Author's Note: I do not own Bleach or its characters. This is AU.
I Promise You'll Be Happy
Rangiku Matsumoto was all in favor of romance. In fact, she'd done her part to assist a number of romances lately with quite good results. The thing was it was kind of annoying to be surrounded by happy couples when your own love life wasn't going so well. At least Rangiku knew she wasn't alone in that. Her friend Nanao Ise over in the English department was working her way out of denial over the fact that she was in love with her faculty supervisor. Rangiku at least would admit that she was in love with Gin Ichimaru.
She had been for years. They had been constant companions up until they had reached high school. They'd been in the foster care system together, and despite all of the changes of address and shuffling around, Gin had been the one constant in her life. Then Rangiku had been offered the chance to study at a private school based on her grades, and Gin hadn't let her turn it down despite the fact that it would mean moving away from him. They had lost touch over the years, and they hadn't been reunited until Ran had started working on her master's degree here at Seireitei University.
But there had been a change in their relationship. For one thing, Rangiku was now aware of the fact that she was in love with him, and for another, Gin had kept his distance to a certain extent. Oh, they had hung out together at university social events or if they ran into one another while out, but there had been very little in the way of moments alone together. In fact, Rangiku could only think of two instances where they had deliberately gotten together, both times at Gin's suggestion. One had been for her birthday, and the other had been after a particularly horrendous week of Rangiku's.
Given what had happened over the past few months with Aizen, Rangiku was beginning to wonder if he'd distanced himself from her in order to keep her out of Aizen's attention. That would indicated that Gin cared for her to some extent, but Rangiku still would have preferred to know if he shared her feelings or not. Now that Aizen was out of the picture, maybe she would have a chance to find out. Rangiku sighed. First she had to finish grading these stupid papers.
