Disclaimer: not mine, as usual.
Warnings: rated T for mild language (nothing tough, really) and Matsumoto's dirty, dirty little mind.

'Chibi-kun!' screeched a particularly high-pitched voice as a little pink blur hurled itself through the office it had just entered, leaving the door to slam loudly behing it.

It, Hitsugaya gathered, was in fact a she. A short, innocent little girl who went by the name of Kusajishi Yachiru.

'Kusajishi,' he could practically feel several veins popping along his forehead. 'What are you doing in my office?'

Undaunted by the plummeting temperatures and the livid tone of Hitsugaya-taichou, Yachiru shoved a small, wriggling reptile under his nose. 'Look here!' she squealed excitedly as the aforementioned creature discarded its tail onto the organised desk. 'It broke,' she prodded the moving tail.

'It's a lizard,' Hitsugaya observed rather astutely, hastily pushing aside any papers before the lizard did...anything to it.

Yachiru frowned and pouted. 'You didn't scream,' she accused disappointedly.

'No I didn't,' he replied evenly, plucking the flailing reptile from the girl's fingers. 'What on earth made you think I would?'

'Byakkun did.'

Hitsugaya stifled a snort, plopping the lizard back into the hands of its rightful owner. 'Where did you find it anyway?'

Matsumoto pressed her ear against the door as best as she could. Her Taichou seemed to be having a particularly interesting conversation with Yachiru that she had absolutely no intention of interrupting. So she sat there with bated breath and listening ears.

'They're everywhere! Don't you notice?' came the sweet, slightly shrill voice of Yachiru.

'No,' mumbled Hitsugaya. 'Where's good?'

Matsumoto pressed herself up against the door, feeling ready to burst.

'Well,' Yachiru paused to think. 'They have really big ones near the market.'

'Oh?'

'Huge! They're like...Ken-chan size. Huuuge,' she dragged the word out.

'I'm sure.'

'And, there are all these dark alleyways behind the Twelfth Division? They have lots of see-through ones there, and sometimes there are glow-in-the-dark ones too!'

Now Matsumoto was confused. Glow-in-the-dark?

Hitsugaya, on the other hand, seemed intrigued. 'Really? Maybe we should go get some.'

'Really? I never thought Chibi-kun liked this kind of thing!' Yachiru trilled. 'It's much more fun at night though,' she mused. 'That way you can see the glow...How about tomorrow night?'

'Fine.'

It was awfully early in the morning, and Matsumoto sat patiently in the office couch awaiting the return of her Taichou and his Mysterious Escapade with Yachiru. Eventually, her efforts had paid off when the door slid quietly open at around one in the morning.

'Ah, Taichou,' she crowed. 'How was your little...rendezvous?'

Rendezvous? Probably drunk, Hitsugaya concluded. 'Uh, fine, thanks for asking? What are you doing here in the dead of night anyway, aside from getting drunk?'

'Did you have fun?' She came rather close to warbling.

'Yes,' his smile faded quickly. 'Interrogation over. If you're awake, you might as well get some form of work accomplished.' A large stack of paper was dumped unceremoniously onto her lap.

The woman, much to his surprise, squealed excitedly. Hitsugaya doubted it was due to the paperwork.

'Was it your first time?' Matsumoto stretched lazily, letting all the papers fall to the floor.

Now Hitsugaya was taken aback. What exactly did his Fukutaichou know about his lizard-catching life? 'Uh...no?'

Matsumoto squealed once more. Sucking in a deep breath, she stared at him straight in the eye. 'When?'

'...On my free days in the Academy? Most of the time with Kusaka...And before the Academy days I went with Hinamori sometimes...' He trailed off for a moment before snapping at her. 'Pick up the darn paperwork! And do them!'

'Oooh, Taichou!'

'What!' tempers exploded. 'I'm not doing anything wrong!' Hitsugaya roared, stomping out of the office.

'Taichou, you scandalous fiend!'

author's note: okay, so I thought you might want to know where this terrible story hatched from. Let's just say I was on the bus, thinking about lizards. Wait! it's not a normal occurence, okay? And I was just thinking, that young kids for some oddly strange reason, have this fascination with the little things. I don't know why, don't know how, but I was never one of them. And then my mind did a little marathon around lizards and came to the conclusion that dragons were, techinically lizards...and I'll let you connect the rest of the thoughts. (oho gyakuten kenji!)

well...as for what Matsumoto was thinking, I'm not gonna say, because you guys are going to tell me where your minds ran to, okay? Say it out in a review!

as a sidenote, just saying that I don't really like hitsugaya. It's just that Yachiru and Matsumoto are fun...and he gets caught in between. As you can see, my portrayal of the kid is not...really...good, if you ask me. I tend to avoid him. Ahem. refer to my other fic Maybe, which I should be updating but am instead running around thinking about lizards.

EDIT: the sequel has been posted! It's called A Rather Large Difference