Author's Note: I do not own Bleach or its characters. This is AU.


Remember You Were Also a Bride

Nanao knew that strangling Shunsui with his ridiculous pink tie wouldn't help things, but it was rather tempting right now. It really wasn't his fault this time, and he had been pretty contrite about springing the conference on her like this even though he really hadn't had much more prior warning. He had even brought her a cup of her favorite tea to soften the blow. Still, preparing to host a national conference was not easy even when you had notice well in advance. Nanao had the sinking feeling that this thing was going to eat up all her free time for the next few months.

"Nanao-chan?" Shunsui's voice sounded concerned.

She offered him a tired smile. "Did anyone mention why they had to change conference venues at the last minute?"

He shook his head. "Not a word. Are we going to be able to manage this?"

Nanao sighed. "Probably. Though it's a good thing I'm not teaching or a TA this term."

It was the professor's turn to frown. "Do what you reasonably can to get this thing put together, Nanao, but don't sacrifice your work on your dissertation. That's more important by a long shot."

"I'm not sure that the school will agree with that." But it was nice that he thought so.

Shunsui shot her a look. "Then they can argue with me about that. I am your supervisor for this after all. You're ahead of schedule on your dissertation right now, but I'd like you to have the option of finishing and defending it early if you want. Besides, it is unfair to ask you to put your education on hold just because the school decided at the last minute to host a conference."

Nanao smiled at little at that. It was nice to know that he would go to bat for her. Hopefully, that wouldn't be necessary. Given that the university had decided to host this conference at the last minute, she hoped they would be willing to provide adequate support in order to get this thing off the ground. Nanao might be able to make the plans for the conference on her own, but there was no way that she could do everything herself. At least she wouldn't have to worry about the hosting duties. That would be the one thing that she knew for sure Dr. Kyoraku could handle. Nanao was more than happy to let him schmooze with the guests while she ran things from behind the scenes.

She let out sigh. "All right then. What information about the conference do you have for me?"