disclaimer: Sadly, I don't own Bleach.
summary: His kiss tastes like strawberries and gunpowder. Bang, baby — and you're down.
notes: A drabble series, for you, Sara — and gosh, I'm so sorry it's so late, but hopefully I shall be able to keep track of this. I shall update it daily; because, a drabble a day keeps the doctor away.
The swans are beautiful.
Pale and silent, they are a spreading white stain across an inky surface — they are like soft, sunlit watercolours spreading across the bold acrylics of a winter lake. And high above her hangs the ghost of a sun, intangible, almost like the fragment of a memory — like something clutching just at the surface of her mind, just reaching and touching and feeling. But the swans certainly are beautiful, gliding across the surface of the barely-frosted lake, like a breath of wind, and, even all those years later, she will remember them vividly. They're perfect — so brilliant, so innocent, that she finds herself captivated by them, watching as they trace threads of white through ink black.
The morning is cold. She tucks her hands beneath her armpits, hugging herself for warmth, clutching her over-sized coat — black, just like everything he owned — against her body. It is comfortable. It is a slice of normality. The hood falls over her face, hiding her forehead, shadowing her features — but the wind still somehow manages to tug at her hair.
A stray lock falls across her face, a jagged bolt of lightning hitting just between her eyes.
That was how he first found her, she thinks, stood there, watching the swans — and as a shadow approaches, she closes her eyes and pretends it's him. The illusion is ruined — he used to smell of strawberries and gunpowder; Renji, however, smells of cheap aftershave, cigarette smoke and coffee. He speaks to her, then, around the butt of a cigarette. "Nothin' like croissants and coffee in the mornin', right, Rukia?"
She sees no need to reply. She ignores his sigh. He sits down, then, on the grass beside her feet; she can smell the cigarette smoke curling and dancing around her, but she doesn't open her eyes. If she opens her eyes, she will see the swans, and, at least for a few seconds, she doesn't want her heart to ache. She feels like she's made of glass, then, one step away from shattering; and her heart squeezes, tugs, hurts so much. She doesn't want to be reminded of him.
But, really, he is all she can ever think about, and so she opens her eyes. She thinks she misses him. She knows she does.
"Renji," her voice is quiet, but it suddenly seems loud.
He looks up at her, then, long, thin fingers clutching the cigarette; it's a filthy thing. She hates that he smokes. He took it up not long after joining the police force and, since then, he only smokes more and more, to the point where he sees through a hazy cloud of grey and black. The glow casts a shadow across his face. His mouth is one long line, turned down at the edges. His face has gotten thinner; there are bags beneath his eyes. By his side sits two coffees. She sits down, then, picking one of them up — the one he pushes ever so slightly towards her — and places it against her lips.
She takes a sip.
"You're not eating," he says; he's turned away from her again, eyes facing the lake, watching the swans with mild interest. "It's not like you."
She raises an eyebrow. "Hypocrite."
He smiles, then, tapping a bag by his side. "Not quite — I have croissants. You, however, haven't eaten anythin', and I know that for a fact. You were stayin' at Rangiku's last night."
"It's too empty at — at the flat."
"You should at least go back and get a change of clothes," Renji sniffs. "You stink."
"I do not."
He flapping a hand in front of his face, grinning as she opens and closes her mouth, gaping. Renji is the only person who can distract her so easily, now that he's gone. She leans against him and wishes he could be by her side forever — as a friend, someone who can help her through each and every day, place a smile upon her face like Rangiku has been trying to do. But he can't — he's a police officer, after all. A detective, she corrects herself — it was something he'd always enjoyed thrusting into people's faces. He was a detective, now, just like she used to be before—
She stops thinking.
"Renji," and her voice is a whisper again; she feels like a child. "When will I stop remembering?"
He doesn't say anything — just takes a drag of his cigarette and shrugs a lazy shoulder. Sits there in silence. She feels a little bit scared. She wonders, really, if she does want to forget; if she wants the memories all to just vanish. And, as she thinks that, she can smell strawberries and gunpowder, and she pretends he's there.
She closes her eyes.
One by one, the swans take to the sky.