All this talk of disease has made me forget just what it was that started this project. A while back, I started "Paved with Good Intentions," a Yu-Gi-Oh story that was supposed to have followed this story's template as a one-shot collection. It eventually became much bigger than that, and ended up a traditional, sequential, cohesive plot. Such that I had to start another story, "Blue Eyes, Violet Eyes," to start afresh.
With various ongoing story arcs in this project, I think I've fallen into a similar trap, and forgotten what it means to write a one-shot collection. I've forgotten that the whole theory isn't to wait for the next idea, but to use any idea. And so, while this chapter does carry over certain things from the Decay arc, I feel like it's heading back into the right direction.
Let's get back to business, shall we?
He did not drink properly.
Or, suffice it to say that he did drink properly, and that was the problem. Like a proper little gentleman, a slender Lord at a proper breaking of fast with the fellows and the ladies of means. Though the others of his kind, dressed in the same uniforms, all sat at one communal table, he sat off in the corner, nursing a single mug of some other liquid.
Renji, and Ikkaku, and even Soi Fong wanted to drag Hitsugaya over with the rest of them and toast a real drink to the men and women they'd lost to decay; after all, he had been instrumental to keeping up morale. He was a beacon, a hero of the people. Ever the golden boy, the white dragon had proven his quality. Should he not be a part of their remembrance?
Matsumoto would not permit it. Though she drank fit to cauterize, not with a saucer but a jug to her name, whenever someone dared bring up the idea of bringing the captain of the Tenth over to the "big boys'" table and showing him what you were supposed to do in a tavern, she nixed it at once. Jovial as she always was when in her cups, you wouldn't have thought that Matsumoto Rangiku, of all people, would have been very threatening. But Matsumoto Rangiku, of all people, was very threatening. With the two captains, she was polite but steadfast; with Renji, she was outright hostile.
"Leave him," she said. "He wants to be alone."
"Then what's he here for?" Renji demanded. "Watering hole's no place for solitude, damn it! Shoulda stayed stuck up in his office if he wanted 'peace 'n quiet' or whatever the fuck."
"I don't care," Matsumoto replied icily. "If he wants to be here, and he wants to be alone, then I'll damn well make it so he can be both. I'll run the whole lot of these idiots out of here if he wants. I'll pay their tabs and buy phantom rounds for their empty chairs when they're gone, and keep the whole damn economy running myself, if I have to. Now shut up about my captain."
"Oh. O Captain, your Captain. Y'know, he belongs to a lot of people, not just you. Got hundreds o' soldiers he's captain for."
Matsumoto nearly sent the Sixth-Division adjutant through a wall; as it was, there was a Renji-sized imprint there, and nobody said anything more about it.
The night passed, the patrons left. If this had been the living world, the proprietor would have ordered the stragglers out; but this was Soul Society, and this place was little more than a roof over which to spend half a fraction of eternity; there was no set schedule here, outside the walls of the military.
Hitsugaya continued to drink his solitary drink, green eyes staring into the wood-grain and visiting various haunts in his disquieted mind. His sword was not with him; he had elected real quiet in his mind tonight, without the cold whisperings of the dragon.
Whatever it was that snapped him out of reverie, it didn't visit him until long after what would have been midnight. He looked up, around, his vision unfocused. There was only the barkeep, snoring loudly in a back corner.
And Matsumoto, seated some tables away, watching him.
Hitsugaya blinked. "…Rangiku."
She stood up, adjusted her blade and its scabbard so that it sat right with her uniform, and glided over to him. She wasn't plastered, or at least did not seem so. Her face was slightly flushed, but her own eyes were much clearer than Hitsugaya thought his must be.
She sat down at his table, and regarded him silently.
He said, "What are we doing, Rangiku? What…what is this, that we do? Why did it take a pandemic on top of threat of war to make us work together? Why is there this terror…this certainty in me that says…everything you and I, and Hinamori, and the men and women who stand behind us; why am I so sure that everything we've worked for will fall apart, now that Kudo's found a cure? Now that the threat of a death in squalor isn't hanging over their heads?"
He continued in this vein, venting his doubts and fears as though they were unwieldy luggage, tossing them onto the table. His voice strengthened as his vehemence rose, and real anger lit his green eyes. All through this, Matsumoto did not say a word. She simply watched him, patiently, reverently, a sort of serenity settled about her like a blanket.
Eventually, the young captain's voice lost its strength, and anger was not enough to keep him awake. He was still tired, still recovering his strength, and could not stay his usual vigilant self for long. Matsumoto knew full well that her captain would sleep through the rest of the night, and likely the whole of the coming day; she knew that she, like he usually did, would be pulling an all-nighter just to keep up with the work to which he would be unable to attend.
Still she smiled. Still she waited.
When finally Hitsugaya ceased his manifesto, clenched his fists and slammed them onto the table, waking the barkeep with a start, she reached out a hand. She set it onto his right wrist, which was taut and thin and trembling.
She leaned over, kissed his cheek, and stood.
"Come with me, Taichou," she said.
She did not say another word, as they walked together toward home.
Neither did he.
