Pairing: Renji x Rukia
Miss
The words filter out of his left year. She leaves a scent, pungent and poignant—calling back memories from dead years.
He sees her leaving and wants to call out, tell her that she's being stupid, making a stupid mistake. But he doesn't. Renji grits his teeth and learns control. Slow and steady, he teaches himself to breathe.
He learns.
-
She's been with him for years. They are like the roots that entwined and became a trunk then branches and leaves. She is the lofty flower at the top, the only one left that he can still grasp.
And now, she's fleeting away into a memory too.
Just like all of them, everything and everyone. Renji knows what being alone means and feels too, too well.
He has it ingrained in his mind; he has it tattooed on the back of his neck. A red dot, like a target.
-
Renji sees her sometimes, here, there, in the odd places where he never thought she would go.
He tries to speak to her but can never muster the courage (never reaches—breaches—the invisible wall he has constructed). He knows that she sees him too, through her glasslike eyes. Her all-seeing eyes. They scare him, but that, he would never say.
-
It's been a year since they talked.
Renji brings her flowers all-of-a-sudden. Red, white, and yellow. Simple and understated. She would appreciate that.
Only not. Only—
He doesn't know anymore.
Fast and discrete, Renji tosses the flowers out. They gather and fly and look like headless corpses where the stalks have been cut off.
They are in two different worlds now (he calls her Miss).