Yoruichi, for her part, was privately fuming.
Yesterday had been her first time fully transforming into cat form, and she hadn't had enough control over the body yet — which was the only reason that hyperactive terror Hisagi had managed to catch her and subject her to whatever that had been. It wasn't going to happen again.
Since then, she'd spent every available moment maintaining the form and drilling her Flash Steps inside it. She was up to roughly fifty percent capacity now. Nobody was catching her.
She looked up at Yoji with her golden cat eyes, and the corner of her mouth curved in what was, for a cat, a remarkably knowing expression.
Yoji simply crouched down and started rubbing her head with the easy confidence of someone who had done this a thousand times.
"Terrible timing, I'm afraid. Lieutenant Hisagi and Captain Rokujou both went out for the day. You've missed them completely."
He smiled at her with tremendous warmth.
"But if you'd like, you're welcome to keep me company. I'm very fond of cats."
Yoruichi played her part perfectly.
"Mrow~"
Perfect. I'm in.
Then she felt herself lifted off the ground as Yoji scooped her up in both arms.
Slam.
The door shut behind them. She heard the latch engage.
...Why is the door latched?
A vague unease settled over her, though she kept it off her face. She hadn't come here to panic — she'd come to find out what Yoji Mirai was hiding. She let herself be carried and turned her golden eyes methodically around the room.
Still the most aggressively bare room she'd ever seen. Bed, desk, chair. Not a single unnecessary object anywhere. Was this man living as some kind of aesthetic monk? Surely the novel royalties covered more than this? Did he convert everything to alcohol the moment it landed in his account?
She scanned every surface. Ceiling, floor, every corner of every wall.
No hidden reishi formations. No signs of concealed compartments. Nothing.
A thread of disappointment moved through her. She knew Yoji was careful — careful enough that anything genuinely sensitive would be moved the moment he left the building. But for the room to be this clean even with him present was unusual.
Don't tell me this trip is actually going to be—
A face appeared suddenly in her entire field of vision. Very close. Wearing a very soft smile.
"Stop looking around, little one. Come play with me~"
Yoji fell backward onto the bed in one motion, taking her with him, both arms wrapped securely around her, his expression one of deeply sincere and slightly unhinged affection.
Before she had time to process any of this, he buried his face in the fur of her stomach and inhaled.
Deeply.
"—SNFF—"
"MRYOW?!" What kind of attack is THAT—
Then his hands got involved.
He worked his fingers through the fur along her back with practiced, shameless enthusiasm. He found her chin. He found the spot behind her ears. He drew one hand along the full length of her tail, slowly, finger by finger.
LET GO OF ME. YOJI MIRAI YOU ABSOLUTE—
She kicked with all four legs. She twisted. She put real effort into escaping.
His grip didn't loosen, and his technique — she was absolutely not going to think the word technique — had a quality to it that she was finding extremely difficult to characterize as unpleasant.
...Is he doing this on purpose? Does he know who I am? Is this deliberate humiliation?
She looked at his face.
...No. That is genuinely just how someone looks at a cat they really like. This man has a problem.
The indignation cycled through several stages. Then the outrage. Then a period of genuine existential uncertainty.
Then, somewhere past all of that —
...I'm in cat form. No one knows it's me. Technically this isn't happening to Yoruichi.
...The ears thing was actually quite—
Fine. Fine. Just for a moment. No one will ever know.
When Yoji's grip finally relaxed, she moved instantly — out of his arms, off the bed, across the room, one paw flicking the window latch open with practiced ease, and gone into the night in a single clean leap.
The window swung shut behind her.
Whatever that had been — it had not happened.
Yoji looked at the closed window and smiled to himself.
There. Try sneaking in here again.
Though he did make a mental note not to push it. He was going to need the Second Division's cooperation eventually, and burning that bridge over a bit of cat-related mischief would be genuinely inconvenient.
He lay back on his bed, feeling thoroughly pleased with himself, and slept well.
"—Aaahhh—"
Yoji stretched in the middle of the Ninth Division courtyard the next morning, completely without dignity, letting the sunlight settle on him.
"Perfect weather," he announced to no one. "The kind that really calls for sleeping in and then..." He patted his wallet. It made a very small sound. "...And then staring at the ceiling because you can't afford anything."
"Yoji. Stay still. Don't move."
The voice came from directly behind him. Flat. No particular inflection.
Yoji froze. Arms still raised above his head, he stayed exactly as he was — a man-shaped sculpture expressing extreme caution.
Third Seat Yamagami Tetsu. The name fit him. He had the face of a man cast from structural iron, and at this moment he had a sketchpad in one hand and a brush in the other, and he was circling Yoji at a steady, measured pace, the brush moving in rapid strokes.
He kept circling for an hour.
The sun had visibly moved by the time Yamagami Tetsu came to a stop, studied his work, and gave a single nod.
"Done."
"Hff—" Yoji let out the breath he'd been managing for sixty minutes. His entire body felt like it had been left in storage.
He rolled his neck and looked at his third seat.
"Is this... for the new book cover?"
Yamagami Tetsu nodded, tone completely level.
"Since early this morning, word has been spreading across the entire Seireitei about Soul Society's most beautiful distinguished young nobleman. You happened to be on the premises, so I took the opportunity. The timing was convenient."
He paused.
"Ideally, you'd release your Shikai. For the frontispiece."
"Wait—" Yoji held up a hand immediately. "Hold on. This 'most beautiful distinguished young nobleman' business — what does that have to do with me, exactly?"
Yamagami Tetsu's expression did not change. He reached into the back of the sketchpad, produced a piece of paper, and held it out.
It was a drawing — rough, slightly shaky, clearly done through a window from a considerable distance — of a figure standing in falling snow, holding a folding fan, rendered in side profile.
It was recognizably Yoji.
He stared at it.
Then he stared at the ceiling.
I sleep in for one morning. One morning. And somehow the entire Seireitei has reorganized itself.
"So." Yamagami Tetsu's iron eyes settled back on him with the patience of a man who had already decided how this conversation ended. "Shikai. For art. For sales."
Yoji pressed two fingers to his temple.
"No Shikai," he said after a moment. "Too draining. But listen — on the cover, or in the announcement, could you add a line for me?"
He cleared his throat and arranged his expression into something he hoped read as genuine and trustworthy.
"Something like: 'Soul Society's Most Beautiful Distinguished Nobleman, Yoji Mirai, proudly announces: a brand new work, arriving within five days.' How does that sound?"
Yamagami Tetsu's brow moved by a fraction of a millimeter. He stared at Yoji for a long moment.
Then he said two words.
"You're dropping it again."
"I am NOT dropping anything — who said anything about dropping—"
"This is the craft of the artist!" Yoji continued, voice rising. "Inspiration requires time! What I'm doing is deliberately transitioning creative directions in pursuit of a higher literary standard! That is not dropping it, that is called evolving—"
Yamagami Tetsu had stopped listening approximately four sentences ago. He looked at Yoji with the eyes of a man who had heard every version of this speech. He had believed it the first time, because he was trusting. He had believed it the second time, out of loyalty. By the fifth, sixth, seventh, eighth time, the pattern had become unmistakable.
Soul Society's Most Beautiful Distinguished Nobleman.
In the private ledger of Yamagami Tetsu, long-suffering loyal reader, there was a different title.
A man who starts stories, abandons them without warning, and feels nothing about it.
A hack. A chronic dropout. A — eunuch of literature.
He snorted once, tucked his sketchpad under his arm, and walked away.