It had been a quiet day at :re and they had closed early after no one had come in anymore. Touka was in the back, sorting through receipts and doing the accounting for the day while Renji cleaned in the front. He was looking forward to going to bed. He hadn't liked this day. He never did.

He was just about to finish when he heard the entrance bell chime and looked up, trying to hide his annoyance, but then his eyes met blazing red ones and his annoyance dissipated.

"Uta," he said by way of greeting and gestured at him to sit down at the counter.

"Hello, Renji," Uta answered and shook his head, denying the offered seat. "I won't stay long."

Renji nodded in understanding. Uta never stayed long nowadays.

"You're back early. What have you found out?" he asked, referring to his last visit almost a month ago and went to make coffee. There was still a small amount of ground coffee beans left, but it would suffice for one cup.

"I'm not here to deliver information, Ren," Uta said and walked behind the counter, invading Renji's personal space in the process. He put his hand on Renji's, indicating that he didn't want a drink. "I just came to wish you a happy birthday."

Renji froze up, mug in his hands completely forgotten as he stared at the other ghoul.

"You remembered."

"Don't I always?" he asked with a small chuckle that sounded almost sad. "I know you don't want to celebrate it, so I won't force you to. But I got you a gift anyway." He retrieved a rectangular package from his coat pocket.

"Uta ..."

"It's not much, I know how much you hate being spoiled, but I wanted to get you something." He handed the package over. "Open it."

Renji did as he was told. Still, his fingers were hesitant as he carefully ripped the paper. Once the wrapping was gone, he found a red satin-y box and he lifted the lid to see what was inside. His breath caught.

"Where did you find this?" he asked as his fingers traced the faces in the slightly faded photograph.

"I had a customer a few weeks ago. Apparently her grandfather had been a photographer before he was killed by the CCG and she told me there had been hundreds of family portraits stored in a safe place of families who had died before they could get their pictures from him," Uta explained quietly, his voice soft and soothing.

Renji stared at the picture in the box, a family of five smiling up at him. The mother was holding a giggling toddler, while the father knelt next to the mother's chair, grinning, his arms wrapped tightly around a beaming girl of around seven and a teenaged boy who had his arms crossed but a small smile on his lips. The father and the three children had odd silver-y hair.

"She didn't know the people in the pictures but she told me she saw a barista once who kind of looked like the man in this one." Uta pointed at the father in the photograph and Renji felt his stomach knot.

"That's my father," he said, voice hollow and broken with choked back emotion. His parents must have been killed just a few weeks after this picture had been taken. Renji had never known what they had looked like, he had been too young to remember but he recognised the little girl in the picture as his sister. She looked just like Touka.

"Yes, that's what I assumed. So I asked her to give it to me so I could get it to the rightful owner. Happy birthday, Ren." Uta's hand found Renji's and squeezed it delicately, comfortingly, before he let go again and turned to leave.

"Wait," the taller ghoul demanded and when Uta stopped, he leaned down to gently place a kiss on his lips.

"Thank you," he whispered against the other's lips, opened in surprise, before he pulled back again. Uta smiled at him wistfully and then left.

Renji's gaze was once again fixed on the photograph, a perfect picture of a happy family before fate had ripped them apart so brutally. Still, the joy radiating from the picture reached out to Renji and he could feel his chest warm as he faintly recalled his mother's caring embrace. A rare smile spread on his lips.

He hated his birthday, but just this once, he was glad someone had remembered it.

Happy belated Birthday to the one and only Yomo Renji!