« Aizen-taichou, I’m a little bit curious… how was your captain when you’re a vice-captain? » 😂😂😂😂😂 perish
random asks | always accepting
the afternoon had been a quiet one, thus far, and perhaps it was understandable. his new fukutaichou was a clever young woman who'd worked her way up through the ranks and in the couple decades or so since he'd lost gin due to his ascendency to become head of the sanbantai ( not that aizen minded -- he'd been so proud of him that day, a bantam rooster flapping his wings and crowing with open delight. ) he had finally chosen a replacement. she seemed affable enough and, unfortunately for momo, she had drawn his eye long ago for other reasons.
still this afternoon had been quiet as the jazz lazily worked through the air in a flowing of piano upon saxophone upon trumpet, a changing swirl of aural melody that he found soothing as his hand worked the brush upon the paperwork. had gin been there, desk set askew to where aizen could turn his head and watch him, momo had set hers up across from his. he rather suspected it was so she could watch him when she thought he was too preoccupied to notice. that shaggy mop of brown hair was curling more than usual today, evidence of his morning shower, golden highlights bouncing off of that chocolate crown as he bent his head over his work, broad shoulders edging up and down as he moved the papers along in the constant shuffle that came with the unending prospect of bureaucracy when all was said and done. it was patently ridiculous.
the ironic part of being taichou of the gobantai was that, for being a seditionist, aizen did take his duties seriously. he always had. perhaps too much so, given the eyes which would so often squint at him, that broad mouth downturned sometimes at the corners. gin had ever made things chaotic. and hinamori momo--? she seemed so eager to please. were he not so prone towards his chary attitude, aizen might have sneered about it. a doe-eyed child but she was adorable enough. she’d be so very useful when the time came. he planned not out in the nature of days or weeks -- but years. decades. patience was a virtue, after all. and yet ...
and yet today she spoke up as he had found himself falling into the melody. he hadn’t spoken much of his captain to anyone. though he had not expressly forbidden the topic of HIRAKO SHINJI from his intimacies with gin, very seldom did the times ever come when he welcomed that subject in kind. needless to say, aizen did not exactly find it a favored topic. so when momo spoke up, suddenly breaking the silence, aizen’s hands stilled and a blotch of ink spread abruptly beneath where he’d suddenly pressed the bristles too hard upon the paperwork. he frowned at it for a second, full lips pressing tight together before lifting the brush carefully to inspect the damage done, considering it. would he have to redo the page? ... no, it didn’t look like it. but his hand pushed the paper away ever so slightly and then he was setting the brush upon the inkstone before brown eyes framed by the metal rims of his glasses lifted up towards momo in response.
unlike gin, this girl had no idea of the territory she had stepped into nor of how tender a subject it was. gin understood, though he had seen only the slow decline of those final years. he had seen the times when aizen’s wrists were marred by the dark jewels of fingerprints. he had been bold enough as a boy to force the sleeve of aizen’s moesode up and show them off in those months before the man had chosen to at last drag his captain down to his conclusion as head of the gobantai. and while aizen did not know how much of what gin had heard and seen, he had never asked. he did not plan to allow momo have any whit of an idea of what she might see and hear except for what he wanted her to. but she did not know. she did not know of those mornings where he might run into a youth with silver hair, adjusting his clothes to hide what he could, fingers running through his hair, of the way he would tuck his hands into his sleeves. she didn’t know anything. gin did.
❝ ... ah... ❞ he said softly even as the strains of that jazz filled the air for his lack of a response at first. ❝ ... well ... he was an interesting man. ❞ an arm shifted, elbow setting upon the table and his chin coming to rest on the back of his palm as the sleeve of his haori and uniform both slid down somewhat to show off the solid line of his forearm, the muscles sleekly tensed from the posture he had adopted. nostalgia played in the smile that curved his mouth, his eyes hazing with the nature of recall.
❝ eccentric was how many described him before i joined the gobantai. with his hair and his mannerisms, he was ... quite a remarkable character who stood out. when i was in the academy, we were approaching the final few decades of the quincy purges and the attrition rate could be rather ... demanding at times. the first time i saw him was at the academy. ❞ the first time i saw him was in the western district numbered thirty-three. i doubt he remembered the boy he saved from that hollow. ❝ i interviewed with him not long before my graduation and i had no plans at that time to seek out another squad. he ... had caught my eye, you might say. he had a fair amount of experience with being a captain, so i suppose you might say that i came to the fifth to see what i could learn from him. ❞
i knew the way his fingers would move -- i knew what commands meant to sit. to heel. i knew what tilt of his hand said for me to go to my knees. when to set my head in his lap. when--
❝ well...❞ a small shrug. ❝ ... he ... was a fine captain, though, despite his eccentric nature. flippant and dismissive at times, yes. he could be that. and yet oddly ... compelling. he had a way about him. compassion for people, i suppose would be how i would describe it best. ❞ always compassion for people, it felt, but never passion for them. it had driven aizen wild. how he had wanted to inspire in him the same passion that shinji stirred within aizen’s own heart. he could never understand it. how many times had he pulled at that long hair when there had been skin to skin, skin hunger, skin hungry -- where are you? he might ask of him. ( come back to me -- come back -- ) how he had tried to make shinji see him. even when his captain had laid there upon that muddy ground, he knew that those eyes of probing olive had yet to truly see him. one day, if he ever found him again .. perhaps that would change. ❝ which is a rather fair trait for a captain to have, really. i far preferred it over the sternness of others, such as kuchiki-taichou’s grandfather. that man could always seem to make you feel dismissed. ❞
he hummed softly and then glanced down to the brush still perched on the inkstone. ❝ ... truthfully, i never wanted to call anyone else my captain after i met him. i respected him more than he ever likely knew and i would have followed him anywhere if he’d asked it of me. ... he ... kept me close but sometimes i feel as if he never liked me. but he was a captain. he was my captain. when he-- ❞
there was a pause. a small inhale. even now, these handful of decades later ... it still hurt. he remembered too vividly the day of his confirmation as head of the gobantai. he remembered all too vividly getting to those quarters and collapsing, breaking down into sobs. it had been one of the only times he had ever deliberately hidden himself from gin. aizen could count on one hand the amount of times he had ever veiled himself from gin’s sight. and how he remembered leaving those quarters and turning to see kaname there. he remembered so much of it. and while the scar tissue had grown over that pain ... that wound? it still remained tender, even now. sometimes he touched at it, pressed at it, the way someone might put pressure on a cut or a bruise. how hard did he have to press upon it until it began to ache once more? and how it did ache. how it made him feel that pain.
❝ ... there was ... an incident, involving him and a traitor. ❞ ha. ❝ i lost him many years ago. ❞
... but had he ever really had him in the first place?
❝ for all of his quirks and faults, however ... he was a good captain. i was proud to be his fukutaichou, hinamori-kun. and i tried everything i could think of to make him proud to have me in kind. ❞