Renji felt weak as he stood outside the door to his captain's office. What had he done this time, he wondered. Last week he had been severely told off for accidentally spilling coffee all over the reports he had been working on; the week before that he had risked being decapitated by Senbonzakura when he tripped over his own foot and collided hard with his captain. He wondered what it was this time.

He inhaled deeply, gathered all the courage he could, and knocked on the door.

"Enter."

Renji entered. Byakuya was sitting at his desk, a sheet of paper in hand, his cold features even colder than usual. It was with great effort that Renji feigned equanimity and dragged his unwilling feet over to his captain's desk.

"You summoned me, sir."

"I did," said Byakuya coldly. Then he indicated the paper he was holding. "You had given me this before you left for lunch."

"Yes, sir," said Renji, feeling considerably relieved. So he must have made an error or two in the report. At the most, he would get a stern telling off and a "Don't let this happen again." It was with an insouciant cheerfulness that he said, "Have I made a mistake, sir? I'm sorry. It won't happen again."

"Renji," said Byakuya, holding the sheet out to him. "This is not a report. Explain yourself."

Renji glanced down at the sheet, and his eyes widened in disbelief.

"T-t-this?" he stammered. "I d-d-don't know how it g-g-got here. This? Whoever did this has a very bad sense of humor."

"Don't play innocent," said Byakuya. "It would be clear to the meanest intelligence that this is a love letter written by you. What's more, it's addressed to Rukia. Do you have an explanation? Or is this supposed to be another one of your poorly planned practical jokes?"

Renji's knees had begun shaking violently and knocking into each other. That letter was the result of his becoming overly sentimental one drunken night. It was never meant to be read. He had become overly passionate after returning from one of his late-night binges with the other lieutenants, and had poured his heart out into a letter by way of achieving peace of mind. That Captain Kuchiki should get his hands on it, and that he should have given it to him himself, on a silver platter and all that, was nothing short of a nightmare.

"For one thing," said Byakuya, plucking the letter out of Renji's limp hand. "You spelled 'love' with a w. For another, your letter lacks coherence. There is no subject-verb agreement anywhere, and the dots on your i's are bigger than your o's. Renji, have you ever been to school?"

"Huh?"

"I have never seen something so badly written in my entire life. If you wanted to write a love letter to Rukia, the least you could have done was to write something understandable. Rukia would have felt insulted if she had read this. I feel insulted."

"I'm so sorry, Captain," said Renji.

"No," said Byakuya. "This is not something a mere 'sorry' can remedy."

"Please, Captain, don't kill me," said Renji. His mind had blanked out on him. It often happens when death impends over someone that they lose the ability to ratiocinate when they need it most. It has been observed in animals that being cornered makes them more dangerous than before; a human in a similar situation would lose his ability to think, and begin to quake like an aspen. This happened to Renji. He swayed dangerously on the spot, gazing into the distance uncomprehendingly, as if bidding his final goodbyes to the world. From this stage he moved on to the next – to wit, the one where the desire to live comes back with a vengeance. Renji got down on his knees and began apologizing profusely.

Byakuya narrowed his eyes at him unsympathetically.

"Get up, Renji," he said. "I don't have the patience to put up with your imbecilities."

Renji rose.

"As I was saying," Byakuya went on. "Something needs to be done about this. I can't allow you to go around the place, abusing the language like this."

"I'm sorry, sir," said Renji.

"What you need are lessons in grammar."

"Captain?"

"Lessons in grammar," said Byakuya impatiently. "Don't make me repeat myself. I'm not in the best of moods."

"Sorry, captain."

"It would be best if you shut up."

"Sorry…"

"Every evening at six o'clock you will meet me at the library."

"Not the public library!"

"The public library."

"But… but…" Renji was quite a self-conscious person. "People will see me there."

"That is the point," said Byakuya. "The lessons were only the half of your punishment. I still haven't punished you for having the audacity to write a love letter to Rukia, a Kuchiki."

Renji sighed wistfully and cursed his stupidity. It should have occurred to him to tell her about his feelings before she became a Kuchiki.

"If you're thinking," said Byakuya, "that you could have written the letter to her before she became a Kuchiki, you will be aptly punished for it. I doubt if you even knew how to speak back then, much less write."

That, Renji conceded within himself, was true to an extent.

"Six o'clock every evening, including today," said Byakuya. "Now leave before I change my mind about killing you."

Renji didn't need telling twice.

It was a despondent Renji that walked out of Byakuya's office. His head was bowed, as if the burden of several centuries had been dumped onto his feeble shoulders. He passed the Cheerful Beanhead, which was among the finer bars of the Soul Society, and went into the Melancholy Brooder, which was not. Rumor had it that Head Captain Yamamoto, in his younger days, had become inebriated here after drinking an inordinate amount of grass beer – the Melancholy Brooder's specialty – in celebration of becoming the Head Captain.

Here Renji met Rangiku.

"Renji," said the other when Renji took a seat next to her. "Why are you here?"

"Why do you think I'm here?" asked Renji forlornly.

"People only come here when they're feeling depressed," said Rangiku. "Or masochistic," she added when her grass beer was brought. It was a clear, green-tinged liquid that smelled strongly, not of grass, but of manure.

"I'm here because I'm feeling depressed," said Renji. "And masochistic," he added when his grass beer was brought. He sipped tentatively at the drink and instantly felt like puking. It was the worst thing he had ever tasted. "This is perfect!" He downed his beer in two seconds and ordered another round.

"Wow, Renji," said Rangiku, surveying him keenly. "You really are depressed. What exactly happened?"

"Nothing really," said Renji dismissively. "Why don't you tell me why you're here?"

Rangiku sat back and sighed, the ghost of a smile playing on her lips.

"My captain's mad at me."

"Isn't he always?"

"I mean this time he's really mad at me."

"Why? What did you do?"

"I thought I would have some fun, pour some sake into his tea, and watch him get drunk."

"Wow," said Renji. "That is bad. How did he find out?"

"He drank it," said Rangiku. "This was yesterday. He woke up this morning with a terrible hangover, and he put two and two together, and figured it must have been Mayuri Kurotsuchi who had done it."

"Why him?"

"He had a hangover. He couldn't think really clearly."

"Oh. Then how did he find out it was you?"

"I told him. I felt bad for the little guy."

"So shouldn't he have forgiven you? For being honest and all?"

Rangiku smiled darkly.

"I told him after he had blown Captain Kurotsuchi to smithereens."

"Smithereens?"

"You know, that ugly green goo from of his."

"Oh, right."

"And then the Head Captain told him off at the captains' meeting for doing something so ignoble, so he was naturally angry when I told him I was responsible for it."

"Did he say something harsh?"

"Yes," said Rangiku, smiling wistfully now, proving the theory of a philosopher whose name had became obscure in the pages of history that there were more kinds of unhappy smiles than happy ones. "I never thought a kid knew words like that."

Renji's jaw dropped.

"Captain Hitsugaya swore at you?"

Rangiku nodded.

"I didn't even know what some of the words he used meant, but they were terrible ones. I never thought I'd hear them again after leaving the Rukongai."

"I guess if you're from the Rukongai, you never change."

Rangiku nodded.

"Speaking of which," she said, having remembered something. "Are you still in love with Rukia Kuchiki?"

Renji started and spilled his sixth round of grass beer over his front.

"Er…" he said uncertainly.

Rangiku, who, having more experience with alcohol than her captain, could put two and two together even when drunk.

"Ah," she said with an air of omniscience. "So that's why you're here. You wrote a love letter to Rukia, and Captain Kuchiki managed to get his hands on it somehow."

"How did you know?" asked Renji, plainly impressed. He had never had much regard for the other's intelligence. Now his opinion changed.

"It's the same story everywhere," she said, gesturing at Izuru, who was sitting in a corner, drinking grass beer out of a barrel. "He wrote a love letter to Captain Unohana but it was intercepted by the Head Captain."

"Ouch," said Renji, wincing.

"So what sort of punishment have you been given?"

"Me? Oh, right. Captain Kuchiki wants to give me grammar lessons."

"Grammar lessons?" said Rangiku, raising an eyebrow. "Why grammar lessons?"

"He said my letter lacked subject-web something, and a lot of other things, and said that Rukia would have felt insulted if she'd got a letter that lacked all those things."

"So that's not too bad, is it?"

"I'm not done yet. The captain's planning to hold the lessons at the library."

Rangiku gasped.

"Not the public library!"

"The public library," said Renji ruefully.

"But… but… everyone would see you there. You'd be humiliated."

"Which is why he chose the public library," said Renji sadly. He often wondered how someone as heartless and cruel as his captain could even exist.

"Captain Kuchiki sure is mean," said Rangiku. "Izuru's punishment is so much better."

"What is it?"

"He needs to finish everything in the Melancholy Brooder's cellar. How lucky! I wish I'd been the one to write that letter to Captain Unohana."

"Right…" said Renji unconcernedly. "Look, it's almost six o'clock. If I don't show up at the public library in the next three minutes, the captain will change his mind about killing me."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"I don't know," said Renji. "It's what he told me."

With that, Renji rose. He made to leave a few coins on the table but Rangiku stopped him.

"We'll make Izuru pay." She cast a deprecating look in Izuru's direction. "He seems to be enjoying himself over there, that little…" She borrowed a word from Captain Hitsugaya's wide vocabulary of Rukongai expletives.

When Renji reached the library, his suspicions were aroused when he saw Captain Soifon enter it. Anyone who knew Soifon could tell you that she was a hater of books first and the head of the Punishment Force after that. For a hundred years she had been of the opinion that it was a cheesy romance novel that had caused Yoruichi to abandon her and disappear. Even when she found out the truth, her prejudices against books lingered. She recently had to tender an apology to Nanao, the Head Librarian, when her plot to burn the building into ashes failed. Seeing Soifon at the library led Renji to conclude that his captain had been kind enough to spread the news of his lessons around the Seireitei, and entertainment being a rarity there, everyone must have been only too delighted to show up.

Sure enough, when Renji entered, the first thing he noticed was his captain staring at him austerely from atop a platform, on which was placed one of those strange green boards that he'd thought he'd never have to see again after graduating from the Soul Reaper Academy, and all the captains and those lieutenants who were sober enough to make it (Rangiku and Izuru being conspicuously absent from the crowd), regarding him with a mixture of feelings ranging from incredulity in the case of Ukitake, to whom it had never occurred that there had existed all this time in their ranks a warrior who didn't know his grammar, to a plaintive sympathy in the case of Unohana. It took him only two steps to get those beads of sweat rolling down his face.

"So you have come, Renji," said Byakuya. "You're five minutes late."

"Five minutes late," echoed Kyoraku amusedly. He was familiar with Byakuya's conscientiousness and wanted to see what additional punishment Renji's tardiness would earn him.

"But I'm willing to overlook that," said Byakuya. "If I punished you, you wouldn't be in any condition to serve as my lieutenant anymore."

Renji swallowed. He felt that an apology was in order.

"Sorry, Captain."

"Don't apologize," said Byakuya with a hint of irritation in his otherwise calm voice. "Work on your grammar."

"Grammar?" asked Hitsugaya. "Is that what this is about?"

"Yes, Captain Hitsugaya," said Ukitake patiently. He always had a way with kids. He knew just how to titillate their better nature and calm them down when their passions were running wild or they were feeling disturbed. The truth was that Hitsugaya hadn't recovered from his hangover yet. Rational Thinking was still in hiding.

"Anyway," said Byakuya. "Renji, if you would be so kind as to cease to goggle at me like a flounder and sit down there," he said, pointing at a chair on the far corner of the platform, "we can start on our lesson without further ado."

Renji sat down wordlessly, careful to avoid looking in the direction of his audience. It made him feel more at ease if he pretended that no one except for him and Byakuya existed in the world.

"Today's lesson," said Byakuya, walking up to the chalkboard and writing the words "Parts of Speech" on it. "The eight parts of speech are the noun, the verb, the pronoun, the adjective, the adverb, the preposition, the conjunction, and the interjection. Renji, do you know what a noun is?"

"Um, yeah," said Renji intelligently. "Of course I do."

"Then you will be able to name the nouns in the following sentence: The Rukongai is not a noble place." He wrote the sentence on the board in capital letters.

Several captains and lieutenants coughed at this juncture, but didn't press the point when Unohana asked if they would like to be treated by the special technique for curing cough that she had recently developed.

"The Rukongai is not a noble place," Byakuya repeated, pronouncing every syllable distinctly. "Name the nouns in this sentence."

"The nouns… oh, um… yes… Let's see now…" he stared at the board uncertainly. Make a wild guess, he told himself. "Erm… Rukongai?"

"Yes," said Byakuya. "Go on."

Go on? There were more nouns?

"Noble?"

"Wrong. The only other noun in that sentence is place. A noun is… a thing."

"What kind of thing?"

"Anything. Tangible or otherwise. One could loosely say that nouns are names. They are mainly classified into proper nouns and common nouns. Proper nouns are the names of people, places, events and other such things. In writing they always start with a capital letter. It is because these nouns – or names, if you will – identify the objects that they refer to. My name, Byakuya, is a proper noun. Since the rules can't be changed, your name is also a proper noun."

"Renji, the Proper Noun," Renji whispered to himself. It sounded all right.

"A common noun is the generic name given to a certain type of thing. For instance, the word 'table' would be a common noun, since it refers to the table as a generic entity in this world and not to any one table in particular."

The explanation went over Renji's head.

Byakuya sighed and repeated it in simpler words.

"Oh!" said Renji. "I get it now!"

"Now isn't that a surprise," said Mayuri from the audience, cackling maniacally. He had initially thought the whole thing would end up being a waste of time, and had only agreed to come because he thought studying how the average imbecile's mind worked under extreme pressure would be mildly interesting. But now he was actually beginning to enjoy himself.

"There are also abstract nouns that describe intangible things. Nobility as a quality is an abstract noun."

Renji nodded, overawed by how many difficult definitions the monosyllabic word noun had.

"The next part of speech is the verb. Verbs describe actions. The most basic form of the verb is the infinitive. 'To do', 'to be', 'to battle', 'to win' – they are all infinities. Another form of the verb is the gerund. Gerunds are nouns ending with –ing that resemble verbs in the present tense. Words like doing, being, battling, winning, etc. can therefore function as verbs as well as gerunds. The word "performing" in the following sentence is a gerund: 'The performing of a captain's duties is seldom simple.' One of the most important aspects of verbs is the tense. It is of utmost importance that you be clear if the action you're describing by means of a chosen verb was performed in the past, is being performed in the present, or will be performed in the future. The past tense of the verb 'to do' would be 'did'. As in 'I did not forget…' The future tense would be 'will do'. 'You will do that report tomorrow.' Next is the adjective…'

Byakuya's monotonous voice had a soporific effect on Renji, and it wasn't long before he felt himself drifting off. Fortunately the sunglasses he had wisely chosen to wear on his forehead descended to his nose and thus concealed his eyes from everyone. Renji, as far as they were concerned, was still awake and listening attentively, the sunglasses only being the manifestation of some pardonable idiosyncrasy.

Renji awoke when Byakuya's voice had ceased to talk grammar. He looked around and saw that the last of his audience had left.

"Same time tomorrow," said Byakuya, glancing coldly at Renji.

He suspects, thought Renji with a surge of dread, making a mental note never to fall asleep during Byakuya's lessons again. It was just too dangerous.

He downed several cups of coffee the next evening and marched relatively intrepidly toward the library.

The following evening he was practically walking with aplomb.

When his lessons finally came to an end a fortnight later, Byakuya inhaled deeply.

"Renji," he said, "your lessons are at an end."

The audience gave Renji a round of applause out of politeness.

Renji looked smug. He rose, bowed to the audience, went over to Byakuya, and began thanking him profusely.

"Thank you, Captain," he said graciously.

"And the word Captain here is…?"

"A noun, sir," said Renji unhesitatingly.

"And the verb in that sentence is…?"

"Thank, sir."

Byakuya nodded.

"I thought you had fallen asleep during that lesson. It's plain to see that I was mistaken. Your diligence and sense of commitment have impressed me, Renji."

"Thank you, sir," said Renji. He had been asleep. Maybe it was the grass beer that had done the trick.

"I suppose you would want to be rewarded."

Renji shook his head embarrassedly. Inwardly he cheered.

"Very well," said Byakuya. "I permit you to write that letter to Rukia."

Renji couldn't believe his ears.

"R-Really, Captain?"

Byakuya nodded.

"It would seem that you have earned it. Report to my office tomorrow on time. That is all."

Byakuya left.

Renji stood rooted to the spot. He glanced at the table on the side of the platform, and at the pile of blank papers on it. Without further ado, he picked up a pen and began writing a letter.

Dear Rukia… it began.

The next morning, when Renji was making his way toward his Captain's office, feeling lighter than ever, he met Rukia. She was holding a piece of paper in her hand.

"Renji!" she said when she noticed him. "Renji, this is amazing!" She hugged him tightly.

Renji was too surprised to react. He felt all warm and fuzzy inside, and wanted to hug her back, but his arms wouldn't move.

"Your letter has subject-verb agreement, the dots on your i's are of the right size, it flows fluidly from start to end, and you spelled words like 'love' correctly. Oh, Renji, I love you! There isn't a single grammatical or spelling error in this letter! I'm so happy."

It was a whole new Renji that reported to his captain's office that morning.

A/N: Originally published on May 9, 2010.