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Momo is color-coding her Kidou Theory notes when she hears the girls in the hallway. It sounds like someone is leaving the academy and the gossip is fierce this time. It’s not uncommon-- many of her classmates haven’t the least bit of interest in actually becoming shinigami. They’re here to meet other nobles or just get the education so they have something interesting to talk about at dinner parties later in life. It’s especially common among the noble girls to depart as soon as a marriage offer has been accepted. Momo frankly doesn’t care. She’s here in order to join the Gotei 13.
Her roommate, Kajita, flings herself in the doorway. She’s a kind, but flighty girl from a lower noble house. “Hinamori! You’re friends with Inuzuri Rukia, aren’t you?”
Momo looks up. “I wouldn’t say that.”
Exactly one person at Shinoureijutsuin is friends with Inuzuri Rukia.
Kajita sighs dramatically. “You know her. Almost no one does.”
“I suppose.”
“Well, she’s leaving.”
That stops Momo in her tracks. Her pen drops to her desk and her stomach drops to her knees. Later on, when she has time to think about it, Momo will be ashamed that her first thought is not for Rukia at all, but for Rukia’s one friend. Because if Inuzuri Rukia is leaving Shin’ou, surely Abarai Renji is going with her. “What happened?” Momo gasps. Rukia wasn’t in the accelerated class, but Momo was of the impression that her grades were adequate, if not stellar. It’s not the end of a semester anyway, so it seems unlikely that the girl has flunked out. Momo has never gotten the impression that Rukia liked Shin’ou, so maybe she’s just giving up. Or maybe she and Renji are going to… have decided to…
“I heard she got adopted,” Kajita supplies. “The rumors are basically out of control, though. Someone said she’s to be adopted by Kuchiki Byakuya. As if!”
Momo snorts and stands up. The gossip gets really ridiculous around here. “Let’s go find out.”
Nishina Hayami is, or at least was Rukia’s roommate, and she’s holding court in the room the girls share. Shared. Nishina is from West Rukongai, District 3, not too far from Momo’s home, although you’d think she was from one of the Great Houses herself, the way she always treated Rukia. “Yup, she’s gone already,” she answers one of the bevy of questioners. “She was supposed to go tomorrow, but she wanted to leave right away. Probably took her ten minutes, tops, to pack up everything she owns, which is basically nothing. I would want get out of here as quickly as possible, too, if it were me.”
Momo glances around the empty half of the room. She’s been here before, but she doesn’t remember what it looked like. The scratchy school issue blankets have been left behind. Did Rukia have personal items? Momo keeps pictures of Granny and Shirou tacked to the wall next to her bed, but Renji said once that they didn't have cameras out in his district. Rukia probably doesn't need pictures of Renji anyway, since he always makes time to go bother her, even on his busy days.
“Surely she didn’t really get adopted by the Kuchikis!”
“I saw them! The retainers of course, not actual Kuchikis. They came to get her in a sedan! Imagine! I bet she gets motion sick.”
The mention of motion sickness makes Momo’s head spin, because it is finally sinking in that Renji has not gone with Rukia, and that the situation is much, much worse than she initially assumed. Momo excuses herself and stumbles out into the cool spring evening.
It is after curfew and she’ll be in deep trouble if she’s found anywhere near the boys’ dormitories, but it doesn’t matter, because this is important. She has no idea how she’s going to get inside. She knows that Renji and Izuru live somewhere on the south end of the third floor, but she doesn’t know which window is theirs.
It turns out that it doesn’t matter, because she runs into Kira on the way over.
“Does he know?” she gasps, unable to provide any kind of context.
No context is needed. “Oh, he knows.”
“I’m really impressed, actually,” Renji compliments as Izuru hauls her in through the window. “I've climbed that wall many a time, and it ain't easy, even with normal sized arms and legs. Did you know you’re breaking a rule right now, Momo? Your ponytails are frizzing. It probably means your head is about to explode.” He’s sitting on the edge of his bed, doing bicep curls.
“Renji…” Momo starts. She doesn’t know what to say. He’s not wearing a shirt, which is not making any of this any easier.
Renji glances back and forth between her and Izuru. “Look, if you’re here to make out with Izuru, I can go down to the common room.”
“Renji!” Momo exclaims at the same time Izuru yells “Abarai!”
“You guys are gonna get caught if you keep yelling like that.”
“I came here to see if you were all right,” Momo hisses.
“Me? Ain’t nothing wrong with me.” He switches the weight to his other hand.
“Stop it, Abarai,” Izuru scolds him. “You know we’re talking about Rukia. Momo snuck in here because she’s worried about you, quit being a dick.”
Renji grimaces, and concentrates on his exercises. “Well, thanks for the concern, but as you can see, I am fine, so you can just go home, now.”
“Did she talk to you?” Momo asks very quietly. “Before she left?”
“A’course she did!” Renji snaps. “She’s my best friend, you think she’d just up and leave without tellin’ me? That dummy wasn’t even sure she wanted to go, but I set her straight. This is a good opportunity for her, an’ it’s good for me, too! I was never sure Ru was gonna make much of a shinigami, y’know? It's expensive here in the Seireitei, an' I've been worried about how I was gonna support the two of us on one salary, but now she’s all taken care of, neat as you please.”
Izuru shoots Momo a stricken look. He’s lost. He has no idea how to deal with this.
Momo gently sits down on Renji’s bed next to him. She wants to put a reassuring hand on him, but no part of his body seems safe to touch. “Did she really get adopted by the Kuchiki family? I only heard all this third hand, from her roommate.”
“I wouldn’t believe anything that snob said,” Renji sniffs. He throws himself down on the floor and starts doing crunches.
“Do you really have to do this, right now?” Izuru complains.
“Yes.”
Momo is averting her eyes.
“Is that yes to the crunches, or yes to the Kuchikis?”
“Both,” Renji grunts. “I saw ‘im, y’know, the big guy.”
“Kuchiki Byakuya?” Momo gasps. “That part was true?”
“Yup. Only the best for my Rukia.”
Momo and Izuru can’t put aside their curiosity. “What was he like?” Izuru asks.
Renji finishes his crunches, or maybe just quits, but in any case, he sits up, resting his forearms on his knees. “Remember in zanjutsu class, that time when Ounabara-sensei unleashed his reiatsu, and it got real hard to breath or move?”
They nod.
“He was like that, only way, way worse. I thought I was drowning. I thought I was gonna die.” Renji’s jaw works a little. “Everything else you would expect, too. Fancy clothes, real clean. Those hair things. Kenseikan. Smelled good.” He swallows, and then laughs. “Can you picture Ru in all that? When we came here, it was the first time I ever saw her in shoes. I bet she can’t go one hour without gettin’ mud or blood or soy sauce all over her fancy new kimonos. Maybe all three.” His eyes take on a faraway look. “Can you imagine how pretty she’s gonna be?”
This is it, they think. Any second now, he’s going to crack.
Instead, he smiles brightly. “Anyone feel like arm-wrestling?”
The first class of the morning is Foundations of Modern Soul Society, and Renji is spitting nails.
This is not actually uncommon.
Foundations of Modern Soul Society is about how everything in Soul Society is perfectly designed around elevating the purest souls and optimizing the churn of weak ones back through the World of the Living.
Renji is doing very poorly in Foundations of Modern Soul Society.
Izuru has proofread some of Renji’s essays. It’s not that they are crudely written or badly argued. They’re good, actually, quite good. Izuru has honestly been floored by the depth of Abarai’s thoughtfulness on topics of wealth distribution and the social contract, topics to which he, himself had never given much thought. It’s just that the class is for nobles, by nobles, and the instructor, who hails from one of the more important Kuchiki branch families, tends to take off an entire letter grade when papers sign off with the phrase “eat the rich!!!”
Today’s topic is the annexation of the academy grounds, which were actually once part of the first district of North Rukongai. A quiet torrent of disagreement has been rumbling out of Renji since the beginning of the lecture.
“He seems different this morning,” Momo whispers to Izuru.
“Y...eah,” Izuru agrees.
“New perspective after a night’s sleep, I guess.”
Izuru narrows his eyes. “I don’t think he slept.”
Momo leans around Izuru to look at Renji. He is scribbling frantically in his notes, and his grumblings are getting louder.
“You don’t look like you slept much either.”
“No,” Izuru agrees. “He made me nervous. I was worried he might… I don’t know what I thought he would do. He’s more creative than I am. Anyway, I kept waking up, and every time I woke up, he was awake.”
“That seems bad… oh. Oh, he’s standing up. This is bad.”
"How did they determine what constituted adequate compensation for the people whose shops and homes had to be destroyed?" Renji demands.
"Raise your hand if you have something to say, Mr. Abarai," the instructor blows him off.
"I been raising my hand for five minutes, you were ignoring me! Answer the question!"
The instructor's eyebrows shoot up. He's gotten used to pointed questions from this particular student, but usually, the gutter trash is better about metering his tone.
"This isn't a class on real estate valuation, Inuzuri! They received fair market value."
"Don't call me by my district, I got a name! And the value of the land woulda gone up by a ton if it were moved inside the city walls, did they account for that?"
"I doubt it, but really, who cares? In my opinion, the land should have been donated. A corps of well-trained shinigami benefits Rukongai as much as the Seireitei. Probably more. Even though the Rukon produces very few, and generally very poor recruits, they are accepted here all the same, and sometimes even given scholarships. Isn't that right Inu-- Mr. Abarai?"
Izuru is tugging frantically on Renji's sleeve. "Sit down! What are you doing?"
"He's going to give you a bad grade!" Momo hisses.
"You're advocating theft!" Renji announces, ignoring the personal dig. "Also, 95 percent of shinigami patrols occur within the top five districts, even though Hollow activity increases dramatically around the District 20 ring--"
A piece of chalk dings Renji in the forehead.
"If you care so much about it, you can write me an essay on why you feel the annexation was unjust! Five pages minimum! Now sit down and stop disrupting class, or you can get out! I do not want to hear your voice again!"
To Momo and Izuru's horror, Renji actually starts gathering up his stuff.
"Sit down!" Momo implores. "Class is almost over anyway!"
"I don't have to take this," he growls.
"If you fail this class, you'll have to take it again next year, it's a requirement to graduate," Izuru reminds him. "And you do not have the margin to get marked zero for the day." Izuru screws up his face. He's not sure if he should say the next part. "That is, if you're still interested in graduating."
Renji thumps into his seat.
Izuru and Momo breathe out in unison.
The next class is hakuda, which should be perfect, Momo thinks, because Renji can work off some energy. They're only practicing wheel throws this week, so there's little chance he'll hurt anyone.
As they're getting ready, a classmate that Momo doesn't know very well intentionally bumps shoulders with Renji on the way past. "Good job pissing off my uncle last period," he sneers.
Renji tells him what he can do with his uncle.
Izuru gasps and claps his hands over Momo's ears. Momo turns red, embarrassed more by Izuru than by Renji. She has heard that word before. She has not heard Renji use that word before, but she knows he tries very hard to be "civilized" around herself and Izuru, as he once put it. She has heard Rukia use that word.
"Listen up, troops!" enjoins the hakuda teacher, a cheerful fellow who shouts a lot and likes punching people in the face. "You've been doing so great with those wheel throws, that today we’re going to pull it all together, and use them to defend against straight punches! Everyone pick a partner!"
Renji is making sexy eyes at the guy who bumped into him, who is sneering right back. Oh, no. This is bad. At this rate, Renji is going to be expelled before the day is out.
Momo grabs his wrist. "Renji, be my partner, please?"
He looks down at her. Way down. "Uh, Momo, I don't think--"
"It's not like they're going to only send me after tiny Hollows, you doof. Anyway, I still need some work on these, and you got it right away. I thought maybe you could give me some tips!"
Renji shoots one last longing glance to the fellow he really wants to beat up, as he reluctantly says, "I guess."
“Again,” Renji sighs.
Momo launches herself toward him.
“Downward block,” Renji narrates boredly. “Hand on neck, push down, push forward, off you go!”
Momo rolls forward, crashing face first into the mat.
“You ready to try again?” He’s pissed that he has to do this with her, she can tell.
“Yes,” Momo growls, crawling to her hands and knees. They’ve switched off a few times already. She hasn’t managed to throw him even once.
They switch sides, and he comes at her, one battering ram fist flying toward her face.
She executes the block correctly, but the problem is that his arm doesn’t go anywhere. As a result, she can’t reach his neck to perform the rest of the move, and she goes flying instead, right over his shoulder.
It’s not about physical strength. This should be a redirection of his own momentum, and besides, Momo knows how to use her reiatsu to augment her own muscles far beyond their natural capabilities. The problem is that Renji also knows how to use his reiatsu. His primary strength, the thing that makes him so good at both hakuda and zanjutsu, is grounding -- using his reiatsu to dig into the reishi that surrounds him like the roots of some thousand-year old oak tree, and holding on. The hakuda instructor is constantly gushing about it. Renji is basically an immovable object. You can’t redirect his momentum.
Momo pries herself up off the mat and glares at him. He glares back at her. Fine. Fine.
She takes her stance. “Come at me,” she snarls.
He does, the same as before. But this time, Momo forgets about the wheel throw. She dodges to the side, hooking her elbow around his punching arm, and swings up onto his back, jamming her knee in between his shoulder blades. Instead of redirecting his momentum, she adds to it, overbalancing him, and this time he goes face-first into the mat.
The hakuda instructor happens to be walking by. “Nice hustle, Hinamori!” he hoots.
Renji peels his face out of the mat, sputtering and spitting. “Blast it, Rukia, you always do that, and it’s not fa… it’s not…” he trails off, his mouth going slack.
Oh, no. Momo scrambles off of him. She can’t remember now if she’s seen Rukia do that to him before or not. It just seemed like the natural thing to do, since he ended up throwing her every time anyway. She opens her mouth to apologize, but she’s too slow.
“You should find someone else to practice with. I… I’m no good for this today.” He speaks briefly to the teacher, and then walks out of the dojo.
The noble jerk who wanted to fight Renji earlier sidles up to Hinamori. “Look at that sore baby, can’t even stand being beaten by a girl. You’re kinda cute, by the way.”
Momo grabs his arm and executes a perfect wheel throw.
Izuru disappears immediately after hakuda class and says he will be back with lunch. So Momo and Renji are sitting under a big cherry tree, waiting. It's a warm day, and the shade is nice, although Renji is getting irritated at the cherry blossoms that keep falling on him.
"I'm sorry," he finally says.
Momo blinks owlishly at him. She thinks he is apologizing for being such a hardass. But Renji has never once gone easy on her or Izuru, nor has he apologized for it. It’s just part of being Renji’s friend, along with the noogies and the shouting. The apology makes her feel weird.
"I knew you weren't Rukia," he finishes.
Oh.
"I mean, she just uses that move on me all the time, and you're the right shape, and your hair is a similar shade…" He swallows. "It was my fighting brain, my dog brain, reacting instead of thinking. I would never really get you mixed up. You're y'know, classy, not like us. You're polite and you got good taste in...stuff. And you're nice, you're always thinking about other people."
Momo knows she's terrible, because there's a part of her that thrills at this, hearing him talk about her, that he has noticed her as a person, not just someone he sits next to in class and cribs notes from. And that part of her knows that there is something she could say in this moment, or maybe she could take his hand and tilt her face just so, and he would kiss her, pour out his grief and pain over Rukia into someone who superficially resembles her. That it might even be good for him, a distraction.
But the rest of her knows that he's not even apologizing to her, right now, he's apologizing to Rukia, for thinking, even for an instant, that Momo could take her place.
"I'm not mad," Momo interrupts.
He sits there for a moment, his mouth hanging open like a fish. Finally, he says, "I am. I can't stop being mad today. I feel it pouring out of my bones. They have so much, Momo, but they have to take everything we have, too. Everything I have, anyway." He clenches his fists. "I hate them."
Maybe Momo is mad after all. Furious, in fact, furious at Rukia for leaving, for doing this to him.
They seethe together in silence, before they are interrupted by a cheerful "Yo! There's the man I wanted to see!"
Izuru is back with lunch, and also Hisagi Shuuhei, the upperclassman whose life they saved a few months previous.
Renji and Momo scramble to their feet, bowing.
Hisagi waves them off with an eyeroll, and plops down under the tree. "Mind if I take over your lunch break? Gotta proposition for you."
"Uh, no," Renji replies, accepting a bento from Izuru and sitting down again.
"I'm working on a new defensive technique, it's for my graduation exam. All my friends in my own class know better to let me practice on them by now, so I need a big, dumb underclassman to come at me screaming, about a thousand times in a row. You in?"
Renji blinks, letting it sink in. "Yeah. Yeah."
"Great!" Shuuhei scratches the back of his head. "Uh, you know I have shikai, now, right? So this is gonna be live steel. Have they actually let you fight with your asauchi yet, or you still just toting it around?"
"Uh, no. Well, I used it to fight that Hollow."
"Right, of course. Well, no time like the present, right?"
"You got shikai?" Izuru asks eagerly. "What’s it like?"
Hisagi makes a face. "It's...not what I thought. Your teachers have probably convinced you that your zanpakutou will be some kindly pink unicorn that loves you and grants wishes, but they aren't like that, or at least mine sure isn't. I keep thinking back to if I had had it that day and I’m kind of glad I didn’t. But all the more reason to practice, eh?"
"Everything about this seems like a really bad idea," Momo pipes up. "Also, we have zanjutsu this afternoon."
Renji glares at her.
"You have Ounabara-sensei for zanjutsu, right? I'll get you out of class, you'll just be doing zanjutsu with me anyway. Also, I hear you're miles above the rest of your class."
"Maybe not the entire rest of the class," Izuru protests.
Momo also wants to protest this overblown bit of Renji flattery, but then she remembers that they are supposed to be making him feel better. And talking up his sword skills, followed by an ill-advised exercise in unnecessary risk-taking that is sure to end with someone (possibly everyone) getting stabbed is probably the balm Renji's poor, battered heart needs.
After zanjutsu, which is oddly subdued without Abarai’s presence, Izuru and Momo sit on a hill that’s just about halfway between the girls’ and boys’ dormitories. They know they should be reviewing the day’s events or strategizing or going to find Hisagi and Renji, but the at the moment, they are each too entangled in their own feelings about the matter to do anything productive.
“Izuru?” Momo finally says.
“Yeah?”
“I’m… a bad person.”
He looks at her, surprised, mostly because he has been thinking the same about himself. “Momo, no.”
“I…” she clenches her jaw. “I didn’t like Rukia. I always wished she would go away.”
Izuru’s mouth snaps shut.
“It’s completely unfair. I didn’t really know her. I never tried to get to know her. I mean, she obviously didn’t want anything to do with us, either, but maybe, for Renji’s sake, I should have…”
“Momo, it’s not that big a deal. There’s nothing you can do about it now. And like you said, she wasn’t very friendly.”
“It does matter! It matters because…” Momo takes a deep breath and sets her jaw. “Because I like Renji! Like like. I’ve liked him since we met! But I knew that I never had a chance with him as long as she was around.” She sighs and slumps a little. “If he liked her because she was prettier than me, or smarter, or more talented, or even if she were just really nice to him, maybe it would be easier. But he just likes her because he likes her. What was I supposed to do with that?” Her eyebrows crease. “And I feel really bad for him, Izuru, I do! He’s hurting so bad and there’s nothing I can do and I hate it. But I’m a terrible person because I also can’t stop thinking…now that she’s gone...” She can’t finish.
Izuru is silent. The fact is, he likes Momo. Like likes. He has liked her since they met. And at first, although he also didn’t find Inuzuri Rukia to be a very appealing person, he was grateful for her presence. Even though he competed with Renji all the time, he couldn’t actually compete with Renji, if that big oaf’s attention ever turned to Hinamori. There was no chance of that, though, as long as Inuzuri Rukia lived and breathed, the surly, foul-mouthed center of Renji’s universe. But then something else happened. Maybe not as soon as they met, but over the last few months, Izuru has come to realize that he also likes Renji. Like likes. There’s something about the way the young man moves through the world, all brash bluster and big grins and ridiculous tattoos that appeals to the two neurotic nerds he’s drawn into his wake. Izuru wants to tell Momo this, that they are in this together. He’s pretty sure she would understand, but he isn’t sure he’s ready to say it out loud yet, to himself, let alone anyone else. “I understand,” he says mildly instead. “I’ve never seen anyone care about anyone else as much as Renji cares about Rukia. And it’s hard to be his friend and to see that and not want it for yourself.”
Momo regards him with some skepticism. “He says the most boneheaded things to her. He’s always hurting her feelings.”
Izuru nods. “It’s because he’s an actual bonehead. And then he lies in bed at night and talks about her for an hour. Every night.”
“And he could be doing literally anything, playing football, eating, fighting a Hollow, and he would jump over a fence and run across three training fields to go talk to her.”
They sigh in unison.
“He doesn’t deserve this,” Momo finally says in a small voice. “I wish I could fix it.”
Izuru grabs her hand and squeezes it. “You are a good friend, Momo. We all have feelings. It’s okay to have feelings, even if they aren’t the feelings you want yourself to have. But we can talk to each other, right? Get out all the bad stuff? And then we can turn around and be the best friends we can for him, okay?”
Momo nods, eagerly. “Yeah. I like that.”
She squeezes his hand back.
It's past curfew when Hisagi delivers Renji back to Izuru. Renji's uniform is shredded and soaked with blood, and he is mildly inebriated.
"He had a great time," Hisagi announces, steering Renji in the direction of his bed.
"I had a great time!" Renji agrees, flopping down on it, face-first.
"Really helpful, too, no lie," Hisagi continues.
"I am a good helper!"
"And cripes, man, that asauchi was practically ready to tell you its name!"
"Your zanpakutou was scary! I don't think I want one."
"I get the feeling yours will be different. Let's do this again, soon, okay?"
"Yesssss, okay!"
Izuru hauls Hisagi back out into the hallway and shuts the door behind him. "Is he okay? Do I need to take him over to the infirmary?"
"Huh? Oh, he's fine, I healed him up. He’s pretty tough. Could probably use a shower, though."
"You shouldn't have gotten him drunk," Izuru scolds. "He's not… he's not well."
Hisagi nods. "I know. I know because that was me six months ago, and I did a bunch of stupid shit and fought everyone and got drunk and I don't know if it helped, but it helped, y'know?"
"I do not," Izuru replies. He lost both his parents as a boy. He remembers a great deal of sadness and people looking him in the eye and telling him to be strong and that he was now the Man of the House. He does not recall anything particularly helping.
"He just needs to make it through one day at a time," Hisagi explains. "Tomorrow, he might be mad again. Or he might be sad. Or he might be weird. It's been six months, and sometimes I still wake up mad or sad or weird. But sometimes I wake up normal, and eventually, he will, too." Hisagi looks thoughtful. "I liked fighting him. I think I had some mad in me today that I didn't know I had." He thumps Izuru on the shoulder. "Get him cleaned up and put him to bed. You're a good friend."
Izuru bites his lip. “Thanks, Hisagi. You… you didn’t have to. Do this.”
Hisagi shrugs. “Who cares if I had to. Come get me if you need me again. Or for whatever. I like you guys.”
Renji is snoring when Izuru goes back into their room, but he's also disgusting. Izuru can’t leave him like this.
"Upsy daisy, buddy," Izuru says, giving his roommate a very firm and manly shove on the shoulder. "Shower time."
Renji grunts and sits up. He claps his hands on Izuru's shoulders, looks him dead in the eyes and says, extremely seriously, "Let's go take showers."
Izuru has to remind himself that Renji is just drunk and loopy, not coming on to him, and even if he were, a real friend would not take advantage of his vulnerability. "I've already had mine."
"I will go take a shower!"
Izuru loads Renji down with his shower stuff, and pushes him out the door. Two minutes later, he thinks better of it, and heads down toward the washroom himself.
Sure enough, he finds discarded, bloody uniform parts strewn down the hallway. He picks them up as he goes, so no one thinks a murder took place in the middle of the night. He stuffs them down the trash chute. Abarai doesn't have many spare uniforms, but there's absolutely no salvaging this one.
When he gets to the washroom, he can hear the water running and Renji singing. This is good, Izuru thinks because he can just stand out here and as long as he can hear Renji yodeling, he'll know the big dummy hasn't hit his head or passed out.
He's heard Abarai sing this song once before. He was drunk then, too. It must be an Inuzuri song, it's about grievously injuring someone and stealing all their belongings. Izuru tells himself it must have some cultural context he is missing, or perhaps it is a metaphor.
That last time was after the first semester ended. Renji had been very snotty about his grades, particularly how they stacked up against Izuru and Momo's, but by the time they met up with Rukia and her ill-gotten jug of sake out in the woods, the snottiness had given way to a general good cheer. Rukia had passed her classes and could stay for another semester, and that apparently meant more to Renji than who had been ranked highest in hohou.
They'd made a campfire and all gotten plastered. The sake was probably the worst he'd ever had, the best Renji and Rukia had ever had, and the first that Momo had ever had. Mostly, though, he remembers Rukia and Renji singing that awful song together. Rukia has a lovely, low voice, but it's untrained-- she hits the notes wrong and can’t keep tempo. Izuru wonders if the Kuchikis will give her lessons. Renji's singing is just bad, through and through. But there was something in their crass duet that night, with the grating rolled r's and dropped consonants of their matching lower Rukon accents that made him feel lucky to be included in whatever it is they are together. Izuru had taken Momo back when she started to feel sick, and fell asleep before Renji got home.
Izuru realizes the singing has stopped, but it’s probably fine because the water has also shut off. The door opens and Renji steps out. He's wearing a clean shitagi, and his long hair has been neatly combed and braided. He seems to have sobered up, at least somewhat.
"What're you doing?" he demands.
"Just making sure you didn't slip and die in the bath," Izuru shrugs as they walk back to the room.
"I can hold my liquor," Renji grumbles.
"Yeah, but the stuff you usually drink is like paint thinner. I figured if Hisagi gave you something halfway decent, you might find it so smooth, you'd overdo it."
Renji laughs, a raucous bark. "That'd be rich, eh? Rukon scumbag killed by too much fancy wine."
"There are worse ways to go, I suppose."
"And I'm definitely gonna go out in one of 'em, mark my words. Whoever kills me is gonna spend a week scrubbing my blood outta their clothes, that's all I want outta dying."
Izuru tries to change the topic. "Speaking of which, I threw your clothes away, they were trash." Izuru looks at Renji out of the corner of his eye, expecting the taller boy to be upset.
Renji does look mildly peeved, but it's not as bad as Izuru expected. "They were gettin' too short in the arms and legs, anyway." Cripes, how is he possibly still growing?
"Well, if you need replacements and you're short, let me know. I'd rather loan you money than have you sitting around in your underwear."
They're back at the room now. Renji throws himself on his bed and stares at the ceiling. "I got some saved up. It was for something else, but plans changed, and I won't need it for that anymore."
Izuru crawls into his own bed. Today has been exhausting, and he wants to go to sleep.
"Guess all my plans are messed up," Renji muses. "Have to come up with some new plans."
"Well, don't do it now," Izuru scolds. "It'll keep you up and you need to get some sleep. Think about how tired your muscles are and how relaxing your shower was and how nice it feels to be clean and in bed."
"Yeah," Renji agrees. "Good idea."
Izuru wakes up once in the night. It's very dark. Very, very quietly, he whispers, "Hey. Abarai. You awake?"
"Yeah. What's up?"
Izuru sighs and closes his eyes. "Go to sleep, man."
"Okay," Renji replies. "I'm tryin'."
As Izuru and Renji enter the lecture hall for Kidou Theory, Momo steels herself for what fresh hell today will bring.
Izuru looks tired. There are dark circles under his eyes.
Renji looks chipper. He slides into the seat next to Momo. "I need your help," he tells her.
"Anything," she promises grimly.
"I need some school supplies."
Momo's eyes grow large, but she holds herself back. He's probably either confused or trolling her. "What kind of school supplies?"
He ticks off on his fingers. "A coupla binders. Tabbed dividers. You got that fancy set o' pens that's all different colors? 'Zat expensive? Maybe I could borrow yours?"
"I will buy you a set," Momo intones.
Momo loves this fresh hell.
Momo has an appointment with her advisor, so after she loads down Renji with supplies from her private stock, she promises to meet him at the library later. He won't say what he's working on, but Izuru said he's already written his punishment essay for Foundations of Modern Soul Society, so it can't be that. Apparently, he wrote it in the middle of the night. Ten pages, full of statistics that he either made up or knew off the top of his head.
When she finds both boys after her meeting, Renji has his stuff spread out all over her favorite library table. Momo had always assumed her attraction to her friend sprung from the fact that he is tall and strong and kinda dumb-looking and has incredibly sexy forearms, especially when he's swinging a sword around. All of this is being called into question, because his face is screwed up in concentration as he rearranges sticky notes, and it's the hottest thing Momo has ever seen. He's got a pen stuck in his ponytail, and there are notes written on the back of his hand.
Izuru is asleep with his head down on the table, drooling slightly. It is dampening the overall effect.
"How's it going?" she asks, lightly, sitting down across from Renji.
"Going good," he replies, not looking up.
Izuru wakes up, blinks confusedly, and sits up. There is a sticky on his cheek. Renji pulls it off, and adds it to his constellation.
"Whatcha doing?" Momo presses.
"Making plans."
She likes this. This is so much better than getting kicked out of class and fighting your friends. "Plans for what?"
"I'm going to kill Kuchiki Byakuya in front of 200 witnesses and assume captaincy of the Sixth Division."
This is not better, after all.
"Oh, are you back to this?" Izuru groans. "I told you, the Kuchiki family would find a way to delegitimize your claim. They have lawyers, Abarai, good ones. You can't outsmart them."
"Also, didn't you say that you almost died from being in the same room as Kuchiki Byakuya?" Momo reminded him.
"This is a long horizon plan," Renji bites off irritably. "And this is only one of several that I have under consideration at this time. I am mostly gathering data and examining options. I'm basically brainstorming, which means there are no bad ideas."
"Some ideas are just bad, Renji," Izuru points out.
“How can I help?” Momo interrupts.
Renji regards her carefully. “You read those magazines, right? The ones fulla gossip about noble people?”
Izuru looks at her, betrayed.
“Yes,” Momo replies. In this moment, she is not too proud to admit it.
Renji pushes a binder across the table. “This is my Kuchiki Byakuya binder. I got some biographical info on him, but it’s thin. I need your help with the good stuff.”
Momo narrows her eyes and nods. “I still have the issue of 'Noble Souls' from last year that had the big write-up on him. It has a shirtless picture.”
“I… don’t need that,” Renji admits.
“Oh, you do,” Momo assures him. “It’s real good.”
Izuru is still a little hung up. “I didn’t know you were one of those people who idolized nobles.”
“I’m not!” Momo sticks out her lip. “I… I just like classy things! Fancy clothes. Culture. When I’m a seated officer in the Gotei, I’m gonna go to the theater and art exhibitions and all that. It's something to look forward to. Something I can learn about now. There’s no harm in looking ahead, right, Renji?”
Renji looks a little confused. “What does being an officer have to do with it? Is it a money thing?”
“High ranking shinigami are basically considered to be nobility,” Izuru explains. “Or close enough for most purposes.”
“The argument goes,” Momo elaborates, in a way that she knows will resonate with Renji, “that the reason nobles are noble is because their souls are so pure and strong, right? So how else can you explain the captains that come from Rukongai? You can’t, so you have to act like they’re noble, too, right? Noble logic.”
Renji is nodding. “How… how high up do you have to get?”
“It’s sort of a sliding scale, I think. Someone like our Izuru here would be equivalent maybe a 5th seat? Head of a very minor house?”
Izuru shrugs in vague agreement.
“I thought your sister was the head.”
“She runs things. I’m technically the head. But I’m going to be a captain, someday, and then my house won’t be so minor anymore.”
Renji makes a face. “See? I ain’t the only one with plans.” He looks back at Momo. “And how high would you have to rank to be the same as an adopted daughter of one of the Big Five?”
Momo frowns. “I mean, I’m not an authority on this. Maybe third seat? It would have to be a good squad, 4th or 11th wouldn’t cut it.”
“Lieutenant,” Izuru corrects.
“Lieutenant,” Renji echoes. “Maybe at the 6th.”
“I don’t think they let people from Rukongai hold seats at the 6th,” Izuru points out, before realizing that he's bursting Renji's bubble yet again. "8th would be good, though or the 13th?" he quickly amends.
"Kuchiki Byakuya served at the 13th when his dad was still lieutenant of the 6th," Renji contemplates.
“Hold on,” Momo butts in. “You’re going to join the 5th with me and Izuru, right? The 5th is very respectable.”
“Well, sure,” Renji agrees. “But we’ll have to split up eventually. We can’t all be lieutenants in the same squad.”
Momo wags her head from side to side. “You can both be my lieutenants when I’m captain.”
And it's brief, but for a few moments, they all laugh before the librarian comes to scold them.
Renji relentlessly fills binders for two days. It’s actually kind of fun for Izuru to be able to supply information on various protocols and etiquette. For once, Renji is actually interested in things he has some authority on. But Izuru hopes this doesn’t turn out to be permanent. There’s a certain anxious mania to School Supply Renji that he finds exhausting. This may also be due to the fact that School Supply Renji doesn’t sleep any better than Denial Renji or Angry Renji.
But Saturday morning, things have changed once again.
The day dawns bright and beautiful and Izuru is glad they’ve already made plans to spend the morning down at the kidou butts. He hopes that in the afternoon, maybe they can spar outside or walk down into the city proper, instead of cutting articles out of magazines in the library again.
Renji is lying in bed with his blanket over his face and his feet sticking out the bottom.
Izuru hopes against hope that he’s asleep. “Hey, Abarai?” he whispers.
A muffled “yuss?” emerges from the blanket.
“You ready to go down to breakfast?”
Izuru has lived with Renji for nine months now. Renji has never once not been ready for breakfast.
There is a long pause. “I don’t feel like it.”
A dark, familiar feeling knots in Izuru’s stomach. He tries not to jump to conclusions. Maybe Abarai has made himself sick with his mania and poor sleep. “You don’t feel like eating or you don’t feel like getting out of bed?”
Another pause. “Neither, really.” Renji sticks the tip of his nose out from under the blanket. “I'm never going to see her again, am I?"
No, it was his first suspicion after all. Izuru knows how to deal with this. It hurts his heart, both because he’s embarrassed by how familiar these feelings are, and also because Renji is strong and cheerful and spits in the face of life’s adversities, and depression is not for him, it’s for people like Izuru. But that’s how it is in this bitch of an afterlife, so Izuru’s going to Do Friendship and help Renji get through this.
Izuru keeps his voice very calm and reasonable. "I think you will see her again. It won't be the same, and it might not be for a while, but I am sure you will see her again, especially if you work at it the way I know you're going to."
"It seems like so much work. It seems impossible."
"You just have to take it one step at a time. The first step is doing well at school, and you'll have that covered if you stop yelling at teachers and trying to show off in kidou.” He frowns. “Speaking of kidou, we’re supposed to meet Momo for breakfast and then practice. But if you want, you can stay in bed. If you really want, I’ll stay here with you.”
There’s a long pause, and finally Renji says, “That’s dumb. I’m getting up.” He pushes off his blankets and starts to hunt down some clean clothes.
"It’s not dumb,” Izuru points out. “A sad thing is happening to you right now. You haven't really just let yourself be sad about it. It's okay to do that."
Renji makes a disgusted face. “I had lots of friends die in Inuzuri, y’know. Three of them, nearly as close as Rukia. I didn’t lie around feelin’ sorry for myself, then.”
Izuru hadn’t known that. “You know, if you’ve never dealt with that grief, it might still be--”
“Shut up, man, I don’t need this.” Renji is trying to sound tough, but he really just sounds sad. “Let’s just go get some chow so I can blow my own eyebrows off again.”
Renji mostly lies on his back staring at the clouds as Momo and Izuru shoot sokatsui at one another.
“You should take a turn!” Momo shouts at him.
“You really want to take one o’ my shit-ass kidous in the face?” Renji asks skeptically. It seems he has given up on being “civilized.”
“It’s practice,” Momo entreats him. “You’re never going to get any better if you don’t practice.”
Sighing, Renji drags himself to his feet.
Izuru has a bad feeling about this. “Renji, if you don’t want to...”
“She asked for it! And I’m up now. Hope you didn’t like those eyebrows too much, Momo.”
“You can take me to your tattoo guy,” she sniffs.
Renji takes his position and assumes the open-palm version of the stance. “Mask of blood and flesh, all things of the universe fly… ” he starts.
Izuru scuttles out of the way. Renji almost never uses the chants, which mystifies Izuru. The chants intensify your power and increase your control. Maybe Renji will manage to pull it off this time. But as Renji’s voice rises through the verses of the spell, Izuru realizes with some horror that while the power of the spell is mounting, Renji has nothing resembling control over it.
“Renji! Renji, stop!” he yells.
Momo is chanting on the other side of the field. Izuru squeezes his eyes shut. He does not want to see Renji get blown up by two sokatsui at once.
“--slight claw at the dream wall--”
“--with light, divide into six! ”
Momo finishes hers first, and Izuru realizes belatedly that she has not cast sokatsui after all, as the six golden rods of rikujoukourou cut Renj’s spell off abruptly, in addition to pinning his arms to his sides and lifting him up onto his tiptoes.
“Why did ya have to do that?” Renji grumbles. “This is embarrassing.”
“You were going to misfire,” Momo replies matter-of-factly, dismissing the bind.
“Since when can you do Hado 61?” Izuru demands. He can’t do Hado 61. “And what were you doing, Abarai? Couldn’t you feel how badly that was going to go?”
Momo gives a coquettish little head waggle.
Renji shrugs. “You’re the one who’s always tellin’ me to use the chants.”
It’s entirely possible that Abarai didn’t know. Izuru can’t imagine what it’s like to be Abarai-- to use your reiatsu as naturally as your own arms and legs in a fight, but then be unable to spin it into even the most trivial of spells. But it’s also possible that he knew exactly what he was doing. He’s been covering it with a layer of grumpy apathy, but Izuru suspects that Renji still hasn’t shaken this morning’s malaise.
“This is boring,” Izuru announces. “Let’s go do something else.”
Momo and Renji stare at him, incredulous. Normally, he has an incredible tolerance for boring things, and furthermore, he would never find kidou practice boring.
“Renji,” Izuru calls him out. “What do you feel like doing? Anything you want.”
Renji fidgets. “I dunno. Don’t really feel like doing much of anything.”
“We could go home and take a nap.”
Renji looks disgusted. “I would never.” It’s too bad. He obviously needs one.
“You want to go into the city?” Momo suggests brightly.
Renji, who usually enjoys crowds and noise, looks uncomfortable. “I don’t really… I dunno.”
“We could go take a walk in the woods,” Izuru suggests.
Renji’s brow creases thoughtfully. “Yeah. That might be nice.”
Momo's not sure how she’s never noticed before, but under normal circumstances, Renji talks a lot. It’s not that he’s a chatterbox or anything, he just tends to maintain a steady stream of casual commentary that fills up the silence, makes things companionable.
It’s harder than it looks. She’s been talking about her family back in Junrinan for what feels like seventeen hours now, and her voice sounds shrill and annoying even to her. She is sure Izuru and Renji do not care about her dorky brother-by-circumstance. “Do you actually know where we’re going?” she interrupts herself to demand of Izuru.
“It’s around here somewhere,” he replies noncommittally. He hasn’t actually told them where they’re going, just that it’s “a nice spot.”
Renji has guessed, though. “We going to your parents’ memorial?”
“Yeah.”
“I think it’s down in that valley over that way.”
“How do you know?” Momo demands.
“Been there before. ‘Swhere Kira and I met. It is a nice spot.”
“What?” Momo is perplexed. “How?”
Neither of the boys feel like elaborating.
Renji is correct, and they find the memorial down in the valley. It is surrounded by tall, old trees, and there are a lot of spring flowers in bloom. A little brook burbles nearby, and after paying their respects to the senior Kiras, they take off their sandals and socks and plop down on the bank for a soak.
Renji stares at his own stupidly big feet, distorted in the gentle current. “Hey, maybe you guys know this,” he finally says, his voice uncharacteristically soft. “If I were to… if I didn’t finish. At the Academy. Would I have to go all the way back to Inuzuri?”
Momo misinterprets him at first. “You’re doing great, Renji. We’ll get you through kidou again. Of course you’ll finish!”
Izuru, however, catches the correct meaning. He clears his throat. “My understanding,” he says, “is that if you can get yourself a promise of employment, you can apply for a resident worker’s permit. And I think that if you live in wherever you settle for some amount of time, ten years or something, you can apply to become a permanent tenant of that district. At least, that’s how noble families hire servants from Rukongai. You should look into the details, though. There might be restrictions, since you’re from such a high numbered district.”
Renji nods tersely. “Thanks. I was hopin’ for something like that.”
Momo looks like she’s been socked in the face.
“You can read and write, and with your combat skills, you should have no trouble finding work,” Izuru goes on. “Although finishing out the year would improve your position. Make it clear you weren’t in any danger of flunking out.”
Renji nods again, thoughtfully.
“What is wrong with you two?” Momo shouts, and Renji’s shoulders jump. “Why would you quit? That’s stupid.”
Renji rubs the back of his neck. “I wouldn’ta made it here on my own. You… you can’t understand what it’s like to grow up at the bottom of the world and to think about climbing up into the sky.”
“But you made it,” Momo points out. “You’re here.”
"But I don't even know what I'm doin' here anymore! It wasn’t even my idea. Everything here reminds me of her. I miss her so much. An'... an'... I just feel like such a bad person."
Momo and Izuru exchange a horrified glance. Feeling bad about yourself is for the likes of them, not for him.
“I thought,” Renji chokes out, “that all I ever wanted was a nice life for her. That’s why I told her to go. She’s got everything now. I should be happy, right? I got what I wanted? A nice life for Rukia?”
Momo bites her lip.
“But it was a lie. I wanted to be the one to give her a nice life. I keep wishin’ I woulda asked her to stay. But how could I do that? How could I ask her to give all that up for a dumb shithead from Inuzuri?”
“Renji,” Momo says gently. “Do you know what she would do to someone who called you that?”
“I do,” Renji sighs and presses the heels of his hands into his eyes. “Seen her do it. Not that I deserve it. I didn’t deserve a minute of the ten years I got to stay with her, but I’m a greedy bastard, because I just want more time.”
Izuru punches him in the shoulder.
“Ow,” Renji complains, even though it couldn’t possibly have hurt.
“Be sad if you want,” Izuru sniffs at him. “But don’t beat yourself up for caring about someone. Because if you do that, then Momo and I are greedy bastards, too, because we would miss you like hell if you left.”
“Don’t call Momo that,” Renji mutters.
“I’ll own it!” Momo protests. “I want you to stay. Look, maybe you came here because of Rukia, and now she’s gone, but if you think that means you should quit being a shinigami, well, that’s bull shit, Renji.” Momo says the curse like it’s two separate words. “I want to join the Gotei with both of you and serve in the same division. Do you know how much better Izuru and I have gotten because of you? Hisagi would have died if it weren’t for all of three of us!”
“You can find some other friend to teach you to swing a sword, plenty of people are good at it,” Renji mumbles.
“Believe it or not, it’s kind of hard for a couple of nerds like us to find a friend who makes us train until our hands are all blisters and hassles us about our fat-to-protein intake,” Izuru teases.
“Also, do you know how much it helped me when I had to completely break down every kidou spell we learned so that I could teach them to you?” Momo puts in.
“And not for nothing,” Izuru adds, on a roll now, “but don’t you think the Gotei 13 could use a few more soldiers who care about the conditions out in Rukongai, instead of protecting their own noble families?”
“Fine, fine!” Renji shouts, waving his hands. “I’ll shut up about leaving if you two will stop being so friggin’ sappy.”
Momo stares out into the middle distance. “I’ll never stop.”
“Me, either,” Izuru agrees.
Renji shakes his head, and stretches out his long arms to pull both of them in close to him.
And then he pushes them into the brook.
Here they are again. It’s bedtime.
Izuru is in his bed.
Renji is in his bed.
They both stare at the ceiling.
“Renji,” says Izuru.
“Yeah?” says Renji.
“Before,” says Izuru, “you used to talk about her before bed.”
“Did I?”
“Yes. Incessantly.”
“Oh.” There is a long pause. “Sorry about that.”
“Do it.”
“Come again?”
“I'm ready. Give me the Rukia Appreciation Hour. Lay it on me.”
“Are… are you sure?”
“Very.”
“Uh… okay. What, uh, do you like best? Greatest hits or recent accomplishments or just, like, general appreciation?”
“Your choice, buddy.”
Renji runs his fingers through his hair. “Okay. Here goes.”
What follows is possibly the most epic and rambling Rukia Appreciation Hour yet. Renji starts off with How We Met, a story Izuru has heard before. There are several variations on it, and tonight, it’s She Saved My Life, I Would Have Died.
This segues into a different Inuzuri story, tangentially involving the same water seller, about some long con Rukia had established that ends with her selling three different people the same bag of rocks. There’s a lot of Inuzuri context that is mystifying to Izuru, but he just lets it wash over him.
Naturally, this leads into speculation about how good she is going to be at being a Kuchiki, namely the wheeling and dealing aspects, the importance of which Renji seems to have overestimated. Izuru’s eyelids are getting heavy, and he’s nearly asleep by the time Renji has moved on to which squad he thinks she’ll be placed in.
He drifts in and out for while, between snatches of an ode to the attractiveness of Rukia’s legs and a rambling tale about being trapped away from shelter during a wicked snowstorm. Suddenly, Izuru snaps awake. It is silent. Utterly silent.
“Renji?” he whispers.
There is no response.
Izuru sits up. He can’t believe it. It worked.
After five days, Renji has finally fallen asleep.
Izuru is sitting at his desk, doing some reading for Foundations of Modern Soul Society. It is nearly ten, four hours later than Renji usually sleeps, even on a weekend. Renji suddenly makes sort of a sneezing, grunting noise, and sits straight up. He rubs his hands over his face.
“Good morning,” Izuru says neutrally.
“Goooood morning,” Renji intones. “You wanna go down to the weight room?”
Izuru honestly believes that he, Momo and Renji all have legitimate claims to the title of best young shinigami in their class, but going to the weight room with Renji is just an exercise in humiliation. He usually goes anyway, though, because even though he’s never going to beat Renji at picking up heavy things, he is getting better than other people at picking up heavy things. “How do you feel?” he puts off committing.
Renji wrinkles his nose a few times experimentally. “Shitty. But not so shitty that I’m gonna miss leg day over it.”
“Can we get breakfast first?”
“Yeah, sure. Light breakfast, pump some iron, big lunch.”
“Shall we see if Momo wants to come?”
“If you can convince Momo to come, I will try to bench her again.”
“She doesn’t like it when you do that.”
“Are you kidding? She loves it.”
“She does not.”
“I’m gonna tell her that if she comes, I’ll try to bench you.”
“No, please.”
“You’ll love it.”
“What happened to leg day?!”
“It’s still leg day. Any day can also be Bench Your Friends day.” Renji smiles wistfully. “Do you think Rukia is gonna miss Bench Your Friends day?”
“No.”
“Do you think Kuchiki Byakuya would bench Rukia? If she asked him to?”
“No.”
“I’m sure he could.”
“Renji,” Izuru tries to form a coherent response, and gives up. “No.”
Renji is pulling on his kosode. “Well, in that case, I’m glad there’s something in life that I could give her that he could not.” He is still smiling. It’s not his old face-splitting grin, but it still counts.
Izuru is sure he has not seen the last of Renji’s anger or sadness or harebrained schemes. But he’ll take this, for now.
~ end