Author's note: I would have had this up yesterday, but I didn't. Sorry folks. But it's here now, so enjoy. Hopefully.
The cold kept biting as Hinamori fought on, battling for every step. Even with hat, gloves, scarf and one of Matsumoto's winter coats, she could hardly hear herself thing for the chattering of her teeth. The wind was funneling down the street, nearly blowing her off her feet. She ducked around a corner and, momentarily freed from the wind's grasp, glanced up at the street sign. Through the thin layer of frost she could just make out...
"Second division? Oh no..."
She slumped against the wall and held her head in her hands. The Tenth was all the way over the other side of the city, and if she asked Soi Fon for help, she would get nothing but scorn. She had lent against the wall for only a few heartbeats when a voice sounded from the direction she had been traveling in.
"Who goes the- Oh, it's you, Lieutenant. What brings you to my division in such weather?"
Momo turned around to find the petite captain of second division looking worriedly at her from a pace or two away.
"I- I was trying to get to Tenth. I, um, appear to have taken, ah, a wrong turn somewhere..."
"Evidently. You're on the wrong side of the city."
Momo didn't reply, but hung her head and waited for a tirade of how a shinigami should always pay attention, know where she was and was going, and so on until her ears dropped off from boredom and frostbite. She was, therefore, rather surprised to see the whole world move and resolve itself as the interior of Soi Fon's private office. She fell backward, only to be stopped by the presence of a chair. Soi Fon seated herself rather more decorously on the other side of the wide oak-wood desk.
"Momo. Look at me. I know you, and it's not like you to get lost. So tell me... why?"
And at that something inside Momo went 'snap'. She shuddered, and started to cry just a little. She just knew what Soi Fon's reaction would be... and was surprised for the second time today. She felt Soi Fon, the irritable captain that never seemed to relent, hug her and was to tired and upset to do anything but cry onto her shoulder.
They stayed there for just under ten minutes, Momo crying into Soi Fon's kimono, Soi Fon patting Momo's back and muttering soothing nothings. Omaeda stationed himself outside the office, discouraging anyone who attempted to disturb his captain and her guest. Soon enough, Momo lifted her head to look into Soi Fon's eyes.
"O-okay, captain. I'm all right now."
"Then tell me what's wrong."
"Well, you see... I've been thinking, and, well..."
"Yes?"
"When Aizen was, you know, with us... I thought I might be in love with him."
Words started to tumble out of Momo's mouth, whether she wanted them to or not. She saw the dark look that passed over Soi Fon's face at the mention of the traitor, but kept going nonetheless.
"After he left, I felt awful, and not because I was injured. It felt... horrible. But now... I think I'm definitely over him. Because... I realized that I was never in love with him. I was always in love with...someone else."
Soi Fon smiled thinly, looking down on Momo's head. It was good to hear that she was finally over Aizen, but that didn't explain what was upsetting her now.
"The thing is, the thing is that I told him what I felt and he said, he said..."
The rest of the sentence was drowned out by a fresh wave of sobs.
"What? What did he say?" Soi Fon's appetite for gossip and interrogation instincts had the question out of her mouth before she had really thought it through. She berated herself even as she pieced together Momo's reply, punctured as it was by continuous sobbing.
"He, he said that he was a captain, so he couldn't afford such meaningless distractions."