I saw a tumblr post calling for a "Number written on a toilet stall AU" and this idiotic idea came waltzing into my brain.
I hope you have as much fun reading as I do writing.
"You got the number?" Rin screeched. "How?"
Akon raised one very satisfied lack of an eyebrow. He twirled a set of self-hacking keys around a finger, those of his own secret design. Rin's eyes grew wide.
"It was just like any other cell phone. You go into the menu and it tells you its number." Akon smirked. "I've got some ideas for what to do with it, but I don't want anything that can be traced back to me."
"Why did you even want it in the first place?" Rin asked. "Depending on what you do with it...well you know how his temper gets..."
Akon pulled a cigarette out from the pocket of his labcoat and lit up. He inhaled deeply and exhaled slowly, ending in a grin. "He likes to think he would, but he'd never kill me. At least not outright or on purpose, mind you." Akon brushed his thumb against the filter of the cigarette, an ember falling to the ground. "It's not his way to waste what he deems useful, and I don't fear pain."
Rin gulped. Sometimes Akon was just as scary as the man he was the successor of, even if his PR was a bit better.
"Now here it is," Akon grumbled and handed the piece of paper to Rin. Paper to burn to get rid of the evidence "At the worst he gets drunk dialed, and at the best...he gets laid. Now, that would be funny. He certainly needs it."
"What!?" Rin didn't exactly follow.
"You're going to the other world on technology detail, right?" Akon puffed again on his cigarette. "Well, there's an izakaya not too far away from where you'll be working. I'll send you the address."
"Okay, but then what?"
"Go into the men's room...and write it somewhere on the wall."
Rin blushed, but then started laughing. "Oh, now I see. Sure!"
Deep down, Rin was rather glad that this was a pretty innocent prank. At least it might keep Mayuri busy for a little while.
"Oh, and I installed a chip in the phone." Akon continued. "Any voices picked up by the receiver will be translated into a voice of the opposite sex."
"So now if he talks on the phone, he'll sound like a girl?"
Akon looked very pleased with himself. "Yup!"
"But won't he find that out?" worried Rin.
"That phone is only for emergencies between the captains; it's faster than the butterflies, an doesn't involve kidou skills. Do you honestly think anybody among the captains would question why he sounded that way? They let him soak in his own eccentricity."
"Point taken. It might be a while, then."
Akon had burned all the way through his cigarette. He stubbed it out on his ashtray and let the butt collect with the other 50 odd burnt up cigarette corpses that were already there.
"I'll keep you posted if I hear of anything funny up here. Anyway, I gotta get back to work. Thanks, Rin."
"Sure thing." Rin shoved the paper with the number on it deep into his labcoat. He would leave for Karakura town that night.
Rin was being sent to give and deploy better hollow sensing equipment for the resident shinigami to use. But on his way there, he stopped by the coordinates Akon provided.
The izakaya was rather cramped, but it wasn't a completely uncomfortable place. The atmosphere was smoky and sharp-suited businessmen drank happily with one another, waitresses bringing plate after plate of appetizers to share. The old man behind the bar looked at Rin.
"Welcome kid. You don't look old enough for a round of sake, but is there anything I can get you?" He dripped over the counter, at one with his environment.
"I'll buy something if I have to, but I'd really like to get to the restroom," stammered Rin. He was in a gigai, so he could be seen, but it still startled him.
"Don't worry about it," said the man. "It's around the back. Don't be a stranger, come back when you're thirsty."
Rin bowed quickly. "Yes, sir."
He pushed past the rickety wooden door with the painting of a man gulping sake, into a small bathroom with two stalls and a urinal. It was rundown and well used, but in spite of it all, it was very clean. Rin went into the stall that was up against the wall and sat on the rather fancy toilet, closing the door behind him.
What he saw surprised him. The wall was already covered in names and numbers, some scratched out, erased or painted over. He eyed a large patch that had just been painted over recently to cover a pipe repair. He needed a little hook before the number.
Ask for Mayuri?
No, that was a little too direct.
Just write the number?
No, then there wouldn't be as many people looking at it.
At last he had it! Rin took the permanent marker out of his pocket and bit off the cap. The smell of the ink filled his nose as he wrote.
For a good time call...XX-XXXX-XXXX ext. 12
xXx
Mayuri was in the middle of taking his makeup off at the end of a very hard, rough day. As much as he talked until he was blue in the face, he couldn't convince the other captains for a funding contribution for revamping the security systems within the Seireitei. They told him that the enemies were outside rather than inside, but Mayuri knew that outside people didn't get inside information by using outsiders. While his concerns had been noted, he was as good as hosed off, put on the back burner until everyone else's lives had gone to shit and then they came crawling back to him for answers.
He wouldn't say that he didn't expect it. He wouldn't say that he didn't understand it either. But he would always remain somewhat unpopular for things that he hadn't even done. Things that he hadn't done, while some real monsters walked free and loved, adored even. They were savage beasts wrapped in gold-plated skin and knew so, too. But even still, Mayuri preferred fear over love. It wasn't fair, but Mayuri still had plenty of power. Even if power wasn't exactly what he had asked for.
The phone began to ring in the other room.
"Nemu, answer the phone." He continued his scrubbing.
"Yes, Mayuri-sama."
Mayuri sat back in the tub, his long, wet hair plastered to his chest, breaking over his collarbones. He sighed and closed his eyes.
"Hello, this is Kurotsuchi Nemu. What can I do for you?"
Nemu paused, presumably listening to what the speaker had to say.
"Well, yes, of course there is someone else who uses this number. But Mayuri-sama can't come to the phone right now."
Mayuri opened one eye like a cat. Everybody who had that number knew exactly who it belonged to.
"It's okay, Nemu. Bring it here."
Nemu looked at him, surprised, through the doorway.
"I said bring it here!" he growled. Was that truly so hard? Did he need to check her hearing sensors?
Nemu bowed her head and gracefully walked in to hand him the phone. The ID read Unknown Number. Mayuri took it from her outstretched hand, and put the phone up to his left ear grate.
"Hello. Who is this?" Mayuri asked sharply.
"Oh, now that's more like it! That's what I wanted to hear. You can call me...Naoki," dripped the voice on the other end of the line.
He didn't know any Naokis. He'd check the call's source later to see who had an underling steal their phone for prank calls.
"Fine 'Naoki', but there will be repercussions for what you have just done, you know," Mayuri stated.
"I hope so. Do you like bad boys? I bet you do..."
"I'm not sure what you're getting at," Mayuri huffed. "But if I find out who you are..."
"I hope you do so that I can get some punishment! So babe, what are you wearing? What color is your underwear?"
"My underwear? What on earth?" Mayuri was now extremely annoyed. "Well, if you really want to know, I'm in the bath and I'm not wearing any, so I can't help you there."
"Oh, so you're naked, you naughty thing! I like that!"
Mayuri rolled his eyes. "Now, if you just hand the phone to your captain right now, you'll get off lightly."
"But what if I don't want to 'get off' lightly? I like taking my time with jewels like you."
A jewel? What was wrong with this man? Had he taken too many servings of sake or too many rocks to the skull?
"So tell me, what do you look like?" breathed the voice heavily.
"I realize that I wear a lot of makeup, but do you really not know?" Mayuri frowned. He didn't go around in his natural state, but most people at least knew what he was supposed to look like, even if they'd never seen him themselves. He wasn't hiding anything, after all. His makeup was expression.
"Are you touching yourself yet?"
"Well, my hand is resting on my knee." Mayuri raised his hand and looked at his now pruned fingertips.
"You are such a joker. Now tell me, are you touching yourself? How hard? Can you stick a finger inside? Tell me how everything feels. Let me hear that beautiful voice. I want you to say my name."
There were a million things that Mayuri could have said right then. The actual purpose of this man's phone call was starting to coalesce in his mind, now that he had strung all of the beads together...and Mayuri was not pleased. Not in the slightest.
"No."
Mayuri turned off the phone with a beep and handed it back to Nemu. She looked at him, questions in her eyes. He submerged his head and then resurfaced again. It was like he had to wash the filth off of him.
But right now, it was night time. He would look into the call in the morning. Getting up, he accepted a towel from Nemu and dried off. He swiftly changed into his night clothes, and got into bed.
Suddenly his phone began to ring...
xXx
Urahara walked back from his meeting with the resident shinigami, bringing the goods he had ordered. Surprisingly Rin had been there, too. Usually Rin was the one who the 12th sent into this world whenever something needed to be done, but occasionally he'd see Akon or Hiyosu. It had been a while since he'd seen Mayuri, not since he helped him get into Hueco Mundo. Mayuri avoided coming to this world at all costs. It was too bad, really.
It was dark out and he could see the lively lighting of an izakaya down the road. The store opened late the next day, so he didn't see the harm in stopping by for a couple of drinks.
The bell on the door clanged as it shut behind him.
"Urahara-san! What can I get you today? We received a very fine shouchuu in our last shipment," said the old man behind the bar.
"Oh, not today," said Urahara. "A glass of plum wine is fine for me."
He took the glass and sat down on one of the seats at the bar. It was Saturday night. Behind him was a gaggle of drunk salarymen, their once pristine suits now unbuttoned and helterskelter. They took turns passing around a cell phone and drunkenly making obnoxious comments into it and laughing.
Urahara sipped at his wine and watched. He leaned towards the men.
"Pardon me, but what are you all doing?"
"Mind your own business Hat-and-Clogs," said one sour-faced man with a snarl.
"Oh, shut up Naoki. All he has to do is read the men's room wall," said another with a long, thin build. "Look, we got this number for this babe with an incredibly sexy voice, and we all just wanna talk to her, okay?"
Urahara smiled. "I can understand the draw of a beautiful woman's voice."
"Her name is Mayu or something, or so she told Naoki, but we can't get her to say much of anything anymore. But hey, there's no shame in trying. She must have been a real whore to get her number out there like that."
The men went back to their animalistic behavior and Urahara downed his drink. The least he could do for this poor woman was apologize to her for everything that everyone had done. Chivalry wasn't dead, instead it was personified by a few.
With that, he walked back into the restroom, where he saw the large black lettering. He'd call her from home, away from these monkeys.