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A week before Shunsui and Jūshirō began their first jobs in the Gotei 13, Shunsui swapped Jūshirō’s regular shampoo with one laced with black hair dye. When Jūshirō had stepped out of the bath and had caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror he’d frozen and had stared at the mirror uncomprehendingly until he’d realized what had happened. He hadn’t known whether to laugh or cry as he’d dried off and redressed. He’d lost his towels in the process; the white towels were now streaked black.
When he emerged from the bath Shunsui was waiting for him, his grin almost too wide for his face. Shunsui had been unable to contain his laughter, doubling over and nearly falling out of the chair he’d been sitting in.
“Really? Hair dye in my shampoo? Will you ever grow up?”
Shunsui put a hand on his chest, calming down enough to let out an appreciative whistle.
“What do you mean? You look fantastic! I just wanted to see what you’d look like if your illness hadn’t take all the colour out of your hair. And let me tell you-”
Jūshirō rolled his eyes, “All right, all right. Enough-”
“The girls would be throwing themselves at your feet-”
“Kyōraku…”
“You’d be a very busy man-”
“Stop.”
“You think you’re tired now? Can you even imag-”
“Shunsui!” Jūshirō shouted, exasperated.
Shunsui laughed, “Oh come on, Ukitake! It’s just a joke. Besides, now you can start your career off as a shinigami in the Gotei 13 without looking like Yama-jii.”
“Oh you’re so funny,” Jūshirō remarked, throwing a pillow at his best friend as emphasis with his last word.
“It really doesn’t look that bad,” Shunsui said when Jūshirō had settled down. “You should keep it dyed, it matches your eyebrows this way.”
Jūshirō made a face, “That’s a lot of work. Besides, it’s horrible for your hair to keep exposing it to all those chemicals. The white hair isn’t so bad really once you get used to it.”
Shunsui huffed, “Fair enough. You’re probably going to look young forever anyways, the white hair will let people know that you’ve not just escaped the nursery.”
“You were headed towards compliment and then took a very hard left turn, Kyōraku.”
Shunsui grinned, “You look very handsome,” he said teasingly.
“Thank you,” Jūshirō said, his voice also laced with amusement.
Jūshirō’s new hair colour earned him some strange looks from the people who knew him, although, they quickly figured out that it was one of Kyōraku’s pranks. It wasn’t an issue at his new division; most of the people had never met him before, even if they had heard of him. Shunsui was right – his hair matched his eyebrows, and that was enough to offset any suspicion that anyone felt.
For a few weeks anyways.
He hadn’t realized how concerned anyone had become until his captain had called him into his office to speak with Jūshirō. His captain had looked so worried that Jūshirō had thought he’d done something wrong, or that something had happened to his family that he hadn’t heard about. He’d prepared himself for the worst, so when his captain told Jūshirō that he was concerned about the amount of things Jūshirō was taking on the division, and that the stress might be too much with him, Jūshirō felt his eyebrows hit his hairline.
“Jūshirō,” his captain had said, “Your hair is turning white, son.”
Jūshirō felt himself blush right to his toes, and he swore in that moment that he was going to kill his best friend the next time he saw him. Explaining to his captain the truth had been awkward, but at the end his captain had laughed and clapped him over the shoulder. When he was dismissed he tried to keep his head down, but word spread fast through the division and by the end of the day he couldn’t walk down the hallway without being called out to or being snickered at.
When the work day finished he had all but flash stepped to Shunsui’s barracks, barely managing to act like the dignified officer that he was supposed to be.
“Ukitake?” Shunsui questioned when Jūshirō burst into his room.
“Captain thinks the stress of my job is causing my hair to turn white,” Jūshirō ground out.
Shunsui’s eyes went wide before he cracked up, throwing his head back with laughter.
“You’re kidding!”
Jūshirō crossed his arms in front of his chest, “No I’m not. Now let’s go.”
“What? Go where?”
“To the barber shop so that I can get my hair dyed back to white. I got enough teasing from the division this afternoon – I’m not going through that everyday until my hair is long enough to cut out the colour.”
Shunsui laughed softly again before stretching out and getting to his feet. “Yare, yare. If it’s going to be such an issue, then I guess we should probably get going.”
With his white hair restored Jūshirō had to endure some good-natured teasing at the division the next day, but it quickly became old news. He’d been surprised to receive some compliments on the colour, and was pleased that people didn’t seem to treat him differently after they learned the story behind his mysterious hair colour.
In the end, Jūshirō managed to get Shunsui back for the stunt. In their second year at the Academy Shunsui had discovered that he had a minor allergy to talc powder; it wasn’t severe enough to do any real damage, but he did break out into hives that lasted for several days. Using that knowledge to his advantage, Jūshirō poured some into his shihakushō. The result had been better than Jūshirō could have predicted, not only had Shunsui spent the entire day itching but he’d managed to get some of the powder onto his face while dressing which had caused hives to develop on his face as well.
When Shunsui had finally tracked him down, the look he gave Jūshirō was murderous. Jūshirō could sympathize, he knew exactly what it was like to spend days in constant discomfort, but he still laughed all the same. When the hives disappeared Shunsui was finally able to see the humour in the situation, and the two agreed to a truce.
For the time being, anyways.