Rukia sits on the roof of the District 70 Consolidated Shinigami Recruitment Station, watching the sun come up over Shiotsuka.

That's not actually true.

Rukia never got back to sleep after her weird dream, so she eventually got up to go bash the straw dummies in the practice yard with her bokutou. She's supposed to still be perfecting the motion of her strikes, but she figures this is her own time, and hitting the dummies is more fun.

Afterward, she had clambered up onto the roof with the intent of watching the sun paint its beautiful rays over the scenic streets of District 70, but she got distracted.

Mr. Mochida and Renji are in the garden.

It looks like they might be digging up a few green onions and radishes, hopefully to go with breakfast. Mr. Mochida grows funny little red radishes in addition to the daikon she is more familiar with. They are tiny and crisp and a little bit spicy, and Rukia is probably going to eat his entire crop before she leaves.

They are also talking. She can't quite catch their voices, but she can tell that Renji has a lot of feelings about whatever it is they are discussing, based on the way he waves his arms around.

In all likelihood, they are talking shop. In an utterly unsurprising turn of events, Renji loves learning things. He especially loves learning things you can read out of books or get someone to tell you about, instead of just trying them and then injuring yourself. Rukia still prefers the latter, but then again, she doesn't have Renji's talent for calamity.

It's possible, she supposes, but unlikely, that Renji is unloading any personal feelings, vis-a-vis his traveling companion/afterlife partner. Rukia is well aware of the fact that she is not an easy person to be stuck with on a day-to-day basis, although she considers herself worth the trouble in the grander scheme of things. Renji doesn't hold back from giving her shit when she deserves it, but he's never been one to talk about people behind their backs. In a moment of insecurity, Rukia once asked Fujimaru if Renji ever complained about her. He replied with a surprisingly scathing glare from someone whose eyes were barely visible underneath their bangs.

Whether the conversation is personal or otherwise (which it probably is), it gives Rukia an odd feeling in her stomach to see Renji talk to someone so comfortably. Someone who is not her or Fujimaru or Mameji or Kosaburou, that is. She had known him for months- they were already living together- before he said anything to her that was more than strictly utilitarian. Then, one day, he dryly made a rude (but apt) comment about another kid who had once shoved Mameji into a mud puddle, and Rukia started laughing so hard she couldn't breathe. She still doesn't know how that tipped the scales in his estimate of her, but he hasn't shut up ever since.

She's not being fair. Everyone in Inuzuri is awful and it is perfectly rational to be wary around strangers. She has come to the conclusion that Mr. Mochida, on the other hand, is 100% genuine. Renji, of course, figured that out the first day they got here. To Rukia's mind, that only makes the old man even more incomprehensible. How does anyone go through their day with their entire heart on display like that? She certainly couldn't.

She wonders if Renji could. If he would want to.

Mr. Mochida leans over and raps his knuckles on the fence that separates the garden from the training yard. "Miss Rukia?" he calls, and Rukia's shoulders stiffen.

Renji says something to him that she can't quite catch, and then turns and cups his hands around his mouth. "Oi! Rukia! Get your ass down here, it's breakfast in five!"

Mr. Mochida's face floods with dismay.

"You scab!" Rukia hollers. It makes her feel just the tiniest bit better.

Renji just grins.

"The other way I can be helpful to you," Mr. Mochida tells them, "is to help prepare you for your journey to the Seireitei."

Rukia and Renji look at one another.

"It is not necessarily a dangerous journey, especially for the likes of you two, who seem to be quite skilled at identifying trouble brewing and avoiding it." When you feel like it, hangs, unspoken, in the air.

Rukia arranges her face into its most angelic countenance. She does not recall telling Mr. Mochida this fact about them. It is true, of course.

"More importantly, though, it is arduous. The trip is long, yet it is of utmost importance that you keep yourselves well-fed and rested."

"We've been practicing our hayaashi," Renji points out.

"You have, and you are progressing very well. But today we are going to talk about the more strategic aspects of it. I know you are fond of strategy, Miss Rukia."

"We're listening," Rukia says.

Mr. Mochida nods. "You can stop at any Recruitment Station for food and lodging along the way, but they are far apart down here, and they may not always be convenient. There are stations in districts 60 and 50 and every five after that until 25. You should definitely stop there to resupply your food and water, but do not spend the night if you will lose more than a few hours of travel. North of that, they are located every other district until 10, and then every district. At that point, the recruitment stations will be your best bet for spending the night."

"So what do we do before then?" Rukia asks. "We can't sleep on the road, can we?"

"No," Mr. Mochida agrees, "you will need to stop in towns along the way. Your acceptance letter will come with a travel stipend. It should include enough to get you to District 50, and coupons to trade in for further stipends as you proceed north." He shakes his head and his mustache waggles. "Things get more expensive in the inner districts, so the later stipends will be much larger. They divide it into portions so you do not become targets of theft, of course. It's not that they don't trust you not to run off with the stipend. Please do not be offended."

Rukia thinks this is very prudent of whoever is in charge of stipends, because she would definitely consider running off if someone handed her a fat pile of money.

"To that end," says Mr. Mochida, "we are going to practice obtaining supplies in town." He holds out a folded piece of paper to Rukia. "Here is a list of items I wish you to find-" He extends a handful of coins to Renji. "-and purchase. This is not timed. The goal is to eventually be able to do this quickly and efficiently, but for now, I wish you to take your time and go about this thoughtfully. Aim for thrift without stinginess. Inferior goods will break sooner and cost more in the long-run. When you return, I would like to see how much you have left over, but you may keep it."

"We know how to buy things," Rukia points out, handing Renji the grocery list.

"Inuzuri is a dump, but there is an economy," Renji adds, handing Rukia the money. "Rukia even worked in a shop for a bit."

"Then this should be very straightforward," Mr. Mochida says serenely. "Or, if you think it is a waste of time, you can give me back the money and we can spend the afternoon reviewing the theory behind-"

"No one said it was a waste of time," Renji says quickly. It is a lovely, sunny day out.

"After all, we knew Inuzuri inside and out. This should be an interesting challenge," Rukia adds, as if she hadn't nearly chewed Renji's arm off from anxiety their first day in Shiotsuka when they got lost looking for the shinigami recruitment station.

"Very well then," Mr. Mochida smiles. "Good luck."

"...wax…stomachache powder…" Renji carefully reads items off the list as they head down the street. "Water. And…" He snorts softly. "'Something sweet to enjoy after dinner.'"

Rukia replies with a snort of her own.

"He is so corny," Renji chuckles, shaking his head.

Rukia stares at him, stupefied.

Renji's eyes widen. "I didn't mean that in a mean way! It's just…he's so…" For once, Renji seems at a loss for words.

"Corny," Rukia supplies. "But in an endearing way."

"Yes," Renji nods eagerly. "Exactly." He looks at Rukia out of the corner of his eye and lowers his voice, even though there isn't much foot traffic in the part of town where the recruitment station is located. "So what's our funding situation look like?"

"One thousand kan," she replies under her breath.

Renji lets out a low whistle.

"I have no idea what any of this stuff is gonna cost, though," Rukia points out. "I know what the water would cost in Inuzuri, but you remember how much prices varied, even just between Districts 78 and 77." They'd pulled a lot of grifts up in 77, sometimes even 76.

"Mr. Mochida said to take our time, so maybe we should price stuff out before we buy anything."

"I'm sure he gave us enough," Rukia protests. Mr. Mochida isn't the sort of person who would set them up to fail. She frowns. "Shopping around's not a bad idea, though. I'm sure there's enough, but we might have to be smart about it."

Renji nods. "'Zactly."

"But where are we gonna find all this stuff?" Rukia sticks out her lower lip. "Water sellers should be easy, I remember seeing them around when we first came through. We'll need an apothecary for the stomachache powder." In Inuzuri, most goods were sold through portable stalls or off someone's back. Sometimes it was a matter of finding a person who could get something for you. Either way, it involved a heavy dose of knowing people. Fortunately, while Shiotsuka also seems to have its share of freelance merchants, there are a lot more permanent stores. "I like the signs they have here," Rukia says, pointing up at one that shows a pipe with rings of smoke coming out of it. "You can tell what the shops have without having to go in."

"Yeah, watching the signs is a good idea," Renji agrees, "but I have a better one. I think we should head toward the post office."

"The post office?"

"Look. You remember, Ikariya, the courier?"

Does she remember Ikariya?? "With the sexy haircut?" Rukia says dryly, trying to get a rise out of him. "And legs for days?"

Renji colors. "You're into crew cuts?" he sputters.

Rukia stares at him blankly. Truly, this man is incomprehensible sometimes. "Not particularly."

"Anyway," Renji says, trying to cover his embarrassment. "I was thinking about how she had all those bentos."

"Okay…?"

"All the stuff on the list is stuff that travelers need, right? The shinigami couriers and the other private messengers, they'd mostly be coming from up-district, or at least some of them are. They've probably got lots of money and don't want to spend a lot of time here. The post office is at the exit to the South Road, so wouldn't it make sense to set up shop nearby and sell stuff that travelers need?"

"Oh!" Rukia considers this. "Except that it would also make sense to gouge the Hell out of them, no?"

"Of course you would think of that," Renji shakes his head.

Rukia's mouth drops open. "You heard Mr. Mochida! We only get one shot at this, and all the sword training in Soul Society won't help us if we run out of money and show up to the tests with no reiatsu because we couldn't eat!"

Renji stares at her like she's grown a second head. "Ru," he says. "I was just marveling at how smart you are. You dummy."

"Oh," says Rukia.

"And of course I agree," he adds. Then, under his breath, "Also, we could always lift stuff."

Rukia's eyes go wide. "I thought you didn't want to do stuff like that anymore!"

"I mean, I don't want to! But I'm gonna do what we gotta do, you know? Every day, I learn some new way that we're getting shafted by this whole process. I'm not gonna lose any sleep if I gotta do a little borrowing from people who started out way ahead of us anyway." He looks over at her. "Unless you don't want to…?"

"Pfft!" Rukia scoffs. "I think you're well aware of my feelings on the subject!"

"Mm," Renji replies noncommittally.

"So, I think the thing to do," Rukia says, desperate to get off this topic, "is to start out near the post office, as you said. See if we can at least find all the stuff on the list, and what it's going for. I think it will be useful to know what kind of markup we're facing. It sounds like time is going to be tight on this trip, as well as money. It may be worth overpaying if it gets us back on the road more quickly. It just depends on how it's going."

"Good point," Renji nods. "Also, if there are any messengers or other experienced travelers hanging around at the post office, we could ask them if they have any tips!"

"You can do that," Rukia says under her breath.

Renji laughs. "Hey, I gotta bring something to this partnership, eh?"

Rukia has no idea what she's supposed to say to that.

"How did you get the stomach medicine for so cheap?" Mr. Mochida goggles as he skims the prices Renji noted down on their shopping list.

"We did some haggling," Rukia explains.

"Haggling?" Mr. Mochida echoes. He flips over the packet of stomach medicine so he can see the label. "You got this from Tagaki's? Mrs. Takagi is a skinflint!"

"I did some arm-breaking for a crooked apothecary for a while," Renji admits. "So I know some of the usual methods for bulking the goods."

"'Arm-breaking' is just an expression, he hardly broke any arms," Rukia clarifies.

"It's true, I usually find a sleeper hold is perfectly effective and doesn't cause any lasting-"

Rukia cuts him off. "We just asked Mrs. Takagi some very specific questions about the quality of her merchandise," Rukia explains. "So she mixed that up for us real cheap-"

"-where we could see what she was doing-"

"-and then she told us to get out."

Mr. Mochida drags his hands over his face.

"So, did we do well?" Rukia asks eagerly.

"You did," Mr. Mochida nods, looking over the array of items laid out on the table. He raises one eyebrow. "Except that you seem to have forgotten the last item. Perhaps you felt it was frivolous, but as a shinigami, you must follow the orders of-"

"Ta-daaaa!" Rukia yells, pulls the bottle from behind her back and slams it down on the table. "We used all the money we saved from the medicine to buy the best one they had in the store!"

Mr. Mochida stares at it, uncomprehending. "That's…sake."

They nod.

"A sweet one. For after dinner," Renji adds, for good measure.

A look of utter mortification comes over Mr. Mochida's face. "I meant a dessert. Like sweet buns? Or candy?"

"Candy is for children," Rukia frowns sternly. "We wanted to get something nice. For you."

Mr. Mochida narrows his eyes at them. "Is that really why you bought it?"

Rukia's face is a portrait of innocence. Renji is congenitally incapable of looking innocent, so he just flashes a toothy, hopeful grin.

"One glass," Mr. Mochida declares. "After dinner."

He lets them have two glasses each.

The stuff is pretty weak, but it has a lovely flavor, like honey.

Rukia suspects that Mr. Mochida has quite a different opinion. Aside from the horror that steals across his face at the first sip, he is very polite about it, though. Maybe he's not much of a drinker.

Rukia has a surprisingly high alcohol tolerance, but it's been an emotional few days, and by bedtime, she's feeling pretty maudlin.

Rukia sits on her futon and watches Renji attempt to braid his own hair. She is mildly miffed that he's got two glasses of sake in him and he can't see what he is doing, and it is still coming out better than her attempts.

He looks so different with it like that. Softer, sure. But also, when he stops looking like he wants to fight the world for five seconds, he looks somehow both older and younger. More mature, maybe, but less weighed down. It occurs to Rukia that the District 70 Consolidated Shinigami Recruitment Station is probably the safest place they have ever been, maybe the safest place they will ever be. Maybe that's why she keeps seeing all these new sides to him, why he seems to shift and change every time she looks away for even a moment.

Or maybe he really is changing.

Once you start to change, you can stop where you are, or you can become the thing you're meant to be, but you cannot go back to what you were.

Rukia frowns. She isn't sure where the thought came from, but it is a prickly, uncomfortable one.

In the last few months, since Renji broke his arm, maybe, things had begun to change between him and her. At first, the changes were nearly imperceptible-a new weight to his gaze, a new softness to his voice. It was after he gave her the nickname, she thinks, when she became Ru, but only to him, that things snowballed from practice kisses to real ones, from tentatively reaching for his hand to tracing his face with her fingers.

Rukia had liked these changes, but they scared her, too, so there were no declarations. No confessions, no ill-advised promises of devotion. She didn't want to lose the life that they had and then they lost it anyway. She doesn't even know what she and Renji are anymore, but at the same time, he's all that she has. She knows better now, than to pretend this isn't happening and simply hope things will magically work out.

"They aren't going to let us do this when we get to the Academy."

Renji's eyebrows beetle. "What, drinking? Probably not, no. I imagine people find a way to, anyway." He tilts his head toward her. "Didn't know it was all that important to you."

"Sharing a bed," Rukia specifies.

"Oh," says Renji. "That."

"You've already been thinking about it?"

Renji ties off the end of his braid. "Been trying not to, actually."

"I think we should try. Sleeping apart, that is."

Renji looks at her, a wounded look in his eyes.

"It's like Mr. Mochida said," Rukia quickly tries to explain herself. "We gotta learn to play by their rules, or at least look like we can. If we stick to each other too hard, all anyone will ever see when they look at us is District 78. That's not even getting started on whatever else dumbshit rules they have about how boys and girls are supposed to act around each other."

"I don't see why we gotta start now. Can't we wait 'til we actually get up there?"

"Because it makes it our decision, instead of a thing they are making us do," Rukia replies. "Because this is an act, do you get that? You can be honest if you want, and lose your accent and even-" she grimaces, "cut your hair if you really want to, but maintaining a proper, respectable distance from one another is a grift we are pulling together. It has to be convincing. We have to practice."

Renji stares at her for a long time. "Feels like you want to go breaking a thing just to keep someone else from breaking it."

She sets her jaw. "If you break a thing yourself, at least you know how the pieces go back together."

Renji sucks his teeth. Slowly, he nods. "I get it. You're probably right. You usually are." He sighs. "Do you want me to go to the other room?"

Rukia doesn't say anything. She knows she should, but it took so much effort to get all that out that she doesn't have enough left to tell him to leave.

"Well…maybe we can work up to it." Renji gets up and drags his futon a few yards away from Rukia's. "There. How's that?"

Rukia snorts, feeling a little silly. "It's good," she says.

Renji lies down and stretches his arms behind his head. "If I'm yawning my way through sword practice tomorrow, it's all your fault."

All part of my plan, Rukia would say, if she weren't feeling like absolute dogshit. "Thanks," she says instead. "Renji."

It takes what feels like one million hours to fall asleep. It doesn't actually, because Rukia has been working hard all day and expending a lot of spiritual energy and also she's had two glasses of sake. It takes about twenty minutes. And then it is morning, and the sun is streaming in the window, hitting her right in the eyes. She tries to pull the blanket up over her face, but she can't, because Renji's arm is flung over her side, his face smashed in between her shoulder blades.

So much for that.