moonsheen

Cousin ficlet of this and this, twice removed.

The Vice-Captain found his assistant sitting on a walkway, bobbing his head to what sounded like a muffled squall.

“Oi,” said Renji, taking one of the kid’s headphones and snapping it against his ear. “What’s that.”

And Rikichi jumped straight up about a mile.

“GAH,” he said, once landed. He held his ear, eyes wide with panic. “R-r-r-renji-san! I! This is!!”

He took the CD-player from his lap, and tried to shove it down the front of his uniform.

“A new device from the 12th division! Kunimoto-san lent it to me! It is--”

“—an illegal import from the living world? ‘course I know that! Anyone’d know that! And who wouldn’t figure it out with a shitty excuse like that. 12th division junk’s not stuff you put near your head. Captain Kuchiki know about this?”

“NO.” The boy contorted himself into a new shape of panic. It bore a passing resembalance to a bird on a roast. “NO. PLEASE DON’T TELL HIM. HE’LL KILL ME.”

Renji smacked him. “Calm the fuck down. I was asking.”

Rikichi rubbed his head, smiling dolefully. “Ahaha, of course. Renji-san…”

“Didn’t spend your allowance on it, right?”

“No?”

“So he’d prolly just maim you a bit. The hell’re you listening to, anyway…”

The younger officer handed him the headphones.

Renji tipped his head to it.

His brow rose.

“…right,” said Renji. “So that?”

“Yes?”

“The screaming guitar thing that’s going on there?”

“…yes?”

“That.” Renji rolled a shoulder. “He’d probably kill you for.”

“Oh,” said Rikichi. He looked pale, then dejected, then resigned, and then, despite it all, a little bold: “And you, Renji-san?”

“Eh,” said the Vice-Captain, and then confiscated it for the rest of the day.