...two updates in one day... ^^;

...this one slightly veered off course, but i think it ended up ok... so far, the longest drabble in this series...

Gift

The argument would always start the same.

"It's just a chappy!"

"It's just a pair of shades!"

Most of the time, it would end with them joking about how stupid their obsessions were. And in some days, they would start ignoring each other until one of them would relent and talk about how stupid it was that they argued about their stupid obsessions.

Today, however, the fight went on a little serious.

They were on an unexpected mission in the Rukongai that Renji had no time to remove his shades and replace it with his maroon bandana. Incidentally, it was also that time when Rukia was just showing Renji her new acquisition of a Chappy keychain that was as big as Renji's palm. Due to the size of it, Renji joked that it could cling to the hilt of his zanpakto and it wouldn't fall off, no matter what he did. Unfortunately for Renji, he had gotten his shades hit by Rukia's miscalculated kidou spell and somehow lost the Chappy along the way.

"You broke my shades!"

"You lost my chappy!"

"That's because you broke my shades. If you didn't, then I wouldn't have dropped your precious chappy!"

"I don't care if it's the most prestigious, fashionable shades in the whole of Seireitei, or of the whole Soul Society even, IT...IS...JUST...A...PAIR OF SHADES!"

"Which cost me a lot of money! Not that it would matter to you!"

And then it ended with that. Rukia left, stomping her foot on the hard wood floor of his quarters. Renji could only furrow his tattooed brows, almost close to pulling the hair off his head in aggravation. He followed shortly after, finding his way into the 11th Division, to vent his pent up frustration to unsuspecting members of the squad, who would take on his dare of a fight.

But just like any fight, one of them would end up caving in.

With calculated steps, Rukia reached the doors to Renji's quarters. She stared at the door for a minute, mustering her courage to knock on the door. She was still unsure of what she was to say, but she knew that it has to end; whatever 'it' was. Just as she was about to raise her hand to knock on the door, she heard heavy footsteps from the other side, steadfastly coming towards her. In a flash, the door flew open to reveal Renji, who almost bumped into her in his haste to leave his place.

"Rukia! What are you doing here?"

"Well, I figured I'd save you the time to come over to me to apologize."

"What?" Renji looked at her for a minute, confusion clearly etched on his features.

"I'm saying, I will forgive you for losing my Chappy, if you will forgive me for breaking your shades. Deal?" Rukia raised her right hand, expecting for Renji to do the same. When Renji just gawked at her, she prepared to punch his silly face. However, instead of holding her hand for a handshake, Renji grasped the back of it and turned it over to place a Chappy keychain on her open palm. The Chappy was just as big as her hands.

"It's not as big as the one I lost and I think the ears are not as fluffy as the other one either, but it's the only one I could get in the short amount of time."

Rukia stared at the Chappy on her hand and for a minute, she felt the time stop. She suddenly felt her heart thumping so hard on her chest that she could hear it beating so loud. She expected that he would come over the Kuchiki Mansion to apologize to her and that he might get her a gift to apologize, but she was not expecting that it would be one of the limited edition Chappy that she, herself, had a hard time ordering.

"Shuuhei told me that there'll be another catalogue coming up in a few days. If you don't want this and if you can wait, I'll let you choose for what you think is best from there."

"No." Rukia murmured. Renji was startled and started to withdraw his hand when Rukia grabbed unto it and looked at him. "No, this is perfect."

Rukia made a move to hug Renji, but since Renji was not expecting it, he stepped back and tripped on the tatami floor. This caused him to fall on his back with Rukia trampling over him.

"Stupid! Why'd you step back?" Rukia tried to punch him on his chest, which was the only part of him that she can successfully reach at the moment.

"I thought you were gonna punch me." Renji defended, stopping another blow from her. He tried to sit up, bringing along Rukia with him, when he felt something on his thigh.

"Uh... Rukia... You're poking me." He mentioned, pointing to where Rukia was still on his thigh, trying to push herself up and sit on an empty space in between Renji's legs.

"Oh! That..." Rukia said. As soon as she was seated properly, with her legs beneath her, she reached for the package underneath her clothes and place it in front of her. "I know it's not August yet, but... here, my early birthday present!"

Renji accepted the box that she pushed to him and carefully inspected it. When he opened it, he was greeted by a shiny new Silver Dragonfly shades.

"I saw it on sale so I thought I'd buy it. But don't expect another gift from me on your birthday." Rukia explained. However, Renji was already too mesmerized and was gawking at the shades in front of him to reply. Although she said that the shades was on sale, anything from Silver Dragonfly was never cheap.

Renji smiled at her and raised a hand in between them. "So, we're even?"

"Whatever." Rukia said, before reaching to shake Renji's hand to finally end their argument.

But both of them knew that this is just the end of the many fights they'll have about Chappy and shades.