Freya: (walks in, notices the date) …it's almost V-day, huh… I guess this can only mean one thing… (looks casually over shoulder at the heaps of fics) a v-day special is due… huh.
Annoyed Plot Bunny: get on with it! Stop acting like a lazy bum!!
Freya:…(pouts, shuffles over to Microsoft Word) che, damn plot bunnies… think they can do just about everything… (continues to grumble…)… (looks over at readers) oh, leave a comment after you read folks!
Here's Freya Kurenai's V-day Special # 1 !!!
"This won't be perfect."
Scoffing lightly into his neck, the Kuchiki heir pressed himself closer to the smell of roses and white wine.
"Who said I wanted it to be?"
Parties were hateful things, Byakuya knew, and there were few reasons as to why he would actually consider going to one.
For example, if it was a family affair, one which he had not conveniently missed, he would have to go. Regrettably, his father's eyes seemed to have transferred themselves onto his uncles and other money-hungry relatives.
If he didn't show up, they'd make a fuss over it for sure.
Another reason would be that it was for company reasons. Pleasing people came in many different ways, one of which was humoring them by way of attending their parties. Byakuya liked to 'humor' very important people, as opposed to glaring at them from across the table from time to time.
Glaring could be tiring sometimes.
The last reason, and probably the rarest as far as instances occurred, was if Ichimaru Gin would be there.
That was perhaps the only reason, he mused, that would count.
Right now though, he wondered if he had been fooled.
(when it came to the person whom he had not heard from since high school graduation, Byakuya tended to let his fantasies get the best of him)
"Byakuya."
Only one, only one.
"…Gin."
Only one, only one person was allowed to call him in the middle of the night- or day, or work, or anything, preferably anytime.
He shifted the phone to his other ear, eyes glued to the starless night sky, wondering if he'd missed a shooting star, as cliché as it was.
"Hey, listen, the class is throwing a reunion party this Saturday night…"
Byakuya blinked.
"So I vote that we skip it and hang out with each other instead, catch up with our lives and so on."
Only Gin, only Gin.
Outside, it began to rain.
"You do know that this is all of a sudden, and that I may have something to do?"
He wouldn't , he's lying, being coy and trying to see if he still wants him enough to come and stay.
"You don't."
You sound so convinced.
I refuse. I am not your pawn.
You're a cocky bastard. SLAM.
Any of those replies would have done, but…
"…When and where?"
He could feel him smile over the phone. Could hear the laughter in his voice, the slight bit of excitement, the smell of his hair as it was inevitably dampened by the rain he could hear in the background.
"The day after tomorrow, Cresto Lounge. Our time."
The phone went click, beep, beep, beep.
Only Gin, only Gin.
They would meet at around ten in the evening, and Byakuya cursed himself for blushing, recalling the last time they'd met during 'their' time.
Gin had come to tell him that he'd be going away, and that the only person that would know was the one who mattered to him most.
No one knew that Gin went away, except for the Kuchiki heir.
His heart was racing. Sleep was a distant memory. Gin was somewhere outside in the rain, and he forgot to tell him to get an umbrella.
Byakuya ceased to wonder which thought warranted more attention.
So now he was standing here, in a club that he never knew existed near his won company, with music and hues that he disliked and people everywhere.
It was his fault that Gin knew exactly how to drive him insane.
He hated parties.
He hated the gaudy pink and white flowers and hearts and blown up figures of a chubby cherub hanging all over the place.
He hated the music, pop and love songs and lyrics that made his insides squirm (have you ever thought that they squirmed because of something else?).
He hated the fact that even if he hated everything in this place, he still dared to come here and wait for the one man he could smile with and laugh with and subsequently blame for everything.
He could never hate Valentine's Day though, as it was this very day that bore witness to the rarest of all things in his life.
"…I thought chocolates were for people you liked…?"
As a child, as a fifteen year old child, Ichimaru Gin had the tendency to not trust people too easily. Even if 'people' were reduced to 'person', and even if that person was his best friend.
Byakuya looked serious as he handed him the box of chocolates with a simple white ribbon on top.
"Yes. They are."
Gin had accepted them after some initial hesitation, and had thought of a good, albeit impromptu, present for his best friend.
Sometimes, he forgets they are simply that.
Specially when he feels Byakuya's cheek warm up against his chaste kiss.
The lights are red and white and blue and pink and Gin is pure black darkness in spite of it all as he clutches Byakuya's hand in his, dragging him away to a secluded balcony he did not know existed.
People are dancing and cheering and everything is loud but Gin is silent as he closes the doors and locks every distraction inside, as he faces the friend he had left for many years, as he smiles his insufferable, never-changing smiles, as he mutters with something akin to surprise,
"You came."
Byakuya looked at the man with a nonchalant air, catching the way his chest rose and fell with his attempt to regain his breath, the way his normally pale cheeks were sprinkled with pink, the way his smile never faltered.
"What did you expect?"
Gin scratches the back of his head and this is the first time Byakuya notices the bouquet in his hands as he laughs a bit embarrassedly.
"You're right… sorry."
"What's that?"
Curiosity killed the cat, the dog, the chicken who crossed the road, but it wouldn't dare do anything unpleasant to Kuchiki Byakuya.
Gin stopped, and let his hand fall back his side, his eyes the color of the light flashing through the windows and the cracks of the door. He's much older now, much more mature than he was at eighteen.
He smiles, that smile that Byakuya knows is meant just for him, the smile that he wore after he kissed him that day when he first gave him chocolates, when he still had a trace of innocence in his eyes.
Now there is a determination he has never seen before.
"My gift. To someone special."
How cliché was it that those were the very words he'd used before?
He expected him to beat around the bush, to talk about how long it had been, to reminisce about some silly memory that he remembers clearly- he did not expect him to fall to one knee in front of him and bring his pale hand to his pale lips.
"…Gin?"
"I've been gone for six years, one month and thirteen days."
He wants to tell him to stop.
"What I am about to do, I should have done before."
His lips are warm against the back of his hand, against his knuckles, against the fingers that want to move across his skin.
Desperately.
The sounds that he hears now are disappearing, melting away into white noise, as Gin slowly stands up to come face to face with him… just like…
"You're leaving?"
They are at the top of the tree that would rain cherry blossoms upon their descent, having what was probably their last conversation ever.
"Yes."
They are sitting across each other, on one of the biggest branches, and it is so dark that Bykuya has to strain his eyes to see.
"I want you to know something before I go."
Gin is silent and stealthy and Byakuya thinks he's imagining the hand that crept up to the side of his face, pulling him closer…
"…This… is for the years to come."
Sweet lips on his, briefly and quickly and tasting of chocolates and smelling of cherry blossoms.
It is a chaste kiss, their first and last, he thinks appropriately as Gin jumps down from the tree the next second.
He wonders what the next time would be like.
The kiss is no longer innocent, and he wonders through the silver blur how he could still be so gentle even with the trembles evident in his body so closely pressed to his.
He smells of wine, of decadence and rain, of cherry blossoms and chocolates, of years wasted and pined for, of pranks and secret meetings, of first looks and last loves, of restraint and selfishness that drives one insane.
Byakuya is sure now that he missed him as well.
Theirs is an imperfect parody of the emotion that overcame them once before, so twisted and stretched that mere words are not enough to describe the thing held within it, but they try.
The word love is uttered and breathed and whispered and finally Byakuya thinks they've gone past that.
Gin is holding tight in his arms, tenderly repeating it again and again, words that they don't need because the mere fact that he is here proves it-
They've already decided, a long, long time ago.
"-love you and I'll stay… stay until you tell me to leave…"
He is like a child in his desperation, his persistence, his heartfelt attempt to make it right- that Byakuya can't help but smile and run his hand through his hair.
"Of course."
Then he is all seriousness and no longer a child, as he looks Byakuya straight in the eye, the meaning conveyed even before the words were spoken. Byakuya smiles faintly and rest his head on his shoulder, comfortable and listening to every word, every heart beat, every breath.
"This won't be perfect."
Scoffing lightly into his neck, the Kuchiki heir pressed himself closer to the smell of roses and white wine.
"Who said I wanted it to be?"
Yes, this wasn't perfect, and both of them knew it, long before the words and the looks and the feelings were even there- but whoever said they wanted it to be that way?
Byakuya knew it wouldn't be that way. Of course he did. Their relationship was far from it, all things considered. But…
He didn't find it at all odd that neither of them cared.
Rocky roads be damned.
He was tired of perfection, had lived with it all through out his life, and being with this man defied the very essence of the word that he loved it.
The first time they met was fair warning enough.
And, Byakuya muses as he watched the man who would be by his side the rest of his life (and maybe longer) present him a bouquet of white roses, if this was imperfection, he'd gladly have it all through his life.
Freya: yeah… (hides under table) you are encouraged to hit me with a steel fan or the stick left in the reviews corner. This Vday special is one of the many that I will be posting, in different fandoms too.
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