A/N: I cannot resist this story and I have other things I should be doing. This got unexpectedly dark a bit here.
Disclaimer: Not mine, just playing.
San
The press release had gone out the evening before so that it would make it into the next day's society pages and instead became front page news. Splashed across the front of almost every major newspaper, with a picture of the newly married couple the headline practically screamed with the astonishment of a million broken-hearted maidens, "KUCHIKI BYAKUYA MARRIES AGAIN!"
Rangiku only glimpsed the cover of the paper as she bustled past Toshiro at the breakfast table where Matsura—she now had a chef!—was testing their preferences. Rangiku had ruffled Toshiro's hair and whispered to Matsura, "Watermelon, he can't get enough of it" and then hurried out.
Her car had been abandoned at her apartment building but Rangiku took the train and the bus to get it, determined not to leave Haineko after years of loyalty. She was rewarded with a tense trip where strangers snuck glances at her after they realised just who was sitting with them on the ride. She had worn her ring too, for she could not be seen without it today, though the rest of her was still "policewoman chic": no makeup, unobtrusive hairstyle, jeans, sensible shoes, vest, jacket and her duffel. Thankfully there were no strangers at the apartment building, though the neighbours peeked out their windows and she thought she caught a few camera flashes. Rangiku slipped into Haineko's worn-out driver's seat with a happy sigh.
Then she drove into work and into a lightning storm.
The press had gathered, with paparazzi and curious bystanders, just to see Kuchiki Byakuya's new wife go to work. By the end of the day everything from her appearance to her career would be dissected on every social platform from here to Hokkaido and back again. They would know about her son. They would know about her parents. They would know about Gin. But Byakuya had surely anticipated this and gave no indication that he was troubled when she left that morning and so Rangiku donned her largest pair of sunglasses, hopped out of her car and headed into the station.
They had once arrested a famous actor in a domestic incident that had spilled out into the street and eventually involved neighbours, passers-by and a few officers before it could be stopped. The whole station had known beforehand that he would be coming in, along with his still raging lover, and yet when he stepped through the doors the whole place went so quiet, a pen dropping echoed with the force of a thunderclap. The same thing happened now, as Rangiku pushed her way into the building and pulled off her sunglasses to find someone to scold for letting the press block the path. Absolute silence, deafening in the way it filled the room completely.
Rangiku paused, the words of her cheery scold dying on her lips before she could get them out. The others, criminals on their way to their cells and people who managed to fight their way in to make a report alike stared back at her. The ring on her left ring finger suddenly felt obscene, too flashy, too much for her and this place and what they were trying to do. Rangiku squeezed her left hand into a fist and pulled it back a little to be hidden by the folds of her short, fluttery, blue floral skirt.
Then a short, brown-haired girl in uniform popped into Rangiku's line of sight and said, "Hey, congratulations, Ran-chan!"
Dear sweet Momo, she always knew what to say. Rangiku launched herself onto the girl and pulled her into a tight embrace that nearly took the both of them to the floor. Momo squeaked, alarmed, but Rangiku hugged her tight, as much for breaking the tension and thereby giving an opening, as for support. When Rangiku finally released her, the girl was breathing hard and chiding, "Mat—Kuchiki-san, you have to remember that other people need to breathe when you hug them."
"Oh, well, you know me, can't help it," said Rangiku, grinning, indicating her breasts with a wave of her hand. Then she looked around to the others and asked, "What, you all want hugs too? I would be willing to share but I don't think my new husband would approve. You've heard of him, I'm sure. The Courtroom Samurai? The man who takes apart defence strategies so good it's as if he applied the Death of a Thousand Cuts?"
"Oh, bite me, Ran-chan!" someone called, and just like that the room went back to normal. Phones rang and were answered, keyboards were tapped, papers were shuffled, keys were jangled, complaints were lodged, and coffee resumed its perpetual bubbling.
Rangiku kept her hold on Momo though as she led the girl to her desk and sat her down. Momo went willingly, if a little confused, and Rangiku was grateful for her silence. Rangiku took her own seat, dropped her bag on the floor and said, "Hey now, why's everyone being weird? Prosecutors marry investigators all the time. We work in the same industry."
Momo dropped the innocent act, folded her arms, lifted an eyebrow and said, "We know you. You don't date, period. Then one day you head out of work, get picked up in a limo and come back the next day married? No way in hell."
Rangiku was tempted to lift an eyebrow of her own. Momo had lived with Granny Hitsugaya too, she and Toshiro were practically siblings, and here she was making girl talk and swearing as if an adult. But she was not a child anymore and so Rangiku asked, "Would you believe a whirlwind romance?"
"Where is she?" demanded a familiar voice. Rangiku's heart skipped a beat. Oh no. That was Nanao.
She tried to duck out of sight, if only to give herself a few extra seconds but then Nanao had her by the arm and was dragging her out of her seat and to the back and the interrogation rooms. Rangiku tried to plead for mercy, pointing out that the rooms were monitored and this was not really the place for it, but that only made Nanao change direction and put her into an unused office. Or at least, it was unused once the sole occupant, a rather surprised-looking sergeant vacated it.
Momo slipped in just as he went out and so was in time to stand smirking while Nanao started in on Rangiku with, "How the hell did you even meet Kuchiki Byakuya?"
Rangiku tried not to shrink under the force of her friend's glare, made even more threatening by the light reflecting off the woman's glasses and said, "We worked a case together. Oh, I'm inviting you to dinner. You can bring Shunsui, but next weekend because we have a family thing on this one."
Nanao's eyes narrowed even further and she said, "You have a 'family thing' with the Kuchiki clan?"
Rangiku's grin stretched her mouth painfully but she would not dare retract it while her friend was hovering over her. Instead she replied, "Well, I'm his wife now so…."
Nanao scoffed and stepped back. Rangiku straightened. Both women glanced over at Momo, who waved cheerily, and then Nanao asked Rangiku, "Are you pregnant?"
"What? No!" cried Rangiku. "What is it with you and Toshiro? Come on, Nanao, you know me. I don't talk about my relationships, is it so hard to believe that I could have been dating him without you knowing?"
"Yes," said Nanao without hesitation. "But this time you didn't. Listen, I've worked with him a few things and as far as I can see this guy is fatally celibate. What did you do?"
Rangiku folded her arms trying to project offense and said, "Nothing."
Nanao stared at her for nearly a minute before exhaling heavily. Then she walked around the sergeant's desk and fell into his chair. Rangiku watched her and waited. After a moment, Nanao said, "Kuchiki Byakuya is not a man to be trifled with. You've heard the stories, and those are nowhere near to seeing him in real life. He barely speaks, imagine that, a prosecutor who barely says a word, but he can imply a lot with a gesture and with silence. He can have defendants and witnesses tied up before they can blink. He is so stone cold I saw him stare down a crying girl until she was forced to turn to the judge for help. And you…are nothing like that. You're cheery and bright. Being with that man…he could crush you, Rangiku. He could hurt you badly."
Rangiku thought back to the man she had left at the house that morning. He had been very gentle the evening before while he showed her around the house but he had not come out of his room to see her off. Not that she had been expecting him to but she thought that he would have. Had that hurt? No, it had not. He did not seem capable of it once he was dressed down and keeping in her line of sight so she would not skitter away at the slightest movement. Her cheeks flushed with her embarrassment at the way her heart had begun racing once Rukia had taken Toshiro away.
To Nanao she said, "He's not like that all the time."
Nanao went wide-eyed and then threw her head back and groaned. Then she said, "Of course you would say that. You've already convinced yourself that he's some gallant protector. There are…rumours about how Rukia lived before she went away to Toudai and he left the estate. That girl never smiled all through her high school years, and she worked very hard to please him. I have seen him attack defendants and their witnesses. He is ruthless and cold and heartless and you won't—tell me that you're not doing this because that old witch called you 'past due'."
Momo floated into Rangiku's peripheral vision. The girl had a way of doing that, knowing that it annoyed, and Rangiku replied, "No. I told you, we met, there was mutual attraction."
Nanao straightened in the seat, adopted what Rangiku liked to call her "Prosecution Face" and said, "Okay, suppose I believe you about this thing with Kuchiki Byakuya—this is real, right? There is an actual document of marriage somewhere?"
Rangiku gave her a pointed look. Nanao rolled her eyes and straightened her glasses, and continued, "Right, so you and Kuchiki Byakuya got married yesterday…what are you doing here today? Shouldn't you be on some exotic honeymoon somewhere?"
Ah yes, Rangiku had forgotten about that. She looked away from Nanao and said, "We both have work, we cannot just leave. That will come later." She made a mental note to ask Byakuya what he intended to do about it.
Momo chirped up then, asking, "So, is he just as cold and heartless in the b—"
Rangiku cut her off with a glare and said, "Yeah, I'm definitely not talking about that with you."
"Is he?" asked Nanao, and there was a hint of humour in her voice.
Rangiku scowled and said, "That reminds me, I need to speak to Yamamoto about time off. We have to visit with his family this weekend and I need time to shop before that."
At this Nanao flew out of her seat, finger pointed at Rangiku, gleam of enlightenment in her eyes and snapped, "That's it! That's why you married him! You! I thought you were better than that! You're going to use him as your personal ATM!"
Rangiku went wide-eyed at the accusation and then burst out laughing. Nanao did not move, and Momo bounced eagerly where she stood in her excitement. After a moment Rangiku wiped happy tears from her eyes and said, "You do know me better than that, but he gave me a card. Can't blame a girl for using it. And besides, it would take a lot more skill on my part to bankrupt a man like Kuchiki Byakuya while shopping."
"I heard that he bought his little sister controlling shares in the company that produces Chappy merchandise because she stared too long through their display window," said Momo.
Rangiku and Nanao both looked over at her. She beamed at them and said, "It was all over the news after you got married. Some of the stations were looking for anything they could get their hands on and this is ancient because he did that when she left high school."
Rangiku turned to Momo and said, "See, he's worse than me. You should see his, well our apartment. It's like staying at a five-star hotel, and he's got 'staff' and everything."
Nanao groaned but then Momo said, "Oh, he's got staff alright. Do you know that he's done a few magazine spreads, one of which caught him at the beach? But you should know all about that already right, Kuchiki-san?"
Rangiku and Nanao exchanged a glance and then both raced to the computer on the desk.
0o0
Rangiku never did get to see any pictures, particularly since Yamamoto came in shortly after they got the webpage up and chased them out of the sergeant's office. Then Nanao had to go back to work, Momo had to go on patrol and Rangiku was set to organising the cases on the desk in order for her boss to even consider listening to her request for leave. It took Rangiku less than ten minutes to find a junior officer to do it for her instead and then she snuck out to accompany Hisagi Shuuhei and the ever dour Kira Izuru on a crime scene. It was her line of work: a young woman, possibly a working girl, found murdered in a love hotel.
Or at least that was the plan. Slipping out of the station had not been much a problem, though Hisagi had been a little more reluctant than usual to let her come along, and would not even look her in the face. Kira had also given her a disapproving look, which she ignored as she hopped into the back of their SUV and slid down across the backseat. It was a strangely silent ride, with Hisagi staring steadfastly on the road ahead and Kira only grunting responses to her questions about the case.
They were two streets away from the love hotel when Hisagi suddenly said, "When did you meet Kuchiki Byakuya? I've never seen that man anywhere near the station and I definitely don't remember us working any cases with him."
Rangiku had been waiting for one of them to ask. She would probably be answering that question for weeks. Thankfully, she and Byakuya had worked out their response in detail the night before. It was, to a certain extent, the truth.
"His people were working a case that ran into one of mine," she said, smiling. "We ended up spending a lot of time together after that."
Hisagi scoffed and Kira glanced over at him a moment before asking, "When was that?"
"Oh, I don't know, some months ago?" said Rangiku, pretending to think about it.
"What case was that?" asked Kira.
Rangiku did not like his tone. She caught his eye in the rearview mirror, put up her cheeriest smile and asked, "What is this, the Inquisition?"
It was Hisagi who said, "No, damn it, Matsumoto, what do you know about this guy? And don't tell us the stuff everybody already knows, what do you know about him personally? You never mentioned him before, never hinted at seeing anyone, and the next thing we know you're married to one of the most important men in Japan?"
Rangiku folded her arms, feigned offense becoming real, but still managed to say with a smile, "I know, it's like a fairytale isn't it? And he's supposed to take me shopping tomorrow."
Kira scowled at her and snapped, "Be serious. You got married yesterday. Has he met your son? Does he know you have a son?"
Rangiku rolled her eyes and snapped, "Don't be ridiculous. Is this really any of your business anyway?"
Kira clamped his mouth shut and then Hisagi announced, "We're here."
Rangiku did not wait for them, even if this was their case rather than hers. She was almost at the love hotel's entrance when someone said, "Hey, isn't that Matsumoto-san?"
And then Hisagi was there marching her past the crime scene tape and a waiting uniformed officer just as the first camera flashes went off. He released his grip on her arm almost as soon as she was inside then turned to her and snapped, "You should not be here, you're compromising my crime scene."
She blinked at him, then straightened, folded her arms and snapped back, "How exactly am I doing that when I just got here with you?"
Kira came in then, shaking his head and saying, "It looks like you've got a lot of fans, Rangiku-san."
She waved her hand at him, and turned to go to the receptionist already waiting to take them up to the floor where the young woman lay. "I don't care about that," said Rangiku. "What happened to the girl?"
"Why did you marry that guy?" asked Hisagi.
Rangiku stopped and turned back to him. He had his hands in the pockets of his coat and his gaze trained on her face. She dropped her gaze from his and said, "I told you b—"
He exhaled and said, "Forget it. Let's go." Then he walked on past her without waiting for a response.
Rangiku looked down at the ring on her hand, then up at Kira. He was shaking his head at her. She scowled. "What, you think I'm some kind of gold digger?"
He rolled his eyes. "No, Matsumoto-san. And neither does Hisagi…you're not dumb, you know why."
She put on her cheeriest smile. "I know what I'm doing. So how about you two support me, okay?"
Kira was unmoved. He pushed past her to follow Hisagi, saying as he went, "I hope for your sake that you really do."
The scene in the hotel room was worse than Rangiku had been expecting and she had seen many terrible things. She walked into the room, saw the blood on the walls and then Hisagi pushed her out into the hall and shut the door behind them. He waited until she got her breathing under control again to say, "This is not your case. Just go back and finish what you were doing and I'll keep you updated in case it runs into anything you were working on before."
She glared at him, though she knew that he had done nothing wrong, and snapped, "I'm only going to be gone for four days, not forever!"
"Yea, but Ran-chan…" he said and he waved his hands at her state.
She scoffed and turned away from him. She was not going to be dismissed by a junior detective, no matter that she was his senior by two weeks. "I can handle it," she said without turning back.
Hisagi exhaled and said in a voice heavy with frustration, "Yes, you can. But the last thing I want is to get a phone call from your new husband threatening me for sending you back shaking like a leaf. It's why I took this case before you came in and then you just had to jump into my van an—"
"Wait, shut up," she said, turning around again. "You took this case…what did I miss in there?"
The expression on his face was the only answer Rangiku needed. She pushed past him back to the room and threw open the door, startling the techies setting up their equipment and stirring the dead girl's bleached blonde hair with a sudden burst of wind. She had seen a lot more than blood in her first look but now the second revealed a few very obvious things. She stepped back out of the room and looked at Hisagi, shaking so bad she had to squeeze her hands at her chest.
Hisagi started, "Rangik—"
Rangiku glanced up at him, and then turned around and walked out of the hotel.
