DAY 29

Doing something sweet

In a way, he missed the old days. Now that Shunsui was the head-captain there was less time for his little romantic, sweet gestures.

It was a warm day, and rather stuffy in the office. Ukitake watched as Kiyone and Sentaro fluttered around; trying to out do each other on opening windows as fast as they could. It was comical and he rolled his eyes a little at the familiar commotion.

He was sitting on the floor at the moment, trying to fan some cool air across his face. It was just to stifling to work. Juushiro flopped over backwards and rested the back of his hand across his eyes.

Kiyone was there in an instant, "TAICHO! Are you alright? Shall I get a healer? Do you need anything?" The questions shot out quickly.

"I'm fine, thank you Kiyone." He smiled at her causing the blonde to blush a little. "It's just a little too warm and stretching out feels good."

"Oh I see," She almost sounded disappointed that her help wasn't needed. "You should go on a nice picnic, taicho."

"That's not a bad idea at all," He watched as her face pinked with pride. "You and Sentaro should come too, you deserve a break too." Kiyone's face brightened even more

"I love yo... We'd love to, who could turn down a picnic with you taicho?"

"Please make sure to invite Kyoraku and Ise, I'm sure they could use a break also."

Her face fell a bit, "Yes sir."

She and Sentaro fell over themselves in their enthusiasm to set up the picnic site just perfectly. He tried to hide the chuckle that bubbled up. His squad may not be front line fighters, but they were fiercely loyal to their captain. Most worshiped him or saw him as a father figure. He genuinely adored his squad.

Sitting on the picnic blanket; spread out on the ground he began to relax as a gentle breeze blew across the pond. The world may soon erupt into chaos again at any moment but by golly he was going to enjoy this one quiet moment.

Shortly a bright pink kimono and a regular shihakusho came into view. "What a lovely day for a picnic, Juu-chan." The deep baritone sang out.

"Yes it is my friend." Ukitake beckoned them forward. "Kiyone and Sentaro will be here shortly with the food."

"I can't stay long, I'm afraid sir." Nanao pushed her glasses up on the bridge of her nose. "There's a lieutenants meeting in about an hour."

"OH! man... " Kiyone nearly dropped her parcel. "I totally forgot about that. With Kuchiki away that means we have go." She roughly elbowed Sentaro in the ribs. He did an amazing balancing act to keep what he was carrying from dropping to the ground.

"We can go together," Nanao smiled slightly. Every one settled down to enjoy the meal and there were happy murmurs as the last of the food disappeared. Standing and brushing off an invisible speck, she wrangled the two squabbling third seats and they left with the promise of doing this sort of thing again sometime soon.

Shunsui let out a long suffering sigh, "Thank you for the invite. The office was getting stuffy."

"Mine too," Juushiro grinned. "I practically jumped at the chance to get out of the office."

"I kind of figured you'd be needing a break." Ukitake stretched out on the blanket. "Oh..." he reached into his sleeve, "I found something for you, but had to wait to give it to you." There was a small elaborately decorated box in his hand. "For your collection."

Since his graduation from the academy; Shunsui had begun to collect small glass animal figures. Occasionally Juushiro would find a unique one when he traveled home to visit his family. "It's nothing much, but I thought it was different from anything you already had."

Shunsui opened the box with glee. Inside was a tiny pair of glass fish leaping out of a spray of water. It sparkled in the afternoon sunlight. "It's beautiful, I love it." He leaned over and planted a tiny pecking kiss on Juushiro's cheek.

"You like it?" Ukitake questioned.

"Very much." Shunsui tugged Juushiro to his side and cuddled him close. "You are the sweetest person I know. You're always doing such sweet things for me."

"You do more for me."

"I'm not gonna get into an argument over who's sweeter. You'd always win in my eyes."

Juushiro stretched slightly and gave Shunsui a kiss. "You're half blind, that's not fair."

That's when the tickle battle started, leading up to some steamy sex at the side of the pond.