Characters: Rangiku, Hitsugaya, Hinamori, Gin (in spirit)
Summary
: Like a video being overwritten.
Pairings
: HitsuHina, GinRan
Warnings/Spoilers
: Spoilers for Deicide arc
Timeline
: post-Deicide arc
Author's Note
: I know the timeline just says "post-Deicide arc", but please assume that it's enough past said arc for Hinamori to have gotten over all the issues that I portray her as having in my works, or at least to have healed enough to sublimate them and not let them show anymore.
Disclaimer
: I don't own Bleach.


The sight that at the first greets her eyes doesn't startle as much as it should. Then again, it doesn't really "startle" anyone; people have been waiting literally for decades for Hitsugaya-taicho and Hinamori-fukutaicho to show some signs of starting to get together.

Rangiku had predicted it from the start.

It doesn't startle. There's little that surprises Rangiku anymore.

But it does send a shiver of pain, all-encompassing, the old wound opening up and becoming raw once more, tracing down her spine like the hand of a lover long dead.

Watching Hitsugaya and Hinamori interact is like taking the hourglass of time and tilting it so the sands shift back and time starts to replay over itself, like someone overwriting a video.

Boy meets girl.

Boy is immediately protective of girl and jealous of her friendship.

As time goes on, boy and girl fall in love, and boy is really awkward about how he expresses that. Girl is smart, and lets him make the first move.

They both look so happy. Hitsugaya is smiling on a regular basis for the first time since Rangiku met him, and Hinamori seems so much happier than she used to. Her brown eyes shine with a light that is no longer feverish but only vivacious and glad.

Rangiku looks on. She was like that once. When she loved someone, like that.

She tries, so hard, to be happy for them.

And she prays it will go better for them than it did for her.