11 - New Beginnings

"Look, isn't it fine if we just fixed the house? There's no need to glare at me like that! I'm talking to you, Rukia!" Rumi said.

"And how do you suggest we do it, genius?" Rukia said sarcastically. Half of the house was just blown away and she wasn't sure if the other half of the house was stable enough so Rukia wasn't sure how they would try to fix it instead of rebuilding it.

"I don't know, how do you guys build houses here?" Rumi asked, making Renji and Rukia facepalm.

"You have no idea on how to fix a house or how it works at all, do you?" Rukia said, rubbing her temples.

"Well, you could say that." Rumi said. She was just a normal twenty one year old girl before dying in a house fire so she wasn't the most knowledgeable about major house repairs and she was defintely not familiar with half-destroyed houses like this.

"Look, if we don't figure something out, we're gonna be sleeping on the streets." Rukia said with a sigh.

"Well, I know somewhere we can go and sleep-" Rumi started but Renji with his eyes widened and voice trembling, cut her off directly. "Don't..Don't say what you're just about to say."

Rumi looked at Renji, sat down on the ground and then said in disappontment, "You don't even know what I was going to say!"

Renji shook his head and replied, "I know what you're about to say. Damn it, Rumi. I'm not sleeping in a cave full of dead bodies!"

At Renji's outburst, Rukia finally caught on what was happening and her eyes widened in shock and probaly horror as well. "Wait, did you say dead bodies? Rumi's not going to suggest us to sleep in a cave like that, right?" She looked at Rumi at the end of her sentence.

Rumi let out a rather awkward laugh and replied, "I..I uh..I was going to say that. I mean that's the safest place I know to sleep."

"How is a cave full of dead bodies safe?!" Rukia found herself asking because she was having a hard time processing this absurdity. Like who in their right mind thinks that kind of place is safe?

"Wait, also don't tell me Renji found you in a cave full of dead bodies.." Rukia muttered as she managed to put a few things together. She remembered Renji telling her that he found Rumi in a very creepy cave and she was sleeping there because she had nowhere else to go. Now, Rumi was saying a cave full of dead bodies was the only safest place she knew to sleep. Rukia's eyes widened in horror and she was hoping Rumi to deny it.

But, Rumi nodded like it was a normal thing. "Yep, I still remember Renji thought I was the psychopath who killed all those people. And yeah, he screamed really loud when he saw the bodies haha. It was kinda funny."

"....n..no..that's...Rumi...are you sure you're like okay?" Rukia found herself asking.

"Come on. It's not that bad. Wait, it is kind of bad." Rumi muttered before continuing, "But, hear me out, okay? There's a saying like the most dangerous place is sometimes the safest place. Since the bad guys just throw the dead bodies there, they sure aren't hoping or expecting to see anyone alive there. Also, like you said, no one in their right mind would willingly stay there so that adds another reason for them to not pay attention. Unless you do something crazy, it's like a pretty great hiding spot." Rumi explained her thought process to Rukia and Renji.

"Even so, that's really a twisted way..." Renji muttered. He looked like he genuinely thought Rumi had a few screws loose in her head.

"That's not nice, Renji!" Rumi complained, playing with the small amount of grass left on the ground.

Rukia sighed, decided to ignore Rumi for now and turned her attention back to the house before eventually saying, "Rebuilding this is going to be hard."

At her words, the other two became silent for a while.

Renji then took another glance at the house and replied quietly, becoming serious, "Yeah, that seems like it."

Rumi raised her head and looked at the two, "Okay, I have another suggestion."

"No, thank you." Renji said, shutting her down. It was as if he swore not to give her another chance to give her weird suggestions.

Rumi pulled the grass from the ground and threw it at Renji, along with all the dirt and pebbles.

"Oi!" Renji shouted as he was hit by the dirt sprinkles and grass pieces Rumi thew.

"Listen! or I'm going to throw more!" Rumi said, pulling out more grass and dirt.

Rukia looked at her, unimpressed and Renji was furiously trying to dodge.

"Stop! Stop! You're getting my clothes dirty!" Renji shouted.

"Listen to me!!!" Rumi said dramatically and threw more grass and dirt at him.

Renji sighed in defeat as he struggled to shake the dirt and grass off his clothes. "Fine."

"Thank you!" Rumi said with a smile, then rubbing her hands to shake off the grass. "My suggestion is how about we go all the way to district one?"

"District one?" Both Renji and Rukia perked up in interest at that. They were expecting her to suggest other weird solutions so they were a bit taken aback by that as well.

"Yeah, think about it. We need to go and take entrance exam too so why don't we leave a bit earlier and check out other districts, especially district one? We can get more experience and maybe we will even get to take care of some bad guys lurking around in the paths leading to those better districts!" Rumi explained excitedly.

"You just want to beat up people, don't you?" Rukia stated.

"How did you know that's part of my plan?!"

"I figured as much." Rukia muttered. "You're a worse version of Renji."

"Oi, Rukia!" Renji defintely wasn't happy with Rukia comparing him to Rumi and using him as a bad example and Rumi as a worse one.

"You tell that, Renji. How're we even bad? Like how could she?!" Rumi also complained.

"I know, right? She's way too stiff sometimes." Renji replied, making Rukia sigh again over them suddenly getting along.

As Rukia sighed, Renji and Rumi shared a glance and then chuckled. It was a rare moment of solidarity between them as they were more at odds with each other.

"Alright, you two. Stop laughing and go pack up." Rukia said, steering them back to the topic.

Rumi turned to look at Rukia and asked with a playful grin, "What? I thought you'd be against it since you commented about me just wanting to beat people up."

"Yeah, but 'someone' destroyed the house we were going to stay at until we leave for entrance exam so we don't really have a choice." Rukia said, stressing the word 'someone' while looking at Rumi.

"Damn, now you're making me feel bad." Rumi muttered.

"Which you should!" Rukia replied.

"Rukia's ever so serious.." Rumi muttered to herself as she quietly sneaked away from the scene.

But, of course, Rukia saw what she was doing and called her out.

"Where are you going?" Rukia asked.

"To pack my stuff!" Rumi replied like Rukia was asking the obvious. "Didn't you just told us to go pack up our stuff?"

At that moment, Renji interrupted, "Wait, why's no one asking me my opinion? I haven't said anything about going yet!"

"Now you know how I felt when you ignored me!" Rumi said dramatically after laughing at Renji's outburst.

"Not the time, Rumi!" Renji said.

"Well, don't you want to go to district one?" Rukia asked him.

"What? I obviously want to! I just didn't like- forget it." Renji scoffed, turning away.

Rumi looked at Renji, then Rukia before chuckling, "Wow, looks like someone's jealous of me getting Rukia's attention-"

"Stop joking around!" Renji shouted before storming away and frenzily start packing his stuff.

"Well, we might as well pack." Rumi said as she was left alone with Rukia who was glaring at her, probably because she teased Renji?

"I guess." Rukia said quietly before she went and packed up as well.

Rumi sat on the ground again after realizing she didn't have anything to pack. It had only been three days since she got to Rukongai and two days since she ended up living with Renji and Rukia. And then, her own reiatsu made half of the house blown away, including her bed. So, there really was nothing to pack.

As she waited for Renji and Rukia to pack up, she started to doze off a little. But before she could actually fall asleep, Renji's angry voice came.

"Damn it, where did half of my candy go?!" Renji shouted as he furiously waved the now-smaller candy bag that had significantly less candy than before.

Rumi decided to play dumb and said, "Maybe the wind took it? I mean it blew half of the house away so maybe it blew half of the candy away too!"

"...Do you take me for an idiot?" Renji asked, clearly not buying it. Well, no one with brains would buy that so Rumi would really be concerned if he did.

"Uh, maybe?" She still said, because she was curious on how Renji would react.

"..."

"The candy's in the bag! How the heck is it possible for the wind to take it?!" Renji shouted.

"That's...a good point." Rumi said slowly, but clearly amused.

"Rumi, I swear, if you've eaten my candy.."

But before Renji could finish the sentence, Rumi responded by bolting away. She liked candy and teasing Renji but she definitely didn't like getting beaten up. So, she did the thing a normal person would do, running.

"I knew it was you!" Renji shouted, chasing her as soon as she started running away. They dashed around the space, then around the remains of the house. As they laughed and played the game of tag, Rukia got annoyed and soon ended up chasing them.

That soon led to all three of them collapsed on the ground and out of breath.

Regardless, Renji turned to look at Rumi and said, "You owe me candy, like a lot of cotton candy."

Rumi, lying on her back and looking at the blue sky, sighed dramatically. "Fine, fine. I will buy you candy. Someday."

Renji huffed at her last comment before relaxing for a while.

Rukia also closed her eyes and relaxed.

Soon, they were going to leave this house and this district behind. They would head to district one and then head to the entrance exam when the time came.

"Let's go take that entrance exam and become Soul reapers together." Rukia said.

"Un." Renji and Rumi replied. "That's a given."

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A/N:

I kind of experimented with their dynamic and tbh, it was really difficult for me to do their interactions and then transitioning to get to the plot and stuff.

Definitely out of my comfort zone and while I can't say it's perfect, I kinda did my best.

But, it'd be great to hear your opinions on this chapter and their dynamic. And maybe if the transitions are okay or not.

With all that said, I hoped yall enjoyed the chapter.

And, I just want to say I might not be able to do Friday chapter because I have exams so yeah, see yall next week.