It was just a date.

Nothing more than a few hours out in some high-scaled restaurant that was probably extravagant to the point of being ridiculous and tacky; the serving crews paid fairly decent to keep themselves from blurting something out about the ugly decor and ill-colored tablecloths. Or perhaps he was just merely overreacting about it to keep himself calm. Not that he was worried or anything… The fact that it had taken him ten minutes to arrange his tie and it still wasn't done was just a mere inconsistency; he hadn't used one in so long, his skills has gotten a bit rusty, that was all. Giving up on it for now, he straightened out the black jacket of his suit and gave yet another look at himself in the mirror. It was just the classic black-tie affair uniform with the crisp white shirt underneath, and… well, an unmade tie for now but it would be done before they left. In all honesty, it wasn't his best suit but he didn't want to pack that one in fear that it would wrinkle or get destroyed; and seeing how things had gone along in the passing weeks, he was glad it was safely hung up in his closet in the Eleventh Division house.

He didn't really have to worry about his hair since it was always in line.

Everything else seemed to be going smoothly just as well.

The reservations had been set a few days before and they still had an hour to cash in on them; they were both getting dressed up and prepared in separate rooms- or rather separate ends of the apartment. Hopefully she still liked her dress and didn't decide to hate it at the last minute, he had seen some of the other female Shinigamis pull that kind of trick; if that happened well… they could always just stay in the apartment and… watch TV. He doubted that she would step out from the date though, she wasn't the type of person to waste someone's time like that and would at least give it an honest chance- even if she hated the dress. He couldn't see how, he was certain it would look beautiful on her regardless but women seemed to have a different train of thought and different eyesight than men did.

Other than that, everything seemed to be in line, at least from his point.

Unless something went terribly wrong this evening and screwed up his plans. What if the restaurant wrote his name down wrong? What if the restaurant turned out to be a complete waste and was a massive disappointment? He did really only choose it because of the name and description, as well as a few pictures… it wasn't like he had actually been to it or even seen it personally. If it did turn out to be a setback then that would be rather embarrassing for him. What if some guy at the place tried to hit on her? What would he do in retaliation to that? The best option would be take the guy out back and hide the body but that was just his opinion on the matter.

Oh, listen to him, he sounded so… human.

Here he was more worried about trivial, non-life threatening matters when his attention should've been more focused on what if a Hollow showed up or something? What if the barrier was never lifted and they were stuck here for an infinite amount of time?

On second thought, let's go back to the restaurant matters instead, at least he had a decent answer for those ones.

Stepping out of his small room, he tried to go back to fixing his tie as he went down his mental checklist; marking off each note as he thought them through. The only thing he was missing was his tie and his date, and only one of those was easy for him to situate. "Miss. Kotetsu, are you almost ready?"

She glanced up at his question and chuckled lightly to herself as she fitted in a pair of new earrings. "You could say something like that."

For once, she almost hated keeping her hair short since there was no way to style it but… again, it was safer to keep it as such when working in Division Four; sometimes patients got out of hand and she didn't want her hair to get pulled- she already had a close encounter with her earrings once before. She toyed with the long dangles of her newest set and observed how they hung halfway down her neck, almost touching her shoulders… perhaps they were too extravagant. It was like she felt both overdressed and under-dressed at the same time. She didn't go on very many dates, well actually none that required this much preparation; that wasn't to say that no one ever took her anywhere nice, they just didn't have extravagant places in the Society. Well maybe they did and she just didn't know about it. Matsumoto did used to talk about this one place- ah, she was just wasting her time and distracting herself with these thoughts.

Hands moved to smooth out her dress for the seemingly hundredth time that hour; feeling the soft material of the dress conform to her tall figure and smoothing hands. The split felt like it was a bit higher now than how it was in the store but that could've just been because of the flesh-toned stockings she had slipped on underneath. It just felt like her shoulders were suddenly too broad or her waist was too thick or… her legs were too long- not that he would really care for those matters. Maybe she was just feeling hypersensitive about it, but that was normal right?

She had gone against wearing make up considering she didn't bring any and… well didn't own any anyways; she never had time to put it on so it was an useless matter to her. It seemed like the rest of her outfit would make up for the lack of chemicals on her face. What, with the triple digit dress, the slimming stockings, the hanging earrings and the black flats she was about to slip herself into. Heels was another thing she was venomously against just the same and the dress looked fine with the new flats regardless. Of course, had Matsumoto been here that would've been a complete different story. But throwing on another three or four inches to balance out her already six foot frame on tiny little squares was not something she wanted to risk; it sounded like a mess of broken ankles, sprained heels and pain all over.

Alright, everything looked to be in order and there was very little chance of suffering a wardrobe malfunction. It would seem like she was set to go… now all she had to do was actually get herself to step out into the living room. She didn't know why she suddenly felt so nervous about it. It was probably just her nerves, that was all; they tended to get themselves all jumbled together just before a large event.

"Are you sure the restaurant spelled your name correctly?"

"Yeah, I mean Ayasegawa isn't that difficult…"

She caught the light way his voice seemed to trail off as though he was trying to assure himself just the same. Shaking her head, she checked herself over for the last time- she swore- before fingers grabbed her small black handbag from the dresser and headed out. They still had an hour to go but they wanted to get there a bit early and check the place out. "Alright, handsome, let's head on out. And remind me not to get anything messy, I don't want to stain the dress."

"Oh, I'm sure it'll be fine; I mean, if it's black then not a lot will-" he started as he finished arranging his tie before he turned back to her. She was toying with the simple neckpiece that held up the top half of the dress which openly exposed her slender shoulders; the fabric followed along the curves of her chest and seemingly clung to the narrowing shape of her waist. Switching her attention to her handbag instead, she slowly started over to him and showed off the long split up one side of the dress; her leg just peeking through every now and again as her movement shook the small fabric train behind her.

"Not a lot will what?" she questioned, although already knowing that there was a low chance he would finish his sentence. Not that she really had all too much to say for herself… he looked rather dashing in a suit. "Forget it, let's just head out and see how well this date will go."

"… Yeah, yeah, date." he repeated as he snapped himself out of his slight daze. "Well, it's not all too far from here, so worst case scenario, the restaurant is atrocious; we can simply come back here, dress back down and head out somewhere else for the evening." he watched as she nodded in agreement before she moved towards him and eventually passed by. He had to chuckle lightly at her choice of footwear for the evening. "Decided against heels for the night?"

"Ayasegawa, if I wore heels, I'd literally be able to step on you right now."

"I wouldn't count that as a bad thing."

"How long has it been? A week?"

Nanao sighed briefly at the question and gave a light shrug in response. "I think it's been longer. Almost two weeks now I believe." pushing up on her glasses, she looked over to where the blonde-haired woman was seating herself against the smooth heating rocks that lined the outside of the hot springs. She herself didn't really feel like coming out here but the Tenth Lieutenant had practically begged and dragged her out saying it would help to relax the both of them. So far, she wasn't feeling it. "My research still hasn't turned up anything useful."

"I think we're just going to have to deal and play the waiting game here." Matsumoto remarked as she pulled her thick locks up before she clipped them into place; keeping them out of reach from the water's surface. "Unfortunately no one here is like National Waiting Game Champion so we're going to have a difficult time dealing with it. But bitching and moaning about it isn't going to get us anywhere either. I guess the least we could do is not drive ourselves and everyone around us crazy."

She frowned briefly at the woman's comment but decided to keep to herself about it. "I suppose you have a point and in the end, I suppose we're just the ones overreacting with it. I'm sure they're fine and enjoying themselves fully, I mean it's like an elongated vacation to them after all."

"Hmm… yeah, it kind of is but I hardly expected to hear you agree to say such a thing."

"Well don't expect it again." Nanao retorted as she crossed her arms over the pale-beige towel she had wrapped around her body. "It only gives me a migraine to list all the worse-case scenarios, so I might as well go with an option that won't leave me irritated. Plus, we haven't had really any Hollow readings so we should be stable on that leg, and that was the one I was worried most about."

"You and everyone else." Matsumoto reminded before she turned her attention to the surrounding fence that was supposed to keep the area marked off and keep anyone of the opposite sex out. "I told Hinamori we were going to meet here just ten minutes ago and she's already late? How can someone do that?"

She rolled her eyes lightly and tried to level her focus on something else around them. "Have her burns healed completely? If not, then she might not want to risk putting them in scolding water."

"She told me they were healed, I mean Captain Unohana wouldn't release her if she didn't think her injuries were cured properly." the blonde shrugged. "I mean, I can understand why Kiyone isn't here or why Sentaro isn't either."

"Well considering this is a female-only spring, I would certainly hope there's a good reason Officer Sentaro isn't here." Nanao corrected. "Last I heard, Lieutenant Chojiro was just released from Division Four as well but was put on a week-long arrangement of bed rest. Knowing Chojiro though, he probably won't completely abide to those rules."

"Ha, you know, knowing those other two, they're probably in a better health standing there than we are here."