"So… how have things been?"

Cirucci chuckled briefly at the slow question as she thumbed her way through the rack of clothes in front of her. She didn't really need another outfit for work, but… well she couldn't resist looking at a few cute blouses just the same. Most of them weren't really 'work-friendly' but she didn't care much for the rules and no one had called her out on it yet. She had already pulled a small collection of them free and had them hanging over her forearm for now; if she managed to stumble across one more, she was going to try them on and weed out the selection from there.

"Well, you know." she started easily enough as she pulled free another hanger, holding up the white blouse for closer inspection. "He's a doctor and the sex is great."

"Wow…" Tatsuki whistled with a brief grimace as she mindlessly shuffled through a few stacks of jeans nearby. "You know he's been my friend for years now, but I still don't think I want to hear those kinds of things about him."

"You asked." she reminded, eventually setting the blouse aside- unimpressed with it after all. She waited a few minutes for the woman to continue about her shopping and casually passed a glance around the near empty store; the store clerk looked bored with her job and found some form of entertainment in an old magazine. "I think he would be disgusted with me if he knew how many times I've had imaginary sex with him on a daily basis."

The woman had to stifle a sudden chuckle and immediately shook her head in response.

"We did it this morning."

"Alright, alright, you guys are doing fine, I get the point!"

It was her turn to laugh as she moved on to the next available rack and shuffled through the different colored materials. "In case you haven't noticed, I'm a very open person." she remarked. "Or at least, for some cases I am."

"Well I can certainly tell that you're not shy to talk about sex."

"Probably because I'm so good at it." Cirucci shrugged, earning yet another shake of the head from the darker-haired woman. She smiled to herself and loosely paid attention to the new run of blouses here- none of which were in her colors. "What about you?"

Tatsuki mused with the brief question and drew out a pair of jeans from the bottom of the stack, slightly spilling over the ones on top. "Fine. It's mostly just day in and day out at the dojo. I opened up a new class last week and let me tell you, I had to set up a different appointment to accommodate all the people who showed up. Didn't think it would be that popular but every class has been filled for this month."

"Are a majority of these classes filled by men?"

"No, it's about an even split."

"Well there went my theory." she replied, eventually draping one more blouse over her arm for the fun of it; it was probably going to look hideous but she was in the mood for a good laugh. "Is the sex at least good?"

"What? No, we're… we're not that kind of dating." Tatsuki started, stumbling over her words for a moment before she distracted herself with a few shirts nearby. "We're not even dating actually."

She gave a light nod and slowly worked her way back through the racks until she was almost standing in front of the woman; it was easy to note her forced, stoic expression, but… the light hint of a blush pretty much killed it. "But he's cute."

"I haven't noticed." she continued, pulling loose a shirt just for the hell of it.

"Right…" Cirucci replied, drawing out the single word. "Well hey, if you two ever hook up, we can do another double date, except go some place really nice and fancy."

"I don't really do well in those places; I hate dressing up."

"Oh, you can say you hate dressing up, but just wait and see what he looks like in a suit and you'll want to go out more often." she chuckled before she carefully shifted the small collection she kept over her arm. "Now then, if you'll excuse me, I have a few things to try on."

"A few?" Tatsuki repeated. "Looks like you have half the store on your arm."

"They should really be sending me thank you cards."

With that, she left the woman to continue her search for jeans while she weaved her way through the racks of clothing towards the back of the store. She pushed her way through a narrow doorway and into the long corridor of collective doors, all of which were left open. Well, at least she had the entire dressing room to herself then. Shoving aside the first door to her right, she dropped the stack of blouses into the nearby chair and used one foot to close the door behind her. She gave into a subtle stretch before she started to unbutton the front of her shirt, pausing just slightly at her phone going off.

"Are you kidding me?" she whispered with a brief groan before she shrugged off her shirt and tossed it onto the back of the chair before she moved to shuffle through her purse. It better not be work… although she did technically cheat and take the day off without following the proper procedure, but that didn't seem to matter now; it wasn't something they'd call her over anyways. Accepting the call, she balanced it against her shoulder as she moved to retrieve the first of the blouses she picked out. "This is the definition of being attractive speaking."

"Really? Is that really how you answer your calls?"

She paused slightly with her arm through one sleeve and waited a moment for the voice to settle. Her lips contorted into a short frown before she straightened up, leaving the blouse halfway hanging off one shoulder. "Well someone sounds jealous. Mad that you're not the definition of an attractive being?"

"No, it's just a ridiculous- oh forget it, this isn't what I called you about."

"Then what do you want from me, Nell?" she questioned before she shifted the phone to her other ear and finished slipping into the blouse. "You wanna harass me some more? You wanna not invite me to the popular parties? That's fine, I'm over it."

A momentary silence on the other end of the phone was broken by a sharp exhale.

"Alright look, is there somewhere we can talk? Harribel and I just want to sit down and talk this whole thing over."

"Ooh, that sucks because I've got a busy schedule all week and absolutely no free time." Cirucci started, leaning back slightly to keep the phone balanced while she tried to button up the rest of her shirt. "You know how hospitals can be."

"Then why are you out shopping?"

That voice… was eerily close by and certainly did not come in through the phone.

Holding a brief frown, she started back towards the door before she thought better of it. Picking up the selective blouses, she carefully placed them on a nearby wall hook before she moved to stand on top of the newly open chair; the extra height was just enough of a boost to peek over the top of the changing room wall. And in doing so, gave her the perfect vantage point to overlook the two woman standing just on the other side of the dressing room door.

"Wow, you two can royally go fuck yourselves." Cirucci remarked, causing the green-haired woman to jump slightly while her blonde counterpart simply glanced up towards her. "Here I am just trying to enjoy myself and ignore that the rest of you even exist and… you have to go and try and screw with me."

"You haven't even listen to our argument." Nell huffed as she closed her phone and stuffed it back into her bag. "We're serious here, okay? We just want to talk and get over this awkward state we put you in."

She continued to hold her frown while she crossed her arms over the wall of the dressing room. "Well then, I suppose I'd be willing to listen. What do you have to say?"

It was Harribel's turn to sigh briefly as she moved to cross her arms. "Alright look… the call was unexpected, it jumped ahead of schedule, we didn't have time to call you. It was handled decently enough, but… there's still a good chance one of them managed to escape. The reason we called everyone over that night was because we needed to discuss the details we had and figure out where we went wrong, since you weren't involved in the initial strike, we couldn't talk it over with you. Yes, we made the decision not to call you about it; yes, we decided not to allow you to get involved. I understand that pissed you off but… the decision was necessary at the time."

She nodded briefly with the words before she moved to toy with her nails for a moment. "Go on."

"Regardless, the fact still stands that a third party has been introduced and we have to tighten our boundaries. We can't afford a single slip up, we're lucky to have made it this far." Harribel continued. "And as if to make matters worse, you're hanging out with yet another link that has been seen with several Shinigamis."

"I was wondering when the blame was going to come full circle here." Cirucci remarked with a sharp click of her tongue as she pushed herself away from the wall for a moment. "I understand that you don't want me to royally fuck us all over but believe it or not, I don't tell the Quincy everything- believe it or not, I can still keep a good secret. But sure, if you don't want to trust me, even after all these years, then that's your choice. And if that's your choice then there's not much I can do about it- besides rage and curse you behind your back. Now then, if you'll excuse me, I want to finish trying out these blouses and then continue on with this fun and eventful day."

"We're going to have another meeting tonight… you need to be there." Nell spoke.

"I'll think about it."

"Cirucci-"

"Alright, alright, I'll be there." she interrupted. "Can you leave me alone now? Tatsuki is probably wondering what's taking me so long."

The blonde haired woman gave another shake of her head before she stepped back and started out of the cramped corridor without another word. Well… she was going to be fun to deal with later on- in fact, everyone was probably going to just be bundles of fun.

"That color doesn't really suit you, I wouldn't bother with it." Nell remarked.

"Yeah, I wasn't really feeling it all that much either." Cirucci replied with a brief shrug. "Have you lost weight recently?"

"Ugh, it's about time someone finally noticed." Nell chuckled as she moved to set her hands against her hips. "I'm still working off those last few pounds, but I'm almost there."

"Well hey, when you do, we can go on a shopping spree." she offered.

"I could go for a new wardrobe or two." the woman nodded before she finally stepped back and moved to follow after the blonde. "I'll see you later on tonight then- right?"

"Yeah, yeah, I'll be there." she replied before she watched as the woman stepped out just the same, eventually disappearing from view. She gave a shake of her head before she moved to lean against the wall once more. "I hate the both of you so much right now."

"… Do I want to know what that was all about?"

She glanced down at the next question and took note of the slightly questioning look Tatsuki was giving her as she stood in front of her door; several different pairs of jeans tossed over one arm. "Did I tell you I was involved with organized crime?"

The woman narrowed her eyes briefly before she moved to take the room next to her. "Well I guess that would explain those back alley fights you were talking about before."

Shaking her head once more, she stepped off the chair and stripped off the shirt she had on before she moved on to the next. "Actually it was just a few friends making sure that I remembered to join a party later on."

"Somehow I get the feeling that you don't want to go."

Was her tone giving it away that much? Hmm… perhaps she should be more careful with her words- or maybe she should just stop trying to hide it. She gave out a rough sigh as she grabbed for the next shirt and slipped it on, struggling briefly with the tight material. "Well…we kind of had a falling out because of.. 'trust issues' and I'm not exactly eager to go back just yet. But a group of us are getting together tonight and they want me to join so we can all hold hands and forgive each other. In all honesty, I'm probably going to lose my temper and leave."

"Sounds like fun." Tatsuki remarked.

"Well that's what I get for having so little experience with female friends." Cirucci replied with a blunt chuckle. "I forgot how easy it is to piss all of them off with one action."

"That's why I never really had that many female friends." Tatsuki admitted. "I mean, it was mostly just Orihime and Chizuru, occasionally a few others but they never really stuck around long. I think it was because they couldn't handle my attitude or maybe I was just too headstrong for them, who knows. "

Orihime? That name sounded familiar… but where?

"In my lifetime, I've had a total of… seven female friends, but that's just because I came from an area that didn't have the greatest female population anyways." Cirucci added as she fitted the material more suitingly around her figure before she overlooked it in the mirror. Hmm… not half bad, she could find a really cute skirt to go along with it. "Those two were the ones I could relate to the most, but that doesn't mean we still don't have our times of argument." in a sense, she wasn't lying nor was she giving anything away. "Friends can be difficult, I'll tell you that."

"Oh believe me, I know." Tatsuki chuckled. "Seems like most of mine have gone their own way though."

"Is that so?"

"Yeah. Orihime's off at a college out of town and doesn't visit as often as she used to. Chizuru is studying abroad… I don't even remember where, she's gone to so many places now; last time I spoke to her, she described the experience as 'studying broads' and was trying to find the best one to sneak through customs." she continued. "Ichigo's pretty much disappeared for the most part, I talked to him a few days ago but that was about it. As far as I know, it's just Ishida, Chad and myself who remain. And like I've mentioned before, Ishida's difficult enough to get a phone call to with all the work he deals with on a daily basis- and now with you added to the mix as well. So really, it's just Chad and myself hanging out when we can."

She gave out a low whistle as she pulled off the second shirt and hung it up for later purchase. "I was not expecting that story to have a kind of bittersweet ending like that."

"Sorry if it bummed you out." she remarked.

"Nah, I know what it's like to have people move on and forget about you." Cirucci assured. "It sucks but you just have to deal with it. I've had people leave, disappear, die, get murdered… oh wow, let's avoid another unhappy ending here. Uh, what was the point of this story again?"

"These are some terrible jeans."

"Really? Because these blouses are amazing so far."