A sharp rap on the door of the Captain of the Sixth Squad's office indicated that the noble Captain Byakuya Kuchiki had a visitor waiting outside his door, who, judging by the series of raps that followed the first in quick succession, each sharper than the last, was impatient.

After throwing a glance in the direction of his lieutenant's table only to discover that Renji hadn't arrived yet, and so was unavailable to open the door to the visitor, Byakuya reluctantly abandoned the piece of calligraphy he had been working on, which in his opinion, was a prospective prizewinner in that year's competition—one of his best works so far—walked over to the door in strides of noble proportion and grace that not even scarcely hinted at his reluctance, and opened the door to none other than Captain Shaolin Fon, or Soifon, as everyone called her, the Head of the Punishment Force and a woman of fearsome personality and an attitude that would, during lighter moments, be construed as the result of permanent premenstrual tension. Soifon was at this moment in one of her fouler moods.

Byakuya masked his initial surprise at seeing Soifon at his door masterfully behind a veil of indifference.

"Captain Soifon," he said, and paused. By doing so, he would give Soifon the impression of being hospitable enough to listen to what it was that she had come all the way to Squad 6's building to tell him, and at the same time, ask Soifon what it was that had compelled her to come all the way to Squad 6's building to tell him, without having to actually ask at all.

When Soifon remained silent and glared fixedly into Byakuya's eyes, (which were the same shade of gray as her own, Soifon observed, shaken slightly but not stirred), Byakuya felt the need to supplement his previous phrase with something more coherent, since she had obviously not understood him.

"Did you want to ask me someth—?" Byakuya began, but was caught unawares by a resounding slap to the face that sent him staggering back a couple of steps.

"You bastard!" said Soifon.

Byakuya was not wont to be called that. For a whole second he stared blankly at Soifon's face, discombobulated to the point of speechlessness, before he coughed superciliously and said, "Mind your language, Captain Soifon."

This earned him a second slap—this time on the other cheek.

"May I ask," said Byakuya, wincing in pain as he gingerly massaged his cheek, which was now red and slightly swollen, for the second slap had been harder than the first, "why you're behaving like this?"

Soifon produced from her robes a folded piece of paper.

"It's because of this, you bastard!" she yelled, thrusting the paper into his face.

Byakuya unfolded the paper and read it, his eyes widening with every sentence.

"I didn't write this," he said, although the fact that the letter was written in his hand and ended with his signature (which was inimitably magnificent) did not give his words much credibility.

Soifon appeared not to have heard him. She snatched the latter away from Byakuya.

"'You are the loadstar of my life'? 'I think of you when I go to bed'? 'You smell like the first blossoms of the spring'?" Soifon read, her voice rising in pitch and volume with every sentence.

"I… I didn't write that," said Byakuya, positively appalled at the fact that such blasphemously mediocre and sappy sentences should be attributed to him.

"And whose signature is this? Jidanbo's?" said Soifon, thrusting the paper into his face again.

"H'm," Byakuya said thoughtfully, examining the letter more closely. "A good imitation," he said. "But I didn't write this."

"Imitation?" said Soifon, outraged. She did not take kindly to being told that she was mistaken. "Imitation? Who else has got handwriting like that?"

Byakuya gave vent to another thoughtful 'H'm…'. "No one I can think of," he conceded.

"I wake up in the morning, all ready to begin training the Stealth Force, and I find this piece of crap lying on my porch. The last thing I would have expected of someone like you was to write things like this," Soifon yelled, jabbing a finger into Byakuya's chest.

Byakuya was determined not to wince.

"I thought you were the only decent captain among us (excluding me, of course). If it were someone like Zaraki, I'd pass it off as a consequence of their uncivilized upbringing. But you! How could the head of one of the Four Great Noble Houses do something like this?"

Byakuya inhaled sharply.

"Pah!" Soifon went on. "I thought at least the Nobility had manners. I was wrong, damn it! You're so… so… argh! So uncivilized and uncouth and… and lecherous! Damn the Kuchikis! Damn everybody!"

"I hope you're finished," Byakuya said coolly, regarding a not so subtly fuming Soifon austerely. He did not like her remarks about his upbringing, or the fact that she had damned the oldest and noblest of the Four Great Noble Houses. "I didn't write that," he repeated.

"You're insufferable!" said Soifon. "Well, if you didn't, who did?" she demanded.

"I don't know," said Byakuya

"Three days," said Soifon, snatching the now crumpled piece of paper from Byakuya's hand and stuffing it back into her robes. "If you can't prove yourself innocent within three days, I'm going to show this letter to the Head Captain and have you executed."

Saying so, she stormed out of the room and slammed the door behind her with such force that a priceless painting of the Kuchiki Sakura Orchard that Byakuya's grandfather had painted that was hanging on the wall fell to the floor, the glass shattering and the ornate frame breaking irreparably.

Byakuya highly doubted that the contingency of his being executed loomed anywhere near, but nonetheless, provoking an already excessively provoked Soifon any further was not desirable. Byakuya, the sensible, rational man that he was, liked all his limbs in place.

Glancing down at his empty hand, Byakuya realized that he had no leads. Soifon didn't even let him keep the letter. Now he couldn't even progress half a step in the direction of finding out who the author of that ignominious letter was.

Byakuya sighed.

"Sorry Captain!" said Renji as he burst into Byakuya's office. "Really, really, really sorry! It was the… uh… traffic."

"This is the third time this week you've arrived late," said Byakuya coldly, deeming it futile to point out the manifest loophole in Renji's excuse, and thus ignoring it. "Your tardiness is getting out of hand."

Renji stammered a longwinded apology, as was his habit. Byakuya austerely excoriated Renji, as was his. The latter made some comparisons between the former and a certain species of insect that the former inferred to be the dung beetle.

When the usual drama—Renji apologizing to Byakuya; Byakuya not accepting his apology; both behaving as though nothing had happened afterward—was over, Renji made a startling observation.

"Captain!" he exclaimed. "What's wrong with your face?"

"Really, Renji, there isn't anything wrong with my face," Byakuya said, affronted that someone should make such a derogatory remark against his physical appearance.

"Why is it all red?"

"Start on your paperwork," said Byakuya, pushing toward Renji a pile of paper that he always had at the ready in the drawer of his desk lest a situation such as the present one should arise unexpectedly, and a diversion should be necessary.

Renji obsequiously took the paper over to his desk, which was in a small, insignificant little corner. Byakuya had placed him there in order that he should not be part of the first impression that people received upon entering his office. So as to be certain that visitors to his office didn't see Renji even by accident, he placed a large bookcase in front of the latter's desk.

Renji sat down and screwed his eyes in order to make out what was written on the paper. The necessity of this action arose partly from the fact that he had always neglected to practice the alphabet back when they had a week-long Crash Course for Illiterate Students at the Soul Reaper Academy, and also from the fact that the imposing bookcase cast a very dark shadow over his already dimly lit corner.

In the process of hazarding a peek around the bookcase, driven by the optimistic thought that his captain was hardly likely to be staring in his direction (since he ranked among the top ten on Byakuya's list of eyesores), and because Curiosity told him that that was the only way he could find out more about the events that led to the appearance of the alien color on his captain's cheek, Renji tripped over the leg of his chair, around which he had been absently turning his ankle, and fell unceremoniously in the center of the office, where he became, immediately, the center of Byakuya's attention and the focus of one of his glares.

"What are you doing, Renji?" said Byakuya in annoyance, as though the sudden crashing sound that Renji had produced during his fall had startled him into inadvertently ruining a piece of calligraphy.

Getting to his feet, Renji discovered that that was indeed the case.

Getting back down on his hands and knees when he decided he couldn't meet his captain's gaze anymore, Renji noticed that the mail had been shoved in from under the door and now lay in the recess.

"Captain, the mail's here," said Renji, gathering the oblong envelopes into a bundle and getting up with the air of one actively trying to remedy his superior's impression of him.

He failed in this respect when Byakuya failed to respond to his proclamation.

Renji cleared his throat and said, a little louder this time, articulating every word, "Captain. The Mail Is Here."

"I heard you the first time, Renji," Byakuya said sharply. "Do you expect me to walk over to you and get it myelf?"

"I—Uh…"

"Bring it here," Byakuya commanded, and Renji did exactly that. "Leave," Byakuya ordered, and Renji obliged, returning to his unobtrusive spot behind the imposing book case.

"How curious," Byakuya said to himself. "A prescription?"

No amount of ratiocination aided him in arriving at a conclusion regarding the reason or reasons for his receiving a medical prescription on a healthy morning when he couldn't have been feeling healthier. Unless someone from the Fourth Squad had espied him being slapped by Soifon and had hastened to his rescue by sending him something that would alleviate the stinging feeling from his cheek, Byakuya couldn't conceive why he of all people should receive such a thing.

He opened the envelope and read the prescription, his eyes narrowing with every line.

He slapped it on his desk in indignation after reaching the end.

"Renji," he called. "Get here at once."

Renji hurriedly rushed to his captain.

"Yes sir."

"There has been a mistake. This isn't mine," said Byakuya, waving the paper irritably in the air, as though fighting the impulse of trashing it.

"It's got your name on it," said Renji

"What nonsense?" said Byakuya, glancing down at the paper again. "It… has my name on it."

"That means it's yours."

Byakuya shook his head.

"There's definitely been a mistake."

"What does it say?" said Renji, his curiosity blatant.

"If you must know," said Byakuya, "Squad Four has somehow conceived the most ridiculous notion that I was inebriated last night. This is outrageous."

"Really sir?"

"Yes, it says here—"

"I meant, were you really drunk?"

Byakuya came as close to snorting as he had ever come in his life.

"What a foolish question," he said indignantly. "Renji, I'm going to write a letter to Captain Unohana, and you're going to deliver it to her. Ah, the paper is all gone."

"Would you like me to get some?"

"No. I want to you stand right there. I'm sure I've got some paper here somewhere," said Byakuya, opening the various drawers on his desk.

"I've found a sheet," he said triumphantly, pulling it out, but groaning in dismay when he realized that something was already written on it. A particular word caught his eye and he gasped.

"What happened, Captain?" said Renji.

"Renji," said Byakuya, handing him the paper. "Who wrote this?"

Renji read what was written on the paper, which happened to be an incomplete letter.

"Captain Soifon showed me a similar letter this morning. In fact, it had almost the same words, except this reads worse," Byakuya said. "Who wrote the letter, Renji?" he demanded.

"Um," said Renji. "I think you did, sir."

"Watch your mouth, Renji."

"You really did."

"That's absurd. And besides, I have no recollection of it."

Renji scratched his head.

"Um, how do I put this? Well, you see, sir, yesterday I kinda, well, put some—ah, h'm, a lot of sake in your evening tea—"

"What!" said Byakuya, standing up.

Renji stepped back.

"Oh, no, Captain, I mean, I thought maybe it could ease your mind a little or something," he said, laughing sheepishly. "But it turns out that you're not used to drinking alcohol. Anyway, I think you must have written the letter sometime then."

Byakuya sat down in his chair and began massaging his temples.

"Never do that again," he said, exercising no little self-control. "Now go."

The next morning, Byakuya received a peculiar, mushy letter, not unlike the one he had sent Soifon in his drunkenness, and some distance off, the Lieutenant of Squad 2 was being given hell by his captain for spiking her tea with sake.

A/N: Originally published in August 2009.