Title: His smile

Author: Tuliharja

Summary: It's normal day at the office; both Rangiku and Captain Shiba are once again arguing who should do the paperwork. But what happens when the poor third seat Toshiro gets hit into his head, just to wake up as the captain of Tenth Division? What's going on? Is Toshiro's imagination running wild and most importantly…what's up with the female population around him? One-shot.

Disclaimer: BLEACH belongs to Tite Kubo. I'm merely writing fan fiction about it.

Dedicated to: My lovely friend Ice Prince Hitsugaya alias Lil'Prince! Happy Birthday to you! I hope this will brighten up more your special day!

Author's note: Thank you xOx ShinjiHirako XoX for betaing this.

Edit: Some mistakes concerning the fic have been fixed.

~His smile~

Groaning, Matsumoto Rangiku slammed a stack of unfinished papers in front of her captain, glaring him down with a murderous, squinting scowl.

"Captain! These papers needed to be finished two days ago!" The strawberry-blond woman fumed to her ever-so-lazy Captain Shiba Isshin, who tried his very best to hide behind his desk. "Oh no you don't! You'll finish these now!"

Watching silently from his desk, Hitsugaya Toshiro couldn't help but sigh and wonder once again what he had done to get into this Division. Why not any one of the other Divisions in the Gotei Thirteen? It seemed like Fate had cruel sense of humour toward him, as his childhood had been a melancholic struggle and instead it turns for the better, it went above that; he was sure his captain and lieutenant was both bonkers and should be locked up in a mental asylum. Sooner than later, Toshiro guessed, as each and every day they would fight like a cat and dog that had been locked in the same room for endless hours, or like an old, married couple.

Of course, there were moments which made Toshiro think he had indeed gone to the right Division after graduating from the academy. But most of all, he spent his time wondering if he could change the Division.

He was slowly but surely losing all his faith for his higher-ups. Plus, taking a painkiller almost every second of the day to help his headache that came from all the racket, wasn't helping at all his situation very much. Unohana had already made some rather disturbing threats that if she were to see Toshiro asking for more painkillers even one more time this month, she would personally make sure he wouldn't ever need them again. Apparently, the Fourth Division's Captain had somehow got it into her head that Toshiro was selling the painkillers he asked for, leading to the reasons why she had made it so extremely clear to him what would be the consequences if she found out that her conspiracies turned out to be true. A cold shiver ran across Toshiro's spine as he recalled Unohana's almost maniacal look, making him vow to himself that if he were, indeed, to ask for a change of Divisions, he would surely not ask to be under Unohana's. The woman just had an aura that promised slow death if you messed up majorly.

Sighing deeply, Toshiro rubbed his temple, sensing a headache blooming behind his eyes. For the last couple of minutes, Rangiku had been screaming like a banshee for her captain to finish the paperwork, pulling the he-was-the-head-of-the-Shiba-Clan card for the umpteenth time. In the meantime, Isshin had made snarky remarks about Rangiku just wanting him to finish them because she wanted to go shopping and drinking. Both facts were true, yet it didn't mean either Rangiku or Isshin would give up from the fact 'you have to do this paperwork instead me'! It was endless cycle for Toshiro's mind, who blinked his eyes as his vision started to blur, making him curse a bit underneath his breath. It seemed that today the headache would come to him with a full swing, most likely rendering him bedridden. Darkly chuckling, Toshiro couldn't help but smirk as he would gladly accept that horrible sick day over the chaotic day at office. He was coming to be as mad as those two lunatics.

"Toshiro! Look out!" Rangiku's cry pierced the air, making Toshiro blink his eyes a few times as he lifted his gaze just to see flash of something brown before it hit him in the forehead. From the pure shock and his already poor physical state, Toshiro jerked back enough to make his chair fall down, along with himself.

A pain bloomed through Toshiro's skull, making everything spin in front of himself as he heard Rangiku shouting his name from somewhere far away. He felt everything go black for a moment...yet the darkness only consumed Toshiro for a seemingly brief moment as his eyes slowly opened, yet the pain of the object that had hit him, was still there.

Slowly, the white-haired shinigami blinked as he was met with a pair of concerned blue eyes that he recognized as Rangiku's. But the words that left her lips confused him greatly as she kept asking aloud: "Captain, are you alright? Captain?"

"Ugh…" Toshiro groaned, rubbing his forehead where a nice bump was forming as he continued staring Rangiku, before she pulled away as a pair of familiar brown eyes came into view.

"Shiro-chan, are you alright?" Hinamori Momo asked, concerned for Toshiro who stared a bit surprised Momo.

"Momo? When did you come here?" he asked as he now saw how both Rangiku and Momo share a concerned look. Toshiro, just now noticing Rangiku had longer hair than moments ago, furrowed his brow, his confusion growing greatly. How had Rangiku got her hair growing in length without him noticing? He must have had really bad headache today if he had failed to see that.

"Here, let me help get you up Captain," Rangiku said now as she quickly hurried to Toshiro's side, which puzzled him furthermore. Why Rangiku was calling him 'Captain'? Had he hit his head worse than he had thought or what?

"I'm so sorry Shiro-chan! I didn't notice you at all!" Momo apologized as Toshiro got back to his feet. He noticed he was wearing something white atop of his usual shinigami attire, making him pull and grab it to get a better look. His eyes widened a bit as he realized what the item was.

"I was helping Rangiku-san dust some places when you all of suddenly came and-…Shiro-chan?"

Turquoise eyes met brown ones once more before they shifted to the blue orbs of Rangiku, who looked confused Toshiro.

"Say, Rangiku…" he started, which made the strawberry-blonde's eyes widen from the use of her first name instead her last name. "…am I...Captain?"

"Oh my, don't say you forgot who you are Captain, because if this is a joke it's really funny, but you can drop the act now...eh?" Rangiku asked hopefully, Toshiro seeing something between panic and hope in her eyes. Tilting his head, Toshiro looked down to the floor, pondering his situation.

He was either in deep slumber from Captain Shiba's hit or both he and Rangiku were pulling a very tasteless prank. Yet Toshiro was leaning toward the first opinion, because he knew Momo wouldn't ever join in something like that. So, lifting his gaze up he gave Rangiku a look that he hoped would be enough good as he asked flatly: "Have you already finished your paperwork?"

"Awww! But captaaaain~! It's sooo boooring!" the woman's attitude made full circle as she pouted to Toshiro, who merely crossed his arms front of himself, deciding it would be best to act like they wanted him to, for now.

"Ah, come on Rangiku-san. Once you've finished your working we can go for a drink, what you say?" Momo suggested now, making Toshiro glance toward the young woman who gave Toshiro a smile. "I think the medicine cabinet has some ice-packs…but it's not like you need those Shiro-chan!"

Toshiro merely snorted to this as he started walk toward the medicine cabinet, deciding to use its icepack. As he walked toward it, he could hear Rangiku and Momo's chatter about how relieved they both were over the fact that Toshiro seemed fine and not as mad as they had expected. Silently, Toshiro got the ice-pack from the cabinet and carefully pressed it against his forehead as he watched the two females. He could see differences and similarities between the two women he knew before the hit and now, making him wonder how long it would take before he would wake up and face his captain and lieutenant. Sighing, Toshiro knew it would best just to sit and wait, but he couldn't help but feel curious. If he was captain, and Rangiku was still lieutenant, the badge giving that away, it meant he had succeeded in his Bankai training and got the high-ranking position he had been trying to get for a while now. But it still didn't answer where Captain Shiba was, because as Toshiro glanced from nearest mirror he could see his captain's robe; it having a symbol of Tenth in it. He couldn't believe he would have just cruelly replaced the noisy yet still so talented captain like that. After all, compared to Captain Isshin, Toshiro was a mere peasant, a nobody, while Isshin was a noble. Something didn't add up. Or maybe this could just be his imagination was running wild. Snorting to these thoughts, Toshiro decided he would do little bit of investigation, but carefully. He wouldn't want to end up into Fourth Division, into Unohana's 'nice' care.

"Ran-…Matsumoto, I'll be going out for a bit," he quickly corrected himself, remembering how when he, earlier on, called Rangiku by her first name she had startled.

"Awww, but captain~!" the lieutenant began to whine, to which Toshiro decided it was best to ignore her. If his imagination was indeed running wild, it surely could have made Rangiku less whiny, he thought as he walked outside of apparently his own office.

As soon as the door closed behind him, Toshiro started investigating the Division, just to notice he indeed apparently was captain as the Division members greeted him. Some he noticed and greeted back, yet some he didn't as he walked through his Division, ending up eventually walking out of his Division's grounds as he started to walk seemingly nowhere around the streets of the Seireitei. Sighing, he dumped the ice-pack away once it had melted, wondering how long this weird dream would continue or if he had somehow ended up into an alternative dimension. Snorting at the idea, he shook his head. Such things were just impossible. Even though to normal humans, the idea of shinigami truly existing was science-fiction.

Sighing now, what seemed to be the hundredth time, Toshiro wondered if he would ever get back to his 'home' or if he wanted even that. The world around him so far didn't seem that bad, as long as he would find out just exactly what belonged to captain's duties. He knew it was far more complex than anything he had faced as third seat, so he should find out soon if he didn't want to blow up his cover. Yet just as he was wondering this, suddenly a petite woman jumped front of him, surprising him.

"Captain Hitsugaya …" the woman started, handing him a paper, yet it wasn't the fact she had called him like that but the fact he actually recognized her. The woman wasn't anyone else than Soi Fon whom was somewhat bossy and seemingly bitter woman. If he recalled correctly, she was training to gain the captain's title and was very near to get it, but now she was sporting a captain's robe and her appearance had changed from that bitter-looking young woman to a somewhat deadly-looking one. But the way she looked at him now, gazing at Toshiro in the that same, familiar sense as before; he knew that deep within herself she was awkward toward other people, just like him in a way, as they both would cover that awkwardness underneath their somewhat blunt and cold acting. But toward each other they were always a bit friendlier to each other than the rest of society as they both could see their similarities.

"Oh, thank you…Soi Fon," Toshiro thanked her, taking the paper, which made the petite woman blink her eyes briefly from the familiar way Toshiro had addressed her. It went unnoticed by him how the woman blushed a tad as he read the paper.

"Everything seems to be fine," the white-haired shinigami stated as he looked through the paper before handing it back to Soi Fon as it was about a shinigami that had transferred from Tenth to Second Division. "I'm sure he will be in good hands while you're the captain, Soi Fon."

The words made the Second Division captain blush now slightly as she tried keep her cool, yet failed somewhat in it as Toshiro actually gave her small smile, making Soi Fon merely nod her head as she couldn't trust her voice to speak. After that, Toshiro merely waved to the woman, not noticing how Soi Fon was turning into deeper shade of red from her face as he carried on strolling around Seireitei.

He couldn't help but find it funny how someone from his Division had changed to another one, just as he had been thinking those hours ago before he had woken up in this world. It seemed like his unconscious self was pulling such things from his conscious self just to show him that he should most likely rethink his decision. After all, why else had his imagination make him captain and now showed him this recent event, then to make him rethink his changing of divisions? Rubbing the small bump on his forehead, he failed to notice how someone suddenly appeared in front of him, before he bumped into the person's bosom. Gasping, Toshiro quickly made a movement to move away from that person, which made him once again fall, yet this time he was grab by his hand and met pair of amused, golden, cat-like eyes.

"Woah there, Hitsugaya!" The woman said laughter in her voice and eyes as she stabled easily Toshiro who blinked his eyes to her as he felt himself flushing a bit. "I should remember to watch my going when moving so fast! I'm not called the Goddess of Flash for nothing!" She laughed now to her own words as Toshiro merely nodded his head, wondering who this odd woman was.

"A-ah…it's fine. I'm sorry too miss," he said meekly back, feeling a bit embarrassed from hitting the woman's bosom -even in reality the whole incident was her fault. The dark-skinned woman merely waved her hand once again to Toshiro.

"No need to call me 'miss'. Yoruichi is just fine~. So, where are you going, all alone~?" Yoruichi practically purred her question as she leaned toward Toshiro, her face now a mere inch apart from Toshiro's who blushed deeply.

"Ju-just clearing my thoughts…" he managed to stutter as he closes his eyes, to avoid looking Yoruichi in the eyes who pulled now back. Tapping her chin, she looked thoughtfully the young captain, something telling her there was something slightly 'off' from him. Yet in the end she merely gave him wide smile.

"You're kinda cute," she teasingly purred now as Toshiro's eyes snapped open as he stuttered something incoherent before practically fleeting away from the older woman. Yet he only had moved few metres away from Yoruichi before he suddenly stopped and turned to the older woman. Sheepishly, he rubbed the nape of his neck as he nodded to her thankfully, before flashing a smile that made Yoruichi's eyes widen as Toshiro decided it would be best to get back to the Captain's office, or his office, since he was now the captain.

Sighing, Toshiro shook his head as he started make his way toward the office, wondering if he would ever wake up from this crazy dream if it was one. It felt just too realistic to be a mere dream. But he still refused to believe he would be in the future or some sort of altered timeline. Those opinions were just way too crazy and somewhat frightening as he could only imagine what others would do if they found that out. He knew he would be interrogated and maybe even sent to the Central 46. A cold shiver ran across his spine as he remembered Central 46 and their cruelty. No, he would play as the Captain of Tenth Division for the time being until he was caught. Besides, if this indeed was future or sort of, it didn't seem all that bad.

Chuckling, Toshiro closed his eyes momentarily as he reached to open his office's door, just to get hit once again into something soft. Feeling his face heat up, Toshiro's eyes snapped open, just to see something too close that really shouldn't be. He quickly jumped away, stuttering an apology to Rangiku. Because of this, he failed to notice the odd look that Rangiku was giving to him before she merely tapped his shoulder.

"Captain, it's alright. Beside~, who knew you're sooo dirty?" she giggling asked, which made Toshiro blush even worse, yet before he could reply to her, someone else cut into their conversation: "Liuetenant Matsumoto, Captain Hitsugaya is anything but dirty!"

Blinking his eyes, Rangiku mimicking him, Toshiro turned to look Soi Fon who was standing little bit away from them, blushing lightly.

"Oh? How you know that, Soi Fon~?" A sudden purring noise could be heard from the opposite of Rangiku and Toshiro, the voice belonging to that woman he had met earlier.

Eyes widening a bit from this, Rangiku straightened up, before the three women started loudly discussing over the topic what kind of person Toshiro really was. Deciding to trust his instincts, Toshiro quickly slipped away and into his office, sighing as he finally managed to close the door behind himself. He couldn't really fathom what had got into the three women, as he hadn't really done anything...except for walking into both Rangiku and Yoruichi's busts -this memory made him blush once again as he sat down to his chair. Yet still, somehow, the whole argument between the females had reminded him from Rangiku's and Isshin's daily arguing, which had actually felt quite comfy in its own bizarre way.

Leaning against the chair, Toshiro tilted his head up, wondering all the events that had happened when suddenly his office's door was slammed open, startling him. Because of that, he unconsciously jerked backwards, which tipped the chair of balance. Crashing now the second time on the floor, Toshiro felt the world around him blacken as he heard voices calling him nervously, making him vaguely wonder just how unlucky he was today. Slowly opening his eyes, Toshiro let out a moan of pain, just to see concerned faces of Rangiku and Isshin.

"Toshiro, are you alright? Should we get him to the Fourth?" Isshin asked now as Rangiku smacked his head. "Ouch! What was that for?"

"Your stupid manju! Go get ice-pack! Now!" She barked to Isshin who quickly rushed on his way, Toshiro seeing he was wearing his captain robe. He was then met a pair of concerned blue eyes, yet Toshiro couldn't help but feel relief as he noticed Rangiku's hair was once again short, telling him he was back. Wherever he had just been back from.

"Hey…you alright?" Rangiku asked, her touching gently Toshiro's cheek. Smiling a bit, Toshiro touched the hand on his cheek.

"I am now," he said back, making Rangiku blush before pout.

"Mou! With such smile like yours, you'll charm any woman when you're all grown-up!" she whined now, making Toshiro blinking his eyes as he now could understand the weird behaviour of the three women earlier.

Slowly, the white-haired shinigami got into the sitting position, hissing as he could feel both his forehead and on the back of his head a bump. Rubbing the back of his head, Toshiro watched as Rangiku rush to the doorway to get the ice-pack from Isshin, this only leading to them both shouting once again to each other. Chuckling a bit, Toshiro couldn't help but feel grateful for having such Division members, making him realize this was exactly the place he wanted to be. Here, in the Seireitei, Gotei 13, the Tenth Division which was quite crazy, yet it felt like a home. Plus, Rangiku's words had given him hope and small promise for the future about that, he wouldn't ever be truly alone anymore, if he would just smile.

"Toshiro, what are you looking at?" Toshiro heard Rangiku call him as he gazed outside of the window, smirking a bit.

"The future."