Inspiration: Mainly "Phänomenal egal" by "Farin Urlaub" (The song goes like: "At night I am lying awake for hours, because I think about you; but to be honest, I do not love you. To me, there is no woman more beautiful than you out there; but to be honest, I don't love you. Actually, I don't give a damn about you. Actually, you're just not my type. And in any case, I am not in love with you" and so on.)

Dedicated to Shrugs, who requested this pairing; hope you like it!

„It... it really ain't." He stared blindly at the photograph that was held directly in front of his face. "It ain't that."

"But it really does look as if you had some... ideas about her." His former captain didn't even blink. The usual smile on his face hadn't dropped, but Gin knew him far to well to misunderstand the very controlled fatherly concern vibrating in his voice. Aizen was disappointed. Strongly disappointed.

Fuck. He had thought to have found a fairly good place to hide his pictures of her... Pictures, that partly really needed to be hidden. But the older man had found them.

The silver haired tried to hold on to the smirk he was accustomed to. But it was really hard this time...

"I'd really appreciate you to stick to the puppets that we agreed on to be yours."

Gin would have snorted if it hadn't been Aizen who he would have been snorting at... Which he would have never dared to do. "Yer talkin' about Izuru?"

"For example." The two men were staring at each other. And for the first time, Gin really considered to put on a fight with the fifth squads captain, just to dismiss the thought in an instant. It was pointless and he would have stood no chance anyway. "He is quite handsome, isn't he?"

Handsome, huh? "I don't want him."

"But he will be quite useful in that position. Pretty easy to control." It was hard to hurt the former fukutaichou; both of them knew that. So why did the brunette imply that the fox was bad at manipulating people? "Plus, he'll make up for you laziness."

Gin twitched. He knew that he was lazy, but he knew as well that Aizen didn't mind him to as long as he foisted his work on someone else so it got done anyway. So what was this plain insults driving at? This totally wasn't his captain... or was he? Was he testing him? Again?

"But he is boring."

"Would you like this red haired friend of him better?"

That was a rather nasty thought. He didn't like that Abarai-guy at all. Too loud, too blunt, too aggressive. Not his taste at all. Izuru seemed much more duteous. Easy to play on. "I don't want either of them." His eyes focused the photograph. How the hell had Aizen found out about-

"You will choose Kira." The older man turned away all of a sudden, letting the small print in his hands slip to the ground, casually stepping on it when walking away. "And you will never again try to lay your hand on something that belongs to me."

Aizens words hadn't been a question, not even an order. They just had stated a fact.

A fact that Gin had never, never really accepted. That he had never been able to accept. The man had taken Rangiku from him; Gin had kept his distance since his first and only girlfriend had got killed mysteriously when encountering some drunk man in a northern Runkongai tavern and he didn't want to endanger his childhood friend.

But he was only a man; there wasn't a man who could suppress his longings for ... he sighed. Always the wrong women, it seemed.

So he had to end this.

Not even looking back at the stained picture of the girl he had loved for some time now, he left the office. There would have been no use in picking it up; soon she would be nobody but one more person added to the list of people he had hurt bad enough to leave him.

The girl sat in the shadows, her legs tucked up to her chest. She was nervous, much more nervous then she had been ever before. There would be the announcements of the fifth and third squad new fukutaichou today, and she still wasn't sure what she should wish for. It was highly likely that it would be her and Kira who would be promoted. But it wasn't officially out yet, and neiter Aizen-taichou nor Gin- she mentally slapped herself: that was Ichimaru-fukutaichou, of course- had mentioned anything. Maybe they hadn't decided themselves?

No, surely not. Her captain surely had everything arranged by now, he just didn't want to privilege anyone...

She raised her head when the sound of approaching footsteps could be heard, and her face lit up when she recognized the silver haired vice captain. Maybe he would tell her something...

Although she still didn't know if she wanted to hear the decision herself.

On the one hand, she had worked hard for many years now to be near to Aizen-taichou. She had trained and studied and done anything to become on of the best students of her year, later to excel at her shinigami duties.

But on the other hand... Gin would leave the squad. They would, maybe, still meet sometimes, but it would be not too often. And, although she couldn't quite tell why, lately she had started to appreciate the always smiling face that never revealed any feeling. That always lightly teasing way of speaking. That unusual dialect he spoke. That never really concerned yet seemingly caring attitude. The sudden, short, gentle touch of his hands. The still startling, confusing, yet pleasant smoothness of his lips.

She didn't want to lose either of them.

"Hinamori-chan?"

They locked eyes. "Do... Have you..."

"I an' Aizen-taichou just were talkin' 'bout ye an' Izuru." There was something strange about him, something she couldn't tell but clearly sense. Something had happened.

"And? Have you.. decided..." Her voice was merely a whisper.

"Sure. I could get Izuru." His face was unreadable. "We'll move to the thirds quarters by tomorrow."

She clasped her hands over her mouth. "So fast?"

"Did ye really think we'd stay here longer than we had ta?"

"But... I thought..."

"Thinking..." He leaned forward until there were just centimeters left between their faces. "Ye shouldn't do that ta much. Yer lil' head might crack from it."

Sorry.. what? She didn't move... Couldn't move, because there was the wall behind her.

"I'm really lucky, nah?" Gin drew even closer, his breath brushing her lips when he spoke. "Gettin' Izuru..."

She swallowed. Kira would go... Not her.. she would stay with their captain... But she wasn't able to feel happy about it.

Eyes widened in confusion and beginning realization, she stared at him. "But... but didn't you hope for me to-"

"Ah, ye thought I wanted ter have ye as my vice captain?"

The closeness didn't feel comforting anymore. But dangerous. She tried to slip away from under him but the man caught her wrists and held them pressed to the dark wood behind her.

Sudden fear caused her voice to tremble slightly. "But.. what there was... what there was between us..." Suppressed tears dulled her words, made them hard to understand. But Gin knew her far too well to not be able to guess her words, and he pretended to not hear them anyway.

"Yer so naive, stupid lil' girl... Did'cha really feel some petty lil' love?" he chuckled softly. "T'was a game, silly. Not the first I played. T'was a game... love is just a game, ye know?. It ain't real. Ye'll learn that one day."

Closing the gap, he kissed her, letting his tongue teasingly brush her lips. Lost in utter confusion, she responded to it, closing her eyes at last.

"After all, I had better."

She blinked. The sudden release had put her into even greater bewilderment.

"Ye should really practice yer kissin' skills." Thus, he turned, walking away, leaving her alone in the dark corridor.

They hadn't talked to each other after that. Nothing that exceeded the words a captain and a vice captain would exchange.

And she had never told anyone about the things that had happened. To whom should she have?

Shiro-chan? The boy got all grumpy when she started to talk about any captain, let alone Gin and Aizen-taichou.

Kira? He was Gin's vice now; besides the fact that they rarely met, she couldn't have talked about something such intimate concerning his captain.

Renji? Maybe if she wanted everyone to know within two days.

Matsumoto? Surely not.

Out of the few people she felt close enough to to tell them of her relationship to Gin (and much more of it's end, much more of the strong insecurity it had left behind) there was not a single one who she really could have talked to. So she didn't. Tried to repress all the memories concerning it.

And, in the end, managed quite well to do so.