You could always tell when someone leaves the bed your sharing. Perhaps not when they are in the act of escaping, but it only takes a few minutes until you start growing colder without their body heat, and then your back or side starts yearning for that comforting presence pressed against it. After these little hints,and if your on your back, your hand reaches out questioningly, only to feel a luke-warm place on the thin sheet, the frigid ground already absorbing the heat in its gluttonous way. If you are on your side, your whole body responds, twisting and turning to fully witness the absence, eyes opening to the empty darkness.
Tonight, she had been sleeping on her back, and her hand was already exploring the place where the boy once slept, seeking something she knew would not be there: not until tomorrow night if she was lucky enough. But most likely it would be the night after next- one and a half more nights of being cold and alone.
Any other little girl would have been frightened at the aspect of her one and only companion leaving her in the middle of the night to an empty shack, but not her.
In fact, she was quite used to it.
But despite her immunity to this type of loneliness, it never ceased to sadden her.
She propped herself up, craning her neck back wards to face the door; when her neck couldn't turn further she rolled on her stomach and on her knees, tucking herself in the patch worked blanket. Scooting herself to the door that stood a few feet away, she pushed it open slightly, letting the brisk breeze caress her face with moist fingers. Through the hazy dark, a small silhouette parted his way through the fog, the peculiar silver hair catching a glint of moonlight as he moved away deeper into the darkness. She was vaguely suprised- she had only seen him leaving a handful of times, the opening of the door was just out of habit. It was becoming more of a ritual though- when she found the boy missing, she always peered outside, as if in some sort of good bye that they never exchanged before his mysterious departures.
Soon, he disappeared completely from view, as if the fog swallowed his complete existence. She starred a few moments longer at the desolate landscape, now empty of all life, the wind a low howl that rattled autumn's leaves, reaching through the door to greedly steal the warmth of her body. Rangiku slowly closed the door, the hinges groaning in a lopsided unison and curled in a ball, gazing at nothing in the opaque gloom of the shack, the silent and redundant question a familiar presence in her mind, never ceasing to arise, never answered.
Where are you going, Gin?