Intro: Okay, here's some fluffy lovey stuff for you people out there, obvious pairing, HitsuHina, and also KumaRan
Disclaimer: I don't own Bleach, anime, manga, characters, place, washing detergent, etc.
Kumatsurou and Matsumoto were left alone in the room. Toushirou had gone off to find Hinamori after the tournament had finished. He was still slightly dazed from the previous day's events. Against all odds, he had managed to win the right to captaincy of the 5th Division. Matsumoto came in, holding a bottle of sake. "Come on Kumatsurou-kun, have a drink with me! It's time to celebrate!" She sat herself down on the couch, rather heavily, and patted the seat beside her, beckoning to Kumatsurou to join her.
"I'm not supposed to drink, Matsumoto-san."
"Aww, don't worry, Taichou won't know."
"Bet he would somehow find out…" Matsumoto sighed, her hopes of getting the young boy drunk with her had now gone down the drain.
"Alright then, but come and sit with me anyway Kumatsurou-kun. Although I should call you Hitsugaya-taichou now shouldn't I?" Kumatsurou shrugged.
"Whatever's fine, I like Kumatsurou-kun better anyway, I don't want to hear you call me taichou, sounds so weird." Matsumoto giggled again, and then hiccuped, the sake had made its way through her body already.
"You know you're really cute!" Kumatsurou looked taken back. She thought he was cute? He wondered if she felt the same way he had felt about her ever since they had met though. "You know, you're a lot like Taichou, guess that's one of the reasons I like you so much." Oh great, she likes Toushirou. "I mean, I respect Taichou a lot, even though he's just a little kid, but I dunno, there's something different about you, which sorta, makes me like you in a different way."
Kumatsurou 's heart flipped. She actually likes me? Smiling, the newly appointed captain sat down beside Matsumoto, put his arm around her shoulder, and whispered. "I like you too, Matsumoto-san."
As the two drifted off to sleep on the faded couch, Hinamori pulled her eyes away from the mouse hole. Toushirou was standing behind her, still dazed at what he had just discovered. Hinamori had called to him in the morning, and told him to come meet her. When he reached the 5th Division Office, she dragged him all the way back to his own headquarters. "Why the hell did you get me to go all that way if you wanted to come back here?" He demanded. Hinamori put a finger to her lips and beckoned to the boy genius.
"In here Shirou-chan." To his surprise, he found the two of them going through a secret door in the wall, and heading down a passageway, which ended rather abruptly.
"Where the hell are we Hinamori? What is this place?" He was about to say more, but Hinamori clapped her hand over his mouth and pointed towards a hole in the wall, slightly above eye level for Toushirou. What's that hole doing in the wall?
"This is Matsumoto-san's special place. She uses it all the time to spy on you when you kick her out." Hinamori's voice was a whisper as she said this, but Toushirou caught every word. So that's how she ends up finding out everything I do in my office… I'm going to kill Matsumoto, always pretending to be so good, then she just comes waltzing into this little hole of hers to look out for more gossip about me… I swear I'll… "Shirou-chan! Snap out of it!" Hinamori was shaking the boy's shoulders. "It's time for the fun to begin." A second hole was next to the one Hinamori was stationed at. Putting his eye to it, Toushirou found himself staring at Matsumoto, who was on the couch as usual, and he could hear Kumatsurou's voice, even though he couldn't see him.
"I'm not supposed to drink, Matsumoto-san." Damn straight, don't corrupt the kid, Matsumoto.
"Aww, don't worry, Taichou won't know." Hell yes I would, if you made him drink as much as you do, I'd be able to smell the alcohol from a mile away.
"Bet he would somehow find out…" Yeah... thanks to your little spyhole Matsumoto.
And now they were sitting on the couch together, his arm wrapped around her, having just confessed their feelings to each other. Hitsugaya Toushirou sweatdropped. His own brother, pairing up with his vice-captain? This had to be a bad dream. "Aww… they look so cute together, don't they Shirou-chan?"
Toushirou was still in a state of shock but replied anyway. "You knew this was going to happen, didn't you Hinamori?"
Hinamori smiled as she replied. "Of course Shirou-kun! Anyone could see that those two were meant to be, I mean, ever since he joined the 10th squad, Kumatsurou-kun's been stealing glances at Matsumoto-san. You'd have to be blind to not have noticed."
Toushirou sweatdropped as he heard her reasoning. I never noticed… does that mean I'm blind? However, he decided not to relate these thoughts to Hinamori. "So, Shirou-kun, what do you think about relationships?"
"Wha-wha-what!" The innocent question caught him totally off guard, and he was now gaping in shock, his mouth moving up and down several times as he tried to recover from the surprising question.
"Never mind… You don't really like me, do you Hitsugaya-taichou… Even in Rukongai, after we met, and you came to live with us, you always rejected my little signs of affection, the nickname, everything. You didn't even tell me you HAD a brother, much less a twin." Hinamori's back was turned to him, but even the usually insensitive boy genius could tell that she was crying as she said it, and tears fell to the ground in front of her. Toushirou was speechless. Was it true? Did he really hate Hinamori that much?
"Hinamori… I…" But it was too late, the vice-captain had left, tears streaming from her eyes as she ran out of the 10th Division building. As Toushirou walked into his office, he was met by a horrendous noise. The intertwined snoring of Matsumoto and Kumatsurou was blasting at him on max volume, and it was anything but harmonious. He stared out the window sullenly. I do like you, Hinamori…
After a few weeks, another captain's meeting was held. The three new captains looked forward to it, after all, it was their first captain's meeting, well, as captains. Yamamoto wasted no time in getting to the point. "As you are all aware, all the captains have the ability to release their Bankai, except for Zaraki Kenpachi, but he is a notable exception that I'm certain does not apply to any of our new captains. Therefore, we must implement a training program for the three of you to achieve Bankai. However, it is a long and tedious process, requiring up to 10 years, but hopefully, under the guidance of the existing captains, we can reduce that amount by a year or two. Therefore, I would like to have some volunteers who would assist with this training."
"Excuse me." All eyes were turned to Kuchiki Byakuya. "Although the conventional training period is indeed 10 years, there is a method of achieving Bankai in 3 days." A mass of murmuring broke out, 3 days was an exceptionally short time.
"Silence! Byakuya, I have always had much faith in your words, but even I would find that impossible to believe. 3 days is an exceptionally short period of time to achieve 10 years worth of training. What proof do you have of this miracle method of yours?"
"Sir, I do not know the finer details of it, but the drifter, Kurosaki Ichigo, fought me with his Bankai, which Shihouin Yoruichi helped him to obtain in the space of 3 days. I would contact her to ask about this unorthodox method of training." The murmuring continued, to make contact with, much less ask for assistance from those who had been exiled was unthinkable, and now, without the Central 46, Yamamoto would be the one to make the decisions. After a moment of deliberation, he gave his decision.
"Very well. We will invite Shihouin Yoruichi to return, and get her to show us this method, so the new captains can achieve their Bankai quickly and then spend more time perfecting it, for it is inevitable that Aizen will return, and we must be as prepared as possible."
When the meeting was adjourned, Kumatsurou and Toushirou walked off together. However, when they reached the 5th Division building, Kumatsurou didn't stop. "Aren't you going back to your office now? You belong to the 5th Division now you know…"
"Actually, I said I'd go hang out with Matsumoto for a bit, so I gotta go to the 10th Office to find her." Kumatsurou didn't bat an eyelid as he said this, he had actually become used to showing affection to the attractive vice-captain in public, so this was no big deal to tell his plans to his brother.
"I... see…" At the thought of the couple, Toushirou's thoughts wandered back to Hinamori. She had barely spoken to him in the past weeks, and when they met, she would only utter a polite greeting before scurrying away.
"By the way, what did you do to Hinamori-san?" Toushirou stiffened at the question, did he really want to tell his brother?
"Nothing."
"Aww... come on Nii-san, I know something happened between you two. She barely ever talks to you these days, and every time I try to talk to her about it, she just turns back to her paperwork. I never knew you had to do so much work as a captain." He sighed, the first couple of days he had found himself swamped with paperwork, primarily because he had to catch up on a lot of it from since Aizen had faked his death.
"She… asked me about dating, then I got kinda, surprised about it and she misunderstood me…" The twins had stopped walking now, and Kumatsurou was now staring at his brother.
"Aiya... Nii-san, for a boy genius, you don't know a lot do you?" Toushirou felt a surge of indignation at this comment.
"Hey, you're a boy genius as well!"
Kumatsurou shrugged. "Well, I'm not as much of a genius as you, and I know this stuff…" Toushirou fell silent, his brother was right there. "Just go and apologise to her, and tell her how you really feel, I mean, it is pretty obvious, everyone knew how worried you were after Aizen's attack, even though you were pretty badly hurt yourself, you still wanted to be at her side the whole time. It's like, so obvious Nii-san! But Hinamori's not going to believe or know that unless you go and friggin tell her!" Kumatsurou was starting to sound a bit agitated. Giving relationship advice wasn't his strong point. "That's what I'd do anyway…" Shrugging, he left his brother to ponder over what they had just discussed, and ran off to find Matsumoto.
There was a timid knock on the door. "Who is it? Come in!" The door opened to reveal Hitsugaya Toushirou. "Shirou-cha… Hitsugaya-taichou…" Hinamori tried not to show her surprise at the captain's presence. If it had been the Toushirou she knew, he would have either knocked loudly or just barged in, and she would have prepared herself to meet him, but she had definitely not expected him to come knocking so quietly.
"Hinamori… I want to tell you something." Hinamori felt her cheeks burn. Even though she had convinced herself that Toushirou had no feelings for her, she hadn't been able to let go of the feelings she had for him. Looking up, she saw that his face was also a bright red as he struggled to put his words together, something she had never known him to do. "I uh… I…"
"What is it…?" She hesitated before adding. "Shirou-chan?"
"About that other day… when you asked me, about relationships..." Hinamori held her breath as he continued. "You… just caught me off guard, I didn't mean to offend you. I'm sorry."
"Shirou-chan…" She breathed. So what did this mean? Did he have feelings for her as well?
"And… I wanted to tell you that… I… I… well… I like you…" Hinamori was frozen to the spot as he said this, and after he finished, her face was white with shock.
Sighing, Toushirou turned around to leave. I guess she doesn't like me after all… fat lot of good Kumatsurou's advice did… next time I see him I'll… But the captain had no more time to think of ways to kill his brother, for the next moment, a flying ball of human flesh flew into him, and he struggled to keep his balance, before finally falling onto the floor, with a delighted Hinamori on top of him. "SHIROU-CHAN!" She wrapped him in a tight embrace as she lay on him.
Smiling, Toushirou returned the hug. "Bed wetter Momo…"
Outside the door, Kumatsurou and Matsumoto had their faces to the floor as they peered under the crack of the door. "I always wondered why you ordered that new door last week Kumatsurou… especially when I heard it had an extra large crack at the bottom. Seemed strange to want the wind to come in under the door..."
Chuckling, Kumatsurou replied. "I guess I just take after you, I needed some way of spying on our office, in case something happened with Toushirou, and I believe he already found out about the mouse hole idea."
"Hmm… I'll have to talk to Hinamori about that, giving away my secrets like that, maybe I could get a one sided mirror installed, then I won't have to bend down to that mouse hole anymore…" Kumatsurou grinned as he heard her suggestion,
"Better be careful Yumichika doesn't find it, otherwise he'll spend the rest of his life in your office."
The two of them were interrupted by a surprised voice, belonging to one of the lower members of the 5th Division, who just happened to be passing by the office door. "Kumatsurou Taichou, Matsumoto Fukutaichou, what are you doing on the floor?" Both Kumatsurou and Matsumoto stood up hastily, muttering something about trying to see if the floor required cleaning.
Stuff: Mmm... yeah... that's done, next is... well... you'll have to wait to find out won't you?