It is cheering to see that the rats are still around:

[fearnotdeceit]

Characters: Hitsugaya Toushirou, Tsumugiya Ururu
When: March 14, late morning
Where: Living World, near the Shouten
Rating: PG? It's a cute girl, a grumpy captain, and a rat. How bad can it be?
Summary: Ururu lost Brutus. Hitsugaya just happens to be in the area.

Comments

[fearnotdeceit]

While the girl was gone, the rat sat in front of Hitsugaya and stared at him, little head cocked to the side and blinking. Hitsugaya may have been mirroring the pose. If he didn't know any better, he'd say the little rat looked rather curious. Maybe even thinking.

Then again, it had come from the Shouten. It could very well be plotting something. Hitsugaya had been on the receiving end of enough plots, for good or ill, to know what that looked like. Of course, he could very well be imagining things just because he was in the Living World and more prone to look over his shoulder recently.

He was glad when Ururu came back, but raised a brow at the cookies arranged carefully on a plate. She really didn't need to go through such trouble; he'd just brought a flying rat back. He took the tea with a sharp nod. "Thank you."

The rat kept staring. And staring.

And still staring.

Hitsugaya sipped at the tea, one eye on it. It couldn't really be plotting something, could it?

[sealed_gun_girl]

Ah, Brutus seemed to really like Hitsugaya-taichou. But there was something keeping him from flying right up to the Captain and settling on his shoulder again. ...That was probably a good thing.

Comfortable in the silence but conscious of the fact that conversation needed to be made, Ururu set down her tea cup after a couple of sips and tried to think of something to say. ...Oh, maybe it would be better to ask something.

"Um, Hitsugaya-taichou, maybe you could tell me how you found Brutus? I don't know how far away he got, but I'm sorry if he caused you any trouble... He's not been away from the Shouten before so he was probably lost and scared and I'm really glad that you found him and brought him back."

There was not even anything on Burtus showing that he belonged to the Shouten, so Hitsugaya-taichou was really clever to have brought him back here. He might have taken him back to Soul Society, after all...!

Her thankfulness renewed by that thought, she listened attentively for Hitsugaya's story about saving Brutus.

[fearnotdeceit]

Lost and scared? Hitsugaya blinked at the rat -- Brutus -- and raised a brow. Lost, sure. Scared? Not so much. The thing had flown right up to him and didn't seem worse for wear. He shrugged one shoulder at Ururu's question. "I didn't really find him so much as he found me."

He shook his head. "I wasn't far." The last thing he needed was for her to start thinking he went out of his way to bring Brutus back. She might get even more flustered. Hell, if she thought Brutus had gone a ways off, she might get upset.

Upset and even more grateful and he wasn't sure he wanted to deal with that. Tea and cookies was enough, thanks.

Speaking of... Hitsugaya took a cookie and nodded his thanks. "He didn't cause trouble." He set his tea down to wipe (most likely imaginary) cookies crumbs off the table.

[sealed_gun_girl]

Ah, Brutus was so smart to know that Hitsugaya-taichou would be able to help him find the way home. Petting his head with her left hand she then took up a cookie with her right. (For all that she loved Brutus, she knew that it wasn't good to pet a rat then eat with the same hand.)

She was also happy to hear that Brutus hadn't gotten far or caused any trouble. Well, outside the trouble of running away in the first place, that was.

Ururu glanced at the Captain - was that all of the story? Mmm, oh, well. Something else to talk about... Something...

She really didn't know much about Hitsugaya-taichou. In fact, the last time she'd heard him being talked about was when she'd gone shopping with Rai-san and Keigo-san. She looked at the Captain again. He didn't seem all that grumpy like they had said, but he was very serious. But a Captain was supposed to be serious, right

[fearnotdeceit]

He caught himself carefully wiping down his section the table before he completely realized what he was doing. Now that was just rude, now wasn't it? To walk in to have tea -- as a thank you of all things -- and then start making a show about cleaning the table was the epitome of rude, even for someone who didn't care too much (or too often) about being tactless.

Hitsugaya turned back to his tea. Tea was good. He'd focus on tea and just not clean the table. At least she didn't have napkins out that he could fold.

He stilled when Ururu mentioned Okada and blinked at her. "Okada?" Oh, gods, did he know him. "He's an officer in my division." That was a nice evasive answer. He was pretty sure she didn't want to hear all about Okada.

Couldn't do much about the flat tone of his voice, though. Now he rather wished for napkins to fold.