Cucumber in a Bowl of Hot Sauce [Rukia, Shiro]

As far as life went, Rukia couldn't say hers had been particularly busy lately. If anything, it had been a little too slow for her liking. There wasn't much to do in the 7th Division, especially since the Gotei kept ceding jurisdiction to the Vandenreich and Vastime. She didn't like it, and it didn't seem like her Captain did, either. But there wasn't too much they could do right now other than just roll with the punches.

Well, and relax. But she wasn't too used to that, so she'd ended up relying a lot on someone else who did know more about it.

"Hey, Shiro, I'm coming in. I'd like it if you were wearing pants."

She could have waited, but that would have ruined what she considered the funnier part of her just barging into Shiro's tent. Honestly, she really didn't care too much what she saw just walking in. She was a little old to worry about that.

"Er..."

Rukia wouldn't have really minded the mess, or even the way Shiro was laying on the couch like some sort of drunkard. If he was off, she wasn't going to tell him how to spend his time. What stuck out to her, though, was the set of action figures that sat on the table. Obviously she knew what they were, but it just seemed so...weird that he'd brought them back.

Well, he was weird, so that did make sense. Not that she minded, but it was a pretty easy observation to make.

"Looks like you had a fun trip, huh?"

Shutting the door to the yurt behind her, Rukia simply walked in and took a seat atop Shiro's chest, wondering if that would actually even wake him up. He seemed pretty out of it, and the last thing anyone could call her was "heavy."

You know, when she'd been younger, Rukia probably would have yelled at Shiro to get off her, called him some special variant of a moron just for the occasion, and then kicked him. The years really had mellowed her out. Instead, the extent of her reaction was a decidedly exasperated sigh.

She could have just pushed him off her without any real effort, honestly. It's not like she was some weak little girl, regardless of what her size would suggest. But, at the same time, that ended up meaning that this whole arrangement really wasn't as uncomfortable as it probably should have been normally. The only real issue was it being on the floor, but she'd certainly laid on worse.

"Hey. Dork. Wake up."

She thought about giving him a kiss on the cheek, just to see if it would actually make him stir at all, but that didn't end up happening. Rukia wasn't going to reward this kind of thing.

"We didn't, no."

Rukia wasn't really sure if she should be annoyed or not that he even asked that question, but she was willing to let it slide for now, if only because he'd just woken up. Laying beneath him on the floor, she simply looked up at him with a faintly amused expression, not too terribly bothered by a situation she could remove herself from.

"Looks like you had a whole party by yourself. Well, not by yourself. I guess I was here in spirit."

"Sure, that sounds nice."

It didn't look like he was actually making coffee at all, but Rukia couldn't say she'd been specifically hoping for coffee. It had just been an offer for a drink, so she took it. Not much else to it.

"Honestly, I'm more glad to hear that than that you just decided you wanted more of me to always be around. Though if that had been what happened, I'd have had to tell you that at least you had good taste. I did get the coolest action figures."

Of course, speaking about the whole thing so jovially wasn't really enough to make the past seem like a lighthearted thing in Rukia's eyes. As far as she knew, all her friends from those days were dead. She missed them, but it wasn't worth it to just cling on and hope they were around somewhere.

"I talked to the king of Vastime once. He was a big fan. You didn't join that fanclub, did you?"