Feeling Blue
Title: Feeling Blue
Author: foxflare
Rating: PG13, for Kazeshini's filthy mouth.
Characters: Shuuhei; also Kazeshini, Tousen, Aizen, Gin, and one non-rom old man OC.
Word Count: ~5000
Disclaimer: I own no part of Cl2(aq) + H2O(l) ↔ 2H+(aq) + Cl-(aq) + ClO-(aq). Kubo Tite-sama whitens and brightens all.
Notes: This is all gypsygrrl420's fault (unless it's booed off the stage; then it's all on me) -- my first stab at non-AU Shuu. *gulps* o_o; Also, it helps but is not necessary to have seen episode 260 of the anime. Mind the gaps and watch out for flying weasels.
Summary: Shuuhei acquires his second tattoo.
He's gone.
Newly-minted Ninth Division sixth seat Hisagi Shuuhei kneels stock-still in his captain's office, and the man who stands before him could be a photographic negative to the one he'd been expecting to see. This man is slender and dark, with long hair in braids that trail like black streamers or the loose ends of soiled bandages down his back. His aura is that of an attic in winter, of cold, shadowy rafters hiding rats, and dank crawl spaces usurping the throne of a bright and open sky.
Shuuhei has been here before, of course -- both in this room and with this man. He has been given petty orders and gone on small missions and has known for years that Tousen Kaname will be the person at whose request he will lay down his life in battle, and by whose righteous philosophy he will strive to live it beforehand. He has had time to grow used to this, to the idea that he will never be able to reach certain childhood goals -- not because they are too lofty, but because they have been sunk too deep.
And so, why?
Why does this feel like the first time he has been summoned here? Because his uniform is black now instead of blue? Why does his previous disappointment fail to buffer the weird pain of this moment, the surreal heartbreak of having lost something as incorporeal as an opportunity, a dream?
"Tousen-taichou. . .Tousen-taichou, forgive me, but. . .the captain who served before you -- what happened to him? The records at the academy list him as having been lost in action, but, please, can you tell me -- what happened to Muguruma--"
"It is an unlucky thing, Hisagi Shuuhei."
"S. . .sir?"
"It is an unlucky thing: the naming of those who have departed this realm."
Departed.
Gone.
Such had been the dark man's sole response, edged, Shuuhei had thought, with a sense of regret not dissimilar to his own -- a regret which presently causes him to suppress a sudden, surprising desire to cry. He hasn't cried in decades -- not even for Aoga or Kanisawa, or any of his ill-fated classmates in the aftermath of that horrifying night. He has not cried once since the day he'd been given what he's always considered to be his first order as a Shinigami, years before he actually became one. He did not, does not, and does not want to cry, least of all and always for Muguruma Kensei.
And yet. . .
He's worked so hard. He's come so far. He's supposed to be the sixth wheel of the Ninth Division, but he's arrived only to discover his tires have been slashed. He's standing in the tree where god stayed and all his temple's offerings are, for the second time, being swept clean from their altars by a cold and cutting wind. Even Kazeshini is incensed -- at Shuuhei, of course -- and a mean, musteline snicker fills his mind.
That's what you get for modeling yourself after a dead man. Dumbass.
Shuuhei swallows, and the hard bob of his Adam's apple in his throat is thick and loud. Something in Tousen's bearing shifts and seems to search his new subordinate like the suspicious gaze his closed and vizored eyes are incapable of conveying when he asks, "Do you understand, Hisagi-rokuseki, all that is required of you as a member of this squad?"
Shuuhei has just been assigned his barracks and informed of his daily duties. He's already well-acquainted with the men and women he will lead on field missions, and he will be shown, tomorrow, how to set the type on the printing press and properly format the weekly articles sent in for publication in the Seireitei Communication, to which he is welcome to contribute should his thoughts take a journalistic turn.
All he can think to write is an obituary.
He stiffens. "Yes, sir."
"In which case, you are dismissed. Congratulations, and do try not to allow your division mates to get carried away in their helping you to celebrate this momentous occasion."
"Yes, sir. Thank you, sir." He wonders if the man can feel the air displaced by the brief, respectful nod he forces his neck into performing before he takes his leave, ostensibly his first steps along the path of least bloodshed.
He does not celebrate -- not with his new division mates, and not, as he is, alone.
Oh, he gets drunk. He's three sheets to the wind and numbly cracking his way through a plateful of crayfish in a random First District tavern by the time the idea enters his mind, spawned when he catches his scarred reflection in the flat cup of sake cradled in his left palm.
Kazeshini snorts in derision.
You honestly thought he was fuckin' waiting for you, didn't you? the spirit berates him. Like a woman on a shore. You pussy. That's the only thing that shit on your face has ever gotten you, you know, and not a fucking lot of it at that -- though I'll admit that last one was a pretty good time. Breathing on your dick and calling it a blowjob, goddamn, that was a riot!
A peel of shrieking laughter rattles against the inside of Shuuhei's skull, and he shakes his head. That poor girl. He still doesn't know who had been more embarrassed -- she for taking the colloquial term literally, or he for having to explain her mistake.
But that's an academy bitch for you, Kazeshini sighs -- from the sound of it, through his teeth. All experimentation, no experience. At least you didn't graduate a virgin. I don't think I could ever show my face to you without a fucking bag over your head if you had. Maybe now you'll buck up and go after something with tits bigger than pachinko balls who can teach you a few things. Fuck knows you could use the practice.
"You're not going to distract me," Shuuhei murmurs. "I've already made my decision."
There's a clinking sound like that of small tin wind chimes, or the movement of chains.
Tch. Like I give a rat's ass. You know what? I'm glad he's dead. Maybe now you'll start pulling yourself up by your own fuckin' bootstraps, instead of waiting for someone to pick your whiny ass up off the ground.
"I don't wear boots."
Oh what, suddenly you like to mince words, Newspaper Division sixth seat? You know what I fuckin' meant.
Shuuhei does -- at least, he hopes he does. He's asked around, but no one he's spoken to has ever described the voice of their zanpakutou in a way that comes close to matching Kazeshini's. . .abrasiveness.
Someone thumps a fist on a table behind him, and when Shuuhei turns at the noise his heart skips a beat as a head of silver hair calls out to the barkeep to "play somethin' pretty."
Kazeshini snarls.
It's the Fifth Division leaders, just sitting down to drink or dine. Aizen-taichou catches Shuuhei's eye and bestows upon him an acknowledging nod, an approving smile, and Shuuhei envies three freshmen their good fortune at having been saved when they're already so close to heaven. In Kira's eyes, and in Hinamori's especially, Shuuhei has witnessed the echoes of tears being sucked back inside lacrimal ducts, as the reasons for those who shed them to be what they are already on their way to becoming were tapered to sharp points and tipped in the direction of strong bodies and almost scarily smiling faces.
A waxy, scratchy sort of sound zips through the room, and then a woman's voice begins to croon through the flared cone of the old-fashioned phonograph behind the bar (how something like that ended up here, of all places, Shuuhei doesn't know). She sings in English, and while Shuuhei can't understand her words, her doleful delivery is more than enough to convey to him their meaning. Ichimaru hums along, leaning back in his seat until his chair stands on only two legs, rocking gently back and forth by the flexing of his foot against a table leg.
Shuuhei turns back to his meal and orders another carafe of sake.
When a bottle appears in front of him instead, its label far out of his price range, he doesn't even have a chance to protest its presence before two bodies bookend his own, one in mourning white and the other bearing a badge marked with the image of a funeral flower.
Something inside Shuuhei bristles. There's a sense of scrabbling, of claws digging frantically into earth, burrowing, and a flash of eyes filmed over with blue fear.
"Pardon our intrusion," Aizen greets him politely, "but it would be remiss of us not to extend our congratulations to the first Shinigami in more than fifty years to have attained officer status directly upon his graduation from the academy."
"Yeah," says Ichimaru. "Feel special -- you're the best since me." He tilts his head and his smile widens. "But not better than."
Shuuhei forces the corners of his mouth up to soften the snort that would not have escaped him had he been sober, because he's never quite sure just how serious the silver-haired man really is. He thanks them both and opens the bottle, tries not to spill as he fills the two cups that have appeared on the bar beside his own, then allows Ichimaru to pour for him in turn.
"To Hisagi-rokuseki," Aizen toasts, lifting his cup, "whom I look forward to one day addressing as taichou. Kampai!"
"Kampai," Ichimaru and Shuuhei repeat, albeit the latter too softly. Aizen's words curdle his stomach like lemon in milk, and the cold burn of the drink he downs does little to dissolve the feeling.
Aizen, oblivious, surveys the exoskeletal remains of Shuuhei's supper with a wrinkled nose. "I was given to understand these creatures carried parasites."
"Oh, yeah," Ichimaru nods. "Make your balls swell up the size of melons if they ain't cooked right."
"Charming."
"Eh," Ichimaru shrugs. He inspects one of the crustaceans' severed heads and noisily sucks out the bit of fatty meat that Shuuhei had left behind, then smacks his lips in satisfaction. "You'd be amazed at the kinds o'things you get a taste for, growin' up in Rukongai. Almost anything that don't involve starvation, for one. Ain't that right, Hisagi-kun?"
Shuuhei's only response is a single, curt nod. He doesn't trust his voice. At the moment, he barely trusts his throat -- his choker feels too tight, and there's a hot, tangy sting welling just beneath the corners of his jaw.
Ichimaru stoops so that his face is level with Shuuhei's, and peels a lock of dark hair away from the sixth-seat's clammy face.
"Uh-oh~" he sing-songs in amusement, "I know that look."
"Gin."
The name acts as an order unto itself, and before Shuuhei can even think to stagger off his bar stool and make a break for the door, a skinny but steely arm wraps itself firmly around his shoulders and the world gives a sudden lurch.
Ichimaru-fukutaichou drops him in the nick of time as startlement and the disorientation of shunpo make a waterspout of his stomach contents. The silver-haired man laughs as Shuuhei heaves on all fours, spraying sake and shellfish against the tavern's outer wall.
"There ya go," he encourages, patting the younger man none too gently on the back, "get it all out. . ."
Aizen appears a few moments later with another teardrop-shaped carafe -- of water, this time -- and Shuuhei gratefully rinses his mouth, splashes his face and drinks deeply of the cool, clean contents within.
"I reckon it's time we tucked him in, don't you, Aizen-taichou?"
"No," Shuuhei rasps.
"No? Don't tell me ya wanna head back in for another round?"
Shuuhei cringes at the thought and shakes his head, then closes his eyes when his vision continues to sway. "No, there's just. . .there's something I need to do first."
"Surely it can wait until tomorrow?"
"It can't!" Shuuhei snaps, then reddens in shame at his aweless outburst. "My apologies, Aizen-taichou, but I. . .I need to do this. I don't know how well I can serve under Tousen-taichou if I don't."
Aizen and Ichimaru exchange dubious glances.
"Well, well," Ichimaru drawls. "That sounds like a mighty serious threat."
"It's not a threat," Shuuhei says quietly. "I. . .has there never been anything you've had to complete before you could move on to something else?"
"Nope," Ichimaru grins. "But I've heard stories. Yours sounds like you're fixin' to break up with your lover."
"That's not it," Shuuhei protests, but weakly, because it's close enough.
"Gin," Aizen chides, "there's no need to tease the young man, or even to pry; but, Hisagi-kun, wherever it is you feel you must go, please, allow us to see you there and home again. I mean you no disrespect, of course, but while I hardly doubt your ability to defend yourself under ordinary circumstances. . ."
". . .you ain't exactly at your best," Ichimaru finishes for him, then sidles close to whisper conspiratorially in Shuuhei's ear, "Just indulge him, would ya? He'll be all antsy an' anxious the rest of the night if you don't, and he's a real crab the next day if he don't get his full forty winks."
A long-suffering sigh comes from Shuuhei's other side. "I can still hear you, Gin."
"Oopsie~" Ichimaru offers his superior a contrite smile. "Sorry, Aizen-taichou, but it's a fukutaichou's job, ain't it, to make sure every member of the squad's at his best at all times?"
Shuuhei flushes at the man's audacity, that he could so undermine his captain not only in the presence of but directly to a rookie officer, but Aizen merely purses his lips, and promises that Ichimaru's unwavering loyalty will be noted in his next evaluation. Such strange men, Shuuhei thinks, but he can't help the pang of jealousy at their obvious closeness -- would he have been able to grow so casual, so comfortable with the man beneath whom he had expected to serve?
Could he ever hope to become so now, with the man whom he hadn't, but does?
Aizen's glasses glint as he again faces Shuuhei with an easy smile. "Shall we, Hisagi-kun?"
Ichimaru sings on the way there, the same tune from the tavern, but with lyrics in Japanese: "Blow, ill wind, blow away; the skies are all so gray~ around my neighborhood, and that's no good¹. . ."
His shoulder knocks occasionally against Shuuhei's, bumps him into Aizen too often for it to be purely accidental, but the easygoing captain doesn't seem to notice -- or if he does, he doesn't seem to mind. After one particularly jarring stumble, he steadies Shuuhei with a gentle hand, and chuckles quietly, as if to say, "This is why we came along."
Shuuhei meets Ichimaru's narrowed eyes and is about to politely request that he stop, but the silver-haired man's cheek twitches up in a wink, and Shuuhei understands: this is why they came along.
A sixth-seat, he thinks, can far better afford to lose face and appear useless than can a captain.
Satisfied, Ichimaru stretches his arms behind his head and continues to croon at the sky, "You're only misleadin' the sunshine I'm needin', ain't that a shame? It's so hard to keep up with troubles that creep up from outta nowhere, when love's to blame, so--"
"This is it."
They halt in front of a nondescript dwelling, one of a row of dozens that took Shuuhei five passes to find on his first visit here. (He was later consoled by the fact that it had taken Abarai, to whom he had mentioned it upon hearing that the redhead had been asking around about such places, no fewer than ten.)
The people of this particular district call the house's single occupant Nagasaki, for where he had been from in his last life. He is unusual among Pluses for the length of his memory -- so many, upon their arrival in Soul Society, are quick to pave new lives over their old ones, be it owing to a psychological defense mechanism wherein remembering all they have been made to leave behind would prove too taxing on their sanity to endure, or simply the nature of reincarnation, wherein the physical realm fades like a dream throughout the course of a day, as the spirit world exists only in fog and fantasy to the dimension beneath it.
Nagasaki, however, is never without a maritime adventure to recount, be it one of his own or the reckonings of innumerable strangers who had drifted into port, packed to the gills with legends like ballast and superstitions as imperishable as the hard tack that filled the mouths of those who avowed them.
Shuuhei's face grows warm as he knocks firmly on the old man's door. The walk has sobered him somewhat, and he now finds himself all too aware of the late hour and his own rudeness. He hopes Nagasaki will not turn him away, hopes that the man will not take the fact that Shuuhei has shown up in his shihakushou and flanked by two men of obvious military stature as an implication that his refusal will not be permitted.
A light flickers to life inside, shooing off schools of shadows dark as clouds of squid ink. Slow footsteps creak on frayed tatami and warped wood. There is the sound of a latch being lifted, and then the stuttering catch of an uneven door sliding open on a dusty track.
Shuuhei winces slightly and blinks to help his eyes adjust to the sudden light, and it doesn't take long before the small, dark silhouette of the old man fills in with flesh like water in a submerged cup. Nagasaki's gaze travels between the three soldiers on his doorstep, and comes to settle upon Shuuhei.
"By thy long beard and glittering eye," he asks, "now wherefore stopp'st thou me?²"
His face is wizened and brown, but the skin of his bare torso is one hundred shades of black and blue with the brands of his voyages. The leathery poles of his halyard-hard forearms are rigged with waving ropes that unfurl into sails and clouds at his shoulders. Eddying currents where eared turtles swirl rain down his chest and, commencing low on his paunched belly, the journey of a bearded koi begins its ascent up the Longmen Falls of his ribs. The images ripple in the lamp light, turning Nagasaki himself into his own kind of sea monster. He claims to have lain with mermaids in oyster beds; tonight, Shuuhei believes him.
The old man, for his part, remembers.
Symbols are his trade: a meaning to everything, and to everything, a meaning. Words, pictures, objects, sounds: all find themselves translated and transcribed, transmogrified by way of mortification, for want of memory, from page or painting or personage, into skin. He remembers this boy who stands again before him and now between Scylla and Charybdis; remembers his request for the iconic representation of the most nurturing of Western star signs -- the one that, in its mother tongue, shares its name with a ravenously destructive disease.
"Nagasaki-san," Shuuhei says lowly, with hard, downcast eyes and a heart as heavy as a fishnet full of stones, "I am. . .feeling blue."
Aizen and Ichimaru trade puzzled looks over Shuuhei's shoulders, but the old man only nods and wordlessly steps aside to bid them entrance into his home. They remove and leave their waraji on the low wooden porch before following the mariner within.
Inside, the home is spare, but cozy, and they are invited to sit at a low table on the other side of a thin futon while Nagasaki busies himself with the making of tea and the preparation of his craft. He is not a man to stand on ceremony, and the ritual is perfunctory and brief: when he has finished and they have each been fortified by a cup of strong sencha, he gestures between Shuuhei and the mattress.
"If you are ready, Hisagi-san?"
Shuuhei nods and removes his sheathed zanpakutou from his obi, and places it carefully on the table before stretching out on his back. Nagasaki sits seiza beside him and brings the lamp closer to study his face, his old eyes lingering on the three parallel lines that drip down Shuuhei's forehead, right eye and cheek.
"The scars will not hold ink the same," he informs him.
"That's fine," says Shuuhei. "You can stop before them. They carry their own meaning and will not lessen this one."
The old man nods. He swabs Shuuhei's skin clean, and Shuuhei accepts his offer of a slender leather bit to bite. Its taste is musty, greasy, and he holds it as far back on his tongue as he can manage.
Nagasaki's rough and weathered hand presses like a starfish against Shuuhei's skin, balancing at five points on callused fingertips. Shuuhei closes his eyes and tenses his jaw in preparation, as the quiet clicks of metal against ceramic herald the start of the process.
The first stab is a sudden dart of pain just beneath his left temple, but Shuuhei barely has time to register the sting before it's followed by a dozen more, and the sensations bleed together into a broad and manageable burn. The sound of it is not unlike that of fingernails scratching quickly over canvas, and beyond it, he can hear one of his companions release a quiet but lengthy breath. That he is being observed during this, an act of private mourning, is almost a comfort, in an odd sort of way -- perhaps because of who it is that observes him. It feels right that he honors a man to whom he owes his life in the presence of two others who could claim, if they desired to, that he owes them the very same thing.
Shouldn't say shit like that, Kazeshini hisses -- whispers (whimpers? --No). Of course he disapproves, Shuuhei thinks. His zanpakutou, for all that it is his, routinely balks at the idea of being beholden to anyone. He is leashed, he says, but he has yet to be mastered.
All in good time.
Stupid kit. You're even blinder than that bastard you bow to--
Shuuhei finds footholds in the branches of his reality-rooted pain and uses them to climb higher into the canopy of his mind, until Kazeshini's voice is distant and indecipherable against the sizzle of the needles piercing his skin. He focuses on why he is here.
"Are you familiar with the phrase 'feeling blue', Hisagi-san?"
"No, sir."
"It is a Western term. To some, it means to be drunk, and to others, it means to be sad."
His nose is the worst, the nerves there shallow, stretched almost fleshless over cartilage. His eyes mist behind their lids, and he bites down hard on the leather bit to stifle a sudden urge to sneeze. To lose an eye to this, of all things. . .he would never live it down.
"Makes sense. Those two things often go hand-in-hand."
"Ah, but they are not related. In the one case, it is associated with an ancient method of dyeing cloth. People discovered that blue dye adhered better to fabric if it was mixed with urine in place of water -- something drinking produces in great quantities. --Ah-ah! Don't smile."
"Then don't say amusing things. Tell me why it means sadness."
He feels the small, meticulous taps of two corners being formed on his scar-seamed cheek. He feels the wet heat of blood and ink being wiped away like tears.
"It means sadness because, when one of their ships would lose its captain or one of its officers during a voyage, a blue line would painted along its entire hull, so that when it returned to its home port, those on the docks would know to render honors."
". . .I see."
And he does, when it is over, when Nagasaki passes him a rectangular mirror dappled with rust and water spots.
The freehand precision is remarkable, the swollen and red-rimmed line perfectly straight across the dips and crests of Shuuhei's features.
"Extraordinary," Aizen breathes, while beside him, Ichimaru is uncommonly wide-eyed, his sanguine gaze riveted, his mouth parted and cheeks bright, as if he's just been privy to a different kind of intimacy.
They thank Nagasaki for his hospitality, and recognize his mastery with bows of reverent depth. Shuuhei sinks all the way to his knees and relishes the hot throb that courses through his face as he presses his brow to the floor.
The old man watches their departure from his porch. He sucks one finger into his mouth to wet it, then offers it to the air.
The winds are changing, he grimly notes: very probably, a storm is on its way.
The walk back is silent, and Ichimaru in particular seems restless and eager to return to the city. His jaw works the whole way like he's chewing on a gristly something, and it isn't until they are admitted through Seireitei's northern gate that the smile returns to his face.
"Hope I won't break any hearts if I leave off here," he says when they reach Eighth Division territory. "I gotta see a girl about a wolf."
"Of course not," says Aizen with a knowing smile. "I'll see you in the morning. Do give Matsumoto-kun my regards."
Ichimaru grins, and his narrowed eyes fall again upon Shuuhei's left cheek. "Sweet dreams, Hisagi-kun. Thanks for the memories."
Shuuhei tries not to appear as ill-at-ease as the cryptic statement makes him feel. "Um. . .you're welcome?"
The silver-haired man nods once -- "I'll remember that, too," -- before ambling off into the night with a lullaby on his lips, "Lay down and go to sleep, sleep. . .be a good little boy and sleep, sleep. . ."
Shuuhei shakes off a queer feeling of déjà vu, then turns to face Aizen with an abashed look.
"Aizen-taichou, while I am honored by and grateful for your escort, you needn't accompany me the rest of the way. The Ninth isn't far, and I highly doubt I'll fall prey to any bandits here."
"Oh dear," Aizen smiles sheepishly, "have I made you feel too much like an errant child? I assure you, such was not my intention."
"No!" Shuuhei says quickly. "That's not it. I only figured you might have business waiting for you back at the Fifth. You needn't waste anymore of your time with me."
"On the contrary, Hisagi-kun," the older man assures him, the flat lenses of his spectacles catching the moonlight like mirrors, "tonight has been most. . .gratifying. Tousen-taichou has always spoken extremely well of you, and it has been a most enjoyable experience to learn why."
Shuuhei should, perhaps, be wondering in what ways has he proven himself so enjoyable, but his mind is drowned out by the siren's song of his heart, "He. . .he does?"
"He does. And he is not, I can assure you, a lenient man in the weighing of his subordinates' virtues."
The absorption of this information takes Shuuhei all the way back to the broad black torii gate that marks the entrance of the Ninth Division, carries him there on the humped back of a whale, and not, for the first time, in one's belly. He and Aizen part politely, and he has just passed beneath the inverted arch when the captain's voice calls out to him once more, "Hisagi-kun."
Shuuhei stops and turns around. "Yes, Aizen-taichou?"
The warmth in Aizen's brown eyes has not cooled so much as it has grown distant, like the light of a navigator's star that is, to an elsewhere, a blistering sun.
"I cannot claim that I knew Muguruma-taichou exceedingly well," he says at length, and Shuuhei's breath catches on that sacrosanct name, "but he was a good man, a good captain, and I believe that, were he here now, he would be as proud of you as I am. As we all are."
It is a heavy, humbling compliment, and for a long moment, Shuuhei can only stand there, dumbstruck, caught between his need to assert his own failings and his inability to call into question the opinion of someone whose wisdom and kindness, power and formidability he has witnessed first-hand; someone he so deeply respects as both a Shinigami, and a man.
Someone he wants very, very much to believe.
In the end, he can only nod, and Aizen-taichou bids him a final goodnight before turning and heading leisurely back towards the Fifth Division, singing softly to himself, "Lay down and go to sleep, sleep. . .be a good little boy and sleep, sleep. . ."
You know he's full of shit, right? Kazeshini asks as Shuuhei makes his way to his quarters.
"And you aren't?" he replies. "Or was your tongue otherwise occupied when you had the chance to say as much to Shinsou and Kyouka Suigetsu themselves?"
Tch. Yeah, I was using it to lick my own balls because your gay ass never goes out drinking for the right reasons. Would ya look at that? An empty futon. Big fuckin' surprise.
Shuuhei undresses, smirking. "Would you rather I return to Nagasaki-san's?"
He's rewarded with a verbal retch and the impression of a sable-bodied shudder. And you think I'm nasty? Have you checked your reflection lately? Fag.
Shuuhei can't resist: "I know you are, but what am I?"
Dork.
"I know you are, but what am I?"
A brown-nosing, pansy-assed, turd-burgling, won't-fight can't-fight don't-fight loser.
"I know you are, but what am--"
Goddamn it, cut that fucking shit out!
"You started it."
No. When I start shit, trust me, you'll know.
Shuuhei doesn't doubt that he will, but he's careful not to let on precisely how much the spirit's promise disturbs him. Kazeshini, he's learned, is a creature of so many fine lines they crosshatch into solid black -- or like rows of needles whose individual punctures are placed so close together they can no longer be discerned from a single design. One day, Shuuhei fears, the floodgates will open and the waves will break. One day, even a murmured immaturity may be enough to bait the sword into twisting around in his hand, and when that day comes, it may not matter that he still grips its hilt.
He places the katana in the simple wooden stand adjacent to his futon and beds down, noticing as he does that his standard issue mattress is thicker than the one he so recently made light of. He'd tipped Nagasaki generously on top of the old man's artisan's fee, but he wishes now he'd given even more. There really isn't a value that can be placed on what the tattooist has traded him in return. Briefly he considers returning again tomorrow with a second fistful of coins, but he doesn't want to offend the man's pride. Nagasaki charged what he thought was fair, and Shuuhei can no more oppugn his judgment than he could Aizen's or Tousen's assessment of Shuuhei's own worth.
I don't like him, Kazeshini snipes. Either of them.
Shuuhei rolls his eyes before closing them for the night. "You don't even like me."
. . .no, the spirit admits, and if Shuuhei didn't know better, he would mistake the quiet disgust in the zanpakutou's voice for despondency. No, I really don't.
Footnotes:
1. "Ill Wind" by Ella Fitzgerald. (The barkeep might have come across it by chance, but it's not as if Shinji wasn't cutting paper doll chains out of space-time fabric to begin with by listening to jazz sometime circa the late 1800s. At least Kensei's bosozoku-looking self could have actually had a motorcycle. It would've probably looked like this, but he could have had one. ;)
2. The third and fourth lines of The Rime of the Ancient Mariner by Samuel Taylor Coleridge. (He, uh, traded a tattoo for a translation. *coughs*)
Author: foxflare
Rating: PG13, for Kazeshini's filthy mouth.
Characters: Shuuhei; also Kazeshini, Tousen, Aizen, Gin, and one non-rom old man OC.
Word Count: ~5000
Disclaimer: I own no part of Cl2(aq) + H2O(l) ↔ 2H+(aq) + Cl-(aq) + ClO-(aq). Kubo Tite-sama whitens and brightens all.
Notes: This is all gypsygrrl420's fault (unless it's booed off the stage; then it's all on me) -- my first stab at non-AU Shuu. *gulps* o_o; Also, it helps but is not necessary to have seen episode 260 of the anime. Mind the gaps and watch out for flying weasels.
Summary: Shuuhei acquires his second tattoo.
He's gone.
Newly-minted Ninth Division sixth seat Hisagi Shuuhei kneels stock-still in his captain's office, and the man who stands before him could be a photographic negative to the one he'd been expecting to see. This man is slender and dark, with long hair in braids that trail like black streamers or the loose ends of soiled bandages down his back. His aura is that of an attic in winter, of cold, shadowy rafters hiding rats, and dank crawl spaces usurping the throne of a bright and open sky.
Shuuhei has been here before, of course -- both in this room and with this man. He has been given petty orders and gone on small missions and has known for years that Tousen Kaname will be the person at whose request he will lay down his life in battle, and by whose righteous philosophy he will strive to live it beforehand. He has had time to grow used to this, to the idea that he will never be able to reach certain childhood goals -- not because they are too lofty, but because they have been sunk too deep.
And so, why?
Why does this feel like the first time he has been summoned here? Because his uniform is black now instead of blue? Why does his previous disappointment fail to buffer the weird pain of this moment, the surreal heartbreak of having lost something as incorporeal as an opportunity, a dream?
"Tousen-taichou. . .Tousen-taichou, forgive me, but. . .the captain who served before you -- what happened to him? The records at the academy list him as having been lost in action, but, please, can you tell me -- what happened to Muguruma--"
"It is an unlucky thing, Hisagi Shuuhei."
"S. . .sir?"
"It is an unlucky thing: the naming of those who have departed this realm."
Departed.
Gone.
Such had been the dark man's sole response, edged, Shuuhei had thought, with a sense of regret not dissimilar to his own -- a regret which presently causes him to suppress a sudden, surprising desire to cry. He hasn't cried in decades -- not even for Aoga or Kanisawa, or any of his ill-fated classmates in the aftermath of that horrifying night. He has not cried once since the day he'd been given what he's always considered to be his first order as a Shinigami, years before he actually became one. He did not, does not, and does not want to cry, least of all and always for Muguruma Kensei.
And yet. . .
He's worked so hard. He's come so far. He's supposed to be the sixth wheel of the Ninth Division, but he's arrived only to discover his tires have been slashed. He's standing in the tree where god stayed and all his temple's offerings are, for the second time, being swept clean from their altars by a cold and cutting wind. Even Kazeshini is incensed -- at Shuuhei, of course -- and a mean, musteline snicker fills his mind.
That's what you get for modeling yourself after a dead man. Dumbass.
Shuuhei swallows, and the hard bob of his Adam's apple in his throat is thick and loud. Something in Tousen's bearing shifts and seems to search his new subordinate like the suspicious gaze his closed and vizored eyes are incapable of conveying when he asks, "Do you understand, Hisagi-rokuseki, all that is required of you as a member of this squad?"
Shuuhei has just been assigned his barracks and informed of his daily duties. He's already well-acquainted with the men and women he will lead on field missions, and he will be shown, tomorrow, how to set the type on the printing press and properly format the weekly articles sent in for publication in the Seireitei Communication, to which he is welcome to contribute should his thoughts take a journalistic turn.
All he can think to write is an obituary.
He stiffens. "Yes, sir."
"In which case, you are dismissed. Congratulations, and do try not to allow your division mates to get carried away in their helping you to celebrate this momentous occasion."
"Yes, sir. Thank you, sir." He wonders if the man can feel the air displaced by the brief, respectful nod he forces his neck into performing before he takes his leave, ostensibly his first steps along the path of least bloodshed.
He does not celebrate -- not with his new division mates, and not, as he is, alone.
Oh, he gets drunk. He's three sheets to the wind and numbly cracking his way through a plateful of crayfish in a random First District tavern by the time the idea enters his mind, spawned when he catches his scarred reflection in the flat cup of sake cradled in his left palm.
Kazeshini snorts in derision.
You honestly thought he was fuckin' waiting for you, didn't you? the spirit berates him. Like a woman on a shore. You pussy. That's the only thing that shit on your face has ever gotten you, you know, and not a fucking lot of it at that -- though I'll admit that last one was a pretty good time. Breathing on your dick and calling it a blowjob, goddamn, that was a riot!
A peel of shrieking laughter rattles against the inside of Shuuhei's skull, and he shakes his head. That poor girl. He still doesn't know who had been more embarrassed -- she for taking the colloquial term literally, or he for having to explain her mistake.
But that's an academy bitch for you, Kazeshini sighs -- from the sound of it, through his teeth. All experimentation, no experience. At least you didn't graduate a virgin. I don't think I could ever show my face to you without a fucking bag over your head if you had. Maybe now you'll buck up and go after something with tits bigger than pachinko balls who can teach you a few things. Fuck knows you could use the practice.
"You're not going to distract me," Shuuhei murmurs. "I've already made my decision."
There's a clinking sound like that of small tin wind chimes, or the movement of chains.
Tch. Like I give a rat's ass. You know what? I'm glad he's dead. Maybe now you'll start pulling yourself up by your own fuckin' bootstraps, instead of waiting for someone to pick your whiny ass up off the ground.
"I don't wear boots."
Oh what, suddenly you like to mince words, Newspaper Division sixth seat? You know what I fuckin' meant.
Shuuhei does -- at least, he hopes he does. He's asked around, but no one he's spoken to has ever described the voice of their zanpakutou in a way that comes close to matching Kazeshini's. . .abrasiveness.
Someone thumps a fist on a table behind him, and when Shuuhei turns at the noise his heart skips a beat as a head of silver hair calls out to the barkeep to "play somethin' pretty."
Kazeshini snarls.
It's the Fifth Division leaders, just sitting down to drink or dine. Aizen-taichou catches Shuuhei's eye and bestows upon him an acknowledging nod, an approving smile, and Shuuhei envies three freshmen their good fortune at having been saved when they're already so close to heaven. In Kira's eyes, and in Hinamori's especially, Shuuhei has witnessed the echoes of tears being sucked back inside lacrimal ducts, as the reasons for those who shed them to be what they are already on their way to becoming were tapered to sharp points and tipped in the direction of strong bodies and almost scarily smiling faces.
A waxy, scratchy sort of sound zips through the room, and then a woman's voice begins to croon through the flared cone of the old-fashioned phonograph behind the bar (how something like that ended up here, of all places, Shuuhei doesn't know). She sings in English, and while Shuuhei can't understand her words, her doleful delivery is more than enough to convey to him their meaning. Ichimaru hums along, leaning back in his seat until his chair stands on only two legs, rocking gently back and forth by the flexing of his foot against a table leg.
Shuuhei turns back to his meal and orders another carafe of sake.
When a bottle appears in front of him instead, its label far out of his price range, he doesn't even have a chance to protest its presence before two bodies bookend his own, one in mourning white and the other bearing a badge marked with the image of a funeral flower.
Something inside Shuuhei bristles. There's a sense of scrabbling, of claws digging frantically into earth, burrowing, and a flash of eyes filmed over with blue fear.
"Pardon our intrusion," Aizen greets him politely, "but it would be remiss of us not to extend our congratulations to the first Shinigami in more than fifty years to have attained officer status directly upon his graduation from the academy."
"Yeah," says Ichimaru. "Feel special -- you're the best since me." He tilts his head and his smile widens. "But not better than."
Shuuhei forces the corners of his mouth up to soften the snort that would not have escaped him had he been sober, because he's never quite sure just how serious the silver-haired man really is. He thanks them both and opens the bottle, tries not to spill as he fills the two cups that have appeared on the bar beside his own, then allows Ichimaru to pour for him in turn.
"To Hisagi-rokuseki," Aizen toasts, lifting his cup, "whom I look forward to one day addressing as taichou. Kampai!"
"Kampai," Ichimaru and Shuuhei repeat, albeit the latter too softly. Aizen's words curdle his stomach like lemon in milk, and the cold burn of the drink he downs does little to dissolve the feeling.
Aizen, oblivious, surveys the exoskeletal remains of Shuuhei's supper with a wrinkled nose. "I was given to understand these creatures carried parasites."
"Oh, yeah," Ichimaru nods. "Make your balls swell up the size of melons if they ain't cooked right."
"Charming."
"Eh," Ichimaru shrugs. He inspects one of the crustaceans' severed heads and noisily sucks out the bit of fatty meat that Shuuhei had left behind, then smacks his lips in satisfaction. "You'd be amazed at the kinds o'things you get a taste for, growin' up in Rukongai. Almost anything that don't involve starvation, for one. Ain't that right, Hisagi-kun?"
Shuuhei's only response is a single, curt nod. He doesn't trust his voice. At the moment, he barely trusts his throat -- his choker feels too tight, and there's a hot, tangy sting welling just beneath the corners of his jaw.
Ichimaru stoops so that his face is level with Shuuhei's, and peels a lock of dark hair away from the sixth-seat's clammy face.
"Uh-oh~" he sing-songs in amusement, "I know that look."
"Gin."
The name acts as an order unto itself, and before Shuuhei can even think to stagger off his bar stool and make a break for the door, a skinny but steely arm wraps itself firmly around his shoulders and the world gives a sudden lurch.
Ichimaru-fukutaichou drops him in the nick of time as startlement and the disorientation of shunpo make a waterspout of his stomach contents. The silver-haired man laughs as Shuuhei heaves on all fours, spraying sake and shellfish against the tavern's outer wall.
"There ya go," he encourages, patting the younger man none too gently on the back, "get it all out. . ."
Aizen appears a few moments later with another teardrop-shaped carafe -- of water, this time -- and Shuuhei gratefully rinses his mouth, splashes his face and drinks deeply of the cool, clean contents within.
"I reckon it's time we tucked him in, don't you, Aizen-taichou?"
"No," Shuuhei rasps.
"No? Don't tell me ya wanna head back in for another round?"
Shuuhei cringes at the thought and shakes his head, then closes his eyes when his vision continues to sway. "No, there's just. . .there's something I need to do first."
"Surely it can wait until tomorrow?"
"It can't!" Shuuhei snaps, then reddens in shame at his aweless outburst. "My apologies, Aizen-taichou, but I. . .I need to do this. I don't know how well I can serve under Tousen-taichou if I don't."
Aizen and Ichimaru exchange dubious glances.
"Well, well," Ichimaru drawls. "That sounds like a mighty serious threat."
"It's not a threat," Shuuhei says quietly. "I. . .has there never been anything you've had to complete before you could move on to something else?"
"Nope," Ichimaru grins. "But I've heard stories. Yours sounds like you're fixin' to break up with your lover."
"That's not it," Shuuhei protests, but weakly, because it's close enough.
"Gin," Aizen chides, "there's no need to tease the young man, or even to pry; but, Hisagi-kun, wherever it is you feel you must go, please, allow us to see you there and home again. I mean you no disrespect, of course, but while I hardly doubt your ability to defend yourself under ordinary circumstances. . ."
". . .you ain't exactly at your best," Ichimaru finishes for him, then sidles close to whisper conspiratorially in Shuuhei's ear, "Just indulge him, would ya? He'll be all antsy an' anxious the rest of the night if you don't, and he's a real crab the next day if he don't get his full forty winks."
A long-suffering sigh comes from Shuuhei's other side. "I can still hear you, Gin."
"Oopsie~" Ichimaru offers his superior a contrite smile. "Sorry, Aizen-taichou, but it's a fukutaichou's job, ain't it, to make sure every member of the squad's at his best at all times?"
Shuuhei flushes at the man's audacity, that he could so undermine his captain not only in the presence of but directly to a rookie officer, but Aizen merely purses his lips, and promises that Ichimaru's unwavering loyalty will be noted in his next evaluation. Such strange men, Shuuhei thinks, but he can't help the pang of jealousy at their obvious closeness -- would he have been able to grow so casual, so comfortable with the man beneath whom he had expected to serve?
Could he ever hope to become so now, with the man whom he hadn't, but does?
Aizen's glasses glint as he again faces Shuuhei with an easy smile. "Shall we, Hisagi-kun?"
Ichimaru sings on the way there, the same tune from the tavern, but with lyrics in Japanese: "Blow, ill wind, blow away; the skies are all so gray~ around my neighborhood, and that's no good¹. . ."
His shoulder knocks occasionally against Shuuhei's, bumps him into Aizen too often for it to be purely accidental, but the easygoing captain doesn't seem to notice -- or if he does, he doesn't seem to mind. After one particularly jarring stumble, he steadies Shuuhei with a gentle hand, and chuckles quietly, as if to say, "This is why we came along."
Shuuhei meets Ichimaru's narrowed eyes and is about to politely request that he stop, but the silver-haired man's cheek twitches up in a wink, and Shuuhei understands: this is why they came along.
A sixth-seat, he thinks, can far better afford to lose face and appear useless than can a captain.
Satisfied, Ichimaru stretches his arms behind his head and continues to croon at the sky, "You're only misleadin' the sunshine I'm needin', ain't that a shame? It's so hard to keep up with troubles that creep up from outta nowhere, when love's to blame, so--"
"This is it."
They halt in front of a nondescript dwelling, one of a row of dozens that took Shuuhei five passes to find on his first visit here. (He was later consoled by the fact that it had taken Abarai, to whom he had mentioned it upon hearing that the redhead had been asking around about such places, no fewer than ten.)
The people of this particular district call the house's single occupant Nagasaki, for where he had been from in his last life. He is unusual among Pluses for the length of his memory -- so many, upon their arrival in Soul Society, are quick to pave new lives over their old ones, be it owing to a psychological defense mechanism wherein remembering all they have been made to leave behind would prove too taxing on their sanity to endure, or simply the nature of reincarnation, wherein the physical realm fades like a dream throughout the course of a day, as the spirit world exists only in fog and fantasy to the dimension beneath it.
Nagasaki, however, is never without a maritime adventure to recount, be it one of his own or the reckonings of innumerable strangers who had drifted into port, packed to the gills with legends like ballast and superstitions as imperishable as the hard tack that filled the mouths of those who avowed them.
Shuuhei's face grows warm as he knocks firmly on the old man's door. The walk has sobered him somewhat, and he now finds himself all too aware of the late hour and his own rudeness. He hopes Nagasaki will not turn him away, hopes that the man will not take the fact that Shuuhei has shown up in his shihakushou and flanked by two men of obvious military stature as an implication that his refusal will not be permitted.
A light flickers to life inside, shooing off schools of shadows dark as clouds of squid ink. Slow footsteps creak on frayed tatami and warped wood. There is the sound of a latch being lifted, and then the stuttering catch of an uneven door sliding open on a dusty track.
Shuuhei winces slightly and blinks to help his eyes adjust to the sudden light, and it doesn't take long before the small, dark silhouette of the old man fills in with flesh like water in a submerged cup. Nagasaki's gaze travels between the three soldiers on his doorstep, and comes to settle upon Shuuhei.
"By thy long beard and glittering eye," he asks, "now wherefore stopp'st thou me?²"
His face is wizened and brown, but the skin of his bare torso is one hundred shades of black and blue with the brands of his voyages. The leathery poles of his halyard-hard forearms are rigged with waving ropes that unfurl into sails and clouds at his shoulders. Eddying currents where eared turtles swirl rain down his chest and, commencing low on his paunched belly, the journey of a bearded koi begins its ascent up the Longmen Falls of his ribs. The images ripple in the lamp light, turning Nagasaki himself into his own kind of sea monster. He claims to have lain with mermaids in oyster beds; tonight, Shuuhei believes him.
The old man, for his part, remembers.
Symbols are his trade: a meaning to everything, and to everything, a meaning. Words, pictures, objects, sounds: all find themselves translated and transcribed, transmogrified by way of mortification, for want of memory, from page or painting or personage, into skin. He remembers this boy who stands again before him and now between Scylla and Charybdis; remembers his request for the iconic representation of the most nurturing of Western star signs -- the one that, in its mother tongue, shares its name with a ravenously destructive disease.
"Nagasaki-san," Shuuhei says lowly, with hard, downcast eyes and a heart as heavy as a fishnet full of stones, "I am. . .feeling blue."
Aizen and Ichimaru trade puzzled looks over Shuuhei's shoulders, but the old man only nods and wordlessly steps aside to bid them entrance into his home. They remove and leave their waraji on the low wooden porch before following the mariner within.
Inside, the home is spare, but cozy, and they are invited to sit at a low table on the other side of a thin futon while Nagasaki busies himself with the making of tea and the preparation of his craft. He is not a man to stand on ceremony, and the ritual is perfunctory and brief: when he has finished and they have each been fortified by a cup of strong sencha, he gestures between Shuuhei and the mattress.
"If you are ready, Hisagi-san?"
Shuuhei nods and removes his sheathed zanpakutou from his obi, and places it carefully on the table before stretching out on his back. Nagasaki sits seiza beside him and brings the lamp closer to study his face, his old eyes lingering on the three parallel lines that drip down Shuuhei's forehead, right eye and cheek.
"The scars will not hold ink the same," he informs him.
"That's fine," says Shuuhei. "You can stop before them. They carry their own meaning and will not lessen this one."
The old man nods. He swabs Shuuhei's skin clean, and Shuuhei accepts his offer of a slender leather bit to bite. Its taste is musty, greasy, and he holds it as far back on his tongue as he can manage.
Nagasaki's rough and weathered hand presses like a starfish against Shuuhei's skin, balancing at five points on callused fingertips. Shuuhei closes his eyes and tenses his jaw in preparation, as the quiet clicks of metal against ceramic herald the start of the process.
The first stab is a sudden dart of pain just beneath his left temple, but Shuuhei barely has time to register the sting before it's followed by a dozen more, and the sensations bleed together into a broad and manageable burn. The sound of it is not unlike that of fingernails scratching quickly over canvas, and beyond it, he can hear one of his companions release a quiet but lengthy breath. That he is being observed during this, an act of private mourning, is almost a comfort, in an odd sort of way -- perhaps because of who it is that observes him. It feels right that he honors a man to whom he owes his life in the presence of two others who could claim, if they desired to, that he owes them the very same thing.
Shouldn't say shit like that, Kazeshini hisses -- whispers (whimpers? --No). Of course he disapproves, Shuuhei thinks. His zanpakutou, for all that it is his, routinely balks at the idea of being beholden to anyone. He is leashed, he says, but he has yet to be mastered.
All in good time.
Stupid kit. You're even blinder than that bastard you bow to--
Shuuhei finds footholds in the branches of his reality-rooted pain and uses them to climb higher into the canopy of his mind, until Kazeshini's voice is distant and indecipherable against the sizzle of the needles piercing his skin. He focuses on why he is here.
"Are you familiar with the phrase 'feeling blue', Hisagi-san?"
"No, sir."
"It is a Western term. To some, it means to be drunk, and to others, it means to be sad."
His nose is the worst, the nerves there shallow, stretched almost fleshless over cartilage. His eyes mist behind their lids, and he bites down hard on the leather bit to stifle a sudden urge to sneeze. To lose an eye to this, of all things. . .he would never live it down.
"Makes sense. Those two things often go hand-in-hand."
"Ah, but they are not related. In the one case, it is associated with an ancient method of dyeing cloth. People discovered that blue dye adhered better to fabric if it was mixed with urine in place of water -- something drinking produces in great quantities. --Ah-ah! Don't smile."
"Then don't say amusing things. Tell me why it means sadness."
He feels the small, meticulous taps of two corners being formed on his scar-seamed cheek. He feels the wet heat of blood and ink being wiped away like tears.
"It means sadness because, when one of their ships would lose its captain or one of its officers during a voyage, a blue line would painted along its entire hull, so that when it returned to its home port, those on the docks would know to render honors."
". . .I see."
And he does, when it is over, when Nagasaki passes him a rectangular mirror dappled with rust and water spots.
The freehand precision is remarkable, the swollen and red-rimmed line perfectly straight across the dips and crests of Shuuhei's features.
"Extraordinary," Aizen breathes, while beside him, Ichimaru is uncommonly wide-eyed, his sanguine gaze riveted, his mouth parted and cheeks bright, as if he's just been privy to a different kind of intimacy.
They thank Nagasaki for his hospitality, and recognize his mastery with bows of reverent depth. Shuuhei sinks all the way to his knees and relishes the hot throb that courses through his face as he presses his brow to the floor.
The old man watches their departure from his porch. He sucks one finger into his mouth to wet it, then offers it to the air.
The winds are changing, he grimly notes: very probably, a storm is on its way.
The walk back is silent, and Ichimaru in particular seems restless and eager to return to the city. His jaw works the whole way like he's chewing on a gristly something, and it isn't until they are admitted through Seireitei's northern gate that the smile returns to his face.
"Hope I won't break any hearts if I leave off here," he says when they reach Eighth Division territory. "I gotta see a girl about a wolf."
"Of course not," says Aizen with a knowing smile. "I'll see you in the morning. Do give Matsumoto-kun my regards."
Ichimaru grins, and his narrowed eyes fall again upon Shuuhei's left cheek. "Sweet dreams, Hisagi-kun. Thanks for the memories."
Shuuhei tries not to appear as ill-at-ease as the cryptic statement makes him feel. "Um. . .you're welcome?"
The silver-haired man nods once -- "I'll remember that, too," -- before ambling off into the night with a lullaby on his lips, "Lay down and go to sleep, sleep. . .be a good little boy and sleep, sleep. . ."
Shuuhei shakes off a queer feeling of déjà vu, then turns to face Aizen with an abashed look.
"Aizen-taichou, while I am honored by and grateful for your escort, you needn't accompany me the rest of the way. The Ninth isn't far, and I highly doubt I'll fall prey to any bandits here."
"Oh dear," Aizen smiles sheepishly, "have I made you feel too much like an errant child? I assure you, such was not my intention."
"No!" Shuuhei says quickly. "That's not it. I only figured you might have business waiting for you back at the Fifth. You needn't waste anymore of your time with me."
"On the contrary, Hisagi-kun," the older man assures him, the flat lenses of his spectacles catching the moonlight like mirrors, "tonight has been most. . .gratifying. Tousen-taichou has always spoken extremely well of you, and it has been a most enjoyable experience to learn why."
Shuuhei should, perhaps, be wondering in what ways has he proven himself so enjoyable, but his mind is drowned out by the siren's song of his heart, "He. . .he does?"
"He does. And he is not, I can assure you, a lenient man in the weighing of his subordinates' virtues."
The absorption of this information takes Shuuhei all the way back to the broad black torii gate that marks the entrance of the Ninth Division, carries him there on the humped back of a whale, and not, for the first time, in one's belly. He and Aizen part politely, and he has just passed beneath the inverted arch when the captain's voice calls out to him once more, "Hisagi-kun."
Shuuhei stops and turns around. "Yes, Aizen-taichou?"
The warmth in Aizen's brown eyes has not cooled so much as it has grown distant, like the light of a navigator's star that is, to an elsewhere, a blistering sun.
"I cannot claim that I knew Muguruma-taichou exceedingly well," he says at length, and Shuuhei's breath catches on that sacrosanct name, "but he was a good man, a good captain, and I believe that, were he here now, he would be as proud of you as I am. As we all are."
It is a heavy, humbling compliment, and for a long moment, Shuuhei can only stand there, dumbstruck, caught between his need to assert his own failings and his inability to call into question the opinion of someone whose wisdom and kindness, power and formidability he has witnessed first-hand; someone he so deeply respects as both a Shinigami, and a man.
Someone he wants very, very much to believe.
In the end, he can only nod, and Aizen-taichou bids him a final goodnight before turning and heading leisurely back towards the Fifth Division, singing softly to himself, "Lay down and go to sleep, sleep. . .be a good little boy and sleep, sleep. . ."
You know he's full of shit, right? Kazeshini asks as Shuuhei makes his way to his quarters.
"And you aren't?" he replies. "Or was your tongue otherwise occupied when you had the chance to say as much to Shinsou and Kyouka Suigetsu themselves?"
Tch. Yeah, I was using it to lick my own balls because your gay ass never goes out drinking for the right reasons. Would ya look at that? An empty futon. Big fuckin' surprise.
Shuuhei undresses, smirking. "Would you rather I return to Nagasaki-san's?"
He's rewarded with a verbal retch and the impression of a sable-bodied shudder. And you think I'm nasty? Have you checked your reflection lately? Fag.
Shuuhei can't resist: "I know you are, but what am I?"
Dork.
"I know you are, but what am I?"
A brown-nosing, pansy-assed, turd-burgling, won't-fight can't-fight don't-fight loser.
"I know you are, but what am--"
Goddamn it, cut that fucking shit out!
"You started it."
No. When I start shit, trust me, you'll know.
Shuuhei doesn't doubt that he will, but he's careful not to let on precisely how much the spirit's promise disturbs him. Kazeshini, he's learned, is a creature of so many fine lines they crosshatch into solid black -- or like rows of needles whose individual punctures are placed so close together they can no longer be discerned from a single design. One day, Shuuhei fears, the floodgates will open and the waves will break. One day, even a murmured immaturity may be enough to bait the sword into twisting around in his hand, and when that day comes, it may not matter that he still grips its hilt.
He places the katana in the simple wooden stand adjacent to his futon and beds down, noticing as he does that his standard issue mattress is thicker than the one he so recently made light of. He'd tipped Nagasaki generously on top of the old man's artisan's fee, but he wishes now he'd given even more. There really isn't a value that can be placed on what the tattooist has traded him in return. Briefly he considers returning again tomorrow with a second fistful of coins, but he doesn't want to offend the man's pride. Nagasaki charged what he thought was fair, and Shuuhei can no more oppugn his judgment than he could Aizen's or Tousen's assessment of Shuuhei's own worth.
I don't like him, Kazeshini snipes. Either of them.
Shuuhei rolls his eyes before closing them for the night. "You don't even like me."
. . .no, the spirit admits, and if Shuuhei didn't know better, he would mistake the quiet disgust in the zanpakutou's voice for despondency. No, I really don't.
Footnotes:
1. "Ill Wind" by Ella Fitzgerald. (The barkeep might have come across it by chance, but it's not as if Shinji wasn't cutting paper doll chains out of space-time fabric to begin with by listening to jazz sometime circa the late 1800s. At least Kensei's bosozoku-looking self could have actually had a motorcycle. It would've probably looked like this, but he could have had one. ;)
2. The third and fourth lines of The Rime of the Ancient Mariner by Samuel Taylor Coleridge. (He, uh, traded a tattoo for a translation. *coughs*)