Author:

Words! From a pencil, grew like a seed

And here I invite you all, to read~

Hitsugaya reclined in his office's chair with a sigh. A stack of finished paperwork was sitting on a corner of his desk, far away from danger. He had already looked over his desk to make sure he was done, pulled his green tea mug a safe distance from the paper, and placed the papers in neat, separate stacks. At this moment, he was finished. He had nothing else to do for the next few hours.

He could read his manga.

Hitsugaya scooted back in his chair and turned to his bookcase. He pulled out a few large kanji dictionaries and an encyclopedia to reveal a hidden row of manga titles. He pulled two out and quickly placed the reference books back. He then turned back around in his seat and flipped to a chapter.

"I really should make time to read this," Hitsugaya thought to himself, flipping a page.

The chapter he was on was suspenseful. Without pausing, he sped through the pages, making sure to notice every single detail. Two, five, and then six minutes passed before he moved on to the second book. Another ten minutes passed and there was a knock at the door.

"Third seat Hanate Nadeshiko requesting entrance."

Hitsugaya shoved the manga into a drawer, annoyed. "Come in."

Nadeshiko entered the room, carrying a manila folder in one hand. She smiled, walking directly to the desk and then handing the folder to Hitsugaya.

"Here, Taicho."

"Thank you." Hitsugaya took the folder and placed it carefully on top of the stack of paperwork. "Did you go to Kurotsuchi yet?"

Nadeshiko shook her head. "He's busy with a project."

"Did he return your feeling?"

"No, but he gave me these." Nadeshiko slipped her hand into her pocket and pulled out a small bag of jellybeans. It was tinted pink with a black ribbon around its opening. In clear roman lettering, 'Nadeshiko' was embroidered into it with deep pink thread. "He actually tossed it to me as a bribe to go away, but I couldn't have gotten in even if I tried."

Hitsugaya eyed the bag. "Why does he have a ribbon with your name on it?"

Nadeshiko took a good look at the ribbon. "I don't know…Maybe it's pre-prepared? He sounded like he was working on something interesting when I spoke to him, and it's like him to prepare something to make sure I stay away."

"But isn't your feeling a priority?'

"No, not really."

Hitsugaya stood, walked over to his couch, and laid himself down for a nap. "Lock the door when you leave."

"You're not doing anything?"

"I'm done with the paperwork and I'm tired."

"Ah…" Nadeshiko looked around Hitsugaya's desk. She noted the plainness of every pen he had lying around, counting ten total. "But didn't you go to sleep immediately after we came back to Soul Society last night?"

"Paperwork is tiring."

"Are you sure you're tired? Or—" Nadeshiko bent over the desk and spotted an object lying in an unclosed drawer. She ignored it, forming an idea.

"What are you doing?" Hitsugaya asked, folding his hands behind his head.

"Looking around."

"Nosy."

"I'm not nosy."

"Don't you have something to do?"

"No." Nadeshiko pulled a piece of paper from a drawer as well as a deck of cards. "You don't either, do you?" She stated more than asked.

"That's why I'm sleeping."

"Wanna play a game?"

Hitsugaya's mind flashed back to two days ago when Nadeshiko accidently told him the truth. His word from that day resounded in his ears for the third time that day as he remembered, ashamed, how bad it sounded out loud. His thoughts from that day—the realization of what he did and the confusion of what it caused—came back as well, reminding him to stay cautious of his behavior.

But he had spent too much time thinking. Nadeshiko was now kneeling in front of him, smiling and setting up a game of Go Fish on the coffee table. Hitsugaya stared at her blankly.

"I didn't answer yet."

Nadeshiko stopped to look at him. "You don't want to?"

"It's not that…" Hitsugaya turned his head away. "You're not doing anything with Ikezuchi today?"

"He's busy with something in the archives."

Hitsugaya looked again at Nadeshiko, evaluating her boredom.

"…Deal the cards."

Nadeshiko smiled.

Kamaro and his friend, Nakamura Ito, met in a run-down storage house near the archive building. The storage house was short and shabby, only placed between its two neighbor buildings to take up space. A number of Division Eleven members' zanpakutos severely dented the walls and split the boards during their many rampages through the streets. The event with Kuchiki Rukia's near execution gave the storage house a broken window and a damaged door. A disastrous event where Kusajishi Yachiru found Ukitake's stash of foreign candy that was meant for Hitsugaya totaled the room as she ran into it and had a tantrum due to a splinter she received. No one had cared to fix it after the fifth Eleventh Division rampage, and Fourth Division cleaning members shook their heads sadly at the sight.

"What did you find, Ito?"

"I couldn't find anything on Hanate Nadeshiko." Ito pulled three manila folders out of her shuhakusho. She handed them to Kamaro, upset. "I found a huge history for Hitsugaya-taicho. Apparently, after he was in that magazine, girls got curious. Matsumoto-fukutaicho also knew him a little when he was little-little, and I found something interesting from her records."

Kamaro flipped through the folders. "What was so interesting?"

"She met Hitsugaya-taicho twice. No, three times. The last two were easy to find. Once, when they were at a shop, and another time at his house. But there was a time before that." Ito paused, attempting to add dramatic suspense. It annoyed Kamaro.

"Say it already!"

"They met a time before that, when Hitsugaya-taicho was looking for his friend. He asked Matsumoto-fukutaicho, not caring that she was a shinigami, if she had seen someone of his description. 'A small girl with long black hair and black eyes that sort of look purple'. And guess what he said her name was."

Kamaro stared at the manila vacantly, his surprise not yet registering. "…Nadeshiko?"

"How many sets do you have?"

Hitsugaya counted them then turned his head in shame.

"Six."

Nadeshiko smiled. "I win."

"Let me deal this time." Hitsugaya held out his hand and Nadeshiko handed her sets of cards to him. He started shuffling the deck.

"Toushiro," Nadshiko's smile spread wider.

Hitsugaya looked at her sideways. "What?"

"Let's make this next game interesting."

"They knew each other?" Kamaro asked, bewildered by the proof enclosed in manila.

Ito nodded, smirking and throwing a Sherlock pose. "I couldn't believe it myself, either. But there's no doubt. Hinamori-san probably won't remember her because they weren't as close, but Hitsugaya-Taicho sure does."

Kamaro patted his friend on the shoulder. "You do good work."

Ito smiled and turned to leave. "See ya, Kamaro. I've got two other clients, so I can't stay."

Kamaro didn't care. He sat down on a nearby crate that creaked under his weight and opened Nadeshiko's folder. It had only two sheets of paper in it, one the medical report of her amnesia, and the other a blank history page.

There was also a note attached to a picture behind the two sheets of paper. It read words that expressed Ito's confusion as she went through all of the files and couldn't find anything on her. The picture was one taken of Nadeshiko in class at the academy, which Ito noted to be an accidental picture taken by a girl in the class. In the picture, Nadeshiko was writing on a sheet of paper, her head leaning to one side as she appeared to be mouthing the words she wrote. Kamaro stared for a while at it with a slight smile on his face before switching to Hitsugaya's folder.

There wasn't much in there that interested him, so Kamaro skipped directly to his disciplinary records from the academy. Only one event was recorded there of when he was caught going through records in the academy's office. He wasn't punished due to his plea that he was locked in the room and simply got bored. They had no proof against him, and ended up giving him only a minor slap on the wrist. Kamaro frowned and moved on to the notes Ito left about Hitsugaya's relations with Nadeshiko.

Nadeshiko covered her mouth, barely able to hide her laughter. "…How many sets?"

Hitsugaya frowned as he stood up and reluctantly removed his haori. "How do you keep winning?"

Nadeshiko only smiled and reached her hand out to Hitsugaya, accepting her prize.

Hitsugaya dropped his haori into her hands, looking at the cards. He studied them, looking for any sign that Nadeshiko was cheating. But the deck was relatively new, and it had been collecting dust in his drawer for quite a while. He looked back at Nadeshiko, who was pulling her hair out from inside the haori and looking down at herself with approval. Seeing this, Hitsugaya couldn't help but smile.

"That's big on you." He said almost proudly, approaching her so he could adjust it.

Nadeshiko pouted. "It's because I'm super short now, compared to you. You grew a lot."

Hitsugaya looked her over after finishing. He smirked. "And you're still the same negative-A-Nadeshiko."

She blushed madly, stomping her foot. "Don't assume strange things!" She turned away. "Besides," she mumbled. "Since you've been around Matsumoto-san so long, everything must look small to you."

Realizing the conversation was taking an awkward turn, Hitsugaya sat back down. "Let's play a different game."

"I don't want to." Nadeshiko said, not turning to face him.

"Why?"

"I'm…embarrassed."

"Because you're small?"

"Don't say it like that!"

Hitsugaya looked at his clock. The minute hand crawled from the five to the six before he spoke again.

"If it makes you feel better…Momo is smaller."

"Toushiro!"

He turned to her, startled. "What?"

"You…You actually look there?"

Hitsugaya stayed silent, not wanting to answer. An uncomfortable silence filled the room.

"Give me back my haori."

"Stay still!" Kurotsuchi shouted, strapping down an angered Kokomi.

She squirmed violently. "Let me go! I don't want to be dissected!"

The straps Kurotsuchi had placed on her left wrist snapped and she clawed through the air at him. A barely visible whip of air collided with Kurotsuchi's front and sent him back a couple of feet into a nearby table. Kokomi struggled with the other strap, frequently glancing over at Kurotsuchi, who was covering his face with his hand. A beaker full of a clear liquid had been sitting on the table he had bumped into, and had tipped over onto his hair, face, and clothing. Angrily, Kurotsuchi looked down at his hand, noticing the white and black streaks that were beginning to smudge into gray. He wiped the rest of his makeup off with one swipe, glaring at Kokomi.

Kokomi stopped squirming when she saw his face. She stared in adoration at his blue hair that fell in a tousled mess around his visage. She marveled at the thin yet masculine look of his face, swooning over how nicely the tan shade of his skin complimented his golden-brown eyes.

"He's…" Kokomi sat upright, continuing to stare. "He's…beautiful! Oh, why does he color over such a wonderful face?"

Kurotsuchi continued to glare at Kokomi, attracting her further. He stood and kicked his fallen hat to the side, mentally recording her actions and calculating the cause. Kokomi smiled and twirled her pigtail as he neared closer, picking up a syringe. When Kurotsuchi was close enough, Kokomi put on her most attractive face and playfully poked him on the chest.

"We don't need to do an examination, do we?" She stroked his haori, adding in a sweet tone, "Darling?"

Kurotsuchi frowned. Kokomi raised her hand to his hair, running her hand through it.

"What an attractive face," She continued. "Why in the world do you make it look so clown-ish?"

Kurotsuchi huffed and pierced her arm with a tranquilizing dart. Kokomi fell unconscious, making sure to do so as gracefully as possible.

To a girl, there are four stages of crying. First is pre-crying, in which the stimulus is heard and taken in.

The second, and most commonly mistaken for the first stage, is the crying.

The third is the headache stage. It varies as to how it is brought and executed, but mainly consists of the girl staying in one place while staring at a single object, trying to regain what part of the world they have lost control over. This is commonly mistaken for denial because of the inescapable fact that the part of the world the girl has lost reign over will not be returned, in most cases. However, due to the variable detail in this stage and the headache produced by the second and experienced in this third, it is called the headache stage.

Sera lay on the floor of her steel-colored room, staring at the speaker that connected her room to the other end of the microphone. She was enduring the Headache stage, and enduring it typically. Her eyes were puffy and her nose was red, signs of a passed stage two. The insides of her head marched against her skull as she stared at the object, occasionally moving it a couple millimeters to the side with her eyes. The poor maintenance of the room had allowed it to rust after a water leak came in contact with its surface.

"What should I do?" Sera asked herself out loud, rolling on to her side. She repeated it over and over again, as if an answer would come bouncing off of the walls. The only answer she received was an echo of her question, forcing her to make the decision herself.

Sera rolled onto her stomach, burying her face in her arms. There was a sliding sound and the door to her steel-colored room opened. Rena stepped in, dressed in a shuhakusho and carrying two bottles of sake. Sera raised her head in time to see her turn around and close the door.

"How are ya, Sera!" Rena thrust a bottle into the air, her voice bouncing back to her.

Sera raised her head and looked up at her, mumbling something inaudible.

Rena kneeled down in front of her and set the two bottles on the floor. "Drink. Forget your problems for a bit, 'kay?"

Sera hid her eyes and broke the microphone. Sparks flew as it crashed to the floor, landing next to Rena's leg. She frowned, set herself cross-legged and slammed a bottle down.

"Don't look so weak! At least sit up and have dignity, woman!"

Sera looked up at her again, this time picking herself up and kneeled with her hands folded in her lap. She daintily picked up a bottle and sipped.

"Good." Rena smiled approvingly. "Now, I don't have much time to speak, so I'll cut to the chase. I can get you out of here."

"You can?" Sera's eyes widened.

"Yes. See, this thing I'm wearing?"

Sera nodded. "The Shinigami's uniform."

"Right. Kurotsuchi lent me this one—he shrunk one in the wash—and he said I could try it out to see how I liked it. He said he wanted to test our ability to wield zanpakuto."

"Zanpakuto?"

"Shinigami's blade. He needs two of us, and he told me to choose because he can't be bothered with it."

"What…" Sera paused, choosing her words carefully. "What happens to everyone else?"

"That's the thing…I don't know." Rena downed a big swish of sake.

"I don't…"

"You don't what?"

At this time, Sera entered the fourth stage of a girl's tears—the what-are-you-going-to-do-about-it stage. She straightened her back and arched her eyebrows in a thinking manner. Rena waited patiently for her answer, taking another gulp of sake. Sera look up after calculating her decision.

"I'll become a shinigami with you."

"Woo! Toast!" Rena met her bottle with Sera's. "To second chances!"

"To second chances." Sara smiled before tilting her head back to finish her bottle in one swig.

And with that, her crying ended, and her resolve pounded deep in her blood. Rena sat there, drinking with her, with great expectations for the future ahead.

"Not again!" Nadeshiko shouted, squeezing her eyes shut and shoving her cards across the table.

Hitsugaya smirked. "Embarassing story number eighteen."

"Don't!"

"You lost." Thinking quickly, Hitsugaya said the first story that came to his mind. "Nadeshiko was trying to catch fish with her hands at the edge of a stream."

Nadeshiko hid her face while he continued.

"I told her to move from there, otherwise her kimono would get wet when she fell. Though she said she wouldn't, she fell in while trying to catch a fish."

"I was standing on slippery rocks!" Nadeshiko protest

"Like an idiot."

"Where else was there to stand?"

"Everywhere but there."

"Ugh!" Nadeshiko returned to hiding her face.

"When Nadeshiko looked down," Hitsugaya tried not to laugh. "Standing with her legs close together, she noticed a group of small fish squirming between her knees."

"Don't say it!"

"Nadeshiko beamed and shouted, 'Toushiro, I caught some! Oh no, they're dying! Aah, they're squirming!'. She kept shouting things and picking them up hopelessly until she had one tiny squirming fish in her hand. Getting an idea, she—"

"Did not!"

"Did open her mouth wide and accidentally swallowed the fish whole. I looked at her and asked her why. She turned to me with tears in her eyes." Hitsugaya let loose a chuckle. "'I wanted to be a fish bowl!'."

"Gah!" Nadeshiko shook her head furiously in embarrassment. "That one's not even funny! Why'd you have to say it?"

"Should I have said the one about the caterpillar eyebrows again?"

"No." Nadeshiko gathered up the cards and began shuffling. "I demand a rematch so I can tell about one of your embarrassing moments."

Hitsugaya glanced at his window, noticing for the first time that it was dark.

"It's late."

"What?" Nadeshiko looked at the window. "We've been here that long?"

"It's been four hours."

"Ah! I have to go confirm those adoption forms...don't I."

"You still haven't given them that?"

Nadeshiko smiled. "I…don't know where exactly to go. Which reminds me!"

"What?"

"That's why I came here. I couldn't find Kamaro to ask him."

Hitsugaya sighed and stood up. "You're hopeless." He said, walking to the door. "Come."

"You'll take me there?"

"You would get lost if I gave you directions." Hitsugaya walked through the door, Nadeshiko following.

"I wouldn't get lost. Honestly, you think so little of me, Toushiro."

Click

"You would get lost."

"Is it hard to get to?"

"The people attending the building get off from duty at ten, and it's around nine. The fastest way from here splits into two different streets."

"And?"

"I know, no matter how many times I tell you to go right, you'll go left."

Nadeshiko stomped her foot, blushing. "I fixed my direction confusion!"

"Raise your left hand."

"My left…" Nadeshiko stopped, taking a second to look down at both of her hands before raising her left one. Realizing what Hitsugaya did, she blushed further. "Females wait before answering that question!"

Click

"Or do they?" Hitsugaya started to walk.

Nadeshiko followed, making a face at his back.

Ito lowered her camera from her eyes, smiling and content.

Author:

Again, sorry for the delay ._.

Oh, look! Kamaro now knows the situation! Or at least part of it. What shall become of this?

That's about all that's easily discussable in this chapter. Everything else is either twisted, crypted, or has been edited into the following chapter.

Ooh~ You all are going to absolutely love what's coming up~ It may go against all hints I've dropped so far! It may be ten tons more than what you ever expected! It may be completely sappy and make you say "Aww"! It may make many of you readers squeal and weird-out the people around you! And then, I'm sure, at least one reader will be displeased! So goes the world of fiction ._.

Give a horse water,

you cannnot force it to drink.

Give a cow a pasture,

you may not be able to fatten it.

Give me a story,

and I will read.

But I cannot be forced to speak.