I love you, Gin.

Why are those four words possibly the hardest ones that I have ever tried to say? I just can't get more than Gin, I… to come out before I lose my nerve. Perhaps it's because you're in the midst of a lengthy trial, even after betraying Aizen in our favor. Maybe it was because I feared that you would never feel the same about me. It could have also been fear that you would feel the same, but that you would then be sentenced to death by Yamamoto-soitaichou. It could have been any number of things, but whatever it was, Gin, it was doing the impossible, performing a miracle; it was keeping me, Matsumoto Rangiku, at a complete and utter loss for words.

I go to visit you daily in the cell you've been assigned. And even if you can't tell, I've already forgiven you; I tell myself that you always planned to betray Aizen. I let myself believe that you had planned it the entire time. Whether it's true or not…well, I'd be damned if I knew, but I choose to believe that you're really good inside. It would hurt too much if you weren't, because it would just prove that I didn't mean much to you in the first place. So today will shape up to be just another day. I sit just outside of your cell, on the rickety wooden chair they provide, and once more I cannot say what I desperately want to tell you. When I don't think you're looking, I will open my mouth to say it, and I think, maybe I can get it out if I say it fast enough! but soon I lose my nerve and close my mouth without even having uttered a sound.

But you know me so well.

"Something's bothering ya, Ran-chan," you observe, and how you know what I'm thinking, or even doing, when you hardly ever open your eyes is a mystery to me, as it has always been.

"I'm just…" I paused, diverting my gaze. "I'm trying to think things through, you know? And you haven't been yourself lately either, Gin."

"I've been thinking too, Ran-chan," you say to me, and you reach out with your pale hand and lay it over on my own, which I just noticed was clenched into a white-knuckled fist atop my knee. "I'm so thankful that ya take me as I am."

I laughed dryly, but could not resist retorting, "I wouldn't take you any other way."

You frown a little at me, then ask, "What do ya mean?"

"I thought you were the smart one," I teased you, and then said, "and you know, you take me as I am, too. I guess that's why I love you so much."

The words I'd had so much trouble saying just slipped, as though they were water on a greasy surface.

"Oh," you said intelligently, and I looked at you apprehensively. The lines on your face softened, and you opened your mouth and said words I never thought I'd hear, "I love ya, too, Rangiku."

You only use my full first name when you're serious.

So I put my other hand on top of yours, and smiled softly at you, and for the rest of my visit that day, neither of us said a word.

Gin, I will never forget that day. Even if you aren't forgiven and are executed, I will never forget the softness on your features that you only showed to me.

I love you, Gin.