It was close to one a.m. The snow had continued to fall, slow and steady, and although it melted where it hit the road, it was starting to stick to the sidewalk and had already blanketed the grassy areas. The world was quickly being painted a pretty white. Between the heat running at full blast and the grumble of the idling engine, the front seat of the Exige felt like its own, entirely self-contained universe, a bubble of warmth floating in a sea of quiet.
"Thanks for driving," Renji said softly, leaning over to undo his seatbelt. "I was really impressed by your mastery over the raw power of this marvel of precision automotive engineering."
"Think nothing of it," Rukia replied magnanimously, "it's always a pleasure to ferry a pretty man around town."
"Hmm," said Renji, tugging on the seat belt, "is there a trick to this thing?"
"Oh, yes, it sticks sometimes," Rukia said, leaning over to help.
Renji didn't quite get his hand out of the way in time. "Oops, sorry!" he said, as their fingers tangled together.
"No, that was-"
The seat belt abruptly snapped open and retracted with a loud zzzzhng! They both looked up suddenly and their eyes met.
"-my fault."
Their faces were very, very close together. Renji's cheeks were very pink, but Rukia could still make out the adorable dusting of freckles across his cheeks. His breath smelled like pie.
Rukia was a bold and decisive woman who grabbed opportunities when they came her way. With a confident, but tender hand, she cupped the back of his head and pulled him to her. His lips were soft and eager against hers, and when she pushed her tongue between them, he let her in with a plaintive little moan.
Rukia wrinkled her nose. She wasn't sure if she liked this version better than the one where she confidently put her arm around the back of his seat and smoldered at him, before leaning down to kiss him. It was definitely sexier, but her stupid detail-oriented brain kept dwelling on the anatomical impossibilities it entailed.
Neither of these things had actually happened, obviously. What had actually happened was that she had pulled up in front of his place and said, "Well, I guess this is it," and Renji said "I guess so." And then they each sputtered out a number of statements of the variety "I had a really nice time" and "Thank you for coming" and "Thank you for inviting me" and "Drive safe" and "Have a good week" and "I'm sure I'll text you", except that none of them came out in any sort of sequence resembling a human conversation, it was just sort of asynchronous shouting. Then, Renji tried to get out of the car, except that he forgot about that chassis bar, and Rukia was sure he was going to eat shit and she was going to have to drive him to the emergency room and then pay for rhinoplasty and also he would never want to be her boyfriend. Somehow, though, he managed to duck into a shoulder roll that would have made her aikido sensei proud, coming up smoothly on his feet.
"Ehehehe, good night!" he managed and then proceeded to walk into his apartment building, obviously trying to shake off all the snow stuck to his hair and coat without her noticing.
Out of the nine hours since, Rukia had slept for about five of them, and spent most of the other four contemplating alternative branches of the timestream in which smooches were exchanged. There was even an entire sub-branch of scenarios where Rukia was such a good kisser that Renji invited her upstairs, but those weren't appropriate for meditating on while standing in the lighting aisle of a nonprofit architectural salvage and building material reuse center.
"Hey. Rukia." Chad's tall frame was peering around the end of the aisle.
Rukia snapped abruptly out of her reverie. "Oh! Hi, Chad! Oh, shoot, is everyone else ready to go? I'm sorry, my mind drifted."
Chad sauntered toward her. "No. Uryuu and Orihime are still trying to decide which vases they like best. I think they are making a tier list. I said I was going to check on you, but I am really helping, because every time I say I like one, they reorganize their entire system from scratch."
Rukia made an exaggerated frowny face at him. "Chad. It's your wedding, too, you know."
"I know. But one of the reasons I am marrying Uryuu is because I like the things he picks out. I think he is having fun and I know he will come up with something good."
Rukia smiled fondly at him. "You guys are so good together. I'm so glad you're getting married."
Chad smiled back. "Me, too."
Chad was making the face he made when he was both happy and embarrassed, so Rukia took the cue to change the subject. "What do you think of this chandelier?" she asked, gesturing toward the immense, crystalline monstrosity she had been contemplating before her mind turned to thoughts of long red hair and eyeliner that could cut glass.
"In an abstract sense, or in the 'I will be wrestling that thing into my van in half an hour' sense?" Chad asked.
"You're such a good friend, Chad," Rukia replied.
"I see," said Chad stroking his chin. "It's very fancy. Very sparkly."
"That's what I like about it," Rukia replied. "Based on the pricetag, it's not, like…a collector's item or anything, but I think it has really good vibes."
"It might just be cheap because it's huge and, um, not a thing everyone would want. In their home." Chad was inspecting the cord. "This is older wiring. This could be a tricky install." He had worked his way through college doing construction, and according to Ichigo, has picked up so many skilled trades that he would probably make significantly more money if he had gone into general contracting than social work, but that wouldn't have been very Chad of him.
"Oh," said Rukia. "I could pay someone, probably."
"I would do it for you," Chad replied. "I really liked those brownies you made last week. You could pay me in brownies."
"Chad, they were so weird."
"I liked them." Chad scratched his shaggy head. "You said you were trying to jazz up your living room. You would put this in your living room?"
"Er," said Rukia.
"Usually, people put a chandelier in the dining room."
"Well, yes. But I was going for sort of…an…eclectic…look?"
"You don't have very much in your living room. You kind of need a lot of things to be eclectic."
"It's true." Rukia screwed up her face. She admitted that she had been thinking about the chandelier mostly on its own merits. "I guess it would look pretty silly, huh?"
Chad cocked his head to one side thoughtfully. "Well, it would if that was all you were going to do. But it sounded like you wanted to make a big project of it."
"I did," Rukia admitted. "But what happens if I get one lamp into it and get distracted?"
"Sort of like how you agreed to take Byakuya's sofa and then you ended up with a weird sofa that nothing goes with?"
"Technically, it's a Chesterfield, and yes. Exactly. So maybe I should stick to something more subtle."
Chad stuck out his lower lip. "I don't think so, actually."
Rukia blinked. "No?"
"You have really great taste, Rukia. I'm sure your living room will look amazing when it's done. It will probably look like one of the sets from that kdrama you got Uryuu into and he made me watch. The one with the foxes."
"Yes, yes, I know exactly which one you mean," Rukia nodded. She had not even considered taking inspiration out of the Afterlife Immigration Office from Tale of the Nine-Tailed but now that Chad mentioned it…
"I think that sometimes when a person wants to make a big change in their life, it's hard to get started. It's hard to step away from something that's safe and comfortable, even if it's not really what makes you happy."
"Chad," said Rukia.
"Yes?" said incurable romantic Yasutora Sado.
"Are you talking about my chandelier, or are you talking about something else? Chad?"
"I was talking about the chandelier," Chad said.
"Okay," said Rukia.
"But while we're talking about Abarai," Chad went on.
"Oh, geez," Rukia sighed.
"I'm glad you've started hanging out with him."
Rukia felt a tiny smile creep onto her face. "Yeah. He's a pretty neat guy, huh?"
"Oh," said Chad. "Yeah, he is. But also, well… I really wanted to get matching tattoos as part of the wedding, in addition to exchanging rings. Uryuu wasn't into it, though, and I didn't want to push it. But he brought it up again last week after we got home from Test-Run Sunday. I think he had kind of a bad impression of tattoo places, and the fact that you like Abarai and his friends so much has really turned it around."
Rukia stared at Chad for a long moment. "That's really wonderful, Chad," she finally said.
"He said he sort of liked the idea of text, rather than a picture. I thought it would be cool, maybe, if he got one of the verses from the proposal song I wrote for him, and I got the bar of music that goes with it."
"Shut up, Chad, that's perfect!" Rukia announced. "If you can get him on board, you should let me pay for it. For a wedding present."
"You don't have to do that."
"For a wedding present." Another thought hit her. "You two also really really need to meet Renji's friends Izuru and Shuuhei. Wait. Don't tell him you said anything to me. I will casually send him some of Izuru's Instagram posts. 'Oh I know you aren't into tattoos, but isn't this guy's work great?' Trust me, I'll win him over for you."
"Thank you, Rukia. I knew I should have asked you earlier."
"I am here for you, Chad."
Chad made a pleased little faraway smile for a moment. "I do like Abarai, by the way," he finally added. "I didn't mean to imply that I didn't. He's taught summer art classes for me for three years now, and I have often thought he's someone I would like to get to know better. He's really good with the teens, even the ones that don't like adults very much. I wouldn't have guessed you two would get along so well, but it doesn't surprise me."
"What makes you say that?" Rukia laughed. "We're pretty different."
"I don't know. You just feel like two people who would like each other."
Rukia's cheeks warmed. She didn't really know what to say to that. Between her brother, her years in therapy, and her chosen career, Rukia had a tendency to overanalyze pretty much everything. Chad's approach to life used to stress her out a little, but after the many years of their acquaintance, she had come to accept Chad's baseless hunches for what they were, which was usually very accurate and worth their weight in gold.
"Have you decided about the chandelier?" Chad asked.
"It's such a leap," Rukia frowned. "I should probably ask Orihime and Uryuu."
"Orihime will love it. Uryuu will say it's ridiculous."
Rukia held her chin in one hand as she studied the chandelier. It was ridiculous. She loved it. It was a very stupid thing to buy. There were a dozen other interesting hanging lamps in this very aisle that would make a pleasant, marginal improvement to her space that she could enjoy, even if she totally flopped the rest of the project. The chandelier would make her living room look even goofier than it actually did, until she bought enough other ridiculous items to make her apartment look like a cross between the set of an Oscar Wilde play and a wizard's shop that would sell you a cursed puppet and then not be there when you tried to find it again the following week.
"I'm buying it," she declared.
"Cool," Chad nodded. "I think we'll need an employee to help us get it down. I think I saw Mr. Starkk napping in the rug aisle."
"I always feel bad to disturb him," Rukia admitted.
"He does get paid to work here. Presumably," Chad mused.
"You know," Rukia said, who felt suddenly emboldened by her very brave decision-making. "Speaking of rugs… my grandfather has this rug that he keeps in his billiards room because he hates it, but I always loved it when I was a kid. It's covered in deranged birds. I think it might be Victorian. I wonder if he would let me have it. I think it would really tie the couch and the chandelier together."
"Mm," said Chad.
Most of Kuchiki Manor was decorated in the very spare, traditionally Japanese aesthetic that both Byakuya and their grandfather preferred, but for some reason, the billiard room was a repository for valuable family heirlooms that Ginrei didn't like but felt obligated to keep. No one in the family even played billiards, although Rukia had fond memories of whacking the balls around the table with her youngest cousins Choei and Naoko at long ago Thanksgivings. Now that she thought about it, she did know why all of Ginrei's worst objets d'art ended up in that room. Which gave her another idea.
"Chad," she said. "Are you any good at hanging wallpaper?"
"I knew I shouldn't have encouraged you," said Chad.
Author's Note:
Chad works at the city department of youth services. He drives a Chrysler Pacifica because he's constantly hauling children and equipment around. It's very practical. Everyone makes fun of Chad's minivan until they need to buy an ostentatious crystal chandelier.