Chapter 3

I apologize for the long wait… I went to China without my comp and before that was finals so…. Yeah.

Second to last chapter, the next one is the party.

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Nanao's glasses flashed. Shunsui laughed weakly.

"Kyouraku-taichou," she gritted her teeth. Shunsui lifted both his hands in a gesture of surrender… or as a shield. It was difficult to tell.

"Why have you filled your entire room with sake bottles, Kyouraku-taichou?"

"Your every harsh word is like a dagger to my heart, Nanao-chan!" he wailed. Nanao took the plastic dagger away from him and hit him on cheek with it. (She couldn't reach his head.)

"Nanao-chan!"

"No, you may not stay in my room until the date of the party."

"Nanao-chan, you wound me! I wasn't thinking that! Hoping it, of course, because I know my Nanao-chan is good and kind and sweet really deep down and- OW! Nanao-chan, so meeeaan!"

"…I will arrange a room for you in the barracks, sir. Until the party, this is the best I can do. Until then, you are not to drink all this sake, understand?"

"Ah, my Nanao-chan, so suspicious! Of course I won't drink it all, it's for the party!"

"There is no way sixty-odd people are going to be able to finish all the sake in the barracks, and the cellars, and the storage rooms, and your room. Even if one of them is you."

"No, of course not! Some of them will be Kenpachi-kun, and Soifong, and Ran-chan, and Yama-ji, oh, and some of those nice young men you're friends with will be there!"

"…we might need more sake."

"Ah… my Nanao-chan is sooo smart! You'll be drinking too, of course."

"…perhaps, Kyouraku-taichou."

"Nanao-chan will be drinking with me, yes?"

"…alright."

"I think Nanao-chan should wear her lavender kimono with her hair down. Don't you think you'll look lovely like that, Nanao-chan?"

"I… I think you shouldn't drink so much then, sir, if you expect me to go with you."

Shunsui smiled, dancing eyes over unusually soft smile directed at her. "Nanao-chan will be so beautiful."

"Very well, sir," and her blush was pink against the paleness of her skin.

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Unohana noted the peculiar (or not, given…recent events) cadence of steps slamming into the polished wood floors (and, right on cue, a large person slipping on said polished wood floors and colliding with a wall, because this was the equivalent of a hospital and even the floors gleamed).

Zaraki Kenpachi entered, muttering under his breath about 'bloody pansy-ass daily waxings', which was interesting, since she knew for a fact that the 11th was shining every day. (He later explained this to her as training. Or, more accurately, as she understood it, 'can't have the men lying around like pampered brats who're afraid of a hard day's work' (how he'd actually put it was not something fit for regular thought).)

"Oi, Retsu.'

She put down her pen. "Yes, Kenpachi?"

"uh… y'know that party t' old guy says we all gotta go to?"

"Yes," she said, feeling somewhat nonplussed.

"Well…" he moved so that he loomed over her, eyes fixed on the ceiling. Since there was something very manly and Kenpachi about the looming (and adorable about the eyes-on-the-ceiling), she didn't mind. (You could speak all you liked about the age of feminism and the place of women in the world, but Unohana knew that her place right now came with a very enjoyable perk of having a thug boyfriend. It was fun, and more people should try it. Not, however, with her thug.)

"…you're going with me, right?"

She blinked, once, twice. Then smiled, a tiny bit delighted and amused with just how Kenpachi it was for him to ask her that way.

"yes," she told him.

He grunted, all embarrassed and happy around the edges of his tough-guy face. "Yeah," he muttered. "O' course yer coming with me… Not like any of the other weaklings would dare ask ya… At least none who'd live…"

Unohana was reminded again, why, despite prejudices and differing lifestyle views and all, she stuck with the 11th division captain. He was so…him. And she loved him just the way he was.

His large hand dropped again on the small of her back. "Oi, Retsu," he rumbled, with a wicked edge to his grin. "It's a sake party, y'know…"

"Yes," she said warily. You could never be sure what that grin meant. Iemura-kun and Isane-kun were so traumatized after the last one. "Shunsui is organizing it. Ise-san is probably throwing a fit."

"Just so ya know," he told her conversationally, "I'm gonna get ya dead drunk and do all sorta stuff to ya while yer too helpless to resist."

She was fairly certain that the statement should not have made her begin to giggle uncontrollably. "How?" she asked after she'd finished, looking at Kenpachi's dancing eye.

"Ya'll see," he informed her, letting himself out of her office.

She almost laughed again, thinking to herself that life was really so much more fun with Kenpachi around, and she really couldn't remember what it was like before.

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"Taichou?"

Byakuya looked up from where he was technically doing paperwork. "Yes, Renji?"

"Um… ya know the party, Taichou?"

a single perfect eyebrow raised. "It would be somewhat difficult not to, Renji, since I understand that the seated shinigami have talked of nothing else for the past week."

"Yeah. Um, well… I was sorta thinking…will ya go with me?"

"…I beg your pardon?" (Kuchiki Byakuya does not say 'what'. Not even in private.)

Renji began destroying the hem of his sleeve. "I was thinking we could sorta go together, 'cause we sorta are together, and… I sound really stupid, so I'll just go now…"

A wooden paperweight hit Renji on the back of his retreating head.

"…ow. Taichou?"

"You will appear at the Kuchiki estate before the event," said Byakuya, "And I will dress you accordingly. I refuse to go with you in what you call your dressy clothes."

"Oi…" said Renji, mouth crooking into a grin and noting the faint shadow of a smile on Byakuya's lips (which was the same as a real smile from anyone else) "What's wrong with my clothes?"

There was a definite humor in Kuchiki-taichou's voice when he said, "Everything would just about cover it."

I, Renji thought, am dating my prissy, uptight girl of a captain. There is probably something very wrong about this.

But really, with the prospect of sake, Kuchiki-taichou, and more to come, Renji couldn't bring himself to care.

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"Hello, Hitsugaya-kun," said Hinamori cheerfully. "How are you today?"

"Fine," he said shortly, dropping into the chair across her desk. Bloody hell, he had no idea how he would do this…damn Matsumoto.

Hinamori stapled together some sheets of paper and laid them aside. "What did you come to see me for, Hitsugaya-kun?"

He looked at her. Then he looked at the desk. Then he grabbed a piece of scratch paper and scribbled on it before thudding his head face down on her desk and thrusting the paper towards her.

She stared, nonplussed. "Hitsugaya-kun?"

He flapped the paper at her. He didn't trust himself to either look at or speak to her without making an idiot of himself.

She took it, and read, Will you go to the party with me?. She blushed. "Hitsugaya-kun, I don't know what to say!"

Say yes, he thought to himself. Please say yes. Don't say some other guy has asked you unless you're also going to tell me his name and division number and promise to come with me when he gets stuck in the 4th division for the next year. He still didn't dare look at her.

"I-um- well-" she grabbed the paper and scribbled back.

Yes, he read.

He sat up, looked at her face, looked at the note, and blushed just as red as she was. He wrote details on the paper, and passed it back to her.

She tried to write her response and realized she was out of room. She reached for another piece and met Hitsugaya's eyes.

They burst out laughing, the previous tension dissipating.

"I think you will be very cute," he said finally, figuring he couldn't get anymore undignified.

A delighted smile spread across her face, and with laughter sparkling in her eyes and warmth in her face, Hitsugaya thought that she had never been more beautiful.

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Ikkaku couldn't resist letting out a little bark of triumph. Really, did that fucking clown think that acid floors, robotic lasers, and titanium walls were enough to keep anyone out? Being Yachiru's official babysitter and sparring with the captain was harder than this! (Only in the 11th… ;)

He skidded past a few corridors and decapitated a few more robots. Now, what was he going to say to Nemu….

"Ikkaku-kun?"

Crap. "Nemu! Oh- er, hi, um…" he stammered, looking at the vice-captain wrapped in a towel only a few feet away. Obviously, the clown hadn't been lying about his daughter being otherwise occupied.

"Ikkaku-kun, what are you doing here? I don't think my father would have let you in…"

"Um," said Ikkaku, "he didn't. I snuck in. I um, just had to ask you something…"

"Yes?" she said, looking far more composed than most people would have managed, being clad only in a towel and all.

"Spend some time with me at the party," he said, eyes everywhere but her body. "I- I know you can't seriously come with me, like a date and all, but if you slip away after a while then you're just walking around, and that bastard won't get another excuse to hit you."

"Oh," said Nemu. "Oh." She smiled, like it was one of the nicest things anyone had tried to do for her, and Ikkaku cursed the clown because it probably was.

"Yes," she said, still holding her towel tightly. "Yes, thank you, Ikkaku-kun, I would certainly like to spend time with you at the party." And she bowed to him, courteous as though he'd done her a big favor even though what he'd really like to do for her was take her away.

At least this way she could have some fun at the party for a while, until he was strong enough to save her completely.

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-tbc-