#Made Mayuri buy the tickets to really display how much he has to nit pick EVERYTHING even when he likes it

[unohanadaydreams]

Circle Back (Mayuri x Reader)

Summary:

Mayuri takes you and Nemuri to a museum and he's persnickety the whole time. And then some! Ends with dubious drugging and experimentation because that too is romantic and domestic for Mayuri LMAO.

Notes:

As promised, here is the weird little museum piece I wrote on my sabbatical, typed out so it can be shared. The exhibits are inspired by Gutai because I thought that would be fun and fitting for him.

“One must appreciate an attempt to decipher the complexity of our duties,” a passerby noted to his companions. All of them noble in dress and posture.

Mayuri didn’t wait for them to pass before offering a rebuttal, firmly directed toward you, who watched the wailing in the center of the domed kido barrier with mouth agape.

“One could enclose any number of my labs in some half-rate kido barrier and decipher more than they were previously capable of fathoming,” he sneered.

You tried not to look at the noblemen, their subtle pressure overtaking your peripheral. “Mayuri-sama was the one who bought us tickets.”

“Yes, yes, and any artist must endure their criticisms if they’re of any worth.”

The dome was light blue, half-transparent, and contained a replication of a soul. Some ppor man in a dour three-piece suit, wailing against the gathered reishi as the hole in his chest peeled wider from the struggle for attention.

For help that wouldn’t ever come.

Nemuri stood close to the barrier, yelling right back at the fabrication of anguish. Laughing as the slick floor over took his clunky dress shoes and landed him smooshed against the buzzing wall.

She looked back to you with wide eyes. An eager smile.

“Will it hollowfy if we wait?”

“We need not waste our time,” Mayuri said, wriggling his hand in dramatic demand that Nemuri take it. “That would imply a far greater commitment than these artists wish to engage in.”

He did not offer his hand to you, but did offer an off-kilter stare, complete with neck and head displayed in an unnatural bend until you moved beside him so that you three continued to the next room as one unit.

Truthfully, you were having fun. You enjoyed the displays that overtook each room. A soul trapped between states, hollow yet unable to translate that emptiness to true hollowfication. Ever on the precipice of change, yet ever uncertain in which form he’d be delivered to the beyond. You liked it.

The dramatic wailing and flailing made it better, even.

You were all having fun. Nemuri, most obviously of all.

“I’m going to make something better,” she declared. “Something with more souls and at least one hollowfication.”

You paused before a magnificent wall scroll that had been ripped apart and reformatted to span the wall in its entirety, attempting to puzzle out how it’d been accomplished.

“That sounds interesting, Nemuri-chan.”

“Interesting? You are meant to be feeding her building blocks, not falsehoods.”

Turning from the scroll, you squinted. “You think it’s boring?”

Nemuri stamped her little socked foot against the slick, wooden flooring, “It won’t be boring!”

“Such a display would be undoubtedly boring. You’ve described an average day on Earth for a Shinigami.”

Sensing the oncoming tantrum in the clutch of her chubby fists and increasing flair of her little button nose, you patted Nemuri’s head and coaxed her to look at the scroll with you.

“Let her think on it, Mayuri-sama. She has to start building somewhere. And besides, it’s rare for a Shinigami to be assigned to the world of the living.”

Nemuri turned away from the scroll with a self-righteous pout, “Yeah!”

“Rather, you wish to let her have a sub-par start,” Mayuri drawled. His jaw grinding and eyes roving the scroll in criss-cross pattern, searching for the same answers you had moments before.

“Sometimes it’s best to let things go,” you whispered. “Let her have her way and I’ll give you a big kiss.”

One eye zeroed in on your offer’s accompanying wink. “What a horrid offer. And sloppy terms. I don’t aim to raise some Souskuke Aizen half-wit.”

You gasped far louder than necessary. “Nemuri would get waaay farther than Aizen-taicho. Wouldn’t you, Nemuri-chan?”

Nemuri rose to her tip toes to grab your hand, no longer interested in the scroll now that something more fun to dwell on had appeared.

“I will avoid prison,” she finally agreed.

“See!” You pinched Mayuri’s haori and gave it a tug, holding in laughter as his neck cranked to a true ninety degree angle in response. “She’s just like you, after all. Anything she creates will be interesting once she gets far enough.”

“Ururu nee-chan will help,” Nemuri said. “She knows hollows and is in the world of the living all the time.”

“Collaboration should foster advancement,” Mayuri said, steering you all to the next room, unwilling to tell you a scrap of information regarding the scroll. “That girl can hardly manage a sentence, let alone a thesis.”

“We could always ask Urahara-san for help, then.”

“Nemuri agreeding while flitting about the repurposed rubble that formed a massive—yet miniature—replication of the Seireitei and the closest surrounding Rukongai that could manage to fit within the room.

“I have mastered many things worse than death,” Mayuri groused. You overlooked the cobbled together Research and Development building that came to his knee. “That man cannot be trusted with any part of Nemuri’s developing sense of self. He would lead her down a path of indulgences. And soulless commercialism entirely unsuited for more than a shallow glance.”

You hummed, focusing on taking a video of Mayuri and Nemuri wandering the room.

His painted face was fully zoomed upon, fuzzy and out of focused, then perfectly clear as you adjusted to watch his expression with care.

“So you’ll be supplying a first-rate kido barrier instead of us having to outsource it sounds like?”

“You should simply admit your desperation and beg properly,” Mayuri said, face pointed toward the lens despite the sour expression, arms flung wide and fingers splayed in careful precision, as though fans.

The others in the room suddenly had their fill of the display or at the very least, began to give a wide berth.

Tossing your phone to Nemuri made him deflate a little. But only a little. And Nemuri padded around the room with a determination to document every inch of the faux Seireitei.

Emboldened by the other bodies draining from the room you stuck a finger between Mayuri’s open teeth, preparing for him to peel away and monologue a bit more.

Instead, he bit down incrementally, until the pain was enough for you to suck in a sharp breath.

“Will I be begging in this fate worse than death you’re planning for me?”

He bit harder, expression carefully blank, before smacking you away, your finger scraping against the pressure of his teeth as you reclaimed it.

You popped the bleeding finger into your mouth, laving your tongue against the sting as Mayuri watched with a lobotomized look.

“Kiss it better,” you demanded, the room empty for all but you, Mayuri, and Nemuri.

In an instance, his face reclaimed its animation. Its familiar sneer. “You should search out those noblemen,” he said. “Perhaps they can appreciate your vast stupidity that so aligns with theirs.”

Mayuri stalked from the room, then.

And you followed after waiting for Nemuri to finish her documentation. She held your obi as her other hand still fiddled with the soul phone.

“We’re not stupid,” she said. “Our hollow will be very advanced. And not boring.”

“Very true, Nemuri-chan,” you said with a laugh.

Mayuri’s shoulder blades cracked as he craned his upper body to glare back at you.

And once again wriggled his fingers again, like luring worms, until he caught Nemuri in his left hand. You held a scrap of his haori on his right.

“You have both exhausted my extensive patience,” he began, speaking for the room, almost preening as faces snuck to glance at him. “This exhibit is bloated with withered moral ideation that is souring your scope of what can be brought to life.”

“I wasn’t thinking of morals,” Nemuri said.

“Incorrect,” Mayuri said, surveying the current room with a scowl. “The artist wished you to focus on the suffering and so you did. Instead of disputing me blindly, a true scientist would approach with curiosity.”

“I thought I was right this time, though, Mayuri-sama.”

“And that is what passes for curiosity, is it?”

You watched the other leave the room with more haste than the last as Mayuri continued to lecture, noticing their socks left lasting imprints behind on the compacted dirt of the exhibit.

Nemuri rephrased herself after hopping around to make a fun pattern with her own socks. “What should I have thought, Mayuri-sama?”

You interrupted Mayuri’s incoming admonishment, “How was the artist’s intention translated into Nemuri’s idea?”

Mayuri gave a wide point, his singularly long nail almost scratching your brow, “You are not meant to build for her.”

“How,” Nemuri prompted. “How did I!”

All of you walked over sandal prints that would not lift, prints that were erased bit-by-bit through the pressure of your steps. The ceiling projected, then retracted, bundles of transparent bodies in a timed and endless cycle.

“As I stated; the suffering.” Mayuri came to an understanding of the room and gave an empty laugh. “The linear path of soul to hollow. If you wish to explore true suffering, deny the soul evolution. Ensure the stagnation as the artist has.”

“But I want the evolution,” Nemuri said. “I want them to change!”

Mayuri did scratch your brow as he rounded on Nemuri and you hissed. “Ow.”

“The evolution is the part I like most,” Nemuri continued. “The pain goes away.”

“And then what is left?”

You tugged his haori before Mayuri could say the rest. And reduce Nemuri’s musings to ‘nothing’.

Mayuri was happy enough to swivel away from that and toward another lecture.

“If a hollow can be made naturally, then what shall you do that is deserving of resources? There is more than on phase of evolution. Instead of saying ‘I’ll see how many souls hollowfy under these conditions’, think instead of how the process functions. Think to the conditions that must be introduced to alter those faces. And to enhance their functions.”

His voice rose in fervor and you could not manage to contain your giggling.

“Prolong or end the suffering to what end, Nemuri? Accelerate the evolution for what purpose? A new element must be introduced to the tired, established process if there is to be a tangible benefit at the end of your proposed study. We research and develop for the Gotei 13, after all.”

Face crouched and closed to his progeny, Mayuri leveled his tone to something more reasonable. “Anything less will result in prison, indeed.”

Mayuri’s lecture carried you out of the exhibit and lulled Nemuri into deep thought, her voice contained to her mind for the moment.

The only thing cutting the silence were the chatter of strangers and Nemuri’s muttering into the phone, no doubt recording her thoughts as Mayuri and many of the 12th often did when inspiration struck.

@

“You got your money’s worth of inspiration, huh?”

Mayuri did not shake you away as you held his hand, safe from prying eyes in the maze of labs below Research and Development.

“Yes, quite inspired to wonder why I’ve entrusted you with any part of Nemuri’s education.”

Your thumb hesitated, then quickly smoothed over his painted knuckles before ending the contact and holding his haori instead.

“Hm,” you said with false thought. “Because I’m patient, maybe?”

“Akon is patient. You simply dawdle.”

You blew him a kiss and earned a pointed gaze in turn.

“If I weren’t so loyal to Mayuri-sama, I’d dawdle my way over to the Urahara Shoten.”

“Your attempt to rile me is entirely lacking.”

“Ooooh,” you laughed. “Do I have to start walking there before it works?”

Mayuri scoffed. “There are enough dispersible poisons within your organs that the very attempt would prove pathetic.”

“Well, you’re the one who keeps taking me for granted.”

You stretched and made a show of no longer holding any part of him, moving a bit away, which was impressive considering the tight style of hallway this far down.

“Certainly,” Mayuri said. “Annoyances in life are always guaranteed.”

“Aw. I would never leave you to get bored,” you said. “Unless Urahara-san offered a sizable raise, of course.”

“That man deserves another incompetent fool added to his brimming collection,” Mayuri said. “So do try.”

“But then Nemuri-chan would end up visiting Urahara Shoten quite a bit after all.”

“She would be entirely forbidden.”

“Even if I begged?”

“Even if you managed to beg well for once.”

You fell against a door of some sealed off room that only Mayuri knew the purpose of.

“You seemed to like it well enough to threaten me with another fate worse than death.”

Laughter bubbled up, then choked to an abrupt end and carried into a series of wet coughs that grew into great, wheezing hacks. No matter how vicious you expelled the growing lump within, the coughing brought less and less relief. Or air.

Still you smiled, lips trembling as Mayuri gave you a careful, empty look. His eyes betrayed him, though. Pupils dilating and contracting like the lens of a camera as you hunched over to vomit, tears brimming as whatever poision within began building to its worst.

“I didn’t,” you dry heaved a few times before being able to continue. “I wouldn’t leave.”

His thumb slotted between your teeth as he loomed over you, not minding the mess still smeared on your lips.

You groaned, back spasming in quickening muscle cramps that meandered in waves from your neck to tail bone. In tandem, your stomach did the same.

“Are you not up to the task of begging well as we work, then?”

“Please,” you gagged. Mayuri rose as you collapsed, the door you had leaned upon opening to reveal a sterile, well-lit circle of room.

Mayuri stepped over you and fetched a tall, wheeled tray.

“Quite overused, the word ‘please’, don’t you think?”

“Everything feels wrong,” you moaned.

The pain disorients everything, shrouding Mayuri into a dark cloud looming overhead, lingering yet reticent to your mortal suffering.

In paradox, you hear the smile inflecting his admonishments as something wonderfully bright dazzles your vision, bidding your pupils follow.

“You are quite impatient, after all. We haven’t even begun the experimentation, yet.”

You’re unsure if the cloud grazing your knuckles is done with affection but you’re disappointed when the cool touch dissipates, leaving you to tremble on the ground. Alone.

“You’re leaving?”

The cloud flickered.

“I’m observing.”

“Observe…closer.”

“Too close and you become bereft of the complexities the whole brings.”

You dry heave again and alternate between crawling and collapsing toward him. “Fuck…complexities.”

“Ah,” you heard from somewhere above. “What did I say? A simple kido barrier and this would truly be worth an exhibit.”