A Brush With Death HitsuHinata

Title: A Brush With Death
Theme: Opposite Day
Rating: PG
Pairing: Hitsugaya/Hinata...sort of
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"Well don't you look precious!" the busty strawberry-blonde gushed. Her reflection meet his in the mirror. Teal colored eyes rolled when Toshiro noticed she was smirking. As if looking over a son proudly. He wasn't her kid, but Matsumoto treated him as such. So annoying...

The young man's upper lip curled in annoyance, in the meantime he was having trouble with the collar of his new charcoal grey uniform. So far, the clothes were the only thing different between junior high and high school. Those exams he studied for like there was no tomorrow really hadn't changed much, but then again Toshiro knew he couldn't have moved out from under his...'caretaker', so elite schools were out of the question.

Karakura was her hometown and Rangiku Matsumoto was adamant about not leaving it, even if it meant her adopted 'son' would have a better future outside of this stuffy small town.

"Oh...I can't help it, you look too cute. Come'ere, let me hug you" Rangiku said, moving to embrace him. Luckily for Toshiro he narrowly escaped suffocation by ducking under the blond woman's open arms and scuttling out the door.

Once on the other side, Toshiro breathed a sigh of relief. He knew that she meant well, but he just wasn't the kind of person that liked to have people lavish affection on it. Like that white-haired man living on the apartment floor below them. The one who was always trying to give him candy. Toshiro shuddered, for a moment wondering if he dared go back in to get a windbreaker. In the end, the white-haired boy decided he could endure the cold.

A few minutes and he was a fair distance from the apartment complex, merging with sidewalk traffic. Students decked out in similar grey uniforms in front, around, and behind him; Toshiro for one didn't have anyone to talk to. Although he didn't seek out the label 'lone wolf', the boy found himself firmly fixated with it.

It wasn't that he disliked people...he just didn't like stupid people. And that seemed to be a majority of teenagers. To him, all of them seemed to be too worried about sports, popularity, the opposite sex, or just sex in general.

Bored with simply looking ahead as the student body walked to school, Toshiro pulled out his cellphone. Once he turned it on, he was surprised to see a mountain of texts and at least two voice mails waiting on him.

"What the hell..." he asked, opening one of the first texts. It was just a jumble of nonsense letters and symbols. Two others he opened had the exact same pattern. A glance at the title bar and sender let him know who it was.

"What is she doing?" Toshiro asked himself before switching to voice messages. At first there was static, like the phone was out of a service area. Then, he heard low growling, grunts, and someone yelling in the background.

Straining his hearing, Toshiro picked up broken shouting, "N-no! Put that down...it's mine. G-give it back!"

Deep frown lines wrinkled his forehead and brought down the young man's formerly puzzled expression. No doubt about it, she was in some sort of trouble again. Toshiro spared one last glance to his peers before pocketing his phone and veering off into a shortcut through an alleyway.
–
Seventh Seat of the Thirteenth Division of Soul Society was on the verge of tears. For such a weak and small Hollow, it had managed to elude her for this long. It even had nicked her cellphone! At this point, Hinata was beyond frustrated. She needed to get that phone back, not only was it the only way she could track Hollow outbreaks but also her only connection to...

Hinata shook her head, long indigo locks swaying with the motion . No, she couldn't get side-tracked. Not when she had to find the Hollow, get her phone back, and dispose of it. Yet for making promises to herself not to get distracted, Hinata's thoughts strayed to the young human boy she met last year.

He was a...strange person. Couldn't see lingering souls, like human ghosts. Yet he could see her and Hollows as clear as day. When they first met, Hinata had accidentally ran into him while chasing a Hollow.

"Hey! You! Come back here"

Hinata's footsteps suddenly stopped. Slowly, she turned around. Pale eyes blinked as Hinata looked at the short boy dressed in a middle school uniform. Yet for being...small and dressed in a school uniform, he had white hair and a very serious expression on his face.

"Uh...you...mean me?" Hinata squeaked out, upon realizing he was glaring at her.

"Yes you. Aren't you at least going to apologize?" he demanded to know.

"I um..." Hinata muttered, at a loss for a moment. Then, she heard the Hollow roaring from a thicket of trees. "I'm sorry...but I don't have time to apologize properly!" she blurted out before running away.

It hadn't even occurred to Hinata to look behind her. With her mind on the task at hand, the young woman found and destroyed the Hollow. It wasn't until after Hinata sheathed her sword that she turned around. Standing just a few feet away was that boy again. His teal eyes wide, glancing first at the space where the large Hollow once stood. Then, back at her.

"...d-did you see..."

He nodded, "Yeah. I saw everything."

"Oh" Hinata whispered, her heart sinking with each intake and exhale of air. It was an unforgivable crime in Soul Society, for a human to be made aware of Shinigami. Not only would Hinata lose her position, she just might lose her life as well; if anyone knew about this encounter.

He must have seen her face drain of color or maybe heard Hinata's knees knocking together, because the boy shook his head. "Don't worry. I won't tell anyone"

True to his word, Toshiro didn't say a word to anyone. Or at least...not as far as Hinata knew. The first few days after the incident were terrible for her, since Hinata would have nightmares of being found out, waking up in a cold sweat and short of breath.

And it didn't help matters that Toshiro had an uncanny ability to show up wherever Hinata was working. Sometimes even cutting classes to observe, like it was all some bizarre yet novel sideshow.

If she were a stronger and more confident person, Hinata would have told him to leave her alone a long time ago. To tell him to forget she ever existed. But, instead of scaring him away and unable to avoid him, Hinata tried to befriend him. She soon discovered that for not only being a bit 'weird', Toshiro was also difficult to know.

The few times Hinata had seen him with other people, it was always with his caretaker or a childhood friend of his. Other than that, he didn't seem to interact much and as it concerned Hinata, Toshiro only seemed interested in watching her get rid of Hollows.

Slowly though, Hinata noticed some cracks in the ice armor and he started talking to her more. Most of the talking was actually questions, all of which she couldn't answer truthfully. He already knew too much, anything more and Toshiro would be trouble.

Now, all of the awkwardness seemed to be in the past and Hinata found herself relying on him.

"...more than I should" the young woman said aloud, her eyes downcast. He was just a boy. A human boy. And even though he could see her and the Hollows, his spiritual powers weren't quite broad enough to see the human spirits. He was in danger every time they crossed paths.

Thus, Hinata resolved to pull away. Little by little. Maybe even suggest her patrol be changed. But, she could make such a request only after finishing her patrol. And in order to do that, Hinata needed her phone.

"Where could it be..." she muttered, now having lost track of the Hollow itself.

"Looking for this?"

Hinata looked around, then over her shoulder, trying to find the source of the voice. "Up here"

Craning her neck, the young woman saw Toshiro sitting on top of a brick wall. Cupped in his hands was the struggling 'crow' appearing Hollow she had been chasing. Her cellphone strap was hanging off it's closed black beak.

For a moment, Hinata was speechless. "What...how did you catch it?" she asked. Toshiro freed one of his hands from the Hollow-bird to work the cellphone strap out of it's beak, then dropped it into Hinata's waiting hands.

"I found it hopping on the ground. I guess your cellphone was weighing it down, so it was easy to catch"

Hinata would have almost believe Toshiro's story of the easy capture, if his hands and neck weren't covered with claw marks.

Putting her cellphone away, Hinata readied her zanpakuto. With a nod to Toshiro, who released the crow Hollow; Hinata made quick work of the pesky bird.

Once it vanished, Hinata breathed a sigh of releaf. "Thank you so much. You didn't have to help me, b-but...I'm grateful."

Toshiro jumped down from his perch on the wall, landing with both feet on the sidewalk. "Don't worry about it" he grumbled, gaze turned away.

Hinata blinked as she noticed something different about him, "N-new uniform?"

Toshiro nodded, but still wasn't looking directly at her. "I graduated from the junior high a couple weeks ago. This is the high school uniform."

"Ah, I see" Hinata said, smiling at him, "It looks great on you."

Toshiro reacted in an unexpected way... he blushed. Or at least that's what it looked like to Hinata. However, she refrained from asking about it, because she didn't want to say more embarrassing things.

"...thank you" he finally muttered, hands in his pants pockets. After a awkward pause, Toshiro cleared his throat before speaking, "I'd better get to class."

Hinata bowed, "I'm sorry. You're going to be late because you were helping me."

The young man shrugged, "I don't mind" Toshiro confessed while the Shinigami tried to disguise a cringe.

'I know you don't mind, but I can't keep depending on you either'.

"Oh! Before you go...let me see your hands." Hinata said, for once imposing her will on someone else.

Toshiro didn't put up a fight, although he did raise an eyebrow at her command; and allowed Hinata to heal his scratched hands. Things got awkward when the marks disappeared, because neither Hinata or Toshiro let go.

Then, Hinata released first. With a shy smile she started walking down the opposite fork of the street, "P-please be more careful"

When she left, Toshiro snorted. "How can I 'be careful' when I'm always having to protect you. Stupid Shinigami..." he mumbled.
–
Notes: Yay, it's finished. I would like to do more with this later on, but for now I'll leave it as a one-shot. Thanks for reading!