A cough.
"Byakuya-sama."
He could see the retainer in front of him resisting the urge to shuffle around nervously.
"Speak."
"Ah, yes. Uhm, well, as it was decided at the previous Clan meeting, uhm..."
He watched the retainer twist his hands nervously.
"Yes?"
"Well, uhm, if it isn't too much, uhm, it's been two weeks so uhm, here is your haori and kenseikan and we would very much appreciate it if you could return the scarf to us at this point in time," the retainer rushed out.
He sighed and inwardly weighed the pros of watching the retainer squirm anxiously against the cons of having to drag this encounter out any longer than he had to.
Deft fingers removed the scarf from around his neck, folded it and placed it in the tray that was held outstretched. Not many dared to touch the garment directly - the thought of having to cough up the dough required to replace it, or even clean it was far too daunting for the average person to consider.
And, it would appear in recent times at least, to be slightly too troublesome for the Clan to manage as well.
The Elders had managed to subtly reprimand him for, in an obscure mention in one of the meeting minutes, mentioning that he had 'besmirched the honor of the Clan' when he had calmly returned the scarf that Renji had sent to a random dry cleaner's and requested it be cleansed. To be fair, he had only done so because it much amused him to see which ten houses the Elders would think of selling off before deigning to be more realistic and merely digging into the Kuchiki coffers to obtain the required amount of money to properly remove those bloodstains from the garment.
He was sure several of them shot him dirty looks later that year when they thought he was not looking after he reduced their pensions for 'expenses required to preserve the image of the Kuchiki Clan'.
They had not verbalized anything then, however, definitely not immediately after that whole Rukia-almost-dying issue. They had looked displeased, but that was far more likely to be because almost the entire female population of Seireitei now thought he was complicated, misunderstood, actually human and thus actually desirable in a non-superficial way, which resulted in a large increase in the number of fangirls, and thus the amount of trash that now swamped both the office and the manor daily.
It might also have been because he had almost died, which would have left the Clan quite heirless and in very deep trouble.
They, however, were far less kind when he returned from Hueco Mundo after having dripped half his blood volume onto himself, and thus by extension the scarf. That they were pleased he had survived the Winter War was an understatement, but that they were frustrated to have to both replace his captain's haori (which was not as cheap as he had flippantly made it out to be, but still definitely not the expense that the captain commander had made it out to be) and dry clean the scarf was also an understatement.
Which had led to this.
A brief and highly one-sided discussion later had Byakuya promising to not wear the scarf to work, and had the Elders conceding to replace and upgrade both his captain's haori and the kenseikan to his liking.
Oh well.
At the very least, his new haori had the gold-trimmed, tasselled upturned collar that was worn only by the Heads of the Clans, the new kenseikan gripped his head a little less tightly (and was far less obtrusive), and he no longer had to subtly loosen the scarf on those ridiculously warm July afternoons in the office.
He would have smirked, but he was Kuchiki Byakuya and smirking was, honestly, a little below him.
As was enjoying the looks that almost every female shinigami gave when they trailed their eyes all the way down from his jaw to where his shihakusho closed.
Oh, who was he kidding.
AN: Took me a while to notice, but hey, he's not wearing the scarf anymore. Hence the plot bunny.
Cheers,
T