"Matsumoto-san!" Kira came racing through the door to the tenth division's captain's office. "Have you seen Ichima—"
"Shh," said Matsumoto from the couch, holding her finger to her lips with a little smile.
Kira was puzzled until he got closer and saw why she was sitting so still.
The third division's missing captain was asleep next to her, his silver head resting on Matsumoto's lap and the mass of his captain's haori spilling over the edge of the couch. He wasn't just faking sleep either, as he liked to do when Kira came to tell him to go to the Captains' meeting, or relaxing like a lizard in the sun in the way that he sometimes sprawled on the roof of their barracks at lunchtime. Ichimaru-taichou was really sleeping, his chest moving just slightly in a slow rhythm.
"What happened?" Kira whispered, tentatively stepping closer to the strange phenomenon.
Matsumoto looked up. "He came to visit, since Hitsugaya-taichou's out," she said softly in reply. "I said he looked tired." She tucked back a strand of her hair that was about to tickle the sleeping man's cheek.
"Oh," said Kira.
The barracks were quiet without Hitsugaya-taichou and the squad he'd taken on today's mission; Kira could just faintly hear voices from the training yard outside the window, and the afternoon sun was glowing in the outline of Matsumoto's brassy hair. Unlike Ichimaru-taichou's office, which was shaded by trees and tended to mustiness and dust, this room was warm and orderly, like Kira's home used to be.
Kira had heard—maybe from Matsumoto when she'd been drinking, maybe from somewhere else—that Matsumoto and Ichimaru-taichou had lived together as children in Rukongai in what was little more than a shack. It was hard to reconcile that image with the two of them as he knew them today, Matsumoto who was so glamorous with her necklace and silk scarf and glory of long hair, and Ichimaru-taichou whom Kira honestly couldn't imagine being a child at all.
Although Kira thought maybe he understood a little better now.
He closed the door to the office behind him and told the tenth division's third seat that Matsumoto-fukutaichou was not to be disturbed unless it was an emergency, and then he went back to his own division and started faking Ichimaru-taichou's handwriting on all the paperwork his captain was supposed to have completed by now.
Ichimaru-taichou didn't re-appear until Kira was getting ready to leave for the day.
"Ah, there ya are, Izuru!" he said, leaning against the doorframe, as though Kira was the one who had vanished.
"Ichimaru-taichou!" said Kira. He didn't know whether he should mention having seen his captain in what seemed like such an unexpectedly vulnerable state, so settled for saying, "Is everything all right?"
But Ichimaru-taichou had drifted in and was inspecting the completed paperwork. "Oh my," he said. "You're gettin' good at forgin' my signature, aren't ya?"
"I'm sorry for . . . the signatures," Kira said anxiously. "It was just that those reports were due yesterday, and—"
"Just kiddin'," said Ichimaru-taichou with his characteristic smile, putting down the stack of paper.
"Um, taichou," said Kira, deciding to seize the opportunity while his captain was actually present, "I ran into Abarai-fukutaichou today, and he said that he's being sent out tomorrow to arrest Kuchiki-san from the thirteenth division . . . who went missing in the transient world, you know. So I was wondering . . . do you know what punishment they might give to her?" Renji had been equal parts worried and furious with Rukia, and of course Kuchiki-taichou wasn't telling him anything.
"Abarai-kun . . . is a friend of Izuru's from the Academy, right?" said Ichimaru-taichou thoughtfully, perching on the edge of his rarely-used desk.
Kira nodded, secretly a little pleased that Ichimaru-taichou would care to remember something like that.
"Hmm," said Ichimaru-taichou. "Can't remember hearin' anything about that, but I'll keep an ear out for ya."
Kira remembered how he'd thanked his captain then. It was almost kind of funny in retrospect—if you had an Ichimaru-taichou sense of humor, that was.
Of course, back then everything had gotten so crazy after that day, he really hadn't had time to think about what Ichimaru-taichou had said or wonder what exactly the sleeping in Matsumoto's office thing was all about.
But afterwards, after Ichimaru-taichou and the other two captains had ascended into the sky, after he'd visited Hinamori in the hospital and after he'd woken up with the worst hangover in the world from drinking with Matsumoto . . . he realized how stupid he'd been to forget that everything Ichimaru-taichou did was purposeful, even if it seemed completely haphazard at the time. It was just that sometimes the purpose didn't become clear until much later.
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