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Rangiku wasn't sure if she missed being drunk.
The mind numbing, pain-free cover had its uses but it finally ran out. She had gotten used to the quiet. It wasn't intentional.
The cup in her hand was still half full. That would have annoyed her in the past. She used to drink to blur things, to get ahead of her thoughts before they had time to remind her of the wounds left behind. Now she mostly forgot it was there. That felt strange after all these years of it being her faithful companion.
Gin came to her sometimes, but not the way he used to. No longer a wound but more like a bruise that had started to yellow around the edges. It wasn't a festering sore that refused to heal. It was finally scabbing over.
She had not been embarrassed by loving him.
Not really.
She had been embarrassed after, when the truth came out.
Rangiku took a slow sip and set the cup down again without thinking much about it. Less than she used to drink. A lot less. Sometimes she still caught herself noticing it. The fact that she didn’t need the edge anymore. The fact that she could sit still and not immediately want to disappear into warmth and noise a cup of liquor provided.
He had never really been hers, and she knew that now in a way she hadn’t let herself before. She had filled in the missing pieces and told herself it was enough, because it was easier than asking why he always stayed just out of reach.
She still loved him, or at least the part of him she had known, and that didn’t just dissappear. He had made his choices without her, even if they had somehow been about her all along.
That was the part she couldn’t quite settle with.
It didn’t make her feel special. It just made everything feel less genuine between them. Like she had been standing close to something that was never really hers to hold. And now there was nothing left to ask him about it.
Byakuya had something to do with that, though she still found it scary to admit.
Not because he fixed anything. He never acted like she needed fixing. He just looked at her like she was all he needed. That was worse. She couldn’t hide behind a joke and sake when he was around. He noticed too much.
She had noticed him too.
The way he carried grief inwardly. The way he had dealt with Hisana’s death with that same careful stillness he brought to his work. Whatever it was, she had seen the cost of it. He did not wear pain where everyone could see it, but it was there in the way he held himself.
There had been a time when she would have thought wanting someone like that was ridiculous. He was too serious and controlled. Too far from the messy, easy kind of attention she used to think she needed. But this was different. Byakuya did not make her feel smaller for having a past. He did not ask her to be less bright, less blunt, less herself.
He wanted her as she was. Loud, complicated, showy.
*****
She looked down at the cup again.
Half full.
She smiled a little before she meant to. If Gin had seen her now, he would have laughed at the sight of her sitting alone and peaceful and drinking slowly. Maybe that was unfair. Maybe he would have been kind. She would never know. The truth was, she didn’t care enough anymore to invent answers for him.
That was new, too.
She could think about him without falling apart. She could remember what he had done and not need the protection of being drunk to numb the pain. She could admit she had loved him and not feel ashamed.
A knock came at the door.
Rangiku glanced up. “Come in.”
The door slid open, and Byakuya stepped inside.
He always looked composed, but tonight there was something different. He stopped walking when he saw her and his eyes went to the cup in her hand.
“Am I interrupting you? You are awake,” he said.
“I’m barely awake,” she said. “Does that count?”
“I do not wish to intrude.”
She snorted quietly.
His gaze flicked to the cup again. “It does not look like you have enjoyed yourself.”
She looked at him over the rim of it. “You say that like you’ve been keeping track.”
“I have.”
That made her pause.
Not because it was shocking. Because it wasn’t. That was the thing with him. He said what he meant so plainly that she forgot that she didn't have to look for meaning between the lines.
Rangiku set the cup down. “And? Is that a bad thing?”
“No.”
The answer came fast.
She studied him for a second, then let out a breath. “Good.”
He crossed the room and stopped near her, not touching, just there. That was another thing she had learned about him. He knew how to be close without crowding. She still wasn’t used to it.
“Are you well?” he asked.
The question should have been simple. From him, it never was.
Rangiku looked away first, because looking at him too long made things in her heart move around in an uncomfortable way.
“Yes,” she said. Then, after a beat, “I think I am.”
Byakuya’s expression changed in the smallest way. He looked pleased.
She hated how much she liked that.
“I used to think being at peace meant I had stopped feeling things,” she said before she could stop herself.
Byakuya said nothing, but he listened. He always did. He sat down next to her. Not too close , but close enough to feel his body heat. She didn't realize she was cold until then.
Rangiku let her fingers rest against the cup. “It doesn’t. It just means I don’t need to fight everything all the time.”
His gaze stayed on her.
She laughed under her breath.
There were still things she didn’t say out loud. Things about Gin. Things about how much it had hurt to be betrayed by someone she had once trusted with the part of herself she didn’t show anyone else. He redeemed himself in the end but he hurt too many people to get there.
Things about how embarrassing it had been to realize she had mistaken being wanted for being known. But those things no longer had weight.They had become part of the shape of her, and she was done pretending otherwise.
Byakuya watched her with that same steady look he always had.
Maybe that was why she trusted him.
Rangiku leaned back a little, the tension in her shoulders loosening before she could stop it. “You know,” she said, “I’m happy.”
Byakuya did not smile, not really, but something in him eased.
“I know,” he said.
She looked down quickly, because she felt unworthy for the way he had said it.
There had been grief in her life. There had been betrayal. There had been all the ugly. But she could allow herself to be happy.
Rangiku reached for the cup again, then stopped and let her hand fall away.
She looked back up at Byakuya and found him still watching her, calm and unhurried, as if he had all the time in the world.
For once, that didn’t scare her.