Match Me - Tough Outer Shell
Ch. 13 Tough Outer Shell
Zaraki filled the doorway of the general entrance of the Soul Society Canteen, eclipsing the late afternoon sunlight from the street, his gaze settling over the lower ranks eating at tables in the first room. Most kept their attention on their plates, hoping to avoid his notice, waiting for his large bulk to pass their table.
He did, moving into the next room reserved for the higher ranks, but not without seeing a few members of his Division clumped at some of the tables. He moved on.
Zaraki preferred to use the general entrance, giving him the chance to see which of his unit
were mingling with which other Divisions. It sometimes helped in training exercises, sometimes giving him material for future ridicule.
In the back room were a few other captains at several of the tables, Shunsui among them, alone at a table, as well as a few vice-captains.
Yachiru's rules on dinner passed through Zaraki's mind as he stepped into the second room of the Canteen. So did Yumichika's tips on tact. He'd been against the idea, but no amount of coaxing his vice-captain with sweets was enough to undo the application his third and fifth seateds had submitted for him. He reluctantly agreed.
He found table Eight and swept the partition of green ivy and eucalyptus away to see the lone occupant seated there. Retsu looked up at him, smiling her usual serene smile that had given him pause on a few, very few, occasions.
"Well, it's good to see you, Captain Zaraki," she greeted pleasantly, nodding as he stood towering at the table edge. "Looks like we've been set up."
He grinned, not expecting to see the captain of Fourth Division, but not expecting anyone, actually. "Looks like." He lowered himself into the chair across from her, taking up an entire side of the table, points of hair dragging at the eucalyptus fronds until he moved them away. "I didn't fill out that form, Captain. I'll have you know that."
She nodded, fingers folded over each other before her on the table. "I didn't think you did."
A gray robed server meekly approached the table, hands shaking with her tray on which tea pot and cups rattled against each other, nearly spilling onto the menus. Zaraki looked to her. "Get over here," he grumbled when she paused too long near another table. "Captain Unohana is waiting."
"Yes, Captain," the server squeaked, putting the tray on the table and attempting to set out the cups.
"I'll see to the tea," Retsu said as the woman shook.
"Would you care, care to o-order," she said, voice failing, "now, sir?"
Zaraki looked to Retsu, who nodded.
"We know what they serve here," she said, looking from his eye to his eye patch. "Although I don't see you here very often, Captain."
He grunted, then remembered that grunts were generally not considered answers, and nodded. He looked to the server, who was shorter than him even while sitting. "One of each, and two of your best," he decided, pushing the tray with the menus still on it toward her. "No nattou." As a second thought, he looked to Retsu. "Unless you like that putrid stuff."
She shook her head, not hiding a smile.
"Very well, s-sir," the server said, taking the tray and hurrying away.
With the server gone, Zaraki gave the woman across the table a better look. Dark hair arranged as always in the thick braid at her chest hiding much of anything the woman may have not covered by her captain's coat, her eyes holding his every move, the small smile on her lips he'd seen on his infrequent visits to the infirmary. She didn't look like someone who could strike fear in his subordinates, but many of them often returned from having their injuries tended looking a little intimidated by their visit.
"Well, we know you don't like nattou," she said, pouring tea into both cups. "Does that go back to your childhood, Captain?"
"Hmm? No. Call me Kenpachi, Retsu," he decided for both of them. "I just don't like rotten beans."
She nodded, sliding one of the cups of tea toward him. "It's something of an acquired taste. By what you've ordered for dinner, I'd say there's not much you don't like to eat. Kenpachi."
He nodded. "Not much." He swallowed the hot tea in a gulp. "Not a saké drinker, are you?"
She shook her head, sipping her tea and looking at him over the top of the pale green porcelain cup. "Not so much." She set the cup down, phrasing her next words carefully. "I must say, I have been curious about the captain who sends so many wounded to my infirmary on such a regular basis."
He grunted. "Only the weak ones." He filled the tea cup to the brim, his hand nearly surrounding the hot tea pot. "Some aren't so wounded. I think a number of them fancy a little attention from your staff."
She laughed, a light sound that made the bells tipping his hair quiver ever so slightly. "Every man that comes through my doors from your Division is in need of medical attention, Kenpachi."
He downed the tea at once. "Maybe some of them."
She filled his cup again and topped off her own. Her eyes dropped to his large hand surrounding the cup. It struck her as odd how hands could appear so hard even at rest. The server returned with a large bottle of saké and a platter of fish balls and curry sauce, shakily setting the table, and bowing quickly before taking her leave.
Zaraki pulled the cork from the bottle and immediately filled his tea cup with saké, pausing at Retsu's cup. "Care to take a chance?"
She found herself giggling a little, something she thought she was well past doing, and shook her head. "No. Not yet."
"Hmm. Maybe later." He watched her fingers close around her cup. Usually when he saw her hands move it was to tighten a bandage or wipe blood from a wound, and it struck him how gracefully her slender fingers held the porcelain. He cleared his throat, reaching for a serving spoon in one of the dishes. "So, ask your questions."
"Me? Well, not so much questions, Kenpachi, as an observation." She spooned several fish balls onto her plate and used her chopsticks to dip one in her small dish of mirin. "Raising a child is quite out of the ordinary for a captain, especially a Zaraki, and I think you're doing the job well."
He frowned over the mound of fish ball on his plate before dumping two dishes of sauce over them. "She's a sugar-driven sweets mercenary who leaves chomp marks on Ikkaku. How good of a job could I have done, Retsu?"
She watched him stuff three fish balls into his mouth. "She's healthy, even if hyper, bright, not too bad on the manners, and inquisitive. And she's happy with you. That says a lot."
He swallowed the bite and then reached for his cup of saké. "She has no choice."
Retsu nodded. "She has a choice whether or not to be happy about staying with you, Kenpachi. She's happy."
He took another mammoth bite of fish balls and chewed, looking at her for a moment. "I guess you have a point." His eyes fell over the braid, finding his mind straying. "My turn for a question."
She nodded, watching him drink down his saké and refill the cup. "Yes?"
Across the room Shunsui was on his second bottle of saké, leaning over the table that was nearly hidden in one of the alcoves, pleased with his work.
He didn't take all the credit as he watched the captains of Fourth and Eleventh Divisions at dinner. Nanao had helped him make the match. He sighed, raising the saké to his lips, wishing his vice-captain had come with him for the evening's entertainment.
Watch their work at, well, work, he thought. Perhaps next time. It was worth another try asking her. Always worth another try.
He grinned as the server brought two trays of platters to table Eight and unloaded it.
Another blindingly strong reiatsu filled the room, and Shunsui looked to the captains' entry, as everyone else in the room did, to see Yamamoto step in. A hush fell over the room, every eye on the large, aged general as he made his way to Shunsui's table before eyes and conversation turned back to their individual tables.
Shunsui got to his feet, bowing, curious at the old man's rare appearance in the Canteen. "Captain General?"
Yamamoto squinted at him. "Kyouraku. I'll be joining you."
"Please do." Shunsui gestured to the chair opposite his, and took his seat after his senior had. After a few moments of respectful murmuring the buzz of conversation resumed to a lower norm.
Shunsui watched the old man's eyes go around the room, gaze resting for a long moment on table Eight, where the occupants were hunched over closer to each other than a few moments ago.
Yamamoto looked to Shunsui. "What kind of a train wreck are you orchestrating, Kyouraku?"
Shunsui's eyes opened wider. "Train wreck?"
Yamamoto's eyes narrowed on him. "You don't think I keep current with the World of the Living?"
"Well, yes, but, General, I'm not sure --"
"You know what I'm talking about," he grumbled in a low tone. "This matching business. What's your angle on all this?"
Shunsui used a moment to scratch the back of his head just below his hat, wondering how best to answer. "Happy shinigami make for more productive Divisions, General."
"I don't have anything against happy shinigami," Yamamoto said gratingly. "As long as they don't become preoccupied shinigami."
"Oh, we're being very careful about that," Shunsui said as a server hesitantly neared their table with another cup and bottle of premium saké.
She bowed deeply and set the items on the table, eyes lowered as she tried to quell her voice enough to speak to the General.
Yamamoto saw her timidity and waved her away. She went willingly, with another bow.
He frowned at Shunsui, eyes disappearing in his wrinkled face. "We? You've dragged your vice-captain into this?"
"I thought a feminine outlook would help in matching." Shunsui waited for a long moment, and then moved a hand toward the new bottle of saké. "Allow me to pour for you, General."
Yamamoto nodded, then shifted his gaze to table Eight. He looked back to Shunsui after a moment. "What do you get out of this?"
"A better work environment?" he said, disappointed that it came out sounding more like a query than a statement.
Yamamoto nodded to the cups. "Yourself, too, Kyouraku."
"Thank you, General." Shunsui poured himself a cup of the better saké.
"This is why your expense report this week was twenty percent higher than last week?"
Shunsui swallowed his drink despite the hiccup that wanted out. "Well, we've not worked out all the --"
"Yes or no, Kyouraku."
Shunsui couldn't read the old man's face. "Yes."
Yamamoto and Shunsui looked to table Eight as the occupants stood up and left the room together. Kyouraku smiled, and then let some of the expression drop as the General turned his attention on him.
"I want in," Yamamoto said in a level tone.
Shunsui looked at him with surprise. "You want an application, General?"
"No, Kyouraku," he growled. He set a cloth bag on the table, coins clinking inside. "I want to make it interesting."
Shunsui looked to the bag, taken aback. "Oh..."
* * *
Retsu and Zaraki strolled along the Seireitei streets leading to Fourth Division, a mild evening breeze lifting the day's heat. They had the street to themselves, as every other shinigami had become scarce at the sight of the large Eleventh Division captain's appearance.
Retsu walked at his side, fingers toying at the edge of her braid, thoughts on their conversation at the table. "I suppose I could try something different. It never occurred to me to do so."
Zaraki nodded, watching her fingers work, his gaze lifting to her pensive face. "It's just a thought, Retsu. All that," he gestured to the braid, "you can do much more with it." He frowned, unfamiliar with women's grooming, more accustomed to Yumichika's practices. He shook the image of his fifth seat from his mind. "Can't you?"
"Well, yes..." She nodded, a smile creeping to her lips as she bowed over the braid, her steps slowing slightly in pace as her fingers nimbly removed the cord at the end of the hair.
He watched with growing fascination, unaware he would be the first man to see her hair freed in decades.
She separated the sections of long black hair, pushing half over one shoulder, the tresses still crimped and wavy.
Zaraki grinned fully, deciding the profile of her throat quite lovely, his eye glinting in something akin to victory as she smoothed the locks with her hands. He envied the fingers.
He nodded, and was about to speak when Hanatarou came careening around the street corner at a dead run, only to pull up short in a cloud of dust when he saw Zaraki, and then his own captain.
He stood shaking, panting, afraid to breathe but dearly needing to, as his eyes shot from Retsu to Zaraki.
When the boy remained silent, mouth gaping, Retsu said, "Calm down. What is it?"
Hanatarou heaved, bowing. "Captain Ukitake is ill, Captain Unohana. He's taken to his bed at Ugendou, Captain," he said, warily retreating a few steps as Zaraki glared at him.
Retsu sighed. "Very well. I'll be there shortly. Tell Vice-Captain Isane I'm on my way."
Hanatarou bowed hurriedly, and then stumbled backward in his haste to depart.
Zaraki growled deep in his throat, eyeing the newly loosened tresses along Retsu's shoulders. "He'd better be coughing up a lung."
She put a hand to his wrist, and then withdrew it awkwardly, a blush touching her cheeks. "So callous, Captain? You know he's afflicted."
"His timing annoys me."
She smiled and wound her hair in her hands, letting it lay across her shoulder as she braided it to one side. "Perhaps we can continue our conversation again, Kenpachi?"
He nodded, grin widening. "I'll hold you to that, Retsu."