Nanao was surprised when her Taicho returned to the office an hour later, she was shocked when he started filling out paperwork, and she was just plain confused when he announced that he'd signed the two of them up to do a routine security patrol through the 1st district of the Rukongai that evening.
"Not that I mind taking the shift, but is there a particular reason why you suddenly feel the need for overtime?" she asked eyeing him carefully as he filled out a document.
"It's good for morale to occasionally show we're not above doing grunt work," Kyouraku said grinning over at her.
"I believe I remember saying that six months ago," Nanao said raising an eyebrow, "to which you replied, and I quote, 'then don't make any of the squad members do it either.'"
"I changed my mind," he said simply. "Besides I failed to take into account that it would also mean I got Nanao-chan to myself all evening."
"If that is your reasoning behind taking the shift, I can assure you you'd have more fun with your drinking buddies," Nanao said confidently. It wasn't that she minded the extra shift, but she was worried he'd try to get more information out of her, and she really just didn't want to talk about it. "I can take one of the lower seats with me."
"Is my Nanao-chan trying to avoid me?" he asked smiling as he leaned back in his chair.
"No, sir," she said meeting his eyes. "I simply don't understand your sudden work ethic."
"Whatever it takes to spend time with my Nanao-chan," he cooed happily. "Given if you'd rather give the whole shift to lower seats and spend the evening with me of your own free will, I'd by far prefer it."
"Patrolling it is," Nanao said turning back to her work.
"So cruel," he replied just as she'd expected. Several moments of silence went by before Nanao broke it again.
"I really am ok, sir," she said worried he was doing all this just to keep an eye on her. He usually only became clingy like this after she'd been injured on a mission.
When she'd broken an ankle protecting some subordinates on an assignment a few years back he'd insisted on carrying her everywhere no matter how much she'd whacked him with her book. He'd even hidden her crutches several times to force her to depend on him. The only positive aspect was that he'd been in the office on time everyday from carrying her there, and he'd spent most of the day hanging around so she didn't have to run all over to get him to sign papers.
"I never said you weren't ok," he said easily. "Although if you weren't you could always come to me."
"Well, I'm fine," she said watching him warily before going back to her work.
"Wonderful," he agreed happily. "Er, Nanao-chan."
"Yes?" she said glancing up once again.
"Is form 253a important?"
"Yes," she said already getting worried. "It has all of the interdivisional training times and locations for the month. Why?"
"Uh, I may have gotten distracted and doodled on it a bit," he said looking guilty.
"Can you read the times and training grounds?" she asked with a sigh as she got up to look over his shoulder.
"Maybe," he said noncommittally squinting at the paper. Nanao looked over at it and immediately turned away. Her Taicho was a rather good artist and had redone a famous shunga painting on the form.
She fought the blush rising to her cheeks and moved back to her desk saying, "Throw it away."
"But I thought you said it's important," her Taicho responded in mock confusion.
"I'll get another one from the 1st tomorrow. I'll just tell them you spilled sake again," she said firmly.
"But that makes me look incompetent, Nanao-chan," he whined.
"I don't think my telling the truth would help make you look competent, sir," she said shaking her head. "Just don't touch any more paperwork till I give you something and show you where to sign."
"As you wish, my lovely intelligent Nanao-chan," he said, already plopping down on the couch for a nap. The man really was hopeless, she thought before going back to work. His snores shortly filled the air and Nanao spent the rest of the afternoon working in peace.
The sun had set by the time Nanao finished the paperwork and cleaned up in preparation for the patrol. Her Taicho had slept most of the day on the couch and then spent much of the evening hanging out in the hallways outside their office talking to division members. Nanao was trying to figure out if she had enough time to pop home for dinner before the patrol, when her office door flew open again.
"Ne, Nanao-chan, look what I had Asano-kun get us!" Kyouraku said happily as he came in carrying steaming containers of udon. So much for dinner at home, she thought. Nanao pulled her chair over to her Taicho's desk, as it was the one that was paperwork free at the moment, and took one of the containers from him.
"Thank you, Taicho," she said picking up her chopsticks. "You really shouldn't send division members on errands like this."
"He enjoyed it," Kyouraku said smiling. "Besides I bought him dinner too for his trouble."
"Right, sir," she said realizing it was pointless to argue with the man about protocol. She took her first bite of food and smiled upon realizing he'd gotten her Tsukimi udon, which was her favorite kind. It was one of the few things Mamoru could cook when they were children and she'd had a particular attachment to it ever since. She let out an involuntary sigh at the thought of Mamoru and wondered how she was ever going to convince him to speak to her again. Maybe she could talk to him after patrol and beg on her knees using the excuse that her Taicho's irrationalities had rubbed off on her.
Kyouraku's voice broke through her thoughts nearly causing her to jump. "Something on your mind Nanao-chan?"
Nanao looked down at her noodles refusing to meet his eyes when she lied to him. "Nothing in particular, Taicho. It's just been a rather long day."
"We can send someone else out on patrol if you're too tired," he offered again. "I can take you straight home."
"I'm not going to shove work off on the troops just to go have a romp in bed with my superior," she growled glaring at him from across the desk.
"Yare, yare," he said looking pleased with himself, "When did I ever say anything about going to bed together? I was merely offering to walk you home. Nanao-chan is thinking dirty things!"
She blushed at that comment and held her noodles closer to her face hoping he'd blame the heat for her flush. "I was not thinking those things! I just assumed that's what you meant since usually that's what you are offering."
"I'm always offering more than just a good romp," Kyouraku said suddenly much more serious. Nanao stared at him, as if to find a lie in his statement, and he stared back unflinchingly.
The door suddenly flew open and both of their attentions turned to the doorway as Matsumoto strolled in. "Shunsui-kun are you ready to go drinking? They're having a karaoke night at the Naughty Hollow."
"Sorry Ran-chan," he said happily. "I have patrol duty with Nanao-chan."
"Urgh why did you sign up for that?" Rangiku asked looking at Nanao.
"Don't look at me," she said using a chopstick to point at Kyouraku.
"You signed up for it?" Rangiku asked him not bothering to hide her shock.
"I get Nanao-chan all to myself tonight," he said proudly.
"Sheesh if you were that desperate I could have lied to her about a shopping trip in the real world, had you waiting on the other side, and ditched out before the gate closed effectively trapping you together until the next gate opened," Rangiku said in one big breath.
"Hmmm," Kyouraku murmured looking thoughtful. "Ne, Nanao-chan would your rather go shopping with Ran-chan? I can cover the patrol for you."
"You are both idiots," she said continuing to eat her noodles. "I am never going on a shopping trip with you again."
"Liar," Matsumoto said sitting down on the desk. "Really you both should ditch out on work and come karaoke."
"I would honestly rather let Kurotsuchi Taicho experiment on me," Nanao said.
"Even when they have form 322?" her Taicho asked her wide-eyed.
"Ok, maybe I exaggerated a little bit," Nanao admitted. "But I would still rather go on patrol than make an ass of myself singing in front of a large group of people."
"But Nanao-chan has a lovely voice," Kyouraku countered.
"Ooooohh," Matsumoto said suddenly interested. "You've heard her sing?"
"We couldn't get the soul of a small child to calm down after a hollow attack, and Nanao-chan sang to him until he was relaxed enough to do a soul burial kindly," Kyouraku confirmed. Nanao hid her blushing face in the steam from the noodles once more and didn't comment. The little boy had reminded her of her brother, and she simply hadn't been able to stand the thought of sending him to soul society as terrified as he was.
"So sweet," Rangiku cooed before smothering Nanao in a bear hug that nearly made her drop her dinner. "Nanao-chan is going to make such a good mother. Cute little brunette babies with indigo eyes! Although you better hope they are all girls, because I can't imagine there being two Kyouraku men running around the Seireitei. No woman would be safe!"
"But I can't have daughters," Kyouraku said horrified. "I'd have to kill any man that looked at them the wrong way and I don't enjoy fighting. No, boys would be much better."
Nanao quickly tuned them out as they continued arguing, having realized long ago that it was pointless to fight them when they went off on tangents like this. Instead she busied herself finishing off her dinner and seeking out a trace of Mamoru's reiatsu. Perhaps she could stop by the 2nd after patrol and try to talk to him. It was comforting to be able to find his reiatsu again after years of him hiding it from her, although she was a bit confused when she felt traces of it leading out into Rukongai. He wouldn't have already left without saying goodbye, would have he? Maybe he was angrier than she believed, she thought with a wince. Well as long as he wasn't hiding his reiatsu she could track him down even outside the Seireitei.
"What do you want Nanao-chan?" Rangiku asked breaking her train of thought.
"Hmm?" she questioned trying to refocus on the conversation.
"Do you want boys or girls?" Rangiku clarified looking exasperated that Nanao didn't know what she'd been talking about.
"I'd prefer one of each," Nanao answered without thinking.
"Fine," Kyouraku replied crossing his arms across his chest and pouting. "I guess I'll have a daughter too."
"Who ever said I wanted them with you?" Nanao asked rolling her eyes. This comment, of course, set her companions off on another tangent trying to decide what type of man was best for her, and she quickly ignored them and tracked Mamoru's reiatsu to the source. He was in the 79th district of South Rukongai if she was judging her distances correctly. Suddenly his reiatsu spiked and Nanao almost dropped her noodles. That couldn't be his shikai could it? Kami it was, she thought desperately, why in the world would he need to do that? Was he in trouble? She was already on his feet before she consciously knew what she was doing.
"Nanao?" she vaguely heard Rangiku ask.
"I have to go," Nanao said.
"We have patrol in a few minutes," Kyouraku commented looking at her quizzically.
"I think I left my water running in my apartment," Nanao said spitting out the first excuse she could come up with while tracking her brother's reiatsu.
"Have you even been home in the last 24 hours? Matsumoto asked confused.
"No, that's why it's so bad," Nanao said quickly. She wasn't even sure what she was doing. The 79th district was way out there and it'd take her longer to get there than any fight Mamoru was in would probably last. Besides that, she had a patrol to do in a few minutes and she wasn't one to shirk her duties. Either way she headed for the door.
She was so distracted she didn't even notice her Taicho had moved until he had an arm fully wrapped around her waist and was pulling her away from the door. "It's not like my Nanao-chan to forget something like that," he said easily pulling her hip to hip with him and starting back towards the desk where she'd abandoned her dinner.
She rapped his arm with her fan hard and tried to twist out of his hold. "Sir, I really need to check-" she cut herself off short as she felt Mamoru's reiatsu decline again to a normal level. She let out a breath she hadn't realized she'd been holding and stopped struggling. "I really need to check the water," she said again.
Kyouraku narrowed his eyes at her, but released his hold on her waist. "Alright, we'll go check your house and then be off for patrol. Unless you have a problem with that?" Nanao shook her head no, and he continued, "Sorry to cut things short Rangiku-chan. We'll have to finish our debate next time."
"Nah," Rangiku said waving a hand at them. "Now that I look at the two of you side by side there really is no one else for Nanao-chan to have cute babies with." Nanao had enough wits about her to raise a threatening glow of kido around her hand, and Matsumoto had enough sense to beat a hasty retreat out the window.
"No need to get so angry, Nanao-chan," Kyouraku said happily taking a huge risk by grabbing her still glowing hand. "She was just stating the obvious," he murmured right into her ear. His stubble brushed her earlobe as he spoke and she tried to ignore the spark that ran through her body. Her free hand reached blindly to the desk behind her, and picking up an abandoned binder, she slammed it down on his head.
"And that is enough of that," she stated firmly as he whimpered and clutched his head. "Come on let's check the water."
A/N: This is going to sort of be a long one. Sorry for that. First off I've been informed that Nanao is pronounced Na-now because ao in Japanese is pronounced ow. Thank you Annie! As you can tell my Japanese is nonexistent. I'll still probably say Nan-oh in my head. KeepSmilingItMakesPeopleWonder, her brother is in the Yakuza, which is basically the Japanese mafia. I'm taking a few liberties with the Bleach storylines obviously, as I don't know if the Rukongai actually has a mafia, but I assume they'd have some sort of organized crime.
Now on to the main point, I got a review saying I was basically going too slow and it was getting boring :( Unfortunatly I have quite a bit of it already written and now I'm debating if I should rework the story and cut things, the only problem with that is it will definitely slow down my updating and it will catch me up to where I'm still writing which slows it down even more. Maybe I'll just leave it as is and hope people will skim when they get bored.
I know the story isn't action packed, but I'm really enjoying just getting into the characters and fleshing them out since we actually know so little about Shunsui and Nanao. For them to work and be in love, I figured there had to be something more to it than she randomly loves a womanizing drunk and he's a masochist that loves being hit and shot down. In my head they were such a perfect odd couple that it was sort of like Beauty and the Beast in that someone has to bend before anything can change in the relationship (I love that song, by the way). In my defense for the slowness if you really look it over Mamoru has only been around for like 2 or 3 days, it takes a while to let the truth come out. Maybe I shouldn't have let so much happen every single day, or just kept their back stories in my head and not in writing. Sigh, alright well, I'll see what I can do. Sorry if updates take longer. Thank you all so much again for the wonderful reviews! Work was awful today and it was nice to come home to :)