Chapter Nine: Mysteries of Girls, Guys, & Love
When the sedative wore off and Rin awoke, two things made her eyes widen and her hands clamp on the bed sheet. One, she was back in the Sereitei and had probably been talking about the dancing blue lobsters in her sleep again - man, the years of watching Disney with Sergei and then Grimmjow had made her skull a friggin' musical number! And two, she could feel the fabric of the bed a little too much. This surely meant only one thing - SHE WAS NAKED!
Turning sharply to her left, hoping to reach for a dark shihakshou she could see in the corner of her eye, Rin's head collided with something. It was not hard like a coffee table, but soft, warm, and bouncy like a pair of...
It twigged and Rin had only a chance to motion a wave with her hand before the giant melons smashed into her face again and the surprisingly strong arms caught around her neck in a headlock. Despite the fact that it could have broken her neck, the traditional Matsumoto greeting was continued with the jumping and jiggling that had once caused Rin to pass out!
"Rinny!" Rangiku screeched and then pulled the gasping head from her bosom. Rin had barely been able to glare at her old friend before a kiss was planted over her green eye. She began to struggle away and Rangiku began to cough and cry. "You never change! There are tonnes of guys who'd pay good money to be in your position right now!"
After a few blinks and getting back to normal, normal being that Rintakara was wearing some clothes, the two soul reapers lounged on the medical bed with a glass of water. Someone had already confiscated Rangiku's sake supply, but Rin was happy about that factor and more eager to relax. Something about seeing her old friend again made her feel either at home or just calmer. She felt normal, as if she did not have to hide, and whatever had taken place in front of Yamamoto was now pushed aside by memories of youthful idiocy!
"Do you remember when we made the fake boobs for Gin? How many of the guys hit on him? Didn't young Byakuya even try until that idiot turned around and did the squeaky voice thing? We had him go around calling himself Gina for a week and only the others girls seemed to notice that the boobs were little more then leather bags filled with water that jiggled a bit too much?" Rin snorted and Rangiku sprayed water over her friend's face. Rin just laughed louder and took a swig to spit at her. Rangiku squealed and stood up, trying to shield her face but failing, and instead pushing Rin's shoulder.
"That's gross! Yeah I remember! I also remember the time we found Komamura's secret dog toys and treats... He thought we were going to figure him out until you turned around and started looking for the 'puppy' you guessed he was hiding. That was in our first year and he was about to graduate! I still can't believe it took me so long to realise that he did have wolf-fur. You knew before me though, didn't you? Because I swear you went on a date with him out of sympathy!" Rangiku snorted as she made the bed bounce, and everything else bounce with it so that Rin felt a little disconcerted.
"Yeah... But it wasn't out of pity... He genuinely asked me and I always thought he was a good fighter. We didn't get very far though... A woman at the teahouse he took me to was allergic to fur and kept sneezing we had to leave because they noticed there was fur all over his robes. Then as we were walking he got a weird itch and ended up doing what dogs do and kicked his helmet off. Poor guy was so terrified of my reaction he leapt behind a bush! But I just told him it didn't bother me one bit and gave him a kiss on the cheek..."
"So that was why you kept getting red hair out of your mouth that day! Everyone thought you and I had been doing something! We had so many guys coming to ask us to watch it was ridiculous. Then we decided to milk it for some money and Gin took bets as we mud wrestled. They used to love it when we then snogged at the end of each fight just to make them pay even more for next time! We bought our own little barber business for Gin then! Shame it got destroyed by the loose experiment from Urahara's place before we graduated - and we got found out and almost kicked out of the academy!"
The two started to chuckle again in joy. Sometimes they had been the most troublesome students around but also the most inventive, clever, and hilarious. They were popularly known as the "Bosom Buddies" because at the time they had been very big in the chest and forced on many occasions to walk around with an extra piece of fabric sewn into their shirts to make sure their cleavage was fully covered and would not distract their tutors. It had not always worked and sometimes they'd ended up kicking a teacher for looking at them a little too much, though they had picked on the teachers that picked on Gin when he didn't seem to be listening or did not like the way he'd responded. In the end, they had been the Bosom Buddies and their Baby - a trio of troublemakers that always looked out for one another and made the Soul Society wince in fear of what they could do, but secretly proud that they never did anything for the "bad-guys".
"Things all got weird in our last year, didn't it?" Rangiku questioned gently with a sigh of disappointment. She knew where the conversation would soon be heading and she was a little afraid of it. Soon they would be talking about the graduation, about Kenpachi turning up, and about Shoji. She was worried because of a truth she had kept hidden from Rin all those years ago, and to think of it now ruin what they had returned to. Rangiku did not want to loose the last friend of the trio again... Not after loosing Gin...
"Yeah... That was when Aizen showed a lot of interest in Gin and kept talking to him about joining his squad. We didn't like him then but Gin seemed to be a little too interested in what he said. Then I somehow managed to get a boyfriend and you became my brother's personal assistant as he got immediately promoted to tenth squad's lieutenant. And then my dad pulled strings and got me held back for two years!" Rin growled in annoyance, that year had been awful, but Rangiku seemed more uncertain about herself.
"Well… I need to tell you something important, Rin." Rangiku gulped visibly and Rin was surprised. Usually that kind of reaction was followed up by the statement 'I ate your last bag of candy' or something ridiculous like that. In fact Rintakara even chuckled gently and pushed at her shoulder gently. But Rangiku's depressed look appeared and suddenly Rin was really scared. "It's... It's about your brother."
For a moment Rin's heart fluttered, only to smash immediately with her rational mind's scream. In that second the possibility of him being alive made her smile only to drop into a sullen frown when she remembered his death. With a low growling sound, Rintakara reminded herself once more that no one had mentioned him and he had certainly not been amongst the captains when she had stepped into the meeting. Surely, if he had been alive, he would have been alerted and come to see her long before Rangiku?
"What is it Ran? You know we've never had secrets so I'd be worried if you kept one from me now!" She chuckled, but something told her she wasn't going to like this.
"We had a… Thing…" Rangiku gulped nervously, ducking backward as if she was about to have her head put through the wall. But curiously she noted that Rin just remained perplexed. Maybe the time away had rattled Rin's brain enough that she did not know what Rangiku was actually referring to.
"A 'thing'?" Rin snorted, but Rangiku blushed visibly and suddenly Rin felt scared. Her eyes widened and she tried hard to keep a snarl from her voice. "That kind of thing?"
"Yeah… We sort of wanted to be together and get married…. But when Shoji asked, Lord Uso said he'd had his marriage already prepared and that I was not even worth bothering to talk to. It kinda gotta us into a small argument that was ended when you beat that girl up and got put on lock-down in twelfth squad. I didn't get to apologise to him before he died…" Rangiku gulped nervously, only to give a shriek of surprise at the noise of Rin's head pushing through the nearby wall. But when Rin pulled her head out of the stone and then gave a deep sigh, Rangiku realised it would be easier to make a joke now and distract the situation before she was killed. "It's kind of what I expect Lord Uso said when he heard you were love struck with Captain Zaraki."
Rin's face twitched slightly, her body trembling violently before she twisted her head in an unnaturally slow manner towards Rangiku.
"I… WHAT!"
"Oh come on Rinny! Everyone knows you two had some kind of soul-mate relationship going on. He always turned up to save you like a hero and you always turned up to help him. I mean, you can't say you didn't beat up that girl because you were jealous she was dating Kenpachi…" Rangiku grinned as Rin's teeth began to grind together.
"I WASN'T JEALOUS! She was using him as a trophy to show off that she could get any guy – she didn't care about him and used to be really rude about how he acted. You don't change Captain Zaraki – you go along with him and adore how idiotic he can be!" Rin leapt up from the bed, hunching her back and flexing her muscles as she tried to hold back her rage.
"AH! You said it there… You adore him!" Rangiku giggled and Rin just slumped back onto the bed in defeat. What was the point of arguing? Rangiku sniggered before twirling a strand of Rin's hair and grinning at her. "Besides… Even if you don't howl at the moon for him, he was certainly upset when I thought you were dead. Ikkaku told me he actually saw him crying at the grave they made for you – first time he'd ever seen the big guy do that! And of course, he's not been the same since you disappeared…. I mean, he lost a battle to some punk kid called Ichigo."
"He lost?" Rin lifted her head up, her face etched in concern and Rangiku was almost worried.
"Yeah… But Ichigo's like some super amazing kid soul-reaper who could do anything. He sort of lost at the same time and I think it sort of shocked Kenny because afterwards he started to act like he used to and do things that he enjoyed. It sort of… resurrected him."
"Indeed…" Rin pondered gently, thumbing at her chin. She would have to talk to Kenpachi, there was no way of avoiding it now – but she had someone else important she needed to see now that she was back in the Sereitei and everyone knew it.
COMING SOON – CHAPTER TEN: Highs and Lows of Days Old
Rin decides it's time to go and see the man who took her in and made her life hell… but was there a more important reason that Lord Uso was so strict with her? Plus Rin and Kenpachi get a chance to sit down and talk, with Yachiru keeping an eye on what's going on. Will Kenpachi have something important to say to Rin or is he just going to ask her if she wants a fight?
