"Ten more minutes and everyone gets his money back. I'm sick of this shit." Ikkaku slammed his fist against the table to support the formal announcement. The pile of money on the table recoiled and those division members who were not snoring already nodded in agreement.
"Yeah, we've got work tomorrow, I mean, today," echoed Iba, who was not a division member any more, but no one held it against him. "Besides, I don't think he's coming back any time soon."
"Who cares about that, if we don't have a bet on?"
"Yeah, nobody's gonna win, if we all side together," said Iba and cursed silently. For the first time he was betting with the crowd against his own instincts, but letting others think he'd been paying too much attention to the matter was out of question. What could he do? It was a little bit too hard not to pay attention when you go for a drink and find your good buddy getting plastered with your ex-captain to the point when they don't really recognize you. And when you think nothing would ever top that, your ex-lieutenant shows up at the bar, pays, and collects both lifeless bodies. At once.
"It's just like the last time," continued Ikkaku, "and it shouldn't be like the last time. It's just wrong."
"Yeah, this time the other party does have a firm chance to win," said Iba, suppressing the curses again.
"The correct term nowadays is 'hard arguments'." Ikkaku made a show out of examining his nails and added, intoning perfectly, "Hard arguments, Ikkaku, go a long way."
Iba folded in half laughing. "I haven't heard that one yet." And it wasn't even borderline funny to repeat.
"Remember what he said about your Komamura-taichou?" Ikkaku smirked, "A puppy? I don't do puppies!"
"Thanks for the reminder, it took me years to forget that line." Of course, the line stayed engraved in Iba's memory and all these years he tried to figure out how Yumichika could have known that Komamura was in fact a big puppy. And when Iba finally worked up the courage to ask, Yumichika just looked at him with pity and said, "Because he stinks like one." Right, maybe he was an idiot, but why would Yumi take a sniff?
"And when the request from the Sixth came, he said that the dead fish was overrated."
Iba laughed again. "Huh! Renji turned green upon hearing that. And the other time he said that child molesting was not his kink and he'd gladly entrust that delicate matter to Ran-chan."
"And they both tried to choke him and then took the jobs."
"Huh… But now it's different."
"Yet, nobody's betting."
They shared a knowing look. Yumichika used to file his transfer requests directly to the wastebasket, but now it was not just any transfer. This time Yumichika's murderous reiatsu could be felt as far as the Fourth division, then Yumichika just took off and disappeared for a few days. Again. And taichou didn't even move his feet off his desk on the news. If that wasn't the clue, then what was?
"The transfer request is still on his desk. Open dates, huh?" Ikkaku went for another round, but his efforts were ignored again.
Everyone knew Yumichika.
The time was almost up, when the Eleventh division lieutenant flew in through the open door with a huge porcelain piggy bank in her arms.
"Am I late?" she asked, out of breath.
"No, but as you can see no one goes against the fruitcake. No idiots."
Yachiru put her pig on the empty table and everyone in the room, who was not snoring of course, forgot to take the next breath.
It was a point of no return.
"I believe in Shuu-chan," she announced.
"What?"
"I believe in Shuu-chan," she repeated.
"Eeeh... Everyone believes in Shuu-chan, sweet pea... but... but..."
"But not enough to put money down."
"Kiss your money goodbye, Iba," Ikkaku said over Yachiru's head and the room came alive again.
"So what? Nothing changed, we just got the bet on," tried Iba, but Ikkaku only shook his head.
Well, losing money was a legitimate reason to be unhappy, right? Right?
2.
"What the hell is going on here?"
There was no need to ask, what Yumichika saw was so pathetic that he almost felt sick. He took a short vacation for a couple of days, the vacation that he clearly needed to get over the initial shock, and this sorry bunch of retards immediately assumed he was about to transfer. At this rate he'd need another vacation. Right, but first he had to make it to his room that he hadn't seen for more than two months. He'd been missing it. A lot. There were a fair number of absolutely necessary items he had to retrieve from there. Immediately.
"What does it look like?" Ikkaku asked.
"May I join?"
Bastards. What brainless idiot had thought this brilliant idea up? Bastards. He didn't even have to make the dreadful decision now. Shuu-chan said nothing would be done until the end of the war anyway, and since Shuu-chan was too stubborn to take things back, the position would stay open indefinitely. And even if on the way back home Yumichika caught himself wondering how it might turn out, so what? He could daydream about the impossible for a while, couldn't he?
Just like everyone else.
"That would be against the rules," said Ikkaku, putting his best smug look on, too forced for Yumichika's taste.
"That's what I thought." You cannot bet if it's you everyone's betting on. Yumichika sat in front of the pig and traced its ears with his fingers. "It's nice to know that at least someone believes in me. Heartwarming."
"Wrong. Someone believes in Shuu-chan."
His heart fell. "What?"
"I believe in Shuu-chan," Yachiru repeated once more with unprecedented patience.
Yumichika stared at the pig, then at the moneybags on the other table. Right. The Seireitei's biggest sucker for cheap and high romance alike held her zanpakutou to his throat, leaving him no choice.
Flawless combination.
Yumichika looked up to meet Ikkaku's eyes. Ikkaku also knew a direct order when he saw one. To both of them, for there was another transfer request hidden deep in Ikkaku's drawers. Well, they knew, someday they'd have to move on to carry the spirit of the Eleventh division across the whole Gotei 13, and today was that day.
"You don't really think I'd let the treasures of our hopelessly romantic fukutaichou be split and wasted on alcohol, do you?" Yumichika looked around at the grinning fellow division members who didn't seem to be too upset about the lost money as long as the show was worth it. And he was the today's show. "Besides, I happen to believe in Shuu-chan as well."
"I won!" Yachiru said, smiling triumphantly.
"You won, sweet pea."
Yumichika watched Yachiru move her pig to the other table. It was surely reasonable to put the money in that horrendous pink creature, but something didn't sit quite well with him. Perhaps, Yachiru's eyes glittered a little bit brighter, than the simple belief in Shuu-chan required. Perhaps, it was her calculated movements that triggered his suspicion. But when she dropped the first coin through the slit and it hit the pig's virgin ceramic insides, the blood stopped in his veins, Yumichika knew exactly what was wrong with the whole schema.
"Your victory sounds lovely, Yachiru."
Ikkaku heard it too. "Fuck," he muttered, "I never thought I'd live to see this day."
Now Yachiru was glowing openly. "My sensei can be proud."
Well, being proud for Yachiru was a legitimate reason to be happy, right? Right?