Watercolor Lenses
Chapter 3: Yard Sale
After watching his new Vice-Captain flee, it was laughter that drew his gaze upwards again. There was a grin so wide on Shiba's face he was certain he could fit his sword through lengthwise. "I say she lasts a month; Ganju says a week."
The brothers were grinning at each other, though the latter had a curious flush to his cheeks. There was no doubt that little Nanao-chan had impressed. There was an undercurrent of excitement buzzing around the courtyard. Kyouraku could practically feel the rumors brushing across his skin.
Ukitake was sipping tea, having claimed an upset stomach earlier in the afternoon, the reason for his decline of sake. His friend was behaving entirely too…ah, innocent. This incident had his friend's handprints all over it. As one of his young under-staffers brought him a new bottle of alcohol, he glanced at his long-time friend. "So where'd you find her?"
Ukitake answered immediately and with no falsity. "She was the maintainer of the kidou section of the library. Her ability to maintain order, her qualifications, and her manner are all very impressive."
"Truly," Kyouraku agreed.
"She immediately made me think of you."
They exchanged a glance and Kyouraku raised his sake glass in tribute. That disapproving little perfectionist certainly seemed his opposite, no denying that. To add onto that she just seemed so malnourished of attention what better place could there be for her?
"Think she'll last longer than a month?" he asked his Ukitake idly. Even the best ideas were not always a success. Running the 8th Division office was a challenge and that was precisely what the Vice-Captain's job around this place was. He was lazy but not a liar, he didn't do much to assist his beleaguered Vice-Captain no matter who held the job.
"I will not participate in a ridiculous wager against your staff," Ukitake primly answered. The steam from his tea was rapidly dissipating. "Besides, you cheat."
Kyouraku gasped and pressed one broad hand to his chest in a wounded fashion but it faded beneath a grin a moment later. "I hope Nanao-chan will last longer than a month. It's more fun that way… and the Old Man has lectured me four times already about intra-office politics."
Nanao lifted her head. She felt disconnected from her body. It was an odd, disconcerting kind of feeling. The room was bright and familiar. It was reassuring to know that in her haste to escape her new Divison office she had come straight home and not gone out and done anything rash. Of course she was not of the habit to do rash things.
The windows were wide open and uncovered. A warm breeze blew through the screen and sunlight poured down over her. Really though, she thought dryly, when did she ever do anything that wasn't the straight and narrow?
Sitting up, she pushed off the light colored sheet down. Her uniform was rumpled and her hair felt messy, loose around her nape and lopsided off the back of her head. It was, however, a wonder that she'd retreated to bed fully dressed. Last she recalled she had simply wanted to shut her eyes for a few moments. The whole ordeal must have exhausted her more than she thought.
She shifted her weight and stood. The bath was beckoning her and then she needed to report to her new office.
Walking toward the door she slid open the shoji and noted with disdain some of the screens were damaged and it felt as if the wooden track of the door was bent. It was immediately added to her mental checklist. Repairs, she was sure, wouldn't be a neglected list. She sighed and peered out into the hall. Perhaps she ought to look into preparing a code of conduct for behavior while not on the training grounds.
"Vice-Captain!"
Itou was grinning happily at her. "I've almost got a path open to your desk. Feeling okay?"
She gave some nondescript answer and followed him down the hall. She could return to her damaged inventory later. He seemed a bit too bright in the mornings for her. Dare she ask what the outcome of the previous day had been?
When he slid open a new door and allowed her to enter ahead of him she found he hadn't been exaggerating at all. The room was covered in stacks of paper. There was almost a path to what she presumed was a desk beneath the hill of paper higher than the rest.
"Our last Vice-Captain didn't like paperwork so much, but Sato-san, he was a previous 3rd, helped a lot… But when he left he was replaced by Enjouji and we got behind again."
The names slid by her as extraneous information. She hoped Itou could focus a bit more than he seemed to be doing this morning. The office itself was in disrepair, they were months, perhaps longer behind in paperwork, what was she going to do? How did this office even stay open? She sighed and began wading in. Might as well start with clearing off the desk.
"Ah, Ise-san, may I get you some coffee?"
"Black, no sugar," she answered neatly reaching for the stack on the very corner.
"Inventory report." There was a giant "REJECTED" in red stamped ink on the front. Glancing at the date she noted it
was from eight months previous.
Was that the earliest?
What was the standard procedure for filing paperwork for the Gotei-13? Wandering around the desk she began pulling open the drawers. Somewhere in this building had to be a manual.
Wandering around looking for the standard procedures booklet she found a lot of things. Mostly things she found were inappropriate for the office. There was a cabinet of ladies handkerchiefs, bar napkins with all sorts of scrawl, drawers of poetry books –handwritten-, and then finally a futon cabinet in one of the back offices full, from front to back, with sake.
"ITOU-san!"
The man scrambled down the hall. She could hear his heavy footsteps.
"Yes, Vice-Captain?"
She didn't bother glancing back. Instead, she motioned toward the open cabinet. "What is this?"
"Ah, well it looks like you found Captain Kyouraku's sake collection. He's exceptionally proud of-"
"Sell it."
The moment that followed was tense, a deeply tensed and strained silence.
"S-sell it? But Vice-Captain-"
"If Captain Kyouraku paid more attention to his Division and less time to lazing around we wouldn't be broke. So unless you intend to give up your own money to pay the enormous late fees and past due notices currently due to the First Division office-"
"I am on my way!"
She wasn't really certain they owed late fees, but she was equally certain that Itou-san didn't know either. Tucking her victory safely inside, she returned to cleaning out the cabinets. In any case, this was a Division Office and not a bar. He would have to go out to drink, wouldn't he?
Her next order of business was to burn the useless paper out back. She was not about to hike up the trash bill with all that garbage.
She was doing things.
Her, that new Vice-Captain of his.
Not necessarily pleasant things either. His very skin tingled as he approached his Division office. In a way it was exhilarating and in another it filled him with dread. Never before had he felt such a visceral reaction to a new staff member. He hoped she lasted a good long time…
It was not entirely purposeful that he was arriving at nearly four that afternoon. If he hadn't been drinking last night and then watching over an acutely ill Ukitake, he might have come to see his delightfully disapproving new Vice-Captain earlier. As it was, he hadn't.
Now, approaching the building, he heard commotion. Wait, no… he heard…women. It was entirely unusual for a crowd of women to be at the office when he was not present.
Rounding the corner he found a row of unfamiliar tables and bunches of women in black uniforms crowding around them. The scent of money was in the air. His presence went unnoticed until he peered directly over the shoulder of a particularly short woman and glanced down at the table contents. He wasn't sure which surprised him more, the presence of Itou behind the table acting the vendor or the fact that his personal property was being sold on the front yard of his Division Office.
He took silent inventory of the few items still left on the table. A book of poetry, a few drawing on napkins, there was even that statuette he'd carved from a piece of driftwood he'd found on the beach once. That had been a particularly interesting adventure, pity he didn't remember the name of the woman he'd carved the statue for. Nor, for that matter, did he remember why it was still in his possession. But he'd bet his foot he could guess the nervy little chit who'd put his stuff up for sale.
"C-Captain!" Itou exclaimed. The man's voice was strained and his golden skin turned a kind of apple red. A few of the women looked up with smiling faces. Itou bowed lowly looking as though he'd ill at any moment. "I was following orders, Sir! She was insistent! She threatened to make me pay personally!"
"Eh? Nanao-chan tell you to do this?"
"It's so great to have this opportunity, Captain Kyouraku!"
"Good afternoon, Captain Kyouraku."
"Yes, Sir," Itou answered casting a quick glance at two of the women who had abandoned the table to come up to his side and press against him from either direction.
Watching another young lady pick up one of his favorite slim volumes of poetry and press it to her cheek affectionately, he realized he didn't know quite what to think.
"Where is Nanao-chan?" he asked lazily. He'd have to settle it with her then. He'd been right about her. She was damn cheeky to organize a sale of his items. The girl was barely a day in office. Was it good or bad that he wanted to laugh?
Itou cleared his throat strongly. "Out back Sir, she is
burning papers."
His eyebrow rose. Burning papers? Burning? Dare he wonder what had found its way into her destruction pile? Without further comment to his subordinate, he headed for the doors leaving the commotion of the sale behind him.
Almost immediately the scent of smoke assailed his nostrils. There was no visible form of it, but the scent was pungent and increasingly powerful as he meandered toward the back door. At least his building wasn't on fire.
He heard her before he saw her. She was a fiery little menace. The diminutive creature was standing with one hand on her hip, the other motioning toward the stacks. The middle of his courtyard was now a fire pit, replete with orange flames and a column of black-gray smoke.
Abruptly, she turned to face the right edge of the courtyard and pointed. "You! Stop standing around! Go fetch more of the papers with the big red streaks down the center."
The young male shinigami whose name was unknown to Kyouraku jumped and then began to dash toward the door. The young man, so startled by his new Vice-Captain, failed to notice his Division Captain as he zoomed by.
"Hey, Nanao-chan," Kyouraku called.
The busy activity of the shinigami around them slowed as his members took notice of his presence. The girl herself turned toward him and he was struck by how slight she was in light of her commanding presence.
"Good afternoon, Captain Kyouraku. Do you make it a habit everyday to show up an hour before the office closes?" The first words out of her mouth were critical? His mouth curved without thought.
"Is it one of yours to sell the personal effects of your commanding officers?"
She pushed her glasses up the narrow bridge of her nose looking offended. "What personal effects? I was just selling that useless-" Abruptly, she stopped and her cheeks flushed. Ah, now wasn't that interesting? Together they stood, silence separating the gap between them while the few shinigami in the yard discreetly watched.
"I…" she cleared her throat and turned her gaze toward the ground. "Forgive me, Captain. I wasn't thinking of them as your personal effects. However, this is nto the place to be keeping prized sentimental items, this is a place of business."
Even chastised she was criticizing him. She was too much. Really, he didn't actually need all that stuff and if it would help lessen the office load he found himself quite willing to let her do what she would with it… now that it was gone and everything. He knew they were behind in some fee for something or other. He patted her head gently and was entirely determined to let the matter go.
"No worries, Nanao-chan. What's that?" he motioned toward the pit of fire and burning paper, a rapidly progressing task. The piles were rapidly dwindling into a hill of gray ash and orange cinders.
She followed his hand motion and turned. "Trash," she answered shortly. "Outdated reports mostly. The Gotei-13 office manual states that we only need to keep immediate reports on hand for the last 5 years and reports not falling into one of five categories-"
"Hey, Nanao-chan," he interrupted smoothly.
She turned again, the flush having faded and peered at him. "Yes, Sir?"
"You don't need to explain. You may do your job any way you wish, short answers will do nicely" he inclined his head to one side. "So if everything is in hand, let's go have a drink."
"I sold it."
He had barely turned away from her when the flat statement stopped him cold.
Sold …it?
Sold, what?
His sake? Turning, he stepped up to her, placing one broad hand beneath her jaw. Gently, he tipped her face up and held, his fingers curling about her face.
"What did you say?"
There was no venom in his tone but she tensed as though she feared terrible retribution. He felt her dry swallow and her complexion turned ashen.
"The sake that was in the storage cabinet has been sold. The office debts must be paid off. How does anyone manage to even get paid around here with this mess?"
Her words were a feeble shield. He felt the tremor in her frame. He felt her fear, the uncertainty in her and heaven help him it feltgood. Not to scare the poor thing, but to dominate her… when was the last time a woman had reacted that way to him?
She rambled aimlessly. She sold his sake. Cheeky was not the right word for this girl, not by half. "I see," he answered at length entirely unmoved by her lengthy explanation. In actuality, he hadn't heard much of it anyway for all the good it would've done her. "The yard sale out front will be excused but selling my sake is punishable."
A sort of stillness settled over the shinigami discreetly watching them. Not even 24 hours in office and the new Vice-Captain was being disciplined. Kyouraku could hardly believe it himself. The office would be abuzz with activity for hours. Days even over this, it would spread to other Divisions...
He released her jaw and she blinked up at him before lowering her chin. It directed her gaze to the center of his chest. He waited a moment, watching her stare. What would she do, if he suddenly shrugged his uniform off his shoulders? What would it feel like to have her tongue run down the center of his chest? For that matter, what, if anything could ever induce her to try it? He repressed a groan of frustration, this woman made him antsy and...
The sound of the door behind him disturbed his reverie. "Tonight, Nanao-chan, we will drink."
"I don't drink. Could you please desist calling me, 'Nanao-chan', it is not professional." Her eyebrows were lowered, a glower darkened her face.
"Professionalism is boring and tonight you will drink."
She opened her mouth to comment but he turned on his heel and strode away before she had thought of something to reply. Was it within his rights to punish her, certainly. Was he permitted to do so outside of the office and in clearly social settings? That was a gray area and she was not so certain. Even if it were not so, what exactly could she do about it and who would she report it to?
Sure, selling his stuff might've been a bit extreme but it hadn't seemed like a bad idea in her rush to organize this morning. This morning it had been a flash of brilliance, a punishment, of sorts, for her wayward Captain. She would never behaved dared to that to anyone else, certainly not to a person who was as much a stranger to her as her new Captain.
In retrospect, it had been a severely disrespectful thing to do. What had possessed her? She bit her lip thoughtfully. Though she regretted her part in organizing the yard sale, she refused to be remorseful over the sale of his alcohol. That had been for the good of the office.
There was something about that man that affected her in a negative way. It made her do things she wouldn't ordinarily do and that wasn't necessarily a good thing. She sighed softly. There was a nagging suspicion in her belly that it had something to do with the way he looked at her.
With a frown she returned to directing the flow of work. She would think of it later.