XDDDD! Only one person reviewing… Hehehe… obviously this sucks... but hey, thanks Sweet Hikaru-chan! Now, onto the next chapter thingy!

Intro: Not much to say.. just read and find out I guess, but I did end up throwing some HitsuHina in, not enough to obsess over though... and of course...

Disclaimer: I don't own Bleach or any of the characters etc.

Toushirou scowled even more deeply. "Shut up. It's not that noticeable!"

The two vice-captains shook with silent laughter as Matsumoto answered. "Yeah it is… shame on you Taichou, I thought a boy genius would realise when he's obviously shorter than his younger brother…"

Matsumoto felt herself being pushed out of the room by a furious Toushirou, followed by Hinamori who was still giggling softly. Slamming the door on the two vice-captains, Toushirou sat himself down in his chair and turned back to his brother, who was still grinning at what had just happened. Toushirou glared at him. "Told you you're always grumpy about something…" Kumatsurou stopped when his captain's glare grew even colder. "Relax! Relax… I wouldn't tease you about it and stuff anyway, Nii-san."

Toushriou didn't reply but instead, walked over to the door, leaned down to the keyhole and screamed into it. "I TOLD YOU NOT TO LISTEN THOUGH THE KEYHOLE MATSUMOTO!" He was answered by a shriek, followed by the sound of two certain female vice-captains giggling as they ran away from the office door. Heaving himself back into the chair, he sighed. Why did Matsumoto have to always invade his privacy? "Anyway, you wanted to know what happened to me in all this time. Well, after I left…"

The sun was still rising as a young boy ran through the town. He ran as if he was a hunted animal, running from an unseen predator. Toushirou kept on running, even though he was already tired. Kumatsurou was the runner, not me, he thought to himself as he ran, trying not to think of the brother he would probably never see again. I will never go back to that place, he swore to himself, this oath was all that kept him going, until he reached the border of the 41th District. Finally, he collapsed, and lay on the riverbank, breathing heavily as the sun shone high in the sky.

A short while later, he was lying down, daydreaming, something he hadn't done for years, when he felt a sharp jolt on his side and when he opened his eyes, he found a young girl with her hair tied up in a bun lying across his body.

"Gomen nasai! Gomen nasai!" The girl screamed as she tried to get herself untangled from Toushirou. The boy genius felt like screaming himself, but refrained from doing so, for a few reasons. One, because he wasn't one to usually start screaming, and two, the words he felt like screaming probably weren't entirely appropriate. The strange girl finally managed to get up off of Toushirou, and bent over almost double as she apologised. "Gomen nasai! Gomen nasai! Gomen na-"

"Shut up already." Toushirou interrupted, already bored with the girl's never-ending torrent of apologies. He pushed her off of him, and she landed in the river. Pulling herself out, she stared in dismay at her kimono, itwas drenched. Toushirou seemed unimpressed. "So, what do they call you? Bed-wetter?" He didn't really know why he called her that, but the soaked kimono made him think of it.

She blushed as she shook her head. "No, I'm Hinamori Momo."

Toushirou shrugged. "Close enough, Bed-wetter Momo. Hitsugaya Toushirou." His tone was still cold, he was hoping she would take the hint and leave him alone, but she seemed to either not care or she was too dense to do so.

"So, um, what are you doing out here all by yourself?" She hesitated before adding, "Shirou-kun?"

He scowled. "Don't call me that. And I'm not doing anything, obviously."

She shrugged. "Shirou-kun fits you. Your name's too long anyway, and why are you all by yourself doing nothing?" Toushirou didn't answer. In truth, he was quite surprised that this girl had been able to remain defiant about the nickname, even under his icy glare, andcontinue with her interrogation at the same time.

Sighing, he answered, as he stared out across the river. "I ran away. I used to live in this hell hole and I hated every minute of it, so I left." He stopped. From what he had seen of the girl so far, she wouldn't be satisfied with this hasty answer, but he didn't really care. He had never before met a person who could outlast him when it came to acting bored and ignoring others. He hadn't met Hinamori Momo before though.

Hinamori opened her mouth to demand a fuller explanation from the kid, but she shut it suddenly as a thought came to her. "So… Shirou-kun doesn't have a home now?"

"Don't call me that, but yeah, I don't."

"Then you can come stay with me!"

"No way! There is no way I am going to be spending the rest of my days living with a bed-wetter. I'm not coming and that's final!"

Ten minutes later, Hinamori Momo was pushing a blushing Hitsugaya Toushirou forward to meet her parents as she exclaimed happily. "This is Shirou-kun! He has no home, so I invited him to stay with us!" Toushirou was gaping as he tried to retort, but Hinamori's mother quickly cut in.

"Of course! Such a cute young man as well! You can stay with us for as long as you want, and Momo could do with a younger brother." Still Toushirou couldn't speak, he was still shocked by what had just happened. After he had delivered his ultimatum to Hinamori by the riverbank, she had responded by forcefully dragging him all the way back home. Despite his continual struggling, he found to his great astonishment he couldn't escape the grip of the determined young girl. Now, he was still reeling in shock from what had happened as he was ushered upstairs into a small room next to Hinamori's. "This will be your room Shirou-kun." Hinamori's mother informed him.

"Actually, it's Toushirou, Hitsugaya Toushirou. Hinamori just… keeps forgetting." He didn't know why he was making up such a lame excuse, because after all, he did hate that nickname, and Hinamori had been bugging him since he had met her, at least, that's what he wanted to think. But he had little time to ponder over this little problem, as HInamori burst into the room not long after and dragged him outside again, proclaiming that he should get to know the "other people around here".

After an hour or so of meeting various adults, Toushirou suddenly felt a whole new sympathy for animals kept in captivity, Hinamori had treated him like a sort of attraction, and had paraded him around he neighbourhood. However, something else had also bugged him. Every one of the neighbourhood friends he had been introduced to had been an adult. "Don't you have any friends who are… your age?" Hinamori blushed.

"Well, Shirou-kun, you and I are actually the only kids around here." We're the only kids here? That's impossible…" However, after several weeks of this new life, he found that Hinamori's words were true, everyone around was at least in their 40's it seemed, so he often found that Hinamori was his only source of company.

He brought it up with his new foster parents one night, and found that they had been wanting to do something about it for a long time. "We always suspected that Momo needed some other kids her age to play with, but she always kept quiet, and never once told us that she felt bored or anything."

"Well, she is." Toushirou wondered if Hinamori ever said anything to upset her parents, or any other adults for that matter. Even with him, whom she was starting to treat as an annoying little brother, she rarely said anything to anger him, even the nickname she used, he was getting accustomed to the sound of it, and found that he didn't detest it quite as much anymore.

Toushirou's confrontation with her parents had the desired effect. The whole family moved away to the 25th district, where there were a lot more children in the vicinity. The two siblings enjoyed their new home much more, for there were always kids who they could play with, and some they would've preferred to stay away from. There were a group of kids who ruled the area, feared by all the other children, Hinamori and Toushirou usually steered clear of this small group of troublemakers, but one day, they had no choice…

"Hey look! It's the Crybaby taking her baby brother out for a walk!" The kids teased Hinamori and Toushirou unmercifully. Hinamori's eyes began to water. Although she could be tough sometimes, she found situations like these unbearable, and usually broke down, hence the cruel nickname. At the sight of Hinamori's distress, Toushirou's blood boiled.

"Shut up and leave her alone, Big mouth."

"Oh look! The crybaby's baby brother wants to stick up for her…" The leader snickered, staring down at the defiant Toushirou.

"I'll make you pay. For making Hinamori cry, and for that remark about me…" Toushirou's voice was icy cold and his glare would've frozen a geyser, but the offending kid didn't seem to notice. It wasn't until Toushirou landed a blow in his large overinflated stomach, that he didn't act quite as jauntily. "Now piss off before I do something worse to you…" Toushirou was eyeing a large tree branch that had fallen, and edged towards it. The remaining kids took the hint, and the leader, left without a single reinforcement, hastily made his retreat as well. Toushirou bent down to comfort Hinamori, who was still sobbing. "Hey, you can stop the waterworks now, Bed-wetter."

"Thanks, Shirou-kun." Toushirou merely shrugged and headed for home, with Hinamori following him. The next day, Toushirou noticed that Hinamori seemed to have gained a deeper respect for him. Outside, he put on his normal mask of indifference, but inside, he felt gladdened, and he smiled to himself. Despite his initial reluctance, he had been secretly wanting Hinamori to notice him more, and for her to respect him. Also, he still hadn't shown anyone his academic abilities yet, but that could always wait until another day.

As Captain Hitsugaya finished his story, there was a small movement behind the mouse hole in the wall behind the desk. Vice Captain Matusmoto smiled as she moved her ear away from the hole. She was standing in a lowered area, so she only had to bend down slightly to listen at the hole. She knew that her Captain knew about her listening in the keyhole, but he had never once suspected that the mouse hole in the wall was actually another one of her spying mechanisms. She turned around to Hinamori, who had refused to spy on the captain and his brother as they talked.

"You should've listened Hinamori, you would've heard some pretty interesting stuff." She grinned gleefully. Hinamori remained defiant.

"I don't want to spy on Hitsugaya-kun, if he wanted to tell me that stuff, he would." Matusmoto smiled again as she thought of what she had just overheard. I don't think he'd tell you in that much detail though Hinamori, especially not those parts where he admitted to enjoying your company…

Kumatsurou listened intently to his brother's tale, he had always wanted to know what had gone on between the time Toushirou had run away and when he became a captain, but there was still more to find out. "So what about when you became a Shinigami, Nii-san?"

Toushirou sighed. There wasn't much to tell, really. "I just joined the Shinigami Academy along with Hinamori, and graduated faster than anyone else had ever done before. I was also the youngest person ever to become a captain. Then, yeah… that's about it." Kumatsurou accepted this without much question. His brother had never been one to elaborate, and he could always bug him later to find out the finer details, especially those that concerned the girl Hinamori.

"So Nii-san, do you like Hinamori-fukutaichou?"

Toushirou's face had turned a brilliant shade of red as he answered. "Wh-wh-what? Of course not! Y-y-you insane!"

Stuff: There, hope you guys liked it! All one of you... :D