Stitched Together

Chapter 11: Moving up

It's been a little over a month since the 11th ward raid, and we haven't exactly made much progress in our investigations. I sit with my feet propped up on my desk as I lean back in my chair. A paper airplane flys past my face and I smile. "You're getting good at those, stitches," I comment. Shinohara's been in the hospital so it's just us for now. I ball up a piece of paper and toss it to the trash can, but miss and hit Juuzou in the head. "Hey!"

"Oops, sorry Juuzou," I giggle. He takes another paper airplane and throws it at me. It soars through the air a bit before hitting my completely healed nose. I blink surprised and Suzuya laughs in his chair. "Oh yeah," I grin an ball up another sheet, but miss and hit something else. I look up and see Amon with something in his hands.

"Just because Shinoara's not here doesn't mean you two can slack off," he growls. "Go put these on," he tosses two outfits at Juuzou and I. We just look up at him quizzically. "Ugh you know nothing, there's a ceremony you have to be at, hurry up and change then get to the auditorium," he sighs and leaves us.

"He's always so grumpy," I mutter an look over to my partner. "We better go get changed, I forgot but we do have that promotion ceremony thing," I get up and head to the bathroom. Suzuya and I are both getting promoted to 2nd class investigators. I was expecting him to move up, but not me. Apparently they took into account my exceptional performance at the academy. During my time there I assisted in several large cases, mainly because the ghouls they were looking for irritated me so I ratted them out. My strength was far above the students there, being a koukaku and still being able to fight effectively with such a heavy weapon, they made it too easy for me to use human weapons. They must've decided that my history and the recent raid was enough to give me recognition. As I understand it, Juuzou is actually quite the prodigy, which, after working with him, I fully understand. He has incredible strength and agility, his methods are unconventional, but they work. I was curious, so I took a look at his records last week, and he's taken out quite a few A rated ghouls. He may have the brute force, but as far as his actual investigating skills go, he's not that polished. His attention span is short, and he doesn't look into anything. What has really got me interested is the fact that he really didn't take a test to get it, he was specially chosen. His records at the academy are jumbled as well, from what I can gather, he entered at about 16, but there isn't a thing on him before that. I've done a fair bit of investigating too, because frankly, he's been on my mind a lot for some reason. I change into the formal garment Amon gave me, a dark dress and blazer. Well, let's get this over with I suppose. I take my clothes back to my desk and put them in my bag. Suzuya must've already left. Paper and crayons are strewn across his desk as well as disregarded candy wrappers. His drawings are messy, like a child drew them. His personality is everywhere, from childish all the way to sadistic. There are so many sides to this boy it's ridiculous. At first glance he's an over energetic ditz, but he can be serious and helpful, even if it's not that often. "He must really like animals," I think to myself as I stare at the drawings. There are animals of all kinds scribbled onto the sheets. "Maybe we should go to the zoo one day," I think and giggle quietly. I'm about to turn and leave when something catches my eye. I take a paper that's tucked under a few others and stare at it. "Is... is that me?" I question internally and look at the figure with red tipped hair and a smile.

"Reina~" the chipper voice makes me drop the picture back onto the desk and whip around. "Whatchya doing, that's my desk silly," he giggles with an incredibly faint edge. He looks so much different without his usual wacky get up. Ah, there it is again, that look, those slightly narrowed eyes and thin smile. I've never really seen past his giggly, clingy self, but his features are actually... well, really good looking. I shake my head discreetly and focus.

"Oh I know I'm sorry, it's just the papers were a bit of a mess so I was straightening them," I lie. Why am I even lying, I wasn't even really doing anything wrong.