The Captain of the Third Division was late.
It was entirely his own fault, too, Vice-Captain Kira Izuru had been meticulous. The reports all in line, the paperwork all organized, the bills all checked, and all the payments made. They'd cleared the docket completely for the end of the year. The Captain sent Izuru off to the Gotei 13 inter-division party with a case of good, aged whiskey to finish off the year with their friends. He'd begged off from the party as he'd had this date set up for months.
Then the Captain of the Sixth Division came with a New Year's gift for him.
"For you, Abarai-taichou," said Byakuya, as he lightly set down a stack of lacquered boxes tied with red silk string and held together by a length of red silk brocade that doubled as a handle. "May the new year bring you prosperity and good luck."
"Thank you, Kuchiki-taichou," said Renji eyeing the stack. "Happy New Year to you, too." He cocked one tattooed eyebrow, "Is that a…"
"...a jubako with enough osechi-ryori for two people, I believe. Four layers packed on ice, probably some kobumaki, cold grilled meats, kurikinton, fish cakes, herring roe, and namasu, the usual things."
"Usual things," muttered Renji. Then he realized what Byakuya said, "For two people?"
Those calm, dark eyes turned to Renji. "Yes. Two. I heard you were meeting someone for the New Years fireworks. I..." the pause was studied, "...approve. For now..."
Renji blinked. He hadn't blinked at screaming teenagers with far too much reiatsu, Hollows as tall as the sky, Arrancar attacking from all direction, going hand to hand with an Espada without his own powers, or a couple of full on kisses with Death. However, he blinked at what Byakuya said. Then he grinned a grin that caused his former captain to raise a single eyebrow.
"Abarai-taichou, don't make me regret saying that."
"I'll do my best," said Renji.
With that promise, he changed his original plan. He shaved and washed himself thoroughly. He changed into a fresh uniform and brushed out his hair before tying it back. Then he actually cleaned up his room. That was what made him late.
As he took flash steps over the city, he saw that the air had turned gold in the last of the evening light. The gates between Rukongai and Seireitei were raised and crowds of people were moving through in both directions. He went in line and came out in the 78th District.
He saw heads turn as he stalked through the old neighborhood. It was dusty, dirty, and crowded with throngs of people moving towards the river banks. There would be good seats there for the fireworks at midnight.
Around him, he heard, "Can you believe it? He's from here. Didn't just make it into the Academy, or the protection squads, he's a Captain! Pride of the neighborhood..."
He snorted even as he fended off a pickpocket with his free hand. A single, practiced look and the man scurried off, whimpering.
The riverbanks were even more crowded, and he could see more of the city out in the distance, across the river. Then he saw the bluff and the slender, solitary figure that shone in the last of the evening light.
"My star," he whispered. And he flash stepped across the river.
Rukia stood on the bluff with the high wind in her face. It whipped and moaned around her and the three markers. She was starting to think this was all a mistake. This was a stupid, sad place to see in the New Year.
She should be drinking with the Thirteenth, soothing the Third Seats, and learning about her people, all the squads she hadn't served directly with. She shouldn't be sitting here with ghosts, waiting for a man who had already left her once; a man who didn't even have the decency to be on time for a date.
Then he popped into existence, "Oy! Rukia!!" He still shouted like the gruff boy she'd first known, all energy and enthusiasm. She studied him for the first time in a while. The muscles layered on heavy bone in his arms, the wide chest, the black tattoos against pale skin, and that fiery hair beaten down by the head band and hair ties. He had grown into himself, and she suddenly realized she was glad to see him.
"Hey! Renji," she called. Then she smiled, "Or should I say, 'Hey! Abarai-taichou!' I'm glad you got your promotion."
"Congratulations on yours, I'm glad Ukitake-taichou finally filled the hole in his organization. It was almost criminal, leaving those two Third Seats hanging like that," said Renji.
Rukia whacked Renji on the back of the head, "Don't you talk about my taichou like that."
"Eh! Sorry, sorry. Didn't mean it that way." Renji winced and rubbed the back of his head.
"He even gave me something to share," she said, holding up a bundle. Rukia saw Renji's face turn pensive, "What?" she asked.
"I got a gift, too," he held up a neat stack of square trays held by a red brocade cloth. "Kuchiki-taicho..."
Rukia blinked as well. "For us?"
"Yes. Even said... he... uhm..." Renji's voice fell, "... approved."
Rukia sat down. "Nii-sama," she said softly. It was like having a wall taken away, one that she'd leaned against for so long, not knowing if she hated it or was grateful for the intended protection. He approved.
Renji knelt next to her. "It felt weird to have him do that, after... well... after all that."
"I imagine so," she said quietly. "Feels weird for me, too." She shook herself, "I brought the water."
"Great. They'll like that. Maybe we should leave a little of the food, too," said Renji, "There's plenty."
"Yes. Let's."
In the last dregs of sunlight, they sprinkled the water over the graves, to chase away any possible thirst. They left a bite each of the foods that brought fortune and good luck. They also left three sticks of incense, stuck into the ground, and the wind whipped away the smoke in fragrant streamers.
It felt good to take care of the dead, to feed them before the new year. The actions swept the slates clean, and Rukia felt lighter, as they walked back to the edge of the bluff to see all the people gathering by the river.
"There," said Rukia as she spotted a clear spot, "by the tree, about 200 yards downstream of the bridge. It's clear of the the worst of the crowd."
"Looks good," said Renji. He cocked his head to look down at her; and then lightly took her hand, engulfing it with his big one as calloused as her own. She turned her hand to clasp his as well.
"Let's go."
They went.
It was one wild party down by the riverbank. As the dark of night closed in, torches were lit every few feet to light booths, bands, and impromptu bars. People were eating, drinking, dancing, and celebrating everywhere.
One good thing about having a Captain's reiatsu was that it pretty much cleared the area around the tree. They hadn't had to do anything, just sit. But then one kid that accidentally came too near them passed out. Renji sighed quietly, but pulled a handful of the maki rolls from the boxes and handed them to the kid's mother, who took them gratefully.
He could see her terror, though, at the thought of having to feed someone in this place so devoid of food and safety. He awkwardly patted her shoulder, "He should be okay soon, with this, and probably won't be hungry as long as he stays away from those with high reiatsu." She nodded and bowed herself and her child away.
He went back to where Rukia stood under the tree. He slumped down to sit with his back to the trunk of the tree. The rough bark felt good against his back. He felt cool fingertips in his hair, "Hey, Renji," she said softly, "We can't feed them all as much as they'll need."
"I know. Still fuckin' aches, though," he sighed and leaned a little into her touch.
She scritched his scalp gently and then sat next to him, leaning a bit against him and the tree. "Yeah... I know."
Small bodies slipped from the shadows and hungry eyes eyed the boxes. Renji and Rukia looked at each other and then nodded. They both started handing out the rest of the food in the stack of boxes.
It went a surprisingly long way.
The last child looked at the last fish in the boxes and she looked up at the two of them. "That's yer last bit... aincha hungry yerselves?" she asked.
"No," said Rukia with that new moon smile Renji had always loved. "You take it, we can always get more when we go back."
The smile the child gave them both was better than food.
Rukia repacked the boxes with neat fingers. She retied the cord and neatly refolded the cloth about it. "I'll bring this back to the Kuchiki household tomorrow." Renji noted the 'tomorrow' and hoped.
They both settled by the base of the tree again, leaning just a bit against each other. Her slight weight was warm, and Renji soaked it up as they talked. They shared news about people they'd known, places they were at, and assignments they'd done without the other along. They just sat and talked and caught up on each others' lives, and it felt very good to do.
"It's odd, though, giving orders to Kira... we've been friends for so long," he said thoughtfully. "And... it's almost scary how well he follows orders."
Rukia sighed, "Well... he did serve under Ichimaru..."
Renji shuddered a little, "Yeah... the whole division is riddled with it. That fear for him, that got transfered to me. I had no idea how to deal with it, until I went to Zaraki-taichou."
"Zaraki-taichou?" asked Rukia, "That killing machine?"
Renji shrugged, "I don't know how to say it... but we were never afraid of Zaraki-taichou. We respected his power and he'd respect what you were, too. You always knew where you stood with him. He'd challenge you to always be better, stronger. He'd say if he was going to kill you and if he was going to defend you. You knew that if he defended you it would be to the death. The Eleventh was... is exactly the opposite of what I found in the Third." Renji sighed, "But we've cleared a lot of shit up, and it's getting better."
That's when the fireworks started. A single screaming flare and then the lights flared into flowers. Then stars and carnations, chrysanthemums of fire all bloomed on the night sky and then boomed as the sound of the shell's explosion reached them. The night sky filled with color and light and sound. Flying stars all around them, nearly close enough to catch.
Renji snuck a look at Rukia. She was smiling that same joyful smile he'd seen, so long ago, as she cupped a floating chrysanthemum in her hands. He sighed.
She started at the sigh, and patted the ground around her. She found the holding cloth she'd brought with her and set it in her lap. In the intermittent light of the fireworks, she opened the cloth and out rolled four objects.
A flash-boom of a great dandelion of a firework, and Rukia cried out happily, "Satsumas! Ukitake-taicho found satsumas! Here... you can have two and I can have two."
Renji took his and peeled the smooth thin skin from the firm flesh below. The citrus fragrance of the fruit made his mouth water, but the loud explosions drew his gaze up to the comets and stars of the lights above. He let his fingers finish the job as he watched the brilliance above falling, burning out. Finally, he broke apart the sections and set two that clung together between his teeth. The skin yielded to his teeth and then burst into sweet juice that soothed the dryness of his tongue and throat. He chewed happily and swallowed, and ate the rest in big bites.
Then, when he glanced over at Rukia, he saw that she'd made a flower with the peel of her satsuma. She'd peeled it carefully apart, so that the strips could have been reaching, curled petals. Her precision always fascinated Renji. It was reflected in her natural elegance when she wasn't aware others were watching her.
She was eating her satsuma a single section at a time. Each piece going neatly between her white teeth, and she thoroughly chewed and swallowed it before going on to the next. At each first bite into a section, her wide eyes would close in bliss.
Then those eyes opened to meet his. "You're looking at me funny. What's up?"
Renji thought he could fall forever into the pools of those dark eyes. He shrugged, "Nothing. Just watching you eat. It's fun watching you enjoy things, you know?"
Those wide eyes widened just a little bit more, "Uhm... no. I didn't." That sly smile slipped out, like a sliver of new moon coming out from behind the clouds.
"What?" asked Renji warily.
"Just thinking of what else you might enjoy watching me enjoy." She laughed at the look on his face. He was glad of the relative dark as he felt his face burn with a blush. He closed his eyes against the sudden rush of desire that closed on his heart.
Slender, cool fingers slid against his burning cheek. "You're so cute when you blush." He opened his eyes and looked right into Rukia's. Her hand brought his head down to her. His breath caught as she leaned forward. Her lips were so soft. They pressed a light kiss, still tangy and perfumed with oranges, on his. The lightest liquid touch of her tongue brushed against his upper lip and Renji let out a soft groan.
"Rukia... don't..." His voice felt thick and reluctant.
"Don't what? Tease you? Love you? Or what? You'll go away again? Leave me to my better station?" Her voice was bitter, sharp suddenly.
Renji flinched at the sharpness, "No... it's not like that."
"What is it like then? Hm?" Those lovely eyes had narrowed, now. But she was listening, not just cutting into him.
He looked at her eyes flashing with anger. Battles tumbled through his head, swords and screaming, resolve and blood, pain and despair, and that orange-haired kid giving him a shot at redemption he never thought he could have. Suddenly the stars didn't feel so out of reach.
With a quiet sense of wonder, he reached down and slid his hand against her cool, smooth cheek and down a bit to cradle her jaw. Her eyes closed and she leaned into his touch.
That gave him enough courage to say it. "I love you, Rukia, more... more than my own life, more than my honor, more than I could say before. For... for the longest time, I didn't think I could deserve you, could keep you the way you should be kept. And then... then... you got strong enough to not need keeping." Her eyes opened at that, startled. "But..." he chuckled quietly under his breath, "I've gotta huge room now, as captain, and I cleaned it for us, for the new year. If you want to... we could... go there."
She just looked at him. Renji felt his guts start to turn cold. But then she turned her face into the palm of his hand and laid a kiss there like a promise. "I'd like that. After the fireworks... and my other satsuma, I'd like that."
Then she curled up, quite decisively, in his lap. He half wondered if it was in apology, but it didn't matter, he could hold her. They shared their warmth and they shared their last satsumas with each other. Together they watched the transient beauty of the fireworks until the last column of light and fire. As the last crackles died away, they picked up their things, and flash stepped back to the Third Division sleeping quarters.
Rukia had been to Renji's offices, but she'd never really had the time or the invitation to go into his private quarters, probably since they'd been together in the Academy. Too busy? Truth be told, she realized it was probably from trying to avoid anything but official work with him. She'd been too hurt so long ago to want to see him personally. But now, here she was. There had been a long time in which for her to heal.
She was curious when she stepped in, and she stood quietly in the center of the room as he lit lamps. She looked around. The near wall held two paintings, stark black and white, simple slashing strokes. One resolved under her eyes into bamboo under moonlight. The leaves blown hard to the left by the wind, sectioned stems bent, the shading in absence for the brightness of a full moon. The other was a single chrysanthemum on its stem, petals in profusion reaching up and out from its heart, leaves ragged below. Winter and autumn paintings, strength in adverse conditions, bending endurance.
"Did you paint those, Renji?" asked Rukia.
"Those?" Renji spared a quick glance, "Oh... no... Kyouraku-taicho gave them to me, said something about me inspiring him. But I like them a lot... especially the flower, so I hung them up."
"The flower?" asked Rukia, remembering a river of gold running under the setting sun.
"Yeah... it... it reminded me of you," he said quietly, as he concentrated on lighting the last of the lights. The fire lit his face, and for a moment, Rukia saw the face of a boy lit by a barrel fire on a cold night in the districts.
On the far wall was a framed piece of poetry. The slashing, flowing ideographs were hard to read, but she started reading softly, "I shall light a fire upon the fang..."
Renji moved in close behind her, tentatively putting an arm around her. She hugged his solid, hard arm close, as she continued, "... that falls short, so that I need not see that star, so that it shall not tear this throat of mine." (1)
She felt him shiver at the last of the words. "What is it, Renji?" She twined her slender fingers amid his.
"Poetry. Just... old poetry," he dropped a kiss on her hair, but he sounded so sad she was tempted to just hit him.
When Renji had declared his love to her, she'd seen something in him that she hadn't ever seen focused on her. Something very far from the boisterous Renji with the shuttered eyes that had congratulated her on joining the Kuchiki's, something even further from the apologetic Renji begging her for forgiveness, and something different from the Renji who had always stood back, professional and distant. What she thought she'd seen was a resolve like the resolve he nearly always found on the battlefield, only, this time, she'd hoped, prayed, that it was finally his resolve to have her.
She turned in his arms, those strong, warm, solid arms and she hugged him, hard. She heard the hitch in his breathing when she first did it and then he wrapped her close as well.
"Renji," she said softly, pulling back enough to look up at him. "Renji, if I said I loved you, would you believe me?"
His eyes went wide, and one hand left her to rub the back of his neck, "Uhm... yeah... sure. Why wouldn't I?"
She rolled her eyes. "Because for so long you kept thinking you weren't good enough for me. Why do you think you're so good now?"
Renji's chest puffed up and he sneered, "I've always been good."
Now she hit him. Hard. In the jaw. So hard he slid at least two steps back, and she couldn't quite read his eyes as he stood there, rubbing his jaw.
"Idiot!!" she cried, the anguish rising in her chest. "Don't you dare try bluffing me with that stupid attitude, that... that..." she was so angry she was stuttering, "... that mask you put on when you're fucking hurt and don't want to show it." She wrapped her arms around herself as she shook with all those feelings of abandonment again. The tears started coming, and she wiped them away angrily.
She felt him come near again, and she fought not to lean towards him, towards his strength and warmth.
"Please, Renji," she said softly as the tears kept coming, shaking her breath, "I want you to take me. To have me for your own. I don't want to belong anywhere else... but in your arms, in your life again. But..." she gulped for breath, "I need to know you're not going to just give up on me if you think someone, something else is somehow better for me than you are."
Rukia heard Renji sigh, a deep, deep sigh, and then he asked quietly, "How can I make it so that you'll know?"
"Take me. Stop treating me like I was made of glass or unreachable. I... I'm not some fucking unreachable star..."
"... you're a fucking woman with the mouth of a street boy, and a fist like the kick of a mule." said Renji with a chuckle. She looked up at him and saw the desire, that glow of resolve again, that understanding she'd longed for for so long, and she hated it but she started crying again as he wrapped her close in his strong arms. She felt a little lightheaded as he swept her off her feet and took her to his futon.
He kissed the tears from her face, and gave her a soft kiss on the lips before saying, "Here... I need to take care of our zanpakutou, first..." She nodded, understanding the need.
He pulled Zabimaru, in his sheath, out of his obi and set him on his stand. When he turned back, Rukia had Sode no Shirayuki in her sheath on her palms. He bowed to the blade, and used both hands to gently take her and set her on an extra set of stands that he'd found while cleaning things up earlier.
They shed their clothing and burrowed under Renji's quilts. Rukia remembered when they used to sleep together like puppies as children. Together, the breathing, the warmth, the simple touches had always felt so safe, and lulled her to sleep. So different from the vast empty, quiet, coldness of Kuchiki Manor.
They touched, they kissed. Gradually, their bodies came together, and Rukia found herself crying gently again as he was so gentle for all his strength. He made her feel so loved and whole. She did her best to make him feel the same. Skin sliding on skin, lips exploring, touching, hands stroking and pulling close. They both groaned with the sensation with being this close, this connected.
Soon both of them were sweat-covered, skin slick and sliding against skin. Renji leaned forward and put his elbows down on the futon and put his hands in Rukia's hair and kissed her as they rocked together. Each thrust, each acceptance had them sighing together, twining tighter around each other, with each other. Their reiatsus were intertwined now, burning as they burned. Closer and closer, higher and hotter, faster and harder, and when their world burst into light and stars, he felt her come with him, finally with him as he'd always wished she could be.
Dawn touched the paper walls when they were collapsed, together, in the aftermath. Dawn brought to truth the wishes of the New Year. So softly, so closely Renji whispered, "My star... my love... my Rukia."
And she twined herself with him and whispered back, "Always."
Author's Note
(1) This is the poem that Renji says at the end of #32 "The Star and the Stray Dog" in the Anime. It is also at the front of volume 11 of the manga (which has the same story in it) with a picture of Renji. I figured he wrote it.