She was crying. The tears would not cease even if she made no noise. Even though she had sat up, he still had his arms wrapped around her waist in his sleep. She leaned forward further so that her tears wouldn't wet his arm. Did she have a reason to cry? Even looking at him she wasn't sure. Her hair was longer. When had she grown it out, and why did she decide to? She felt the ends. She abandoned her own hair to finger through his. It wasn't tied back. She supposed that made sense, they were in bed. She dropped her hand. They were in bed. Together. Was this why she cried? No, it went further, it was more. Everything was hazy. But she knew where she wanted to go.
Action. She remembered she was a woman of action. Waiting until sunrise felt impossible. She was compelled. It mattered not that she was crying, not that she had to detach the arms from around her, nor that she would disturb others for the sake of her selfish needs.
She would leave. Drop everything. It's not like she could remember what she was responsible for at the moment anyway. She only remembered what was convenient for her. She left silently. She didn't wipe her tears, she let them dry uncomfortably on her face.
Everything was off. The prestige of this house and all the fanciful furnishings left him out of place in the middle of it. There was a moment where he couldn't recognize where he was. A sense of unbelonging. It made him feel hot iron in his chest. He put his hand to his chest over his still beating heart. His mind was sifting through thoughts and his eyes glazed over as they moved in time with the world behind his glass. His heart grabbed him through his chest and bodily turned him to his right. The corner of the covers on the side of the bed next to him was folded over towards his knee. He ached at the emptiness of that sight.
He shivered as he went back to the world behind his eyes. There were many things he didn't understand. He was trying to decide if he wanted what was playing in his mind to be a dream or if he desired for it to have been real. It would help if he could tell whether it was actually real or not. No, this house he was in now could be interpreted as proof. Why else would he be here? He couldn't think of a reason. But he still needed to seek his answers.
He got up and found that his mind accurately lead him to clothing he knew was his own. He explored the house with only half his mind. He knew he was looking for Rukia, tracing his dream-like memories for her early morning frequented places. Kitchen, no. Living room, no. Meditation room, no. He found all the bathroom doors open, he looked down every hallway, nothing. The huge house was hauntingly quiet. If he were more here in the moment, surely this would raise his blood pressure and make his palms sweat. Surely he would become more anxious.
He slid open the paper thin door that led behind the house. His attention actually focused when he saw the head of the Kuchiki clan in his formal robes. He had stopped walking the wooden deck that wraps the exterior of the house and immediately met eyes with him.
"Captain." It was almost said in shock, but his mind made sense of it.
Byakuya stared him for an odd number of seconds before saying anything. "Renji."
Renji took a moment for his brain to refocus on his goal in searching the house. He realized he could solve the mystery if he asked the right question, but there was only one question his mouth spit. There wasn't so much as a thought put into it, his brain power was reoccupied and drifting once again. "Have you seen Rukia?"
"She's not here," was the perfect response for his eyes to refocus on the present, his attention caught. It wasn't a direct answer to his question, but after a few seconds of processing, deliberate, he realized. There was more meaning to be grasped if he devoted his energy that way. He meant… not that she wasn't here in the house, or in the Kuchiki compound, but that she wasn't here in this world.
Byakuya would be able to tell without being told that had she left. To think, after all this time, he still can't even sense his own wife well enough to tell something like that on his own. Wait… Oh.
"Wife…" he breathed. He knew that… just that… he had misplaced that information somewhere within the clouds in his head.
"Why did you marry my sister?" he was interrupted. That question… there was an answer to it.
He spoke slowly, "Because I love her." This was the logical answer to such an illogical human construct.
"That doesn't answer my question," Byakuya told him with a straight face.
He felt that he should be confused, or even privately angry (he couldn't very well be openly angry at his own captain), but he understood what scab Byakuya was picking at. If Byakuya had let it alone for long enough, he would have made it an open wound on his own eventually. Perhaps that's why he couldn't be angry. Either way, if he attended to it, he would bleed.
He had always loved Rukia, from the very beginning. But when they were kids, they were siblings and it was that kind of love. That feeling changed when he gave Rukia over to Byakuya. But since then, at what point had he decided what the change meant? He doesn't remember. Not deciding he was in love, not their wedding, not the details of what came after that. The clear parts are all domestic in flavor. Those are warm, but not much different from their history together since ages ago. He recognized the pain from when he got up some time ago. It was the same. This was the open wound picked from his chest and made almost tangent.
Byakuya watched Renji put his hand to his chest and decided to accept that as the answer to his question. He steps closer to Renji, making him look up at him again. Renji stands in the doorway with one hand on the frame trying to hold himself up, or together, or perhaps keep himself from falling into Byakuya. He only stared, waiting to understand.
"I have tea with Rukia in the mornings while you sleep in. She keeps my favorite in your tea cabinet," Byakuya says by way of explanation.
"Oh," is all Renji manages to say. He doesn't remember anything like that but he supposes that he wouldn't if he always sleeps through it. He steps aside to let his captain pass. He doesn't exactly follow him. He gets in a few steps but then pauses and changes direction, heading back towards his room.
If he plans on leaving the house, he can't forget his rank badge and his zanpakuto. The fact that he hadn't put them on his person when getting dressed is a bit concerning, especially his zanpakuto. He'll visit the head captain. Rukia couldn't have gone anywhere with proper permission. Or at least… she wouldn't(?)
"She woke me up really early this morning, you know."
This wasn't helping. He was finally starting to feel that anxiety that was suppose to hit him much earlier. And his palms were sweating, to his credit. "So you let her leave?"
"She asked for the week off. All young people need some good rest, sometimes even more so than us old men," Shunsui smiled as if he couldn't be more at peace with that moment. "In all the time I've been head captain, she's only asked for time off for the week of your honeymoon, when she had Ichika-chan and the few times you've visited the Kurosakis. Could I say no to that? She doesn't rest enough."
He anxiety levels were increasing by the second. There were no questions like, "She didn't tell you?", "You didn't know?", "She is your wife, isn't she?" If all this anxiety was truly warranted, he needed to find her. "Where did she go?"
"The world of the living, where else?"
Yep. This was not helping his heart at all.
He started to make like he was going to go straight for the Senkaimon but Shunsui stopped him. "Renji, you can't just leave. If you want to take the week off as well, that decision lies with your captain."
He stopped in his tracks and couldn't help but wince. He had the unexplainable, or perhaps completely explainable, feeling that Byakuya wouldn't let him go after her. He just stood there half turned away from Shunsui.
"Renji, if you're both gone, who will be there for Ichika-chan?"
Renji did look up at that. He hadn't put any thought to that name in the earlier part of their conversation, but now it stood out and brought up thousands of memories to the surface of his mind. "Ichika," he said as if he just realized he should be worried about her since he left the house before taking her to school at the academy.
"Don't worry, I'm sure someone from the Kuchiki manor took her to school. But she'll want you there when she gets back, right?" Shunsui was talking sense into him gently.
Right, he couldn't leave Ichika alone without either of her parents and not say anything to her. He suddenly felt immense despair at forgetting his responsibilities as a father. For forgetting he was a father all together!
His hands started shaking at his sides. He felt pulled evenly in separate directions. He needed to find Rukia and talk to her about all that he was feeling. Though he supposed if he had time to think what he was feeling through, he'd be less likely to make a damning mess of things. But Rukia had left for a reason and that made him terrified. What was she thinking? He didn't want to know, but he needed her here instead to reassure him that… He wouldn't think about it. Not yet. On the other hand, even if he had just remembered they existed, his paternal instincts were also a strong pull.
…He knew which he had to do first. So… "I'll… go back… for now, head captain."
