Summary: Ikkaku and Nemu watch the sunset, accompanied by birds and alcohol.
Sunset Casualties
The afternoon filled with laughter and shouting had long faded away, allowing evening to creep in heavily accompanied by a horizon of red and orange splashes, vivid in their colouring of the once bright blue sky. Birds flocked towards the setting sun, its guiding light assuring them back to their nests to rest up for the night, await the coming of a new day.
Ikkaku stretched his arms above his head and yawned loudly, careless in manner as to the young woman beside him.
It wasn't often that the Eleventh Division welcomed those from other divisions, especially recruits from the Fourth and Twelfth, but then there Nemu sat, beside the Third Seat, with a full bottle of sake in front of her. Ikkaku had told her to take a swig or two to calm the nerves - she always looked so uptight all the time - but she never touched it. Then again, since she wasn't like everyone else, body being programmed by the mad scientist himself and all, Ikkaku had doubts he could get her drunk.
Not that he intended to, of course, but the woman really needed to loosen up a bit.
"Nice day, eh?" he said, trying to start a conversation, but his attempt fell flat on its face when all she did was give a slight nod. Figures. She was never really one for conversation. Captain Zaraki didn't really mind her, in truth, probably because of her silence. Sure, it sort of unnerved the large man - and that was saying something because not a lot of things could set the captain on edge - but at least she wasn't as noisy as fuck like her father.
Kurotsuchi. The name always made Ikkaku's blood boil. He had never forgotten the day he found Nemu, broken and bleeding, sitting outside the Twelfth's barracks.
"Drink up." Ikkaku, for the fourth (or was it fifth?) time, gestured at her untouched bottle. Another nod, another emotionless stare towards the horizon. He shrugged to himself and downed half a bottle in one go. That was, what, his third? And he wasn't even feeling tipsy at all. He thanked those wild drinking games he frequently had with his division members late at night, when the captain was confined in his quarters, having to read some bedtime story so that the brat would stop using his stomach as a trampoline and go to sleep.
"Pretty, eh?" he said absently, aware that he was slowly slipping off into slumber, lulled by the distant bird cries. He thought for a moment, an opened eye trained on Nemu's hands that were folded over one another in her lap, and cautiously, hesitantly, he reached out. A flock of three or four birds flew by, seemingly crying encouragement.
Ikkaku did manage to touch her hand. It was only for a second, but the moment stayed with him, never to be forgotten.
Having a piece of bird shit in his face wasn't part of the plan though.