Day 44: Sun Room (4th Shift)

[mizuhomaiden]

As soon as she had the chance, Sheena ninja'd herself out of the cafeteria and away from the conversation she'd been semi-forced to have. She probably could have just clammed up and told the boys to go away, but she'd kind of owed at least Endrance some kind of explanation. It wasn't everyday the embodiment of darkness pops up and delivers a

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[hajike_tobiume]

[for Hitsugaya]

Curling up in a chair off to the side, Momo winced a little before smoothing out the first of a few clean napkins she'd taken from the cafeteria. Using her thigh as a makeshift table, the shinigami used the writing half of her broken pencil to draw on the napkin. She kept glancing up a kitten that lay curled up on the nearby chair, her pencil moving across the napkin in a rough sketch of the little ball of fur.

Now that she was capable of drawing again, she missed having a journal. Maybe she'd see if her nurse would allow her another one.

[itstaichoutoyou]

[from here]

After his thankfully uneventful shower, Hitsugaya made his way back to the Sun Room, where he saw Hinamori. She seemed to be engrossed with trying to draw the cat sitting across from her, so Hitsugaya carefully settled himself into the seat beside her. He remained quiet, not wanting to disturb her focus, and waited for her to break the silence when she was ready.

[hajike_tobiume]

"That was quick," Momo replied without looking up when she felt Hitsugaya sit down nearby. "I don't remember you ever taking any less than thirty minutes to bathe when we were kids."

[itstaichoutoyou]

"Hmph. Sometimes people grow out of their childish habits," Hitsugaya said. Feeling a tinge of uncharacteristic mischief, he leaned in close to Hinamori, making sure no one else heard what he said next. "Isn't that right, bed-wetter Momo?"

[hajike_tobiume]

At that horrible, horrible, horrible nickname, Momo jumped and whipped her head around at Hitsugaya. "Shiro-chan! That's not fair," she replied with a pout. "That wasn't a habit. It was... an accident. And bringing it up isn't nice!"

She wasn't angry, but the pout stayed on her face as she went back to the drawing. She fished the eraser half of the broken pencil out and removed the jagged line she'd accidentally added to the napkin.

[itstaichoutoyou]

Hitsugaya was able to refrain from laughing, but he couldn't keep the smirk off his face. "You were the one who opened the door to our childhood in the first place. And I remember helping you dry the futon early in the morning because you didn't want Granny to find out."

Looking her over, Hitsugaya could still see burns here and there. Concern slowly replaced his mischievous feelings. "Do you need more healing?"

[hajike_tobiume]

"There's a distinct difference between you liking to soak for practically an hour in the bath and my inability to control my bladder when we were young," Momo replied with a faux indignant air. "Only one of those causes someone to blush."

With the errant line erased, Momo stashed the eraser away. "And I'm ok - save your energy. But thank you."

She paused and looked over. "How was... last night for you?"

[itstaichoutoyou]

Hitsugaya's smile died down when the topic shifted to business. His fingers laced together as his elbows rested on his knees. "Fruitless. We ran into a patient on special counseling last night, and he prevented us from completing our mission, a supply run to the second floor kitchen for some knives. I wanted to arm our members with something better than their bare hands, while they waited for their weapon orders to come through."

His fingers tightened, and he paused before continuing. "During the fight, one of my team members seemed to fall in battle, but when I checked with him this morning, he was completely fine. I don't know what happened; this place is so twisted."

Taking a breath, he turned to look at her face. "What about your night?"

[hajike_tobiume]

Momo let out a soft sigh. Always the same, her childhood friend was, seeing duty before anything else. It was admirable... in Soul Society. The report did tell her whether Hitsugaya had experienced what she had, which was thankfully a no. It seems another of his group did.

"I spent the night in my room, mostly speaking to a friend before she took her leave," Momo replied. Reinforce may be a bit different than the one she knew before, but she was still a friend.

"The end of the night, though..." She idly rubbed her neck. "While I was alone in my room with the door close, my throat was slashed by a phantom blade."

[itstaichoutoyou]

Hitsugaya's heart lurched in shock when he listened to Hinamori talk about how her throat had been cut.

"What! Are you...?" Hitsugaya said, nearly shouting as he grabbed Hinamori by the shoulders. He pulled her hand away and stared at her exposed throat, but when he didn't find any trace of a wound, he let out a sigh of relief and relaxed his grip.

"I'm sorry," he said, regretting his rough handling of her. Normally, he wouldn't have been so worked up, because logically he could already see she was okay. She had been talking to him just fine, but the stress from losing Matsumoto and almost losing another comrade last night were wearing him thin.

A flood of emotion worked got clogged his throat, preventing him from voicing his feelings, so he wrapped Hinamori in an awkward but gentle embrace. "Momo... I don't understand. Were you attacked? Was it an illusion?"

[hajike_tobiume]

Though Hitsugaya's hands on her shoulders like that hurt quite a bit as she was still injured, she didn't let the pain show. In a way, she'd been expecting something like this from her friend.

"It's okay," she said softly, rolling her shoulders a bit to will the sting away. She froze, though, when Hitsugaya hugged her. She knew she wasn't going to have another panic attack from Aizen flashbacks, but this... with this Hitsugaya... It was too much.

"P-please let me go, Toshirou. I can't..."

[itstaichoutoyou]

"I'm sorry," he said, his arms falling away from her back. With his eyes averted, he quietly mulled over his shame; he shouldn't have let his emotions spiral out of control. Hitsugaya had to remember that Hinamori was different from his memories. In some ways, she was stronger, more assertive, but in others, she was broken, wounded, and he didn't know what to do about any of it. Hokuto's advice was now a distant echo in his mind.

[hajike_tobiume]

"No, no, it's okay..." Momo took a few deep breaths and pushed her hair out of her face. "I just sometimes have... Hugs aren't always good for me unless I know they're coming. I'm sorry, Shiro-chan."

She reached out and smoothed his hair back from his face, feeling better. "And I don't really understand what happened either. There was no one else in the room with me, nor was there any actual weapon. I just had this... feeling and the next thing I know it had happened." She was silent for a moment. "It reminded me of Signum-kun."

[itstaichoutoyou]

Hinamori was apologizing. She shouldn't be doing that. It was his fault for overstepping his boundaries. He'd never been this forward with her before, so why should he now? Hitsugaya told himself it was a mistake, but he couldn't deny how good it felt to hold her in his arms.

When her fingers graced his face, he almost leaned into her touch, but he caught himself. Now that he had realized the problem within, his iron will could keep his emotions at bay, for now.

"Signum?" He had heard from Matsumoto that Hinamori had lost some friends here, but he never got any specific names.

[hajike_tobiume]

"Yes. Signum-kun - a knight of Belka," Momo explained, flipping the napkin over and doing a quick sketch of the long-haired female knight to show Hitsugaya. "She was my second here while on missions and the closest non-shinigami friend I've ever had."

She took a deep breath, sadness touching her eyes briefly. "She was killed here protecting me from another patient. He slashed her throat open after using some phasing ability that rendered her weapon useless against him." A pause. "Kratos-san wields one of her swords now."

[itstaichoutoyou]

"I'm sorry," Hitsugaya said. Having lost someone close to him, he could sympathize with her pain, but he could never understand it. Everyone's pain was unique.

He wanted to reach out and comfort her, but after the hug, he was still afraid of her reaction. He didn't know what the boundaries were with this Hinamori; he didn't even know what he wanted from her. Damn Hokuto for making him think strange things. "Kratos? I know him. He was on my team last night, the one who fell."