one."

"You could have #3, technically," Hanatarou quibbled.

"#3 only works if you're already sleepy."

"True. It doesn't really matter. I was planning to go the pharmaceutical route anyway."

Renji shook his head. "It's actually pretty hard to knock me out. At the Relief Station, the nurses always give me a Squad Twelve Special, usually Heavy #6. I really don't like it though. It always gives me the jitters the next day."

"I'm well aware of your drug resistances, Lieutenant Abarai," Hanatarou chuckled. "But in this case, it shouldn't be a problem. Even as loose as the binding is, you're still down to a fraction of your usual reiatsu-generating capability. One of the Squad Twelve formulations would knock you straight into next Tuesday. A standard shinten tincture should do the job just fine."

Renji looked deeply skeptical.

Rukia wouldn't say she was…surprised by Renji's deep intimacy with Squad Four's sedation practices, but it was also a little horrifying. How much time had he spent in the Coordinated Relief Station over the last forty years? And how much of that had been by himself?

"I'm actually going to recommend a pretty low dose of this, mixed into a calmative herbal blend," Hanatarou said, looking at Saejima. "You can give it to him as a tea, which should make it easy to adjust the dose. The goal is to err too light a dose at first, and then you can increase it as needed. We want a restful sleep, not so deep that you can't wake him up every few hours for medicine and food. I'll write down the instructions."

"I will see to it," Saejima promised.

Renji snorted. "Don't make me out for a lightweight. I don't want to have to sit around drinking twenty cups of tea waiting to fall asleep."

Hanatarou laughed. "These things are always tricky to scale. Don't take it personally." He finished strapping Renji's splint back on. "It's best to keep this on, especially if you're sleeping, so you don't have to worry about accidentally putting stress on the arm. But as long as you're careful, you can feel free to take it off to bathe, or if you just need a break from it. Oh, speaking of tea, I'd love a cup now!"

Renji nodded, still looking a little put out.

"If you don't want to be knocked out, there's still the option of replacing the binding," Hanatarou said, settling back on his zabuton and accepting a cup of tea from Saejima. "It's really up to you. Trying to sleep through it seems slightly riskier on the whole, but not drastically so. I think it's acceptable, although I will definitely talk to Captain Unohana about it. It's possible she'll send me back here, or maybe even want you to come in." He took a sip of his tea. "Oh! This is delicious!"

Rukia chewed at the inside of her cheek. She should probably encourage Renji to take the safer option. On the other hand, she couldn't stop remembering the desperation in Zabimaru's voices as they promised not to hurt Renji.

"No," said Renji firmly. "Anything that speeds this up is better." He grimaced. "Gotta get back to training. Can't believe I agreed to this, with war ready to break out any minute."

Saejima glanced at Rukia, utterly confused.

"Which war, Lieutenant Abarai?" Hanatarou asked calmly.

"The one Aizen's trying to start, obviously," Renji replied. "'Which war'!"

"The war ended in December, Lieutenant Abarai," Hanatarou corrected. He took a sip of tea. "It's May now. Don't you remember Rukia making lieutenant?"

Renji blinked. "Oh! Right! Yeah, of course I do!"

"Does that make a difference in your decision?"

"Hmm? No, I think I'd still rather get it over with as soon as possible." Renji seemed to take the brain malfunction entirely in stride.

"Has he been doing this much?" Hanatarou asked.

"Doing what?" Renji asked.

"You just forgot the entire Winter War," Rukia informed him.

"I did?"

"He gets a little confused sometimes, but this is the first time I've seen him have that sort of memory lapse," Saejima provided.

Rukia sucked her teeth for a moment. "He did it earlier. The conversation that he forgot, from when I first got here. He thought it was…I don't know. Twenty, thirty years ago. I wasn't really sure what to do, but as soon as you arrived, he snapped back to the present."

Renji's eyes darted between Rukia and Hanatarou.

"This is fairly common in saketsu bindings," Hanatarou explained. "He isn't actually forgetting anything. It's just that he's not particularly tied to the present." He tapped his fingertips against his cup as he thought. "It might be helpful to think of him as…more ghostlike than usual. Existing at some point in his own past."

Oh. That made sense, sort of. Every shinigami who'd ever been deployed in the Living World had met a ghost who didn't know they were dead, one searching for long-dead relatives, one stuck in a war that had ended decades earlier. In practice, a disabled saketsu wasn't all that different from a broken soul chain.

"What should we do if it happens again?" Saejima asked.

"Oh, just what I did. Remind him when and where he is. Be kind, but firm, and be specific. I suspect you won't have to worry about it that much. The brain naturally tries to put things in context. When he sees someone, he's most likely to drift to a period of his life when they were important to him. He and I only started to get to know each other personally last fall." Hanatarou turned to Saejima. "You haven't known each other that long, have you?"

"A few months," Saejima shrugged.

"Yeah, but you've only been my valet since yesterday," Renji supplied knowingly. "We've only been doing given names for two days."

Rukia chewed at her lower lip. Fifty years of history, and apparently, even the period when they weren't speaking to each other wasn't safe. "If I'm just confusing matters," she started softly, "I could…"

"Whatever you're about to say, you can just forget it," Renji crossed his arms over his chest, the splint ruining the effect somewhat. "I only agreed to come here to hang out with you. If you ditch me just because I got ghost-brain, I'm walking."

"No, you're not," Hanatarou said firmly. "It's not that big a deal, Rukia. It's not that hard to bring him back to the present. Alternatively…well, as long as it's pleasant, it doesn't do him any harm to spend some time in an old memory."

Rukia said nothing. If she had to throw a dart at those fifty years of memories, she wouldn't put even money on hitting a pleasant one.

"You could wear your lieutenant's badge," Renji suggested with a grin.

"You'd think my short hair would have been good enough," Rukia returned.

"Also, he's going to be asleep," Hanatarou pointed out. "So it really really shouldn't be much of an issue."

"Right," Renji agreed, with significantly less enthusiasm.

Rukia couldn’t help but feel her own pang of disappointment. Obviously, the goal was for Renji to get better, but she had hoped that it would involve spending a little more time together. None of this was turning out very much like she had pictured. Then, suddenly, it occurred to her that maybe there were a few things that could still work out.

Hanatarou was trying to give instructions to Saejima on how to mix up the sleeping droughts while trying to write them down at the same time. Renji looked deeply resigned.

Rukia pushed herself to her feet. “ If you gentlemen will excuse me for a moment, I’ll be right back.” She flashed a reassuring smile at Renji. “I have an idea.”

Renji felt like he was going to fall asleep from sheer boredom if he had to listen to these two guys talk about sedation drugs for much longer. He supposed he couldn’t really fault Hiroyoshi for asking a lot of questions—the guy was just trying to do his job, and he seemed to have very little experience with military medicine. Hanatarou, of course, was always all-too happy to go over things an extra seventeen or eighteen times.

It made Renji miss Rikichi a little. These days, Rikichi knew enough about healing sh*t that his conversations with Hanatarou veered into incomprehensible nerd babble almost immediately. On the other hand, Rikichi wouldn’t require an entire introductory course in how to knock a guy out, and he also wouldn’t be a weenie about doubling the recommended dose.

“Say,” said Renji, when Hiroyoshi left to go fetch more hot water, “Hiroyoshi’s great, don’t get me wrong, but where's Rikichi?" Then, because Renji figured it wouldn't hurt to talk a guy up to his crush, he added, "He's really good at this stuff, you know, also very, um, nurturing." That seemed like a thing Hanatarou would be into. "Captain probably wouldn't love more of his subordinates hanging around his house, but if you tell Rukia it's necessary, I'm sure she could talk him into it."

Hanatarou co*cked an amused eyebrow at him. "My boyfriend Rikichi took his brother out to Rukongai for a training trip, remember? He texted me this morning. Maybe he texted you, too."

"Oh, yeah, the training trip! Man!" Renji thought for a moment. "I haven't checked my phone. I don't even know where my phone is, to be honest. I hope they're having a blast."

"Well, they caught some fish for breakfast," Hanatarou said, clearly very proud of his guy. "I think he may have resorted to a kidou, but at least they ate."

"Ahhhh!" Renji groaned. "I'm so jealous! It's been ages since I went fishin'."

"I didn't know you liked to fish, Lieutenant," Hanatarou said.

"Rukia and I spent a lot of time fishing when we were kids," Renji explained.

"Ah, those must be fond memories!"

"No," said Renji. "No, it sucked, actually. We were hungry all the time in those days, and the place we grew up had the nastiest, tiniest little bony fish you could imagine. After we first moved up here, you couldn't have paid me a million kan to set foot in a river." He gazed wistfully out into the brilliant Kuchiki garden just outside the doors. "Then Iba convinced me to go backcountry camping with him once, and it was so fun. Getting up with the sun, little crust of ice on the water."

"That does not sound fun," Hanatarou declared.

"It was great," Renji insisted. "The fish they got up here in the single-digit districts are fat as f*ck and twice as lazy. Iba did not actually know how to fish, by the way. He was full of sh*t, as always. I impressed him with my fishing prowess and also my skill at roasting them over a campfire." It had also made him miss Rukia so much it was physically painful, but maybe that was because that wilderness trip marked the end of a period when Renji had been trying very hard not to think about Rukia at all.

"Funny the way that happens," Hanatarou said philosophically, "that sometimes going through a crummy time with someone turns into a fond memory, with enough time and distance."

"Iba's a fine guy, don't get me wrong, but I wouldn't exactly say that I'm fond of him."

"I wasn't talking about Lieutenant Iba."

"Oh! Right." Renji hadn't even mentioned the Rukia part out loud, but Hanatarou was pretty good at reading between lines. That was probably part of why he was such a good doctor.

"And that's what this is, you know? It's a crummy time, and you're spending it with someone who didn't want you to have to go through it by yourself." Hanatarou patted Renji on the shoulder.

"Who's having a crummy time?" Renji protested. "Look around, this place is the lap of luxury!" He frowned and lowered his voice. "Do you think Rukia is having a crummy time?"

Hanatarou waved his hands. "No, no, that wasn't my point! And it's true that the Kuchiki are obviously being wonderful hosts, but it's still surgery recovery. It's never fun to be on an activity restriction, and-- oh, I should have asked earlier! Are you experiencing any physical discomfort from the binding? Headaches, weakness, joint stiffness?"

"Naw, none of that." Renji wondered if he should mention the pressure in his ears, the weird sensation of being underwater. It was just weird, though, not painful, and it wouldn't matter once he was asleep again.

"That's good," Hanatarou replied indulgently. "I included some supplemental painkillers in your packet of medicine, so if anything comes up, tell Mr. Saejima right away. A warm compress can also be helpful, but it won't if you're too stoic to ask for one."

"I don't know what you're talking about," said Renji, who was a big fan of warm compresses on injuries and overworked muscles, as long as he fixed them himself and no one saw him using them.

"Did I hear my name?" Hiroyoshi said cheerfully, coming back in with a steaming kettle.

"I was just encouraging Lieutenant Abarai to let you know if he experiences any additional aches and pains. Or anything, really."

"Oh, yes!" Hiroyoshi agreed. "Mikan knows a lot about herbal teas, by the way, she made me a whole list of what's good for what."

"That's a good point!" Hanatarou agreed. "He shouldn't have any caffeine from here on out, but tisanes are a great alternative. In fact, two to three cups of buckwheat tea a day would benefit his circulation."

"Yes, Doctor!"

Renji said nothing. He had no objections to buckwheat tea, but it didn't keep a guy awake through the dark valley of paperwork at three in the afternoon. He wasn't at work and the entire point was that he was supposed to be asleep, but it was the principal of the thing. Renji watched Hiroyoshi mix up his powdered shinten blend while Hanatarou looked on approvingly. At least it smelled nice.

The door slid open again. "I'm back!" Rukia announced, bustling back into the room. She had a field pack slung over one shoulder, stuffed to bulging.

"What's that?" Renji demanded.

"Surprises for good boys who take their medicine!"

"They haven't actually given it to me yet!"

"It's probably best to drink this slowly, over fifteen to thirty minutes," Hanatarou suggested.

"It's very hot," Hiroyoshi added.

Renji motioned for the cup, which was steaming furiously. "Hand it over, I want my surprises."

"There's something messed up with the inside of his mouth and throat," Rukia explained. "He's missing the pain sensors that normal people have."

"I'm not missing anything! Hot stuff just doesn't bother me! Temperature hot, anyway. Spicy's another story."

"I think it's Zabimaru's fault," Rukia went on. "Sometimes they don't understand that Renji isn't also a sword. It's probably so he could do a Hikotsu Taihou if he needed to."

"Hiroyoshi doesn't know what that is!" Renji protested. He turned back to his valet. "I'll show you after I'm better. It's really cool." A man's faithful valet deserved to see his bankai, in his opinion.

Rukia scowled at him. "You're not doing a Hikotsu Taihou in my house."

"I could do it in the…yard? Whaddyou call that big grassy area where we got yelled at for playing football with Ichigo and the gang that time?"

"I can't wait to see you explain to my brother why you need to go to bankai on the West Lawn."

"I'm great at explaining things to Captain Kuchiki. What are you doing to that tea, I thought it was ready?"

With a last, reluctant stir, Hiroyoshi handed over the cup.

"Thank you," Renji said very graciously. "You are invited to come to Squad Six and see my bankai once I'm cleared for it."

Hiroyoshi's eyes widened. "Really? The actual grounds?"

"What, you've never been?"

"I'm a civilian! Some of the senior staff have special permission, but I'm just a footman."

Renji waved a hand. "You just need a guest pass. Passes are easy to come by, if you know the right guy. That guy is me."

"Stop causing trouble and drink your medicine," Rukia ordered.

"Mikan may also come," Renji added magnanimously. "Mikan will love my bankai." With that, downed his entire cup of sleepy tea in one go.

Hanatarou sighed. Hiroyoshi made the trying-not-look-horrified face again. Rukia continued to glare at him.

"That was pretty good, actually," Renji frowned into his empty cup.

"Maybe you should try drinking it more slowly next time," Rukia replied dryly.

"If he's not asleep in an hour, he can have another cup," Hanatarou said and started to pack up his medical kit. "

"Thank you so much for coming by," Rukia said, evidently tired of pretending to be angry at Renji for stealing her maid. Or maybe it was that Hanatarou was one of about two people (the other being Orihime) that Rukia was always genuinely nice to. Renji had no actual desire to be relegated to this category himself, but he was always immensely charmed by a rare glimpse at the elusive Sweet Rukia.

"Assistant Captains are hard to come by, we have to take care of the ones we have," Hanatarou replied. "I'm on-shift this afternoon, but please text me for any reason. I'll get back to you as soon as I can. Like I said, I'll check in with my captain and let you know if she has any different instructions." Hanatarou slung his bag over his head, then smiled. "You know, she warned me ahead of time that Abarai-recoveries were always very exciting. I realize this is very stressful, but everything really looks very good. I think all of you are doing a great job!"

"Thank you, Doctor," Hiroyoshi said gratefully.

"We're doing our best," Rukia said, looking mildly embarrassed.

"I just eat and sleep," Renji shrugged.

"Good," said Hanatarou. "Keep it up."

Hiroyoshi made a very meaningful face at Rukia. They exchanged some sort of unspoken Kuchiki-Servant telepathy, and then Rukia said, "Saejima, please see Doctor Yamada out."

"Of course, Lady Kuchiki," he agreed.

Hiroyoshi escorted Hanatarou out, Rukia and Renji following them with their eyes as they went. Their footsteps were audible for a few moments, then there was the muffled swish of the outer doors opening and closing.

"Go ahead," said Rukia. "Get it out of your system."

"I don't know what you're talking about," Renji replied.

Rukia just stared at him, waiting. There was no point in trying to fool her, even for politeness' sake. There never was.

Renji took a deep breath in through his nose, and sighed it out again. Then he smashed the heels of his hands into his eye sockets. "Hrrnnggggggghhhh!" he groaned. "I can't believe I have to go back to sleep! I just woke up! I don't want to go back to sleep."

"There you go!" said Rukia. "Doesn't that feel better?"

"Maybe," Renji mumbled. "A little bit."

"You big baby," Rukia teased. "Wasn't your original plan to sleep your way through all of this at the Coordinated Relief Station?"

"Well, yeah," Renji defended. "But the Coordinated Relief Station is boring and it sucks."

Rukia co*cked an eyebrow at him. "You know what your problem is, Abarai Renji? You've lost your appreciation for a really good nap. When was the last time you had a lovely Saturday with absolutely no obligations?" She made a thinky face. "Do you even have windows in your room back at Squad Six?"

"I do!" Renji protested. "They…face the inner courtyard of the barracks. What does it matter? Bedroom's for sleepin'. It's supposed to be dark."

"Sure, darkness is nice when you're sleeping for the sake of sleeping. But a truly luxurious springtime nap requires a warm sunny spot and a fresh breeze. We get excellent sunshine here at the manor."

"We get very good sun in the sakura grove," Renji pointed out, because he wasn't about to let a slight to Squad Six pass unanswered. "I got a special tree there, for nappin' under. Vice-Captain's nappin' tree."

"And how many naps, exactly, have you taken under it?" Rukia asked primly. "Mr. Vice-Captain?"

Renji winced. It drove him nuts when she called him "Mr. Vice-Captain," which, of course, is why she had done it. "Fine," he groaned. "You've made your point." Then he sighed, and looked out the open doors. "I guess I was just hoping I would get to see you a little more than this."

Renji caught the little flush of pink on Rukia's cheeks before she abruptly looked down and busied herself unbuckling the straps of her field pack. "I know. Me, too. But then I remembered, I have a bunch of books for you! I thought maybe I could hang out and read to you until you fell asleep."

"Books?" The field pack was practically bursting at the seams. "How many books did you bring me?"

"Well…" Rukia hemmed. "So, here's what happened. I have made fun of your literary tastes for so long that I don't actually know what you like to read, so I turned to someone who does: my beautiful arch-nemesis Hinamori Momo."

"Oh. That explains everything. Wait, no, it doesn't," he deadpanned. "What did you tell her you needed 'em for?"

"I told her I was trying to be a good friend and read some of the things you like or would like, and I was looking for recommendations. So, you may have read some of these before, but I figured that was okay. Maybe it would be nostalgic or something."

There was a weird tightness in Renji's chest. He remembered when Momo started loaning him books. She had started loaning him books after she found out that Izuru had been loaning him books, or more specifically, which books Izuru had been loaning him. Izuru had started loaning him books to get his mind off the 144 cm crater that had just been blasted into his heart, because, apparently, his mopiness was starting to get annoying. Maybe it should have made Renji sad to see some of those books again, but it didn't, actually. He just remembered the excitement of being handed new book after new book, of exclaiming over the plot points with his friends, of arguing which ones were best, because if he didn't keep his mind off that crater, it would have eaten him alive. It reminded him of how lucky he'd been to have the two of them at that time.

"Of course, Hinamori being Hinamori," Rukia went on, "she felt like she had to consult Kira, even though I guess she hates his taste in novels?"

"It's a bit they do," Renji explained.

"Amazing!" Rukia exclaimed, delighted. "A Hinamori-Kira bit! I never would have thought it!" She was pulling book after book from her pack and setting them in little stacks. "But in any case, he sent some over for me as well, along with some that I guess he wanted to lend you and also this?" She handed over a little packet. Renji recognized it by smell immediately.

"Oh," he said. "Wow. This smells like homework at two a.m."

"That's just what Hinamori said," Rukia laughed.

"I can't have any, though," Renji frowned sadly. "Hanatarou says no caffeine."

"Oh!" Rukia said sadly. "Well…later, then. Also! Isn't it still true that if there's a problem Kira can't fix, Hinamori's probably got your back?"

"Mostly. Problems that require muscles are still my departme…" The words dried up in his mouth when Rukia started pulling something else out of her pack. "What the Hell is that?"

"It's a blanket, you ungrateful slob. She's learning to crochet."

"And she's giving it to me?"

"She wanted it out of her quarters. I imagine because there probably wasn't room in there for her and the blanket."

Renji gazed at the thing, which possibly weighed more than Rukia. It was all sorts of cool colors, and would probably look really good on the back of his couch. He could imagine Momo working on it, her face screwed up into that super-focused little gremlin face she made whenever she was crafting. It must be the horrible co*cktail of drugs in his system, but the thought of it kinda made him want to cry. "She could have given it to her captain!" he protested. "Or some orphans! Or a museum or something!"

"Mm-hmm," Rukia replied indulgently. "Do you want it for your nap? I guess it might be a little warm, it's pretty thick."

"I don't care, I want it," Renji insisted, pushing aside the boring, non-Momo-made blanket on his lap. He started to clamber to his feet, only to find that his leg muscles seemed to have come disconnected from his bones, somehow. "Uh-oh," was all he managed to get out as his knees betrayed him. Renji fell forward in slow motion. His arms windmilled, but the Kuchiki liked their rooms big and empty of things to grab onto.

Fortunately, Rukia hadn't spent eight weeks in intense shunpo training for nothing. (She had spent eight weeks in intense shunpo training for the purposes of passing her lieutenant's exam and also for breaking her own brother's speed record, but these were unimportant details.) In the time it took to fall the 44 cm into her arms, she was already ready and waiting.

"That could have gone better," he admitted. They were practically nose to nose, her elbows locked around his armpits, his knees hovering a scant centimeter above the floor.

"Are you alright?" she gasped, lowering his knees the rest of the way to the ground so he could support some of his own weight. "Why did you do that?"

"Do what? Get up?"

"Get up so fast! Be gentle with yourself, you big dummy!"

"Sorry," he muttered, turning his face away.

Rukia leaned forward until their foreheads bonked together. "Don't be sorry. I'm sorry. You just scared me." She took a deep breath. "Let me know when you can get your feet under you. Take your time. Please."

Renji swallowed, and tried to ignore the white heat of embarrassment burning at the edges of his vision. It would only be even more humiliating if he tried to stand up and fell again. There are a lot worse things, he told himself, than being cradled by Rukia's powerful arms. Carefully, he shuffled his left leg forward and managed to shift most of his weight onto it. Then, the right. As he slowly straightened up, Rukia grabbed his hands and helped push him vertical.

"I'm good now," he reassured her. "I'm not weak or anything. It was just too sudden."

Rukia let go of one of his hands and swiveled around to his side. She adjusted her grip on his hand, and slotted her forearm underneath his. "Let's go together," she suggested.

"I can walk by myself," Renji grumbled.

"I'm sure you can," Rukia agreed, "but you don't have to and this is nice, isn't it? So indulge me, please."

Renji looked down at her out of the corner of his eye. "Okay. But only because this is your house and I hear you're kind of important around here."

"That's the smartest thing you've said all morning!"

It was kind of nice, Renji admitted to himself as she got him into his futon and tucked Momo's blanket around him. Rukia had never been a particularly nurturing person, and it was sort of funny to watch her thump about making sure his pillow was centered under his head, that there was water close at hand, that the outer doors were closed in just the right way so the sun wouldn't shine in his eyes. The blanket was a good one--the yarn was a thick squishy one that was nice to touch and squeeze, but the whole thing also had a nice, comforting heft to it. Renji didn't like to admit it, but maybe he was starting to feel just a tiny bit sleepy.

Rukia dragged one of the zabuton over next to him and plopped down on it. "There. Comfy?"

"Yeah," Renji agreed. He sucked his teeth. "That was kind of embarrassing. Thanks for not…well, you know."

Rukia made a face at him. "For not being an asshole about it?"

"That's not what I meant. Well. I don't know. Maybe it was."

"No, I get it. This isn't…how we usually are. But that's why you came to stay with me, remember? Because we're friends, and it's okay for me to see you when you aren't at your best."

"Well, yeah," Renji agreed. "But you could make fun of me a little. When you're too nice to me, it makes me feel like I'm dying, and no one has the guts to break it to me."

Rukia let out a little bark of laughter. "You're ridiculous, you know that?" She looked at him out of the corner of her eye and shook her head. "Fine. I refuse to make fun of you for things related to your surgery, but speaking of things you're embarrassed of--" she jabbed her finger into his cheek, "what are theeeeeeeese?"

"Ow, ow, stop it!" Renji protested, trying to swat her hands away. She must have noticed his freckles when they were face-to-face.

"Did you forget to cover up 'em, or did Mikan trick you? She's craftier than she looks, you know!"

"It was on purpose, okay? I'm givin' my face a rest day," Renji declared. He rubbed at his cheek, even though it hadn't really hurt. "Geez. Didn't expect you still remembered I even had 'em."

Rukia snorted. "Well, I am half-surprised that you haven't managed to will-power them out of existence sometime during the last five decades," she said, "but I have seen you without your makeup a couple times over the last year, you know."

"Oh," Renji realized. "I s'pose so. The last time I was in the hospital, I guess?"

"Yeah. You were looking a little worse for wear by the end of our Hueco Mundo trip, too."

"Aw, geez. I guess a lotta people saw them, then."

"I wouldn't worry about it. You were also covered in blood at the time. I'm sure no one noticed."

You did, Renji didn't say.

"Besides--you think I would forget what you used to look like? I always assumed your tattoos were an elaborate ploy to cover up the freckles on your shoulders."

"I wish I'd thought of that, but it was really just a side-benefit."

"Awwwww, c'mon! They were part of your feral, wild-boy charm!"

"My what?"

Rukia laughed and leaned back on her arms. "I don't know. I just remember being a kid and thinking it was cool the way you got so tan and freckled in the summertime and I just always stayed pasty right up until I got sunburnt."

"Your beautiful natural Kuchiki complexion, you mean?"

"Yes, my pain-in-the-butt natural Kuchiki complexion. By the way, did you know they've come around on freckles in the Living World? I read an article on it in one of Orihime's magazines. Some girls even draw them on!"

"Astonishing!" Renji managed around a yawn. "You think I should stop coverin' 'em up, then?"

Rukia's face grew serious. She studied him carefully for a long moment. "No. I think you should keep doing what you're doing. You've worked very hard on the image you want to present to the Seireitei, and you wear it well. The freckles don't fit." She paused. "But just between you and me, I like getting to see them once in a while. It's like a secret. Reminds me that there's still some of the kid I grew up with in there somewhere." She smooshed his nose with one finger. "He was my friend, y'know?"

"Hmm," said Renji, whose brain had stopped actually processing any of the things they were saying some time ago. He was feeling very cozy, though, and Rukia was here, and he was pretty sure that Rukia did like his freckles, which made him feel strangely happy.

"I promised to read to you!" Rukia exclaimed, sitting straight up. "You're looking pretty sleepy. Do you still want that?"

"I do!" Renji insisted.

"Do you know which book you want? You didn't even really get a chance to look at them."

"Did…did Momo send over Song of the Four Winds? There's a girl on the cover in a really historically inaccurate 600 Days War-era Kidou Corps uniform and she's casting some sort of fakeass rainbow-looking spell."

Rukia's eyes went wide. "Does she have a pet squirrel?"

"Yeah yeah yeah! It's not a squirrel, though, it's a chipmunk."

"Are you f*cking with me? You seriously want to read the squirrel book?"

"I tell you it's a chipmunk, and I…" He yawned again. "I think you'll really like it. It's got a good plot. The main character is fine, but the side characters are way better. Her best friend's companion animal is a--aw, damn, I don't wanna spoil it."

"A bunny? Is it a bunny?"

"Yeah. It's like a spirit-bunny. It talks. It's got a very…" He had to stop to yawn again. "…dry sense of humor."

"Of course it does. I am going to go find the book. Don't fall asleep before I get back, you hear me?"

"I promise I will not fall asleep before you get back," said Renji.

Unfortunately, this turned out to be a lie.

Byakuya was wandering the hallways of his house.

He disliked this. Wandering the hallways was Ginrei behavior. Ginrei, in his prime, had been an exceptionally busy man. It's not that he made a habit of wandering the halls, but it was a thing he did when he found himself unexpectedly unoccupied, and it never, ever ended well. At least Byakuya didn't have a grandson to terrorize, but he felt like he needed to figure out something quickly before he started giving the servants advice on how to do their jobs.

The first problem was that it was Saturday morning. Normally, his Saturday mornings were spoken for. He played shogi with his sister on Saturday mornings. It was a perfect spring morning, and it would have been lovely to set up the board out in the garden. Byakuya had held onto the idea that this possibility might not be totally lost. He would not have minded if Abarai wished to sit with them. Abarai played shogi very poorly, but he was cheerful about it. He knew the gist of the game, and had expressed in the past that he did not mind listening to Byakuya talk about it. Usually, the Kuchiki siblings' shogi matches were serious business, but they didn't have to be. Byakuya wouldn't have minded a more convivial air.

That had been a longshot, though, and Byakuya knew it was a lost cause as soon as he learned that Yamada had been called in. Fortunately, he had a back-up plan.

The back-up plan was to hole up in his office and do work. Not real work. He wished to pre-prepare for the Summer Training Extravaganza planning meeting that he definitely was going to have with Abarai once he was better. The Extravaganza had started out as a thing Abarai mentioned while grasping for conversational topics during Ginrei's visit, but Byakuya could tell, even at the time, that Abarai had been rolling it around in his head for some time before then. So far the only official discussion they'd had about it involved choosing the name (Fourth Seat Kuchiki had wandered into the office in the middle of the conversation and provided the suggestion, but they had both spotted it for a winner immediately). Byakuya knew, though, that Abarai had ideas, possibly even notes. Even now, the man was probably formulating training plans with his hindbrain as he slept his way through a Squad Four co*cktail of extra-strength pain medication. Byakuya had no intention of being caught flat footed.

This is where the second problem came in.

With the weather being so balmy in the last week, the staff had been industriously working their way through the annual Airing of the Tatami, and his office had been on the schedule for that morning. Of course it had! Byakuya never used his office on Saturday mornings! That was when he played shogi with Rukia!

Upon realizing the error, Seike had immediately offered to rearrange the schedule, but Byakuya disliked disrupting the staff's routines, especially over his own inability to occupy himself. They were quite efficient at the process--there were extra mats that had already been cleaned and aired, so it was simply a matter of swapping them out. Byakuya preferred to just stay out of their way and look forward to enjoying his freshened office when they had finished.

Except that now he was wandering.

Byakuya could do his planning in the library. He had considered it. But there were personnel files in his office that he would want, and he just didn't want to have to move everything and then move it again. He'd rather wait.

It was too early for lunch. If he ate lunch now, it would throw his entire afternoon into disjoint.

He could have done his wandering in the garden. That would have been pleasant, instead of just neurotic. But it felt incorrect to be enjoying nature's beauty while the doctor was here, while Abarai was perhaps receiving dire news about the state of his ducts.

He wanted an update.

Byakuya frowned. He had no role in this. There was no reason for him to receive updates. He was just worrying, which helped no one.

Suddenly, there was the sound of hurried footsteps, and Rukia came trotting out of a side corridor. She seemed deeply in thought, and startled herself by nearly walking headlong into his chest. "Oh! Brother! Hello!"

"Hello," Byakuya replied. "Is something wrong? You seemed concerned."

Rukia smoothed her kimono, even though it appeared perfectly presentable. Her face, on the other hand, looked deeply weary. "Huh? No! I was just…thinking."

"I heard that Yamada had arrived. I assume he is taking an irritatingly long time to carry out his examination, as the Fourth always does. Waiting for news is surely very frustrating." Byakuya felt mildly ashamed of himself for revealing his own feelings so transparently.

Fortunately, Rukia did not seem to have her usual razor-sharp observation skills about her this morning. "Hmm? Oh, Hanatarou left a bit ago."

"Ah," said Byakuya. "His reiatsu is so…subtle. Very difficult man to keep track of." Rukia did give him a pointed glare for that one. "May I enquire how the appointment went?" He was not being nosy. He was showing support, Byakuya told himself. He was giving Rukia a chance to express her anxieties.

"It went…it went well, actually! No damage, thank goodness!"

"Thank goodness," Byakuya agreed mildly.

"In typical Renji fashion, he managed to loosen his own seals, so he's generating more reiatsu than he's supposed to, but apparently it's working for him, because he's generating new ducts like it's his job."

Byakuya wanted to protest that he really did not need this level of detail. "Good" or "bad" or "he has to go back to the Coordinated Relief Station so we need not have him in our house any longer" would have been perfectly sufficient. He was supposed to be nice, though. He was trying to be nice. At the very least, he didn't want Rukia to think he was dismissive of the things she cared about. Also, he had to respect the phrase "generating new ducts like it's his job," because, frankly, that was exactly where Byakuya wished Abarai to apply himself at the moment. The man was nothing, if not diligent.

"That sounds very auspicious," Byakuya commented.

"It does, but there's an increased chance of him hurting himself, so Hanatarou knocked him out again," Rukia explained. "He just fell asleep. Should be out the rest of the day."

"Oh," said Byakuya. He paused. "I am sure it is for the best. Sleep is often an excellent medicine. It eases the burdens on his caretakers, as well." He considered mentioning the shogi, but Rukia didn't exactly look up to it. "Perhaps you could take the opportunity for a bit of rest, yourself."

Rukia sighed. "Oh, I'd like to, but I just got a phone call about something I need to take care of. I figure I might as well pop out and get it done now, while he's sleeping."

Some strange spirit of brotherly devotion possessed Byakuya. "Is it something I could help with?"

Rukia stared at him like he had grown a second head. "Lieutenants Hisagi and Matsumoto baked Renji some cookies and I have to go over to the Ninth and pick them up."

"Never mind," said Byakuya very quickly.

Rukia's face relaxed, her mouth curving into a smile that Byakuya remembered seeing on someone else's face. "That was a very kind thought, though, Brother. Thank you for offering."

"They should come here," Byakuya protested. "You have enough demands on your attention right now."

"I'm sure they'd be happy to," Rukia pointed out, "but we told them that Renji was at work all weekend and I don't want to risk them figuring out that he's here." She made a mischievous face at him. "Besides…do you really want other people's lieutenants here? In your house?"

"I was flustered and misspoke," Byakuya assured her. "Your plan is the best one." He frowned. "It is close to lunchtime. Perhaps you should eat before you go?"

"It's too early for lunch!" Rukia replied, because it certainly was. "I just want to go and get back, you know? But go ahead and eat if you get hungry before I get back. It's the Ninth. Anything could happen."

"Truly. Do not agree to anything while you are there. You will only regret it. Good luck, Rukia."

Rukia laughed and set off again. She might be tired, but at least she was happy.

Byakuya decided to take a walk in the garden after all, but he wanted to wander back down and see how his office was progressing, first.

"It is taking longer than we had hoped, my Lord," Seike apologized.

"Is there a problem?" Byakuya asked.

"Your office contains a fair amount of heavy furniture," Seike explained. "Your desk and bookshelves, primarily."

"Did you not expect that?"

"We did," Seike hedged. "But, as you know, I reassigned one of our footmen this weekend. I…did not expect that particular footman to make up such a critical portion of our lifting capacity. We are trying to see if any of the House Guard are available to assist."

"The footman you loaned to my adjutant?" Byakuya confirmed.

"Yes," Seike replied. "Mr. Saejima."

It sounded to Byakuya like the house staff might start encouraging some of those body weight exercises Abarai always assigned to the weaker members of the squad. It also sounded like Saejima might be due to have his compensation re-examined.

"I have it on good authority that Lieutenant Abarai is soundly asleep. I am sure you could borrow Saejima back, if you keep it brief."

"Thank you, my Lord!" Seike sounded deeply relieved.

"Of course," replied Byakuya. "I am always happy to be helpful."

Renji's eyes shot open.

He was not in his quarters.

He had a very nice blanket, though, a blanket that he knew Momo had made for him. So wherever he was, it was someplace he was supposed to be.

The sun was high in the sky. It was probably close to noon. Lunchtime, his stomach agreed.

There was…there was supposed to be someone…watching him? Renji couldn't remember. "Heyyyyy?" he called tentatively.

There was no response.

Sometimes, at Squad Eleven, they'd throw you in the brig for very minor crimes like being drunk and belligerent. Nobody actually liked guarding the brig, though, and very frequently you would wake up to find the poor slob who was supposed to be watching you sleeping on the job, or hungover, or possibly having f*cked off completely. If you could punch your way through a cell (and if you couldn't, what were you doing in Squad Eleven anyway?), you could just leave.

Renji sat up and stretched his shoulders. He felt good. He felt strong and full of energy. He felt like fighting someone.

He got up, carefully folded his Momo-blanket, and decided to go look for some trouble.

Chapter 8

Chapter Text

"What…is this place?" Rukia asked, her eyes roving around a room that looked suspiciously like the enormous kitchen at Kuchiki Manor, if it had been taken over by Squad Twelve. It was certainly not what she had expected to find after going around the back of the Squad Nine Customer Service Office, cutting through the mailroom to avoid the bullpen, going down a long noisy hallway (Rukia assumed there were printing presses on the other side, otherwise she didn't even want to guess what all that thumping was), and then passing through a pair of very normal-looking doors.

"Squad Nine Test Kitchen," Hisagi replied, dipping a cookie into his drink and then taking a bite. "Oh, ew. No, I should not have done that."

"Told you," said Matsumoto, taking a long sip from her own bright red drink. It looked like an onsen for chopped fruit.

"It's mostly coffee liquor, I thought it would complement the flavors!" Hisagi shot his beverage a betrayed look.

The two of them were sitting on tall stools behind a long work table. It was cluttered with dirty bowls and ingredients. Some of the ingredients were for cookies. Some of them were for co*cktails. Hisagi was wearing a flour-covered apron with a Squad Nine poppy printed on the front. There was flour in his hair and on his nose. Matsumoto had her own hair pulled up into a high, sporty ponytail and wore a pink ruffled apron with white polka dots. Her apron, along with the rest of her, was spotless.

"What sort of tests do you put people through here?" Rukia asked in a hushed voice. She knew that Hisagi and his captain were both skilled chefs, but she hadn't known that there were cooking requirements for the entire squad. Squad Thirteen's mess hall was staffed by professionals, of course, but she'd eaten some pretty awful food while on field deployments. Maybe a certification of some sort wasn't such a bad idea.

"No, no, it's a kitchen for testing recipes," Hisagi explained. "Captain Tousen built it. He wanted a dedicated area to work on content for his cooking column."

Rukia, who had never been a cover-to-cover reader of the Bulletin, had definitely forgotten that Captain Tousen used to have a cooking column.

"He wasn't a real self-indulgent guy, generally," Hisagi went on a little wistfully, "but I think he felt like it was okay to have this place outfitted well, because it was for the paper. Captain Muguruma uses it now--"

"For what?" asked Rukia.

"For his cooking column," Hisagi replied, sounding mildly offended.

"It's fine, I didn't know either," Matsumoto said from behind the back of her hand.

"--but anyone can sign up to use it," Hisagi went on, still looking a little peeved. "Sometimes for newspaper stuff--product reviews, for instance. Or if there’s a big deadline, someone will cook up a big batch of something so people don’t have to leave to get food, and also because it’s fun. It's much nicer than the communal kitchens in the barracks. The kitchen in the lieutenants' quarters isn't bad, and it's convenient for daily stuff, but I like to use this one for bigger projects."

"Right now, we're testing co*cktails that we are making up," Matsumoto explained. "Want to help?"

Rukia took a very deep breath. It wasn't even noon. "I cannot," she finally said. "I have many important responsibilities today."

"If you have a drink, you might forget about them," Matsumoto suggested optimistically.

Hisagi tried to elbow her and almost fell off his stool. "She's not like us, Rangiku. She makes good choices."

That was in no way accurate, but Rukia wasn't about to correct him. As a Kuchiki, it was her duty to project an image of competence. "Are these the cookies?" she asked, looking at the cooling racks spread over the counter, covered in a variety of cookie-like items.

Hisagi pushed a box she hadn't noticed across the counter to her. It was wrapped in a furoshiki printed with hot pink hearts. "We boxed up the best looking ones for Renji. I'd never made cut-out cookies before, but Rangiku wanted to use her cookie cutters."

"Captain Soi Fon gave them to me once for a Women's Association gift exchange!" Matsumoto explained, holding up a cookie that Rukia could now tell very clearly was shaped like a cat. She made it dance back and forth. "Because we're both cat people, you know? I don't bake much, but they're so cute, I had to take the opportunity."

"I couldn't remember how much Renji actually likes cats, so I tried to make some Hihiou Zabimaru segments," Hisagi added, pointing to some of the other cookies, which Rukia had assumed were poorly executed trees, or perhaps rabbits. Now that she looked at them properly, they looked exactly like Hihiou Zabimaru's spiked vertebrae. "I didn't have a cutter, so I just freehanded ‘em with a knife." Hisagi frowned. "Those didn't come out as good as the cats, I think. The Zabimaru skull I tried to make came out really cool, though. It's in the box."

"Ohhhhh!" fell out of Rukia's mouth before she could stop it. "He'll love that!" Her heart felt so squishy. It suddenly became clear why Renji hadn't wanted to tell any of his friends about his surgery. She felt overwhelmed by how much thought and care they had put into this, and it wasn't even directed at her. They didn't even know about his surgery. They had just done this because they thought he had to work on a weekend.

Hisagi snorted. "It's not like he's hard to please."

"They really are good cookies!" Matsumoto added, biting the head off her kitty-cat. "You should try one!"

"Yeah, help yourself!" Hisagi said, gesturing at the spares. "Even the darker ones are just a little crispy. They don't taste burnt at all."

Carefully, Rukia selected the darkest looking Zabimaru segment and took a bite. It reminded her of a packaged cookie she'd had in the Living World once, but instead of being hard and dry, it was pleasantly moist and chewy in the middle, with a delightful crunch around the edges. The flavor was delicately nutty, which actually got a little richer, more complex around the darker bits. "Delicious!" Rukia proclaimed.

Hisagi's cheeks colored slightly, but Matsumoto just preened.

"The secret is butter," Hisagi explained. "Lots of butter. We have a ton, because my captain's been trying to figure out how to make some French butter sauce he used to do all the time in the Living World. He claims Captain Outoribashi is wasting away without it, but I'm pretty sure it's just a spite thing at this point. So. Thanks to him for that."

"This was very kind of you both," Rukia said. "Renji will really appreciate these."

"Well, thank you, for looking in on him," Matsumoto returned. "We hope he feels better soon. Don't tell him that, obviously."

Rukia stared blankly at Rangiku, a stupid smile frozen on her face. She felt like she would have been able to hear individual thoughts bouncing around inside her head, except that there weren't any in there.

"Rangiku!" Hisagi hissed desperately.

Matsumoto shrugged and looked entirely unrepentant.

"How did you find out?" Rukia finally asked in a very small voice.

Matsumoto flipped her ponytail over her shoulder. "Find out what? I know nothing about anything. I will swear to it, and so will everyone else that I told the thing I didn't accidentally find out through means that I refuse to reveal."

Rukia just stared at her. "You've lost me."

Matsumoto took another sip of her drink. "I know Momo thinks we should stick to the whole 'nudge, nudge, wink, wink' routine, but I think someone should say it. Everyone knows how weird Renji is about his stupid arm, and of course we're all curious, but it's his damn business. If he wants it to be a big secret, fine, it's a secret. No one's going to ask about it later. No one's mad at him for not telling us. Three months from now, if he makes up some bullsh*t story about some kidou breakthrough he's had, we'll pretend to believe that, too. But I want you to know that we are not doing all this Squad-Two-mysterious-secret-agent talk because we are suspicious of him. We are doing it because we love that big idiot and if this is what he wants, this is what we're doing."

Rukia's throat felt tight. She didn't know what to say.

Hisagi looked at Matsumoto, then set his jaw and looked back at Rukia. "Also, if you think for one second that anyone is upset that he tells you stuff that he won't tell the rest of us, forget it. That guy has listened to no one for the last forty years, except maybe Ikkaku, and that's only for sword stuff. We're very grateful for any amount of sense you can ever manage to talk into him."

"It's very little, to be honest," Rukia finally managed.

Hisagi nodded. "I've seen him when he's sick. He's an awful patient."

Rukia thought about watching Renji with Hanatarou and Saejima, about the way he'd taken his sedative so easily, even though he didn't want to. "He's actually been behaving himself pretty well," she said softly.

Matsumoto tapped her index finger against her lips. "You know, while we're speaking frankly, there's something else I want to ask, Kuchiki. Do you think…" She cleared her throat primly and thought for a second. "There's no tasteful way of saying this. Do you think that Renji would appreciate a picture of my tit*?" She gestured at them for emphasis. "It's not for sexual purposes. It's for healing."

"It's kind of sexual," Hisagai put in.

"Okay, yeah, it's kind of sexual. But in a friendship way. Friendship sexual. It's a bit of a tradition, you know, but I definitely didn't want to do anything that would make things awkward between you two."

"If Renji wants, he can have a picture of my tit*, too," Hisagai added helpfully.

Rukia, unfortunately, had made the mistake of looking into Matsumoto's cleavage, and had become lost in the contemplation of its curative potential. "They would be…out?" she asked, her own voice sounding very far away.

"Yes, completely au naturale," Matsomoto confirmed. Suddenly, her forehead scrunched. "Does he not send you tit pics when you're down?" She sounded mildly horrified. "I thought he did that for everyone."

"Er…he certainly hasn't before," Rukia managed.

Hisagi jabbed her in the ribs with his elbow. "C'mon, Rangiku, she's classy," he hissed between his teeth.

"Classy people can enjoy tit pics!" Matsumoto hissed back. "I know a few!"

Shuuhei huffed. "I think…Renji only sends them to people he's…you know…"

"Oh. Oh!" Matusumoto suddenly looked very concerned. "You know, maybe that tradition is played out, actually. Forget I said anything, okay?"

"No!" Rukia blurted out. "No, I think that would really cheer him up, to know that his friends are thinking of him! It doesn't bother me if he has friendships with other people that are different from ours! Thank you both for your thoughtfulness!"

Rukia wasn't actually opposed to having the sort of friendship where she received tit pics when she was ill, but it seemed like a thing that ought to be reciprocal and she wasn't sure she was the sort of person who would send tit pics. Byakuya would never send someone a tit pic. She would have to cogitate on this. In any case, it was surely very generous of Renji to think of others in their times of distress, and obviously, he deserved to have the favor returned, especially by one of the few people in Soul Society whose assets rivaled his own.

Matsumoto's face brightened. "Are you sure you're sure? Gosh, it's been ages since I did one of these. Maybe I'll make it really artsy."

"Absolutely positive!" Rukia replied. "Also, he's not checking his phone, so you can just send that to mine."

After a lunch that was only slightly on the early side, Byakuya decided to go to the library after all.

He had been foolish to avoid the library earlier. It was very pleasant and peaceful here. The library was a place where he had whiled away many pleasant hours as a child, reading about great Kuchiki heroes of the past, or devouring books on kidou or the theory of swordplay. The library has been one of Hisana's favorite rooms in the house, and against centuries of Kuchiki tradition, had filled it with indoor plants. Byakuya had avoided the room for a long time after her death, and the plants had been moved elsewhere. Recently, though, Rukia had started using the room for drawing (the light was good, she said, which is exactly what Hisana had liked about it). Byakuya noticed that a potted sago palm had been added just inside the entrance, and a ficus was basking in the sunshine near the outer doors. He decided he approved.

Byakuya looked down at his work and allowed himself a very small and private smile. He had come in here with the intention of doing some general research on intensive training regimes, but the light had looked so inviting, and the library was always stocked with an excellent assortment of art supplies. Before he knew it, Byakuya had drawn an entire series of depictions of the Wakame Ambassador in oversized humorous hats.

Then, something very strange happened.

From out in the hallway came the drumbeat of rapidly approaching, heavy footfalls. This was a sound with which Byakuya was all-too familiar. It was the sound of a Gotei officer with Important Business Somewhere. Byakuya had spent many decades dissuading his subordinates from using this galumphing mode of locomotion in the main administrative building, efforts which had been entirely undone over the course of the last eleven months. Apparently, stomping around the division grounds "demonstrated enthusiasm" and "built morale," in addition to jarring his penmanship and giving him a headache.

The double doors to the library were flung open with considerably more force than they had probably seen since their construction. Byakuya's very own horrible and distinctly awake adjutant tumbled inside, then slammed them shut behind him. For a long moment, Abarai crouched at the seam between the two doors, squinting out into the hallway. Byakuya could have said something, he supposed. He decided to wait and see how this played out on its own.

Slowly, Abarai straightened and turned. His eyes widened briefly as they made contact with Byakuya's. Desperately, the man pressed one finger to his lips. "Shh!" he said loudly. "They're after me."

His brain will not be working at its usual capacity, Unohana had said. He may have periods of confusion and memory loss.

"Who…exactly, is after you?" Byakuya probed gently.

"I do not actually know, but I'm pretty sure I'm not supposed to be here," Abarai declared. Suddenly, his eyes narrowed, and his chin jutted forward. "Hey! Hey, I know you! You're Kuchiki Byakuya!"

"I am," Byakuya agreed. "I am Kuchiki Byakuya. This is my library, by the way. It is located in my house. Which is where you are. At this moment."

Abarai rubbed his chin. "Oh. Huh. That's…not what I…I must have…" He seemed to be thinking very hard.

I should probably make some attempt to get him back to where he is supposed to be, Byakuya decided. "Why don't you have a seat?" he suggested. "I am sure that my sister--"

That was the wrong thing to say. Abarai's eyes blazed and his face screwed up into a determined snarl. "Kuchiki Byakuya! I, Abarai Renji, am here to challenge you!"

Well, presumably someone was actually looking for him, and if so, they couldn't have failed to have heard that. How long could it take to move some furniture, anyway? Perhaps the best thing to do would be to try and keep Abarai here, and as calm as possible.

"Very well," Byakuya nodded. "I am feeling rather adventurous today. Is there a particular form of competition you had in mind?"

"Swords!" Abarai bellowed. "To the death!"

"You don't appear to have your sword on you at the moment," Byakuya pointed out. "Also, I would prefer to avoid 'to the death,' if at all possible. I believe that Rukia would be very upset if one of us were to kill the other, regardless of who emerges victorious."

Abarai blinked at him for a moment. "Really? You think so?"

Byakuya nodded sympathetically. "I am quite sure of it."

A strange, moony half-smile crept onto Abarai's face.

Byakuya cleared his throat. "Also, your right arm does not appear to be in any shape for swordfighting."

Abarai looked down and considered his splint for a long second. "Hmm. I wonder what happened there." He started to undo the fastenings.

"I would leave it," Byakuya suggested. "I don't suppose you'd agree to a game of shogi?"

Abarai's face twisted. "I'm not very good at shogi. I know how the pieces move, but I don't know any of the strategy stuff." He scratched the back of his neck. "T'be honest, I'm not good at very much outside of swordfightin'."

"I'm sure that's not true," Byakuya frowned.

Abarai flexed his fingers thoughtfully. "I mean, there's some other stuff I'm good at, but nothin' that doesn't use my right arm."

An intriguing idea popped into Byakuya's head. "You are remarkably able with your off-hand, though, especially for someone who is not naturally ambidextrous. I have seen it. What if we both restricted ourselves to the use of our left hands?"

Abarai shoved out his lower lip. "What, like arm wrestling?"

"I was thinking calligraphy." Byakuya had seen Abarai arm wrestle. There was no way he was arm wrestling Abarai. If the pride of the Kuchiki were at stake, he would make Rukia arm wrestle Abarai.

"You think you got me," Abarai accused, as if Byakuya were treating this at all like a serious contest, instead of the sort of time-wasting activity one ginned up to occupy a small child. "But I bet you've never even tried writing with your left hand."

"I have drilled extensively in left-handed combat," Byakuya informed him.

"Not the same," Abarai declared. "You're on. Let's do this."

"Very well," Byakuya said, standing up to fetch another writing table. He felt oddly enthusiastic about this venture. "Do you have any suggestions for the terms of the contest? Shall we write the same passage, or choose different ones?"

"Ah, the same, I think?" Abarai hummed. He was looking down at the papers on Byakuya's table. "Hey, did you draw this little seaweed guy? He's funny! I like his pirate hat!"

"I did, in fact."

"I feel like I've seen him before. Is he one of those little dudes they make Soul Candies of? Like Chappy? Rukia really likes Chappy. I don't know if you knew that."

"I was, in fact, aware. As to your other question, unfortunately, no. Those are selected by a draconian selection board formed by the Shinigami Women's Association. The Wakame Ambassador is my own creation."

"Oh! That's much cooler, in my opinion."

"Er. Thank you." Byakuya's face felt strangely warm. He plunked the writing table down and went off again in search of another writing set. Abarai's brain is malfunctioning, he reminded himself. Do not read too much into it. "Getting back to our contest. Is there a line of poetry that you are perhaps fond of? I could make some suggestions, of course, perhaps a seasonal selection--"

"How about…" Abarai's eyes rolled upward as he thought. "Squad Six: A model of strength and character for the entire Gotei!"

Byakuya opened his mouth and then closed it again. He tried again. "Abarai. Out of curiosity, can you…happen to name the squad to which you are currently assigned?"

Abarai's face went completely blank.

Brother, if you ruin Renji's brain permanently, I will never forgive you, Rukia's voice rang ominously through Byakuya's skull. He cleared his throat. "I will tell you what. If you best me, I will appoint you lieutenant of Squad Six."

Abarai's eyes went wide. "Really?" Then, just as quickly, his eyebrows crashed down over his eyes skeptically. "What about your current lieutenant?"

"I think he will understand."

"Hmm. Well…what happens if I lose?"

"Then you shall agree to go peacefully back to your room and take a nap or otherwise mind whatever orders the doctor has left with Saejima."

Abarai considered, then nodded grimly. "Okay. It's a deal."

"Here you go." Byakuya gestured to the writing table before settling back down at his own. He shuffled his drawings to one side and pulled out a fresh sheet of clean paper. He picked up his brush in his left hand. Something seemed incorrect. He switched it back to his right hand, and examined the position of his fingers. He took it back with his left hand. He made a mark on his paper. Oh dear. This was not good at all.

"Hoo-ee!" Abarai exclaimed, examining the ink stick Byakuya had given him, still in its packaging. "This ink is pretty pricey, isn't it? I've seen this label before, at the stationary shop Momo likes. We don't even go in that section. Do you…ah, do you got any of the regular stuff?"

Byakuya raised his eyebrows. "Part of the joy of doing any form of art is delighting in the use of fine materials, is it not?"

"Well…that's fine for you. It's a bit of a waste on me, I think."

"Nonsense," Byakuya replied gruffly. "When you engage in a contest with Kuchiki Byakuya, you accept my terms of battle." He looked down at the hideously malformed mark on his page. "If you are not used to it, I think it would be fair to allow each of us a practice page. This ink shows more brush texture than the kind to which you are accustomed. Try diluting it with various quantities of water until the thickness is to your liking. I think you shall find it very pleasing, once you get used to it."

Byakuya realized that Abarai was staring at him.

"Is something else the matter?" he asked.

"Thanks," said Abarai.

A variety of emotions that Byakuya did not wish to interrogate were welling up in his chest. "You are in my house," he finally said, a statement that did not manage to express any of them.

Fortunately, for all of his cerebral malfunctions, Abarai still knew how to let a moment pass. Very quickly, Byakuya became engrossed in trying to make the most of his practice page. He had perfect fine motor control in all of his extremities, and the mechanics were trivial to pick up. However, he found it nearly impossible to impart any momentum to his strokes, any grace or elegance.

All too soon, there was a rustle and a sigh. "Well, that's as good as it's gonna be, I guess. I'm gonna start on my real one, now."

"If you need a second test page," Byakuya said coolly, "there is no shortage of paper."

"You've been more'n fair," Abarai replied. "I'd rather just get to it."

"As you like," Byakuya agreed, placing his own test page aside. "I was merely biding my time until you were ready. I shall start my entry, as well."

Slowly, Byakuya set out a new sheet of paper. He smoothed it. He moved his ink stone a few millimeters to the left. He took his brush in hand.

Master, Senbonzakura's voice echoed in his head.

Yes, Senbonzakura? It had been a long time since his zanpakutou had been in the habit of offering him unsolicited advice. At the moment, he would honestly welcome any suggestions.

Good luck! I have the greatest confidence in you!

Byakuya sighed. Thank you. Senbonzakura.

Starting was the hardest part, but Byakuya knew that hesitation was an admission of defeat, and in short order, he was laying strokes down on the page. If they were clumsy, so be it. Senbonzakura's vote of confidence turned out to be more valuable than it seemed. Thinking of his left hand as an object to be directed, like the flow of his steel petals, proved a very helpful framework. He had thoroughly lost himself in his movements, when there was a soft rap on the library door.

"Brother?" Rukia's voice called tentatively.

"You may come in, Rukia," he replied without looking up.

The door slid open. "Brother, I am very sorry to disturb you while you are--I knew you were in here, Renji!!"

Abarai's head popped up with a jolt, his eyes wide and wild.

Byakuya held up a conciliatory hand, his eyes still glued to his calligraphy. "I forgive the interruption, Sister, but do keep your voice down. Abarai, I hope you have not marred your work."

"Um, no. I just finished, actually."

"What…exactly…is happening here?" Rukia asked, glancing back and forth between them.

Byakuya finished up his last few strokes, well aware that Rukia was mouthing a silent stream of invective at Abarai the entire time.

"I have completed mine, as well. Rukia, your timing is impeccable."

Rukia stopped mid-tirade, her mouth hanging open. She looked very silly. "Er…what?"

"Do excuse Abarai, Sister. He had one of those memory lapses to which the doctor said he would be prone. I felt it would be best to occupy him quietly until it passed. Abarai, I don't suppose you could remind me of your current rank and position?"

"I'm…your lieutenant, sir? I…hope?"

"I believe that will depend on the outcome of our little contest. Unless, of course, you don't remember the stakes we decided on."

"The stakes…oh. Oh, no. Oh, sir, I am very sorry."

Byakuya gave a mirthful snort. "There is nothing you need to be sorry to me for. I suspect you owe your valet a sincere apology, and likely my sister, as well."

Abarai looked like he wanted to melt into the floor.

"Let us revise the terms of our deal. What do you say, Abarai? Since I will admit that I was 'pulling one over on you', as it were."

"Look, what if we drop the whole thing, and I agree to take the damn nap? T'be honest, I think I need it."

"No, no! Well, you certainly may, I won't stop you. But I would like to determine the outcome of our battle, even if the only prize is the honor of victory."

Abarai sighed and handed over his page of calligraphy. "As you like, sir."

Byakuya took it, only glancing briefly at Abarai's effort. "You expect me to judge a contest in which I, myself, took part?"

"Figured it would be obvious who won, just by looking."

"Well, it is not. Rukia, my very wise and discerning sister! As I said, your presence came at a most opportune time. Might we prevail upon you to decide which of us has produced a finer work of art?" He shuffled his own page with Abarai's briefly, then set them on his table, facing outward so that Rukia might examine them.

Rukia fixed him with a leery squint as she stepped forward. But when she realized what she was looking at, her face only flooded with confusion. "What…is this? Both of you have better handwriting than…" Suddenly, she looked up, glancing rapidly back and forth between their work tables, at the ink stones set to the left side of their work. "You wrote these with your left hands?"

"Abarai clearly can't write with his right hand," Byakuya explained. "What else would you have us do?"

"What, indeed?" Rukia said, leaning closer to inspect their work. She tapped her index finger against her lips as she considered each one. Abarai, becoming curious, craned his head over. Byakuya fixed his eyes on the opposite wall. He did not need to look at their work. Abarai had the right of it. The winner was obvious.

"This one is more technically accurate," Rukia tapped the one on the right. "The strokes are very consistent in both size and pressure." She turned her attention back to one on the left. "This one is more lyrical. It carries more emotion. The marks are imperfect, but it is because they are more decisive. Renji's is superior."

"Obviously," Byakuya muttered bitterly under his breath.

"How did you know that one was mine?" Renji demanded.

"How could I not?" Rukia protested.

Byakuya sighed and stared out the door that was open to the garden. "You have won the day, Abarai, but do not delude yourself that you have reached my level. I shall not forget this."

Rukia leveled a stern gaze on him. "Brother, he's recovering from surgery, can you just let him have this?"

Abarai sniffed, and his face split into one of his horrible, feral grins. "Thanks for the consideration, Ru, but he doesn't gotta let me have anything. When I surpass him for real, we'll both know it." He pushed the writing table away from him, and attempted to use it to leverage himself into a standing position.

"Stop trying to stand up so fast, you moron!" Rukia scolded, ducking into position just in time to catch Abarai as he swayed precariously to one side.

"Do you need assistance?" Byakuya offered, immediately dropping the mask of condescending captain and rising to his feet.

"It's fine, I've got him," Rukia grunted. "He's been doing this all day."

"I just need a second," Abarai said, his hand pressed over his eyes. After a long moment, he took a deep breath and straightened up. "I'm good," he proclaimed.

"I can accompany you back to your rooms," Byakuya offered.

"Brother, you don't have to," Rukia said, looking a little pale.

"I certainly do not wish for him to pass out in the corridor and bleed all over the floors of my home. He does it often enough at work."

"I told you, I'm good!"

"Ex-excuse me?" They all looked up to see Saejima bowing in the doorway, his forehead pressed against the floor. "My sincerest apologies, Lord Kuchiki. I can take charge of Lieutenant Abarai. He…got away from me."

"Ah, you are here! Excellent," Byakuya declared. The poor boy probably thought he was about to be fired. "Abarai, be more considerate of the staff. When you are supposed to be unconscious, try to actually be unconscious."

"I will," Abarai promised, as Saejima scrambled to his feet and took his place at Abarai's other side. He really was a big, strapping fellow, close to Abarai's own height. A good decision on Seike's part. Rukia allowed a bit more distance, but she was clearly still hovering.

"Do you want another protein shake when we get back?" Saejima offered. "You look a little wobbly."

"I am not wobbly, but I would like another protein shake. Can you make Rukia one, too? Is that allowed?"

"I don't want a protein shake, Renji."

"Yes, you do! He makes 'em with whatever rich people strawberries you have around here. They're really good! Hey, Captain!"

"I also do not want a protein shake."

"Yeah, yeah, I know you would never admit you wanted one. I did just beat you, though, so I know you're already looking for ways to up your game. Anyway, I hear your head chef snubbed my protein powder, so if you want one, you gotta talk to this guy right here."

"I really think we should be going, Lieutenant Abarai," Saejima said, practically hauling Abarai toward the door.

"My game is immaculate, Lieutenant," Byakuya called after him. "It requires no 'upping.'"

"We'll find out at the rematch, won't we?"

"Renji," Rukia said softly. "You should quit while you're ahead."

"I think that we should do drawing next time," Byakuya said, a shade louder than he intended.

"You know I won't back down, even when you're being very unfair, Captain! Rukia, you'll help me train, right? Rukia?"

Rukia ignored him and looked back at Byakuya over her shoulder. "Thank you for taking care of him, Brother. We'll keep a better eye on him."

"It is no problem," Byakuya replied. "It was a pleasant diversion."

Renji sipped at his protein shake as he watched Rukia pace across his room, her phone pressed against her ear. She was trying not to be angry, and mostly failing.

"Argh!" Rukia groaned, slapping her phone shut. "He's not answering!"

"He said he'd be on shift," Renji pointed out. "He'll call you back when he gets a break."

Hiroyoshi rubbed the back of his neck. "Dr. Yamada did say that if the tea didn't do the trick, we could give Lieutenant Abarai a second dose. He said we could go up to four doses per six hours, if needed."

"And if it hadn't knocked him out at all, or he woke up a little earlier than expected, I would be entirely on board with that," Rukia said. She jerked her chin at Renji. "How long were you out? Half an hour, tops?"

"How would I know?" Renji shrugged.

"He'd been asleep for about fifteen minutes when Mr. Nobutsune sent for me," Hiroyoshi provided. "I was gone for less than an hour."

"I really am sorry," Renji apologized. He had no idea what had possessed him to just up and leave. This ghost-brain thing sucked ass.

"It's my fault for abandoning my post," Hiroyoshi replied, sounding miserable.

"Stop that, both of you." Rukia waved a hand vaguely. "It isn't anyone's fault. But as I was saying, my big concern is that Renji is metabolizing the shinten extremely quickly, which means that giving him more isn't necessarily a good idea."

"So it is my fault, then," Renji noted.

Rukia glared at him.

"I was joking, c'mon! It's not your fault, either, y'know!"

Rukia glared at him harder.

There was a rap at the shoji, and before anyone had a chance to answer, the door slid open, and Mikan's face poked in. "I heard you found him!" she announced.

"Mikan, you cannot just walk in here like that," Hiroyoshi hissed. "He could have been…you know!...again!"

Rukia shot Renji with a horrified look that screamed what have you done?

"My shirt was off," he tried to mouth to her, but she had already turned the same look on Mikan, who, to her credit, serenely ignored it. If nothing else, this weekend was giving Renji a real appreciation for what it took to make it as part of the Kuchiki Manor staff.

"You ran off without this," Mikan said, offering Rukia a box wrapped in a furoshiki that Renji was pretty sure belonged to Rangiku.

"Oh," said Rukia, accepting it. "Thank you."

"Have you eaten lunch?" Mikan asked.

"No, I've been trying to call Hanatarou, but he's not answering. Mikan, what do you think we should do? Give Renji more shinten, or no?"

"I think you should eat lunch, miss," said Mikan.

"That's not helpful, Mikan!"

Mikan snapped her head toward Hiroyoshi. "Has Lieutenant Abarai eaten lunch?"

"I gave him another protein shake?" Hiroyoshi replied, shamefacedly.

Mikan looked back at Rukia. "Eating is absolutely necessary in order to maintain the spiritual energy levels necessary for healing. As long as Lieutenant Abarai is awake, he should have a real meal. Perhaps by the time he is finished, Dr. Yamada will have called back and can advise us further."

"That's a good point," Saejima added. "I had planned to wake him around one, if he hadn't woken up by then. It's after one, now."

"I wouldn't say no to lunch," Renji chipped in.

Renji could tell that Rukia hated this idea, because Rukia hated leaving things undecided. On the other hand, she hated not being the most sensible person in the room even more. "I suppose," she grudgingly allowed.

"Since Lord Kuchiki has already eaten, I don't see any reason why you shouldn't take your lunch with Lieutenant Abarai," Mikan went on. "We could set out a picnic in the garden. Wouldn't that be nice?"

"It would," Rukia admitted.

"Excellent, miss, we'll take care of it," Mikan said pleasantly, then shot Hiroyoshi a fierce look.

He immediately hopped to, then glanced back at Renji, and then Rukia. "You'll…keep him in your sights, right, Lady Rukia?"

"Go," Rukia waved a hand. She watched him scuttle out of the room after Mikan, and then heaved a big sigh.

"What's in the box?" Renji asked.

Rukia looked down at her hands, obviously having forgotten she was holding it. "Oh! Hisagi and Matsumoto made you cookies. That's where I went. To go pick them up." She came over to sit next to him. "I think we should eat some and ruin our appetites."

Renji laughed. "If it makes you feel better, sure." He took the box from her and started to untie the wrapping. "Why the Hell did they make me cookies?"

Rukia shrugged. "They said it was because you were working for the weekend, but I think they were actually just bored. You know, Kira and Hinamori and Captain Hitsugaya are all at that party this afternoon. Hisagi and Matsumoto were daydrinking when I left them. It's possible they were daydrinking when they made the cookies."

"Oh, I bet not. Rangiku, maybe. Shuuhei takes kitchen safety very seriously, though."

Rukia snorted. "I got the sense that he did most of the work. They're good cookies, though. I got to try one."

Renji finally got the knot loose, and pulled the top off of the box nestled inside. His heart abruptly stopped beating. "Rukia," he said, "did you see this?"

"I heard about it," she said, craning her neck to see inside the box. Renji shifted it over so she could see the cookie set on top of the stack, a snarling rendition of Zabimaru's snake skull, complete with wild mane. Beneath it, other cookies in the shape of bone segments had been arranged in sinuous curves. There was a separate cookie shaped like a spiky fireball that had been placed near Zabimaru's slightly over-baked fangs. "He's really artistic, isn't he?" Rukia commented. She seemed to have forgotten her grumpiness.

"Rukia," Renji said in a hushed voice, "this is amazing. Why would he do this?” It was perfectly in-character of Shuuhei to have gone completely overboard on something like this, but on the other hand, who would make someone like this for a guy who just had to work some stupid overtime? Who would do this for him? “You don’t think he wants to get back together, does he?" Renji frowned. "Also, what's up with the cats? Is Zabimaru supposed to be fighting the cats?"

"The cats were Matsumoto's work," Rukia explained patiently. "And while I think Hisagi cares for you a great deal, I did not sense that he had any ulterior motives. He just wanted to do something nice for you. It sounded like he had a lot of fun making that. They may be a pain in the ass, but you have to admit that Zabimaru is pretty cool-looking." She cleared her throat. "Just like their shinigami."

"You think I'm cool looking?" Renji asked, lifting the Zabimaru skull cookie out of the box to examine it.

"Also a pain in the ass."

"Yeah, yeah, I'm ignoring that part. I can't eat this, can I?"

"Of course you can. It's a cookie. A cookie that was made specially for you, no less."

Carefully, Renji placed the Zabimaru skull back in the box. "You're not wrong, but I have a lot of cookies here, so I think I will save that one so I can keep lookin' at it for while." He fished a vertebra out instead. "Losing a segment or two will just make them more accurate to life. You want one?"

"Give me one of the cats, I had a bone segment earlier."

"The cats are very cute, too," Renji declared, selecting one and handing it over. Then he took a bite of his cookie. "Wow. Oh, wow. These are so good!"

"I had heard that Hisagi was not a great baker, but they really are."

"He's very, very hit or miss. I think he put kinako in this. He probably did, because he knows I like it."

Rukia looked at him curiously. "I didn't know you liked kinako."

Renji chewed his cookie slowly. "I didn't know either, I guess," he admitted. "Hisagi made me a lot of cookies. When he was trying to get my attention."

To his relief, Rukia just laughed. "How long did you say it took you to figure it out? Three years?"

"I get enough of this from everyone else, I don't need it from you, too," Renji said, jamming the rest of the cookie into his mouth.

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry!" Rukia cackled. She did not sound sorry. "It's really sweet, actually. You guys must have been so cute."

"He's cute. I'm me. I was definitely not worth the level of effort he put in."

Rukia blew a raspberry at him. "I'm sure you brought more to the table than you remember. Oh, that reminds me!" She pulled out her phone and stuffed her cookie into her mouth while she futzed with it. "Hrmph." Her nose wrinkled cutely.

"You just called him. You're gonna drive yourself nuts if you check your messages every ten minutes."

Rukia looked up. "Huh? Oh, no, someone is…supposed to…text me something." Her eyebrows furrowed. "Why do I have a text from Captain Hitsugaya?"

Renji co*cked an eyebrow.

"'Disregard previous,' it says. What previous? Literally the last text I have from him is from last October, when we were on the Advance Team."

"Did you get a text from Rangiku?" Renji suggested. "I feel like I have gotten texts from Rangiku and then immediately gotten 'Disregard previous' from Captain Hitsugaya."

"No, I definitely do not have any texts from Matusmoto. Oh! I do have a text from Hinamori!" Rukia tapped at her phone. Suddenly, her eyes widened, and her eyebrows shot up. A wordless squeal rose up in her throat.

"Lemme see!" Renji demanded.

Rukia scooted around, and turned her phone so he could see. It was a selfie of Momo and Captain Hitsugaya, dressed to the nines, with the caption 'getting ready to go!'. Momo was winking and making a little heart with her thumb and forefinger. Captain Hirako was always teaching her selfie poses from the Living World, and she had once spent at least an hour at the bar trying to get Kira to do that one. Hitsugaya was attempting to smile, but it looked more like the early stages of rigor mortis. His hair looked good at least, and--

"That is a kimono," Renji declared. "That bird f*cks."

"Renji!" Rukia scolded. "Mr. Koshino made that kimono!"

"It does f*ck," Renji protested. "Is it a hummingbird?"

"It's a kingfisher, you dope!"

Renji shook his head. "If that guy ever hits his adult growth, he's gonna be toast, I hope he knows that. Gonna make your brother's Hot Boy Captain era look mild in comparison."

"My brother's what? Anyway, who cares about Captain Hitsugaya?" Rukia stabbed her finger at the phone screen. "Look at her. Renji, why is Hinamori so pretty? Why?"

Renji frowned and looked back at the picture. Momo's kimono was much more subtle in comparison, but it was very lovely. It was dyed in soft swirls of blue and turquoise, like the currents of a spring river. It was hard to tell through the tiny phone screen, but it looked like it might have some sparkly silver to it, too. "What's up with her juban?" Renji asked, squinting at the phone. It was white and lacy, so a hint of ruffle showed at the sleeves and neckline.

"It's very modern, Renji," Rukia declared. "It's what they're doing in the Living World. It's very bold of her, but the Museum of Soul Society Art and Culture crowd will adore her. Argh! Where does she get her kimono anyway?"

"Oh, it's some fashion house here in the Seireitei that promotes the work of Rukongai designers and artisans. At least that's where she got that cool phoenix kimono she wore to your promotion party."

Rukia stared at him.

"I listen when people talk, Rukia," he defended himself.

Rukia's face screwed up. "I'm so jealous right now. I want to go there, but Mr. Koshino would have me poisoned if I wore something he didn't make."

Renji shrugged. "You're being pretty ridiculous, you know. Mad because you can't buy clothes at the same place that outfits your archnemesis." He thought for a moment. "You know, you could probably just show Koshino this picture and suggest he go do a collaboration with Momo's place. They're pretty small, it'd probably be great for them." He gestured at the picture of Momo and Hitsugaya. "You gotta admit, the two of them look great together."

Rukia set her jaw and nodded curtly. "She's really raised the bar. As soon as you're better, I am going to find the swaggiest thing on my social calendar and try to swing you an invitation so we can one-up them."

Renji stared at her for a moment. Then he pulled another Zabimaru bone cookie out of the box and stuffed it in her mouth.

Rukia had to admit, she did feel a little better with some lunch in her.

Weekend lunches at Kuchiki Manor were usually light, and frequently meatless. Today, though, the main course was a hearty gyudon, the beef sliced paper thin and the onions so tender they melted on the tongue. The glass noodle soup swam thickly with tofu and wakame. There were delicately crimped shrimp gyoza and a hearty mushroom salad drizzled with a sweet sesame sauce.

The last time she'd seen lunches like this was after she and Byakuya had limped home from Hueco Mundo. They'd lasted exactly one week past the last bandage coming off.

Rukia had assured Chef Ohari that the Renji didn't have any special dietary needs, and the usual would be more than adequate.

Beef. For lunch. It was true that Chef Ohari did have a lot of strong opinions, but she rather suspected that the direction on this one might have come from higher up.

"Ugggggh, that was good," Renji groaned, stretching his good arm over his head. "We got anything next on the agenda?"

Rukia checked her phone for the dozenth time. "Hanatarou still hasn't called back so…no. Is there something you wanted to do?"

Renji let himself tip over backward. He closed his eyes and let his arms flop out to the sides. "This seems nice."

"Are you tired?" Rukia asked. "You know, if you just fell asleep, without any medicine, that might be ideal."

Renji cracked open one eye. "I dunno," he said. "Maybe? It's just nice to lie here in the sunshine. You could lie here with me. Mikan said you've been up since early."

"That would be untoward," Rukia informed him.

"Am I being untoward?" Renji asked sleepily. He reached up, and with a wince, pulled out his ponytail holder.

"You were invited here for the express purpose of napping in our garden," Rukia reminded him. "I am your hostess, and the daughter of the house." She paused, wondering if she could manage to say it. "I could-- I could play my shamisen for you."

The eye cracked open again. "You want to…play your…?"

"I didn't say I wanted to! I just thought…" She scowled. "Brother told me I should and for half a second I forgot how stupid all his ideas sound when you say them out loud."

"That happens to me all the time," Renji agreed. He'd tucked his good arm behind his head and was watching her with both eyes now. "But, uh…is that…is that a thing people really do?"

"What, the shamisen-playing? Of course it is. You've heard me play before."

"Well, yeah, but there was an audience both those times. You just…play for one other person?"

Rukia squirmed. "I mean, it's not something I do, but it is a thing that's done." She did play for Byakuya, sometimes, but that was different. Byakuya would want to talk about a piece of music, and he'd ask her to play some or all of it. He might ask her to repeat parts or suggest variations. They would chat about it. Sometimes he even wanted to sing a little, which Rukia knew she was very lucky to get to hear. She wasn't entertaining him. It was just…music time with Byakuya.

Rukia knew that Hisana used to play her shamisen for Byakuya. She had gotten the impression that it had often also just been music time with Byakuya, but sometimes, it was something else.

"Or we could try to read that book again," Rukia offered. "That would be way less weird, right?"

"Well, I do want to do that, but actually--"

Suddenly, Rukia's phone rang. "Oh!" she exclaimed, digging it out of her sleeve. "Oh! I bet that's Hanatarou!"

It was Hanatarou, in fact. "Good afternoon, Rukia, hello!" he cried. "I got your message! I should have texted back right away, but Captain Unohana happened to be available and I didn't want to miss the chance to get her input."

"No, that's very understandable!" Rukia agreed. "What did she say?"

Renji co*cked an eyebrow.

"Do you want me to put it on speaker?" Rukia mouthed at him. "It's Hanatarou."

"NO," Renji very clearly mouthed back, and closed his eyes again.

It was just as well, Hantarou was still talking. "Well, first, I briefed her on our check-up this morning. She's very pleased, actually. Well. First, she was very confused. She says there's no way Lieutenant Abarai should have been able to warp her own binding like that. But she took my word for it, and said that sometimes we must take cues from the patient, and supported our decision not to replace the binding."

"That's good, I guess," Rukia frowned.

"She also says she doesn't think it matters much whether he's asleep or not."

"Really?"

"Her take on it was that we still react to things in our sleep, except we have even less conscious control over it. It's possible that sedating him very deeply would prevent that, but he's already reacting unpredictably to the shinten, and he reported vivid dreams under the knock-out kidou. Captain Unohana thinks it would be best, actually, to try to keep him awake as much as possible during the daytime. Get him nice and tired by bedtime so he sleeps deeply through the night. Unfortunately, he should still limit physical activity, but try to keep him occupied. He can have caffeine, as long as he sticks to whatever is a normal amount and schedule for him. Cut him off a few hours before bedtime."

"Oh," said Rukia, glancing over at Renji, who was already starting to snore lightly. "I see."

"The other thing is, she wants to see him sooner than we originally planned. Can he come by at ten on Monday? She wants a full spiritual wave scan done up, and then she's going to do the examination personally."

"Hey," Rukia said, poking Renji with her foot. "You doing anything on Monday?"

"I dunno, am I?" he mumbled back, only half awake.

"He'll be there," Rukia agreed.

"Great. I'll send an appointment reminder to both of you!"

"Thank you, Hanatarou."

"No problem, Rukia! Keep me updated, okay?"

"Will do!"

Rukia flipped her phone closed, and regarded Renji for a moment. He looked so peaceful laying in the sunshine, his hair splayed out beneath him in a bright splash.

Reminding herself that she was supposed to avoid startling him, she resorted to one of her kinder methods from the rare occasions she got to wake him up in their Inuzuri days. She put her hand on his stomach, and then vigorously rubbed with her fingertips, the way you would scratch a dog's belly. "Wakey, wakey!" she called.

Renji's eyes squeezed closed and his nose wrinkled. Rukia looked down in the other direction, and sure enough, one of his legs had started thumping, just like it always did. He tried to swat her away, but it wasn't very effective since he was still trying to avoid opening his eyes. "Whaddya want?" he whined. "I'm sleepin'!"

"Good news!" Rukia announced. "You can have some of Kira's tea after all!"

Chapter 9

Chapter Text

Renji stared down at the large manilla envelope in his hands. He looked up at Rukia, who was watching him with a look of utter innocence on her face. "I don't want this," he said.

"I am just the delivery girl," Rukia replied serenely. "But Iba did come all the way over to the Thirteenth just to give that to me to give to you." She shrugged. "If you'd rather wait and open it later…in private…I understand."

Renji closed his eyes painfully. Of all of the people he could have picked for a best friend, what had possessed him to pick the biggest (or possibly smallest) sh*tlord in Soul Society? "What you have to understand about condolences," he said slowly, "is that this could be anything. I know that by all appearances, you might think this was…a…" Renji knew at least two dozen slang terms that would suffice, and he was sure Rukia knew another half dozen more, but he was at Kuchiki Manor, so he couldn't use any of them. What would Byakuya call a skin mag? Rubbish, probably.

"A gentleman's specialty publication?" Rukia offered sweetly.

"Look, it doesn't even have to be aimed at guys, and frequently, the ones Iba buys me are not."

Rukia blinked her eyes innocently, as if she had never even considered the existence of such a thing. Renji knew for a fact this wasn't true because Ichigo had once begged him to remove Rukia's stash of them from that closet she liked to sleep in.

"But! It could just as well be…a sunglasses brochure! An instructional booklet from the Fourth on preventing foot fungus! My personal greatest triumph was the time I gave Iba one of Kira's poetry chapbooks right before he got deployed onto an incredibly boring watch detail. He almost never goes drinking with me and the nerds, but he insisted on coming along after that so he could regale Kira with his thoughts. Everyone hated me for that one! What's in the envelope isn't even all that important, it's the sense of horrible possibility. There's no need for me to open it. I'm not going to." Renji smiled, proud of having argued himself out of the bog of disgusting Squad Eleven rituals and onto some safe moral high ground.

"I've already looked inside," Rukia announced.

Renji's smile twitched.

"So I know what's in there," Rukia added unnecessarily. "I don't care if you open it or not, but I will assume you open it later when I'm not looking."

Renji looked down at the envelope. He was going to murder Iba. "Can you give me a hint?" he asked pathetically.

Rukia thought for a moment. "It seemed to cater to a very specific interest. I can't say I knew much about your preferences in that…particular arena, but it seems like something you might enjoy?"

Renji set his jaw. It had to be either some extremely niche fetish p*rn or a stationary catalog geared towards young girls. He was just going to have to open it. He ripped open the end of the envelope. The booklet slid out easily, which meant it was glossy. f*ck.

Renji looked down at the magazine that had just fallen into his hand. It had a bright yellow Italian sportscar on the cover. Renji didn't know a lot about cars, but he sure knew that 1985 Lamborghini Countach. "Oh," he said.

Rukia was grinning maniacally, waiting for his reaction. Slowly, her smile faded. "What's…wrong?"

Renji was still staring at the magazine. His eyes felt strangely itchy. "Do you remember…I dunno…couple decades ago, when all that motorhead fever was going around? Everyone was into Living World vehicles for some reason? It was around the time Hisagi got the bike?"

"It…missed me. Somehow," Rukia replied dryly.

"Well, it hit Squad Eleven pretty hard," Renji explained. "There was one guy in particular, Greasy Kudou, who used to bring back a lot of magazines like this from the Living World, or maybe he traded people in other squads for 'em. I don't know." He gave the magazine a little shake. "Anyway, this one was really rare, I guess, because it was imported. Iba won it from Greasy Kudou in a dice game. I really liked that car." He flipped directly to the article with all the pictures-- the mysterious mechanical innards, the sleek tires, the gill-like vents. Renji had no idea what any of it did, but he loved looking at it, the way it just oozed speed. "He used to let me look at this for, like, three minutes at a time if I did his chores for him. Why would he just give this to me?"

It occurred to Renji that being overcome by a wave of affection for Iba was possibly even more embarrassing than being tricked into looking at some sleazy jerk-*ff material.

"Maybe he was cleaning stuff out and didn't want it anymore," Rukia suggested gently.

"As if Iba would ever clean," Renji muttered.

Rukia gave a casual shrug. "Well, he said it was because you had to work all weekend. So maybe he just wanted to do something nice for you."

Renji looked up from the cutaway diagram showing the layout of the rear mid-engine, rear wheel drive. He wrinkled his nose. "That's gross. Let's just go with the first one."

Rukia felt very pleased with herself. She was sure that Ayasegawa was correct, and that a manicure was a very caring and probably also sexy thing you could do for another person, but that presumed you knew what you were doing, which she did not. That said, it was still nice to get your nails done, intimately or not, and they needed something to do to pass the time. So Rukia had simply suggested to Mikan that maybe she could give Saejima a little tutorial in hand and nail care.

It was going great.

Actually, it was turning out to be Renji-Mikan Best Friends Hours, with Rukia getting her nails painted as a side bonus. That counted as "going great," in Rukia's opinion.

"I go over my calluses with a pumice stone every night after I shower, when they're softened up," Renji explained. "Not too much. I just prefer to try to keep them at a constant thickness, rather than to let them build up and then have to file them down."

"Lady Rukia prefers not to have her calluses filed," Mikan explained. "But I do rub a little of this into them." She held out a familiar tub of balm to Renji. He glanced at the label, then unscrewed the lid and scooped a little out. He rubbed it between his finger and thumb. "I use a separate skin softener and moisturizer myself, but this stuff seems pretty nice." He gave it a sniff. "Cherry blossoms and tea tree oil?"

"It's not that I don't want my calluses sanded," Rukia felt the need to defend herself. "It's that the first maid I had here was determined to get rid of them entirely. She thought it was more important for a lady of the Kuchiki to have soft, beautiful skin than to be able to grip her sword without breaking out in blisters. I…got a little defensive of my hands."

"There's a certain kinda guy in Squad Eleven who's just the opposite," Renji pointed out. "Thinks the best thing to do is just do nothing for your hands until they turn into antler. That's no good, either, though, because if your calluses build up too much, they can crack and cause pain or get infected."

"What does Ayasegawa have to say to those goons?" Rukia asked.

"Well, in my case, he yelled at me until I started taking better care of my hands," Renji admitted. "Usually he just…disdains them. The point is, the goal is a good middle ground. Your calluses probably never get too bad anyway--I bet you use chalk and wear gloves when you lift."

"What, you don't?"

"Well, I do now."

Saejima glanced at his own hand. "I always thought that calluses were one of those things that separated nobles from the rest of us. But they just take better care of their calluses. Well. I guess we take better care of their calluses."

"Anyone can and should take good care of their skin," Renji declared. "That's double-true for those of us whose hands are such a big part of our job."

"Hmm," Saejima nodded thoughtfully.

"To be fair," Mikan added, rubbing a little of the cream into Rukia's palm, in the crease where the fingers joined the palm, "I did not have a lot of experience caring for calluses before I came to work for Lady Rukia." She wagged a finger at Saejima. "This is not a problem most nobles face. But some do! There are many of them who serve in the Gotei or practice a sword form. And of course, there are many other ways to develop calluses as well--people who write a lot or play musical instruments. You should file things like this away in your head. A personal servant should be knowledgeable!"

"How did you learn about the cream?" Saejima asked curiously.

MIkan looked away self-consciously. "Mr. Aoyagi has been very helpful to me."

"That's Brother's valet," Rukia clarified for Renji's benefit.

"He's on an entirely different level from us," Saejima sighed. "I can't believe you've talked to him, Mikan."

"Rub this into Lieutenant Abarai's cuticles," Mikan said, thrusting a different bottle of moisturizer at Saejima. "Mr. Aoyagi is very nice, actually. Lord Kuchiki asked him to teach me how to care for Lady Rukia’s tekkou. It turns out he loves coordinating Lord Kuchiki and Lady Rukia’s outfits, so we’ve been working together a lot. He says he likes my creativity, even though he ends up fixing up nearly all my ideas for me.”

"You're so cool, Mikan," Saejima muttered under his breath.

Mikan snorted softly. "You'll get there," she murmured softly, then cleared her throat. "Have you two decided what colors you want? We're just about ready to actually start painting."

"Oh, what do we got?" Renji asked.

Rukia used the hand Mikan wasn't working on to pull the lid off the box sitting between them on the engawa. "Take your pick. I've got a thousand more in my room if you like shades of pink."

"We have many colors that are not pink," Mikan said, sounding slightly cross.

"The pinks are from before your time," Rukia reassured her. "I put the ones I like in the box."

Renji had pulled out a bottle of black and was examining it. "This is one of the brands Yumichika likes."

"Some of those are mine, but I got most of them from him, actually," Rukia admitted.

Renji co*cked an eyebrow at her.

"I don't know what colors you like!" she protested. "And I think he used it as an excuse to clean out his supply. He gave me a ton of them."

"I think some of these used to be mine, anyway," Renji chuckled, lining up all the blacks he could find. "Black was my go-to color for a long time, but I decided it wasn't the look I wanted as a lieutenant. Didn't match the Sixth. I told Yumichika he could give these away if he didn't want them."

He did, Rukia didn’t point out. "Captain Ukitake told me that black nail polish used to be part of the standard shinigami uniform," she said instead.

The corner of Renji's mouth tipped upward. "Are you asking if I did it because I'm a weird history nerd? Because black nail polish is a classic look, especially with the shihakushou."

"I'm just telling you what my captain said."

"I did, in fact, do it because I was a weird history nerd. I also used to do the old-school skeleton eyes, you know, where you rub charcoal in your eye sockets?" Rukia knew this, in fact, because Ayasegawa had told her once. She'd never mentioned it because it seemed like the sort of thing that Renji should bring up himself. "I keep telling you that we were both very lucky you got to skip over my Squad Eleven days."

"Awwww!" Rukia protested. "I bet you looked really cool, though!"

Renji looked at her for a long moment before his cute little half smile grew into a real one. "You're not just pulling my leg, are you?"

Rukia sniffed. "Just because I have learned how to have good taste doesn't mean I don't still have my old bad taste underneath." She selected one of the bottles out of Renji's line-up and examined it. "Why is this one called 'Smoulder'?" she asked. "How is that a shade of black? How is that any color?"

"That one has red undertones. It's useful when you're doing some sort of multi-color thing," Renji replied sagely.

Rukia returned it to its space in line. "You want to go black today? For old time's sake?"

Renji wrinkled his nose. "Not really. Rather do something a little fun. Speaking of color combos, we're probably aiming simple today, eh, Mikan?"

"Oh, I don't think we need to," Mikan replied. She was brushing a light coat of nail polish remover on Rukia's nails to make sure they were clean of all the moisturizers and other gloops she'd been putting on. "Saejima can do the base coats, and I can handle anything fancy."

"She loves this," Rukia informed Renji. "Go wild. It will make her day."

"Well," said Renji, pulling out an orange and a bright reddish orange, the shade of a hot coal. "I've done this before, and it looks really good. You start with a base coat of that red-black, and then do an ombre red and orange on top of that."

"Oh, interesting!" Mikan nodded eagerly.

"Is this to go with that tiger eye makeup thing you do?" Rukia asked with an arched eyebrow.

"Tigers are cool, Rukia," Renji replied.

Rukia snorted, but she'd seen the tiger eye make-up and it was inarguably pretty sexy.

"What about you, miss?" Mikan prompted. "You could match."

"No," said Rukia. "We could not."

Renji chuckled.

"Hmm," Rukia said, looking down into the box of polishes. It was kind of intimidating. "You know, I don't think I've ever had black nail polish myself. Might be fun to try."

"Just plain?" Mikan asked, trying not to sound disappointed and failing.

"No, I got an idea that would look great on you," Renji announced excitedly. "I saw Yumichika do this once for a date night and I'm pretty sure I remember how to do it."

"I don't want to think about Ayasegawa's date nights," Rukia frowned.

"It looked really good! You start with a black base coat, and then you blend on some bright blue and…pinky-purple, I think. Then you do a glittery silver top coat. It ends up looking like a night sky. You need some little sponges…oh there's some in here, perfect."

Mikan's eyes were practically glittering themselves.

Rukia heaved a sigh. "I suppose."

Her protests were short-lived, though. She liked the black base coat by itself, although she probably wouldn't have picked one that was quite so shiny (Renji had recommended that Mikan use one called 'Obsidian.') It looked even better with the additional colors sponged on. With the glittery top coat, it did look exactly like a midnight sky, sprinkled with stars. It was very elegant, in Rukia's opinion. It was too bad saturated nail colors had been super-out with the noble scene for pretty much the entire time she'd been a part of it.

"Do you want to try adding the orange?" Mikan was asking Saejima. "It's going to be very similar to the way I did Lady Rukia's."

"You did real good with the base coat!" Renji added. "Very smooth!" Rukia knew that if Byakuya were here, he would probably have some Strong Opinions on the topic of giving pep talks to your own valet, but honestly, Rukia found it very charming. "Also, if it's not perfect, I don't care. It's not like I got anywhere to go."

"I guess I could give it a try," Saejima frowned.

"That's the spirit!" Renji grinned.

There were enough people already crowded around Renji's hands, so Rukia was taking a moment to admire her own nails when she felt it.

A feeling of peace and tranquility settled over the garden. Even the sounds of the plants rustling in the light breeze and the gurgles of the koi pond softened. The sunlight seemed to get a little warmer. The scent of cherry blossoms wafted through, even though the last of the petals had fallen over a week ago.

Byakuya could do about half of these things. Most people assumed it was part of his reiatsu. It was not, in fact. Rukia didn't know how he did any of them, but she was pretty sure he had learned them from the man who now stood before her, and not the other way around.

"Good afternoon, Lady Rukia," said the velvety voice of Aoyagi Saku, Byakuya's own valet.

Mr. Aoyagi was probably the most beautiful man Rukia had ever seen, Yumichika included. Rukia had never seen him walk anywhere, he just sort of appeared when he wanted to be somewhere. He was tall and slender, with eyes of cornflower blue. His hair was as black as a raven's wing, and, as impossible as it seemed, silkier than Byakuya's. Today, he had various pieces of it twisted into slender rope braids, which were then looped up and held with various simple silver hairpins. In some respects, he looked a lot like Byakuya, but everything about him was thinner, more delicate. He looked young, adolescent even, but he'd been serving Byakuya since Byakuya's boyhood. Rukia secretly theorized that he was an actual yokai, but if a yokai wanted to spend their time mixing up homemade facial creams for her brother, who was she to judge?

"Good afternoon, Mr. Aoyagi," Rukia replied pleasantly.

"I've brought a message for you from Lord Byakuya," Mr. Aoyagi said, holding out a perfectly white slip of paper. "It's not urgent."

"My fingernails are still drying, can you put it on the engawa?" Rukia asked.

"Of course," Mr. Aoyagi replied. "May I see?"

Everyone else seemed to notice his arrival at once. A choked noise wheezed out of Saejima's throat. Renji just looked confused. Mikan sprang to her feet, and dipped into a respectful bow. "Eheheheh! Good afternoon, Mr. Aoyagi!"

"Good afternoon, Mikan," Mr. Aoyagi replied serenely. "Is this your work?"

"It is," Mikan bobbed her head. "I am teaching Mr. Saejima how to give manicures!"

"I see!" Mr. Aoyagi turned to survey Saejima's work. "My! A very bold look!"

"I picked it," Renji announced. "Hi! I'm Renji."

"Renji, this is Mr. Aoyagi, my brother's valet," Rukia jumped in. "Mr. Aoyagi, this is Abarai Renji, Lieutenant of the Sixth Division."

"I have heard many interesting things about you," Mr. Aoyagi said, his voice warm and friendly.

Renji blinked. "From Captain Kuchiki?"

"No," said Mr. Aoyagi pleasantly. "I hope your recovery is going comfortably."

"Yeah, it's going as well as can be expected," Renji shrugged. "Everyone's certainly goin' out of their way to be take care of me, that's for sure."

"I am so pleased to hear that," Mr. Aoyagi replied. He glanced at Mikan and Saejima, then back at Renji. "If there is any personal care that you desire that is beyond the abilities of our fine Mr. Saejima, please know that I am happy to lend my expertise."

Rukia furrowed her brows. That seemed…unusual. As far as she knew, Mr. Aoyagi was the highest paid servant in Kuchiki Manor, if not the entire Seireitei. He didn't do anything that wasn't personally attending Byakuya's beauty needs. Mikan and Saejima looked like their eyes were about to fall out of their heads. Renji didn't seem to notice.

"Thanks!" he said cheerfully. "I don't really need anything. We're just doing this to make the time pass, and 'cause it's good practice for Saejima. I think you've kinda already got his dream job, though, so if you got any suggestions, we're open to 'em!"

Oh, Renji.

To her surprise, though, Mr. Aoyagi didn't seem offended by this. Instead, his perfectly sculpted eyebrows raised with interest. "May I ask, Lieutenant Abarai, what treatments you usually employ to maintain your beautiful hair?"

"Sure you can ask," Renji replied. "But I'm telling you up front to tell me to shut up when you get sick of my voice, because we might be here for a while."

This was entirely too weird. Rukia wondered…had Byakuya sent his valet out here? That seemed like the only possible explanation. She surveyed her nails. They seemed dry enough. She picked up the note from her brother and very carefully unfolded it. And frowned.

Byakuya was back in his office.

The tatami replacement had been completed and everything felt very clean and fresh.

Byakuya had the personnel files he needed. He had several useful books he had found in the library--training manuals, treatises on the behavior and anatomy of Hollows, work journals of several of his predecessors. All of them sat closed on his desk.

Byakuya was thinking about dinner. Some small part of him wanted to go out, to get off the grounds. He idly wondered if perhaps Captain Hitsugaya-- no, wait. Captain HItsugaya was attending Ise's garden party that afternoon.

Byakuya wondered how it was going.

Suddenly, there was a rapid rap on his door. "Brother, it's me!" Rukia's irritated voice called. "Can I come in?"

"Of course," Byakuya replied.

Rukia stomped in, waving the note he'd sent her. "What is this?" she demanded.

"It was intended to be fairly self-explanatory."

Rukia shook it open. "'Rukia,'" she read, "'your presence is not required at dinner this evening.' What? Why? Did something happen?"

"It was my impression," said Byakuya, "that Abarai is requiring more of your attention than anticipated. As you know, I always enjoy our meals together, but in this case, I wished you to know that you should prioritize his well-being."

Rukia just stared at him.

"If you require a break from him, by all means, you may eat dinner with me," Byakuya clarified.

Rukia stared at him some more. Finally, she said, "What if we all ate dinner together?"

Byakuya frowned at her. "Rukia, he does not feel well. I am sure he has no desire to endure the rigmarole of a formal dinner."

"What if," said Rukia, "we had an informal dinner? We've done it before. Once. The time we ate dinner outside because I was tired after my Vice-Captain's Exam."

In actuality, Byakuya had eaten informal dinner many times. His father had been a social creature, but there were many times in his youth that Soujun stayed home with him while Ginrei and Sonoyo went out on some obligation. Father never wanted to eat in the dining room on these occasions--they would take bento out to the garden or share hot pot in his father's cozy chambers. Later, Byakuya realized that Soujun was probably limiting his activity for the purposes of preserving his precarious health. At the time, Byakuya thought his father just got tired of having to sit stiffly and talk about the boring things his grandfather always wanted to talk about, the same as he did. If not for this, perhaps he would have had a more difficult time adjusting to Hisana's illness years later. As it happened, he found himself all too happy to eat soup in any room of the house, as long as it could be next to her.

"Are you sure my presence would be helpful?" Byakuya pointed out. "Who would wish to see their commanding officer in such circ*mstances?"

Rukia's brows creased. "I liked the times when my captain came to visit me at the Coordinated Relief Station." She smiled sympathetically at him. "Besides. Whatever is going on in Renji's poor brain has made him even more outgoing than usual. He's happy to see anyone. When I left him, he was talking the ear off your valet."

"Splendid," deadpanned Byakuya.

"Speaking of which…why did you send that message through Mr. Aoyagi, instead of one of the lower servants? I know you're always very intentional about these things, but I'm not sure what you meant by it. Do you think we aren't doing a good enough job taking care of Renji? I know we're not being very formal, and I suppose that reflects on the value of Kuchiki hospitality, but I really think Renji is happier this way--"

Byakuya held up a hand. "I did not expect you to read so deeply into it." Although he supposed he should have. He pressed his lips together. Truly, he did not want to explain this. "As you know, Saku is the most talented and sought-after stylist in the Soul Society. I pay him well, of course, and obviously, there is no position that one of his calling should desire more than the one he has, but still, I feel obligated to ensure his happiness, and I am sometimes overindulgent of him."

Rukia was looking at him with an absolutely perplexed look on her face.

Byakuya sighed. "He wished to meet Abarai. He is fascinated with his hair and his entire…" Byakuya made a vague hand motion that he hoped would encompass the unparalleled melange of physical qualities that comprised Abarai Renji.

"Oh," Rukia said, her face softening. "Really?"

Byakuya closed his eyes painfully. "Saku does not tell me how to swing a sword. I am not going to question his professional interests. Besides. It is not as if I have need of his services. Apparently, I shall be dining informally tonight."

If he had to make a list of things he would prefer not to do, Byakuya would probably put sharing a meal with his lieutenant while the man was in a particularly gregarious and unfiltered mood somewhere near the top. However, agreeing to it was absolutely worth it for the smile that appeared on Rukia's face.

"Don't get me wrong, because this is extremely delicious," Renji said, sifting through his bowl to examine all the good things floating in it, "but I thought you were really into eatin' with the seasons and all that. Why are we having hot pot in May?"

It took Byakuya a minute to answer, because he was busy stuffing a second round of ingredients into the donabe. Renji had honestly never considered that there was technique to putting food in a pot of hot broth, but somehow, Byakuya was managing to do a terrible job of it. Instead of putting things in distinct regions, he was just jamming cabbage in on top of mushrooms on top of chunks of cod and meatballs. Renji would have expected Byakuya to have a servant do this, but apparently this dinner was servant-free. Rukia had also offered to take a turn, but no. This was Byakuya's show. Renji knew better. His captain got like this sometimes, and you just had to let him go ham. The soup still tasted good. Great even.

"This meal is very nutritious," Byakuya explained. "It is good for building strength." He tried to poke the cabbage down into the broth with his chopsticks. "Also, sometimes I enjoy having hot pot."

Rukia, who had been putting up with a lot all day, stared at him. "Brother, I have lived here for forty years and the only time we have ever had hot pot, it was cooked in the kitchen and served kaiseki-style."

"It is important to maintain standards at home," Byakuya said absently. "If I wished for the full experience, I would go to a restaurant."

Rukia continued to stare at him. "When is the last time you went to a hot pot restaurant?"

Byakuya considered this. "Ukitake and Kyouraku made me go out with them. It was…" An expression passed over his face that might have been embarrassment on someone else. "It was shortly after I was appointed captain."

"Ah," said Rukia, and turned her attention back to her bowl.

"You got a clan-owned hot pot place right around the corner from our grounds," Renji pointed out. "Fourth Seat took the futsal team there for our end-of-season party. It was real good."

"Yes, it is," Byakuya agreed.

"You ever wanna go have a working lunch, I'm game. If we talk about drills, I can expense that, right?"

Byakuya snorted.

"Or," said Rukia, as if she were suggesting something slightly scandalous, "we could have informal dinner more often. I also like hot pot."

"Perhaps," said Byakuya noncommittally, which basically meant yes. A Byakuya 'perhaps' never actually meant 'perhaps.' it meant that he just didn't want to say the answer out loud for any number of Byakuya-reasons. Renji had no idea who he was trying to play it cool for. As if he would ever turn Rukia down when she wanted to spend time with him.

"Can I ask you a question?" Renji asked. "It's something I've been wondering for a long time."

"Yes," Byakuya replied magnanimously. "It is informal dinner. I may or may not answer it."

"Do you like wearing your kenseikan?"

"Renji, you can't ask him that!" Rukia hissed at him.

"Why not?"

Byakuya was frowning. "I know you spoke with my valet today. DId he say something?"

"Naw," Renji replied, adding a little extra ponzu to his bowl. "I just noticed that you don't usually wear 'em when you're at home. I didn't know if that was just to keep 'em nice, or they were uncomfortable, or what. I'll be honest, they look pretty uncomfortable."

"One gets used to them," Byakuya replied. "But you are correct."

"Do you have to wear them?" Renji asked. After all, who would make him?

"They are required for certain ceremonial occasions," Byakuya explained. "It is traditional to wear them for any formal appearance. Their use as part of the Gotei uniform is meant to inspire authority. It is particularly encouraged for the Heir, who may not yet be known well among the ranks."

"Grandfather didn't wear them to work, did he?" Rukia asked.

"There is a certain kind of power that comes from having been the Clan Head for so long that you are recognized with or without a symbol of authority."

"How long's that take?" Renji asked. He pictured the Timeline of Kuchiki Clan Heads and tried to figure out what constituted an average tenure. "Fifty years is maybe a little short, but it's not like everyone doesn't know who you are. Seems like it would be kind of a flex to give 'em up early."

"He never said he wanted to stop wearing them," Rukia chided. "Maybe they're a bit of a pain, but they look really cool."

Byakuya was staring into the middle distance while he chewed and swallowed. "Their aesthetic is appealing when one is a boy who is looking forward to being named Heir one day. The novelty wears off very quickly. However, Squad Six is very traditional. Do you not think it would be disruptive for me to make such a dramatic change in my appearance? And so soon after a war?"

Renji wrinkled his nose while he thought. "Not really, no."

Byakuya shook his head as he poked the hot pot again. "You were not there to witness the mass dyspepsia that accompanied my very controversial decision to stop wearing my hair in a ponytail."

Renji considered this and also what he knew of Squad Six's personnel statistics. "You were still vice-captain, right? Back then, there was a big chunk of the squad that was over four hundred years old. Most of 'em retired in the ten t'twenty years after you took over. Lotta people in the Gotei got an attachment to a particular captain. They were probably your Granddad's guys. Currently, over half of the squad is less than a century old. In my experience, most of the kids think you're cool because you're a badass, not because you're the clan head. I think they'd be pretty into it if you changed up your look." Renji fished a meatball out of his soup and ate it. He wished he knew what secret thing Chef Ohori put in his chicken meatballs to make them so damn good. He looked up and realized that Byakuya was regarding him with narrowed eyes, like he didn't know what to make of what he had just said. Renji finished chewing and swallowed. "Also, if people are complaining, that's not your problem. That's my problem. Which I am very quickly going to make their problem. So I think you should do what you want."

Byakuya continued to watch him thoughtfully. Finally, he said, "I shall think on it. But speaking of Squad Six--"

"Have you tried this hot sauce, Brother?" Rukia said, as if she hadn't heard him. "It's so smoky. It's really good."

"Interrupting is rude, Rukia, even at informal dinner," Byakuya pointed out. "I will have some hot sauce, though, pass it over. As I was saying, it has come to my attention, Lieutenant, that you told various people that you and I were working through the weekend. Something about the…Summer Training Extravaganza?"

"I did not tell anyone from Squad Six that," Renji quickly defended himself. "I may have told…some other people."

"I told you about the working-for-the-weekend thing," Rukia frowned at her brother, "but I was very careful not to mention the Summer Training Extravaganza. How did you find out about the Summer Training Extravaganza?"

"It came to my attention," Byakuya repeated unhelpfully. "I do not care for being included in falsehoods, particularly without my knowledge."

"I'm sorry, sir," Renji apologized. "I didn't plan it out very well ahead of time. I got kinda cornered and I choked. I'm usually better than this."

Rukia rolled her eyes.

"You do not need to call me 'sir' at informal dinner."

"You called me 'Lieutenant.'"

"Oh, did I?" Byakuya contemplated this for a moment. "All right. You may call me 'sir' if you like."

Rukia rubbed her forehead, like she was starting to develop a headache.

"Just inform me the next time you wish to involve me in one of your deceits. In advance, if possible, but I realize they do come up unexpectedly."

"Understood, sir," Renji agreed. His eyes darted over to Rukia, who was eating very serenely, a portrait of innocence. She was definitely going to refer to them as "his deceits," probably for the rest of all time.

"For this particular case," Byakuya went on, "I think the best course of action would be to add a grain of truth to the lie."

"Oh," said Renji. "So what, you…want to talk about the Summer Training Extravaganza?"

"Nothing official of course, since obviously, I have not yet had the opportunity to consider anything in depth. I was just curious as to if you had any thoughts, off-the-cuff, as it were."

Renji finished chewing a particular tasty piece of shrimp, and swallowed it. "Well, you know me. I always got thoughts."

Rukia thrust out her empty bowl. "I think I am going to need more soup for this."

" Haruki stepped back, his fingers lingering on the feather he had woven into Emiko's russet locks. 'When you return to the Seireitei,' he said, 'do not forget my people. Do not forget…me.' " Rukia shut the book on her finger to hold her place. "The thing that gets me about this book--" she started.

"There's only one thing?" Renji asked. He looked very comfortable, propped against a pile of pillows, and cuddled up in Momo's blanket.

"There are many things," Rukia amended. "But right now, the primary thing is: why does the author think there is a tribe of people who live in treehouses and talk to birds in the Eleventh district of South Rukongai? Eleven?!"

"I love reading books by authors who have never left the city," Renji grinned. "It's the double digits, Rukia. Who knows what could be out there?"

"Bird people!" Rukia shook her head. "We walked through District Eleven and I don't remember any f*cking bird people. Don't get me wrong, the bird dude love interest is kinda hot."

"His game is off the charts, too," Renji added. "Imagine a normal person trying to tie some gross bird feather in your hair. He makes it work, though."

"It is a special feather," Rukia pointed out. "A beautiful pinion from his own personal companion bird, Swift-talon."

"My pants would be off immediately."

Rukia snorted. It was fun reading with Renji. He took his trashy adventure books a lot less seriously now that he'd read a gajillion of them, but Rukia had to admit, they were sort of fun, too, or at least this one was. "That was the end of the chapter," she said. "Do you want to read another?"

Renji cracked his neck. "That's a good stopping place for tonight, I think. It gets pretty balls-to-the-wall after she gets back to the city, if I'm rememberin' right. Hey, did you ever get any more party pics from Momo?"

"Oh, good question!" Rukia pulled out her phone and checked her messages. "Yes, actually!" She started to hand her phone over so he could see.

Instead, Renji scooted over and slapped the now-empty space on the pillows next to him. "Come sit over here, so we can look at them together."

Rukia sucked her teeth for a moment. It wasn't very proper, but they were in semi-privacy of Renji's room. Mikan and Saejima were in the next room over, doing whatever servants did when they were on standby. The two of them had already witnessed an hour of off-color fantasy novel commentary, assuming they hadn't just fallen asleep. Besides, it was just a little cuddling, it wasn't anything actually scandalous. Carefully, Rukia took a seat next to Renji, leaving a very respectful one inch of clearance between them. Renji, who in all likelihood had forgotten where they were entirely, immediately slung his arm around her and pulled her in close.

She probably should have told him she would prefer a bit of space, but she didn't have the heart to. Also, it felt pretty nice and she didn't want to.

"I took these for Rangiku, but I thought you would like them, too," read Hinamori's message, which had the impeccable grammar and punctuation one would expect from a Hinamori text. She had done an excellent job of documenting the event. There were many pictures of Captain Hitsugaya. Pictures of Captain Hitsugaya eating various finger foods. Captain Hitsugaya contemplating an eight-foot tall paper mache sculpture of a Menos Grande, whose sepulchral robe had been plastered with the logos of a number of notable Seireitei businesses. (Presumably, this was on-loan for the event and not a thing Ise just had in her garden.) Hinamori and Captain Hitsugaya posing in front of a beautiful trellis erupting with wisteria.

Mixed in were a few shots of Ise looking far fancier than they were used to seeing her, in a gorgeous purple and silver kimono, her hair arranged in elaborate loops and glittering with kanzashi. Rukia was of the opinion that Ise was always attractive, in a stern librarian sort of way, but she was downright gorgeous when she was smiling.

On the other end of the spectrum, Kira looked like he was barely holding on. He was wearing a very handsome grass-green kimono, but his hangdog expression ruined the effect entirely. "That's his sister, Manami," Renji explained, pointing to the woman he was standing with. It would have been obvious anyway. She looked exactly like an older version of him.

"This one is nice," Rukia commented on one of Kira and Hinamori standing together, looking very elegant in their dress clothes. Kira had even managed a dignified smile. Renji should be in that picture, too, Rukia thought to herself. Ise would have invited us, if we'd asked.

Renji squinted at it. "Hey, is that who I think it is in the background?"

Rukia frowned. "Looks like a blurry blob to me." She zoomed in as much as possible. Sure enough, the profile of the face seemed a little familiar, particularly in the nose.

"That's my Third Seat!" Renji proclaimed.

"It could be, I guess." Rukia tilted her head sideways a little. "Does Cousin Isao like avant garde art? I can't really see it." Except there was someone else Rukia could think of who liked avant garde art a lot, someone whom Cousin Isao was very fond of. She zoomed out, just a little. Sure enough, there was a woman in a very colorful kimono standing next to him. Her features were hard to make out. "Does that look like Lady Ishibashi to you? It looks like it might be."

"He does like weird f*cking art, for the record, and not just 'cause she does. That's how they met, actually. Hmm. I can't really tell. She's the right size and hair color though."

Rukia shook her head. "I can't believe she took him back. I don't even know her but she's got to be so much better than him."

"I know he was plannin' to try and make up with her at your promotion party and he's asked me for advice on how to dress like a hot guy twice since then, so I assumed he was successful."

"He did?! Why didn't you tell me? You've been holding out on me, Abarai." She whapped him on the chest and made a fake-mad face at him.

Renji just squeezed her tighter to him. "I thought you didn't care about Ohno's relationship drama!" he teased. "You called me a sap when I said I felt sorry for him!"

"I don't care about him, but I like to be informed," Rukia explained. "Pretty bold of him to be socializing with her openly. I guess it's kind of a mixed-crowd party, but still. If he's not careful, Byakuya's gonna get an earful from one of the aunts."

Renji looked down at her sharply. "What happened to all that stuff you told me about how people can hang out at parties and it wasn't suspicious?"

"I said that we could hang out at parties, because we're fellow lieutenants and we have overlapping Byakuya connections and also, I wasn't nearly betrothed to the most eligible girl in the greater extended Kuchiki main family two weeks ago."

"I will never figure all this stuff out."

"You will. Be patient. I give it a year before you're better at it than me."

Renji waved a hand. "In any case, it's just the background of one picture. That could have been the thirty seconds they exchanged how-do-you-dos, and then avoided each other for the rest of the party. I'm still not 100% positive it's either of them."

Rukia sighed. "You're probably right. I got too excited about the prospect of the aunts complaining about something that isn't me or Brother's marital statuses for once."

Renji's brow creased thoughtfully for a moment. "If you need me to, I could do something terrible," he offered. "I'm sure I could come up with something to keep them occupied for a bit."

Rukia looked up at his stupid, handsome, earnest face. She knew how hard he'd worked to get where he was and that he would never really throw it away so easily. All the same… "Please do not," she implored. "I need you to stay in their good graces."

The corners of his eyes crinkled. "Okay," he agreed.

Rukia had the sudden sense that they had brushed dangerously close to the thing they normally avoided saying out loud. Maybe it was because Renji's brain was too muddled to bother with masks at the moment. Maybe they had just gotten too good at telling each other things without having to say them out loud.

It wouldn't do, though, not now, not here. She knew Renji would agree, if he were thinking straight. Rukia cleared her throat gently. "The fact that they cannot find any legitimate grievance to level against you is a source of great amusem*nt to Brother and I," she explained, trying not to slide completely into the Lady Rukia voice. "I would be very disappointed to lose it."

For a moment, she was worried that he would read it as a rejection. But his eyes were soft as he gave her a curt nod. "Understood." Renji looked down at her phone in his hand, then closed the message thread so that it went back to the main message screen. He started to hand it back to her, then noticed something on the screen. "You've got a message from Rangiku," he said. "One from Shuuhei, too. That's kind of weird. Maybe they were wondering how the cookies were."

"Oh," said Rukia. Well. This was certainly one way to get rid of the awkwardness that had suddenly filled the room. Or at least replace it with an entirely different kind of awkwardness. "I am pretty sure those messages are for you," Rukia said. "You can open them if you want."

Renji's brow furrowed. "Why would they send me messages on your phone?"

"They said they wanted to send you something to cheer you up. Because of the work weekend. My understanding is that it was something you wouldn't want to get on your phone while you were hanging out with Byakuya."

Renji's face had gone stiff and still. Rukia could practically hear the gears in his brain grinding together. He narrowed his eyes at her. "You're messing with me again, right?" he said. "This is Iba's condolences all over again, isn't it?"

"I don't know what you're talking about," Rukia lied. "They're your messages, go ahead and open them if you think I'm--"

Renji opened the text message. "Oh," he said, his voice going high. "Wow. That is…yeah."

"She said she was thinking about going artsy," Rukia commented, peering over. "That is not what I had in mind, but it certainly is…artsy."

"It really is."

They stared at it for a long moment.

"I can explain," Renji said, belatedly.

"You don't have to," Rukia replied. "Matsumoto explained the entire thing pretty thoroughly."

"Oh," said Renji. "Hmm."

"Can we look at the one from Shuuhei?"

"More of the same, I assume?"

"Should be, yes."

They looked at it.

"More of a classic pose," Renji observed.

Rukia nodded. "I'm not sure what it is, but there's something about it that's very…"

"slu*tty?"

"Yeah. I didn't want to sound judgy, but yes."

"No, no, I think that's what he was going for, actually."

"Well, he sure succeeded!” Rukia rubbed her chin. “I did not know he had a pec tatt."

"The poppy? He got that right after he joined Squad Nine. Tenryuu gave him that, by the way."

"No sh*t!"

"Yeah, she was still an apprentice then. I didn't get any ink from her until years later. Shuuhei rubs it in my face constantly."

Rukia stared at the picture a little longer. "I've never actually received…" she waved vaguely at the phone, "one of these before. Is this…standard?"

"I mean, I would consider these both very high quality examples. Rangiku has certainly dashed me off a few quick and lazy ones in the past, but when she puts the effort in, no one's got her beat. Shuuhei always puts the effort in. His goods may not be quite as good, but look at this!” He gestured at the picture. “You can tell how much he cares." Renji shook his head. "I'm not sure my fake overtime really merited this level of dedication, but, uh…well, I sent a lot more of these than I received in the last few months, so maybe they're trying to make it up to me." He cleared his throat. "You've, uh…never? Really?"

Rukia shrugged. "Discreet romantic activities are supposed to be discreet, you know? No evidence."

"Mm, that sucks. I get it, though." Renji looked very thoughtful. He looked down at her, his eyes very brown and very serious. "Rukia. I'm not sure this will help in the case of illness, since you'd be stuck at home, but if you're ever feeling down and think it would help, just come over, and I'll show 'em to you, live. I would not make this offer to just anyone, but I am making it to you."

"Thank you, Renji," Rukia replied as sincerely as one could possibly reply to such a thing, keeping in mind that his brain was made of scrambled eggs right now.

Renji held up his hands. "No expectation of reciprocation! Yours are…noble. Everyone's already seen mine, anyway."

Rukia puffed out her cheeks. She had, in fact, been thinking about this on and off throughout the day. "You're correct, of course," she agreed. "But if for some reason, the situation was very dire…well, exceptions could be made."

Renji looked far too moved by this offer. "Thanks, Ru," he said. "I don't deserve you. Really."

"You really do," Rukia reassured him. "Also, I think you might be very tired."

"I am very tired," Renji admitted. "Am I allowed to go to sleep now? Is it finally time?"

Rukia took her phone back and checked the time. "It is nine p.m., the time when grandpas like you go to sleep so they can wake up at five a.m. to do chin-ups."

"Oh, boy!"

"Please recall that you are forbidden from doing chin-ups."

"Yes, yes, I know."

"You are probably going to forget. I am just telling you that after you forget, please remember. If you re-break your ducts by doing chin-ups, it will be the most Renji thing ever, and I refuse to explain it to Captain Unohana."

"I will remember! I promise!"

Rukia put her hand on his knee and levered herself up and out of his pillow nest. "I'll tell Saejima on my way out that you're ready for your nighttime horse pills and to move back over to your futon. Is there anything else you want before bed? Mikan makes me an herbal tea before bed sometimes. It's really nice, if you want some of that."

"I can get in bed by myself," Renji declared, rolling sideways out of his pillows.

Rukia sighed. "Oh, Renji." She was beginning to feel a lot of sympathy for the nurses at the Fourth. At least he took his time standing up, although she hovered close by, just in case.

"Actually…" Renji said, adjusting his yukata, which had gone slightly askew during his maneuver. "Um…there is something you could do for me. It's kinda silly, though."

"I am not opposed to silly things," Rukia replied loftily. "Here, let me carry your blanket for you. Do you want any of these pillows as well?"

"Yeah, that one." Renji pointed at the one he wanted. "Thanks." He swallowed. "Well. Um. Earlier, you sort of…half-offered to…uh…play your shamisen for me?"

Rukia stared at him, waiting for him to finish the thought. His face looked so hesitant. Suddenly, she realized that was the thought. "Oh! You…you…want me to…?"

Rukia liked playing the shamisen. She was even pretty good at it. She often felt a little awkward talking about it with Renji, though. It was a thing she had learned after she had become a Kuchiki, a thing she had only learned because Byakuya had asked her to, and then had unexpectedly come to enjoy it. Renji had heard her play a couple of times now. He'd always seemed a little tongue-tied afterward. She assumed he didn't care for it all that much, but still tried to be kind. Somehow, she had never thought to apply the known facts that (1) Renji was terrible at delivering compliments and (2) he knew very little about music and the only thing he was ever able to say coherently about it was whether or not he had liked it.

"I didn't realize," she admitted. "But if you want--I mean, of course! I'll go get it right now!"

Renji's cheeks flushed pink, which made his freckles stand out, bright and cute. "I don't want you to go to any trouble! I guess-- well-- what I really want is to hear you sing. I like the shamisen! At least I like the way you play the shamisen. I like that a lot! I don't really care about other people playing the shamisen! But for some reason, I've been thinking a lot about your singing and--"

"I am happy to sing to you," Rukia gently interrupted his babbling. "If you want. We can save the shamisen for tomorrow."

"Okay," Renji nodded gratefully.

Rukia probably could have run down to her room and back in the time it took for Saejima to give Renji his nighttime meds and to braid his hair (which evidently is what Mikan had been teaching him to do for the last hour) and to finally get him settled in his futon. Rukia spent most of that time thinking about songs she knew and which one Renji might like to hear.

Soon enough, though, he was cozy in his bed, the lamp turned low, with Rukia perched on a zabuton by his side. "I'm half surprised you're not asleep already," she teased. He seemed barely able to keep his eyes open.

"You said you were gonna sing for me," Renji replied petulantly. "'Sworth staying awake for."

Rukia tapped her hands against her knees. "Did you have something in mind, by the way? I got songs about mountains, songs about rivers, songs about cherry blossoms, lots of songs about cherry blossoms. A few songs about drinking, but they're boring Seireitei songs about drinking. No one even gets murdered." She shrugged. "I could sing you a good old Inuzuri murder song, if you wanted. Doesn't seem very conducive to peaceful dreams, but I've never been in Squad Eleven, so what do I know?"

"I really just want the magpie song," Renji explained.

"The-- oh," Rukia said. "Really?"

"I know I just got to hear you sing it the other week," Renji mumbled. He definitely seemed more than half asleep. "But I want you to sing it just for me."

Rukia looked down at him and in that moment, it felt like her heart was going to burst. Renji never asked for things just for himself, even though she would have given him the world if she could. She wanted to crawl under the covers with him and hold him until he fell asleep. She wanted to cover his face with kisses. But she couldn't, and that wasn't what he had asked for, anyway. "Okay," she said instead. "Just for you." And then she sang.

Chapter 10: Interlude

Chapter Text

Just as she was about to crawl into bed, Rukia caught a glimpse of Sode no Shirayuki sitting peacefully on her sword stand. I should check in, Rukia decided.

A few moments later, the stinging chill of her inner world washed over her face. Rukia always liked to drop in with her eyes closed. Her inner world was a place of touch first. Smell and taste were next, followed by sound. Sight was always last. Rukia let her awareness float, hoping to feel the tug of Sode no Shirayuki's familiar gravity. Sode no Shirayuki did not like to be looked for, she preferred to be encountered.

Sode no Shirayuki had gone underground. This wasn't exactly unusual. Often, when Rukia's zanpakutou was tired or just didn't want to be bothered, she would dig herself out a cozy burrow as a badger, or turn into a turtle and nestle herself deep into the mud at the bottom of the unfathomably cold pond.

Tonight, Sode no Shirayuki was very deep, though, and Rukia couldn't immediately place what form she had taken. Also, she could hear a noise that she very much didn't like the sound of.

Rukia opened her eyes.

The normally frozen waterfall was flowing.

"Oh, what the fresh f*ck now?" Rukia groaned.

This had happened once before, earlier in the year, right after Rukia got home from an extended deployment with Renji. Sode no Shirayuki had claimed it was a side-effect of staying in the World of the Living for too long, a thing which had sounded like bullsh*t then and sounded even more like bullsh*t now.

The fact that the waterfall was flowing wasn't a problem in and of itself. Sode no Shirayuki dealt in metaphors, not realistically functioning ecosystems that followed the laws of physics. Last time, though, the freely flowing water had caused Sode no Shirayuki a great deal of distress. She had eventually managed to re-freeze it, although she hadn't bothered to share any details of the process with Rukia, and Rukia had been too tied up in studying for her adjutant's exam at the time to follow up on it.

Rukia carefully picked her way over to the edge. Pine trees still lay splintered on the ground from Sode no Shirayuki's tussle with Zabimaru. Rukia's stomach twisted. Stoicism was one of Sode no Shirayuki's favorite personality traits. If she had been injured, either in the scuffle or in the…afterward, she was sure to be hiding it.

Except that, as Rukia peered down over the side of the eye-watering drop-off, a small bird, a swift maybe, detached itself from the edge of the cliff. It wasn't Sode no Shirayuki, but it was a piece of Sode no Shirayuki, or a sending, perhaps--everything that drew breath in Rukia's inner world was. The bird wheeled and danced through the air before finding a new perch on a chunk of rock protruding from the cliffside. Rukia squinted. No, not a rock. It was an ice ledge, barely the width of her own body, one of a series that gently zigzagged down the vertical cliff face before disappearing into the thick fog that Rukia had always assumed demarcated the boundary of her inner world.

"Oh, no," Rukia gasped.

The swift swiveled its tiny head up toward her and let out a singular chirp. Then it took off again, spiraling down into the mist and disappearing.

"Oh, no," Rukia repeated.

There was nothing for it, though. She had to go. This, too, was classic Sode no Shirayuki. A way forward had been presented, and she had to take it. Hesitation was an admission of defeat. Rukia traced the ice stairs backward with her eye until she found the topmost one. She took a deep breath, set her shoulders, and began her descent.

At first, Rukia trailed her fingers along the side of the cliff. There was little to grab onto, though, and no guarantee that anything resembling a handhold would support her weight if the step should suddenly give way beneath her. It was a distraction, Sode no Shirayuki would scold her. Only a fool sees value in false reassurances. Instead, Rukia closed her eyes completely, and found the stairs, one by one, by listening to the heart she shared with her zanpakutou.

As she continued lower and lower, Rukia began to feel the fog on her skin, cold and clammy. The zigzags seemed to be getting wider, because on each pass, she could tell she was getting closer to the waterfall just before reversing.

Until there was no reverse.

Rukia could feel the spray on her face, hear the roar of the cataract in her ears. She could sense no more ice stairs. She opened her eyes. A rush of cascading water filled her vision. To the right, there was nothing but empty sky. But to her left, there was a shallow undercut in the rocks, just deep enough to duck behind the curtain of water. Beyond that, a passage. One that would be blocked if the waterfall were still frozen solid.

Once Rukia had safely made her way behind the waterfall, it became clear that this was not some natural formation, for whatever value "natural" even had in this place. Rukia didn't know sh*t about waterfalls, and she assumed Sode no Shirayuki knew even less. The carved tunnel, spiraling down through the rock and lit by flickering lanterns hung on the walls, felt distinctly fictional, like a hideout for bandits from one of Renji's books.

After continuing downward for what seemed like forever, the tunnel opened up into a cavern, hardly bigger than Rukia's bedroom. There were lanterns here, too, but fewer, and the room was dim and cozy. Cozy was in the eye of the beholder, Rukia supposed-- the place had a noticeable chill to it. Frost crunched under her feet and icicles hung from the ceiling like stalactites.

In the center of the cavern was a very large and very strange nest. It seemed to be partially constructed from the pine and spruce that populated Rukia's inner world, but that was mixed in with long, dry blades of tropical-looking grass and wide, waxy leaves shaped like fans. A huge heap of white fluff, streaked with black, huddled in the center of the nest, rising and falling like a mighty bellows as a chorus of snores echoed off the cavern walls.

"Sode no Shirayuki?" Rukia whispered. The sense of her zanpakutou was very strong here, but it was intertwined with Zabimaru's presence in a strange way that seemed to amplify both of them instead of drowning each other out.

The heap rustled, and a sinuous neck rose up, topped with a small, round head that extended out into a long, straight beak. Rukia realized that only part of the heap was fur. The rest was feathers. A pair of nictitating membranes flickered across Sode no Shirayuki's shiny black eyes and she clicked her beak, like a human smacking their lips. Though Sode no Shirayuki favored the form of pale animals, it wasn't unusual for her to retain a few darker markings. Nevertheless, the black feathers that masked her eyes and wrapped down her throat, and the splash of red on her forehead seemed like more of a nod to accuracy than usual. Up at the lake, Sode no Shirayuki always had a fae air about her. She was always very distinctly a yokai in an animal form. Here, she seemed realer, more like an actual, anatomical red-crowned crane, even if she was scaled up about threefold.

"Ahh, hello Rukia," Sode no Shirayuki yawned. "Is something the matter?" Hearing her familiar, elegant voice coming out of that ridiculous bird beak suddenly made Rukia feel a whole lot better.

"No…" Rukia said slowly. "Everything's…as well as can be expected, anyway. I came to check on you. What's going on? I thought you kicked Zabimaru out of our inner world."

"Hmm," said Sode no Shirayuki. "Well. This place is not exactly…it is neither here nor there, you see? It is an in-between place."

"No, I don't see," Rukia replied. "Please tell me that Zabimaru isn't stuck here. They can go back to Renji's inner world if they wanted to, right?"

"Oh, yes, of course," Sode no Shirayuki's beak bobbed sleepily. "In fact, they are there right now, in the way that I am still in your inner world. I am just also here."

Rukia narrowed her eyes at her zanpakutou. "You're not making any sense."

Zabimaru shifted in their sleep, a coil of snaketail flopping across Sode no Shirayuki's back. "Ugh, mind your own space," Sode no Shirayuki groaned, pushing the tail off with her beak. A monkey foot kicked at her a few times before flopping over the edge of the nest. Sode no Shirayuki sighed and her crane neck sagged dramatically. "You see what I have to put up with."

"Do you?" Rukia asked tartly. "Do you have to put up with it?"

Sode no Shirayuki tilted her head to one side. "Zabimaru is not good at controlling the flow of reiatsu. That has never been one of their strengths."

"I am aware," Rukia replied dryly.

"I am very good at it."

"I know that, too."

"So, I am helping."

"Helping…what?"

"Helping to monitor Renji's reiatsu. To make sure he doesn't damage his kidou ducts."

Rukia stared at her. "You can do that?"

"It isn't easy," Sode no Shirayuki said. "But it is easier here, in the in-between place." Absent-mindedly, she used her beak to smooth down a patch of Zabimaru's fur that was sticking up. "And I owe it to Renji."

A chill ran down Rukia’s spine. "What do you mean? Why do you owe him?"

Sode no Shirayuki's head abruptly popped up, her eyes bright and beady. "For saving you, of course."

Somehow, Rukia found this explanation less than satisfactory. "I've saved him plenty of times, too, you know. We don't keep track, but I think the score's pretty close to even."

"That is your business," Sode no Shirayuki sniffed. "I keep my own accounts."

Rukia sighed. There was no use trying to drag information out of Sode no Shirayuki when she felt like being intractable.

"It is not particularly taxing," Sode no Shirayuki explained, jumping back to the previous subject. "I am only tired because it is very tiring to be here. If you require my assistance, I can return and become myself again in mere moments. Obviously, you are my priority."

"Well, I'm going to bed, so hopefully that won't be necessary, for the next eight hours at least." Rukia remembered why she had come to her inner world in the first place. "You're sure you're okay? I was a little worried that maybe you'd been hurt, or maybe you'd overextended yourself--"

"I am very well, thank you," Sode no Shirayuki replied, her voice even more gracious than usual.

Rukia reached out and smoothed a few feathers on what she assumed was Sode no Shirayuki's shoulder, or whatever birds had instead of shoulders. "Thank you. I know you and Zabimaru don't always get along, but it makes me feel better to know you're keeping an eye on Renji. I'm sure they feel the same."

Sode no Shirayuki curled her long neck around and tucked her beak into the fold of her wing (or possibly one of Zabimaru's haunches). "We also," she mumbled, "do not keep track of the debts between us."

Chapter 11

Chapter Text

Sunday morning dawned clear and calm over Kuchiki Manor. Renji squinted his eyes closed against the pale pink sunlight filtering in through the shoji, just for a moment. Then he flopped upright, his braid following on a one-second delay. He smacked his lips. All of his muscles were stiff, and he could feel the slight chill of the morning deep down in his bones.

"I should go for a run," he said, pushing himself out of bed. He stumbled over to the outer doors, and shoved one open so he could check the weather.

There was a rustling sound, and two of the purple-clad Kuchiki house guard popped out of the bushes. A third dropped down off the roof onto the engawa. "Good morning, Lieutenant Abarai!" they chorused.

Renji blinked at them, and rubbed his neck. "Mornin'!" he replied.

There was the sound of frantic running from inside the house. The inner door to his room was flung open and Hiroyoshi skidded in. "Good morning Lieutenant Abarai!!" he bellowed. "It sure is a beautiful morning here at Kuchiki Manor, where you are recovering from your arm surgery!! Are you ready for some breakfast?!"

"I was thinkin' about going for a run," Renji explained. He looked over at the ninja. "Any of you all feel like going for a run?"

"You are not allowed to go for a run," Hiroyoshi reminded him.

"Oh. Right. I forgot." He contemplated the state of his body. To be honest, he did feel pretty hungry. "Breakfast it is, then!"

The sun was too bright.

Rukia smashed her face deeper into her pillow, willing it to go back down below the horizon for a little while. Suddenly, she shoved herself upright. "Mikan!" she hollered.

"Good morning, Lady Rukia!" Mikan announced far-too-cheerfully, popping into the room.

"How did I sleep so late?" Rukia scowled, rubbing at her eyes.

"It's barely past seven, miss," Mikan replied. "You usually sleep much later on the weekends."

"Is Renji still sleeping?" Rukia asked. "Usually he's up at--" she stopped herself before saying the words asscrack of dawn to Mikan "--a very early hour. I mean, that's probably a good thing, if he's sleeping in, for once, his body must need it…"

"Oh, no, he's been up for some time…" Mikan admitted, making eye contact with the ceiling.

"Mikan! Why didn't you wake me!"

"Well, he's been busy, miss."

"Busy! Doing what?" Rukia demanded.

Mikan sucked her teeth. "Mr. Aoyagi is teaching Saejima how to do hot oil treatments. Well, that's what he said anyway. I'm pretty sure he just wanted to get his hands on Lieutenant Abarai's hair. It's a very different texture from Lord Kuchiki's, you know…"

"You've got to be kidding me," said Rukia.

There weren't many advantages of being awake at seven a.m., in Rukia's opinion, but at least she could have breakfast with Byakuya, who preferred to keep the same meal schedule seven days a week. On this particular day, she was greeted with quite an unusual sight.

Byakuya was dressed at least, but his face was sleep-creased, and there was a sort of unfinished quality to his features. He's not wearing any makeup, Rukia realized. His hair was pulled up in an inexpert ponytail. It looked distinctly less silky than usual.

"Are you feeling alright, Brother?" Rukia asked. "You look…"

"I am perfectly well," Byakuya reassured her. "Circ*mstances dictated that I must delay my morning toilette until after breakfast."

"Oh," said Rukia, as it hit her exactly what ‘circ*mstances’ he meant. "I am so sorry."

"It cannot be helped," Byakuya replied, taking a philosophical sip of his tea.

Rukia knew that she should probably avert her eyes out of respect, but her curiosity was hard to overcome. This is what my sister woke up to every morning, she realized, with a sentimental pang.

"You know," she said slowly, picking up her bowl. "I think I like you in a ponytail."

"Not you, too," muttered Byakuya.

Several hours later, the day had regained its proper rhythm. Byakuya was in his office, trying to warm up his mind, so that it would be in the proper state for analytical work (that is, he was doing the logic puzzle from the Seireitei Bulletin).

"Lord Byakuya," Seike said somberly, "you have received a message." He presented a folded piece of paper. "It is from your aunt."

Byakuya accepted the message with a neutral expression. It was not difficult to maintain a neutral expression when receiving messages from his aunts. Messages from his aunts were the very training grounds on which he had perfected his neutral expressions.

The handwriting immediately identified the aunt in question as Etsu, the wife of Ginrei's brother's second son. She was significantly younger than Uncle Daikoku, and all of the children from his first marriage whom she had helped to raise were now grown. This had resulted in an excess of energy. Much of this, she devoted to whatever passed for physical fitness activities among the active upper middle-aged noble lady set, namely various outdoorsy pursuits. The problem was the remainder, which she poured into other people's business.

"My Honored Lord Nephew," the missive began. "I must speak with you urgently. A matter of imprudent association has come to my attention, regarding a certain young and high-profile member of our clan.

I shall arrive at the Manor at ten so that we may discuss in more detail.

Your affectionate aunt,

Etsu"

Byakuya allowed the urge to groan to enter him. He sat with it for a brief moment, and then let it pass.

Seike's eyes darted toward the garden, where, if one strained their ears, the soft plucking of a shamisen could occasionally be heard. "The timing is…inopportune."

Byakuya started to agree, then paused. A matter of imprudent association. Is it possible that the 'certain young family member' could be Rukia? Could Etsu have gotten wind of Abarai's convalescent arrangements, and misconstrued things?

"Lady Rukia is very understanding," Seike was saying. "I am sure she would not mind entertaining her guest in a more private part of the house." He looked up at Byakuya's face and blinked in surprise. "Or…I could tell your aunt that you are not available today?"

"No," Byakuya said slowly. If he avoided the matter, it would only further ignite his aunt's curiosity. If Hisana were still here, Byakuya knew exactly how skillfully she would defuse the matter. But Hisana was not here. Byakuya set his jaw. "I…will deal with it."

Byakuya was not in the habit of greeting his visitors out in front of his house, but today, he was making an exception.

At precisely ten, Etsu arrived. "Ahhh…good morning, Nephew!" she said, obviously unbalanced by this change up of the routine.

"Good morning, Aunt!" Byakuya replied, with an uncharacteristic degree of enthusiasm. "The weather is lovely today, is it not?"

"Oh, yes, very," Etsu agreed, her eyes darting around nervously, as if she expected to be ambushed.

"Would you mind," Byakuya said, "if we were to go out for tea?"

"Go out?" Aunt Etsu echoed. "Well, I suppose that would be fine. My litter bearers--"

"I thought we would walk," Byakuya declared. "You are fond of walking, are you not?"

Aunt Etsu looked stricken. "Well, I do enjoy a bit of a tramp down at the nature preserve. But I'm not dressed for that today--"

"I am in the mood for city walking," Byakuya clarified. "More importantly, there is a particular place I wish to go. Have you ever had 'coffee', Aunt?"

"I have never even heard of it, dear. Is it a kind of dessert?"

"Let us be off!" announced Byakuya.

"Rukia has been telling me about this shop for some time," Byakuya explained, holding the noren aside for his aunt. "I woke this morning feeling particularly adventurous, and your letter presented the perfect opportunity."

"You certainly seem very…energetic," said Aunt Etsu.

"It is the fresh spring air," Byakuya replied.

"You know, I do find the same thing happens to me!" Etsu tapped her lips with one finger. "Speaking of Lady Rukia, I am so sorry to have missed her."

"She is occupied with a Gotei personnel matter today," Byakuya explained. It wasn't exactly a lie. The Gotei personnel in this case just happened to belong to Byakuya, and it was true that Rukia was taking care of it.

"What an unusual tea house," Etsu frowned, glancing around. "Do they not have private rooms?"

The coffee establishment was a small one, just outside of the Thirteenth. Byakuya had never actually been there before, but Rukia spoke highly of it, and Abarai occasionally arrived at work bearing a cardboard cup with their logo--a fish leaping from a cup of coffee. It appeared that the bulk of their business was takeaway, although there were tables provided and the ambiance was pleasant enough.

"Hmm, it would appear not," Byakuya feigned surprise. "Ah, but look! There is a lovely table near the window. Perhaps you should go sit there, while I procure beverages for us."

"You'll do…what?" Aunt Etsu frowned.

"It is a thing called 'counter service,'" Byakuya explained. "Be at ease, Aunt. I have done this before."

Admittedly, it had been a while. Back when he served at the Thirteenth, Shiba Kaien would occasionally order him to go pick up lunch for the senior officers. Byakuya had assumed at the time that this activity was specially engineered to humiliate him. In retrospect, he wasn't so sure that had been the case. He's trying to help you fit in, Miyako had explained to him once after he had lowered himself to asking for her help with the correct etiquette. And, indeed, he had been grateful for it later, whenever his fellow lieutenants would press him into accompanying them on social outings and he managed not to make a complete fool of himself. He had been very grateful for it, later after that, when he was traveling up the Rukon with the prettiest, most hard-edged girl in Soul Society, trying desperately to convince her of his worldliness.

Hisana definitely would have wanted to try coffee.

"G-good morning, Captain Kuchiki!" the-- what was the correct word? bartist?--stammered. Ah. He had been recognized. That should make this easier.

"Greetings," Byakuya replied. "I would like two cups of coffee. We are eating in. You do have actual drinkware, yes? I do not drink beverages from cups made of paper."

"Oh, yes, sir," the young woman bobbed her head, her ponytails threatening to hit her in the face. "Two cups of coffee! Would you like the cream and sugar separately?"

"I should think that you, as the professional, should add it," Byakuya frowned.

"Of course," the coffee steward agreed. "How would you like it, then?"

Byakuya stared at her for a moment. "I have never had coffee before. What do you recommend?"

"Well…most people like a little cream and sugar. Especially if they've never had it before."

"My sister frequents this establishment, yes?"

The girl's eyes lit up. "Oh, yes. Lieutenant Kuchiki takes her coffee black. Lieutenant Abarai--"

Byakuya held up a hand. "I know far too well what my adjutant does to his beverages. I will take my coffee black. That means without any additions, correct?"

"Yes," the caffeine sommelier nodded. "And the other one?"

Byakuya glanced back at his aunt and felt a pang of misgiving. It was true that she did consider herself an adventurous soul, but perhaps this was a bit too much adventure. Suddenly, he recalled something. "Do you, perhaps, sell a drink called a Koifushi Fog? It is made with Western style tea and milk?"

The girl straightened up. "Only the best Koifushi Fog in Soul Society! We use premium black tea leaves and honey imported directly from Hokutan."

"Ahh, excellent! Change my order to one black coffee and one Koifushi Fog, then."

"Yes, of course, Captain Kuchiki! It will be brought to your table when it's ready!"

"I leave it to you, then."

Byakuya made his way across the coffee house, to the corner table where his aunt had taken up residence. Aunt Etsu looked up from scrutinizing the tabletop. "Nephew," she said, "are you sure about this place? It seems very…common."

"Do not judge by appearances, Aunt," Byakuya replied, taking a seat. The zabuton was distinctly understuffed. "I believe you have mentioned in the past that you enjoy Western-style black tea?"

"Oh, I do," she agreed. "It can be very difficult to find, you know. Your Uncle Daikoku gets it for me from one of his old Gotei friends. I'm sure you know the man. Polite fellow. Very interested in Western things."

"You mean Lieutenant Sasakibe? Of the First?" Byakuya guessed.

"That's him! With the little mustache! Not as good as Daikoku's mustache. Charming gentleman."

Neutral expression. Inhale. Exhale. "I have ordered you a specialty black tea drink. This restaurant sources its ingredients from the mountains of West Rukongai."

Aunt Etsu's eyes widened. "Oh! Well, that sounds very exotic!"

"I have had the drink before. I think you will enjoy it."

Byakuya had been holding out a tiny grain of hope that perhaps Aunt Etsu would be so distracted by the cosmopolitan nature of their outing that she would forget whatever overwrought concern-mongering that had driven her to inflict herself upon him this beautiful morning. He was not so lucky.

Etsu glanced from side to side, then leaned forward. "I do wish we could have done this in a more private setting."

Byakuya looked around. There were possibly a total of eight shinigami in this coffee shop, junior officers by the look of it. All of them appeared far more interested in enjoying their Sunday morning than in trying to overhear Kuchiki Aunt Gossip.

Etsu sighed. "So! I'm sure this is far below your concerns, but there was a fundraiser party yesterday for that quirky little contemporary art museum--"

"The Museum of Soul Society Art and Culture?"

"Yes, that one!"

"I keep hearing about this party. Were you in attendance?"

Etsu made a face like he had just asked if she ate with her hands. "Naoko went, and she was telling me about it. You know how she is, with her, 'today's culture is tomorrow's history' and so on." Naoko was Etsu's stepdaughter, now married to the head of one of the larger Kuchiki branch families. Rukia was very fond of her.

"I don't disagree with the sentiment," Byakuya mused. "For example, I hear Lady Ishibashi Ayaru is planning an exhibit on the history of Seireitei architecture for sometime next year. She is quite an insightful and well-respected scholar. I am looking forward to it immensely."

Aunt Etsu stared at him. "Lady Ishibashi Ayaru," she echoed.

"Yes, you know. Ishibashi Masato's daughter. The Central 46 judge."

"Yes, yes, I know who she is," Etsu scrambled. "You know her?"

"Not personally. I've read some of her writings and I've heard her spoken well of. Why do you ask?"

"Well…" Etsu sputtered. "It just so happens--"

"One black coffee and one Koifushi Fog!"

A different coffee bar attendant had arrived. The young man immediately began unloading cups onto the table in a reckless manner that would have caused Seike to faint dead away.

The coffee bearer furrowed his brows and looked vaguely embarrassed. "I was supposed to ask…are the cups okay? I'm not sure…?"

Byakuya examined the stoneware. His coffee had been served in a charming little cup with a pattern of tiny fish peeking out from the pondweed painted on the side. The color combination of the clay and the glaze was distinctive. He wanted to check the artist's mark on the bottom of the cup, but obviously could not while it was full. "This is Iwatobi rockware, is it not?" he asked. Iwatobi pieces were hardly uncommon in the Seireitei, but this particular motif looked like it might be the product of one of the more exclusive houses, and Byakuya was subtly extending an invitation to expound on the cup's provenance.

The young man's smile wavered. "Maybe?"

"It is acceptable," Byakuya replied. What a strange establishment.

Aunt Etsu watched carefully while the server departed. Byakuya picked up his cup, and held it to his nose. The coffee seemed too hot to drink at the moment, but the bouquet was phenomenal.

"As I was saying," Etsu said the moment she felt they were alone again, "Lady Ishibashi happened to be in attendance at the party yesterday."

"Naturally."

"And according to Naoko, she was receiving quite a bit of attention from…" Etsu leaned forward, "the young Heir to the Ohno clan."

Byakuya just stared at her. "We were just discussing that she is a woman of both talent and erudition, from an excellent family? Why should he not?"

"Byakuya, what about your cousin Shizue?" Etsu said in a scandalized voice.

"What about Shizue?" Byakuya asked, thoroughly confused now.

"What will people think, seeing him canoodling with other women?"

Canoodling? Wait-- "Aunt-- the young person whose behavior you wished to censure-- you are telling me it is Third Seat Ohno?"

Etsu blinked at him for a moment. "Who did you think I had called on you to talk about?"

Oho, Byakuya would not fall into that trap! "I had no idea," he replied. "I was simply surprised. Some of our young family members use their military service as an excuse to grow lax in their comportment, but Young Ohno usually takes great care to conduct himself properly."

Aunt Etsu pretended not to notice that this was an obvious dig at her youngest stepson. "Young people are sometimes tricked by their hearts. That is part of our role as their senior family members--to prevent them from making decisions they will come to regret."

"Indeed," Byakuya said coldly. "I still do not see how Ohno talking to another woman has any bearing on Shizue. You will recall that she made the decision to attend Shin'ou without actually accepting any of the offers on her hand."

Aunt Etsu huffed. "Everyone knows the Ohno were the frontrunners. And surely, once she's had a chance to try swinging a sword and tires of it, their engagement will be formalized. That is, unless he makes a fool of himself chasing after other women! The Ohno have waited decades for this opportunity. I don't see why he is being so impatient. How long do you intend to let her study, anyway? I recommend two years, personally. Naoko begged to stay for four, and Daikoku is so soft for her because she's our only girl. It was such a mistake. After that, she wanted to go to the university and study history, and of course he let her do that, too. It was thirty years before we finally got her settled down!"

Byakuya frowned. "She is happy now, though, is she not? She is the Lady of the Gotou."

Etsu huffed again. "Yes, of course. Lord Gotou keeps drawing her into his little business ventures, instead of letting her focus on the management of the household, but she seems to enjoy it well enough."

Byakuya had known Gotou Takebe for most of his life, and handing his finances over to Naoko was probably the smartest thing the man had ever done.

"But think about it!" Etsu wagged her finger. "If we had just let her do whatever she wanted, she would probably be in the Gotei-13 now!"

Byakuya thought about it. He remembered approving Naoko's removal from the Academy. It was right around the same time he had extracted the promise from Ukitake that Rukia not be seated before he allowed her to take a position at the Thirteenth. It had not been a good period for him. Byakuya thought about Naoko's brother Choei, who had managed to rise to Fourth Seat, for all his impulsiveness and lack of personal discipline. He thought about his sharp, clever cousin and wondered what name her zanpakutou would have answered to. He wondered, in fact, if perhaps he could have avoided having to look so far afield for an Assistant Captain after Shirogane's retirement. Byakuya abruptly did not want to think about it anymore.

Absently, he picked up his coffee cup and took a long sip. He blinked. He had expected coffee to be a form of inferior tea, but it was entirely its own thing. The flavor was so rich, so complex. It was bitter, but Byakuya enjoyed bitter flavors, and it was tempered by a bright note of acidity. He stared down at the drink in surprise. Once again, Rukia had located a culinary treasure in a place where no person of class would think to venture.

Byakuya carefully set his cup down. "To be fair, Aunt," he said slowly, "we are the ones who have dropped the opportunity to place a Kuchiki as the next Lady Ohno. I think it would seem deeply presumptuous to expect the Ohno to put aside other prospects in favor of one that may or may not re-materialize in the future."

"They are a Kuchiki branch family," Aunt Etsu sniffed.

"Try your beverage, Aunt," Byakuya said, picking his up again. "It should be a drinkable temperature."

Aunt Etsu sighed, but picked up her cup and took a delicate sip. "Oh!" she exclaimed. "Oh, that's delicious!"

He regarded her firmly, but without anger. She was his aunt, after all. "Now, listen to me. I do not care when a man and a woman talk to each other at a party, whether I am related to them or not. It is nothing. It means nothing. It is none of my business. If I receive a message from Lord Ishibashi asking to open negotiations, I will care then. And frankly, I would be quite open to the arrangement. The primary reason we considered the Ohno's bid so strongly was to ease the current strain between their house and ours. If I can achieve the same thing by helping broker an alliance with another worthy family, it is a win for all, including Shizue, who is freed to do what she likes with her future." He watched Etsu's face as he took another sip of his magnificent coffee. She looked less upset and more…foiled. She pretended to be occupied with her own drink. Suddenly, a puzzle piece fell into place. "You're worried that if Ohno doesn't marry Shizue, she'll marry Takehiko instead." Etsu's face went stiff.

Takehiko was Etsu's nephew, the only son of Ginrei's brother's first son. He sat one step higher in the main line succession, but was currently single, whereas two of Etsu's sons were already married with sons. Byakuya let another groan pass through him, un-uttered. He couldn't believe all of this had turned out to be the same, tedious, drummed-up Kuchiki drama as always.

"Perhaps we have spoken enough on this topic," Etsu said primly. "Have you seen Lord Norogashi since he got back from his bird watching expedition in North Rukongai? We had dinner with him last week. He claims he spotted a mated pair of rufous fish owls, but frankly, there were a number of concerning inconsistencies in his story."

Well. At least he'd gotten a coffee out of this.

"--the last syllable of the chant slipped past her lips, and the barrier flared to life,” Rukia read, trying to put a little extra drama into it. “Hoping against hope that it would hold, Emiko let unconsciousness claim her."

The day had passed relatively uneventfully so far. Renji had been released from his beauty treatments not too long after she and Byakuya finished breakfast. To Rukia's surprise, he hadn't come out looking too different than he usually did, although everything about him seemed just a tiny bit more polished, but in a way that seemed completely natural. His hair was full and shiny. His skin was glowy. His eye makeup seemed closer to his usual than yesterday's, but not quite so sharp, less aggressive and more…elegant. He said he'd had a good time and he felt great, which Rukia supposed was the most important thing.

After that, she'd spent some time tooling around on the shamisen for him out in the garden. It had been more fun than she expected. Mostly, he just wanted to hear which songs she liked best and to listen to her show off. Renji didn't know much about the shamisen, so he was impressed by pretty much everything she did. Rukia had to admit that her ego was not immune to a little positive attention.

There had been another hearty, restorative lunch, followed by a few more chapters of Song of the Four Winds.

Rukia felt a tug at her sleeve, and she looked down. Renji was looking up at her, sort of upside-downish. His eyes were half-lidded, like he was drowsy, but there was big, lazy grin on his face, and Rukia realized that he was just relaxing. Not the fake relaxation he often affected these days, where he could still spring into action with a microsecond of notice. No, he was actually loafing, sprawled boneless and complacent in the sunshine. She felt very proud of him, and maybe a little bit proud of herself, as well.

"You've gotten really good at reading, d'you know that, Ru?"

"Hmm?" she said. A bad suspicion tugged at her brain, but she didn't want to jump to conclusions.

"Must be that study group you've been going to," Renji went on sleepily, his South Rukongai accent coming out even more strongly than usual. "I mean! You've been workin' real hard. I know how hard you've been workin', and I just wanted to let you know it's been payin' off."

Her hunch had been correct. He was stuck in the past again, their school days, apparently. Reading his old favorite books and drinking Kira's nostalgia tea, it was no wonder. Rukia started to think of how to remind him where he was, when she remembered what Hanatarou had said--it wouldn't do him any harm to spend some time in an old memory. Perhaps it was a bit of selfishness on her part, but what was so bad about wanting to spend a few minutes with the boy he was before she broke his heart for forty years?

"Thanks," she replied, experimentally letting her tongue loosen into her old Inuzuri drawl. She was pretty sure her accent had been even worse than his. "My voice is getting a little tired, though. You mind if we take a break?"

"Course not!" He patted her foot. "Lie down with me."

She really shouldn't, but "Kuchiki propriety" wasn't a thing he had to worry about yet. Also, he was very cute like this, and it was hard to say no to him. Rukia scooted down onto her back until she was lying so that their heads were side-by-side, their feet pointing off in opposite directions.

Renji closed one eye so he could focus on her face better. "You're upside-down," he informed her.

"Actually, you are," she replied.

"Maybe we both are," he suggested.

"You're in the Advanced Class, you tell me," Rukia said, but there was none of the sting in it that there would have been all those years ago. She immediately regretted saying it anyway, even though that's exactly how Young Rukia would have responded. Jealousy and fear of falling behind him had made her so stupid in those days.

"I don't wanna talk about school today," Renji groaned. "It's rare enough to get a day off. I want to enjoy it." His brow furrowed. "Do we have the day off?"

"Yeah, it's Sunday," Rukia suggested.

"There's gotta be an exam coming up or some project I oughtta be working on…you're sure I don't have…study group or something?"

"Not today."

"Oh." For a moment, Rukia thought his brain might snap back to the present on its own, but instead, his face split into a soft grin. "Good. Sometimes they work us so hard I think my arms and legs are gonna fall off."

"To be fair, I think you work quite a bit harder than most people," Rukia teased.

She'd meant it as a compliment, but Renji didn't seem to take it as such, just a statement of fact. He wrinkled his nose. "I just…I really want to get into the Gotei, y'know? So much of it is your name and connections and sh*t like that. Can't do anything about that stuff, so might as well focus on the one thing I can." He jerked his chin at her. "I meant it when I said that you work hard, too. I know you think I don't think you do, but I, uh…I do. Think you do."

All those years ago, Rukia would have given anything to hear him say that. It was true, she had constantly worried that he thought she was slacking off. Her glacial progression and mediocre grades certainly hadn't provided any evidence to the contrary. But maybe she had been just as guilty. Everything seemed to come easy to him at Shin'ou, and she'd convinced herself that he couldn't possibly be putting in nearly as much effort as she was. Rukia's heart felt very tender toward the young man she hadn't properly appreciated back in those days.

"I think you will get into the Gotei," she told him. "And I think all that hard work is going to pay off for you. I think you're going to be a great shinigami, Renji. A vice-captain in no time!"

Renji let out a bark of laughter. "You sound like Kira and Hinamori! I don't really care about that stuff. I just want to get strong enough that the Hollows know better’n to mess with me. Rank's nice, but I 'm more interested in making it home in time for dinner as often as possible." He sucked his teeth. "I guess seated officers get paid better. That would be nice, I guess. Being able to go out for drinks after work once in a while. Buy you a present on your birthday."

"When we're in the Gotei," Rukia announced loftily, "I will buy you drinks, whether it's your birthday or not."

Renji laughed again, softer this time. "You're gonna make a great shinigami, too, Ru, I know it."

Rukia pursed her lips. "Perhaps."

Renji rolled over a little, and propped himself up on his left elbow. "Have they talked much about konsou, yet? In your classes?"

"I am familiar with the concept," Rukia replied.

"That's the thing I think you're gonna be really good at."

Rukia regarded him skeptically. "Konsou? That's not really a thing that…that people are good or bad at."

Renji made a skeptical face. "I'm not talking about the mechanics. That part was easy. I was surprised at how bad most people were at dealing with the Pluses."

Wherever Renji's brain was hovering, it must be shortly after that disastrous field trip to the World of the Living. That was too bad, in Rukia's opinion. She would have liked to spare him that. Maybe she could divert the subject a little. "You don't think I'll be a kidou expert?" she laughed. "Or a shunpo prodigy?"

Renji was not to be diverted, though. "Those things, too," he shrugged. "And if I had to pick one person I know that I think'll get bankai, it'd be you. But I just think you'll be really good at the part where you help people cross over."

Rukia snorted. "What are you talking about? You're the one who's good with people."

"I'm good at normal sh*t. Making friends. Bargaining with shopkeepers. It's not the same."

"I'm sure it just takes a little practice," she reassured him. "You'll be good at it, too, I know it."

Renji shook his head. "That's not the point I was trying to make." He narrowed his eyes thoughtfully. "Maybe I'm biased, because for every big thing that I can remember ever happenin' to me, ‘cept one, you were there. Most of 'em were terrible. A few were pretty nice. All the same, I was glad you were with me. The one time you weren't--gettin' attacked by those Hollows--Kira and Hinamori were there, but it wasn't the same. They weren't you."

"You and I have been friends for a long time," Rukia pointed out. "It'll be different as you get to know them."

"That's what I've been trying to get at, though. The moment I met you, I knew I could trust you. I think that if I were a ghost who’d just died, I'd be pretty pissed off if, I dunno, Kira say, tried to come at me with the butt end of a sword. But I would trust you. You always seem like you know what you're doing. I know you really well now, so I know how full of sh*t you are, and I still trust you."

"Renji, that is the strangest compliment anyone has ever given me."

Renji shrugged. "I'm not sure it was really a compliment. It's just how you are."

Rukia rolled onto her back and watched the sunlight filter down through the leaves above them. "I think I can guess what most of the terrible things were. What were the good ones? Getting into Shin'ou?"

"I guess I thought of it more as 'getting out of Inuzuri', but yeah. That was the big one." He stretched his neck and then flopped over on his back, too. "There was also…you know. You were my first kiss."

Rukia snorted. "I'm pretty sure that deserved to go in the 'terrible' pile." They'd been very young. Knowing how things went in Inuzuri, Rukia had decided that she wanted her first kiss to be on her own terms. Any of the boys probably would have obliged her, but there was something about Renji--his aloofness maybe, the way he always tried to hold her at arm's length in those days. She knew that he liked her well enough, but it was like he was afraid of what might happen if he actually admitted it. In any case, she'd cornered him alone one day, and bullied him into letting her smash her face against his. She was pretty sure he'd held his breath the entire time. "You did mean the first kiss, right? Not the second kiss?" The second kiss had been more like a real kiss. Rukia had been thinking about that kiss lately. It had happened on the way home from Kitajima's.

"No, no, I definitely mean the first one," Renji confirmed. "It was not a good kiss, but it was a very good first kiss. Sometimes I hear guys in the dorm talking about the importance of your first love or your first kiss or whatever--and don't get me wrong! It's bullsh*t! I cannot believe how bad the priorities of some of these people are!--but all the same, I feel very content in my heart that I got a good one. That's…that's the feeling I was trying to convey when I said I thought you would be good at konsou."

A cloud passed by, far overhead. It was small and white and fluffy. "I do not think that giving someone their first kiss is very much like sending them to the afterlife," Rukia decided.

"You say that," said Renji, "because you got stuck with me for your first kiss. If you'd had you for your first kiss, you might think different. It's like a…a dividing point. Like a sword chopping your life into parts. You're a dead person in the Living World and then you're an alive soul in Soul Society. You've never been kissed and then you have. A before and after. At least, that's what I think."

"You don't even remember your own konsou," Rukia pointed out. "No one does. You don't even know if you got a konsou."

"That's true," Renji admitted philosophically.

Rukia cleared her throat self-consciously. "But I, uh…I think I get what you mean." She was thinking about their second kiss again.

"I think," said Renji, looking over at her, "that there are more big things that we'll do together in the future. I think there will be more good ones than terrible ones."

Rukia thought about what he probably had in mind. Passing a big exam. Graduating. Getting a squad placement. She could remember, in a vague, intellectual way, thinking of these things as looming gateways to adulthood, things that would delineate a before and an after. She'd never even managed the first two, and even the third paled in comparison to all of the other things that had happened, things that she had no way of expecting. An adoption. A separation from her best and only friend. The death of her vice-captain. A chance meeting with a human boy. An execution that wasn't. A war. She started to think about the things that might lie ahead in their future, about what event might slice now into a before. Then, she decided she didn't want to.

She rolled onto her side so she could look at him again. "Why's your mind always somewhere out in the future, plannin' stuff fifty-seven steps ahead? It's our day off, and who knows when we'll get another one. I just want to be here. With you."

His mouth curved into a very cute smile. Rukia felt especially grateful that he had left his freckles uncovered again today. "You're very smart, Rukia," he said.

Rukia jerked her chin at him. "Speaking of being smart, didn't you just make third kyuu in zanjutsu?" She was pretty sure that had happened shortly before the awful field trip. Shin'ou used a two-tier ranking system for all of its proficiencies, to separate beginners from those who had some actual competency. Noble students who had trained with private tutors before arriving at school were often able to test directly into first dan, skipping the kyuu entirely. Third kyuu wasn't all that impressive in and of itself, but Renji had plowed through the ranks with remarkable speed, especially considering that he'd never even held a sword before the day they walked into the Shinigami Recruitment Station.

Renji narrowed his eyes. "I thought you didn't want to hear about that," he said, sounding like he expected this to be a trap.

"I was in a bad mood when I said that," Rukia admitted. "I am in a good mood now, and there is nothing I want more than to hear you talk about sword stuff."

Renji didn't look entirely convinced, but on the other hand, he was not about to pass up a chance to talk about sword stuff. "If you're sure," he said.

Rukia got her head settled comfortably on her arm. "Absolutely positive."

Byakuya had given up on trying to do anything remotely productive.

From what he could tell, Rukia had been reading the most dreadful novel in existence out loud to his lieutenant for most of the afternoon. He had caught a few snatches of it earlier. Unfortunately, it had hit him with a wave of nostalgia for the second worst novel in existence, a picaresque tale of an itinerant Hollow-slayer who had been unjustly dismissed from the Gotei, which he had read approximately 6,000 times in his youth. Surprisingly enough, there was still a copy of it in the library, cleverly shelved in the section on kimono motifs, where a disapproving grandfather would never think to look for it. He was now two-thirds of the way through it. It was every bit as dreadful as he remembered it. He was enjoying the experience immensely.

"Lord Byakuya," said Seike, "I truly apologize for all of the interruptions today." Byakuya marked his place and put his book aside. He was pretty sure that what Seike meant was that he had had enough interruptions for the day. Byakuya had already given the day up for chaos around the time Aunt Etsu's letter arrived.

"Truly, it is no problem," Byakuya waved a hand. "What has the invalid done now? Or is it my sister this time?"

"It is neither. You have a visitor. It is one of your fellow Gotei captains."

Byakuya sat up straighter. "At my house? On a weekend?"

"Yes, my lord," Seike replied dismally. "He says that he has something for you."

"Who is it?" Unohana had been his only possible guess, come for the express purpose of further criticizing him, but at least it wasn't her.

"The captain of Tenth Company, my lord. Without his adjutant, no less."

Oh! Byakuya felt the muscles in his shoulders relax immediately. "Trust me, Seike, that is for the best. However, unlike most of our colleagues, Captain Hitsugaya himself is entirely unobjectionable. Please see him in. Try to pick a route through the house which avoids the garden." Fortunately, Abarai's binding also rendered him nearly invisible by reiatsu-sense. Also, if there was a slip, it would not be the end of the world. Captain Hitsugaya had already promised to be discreet.

Seike blinked for a moment, then his face softened. "Ah! I had no idea, my lord! I shall do so immediately."

A few minutes later, Hitsugaya Toushirou stood before him, wearing an entirely too casual yukata. In his hands was a package wrapped in a very rustic cotton furoshiki. "Um. Hi," he said.

"Greetings, Captain Hitsugaya," Byakuya replied. "What brings you to my home during our mutual Leisure Hours? And how was the fundraiser?"

"The fundraiser was good, actually," Hitsugaya nodded. He took a moment to consider the question. "Everyone there was deeply strange. We had a great time. We had such a good time, actually, that Momo and I decided to take an impromptu trip to Junrinan this morning. Which also went very well!"

"That is wonderful news," Byakuya replied.

"Right, well, the thing is-- I've told you about my grandmother, right?"

"I knew that you had one."

"Maybe all grannies are like this. I don't know. I've only ever had the one." He cleared his throat. "Most people in Rukongai don't need to eat, as I'm sure you know. They like to, but they don't have to. Granny has a little more spiritual power than average, so she understands what it's like to be really hungry, but also, she has trouble grasping that they ever give us enough to eat here in the Seireitei."

"I am almost certain that not all grandmothers are like that," Byakuya mused. "Perhaps it is just Rukongai grandmothers."

"Momo and I both try to support her," Hitsugaya plowed on, "but all she does is spend the money back on us. She's incorrigible. I tell you, she didn't even know we were coming, but she had bought all this amanattou."

Byakuya made a face. Even thinking about amanattou made his teeth hurt.

"I love amanattou! It's one of my favorite things, actually! But this was a truly excessive amount of amanattou. A squad's-worth of amanattou. A Menos-worth."

"I don't want it," Byakuya said quickly.

"It's not for you," Hitsugaya replied. "It's for Abarai. She worries about him."

"What? Why?" Byakuya frowned. "You didn't tell her about…?"

"No! Of course not! She worries about him because she hasn't seen him in thirty-five years and assumes he still looks like an understuffed scarecrow. She worries about Kira, too, for the record. Kira is also being inflicted with amanattou."

Now that Byakuya thought of it, Lieutenant Kira rather did resemble an understuffed scarecrow. Perhaps the man could benefit from an over-sugared bean or two.

"Momo's delivering his." Hitsugaya scratched the back of his head. "I preemptively volunteered to deliver Abarai's so she didn't try to stop by your squad offices. I…assume you have some way to get these to him. Your sister presumably goes to visit him, no?"

"She does," Byakuya agreed, "but I can deliver them myself."

Hitsugaya raised an eyebrow. "That's not…weird? For both of you?"

Byakuya closed his eyes and sighed. "It is, but Captain Unohana strongly encouraged me to do so. Tell me, Captain Hitsugaya-- you have a very collegial relationship with your vice-captain, despite a similar gulf in personality as between me and mine. How do you manage?"

Hitsugaya furrowed his brows as he contemplated this. "I don't know, actually. The fact that she knew me before I was a captain probably helps a lot." He pursed his lips thoughtfully. "Matsumoto has a lot of questionable qualities, but friendship is easy for her. Abarai is like that, too. Don't overthink it. It's our side that makes it awkward. Just…don't. He won't either."

"That made almost no sense whatsoever, Hitsugaya Toushirou."

"Yeah, I realized that as I was saying it. Just give him the beans. Tell him my granny was asking after him. Oh, and she says congratulations to Rukia on the promotion, too."

"Have I been demoted to the courier service, Hitsugaya Tou--Wait! Does my own sister not merit amanattou?"

Hitsugaya closed his eyes as though he were in pain. "I knew you were going to ask that." He took a deep breath and let it out again. "Granny has, um, strong opinions on the Four Families. Namely, that they can buy their own amanattou."

Byakuya stared at him. "Your grandmother does not like me?" Many people did not like Byakuya. It was not a thing that usually bothered him. Then again, the people that did not like him were not usually someone's grandmother.

"My grandmother has never met you. Anyway, she gave Abarai a ton, probably on the assumption that your sister would con him out of at least half of it."

"My sister would never--"

Hitsugaya shot him an absolutely withering glare.

"He brings it upon himself," Byakuya muttered.

"No one ever suggested he doesn't," Hitsugaya replied dryly.

Byakuya motioned for the parcel. "I shall deliver your amanattou. What happens after that is out of my hands."

"Fair," Hitsugaya agreed, passing them over. He hesitated for just a moment as the box left his hands (it was significantly heavy). "Hey. Not to be nosy, but everything's…going okay?"

"My understanding," said Byakuya, "is that the initial procedure went to plan. It then immediately descended into chaos and that Abarai has been recovering in his usual perplexing-yet-maddeningly-effective way."

"Oh, that's…good…I think," Hitsugaya nodded. "But mostly, I was asking about you. You seemed very stressed on Friday."

"You are mistaken," Byakuya frowned. "None of this is my problem. Almost nothing is expected of me. I am just here."

Hitsugaya shrugged. "Yeah, well. Sometimes it's hard when there's nothing you, personally, can do for the people you care about." His eyes drifted to the parcel in Byakuya's hands. "That's how you end up wrapping up amanattou care packages for half the Gotei."

Byakuya looked down at the box and then back up again. "Are you calling me a grandmother, Hitsugaya Toushirou?"

"I would never," replied Hitsugaya Toushirou.

Renji was reading a poem.

Renji did not really consider himself a poetry guy, but he'd found the slim volume in the stack of books from Momo and Izuru. Rukia had finished reading Song of the Four Winds to him earlier. Sometime in the middle of Hiroyoshi loading him up with his afternoon meds, she had fallen asleep on the blanket next to him. Renji didn't want to start the next book in the series without her, so he'd sifted through the pile until he came across the poetry. To be honest, with the state his brain was in, he wasn't entirely sure he could follow the plot of a novel by himself anyway.

He was absolutely sure the poetry book was from Kira. The author was one of Kira's favorites, and all the poems had a whiff of gay yearning about them. They were probably dripping with gay yearning, actually, but Renji had never been great at picking up on that stuff, even when his brain was working. Mostly, the poems were about the sea. The sea was probably a metaphor for something. Metaphors were not Renji's department. He just knew the poems made his heart hurt a little, but in a good way. A way that remembered what it was like to feel battered by crashing waves, to be worn raw and tender by salt water, except that right now, he was sitting in a beautiful garden with the sun on his back, and Rukia curled up at his side, snoring to wake the living. After each time he turned a page, he let his hand drop down so he could let his fingers brush through her short, silky hair.

There was the soft sound of a throat clearing, and Renji looked up from his book. "Hey, Captain."

"Good afternoon, Abarai Renji, Lieutenant of the Sixth Division," Byakuya replied, "recovering from kidou duct regeneration surgery in the ancestral home belonging to me, Kuchiki Byakuya, 28th Head of the Kuchiki Clan, Captain of the Sixth Division and brother of Kuchiki Rukia. It is roughly four p.m."

Renji co*cked an eyebrow at him.

"I was told that I was supposed to provide you with context, to help you locate yourself in time. Are you properly up to date?"

Renji frowned. "I really have no way of knowing, but probably? What's up?"

"I came to give this to you. It is amanattou."

Renji realized that Byakuya had a box in his hands. He didn't seem to know what to do with it.

"Why are you giving me amanattou?" Renji asked, putting his book down and holding his hands out for the box.

"It is not from me. It is from Captain Hitsugaya's grandmother."

"It's from…? What?"

"You should visit her, Abarai," Byakuya said, waiting to make sure Renjo had a good grip on the box with his better hand before letting go. "I am told she asks after you regularly."

"I really should," Renji agreed, taking the box onto his lap. "Damn, I was supposed to." He scratched his head. "Momo wanted me to go out to Junrinan with her, right after I got my lieutenant's badge. We talked about it, but we never picked a date and then…well, you know how last June was. Things got away from us, I guess."

Renji wondered if maybe he shouldn’t have brought up last June, but Byakuya didn’t seem bothered by it.

"Take Rukia with you," he suggested. "It is a renewed opportunity. She also has a lieutenant's badge now. I will send a gift. The poor woman seems to think we do not even have respectable amanattou in the city."

"Junrinan amanattou's pretty good," Renji pointed out. "That's awful nice of you, sir, but don't sweat it, I can--"

"My understanding is that she hosted Rukia once during the holidays, in the period before I adopted her."

"Yeah," Renji said slowly. "She put me up for a couple of New Year's. Rukia was there for that first one, too." It had been their first New Year since coming up to the city. Shin'ou shut down for a week. They would have had to apply for special permission just to stay in the dorms. Granny wouldn't hear of it, according to Hinamori.

Byakuya nodded. "Rukia was my responsibility at the time, even if I had not found her yet. I would like to return the hospitality, belated as it is."

"Okay," Renji agreed. "I'll talk to Momo about it." He paused. "You might have to remind me. I can't guarantee I'm gonna remember this conversation later."

"Hmmmmm?" Renji felt movement down at his side. Rukia must have woken up when she heard her name, or possibly the name of her archrival. She stretched and made a very cat-like noise before flopping up to a seated position. Her hair was smushed up one one side of her head and her eyes weren't entirely open. "What do we need to remember?" she managed. "I fell asleep."

"You were tired," Renji informed her. "You been working hard. Anyway, Momo and Captain Hitsugaya's Granny sent us amanattou. Your brother thinks we should go back and show her how cool we are now. Grandmothers like that kind of thing, I hear."

Rukia squinted at him and at the box of amanattou, then turned to look at Byakuya. Suddenly, her eyes snapped open, and she attempted to smooth her hair. "Oh! Brother! Hello! I'm sorry! I…I guess I…"

"You were tired," Byakuya repeated mildly.

Rukia rubbed at one eye. "Did you go see Captain Hitsugaya this morning? You went out for a while, didn't you?"

"Er, no," said Byakuya. "Well, yes. I did go out, but not to see Captain Hitsugaya. Captain Hitsugaya brought the amanattou here a short time ago. You were probably asleep."

Rukia was still in the process of waking up. Renji watched, with great affection, as she tried in vain to try to get her Kuchiki face in place amid this assault of unhelpful non-information. There was a good chance he wasn't going to remember any of this later, so he might as well enjoy it while he could.

"So where did you go this morning?" Rukia finally got all her thoughts in order.

"It is unimportant," Byakuya declared.

"Was it an aunt emergency?"

"I don't know what would make you think that."

"If it was a squad emergency, you would have just said so. Was it Aunt Etsu? We haven't an Aunt Etsu emergency in a while. She didn't somehow find out Renji was staying here, did she?"

"She did not. She--" Byakuya froze, realizing that he'd shown his hand. His lips pressed together in a thin line. "She was just riled up on some unsubstantiated gossip, as usual. You know how I feel about gossip."

"I do," Rukia replied innocently. "You should sit down and tell us all about it."

Byakuya made a very irritated face, but it was at Rukia, so it was obviously all for show.

"This sounds like it's going to be good," Renji declared. "I'm gonna get out the amanattou for this."

"I do not like amanattou," Byakuya pointed out.

"I know that," Renji replied. "But I do. We got some tea, too. Hiroyoshi just brought me some fresh. You want some tea? It's from Kira's aunt."

"Oh, I want some," Rukia announced. "Let me get it, Renji, you don't need to be doing that with your arm."

"Rukia, I do not--" Byakuya protested as Rukia poured him a cup of tea. "Oh, fine, very well." Delicately, he sat down at the very corner of their picnic blanket, and accepted the tea. "To be honest, I did wish to ask your opinion on the matter eventually. Rukia, you don't happen to be socially acquainted with the Lady Ishibashi Ayaru, do you?"

Rukia had just started pouring a second cup. Her eyes went wide, every so briefly, but otherwise, she managed to hold onto the Kuchiki face. "Er…no, not really." She pretended to think hard for a moment. "I saw her at the Ohno's hanami, though. Perhaps there's a connection there!"

"That's why I ask, actually," Byakuya explained. "Apparently, she is well-acquainted with my Third Seat. I was quite surprised. Perhaps a little impressed."

Renji guffawed, and tossed a handful of amanattou in his mouth.

"What is so funny, Lieutenant?" Byakuya demanded.

"They're a little more than acquainted."

"Renji!" Rukia hissed.

"You're the one who called this exact thing happening, aunt crisis and all! Here, have some of this, it's good." Renji grabbed her hand, and pressed some amanattou in it. "Don't worry. Captain's discreet. You tell him something in confidence, nothing's getting it out of him. He saw me eat sh*t on those f*ckin' steps outside the office one time, papers flying everywhere. I know it was hilarious and I bet he never even told you about it."

Byakuya's face remained completely impassive. Renji could tell he was replaying it in his head.

"That's not the point," Rukia protested. "Brother is exactly the sort of person that Ohno would not like to know these things."

Byakuya raised one eyebrow. "How do you know this, anyway?"

"I know everything that happens in Squad Six," Renji replied sagely.

"We accidentally witnessed a private moment at the Ohno's hanami," Rukia admitted. She sighed, and tossed a few sugared beans into her mouth.

Renji shrugged. "Anyway, I don't see what the big deal is. You're the one who said Captain would probably approve of it if he knew, and obviously he thinks she's cool."

Byakuya turned his steel-blue gaze on Rukia. "You approve of the match then? What is your rationale?"

Rukia carefully finished chewing her amanattou and then took a sip of tea. "Well," she said, "I don't disapprove. There seems to be mutual interest, for one. I've often heard you say you think that it would do the branch families well to build up their own strength and prominence from outside sources. The Ishibashi are prestigious and socially connected, but they're also an old Seireitei family, which means they've probably got pretty decent spiritual potential. They don't have a particularly strong military tradition like we do, at least not in recent years, but maybe that's something the Ohno could bring to the table. Cousin Shizue reminded me that Isao really is well-renowned for his swordsmanship when he isn't constantly being compared to the two of you."

"There was a Captain Ishibashi a few generations back," Renji added helpfully. "She was at Three before Captain Outoribashi. Before his first time around, that is."

"Why do you know these things?" Rukia grimaced.

"From hanging out with Iba's mom, as you probably could have guessed if you'd thought about it for ten seconds."

"These are good points, Rukia," Byakuya said, ignoring the sidebar. "Thank you for your thoughts. You are also in favor, Abarai?"

Renji scratched his chin. "I don't think I get an opinion. Are you sure you don't want any amanattou? It's real good."

"I still do not want any amanattou. And whether or not you get an opinion, I am asking you for one."

"Oh." Renji thought about it. "Yeah. I'm for it."

Byakuya looked puzzled. "That's it? No further justification?"

"If I needed the noble politics rundown, I'd ask Rukia, and we just heard her piece. Can't speak to Lady Ishibashi's half of it, but Ohno takes his duty to his family pretty seriously and he's not a guy prone to doin' stuff on impulse. This obviously means a lot to him. He's certainly been a lot easier to be around since he met her. I'm not his clan head, just his vice-captain, so I don't think I really need a justification to think they should be allowed to do what makes 'em happy."

Byakuya looked at him for a long, strange moment. "You do not even like the man."

Renji ate another bean while he considered this. "It's pretty hard to hate a guy after you've heard him talking about the person he's in love with."

"Hm," said Byakuya. A strange look crossed his face. "Indeed." He put his hands on his knees. "I should go. I did not mean to commandeer my sister's attention."

"I was asleep," Rukia frowned.

"That reminds me," Renji said. "I realized earlier that you didn't get to have your weekly shogi game with Rukia 'cause Hanatarou was here. I know how much you look forward to that."

Byakuya had gone slightly stiff. Rukia glared at Renji. "How do you know about that?"

"When it's a particularly good game, I get the Monday morning recap."

"You don't even like shogi!"

"I like hearin' stories about how clever and underhanded you are!" Renji shook his head. "Anyway, I was thinking that you've been entertaining me enough, and if you wanted to have your game with your brother, go ahead. I don't mind."

"What are you going to do, then?" Rukia asked, sounding a little conflicted. Renji couldn't remember if she'd ever talked about playing shogi with her brother, but she was often like that about things that were important to her.

"I could watch, maybe? I bet you two make a lot of funny faces while you're playin'."

Rukia scowled. "I just woke up, he's going to trounce me. He trounces me most of the time, anyway."

"If you start losing, I'll ask him a bunch of questions about how the pieces move and you can shuffle his pieces around while he's distracted."

"I am right here," Byakuya said dryly. "And thank you, Abarai, but I have already come to terms with ceding my sister's company to you for the duration of your convalescence. I can wait until next Saturday."

"Captain," said Renji, "it's not a favor for you. It's a favor for me. You know I'm not much for sitting-still activities. It's a testament to what a charming lady your sister is that I've made it this long, but I would love to watch something that had a whiff of competition to it, even shogi. I was gonna suggest that maybe you two could go at it with swords, but I think it specifically says in my post-op instructions that I'm not s'posed to be around people who are fighting."

"It definitely does," Rukia supplied immediately. The tips of her ears were red, like she was embarrassed. Renji wondered if it was something he had said.

"I am very good at holding my reiatsu close," Byakuya mused.

"I think we should stick to shogi," Rukia replied.

Byakuya's eyebrows raised, ever so slightly. "Oh…you're interested, then, Rukia?"

"I'm not sure it will be as exciting as he thinks it will be, but if Renji wants to watch us play shogi, sure. Do you have the time? You were probably in the middle of something, weren't you?"

"I think I could find time for one game," said Byakuya.