Chapter Text
People often looked surprised when they found out how young Byakuya was, you know, in the grand scheme of things. He couldn’t understand why. It seemed to him that anybody who saw him could see it branded across his forehead, the naivete that comes only with youth. He remembered clearly a time in his life, when he had bristled with righteous indignation, every time somebody (mostly Ukitake, sometimes Yoruichi) looked at him with what he understood, then, to be benevolent condescension. He knew better, now. He could recognise it in Kyouraku’s eyes, so eerily alike his husband of centuries. Dead husband, to be precise. It wasn’t condescension but something much, much worse. Pity. For he hadn’t lived long enough to understand much of anything yet.
Somebody from the human world put Renji onto something called astrology- something to do with planets and houses?He wasn’t sure. Renji told him he was an Aquarian. Byakuya committed the word to memory along with the fact that it apparently meant he was stubborn.
Kyouraku was speaking, and it wasn’t in Byakuya’s nature to suffer distraction during Captains’ Meetings, or any meetings, really. He tried to focus, wondered why he should, and decided not to. It won’t matter. Most of what they were told was lies.
He only knew they had been dismissed when he felt Soi Fon brush past, not used to her standing next to him yet.
He began following her, and she slowed down just enough to let him catch up in two, longer-than-average strides. The best part of their friendship had always been this- she was perceptive, and did not mind silence. Byakuya appreciated it most days.
Today, he wished she would ask him what was wrong with him.
Maybe he’d find out if he was forced to answer.
He knew the question sat at the tip of her tongue. He was perceptive, too, after all. She was concerned, as much so as Soi Fon could be. But they were afternoon tea type of friends, judgemental looks exchanged across a room type of friends, casual updates delivered in a monotone, and not enquired into type of friends. They did not go digging into each other’s hearts to find rot to stare at. And Soi Fon did not seem to know how to start.
“I saw him staring at you. Been doing that a lot,” she offered, instead.
‘I have been meeting with Kenpachi, after meetings, in offices, and other places we shouldn’t.’ - was exactly the type of life update that would be delivered in a monotone, and then not enquired into. Soi Fon, however, did not hold Kenpachi in high regard anymore. Not after Unohana. She had had much to say about him, without his being a fixture in Byakuya’s life before. He doubted she’d be courteous now, especially considering how Byakuya, himself, had taken every opportunity he could to insult Yoruichi in her presence.
The perks and pitfalls of friendship were often one and the same, he had learned.
He nodded in acknowledgement and watched her narrow her eyes, suddenly thankful again for her tendency to mind her own business. Yoruichi and that bum she hung out with could learn a thing or two, honestly.
They were further down the hallway, away from most of the other captains, who were lingering and chatting. Byakuya could feel eyes on him even so.
“What, now? Are we on for tea? Might need to remind Toushiro.”
Byakuya turned to look her in the eyes.
“I apologise. There has been an oversight on my part. I promised Rukia I would help her train her Bankai today. It is a complicated, intricate power she has there, quite-…”
“Yeah, yeah,” Soi Fon rolled her eyes. Byakuya hated it when she cut him off. It was a privilege allowed only to her, mostly because she was the only one with the gall to try. “You’ve prattled on about it for hours, already. What a wonderful brother you are.”
A requirement for captaincy of Squad 2 must be that the candidate has frighteningly piercing eyes. Either that, or Soi Fon had picked up one too many tricks from her predecessor.
“Allow me to make amends at the next possible opportunity. Would you be free tomorrow?”
She scoffed and then made a beeline towards the railing. Soon enough, she was flash-stepping away, a non-subtle ‘fuck you’. She only walked for his benefit. Byakuya had always found the flash-step to be an unbearably showy mode of travel when not needed.
Byakuya watched her go. Before he could tear his gaze off her disappearing form, he felt somebody brush against him. Something tickled his ear as Kenpachi leaned in to whisper, “Where are you off to?”
Byakuya quickened his pace.
…
He liked it when Kenpachi pulled his hair. Grabbed a fistful at the scalp and used it to pull him in. He liked how he placed a hand at the base of Byakuya’s spine, then, as it arched towards Kenpachi. He liked how he slid it across his back, down his sides, grabbed at his hips with bruising force. He would tilt Byakuya’s head, after, sometimes, and bite his shoulder.
Byakuya stifled a moan and let Kenpachi push him down, on top of his desk. Things were never gentle with them.
He was pinned in place, effectively, Kenpachi’s considerable weight pressing upon him. Kenpachi’s hands were flat on the wood, next to his head, and the edge of the desk knocked against his hips with every thrust, a dull, thrum of pain. Byakuya closed his eyes and pressed his forehead against the cypress grain, and spread his legs a little wider, arched his hips higher, to avoid banging into the wood. Kenpachi left him bruised enough as it was.
Byakuya felt him lean closer, cloth brushing against his bare back. Kenpachi fisted his hair, held it up in a vulgar mockery of a ponytail. His own coarse hair tickled Byakuya’s sweaty back, drawing a stubborn path onto his skin as Kenpachi pounded into him. His grip tightened, his pace quickened, and Byakuya felt lips against the nape of his neck. He stiffened in anticipation of a kiss, felt teeth dig in.
With a scowl, he straightened, lifting himself onto his hands. He pushed Kenpachi’s fingers out of his hair, brought one palm down to his hips and the other to his cock, heavy with neglect. With the first rub of Kenpachi’s rough calloused skin against his flesh, Byakuya closed his eyes and leaned back.
“Harder,” he commanded, and was promptly obeyed.
Kenpachi stroked him through an orgasm, and then kept playing with him. Byakuya shut his eyes tight and tried to close his legs by instinct. Kenpachi slapped his thigh and held him in place. Thankfully, he was not interested in holding out. He finished soon enough and pulled out of Byakuya with a sickening plop.
Byakuya forced his breathing into a softer, more even rhythm. His head spun, and he could feel something wet leaking out of him. Almost as if he had summoned it, a rag came flying towards him and landed on the top of the desk right next to his hand. A rustling followed as Kenpachi started straightening his hakama and then looking for his haori.
This wasn’t exactly new; it had been happening for a while. Byakuya couldn’t name the day, but he knew it hadn’t started before Kenpachi had cornered him one day, after a joint-Squad training session, post the great betrayal, and related Aizen shenanigans. In a characteristically gruff manner, he had declared,
“Sorry. For what I said about your sister.”
Byakuya had almost taken the bait, gritted his teeth, and spat out, “Which instance do you speak of? You have taken every shot you possibly could.”
But he had avoided it, far too busy wondering where the vitriol came from. Kenpachi hadn’t been the only one running his mouth, and he hadn’t said anything untrue. Not once.
The apology had been about as unexpected as Rukia’s forgiveness was. Byakuya had tamped down the unbecoming anger reminiscent of his youth and chosen to be as magnanimous as she was, instead.
He had nodded in understanding, looked Kenpachi in the eyes and all that. The big, brute had not seemed to like that. He had clicked his tongue and looked away, swung on his feet as if ready to leave, and then stayed.
“We had it all so twisted, man. Shit’s crazy.”
“Indeed,” Byakuya had replied, pointedly not wincing at Kenpachi’s verbiage. He had promised to be less hoity-toity, as Ichigo had so elegantly described him to be earlier.
“I don’t like being blindsided,” Kenpachi muttered.
“Why, then?” Byakuya stared pointedly at his eyepatch. Kenpachi had raised a non-existent brow.
“Unfunny,” he had remarked. Byakuya had nearly ended the conversation right there. He was hilarious, thank you very much.
“Should go back to not speaking,” Kenpachi had continued.
“Gladly.”
And so they did, for a while. Until a night, the Captains gathered together in some bar. There had been a heavy insistence on co-mingling since the defection. Byakuya could not claim inebriation to the point of not knowing what he was doing. He had known. So had Kenpachi.
He had known Kenpachi would start tailing him, demanding a fight, at some point in the night. He had recognised the moment Kenpachi’s tone slipped into something more… just, more than petty provocation. He had allowed himself to be led outside, knowing that if he rested his back against the wall, Kenpachi would crowd him against it.
All of that to say, it was far from a drunken mistake.
It had happened a few times since- twice in Hueco Mundo, even. But it had become too frequent now, all out of nowhere, for him not to know that this was about Unohana. About Yachiru. About being blindsided, over and over again. And not at all about him.
That was fine. Ideal.
Byakuya liked having sex with Kenpachi. He liked how uncomplicated it was. He liked how little Kenpachi seemed to think of him. It felt like he had nothing to live up to.
Wordlessly, Kenpachi reached out for the rag when Byakuya was done cleaning himself, as well as he could. He had placed Byakuya’s uniform on the table already, right by his knee, where he had it up on the desk to give himself space to wipe. With an appreciative glance at his hole and a last leering wink at Byakuya, Kenpachi was leaving. Byakuya waited for him to disappear from sight before he made haste.
There was a thin window of time when the streets of Seireitei were quiet, after the barracks were closed and before Rukia returned home- the only time he could sneak into his own quarters without having Rukia detect Kenpachi’s reiatsu on him. And it was closing soon.
He dressed quickly and threw his scarf over his head. There was no way he could get his hair to behave now; this would have to do. In under five seconds, he was racing away from Squad 11 barracks- their usual meeting spot. Nobody in Squad 11 stayed a second past dismissal. Ever. Half of the barracks emptied hours before then, in fact.
As non-judgemental as Byakuya had now become, he had opinions about the kind of leadership Kenpachi provided his underlings with, and they weren’t polite.
But the only man who had been any type of a leader to Byakuya had been eaten alive, right in front of his eyes. For the greater good, of course. As if he were never a person at all. Just a lifeless piece of wood for fungus to thrive on. Just a chariot for a God to drive into war.
And he had known it, too. All his life.
What a wretched burden to put on a child. Oh, Mimihagi had been wily. He had picked the most dutiful, the most sincere child of all. Byakuya was sure the sad, old fool had died, grateful he got to serve a purpose.
… so maybe, Kenpachi was doing just fine.
Maybe Byakuya was the idiot. And all those he idolised.
…
After a bath, Byakuya was looking to get dressed for dinner. That was when Rukia arrived, shoulders raised, brow knit.
“Can we just eat in here?”
The table was quickly set up. Rukia sat on the other end, tense. Byakuya had assumed she had something to talk about when she made her request, but talking wasn’t yet easy for them.
After Yhwach’s defeat, Byakuya had wanted to ask her how she was dealing with Ukitake’s death, and to be given the truth. He had pestered Renji about insights into her emotional state until he snapped, and reminded Byakuya, in quite derisive a tone, that he could just ask her. That made sense. So, Byakuya started pestering Renji about how to do so. His lieutenant had informed him that Rukia didn’t bite and threatened to snitch if Byakuya ever brought it up again.
He hadn’t gotten around to asking her. He didn’t… they weren’t close enough, yet. Byakuya had only himself to blame.
“Is something bothering you tonight, Rukia?”
“Yes,” she admitted, easily, then frowned and bit her lip. “I don’t know if this is stupid.”
She shovelled an astonishing amount of food into her mouth immediately after finishing her sentence. Byakuya took that as his cue to talk.
“Nothing that concerns you will ever seem stupid to me.”
She looked up at him, and the barest trace of a challenge flitted across her gaze. She bit back words very often, when she was upset about something, and alone with him. As if she was trying to avoid taunting him, goading him, confronting him. Byakuya wished she would just do it. She was well within her rights to.
“It’s been difficult… obtaining the signatures.”
“You had anticipated that.”
She shook her head and laid her chopsticks down.
“I know. But I really didn’t think it’d be this bad.”
Rukia, Renji, and some other shinigami had banded together to start an initiative of sorts- for Rukon kids. They wanted to establish more Soul Reaper outposts in the outer districts. The increased vigilance could help spot and funnel gifted children into the Soul Reaper Academy, too many of whom either starved to death or were forced into demeaning enterprises, otherwise. Kyouraku supported them, of course, but Central 46 had yet to approve.
The excuses had been, for lack of a more fitting term, bullshit.
‘Soul Reapers aren’t welcomed in those parts.’
‘Don’t know if we have the personnel or the money to spare.’
‘The Academy runs at capacity already.’
‘Are there even enough gifted children out there to justify that expense?’
Had Byakuya been asked, he’d say that one child a century would justify the expense. But he wasn’t asked. It had boiled down to the most nonsensical demand of all. That Rukia provide evidence that the majority of the Soul Reapers within Seireitei felt that such outposts were needed. Because they couldn’t act on the word of a handful, of course.
It had initially seemed a simple task to Byakuya.
Soon, he learned a good number of the Soul Reapers were either nobles, rich, or from the fancier districts- none of which were distinctions that’d mean anything if a lower class wasn’t bred and maintained.
A good number of Soul Reapers wouldn’t be nobles, rich, or from fancier districts if a lower class wasn’t bred and maintained.
“They laugh at me. Some of them. Not to my face, of course, but I can tell.”
And once more, it seemed, Byakuya had only himself to blame. Had he not strategically crippled her career, she’d have more authority today…
“The world,” she continued. “I know part of life is just learning to make peace with it, with how horrible it is. But when you live such a long,” she paused. “Such a long life, it’s hard to accept that there are things you can’t change. People you can’t reason with.”
“Rukia, that’s not stupid at all. I can understand why you are frustrated.”
She gave him a half-hearted smile.
“I didn’t feel like being attended on hand and foot today. Wanted it to be just us.”
He nodded.
“If there’s anything I can help with, you will let me know?”
“Of course.” She promised, for the dozenth time.
The pause stretched too long. Byakuya watched Rukia eat, no more enthusiastically than before. It could not be about the food, either. They had excellent chefs. He came to the realisation that he must say something more.
“Rukia, this is an important endeavour. I am proud of you.”
One of those rare events occurred just then, where Rukia failed to bite her tongue. She snapped, rather waspishly, for how nice Byakuya was being.
“Whatever for? I haven’t accomplished shit.”
Byakuya winced. Internally, of course.
“The initiative in itself is admirable, Rukia.”
“Oh yes, obviously. It is admirable that somebody finally wants to do what should’ve been done aeons ago. It is admirable that I have a moral compass at all.”
Byakuya stared, at a loss. For all intents and purposes, his sister was glaring at him. He wondered if he should clarify his position, realised it might not be what the situation required, and decided to do it anyway.
Before he could, Rukia cut in.
“It is either nothing or a pedestal with you.”
Quite embarrassingly, Byakuya frowned. Colour flooded Rukia’s face at his apparent confusion.
“I mean, don’t you think you are overcompensating, sometimes?”
Byakuya was unsure what Rukia would want to hear, then, and he had no idea what he wanted to say. Nothing or a pedestal? Well, it would seem that way to anybody. He took a deep breath and closed his eyes.
“I think I am merely compensating for all the times I wanted to tell you how highly I thought of you, but didn’t.”
When he dared to open his eyes again, Rukia had averted hers. Her jaw was clenched still. How he missed Renji then. He was better at understanding Kuchiki than the Kuchiki siblings themselves, sometimes.
Nevertheless, he tried again.
“It is beyond shameful, like you pointed out, that something so rudimentary as attention being paid to the people who need it has taken so long to be proposed, and that it is still being opposed at all. It is an almost cataclysmic failure. But it is, also, the norm. And to go against the norm requires courage that a lot of us do not possess. You do. I admire you for it.”
Rukia sighed in barely contained annoyance as she listened to him go on. When he was done talking, she, in a shocking display of bad manners, rolled her eyes.
“This was a bad idea. What was I thinking?”
She started to get up, her meal still unfinished. The sound that came out of Byakuya was just a tad desperate.
“No!” She stopped. He forced himself into composure. “Please. I am at a loss, sister.”
With the air of somebody doing him a favour, she closed her eyes.
“Okay. Okay. Let’s take a walk.”
…
Today was proving to be particularly strange. They were strolling across his gardens mid-meal, but Rukia seemed to need it to calm down, and Byakuya had a lot of compensating to do.
She did not speak for the first few minutes. Byakuya had to contend himself with watching the moonlight pull hues of silver out of the green of leaves, and the brown of bark alike. Rukia’s face was downturned, and she appeared to be in deep thought. He waited for her to explain what had just happened.
“I am frustrated,” she began. “No, I am furious. Today was not a great day.”
She wasn’t looking at him, but Byakuya nodded. He had gleaned as much.
“Two things,” she continued, her tone rushed, for some reason. “First of all, sometimes when I talk to you about this, it feels like you think I am doing a noble act of charity. What I am actually doing, though, is trying and failing to correct a wrong committed against my people.”
He opened his mouth, and she held up a hand, but did not immediately continue.
“Secondly, I think I just wanted to vent. I didn’t want you to tell me how great you think I am. I didn’t want you to offer help or even encourage me. I just kind of wanted you to call the Central 46 a bunch of dicks.”
Finally, an actionable suggestion.
“They are all extremely tiny, and ugly, penises.”
He sounded ridiculous. She must have thought so, too, because she scoffed out a laugh and finally looked up at him. There it was, that half-hearted smile. Maybe that was just the best he would get today.
“We can establish a code,” he suggested. “I am not always great at reading the room, so to speak. So maybe you can tell me.”
“What, just open with-‘I need to blow off some steam, brother, care to join me in cussing some bitches out?’”
“You jest, but that would help.”
Rukia shook her head, out of what, Byakuya self-indulgently interpreted as fondness rather than frustration.
“As for your first concern, it hadn’t occurred to me before today. I would like to think about it a little more before I tell you whether you are correct or incorrect in your assessment.”
“Yeah, that makes sense,” a shoulder lifted in half a shrug. Byakuya made sure she had nothing to add to that before he resumed speaking.
“Do you truly feel like I put you on a pedestal?”
He came to a standstill, and so she had to. He believed he was owed a proper answer to that one. She looked conflicted, which was disheartening. The ideal answer would’ve been ‘of course not, I misspoke’.
“Yes? I don’t know. Sometimes? It doesn’t bother me, really. I like how much you believe in me, obviously. It’s just so different and new, still, that it throws me off. But it’s not about that. I am sorry about the outburst. Everything just kind ofboiled over. You were being perfectly nice.”
“Rukia,” he placed a hand on her shoulder. She was looking thinner these days, working herself to the bone. “It is important to me that you know how much I regret the way I treated you all these years. It was extraordinarily foolish and cruel, too. It is also important to me that you know, every word I speak in admiration of you is what I truly believe of you.”
“I know,” her gaze softened. “I know. It’s just weird and complicated, sometimes.”
If that weren’t true…
“Anyway, do you want to tell me which one of those… assholes,” he did not cringe. He did not cringe! “Troubled you today?”
“Oh my god, yes!” She exhaled dramatically, and Byakuya concealed a smile. She resumed pacing, and he followed a step behind, listening attentively. “So you know Omaeda, right?”
…
Byakuya woke up the next day in a good mood. Rukia smiled at him when she wished him good morning, and seemed chipper at breakfast. They met Renji outside the estate, where he had taken to waiting for them each morning. He liked walking her to her Squad. It was adorable. Byakuya wasn’t sure they had noticed it yet, but there was a visible skip in their step when they were together these days.
That was when the summons came.
…
The spiritual pressure was strong, and the area in which it was detected was sensitive. Two Captains would usually be a stretch, but Soul Society wasn’t yet in a position to play fast and loose with its security.
… and probably wouldn’t be for the next one hundred years.
“You could leave by noon. I think it will take you the whole day just to get to the closest village. Proceed from there, as you see fit.”
Byakuya couldn’t believe himself, but he missed the carefree airs Kyouraku used to put on when Captain Commander was still alive. He still smiled all the time, but in a tired, sad manner. The very sight of that horrid little twist to Kyouraku’s mouth made Byakuya feel like Yhwach had come back to life. Like he was pacing the hall, right in front of them, dragging along Ukitake’s corpse, by his prematurely white hair.
He couldn’t leave the meeting soon enough.
Outside, Kenpachi turned to him.
“How long do you actually need to prepare? We can be off in less than an hour, I say. Why wait till noon?”
“I will need an hour and a half, at the very least.”
“Alright,” Kenpachi shrugged, “I’ll swing by your office.” His face split into a maniacal grin. Something appeared to have struck him, just then. “It hasn’t been just you and me, in a while now, has it? Gonna be fun.”
Dear lord.