A/N: And to make up for my INSANE lack of activity... a SUPER fast update. ^^ ENJOY. Here's the EPILOGUE

Ever Ever Never After

Every girl dreams of her perfect fairy-tale fantasy, where Prince Charming comes along, and sweeps her off her feet to live happily ever after till the end of time. Someone once told me that nothing ever happens like that. That there is no such thing as a 'happily ever after', but I disagreed. I knew, because I was living my very own fairy-tale fantasy...

"I told you, I don't want anything for my bir –" I quickly stuffed a bit of cake into the mouth of the protesting Taichou. It was the famous watermelon-flavored cake. We had it specially made for him, with the huge words "Happy Birthday Hitsugaya Toushirou" in pink and green frosting at the top. Matsumoto and I labored through a whole week to get this done. Indeed, there were many screw-ups and we almost blew up the kitchen a couple of times, but we finally got it done. And here he was, refusing to eat it. Does he not know how hard it is to find cake mix for watermelon-flavored cake? It was nearly impossible! We had to ask around the whole 10th and 5th Divisions before someone told us where to find it. And even then, it burned a huge hole in my wallet because the shop-keepers had to custom order it. Looks like I won't be buying much at the Coming of New Year's Festival after all.

"Happy birthday to you, happy birthday to you, happy birthday dear Toushirou, happy birthday to you!" There weren't many people gathered here. Me, Matsumoto, Hinamori, Ukitake-taichou, and Kyouraku-taichou. Ukitake-taichou had brought it upon himself to bring copious amounts of different candies, all stuffed into a box wrapped with blue present paper. That was his gift. No matter how much Hitsugaya stressed the fact that he did not want a big fuss for his birthday, we still made decorations and hung them up around the room. There were snowflakes and cute little paper 'Hyourinmaru's all over the place. A string of words hanging over the doorway spelled "Happy Birthday to the 10th Division Captain". And as much as he refused to admit it, he was pleased.

He was more talkative today, though most of his comments were jibes and angry comebacks, he was smiling and more animated then I'd ever seen him before. I knew he was happy. There seemed to be a permanent smile plastered to my face. My cheeks were starting to hurt from laughing and smiling so much, but I couldn't get it off. I couldn't help myself.

There was a small stack of presents, neatly lined up on his desk. The smallest box was from me. He tried to hide it, but he was curious as to what we got him. Well, what everyone else got him because Ukitake-taichou had openly announced that his box was full of candy. The food was soon gone as we all loitered around, making light conversation and enjoying ourselves. Hitsugaya was talking to Kyouraku-taichou. Matsumoto and Hinamori were discussing something, while I sat next to Ukitake-taichou talking about going-ons at the Academy.

Suddenly, Matsumoto stood up. Everyone paused to look at her. She smiled down at everyone before clapping her hands.

"Time for the presents!" she cheered. I clapped excitedly and everyone hurried to crowd around the colorfully wrapped boxes. Hitsugaya made his way to the table and everyone helped bring the presents to the coffee table so that we could all see what he got. One by one, he unwrapped them. I had a feeling he was deliberately avoiding my box. Kyouraku-taichou had gotten him a paper-filer. That way, he wouldn't need to personally go through all the papers again to get him in order. I laughed at the expression on Hitsugaya's face. It was a halfway mix between amusement and contemplation, as if he thought it would come in quite handy in future. Matsumoto bought him a membership pass to the best spa in Soul Society.

"You can take a guest with you for free!" she said, winking at me. I blushed a deep shade of red and glared at her. Hitsugaya looked embarrassed before he took up a stern expression and told Matsumoto that she wasn't to have any sake for the next month. Hinamori brought him some of his grandmother's o-manju. He seemed to like it a lot. He even returned her hug, albeit a bit awkwardly.

And finally, he turned to my present. He had a perfectly straight look on his face. Not excited at all, but I knew he was itching to see what was inside. Shaking it slightly, he gave me a look that plainly said 'This better not be something weird'.

I only shrugged, not wanting to give away the surprise. I was sure that he would never have guessed what I'd gotten him.

The box was opened with the utmost care as he peeled away the gift paper. A look of confusion appeared on his face. Turning the box upside down, two parcels tumbled out and landed with thumps on the desk. One was a velvet box and the other was merely a chunky object wrapped in white paper. Picking up the white one, he turned it around in his hands a few times before looking back up at me. It was irregularly shaped, and from the outside, impossible to tell what it was. I only shrugged and smiled at him.

Turning his eyes back onto the parcel, he tore the white paper away tenderly, as if peeling away thousand-year-old parchment that could turn into dust at any moment. The contents were revealed after a couple of seconds. It was a new pen and an inkpot. He only stared, and then lifted his head to look at me again. I couldn't help but blush under the intensity of his gaze. It was... on fire, to say the least.

"I-it just... caught my eye, and I thought that you needed something more... personalized on your desk." I kept my eyes on my hands, clutched tightly in my lap. He didn't say anything, only turned to the second item: the velvet box.

It opened with a click, and an anticipatory silence followed. Finally, he reached in and drew out a small, rectangular object made of jade, with a dragon that curiously resembled Hyourinmaru carved into the top. The figure dragon was standing, its maw opened, eyes made of blue stone staring out at whoever happened to be looking its way. It was a paper weight. The irony behind the present finally seemed to have gotten across to everyone in the room, and they began to laugh. Even I giggled, rather embarrassedly it was true, but nonetheless, I laughed. Hitsugaya was the only one that remained completely stony faced. The laughter soon subsided as everyone looked back at Hitsugaya, waiting for some kind of reaction.

"Thanks," he finally said, putting the present to one side. He spoke no more of it for the rest of the party, which drew to a close near midnight when Ukitake-taichou deemed it much too late for someone like him to be out and about, dragging a rather drunk Kyouraku-taichou with him. Hinamori went with them and Matsumoto was the one that waved everyone off at the door. I felt very tired all of a sudden and kind of let down at the same time. Hitsugaya had shown no particular joy or indeed any kind of emotion at all when he'd opened my present. In fact, now that I thought back on it, mine were the ones he seemed to pay the least attention to. Scrunching my nose in distaste, I proceeded with the cleaning up of the somewhat trashed head of Division 10.

I was so immersed in my own strands of thought that I didn't notice Hitsugaya standing right behind me, and it wasn't until I felt a strong pair of arms wrap around my waist, successfully halting my movements, that I realized he was there. I gasped, surprised.

"Toushirou!"

His chin rested lightly on my shoulder and his breathing was slow and measured.

"Thank you." It was only two words, but two words that erased all doubt from my mind. I smiled, turning in his arms and placing a small kiss on his nose. He was so tall now...

"You're welcome." And, following my train of thoughts as I bought him the present I continued, "You know, you spend so much time with that desk of yours, sometimes I feel as if you like your desk more than anything else in the world."

At this, he scoffed, rolling his eyes, pushing me lightly on the shoulder and causing me to fall backwards onto the couch. I laughed and he chuckled, resting his forehead against mine.

"Now why would you think that?" he asked, mockingly. I didn't answer, instead, I choose to finish up the rest of my speech.

"See, so now when you're at your desk, you'll have something to remind you of me. That way, you won't ever forget again." He blinked, then smirked his oh-so-famous smirk. The one that told me he had a reply and it was not going to be a nice one.

"You say 'again'… but need I remind you that you were the one that forgot about me."

I frowned and hit him on the shoulder, drawing out another deep, rumbling laugh as he pretended to be hurt.

"Oh shut up..."

"I love you too, you annoying little girl."

"Workaholic."

"Witch." I grinned and kissed him.

Engraved upon the side of the paper weight were the words:

Happy birthday.

-Takamori Minako

I love you too, you know.

A/N: So there. The final 'chapter'. Now you all know what Minako got him. I sincerely hope everybody enjoyed this story.

I've begun working on a new story (also HitsuxOC), hopefully better than this one since - now that I look back on it - this really wasn't the most well-written story of all time, especially near the beginning. Not to mention the somewhat large plotkai's and stuff like that. XD So I'm hoping the next one will be better. Please continue to support Bleach in all it's wonderful glory, and of course, Tite Kubo-sensei for bringing us such wonderful characters stories.

Thank you all. Until next time...

Arelissa