VII. Oiled and Cleaned
Some three and a half weeks later found Gin sprawled along one leg of the sofa in the TV room, drowsing to the unlikely Sunday afternoon lullaby of one of Iba's TiVo'd Play Girl Q reruns. Iba himself lounged across the other leg, watching avidly. The show was one of the few things on which Gin and his roommate could see eye-to-half-shut-eye: the simple value of unabashed, over-sexed camp rife with poorly-dubbed gunshot sound effects.
In this instance, the silver-haired boy considered the sleazy suspense of the show suitable background music for his thoughts. Granted, the sort of sleaze it specifically depicted did not accurately portray his intentions toward his melancholic kouhai -- Kira Izuru was a sweet thing to look at, which Gin could appreciate and would readily admit contributed greatly into his interest in the boy, but he remained inwardly adamant that that appreciation sprang from a purely aesthetical standpoint -- his attention in that particular area was solely focused on one person, and always had been.
Even if that one person's focus was no longer solely on him in return.
He threw an arm over his closed eyes as if to block the thought from insinuating itself any further under his lids and into his brain. In that respect, his pale lashes were poor guards, like transparent bars, easily phased through. Squirming, he turned over on his side to face away from the television and tucked up his legs against the back of the sofa.
"Oi, wake up, this is the best part!" Iba barked. "She's skipping, man, she's skipping--!"
Gin made an irritated noise in the back of his throat and ignored him. Thanks to Rangiku, tits were nothing to which he had limited access, and he didn't require much of that to begin with. Besides, hers were far superior than any that had been caught on grainy, 1970s-era film, to be sure.
But magnificent though his best friend's assets were, at the moment they were no more than a fleeting glance of platonic but pleasurable softness against his mind, like the unnoticed weight of a blanket draped over the hunched shoulders of a man engrossed in a book on his lap -- which, in a manner of speaking, he was.
Almost a month had passed since the arrival of the sad-eyed blond, but no day had been quite so illuminating as Izuru's first at Seireitei Academy. His assertiveness in the cafeteria that Friday had honestly taken Gin by surprise. He'd known the boy would eventually apologize -- their scuffle in the kitchen had made it clear that Izuru was unused to and disliked harming others, even with vindication -- but Gin had expected the expression of regret to take a humbler form, something faltering and sheepish and probably out of eyeshot of Renji, who had no doubt freely shared with the new boy his less than stellar opinion of Ichimaru Fox-Face.
Since then, Izuru had remained remarkably tolerant of Gin's. . .well, of Gin. Boundaries had been overstepped, but those trespasses overlooked. Gin jabbed, and Izuru absorbed the blows steadfastly. Now, after two fortnights of prying questions and popping out of corners like the Ghost of Christmas Pest, Gin wondered if he oughtn't take a step back an re-examine his tactics.
There was a lot to be said for the masochism that occasionally manifested in those in mourning, for whom depression dictated they feel deserving of being treated without personal regard. Most people were readily provoked -- into fear if not into fighting -- but while Izuru flustered easily (Gin even wondered, sometimes, how he would ever grow weary of seeing that blush), there was something off about his otherwise muzzled responses that didn't entirely fit the pattern. If the boy's questions, and what he drew from their answers, missed the mark, then so too did the answers he himself gave.
"Do ya miss 'em lots?" Gin had asked with the retiring insensitivity of a child; and Izuru had blanched, and looked as though someone had stabbed a knife in his gut, but replied sincerely, "Every day."
"When's it worst?" Gin pressed, knowing even blunt objects could draw blood.
". . .at night. When I can't sleep. When I was little, when my dad would work late, I used to pretend to go to bed but I'd just lay there in the dark, waiting up for him. When he got home he'd come in and check on me. I couldn't actually fall asleep until I heard that door open, and now. . .it's stupid, he hadn't checked on me in years; but now, knowing that I'll never hear that door open like that again. . ."
"Kinda stupid, yeah. I mean, of all the things ta miss, ya pick hinges an' a plank o'wood. . ."
And Izuru had laughed. Brittle and clipped, but it had been laughter just the same, and Gin almost had to fight back the urge to frown, if only to compensate for the oddity of the thing.
It was like punching a tree. Some of the bark flaked off, but his arm was beginning to tire. A bad apple himself, Gin knew rot when he saw it, and he should have been able to bore through already. . .or else he should have, by all accounts, already grown bored.
Strange that he hadn't. Strange that, instead, his interest had only multiplied. He looked everywhere for Izuru's detonator -- he studied the way his kouhai moved, ate, brushed his teeth (anxiously, sparingly, methodically); walked, sighed, pushed his hair out of his eyes (softly, frequently, only when annoyed) -- and came away from each examination none the wiser. Gin could still feel it, though, that nameless pent-up something smoldering just beneath the blond's thin skin. That spark that had first caught his eye on the rooftop, with the wind's flickering of Izuru's silly, candle-bright hair as the boy had pulled himself up and over the edge, looking like some kind of bent-haloed angel trying to climb its way back to God.
That's my line, Gin thought, and supposed that that theft had been part of his reasoning for coaxing the boy down to begin with. If Izuru was going to steal his thunder, then the blond ought to at least throw a decent lightning bolt to show for it. An' if it's takin' him this long ta wind up, it'd better be one helluva pitch. . .
"That's right, baby, run for Tou-san. . ."
Gin scowled at the back cushions of the sofa. "Maa, Iba-han. . ."
"What?"
"Keep it in your pants, eh? I ain't that asleep."
Iba's answering rumble segued into that of an engine outside, heralding the return from the supermarket of the three primary objects of Gin's frustration. He listened to the shutting of car doors and the crinkling of paper bags, waited for the tumble of the latch in the front door. It banged against the wall as the chaos of Renji barreled through, for which a reprimand from Sousuke was hot on his heels.
"I tripped, okay? Sheesh. . ."
"Fine, just be more careful next time. . .ah, Gin, Tetsuzaemon, do you think you could pause that long enough to help put the groceries away? I'm sure the ladies won't mind; absence makes the heart grow fonder."
Gin sighed, then rolled off the couch and sprang to his feet with the rubbery ease that was his fashion. He took one of Izuru's two food-laden bags and followed the blond into the kitchen, where the linguistically-inclined Momo sat reading on a bar stool at the island counter.
"What do you have there?" Sousuke asked, tilting the book to read its cover while Momo's cheeks pinked brilliantly. "Ah, Lolita, a classic." He quoted in English, "Wanted, wanted: Dolores Haze. Hair: brown. Lips: scarlet. Age: five thousand three hundred days. Profession: none, or 'starlet.'"
"Dying, dying, Lolita Haze, of hate and remorse, I'm dying. And again my hairy fist I raise, and again I hear you crying," Gin returned, and received a black look for his trouble.
Sousuke turned back to Momo. "If you find you like Nabokov, I also have the majority of his other works in my office. You're welcome to them." He smoothed a paternal hand over her plum-dark locks, then produced a net bag of five pristine peaches seemingly from out of nowhere and set it on the counter in front of her with a smile. "Momos for Momo-chan, as requested."
Momo thanked him with an excited little squeal that made Gin want to hurl the fruit into the nearest trash can, and possibly its namesake as well.
He tugged on Izuru's hair in annoyance.
"Ouch!" the boy hissed. "What--"
"Look at you," Gin quickly covered, batting playfully at the odd growth pattern that kept the back of Izuru's longish hair split into two separate sections. "Two-tails, two-tails, like a lil' kitsune."
Renji snorted, stuffing an armload of leafy greens into one of the refrigerator bins. "That's rich, coming from you."
"I don't know," Momo smiled, lifting up Izuru's forelock. "He looks kind of like a rooster to me."
Iba sniggered. "Kira looks like a c--"
"Kitsune," Sousuke interjected, pointedly arching an eyebrow at the mustachioed boy. "Ne, Tetsuzaemon?"
"Er. . .right."
Izuru, red-faced, scurried to put away the fish. Gin grinned, feeling better already.
"Yo!" came a low but undeniably female voice from the eastern end of the house, followed by the slamming of the front door. "Anybody home?"
Sousuke leaned back to call down the hall, "In the kitchen, Shihouin-sensei!"
"Oh come off it, Sousuke, even the kids call me Yoruichi," the dark-skinned woman chided, padding into the kitchen a moment later, bare feet quiet as cat paws against the tiles. As if sensing one of its own, a significantly rotund ball of gray fluff slunk in behind her, meowed and began to wind in figure-eights between her ankles.
"Ah, Haineko," Yoruichi greeted, reaching down to scoop Rangiku's lazy, overfed feline up in her arms and scritch behind its ears. "Did you miss me? Of course you did. . ." She took note of the grocery bags that littered the counter. "So what's for dinner?"
"Shihouin Yoruichi, straight to the point as always, and always pointed towards her stomach," Sousuke smirked. "I think Renji and Izuru-kun have nabemono on the menu."
"Then I'll tell Kisuke he'll be dining alone tonight." She gave Haineko one last nuzzle before returning the cat to the floor, then fixed Izuru with a serious look. "You."
"Huh?" The phrase "deer in the headlights" adhered itself to Izuru's expression.
"Just because you escaped my class by being an upperclassmen doesn't mean you won't be graded. My tastebuds are more discerning than any test scores you might have lucked your way through, and I expect nothing less than culinary excellence or so help me you will be shown first-hand precisely what it means to be cooked."
"Uh. . .I-I. . ."
Yoruichi let him sweat for a long moment before finally breaking into a wide grin. "I'm just screwing with you. Just make it edible and we're square. Now. . .what's for lunch?"
A few hours later, Renji and Izuru chopped vegetables. Gin sat cross-legged on the island and "helped," spinning the baseball he had pilfered from the top of Izuru's dresser about a week ago on the counter, frowning every time it rolled onto its red laces and wobbled free of its circumvolution. Renji turned on him in exasperation after his dozenth do-over.
"You know you don't have to be here," the redhead pointed out.
"I'm supervisin'," said Gin, smiling benignly and spinning the ball again.
A loud chorus of shouts, half cheering and half jeering, drifted down from the game room, where Yoruichi had corralled the younger children for a cutthroat, battle-of-the-sexes game of foosball. From the sound of it, things weren't going much in the boys' favor.
Renji glanced up at the ceiling. "Why don't you supervise them?"
"They got Yoruichi-han with 'em."
"Exactly."
Gin said nothing. The spinning continued. Izuru's chopping slowed as the tension in the air wound taut with every turn of the baseball. Nervously he watched Renji's grip on his knife tighten.
Spin spin spin, wobble, roll, spin spin spin, wobble, roll, repeat.
Izuru jumped as his roommate slammed his blade down on the cutting board, whirled, snatched the baseball off of the counter and tossed it out into the hallway.
"There!" he snapped. "Go fetch."
Although his eyes couldn't be seen, Izuru got the distinct impression that Gin's gaze had grown murderous behind his silver bangs. His upper lip twitched, but his grin remained painfully wide and frozen on his face. Izuru looked from Gin to Renji, then to the discarded knife that lay across the room from both and yet somehow seemed well within reach of the fox-faced boy's spidery fingers.
But then Gin sighed, shrugged, hopped gracefully down from the counter and left to retrieve the ball. He didn't return, and the two remaining boys resumed their chopping.
"You didn't have to be so obnoxious, you know," Izuru said after a moment, levering handfuls of bok choy onto the side of his knife and adding them to the large pot of boiling fish, broth and vegetables on the stove.
"Oh come on!" Renji shot the blond a withering look. "He was askin' for it! He was deliberately tryin' to piss me off!"
"Still."
"Still nothin'. Look, I know you guys are all buddy-buddy and everything. I don't really understand it, but that's your business, and my dislike of the him is mine. Don't expect me to cut him any slack just because you do, okay?"
Izuru knew couldn't argue with the redhead's logic, but he wanted to just the same. No, Renji didn't understand. Izuru wasn't even sure if he himself did. How could he adequately explain that all of Gin's impropriety, all of his badgering and his line-crossing, his wildly unpredictable mood swings and general dissonance with the rhythm of the world around him, had come to be the only things Izuru found made his life seem like it was actually happening?
How to explain that the tactless questions and comments Gin so casually threw in Izuru's face forced him to consider and deal with things he would have otherwise chosen to ignore and grow numb against? Or that he flinched away from Gin's touches not because they were unwelcome, but because they made him feel raw, new, like every spontaneous grip came away holding an old strip of skin that had been weighing him down, old skin that he'd mistaken for the creases of a prematurely aging soul? Gin hurt like a muscle that had been working too long without a rest. Gin hurt, but it was a pain that made Izuru feel a that much stronger, lighter, freer than he had since his parents' deaths -- possibly even before.
And there was some guilt in that, in the notion that this new situation could be deemed in any way an improvement over his old one. He still couldn't comfortably acknowledge it, but in essence it all boiled off to leave a single blistering fact: Izuru liked Gin. A lot. He liked the way he felt so in control of himself for the simple rebellion of that affinity. He liked being pushed and not pushing back, because for the first time it was expected that he should. He'd never known himself to be subject to the whims of any person who wasn't deemed appropriate by whomever happened to be standing on the sidelines holding judgment. It wasn't that he felt like he was becoming a different person, but that the person he already was was being differently perceived. For the first time in his life, Izuru wasn't afraid of his own erosion; rather, he felt as though he were being. . .polished, being made ready for some upcoming estimation of his worth, and for once he found himself anticipating the test. For once he didn't feel like an ineffectual weapon, but instead like he was becoming a shield.
Bit by bit he melted, every time he caught a glint of genuine mirth in Gin's smile. Bit by bit, he was reforged by the hammering blows of the silver-haired boy's maladroit inquiries -- inquiries no one else had bothered to make. Izuru had always fit into that particular niche of boys who were well-liked, but could never be called popular. He'd always excelled at school, and baseball, and writing. He wasn't bad-looking or mean-spirited. He was reliable: he could be counted on to be consistently good at whatever task he undertook. He could be counted on to be good -- and quiet, and polite, and, he suspected, fairly boring. He'd had many acquaintances throughout his life, but seemed to lack the charisma required to entice those superficial relationships into delving deeper into true friendship. "So you wanna be bait," as Renji might've said.
But Izuru didn't feel like bait. Like he was being baited, perhaps, but was that really such a bad thing? It was preferable to being feared and avoided, or not thought of at all.
When his parents died, not one of his former classmates had called, written, emailed, or even texted in shorthand to relay to him their condolences. It was as if he had died along with them, and so it was little wonder that he had come to believe the same.
Gin was right -- sometimes a person just needed to be touched. So what if Gin's hands were cold? Izuru could at least feel them. Truth be told, he liked the feel of them very, very much. And anyway, they would always warm when Gin let them rest against him for long enough. It was as if the older boy needed the heat, like a snake basking in the glow of a sun lamp, a cold-blooded thing wholly dependent on outside sources for warmth.
Sometimes a person just needed to be touched.
Renji gave the boiling rice a stir. He tasted the soup, burned his tongue, hissed and swore.
"Karma," Izuru mumbled.
The redhead glared. "Shut the hell up."
Izuru smirked.
He was just adding the last of the mushrooms into the pot when Yoruichi bounded into the kitchen, looking victorious and very pleased with herself.
"Is there enough for fourteen?" she asked, swiping a glass from the cupboard and the milk from the fridge. "Isane and Rangiku brought home a stray."
"Who are you calling a stray?" Kyouraku-sensei entered, pouting. "I assure you, my breeding is impeccable."
"But you admit to being a dog."
"Woof," he conceded with a shrug and a suggestive leer. "But I am coerced into howling only when confronted with beauty as luminous as the moon."
"Tch. Save it for Nanao, you hound."
A small smile tugged at the corners of Izuru's mouth at their harmless exchange. "The soup will stretch," he said, "and there's more than enough rice to go around."
Kyouraku rubbed his hands together hungrily. "Glad to hear it!"
In the month since his arrival, Izuru had gradually grown accustomed to the comings and goings of some of the Seireitei faculty members, although it was still a little strange to see so much of his teachers in a setting outside of school. Shihouin Yoruichi, who taught physical education and coached the Academy's track and field team, showed up the most often, sometimes with the famed Urahara Kisuke-sensei in tow. Both were much sought-after teammates for games, and the latter with homework help, if it was of a mathematical or scientific nature. Urahara reminded Izuru of Kyouraku-sensei somewhat, both possessing a similar lackadaisical approach to life and the same abhorrence of shoes.
Kyouraku himself came once or twice a week, and always on Tuesdays to compose lewd tanka with the boys in the library while Ise-sensei read with Momo. Ukitake-sensei occasionally accompanied him, and Izuru found the white-haired man to be a patient, goodhearted individual with a genuine interest in the well-being of others. He was always available for counsel and never arrived without treats -- cookies, candies, doughnuts, ice cream, and anything else Aizen refused to keep in abundant supply in the house -- with the almost grandfatherly logic that sweet children didn't happen without plenty of sugar to make them so.
Tousen-sensei visited mainly with Aizen himself, although he did allow the younger kids and Iba, who had a particular fondness for dogs, to play with Sajin while they took tea; and Unohana-sensei, the dulcet school nurse, came every Monday evening to share her knowledge of medicine and anatomy, as well as herbalism and ikebana, with any who were interested -- usually Hanatarou and the Kotetsu sisters, but sometimes others found themselves clustered around her on cushions on the floor in the sitting room, content just to listen to her speak. She had a sweet, soothing voice and a vaguely maternal demeanor that, in a place like Pure Souls, generated its own sort of gravitational pull.
Your friends are the family that you choose for yourself, as the saying goes. Izuru tried to imagine Gin growing up in such an environment, undesired for closeness by the majority of his peers, and even more or less overlooked by the pseudo-aunts and -uncles of the Academy staff, as if he had been there for so long he had become a fixture of the house itself, like a painting on a wall that was occasionally dusted off but no longer admired. Through the idle comments of others, Izuru had discovered that Gin had spent nearly half his young life there at least, that he'd been one of Aizen's very first wards, and was regarded by many as a promise unfulfilled, although no one could or would elaborate as to why.
If Izuru was being polished, then Gin, true to his name, was tarnished, and Izuru couldn't help but wonder if the older boy's efforts were in actuality some silent, subconscious plea for that favor to be paid in kind. Give and take, extrovert and introvert, rude and polite, silver and gold, Fox-Face and Two-Tails. . .they weren't exactly mirror images or complete opposites, but they were, perhaps, one another's (in Gin's case, backhanded) complement. Maybe not fire and ice, but perhaps warm embers and frostbite.
He thought of swaggering, uncouth Renji and stuffy, formal Kuchiki-sensei. No, the redhead didn't understand; but given time, and enough self-awareness, Izuru hoped that he could eventually come to do so.
After dinner, Aizen joined Yoruichi and the girls, with the exception of Rangiku, for a walk, leaving Kyouraku-sensei behind to mind (or be minded by) the other children.
The housebound group sat scattered on the back porch, Iba, Renji and Rangiku taking advantage of the only chaperone who condoned their smoking, despite not especially approving of it (hypocrisy was not a part of Kyouraku's make-up, even if tobacco was not his herb of choice). The twilight sky burned from topaz to amethyst as the sun, full and languid as those who watched it, sank gradually below the horizon.
"Hey Matsumoto, look," said Renji, tapping his cigarette over a passing Haineko. "Ashtray Cat."
He darted out of reach of Rangiku's answering smack in the very nick of time.
"Dick!" She glared at him and patted the ashes out of the oblivious feline's fur. "I'm telling Yoruichi."
Renji blanched. "You wouldn't."
"Oh, wouldn't I?"
"No, you wouldn't, because you're a much kinder and gentler and sweeter and prettier and all-around better person than I am," he said hopefully.
Rangiku looked thoughtful. "Hm, you're right. But I'm also overworked -- all those dishes to do tonight. . ."
Renji hung his head in defeat. "Deal."
The buxom girl smiled winningly. "Why thank you, Renji-kun! You're a prince."
"Yeah? I feel like a fuckin' toady."
"Ah," sighed Kyouraku-sensei around a blade of long grass. Blades of long grass seemed to sprout in his vicinity no matter how well-trimmed the lawn to which he was nearest. "It's so good to see young people these days going out of their way to help one another. Such consideration is a regrettably dying art form. It reminds me of the story of the fox's ball; are any of you familiar with that one?"
Negative silence, although seven sets of eyes swung around to land on Gin, who was once again absorbed in the spinning of Izuru's baseball on the stone. He didn't seem to notice the attention, and only paused in his game to allow Haineko to nose her way onto his lap, where she curled up comfortable and content as a queen.
Kyouraku cleared his throat.
"The Fox's Ball," he began. "Once upon a time, a healer and his medium were called upon to exorcise a spirit that was making a person ill. Through the medium, the spirit declared itself to be a fox. It claimed that it hadn't intended to make anyone ill; it had only come in search of food, and for it to be held against its will within the medium was really quite unfair. Perturbed, the possessed medium withdrew from her robe a small white ball of the type with which foxes can often be found, and began tossing it in the air and catching it."
Gin ceased his spinning, and did as the story dictated. The younger boys laughed. Renji rolled his eyes.
Kyouraku smiled and went on, "Now, among the crowd that had gathered to witness the exorcism was a skeptical man who believed the entire thing to be a hoax. Deciding to have a bit of sport, the next time the medium threw the ball up into the air, the skeptic quickly stuck out his hand, snatched the ball before she could catch it again, and stuck it down the front of his robe.
"The fox spirit was aghast. . ."
Gin gasped and brought a hand up to his mouth in mock-distress.
". . .it cursed the man and demanded its ball be returned to it at once, but no matter how fervently it pleaded, the man remained unmoved.
"'But it won't be of any use to you!' the fox reasoned. 'You don't know how to keep it. I, on the other hand, will grieve the loss of it terribly. I swear to you, if you do not give me back my ball I'll be your enemy forever! But if you do give it back,' the fox promised, 'when called upon I will protect you until the end of your days.'
"'Protect me, eh?' asked the man, growing bored of the game. 'That's fine, then.' He tossed the ball back to the medium, and the fox spirit crowed with joy. The exorcism was completed, the fox was sent along its way, and the healer and the medium prepared to leave.
"'One thing first,' said the skeptical man, and he looked into the pocket of the medium's robe where she, as the fox, had placed the ball when it had been returned to her. . ."
Gin hid the baseball in the front pouch of his hoodie and made a show of looking under Haineko and down the front of his sweatshirt.
". . .but the pocket was empty."
His face re-emerged, and he shrugged, holding up bare hands.
"A trick, to be sure, thought the man, and within a few days he'd put the whole incident out of his mind. In fact, he didn't think of it again until some years later when, on his way home one night from a temple, he would have to pass through a bad part of town.
"Seized with fright, he recalled suddenly the fox's oath to protect him, and although he was still skeptical of the spirit's existence, he was desperate enough to test it.
"'Fox! Fox!' he hissed into the darkness, and to his surprise he was answered by a series of sharp barks. The fox appeared before him only a moment later. Touched that the creature had honored its promise, the man explained his fears, and while the fox spoke nothing in reply, it seemed to understand his words. It went on ahead, sniffing carefully, and the man followed. The fox led him cautiously through side streets and alleyways, along a roundabout route no person would ordinarily take. The man wondered, ever so briefly, if the animal spirit was simply having him on -- foxes are well-known for their trickery, after all -- but no sooner had that doubt entered his mind than he caught sight of a lamplit group of men through the slats of a fence. They were bandits, discussing where to commit their next robbery -- and it would have taken place along the exact route by which the man would have traveled home, had he been alone!
"Instead he made it safely home, and the fox, its task accomplished, disappeared from sight just as quickly as it had popped up. It would not be the last time the spirit would come to the man's rescue, and the man was very glad indeed that he had had sense enough to return the fox's ball, for one act of mercy, however reluctantly performed, deserves another."
"Yeah," Renji agreed. "Hear that, Ran? You wait, you'll be doing my dishes till the end of my days!"
Rangiku only shrugged. "Sure. And just how many days do you think you'll have left when I tell Yoruichi what you did to my poor Haineko?"
"What?! But you already said--!"
Renji's protests fell on deaf ears, Izuru's included.
Gin was staring at him, head tilted in contemplation. His silver hair, lavender-tinged in the waning pink sunlight, fell lopsided to obscure the narrow slits of his eyes. He held the baseball inactive in one hand, and then, as if coming to a conclusion, tossed it back to its rightful owner with a casual snap of his wrist. Izuru caught it automatically.
Fox-Face. Two-Tails. Kitsune may, at will, take human form. Which of them, then, was truly the man, and which one the beast? Which would end up the indebted protector, and who was to act out the part of the thief?
Metal is tough, metal will sheen
Metal won't rust when oiled and cleaned
Metal is tough, metal will sheen
Metal will rule in my master scheme. . . -- Siouxsie & the Banshees, "Metal Postcard"
A/N: Don't mind the new penname. Just felt like a change. Shunsui's Fox's Ball comes from some anthology of Japanese folktales I read a while back; Lolita, of course, is disclaimed in-text; and if anyone is looking for a random cheeseball laugh, I advise you to employ your YouTube-fu & search for Play Girl Q, because wow, hah.
Next chapter: the Winter Fireworks Festival (& some familiar Karakura faces), more GinIzu, & finally some de-U-ing of that UST. Not quite RST, though. Baby R, maybe. rST. Extra T (ooh, tea. . .pardon; Iroh moment).
trishika: Ah, Placebo love. We shares it. & yeah, Gin bursts all personal bubbles. So, it seems, do many of the Shinigami, actually, unless Ichigo just has an inborn talent for waking up straddled by weird men (Tessai, Renji, who's next?). . .
TheAngelofLucifer: Ooh, I kind of hope you do. Briefcase!Byakuya somehow seems even stuffier than kenseiken!Byakuya. "The filler is naff." That sums it up beautifully, & I normally really like the fillers.
fan girl 666: Danke schoen. The GinKira end bit was almost an omake, not quite intended, but I'm glad to know it worked for at least one person. :)
As usual, thank you, all readers & reviewers, for doing as you do. I hope you stick around. Lots more to come.
