Lieutenant Hinamori looked at the clock in her office quarters blandly. Its hands, a saxophone minute hand and an upright bass player's hour hand—it had been a gift from Captain Hirako during the reconstruction—pointed at ten and two respectively. She sighed, took a sip of her tea, and cuddled closer to Tobiume, whose reassuring heat pulsed at her side in the darkness.
Some nights were like this.
Noiselessly, she padded past her personal bookcase, which sat filled with books on the sciences, the arts, kido, psychology, and countless fictions. A small portion of the bottommost shelf was still bare. Now, it was reserved for her next great finds, being no longer tenanted by self-help books or cheap romances Captain Aizen (no, no longer "Captain," she reminded herself) had bought for her when he felt like indulging her guilty pleasure.
She slid the door open, and stepped out to look the length of the courtyard.
It's still too cold to go to the garden.
That, too, had changed. When Aizen had been her superior, the garden had been devoted entirely to lily-of-the-valley flowers and orchids, sustained by kido to bloom fragrantly all year, save for the depths of winter. Hinamori brushed her undone hair back over her shoulder, and turned back inside. She'd always thought it a little sad that the flowers worked to bloom continually, instead of undergoing their perennial cycles of death and resurrection.
Silently, the stove was lit. They had gas, but Captain Hirako had been insistent. He thought a real fire helped make for a sensual atmosphere, perfect for listening to jazz, reading, or just talking. Tobiume had liked the idea from the start.
Hinamori placed an iron kettle over the coals, and poured more water into its enameled interior. The outside was engraved with Fifth Division's flower in silhouette, a repeating pattern she traced with her eyes while she waited. Things hadn't always been this peaceful—no, not at all. There had been nights—there still were nights—when she woke screaming, drenched in a sweat not half as cold as the swords that had twice pierced her chest. It had never been mentioned, but she had known she was under a suicide watch. How else could Captain Hirako have known when to wake up and find her?
A lanky form, draped in a cheesy white sleeping yukata she had chosen for him, shuffled into view. Wordlessly, he sat down, running his tongue over his teeth to show off the piercing. Boldly, it caught the half-light of the coals before disappearing behind his lip.
They said nothing until the tea had finished steeping. She silently offered him a cup—a blend of green and white, just like he drank—and cupped in her hands. One of the coals shifted with a rustling sizzle.
Captain Hirako asked the question that was both required and unnecessary. "Aizen?"
She took a sip of her tea.
"Fucking Aizen."