Smile

A/N: Set some time after the enter of Hitsugaya in the Gotei.

"Thank you for your hard work Hinamori-kun." The short girl bowed at her captain, her cheecks turning slightly pink as a shy smile formed on her face.

Aizen nodded with satisfaction as he read the report his new lieutenant had spent the entire night writing. He raised his eyes and looked at the girl in front of him, who was now nervously playing with her fingers. One could hardly believe that such a young girl with her tiny fragile figure and pig-tailed hair could be a vice captain. But Aizen was no such man. He saw the potential in her.

After he dismissed her, Hinamori stood and prepared to leave, almost forgetting to take some other reports. He saw her potential, as he saw her weaknesses.

"Hinamori-kun, there is something else I would like to discuss with you." She stopped and looked at her captain questioningly.

"You might be interested in knowing what we discussed at the captain´s meeting. After some debating we accorded ourselves on who should take the role of captain of the 10th Squad." Hinamori narrowed her eyes. How was she involved in this? She certainly was not the nominated person. She had just become a lieutenant!

"It hasn´t been publicly announced yet but I decided to tell you since you know him pretty well" he paused "Hitsugaya Toushiro from the 10th Division will become its next captain."

He studied her reaction. She gasped in surprise. What? Shirou-chan? Captain? She looked at him with a shocked expression but he simply smiled back.

Shirou-chan… a Captain? A captain like Aizen-taichou?Was all she could think of for the following days. She had difficulties imagining her childhood friend with a white haori like the one her captain had.

Ignoring her duties that first day after receiving the announcement from her captain she had run to the 10th Division. They were in the middle of an exercitation. She hid behind a wall and searched for her friend. She immediately found him among all the shinigami. Hitsugaya stood out from the rest: partly because he was the shortest and partly because of his white spiky hair. How can he become a captain? He isn't ready, he is… Shirou-chan.She had looked at him. He had an annoyed expression and a frown on his face. The sword on his back was almost as long as his body. Looking at the sword sent a shiver through Hinamori´s body. Suddenly, she lost the courage to talk to him and ran back to her division.

She had seen him again in the next days, but avoided meeting him face to face. It was odd. The more she looked at him, at his always-concentrated expression, the more the image of Shirou-chan abandoned her mind. It was like looking at a stranger.

The short boy who used to mock her and kick her knees to get her attention, who ate industrial quantities of watermelon, the boy she had loved and took care of for all those years, was not him. This boy was now a shinigami, a soon-to-be captain.

For the first time in years, Hinamori felt like not addressing him as Shirou-chan anymore, but Hitsugaya-kun.

He is always so serious, she thought as she sat down on a step outside the 10th Division. She still hadn´t found the courage to talk to him. She sighed as she looked at the shinigami returning to their Divisions after a long day of work. Subconsciously she started looking for a mass of white hair, but he wasn´t among them.

"Who are you looking for?" came a voice from behind her. She squeaked and jumped up in surprise. He was right behind her, arms crossed on his chest. He rose an eyebrow at her reaction and stared at her.

"Uh, ah you scared me Hitsugaya-kun!"

"I noticed you other times here; I thought you might've wanted to ask me something."

"Uhm, there is something. I …" she stopped. An awkward silence fell between them. It wasn´t right, they had never been like this before. She had always thought she could talk with him about everything. Things have become so different now.

"Aizen-taichou told me you´ve been nominated Captain of the 10th Division." She couldn´t help the shade of sadness that slid through her voice. He noticed it, but didn´t say anything.

"Yes, I´ve been told that."

"Uh? You don´t look so surprised."

"Why should I? Since I entered the Gotei 13 I´ve beaten everyone in every discipline. When I mastered bankai I knew it was a matter of time before I could receive captaincy."

She gasped: "Y-you?... Bankai?"

He shrugged. She looked at him, eyes wide. Hinamori was still struggling with her shikai and he had already mastered bankai? How? When?

She tried to smile: "Ah… congratulations Hitsugaya-kun, I´m happy for you." She wasn´t really, and she hated herself because of it. "You will now be a captain just like Aizen-taichou. Waa, that means a lot of responsibilities! You will have a lieutenant to help you and…" her attempt to sound cheerful failed and her voice soon broke off.

"Idiot. I know all this."

"Ah…" she stopped her rambling and lowered her head, trying to hide the tears that were forming in her eyes "I have to go now. Congratulations again on the nomination."

She ran before he could stop her.

"Hinamori…"

She leaned on the wall of her apartment, tears running down her face. Everything was happening too fast. Captaincy, bankai. The ceremony had been assisted by all captains and vice-captains. Everyone was amazed on seeing the youngest captain of Soul Society wearing his new haori, with Hyorinmaru secured on his back.

She couldn´t believe it, yet he seemed so confident in this new role. She wasn´t used to this new, serious composure of him. Since he was a kid he had always been stronger, faster and smarter than the rest of the children in the neighbourhood. Still she had always felt the need to look after him, She was taller and supposedly older than him. It was normal, it was right.

She was still taller, but he wasn´t little Shirou-chan anymore. His face was more mature, his movements were calculated and his every action seemed to be one of an older, more wiser man rather than one of a young boy. He had surpassed her.

She felt useless. No, not useless. She felt like he was slipping from her reach and going far away, where she couldn´t follow him and there was nothing she could do to stop it. He didn´t need her anymore, she couldn´t give him anything. And it wasn´t fair, because she didn´t want to lose him.

"Hinamori… are you crying?" He was there again, beside her. She hadn´t heard him coming in. She quickly dried her tears with her sleeve.

"I´m just surprised by all this. It´s all so sudden." Her voice croaked. She looked up at him. His expression was sincerely concerned. She felt stupid for what she had thought before. Whenever she was sad, he had always been there for her.

"it´s just that everything is changing and I feel like you don´t need me anymore, like I can´t protect you anymore." She cried.

He sat beside her and embraced her.

"You are such a fool sometimes. You are not useless Hinamori, you never were. I should be thanking you for all the years you spent taking care of me, even if I had always acted like a real brat."

He looked her straight in the eye and whispered "If it hadn´t been for you, I would have never been here today". She would have understood the true meaning of this sentence only after many years but it was enough for her now.

She hugged him back as tightly as he could, sobbing into his shoulder, letting her worries slip away with her tears.

Months had passed since that day. Both of them had returned to their busy lives. Hitsugaya had no trouble accustoming to the new captain life. He was severe with his subordinates and requested the best from them. He had some trouble at first with getting people´s respect, but his aspect and his reiatsu, as well as his death glare soon accorded him the respect he deserved.

Hinamori hadn´t seen him much since the day of the ceremony and hadn´t gone to the 10th Division knowing that he was probably very busy these first months. But today Aizen had given her some documents that had to be delivered to the 10th Division Captain, and since her third seat was away on a mission, she had to deliver them herself.

She entered the 10th Division office to find the captain and lieutenant in the middle of an argument. She only caught the words "sake" and "not doing your paperwork" and "lazy old woman" before the blonde 10th Division lieutenant turned around and greeted her with a smile:

"You must be Hinamori-chan from the 5th Division."

"Yes, it´s me. Ehm… I´ve come to deliver these documents to Captain Hitsugaya."

Hitsugaya took the documents and quickly looked through them, then snorted and laid them on the table.

"I´ll read them tomorrow, they can´t expect me to fill them all in one day." Hinamori noticed the tiredness in his voice.

"Hitsugaya-kun…" she whispered, forgetting that she was in a room with two powerful shinigami that could hear her. They both looked at her, Matsumoto wondering These two know each other?

"What is it Hinamori?"

"Nothing, it´s just... You seem really tired."

He raised an eyebrow: "I do?... You are right, I should take a walk and rest a bit. Matsumoto, you finish the rest of the paperwork."

"Ehhh? What?" but he was already out, dragging Hinamori with him.

Outside, Hinamori couldn´t help but laugh:

"Hitsugaya-kun, you´re mean."

"Mph… she is lazy, it´s not my fault."

They walked for a while, under the warm sun of the spring, chatting a bit. Well, most of the talk was from Hinamori, but it didn´t matter. It was familiar, it was something they had missed, and they were cherishing this moment.

Hinamori knew the difficulties her friend had gone through. She had heard rumours coming from various shinigami about the white haired boy captain. He possessed the strongest ice-type zanpakuto and graduated in one of the fastest amounts of time in shinigami history, becoming the youngest captain ever recorded. He was a genius and many people speculated that he might be the reincarnation of a heavenly guardian. Because of these rumours people tended to be afraid of him, to respect and fear him.

Hinamori didn´t really care if these were true or not. She cared for her childhood friend, and seeing him always so stressed and serious… she wanted him to relax a bit, to smile, like he did in the old days. Well, to be sincere, his smile was usually more like an odd grin, but she knew that he was able to smile sincerely, and whenever she was able to see him smile like this, her heart became warmer and she knew she would give everything for him to keep smiling.

"Hitsugaya-kun, there is something I have been thinking for a while. Since you became a shinigami I never saw you resting once, you never take a break, you never smile. You are content when you achieve something but it´s like you don´t enjoy being a shinigami. Why did you even come here? Why did you become a captain?"

He stared at her in silence for a while and then shrugged.

"I have my reasons for joining the Academy and I have my reasons for wanting to become a captain too."

"Oh." She answered. It was something he wasn´t ready to tell her, and she could understand. She would wait, when he was ready, he would tell her.

"Hinamori, it´s late now, you should go back to your division."

She looked at the sky. The sun had long set and the first stars were beginning to show up.

"Well, bye then Hitsugaya-kun" she waved with her hand and turned around to go back to her quarters.

"Baka!" she spun around at the sound of his voice. He had an amused expression on his face as he said:

"You shouldn´t address me as Hitsugaya-kun anymore. It´s Hitsugaya-taichou now." She couldn´t help but laugh at that and it was then that his lips moved upward and a smile formed on his face, a smile that spread to his eyes, a sincere smile.

Her eyes widened: "Hitsugaya-kun, you smiled!"

"Baka! Of course I smile, you just never notice it. And…" the next moment he was pulled in a tight hug.

"I want you to find happiness Shirou-chan."

He closed his eyes and hugged her back.

"I already found it, bed-wetter."

She can´t protect him anymore but she knows now. And whenever she sees him, she runs to him with a smile on her face. And her heart becomes lighter and warmer and she feels like flying when he smiles back. She might not able to protect him anymore, but she can still make him smile, and there is nothing else she could ask for.