"Rukia! Hotaru!"
Hotaru and Rukia turned to see Renji barreling down the steps from the school, nearly knocking about 10 people over in the process. Although it was a funny sight to behold, neither one of them laughed. Renji finally caught up to them and laughed nervously.
"Uh, I just wanted to tell Hotaru the good news about passing the second phase!" he said, although he was acting a little less excited and a lot more awkward than was to be expected. Hotaru nonetheless smiled warmly at him.
"That's great news, Renji! Congratulations" she said, clapping him on the shoulder. He smiled casually for a split second before getting uncomfortable again.
"Right, well I need to get back to studying. I can't keep this up without practice!" he said, and hung for a moment before waving sharply and rushing off in the other direction. Hotaru heard Rukia sigh from beside her.
"You see?" she asked, and Hotaru frowned. Earlier today, Rukia had been approached by two members of the Kuchiki clan, a family of nobility and extreme skill and reputation, in hopes that she would accept an offer to be adopted into the clan. Renji had walked in on the discussion and Rukia was less than pleased with his reaction to the news. Rukia had rather quickly confided her thoughts in Hotaru, who was taking care to observe if Renji really was happy or if there was more to the story.
"Yeah, I see" Hotaru said, but refuted it immediately. "Renji is obviously upset, even I can tell that and I don't know him half as well as you do. He isn't just jealous, he probably feels abandoned" Hotaru said, and Rukia lifted her gaze from the ground.
"I could see that. I don't want to accept if it will hurt our relationship. Renji isn't just a friend, he was all I had for so long..." Rukia trailed off, her eyes getting dark and cloudy again. Hotaru pulled her into a side hug.
"I know, I know. If you want, I can go talk to him about it. Maybe because I'm sort of an outside party, he might fess up" Hotaru offered, and Rukia shrugged.
"True, but he might not want to say anything about it because he knows you're my friend" she said, and Hotaru shrugged as well.
"Yeah, but it's worth a shot, huh?" she said, and Rukia nodded. Hotaru looked in the direction Renji had left and thought for a moment. "We were going to practice kidou tonight. It would be a real shock if he didn't show. I can ask him then" Hotaru said and started walking right before the bell rang.
Rukia smiled and rolled her eyes that Hotaru had sensed the bell again. "Thank you, Hotaru-san" she said as she walked along with Hotaru back into the school.
"My pleasure."
Later that night, Renji was rather late to their usual meeting for training. Hotaru wasn't too worried; she used the extra time to catch up on her star-gazing.
"Hey, Hotaru! Sorry I'm late, I was busy" Renji said, and Hotaru rolled her eyes at the lame excuse and sat up. Renji was an odd sight, disheveled and dare she say it, a little drunk.
"Renji, what's that in your hand?" she asked, pointing at the bottle in his hand that had replaced his usual textbook and wooden sword.
Renji lifted the bottle up to his face and stared at it oddly for a few moments as if he really needed to study it to figure out what it was.
"Um, sake?" he said unsurely, and Hotaru frowned and snatched the bottle from his hand, eyeing it closely.
"You're drinking? Where'd you even get this stuff anyways?" she grilled him, and Renji raised his hands in the air defensively.
