A Hundred Indecisions

I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each. I do not think that they will sing to me.

– T.S. Eliot "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock"

There's so much food at the reception. With this much spirit energy in the room, there's bound to be, of course, but Renji still marvels at any event where there's tables and tables of the stuff. He finds himself trying to decide between onigiri and taiyaki and suddenly the surreality of that strikes him, as it still sometimes does on days when he's feeling particularly nostalgic. Not that he's ever nostalgic for the way they had to live in Inuzuri, but the company wasn't so bad.

"The company" is across the room dancing with her brand new husband, but, as if she's felt him looking at her, she peeks around Kurosaki's shoulder. He holds both choices out to show her and shrugs, shaking his head in disbelief. She nods, then smiles at him and he knows they are in perfect understanding. "Have them both," she mouths, and who is he to refuse the bride on her wedding day? Kurosaki spins her then, and Renji, stuffing two snacks in his mouth, is instantly relegated to the background again.

Thankfully, the Kuchiki sprung for an open bar, too.

At first, Renji has to be coaxed onto the dance floor. Real men don't dance. That dumbass disco thing that the Eleventh Division is doing doesn't count. Dancing means slow dancing. But then he watches Kuchiki-taichou taken Rukia effortlessly in his arms and he decides he could probably try it. Just once.

For the next song, his captain places Rukia's hand in his and Renji realizes this will be one of his last chances to hold her. He's very careful not to step on her tiny feet. He's so careful that he doesn't notice at first that people are watching until Ikkaku hoots something unintelligible at them.

"Just keep your eyes on my face," Rukia whispers fiercely. "Let them think what they want. To me, Renji, you're worth every single one of them put together."

They dance for three songs. When he's looking at her and she's looking at him, it's surprisingly easy not to search out Kurosaki's face and try to read the expression there.

What a shit idea this was, Renji thinks, when finally Kurosaki taps him on the shoulder. Real men don't dance and they sure as hell don't cry.

He mutters the standard, "Hurt her and I'll kill you," and tries to follow it up with a grin, though he suspects the look manifests more like a grimace.

"That'll never happen," Kurosaki says solemnly, and he'd better be talking about hurting her, because the other just might happen on general principal.

Rukia sighs. "Didn't I make a -- what was that detestable phrase? -- 'No pissing contest' rule?"

Oh yeah, she actually had. Damn, she knew them too well.

Half an hour later, and it's time for Rukia and Kurosaki to leave for their wedding night. Renji can feel it in the sting of the alcohol in the back of his throat that he's about to do something incredibly fucking stupid. But just then Yoruichi steps up and links her arm through his. Out of reflex, he tries to jerk away, but she's as strong as a goddamn ox.

"Don't do anything you'll regret tomorrow," she says under her breath, and Renji thinks that, at least this time someone is physically restraining him while he watches her walk away.

Yoruichi just delays the inevitable, it turns out. By the position of the stars he knows it's past midnight, and somehow he's looking up at their window. From across the street, he can see that there's a dim glow inside, not bright enough to be a lamp. It's candles. Romantic little goddamn candles and their tiny twinkly flames throwing oblong shadows up against the wall.

There's her shadow, and his shadow, except at the moment it's more like one shadow and that's when Renji has to remind himself he doesn't have any right to burst in there and pull him off of her, even though every instinct he possesses is screaming at him to do it anyway.

Inside, Kurosaki says or does something that makes her laugh and Renji unconsciously smiles. She laughs so rarely. She'll smile, yeah, this little curl at the corners of her mouth, like she's afraid to let you see that she has an opinion on something, but it's damn hard to make her laugh. Renji knows because he tries. He tries all the time. And would you look at that? She's married – married -- to this guy who's making her laugh so hard she can't catch her breath, and Renji guesses then that maybe she made the right choice after all.

The then timbre of that laugh changes. Well... Well then. He'd never dreamed that the first time he heard her make a noise like that would be in a situation like this. And he could seriously have gone his whole life without hearing Kurosaki...

Renji shakes his head, like that will clear it of the sound. It's a little to early for a hangover but suddenly his head fucking aches. She's turned him into a pervert, that's what she's done. He wishes he had a bottle to throw at the window, or at least a decent sized rock. Kurosaki is lucky all the streets in Seireitei have been swept clean for the wedding.

He wonders briefly if he will forget her after his next reincarnation, but immediately concludes that he never could. Then he wonders if he could forget her in Hell.

He next wonders what kind of crazy juice the Kuchiki were serving up at that fancy open bar anyway, and that's when Yoruichi appears.

"Didn't I tell you not to do something you'll regret in the morning?" Watching her pad up to him, Renji wishes he had an animal form, but when it occurs to him that, oh yeah, he sort of already does, his laugh is strangled and over-loud in the early morning stillness. He's been here so long that the stars are fading into purple.

"So what you going to do about it?" Yoruichi asks. She's sitting back on her haunches now, with her tail wrapped neatly around her feet.

He looks up, toward Rukia. The candles have burned so low that the shadows have disappeared from the window shade. Then, from inside, she laughs again.

"This time I'm going to walk away," he tells Yoruichi. And he does.

END