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"What did you do?", he asked, horrified, as he stared down at her. "Momo, what did you do!?"
And then his hands move, pushing fabric away, then back into place, applying pressure. His mouth moves too, cursing under his breath, thinking about what to do out loud. And then she catches the look in his eyes.
She's never seen him so scared before.
She tries to make out the words through the clashing steel, the sounds of battle. "Don't you fucking sleep, Momo. Just look at me."
She smiles despite the pain. Her voice comes out like gravel. "I'm sorry."
"Stop. We'll talk about this later."
There is so much blood, she thinks, but she’s barely looking at it - Shinji’s doing that for the two of them. All she sees is him. "I had to protect you."
"No you didn't, goddammit!"
When she doesn't answer, his eyes go wide in sheer panic. "Momo?"
And everything goes dark.
-
At the first attempt to open her eyes, Momo just squeezes them shut again. The room's too bright. She makes a small noise, testing for a voice. Still there. She clenches her fists, slowly, and feels the burn marks from the excessive Kido use on both of them. She curls her toes and finds that even her feet hurt. But she sighs, thanks whatever gods are listening. All her limbs are intact, at least.
But the left side of her torso hurts like a motherfucker.
Heh. The expressions I learn from Captain Hirako.
There's a light rustling of fabric to the left of her. And then frantic movement. And then a very worried, very tired face looking down at her.
Speak of the devil.
Momo smiles as much as her facial muscles would allow. "Hello, captain."
Shinji doesn't answer. His eyes dart from one point of her face to another, like he's making sure he isn't hallucinating. And then he sighs heavily, pulling the chair from under a small bedside table and plopping onto it. "Jesus Christ, Momo", is the first thing that slips from his mouth.
A strained laugh escapes her. "Yes, I believe I saw him for a moment back there. He was quite pleasant."
He looks up at her. "That's not funny."
"It is, a little bit."
"Momo." Shinji's hand runs through his hair, messing it up for a bit before it all just falls back into place. "I'm being serious. We thought you weren't gonna make it."
Silence.
She reaches for him, the back of her fingers brushing lightly against his cheek; in what attempt, she doesn’t know either. Shinji lets her. "I guess third time's the charm isn't always true."
His expression hardens slightly, and Momo draws the conclusion that Shinji Hirako doesn't take kindly to having his own sense of humor used on him. "Why'd you do that?", he asks, pulling away slightly. "Why'd you take that hit for me?"
"I have a duty to fulfill, sir."
"And part of that duty is to die for me?"
"If it means you live to serve the 5th another day, then yes."
Shinji scoffs, resting his forehead on one of his hands. "Make it make sense, Momo."
"What about it don't you understand, sir?", she asks politely enough, ignoring the lump forming in her throat. "I'm a lieutenant, trained to serve and to offer my life without the slightest hesitation - for my superior, my division, and the Gotei as a whole." She feels her cheeks go from warm to burning. Her eyes start to sting and suddenly everything is hazy. "In the grand scheme of things, I am very much replaceable."
That hurts him. She sees it in the way his eyebrow twitches, in the way he purses his lips, in the way his eyes start looking at everything else but her. His reiatsu starts simmering but without the threat of boiling over - like she’s put him in a steady, perpetual state of unrest.
"That's cold", he says after forcing a chuckle.
"The truth always is", Momo says, her hand instinctively drifting to the middle of her chest. There's a phantom pain there that she is sure isn't from the previous fight.
Shinji smiles at her, small and sad and without the teeth. "Nah. That's your truth. Not mine." He stands up and makes his way back to the armchair to her far left, looks for his phone under the blanket and shoves it in his pocket.
He’s leaving. Good.
Momo wants him to leave, but she wants him to storm out of that room with his reiatsu flaring and his voice raised like nobody else is listening. Then she’d know he’d get over it eventually. Instead he drifts by, calm as the morning's first breeze and silent as an empty house. Which is not good.
Shinji is all backwards like that.
"What's your truth then?", she asks when he’s halfway to the door.
He slows to a stop, but he makes no move to face her. "There isn't a grand scheme of anythin' in my book, Mo. There's only myself, the people I care about, and making sure they don't die - not for me and certainly not for a system that deems them expendable." He turns his head slightly, barely catching her by the corner of his eye. "To you, dying to save me is part of your job and a necessary sacrifice. But to me that just means losing you.”
Momo comes up with an answer quicker and less sympathetic than she’d like. “I’m afraid that makes you selfish.”
Shinji laughs humorlessly as he turns to look at her. “Sure, but that also makes you immensely important to me, doesn’t it? I was hoping you’d gotten the point.”
“More important than your duty? Than the 5th?”, she exclaims incredulously.
“Important nonetheless, Momo, why do you have to be so complicated about it?”
Momo matches his tone. “Complicated, sir? What’s complicated about putting your duty first?”
His voice raises a notch, surprising her only slightly. “The way you’re making me choose between you and this fucking captaincy like I’m not allowed to have both!” Shinji takes a shaky, steadying breath in an obvious attempt to simmer down. Most of his bite is gone the moment he speaks again. “Don’t make me choose, Momo. Seems you won’t like my answer one bit.”
He turns to leave then, but not before reaching out a last time, suspending a single thread of his reiatsu only halfway to her bed as he lingers by the door. An invitation, Momo thinks, to reconcile even just a little bit, even just for tonight. A sign that they’re okay, or will be eventually. And although every fibre of her being wants her to reach for him in both body and soul, she grounds herself and refuses. If Shinji wants to be selfish, then she reserves the right to be just as.
He waits for her to return the gesture for a minute that seems to span hours. Momo gives him nothing in return, so with a small, rueful shake of his head, Shinji walks away.
When the very last of him leaves, Momo bursts into tears, certain - perhaps for the first time - that she’s broken something she might never be able to fix.
-
Momo doesn’t know at what point her crying gave way to sleep, but when she wakes up, her eyes are still swollen. The tears had dried and left streaks on her cheeks. She’s lying on her side and facing the door. What, did she expect him to walk back in after what she’d told him?
After she’d hurt him?
Stupid, she berates herself. You are stupid, and selfish, and--
Momo flips a bit violently to her other side, completely forgetting that she isn’t supposed to because that side is still very much injured. She realizes too late and nearly yelps from the short stab of pain, stopped only by the sight of Toshiro’s sleeping frame on the arm chair, and Rangiku sprawled on a spare futon on the tile floor.
She almost laughs, but another thing catches her eye - something on her bedside table.
It’s a bright yellow Walkman that’s a little worn around the edges. Of course Momo knows what it is and who it’s from. And of course she knows how to work the contraption. There’s only one person in the world stubborn enough to teach her about such mortal things.
She picks it up gingerly, taking care not to wake the feather-light sleeper on the armchair. Momo did not want to deal with anybody tonight, especially not Toshiro and his questions and, inevitably, his scolding.
She would have missed the small, folded up piece of paper underneath the device if it weren’t for it slipping and landing just at the edge of her mattress. She unfurls it, and does her best not to get disappointed as soon as her eyes fall on the perfectly normal, beautiful hand-writing.
Something to make you less bored.
There's also a notebook with my poetry in it. Rose picked it out.
You can return the Walkman to your captain when you’re done with it.
-Izuru
The corners of her lips kick upward into a small, sentimental grin. She really should have guessed that the 3rd would be behind this, sweet as those two are. As for the Walkman, she could argue that Rose has had it for a while and simply hadn’t returned it yet. There would be no way Shinji was involved in this after their earlier exchange.
But then two songs in, a familiar melody fills her senses, borderline overloads it. With long nights, paperwork, the smell of slightly-burnt coffee, and Shinji's voice, hypnotizing as he sings in a foreign language.
She smiles then, at memories that seem like they're from some faraway place, some faraway time.
Stars shining bright above you
Night breezes seem to whisper "I love you"
Birds singing in the sycamore tree
Dream a little dream of me
She’s crying, why is she crying? What right does she have?
Say "Night-ie night" and kiss me
Just hold me tight and tell me you'll miss me
While I'm alone and blue as can be
Dream a little dream of me
It was a lie, Momo supposes, to say that she had duty in mind when she decided to shunpo behind him and take that hit on his behalf. Maybe duty was an excuse and she didn't want to admit it as such.
And that drives the guilt deeper into her chest more than anything else ever has. Because Shinji had never lied to her before. He is blunt and straightforward and definitely to a fault, but he is honest. And honesty was their unspoken rule. After all the lies they’d both had to live and die through, honesty shouldn’t have to be so hard.
Yet here she is, sobbing into her sheets and realizing that she’s the biggest liar she’s ever known.
There’s a warm hand on her shoulder then, and Momo turns her head suddenly. She comes face to face with Rangiku, looking quite tired but more worried than anything. “What’s wrong?”, she croons, keeping her voice low.
At this point, Momo is absolutely sure that Toshiro is awake. But she doesn’t hear a sound from behind Rangiku, nor does she care anymore. Her voice breaks as soon as she opens her mouth to speak. “I lied to him”, she sobs.
“To whom, Momo?”
“To Captain Hirako.”
Rangiku sits at the edge of the bed and runs a gentle hand through her hair, before wiping the wetness off of Momo’s cheeks. “About what, exactly?”
“I told him I saved him out of duty”, she hiccups. “I didn’t tell him that I saved him because he’s immensely important to me, too.”
Her friend doesn’t reply to that immediately. Instead, she takes the headset off Momo’s ears, wraps the wires around the walkman and places the thing back on the nightstand. “Silly”, she jokes lovingly. “What makes you think he doesn’t already know?”
Momo sniffs once. “Because I told him that I put duty first, and that he should, too. That the 5th should be more important than I’ll ever be. Doesn’t that suggest that the 5th is more important to me than he’ll ever be?”
Rangiku failed to control her giggling. “You nearly died for him, Momo. If that doesn’t tell him that you care then I have no idea what will.”
She hides half her face under the sheets. “Then why did he get mad?”
“Because you nearly died for him, idiot”, comes a voice from the armchair’s direction.
Momo rolls her eyes. “Calling me an idiot helps lots, thank you Shiro”, she frowns.
Toshiro makes his way to the bed. “This might be the only time I call you that and actually mean it”, he says as he crosses his arms in front of him. “I’d commend your nobility, Momo, but duty doesn’t always have to come in the form of sacrificing your life for that of your superior. You of all people must know that.”
Momo groans loudly and sits up in bed. Rangiku tries and fails to coax her back into lying down. “I do know, okay? And it’s not like I am actively trying to get killed! I’m just that lucky! There was a blazing ball of whatever hurling his way and I did what I had to do.”
“So you just had to block it like that instead of off-setting it with Tobiume?”
“Well, blame Captain Komamura for telling me that that doesn’t always work!”
“Okay, stop, both of you”, Rangiku orders. Toshiro narrows his eyes at her, but she doesn’t waver. “The captain could use some improvement in his manner of delivery” – Toshiro scowls audibly at this – “but he has a point.”
Momo doesn’t answer, choosing instead to fidget with her blanket. Toshiro huffs once. Their silence prompts Rangiku to continue.
“Look, there is nothing that a good conversation can’t fix. Just talk to Captain Hirako. Truthfully this time”, she scolds. "And heavens, Momo, we don't need any more death around here."
“Okay but that’s the thing. I doubt he wants to talk to me anytime soon”, Momo sighs defeatedly.
“If you are as important to him as he makes you out to be, then he can’t possibly last another day ignoring you.” Rangiku sighs, then pouts at her affectionately. “And Captain Hirako isn’t the only one who cares about you, you know.”
After a beat, Toshiro adds, somewhat irritated, “He isn’t the only one you’d be leaving behind. Idiot.”
Momo smiles at them then, holding their hands in each of her own and glancing at the Walkman briefly. “I love both of you, too.”
-
As it turns out, Shinji could very well last another day ignoring her. Another four days, in fact. For the remainder of Momo's recovery at the 4th, she neither saw nor felt even a whisper of him.
Momo is convinced that she's really done it this time.
She goes straight to the 3rd upon her release, notebook and Walkman cradled in one arm. She knocks softly on the door, declares herself, and waits.
Izuru is the one to open, brightening up at the very sight of her. "You're okay", he says before motioning for her to enter.
"Barely", she laughs, moving in for a quick hug. She steers the left side of her body away slightly for good measure.
Rose is on his desk, signing away on some paperwork. When he looks up at her he visibly softens, his smile warm as a summer's day.
Momo attempts to bow, but Rose stops her halfway, swatting at the air dismissively. "Oh stop that, Momo. Come here", he scolds playfully before standing up and walking to her with outstretched arms. He pulls her in for a hug, and hugs from Rose Otoribashi always make her feel insanely better. Even her pain is momentarily gone as she's buried in his enormous haori.
Rose and Izuru’s office reminds Momo of a flower garden. Like somebody’s backyard, with small round tables and chairs where you can sit and have tea while you watch the bees and the butterflies do their thing. Besides the fact that it almost always smells like actual flowers inside because of their shared love for potpourri, the atmosphere is simply too warm, too inviting to be anything else. That, and there is always some form of plant-life hanging in pots in one or two corners of the room.
Momo loves it here, and on this particular day, she kind of wishes she wouldn’t have to leave.
“Are you okay, dear?”, Rose asks quietly when he notices she hasn’t moved in his arms for a while.
She nods against his chest. “Yes, sir. Just happy to be back.”
He hums. “I bet you are. Izuru, why don’t you make the three of us some tea?”
That seems to knock her out of her senses. “Please don’t trouble yourselves! I’ll be on my way soon, I just thought I’d give this back.” Momo produces Izuru’s notebook.
“You seriously didn’t have to do that straight out of the infirmary. I could have waited a couple more days”, Izuru complained, albeit sweetly.
“Absolutely not. You both have no idea how much that gesture meant to me. I wanted to come here as soon as I was better so I could show my gratitude.” Momo steps back once and bows. "Thank you. For being so thoughtful.”
Izuru smiles at her and finally takes the notebook. “So how’d you find the poetry?”
“Lovely as always. You truly have a gift”, she gushes. Then she turns to Rose. “Can I ask you something, sir?”
Rose relaxes against Izuru’s desk. “Of course.”
Momo fidgets with the end of her obi. “The songs”, she starts. “I was wondering how you put those together?”
Izuru answers without missing a beat. “It’s called a mixtape. The captain taught me how to make one and it was pretty cool. We should make one together this weekend”, Izuru says a little proudly.
The other man chuckles and shakes his head once. “You hear that, Momo? This morning I was Rose. Now I’m the captain”, he chides, shooting Izuru a light-hearted frown. Izuru burns bright red before shooting one right back. “But yes, I taught him how to go about it. The moment we heard you ended up in the 4th, we figured we should try and make things… a little more bearable for you.”
Momo is still somewhat confused, but she nods anyway and smiles. “You see, there was this one song in there that, uhm. That I could have sworn only my captain would know to add.”
Rose hums in thought for a bit, then his face lights up in recollection. “Dream a Little Dream, perhaps?”, he asks Izuru, who nods in agreement.
“You see there’s this melody you keep humming absentmindedly whenever we hang out. And I knew it wasn’t any song I’ve ever heard before, so you must have learned it from Captain Hirako. And since Cap— Rose had pretty much listened to every single one of his records over the last century, he was able to help me figure out what song it was”, he tells Momo.
“And the Walkman, well, it’s been sitting in my drawer for a while now and I forget to give it back to Shinji. I thought this would be a perfect opportunity to do so”, Rose supplies gesturing to the bright yellow brick in her arms.
Figures, was all Momo could think to say but she doesn’t say it. Instead she moves in to hug both Rose and Izuru tight and whispers another thank you.
“Anytime, dear.”
“We’re glad you’re okay.”
And she is, too. Sometimes Momo forgets what she has until she nearly loses it, and today she is thankful for the reminder.
-
The office is dead quiet - it's the first thing she notices when she comes within a few feet of the door, which is usually when the music from inside gets within earshot. A quick sweep of her senses tells her that Shinji is inside, and the mental image of him sitting alone in a room devoid of any sort of sound or soul disturbs her. Worries her.
She slides the door open gingerly to find Shinji at his desk, leaning back in his seat and… napping. Momo shoves down the overwhelming urge to scold him just enough to notice the two enormous stacks of paperwork on his desk, and the lack of paperwork on hers.
She remembers how many reports she had left unfinished - it never stopped plaguing her while she was at the 4th and she would think about all the overtime she'd have to pull just to catch up. But as it stands, it seems as if she wouldn't need to.
Momo walks over to his desk and watches Shinji momentarily. The bags under his eyes look heavier and darker than usual. His lips are parted slightly and he's snoring, obviously in too deep of a sleep to notice her arrival. His reiatsu is nothing but a low, weak hum, lacking any of its usual life. He's exhausted, and it's painfully clear to her that he'd stayed up potentially for days trying to get both their share of paperwork done. It's probably why he hadn't been able to visit, too.
With a quiet sigh, she sets the Walkman down on a part of his desk that hadn't been occupied by audit reports or sitreps. And just before she turns to leave, something flickers to life. Like a light switch had just turned on.
Momo turns her head to the left, and comes face to face with a now-conscious Shinji, his eyes wide as if in disbelief. Like he's just seen an apparition.
"Good morning, sir," she says quietly, and she is barely able to finish her greeting when Shinji begins to sit up more properly, his hands slowly finding their way to her wrists to pull her closer; his jaw set and his brows knit in what looks to be concentration.
"All that paperwork. Did you–"
"I did. Don't worry about it," Shinji interjects, but not unkindly. Momo just nods.
His hands don't move nearly as quick as his eyes do, with how they dart from one part of her person to another in careful assessment. Momo doesn't cower or pull away. She wants to give him this; the assurance.
"Your Walkman, sir," Momo says at some point.
"Rose?" Shinji asks. She nods. "Yeah. He loves his mixtapes."
"Izuru made the one inside."
He raises his eyebrows in pleasant surprise. "That so?"
"Yes, sir."
"Well I'll be damned," he remarks, the beginnings of a smile playing on his lips. "Is it any good?"
Momo nods. "You would like it. Ella is in there."
Shinji smirks then. "We'll see about that."
Finally he finishes his inspection – though he might have been finished several moments ago. The way his hands never leave her wrists makes it hard to focus. His features relax just a touch, and his eyes settle on their last destination - hers.
"Are you hurtin' anywhere?" Shinji asks, his voice low and unimposing.
Momo considers saying no, that she's perfectly fine now and can get back to work on this very same day. Because lieutenants are strong and they will fight through the pain to get something done. Duty, plain and simple.
But she's made a promise to herself and she repeats it until it becomes a voice in her head. No more lies. Especially not to the ones immensely important to you.
Momo takes Shinji's right hand and guides it to the left side of her torso, just slightly above her waist, noting how his hand spans the area's near entirety. And how warm and comforting his touch feels. "Just here," she admits. "It's nothing serious anymore. It'll be gone within a couple more days.
Shinji nods, and he manages a small smile. "Hold still then."
His palm glows a familiar shade of green, and Momo is all at once flooded with a comforting wave of energy as the Kaidō starts to kick in. She didn't know Shinji could heal. She'd seen him cast offensive spells a handful of times in the entire decade since they'd met, but he never once alluded to being knowledgeable in Kaidō.
"You look surprised," he jokes, startling her slightly. She looks back up at him and is met with a toothy grin she knows all too well. She smirks.
"Truthfully, I am," Momo says. "I'm guessing you have Sir Hachigen to thank for this?"
Shinji nods. "And Unohana, a long time ago. But Hachi's mostly to blame."
Momo hums in thought. "And I suppose this is why I didn't die right then and there. On the battlefield," she says as an observation.
Shinji's reiatsu wavers minutely, a microscopic change that she isn't sure if anybody else would have caught. He swallows, looking down to focus on his task. "Didn't think I could pull it off, if I'm bein' honest. Was never the best at this stuff to begin with."
Silence.
"You were losing blood way too quickly," he chuckles forcefully, as if to hide his distress, and somehow managing to magnify it tenfold. "Fuck, if Retsu had seen me she'd have whacked my hands for shaking so much or somethin'."
Momo barely lets him finish his sentence before she's tilting his face upwards, with her hands on either of his cheeks. And nothing could have prepared her for whatever wave of emotion came crashing down on them just then. The tears were streaming down her face before she could even get a word out.
"I'm sorry," she manages.
Shinji shakes his head, his free hand reaching upwards to wipe at her face gently. "No, I’m sorry I wasn’t quick enough.”
Momo sniffs once. “I shouldn’t have put both of us through that.”
Both his hands move away from her now as he takes one of hers, holding it against his lips almost absentmindedly, the motion and the sensation so natural to them both it’s as if he’s done it a million times before. And yet, every single nerve in Momo’s body sings. “You did what you had to do, remember?”
She doesn’t answer. She didn’t know how to. Especially not when he’s looking at her the way he is, all apologetic and ashamed for something he didn’t ever want to happen. Something he had no control over.
“I’d been so busy being angry at the fact that I’d almost lost you that I forgot to even thank you for saving my life.”
Momo breathes shakily, and she inches closer until her forehead is against his. Shinji’s hands find their way to her waist, his touch feather-light and mindful of her pain. It’s all gone, she wants to tell him. He’d driven it all away.
Shinji’s voice is barely there when he repeats himself. ”You saved my life,” he says, only loud enough for the two of them.
Momo shakes her head, her eyes closed as she focuses on the way their breaths and their spiritual pressures seem to fall into step. She would keep them there forever if she could.
Shinji Hirako, whether he knows it or not, had saved her life just the same. He’d been saving her since the day he came back.
“You matter to me," she tells him, her lips dangerously close to his own. But neither of them move away. "More than anything."
Shinji sighs deeply, drawing her ever nearer, as if there was any more space left between them. Close was never going to be close enough. He mirrors the way her eyes are closed, and he brushes his lips against hers briefly, almost curiously. She lets him, and they stay there for heaven knows how long.
"Don't make me choose between this captaincy and you ever again," Shinji says as he opens his eyes to watch her. "I'll choose you every single time, no matter how much you'll hate me for it."
Momo laughs, surprised and also not at his comedic timing. The moment she opens her eyes to look at him, Shinji breathes like it's his first time being alive. "You can have both," she tells him. "You've always had both."
He hums, his usual jest finally back. "Nah, I'm good with just one." He tips his head towards his desk. "The one that involves less paperwork."
"Your funeral," she parries, and it catches Shinji off-guard. So much so that he can't think of a better way to respond other than to kiss her.
Nothing had ever come close to the feeling and Momo feels as if nothing ever will. Nothing in this world, and nothing in the next. No other pair of hands are as strong and as gentle at the same time, no other sound as mesmerising as the way he says her name. And no other place is safer than right there in his arms.
She pulls away first, for the sole reason of needing to breathe before her head could spin even faster. Shinji runs a thumb gingerly across her bottom lip, all pink and slightly swollen, and he is absolutely captivated by the sight of her.
"Don't go where I can't follow," he says, and it sounds more like a prayer than an order.
Momo nods. "You too."
Shinji smiles, squeezing her hand in affirmation.
He would follow her anywhere - to hell and back - all the same.