A/N Second try at Bleach. Matsumoto x Ukitake pairing. Strong T rating for implied sexual themes.
Game
They've been playing this game for quite awhile now.
He's having a good day, which is good, because she's having a lousy one and she doesn't feel like trying to make someone else feel better. He's been around a long time, much longer than she has, and despite his preference for maintaining platonic relationships, he is quite adept at gauging and interpreting the opposite sex. Therefore when Matsumoto flounces into his office and places herself on top of his stack of paperwork, he simply sets his quill down and smiles at her.
"Good morning, Rangiku-san," Ukitake tells her sweetly. Not "What the hell are you doing, Matsumoto?" or "Get off my damn desk, Matsumoto!" but a pleasant greeting as if she hadn't probably just smudge stained his last hour's worth of work. She smiles back, a fake bubbly smile that irritated some and left most following her around like puppy dogs. This one wasn't either type.
"Good morning, Ukitake-taicho," she replies, giving her hair a flip as she crosses her bared legs. Her knees are not far from his torso, so the action brushes her ankle against his hip. The same things always had Hitsugaya-taicho pushing back and standing up, his personal bubble molested beyond his ability to handle, especially when she was in human clothing. Ukitake's smile does not falter, but she notices that he looks amused. She also notices that his hand brushes said ankle as he reaches past to open a drawer and place the remaining paperwork inside. His attention is completely on her, which she likes, but even from her vantage point above him she wonders if he's got the advantage like normal.
Matsumoto hates it when she doesn't have the advantage.
"To what do I owe the pleasure of your company?" he asks, his leaning back in his chair the only concession he will give to her. Still she made him adjust to accommodate her, which was something. It was only fun if she could cause her partner at least some discomfort and inconvenience. Seeing how much inconvenience she can get them to accommodate was the best part. Ukitake seems quite comfortable so she edges a touch closer towards the lip of the desk. Less comfy for her, but now her legs are dangling in a way that draws his eyes unconsciously.
The very short skirt doesn't hurt.
"I have to go on another mission," she sighs discontentedly, "to Karakura Town."
"By your attire I had figured as much," Ukitake's eyes were once more firmly on her face. "Usually that is a good thing, isn't it?" Matsumoto's fondness for human world shopping centers was such that legends were made. Matsumoto sighs again, knowing that it makes her chest rise and fall distractingly, and is utterly irritated that he seems anything but distracted.
"Taicho can't go, he's still too messed up from that last fight we had. Unohana-taicho threatened him with enforced bed rest for a month if he so much as tried to draw his zanpakuto."
"You're going alone?" At this Ukitake's dark brows narrow. It was a dangerous time for them all, even after winning the Winter War. The arrancar weren't Aizen's only creations, and it would take them decades to even find them all, not to mention eradicate them. Not even taicho-level shinigami go alone to the living world these days.
"No. I'm going with him." Matsumoto added the last part sourly, unwilling to hide her dislike even though it was unwise in front of a ranking officer.
"Ah."
Ukitake was no stranger to whom Matsumoto was talking about. They had lost a lot of good soldiers in the war, and taicho-level shinigami only came along every few centuries or so. Therefore the bulk of the missions had been taken up by the fukutaicho-level shinigami, whether ranked that high or not. The one in particular had been partnered with Matsumoto more than once in the field, his strength and skill near hers, if not his experience. They worked well together, when he could keep his chauvinistic attitude to himself. Apparently female shinigami were a liability and a distraction to him, especially one as seemingly vapid as Matsumoto. Even a resounding lecture from Hitsugaya had only slightly deterred the shinigami's behavior. If anything it had fueled his fire. Matsumoto hated him.
"Perhaps if you spoke to your taicho, he could make other arrangements?" Ukitake suggests mildly. Matsumoto huffs, not paying attention this time to the rise and fall of her chest, and therefore missing the way his eyes did follow this time.
"He tried, but the soutaicho insisted. Whatever." She kicks out her feet like a disappointed child, dangling her shoes on her toes and letting them fall forlornly beside his chair. Ukitake is wise enough not to chuckle at her antics. He does however catch her left heel in his hand, giving it a light squeeze in sympathy.
"Perhaps the next rotation Kyoraku-taicho can request Ise-fukutaicho be paired with said individual a few times," Ukitake offers, and it brings a smirk to Matsumoto's face. The kind of attitude that irritates Matsumoto absolutely infuriates Nanao, and an infuriated Nanao was a dangerous one.
"That would be awfully nice of him," she smiles, less bubbly and more contentedly now. It might have something to do with the nice strong thumb rubbing soothing circles in the arch of her foot. She thinks that in her distraction with actual conversation that she might have lost her advantage.
"When do you have to leave?" he asks her in his low raspy voice, the one that she has thought was insanely sexy from the first time she really met him.
She remembers the day when he stopped being a person in the distance that was so much stronger than her, an unattainable power, and when he became a kind smile and an absolutely delicious voice. She was piss drunk and draped over her new drinking partner Kyoraku-taicho, with Nanao looking on irritably. She's pretty sure whatever she said in response to his polite greeting had been inappropriately direct, because Kyoraku had burst out laughing, Nanao had gone beet red in embarrassed horror, and she and Ukitake had been playing this game with each other ever since. She lost count fifty years back but she thinks he's ahead by one or two.
"Soon," Matsumoto hums in approval as he rubs a particularly sore spot, his thumb digging in pleasantly. Then she pulls her foot from his grasp and promptly replaces it with her other, causing him to chuckle. Then he notices that her first foot has come to rest down on the top on his thigh and he arches an eyebrow at her. She wiggles her toes in both feet mischievously, smirking when he shifts slightly in response and coughs lightly. But then his eyes are back on her face and somehow his left hand has found her right knee. His office door is open and Matsumoto thinks that she has made a very strategic error by leaving it that way.
"How soon?" He presses, and fingertips trace light patterns on the inside of her knee. Her toes wiggle again, this time slower and with a more direct purpose, and he responds by pushing her knee just a touch away from her other one. It is only a tiny thing, not enough to show him anything interesting, but the intent make a warm heat coil through her belly, and she realizes that maybe he had planned this before she had even stepped into his office. He was having a very good day, and that was always when it became obvious that she had met her match.
"Soon," she purrs, but she is grinning now, because she knows what he wants and likes that he isn't afraid to show it. Ukitake smirks back at her, letting go of her foot and running his hand up her leg as she moves sinuously closer. It's not very far from the desk to his lap, but she makes the journey in a very slow and deliberate manner that brings all sorts of interesting and fun things to mind. Once there the pressure of his hands on her waist and her knees to his hips brings a low rumble from his throat, a promising kind of growl that makes her squirm and let out a breathy and final sigh as she continues on, on into a painfully beautiful promise of what he could have had if she had not chosen to rise back to her feet and step away from him.
She thinks this is the first time that she has heard him curse in pleasant conversation.
"Right about now, actually." Matsumoto gives him that fake bubbly smile as she slips her shoes back on, flouncing once more across his office towards his open door. "I'll see you when I get back Ukitake-taichooo!"
"Umm, Matsumoto-fukutaicho?" His use of rank indicates that she needs to stop and listen, so she does so with a cute little smile on her face. It is nothing compared to the open grin on his.
"Perhaps you should change beforehand? Yellow skirts and black ink seem to not go well together."
Understanding dawns and she blushes red. Then she bobs a little bow to him and bolts for the door. She won't have much time to change and get back to the gates before departure time, so she uses shunpo and is sweaty with exertion by the time she dashes into her bedroom. It is only there that she finds that yellow skirts and black ink might not go well together, but in this case the two had never met. Her skirt was perfectly fine. Damn that man.
When two days later he finds a very frilly and very embarrassing yellow thong draped on his inkwell, Ukitake smiles and tucks it away in his desk, in the drawer he's devoted completely to her.