Characters: Soi Fong, Hinamori
Summary: The only thing they have in common.
Pairings: mentioned onesided HinaAizen, vaguely alluded to onesided YoruSoi
Warnings/Spoilers: spoilers for Soul Society, Fake Karakura Town and Deicide arcs
Timeline: post-Deicide arc
Disclaimer: I don't own Bleach.

Soi Fong makes a note of avoiding bubbly, chatter mouth girls, so she doesn't often find herself in the company of Hinamori Momo if she can help it at all. If anything, it helps that the two aren't close in age and the only acquaintance they have in common is Matsumoto Rangiku. Soi Fong doubts that it's even occurred to the—it's not like her opinions of anyone are all that positive—slightly vapid Hinamori to try to socialize with her.

However, Soi Fong makes it a practice of observing the Shinigami around her, especially the ones that don't approach her (And that's pretty much everyone who has any sense of self-preservation at all). Hinamori, among the masses, is no exception.

What she sees on the most superficial level is totally unsurprising. Bright smile, slightly vacant expression, eyes wide open and utterly absorbed in the world around her. Hinamori is the epitome of the 'nice girl', the stereotype Soi Fong has despised so much for the past one hundred and thirty years.

Soi Fong almost writes her off and moves on, until she notices something.

Little discrepancies. Small falsehoods. White lies, that turn into gray lies, then into black lies.

How could I not notice it before? Soi Fong berates herself. Am I really that blind? It's been staring me in the face the whole time.

Hinamori is, in short, a practicing liar.

It takes one to know one, Soi Fong supposes, and this is their only point of similarity, that they can both lie an make nearly everyone around them believe all of their lies, all of their honeyed stories that don't hold up under the close scrutiny of light. Soi Fong has always lied, about everything in order to go unnoticed, and so, apparently, does Hinamori.

Those sweet, pretty smiles are a mask for something far uglier, and Soi Fong comes close enough she can catch a whiff of decay, like the sweet smell that precedes the decomposition of beef.

The girl was in love with her captain. Was betrayed, and abandoned, and left to shatter and fall and die and madden. Nearly everyone who can see her now, sees a laudable example of recovery, of someone who really can heal.

What Soi Fong sees is corrosion and erosion beneath the skin, as the deconstruction of Hinamori's soul continues on in earnest. Maybe the others can't see it. Maybe they are just lost for thought on what to do and ignore it in the hope it will go away.

Soi Fong waits for the moment to come when skin will crack the dank odor of decay will become too evident for anyone to ignore. She wonders when blowflies will come crawling up through the flesh.

Hinamori can still vividly recall the fluid feel of Hitsugaya's blade sliding through her flesh. She claims to have forgiven him, but Soi Fong can tell she hasn't. Maybe she wants to, and doesn't know how. Maybe she does, but won't.

Maybe the feel of yet another betrayal, even if unintended, is just too much for her.

Soi Fong finds all of this greatly fascinating, and would watch forever if she could just to witness the disaster unfold, but sharp stabs of pain ripple through her ribs at some of the lies she watches Hinamori tell. Some of them hit far too close to home for her, to be anything resembling bearable.

Especially the one Hinamori says, about having gotten over Aizen.