Hey guys Darkpoet here!!! Welcome to yet another story for me!! YAY!! This story is for BlackVelvetBand's Challenge and it does not follow one of the offered prompts. Please enjoy!

Disclaimer: I do not own Bleach or anything in the following story.

I am still.

I am calm.

I will not scream,

I will not ask him to stay.

I will keep composure.

And still after forcing these thoughts to run through her head over and over, like a mantra, Ise Nanao still allowed a disappointed sigh to escape her lips. The Vice-Captain of the Eight Squad mentally scolded herself at this break in self-control, but then gave in again to let her eyes float up to were they landed on her confused looking Captain. He had just bid her farewell as he left early to go drinking, but her sigh had stopped him.

He studied at her with his soft, brown eyes trying to find an explanation for her distress. He studied her just as he normally did, and didn't find much out of the ordinary. She was pale, skinny, her dark hair was in a knot, and her eyes gave away no emotion except for fatigue. All normal attributes of his Nanao-chan.

Wait, no, there is something different.

There was something in her eye, a certain sadness that he couldn't put his finger on. And maybe even... He didn't think it was possible, but a look of longing. It wasn't like his Nanao to give away emotions that easily, but if you looked hard enough you could tell, sometimes, just what she was feeling. This happened to be one of those times.

"Yare Nanao-chan. You do not wish for your Shunsui to go?" He pondered his guess of what she meant in that sigh. He silently prayed he was right, but then again he knew that if he was it probably wouldn't be for his desired reasons. If she didn't want him to go it wouldn't be because she wanted him to scoop her up and take her to bed, but to do work.

However, in all truth he had been correct, but Nanao's pride would never allow her to admit to it. "No Captain." She lied, trying to make eye contact as to not give herself away.

His heart sank, he believed her. "Are you sure nothing's wrong? You look a bit troubled." He hoped she might, for once, open up to him, but that was a hope against reason.

"Well..." Nanao searched for something to say to him. "I suppose well... Sir I would like it if you could help me with the Squads paperwork sometimes." This in itself was easy enough to believe, and her Captain did believe it.

"Oh my poor Nanao-chan. How could I have been so blind? Of course you reject my love for you when I hardly treat you right at all. Oh I knew I have been working you too hard!" Nanao sighed once again as her Captain paced frantically around the office letting his pink haori soar behind him, dramatically rambling of how much he loved her and how badly he was treating 'His poor Nanao-chan.'

Suddenly he stopped and took her face in his hands looking straight into her eyes. "Can you ever forgive me?" Nanao was very tempted to melt right there under his gaze, but once again pride would never allow it. Instead she drew out her fan and gave him a wack. At this he released her and smirked, at his ever so predictable Nanao. "Do you try to break my heart on purpose Nanao-chan? How can you be so cruel?"

"Captain what I had meant about the paperwork," she said ignoring his question completely "was that I would like your help when there is a lot of it to do." She hoped her explanation would ease his ramblings.

Nanao, in reality, did not want her Captain to leave and go drinking because she knew what could happen if he became exceedingly drunk. The countless stories she had heard from those who would drink at the same bars only added to her worries, and had caused her to blush furiously. It was true she felt something special for Kyouraku Shunsui, but he was her Captain. To have a relationship would be against the rules, and Ise Nanao did not break the rules. So she kept her feelings a well guarded secret, and barley even let herself think about them.

"Well if that's what you acquire of me, then for you I will do it." With these words her Captain had not only broken her thoughts but had headed towards the door leaving her at a loss.

"Why for me?" Nanao whispered before she could even stop herself. She panicked and wondered if he had heard her. Indeed he had. He slowly turned to her and studied her for a moment, letting his eyes roam her both startled and worried look. She cursed her bad luck.

"Why not for you?" He asked.

She glared at him and began to straighten up her desk simply because she did not want to answer. She didn't know what to say that would save her.

"Nanao..."

"No. Captain. This conversation is heading in a highly inappropriate direction and I refuse to contribute to it."

"Nanao. I love you."

Suddenly she stopped and looked up at him as if she hadn't heard him correctly. But she had, and the way he had told her he loved her was almost scary. It was if he was serious. But that's silly. He couldn't be serious. But, unlike the other times in which he had either been inebriated or had been trying to get out of something, this time he had been completely serious.

"No you don't."

"Yes I do Nanao."

"Captain even if you did I don't feel the same way." Lie. "I think of you in only a professional way." LIE. "And even if I was I wouldn't be willing to break the rules to be with you." LIE LIE LIE!!! "Captain, you're a good person, but you can be a bit annoying at times." OK truth. She didn't know why she said what she did. She was never one to intentionally hurt herself, letting her heartbreak was included. Yet the things she said to him had cleaved her heart in two, and, if he really loved her, it probably did the same to him.

And unbeknownst to her it did. Shunsui would have rather faced hundreds of Hallows all at once then to hear those painful and heart-shattering words. But she had said them and he was just as confused as he was sad. He was almost certain that she felt something for him, he saw longing, and sadness in her eyes. How could I have been so stupid? She loves someone else.

"I'll be leaving now Captain. Goodnight." Shunsui didn't even realize she was leaving until her heard the door softly close and he felt her Reitsu slowly drift away until it stopped at the Vice-Captains quarters.

A/N: Hope you enjoyed the chapter.