Chapter Text
How had he been stupid enough to let himself get dragged into the midst of this herd of degenerate alcoholics?
The answer, if he was being totally honest, involved Matsumoto's tear-bright eyes and frozen hands when she had barged in on his third day of unforgiving training in the ice cavern, and the fact that he had not quite managed to push her away when she had pulled him into one of her interminable embraces.
Then, after what had felt like a geologically significant amount of time, she had stepped back, looked him in the eye, and announced with the decisive air of someone who had just solved a very complex problem: "I know exactly what we need." From that point forward, he had been dragged across the entirety of the Seireitei until she had assembled what she considered a suitable group of boozehounds, and they had all settled down in the temporary quarters of the Soul Society's two most celebrated deserters: Urahara Kisuke and Shihōin Yoruichi.
So far, the drinking had remained within tolerable limits, but he was under no illusion that this would continue. Especially when their hosts, having apparently concluded that a drinking game was somehow the best way to celebrate their victory and 'spice things up', had introduced one with the cheerful enthusiasm of people who had clearly never witnessed what happened when this many Gotei 13 officers were given unlimited alcohol.
Hitsugaya cringed while observing the festivities move along. Urahara was distributing shots under the loud praises of Captain Kyōraku - as if the man had never seen a glass of sake in his life - Shihōin was talking animatedly with Ukitake, and Rangiku, Kira, Hisagi, Madarame and Ayasegawa were laughing so hard it was a wonder none of them had choked yet. Before long, he would be surrounded by a collection of Shinigami who had misplaced most of their higher functions, and the fact that this would hardly represent a meaningful cognitive decline for certain members of the Eleventh Division was not as comforting as it might have seemed.
He had gathered the rules through sheer ambient exposure rather than any deliberate interest, as the game had required explanation no fewer than four times, which said everything that needed saying about the average intellectual capacity of the assembled company.
The principle was straightforward enough: one player named something they had never done; anyone present who had done it was required to drink. Simple. Childish. Exactly the sort of entertainment that the current crowd would consider inspired.
He had every intention of announcing, in the tone he reserved for statements of such obvious fact that voicing them felt faintly embarrassing, that he would not be participating, but the group had apparently decided by silent unanimous consensus that he was to go first. After several rounds of what he could only describe as theatrical pleading from multiple directions, Hitsugaya crossed his arms on his chest, fixed the middle distance with his most forbidding expression, and said with all the disdain he could muster:
"I have never played a game this idiotic."
The sound of glasses being drained was almost simultaneous.
He looked up in shock.
To his right, Urahara and Shihōin were sitting against the wall on a large futon, already reminiscing.
"-the sake relay, do you remember? Three rooftops, one cup, no spilling."
"You spilled constantly," Yoruichi said with a sneer. "I can still remember Kūkaku’s face when we came back and the cup was empty."
"To be fair," Kisuke replied, "visibility was somewhat compromised by that point in the evening. And I maintain that at least half of those spills were suspiciously deliberate."
Yoruichi's grin widened knowingly.
"I have absolutely no idea what you're talking about."
"The cup was nearly full when it left my hands and empty when it reached hers, Yoruichi-san."
"Rooftops are uneven. Things happen."
They both laughed, with the easy complicity of people who had spent decades finding new ways to empty liquor together.
Naturally. Naturally, the two of them had a drinking history spanning back to before most of the people in this room had been born. As though the Seireitei were not already amply supplied with people who treated their livers as a personal challenge.
He made the mistake of glancing toward Matsumoto on his left and found her in the middle of what appeared to be a three-way fit of laughter with Kira and Hisagi, the cause of which Hitsugaya neither knew nor intended to investigate. Beyond them, Madarame and Ayasegawa were engaged in the sort of argument that only made sense if you had spent a great deal of time in the Eleventh Division and had, at some point, made peace with the fact that you were never getting that time back.
"No, the Fool's Game wasn't nearly as idiotic as that one, it was simply far less aesthetically defensible."
"You're wrong, it was at least a hundred times more idiotic, and I've known idiots, I know what I'm talking about."
Hitsugaya raised one eyebrow and said nothing. Antagonizing the Eleventh Division before the evening had properly begun seemed unwise.
From the far side of the room, the representative of the Eighth Division who had not yet lost her mind caught his eye. Nanao Ise sat perfectly upright, arms folded, glass untouched, while her captain worked through yet another theatrical appeal.
"Nanao-chaaan!"
"Captain Kyōraku. For the fifth time this evening: no. My duties as vice-captain require me to supervise your convalescence. They do not require me to participate in, nor endorse, your poorly chosen recreational habits."
There, Hitsugaya thought, with something approaching relief. Someone else who had retained the use of their judgment. If they coordinated, there was a reasonable chance of getting through the night with their dignity intact.
This hope lasted approximately four seconds.
He watched Kyōraku's expression shift - something moving behind his eyes - before the captain leaned toward his vice-captain and said, rather quietly:
"Do you remember our conversation about compromises?"
Nanao's eyes narrowed with the suspicion of someone knowing exactly who she was dealing with.
"What exactly would you be conceding in return?"
"I am perfectly prepared to carry you home when you can no longer walk."
The dismissive sound she produced at this was, Hitsugaya had to admit, impressive in its precision.
Ukitake, seated beside Kyōraku, muffled what was clearly a laugh.
"That's not how you catch butterflies, Shunsui," he remarked, apparently finding all of this enormously amusing.
Kyōraku absorbed this with the long-suffering air of a man to whom the universe had been consistently unjust, and said, in the tone of someone accepting a terrible burden:
"Fine. Two weeks of paperwork. And I'll have you home before anything compromising occurs."
Nanao turned to face him fully.
"One month."
"Done. Although in that case, fairness would suggest I at least help you to bed."
She pinched the bridge of her nose in exasperation.
"Three weeks," she said to close the negotiation, "and you may escort me home before the situation here deteriorates beyond recovery."
"Done," he said immediately.
They exchanged a look that contained an entire conversation, and then Nanao drained her glass with an expression of refined distaste while Ukitake looked on at the pair as though watching a favorite play for the third time.
Hitsugaya had not the slightest doubt that the idiotic game she was drinking to had originated entirely with her Captain.
"Well done, Tōshirō-kun," Kyōraku called from across the room cheerfully. "First round, and you've already made everyone drink."
A drop of sweat traced its way down Hitsugaya's temple. The last thing he needed was a reputation for being good at this.
The two senior captains exchanged a smile at his expression, and Ukitake, merciful as always, moved the proceedings along.
"Whose turn is it?"
"Mine!" Matsumoto said instantly, as if she had been waiting a lifetime for precisely this moment.
Ukitake glanced at Shihōin, who was on his other side. The Flash Goddess gave a small nod and glanced at Matsumoto curiously. He did the same, and observed her looking sideways at him with an expression that meant nothing good.
"I have never," she said, the corners of her mouth doing something that couldn't quite be called a smile, "worn a floral-print fundoshi."
Hitsugaya nearly choked.
He turned to look at her with the full weight of his most withering stare, because this - this - was what happened when you trained yourself to exhaustion for three consecutive days, and then allowed someone to drag you to a social event without catching up on sleep - and she wasn't even drunk yet.
"Matsumoto," he said severely, "that was the division's emblem, and you are perfectly aware of that fact."
Laughter broke out from multiple directions at once. Ayasegawa and Kyōraku drained their glasses without apparent hesitation, and a beat later, Shihōin did the same.
The room went briefly quiet in the particular way rooms go quiet when something unexpected has happened.
"What?" Shihōin asked into the pause, her tone bored while she leaned back against the wall.
"I admit," Urahara said, tilting his head with mild curiosity, "that while I have questions about the circumstances under which Matsumoto-san came to be familiar with her captain's undergarments, you have succeeded in making me considerably more curious about you, Yoruichi-san. Floral-print fundoshi?"
"I was thirsty," she said simply, her amber eyes tracking the clear liquid rising to the brim of her glass as if challenging her friend’s magic glassware to keep pace with her.
The laughter that followed gave Hitsugaya the opportunity to compose his expression into something less revealing, while from the other side of the room the Third Seat of the Eleventh Division raised his voice with characteristic disregard for tact:
"Once the Tenth Division's finished explaining the underwear situation, and once Captain Hitsugaya has actually drunk his glass, maybe the rest of us can get on with it."
Of course. The Eleventh Division, reliable in nothing else, could always be relied upon to be impatient and rude.
Hitsugaya thought, not for the first time that evening, about exactly what sequence of decisions had deposited him in this room, and arrived, as he generally did, at Hinamori. He had come here to punish his own weakness, to train past the point of endurance, to be better, and instead he was sitting in Urahara's temporary quarters listening to Madarame demand to know about his undergarments.
Perhaps there was a lesson there. He chose not to examine it.
He drank, grimaced, and offered a brief explanation involving a laundry mishap that he delivered with enough authority to discourage further questions, and the round moved on.
The remainder of the circuit passed without serious incident. It emerged, to no one's great surprise, that Hisagi had never successfully read a lingerie catalogue without experiencing a nosebleed, and that Madarame had never, not once, found his luck dance in any way ridiculous.
A claim that prompted immediate and enthusiastic drinking from Hisagi, Kira, Matsumoto, and Ayasegawa, while the rest of the room exchanged expressions of polite bewilderment.
"I wonder," Kyōraku said, with the benevolent air of a man with absolutely nothing to lose, "if Ikkaku-chan might be persuaded to demonstrate? I confess I'm quite curious about the artistic traditions of the Eleventh Division."
This, Hitsugaya reflected, was a profoundly ill-advised suggestion. If the people who had voluntarily spent years in that man's company found the dance ridiculous - and Ayasegawa, whose aesthetic objections to things were essentially professional - then no possible good could come of a live performance.
He sighed and wondered, not for the first time, whether there was a version of tonight that ended without him having seen things he could not unsee.
There was not.
When Madarame finished his performance - executed with the absolute conviction of a man who genuinely believed he was doing something dignified - the silence that followed was profound.
Then, by what appeared to be spontaneous collective agreement, everyone in the room hurried to drain their glasses as if hoping the alcohol might act as a memory-wipe, all the while talking loudly over Madarame's ongoing objections.
"You didn't need to drink a second time, Matsumoto," Hitsugaya said flatly.
She was about to respond when someone knocked at the door.
The room went instantly, completely quiet, as if everyone feared being apprehended in the midst of a collective drinking offense.