A/N: The parts seem to be steadily getting longer. Oops. I'm getting my groove back, I think. Or Toshiro is taking over and refusing to let things distract him. Heh. I think that's more likely it.

I let Hitsugaya take my hand and pull me away from the yard of the shop, back inside. My mind skittered across all the questions I wanted to ask, all the explanations I wanted to give and somehow focused on the feel of his hand. It was warm. I suppose with the aura of cold that he projected so often, I expected him to have cold hands.

"There goes my theory that there would be fewer interruptions and distractions in the living world," Hitsugaya muttered under his breath.

"Wait..." I processed everything he had said to Jinta, dropping his hand. "What other girls? Interested in? Who are these girls?"

He closed the door to Urahara's living quarters behind us and almost laughed under his breath. "How in the... I've watched you fight other vice captains and anticipate their every move. I've seen you nearly feed Renji his own arm. If there is anything you are not, it is slow."

I scowled at him and repeated myself, slower and with more emphasis. "What girls?"

The captain sighed and gestured to the cushions by the table. "Since we have time, let's talk."

Seated on the cushion and hands folded on the table, I watched him expectantly, ready to listen and talk back as needed. "Okay then. Talk."

Hitsugaya settled, running a hand through his hair and then picking at a zipper on the pocket of his gigai's pants. "At one time, Jinta and I both liked the same girl."

Nodding, I gestured for him to move along. I had gotten that part. "So what happened? Who was the girl and do you still like her? Is he still involved with her?" Her future might depend on a couple of those answers. I might not know what I was going to do about this whatever it might be between us, but I knew what would happen to any girl who spurned my Snowball for an ass like Jinta.

He shook his head and focused his gaze on me until I was squirming under the weight of it. "No and no. It was Kurosaki's little sister, Karin." I opened my mouth to say something and he raised a hand, a pained expression crossing his face. "It's kind of a long story but no, there was never really anything between us. I didn't say anything to her, she didn't say anything to me and the whole thing was largely a disaster. We were both stupid about it, I guess."

I frowned at the table top. "Sounds like it was painful, anyway."

With a shrug, he continued. "Jinta had no trouble saying that he liked her, however. They went out until they very nearly beat each other to a bloody pulp. Now, Jinta dates the other sister."

After mulling that over I shook my head in puzzlement. "So... you still never said anything about it to her."

Hitsugaya gave me an almost exasperated glance. "No, because I'm very much interested in someone else now, and I swear if you say Momo's name I will beat my head on this table."

I seized on the name. "We're talking about Momo now?"

He groaned and did thunk his forehead against the table. "Momo's... broken. Aizen destroyed something inside her, but he's all that exists for her. Even if there were some proof that he was completely defeated and dead, she wouldn't ever believe it. She saw him killed once before, remember? And he was still alive." He looked horribly sad and as if he'd lost something irreplaceable. "Whatever might have once been possible between us, it'll never be now. He made it impossible. I love her, but not in the way that you're thinking."

Ouch. I was sorry I asked, in a way. I'd wanted to know, but that the telling had hurt him even that much made me wish I hadn't.

"And now that I've had to explain that twice in one day, do you think we could get back to the important part of this discussion?"

Twice? Who else could have been asking about that? Unless... I was suspicious, maybe even paranoid, but imagining him explaining that to Ken-chan gave me the heebie-jeebies. "What's more important than your sordid past with a bunch of girls?"

Heh, I'd gotten him to look annoyed again. It made me feel perversely better. "There is no bunch of girls. Especially not if you're trying to include Momo in their number."

"And are we getting back to work?" I was putting him off again, and intentionally annoying him. It couldn't work forever but I was more than willing to use it for now to keep him at bay.

"Yes, but at this rate, you will get this problem solved and then what are you going to do?" Hm, sounds as if he was as aware of my plan as I was of his intentions.

"Oh," I replied breezily as I got to my feet. "You know how things are back at the Seireitei. Never a moment's peace."

"Less peace than even you can imagine," He muttered, getting to his feet as well.

"So are we going to check out that shop?" I bounced on my toes, more than willing to leave at that very moment. I was looking forward to finding out what was going on, maybe getting in a good scuffle. Ken-chan had told me about the time he'd ripped the mask right off an arrancar with his bare hands. I really wanted to try that, even if arrancar were getting rarer all the time.

"We might as well, since you aren't going to pay attention to anything else right now."

On our way out, we saw Uruahara with a clipboard, supervising the unloading of the van, Jinta and Ururu diligently scrambling around and organizing all the packages to their boss' satisfaction.

"Where's Ukitake's manga?" Urahara glanced up from him clipboard and waved at us as we departed.

"Here!" Ururu held up a paper wrapped package.

"Monthly fix of catboy yaoi safely procured," snorted Jinta, pointedly ignoring us.

I started walking faster. I did not want to know. There are just some thing about your fellow captains and vice captains you don't want to know, trust me.

Ah, it felt good to once again be on track and back to working on our assignment. I was hitting my stride, walking loose-limbed and happily through the streets, already planning what would go down when we reached the piercing place. Everything was going fine and...

"Kusajishi-kun, where are you going?" Hitsugaya was stopped on the sidewalk behind me with his hands on his hips.

"Um, why?"

"You're going the wrong way."

I frowned and looked around, taking note of the landmarks and the street names. "Are you sure?"

He sighed that long-suffering sigh he was getting so much use out of and took me by the arm, leading me in the exact opposite direction I had been headed in. "I suppose he was right about the cards and alcohol too then."

"Ikkaku is a pathological liar! Just so you know!" He was still going to get it when I got home too. If Baldy thought he was getting off with just me letting slip that he waxes his head, he had another thing coming. "Besides, do you even drink or play cards to begin with? I can't imagine you doing either."

Hitsugaya settled my arm through the crook of his comfortably and kept walking, now that we were back on course. "I have been known to do both. I'm not as sober and uptight as you seem to think I am, at least not all the time. I am a captain though and in public, I have to maintain my image, especially because of who I am and my age."

"Pft!" I scoffed. "Image." I did understand about keeping up images, I just didn't understand why they had to be taken so seriously all the time. It seemed to suck so much joy out of life.

"You don't understand," he replied softly. "With everything that I have gone through to reach this point?" His brows etched into a tight frown and a chill crept along my arm that was linked through his. "I owe it to a lot of people to take the responsibilities and privileges I've been given seriously. I can't let them down and I can't break the promises I've made to myself."

Maybe I didn't understand all of that, but there was something I did. "D'ya really think though, that any of them would want you to be sober and serious all the time too?"

That earned me another of Hitsugaya's wry looks. "You sounded like Rangiku just then."

"She's a smart woman. You should probably listen to her more often." I beamed at him brightly. "Besides that, she's one of my role models."

I thought I got a glimpse of that smile again. The soft, almost rueful one that some part of me wanted to claim for my very own. "You're terrifying, Kusajishi-kun."

"Thank you, Captain Hitsugaya."

There was an awkward silence between us for a moment. I could tell there was something he wanted to say, but he was debating it, arguing it over in his head first. The polite thing to do was wait and see if he would say it or not. I waited. I couldn't tell which side was winning though.

"Kusajishi-kun," He began slowly. I waited, my breath caught in my throat. "You don't have to always refer to me by my title."

I looked upward to make sure the sky wasn't falling, or the world had suddenly come to an end and I hadn't noticed. "What?"

"Obviously, I don't always refer to you as Vice Captain Kusajishi, anymore. I thought that might act a sign... unless that makes you uncomfortable and you would rather..."

"No," I answered quickly, stunned and rather embarrassed since I stopped to think about it. "I... could stop, I suppose." What was I supposed to call him instead? Was I supposed to know? Was it obvious? -San would be appropriate? There were captains I referred to with that honorific.

I suddenly felt miserable. I hated worrying about things like that. I dreaded proper etiquette and such because I felt horribly out of my depth and it brought sharp light onto my upbringing. I would not feel inadequate about it. My breath caught in my throat and I chewed on my lip in stress, because somehow, I did care about offending him.

Hitsugaya stopped and gently turned me to face him, his expression growing alarmed and worried. "I'm sorry. It's not a big deal. You can call me whatever you want. I don't want to make you uncomfortable. If you don't want to call me Hitsugaya-kun, it'll be fine."

I looked up at him from where my gaze had been fastened on the buttons on his shirt. "Hitsugaya-kun?" I wasn't sure that I had ever heard anyone call him that, at least not to his face.

"But just in social settings, mind you." He smiled to make sure I knew he was teasing. "No calling me that in front of Yamamoto or in the middle of a meeting or anything. Then, I'd just have to correct you like everyone else."

Then we were walking again, my hand still tucked through his elbow and him leading the way. I was content for the moment to just follow silently, because I had an awful lot to think over and process. I felt like the whole world had turned over on its side by just a few degrees. A constant or two had just stopped being constant, at least from my perspective.