Author's Note: I had the sad thought of, what if Nanao was right? What if Shunsui was only looking for a conquest? Then this came to life. BlackVelvetBand, this is for you! I guess it would fall under the 'drama' category.
Don't Make Me…
The door to the Eighth Division slid open and shut in the gray morning light. No one heard the light footfalls, or the whisper of cloth that crossed the parade ground. The birds themselves were only just rousing from their sleep and a few chirped in surprise.
The inner court door snapped shut.
Violet eyes darted around the dimly lit office. Taking a moment to remove her glasses, Nanao cleaned them briefly with the handkerchief taken from her sleeve. Slipping into the division kitchen, she poured a glass of cold water. At this time in the morning, she'd prefer hot tea, but didn't want to sacrifice the precious minutes it would take to set a pot to boil. This was her moment of sanctuary.
Carrying the glass to her desk, she lit a small candle with a snap of her fingers and burst of riatsu. Burying herself in the monotonous paperwork that had become the rhythm of her life, she almost jumped at the sudden clatter of tabi crossing the courtyard as the regulars began making their way in to the office.
She had about three more hours. Nanao glanced at the remaining heaps of paperwork and frowned. It would take another day to complete all the forms from the latest sake drinking party and resulting damage reports. She'd been filling out the same kinds of sheets for the past three months – not that she had any right to complain. She had lost that right a long time ago. This was her penance. Her purgatory. She accepted it with bowed head.
Few dared to interrupt her. The piles of paper slowly migrated across the desk. The candle burnt out, but the light filtering through the rice paper door served its purpose. One subordinate that did have the nerve to knock was forgiven for bearing a cup of green tea – a small blessing in her living agony.
Heavy footsteps fell in the hallway.
She waited for the sickening plunge of everything vital inside. It happened every day and she'd hoped that the pain of every drop would eventually fade. It never did. She had mastered a new art.
She was stone.
"Nanao-chan! Time for lunch!"
The door slid open and the Captain of the Eighth Division breezed in with a sickening swirl of pink flowers and steel. He smiled his traditional ape of a grin and gloried in snatching her brush from her hand.
"Come sweet Nanao! We can't have our favorite Vice-Captain waste away!"
"I am your only Vice-Captain, sir." She replied with deliberate double-edged coldness.
"All the more reason to keep you healthy. Now come down to the Division lunch."
Nanao pulled a spare brush from her desk and re-inked it. "I shall in a moment. Unless you are making it an order, sir."
A flicker of a frown crossed the lazy sea of brown of his eyes. She hated herself for even noticing. There was no satisfaction. It only brought into sharper relief how well she knew him, and yet how little she understood of him.
"No, of course not. But I do want you to eat something. You have been looking a bit pale lately."
Deliberately signing her name at the bottom of a bill, she set it on top of one of the piles to her left. "Sir, the last party you sponsored has cost this division a great deal of money and personnel."
He had the grace to look embarrassed. "Er, well, it was Emi-chan's death-day."
"And you feel like it is the division's responsibility to have a drinking party for every member's death-day? The entire Soul Society would be broken."
He frowned. "I was drunk!"
Stone… I am stone.
"That is only an excuse."
The grin returned. "Ah, so what is your excuse for when you threw -"
Nanao set her bento box lunch down on the desk with a thump. "I have my lunch, sir."
He blinked in surprise. "I didn't know you cooked."
"I do, so please enjoy yourself with the others."
She set her brush aside and started to unwrap the bento. Shunsui watched her for a moment until she raised an eyebrow at him, careful to keep her thoughts locked away from his searching gaze. It was only logical that if she could read him, he would be able to do the same. There were times when she almost hoped that he felt half of the guilt that wracked her every waking and sleeping moment. But then, hope is what brought her the guilt.
"Won't you join us, Nanao-chan?"
"Sir, I have work that needs to be completed by tonight."
He sighed dramatically. "Ah well, I shall have to dine without the warming presence of my dearest."
Something in her chest twisted. She ignored it and picked up her chopsticks. When Shunsui had closed the door behind him, she silently replaced them and set the box aside.
Bitterly, she whispered, "You've had too many dearests."
Suddenly she felt the air around her compress. Desperate, she snatched up her lunch and flash stepped through the entire division to the outer edges of the main court. By pure luck, no one seemed to notice her undignified retreat.
Furious with herself, Nanao fell to her knees in a modestly wooded area. Casting a quick kudo spell, she ensured her privacy before burying her head in her arms and sobbing. Three months of torment poured out, fogging her glasses even as they cut into the bridge of her nose.
She had hoped.
She had dared to try.
She had had everything crushed with hardly a second glance.
Even with all the evidence before her screaming the truth, she had, for the first time in her life, willfully overlooked the facts.
She had no one to blame but herself.
Only those closest to her ever noticed a change. Her captain chose to overlook the strange reserved nature that saturated the air around her. Everyone else still only saw the confident, unbendable Vice-Captain that somehow managed to keep her division afloat. Even if anyone else had noticed the subtle change in her riatsu, only her unlikely best friend Matsumoto had dared to bring up. She brought it up only once.
It had been one night she would never forget, whether out of affection, or out of loathing. One night when she had been caught off guard by her Captain's advances and been swept up in the novelty of a kiss. He had taken it all, and she had relented.
He hadn't stayed and her darkest nightmare became truth.
Two days later, she had seen him with his arms around a woman from a local ramen shop. Three days later, she had seen him give her the same smile he had left with her. Her heart had silently shattered. The pieces continued to work themselves deeper inward.
Nanao tried to swallow her undignified hic-ups while wiping her face with her handkerchief. For the first time in her life, she seriously considered playing hooky and leaving work for the day. She couldn't, of course, if she wanted to keep up the image that nothing had changed between the Captain and her, but the idea was tempting.
A tapping outside her kudo shield made her jerk.
Author's Note: This came out of the pressure that is haunting me since I've moved to Japan. It'll be longer but regular updates might be hard, as I have to upload from work.
