Characters: Kira, Gin, Rangiku
Summary: The ties that bind.
Pairings: GinRan, through a Kira lens; onesided KiraRan
Warnings/Spoilers: Spoilers for Soul Society arc
Timeline: Pre-manga to Soul Society arc
Author's Note: I didn't write this as GinKira; it's more that Kira's fixated on him, more than a little scared of him and extremely loyal to him, but not in love with him.
Disclaimer: I don't own Bleach.
Watching them in his early days in the division is more than a little confusing. Kira isn't a trained observer and has never given much thought to watching people, but something about Gin is fascinating to him so he watches his captain.
And, by necessity of watching Gin, Kira watches Rangiku with Gin, too, since whenever he sees her, she's with Gin, without fail, no exception. In his early days as just a junior officer Kira has little free time on his hands so he rarely leaves the Third Division grounds. Aizen-taicho's instructions and Unohana-taicho's gentle words still ring in his mind, so he attends to his work and doesn't goof off with his compatriots.
Watching them is like setting down to do a five-hundred piece jigsaw puzzle with more than three dozen of the pieces missing. No matter how hard he tries, the picture will still be incomplete when he has no pieces left to pick up in his long fingers. Such is the case with Gin and Rangiku.
First, it's clear at least that they're relationship is not that of a captain and a lieutenant of a different division. Rangiku, Kira is unsurprised to learn (she's not the sort to sit behind a desk all day—far more suited to being out in the sun than stuck in a stuffy office), is highly un-fond of her paperwork and puts it off to the very last minute any time she can, and when she's not slowly but steadily drinking herself into a coma with Kyouraku-taicho, she's seeking out Gin on the grounds of the Third division.
They are far too friendly to have just the awkwardly formal relationship or a superior and a subordinate not under their control. They are always talking, chattering, whispering in conspiracy, Rangiku giggling and holding a hand over her mouth, Gin's smile growing more benignly playful.
So they're friendly.
As Kira watches, the lines become a little more indistinct.
Rangiku and his captain walk close together, almost touching, almost brushing sleeves, but not quite. There's a familiarity there that speaks of comfort with the idea of the other's body, but it's so indistinct that Kira can't be sure.
He watches, is confused, and suddenly becomes much more curious than he has ever been about anything in his life.
.
It's late and Kira is heading back to his quarters, having stayed too long at mess hall. It's night, and the narrow, open-to-the-air corridors lined with trees are almost completely dark except for the bright silver shadows dancing eerily with tree leaf outlines on brick walls. He uses these patterns to trace his way back home.
Then, he realizes he's not alone. Further down an alley to his left are two people shrouded in darkness, a man and a woman; the woman's long hair is bleached to shining silver in the pockets of moonlight.
Kira watches them in their embrace, not really interested, and he would leave, except he hears the woman speak…
…And recognizes her voice.
He turns right on his heel and walks away quickly, afraid of what might happen to him if he's caught. He finally knows the mystery of why Gin and Rangiku seem so eerily close.
.
The day Gin takes an interest in Kira is the day Kira learns to lock his door at night when he's going to sleep.
Gin is very fascinating from a distance and to Kira still has a strange allure to him close up but he's also intimidating and frightening in his serpentine way, mesmerizing but reeking of danger and blood and dark places.
The first mission they run together, Gin takes out two Hollows with one swipe from Shinsou, and licks the blood off of his blade later with relish.
Afterwards, when the blade is clean and sheathed and Kira's done pushing down bile to keep from getting sick, Gin looks up from the boulder he's gracefully perched on and tells Kira he'll have to pay more attention to him in future, using the sort of tone that's inclined to make anyone's skin crawl, and Kira isn't exactly the most resolute of Shinigami. Far from it.
He still absorbs Kira, but he scares him now too, just a little. A moth flies to flame even though it knows the flame will kill it.
Kira makes sure there's a lock on his door when he gets back. When he discovers that there is not, he pushes a chair against the door, locks the window, and summons a locksmith in the morning at the earliest time possible.
.
Kira's first real interaction with Rangiku is considerably more pleasurable.
He's just been promoted to lieutenant and Rangiku comes across him swamped in more paperwork than ever, and laughs.
She talks about the burdens of leadership, and asks him if he's not finding it to be quite so enjoyable as he thought it would. Kira, somewhat shyly at the teasing note in her full, warm voice, answers that he finds the benefits to outweigh the costs.
Rangiku laughs and leaves, no doubt going to find Gin.
Kira watches her leave, eyes fixated on her and the way the sunlight catches her hair. Like liquid gold, instead of having a sickle moon trapped in her hair the way she did that night in the past.
.
"Here."
When Gin finally catches Kira staring a little too long at Rangiku, he throws something round and red at him for Kira to catch, using the distraction to give time for him and Rangiku to walk away.
Kira is frowning, just a little resentful against his captain, and stares down at what Gin threw to him.
It's a persimmon.
Kira sighs, and flings the fruit down hard against the cobblestone walkway, satisfied as the mushy fruit splatters and the juices trickles down the cobblestones with the rainwater that still puddles and drenches the hem of his hakama. The alleyway is narrow and the sky is light gray from a recent gentle spring shower; he can hear water going through the gutters at the top and dripping off of the leaves of a slim tree that's grown up through cracks in the stone.
He hates persimmons. So much.
.
"Kira." Rangiku frowns, and Kira tries—and fails—not to blush. "What have you done to your hair?"
When someone notices that he's combed his hair differently than before, Kira had hoped that this wouldn't be the effect.
"Y-yes, Matsumoto-san." He averts his gaze from her eyes and Gin frowns at him.
Rangiku smirks. "I like it."
"I don't," Gin comments pointedly, normal smile devoid from his face, and Rangiku elbows him in the ribs.
.
Starting to watch them, really watch them both again after he's accepted that his own situation is hopeless, a lot of things still don't make sense to Kira, but he's never been a great judge of character, nor is he a terribly socially astute person, so the more subtle nuances of human interaction eludes him.
They don't behave the way he expects typical lovers to, though to be honest Kira doesn't have too much experience with that either, so he supposes that he might not be the best judge.
He can't even put his finger on how they're different. Kira is paranoid and could just be trying to see cracks where there are none out of his habitual paranoia. It certainly wouldn't be the first time; his neurosis all through the Academy had Renji and Hinamori restraining him from chewing his fingernails down to the nubs.
And of course, his newfound estrangement from Gin could and probably does have something to do with it; attraction to the same woman has put a strain on their relationship like nothing else ever could. Gin's words have a sharp edge, sharper and keener and more cutting than they ever were now. Kira is still devoted, fixated-fascinated and a little apprehensive, but it simply is not the same.
Gin and Rangiku remain an enigma. So strange, so dysfunctional, and yet so happy.
Kira watches from the sideline, the invisible wall separating him from them, shut out, closed out and having no right to what's on the other side, and tries to wrap his mind around all of it.
.
"Poor little Izuru."
Kira's on the verge of losing his mind when he hears those words, and something in Gin's voice makes Kira wish he had lost his mind. It would be so much easier to deal with all of this now if he had. Insanity's never seemed so attractive as when Ichimaru Gin is staring at him from across a row of vertical bars.
Gin is hard to see in the shadows, but Kira can see, just as well. See the moonlight flashing off of his hair and glinting off of his exposed teeth.
His smile is all daggers, as friendly as a crocodile to a little fish. Gin's voice is frigidly mocking, and Kira knows why.
.
Haineko attacks and Kira screams. The sensation of little knives digging in everywhere, into his skin, under his eyelids, in his ears, under his toenails and fingernails and finally flooding into his open mouth is utterly unbearable.
Dying never felt so good as when Rangiku decides to put him through an ash storm of Hell a few centuries early.
Rangiku's eyes are cold and hard as panes of glass or icicles on the gutters. Her slight smile is coldly triumphant, the satisfaction in her face almost unholy.
She's never looked more like Gin when she wears that serpentine expression, and Kira knows she's felt it too, the way if someone stands next to Gin for too long eventually his fumes wear off on them.
Unconsciousness and the oblivion it brings with it is the best sleep neurotic, insomniac Kira has ever known, before he wakes up to the burning and reeling world that has moved on while he slept.
.
"We don't need Gin." Rangiku's slightly slurred words—Kira knows she can hold her liquor like nobody's business and shudders to think of how much sake she has to have imbibed to get even slightly tipsy—as she holds her cup forwards in the air are firm and belligerent. She sounds like she's trying to convince herself as much as she is him.
When Rangiku finally turns her piercing eyes away, Kira shoots a look at her, long and scrutinizing and measuring.
He finally understands.
And she's wrong.
Rangiku still needs Gin.
They both do. They always will.