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alexiethymia · 2 years

Text

realization

summary: [Post-TYBW] Momo falls in love. It’s messy business.

[read on ao3]

part 1 / part 2

Renji was having a strange night.

It started with an innocent enough invitation, to come drink with the fifth division lieutenant. Now, Rukia might call him an emotional blockhead enough times, but he was confident that he was nowhere as bad as Kuchiki-taichou. So he had enough ‘sensitivity’ to note that it wasn’t so much the invitation that was strange considering who it came from, but the activity proposed, considering who it came from.

He joined Hinamori once or twice to some ikebana classes she’d invited him to, but he wasn’t such as insensitive buffoon that he wouldn’t understand that wasn’t exactly the best option now (he did listen to that second voice inside his head sometimes - and if it had the same voice as his wife, well that was no one’s business but his own). Even so, drinking wasn’t exactly Hinamori’s first choice of activity, neither was it her second or third, so he guesses that this must have been Rangiku-san’s idea, maybe another one of those informal lieutenant get-togethers.

Imagine his surprise at the scene he finds when he ducks down the low awning of the local izakaya Hinamori invited him to. It’s not that he’s surprised to find Hinamori there – tucking her hair behind her ear and taking delicate sips of her glass of water – since the invitation came from her after all, but rather he’s surprised at who he doesn’t find.

Hinamori sits alone at the table, surrounded by boisterous drunkards enjoying the end of a working day. It’s an incongruous sight, and though Renji knows that as a seated officer Hinamori could beat anyone in the room, it’s still jarring to see the normally sweet and demure girl in a place like this one. He rubs his hand through his hair sheepishly. Rukia would probably hit him for that thought. Rangiku-san is nowhere to be found; neither is Kira which is weird if this was supposed to be some sort of reunion.

Strange doesn’t mean unpleasant, and it’s been a while since Renji talked to Hinamori last, so with a wide wave, he catches her attention, “Oi, Hinamori!”

Renji’s night continues to become even stranger.

It’s not so much that Hinamori wrings her hands (which in retrospect he should have recognized as her habit when she was anxious about something), as she asks him, “Are you really sure Kuchiki-san won’t mind?”

Renji snorts. In the privacy of his mind, he remembers Rukia lecturing him about making sure “to take care of Hinamori fuku-taichou” before he left. He was miffed, “I get it already. Why’re ya so worried?”

“Baka Renji! It’s you I’m worried about.”

At that, Renji’s eyes softened. “You have nothing to worry about, Rukia. You know Hinamori and I are just friends…”

Rukia’s eyes widened before she laughed with tears in her eyes. Clutching her hands to her stomach, she chortled, “I’m not talking about that!” His eyebrow twitched. See if he was ever going to reassure his wife again after that.

Wiping away the tears from her eyes she stood up from her bowed position, still chuckling. She then fixed him with a serious and solemn gaze. “I’m serious, Renji. If anything happens to Hinamori fuku-taichou while she’s with you, drinking,” she emphasized while grinning, but then she paused and looked at him with a hum. “Well, your tolerance to cold has always been good. Maybe you’ll be just fine.”

Remembering Rukia’s mischievous gaze, Renji shivers in the present. That better not be a premonition. “Yeah, Rukia wouldn’t mind,” he mutters.

“What was that?”

“Nothing, nothing, just talking to myself.” He says to reassure the other girl. Swinging himself onto the seat, he orders sake for the both of them. Once he pours out a cup for Hinamori, and she does the same for him, they kanpai and he asks her how she’s been doing.

“Oh, we’ve been doing great,” she chirps, comfortable now and a slight flush on her cheeks after just a few sips of sake. She’s always been a lightweight, Renji thinks bemused. “All the paperwork’s done. Hirako-taichou’s really outdone himself this time. I even had enough time to visit the fourth division, Kira-kun, Nanao-san, Rangiku-san, and…”

“Hm?” He wondered why she suddenly trailed off, and at the sudden red that seemed to be creeping up her cheeks that seemed too much for a cup of sake no matter how much of a lightweight she was. She squeaked and covered her mouth with both hands, as if trying to prevent words from coming out, “Never mind,” she laughed, although it didn’t sound like her usual carefree laugh to Renji. Eyes growing softer, she asked him, “How about you, Abarai-kun? How have you and Kuchiki-san been since the wedding?”

It was Renji’s turn to blush. He told her about how they had started settling in the Kuchiki manor, but mostly how it was just the same old, same old. Her eyes seemed to be watery as she listened to him riveted.

“Oi, don’t cry on me now, Hinamori.”

“Sorry, sorry,” she sniffled, “I’m just…I’m so happy for you,” she exclaimed, voice full of sincerity.

He grinned at her. “So, what’s up? I thought this was one of Rangiku-san’s drinking sessions. What’d I do to deserve the honor of receiving one of your rare – previously unheard of – invitation to drink?” He was joking, but also more than a bit curious.

Hinamori grew even redder as she whispered, “As much as I wanted to, I couldn’t invite Rangiku-san.”

Worried at that statement, he was about to ask if Hinamori really was in some sort of serious trouble when she suddenly said, “I wanted to ask your advice, Abarai-kun.”

And man did that feel good to hear. Worry abated for now, he grins at her. “Of course. What can I help you with?” He remembered old days. Usually, both of them would turn to Kira for their studies. Both she and Kira were great at kido, but he’d usually ask her for advice since he remembers feeling that competitive spirit towards Kira back then. In a way, she was also more patient.

It’s not just that though. He remembers confiding in her about things he thought he’d locked away, an ease that could only be felt in talking to a female friend, since back then he was still foolish about keeping up a tough façade and what was expected of him as a man. Before, he would have just talked to Rukia, but he couldn’t exactly do that in the after, and when the topic in conversation was the girl in question.

“Trust me, Abarai-kun! I’m sure she’ll love it.”

Renji had scratched his head in confusion. “I don’t know about this, Hinamori. Y’see Rukia’s not exactly a sweet girl like you. She’s tomboyish and brash. She’s the type to just kick your head in when she gets annoyed.” Even so, he still held the bouquet of snowdrops Hinamori helped him pick out for her birthday, adorned with a ribbon patterned with rabbits which Hinamori insisted that he have. “She’d probably ask what the heck I was doing.” He wasn’t exactly the type of person to give flowers.

Momo sighed deeply. Boys. “It’s exactly because she won’t be expecting it that she’ll find it sweet of you to do.” A private smile curves her lips as she remembers a younger boy than her classmate, certainly much shorter, with mud on his knees as he presented her with a scraggly sunflower he scrounged up from somewhere. It is with a scowl and reasons that he had no money to buy anything that he presented the bedraggled flower. It looked like it went through an ordeal, with the stem rough in some places and leaves fallen off, but the bloom itself had been bright and yellow like a lion’s mane. She couldn’t help the joy that bubbled out as she tackled her friend to the ground in a tight hug even as she was careful not to crush the beautiful gift.

Maybe Renji had seen something in that secret smile because it is with courage renewed that he resolved to give his gift to Rukia. That is until he saw the high-class silks being carried into the Kuchiki estate. One was even patterned with snowdrops. Forlorn, he looked at his meager gift. It is with understanding in her gaze that Hinamori decides to keep the flowers placed sadly in her hands.

The Renji from back then probably wouldn’t believe the life he led now. He was lucky enough to be surrounded by friends, new and old, and to have his best friend back again, with him, in more ways than one. If he could help one of those friends out, then he’d do whatever he could.

Hinamori wrung her hands again. “I don’t know who else to ask,” she bites her lip, “No, that’s wrong. It’s actually because you’re the best person to ask.” Renji raises a brow as he waits for her to continue.

Taking a deep breath, Hinamori suddenly says in a rush, “I just wanted to ask, how did you deal with falling in love with Kuchiki-san!”

Renji blinks. Once. Twice. And blushes as red as his hair. “Wha-“

Hinamori gasps as if remembering herself. “I’m sorry, that was uncalled for!”

There were so many things Renji could say. Renji didn’t actually “deal” with it, as Hinamori would very well know. She, along with Kira, Ikkaku-san, and Yumichika-san, sat on the front row seats watching him cope and avoid during those aimless days. He doesn’t know himself when he fell in love. Does anyone, really? It could have been one moment. It could have been all moments. He could say all of those things, but instead, he turns around Hinamori’s question in his mind. Unlike Hinamori who seems to be gulping her sake like water, he still has his wits about him. As if a figurative lightbulb pings, he asks, shocked, “Wait, Hinamori, you’re in love with someone?”

Renji winces, realizing a second too late that that tactless statement did indeed come from him. He must not have been holding his alcohol as well as he thought. (Rukia would have hit him twice over for that stunt if she were here). It is however a second too late for regrets as Hinamori suddenly burst into tears.

In panic mode, Renji gathers all the napkins he can find and shoves them to her as he reassures the curious patrons suddenly looking over at their table, “It’s fine, it’s fine, just getting a bit emotional is all.”

Her sobs slow as she hiccups but Renji is far from relieved. She had always been a crying sort of drunk. Perhaps it was a good thing Kira wasn’t here else he’d have to console two crying drunks.

Wait, she said he was the best person to ask, probably because he fell in love with an old friend. If so, that means Hinamori had fallen in love with an old friend too. Inwardly he cheered, pointing at imaginary chibi figures of his wife and Ichigo. Take that, he thought, he could connect the dots well enough on his own. (Enough to say, Renji must have been drunker than he thought.)

Before he could feel preemptive delight on behalf of their common friend, he pauses, thinks. Old friend, huh? “Er…who exactly are you in love with Hinamori?”

Hinamori, sniffles, completely red now and Renji can’t tell if it’s the alcohol or the embarrassment. “Won’t tell,” she pouts childishly.

Seeing as she’s a bit calmer now, Renji decided to poke fun. Hinamori was fiery and sassy in her own right, though he rarely got to see it, so this was a rare chance. With a toothy grin, he prods, “Ha, serves you right for being so oblivious all these years. Now you’ll understand the agony of love just like the rest of us mere mortals.” Because this was a happier night in a happier time, neither of them dared acknowledge former captains. Betrayals had no place in a lighthearted moment between old friends.

Affronted, Momo firmly placed both her hands on the table with a bang. Hmmm, their table seemed to be a bit wobbly. “Oblivious?! Since when have I ever been oblivious?”

If Abarai-kun’s eyebrows went any higher, they’d disappear beyond his hairline and take all his tattoos with them. She laughs uncontrollably at the thought.

Renji looks at her weirdly and decides not to point out the obvious. One because he doesn’t betray the secrets of good friends, and two because he doesn’t want frostbitten fingers. He decides to list out other examples instead, “Hinamori, you’ve always been oblivious. Those kouhai? They weren’t just crowding around you because you were such a ‘good’ senpai,” at the pout he sees on her face, he amends, “Well yes, you were a good senpai, but it wasn’t only because of that.”

Hinamori still doesn’t look convinced. “I don’t believe you. I’m nothing like Rangiku-san. And anyway, no one said anything.”

“No one is like Rangiku-san,” Renji says solemnly in lieu of what he actually wanted to say which was to the effect of, none of our kouhai said anything probably because of another kouhai of ours, who funnily enough, ended up being our superior.

Ha, funny indeed.

He remembers when he first met Hitsugaya-taichou, or the kid who would become Hitsugaya-taichou anyway. He’d only been Hinamori’s ‘Shiro-chan’ back then.

She’d introduced them because Hinamori was the type of person who liked it when her friends got along. At hearing the nickname, he snorted and didn’t even try to stifle the laugh that came out.

It was like they were in their own little world as the newer student reminded her to stop calling him that nickname already!

At hearing him laugh though, the other boy fixed him with a cool stare. He took it as a challenge, “You wanna go, kid?”

He raised one white brow, unimpressed.

“I don’t think that’s a good idea, Abarai-kun…” Kira muttered off to the side. He turned away at the same time Hinamori was scolding the younger boy about using violence, who went back to fully ignoring the both of them to argue with his childhood friend. Genius or no, that kid really needed to respect his elders. And Kira didn’t have to warn him. It’s not as if he’d seriously beat on a kouhai.

Later on, he realizes that Kira hadn’t been warning him about being too rough on the other boy, but rather it was the other way around. This realization is stark as he lays down defeated in a practice match with the boy genius.

It was during that period that he lost touch – no that’s not correct, cut off his ties – with Rukia. So even if he was Hinamori’s precious childhood friend, with all that natural talent and genius, it was easy for Renji who was scraping at the bottom just to reach that lofty moon, to resent him. Geniuses could never understand the struggles of ordinary people.

It made him feel a bit better to know that Kira was also a bit wary of the younger boy, though it is later that Renji realizes that perhaps his friend’s reasons were a bit more complex than his own.

Once, Hinamori tells him, “No one knows just how hard he’s working. Sometimes, I worry that he’s pushing himself too much.” Not wanting to upset her, he gave a noncommittal hum. In the privacy of his mind, he scoffed. What did a boy genius like him ever need to work hard for?

He gets his answer, years later, in the worst of ways. Through a kido spell, through a hospital visit, through broken recollections from a common friend, as Kira gasped with tears in his eyes that Hitsugaya-taichou was cut down - bankai unleashed in a fit of rage at seeing her lifeless body, and ultimately rendered useless – trying to protect her, while she was hurt again because of him, the worst, he was the worst.

Although he tries to comfort Kira with alcohol, he also remembers the phantom weight of Rukia in his arms, there and gone again, helpless to stop her from being taken away.

He had been unfair to the Captain, only seeing what he wanted to see, a person with natural talent with everything handed to him on a silver platter - everything Renji couldn’t have for himself. They were as far apart as could be.

But as he sees Hinamori all wrapped up in bandages, and breathing on life support, as he feels the remnant of a chill signifying the presence of one who had been here before him, he realizes that he had more in common with that young Captain than he had thought.

He shakes his head to rid himself of memories and focuses back on the girl in front of him. Her eyes are drooping as if she was ready to fall asleep at any moment. Really, for Renji, there could only be two candidates in mind, and though Renji remembers old days, of forcefully nudging his classmate to finally make a move already (those had been simpler times after all), he also cannot help the odd sense of camaraderie he feels with the ice-cold Captain. He, better than anyone, understands the bond between childhood friends.

“So, what’re you so worried about?” At the very least if it was the issue of reciprocation, Hinamori had nothing to worry about on that score. One would probably die of shock if she confessed. The other had already proven he would die (and kill) for her. Sheesh, he doesn’t think he gets that intense when it comes to Rukia.

“I’m just...I’m worried everything will change,” she says softly.

Renji sighed, “Everything changes Hinamori. There’s nothing you can do about that.”

“It’s not like I plan to confess.” Wait, what? Renji double-takes at that. She smiles ruefully at him. “I want us to stay friends. I don’t want anything to change, but it’s like I can’t control myself.”

“Would it be so bad, to confess?” Renji has it on good authority that she’d have a good success rate no matter who it was she was talking about.

She laughs, most certainly drunk now. “Like I told you, Abarai-kun. I’m nothing like Rangiku-san,” a silly smile crosses her face as Renji once again looks at her confused, wondering what that had to do with anything, “I’m not good enough.” Her smile becomes more strained, and before Renji can berate her for that self-mocking display, she raises both her hands all of a sudden, “Ahhhh, it’s such a shame. Rangiku-san would be the best person to talk to about this. But, for the same reason, she’s also the worst person to talk to about this.” Well, that tells him nothing.

Deciding to act on a hunch, he suggests, “Well, maybe you can try asking Hitsugaya-taichou’s older brother?”

Hinamori narrows her eyes at him. She’s actually looking a bit crossed-eyed like that. Maybe it was a sign that he’d caught her out? “Silly, Abarai-kun,” he was expecting she’d say something like how could I talk to my crush’s brother, because honestly he understood the feeling, never mind that his briother-in-law and captain were the same person (at least now he’d know for certain who she was talking about), “Shiro-chan doesn’t have a brother!” And with that as a parting statement, she unceremoniously conks out and promptly falls asleep.

Wait, what?

“Oi, Hinamori!”

Renji hopes that this is the last of it, but the night is still long, and for some reason, he has a premonition that his night is about to take a turn from strange to bad.

It may have something to do with the whispers around him that he tries to tune out. He doesn’t blame them much as it may be concerning to see a man carrying an unconscious woman in the middle of the night. But he was a gentleman, damn it! He couldn’t leave a friend, much less a girl, dead drunk and alone. If Kira was here, the both of them could have carried her, but even after all that he still wasn’t sure who she was talking about so that was a definite no. He’d normally have called Rangiku-san, but Hinamori seemed to be avoiding her for some reason, so he’d respect her wishes, and anyway the fifth wasn’t that far from the sixth.

It may have to do something with how Hinamori kept muttering about how hot it was in his arms. Rukia always said that Renji tended to run hotter than most (and in her sweeter moments she’d say that was why she was perfect for him), and with Hinamori more or less the same, he imagines it would be doubly uncomfortable for her.

Or it may have something to do with how Hinamori was currently trying to remove one arm from the sleeve of her shihakusho because “Iwazz too hot!” while Renji frantically tried to stop her with one arm. Scratch that, Kira would be more of a hindrance than a help here. Why were his friends such outrageous drunks? “Nooooooo, Hinamori. You don’t want to do that. That is a bad idea.”

But really, it probably had something to do with the deathly chill he felt behind his back. He wondered what this must look like to an observer, Hinamori unconscious and one arm bare, while he held the sleeve of her shihakusho as he carried her in his arms. He closed his eyes and prayed to whoever would listen that it was his wife. He’d take a beating from her any day, as opposed to the alternative…But when he sees Hinamori calm and settle down at the breeze that caresses her face, Renji sighs in resignation as he turns and faces his doom.

A million paranoid thoughts run through his mind – did the patrons back at the bar report a crying girl and it reached him, did he have a tracker developed by the twelfth stuck on her by any chance, was he just that scarily attuned to the reiatsu of the sleeping girl in his arms because he sure appeared around her ‘coincidentally’ an awful lot- all to distract him from meeting an irate and frosty gaze.

“What the hell is going on here?”

Ah, shit. Renji was never drinking again.

#hitsuhina #hinamori momo #hitsugaya toshiro #abarai renji #bleach #hitsuhina fic #hitsuhina fanfic #bleach fic #bleach fanfic #ramblings about bleach #ramblings about hitsuhina #realization #lots and lots of parallels

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