He had been humming a jazz tune when he first met her.

He had also met her in a closet.

He opened it, and, abruptly, she jerked her head to look up.

Here is where life stopped and started, except he would only think that in retrospect, and only because he was the kind to dramatize everything.

At that moment, all that registered was that the mysterious closet-dweller was a couple hundred years old (which meant she appeared to be in her early teens) and that she was very, very pretty. She was beautiful (with spring-clear blue eyes, an incomparable figure, and short, strawberry blonde hair the color of the sunrise.)

He quirked an eyebrow.

"Who're you?"

The girl looked up sharply, eyes blank but for a tinge of fear. She scrambled (clumsily, and, strangely, almost gracefully) to her feet and saluted him. She wore the red-and-white uniform of a student. "I'm sorry, sir."

The second eyebrow quirked up. So she didn't realize who he was? Not very observant, hmm? Sure, he was wearing a bathrobe, but his haori was right under his arm. And shouldn't a student recognize one of the Gotei 13? Meanwhile, the girl was staring up at him with those spring-clear blue eyes, expectantly, nervously. She was quiet, tough, this one.

"Where're you from?"

Her heart seemed to be caught in her throat. But she didn't stutter (clumsy grace). "From the Rukongai. I mean, the Academy."

Considering that she was a very pretty girl who seemed to be very flustered at his (big, tough, very important) presence, he took her hand, kneeled slightly, and almost kissed it. It wasn't often he had a chance to do this with girls; Hiyori would never give him mercy (neither verbal nor physical).

This girl, though, only fidgeted slightly, like she was impatient.

"Can I go back to class, then?"

He clasped her wrist tightly. He wasn't about to let this one get away.

(Not without playing with her, first.)

"Skipping? Eh, like I care. Class doesn't seem to be your first priority. Talk to me."

"Hey… is this really necessary?" Now she sounded annoyed. Aaaah. So she did think he was coming onto her. She must be used to this, then.

"Yup."

"You really want to know?"

He can detect the hint of apprehension behind the façade of cockiness.

"I wouldn't 'a asked you if I didn't."

The apprehension grew in her wide blue eyes. He expected her to automatically comply.

Instead she grabbed his wrist suddenly and tugged; she slammed the door behind her and they were both in the closet. Her hand, he realized, was a little softer than his and not much bigger. He also realized that the gap was not so much in their (apparent, intellectual) age, but in their status. And maturity.

In the dark, her hand flew from his wrist and her answer came.

"I'm looking for… Gi- Ichimaru. Ichimaru-senapi." She said it with a certain amount of bravado. Someday, Shinji thought, that would pass as confidence. For now it was shaky, feeble, only a sapling.

And then, the meaning of what she said hit him.

"That Gin?"

"Yes. Don't mention it to anyone else."

"An old friend?"

Now Shinji was intrigued. What was a girl like this doing with Ichimaru Gin?

Not good things, Shinji's instinct told him.

"We're playing a game," she responded cleverly. There was a tiny thread of light weaving in through under the door, and with it he could dimly see her almost screwing up her nose in thought. It looked like it was a repressed habit, a habit she was trying to break. This was a girl who tried to use her charms. One for whom it would be inconvenient to be thought unattractive.

"Huh. What kind'a game?"

"Tag," she responded. The thought of Ichimaru Gin (his never-bloodied, always red-handed third seat) playing tag was not a positive one. Even more unpleasant when one considered that it was metaphorical.

"And now you're playin' hide-'n-seek, huh? Cause you sure aren't playin' tag, hidin' in a closet."

He can't see her, but he can feel her eyes meeting his in the dark. Near-defiant. Near meek.

It was far more violating than their two bodies pressed against one another.

"I guess so, yeah."

"How are you connected to Gin?"

(The answer came later, reported amusedly by Sosuke-kun. The guy was always kind'a sadistic, Shinji thought, despite all the airy lightness Sosuke spoke with.

His never-bloodied, always red handed third seat, and the new aceptee into the 10th division. Together.

Funny, that was in a closet, too.

But in the meantime, Shinji stood and waited for an answer.)

Her delicate nose turned up. Just the smallest bit. Something in the gesture spelled pride, and not vanity.

"Like you said. An old friend."

Shinji snorted. "Like hell he is. Okay, sure."

"I mean it."

From her tone, he supposed she did.

"Look, I like you. You any good with a zanpaktou?"

"… Yeah. Really good." She sounded smug almost, almost confident. He didn't doubt it.

"Kidou?"

"Passable."

"I bet you're terrible at kidou. But I like people like you. More training shinigami need your guts. Do you want a place in my division? When you graduate?"

There was a long silence. He wished he could see her face clearer, but the tiny band of light only painted a general, shadowy face.

"You – you really can do that?"

"Yup.

"You're not – not just saying that because…." She trailed off. He didn't quite catch her drift.

"Because?"

Her voice grew very quiet. Her pride – her confidence, be it feigned or true – did not entirely leave her.

She actually sounded blasé.

"Because I'm pretty."

"I don't offer positions out to anyone."

"Because we're alone in a dark closet."

"It's not like that. I'm offended. If I wanted, I could get some without - "

"You might want to take advantage of me."

He rolled his eyes. "I pride myself on having a strong, loyal group."

"Pride. Huh." In the darkness, he fancies he can see her smile. "That sounds… really nice."

"Yeah."

There was a long quiet. He waited for her to squeal, or finally say, Why thank you, kind, mysterious gentleman! But she said nothing, and, if he were honest with himself, he'd know that this particular girl – at this particular time – was not about to do that.

"You must be pretty important."

Without shame:

"Oh, yeah, I am."

He felt her weight shifting. He felt her hands rest lightly, daintily, on his chest.

"Hey-"

Without shame:

She crushed his words by crushing her lips against his.

The gesture was in equal parts thrilling and unsettling. She was young. Too young for this. Too young to kiss like this.

Shinji was not used to being caught off-guard.

Her lips parted, and he could feel her tongue peeking through. He opened his own mouth on a reflex, without thinking, without realizing, still stunned. Still kissing him, she took his hand in two of hers. Her hands were surprisingly steady (too young!) as she took it and brought it to her exposed collarbone. Slid it down. Slowly. Somehow, the way she was handling him, touch had become the most pleasurable sense. He could feel smooth skin, with just a trace of warmth.

He basked in that sense for a moment, and then you don't even know her! popped up unpleasantly and he jerked away.

"Hey, no. No. No thanks."

His eyes were getting used to the dark, but he still couldn't really see her expression. He expected that it would still be blank.

"You're pretty an' all, don't get me wrong. I just… no." Then: "Do you know who I am?"

He could see her shake her head. "No."

"You can call me Hirako-taichou," he said, with just a trace of irony's sharp edge in his tone.

Her breathe caught, and he could see her posture straighten.

"Oh," she breathed, "Oh. I'm sorry. Hiarako… taichou. Sir."

"S'okay," he mumbled, trying to stand. He could see how it would be easy for her to knock buckets and mops over in this closet. It was stuffed. Not very romantic.

"I'd still really like to be in your division someday. If that's okay with you."

She sounded sheepish. Like, because he was a captain, she had just a made a fool of herself by taking the lower moral ground. He almost told her different, that captains can be lecherous, too, and he is not even the worst. If only to warn her.

But he didn't.

It was the first time he'd heard her sound kind of meek.

"I don't take my word back very easily. There's still a place in the fifth division. If you really want it."

He could sense her tensing, all of a sudden. Nervous.

"I don't," she said quickly. He was taken aback. "I'm sorry, forget it. Never mind. I don't."

"Why?"

"That's… Gin's division, right?"

"So he's 'Gin'. Not Ichimaru-senpai?"

"An old friend," she said, once again defensive.

He didn't push it this time.

"I thought you were looking for him, though?"

"Yes, but… no."

He didn't push it.

Instead Shinji slid open the door, acting the part of a gentleman. Light streamed in. Light filled her face. She was still gorgeous. But now embarrassment, and doubt, had settled in.

"Smile," he ordered. She didn't smile, but she tried to look a little less upset. He grunted an approval.

"Well, good luck findin' your Gin."

She stepped out.

"Um. Thank you. Sorry."

I kind'a enjoyed it, actually. No that's not what he was supposed to say.

"It's fine."

It's not possible to enjoy something like that and feel repulsed, too, is it?

He wasn't really sure.

"Taichou?"

Ah. That voice, so naïve and wide-eyed and melodic.

"Sosuke-kun," Shinji said flatly.

"Oh, hello. I thought you went to bathe…" his eyes fell on the girl. He smiled. Shinji felt himself getting impatient. "Who's this?"

"Matsumoto Rangiku," the girl said, looking Aizen in the eyes far more shyly than she had Shinji. This was just the effect that Sosuke-kun had on the girls, though, especially the young ones.

Shinji suddenly realized that he hadn't even learned her name.

Matsumoto Rangiku.

A little girl from the Rukongai, with guts and a pretty face, who had gotten to Soul Society by whoring herself out.

(It didn't make him like her any less.)

Shinji smiled, put an arm around her. She stiffened. His smile widened. He liked her quite a lot, and it was really a shame that she was not going to be joining his division. (Their embarrassing incident was all but forgotten, except that his heartbeat still felt a little quicker than usual, and he could still feel the warm burn of her touch.)

"She's my first love, Sosuke-kun."

And gently, he planted a tiny kiss on her forehead. Just enough to make her blush and writhe in a way that made him laugh inside.

(A benign payback for the embarrassment, and then they were even.)

Years later, he would wonder where that habit of his began.

He says that to all the pretty girls.

And the answer would come automatically, because he had long ago traced its root:

With Matsumoto Rangiku.

"I don't know what you want from me."

It was nighttime. She had just joined the Gotei 13, and he had made special arrangements to have her accepted into the tenth division. Only, she didn't really know that.

He just wished she would stop visiting like this.

"Nothing."

"Do you want me to…?" She hesitated, bit her lip. She didn't want a repeat of last time, he realized. An embarrassment. He signed the paper before him without looking at it, then pulled a face.

"Nope. How many times d'you have to be told that?"

She was silent. From her infrequent visits, Shinji knew she could talk and talk and talk (and that, despite her seemingly innocent appearance, she also had quite the taste for his sake) but there were times when she receded into this childlike melancholy.

"Can you leave now? I've got paperwork to do."

"… I'm not used to that," she said bluntly.

"Get used to it. You're gonna make friends here in the Soul Society. And yeah, some people are gonna try and take advantage of you – not even that way - but you'll have friends to back you up."

She absently traced something in the air. Maybe it was Gin's name. Shinji can't read what's invisible.

"The only friend I've ever had is Gin."

"I feel sorry for you," he mumbled sarcastically, scanning over a new document.

She shook her head. "You don't get it."

Shinji stared at her. "Who do you think he is?"

"My friend. I love him."

I love him. She used those words so freely, he almost wanted to laugh, because there's the tiny chance that it's true – and that she truly does love the most vicious, sadistic person Shinji has ever encountered.

"Didn't he abandon you in the Rukongai?"

"No," she said. Defensive. Which, for all he knows, may very well mean, Yes.

He's learned that you don't push Rangiku.

"Fine, then. Can you tell me why you keep following me around? And talking to me? And visiting me? You're not even in my division."

"I owe you."

Maybe she did know about the hand he had in her acceptance.

"No, you don't."

"Then… I shouldn't visit you anymore?"

He pulled another face. Despite himself, words tumbled out. "I didn't say that."

The next time he saw her, it was before battle. And aside from the fact that she was wearing the same confident façade as always, (even though she was shaking, shaking, crying inside and he couldn't blame her) it was more than a bit surprising how much she'd changed on the outside.

She was all big and grown up. Her boobs were ever bigger than he'd imagined they'd grow, and she had a sultry look to her, that said innocence had fled her long ago.

Only, he knew innocence had left her even before then.

He couldn't say when it had gone exactly. He knew he had not been the first, and he knew that he was not the one to have taken it. He would have tried hard to keep her innocent, but for the fact that she had never been innocent to begin with.

Not really.

It went like this:

She touched with butterfly-light fingertips and crushed against him with force. And this time, he pushes thoughts like too young and what am I doing? out of his head. He doesn't wonder where (who) she got this experience from. He just traces her body, again and again, her small, already-curved body, and thinks of how amazing she is (not that he loves her, he doesn't, he's a liar; she is not his first love), and lets his body go.

She was not scared, and she was not loving, because he knew that her fear and love both belonged to someone else.

And after, Shinji was perfectly content.

"Hey, you know, you're not that much older than me."

He grumbled something incoherent. He was tired. He just wanted her to let him sleep.

"Only a couple hundred years."

"Mmm-hmm. Yeah."

He was really, really tired. In fact, he could blame her for his being so tired. He was used to her rambling, but now he just wished she would shut up.

"So… don't feel so bad, okay?"

He opened his eyes. Groggily. "Wha?"

She looked at him. Her lower lip stuck out, a pout to cover her actual feelings.

"I think you feel bad. I think you feel like you defiled me or something. Don't."

"Yeah, sure." He closed his eyes. He tried to sleep, but suddenly he wasn't tired anymore.

"Are you listening to me, Hirako?"

"What happened to 'Shinji'?"

"You may be a taichou, and I may be just your typical officer-"

"What happened to that seventh seat position you kept talking about?"

"-I'm getting there," she said, acknowledging him this time. "Anyway, don't feel bad. We're actually really close in age."

"It just feels weird," he mumbled. Two seconds later and he can't believe that he actually said that aloud.

She shrugged and turned away.

He groaned, suddenly, and said, aloud.

"Why'd we just do that?"

"Besides the fact that it felt good?"

"Yeah."

"I care about you. You're my friend. I owed you one."

Pause.

"And I'm your first love, too, remember?"

"You know I was kidding."

"I know."

He kind of wondered if she wishes he had been true, just so she could feel that someone (once) openly loved her.

The next time he sees her, he wonders if she's ever slept with any of her enamored drinking buddies or if he was the only friend that she ever did so with.

Gin does not count.

Soon, the after became better than the actual doing.

A jazz record usually played in the background. Sometimes he slept. Sometimes he didn't. On the other hand, she rarely did. Her eyes were half-open until she could hold them that way no longer.

But there was one never: they never touched after the act, though sometimes she talked. If she did, he was not always entirely adverse to replying.

On one particular evening, the record player hummed his favorite tune (the tune he was humming when he met her, but that's just coincidence). A dim lamp was lit beside him, one of the new electronic kinds. The mood was calm, but somehow, it was also sober. It was why she had remained silent, had just lain there all night. Watching him.

Something was changing. Life was shifting. The music hummed in the background, until the song ended and the music was only the crinkle of soundless needle on vinyl.

Finally, he sat up. He stared at the wall, if only to avoid looking at her.

"I don't trust Aizen Sosuke."

He heard the sheets shift. She did not speak. But he felt her break their never - felt her take a piece of his hair and twirl it (slowly, thoughtfully) around her finger.

She was puzzled, most likely, most likely she did not understand what he was saying. Most likely she could see no reason for what he said. Most likely, she thought him crazy to be pointing fingers at the kind, quiet man that every shinigami knew and loved.

He turned to face her, and was struck again by how young she was. Even though the years had changed her, she still appeared to him as the greenhorn, the girl. She looked up to meet his eyes, the piece of hair still twirled around her finger.

He came to a significant conclusion:

For whatever reason – perhaps because she was so removed, so indifferent, so uncomplicated and simultaneously complex (a breath of fresh air, but more like his oxygen) – the only thing he trusted around there at that point was Rangiku Matsumoto.

He closed his eyes and tried to fall asleep.

The needle scratched against the vinyl, and the record soundlessly went on.

(When he dreamt, he dreamt of things with masks.)

Inoue Orihime.

Red hair, curvy figure, pretty.

Very similar.

And yet all he could see were differences –her eyes were brown, her hair was not the color of sunrise, she was rounder, younger, more innocent.

Even so, he couldn't help but play his (tiny, flirtatious, harmless) game once again.

"She mentioned you."

"Really?"

Small-talk before the battle of a lifetime. Shinji breaks from his meditation and looks over at her (into her eyes) instead of down at the zanpaktou in his hands. Hiyori, her back against his, grunts her annoyance and continues to sit still with her eyes closed. She's too edgy, too jumpy, too wild to really sleep. Knowing Hiyori, he's surprised that she's not bouncing off the walls. Then again, none of the others are sleeping, either, although Mashiro makes a good imitation.

Right now, all he's looking at is Rangiku.

(Her eyes, spring-blue, have not changed.)

She smiles. Her smile is small and pretty, but more a grin than anything. He figures that she smiles more easily than she did when she was young, but right now he can see a shadow in her eyes.

Shinji knows, instinctively, that this is more than small talk. He stands, taking his time, and walks over within speaking distance.

"Oh yeah, in regards to her Kurosaki-kun."

"Girl's obsessed with him. He doesn't know when he's got it good."

"Like you?"

He figures she's only half-teasing and doesn't reply. She continues. "She cares about him. It's touching. I do think his awkwardness around Rukia-chan is cute, though."

They talk about other peoples' love affairs instead of their own.

"Yeah. He wouldn't know if it hit him in the face. But he cares about her, too."

"He's a nice boy. Ichigo-kun. He cares about everyone."

"So I heard you were living with her?"

"Yeah."

Silence.

"Are you okay?"

"You cut your hair."

(Abrubtly.)

"You grew."

Silence.

"And how's your new captain? Is that lucky boy living in Orihime-chan's house, too?"

"Sort of." She almost giggles. "He's too shy to really stay in her house, though. But he's doing okay."

"Ah."

She suddenly sobers, and the shadow in her eyes looks more prominent. "I hope he'll be okay."

"He'll be fine." He gives her a crooked, small grin, the best he can manage. "You should worry for yourself, Ran. After all, having had Sosuke-kun as my subordinate, he'll know that we were close at one time."

She smiles faintly in return. "Peh, I don't think so. We weren't that close, you know."

"I'm wounded."

He's kidding. Even in this kind of situation, he can't help it. (And they were close, he had grown to care for that girl from the Rukongai.)

But this is all irrelevant, because she begins to look worried.

"He…"

"Knows about you and Gin."

She shakes her head. "Forget it. If I were were anything to him – if I were a threat to Aizen's loyalties – I'd be dead already. I'm just… I'm not. Not that much. Not enough that he - Gin - would choose me over him." She's lying, Shinji notices as she shrugs. She shrugs quite often, as if to say, This doesn't matter to me when it matters a lot.

Shinji doesn't know what to say to that.

"It's like I'm nothing. To anyone."

It's surprising to see her bare her insecurity like this. It's Ran-chan saying this, Rangiku who is proud and always, always confident. She's shaking inside.

"You were right all along. Shinji. About Aizen."

It was unusual for him to hear her use his name. She had always called him 'Hirako', the only exception being…

He shakes the thought away, decides he doesn't want to dwell on it.

"Don't worry about it."

She gives him a look that says, of course I should.

"You meant something to me." Then he raises his voice to its normal, casual volume, and only then does he realize they've been whispering. "You were my first love, remember?"

She laughs hollowly again, and an image of her comes to mind – Rangiku, the first time he met her, when some innocence still clung to her. Before Ichimaru Gin tore it away.

"He says that to all the pretty girls," Lisa puts in from across the room.

"Never to me," mumbles Hiyori, tiredly, more out of habit (it's her part in this game they play) than with any real annoyance.

Shinji replies in his mind: Yes, but Rangiku was the first.

And he wonders if, this time, he isn't entirely kidding.