Beautiful Disease
A Lack of Color
"A part of me is convinced this is another of your overdone jokes," slurred Rangiku, sloshing the alcohol in her cup around with every pronounced gesture, "but I have my doubts."
"Oh?" queried Gin, poker-faced.
The stillness of her living room served as a backdrop to their impromptu drinking session, surrounded by laze-fueled untidiness.
Rangiku nodded. "You can't tell me otherwise. You like her."
"We get along," he agreed.
"Don't lie to me," she returned, a few droplets of her drink spilling from the rim of the cup onto the square table between them. "Why can't you just be honest with me? Like before. When we were kids. You used to tell me everything, no bullshit, and now it's always a struggle. The day you met her, you ran all the way to show me the clip you took from her. Met her on the street complaining about her stomach hurting. I remember that. You looked excited. It was a long time since I had seen you excited."
He recalled the memory back into his mind to watch it unfold as she spoke of the first time he met Ren. It wasn't when she was assigned to Fifth Division or when she became his personal assistant years ago—those were subsequent meetings. The first time was in the middle of an empty street on his way to meet Lieutenant Aizen, another experiment pending that he was going to observe. Ren was a nameless girl with striking hair and glittering trinkets, a noble that screamed noble at first sight, crouched down on the ground with her arms around her aching belly. To that day, Gin didn't understand why he stopped to watch her until she noticed he was there, crouched down beside her, and a part of him wished he hadn't for the longest time.
A lot of him didn't think of Ren the way she thought of him. Their feelings weren't mutual. She satisfied his itch and vice versa. They were consenting sexual partners, no strings attached with no hope for the future. He approached her with an ulterior motive. He pressed on until she caved because he needed to be close enough to reach deep into the void of her secrets to recover the ashes of her father's manuscripts. It didn't have to be him. It wasn't going to be him.
For the longest time, he watched Captain Aizen observe her, memorize every point of her persona that he could exploit. It would have been easy for him to trick her, as it had been simple for him to fool all of Soul Society, but a part of Gin wanted to think Ren was too wild, too naturally suspicious to fall for his crap—he so desperately wanted to be proven right. And then, without warning, Ren's uncle had called in a favor from Aizen to have Ren transferred to Gin's division, not as a shinigami, but as a servant—"to humble her," he had said—and the rest was history.
Gin sought out to do his job. He couldn't play a different role from the one he had been playing for so long already. He understood his priorities and Ren was, at the time, just an uncouth subordinate that had something Aizen wanted that Gin could get. The little girl on the street was an afterthought.
Gin turned his interest in her carnal. Not the most beautiful woman in the world, but the most confident instead and confidence was sexy. His plan would work.
It did. With a few minor complications at first. The Collector running rampant through Seireitei's streets trying to avenge his honor as a man, who she rejected rather comically at a bar. Fusae, the loyal servant, who sacrificed her life for Ren's. He remembered hesitating when it came to killing Fusae because a part of him wanted the consequence of seeing the last of Ren, who he believed would never forgive him for his crime, but she surprised him when she returned to him, torn.
"I never understood what you saw in her," continued Rangiku. "Why she seems interesting to you?"
Blue sapphires glinting in the golden trinkets twisted in her hair and the deep cobalt of her flowered kimono brought out the color of her blue eyes, dark like water in the dark. There wasn't anything spectacular about her. It wasn't love at first sight. "She was all blue."
Rangiku's forehead furrowed in confusion. "All blue? She was always a crybaby, I guess. She used to cry about stupid things in the academy."
"Oh? You've never told me 'bout this?"
"She did," slurred Rangiku. "I always asked her why she went into the academy when she seemed to hate it so much, but she's a spiteful one. She had something to prove. She isn't all that bad really, but she's too territorial, lacks self-confidence, too. Bet you're no help in that regard."
He gasped for effect. "What? I always tell 'er she's pretty."
"Shut it."
"Now, why don't ya tell me a bit more 'bout Ren in her academy days?"
"Did you know she's decent with a kidō spell? Not decent, really, she's good. Very good. I thought the Kidōshū would recruit her."
That didn't come up in the background check he ran. In fact, he remembered she had average grades.
"She doesn't seem like the type ta get high marks."
Rangiku leaned forward to place her cup down and reached for the neck of the sake bottle. "At first, I thought she was shy."
"Shy?"
"Yeah, like a wallflower type."
Gin almost choked on his spit hearing this come out of Rangiku's mouth, especially about Ren.
"I saw her practice a couple times late into the night. I asked her how she got the instructors to let her into the practice range so late and she dropped a wad of money on the ground. Said everyone's got a price. She asked what mine was, too."
"Wow, Ran-chan, I didn't know ya hung out?"
"I asked if she could get me a drink."
"Ah, I remember that," said Gin, clapping his hands together at the memory that surfaced in his mind. "The day ya suddenly got yer hands on expensive sake. We drank three bottles of it, right?"
Rangiku laughed. "Remember that girl from my dorm that caught you peeing in the tub?"
"I had to slip outta the window not ta get caught. I don't even wanna imagine what Cap'n Hirako'd done if he heard I was hangin' out in the girl's dorms when I should've been running errands." Gin leaned into a comfortable position facing Rangiku, her cheeks taking on a red tint indicating she was likely at her limit. "Why'd ya never tell me where ya got the bottles? I thought ya might've gotten into some dangerous business 'or something."
"You were worried?"
"'Course I was."
"Bullshit," she spat. "Don't lie to me."
"Why didn't you tell me then? I thought we told each other everything?"
"That better be sarcasm." Rangiku frowned and Gin considered not pushing any buttons to avoid unnecessarily provoking her. "Sharing is a two-way street and it's been a dry well on your end since I met you. So, why don't you tell me why the sudden interest and I'll tell you why I didn't let you know?"
"That ain't a fair trade."
"You think this is the last juicy secret I have of Takudaiji? Nah, I've got more."
Gin's interest piqued, he said, gesturing with a wave of his hand, "You first."
"No," said Rangiku firmly. "You first."
The determination cemented in her sharp blue gaze assured him that he would get nowhere attempting to redirect her attention elsewhere. He supposed, looking back at this moment, that her drunkenness encouraged him in a way - somehow let him feel comfortable in saying what he said. She wouldn't remember.
"D'ya know how ya get when ya really want something?"
Rangiku blinked. "Me?"
"Ya, ya get all stubborn 'bout it. Determined, really. Like, ya don't know when to quit until it's yers and ya've gotta know everthin' 'bout it ta conquer it."
"Are you saying you want to conquer Takudaiji?" She stared at him oddly. "Maybe take a step back. Women aren't into that sort of thing. It isn't cute."
Gin chuckled. "Ren-chan's the type that likes ta be dominated."
Rangiku pretended to retch. "I didn't want to know about your weird kinky sex life with Takudaiji." She shuddered. "Forget I asked."
"She had this very serious servant that died some time ago. She thinks about her all the time like she's been lodge in her mind forever."
Rangiku arched an eyebrow. "Are you in love with her?"
The question made him laugh.
His blond friend handed him a cup of alcohol. He stared down at his reflection in the surface of the liquid, his face cast in shadows from the dim lights, and felt his smile recede.
They drank in silence for the remainder of his visit.
Gin stumbled into Ren's foyer. The floor underneath his feet shaky, the world around him turning fast enough to provoke a natural imbalance in his body, and his skin burned as if his veins were so hot that the blood was in danger of boiling. Tetsuya had stepped back to call out to Ren, who snapped in response, her voice too distant for Gin to pick apart the meaning of her words. Gin pushed against the wall to straighten out.
"She in the office?" he asked, amazed by his vocal control. Not a slur floundered out of him, despite his tongue feeling thick and foreign inside his mouth.
Tetsuya wrinkled his nose. "Are you drunk?"
Gin pinched Tetsuya's nose until the servant yelped and laughed at the resulting redness that the aggressive hold left. "No."
Gin walked past Tetsuya and followed the hallways toward Ren's office in the innermost rooms of the mansion.
He reached this point of drunkenness on two separate occasions.
The first happened some blurry time ago for reasons he preferred to avoid, over things he couldn't change, with a similar helplessness to the one that plagued him to this day, but he hadn't done it to forget any of that. He did it seeking chaos. It happened because of a strange impulse, a leftover morsel of adrenaline burst inside him, recharging the spent energy in him, and he developed a sudden taste for sake.
The second nobody knew of but himself. Alone in his home hours after burning the manuscript, hours after letting Aizen know about them, hours after resolving to get rid of Ren—one way or another and choosing the latter time after time—he drank warm sake until it numbed him. He stared at the ceiling of his room thinking of all the mistakes he had made, of how idiotic it had been for him to veer off the path that he had chosen over a possibility, and laughed. He laughed until sleep tugged him under and dreamt black dreams.
He decided later that he overreacted when he heard that Ren made a deal with Central 46 over the manuscripts because he knew Aizen would kill them—replace them. Nobody would know. Even he didn't. At least not when it'd happen. Soon, probably. He tasted the blood in the air.
Gin didn't know what the manuscripts did. Why they served any purpose. Ren didn't either. The secret of Aizen hypnosis he had earned. Not the manuscripts. He wondered where he'd get the revelation from first. The thought made him dizzy.
Seeing Ren's lips turn down into a frown made him dizzy. Scattered copies of the manuscript littered the floor. He stumbled forward and she cried out, arms waving as if the motion alone would be enough to stop him, but he stepped on the edge of one and his core betrayed his balance. He tipped, teetered too far off center that he had to stomp down on an empty space on the floor between to other sheets while Ren continued to curse him. He missed that step too.
He came crashing down and papers went flying all around him. He heard Ren jump to her feet, felt the vibrations of her hard steps across the tatami, and watched her with a wide grin on his face as she attempted to snatch papers out of the air.
Gin sat up, a tad wobbly, and realized belatedly that he shouldn't have done that as soon as he felt the vomit rush past his throat.
Ren screamed when he finished barfing over a pile of her hard work. The color drained from her face, clutching the pages she held to her chest, and squeaked, "Forty-eight hours."
"Sorry, Ren—"
The horrible stench of his own puke provoked the second regurgitation.
By the time, Tetsuya rushed in, Ren had fallen to her knees, pages falling out of her arms before she passed out.
Gin stepped into Ren's bedroom towel drying his hair. Tetsuya squeezed the water out of a cloth into a bowl and folded it, laying it atop Ren's forehead.
"Sober yet?" the servant asked, standing.
"Should ya be letting her work herself sick?" responded Gin, eyeing the white-haired man with the slightest hint of suspicion. He didn't fully trust this one. He'd betray Ren at once if it meant surviving and something told him that the two of them were up to something that wouldn't end well.
"It's not like she'll take any advice I give her. She wants to finish the work, so she does it. I just bring her more alcohol when she shouts for it."
"Why's she wanna finish them so badly? Did Central 46 say something to her?"
Aizen's lack of pursuit in the matter bothered him because it hinted at the possibility that Gin had not been as observant as he needed to be in his position. However, Aizen had been hinting at something concerning the manuscripts, assuring that there wasn't a need to seek them out. They'd come to him.
Central 46 was already in his hands. Under hypnosis? Dead?
Tetsuya shrugged, suspiciously non-blasé. "She doesn't want to deal with them because the company is getting busier."
Lie.
"That so?"
Tetsuya nodded. "Well, excuse me. I have other nobles to serve."
Gin stepped out of the way and allowed Tetsuya to pass. The pages that were salvaged were stacked neatly on top of the table. He went to them and skimmed the content as if at a glance he'd be able to see something hidden in them, but there was nothing. They were written word for word. Same similar style and voice.
Her memory was a gift.
He had no intention of spending the night, but without any other activities pending, he decided he wouldn't be missed at his division. He took the stack of the finished pages of the manuscript and brought them with him by an open flame, utilizing the soft light to make sense of the adventure scribbled on the paper.
This wasn't the first time he read parts of the manuscripts and he faintly recalled the protagonist fumbling from one task to the next. He didn't enjoy it the first time either. Made no sense of it. He wasn't that into stories, not unless he could use them for something or against someone.
Gin lowered the pages to his lap and looked towards Ren. The relaxing fusion of the quiet and the afterhours seemed impossible to disturb, but a small wrinkle appeared to have formed between her eyebrows.
Her lips parted and inhaled sharply, startling herself awake. She sat up, damp cloth falling to her lap, and gazed at the wall across her futon. Slightly disheveled with the pins in her hair sliding down the black locks and her robe inching past the curve of her shoulder, exposing the fair flesh underneath, her chest rose and fell, her breathing audible to him—even in his distance—until she managed to control it. She swallowed thickly before a deep exhale and turned, her eyes finding him.
She jolted, made a cute note of surprise. "Oh!"
His presence or actions failed to register at a glance, but a second later, she muttered something about the manuscripts and realized he held a small stack of them in his hands. She snatched them out of his hand on wobbly feet, her body likely felt like a sandbag sinking in water.
"What's the hurry?" asked Gin, watching her make her way to the door, groggy and feverish.
"I'll come back in a few hours so go ahead and go to sleep without me," she said, holding onto the door's frame on her way out.
He expected her to kick him out. He thought she'd reproach him for retching over her work. One or the other. Both, actually. He anticipated seeing her fiery. This didn't sit well with him.
Did she feel pressured to finish the manuscripts? What didn't he know?
Gin followed her out into the hallway. He caught up to her with a few quick strides and took her arm, pulling it over his shoulders, offering her balance.
"What are you doing?" she asked, eyes narrowed. Suspicious.
"Helping ya back to bed."
She attempted to shrug him off. "Help me to bed after I'm finished."
He didn't release her. He wound an arm around her waist and tugged her against him. Stop her. The thought invaded him as if it were a part of his survival instinct telling him that he needed to stop her to avoid endangering himself. From what? He didn't understand and loosened his grip on her, allowing her to slip out of his grasp.
"If you hadn't barfed on half my finished work, I wouldn't be behind on it."
"Why're ya in such a hurry?" he asked, keeping the edge out of his voice.
"I like being rich," she answered.
She started to turn down the hallway. He resisted pursuing her, but he unconsciously shunpoed to her side, snatching her up into his arms. Distracting her came easily to him.
Ren complained the entire walk back to her bedroom. He slid the shoji screen shut and set her back on her feet by the futon.
Gin kissed her before she had an opportunity to reproach his interference. He cupped the nape of her neck, her skin clammy beneath his palm.
"What are you doing, Gin?" she whispered.
After a chaste kiss, he answered, "Distracting you."
She shook her head. "Stop."
"Yer not all there. Ya need ta rest."
She stepped back. "I have to finish."
"Don't."
Ren stilled. "What?"
"I don't want ya ta finish 'em. Don't."
"Why not?"
He took her warm face in his hands. "Ya keep writing 'em an' even I won't be able ta keep ya safe."
There was no talking himself out of that confession. No. There was no leaving this repetitive cycle.
xl: Hello!
Long time no update. Sorry. My plan was to complete the entire series and then post all the chapters. That remains, more or less the plan, but it's taking me a while to get it done because of school. I decided it wouldn't hurt to post this chapter since I had it done since January and the next three chapters are only planned. Maybe I'll update them individually or post them all at once.
Thank you for reading!
I'll see you next time. :)
