Characters: Rangiku, Soi Fong, Nanao, Byakuya, Gin
Summary: Things the girls want to do before they kick the bucket. Companion to 'Cohesion'.
Pairings: GinRan
Warnings/Spoilers: no spoilers; takes place in Cohesion-verse
Timeline: pre-manga
Author's Note: This serves as a companion to Cohesion, a oneshot I wrote a few months back; you should probably read that first. It takes place between numbers 5 and 6 in Cohesion, and it's written differently; this is more narrative-style than Cohesion was. To all those of you who liked Cohesion, I hope you'll like Bucket List too. Finally, if any of them seem OOC, remember that this takes place way pre-manga. There's still time for them to come to their present personalities.
Disclaimer: I don't own Bleach.

It's Soi Fong who gets the idea first. She is, out of the three girls, easily the most morbidly-minded and the one who focuses on death the most. If anything, Soi Fong focuses on death probably more than any Shinigami who has ever lived—so neither Rangiku nor Nanao are surprised when she starts to ask them about this. They're only surprised that she's comfortable supplying the information herself.

"What do you two want to do before you die?"

It's evening, when it seems most questions like this—the strange and off-the-wall ones, the out-of-the-blue questions, the bizarrely revolutionary ones—tend to be asked. They're sitting on the roof of a building in the Tenth Division, without a doubt Rangiku, Soi Fong and Nanao's favorite perch. Butter yellow light paints the sky and Nanao is eating out of a large bowl of soba—said bowl is regularly passed around. Byakuya and Gin are absent tonight.

Nanao's eyebrows shoot into her bangs but it's Rangiku who speaks for them both when she asks "Dare I ask what brought this on?" in the sort of voice that indicates that really, she doesn't want to know Soi Fong's motivations.

For a few moments, Soi Fong says nothing. She's staring down at her knees as she does whenever she's having a shy moment, blue-gray eyes half-hooded. Then, she looks up, thin mouth set in a determined line.

"I just want to know. I think we've all got things we'd like to do before we die." The bluster of her voice is clearly, Nanao decides, trying to make up for a severe lack of confidence. "And that includes the two of you."

Rangiku frowns. "Huh. I dunno, Soi Fong; I always figured you to be the type to not have anything you want to do before biting it. Just ready to die at any moment," she goes on mockingly, holding a hand out towards the sky theatrically, "sword drawn, teeth clenched and ready to go screaming like a lunatic into the abyss."

Somehow, Soi Fong manages to take this flippant comment to be an insult (Which wouldn't be too hard, given Rangiku's tone of voice). Her heated demand to know exactly what Rangiku meant by that sets off an argument that escalates into near-shouting while Nanao continues eating her soba, nonchalant and unaffected by the events surrounding her.

But eventually, even she has to get fed up with the increasing volume of her friends' voices.

"Shut up!"

And to Nanao's intense amazement (not to mention satisfaction), they do. She glares fiercely down the line at the two older girls, holding the now empty soba bowl tautly in her lap. "I'm going to assume that you two don't really want to attract the attention of every single officer in the Tenth Division, do you?" The levels of acid in her voice could probably melt the door of a steel vault.

Soi Fong refuses to say anything and Rangiku winces, grimacing heavily; Kurosaki-taicho is exceptionally lenient when it comes to the antics of his subordinates, but she and the lieutenant have butted heads more times than anyone can count or care to remember. It's not like anyone's remembering to keep a tally anymore. "No, not really."

Nanao nods in the sort of way that assures Soi Fong and Rangiku that she's going to be even bossier when she's grown than she is now; they exchange—a rare occurrence—commiserating glances while Nanao's busy adjusting her glasses. "I thought not. The two of you aren't that stupid."

Now Rangiku and Soi Fong are exchanging glares while Nanao's attention is otherwise engaged.

"I assume you'll be reaching a point soon, Ise?" Soi Fong asks caustically, folding her arms across her chest.

With a long-suffering air that even Rangiku has to find a little annoying, Nanao nods and stares them both down calmly. "I think, perhaps, that an arrangement can be reached that will please everyone."

-0-

"You're going where?"

Rangiku sighs at the incredulous note in Gin's usually untroubled voice as she slings her bag over her shoulder and starts to walk out of her quarters. How he found out about this, she will never know—nor does she think she particularly wants to know.

"I told you, Gin." She brushes a bit of gold hair out of her eyes and adjusts her obi; this being the first time in a while that Rangiku's had occasion to wear civilian clothing, she's a little rusty with how to keep the wider obi needed for a woman's yukata shut. "Me and Nanao and Soi Fong are going to be going out into Rukongai for a while. We've cleared it with our captains—" And that was much easier than it should have been, she reflects with a roll of the eyes "—and we're not quite sure when we'll be back. Within a week or two, is my guess." Rangiku takes notes of the still just as perturbed look on Gin's face, and rolls her eyes again. "I don't see what's so shocking about this, Gin."

He recovers quickly, recognizing that hard note in her voice and that little glint in her eye—not a mood to be messed with. Gin flashes a grin and holds up both hands, palms towards her in appeasement. "Nothing, Rangiku. I suppose a little sabbatical every once in a while can be a great stress reliever." For the third time in as many minutes, Rangiku rolls her eyes; he really is laying it on thick. That smile is kind of cute though. "I could come with you and…"

Gin leaves off, and for the fourth time (this is pretty common) Rangiku rolls her eyes. He's about as subtle as a dead cat. "No, Gin, you will not be coming with me. This is a girl's trip; no boys allowed." She grins and, in a gesture about as subtle previous words run a finger across the length of his jaw. Gin's smile, a smile, not a grin, grows slightly. "You can wait."

Now it's Gin who's rolling his eyes. "Yeah, I'm so sure."

The machinations of adolescent romance are, as ever, somewhat less than graceful and magnificent.

She starts down the path towards where she'll be meeting up with Nanao and Soi Fong; Gin, as ever, is following close behind, though Rangiku isn't aware of that at first.

Eventually, however, she does become aware.

"Gin?" Her voice is almost sing-song as she stops dead in her tracks and turns one eye to face the boy standing on the stone walkway behind her.

"Yes, Rangiku?"

"Don't you think it's time to be going?"

Gin suddenly seems to remember a prior engagement; rather convenient, his sense of timing. The smile on his face is slightly strained as he says, "I've just remembered. I've got to go see Byakuya about something. I'll see you when you get back, Rangiku."

As he leaves, Rangiku can't help but smirk.

That always works.

-0-

"Is everybody ready?"

"Of course you'd have to ask that, Nanao."

"Just checking."

They're standing at one of the gates at the borders of Seireitei, and Rangiku can't help but think that Soi Fong's garb is almost depressingly masculine in appearance. Really? Doesn't she have anything other than brown, gray and black in that wardrobe of hers? You'd think she'd at least have some red things to wear, since she seems to like blood well enough, but no…

As an afterthought, Rangiku decides that the cut and the all-around bagginess of her clothes is hardly flattering to Soi Fong's slight frame either.

Rangiku can almost laugh though, when she takes a look at Nanao. The little girl, just seeming about thirteen or fourteen to an untrained observer but really several decades older than that is holding her hands with fingers twined at her stomach like a well-bred little girl, which Rangiku knows Nanao only half fulfills. Her glasses gleam anxiously.

However, it's Soi Fong who ends up speaking first. "Are we gonna go or not?" she asks tensely, more testy than usual.

Rangiku slings her bag more securely over her shoulder and smiles to the others, who just stare levelly at her—some people have no sense of humor at all. "Okay, okay. Let's go."

-0-

Nanao finds herself instantly regretting suggesting the course of action the three of them have taken when she hears what it is Rangiku wants to do before she dies.

She shakes her head vigorously, face paling. Nanao doesn't dare look at Soi Fong's face; frankly she's afraid to think of the sort of fury that's sure to have overtaken it now.

"Matsumoto-san, I'm not doing that. You can not make me." Nanao tries desperately to reason with herself that if she just stays calm, this will all turn out to have been just a bad dream. Just a dream, that's it. Snap my fingers, pinch myself and I'll wake up at the barracks in my own bed listening to Misumi snore in the bed next to mine.

But unfortunately, as it turns out for Nanao and Soi Fong, this is not a dream, and Rangiku is quite adamant.

They are standing in a deserted patch of woodlands in Rukongai, near a slowly flowing river—at least it's summer, so they won't all freeze to death. It's quite pretty out, actually, golden sunlight filtering through the leafy canopy of branches, but Nanao can't really appreciate the scenery at the moment.

Rangiku smiles confidently, plainly assured that in the end she will have her way, and dips a bare foot into the water, holding her lavender skirt away from her legs. "Come on, you two. Get undressed."

-0-

Gin, slight and younger than Byakuya, is smaller than him and has a much easier time creeping through the dense undergrowth than the Kuchiki does. He chooses not to listen—or care—as he hears the sounds of Byakuya huffing and hissing as he struggles through the undergrowth and gets a branch whapping across his face for his pains.

"Ichimaru," Byakuya gasps, still struggling through the close-growing trees, "I don't see why it's necessary to follow Ise-san, Matsumoto-san and Soi Fong-san as they take this sabbatical. They asked us not to, and they're perfectly capable of taking care of themselves." A bite of annoyance enters his voice, a little more visible than it already was. "I say we just go home. Soi Fong-san would kill us if she knew were following her!"

The white-haired boy again doesn't listen and keeps on stalking the three girls through the brush. Byakuya just barely manages not to snarl and keeps after him—I will not lose my temper, I will not lose my temper, so the mantra goes. Funny, how often all that comes to naught.

I'm not going to hit him, I'm not going to strangle him, I'm just going to go up to Ichimaru and tell him that we need to come home.

Gin suddenly stops, stiffening. "I think I see them."

All sense of propriety (and fear of Soi Fong) flies out the window as curiosity takes a hold of Byakuya and, almost unwillingly, he steps forward, coming towards Gin to see if he's being serious or if he's just playing a prank. Again.

I should not be letting Ichimaru's innate curiosity rub off on me. I know what's good for me, and what's good for me does not involve spying on the likes of Soi Fong-san.

"Wait… What are they doing?"

-0-

Nanao can't help but wince a little bit when Rangiku pulls "The Pout" on them (And yes, this is truly something so epic that it deserves a title all its own). Her full mouth helps pull it off to devastating effect. She can feel her own resolve start to waver, and doesn't have to look at Soi Fong to know that a little bit, just a little bit, her resolve is faltering too. "You promised!" Rangiku protests, casting a wounded, accusatory stare over both of them.

And in response, Nanao's blue-violet eyes sear Rangiku in an equally accusatory stare. "We agreed to participate in whatever it was you wanted to do before you died, within reasonable limits," she emphasizes, laying out the terms of the agreement the three share in no uncertain terms.

Those wide light blue eyes are all too innocent. "There's nothing unreasonable about this, Nanao!"

"What if there are leeches in that river?"

"Oh, come on. You only live once!"

"Actually," Soi Fong breaks in flatly, eyes hard and dull, "we live several times, Matsumoto. That's what reincarnation is all about," she adds sarcastically.

Rangiku rolls her eyes. "Oh don't be so literal-minded, Soi Fong. Come on, you two. Let's see what the water's like."

"You'll get sick."

"No I won't, Nanao."

Okay. Seeing that excuses aren't going to work, Nanao drops all pretenses of being anything but utterly recalcitrant to this idea and slides her glasses up her nose determinedly. "Matsumoto-san, I am not going to go skinny dipping in some river just to please you. I refuse to degrade myself to that level."

Soi Fong shrugs as though she's an outsider who doesn't want to get involved in this. "What she said."

Nanao shakes her head in frustration. "Oh, thanks for your support."

"You're welcome."

Again, despite her perfectly sound grasp of figurative language, Soi Fong is obstinately opting to be bluntly literal-minded.

Writing her friends off as hopeless cases in need of a guilt trip (or what in Rangiku's mind passes for a guilt trip), Rangiku turns around, walks until she is right at the riverbank and, tugging at her obi, promptly disrobes.

The reactions of those with her are immediate.

Nanao promptly claps a hand over her eyes, cheeks flaming scarlet; Rangiku knows how squeamish she is about these things, and she's still doing this to her.

Soi Fong is considerably less modest than Nanao when it comes to these things. Just to prove how utterly unimpressed she is, she stares unabashedly at Rangiku with one eyebrow raised (And though she is bisexual she vehemently denies that she is getting any enjoyment out of the, ahem, view). "Tell me, Matsumoto. What do you hope to accomplish by this?"

Rangiku turns her head long enough to smirk. "What do you think?"

She promptly dives into the water, much to Nanao's relief.

-0-

Byakuya is by this time amazed that the three girls can't hear him choking from the undergrowth just a few yards from where they've been having their argument.

"Ichimaru." His voice is choked and urgent. "I am leaving now."

Gin waves him off distractedly. "You… You… You go on ahead. I'll… catch up."

Really?

Left to gape at him, caught between outright shock and disgust, Byakuya asks caustically, "Is the view really so fascinating?"

Gin doesn't answer.

"There's something wrong with you," Byakuya hisses. "Ise-san's practically prepubescent, you voyeur."

Gin's question is spoken in a voice still abstracted and distracted. "Why haven't you gone running back towards Seireitei then?"

Byakuya's mouth clamps firmly shut, as he is forced to admit to himself that he is the most vile of hypocrites.

-0-

Meanwhile, Nanao decides that the world has gone mad and is currently in a state of dying a screaming, violent death in a wreath of fire. And that the one who has set that fire is none other than Matsumoto Rangiku, Shinigami of the Tenth Division of Seireitei.

"Come on in!" Rangiku practically shrieks from the water below; Soi Fong and Nanao are standing on the precipice of a steep embankment. "It's great down here! I hate swimming by myself!" Her gold hair, though not very long, fans out behind her and glistens brightly in the summer sun.

"Is this some sort of guilt trip?" Nanao demands shakily.

"Yes, it is."

Well at least she's honest, Nanao concedes gloomily.

Soi Fong, meanwhile, is stripping out of her outer layers of clothes—Nanao sees that her undergarments are just as bleakly masculine as her outer clothing. She comes and stands at the embankment, staring down at Rangiku. "Alright, Matsumoto." She has the extremely grudging voice of someone reluctantly conceding defeat. "I will come into the water, on the condition that you allow me to keep these clothes on."

"Deal."

Soi Fong dives in with twice the grace that Rangiku displayed a minute before.

"What?" Nanao squeaks, by now feeling utterly bereft and abandoned. I wish I never suggested this. She's just lost her only pillar of support, but tries to keep strong despite that. "I don't care, Matsumoto-san. You won't get me in that water. You won't. I hate swimming."

This is the point, unfortunately for Nanao, when Soi Fong decides to force the issue.

Nanao's heart pounds when two small hands latch around her ankles. Soi Fong's blue gray eyes aren't even remotely apologetic. Her voice is flat and straightforward. "If I have to come into the water, then so do you."

The water, Nanao soon discovers, is absolutely freezing.

-0-

It takes Nanao about fifteen minutes to get used to the freezing temperatures of the water. Once she's in the deep river she immediately gets her mulberry yukata off of her and throws it back on the shore, leaving herself only in her undergarments like Soi Fong, though that's more than can be said for Rangiku, who still stubbornly insists on swimming in the nude.

Nanao just knows that this will end only in Rangiku getting pneumonia and dying a slow death. And she spares no effort making sure Rangiku knows that.

Then, suddenly and out of nowhere, Nanao hears something. Her ears prick up.

A rustling from the woods beyond the river.

Nanao's face goes as hard as stone, and she immediately searches out Soi Fong's eyes, which are glinting stonily. Rangiku is, of course, continually oblivious to what the two other girls have just discovered.

"Soi Fong-san, do you hear something?"

"Yes," she answers grimly. "I do." Soi Fong hauls herself out of the river, and starts to stalk towards the area where the rustling is coming from. "And I intend to find out exactly what it is I'm hearing."

-0-

"YOU BASTARDS!"

The explosion can probably be heard from a mile away.

"WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU TWO DOING HERE?"

"We can explain—"

"GET OUT!" Soi Fong shrieks. "PERVERTS! FREAKS! DON'T EVER LET ME CATCH YOU SPYING ON US AGAIN!"

If Ginrei notices that his grandson seems to move like his ribs are aching when he returns to him, and that Byakuya also has a black eye, he doesn't ask why.

The same goes for Aizen and Gin's bloodied lip.

-0-

Sigh…

"I told you you'd get sick."

The only part of her visible above the blanket being a quivering cap of golden hair made dull and tarnished by the nighttime, Rangiku can't seem to work up the strength to respond to her friend's assertion. Nanao only sighs, and stokes the fire the three of them are huddled around, thankful that the night, at least, is warm.

They hauled themselves out of the water not long after Soi Fong discovered the two spies in the brush (and Nanao still shudders to think that they were being watched while they were doing this; she can't help but feel a little violated), since knowing that they were being watched took what little fun Soi Fong and Nanao could find out of the whole thing.

Honestly, even Kyouraku-taicho wouldn't have done that.

I think.

Nanao and Soi Fong quickly dried off and changed into dry clothes. In the case of Rangiku, she dried off and put her clothes back on, and promptly began coughing after that.

Now, back at the fire, Nanao leaves off on stoking the fire long enough to press a hand to Rangiku's forehead. "You've got a low-grade fever," she remarks unnecessarily. "Coupled with the coughing and all the sneezing you've been doing, I'd say you have a cold."

Bloodshot blue eyes stare unappreciatively up at her. "What was your first guess?"

Nanao ignores that comment and goes on. "I don't have any medicine, but either way, you should be alright within a week. My guess is this is as bad as it will get." Rangiku nods, and the bespectacled girl goes on. "Where we're going next will be in a town; we might be able to get some medicine there for your throat."

"'Kay." Rangiku takes the opportunity to collapse on the ground and quickly go to sleep. As usual, she is a deep enough sleeper that even Soi Fong's none too gentle pokes in the ribs can't rouse her. Nanao resists the urge to roll her eyes (I am beyond such childish displays, she adamantly tells herself. I am utterly beyond them.) and continues to stoke the fire.

Soi Fong, as she has been for several hours, is silent.

More so than usual.

"Soi Fong-san?" Nanao's voice is uncharacteristically tentative as she shifts eyes on the older girl. Her stillness in certain situations has ever been disturbing, and now is no exception. "Are you alright?"

She nods shortly, and still says nothing.

Despite the fact that Nanao usually considers silence to be golden, she feels the need to speak again, stoking aimlessly at the fire with her stick. "So… What is it exactly you plan on doing while out here?" Nanao has been the only one to disclose her desired activity beforehand; Rangiku kept her mouth shut because she knew that neither Nanao nor Soi Fong would agree to it, and Soi Fong has been silent… for any number of reasons that Nanao can't identify.

Soi Fong stiffens, and Nanao winces, afraid she's offended her—it's always so ridiculously easy to offend Soi Fong, who has a plethora of hidden triggers and buttons that she refuses to disclose the identity of. But then, Soi Fong just shakes her head. "You'll see," she answers cryptically, and, like Rangiku, lowers herself to the earth to sleep, leaving Nanao alone to stoke the fire.

-0-

"There's an apothecary nearby," Nanao tells the two girls sitting at the table in the restaurant. She is swinging a cloak about her frame in preparation for stepping out into the shimmering blue rain. "There should be some medicine for Matsumoto-san's throat there."

Soi Fong nods, though she is none too thrilled with the prospect of being left alone with Rangiku for any length of time, and Nanao runs into the street of the one-road town. She is soon swallowed up by the silver sheets of rain, engulfed by the mist.

Rangiku sniffles under her green cloak, and huddles closer to the wool folds; Soi Fong is decidedly unsympathetic. "It's your own fault for going swimming with no clothes on. You tested the water; you had to have known how cold it was."

Though sick, Rangiku isn't, Soi Fong discovers, about to take this lying down. "I've already had the "I told you so" speech from Nanao. Don't you start."

This, Soi Fong decides, is a perfect excuse to fall silent, and she returns to staring out the window, resting her head on the glass. She soon turns to scowling.

"What's with you?"

"Why does everyone ask that?"

Rangiku shrugs. "Because you always look like you've got a bad smell under your nose, or something similar. Your face makes people prone to asking just what the Hell is the matter with you."

Soi Fong snorts and shifts, shoulders stiffening uncomfortably. "I hate the rain," she answers with a soft voice belying her body language. "That's all."

Rangiku refuses to leave off. "A lot of people hate the rain, Soi Fong. For the most part, they don't stare at it like they want to get it around the neck and strangle it to death."

At this point, Soi Fong chooses to engage her selective hearing, and allows every word that subsequently passes Rangiku's lips to fly clean over her head. It takes Rangiku a few minutes to notice, but eventually she just sighs in exasperation and lets her friend (Rangiku's term, not Soi Fong's—these people are not her friends. They're her acquaintances. There's a difference, or so Soi Fong primly insists.) brood in peace.

Soi Fong continues staring out at the rain.

She hates how much it reminds her of Yoruichi. Then again, there isn't really anything that doesn't remind her of Yoruichi.

-0-

Soi Fong's lips tighten as she stares down at Nanao, who is on her knees and smiling, completely happy for once. "You know, in theory this sounded alright, but now that I see what it is you wanted to do I can't help but think that's no more ridiculous than what Matsumoto wanted to do."

"And am I to take it that what it is you have planned is any more reasonable than what we've done?"

Soi Fong refuses to answer to that.

Rangiku is curled up in the room of an inn down the road, sick enough that neither one of them are going to try to bother her into rousing herself. The cold has peaked and she's not really in any state to travel, nor will she be for the next two days or so. That gives Nanao plenty of time to do what she wants to do, and drag Soi Fong unwillingly along for the ride.

Nanao's glasses glint serenely as she goes on. "When I was little—"

Soi Fong raises an eyebrow.

"—littler, my grandmother would tell me about this place. Obaasan always told a lot of stories, and this is the one I remember most vividly. She said that the plants would sing to those who stopped and listened. I wanted to see if she was telling the truth or if she was just telling stories."

Scoffs ring through the air like a chorus of hecklers. "Singing plants." The Shinigami's voice drips disdain. "Ise, are you sure your grandmother wasn't senile?"

Nanao glares up at her. "Either stay with me and be quiet, Soi Fong-san, or go back to the inn. It's your choice. Besides, I'm certain Matsumoto-san would appreciate all the company she can get." The suggestion in her voice is obvious.

Soi Fong immediately gets to her knees and clams up.

"That's better."

-0-

It's been half an hour. Nanao seems perfectly happy and content to sit on the—slightly soggy—forest floor, but Soi Fong is, frankly, bored clean out of her skull.

She despises inactivity like this.

And Soi Fong doesn't hear any singing.

In fact, she doesn't hear anything at all, except for the sound of Nanao's breathing, and what she thinks is the sound of bark peeling off of the trees.

Meditation has never been her strong point, but then again, everyone knows that.

-0-

"Well, that was a complete bust."

"Really? I thought it was quite productive."

"What? I didn't hear anything!"

"Then maybe you just weren't listening with the right ears."

-0-

Much to Soi Fong's relief, it's not raining when they go back to the inn at twilight; that would have just soured her mood completely. Instead, it's a clear summer's night, devoid of clouds, mist or any humidity at all. When she stares up and out the window, elbows braced on the sill, she finds herself counting winking stars just to have something to do that doesn't involve having to socialize with Rangiku and Nanao.

Until she remembers that Yoruichi liked to count the stars too, and what little enjoyment she was able to glean out of it evaporates abruptly.

There's a single oil lamp flickering in the dim, gloomy room, and it lights up Rangiku's face as she sleeps. When Soi Fong and Nanao got back she seemed a little better; as far as the latter can tell, the blonde girl is on the road to recovery, and should be alright within a couple of days. She'll be ready to travel sooner than previously thought.

Nanao, unfortunately, is still awake, and when Soi Fong comes away from the window she finds that the younger girl has been staring at her the whole time.

"Do you still miss her?" Nanao asks quietly, knees pulled up to her chest and glasses glinting dimly in the lamplight.

Soi Fong piles down onto the thin mattress of her twin bed and chooses to behave as though she hasn't the slightest idea of what Nanao is talking about. "I don't know what you mean, Ise."

Too perceptive to be fooled by this display and too persistent to be discouraged by it, Nanao keeps on, brow furrowing in an emotion Soi Fong wished she wasn't seeing—concern. "Shihoin-taicho," and Soi Fong grits her teeth at the sheer gall Nanao must have, saying that name in front of her. "You still miss Shihoin-taicho."

A hollow laugh that can only be described as the hollow mockery of such echoes round the room, and while Soi Fong is indulging in this display of scorn, Nanao shoots a sharp glance at Rangiku to make sure she isn't going to wake up at this. She doesn't.

"Miss her?" Soi Fong's voice rings like a hammer on a cracked bell. "It's not so much a matter of missing her as wanting to kill her, Ise, and have her severed head lying in the dust at my feet."

Or something like that. There are a few other fantasies Soi Fong has concerning Yoruichi that are probably better off not mentioned. Most of them involve incense and a great deal of rope.

Nanao's dark eyes narrow, half-shrewd, half-understanding—and that is an emotion Soi Fong finds even more galling than all the other things Nanao has done to offend her this evening—and the expression of her face is like sunlight glimmering off of rushing water. "You can miss someone even if you want to kill them, you know," and she rolls over, and goes back to sleep.

Soi Fong collapses into the contours of her bed and finds her spine desperately trying to mesh itself to the mattress that sags at just the spot where her right shoulder should go. This isn't going to be a comfortable night spent in a comfortable bed.

She finds herself staring up at the rafters of the ceiling, trying not to see shadows flying like bats in there.

Then, from below, Soi Fong hears a frisson of shivering laughter down in the street. Like a shimmer of golden sunlight.

Yoruichi laughed like that. Laughed like she had nothing to lose and everything to gain.

Why do people laugh like that?

Soi Fong sneaks out of bed long enough, making sure not to wake up her roommates, to get a bucket of ice water and, surreptitiously, douse the revelers with it.

They certainly aren't laughing after Soi Fong's done with them.

When she goes back up to the room she shares with the two other girls, Soi Fong suddenly discovers that she can sleep quite easily, and when she wakes up, she is easily the most cheery of anyone in that room.

Nanao and Rangiku both sneak wary, Is-she-about-to-kill-us? looks at her when they think Soi Fong isn't paying attention.

-0-

The morning Rangiku firmly declares herself capable of traveling she still has a slightly pasty face and nostrils as scarlet as the petals of a poppy, but she seems to be back to her normal self with a monstrous appetite so Nanao nods, satisfied, and says that yes, she is indeed ready to start walking.

Over breakfast, Soi Fong suddenly finds that they are both staring expectantly at her.

Like they're waiting for something.

Then Soi Fong remembers, and draws her courage in and binds it to her bones so she can make proper use of it. "You two have packed… nice clothing, haven't you?" The words taste strange and clumsy on her mouth, like Soi Fong's making use of a nodachi instead of a wakizashi in battle.

Long glances are exchanged and Soi Fong feels as though she's standing in front of a judge in a court house.

"Could you two just tell me if you have or not?" she bursts out impatiently, and Nanao holds a finger up to her lips in an infuriatingly placatory gesture.

Nanao nods slowly. "Yes, we have. But why—"

"I'll tell you when we get there. Now let's go."

-0-

Wreathed in nighttime darkness and street lamps to bathe her in a golden glow and finally wearing something that doesn't seem masculine (a gray yukata made of a fine, firm linen), Soi Fong stares up at the building with what could almost be a smile on her face. If she was willing to admit that she's capable of smiling. Which she's not.

However, when she turns round to meet the eyes of her compatriots, Nanao and Rangiku, dressed in blue and purple respectively, are both looking at her as though she has lost her mind.

"Opera?" Rangiku asks incredulously, lip curling slightly. "You?"

Soi Fong decides she can be forgiven for bristling at this obvious disdain on her part. "Forgive me if I have interests that aren't restricted to the dealing out of death."

Nanao, as she did when this subject was first brought up, feels the need to step in. "Matsumoto-san, Soi Fong-san, the show starts in ten minutes. We really should get inside or there won't be any seat left." She doesn't have time for arguments right now.

Soi Fong sighs a little bit as she makes her way inside.

Yoruichi always like opera. But Soi Fong's never seen it before.

May as well see if any of this is as good as Yoruichi-sama always claimed.

After all. We only live once.