Author's Note: I was bored tonight and had writer's block on my other stuff. So I asked a friend to give me a prompt from any fandom I'm relatively familiar with. And she said Bleach, Orihime/Renji. And this popped into my head. So here it is. It takes place a few years after the final battle. Orihime's 19 or 20 or something.
Wasted
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The slice of watermelon covered with chocolate and chutney was ringing, and that wasn't right. Orihime furrowed her brow as the ringing continued every few seconds. With each ring, the slice of watermelon grew fainter and fainter, until finally there was nothing but blackness. And that's when Orihime woke up and realized that her phone was ringing.
"Nnnn, hello?" she asked, once her hand had found the phone and brought it to her ear. A gruff, male voice answered back in a slur of incomprehensible words. Orihime sat up in bed, rubbing the sleep from her eyes. "I'm sorry?" she asked. "Could you repeat that?"
"I said," the voice replied, a little more emphatically. "Did you know that gods of death love apples?"
Orihime was confused once again. She brought the phone away from her ear in order to look at the caller ID; an unknown number stood out vividly against the lighted screen.
"Who is this?" she asked. She twisted around to glance at her clock: it was two in the morning.
"Renji," came the unexpected reply.
"Abarai san?"
"You can call me Renji after all we've been through," Renji insisted. "Besides, we're in the same boat now, you and I. We're both dumped. Rejected. They don't want us like that!"
"Abarai san, are you drunk?"
"Only a little bit."
Orihime raised a skeptical eyebrow. He sounded like he was a lot more than just a little bit drunk. The very fact that he called her out of everyone suggested that he was as wasted as can be.
"Abarai san, what's…"
"Renji," he interrupted. "I told you to call me Renji. We have a bond now. A bond of spurned lovers."
"Okaaay," Orihime hedged, unsure of what to do with a drunk Renji on the line. "Where are you?"
"At the bar a few blocks down from your apartment. I…could you come pick me up? The buses stopped running. I could walk it but…I can't really walk all that good right now…and…I think I was sick on a cat…"
"Abarai san?"
"Shit, I hope it wasn't Yuroichi!"
"Abarai san."
"Nah, if it was her, she'd have killed me by now."
"Renji!"
"What?"
"I…just stay where you are. I'm on my way."
"'Kay."
There was a click, signaling that Renji had hung up, and after a moment of staring at her phone in disbelief, Orihime replaced it on the receiver and got out of bed. It didn't cross her mind to change clothes; she was too concerned for Renji, wondering what had happened that caused him to come to the human world and drink himself into an oblivion. She grabbed her car keys and left. She barely registered the drive to the bar, but the sight of Renji, clad in jeans and a T-shirt, leaning against a wall of the bar for support jolted her out of her reverie. She leaned over and opened the passenger side door as Renji stumbled forward.
"Thanks," he said gruffly as he got in, his long legs unfolding in the tiny space allotted to him in the front seat.
Orihime could only stare at him; he looked utterly defeated. "Abarai san…"
"Renji."
She sighed, her shoulders heaving upwards then down once in a display of defeat. "Renji," she said at last. "What happened?"
Renji turned his head slightly to give her a sly grin. "You haven't heard?" he asked.
"Heard what?"
The grin lingered for a moment before he turned away.
"Abarai…Renji…what's happened?"
His reply was soft and derisive: "Ichigo and Rukia."
"What about them? Are they alright?"
"They're fine. They're better than fine. They're Ichigo-and-Rukia." He said it as one word, causing Orihime's mind to short circuit momentarily.
"What?"
"Do I have to spell it out for you?" he snapped somewhat irritably. "They're together now." He paused, his eyes staring at something down the street, though it looked as though he wasn't really seeing it. "They're really together."
The announcement wasn't a complete shock, but Orihime still took it like a blow to the stomach, her limbs suddenly going numb as the realization that Ichigo was truly taken settled in the pit of her stomach. Suddenly all of the nonsense that Renji had been sputtering on the phone was making sense.
"Renji? You're…in love with Rukia?"
He grinned at her once again, a sad, defeated grin. "Only a little bit," he said. Orihime felt her lips pull into a smile despite how horrible she was feeling. "Now," Renji said suddenly. "Drive, woman. You've got a couch that has my name on it."
Orihime rolled her eyes and shifted into drive, her eyes on the road as maneuvered the car forward. Renji leaned his head back against the head rest, closing his eyes as though he was trying to block out the world.
"Renji?" she asked softly.
"Hmm?"
"Do you like apples?"
He opened one eye and smiled. "Are you drunk too?"
"Of course not!" she replied, affronted. Renji chuckled and closed his eyes again. Orihime waited for her blush to creep back down her neck before she spoke again. "It's just…you were talking about gods of death loving apples on the phone."
He didn't answer right away. Orihime didn't pressure him. She pulled up to a red light, her left hand bobbing down onto the turn signal. She made a left hand turn onto her street. Her apartment was drawing nearer.
"Rukia loves apples," Renji said at last.
Her eyes left the road momentarily to glance at the man next to her. His eyes were still closed, his mouth a firm line.
"And you?" she asked.
"I hate apples."
Orihime nodded, then realized that he couldn't see her. She pulled up to her apartment and put the car into park.
"What about watermelons?" she asked as she took the key from the ignition.
"Hmm?"
"It's just that…I really like watermelons. Do you?"
He opened his eyes and stared right at her, his mouth pulling into a large grin.
"I fucking love watermelons."