. . .
∙ the ∙ color ∙ of ∙ psychosis ∙
part ( i )
. . .
"Matsumoto."
She recognized the voice even before she opened her eyes. No one else could cram quite so much endearingly repressed frustration into a single word the way Hitsugaya did. Cracking one stormy grey eye open, she looked upwards and sure enough, her captain's calm teal eyes gazed back down from above her. His arms were crossed and his lips were set in a frown that she recognized as his default expression. 'As predictable as sunrise,' she thought warmly.
"Mm, Taicho? Is it morning already?" she asked, stretching along the couch like a cat in a way that would have any red-blooded male ogling.
Her captain being the exception, of course. His gaze remained flatly not amused as he deadpanned, "It's two in the afternoon."
"Eh? Already? Why didn't you wake me sooner?"
"The administrative office is not your room," he reprimanded before taking his hands out of his sleeves. His fingers were smudged with ink, and Matsumoto hid a smile at the inherent childishness in having ink-stained fingers like an Academy student. He kept talking, blissfully unaware of his lieutenant's whimsical musings, "I need to head out, so watch the office. Takezoe should be reporting back with the patrols in an hour."
She mentally groaned. Locked up in this stuffy office for hours with nothing but deskwork for amusement? No wonder her captain had let her sleep in – if he forced her to work all morning, she'd have no qualms against skipping out the moment he was out of earshot. As it was though, he had spent a morning doing paperwork while she napped, and she couldn't quite ditch out for the rest of the day in good conscience. Still, she made an obligatory futile plea for appearance's sake, "But Taicho, I promised Kira and Shuuhei I'd go drinking with them. Think of how disappointed they'll be!"
Hitsugaya coolly raised an eyebrow at her.
"And remind me why I'm supposed to encourage officer truancy again?"
She gave him her best pouty eyes.
To her surprise, he sighed and closed his eyes for a moment, and then relented, "You can go as soon as Takezoe reports in. There's nothing else on the today's agenda anyway." His eyes snapped open again when a strand of Matsumoto's hair brushed against his cheek moments before she pressed her forehead to his, her expression set in a serious look of concern.
"Matsumoto. What are you doing?"
"You don't feel sick, do you?" she murmured, pulling apart and pressing a hand to her own forehead, and then to his with a puzzled look on her face. "You don't look sick either. Are you sure you don't want to check in with the Fourth just in case, Taicho?"
"What–"
"You're clearly not feeling yourself," she nodded sagaciously with a knowing look on her face. "You're letting me sleep in and leave early! You're never this nice!"
She watched his face cycle through several expressions as he tried to respond appropriately. The familiar twitch of his eye and throb of that forehead vein as he visibly reined in an angry outburst, the slight jump of the corner of his mouth with dry amusement. Then a strange, unreadable look flickered in his eyes briefly before he settled on looking irritated. It was strange, because Matsumoto had learned to read her captain's expression like an open book, as every lieutenant should, and it was rare that his eyes was unreadable to her.
"Do you want to stay in the office?" he growled.
"Nope, not at all!" she said far too cheerily for a lieutenant talking about skipping work. She was still curious about his uncharacteristic leniency today though. "Still Taicho, why?"
His irritation grudgingly melted away into that strange inscrutable expression again. He shrugged noncommittally and answered in an unaffected, but sincere tone, "You're over your workload quota for squad training and patrols this quarter, no matter how much you slack off on paperwork. I know you've been helping sort out some non-military issues too. I...it's appreciated. You deserve an occasional break."
And he was just full of surprises today.
Matsumoto was genuinely touched. Hitsugaya rarely ever said so many words at once, and took the time to find words of praise even more rarely. Lips curling into a warm smile, she murmured, "Taicho..."
He straightened his captain's cloak and gruffly rebuffed her in a manner she recognized as his own brand of muted embarrassment, "Make it count. I won't always be there to pick up your slack." He turned to leave, but she called out before he could.
"Taicho, thank you."
He paused for just a moment with his back turned to her, as if he was about to say something else, but in the end, he only nodded briskly in acknowledgement and disappeared in a silent shunpo.
. . .
Unohana knew who her visitor was before she heard even his soft voice at her door.
"Unohana-taicho," he greeted stiffly, his voice always older and deeper than his face would suggest. It was rare for him to refer to her by her formal rank, but the fact that he chose to do so today told her more than a much longer greeting ever could.
"Hitsugaya-taicho," she acknowledged with a mild incline of her head, and the door slid open to reveal exactly who she expected. This routine between healer and patient had long since passed into almost autonomous habit. He took a seat on the stool in the middle and shrugged off his captain's cloak as she went about setting up the testing apparatus. He looked much younger without the imposing white garment, the solid black of his shihakusho making his stunning eyes leap out in sharp relief, but Unohana easily saw past the illusion. No child would ever have quite so many scars from nigh fatal wounds underneath that uniform.
The next fifteen minutes passed uneventfully as she asked the typical questions about his health and he replied to each in turn with his succinct, exact manner, with an occasional break as she measured his blood pressure, heart rate, and spirit force. As she worked though, Unohana noticed the swirls of frost drafting along the ground and tasted the ghost of a snowstorm in the air - his spirit was restless, slipping through the cracks of his iron self-discipline.
It was only near the very end of the examination though, as he settled his captain's cloak back over his shoulders, that he finally spoke on his own accord.
"When this is over, if they..." he began, but stopped himself halfway, his frown deepening. Words didn't come easily to him, especially not in the form of a request. But Unohana knew her patient well enough to understand even so - his eyes conveyed everything that his voice would not.
She didn't offer him a smile as she would have when comforting any other patient. It would only be patronizing under the current circumstances.
Instead, she met his almost painfully bright eyes without hesitation.
"Be at ease, Hitsugaya-taicho. It has always been our duty to heal all wounds, of both the spirit and the flesh. The ability of the soul to recover should never be underestimated," she said evenly.
The steely set of his shoulders softened slightly; she could almost see his moment of weakness – the last one he would ever allow himself – glisten in the corner of his eyes before he blinked it away like a snowflake into the night. It was gone as quickly as it came. He squared his shoulders and bowed, and his bows were always so gravely proper that his parting seemed all the more solemn.
"Thank you," he said. His voice was rough, but didn't tremble.
"There is no need for gratitude, Hitsugaya-taicho. I only wish I could do more," Unohana replied.
The brisk taste of winter left with him. As the door slid shut behind him and his footsteps faded away, the dimming orange-reds of sunset spilled back into every corner of the room, bringing with it both quiet and melancholy. Unohana spent the next few minutes at her desk, meticulously updating her detailed reports on the Tenth Division captain's health. Even if the task was meaningless, appearances must be kept, and if her hand shook at all as she wrote, well, no one was around to see.
A thousand years may have made her spirit unbreakable, but not her heart. She thought of what they have asked of him, of someone who couldn't be called a child only because he had forced himself not to be, and she couldn't help but despise their decision. But it must be done.
'Do not seek out beauty in battle.
Do not seek out virtue in death.
Do not think of your life as your own. If you desire to protect that which must be protected, cut down your foe from behind.'
Every bright-eyed youth who ever passed under the eaves of the Academy learned that oath by heart, but how many would ever understand the full meaning of those words? Only a thousand years of dealing death and saving life in turn have given her the strength to stand unbowed by their weight. Then she thought of his small back, marked by scars gained in defense of both duty and pride, and his narrow shoulders, not yet grown into the broadness of adulthood, but still stoically refusing to bow under the same weight of that oath. Her heart fragmented quietly to the solitary tinkling of water.
It must be done, but he was so very, very young to have eyes so very, very cold.
If only there was any other way.
She finished the report with the words, 'in perfect health, with no foreseeable future complications', and quietly wished they were true.
. . .
Matsumoto was surprised enough to see a familiar bob of a dark hair to drag both Kira and Hisagi out of the bar along with her in pursuit. Catching up was much harder than it looked, with the amount of manhandling required to steer her drunkenly wobbling companions through the lively crowds at this hour of the evening, but Matsumoto had decades of experience on her side. Sure enough, when she finally got within shouting distance, her eyes hadn't been mistaken.
"Hinamori-chan!" she called out over the hubbub, waving at the girl and nearly dislodging poor Kira from his slump over her shoulder.
The said girl turned around immediately and her mouth formed a perfect little 'o' in surprise before her entire face brightened.
"Rangiku-san! Ah, Kira-kun and Hisagi-san too!" she greeted happily as her small frame had no trouble picking her way through the throng.
"Hinamori-fukutaicho," Hisagi mumbled somberly, inclining his head in her general direction while his eyes focused and unfocused. "I didn't know you had a twin."
Matsumoto elbowed him out of the way good-naturedly and monopolized Hinamori's attention once more. "I never thought I'd run into you in this part of town. Don't tell me Renji's corrupted you already!" she said, dropping Kira instead of her sake bottle in order to give Hinamori a glomping hug.
"Abarai-taicho wouldn't do that," the Fifth Division lieutenant laughed as she extricated herself from her blonde counterpart's embrace. "He's spent too long under Kuchiki-taicho to do that sort of thing anymore, I think." Her smile faded a few shades as she wrung her hands and visibly mustered up her courage to ask, "Actually, I was wondering if you knew where...Hitsugaya-kun might be."
Full stop.
'Hitsugaya-kun.'
Matsumoto hadn't heard Hinamori call Hitsugaya that in years. It was always 'Hitsugaya-taicho' during those strained conversations with averted eyes until they had simply stopped speaking outside of official functions altogether. Time had dragged on and the distance had only increased as they continued their stalemate. The few attempts to force a resolution had ended very badly, to put it mildly. Even Matsumoto had started giving up hope of things ever being right again.
But if Hinamori was willing to make an effort now, after all this time -
Keeping her tone carefully blithe, Matsumoto said, "If Taicho's been secretly bar hopping behind my back all this time, I will be a very happy woman." Hinamori ducked her head in embarrassment and Matsumoto's grin softened before she relented, "If I had to guess though, he'll probably be in the Division headquarters. He's always finishing up extra work in the evenings."
Hinamori bit her lip and a strange, unreadable look flickered in her eyes for a moment before she settled on looking anxious.
"Do you think he's busy then? I was hoping we could talk, but I don't want to be a bother," she said quietly, and with a mental click, Matsumoto realized what that strange look in her eyes was.
Guilt. Hinamori looked guilty, the kind of deep, gut-wrenching guilt that came from hurting people who cared about you. There weren't many things that someone as sweet as Hinamori Momo had to look guilty about, but there was a big one that Matsumoto could think of right off the top of her head. If it was what she thought it was, then this was a realization that had been long overdue in coming, at least on Hinamori's part. Matsumoto's heart swelled as she thought, 'Finally!'
"Momo," the blonde lieutenant said firmly as she grasped her dark-haired counterpart's hands earnestly, "if there is anyone that Taicho would make time for no matter how busy he is, it's you."
Hinamori's faltering smile strengthened again, and Matsumoto nearly dragged the girl off to her captain then and there before remembering her two completely sloshed drinking buddies. Frowning at Hisagi blearily trying to chat up a wooden post and Kira chuckling at apparently nothing in a corner, Matsumoto decided to fish out both of their wallets and tuck the items safely in her bosom.
"Rangiku-san! You can't do that!" Hinamori chided, but the tweak of a smile on her face took all the bite out of her words.
Matsumoto winked. "Trust me. They'll be thanking me in the morning for making sure nothing happens to these."
"Shouldn't we be more worried about something happening to them instead?" the dark-haired lieutenant asked sensibly as she gave the two men a dubious look, especially as Hisagi swayed at a teetering angle to the ground before miraculously regaining his balance.
"Nope, they're big boys; they can take care of themselves."
Hinamori giggled softly and Matsumoto took a moment to savor how rare it was to see the world go right for once. She had been able to nap until mid-afternoon, her captain had given her the entire evening off as well in his wonderfully gruff, sweet way, she had conned Hisagi into paying again, then she had drank enough to get pleasantly buzzed despite her ridiculous tolerance, and now she had both Kira and Hisagi's wallets. If Hinamori and Hitsugaya could finally end their silly stalemate to boot, then her day would be complete.
A single shunpo left the noisy bar district behind them as the silvery tranquility of Seireitei settled back over them. With the warm glow of nightlife wearing off, the two female lieutenants lapsed into quieter conversation about meaningless topics as they walked towards the Tenth Division buildings. Hinamori grew noticeably less talkative and more anxious until, just before they turned the final corner in front of the administrative building, she stopped walking altogether.
"Ne, Rangiku-san. Do you think..." The girl she struggled with herself for a moment before asking in the tiniest voice, "Do you think Hitsugaya-kun is still mad at me?"
The question had obviously been weighing heavily on her mind all evening. She looked so small and sad for a moment that Matsumoto decided another therapeutic hug was the order of the day and wasted no time in burying the girl in her ample bosom.
Once upon a time, she had bitterly resented this girl. Any lieutenant would have resented seeing the unspoken hurt in her captain's eyes, especially if he was training himself bloody in some twisted sense of self-atonement. It had grated painfully to see Hinamori distancing herself from her living, breathing childhood friend, one who would carve out his own heart to keep her safe and happy. Rangiku knew she would have carved out her own heart just to see Gin smile one more time.
Yet, at the same time, the poor girl had been so broken by how much Aizen had put her through. No one in the war had suffered more. Matsumoto knew the pain of love and betrayal very well, but while Gin had, in the very end, returned to her, Aizen had never spared Hinamori a backwards glance. His games had been designed specifically to break her - that she was still here was already a testament to the strength of her will and the strength of her friendships.
With that thought in mind, Matsumoto had relinquished her bitterness and laid the blame at Aizen's feet alone, and there the blame would stay. Taicho had anchored her through her own heartbreak with quiet words and unshakeable resolve. The least she could do was return the favor and help anchor Hinamori through hers, because the sooner Hinamori healed, the sooner her captain would forgive himself.
Thank god it was finally paying off.
"He was never mad to begin with," Matsumoto said without a shadow of doubt.
She could feel Hinamori take a shuddering breath in her embrace, as a decade of hurt and healing finally sank in.
"How? After all this time, everything I did, everything I said-," Hinamori whispered.
"He's never blamed you for that, not even once," Matsumoto said. She wondered how many times Hinamori had let those doubts stop her from going through with facing Hitsugaya. If the blonde lieutenant hadn't been here, would Hinamori have turned back even when she was so close?
"But ten years is a long time to wait, even for shinigami," Matsumoto added quietly, because even if the blame laid at Aizen's feet, her Taicho had still spent years blaming himself. Hinamori had no idea how much Hitsugaya put himself through. "He gave you as much distance as you wanted, so it's up to you to make that first step."
"I know. I missed him. I was just...so scared for so long I didn't even realize. I want Shiro-chan back," Hinamori said.
"I think Taicho has been waiting a long time to hear you say that," Matsumoto said, "so make sure to tell him that yourself."
She gave Hinamori a small squeeze for luck, and the girl squeezed back briefly before pulling away, her face smiling tentatively once more.
"Thank you, Rangiku-san."
Matsumoto just grinned her what-are-we-still-waiting-for grin. She couldn't wait to see the look on Hitsugaya's face. 'Make it count,' he had told her as he gave her a break from work, and she had definitely made the most of it. She would be able hold this one over his head for ages to get more days off. It just went to show that occasionally, a good deed was rewarded with a good return after all. It was past time for things to be set right.
They turned the corner together.
And suddenly, everything she had said and done counted for nothing at all, because the world went wrong in a way that couldn't ever be made right again.
. . .
And she thought afterwards, 'He never said goodbye.'
The first sound Matsumoto heard was the painful crack of Hinamori's knees crashing down on the floorboards.
Her gaze dragged its way across the walkway to the base of the building, where a streak of something dark neatly bisected the immaculate white wall. Her eyes followed the streak upwards on their own accord. It fanned and frayed into a wider and wider brushstroke of something thick and wet, like it had been painted haphazardly against the white wall by a careless artist.
Then she saw the hem of a captain's cloak, lined with a glimmer of dark emerald silk where it wasn't stained by black paint, and her heartbeat picked up speed. She looked up further and saw hands, ink-stained hands that bore the calluses of both the sword and the brush, and a lone droplet of what she now numbly realized was blood fell from his fingertips like a tear. Skilled hands, somehow too delicate to be an adult's, but too battle-worn to be a child's.
And she thought, 'I know those hands.'
She looked up even further still and her breath caught in her throat. The four-pointed star on the hilt guard, the long blade struck cleanly through his heart, somehow still glowing with the purity of ice despite the blood dripping sluggishly along its edge.
And she thought, 'I know that blade', but her eyes completed their journey despite the deafening thunder of her own heartbeat in her ears.
Distantly, she heard the sound of a sake bottle slipping from her numb fingers to clunk against the wooden floor, spilling its contents as it rolled to a stop.
She saw half-open eyes. Tiny droplets of blood clung to his pale eyelashes, but his eyes caught the moonlight like pools of glass, and there was no mistaking that particular shade of turquoise. His lips were soft and serene instead of pulled into his usual scowl. Another trickle of blood rolled slowly along the familiar curve of his cheek down to his chin. And his hair had somehow escaped the ruinous splatter of red entirely, ruffling softly in the wind like freshly fallen snow.
The world beneath her feet dropped away with a dizzying lurch.
"Shiro-chan?" Matsumoto heard Hinamori ask, her voice trembling like a flower clinging to a precipice in a storm.
Somewhere in the back of her head, the conscientious, dutiful lieutenant part of her calmly pointed out that there were procedures for this kind of thing, especially after the whole Aizen fiasco, and there were people she needed to alert and things she had to do so that a proper investigation could get underway. Only, she rarely listened to that part of her anyway, because Hitsugaya always had things sorted out. He was more lenient towards her than any other captain was towards their lieutenant, and she had barely done a thing the last time a captain was murdered because Hitsugaya had shouldered almost all of the administrative work on his own. But not this time. This time, she couldn't count on her captain to be there for her. This time, she didn't have the benefit of his stoic composure, or his cool efficiency as he got the situation under control, because - because -
And she thought 'This can't be happening. You can't do this to Hinamori, Taicho' as black realization bloomed in her heart of hearts,
But her lips whispered, "This can't be happening. You can't do this to me, Taicho."
"Shiro-chan," Hinamori begged, her hands reaching out even though he was too far away.
If only the girl had been just a few hours earlier. If only Hinamori had gone straight to him instead of wandering around looking for moral support. Matsumoto's heart cracked. If only he hadn't given her the evening off. If only she had stayed instead of abandoning him for something as trivial as a drinking spree. If only she had been there to watch his back like a responsible lieutenant would have.
If only, if only, too little, too late.
Someone was screaming, but she wasn't sure who. Somehow, her mind had trapped itself in a closed loop that just kept going round and round and round, and she couldn't think of anything else.
And she thought, 'He didn't say goodbye.'
Except, maybe he did and she just hadn't noticed. Maybe that's how it always went, maybe she never noticed, maybe she lost them because she always slipped into the same trap and started taking things for granted, and never recognized their farewells for what they were.
What had her captain said to her last?
Make it count.
I won't always be there.
. . .
Author's note:
And the ball is rolling. Hope that wasn't too maudlin for all of you; I know I tend to get carried away when writing character deaths.
Not that I'd ever really kill off Shiro-chan in the first chapter. Right?
Speaking of which, I am still looking for a good Beta-reader who can rein me in when I start getting too dramatic, so if there's anyone out there, help would be appreciated!