"You want me to-" Yoruichi's eyes widen, "Byakuya, are you sure you know what you're saying?"
"I want her to be happy," he says quietly, "and lately, I have come to realize that her happiness lies with Abarai."
"But they're not dating."
"No," he says, "not yet."
"And you want me to push them together."
"To provide them with an opportunity to have a conversation on this topic."
"...you really want them to date?"
His eyes close for a moment, "I think it is abundantly clear that what I really want is irrelevant. I wish for her happiness."
He pauses, "She deserves to be happy."
"Congratulations," she says.
He inclines his head, turns to face her, takes in her outfit just as she makes no effort to hide her own gaze.
"Why, Lord Kuchiki," she purrs, "did I just find you checking me out?"
"Must you constantly be inappropriate? This is my sister's wedding. I was merely observing that you appear to be dressed as befitting your position as a member of one of the Great Houses."
"And you look like you'd like nothing better than to have someone slap you in the face and wake you up from a bad dream."
He does not flinch.
He pauses, "Renji will treat her well. He loves her as she does him. She will be happy. They will be happy."
"And you?"
He turns away, says nothing.
Yoruichi sheds the layers swiftly. He had not asked her to be properly dressed but she had felt some level of guilt - after all, she'd been the one to lock them in a shed for half a day at his request and that's part of how Rukia has left him.
Atonement, she muses, not to mention how amusing it is to baffle those clansmen who always seem to forget that she knows how to hold herself properly, she just chooses not to.
As the last silk layer falls to the floor, she gathers her thoughts about her, remembers the Kuchiki clan crest on grey-blue silk, remembers those grey-blue eyes churning with emotion.
You're not alone, she knows she wanted to grab him by the shoulders and shake the idea into him, but that would be lying.
She sighs.
One thing she has learnt, over the short two and a half years since the Thousand Year War that she has spent mostly in Soul Society, is that Kuchiki Byakuya is a true master at torturing himself.
It must be some form of crooked warped penance, she thinks, what for she does not know, but it takes a strong level of determination for one person to so desperately want to make his own life miserable.
She knows better, after all, having been both a clan leader and a captain herself, she knows how much work it entails and how much time it requires and how much space in one's life one needs to afford it, knows that for all the machinations that the Kuchiki do not require such levels of sacrifice from their leader, that he merely takes it on because he desires to.
But duty is one thing.
Actively putting a wall between oneself and one's loved ones is another and well, there is hardly a soul this side of a senkaimon who does not know of Captain Kuchiki's affection for his sister, of the way she lights up his life. And yet, with his own hands, with his own actions, with his express permission, he has let his one relative step straight out of his life.
She imagines him kneeling in the meeting of the Great Houses, holding out the piece of paper that removes his name from hers and replaces it with another.
He was heartbroken, she saw earlier at the wedding, heartbroken but at peace, content yet tormented - Rukia's happiness before his own, that is the right and righteous way.
It makes sense, and for all of his many faults, one cannot fault him for being selfish.
"You're still awake."
"I am," his mouth twists fractionally, "finding myself unaccustomed to how still-" he shakes his head.
"Hn," she settles down next to him but does not say anything else, relaxes her grasp on her reiatsu, lets it disperse.
They both know it does not cover the silence but he does not, cannot fault her for trying.