"What is this?" Byakuya raised an eyebrow at the sight of his scarf, resting on Renji's open hands.

"I..it's your scarf..."

"I know it's my scarf, I remember giving it to you"

"Hum...I didn't think it was a gift...besides it's of no use to me"

"What do you mean Renji?"

"Well...I..I..I'm not dead Taicho..." Renji looked away.

"I see...In that case I hope I will never give it to you again... What?"

"Is something wrong Taicho?"

"What is this smell? Mint?"

Renji grinned before turning again to face Kuchiki Byakuya.

"Hum...ya...I had to clean it so... I...thought that mint was a scent that would go well with Taicho's scent..."

"My scent?"

"Yeah, you know... the cherry blossom scent...you always smell like that, but during bankai it's like a thousand times stronger...and, I mean, I sure don't wanna feel that scent mixed with the smell of my blood again for a long time, so..."

"I see...mint is just fine, thank you Renji"

***

But now Byakuya was intrigued. He had a personal scent. No one has ever made that observation to him, much less about it during his bankai release. Of course he could feel the smell in himself. He had the most bright senses that could exist in all Sereitei. His taste, his smell, were used to the most refined flavours and scents and he could tell the smallest amount of bad or good ones surrounding him. But he couldn't care less. Until now. It was true that Senbonzakura released around him a faint scent of sakura petals, should he peak his reiatsu the smell would also get strong and then in bankai releases the smell was just intoxicating. Buyakuya expected no one to notice this because...well...they should be dead by now ...and for the other hand he himself never realized the opponent's smell during bankai, his own smell was too intoxicating for that, so he always thought that nobody would sense his sakura scent either.

But Renji noticed, and worse... looked nauseated remembering it, so nauseated that he had the nerve to suggest Byakuya to use a different scent. That was ridiculous! What was his (Renji's) problem?

Byakuya shook his head, the papers on the table would wait. Half an hour passed and he found himself lost in thoughts. He was trying to remember if Renji had a scent during bankai release too, but it was no good, then he attempted to remenber if Renji had a personal scent during work, but if so Byakuya missed it. "Who cares? " , the voice in his head was screaming, " Get back to work!"

***

Late the same day, in the real world, Rukia was balancing her legs out of Ichigo´s bed watching as the orange head was doing his homeworks, while her right hand was "kindly" clasped around Kon neck, just in case. And then her cell phone started to ring.
"Nii...niisama? Is anything wrong?"
"No, I just want you to make a question to that kid"
"Ichigo? What Byakuya niisama wants me to ask him?"
"If he smelled something in the air while fighting with me", was the dry, emotionless question.
"Oi Byakuya, Ichigo this, I just smelled the dust from my bankai release, the dust you...Oi Byakuya! He hung up".
Rukia gave him an angry look.
"What? I just felt that and that stupid scent of sakura blossoms that he releases!"

***

By the end of that week Renji was feeling very sad. After the problems he and Kuchiki taicho had to face with the betrayal of Aizen, he thought that things between him and his taicho were getting better. He was feeling that he could really trust and respect that man and he was starting to understand what Ikkaku meant about wanting to fight beside his taicho and don't exactly want to surpass him. Kuchiki taicho also seemed to be more respectful towards him, and most of all, the fact that he had put away his scarf because of Renji...Renji couldn't even right now process that all, but somehow he started to think that they could be at least real comrades. That was the reason why he decided to return the scarf, but since that day Kuchiki taicho was getting all uptight again! He was not even wearing the scarf and he was always with his nose real up, as if smelling the air above the people around him. Renji was even bathing more during the day 'cause the man was always around him sniffing, and Renji had always try not to smell all sweaty sweaty in front of superiors. That was something inevitably after the daily training with the 6th division men though..."Maybe he has flu" Rukia told him, but Kuchiki taicho didn't have all the other symptoms.

****

OK. Byakuya had already smelled one half of Sereitei and came to some important conclusions. It was true that the personal reiatsu came together with a faint personal scent, in the case of Matsumoto fukutaicho hidden by a great quantity of perfume, maybe because, as Byakyua suspected, the smell of ashes is not that good. He found out that Yachiru smelled like sweet cotton, but he could not really tell if it was her or just the sweets that she was carrying around. For some reason Hisagi Shuuhei smelled like leather, and Byakuya preferred not to give this fact second thoughts and leave it as it was. Captain Komamura smelled like terracotta, like compacted heat, like something really solid with roots on the ground and Byakuya thought that the scent should also get amplified during bankai. He smelled a lot of other shinigamis and it was all very interesting but not useful at all because Byakuya still could sense the reiatsu before being aware of the scent of the particular shinigami, nevertheless the scent was in itself also a digital impression of that particular shinigami , more intense according to the said shinigami's spiritual power. OK.

But after all that he still couldn't tell what was Renji scent…