Our newest victim(s) are Kyouraku Shunsui and Ise Nanao of the Eight Division. Pray for them.
Disclaimer: If I owned Bleach, Hisagi would GET A FRICKIN' BACK-STORY. Again, I own no one but Chiyuu (and Byakuya's ducky kids). Oh, yeah. And since FF isn't letting me reply to reviews, if you WOULD like me to, just mention it in your review and I'll e-mail you or something. And yes, this chapter is not that funny as some of the others. Oh, well! Again, that's life!
Ise Nanao, vice-captain of the Eighth Division, was highly displeased, and this was made quite evident when she tightened her grip on her book and slid her glasses up the bridge of her nose. Her eyes were narrowed slightly, and the therapist didn't have to be keenly observant to know that the woman wasn't happy with her current location and predicament.
"I appreciate you both seeing me on such short notice," Chiyuu began, watching Nanao carefully out of the corner of her eye as she tucked her pen behind her ear and browsed through the files on her desk. "I hope I didn't drag you out of anything too important."
Kyouraku Shunsui waved a hand lazily through the air, dispelling any doubts the therapist might have harbored. "Just sitting down for some early-morning sake," he assured her. "But Nanao-chan wouldn't let me!"
"You have a meeting in two hours," Nanao said shortly, a flicker of light catching in her lenses as she turned her head slightly to look at her indolent superior. "It would be prudent to be completely sober while in attendance, Kyouraku-taichou."
"But that's no fuuuuuun!" He whined, burying his hands inside the sleeves of his pink flowered coat and presenting her with his best pout.
Nanao remained unmoved. "Also, your stamp is required for several important documents that were due yesterday afternoon. I put them on your desk and they're still there, if my suspicions are correct."
"No, they're not!" Shunsui informed her gleefully. "I accidentally spilled some sake on my desk this morning and I used it to clean up the puddle so my dear, dear Nanao-chan wouldn't get mad at me! Aren't you proud of me, Nanao-chaaaaan?"
Hitting him with her book would probably only make him happier, she thought disappointedly.
"Um... excuse me," Chiyuu piped up from her usual spot. "I was asked to schedule therapy for the both of you, because it seems that Nanao-san doesn't like Shunsui-san's attitude towards her, and Shunsui-san thinks that Nanao-san should loosen up. Is that right?" Strangely enough, her tone had gone flat, as if her opinion differed from those reasons, but she said nothing on her thoughts about it and instead patiently waited for a reply.
"I love my l-o-v-e-l-y Nanao-chan," Shunsui drawled, reaching out to place a hand on his vice-captain's head. "B-but Nanao-chan just doesn't know how to have fun! She's so cruel! So coooold! It makes me shiver!"
"Perhaps Kyouraku-taichou should wear a warmer coat then," Nanao couldn't resist retorting.
"So COOOOOOOOOOOLD, MY SWEET NANAO-CHAAAAAN..."
Chiyuu's head swiveled back and forth between the two of them, and her look of confusion soon gave way to a small smile of realization. "I get it now," she muttered, mostly to herself. Then, louder, "Nanao-san, Shunsui-san, I've pretty much got it figured out. For this week... Nanao-san, I want you to be as ladylike as possible, and be all that Shunsui-san wants you to be. As for Shunsui-san, you will be the type of captain that Nanao-san wants you to be the week after that. That should help improve your relationship. Nanao-san, stay with me after this session, please. You're going to need a little help in getting started."
It was apparent that both Eighth Division members were a little wary on what this could possibly entail, but Chiyuu seemed to know what she was doing, so Shunsui excused himself to get ready for his meeting (and guzzle some sake before Nanao could scold him), while his vice-captain remained seated and gazed at the shorter shinigami expectantly.
"Hm," the therapist murmured, critically eyeing Nanao as she rose from her desk and walked around her in a slow, calculating circle. "Not too bad... but those will have to go... and that... oh, and that too."
"Those and that WHAT?" Nanao inquired warily. In return, she was faced with a smile so blinding that she had to blink several times to restore her vision to its usual clarity.
"The glasses, your hairstyle, and your book," Chiyuu answered, wresting the latter from Nanao's iron grip and calmly extending her hand for the glasses. "Shunsui-san wants you to be ladylike, right? And apparently, you nag him too much about things. So... first, we change your look. Then, we change your attitude. Let him do whatever he wants. Do whatever you think will make him happy."
"Whatever I—wait, I need those!" A flustered Nanao made a grab for her glasses as the therapist reached over and neatly unhooked them from behind her ears. "You don't understand, Soujuku-san, I need them to see—"
"Exactly," Chiyuu agreed, and a wicked gleam entered her eyes. "You'll just have to rely on Shunsui-san's gallant chivalry to get around, won't you?"
Needless to say, Nanao was not thrilled with her new look, and her unhappiness only escalated when Chiyuu took away her hair-clip and let her tresses flow free.
"Don't give me that look," the shorter girl said placidly, opening up a drawer and placing the items inside. "I had to part with my ribbon to help Byakuya-san, and he had to lose his hair curl—er... kenseikan. I guarantee that you WILL survive." The drawer closed, and with it came the dreaded knowledge that Ise Nanao's fate was irrevocably sealed.
"Remember, your goal this week is to keep your captain happy!" Chiyuureminded herwith a cheerful smirk, placing her hands against Nanao's back and firmly pushing the vice-captain towards the door. "Have a good day and I'll see you in a week!" She released her to walk the rest of the way...
..And Nanao strode proudly into a wall.
WHAM. "..." THUD.
"Nanao-san! Are you okay? Nanao-san!"
Things were bound to become very entertaining this week.
---One Week Later---
Of all the possible people that could have been furious with her, Chiyuu thought to herself, it HAD to have been Shunsui. She honestly couldn't remember ever having seeing the captain angry before (unless one of his Division members was injured during Hollow patrol, or someone threatened Nanao), so she gave herself credit for merely raising an eyebrow and remaining seated behind her desk.
"What seems to be the problem, Shunsui-san?" She inquired, her face a perfect mask of blankness, devoid of curiosity. Byakuya would have been proud.
"What have you done to my Nanao-chan?" Shunsui wailed, gesturing to the blinking woman beside him (and keeping a firm grip on her arm so that she didn't walk into any more walls, or off any more roofs, or confuse Byakuya with Unohana; that had almost been disastrous). "This isn't my Nanao-chan at all! She's NOTHING like my Nanao-chan!"
Chiyuu simply blinked twice. "How so?"
Shunsui was more than happy to relate every single thing that made THIS Nanao different from his "Nanao-chan" and proceeded to list them off in great detail.
"She let me miss five meetings this week, she didn't say anything about drinking too much before noon, she filed and did all the paperwork without asking me to stamp or sign anything, she's a perfect lady, she GIGGLES when I call her Nanao-chan..."
"Taichou," Nanao interrupted.
He ignored her, his voice nowrising in an undulating pattern. "She didn't scold me for sleeping in, she does whatever I say without adding that she thinks it's utterly ridiculous—"
"Kyouraku-taichou!"
"She's blinder than Yama-jii without her glasses, and I can't leave her side because she'd walk off the edge of Seireitei without help!" His anger vanished, only to give way to the most pitiful, morose expression that Chiyuu had ever seen from a captain (and, quite frankly, never wanted to see again). "I want MY Nanao-chan baaaaaack, Chiyuu-chan! Where is she? What did you do with her?"
"I'm right here," Nanao told him, a little bit frustrated that he seemed determined to overlook the woman standing right by his side. "And I thought you WANTED me to become more ladylike, and stop reminding you to do things! I thought those activities were enjoyable to you, so I didn't do anything to prevent you from enjoying them!"
"Nanao-chan..." Shunsui looked at his vice-captain with mournful brown eyes. "It's only fun when you tell me NOT to do it!"
Nanao's eyebrow twitched very slightly, and Chiyuu had to look away for fear of being caught laughing. What an interesting relationship they had!
"And WHY is that fun, pray tell?" Nanao asked guardedly.
Shunsui had an answer for that too. "Because Nanao-chan is so cuuuuute when she's flustered and annoyed! Ah, it makes the heart peaceful to see her, face flushed with anger and eyes flashing like a storm!"
"Eh..." The therapist dug out the borrowed items, reuniting them with Nanao and hurriedly changing the subject before Nanao could make use of her newly- returned book and pound her captain into the ground with it. "Well, it looks as if Shunsui prefers the old you, Nanao-san. My mistake! Heehee... this is sort of embarrassing, since therapists aren't supposed to mess up like that, so..." She smacked her fist into the palm of her other hand, still grinning affably. "Let's switch things around, shall we? Now, Shunsui-san, it's your turn to be the type of captain that Nanao-san wants, okay? If she wants you to stop drinking, you stop drinking. If she wants you to go to your meetings, you do that. If she wants you to get together with the Eleventh Division and do a strip dance with Kurotsuchi-taichou and Byakuya-san for all of Seireitei, then you'd BETTER do it with a smile on your face and a spring in your step!"
That last line was met with astonished stillness—save for the small groan of disgust at the door.
"I thought so..." Chiyuu slipped out of her chair, headed for the door, and slid it open, looking up into the surprised face of Hisagi Shuuhei. "Shuuhei-kun, didn't anyone ever tell you that it's rude to eavesdrop when your own appointment isn't for another hour?"
Hisagi coughed and averted his eyes. "Yeah, well... just curious to see how the taichou and the fukutaichou were getting along."
"You could always ask them yourself," Chiyuu told him, rolling her eyes. "But just for the record, they've come to terms that Nanao-san didn't mean to cheat on Shunsui-san with Komamura-taichou, and they've resolved their differences and will be married next Saturday. You've been invited to be their flower girl, alongside Yumi-chan; I DO hope you can make it."
Before Hisagi could wipe the horrified stare from his face, Chiyuu slid the door shut, whirled around, and marched back to her desk with the air of a dignified noble.
"Shuuhei-kun tends to get bored these days, and seems to like passing the time by listening at the door. Please, don't mind him. I'll just have to add that to his therapy later. Anyway, Shunsui-san, you've been given your own therapy, so please feel free to follow through with it, and I'll see you next week!"
---Five Days Later---
Nanao didn't think she could bear it if this went on for another two days, so she found herself voluntarily stepping into the therapist's office—only to be confronted with a frazzled girl and five ducks wandering around the room.
"Nanao-san?" Chiyuu gasped, looking up from her epic battle to save her glasses (even though she never wore them) from the bill of Duck Vader, otherwise known as Waddle. She gave up the glasses as a lost cause, scooped up Steve as he made a beeline for the open door, and straightened, cradling the duck in her arms.
"Is this a bad time?" The woman questioned, allowing her eyes to take in the water fowl poking at her foot in a fascinated manner (that must have been Quack; he seemed to have a particular fondness for feet). She slid the door shut behind her and walked further in.
Chiyuu waited until the duck she was holding had quieted, then shook her head with a wry smile. "No, not really. Byakuya-san just dropped them by with a request that I watch them for the afternoon, as he has Hollow patrol and he doesn't think they would be suitable for such events." Again, her head swung from side to side. "Which, for him, means that he wants to look cool, but having five ducklings following you would most likely cause the Hollow to expire from laughter, and that would be quite awful for your pride. So I do what I can to help."
"I see..." Nanao said faintly. Byakuya asking for help seemed rather out of character for him, but she supposed when comparing a request for assistance to a Hollow laughing at you, he had chosen the lesser of the two evils.
"But I'm sure you didn't come to help me baby-sit," Chiyuu remarked, pausing to nudge Kuro off her chair and sitting down once her seat had been vacated. "What can I do for you, Nanao-san?"
Ah, yes. She had come here for a reason, after all, and Nanao launched into it without any hesitations or subtleties. "It's about Kyouraku-taichou. His entire personality has shifted into something unrecognizable, and it concerns me more than it should."
"How so?" The therapist posed the same question to Nanao as she had to Shunsui only last week.
"For these past five days, he hasn't touched a drop of sake. He goes to all meetings without me having to say a word. He finished the paperwork before I even had time to sit down and ask him to help. He calls me 'Ise-san', he doesn't flirt or sigh in a melodramatic manner or pat me on the head, and he hasn't worn his hat or his pink robe since we talked to you last!"
"And this... bothers you?" Chiyuu asked, looking perplexed. "But I thought this was how you wanted him to behave... you know, like a PROPER captain?"
"Being proper has never suited Kyouraku-taichou," Nanao sighed, before her eyes suddenly widened. "Although... perhaps this therapy has awakened him to the fact that he's perfectly capable of doing everything on his own. I thought I needed to tell him to do those things, but he's been doing it with no reminders whatsoever... he deserves a better vice-captain! What if he finds one? What if he never truly needed me at all? I—"
"Nanao-san," Chiyuu cut in gently, stroking Steve's head as he sat contentedly in her lap. "I suspect you're asking the wrong questions. I BELIEVE what you're trying to say is, 'What if he doesn't love me anymore?', correct?"
"Wh-what? Love? Soujuku-san, I'm afraid I don't—"
"Stop right there," the therapist said sternly. "Don't play the idiot with me, Nanao-san. We both know that it won't work. Think about it, and what you just told me. You claimed that you wanted Shunsui-san to change, but now that he has, it frightens you. Despite yourself, you've grown fond of the lazy captain that calls you pet-names and has to be told to do things or else he won't... just like Shunsui-san loves the disciplined woman who pushes him to be better. When the two of you changed, your routine altered as well, and you found yourself on new, awkward ground with an absolute stranger." She sighed, one hand straying to her ponytail to tug on it disinterestedly. "Captains and vice-captains need to have some sort of relationship," she went on, her tone gentler now. "Be it respectful, mutual interest, friendly, or romantic, they need to have one. Yours with Shunsui-san tends to try to be everything at once: professional, romantic, silly, respectful... and it's hard at times to maintain a balance. But you've both done marvelously, without my help. All I needed to do was show you that you had that balance all along. Having too professional a relationship is boring and uncomfortable. Having too silly a relationship accomplishes nothing. Together, it's a beautiful thing."
So then... all that time, when she was laughing about making mistakes... Soujuku-san had this planned all along. That was almost too hard to grasp for Nanao, who exhaled quietly and rubbed at her forehead. "You wanted us to appreciate each other, didn't you? You were trying to show us that what we had wasn't necessarily a bad thing, and we had to change in order to realize that."
"Bingo!" Chiyuu said cheerfully. "That's exactly right! And while I don't expect you to run into Shunsui-san's arms, weeping and wailing about true love, you don't have to be afraid of it now. You love each other for who you are, and there's nothing better than that. So..." She grinned. "Need a wedding planner? I've never done it before, but I bet I could be of service!"
Nanao pushed her glasses up and fixed her with a stoic stare. "You are a very unusual girl," was her only comment as she turned and walked out, her eyes softening when she beheld her captain waiting outside of the office with her in full Shunsui regalia; this included the robe, the hat, and the slow, languid smile.
"Nanao-chan was sad, wasn't she?" He said, dropping his hand onto her head. "And I don't like to see my Nanao-chan sad! It makes me sad, too. So let's celebrate with some sake and a kiss to seal our looov—"
His dramatically puckered-up lips met Nanao's book cover and she brushed past him. "Kyouraku-taichou, it is unadvisable to be drinking this early," she tossed over her shoulder. "And this time, I would prefer any drunken saliva to remain inside your mouth, instead of over the documents on the new additions to the Division."
"So FRIGID, NANAO-CHAAAAAAAAAN!"
"You'd think they would have learned that their relationship was fine as it was, WITHOUT my help," Chiyuu muttered, placing Steve on the floor and leaning back in her chair. "Oh, well. Still, I can't believe Nanao-san told Shunsui-san to hit on Hitsugaya-taichou in a thong and he DID it!"
There was a groan. Followed by an "Oh, SHIT."
Abarai Renji and Kuchiki Byakuya, having just returned from Hollow eradication, paused to listen to the sweet sounds of someone getting his ass kicked.
"SHUUHEI-KUN, WHAT HAVE I TOLD YOU ABOUT EAVESDROPPING?"
"Ow! That I should—stop it, already! I MEANT THE KICKING, NOT THE—SHIT! YOU PSYCHOTIC LITTLE KID, CUT IT OUT!"
"DON'T CALL ME A KID, SEMPAI!"
"They're probably setting a bad example for the children," Renji commented innocuously. "Aren't you worried, Kuchiki-taichou?"
Byakuya gave him The Look, and Renji knew that he'd be on Ducky Potty Patrol for the next week.
---OOC---
Yes, it's a strange chapter, but gimme a break, I'm in college now, and I don't have as much time to update anymore. Just wait til Winter break… -evil grin- And besides, the Internet's down now, so might as well wait type this while I wait. Thanks for waiting, please review, and you guys all rock. And to NightKat01 who put Chiyuu in her fic, that was really very nice of you and I'm very flattered! Thanks so much!
Trivia of the Chapter: Chiyuu was actually in Shunsui's Division first, before she was transferred to the Fourth Division. She and Hisagi also quarreled a lot back at the Academy.
Up next is Hinamori Momo, and then Kurosaki Ichigo! Yes, you DID read that right.