"In prosperity our friends know us; in adversity we know our friends."

-John Churton Collins

Holiday Cheer

"Good afternoon, Taichou!" Hitsugaya cringed when the whirlwind known as Matsumoto Rangiku charged through the office door, overloaded from head to toe with gift boxes and bags. The presents were all wrapped crudely with far too much tape, and all represented different holidays, most of which didn't even occur in December. Not only was she carrying a truckload of presents, but she was no longer dressed in her shihakushou either, shinigami uniform and signature scarf replaced with a showy, overly-trimmed Santa dress.

A single vein in his forehead pulsed. "Matsumoto…" he trailed off dangerously.

"It's okay, Taichou!" she finished before he could say anything more, dumping the presents all over the floor. "I wasn't slacking this time! I was buying Christmas gifts!" Blissfully ignorant of Hitsugaya's murderous glare, she began sifting through all of them, organizing them into piles as she continued obliviously on. "You see, I was shopping for a Christmas gift for you! But then someone told me about all of these other holidays that people celebrate all over, so I tried to buy presents for all of those too. There's one called Chanukah that they had all these cute, little top thingies for, and there was another one called Kwanza that they celebrate with these great hats! And one called Ramadan too. They said it had something to do with fasting or flat bread or something, but that didn't sound as fun as the others, so I got a bunch of low-fat crackers instead! But that was when I saw the early Valentine's Day stuff and even a few other ones, so I-!"

"Matsumoto!" he finally interrupted her, erupting from his seat. "You were supposed to be in the office over seven hours ago!"

She stopped her sorting, pouting up at him as if he'd just accused her of the unimaginable. And, after all of her efforts, she clumped all of the gifts back together and scooped them into her arms. "Well, fine, Mr. Scrooge! I'm gonna go celebrate with Kyouraku-taichou and Nanao!"

And as the infamous hurricane stormed right back out, Hitsugaya could only manage a restricted, "Who the hell is Mr. Scrooge?"

One gift had escaped her wrath, lying sideways on the ground. With a sigh, he picked it up. The tag read in bold, obnoxious katakana, "Merry Christmas, Taichou!" Slowly he walked back to his desk, pushing aside the mounds of paperwork to make room for the box. He stared at it for a moment, grimace only deepening every second that holiday greeting stayed within his vision until he couldn't take it anymore. He carefully dealt with the extensive tape holding the wrapping paper (which, by the way, featured birthday cakes with large, smiling faces) in place and opened up the box. Inside was a pair of white gloves embroidered with baby blue lettering along the sides.

One proudly proclaimed, "To: Toushirou," while the other stated, "From: Rangiku."

He huffed, taking them out of the box and tossing them down beside it. He leaned back in his chair, still grimacing. And a moment later, he picked them up again.

"Since when have we been on first name terms…?" he trailed off as he continued to glare at the gloves. "This is what she skipped out on work for? She could have at least gotten something useful…."

He looked up at the clock. There were only five minutes left before he was off. It was just like Matsumoto to time something like that so perfectly. He set the gloves aside, throwing the wrapping paper and box in the trash and spending his last few minutes readying the finished reports for disbursal. When that was complete, he reached for his scarf, pushed his chair in, and headed toward the door. Before he got there, however, he turned back around and grudgingly picked up the gloves, pulling them on tight over his hands.

"It's cold," he grunted to no one in particular, turning off the lights and stepping outside.

He told himself he was going home. That he was going to spend the night alone relaxing, eat something simple, and be in bed an hour early because the next day he was going to have to get to the office early in order to finish the reports Matsumoto had neglected.

But even as he repeated this mantra to himself over and over again, his feet still turned toward the Eighth Division compound and took off on their own. After all, he reasoned, if he wasn't there, Ise-fukutaichou would have to carry her inebriated corpse back to the Tenth all on her own.

…And he should probably thank her for the stupid gloves.

Happy Holidays, Everyone.