Funky Cold Midori
OR Rotten Strawberries Make the Best Daiquiris
Characters: Renji, Tatsuki
Diclaimer: I do not own Bleach. Please don't sue me. If you possess the copyright, just have your legal representative send me a C&D and this will be gone before you can say "intellectual property."
Warnings: Alcohol. Alcohol inspired this story, and it's in this story. Nothing worse than what you'd see in prime time television.
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One of the many things that are strange about gigai, reflected Abarai Renji, was their low alcohol tolerance. At home, he could drink all night and barely feel a thing, but after only three shots of this– he thought back– "midori," chosen because it sounded safe and somehow medicinal, he was feeling his face flush. While he was experimenting with the warm, tingly feeling in his legs, she walked in.
After a bit of hesitation, she sat down one stool from him. Although she looked young, the bartender poured something into a glass the second he saw her. She put enough bills down on the counter to buy several drinks, and made a "well, get on with it" motion to the bartender.
"You sure you want that much, miss?"
"It's been a bad day," she hissed through clenched teeth. "I want all those, and lime slices." She added, after some thought, "And salt."
As Renji felt his the warm feeling extend to the very tips of his, or the gigai's, or their, or whoever's, toes, the young woman was gulping at the alcohol as though it would save her life. For all he knew, maybe it would. Maybe she had some kind of condition, and only lifegiving alcohol could help. There were times, like today, when he certainly felt like that. Maybe it was an actual condition in this world where nothing made sense, where people got sustenance out of metal boxes by inserting little coins. Where no one carried a sword. Where someone like her could end up with– it was time for more midori. He wasn't nearly drunk enough to deal with this.
He flagged the bartender. "Another, please."
As the bartender came up with the bottle, the young woman on his right snickered at him. "You're drinking midori? Big guy like you? Maybe you should try something a bit more macho."
The initial urge to unsheathe his sword was quelled, mainly because his sword was back in Soul Society. After all, maybe she had a point. Perhaps it was a bit odd for a man his age and station to be drinking it. How would he know. "Okay. Can I have a shot of what she's drinking?"
"You sure you want to do that, young man?"
He looked over at her, gamely taking a shot, dipping a slice of lime in the salt, and then chewing on the result, and said, "quite sure."
"Bottom shelf tequila it is, then."
She blinked at him owlishly. Although it had been less than ten minutes, it was obvious that she was taking in rather more than she was accustomed to. "It's made of rotten cactus, you know."
"It is?" He was sure he'd seen a cactus at some point. Spiky thing. Grew in the desert. "Is it made of the spikes?"
"No, they bury it in the ground, and then dig it up and squeeze out the juice from. So it's like rotten wood. We're drinking wood rot." She seemed to find this funny.
He laughed too, although he wasn't sure he got the joke. She looked nice when she laughed, a part of him noted with detachment. Her hair was black and it shone with health. Just like– he took the shot of Tequila.
To say it tasted like "fire" would be lying: not even fire tasted that bad. It mostly tasted like burning, and like his sense of taste giving up. He gulped it down, and desperately wanted something to get the taste out with, but didn't have anything on hand. She handed him a slice of salted lime. He bit into it, and somehow, it worked.
The burning stopped, replaced by the tang of the lime and the sharpness of the salt almost made him gasp. It never would have occurred to him to mix these three things, but somehow it all fit together. He smiled at the novelty of it, before going back to what had brought him here to begin with. He grabbed her hand, stopping her from flagging down the bartender. While his aim had been a bit off, it sufficed.
"Maybe you've had enough for now," he said.
"Maybe you should mind your own business," she replied, looking at him directly for the first time. While he wasn't entirely sure, she seemed to be quite upset. "If you had any idea about the day I had, you would be ordering us another round."
He released her hand. "As you say. Do what you will."
"Thank you," she flagged down the bartender. "Another few shots for us, bartender."
"Sure thing, miss."
They drank in silence. And drank in silence. And continued drinking. Later, when he'd had enough to know what drunk really was, when he had forgotten about the importance of pacing and meditation and lots of water, of balance, and, briefly, of the importance of staying on the barstool, they were politely asked, then firmly told, to leave. So they left, her leaning on him, him using the weight against his side to counter his feet being on some weird incline that he couldn't see but could feel.
"You know, you know what's really me– messed up?" she said, her speech rather slurred. Drunk as he was, he recognized a rhetorical question, and waited for her to continue. "You know this guy, you, you know, grow up with him, and you, you see him every day. And, like, you think, 'wow, this guy, he's,' you know, what's the word– thingy. No, special. You think he's so, so special, and you start thinking about him, and you, and you and him, being, you know," she blushed, then carried on, "and you're really, you know, young and stuff, but you're thinking, 'wow, this could work.' Maybe he, you know, likes me."
He nodded, briefly sending his world bouncing up and down in his head, and she went on.
"But, no, that's not it, is it? You and him were just, you know, friends, and now he's too good for you all of a sudden, and he can't hang out with you any more, and he just leaves you for some other guy who no one even knows. Who does that? And suddenly, he talks all distant, like he's never seen me before in his life. And then, just when, when I thought that, you know, maybe he was being nice to me again, and he was talking to me again, it turns out that it wasn't for me. It was all about her. The new girl. The weird one."
They had at this point staggered onto some sort of tree-lined path. He dimly recognized it. It had been important. As she kept talking about how awful the new girl was, he looked around.
It was this place. The place where he had first met the boy. No, man. The man who had, you know. And they fought, and the boy won, but barely. He had been really injured. His blood had been everywhere. Small consolation, really.
He guided them to a bench. It was then, as he looked at her for the first time since they'd left the bar, that he realized she was crying.
"You shouldn't, um, cry, about this guy. He sounds like a loser. The same thing happened to me, recently, which is sho, er, so funny. How life could be so similar, you know?"
"Yeah, what a, you know the word, it's like, coitus." He blushed. That probably wasn't the word she was thinking of, "no, coincidence. I knew I'd think of it!" Her triumph overwhelmed the alcohol for an instant. "You're really nice. What's your name, again?"
He hadn't introduced himself, he realized, as her head lolled onto his shoulder. He put his arm up on the bench, so that it was no longer between them, and said, "I'm Abarai Renji. Pleased to make your acquai– acquan– pleased to meet you."
"I'm Arisawa Tatsuki. Charmed." And then she leaned in and kissed him on the cheek. He lowered his arm so that it was definitively wrapped around her shoulders, and she didn't object. "So, what's this, this stupid, stupid guy's name, anyway?"
END
A/N: I'm a sucker for this "jilted childhood friends" stuff. I dunno, it just seems so cute. This coming from someone who normally doesn't touch het with a barge pole. Who knows? Renji's adorable. Also, Tatsuki is awesome. I love her, and wish she had gotten more air-time in what I've seen thus far. Too bad she didn't come with them to Soul Society, that would have been cute.
I'm sure everyone who got this far, knows all this, but:
-The title "rotten strawberry" refers to Rukia's last name (which means "rotwood," or "wood rot," what Tatsuki found funny towards the middle of the story) and Ichigo's first (which sounds just like the word for 'strawberry,' although it is spelled with different characters).
-Midori is a very sweet melon liqueur, you normally don't drink it straight. It also means "green," in Japanese, hence Renji's idea that it may be medicinal.
-Tequila is made by processing the agave cactus in various ways. I don't really feel like going into it.
Constructive criticism is, of course, welcome. Otherwise, I wouldn't be posting this publicly.