Rangiku arrived nearly two hours late. Since Gin had once again vanished. She'd put Kinta to bed, but Toshiro had managed to convince her to go out after his brother was asleep. No matter how hard she tried she couldn't hide from Shiro how much it bothered her when Gin took off, and he knew from experience that the best thing she could do was get out of the house and have some fun. Whether she stayed or went she was going to drink herself sick, but to him at least it sounded better for her to get drunk hanging out and laughing with friends than alone in a dark room, all depressed and feeling sorry for herself.
So here she was at the sakeya, two hours after Kira had told her they were getting together, finally approaching a table full of drunk friends.
It was amusing to see them from the outside for once, watching how they interacted. Kira, who sadly could not hold his liquor at all, was sharing with Hinamori a depressing story about his dead mother. For some reason, when drunk, he always shared depressing stories about his deceased parents; Rangiku thought it an unfortunate character flaw and did her best not to sit next to him when sake was available.
Nemu was conspicuously absent. Rangiku, Miyako, and even Nanao had put in a lot of effort over the past few years to get the girl a social life, but since her marriage they were seeing less and less of her. Captain Ukitake's worsening health was probably the cause, but that thought only made Rangiku feel guilty. She had not tried to drag Nemu out into the world just so she could fall in love and watch the only person she'd ever loved die slowly and miserably.
Rangiku forced that thought from her head, turning quickly to the men of the Eleventh for a distraction. Renji and Ikkaku were going back and forth about something, and they were both drunk enough that they probably had no hope of ever understanding each other.
"No, no, no, no," Ikkaku said, shaking his head slowly. "Explain it again. Why is Captain Tosen angry with Hisagi?"
"Seems to me that Captain Tosen should be pleased his lieutenant has made such an impressive match," Yumichika said coolly; alcohol never appeared to affect him at all no matter how much he drank. "I doubt there's a more commendable woman in the entire Gotei and that's without even considering her lineage."
Renji waved his hands as though he could push away their words. "No, he's not-he's disappointed. Guess he doesn't like the sex or something. He told Hisagi-san this whole marriage thing's gotten out of hand and he needed to rethink his priorities if he wanted to remain lieutenant of the Ninth-"
"I thought you said it was because Hisagi wanted to take Captain Kyoraku's offer to adopt him into the family," Ikkaku said. "I mean if he's just jealous Hisagi's getting laid he should get over it or get his own woman-got no business kicking Hisagi out over that."
"Wait, what?" Rangiku demanded, forcing her way in beside Yumichika. "Shuhei-kun is going to become a Kyoraku? Since when?"
"He hasn't decided what to do," Renji answered. "He just left for a few days in Rukongai. You should have been here earlier; Lieutenant Ise was looking for you, but she got mad and left."
"She got mad at you because you kept telling her how Hisagi used to be fun, but she'd turned him into an angsting mass of nerves who spent all his time running errands for her or crying about her," Yumichika said.
"I didn't say that!" Renji protested.
"Not in so many words," Yumichika admitted. "But she left when you wouldn't stop talking about how she had him running back and forth across Seireitei all day yesterday chasing down Reimbursement Reports from all over the Gotei."
"It was hilarious! Half the Gotei was in hiding by the afternoon!" Renji said.
Rangiku had to agree. If there was anything every shinigami hated it was filing Reimbursement reports. Half the Gotei needed to be reimbursed for one purchase or another at least monthly, and nearly everyone tried to get away with not filing the paperwork for it. In the Tenth, the officer in charge of petty cash would hand out small amounts with nothing more than a verbal request he'd jot down when he got the time. The bureaucracy of the Gotei wanted a bit more information, and Nanao had spent years nagging people to do their paperwork properly. Yesterday had been brilliant. She'd given Hisagi a list of serial offenders and asked him to pick up the reports for her, giving him the impression that they were of vital importance and absolutely had to be brought in that day.
Lieutenant Hisagi was not the most intimidating or forceful person who'd ever tried to collect the reports, but he had an impressive amount of determination. Rangiku had watched with growing amusement as Hisagi had simply stood over the Tenth Division officer for an hour after answering, "I'll wait," when the man had told him he couldn't hand over the reports because they weren't done. The officer had finally given in and filled out the forms just to get him to leave. She'd also heard Hisagi had had to use kido to track down the Twelfth Division's officer in charge of the reports because she had hidden herself in the basement behind a barrier when she'd heard he was coming. All in all it was a successful move; Nanao had saved herself weeks of stress and Hisagi had only wasted a single day. Seemed brilliant to Rangiku, but apparently to Renji it was proof Hisagi was whipped.
"I wish Gin would help me with work sometimes," Rangiku said wistfully. "The closest he ever gets is helping me train and by helping me train I mean beating the shit out of me on an almost daily basis."
"He beats the shit out of you?" Ikkaku demanded, and Rangiku realized she'd phrased that completely wrong because everyone at the table was suddenly looking at her and looking very serious.
Rangiku laughed forcefully. "You know what I mean. You've tried to spar with a captain. They think they're going easy on you and you still get knocked halfway across the room. Honestly, I'm lucky he will because everyone else treats me like a freaking china doll-but is Captain Kyoraku seriously considering adopting Hisagi into his family? Why would he do that?"
"Because Lieutenant Ise wants Hisagi and her family wants a nobleman," Yumichika answered before anyone could question her further about fighting with Gin. He had talked to her about it before and was satisfied Gin wasn't hurting her. He was happy to help her redirect the conversation because nothing put Rangiku in a worse mood than suggesting her husband was mistreating her. Call him a bastard, a pig, even a psycho and she wouldn't bat an eye but imply that he might purposefully hurt her in any way and that was too far. "One gets the feeling Captain Kyoraku would do anything for his lieutenant."
"Nanao doesn't know how spoiled she is," Rangiku agreed. "My captain never did a thing for me-when I had a captain."
"I seem to recall him throwing you a wedding," Yumichika said.
"Yeah, well, that's a long way from adopting your fiancé into his family," Rangiku said, "Me and Gin are always going to be Rukongai trash, but Hisagi's moving up in the world."
She frowned at that thought. "Tosen's from Rukongai too," she said. "You don't think he thinks Hisagi sold out, do you? Tosen's all about truth and justice and honor and whatever. He probably wouldn't think there was anything worse than marrying a woman just to move up in the world."
"That's it!" Renji said, suddenly. "That's gotta be what Hisagi-san was talking about. He was going on about being true to himself and shit. I don't know what he's talking about half the time. He sounds just like Captain Tosen. Don't know how the captain could ever think he'd sell out. They're both practically saints."
"Until he started sleeping with Ise-that's a bit off the ideals of shinigami perfection," Ikkaku had to point out. "The hell is with that anyway? Who decided shinigami were above sex? No one in Rukongai went around saying, 'we're all souls now. We should forget the desires of the flesh.' Soul Society would be effing boring if we all became a bunch of monks-have to give up fighting and drinking too, if you wanna be properly holy. Then what the hell would we do with all these centuries?"
"Fortunately there will always be hollows to kill," Yumichika said. "And even Captain Tosen does not object to killing in the name of justice. However I do believe he discourages his men from overindulging in alcohol. I do prefer Captain Zaraki's approach."
"What's that?" Rangiku asked.
"Do whatever the hell you want as long as you keep getting stronger," Renji told her.
Rangiku smiled. "I like that; nice and to the point. I could adopt it for the Tenth, but I'd have to add something about everyone else doing all the paperwork."
"You just need a Yumichika. He handles all that no problem," Ikkaku told her.
"No problem?" Yumichika demanded. "I work hours every single day trying to keep the Division up to date and organized. I don't mind doing it, but it would be nice if every once in a while someone acknowledged my contribution."
"Well, that's not going to happen," Ikkaku answered.
"Yeah," Renji had to agree. "The captain wouldn't care if you never turned in another report. And the lieutenant's always turning them into paper airplanes anyway."
Yumichika sighed and carefully poured himself another cup of sake. "And this is why I drink," he said.
"Better than my reason," Rangiku answered sighing too.
"The hell with you two," Ikkaku said. "I drink 'cause it's fun!"
Rangiku smiled. "That too." She raised her cup, and said, "To drinking till I throw up or pass out."