Chapter 10: Careless talk

Arikka's week was going from bad to worse.

She never thought joining the Guard Squads would have been so challenging – it wasn't as if much had changed. She was still living at home (which, of course, was nothing at all to do with her father's protectiveness). She still talked to the same people. She still spent whatever time she could sneaking off to a particularly nice noodle bar in one of the lowest districts. The only real change was that instead of spending hours a day in the Academy, she now spent those hours in the eighth division headquarters.

No, she corrected herself; she had expected things to be just as challenging as they were. She had just expected them to be challenging in an entirely different way.

It wasn't her work that was challenging her, stretching her capabilities and knowledge beyond profound boredom, it was something utterly unexpected.

Even fourteen hours later she had to struggle to keep her mind from wandering back to the image of a gentle swaying Hitsugaya, a bemused expression on his face and a sigh in his voice. Or more importantly, she had to struggle to keep her mind off of somewhere rather lower than his face.

Why, oh why, did he have to get the tattoo there?

Arikka stopped and slammed her head into the nearest wall.

She… thud… did not… thud… like… thud… Hitsugaya-taicho… thud… like… thud… that!

Thud.

Arikka growled.

Somehow this was all Rangiku's fault, she just knew it.

"Is that her?"

"I think so. Why's she hitting her head against that wall?"

Arikka stiffly pried her face away from the surface of the corridor wall, speculating about why there would be people clearly whispering about her. Trying to give yourself brain damage wasn't that odd, was it? Shunsui did it all the time.

Ok, maybe that wasn't the best example if she wanted to come across as normal.

"I don't know, it must be one of their ways."

Arikka turned, frowning. She didn't like how the girl had said that. For some reason it made it seem so much darker that it was. What did they mean by ways? What did they mean by their, for that matter?

The two young Shinigami froze when they noticed Arikka staring at them quizzically. Their whispers ceased. Their eyes widened. Their legs began moving.

"Run away!" They both screamed as they fled at lightning speed down the hallway and out of Arikka's eyesight.

Arikka pondered this for a moment.

"That was odd."

Toshiro's week was going from bad to worse.

To think, he had awoken on Monday morning thinking it would be like any other week in any other year. And yet here he was, not five days later, wanting nothing more than to murder his lieutenant for crimes that were surely against humanity. Granted, he usually felt like hurting her, but this murderous streak was something new.

Who the hell was Lalala Lala anyway? He'd certainly never heard of her before.

"I feel the need to warn you, Hitsugaya-taicho, that tattoo removal is a long and painful process."

Toshiro's nails dug further into his pillow. "I don't care! Just get this frigging thing off of me!"

Unohana nodded understandingly, "It is lucky then that it is in such a place where there are not too many nerves."

"There's nothing lucky about having that buffoon's name anywhere on my body." Toshiro grumbled, glaring so intensely at the jug of water on his bedside cabinet that the liquid promptly froze in defeat.

"Oi!"

Toshiro jumped slightly at the unexpected voice. He swivelled as much as he could while lying on his stomach and stared at the intruder whipping back the hospital curtain surrounding his bay.

"Don't speak about your fiancé like that!"

"Yachiru?" Toshiro yelled in surprise. "What the hell are you doing here? Get out!"

"Oh, please," the pink-haired blitz said with a wave of her hand. "I think I've seen your ass before."

Toshiro twitched.

"What? When? When have yo-" Then it hit him. "Wait, fiancé?"

Yachiru started fiddling with a piece of Unohana's equipment. "Well, yeah. You did propose after all."

"And he accepted?"

There was a roar and the curtain was yanked fully open, revealing the occupier of the next bed. "Like hell I did! Yachiru, no spreading rumours!"

Yachiru pouted. "But Ken-chan…"

"Kusajishi-taicho," Unohana stepped in, a wide smile on her face and a dangerous twinkle in her aura, "please do not touch the medical equipment."

Yachiru stopped, her hand paused in its exploration of something that looked oddly like a camera, her cheeky grin swept away. She seemed to contemplate something for a moment, her eyes darting from Unohana to Zaraki and back to Unohana again. Then, decisively, she bounced away.

Toshiro sighed. At least that was one less thing to worry about. "Can we please get this hideous name off of me now?"

He cringed as Unohana prodded the delicate sore with the end of her pen. "I think it's a very nice name."

That dangerous twinkle was back again. Toshiro tried not to whimper at the pain.

"Yes." He made out, his voice sounding rather strangled for his liking. "Very nice."

The pressure of the pen vanished. Toshiro found he could breathe again.

"If you like the name," Yachiru said as she popped up from behind Zaraki's bed. Toshiro groaned. He thought he had gotten rid of her. "You should add it to your own. Zaraki Retsu has a ring t-"

The end of her sentence was cut off as Zaraki gagged her with his sock. Yachiru pouted, which looked odd seeing as she had a sock in her mouth. Zaraki began stuttering his words. "I… er… she meant…"

"Indeed it does, Kusijishi-taicho." Unohana interrupted warmly.

Zaraki's face went blank. His brain imploded. Steam started billowing from his ears.

Toshiro sighed, fed up with all these distractions. "My tattoo, please."

Unohana returned her attention to him. "Yes, well, it should be fine to remove, however since it is still healing from-"

"I gotta go."

Toshiro slammed his head against his pillow in annoyance.

Why… thud… couldn't… thud… they… thud… all… thud… shut… thud… up?

Thud.

Unohana turned to Zaraki, whom was trying to untangle himself from his sheets so that he could leave. He seemed pretty desperate about it. When he found it was nearly impossible he gave up struggling, instead drawing his zanpaktou. He started hacking away at the offending sheets.

"Get offa' me, you stinking material!"

All his efforts appeared to be doing was taking chunks out of his own flesh. Blood was spurting out like a pinpricked Capri Sun. Toshiro recoiled. Yachiru clapped. Unohana smiled.

"I would prefer it if you were to stay for overnight observation, Zaraki-taicho."

Zaraki paused his self-destruction. He glanced up at the gentle healer. His face turned pale.

"Fine!" he suddenly shouted, throwing his zanpaktou at the ceiling in frustration. It pierced the wood, but didn't stop. It kept on going, disappearing into the room above. They all heard a scream, presumably from whoever had been standing in the path of the flying blade.

Then silence.

"Well, then," Unohana continued as if this had not just happened, "if you wouldn't mind, Hitsugaya-taicho, I think that Zaraki-taicho's wounds need seeing to."

Yes, he would mind! He'd been here for ages and they still hadn't done anything about his blasted tattoo! If they thou-

Toshiro caught sight of the slightly swaying ghost of Zaraki, blood seeping from near every surface of his skin and staining the fabric of his sheets vibrant red.

"Uh, sure."

Unohana nodded and walked over to the giant's bay. She lifted his badly injured left arm and carefully began wrapping it in white gauze.

"You know," Yachiru spoke up, having finally pulled the sock out of her mouth, "Ken-chan's always talking about how he wants to settle down."

Zaraki blinked. "What?"

Yachiru hit him on the head. "And he also loves walks on the beach."

"What?"

"And candlelit dinners."

"What?"

"And cuddling."

"What?"

"I'm sure he does." Unohana said, cutting off Zaraki's violent lurch forwards with a simple hand on his shoulder. She may have been growing irritated at these constant disturbances to her precious medical wing, but Toshiro wasn't sure. That smile was unfaltering.

"Here," she said, clearly finding it difficult to treat her patient when he refused to sit still for one second, "why don't you read this, Zaraki-taicho?"

Zaraki stared at the thin book Unohana had placed on his lap, looking as if he was unsure of what to do with it. Toshiro found himself wondering if he had ever actually seen a book before.

Slowly, he raised the arm that Unohana wasn't bandaging. He gently picked up the book, his visible eye narrow in suspicion. He read the cover.

"Little Bear's… Trousers?"

Unohana tilted her head to the side sweetly. "Yes."

Zaraki huffed. "I ain't reading a stupid kid's book."

"If you would like," the medic said, "I could help you."

Zaraki flinched. "I know how to read!"

Toshiro thought that maybe this wasn't entirely true. He had never seen the eleventh division captain with any sort of written word in his hands, and remembered the fury of the beast when being so recently told that he had to start doing paperwork.

With one hand still holding onto Zaraki's battered arm, Unohana calmly opened the cover of the illustrated book. "Let's start on page one, shall we?"

"But-" Zaraki started, but then hesitated when he caught a glimpse of Unohana's kinder than a teddy bear face. Gruffly, summoning all of the manliness he could, he began to read. "The sun shone through the window and woke Little Bear."

He paused and glared at Toshiro, daring him to laugh.

"'What a lovely morning.' He said to-"

"Do the voices, Ken-chan!"

Yachiru's only response was another sock in the mouth.

"'What a lovely morning.'" Zaraki picked up again, not changing his manly voice one ounce. "he said to himself. 'I'll do something different today."

He turned the page before continuing.

"He jumped down from the bed, took off his pa… pi… pa…"

"Pyjamas." Unohana helped.

Zaraki scoffed. "Why the hell is it spelt like that? It's a bloody stupid word!"

Unohana nodded, moving on to wrapping Zaraki's foot. "Yes. Please go on."

Zaraki frowned at the book. "Took off his pyjamas and looked for his trousers…"

Toshiro groaned.

Just how long was he going to be cooped up in here for?

Arikka's morning was becoming odder by the moment.

She had thought the two young Shinigami from earlier were perhaps eccentrics, as so many of them seemed to be, and that maybe they had simply heard who Arikka's parents were or something else bizarre about her family. Most of the time that was what it was. Arikka was never talked about solely because of something she had done. It was always that damn Kuchiki pride.

And yet in the following hour, almost identical occurrences had taken place thrice more. Each time there had been whispering, and each time the offending parties had fled when they noticed Arikka's observation.

For some reason, everyone seemed rather preoccupied with her.

And so the next time this happened, Arikka made sure to appear like she hadn't noticed the culprits, instead busying herself in a sheet of paper and pricking up her ears. She was a little bit surprised by what she heard.

"Yeah," one of the young women was saying to another, "her and Hitsugaya-taicho."

Her companion nodded wisely. "They met in a strip bar."

"Don't be ridiculous." The first woman snapped. "Hitsugaya-taicho would never visit a place like that."

"Then how do you explain it?"

The first woman rolled her eyes as if this was obvious. "She's a Kuchiki, isn't she?"

This didn't help the second woman understand. "Yeah, and?"

"And Hitsugaya-taicho obviously rung up a debt with them and isn't able to pay them back!"

The second woman was still confused. "So?"

The first woman sighed. "And so he's getting rid of his debt by offering… sexual favours."

"That sounds a bit of an overreaction."

The first woman shrugged. "That's what I heard."

"Well," the second woman stuck in, proud that she knew something the other didn't, "I heard he got her pregnant and so has to stick around."

"Maybe she is," the first woman said with a curious glance, "she is looking chubby."

"I am not!" Arikka exclaimed defiantly, effectively ruining her cover. She rounded on the pair, having had enough of this, and poked the taller of the women square in the skinny chest. "Where the hell have you been hearing these things?"

The woman stammered, completely off guard. "I… er… well… everywhere."

"What?" A quickly growing furious Arikka yelled.

"Yeah, uh, everyone's talking about it." The woman Arikka wasn't assaulting with her finger squeaked nervously.

"And what exactly is 'it'?"

The women looked at each other. They swallowed. Then, as bravely as they could muster, they explained simultaneously just what these rumours were really about.

"Your and Hitsugaya-taicho's secret affair."

Renji did a double take upon entering the room.

"What are you doing here?" he almost screamed.

Rukia made a noncommittal shrug, "Hanging. What does it look like?"

Renji's eyebrows twitched, which scared the mouse in the corner who dove back into its little mouse hole and away from the scary eyebrows.

"But it's not proper!" he let out, pointing at the thirteenth squad lieutenant with horror in his eyes. "This is a boy's room and it's not right for a girl to be in here!"

Renji jerked forwards at the sudden force against his head. Ichigo strolled on past him, quite satisfied with the hollow thump his palm had made against the red head's scalp. "It's an office, idiot. And it's Momo's too."

Renji's eyes darted to the smaller desk and landed on the girl who seemed to be doing no work other than gently humming the Scooby Doo theme tune. He looked back at the orange haired fool and rubbed the back of his head. "My point still stands."

"What did you want?" Strawberry asked resentfully.

"Never mind what I want, what were you two doing before I got here?" Renji shot back accusingly.

Ichigo glared at him. "Talking."

Renji continued to sound snappish. He didn't like the idea of these two being alone. And while Momo was technically here, she didn't really count as a conscious being. "About what?"

Rukia plopped herself down in the seat behind Ichigo's desk. Ichigo didn't look too happy about this.

"About all the stories going around at the moment." Rukia answered, ignoring Ichigo's hand that was trying to bat her out of the chair.

"Oh." Renji said with a sigh. "About Rika-chan and Hitsugaya-taicho."

Rukia frowned. "What?"

Ichigo got fed up of being ignored and actually tipped the chair over in order to get it back. Rukia splatted onto the hard floor.

"Toshiro and Rika aren't a couple." Ichigo said, taking his place on his rightful throne. "Those rumours are obviously not true."

"Yeah, well," Renji started. He didn't see why Ichigo was being so clueless. Why wouldn't you believe what absolutely everybody was saying? All those people couldn't be wrong. "I heard they had a naughty sex party in a barn…"

Ichigo narrowed his eyes. "Toshiro wouldn't do that."

"… with Winston Churchill…"

Ichigo's face went blank. "That's just stupid."

"… and a hippopotamus."

Ichigo was forced to abandon his seat in order to give Renji another smack around the head. "That doesn't even make sense!"

Renji grew angry. He waved his fist around in front of his face. "That's no reason to hit me! And why doesn't it make sense?"

From her place on the floor, Rukia asked the question she felt most needed to be answered.

"Hang on," she said with a finger on her chin, "I thought Hitsugaya was engaged to Zaraki-taicho?"

Arikka needed advice.

She desperately needed advice.

Never, in all of her life, had she ever needed advice more than she did now.

This wasn't right!

Arikka had never been entirely anonymous, what with her famous father and equally famous godparents and babysitters, but she had never been the centre of so much gossip before – especially such vicious and outrageous gossip.

Who on earth would ever believe she and Hitsugaya had had sex with Winston Churchill and a hippopotamus? Was that even physically possible?

And so here she was, standing outside perhaps the one place in the entire Seireitei where she could receive honest and well-informed advice that wouldn't result in her been embarrassed, arrested, or dissected.

Resolutely, she slid open the door before her.

"Joshiro?"

Little Bear's Trousers is a book in the Old Bear Stories by Jane Hissey. I don't know if you have them in the US or abroad, but they are amazing. My childhood right there for you.

Renji's dense. As is Rukia. Byakuya needs to beat some sense into them.

It's raining. It's pouring.
Non-reviewers are boring.
They bugger off
With but a scoff
And so I pull up their flooring!