This is extremely un-edited; but I will go back and look it over later. So for now, excuse the things I spew when I'm tired and sad.
Rangiku Matsumoto has cried numerous times in her life. Most of the time she's drunk when the tears come- it used to be that she would cry from laughing so hard, but as of late it seems that after a while the sake only loosens her expression until she's staring at the wall and silently sobbing.
That doesn't matter. Rangiku is a full-grown woman, she reminds herself. She puts her hands under her breasts and lifts them in the mirror, winks at her reflection, and turns to admire her ass. A full-grown woman indeed- she's allowed to cry every now and then.
Rangiku has cried many times in her life.
But there are few instances that she recalls when she didn't just cry; she wept. The first of these are from her childhood, and there are three. The first memory of her crying is her first memory at all- it's hazy and full of blood, but she can remember hands on her and her own tears just before she opened her eyes to find Gin. Back then she had cried for all she wouldn't have- she had thought she would die.
The second instant was when she was with Gin, in the first year they were together. In the winter he fell very, very sick. And there came a night where she knew he was going to die; there was no way around it. She cried as she held his head in her lap, really, really cried. But then the next morning he was still alive, and shortly after that he had recovered.
The third time in her childhood would mirror a time soon in her future- one of the two times she would cry as an adult. She cried then days after Gin left her for good- because it really hit her then. He was gone; he wasn't coming back, and worst of all he had left her because she was useless. She didn't think that maybe he'd never loved her. Far from it. That would come later.
The first time she cried as an adult was when Gin left with Aizen. It, too, took a few days until it happened- the shock wore away after a time and the reality finally set in one of the few times that week she had been sober, simply because Toshiro had found her secret work stash, so she had nothing to work with at the time. She cried then because she was sure that he had never loved her to begin with, and she cried because she knew that even if he did, they would never be together. Their future had been shattered by Gin, and there was absolutely nothing that could fix it.
The last time she had cried had been recent.
Gin's death wasn't easy to get over.
She tries not to think about him. She erases his name from her mind and carefully fills the hole with new kido spells and strawberry flavored sake from a new bar. She gets rid of what clothes he might have left behind in her room and stashes his captain's haori so far back in the closet she knows she'll never see it again.
She doesn't talk to Kira very often- doesn't go to squad three at all- and slowly she forces herself to change her favorite food from dried persimmons to peaches. She goes so far as to toss out lacy garments that had once been Gin's favorites. She completely removes him from her life; amputated- a missing limb replaced with a prosthetic that she forced herself to love much better than the real thing.
"Are you alright?" Yumichika off-handedly asks on a mission.
"Why wouldn't I be?" She dusts something off her wrist, smiling. "I'm perfect."
"Hmm. You wear an awfully sad face for someone who's 'perfect' you know."
"Do I?" She stops smiling, looks at him with a gaze that's made up of ice.
He stares. She can see him work out that he doesn't know her well enough to pry- that he's stepping into waters much deeper than they had first appeared. Slowly, he back up, looks away with an expression that's not very… him. It's bitter, and definitely not beautiful. "No, my mistake." He easily says. "You look just fine today, Matsumoto-san."
And of course she is. Toshiro is ridiculous to look at her with such deep pity in his eyes; he's the one who has a lover in the hospital- out of her mind, they say. He's even more out of his mind than his girl if he seriously thinks he knows what he's talking about when he says, "Even though I hated him, I wouldn't have wished for this… Rangiku, will you be okay?"
"Of course I will." He doesn't know anything. "I'm perfectly fine."
They're all ridiculous. Shuuhei is a moron to move his lustful gaze on her breasts to a look filled with silent pity as he stares at her eyes. "I'm here for you," he says, and she replies with, "sorry, Shuuhei, you know I'm into taller men." Because damn him, that's what he should be implying.
And Kyoraku is blind if he thinks she's changing their drinking games in for his offer "to talk about it." Can't he see that's she's just fine? There's nothing bothering her, damn it!
And Kira… he is a fool…
"I love him, too, you know. Even if I didn't love him like you did, I know how you feel."
… a damned fool.
She has forgotten all about Ichimaru Gin. She does not flinch at the trees he planted thirteen springtimes ago, and she doesn't think about him when she is all alone. There is not a single thing left of Gin within her mind.
...
And yet.
She avoids sleep. Her mind recalls things she knows she does not remember. So she stays in bed and stares at the moon or clouds, thinks about the day over and over again in her head, wonders what it would be like if maybe- just maybe- some day she actually let Shuuhei take her out on a date, even if the thought of kissing him leaves a bad taste in her mouth. She wonders about how she'll do her hair tomorrow- same as always, she guesses, and she thinks about what the weather will be like. Sunny. It's always sunny in the land of the dead, isn't it? She thinks, she thinks, she thinks.
She thinks of everything but that which she's made herself forget.
But then the exhaustion finally takes over, and her heavy eyelids become too weighted to keep open. And so despite her best efforts, Rangiku will fall asleep, and when she is asleep, she will dream.
In her dreams it's bright out, and she's in the world of the living. She walks through a park outside of her gigai, summer breeze stirring through her hair. Gin waits for her, casual; fox grin gentle as he holds out his hand.
He whispers her name and opens his eyes, takes her hand and holds it tight. And when he kisses her knuckles she sighs his name, but the moment it's been spilled from her lips, she has to wake.
She sits up in bed sweat-soaked and panting in the heat of summer-time dreams. And slowly her heartbeat steadies out into it's normal rhyme. As she does it again, she stands and looks for her newest bottle of sake, takes off the cap and then drinks to forget.
Rangiku has cried many, many times in her life.
But she has never cried so hard as she does once he leaves.