Work Text:
1.
Food tastes different in the living world. More fresh, more textured, wet things more wet, fruit more tart as it bursts on her tongue. The girls in the class laugh around her as they eat and chat at lunch times, talking about boys and girls and tv shows and high school boredom, asking Rukia questions and sharing their food with her.
Kunieda brings out an over-large box of cookies and offers Rukia one, even though they barely know each other at all.
And they taste good, soft and airy and not too sweet.
Is this what it's like? she wonders. Is this what it's like to share food with friends for the fun of it and not just survival? Is this how the other shinigami feel in their mess halls and restaurants and bars, as they gather in groups and share food and drinks?
For a moment even the sky seems more blue, and then crowds roll in and everyone rushes under cover before the pattering of rain starts. Of course the sky can be just as blue or just as grey anywhere. But as she looks at Ichigo and his friends laughing together as they get hit with the downpour (Ishida Uryuu scowling at his increasingly damp bread roll), and bumps shoulders into Orihime beside her, the world feels more bright, the laughter louder, the scent of the rain as it hits the concrete more calming and kind.
*
2.
Kuchiki dinner has always been objectively pleasing to look at, technically correct in every way. But dull, joyless. The food tastes like ashes in her mouth. All of it fades into nothing much in her memory. And then Ichigo defeats Byakuya and Byakuya remembers that food can have flavour, meals can be informal.
Still, his tea is and always has been good. Objectively the finest, yes, but warm and pleasing, thawing them from the inside out, a sign long before she realised that there is life and energy in the Kuchiki family yet.
*
3.
As they near the 7/11, its sign bright against the reddening sunset, Renji tells her how weird his friends in the 11th are about conbini onigiri. "They went on about it for hours. They're obsessed."
"I don't think they understand the concept of a supply chain," Rukia says, as if she has any superior understanding of conbini supply chains. Her thoughts on conbinis are all about buying popcorn with Orihime before a home movie night, and grabbing batteries with Ichigo, whenever the Kurosaki family ran out.
"You know what I miss every time I go back to Seireitei?" Renji asks. "The Family Mart fried chicken. That stuff is so good, Rukia, you don't understand. Juicy, delicious."
"Are you allowed to be talking about the competition when you enter a 7/11? You might be arrested for conbini crimes," she says, pushing through the door shoulder first.
"If they imprison me with an egg sandwich it doesn't sound so bad."
"Did you eat a single vegetable when you stayed with Urahara?"
"There was lettuce in some things."
They look over the shelves, grabbing whatever looks interesting as they went. Egg sando, melon soda, curry bread, tuna onigiri, pudding cups, enough cans of coffee to keep them awake for the next year... Not a single shred of lettuce to be found.
Once they pay and burst outside with their bags, the night is cooler. They walk slowly down the road to the park, taking in the night sounds and the gentle breeze.
"Do you think we can have this entire picnic before a hollow shows up?" Rukia asks.
Renji shrugs. "I'm not letting a hollow have all our bread."
The park is quiet but not deserted, young families still lingering as the night sets in. School boys too young to be Ichigo's friends linger by the swing set. In the distance a particularly fluffy dog runs around.
"I'm glad I get to share this with you," Rukia says, as she lays down their picnic blanket and arranges their haul.
Renji's eyes are particularly warm as he leans down to kiss her, before settling himself on the blanket.
Rukia takes one piece of curry bread and hands Renji the other. "Let's eat!"