Bleach Fan Fiction ❯ Black Roses ❯ Shūhei (Affection and farewell) ( Chapter 3 )

[ X - Adult: No readers under 18. Contains Graphic Adult Themes/Extreme violence. ]

Disclaimer:
'Bleach', along with all the characters, places, Zanpakutō, Kido and everything else had been created by Kubo Tite sensei.
The songs quoted in this chapter are "Precious" (Depeche Mode, from 'Playing the angel', 2005), "Marslander" (Siddharta, from 'RH- (English)', 2005) and "Ten Black Roses" (The Rasmus, from 'Black Roses', 2008).

A big Thank you to my beta-reader rukia23, who did a wonderful (and fast!) job.

 

---

 

Black Roses
3 - Shūhei (Affection and farewell)
Skyless_star

 

Angels with silver wings
Shouldn't know suffering
I wish I could take the pain for you

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Rangiku slowly opened her eyes, waiting for them to adjust to the light before casting a glance on the objects present in the room. She vaguely noticed their disposition wasn't the one she remembered and snuggled a little more against the covers, appreciating their silky texture. A few seconds later she suddenly roused from her slumber; the ones upon her weren't her covers.

After a quick look at her surroundings, she realized she was in her office. She turned to Hitsugaya's desk, expecting to see a sulky Captain ready to get angry at her for falling asleep on her work, but she found no one. She sat up, wondering where the child prodigy could have gone, and noticed that what she was wearing wasn't her uniform, but an Hōmongi, and that the 'cover' she still clutched in her hand was, instead, a men's Kimono.

Suddenly she remembered everything that had happened: the battle, Gin's death, the feast, the 'escape' with Shūhei, the cries, his arms and... She hid her face in her hands, uttering a frustrated moan. There was the slightest possibility it had been only a dream?

That had to have been one of the most stupid things she had ever done, break down and cry in front of someone and use him to try and fill the holes in her heart going through the one between her legs...

«Undeniably a smart move, Rangiku.» She addressed herself sarcastically.

First thing, she had to apologize to him for the things she had done, then she should ask him to keep his mouth shut about what had happened. She knew the great majority of men -practically all of them except the closest friends- considered her like an inflatable doll in the flesh, and since Gin's hobgoblin was gone she'd already have enough problems maintaining a respectable reputation without rumors going around about her.

Shūhei was a tender-hearted guy, she knew he'd understand if she asked him to keep the secret, but he was still a human male and, as such, he loved to brag about his erotic conquests with his friends -that, sometimes, included her too- so she had to talk to him before he could mention anything. But where did he go?

Looking around to find him, she noticed that on the table there were some folded sheets of paper, and that on them stood out the words 'To Matsumoto Rangiku', unmistakably written by Shūhei's hand. Cautiously, as if paper sheets could bite, she unfolded them and began to read what was written on them.

 

Rangiku-san,

I'm very, very sorry for what happened last night, and I beg you to accept my deepest apologies for how I conducted myself toward you.

Someone pretending to call himself a man should never take advantage of a woman in her moments of vulnerability, not even if she's the one to ask, especially when she feels so fragile that she'd search for comfort in such a way. But that's exactly what I did, all I needed to feel entitled to encroach on the most private part of you was just the slightest of hints and I suppose that saying I feel like a worm for what I've done to you won't make things right.

And how could it, after all? Mine are just words, ink signs traced on a piece of paper and left to wait your reading, when in truth the only right thing for me to do would be prostrate myself before your feet and let you kick me until you'll deem your honor avenged.

Even though you'll probably think I'm just taking the easiest way out, the reason why I'm writing instead of waiting for you to wake up and apologize personally is that there are things I need to tell you but I'm not sure I'd find the courage if I were to be face to face with you. Account me as a coward, because that's what I am, but it would mean a lot to me if you'd continue to read this letter up to the end.

First thing, I think I should put my cards on the table and tell you that, no matter how I'd like to lie to myself and say I did it only for your sake, when you asked me to make love with you, for a moment I was happy and I even looked around to decide the best place to do it. When I understood what was driving you, I made a resolution to hold back, believing that way it would have been more proper toward you, but unfortunately I failed even in this respect.

Therefore, should you discover to be pregnant, I'm ready to take full responsibility, even simply giving you a part of my salary to contribute to the child's sustenance in case you wouldn't want to marry me or you'd decide to let nobody know who's the father. This, obviously, if there's a baby. Truth be told, I hope it won't be so. Even though I wouldn't mind having a child (especially if he had a mother like you), it wouldn't be right for him to be conceived this way. Besides, after all the things that happened in the past months, I think none of us are ready to be a parent.

Talking more specifically about us two, I'll understand if, after tonight, you will no longer feel at ease with me and I will not object should you decide to cut me out of your life. Considering Gotei 13's reorganization that will be decided in the following days, I thought that if simply avoiding each other won't be enough, I could back down from my position as a Lieutenant so that, even in the official events, we won't have to meet. However, I'm willing to push my luck and hope that, as much as you could despise me, you won't go as far as to hate me.

But if, for some strange reason, you would keep considering me a friend as you did before, I'd like to renew my offer to be near you anytime you could need it, whether it is for something as trivial as finding a drinking buddy or because you need to vent your feelings when something isn't going right. I hope with all my heart you will never feel down like you did yesterday, but from now on I will do anything in my power to allow you to feel comfortable again around me; I'd even go as far as to try that 'chastity belt' Kurotsuchi-Fukutaichō was talking about some time ago.

Slightly changing the subject, forgive me for being nosy, forgive me if I ask you something very private that you probably don't want to discuss with a man and that, at this point, maybe doesn't even matter anymore, but some of the things that happened yesterday made me think about you and what kind of relationship bound you to Ichimaru.

Do you remember when you asked me to skip foreplay? I couldn't help but notice your body reacted exactly as you said and I wondered if it was normal for you to start intercourse that way, without receiving the proper attentions. Besides, when we met your subordinates yesterday it was shocking to see you put up that fake smile so easily and I really hope that happy image of you that we all grew so fond of over the years didn't just serve to hide your pain from us.

Maybe it's not what you want to hear now and I surely am not in the position to be speaking, considering my behavior tonight, but I've always thought Ichimaru didn't deserve a woman like you. All of us, your drinking buddies, realized yours was an opportunistic relationship for him; we all knew you two used to see each other, but none of us has ever seen you together, no one has ever seen or heard about him doing something for you (give a flower to you, take you out to dinner...). The only thing we knew was that, every time you didn't join us for a drink, he was having his way with you.

Forgive me for the intrusion, in the end the way you managed your relationship was only up to you two, but until yesterday I've always wondered if between you it was all about satisfying a physical need and I never understood how you could be happy in a similar relationship, now instead I wonder whether between you there was real intimacy or if everything finished only with the sex act (although I can't conceive that a sane and healthy man could do only that with a woman like you).

I admit, maybe when I firstly met you I, too, only thought about those abundant and exquisitely feminine bulges when someone talked about you (I'd like to point out I'm not the pervert everybody thinks I am, but... failing to notice them is a crime against nature itself!); as time passed I've begun to take careful looks at your face and I noticed other things that, alone, would be enough to have any man at your feet. I'm talking about your hair, your crystal-clear eyes, your lips so full and sensual, those hands soft and gracious despite of the use of the sword, but more than anything else your smile, when it enlightens your face and makes your eyes shine.

And then you are funny, you're open-minded, aren't scared of changes, can make anyone feel at ease, hold your liquor probably better than anyone else in Seireitei, are smart, you are an excellent fighter and, as you have fully shown, you're brave. In the battle, like everyday life, you always find the strength to go on and I'm sure this time there won't be any difference; maybe it'll take longer, but I'm sure you'll be able to smile again. Because you're simply a wonderful woman, Rangiku, a woman that should never suffer like that, especially for a man that never treated you as you deserved. This is his worst fault: not deserting Gotei 13, but taking your smile with him.

I see you sleep and, even though on your face there are still traces of the sadness that accompanied you during these months, I can't help but notice how beautiful you are. I wish I had the courage to lie down on that couch with you, hold you and make you feel warm and safe, but after what I did, I wouldn't deserve to wake up tomorrow and have you in my arms. I'm no longer worthy of it, supposing in the past I ever did something to deserve to be your support.

What did I do, aside from watching you suffer from afar and worry about your relationship? That, you could object, was a selfish behavior from me, maybe due to jealousy, to the fact I would have wanted you to be with me and not with another, and you could be right. At the beginning I didn't mind knowing you were with Ichimaru, nor the fact the others talked about you in a way not really appropriate, but as time passed, I began to hate those nights when you didn't join us for a drink, I entered into a bad mood if someone talked about you, often stopping at that part of you that's the easiest to notice. How can someone not understand, after knowing you for many years, that Matsumoto Rangiku is so much more than breathtaking cleavage?

Sometimes I even got angry at them, earning myself endless mockery about the possibility I could have fallen in love with you, as if we were brats too young to understand the dynamics of a man-woman interaction.

I often wondered if that could be true, if what made me think about you was really love. I've surely gotten over the phase in which you were only an erotic dream for me, I don't mean I no longer think you're overwhelmingly attractive or things like 'I want to respect you' or 'I'd never do something like that to you', I more than willingly would (never again like tonight, though), but now I care a lot about you, I wish for you to be happy and to start to smile again. But is that enough to say that I love you?

Would it be necessary to cheer up any one of our drinking buddies I certainly wouldn't back away, as they wouldn't for me, nor for you, but in your case the good outcome of my efforts would be much more important to me. Is the fact I care for you more than for the others a sign of love? Or is it just because you're the only woman in our group and you are, consequently, the one we all love the most?

If I was really in love with you, shouldn't I have courted you even before he left you, even at the cost of risking his hostility? But if you were happy with him and I had done it all the same, wouldn't you have thought me to be intrusive and inopportune? Wouldn't the greatest proof of my love in that case, have been to stand aside and let you live your happiness?

The fact I feel so close to you in this moment, like in the previous months, is it because I love you or because we were in a very similar situation after the former Captains deserted? But then shouldn't I feel even closer to Hinamori and Kira?

I've known them since we were still attending the Academy, I've been frequenting and drinking together with Kira since then and surely Hinamori needed more than any of us someone that'd cheer her up, besides their situations are closer to mine, in the end we are the three Lieutenants of the former Captains.

And yet, maybe because I felt a Captain's betrayal would have been easier to overcome, maybe because Kira and I are both men, maybe because Hinamori needed a much more incisive help than what I could offer her, maybe because the sadness of a person as sunny as you was so much simpler to pick than theirs, maybe because I feared everyone, believing you are a strong woman, would deem unnecessary to offer you their support or maybe because I felt guilty for not making a move before, once the reality of facts became clear in my head my first thought wasn't for them, but for you.

I wouldn't be able to tell what the true reason is, I just know that I don't like to see you sad. I'm not sure I'm in love with you, there's still so much confusion in my head after Tōsen's desertion and Muguruma Kensei's reappearance, but surely I reckon you a friend, I esteem you as a Lieutenant and as a person, I think you have a breathtaking body and a smile... Well, I'd give my right arm if it could bring a smile back onto your lips in this moment.

Forgive me for telling you all of this without even knowing exactly what I feel for you and for doing it when your heart is probably in even deeper turmoil than mine, but should you decide you never want to see me again I'm sure I'd regret not taking this last opportunity for the rest of my life.

I'm putting our relationship in your hands, Rangiku, what to do about it is up to you. I'll pledge myself to make anything you'd wish work; you have my word on this, for what it's worth at this point.

Consider me an egoist, but I wish I'll be able to see you again as Rangiku Matsumoto, not only as the tenth division's Lieutenant.

 Truthfully,
  Shūhei

 

Rangiku frantically went over the letter again and again, jumping from one paragraph to another, trying to understand how Shūhei really felt about what had happened and about her -whether he was angry, or felt guilty, or considered her pathetic- and, most of all, what were her feelings about the things that had happened with Gin, Shūhei and everyone else.

Her eyes seized upon the words 'apologies', 'very sorry', 'take advantage', 'vulnerability' and stopped on 'baby'. Looking up at the calendar, Rangiku went pale as she realized that day she could be ovulating. In a moment, all the possible ways to face the problem came to her mind, from marriage with Shūhei, even though they didn't know what they felt for each other, to being a single mother, to giving the child up for adoption, to abortion; even before that thought was totally formed, Rangiku rejected that last possibility. She had already gone through that experience, Gin had been the one asking her to do it, and she absolutely wasn't going to repeat it in the future.

Her thoughts went back to Shūhei and to his offer to take responsibility should the need arise. At that point, given that if she really was pregnant, she would have been even the day after, Rangiku decided that the most pressing matter was to straighten things out with him. She had to do it for many reasons and none in particular, because she wasn't the kind of woman that sleeps with anyone, because it wasn't right he was the one to feel guilty, because he was, at any rate, a friend.

Rangiku stood up hurriedly and with few well tested gestures folded the Kimono he had left to her and, without worrying about the gaudy Hōmongi she was still wearing from the night before, she exited the office and went to Shūhei's house using Shunpō steps.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

And in a million years I couldn't let you fade
But today I have to find another way

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

No answer. Rangiku knocked one last time but, once again, there was no answer.

Could he be out? She searched for his Reiatsu and found it on the other side of the door; his body and his spirit were perfectly still, in all likelihood he was still sleeping. Surely he couldn't be to blame: knowing him, he had stayed awake for a very long while to watch over her. Resigned to go away and come back later -in the meanwhile she could pay a visit to Isane to solve the other 'matter'- Rangiku turned around and saw Renji walking toward her.

He greeted her with a 'Hey' and she answered only with a nod of her head, then they stayed in silence. It wasn't that difficult to understand what kind of idea he could have gotten seeing her going away from Shūhei's apartment -even if in truth she hadn't been inside that house in ages- still wearing her clothes from the night before, but she lacked any will to tell him his idea was wrong: explaining what had happened the previous day would prove even more embarrassing. Renji, on the other hand, hadn't thought even for a moment what she had assumed.

After a minute or maybe more of uneasy silence, Rangiku decided to let him believe whatever he wanted; since she hadn't had the chance to talk with Shūhei, whatever excuse she could make up could have been contradicted if Renji managed to talk to him before her. After another nod, she began to walk away.

«Matsumoto-san, wait.» She turned around and it looked like Renji no longer knew what he wanted to say. Putting a hand behind his neck, he tried to gain some time to find the right words for what he wanted to ask. «About last night...» She raised an eyebrow, trying to remember a talk with him hanging over from the day before. «...On the balcony...» Rangiku opened her eyes wide, suddenly remembering one of the reasons that caused her and Shūhei to leave the party was Renji himself.

«You and the others saw the two of us going away together and now you're thinking that we-»

«No!» He rushed to say, bringing his hands in front of himself. «We noticed you only after you jumped down, I felt your Reiatsu and I understood that that wasn't the reason why you were going away.» He paused for a while, then decided to tell her why he was there, «I came to ask Hisagi-san if you were all right.»

Rangiku watched him, wondering if he had guessed the true reason of her sadness. «It'll take a lot for me to say that I'm all right, but at least I feel better than yesterday. I think the worst is over, thanks.»

Renji gave her a small asymmetrical smile. «Well, that's something anyway. Yesterday your Reiatsu scared me.»

«I'm sorry for spoiling your fun.» She said in a neutral tone, devoid of sarcasm.

«Don't be. You can't decide what you feel. It's like I had to apologize for... For my hair being red.»

Rangiku appreciated his little effort to make her smile talking about lighter things; in the previous months she had learned that Renji, no matter how much of a disaster he was at expressing his emotions, was a lot more profound than his look would suggest. Surely, she thought, she had friends she could rely on.

«I bet Kuchiki-Taichō would be the first one to demand your apologies.» She joked.

«You think so? In my opinion, deep down he likes my hair. This way, all he needs to do to know where I am at any moment is to raise his eyes.»

Rangiku smiled and silence returned between them, but without the embarrassment that had accompanied it just some minutes before. Once again, it was Renji to break it.

«I think I'll go away. There's no need for me to ask Hisagi-san how you're doing now.»

«You'd have drawn a blank; I've been knocking for a quarter of an hour and I got no answer. I think he's sleeping like a log.»

«Knocking? Weren't you with him?»

«No. We didn't 'sleep together' if that's what you're wondering, Renji.» She said. It was a lie but, after all, what had happened had been an accident and it wasn't necessary for him to know it. Hoping she'd be able to talk to Shūhei before he could contradict her.

«Okay, okay. I just thought you spent the night here, I didn't want to imply anything... And you two are both adults, even if you did 'sleep together' there would be nothing that you'd need to justify to me, am I wrong?»

«No,» She acknowledged. «I suppose you're right.»

«But, forgive me, what were you doing here then?» He asked, not thinking it could be a rather personal question.

«Gossiper.» She accused, but nonetheless showed him the Kimono she was holding in her hands. «I wanted to return this. And before you'd say anything, he left it for me to use as a cover after I fell asleep.»

Renji looked her for a moment with a raised eyebrow, but decided against pointing out that her words could suggest more ideas than the Kimono alone had done.

«Besides... I wanted to thank him for yesterday.» Rangiku added, carefully avoiding saying anything that could make him understand what had happened.

«Why don't you go in and wake him?» Renji asked out of the blue.

She opened her eyes wide, not expecting a question like that. «It doesn't matter, I'll come back later. I don't want to intrude.»

«Matsumoto-san, you know you can count on any of us if you feel down, but as for him...» He pointed his thumb behind his shoulders, toward the door and, consequentially, toward Shūhei. «Maybe it's not my place to say it, but I think he cares for you more than all of us together.»

Rangiku stared at him, recognizing in Renji's words the emotions she had found in the letter Shūhei left her. She nodded, deciding that maybe it was better to enter uninvited than to indefinitely postpone her talk with Shūhei. «I think I'll leave this and then I'll go away.» She said showing the Kimono, even though Renji's expression clearly said 'I don't believe you, but I'll act as if I do.'

«By the way,» Renji said, «this afternoon at four o'clock the Senkaimon will be opened; Orihime asked me to tell you, if I saw you, that she'd like to say goodbye.»

«Okay. I'll be there.»

He patted Rangiku on the shoulder out of sympathy and walked away, leaving her alone in front of the apartment.

She stared at the door for a moment, trying to muster the courage to open it up, but at the last minute decided to knock, just in case he had woken up in the meantime. Receiving no response, she put a hand against the door while she mentally made a list of the things she needed and wanted to tell him. She took a deep breath and, finally, she resolved to slide open that rectangle of wood and rice paper that kept her from that house, from him and from all the things they needed to tell each other.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Far away we wait for each other
I'm still on that road to nowhere
Kiss yourself for me in the mirror
Tie a black rose into your hair

 

---

Chapter last edited: March, 21 2009

'Hōmongi' is a type of Kimono used by women to attend rather formal ceremonies such as a friend's wedding or tea ceremonies (I got this from Wikipedia, I hope I guessed the right kind of Kimono a woman would wear in a 'we won the war' party).

Thanks to everyone who read this chapter and thanks to the ones who will review. Any opinion, even negative, will be greatly appreciated.

Next installment, scheduled for March 25, 2009, will include both chapter four and the epilogue.