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He looked over his report, squeezed in a missing kana, and glared at the last sheet of paper for a long moment before he signed at the bottom:
‘Tenth Division Fourth Seat Watanabe Yūma’,
And then he glared at that signature some more.
Damn that Hitsugaya.
He knew he was being unfair, but he was still mad about not getting that promotion – could anyone blame him for that? He’d been overlooked in favor of some random guy straight out of the Academy; he was allowed to feel upset. He was pretty sure everyone in the division expected him to be, and it was all he could do to keep those feelings to himself.
It wasn’t like he didn’t have what it took: the Seventh had tried to recruit him as their third seat, and that had been thirty years ago; he’d kept honing his skills, since. He didn’t lack experience, either; even dismissing the long decades spent as an unseated soldier, he had more than two centuries under his belt as part of the team of officers here at the Tenth. He was well-respected and well-liked, and he would have made a great third seat.
Perhaps the damned loyalty that had made him refuse the offer from the Seventh had been misplaced. That’s what he told himself when he was most infuriated, but the thought never lasted: his loyalty had never really been to the Captain, anyway. It was all about the division and the people there – his friends, something like family for lack of an actual one – and they weren’t responsible for any of this.
The Captain was. He had gone through the files of the future graduates, had come up with a ridiculous idea, and had gone through with it. He had made the offer and he had signed the contract. Watanabe knew the Captain was the one he should be mad at, he did, but he wasn’t very good at holding grudges. And it was way easier to be mad at someone he hadn’t met, yet, rather than happy-go-lucky Shiba Isshin, whom he had to work with daily, and who was unfailingly nice.
Someone knocked, and Watanabe instantly stopped frowning. He did allow himself to be mad, but that was private: no matter how he felt, he wasn’t about to question the Captain’s decisions publicly. They had to put up a united front for the division to function properly.
“Come in”, Watanabe said with an easy smile.
The door slid, revealing a very young boy with white hair and eyes a striking shade of blue clad in the standard shihakushō. Watanabe’s smile grew warmer as he squashed the pity he felt for the kid playing soldier.
“Hey there”, he greeted cheerfully. “What can I do for you?”
“You must be Watanabe”, the kid said in a surprising deep voice, and he nodded. “I’m the new third seat, Hitsugaya Tōshirō.”
What. What the actual –
He did his best to hide his shock with another smile. The kid – his new superior, what was the Captain thinking? – must have noticed anyway, but there was nothing to do but soldier on, right? And the kid must have thought so as well, as he resumed:
“Matsumoto was supposed to get me started with paperwork, but she’s impossible to wake up from her nap”, he said with an irritated scowl that would have been super cute in any other situation. “I thought perhaps you could fill in for her.”
“Sure”, Watanabe agreed easily.
“Everything is in my office”, the kid said, and he turned around.
Watanabe suddenly realized that the boy’s white hair perhaps wasn’t his most glaring attribute: Hitsugaya wore his zanpakutō on his back; the long hilt reached higher than his messy hair, and the bottom of the sheath almost scraped the ground as he turned. He was shorter than his blade. Watanabe wasn’t sure how he felt about that. Bad, for sure, but that was just the overall impression he got from the knot in his stomach. He’d figure out the minute details of his emotions later, though: right now, he had to follow the kid and actually help him. He’d been rude enough already; he hadn’t even introduced himself back, dumbfounded as he had been. So he would bottle everything up for the rest of the day, and break down afterwards, preferably in private – yes, that sounded like a very good plan, he thought as he caught up with Hitsugaya.
“You did well to find me. The graduation ceremony was only this morning, right? You shouldn’t be left on your own so soon.”
Perhaps that had been too open a criticism, he realized all too late. But then again, what was the Captain thinking? Never mind that the kid was, precisely, a child; no brand new officer – and no new soldier either – could be expected to handle their responsibilities autonomously on their first day.
“I don’t need Shiba – or anyone, for that matter – to coddle me. I can handle myself”, the kid answered with a cutting undertone.
“Of course, sir”, Watanabe said with a tight smile.
The day promised to be long.
Kaoruko gulped down the last of her soup, and then started slurping her noodles like he wasn’t even here. She was doing it on purpose, of course. Whenever one of her friends got into a silent funk, she dragged them out to dinner, and then she ignored them until they cracked and told her everything weighing on them. She’d explained her favored strategy to him some years before, back when she’d still been working with him at the Tenth, and he hadn’t been impressed. Now that he was being subjected to it, though, he found it efficient – surprisingly so, given that he knew what she was doing.
“You didn’t have to cancel your date for me.”
Kaoruko ignored that, and kept slurping with gusto. He smiled despite himself.
“I met Hitsugaya today.”
This time, she put down her chopsticks and folded her hands – he tried to pick up his bowl of lukewarm soup purely to get back at her, but she saw him coming and grabbed the bowl before he could get it to his lips.
“Stop that and talk, you annoying bastard.”
“I’m hungry”, he said in an over-the-top innocent voice.
“Hungry my ass! You’ve been snubbing your food for the past twenty minutes. I did cancel that date for you, so kindly stop messing with me and spill the beans. I’m listening.”
Truth was, he felt better already, because being around her was a delight, even when she bullied him into talking about his feelings.
“Hitsugaya is a kid. About ninety, I think?”
“Damn”, Kaoruko said.
“That’s messed up, right – I mean, it’s not just me? He’s literally a child! He shouldn’t even be a soldier in the first place, how insane is it to give him such responsibilities?”
His friend frowned.
“This isn’t about your non-promotion anymore, is it?”
“No, I don’t think it is.”
When he’d been upset about that, he hadn’t been able to get mad at Captain Shiba. Now, all things considered, it only seemed too easy.
He sighed. After spending the whole afternoon in Hitsugaya’s aloof company and cold reiatsu, he longed for some warmth, and he cupped his hands around his bowl. But he’d let it cool down too long, and the soup couldn’t bring him the comfort he sought anymore.
“The worst part is, there’s nothing I can do about it. Whatever I might think, I’m not about to publicize it: it wouldn’t achieve anything. Plus, Hitsugaya is probably going to have a hard time with his subordinates at first, he doesn’t need me to undermine his authority on top of that.”
Kaoruko poured tea and forced the cup in his hands. It wasn’t exactly piping hot, but it was still way better than the soup, and he smiled tiredly at his friend.
“I can’t believe I’ve spent the past week insulting him in my head. I feel like a real piece of trash.”
She snorted. “Listen man, you’ve handled this in the best possible way. You didn’t lash out, you didn’t say a word out of line, you didn’t complain: not even to me, even when I ranted about it straight to your face. You may have felt resentful, but you acted honorably, and that’s what matters.”
She started chugging his soup, but stopped after a couple swallows to add:
“It’s comforting to know you were mad, though. Not so perfect, are you?”
He stuck his tongue out at her.
The kid was frustrating. The kid was irritating. The kid was endearing, and Watanabe wanted to protect him at all costs. Which was kind of ridiculous, considering how powerful the kid was, but hey, he couldn’t control his parenting instincts.
The problem was, the kid hated his parenting instincts.
Whenever the Captain was busy or shirking his duties, and Rangiku-san was, well, drunk-napping or shirking her duties, Watanabe was the one to guide the boy through his assignments. Needless to say, they had spent a lot of time together during those first few months. His first mission, first mission report, first group training, first encounter with their intimidating seventh seat – and a lot of other first encounters, because Watanabe took it upon himself to introduce Hitsugaya to as many people as possible after he realized that the Captain hadn’t even bothered to present him to the other officers.
The boy didn’t like relying on his help, that much was obvious, but he was mature enough to ask for it anyway, and he always asked very politely in a way that suggested he was waiting for the other shoe to drop, and every time Watanabe hid his pain behind a warm smile. But the line was thin between nice and patronizing, and despite his best efforts, he knew he sometimes got on the kid’s nerves.
That must be what it felt like to be a parent, or, well, it was probably as close as he’d ever get. He cared, and he messed up, and the kid was unhappy with him, and it hurt. He always took great care to hide all of that behind a friendly smile. Still, Hitsugaya saw through it from time to time, and he didn’t like it. So it was no surprise to Watanabe when the kid eventually snapped:
“Stop that!”
“Stop what? Sir?” Watanabe asked, trying for a neutral expression that hopefully wouldn’t betray his weariness.
Hitsugaya seemed lost for a moment, before he retreated behind his usual reserve.
“Are you not mad?” the boy asked calmly like he was discussing the weather.
Watanabe was confused at first, but Hitsugaya resumed before he could answer:
“You clearly have the skills of a Third Seat. And I heard soldiers talking, saying you wanted this job”, he added with a hurt frown that told him those soldiers must have discussed Hitsugaya, too, in a manner that hadn’t pleased him. “Why are you not mad at me?”
“I can’t hold you accountable for the Captain’s more questionable decisions”, Watanabe said very reasonably like he hadn’t done exactly that before meeting the boy.
He didn’t usually like criticizing the Captain, but to be fair, the Captain did a lot of criticizable things these days.
“So you do think that hiring me was a questionable decision.”
Irritating. But in an endearing way, really.
“You’re obviously great at this”, Watanabe started matter-of-factly, and and that seemed to mollify the kid to some extent. “But Shiba-taichō couldn’t have known that beforehand. So yeah, I do think that hiring an inexperienced Academy graduate as an officer is questionable.”
“And there’s my age”, the boy added slowly, his suspicion very obvious.
“There is that”, Watanabe admitted. “It’s not that children can’t be capable – once again, you’re proving that wrong – I just think children shouldn’t be soldiers in the first place.”
The kid remained silent, his gaze fixed on the desk between them. It rankled him to be called a child, so much was obvious from the way his frown had deepened, but something there had struck a chord.
“Rangiku-san told me how you met. Honestly, Tōshirō, did you even want to become a shinigami?”
The kid’s head snapped back up, his face frozen into a sneer.
“It’s Hitsugaya”, the boy spat. “Whatever your intentions may be, stop patronizing me and questioning my grade.”
And he spun on his heels and left.
Damn.
He had missed his shot, and now the boy wouldn’t warm up to him again.
He sure hoped Kaoruko didn’t have anything planned for dinner.