Hello. I greatly apologize for the . . . what was it, three month . . . delay. I did not realize how long it had really been, wow. FF-dot-net documents got a new format while I was away. I decided that this chapter would be shorter so that I can update it sooner than later, because of the giant gap I already made between this and the last one.

Kira stood in the corner of the room, staring at the crumpled sheets that were strewn half upon the bed and half upon the floor. No person lay beneath them at this very moment, but only a few hours ago, two people were sleeping there soundly, and hours before that, those two people lay on top of the sheets, entangled in each others' embrace, breathing loudly and moaning softly. And he had been one of those two people. The other was currently in the next room, humming tunelessly to himself as he had breakfast.

How this had come to happen, he couldn't remember clearly. Only that he had walked into his Captain's room that night willingly, eagerly, even. But why he couldn't for the life of him figure out. Why did Gin have this effect on him when he had the opposite effect on other people?

But what bothered him the most about it was that it was the opposite of hurt. He remembered the sounds he made, sounds of genuine pleasure, as a different kind of fire had been lit inside of him and his body had ached for more. He hadn't expected that. But it didn't make him happy to find that he enjoyed himself. He found it disturbing.

He bit his fingernails nervously, sick with himself and sick of all of this. Gin's voice became progressively louder through the doorway as he approached it, probably to wake his subordinate. Kira cringed and sank to the floor, praying that he wouldn't open the door because he did not want to look at his Captain right now. He couldn't look at him, nor could he think of when he might be able to again. To look into his pallid face was an unbearable thought. This man, who had tarnished him and snatched away his innocence. Who had caused him to want to come here last night.

The door did not open, and Gin's voice faded slightly. Kira buried his head in his knees and cried quietly, waiting until the building was absolutely silent until he finally crawled out of the room.

He didn't speak throughout the meeting, afraid to look at the door lest Gin decide to show up for some reason, and afraid to look his friends in the face for the fear that one of them might see into his thoughts through his eyes. Although it was impossible, he felt as if they already knew what had transpired and were staring at him, judging him as a despicable creature. He shuddered, seeing in his mind's eye Renji's face, contorted with some unmentionable emotion, and Hisagi reflecting it. "Kira . . . don't even look at me."

And Hinamori. He didn't even want to think of how she would react. All he could see was her sobbing into her hands, for his sake, not even for her own feelings. "Oh, Kira-kun, what will happen to you if Yamamoto-san finds out?"

That was a fair question. What would happen if the higher authority found out? His eyes flitted up towards the First Squad Vice-Captain and he pictured the kindly old face suddenly full of rage. Surely it wasn't acceptable for this kind of a relationship to exist between Captain and Vice-Captain. Would they be exiled, never allowed to return to the Seiretei grounds? It was possible they would just be separated, or perhaps demoted. But surely Gin had no intention of being caught, and he certainly had no intention of being punished for such a thing. That was another matter: beforehand, it had all been on his Captain; but now they were in it together.

Kira finally got away from his thoughts when he arrived back at the Third Squad building and found a mountain of paperwork waiting for him. But before he could dive into it and distract his mind with busywork, he heard someone call him from behind.

"Kira."

He froze and did not turn around, half wondering if he should pretend he didn't hear it or if it would be better to ignore it outright. From the name, if not the voice, he knew it was not Gin but still did not want to look at whoever it might be.

"Kira, open up."

He had forgotten the door was closed and therefore could not be seen. He turned, listening for a minute to the rap on the wood before pursing his lips and sliding it open only enough for himself to lean out. From the corner of his eye he could see Hisagi's black hair sticking up, trying to get into his field of vision even as he avoided eye contact.

"Look at me, hm?"

Kira hesitated, hands gripping tightly to the wood. Slowly, he shifted his gaze over to a spot right above Hisagi's eyebrows so that all he chose to see was spikes of dark hair.

"Grab your sword, we're going training."

I can't, was his initial thought to answer, but the words didn't come out of his mouth, which refused to open. Hisagi had been smiling when he spoke, but the grin was fading slightly at the prolonged silence.

"Hello? Can you come out to play?"

Again he didn't respond. Any negative answer would probably provoke some questions, which he didn't want to respond to, either. If he didn't go, Hisagi would probably think something was wrong. But if he did go, Hisagi, or someone else, would see something was wrong. He was surprised that the Vice-Captain didn't notice anything odd yet.

"Is there something on my head? What is wrong with you?"

Kira tightened his lips and uncomfortably lowered his blue eyes to Hisagi's dark ones. Nothing changed in the atmosphere: Hisagi didn't sense anything. Kira didn't know if he should be upset or relieved.

"Are you sick?" he asked in sheer confusion, and Kira took the idea presented to him. Nodding quickly, he rubbed his throat delicately and gave a slight cough. "I see," Hisagi continued. "So you can't come out then."

Kira stopped himself before he nodded in agreement as a sudden thought crossed his mind: what was the advantage to staying in the building? Sure, there was paperwork to distract him, but after it was all finished, then what? Sit around? Read? Count the planks of wood in the floor? Just wait for Gin to come back? And then what?

Confront him, said the voice of reason. But the last time he tried to do that, it hadn't done anything at all. In the long run, things had gotten a lot worse since then. Gin had a way of taking away his confidence and reducing him to a small child. Then it's best to avoid him, it concluded. For now.

Hisagi turned to leave, fed-up with Kira's lack of communication yet trying to be sympathetic to his friend's pain. Kira held out a hand as to stop him from leaving, held up a finger, and went inside to get Wabisuke. The advantage to pretending to be sick was that he could only answer yes-or-no questions. Even if someone perceived that there was something wrong, they couldn't pry very far, or might just mistake it coming from the sickness. Thanks, Hisagi-san, he thought sincerely as he fell into step behind him and went off quietly.