Chapter 4: Blossom in a Curved Palm
"So, that didn't go as well as we'd hoped, ne boss?" asked Grimmjow, scowling, "Kuchiki-san looked ready to start removing body parts if we hadn't left."
"What makes you think that this means we didn't accomplish an important goal, Grimmjow?"
"What? Well..."
Aizen's smile tightened and he shook his head correctively.
"There is no need to worry. We accomplished what we needed to."
"But the guy said he'd rather destroy the damned company himself than to give it over to you. How is that achieving anything important?"
"What did you expect him to say?" Aizen said smoothly, "I pulled the rug out from under him, just as he was about to make his debut. Because of my ultimatum, Byakuya never made that debut. In fact, he disappeared inexplicably for nearly a year after. And when he returned, he did so quietly. He never entered the business, except in administration, where Ginrei groomed him to lead the company. But after Soujun's death, things began to stagnate. Soujun had written many of the operas they performed, himself. After he died, so did the company's creativity. Byakuya was as talented in that area as Soujun. I do not know why he didn't simply take over the writing, even if he'd chosen not to perform, himself. Perhaps he became focused on caring for Ginrei as he grew old and sickly. Part of it may be that he was acting as Tetsuya's only guardian. It is hard to say. But one thing is certain. What I did to Byakuya had a profound impact on his life. He did, in fact, give up his future, rather than to agree to my terms and merge with my company. And even though they were inclined to bicker amongst themselves, the board members were intelligent enough to know I had them backed into a corner. Still, they supported Byakuya's rise to CEO and while they have worked behind his back like the backstabbing band of traitors they can be, all that would have to happen is for a hint of a repeat of that horrid history and those same men would steadfastly defend him. What is to be done, must be done carefully, with proper pressure applied expertly to avoid setting them off and making them work together against me."
"But even so, how can you say we got anywhere? Kuchiki-san is determined to..."
"But Tetsuya's interest was piqued. You took him off his guard and got him to try the song out with you. We will let it sink in a bit and play with him for a time, then we will draw him in."
"But what about Kuchiki-san? Won't he just...?"
"Leave Byakuya to me," Aizen said firmly, "I will handle him. You just focus your energy on bringing Tetsuya in. Go along with Edrad and Shawlong and look for openings to get him alone. Try not to be too obvious. Just work at teasing him into recording a full demo. Now, did you do as I said and take a sample of the two of you today?"
"Hai," Grimmjow said, producing the recording and handing it to Aizen.
"Excellent. I will ready this for a teaser of the single to be advertised."
"But...without Byakuya's permission?"
"Let me worry about that. You just put all of your effort into bringing in Tetsuya."
"And what should I do about Renji?"
Aizen smiled and let out a soft, amused breath.
"Let him think he is protecting Tetsuya. And if he gets in the way, remove him as an obstacle."
"No problem," Grimmjow said, grinning.
Aizen watched as the vocalist left his office, then he sat quietly at his desk. playing over in his mind all that had happened.
"You...you single-handedly took away any chance I ever had to be a part of the business that meant everything to my father and grandfather! My family..."
"Your family was the reason that everything came down on you, Byakuya. You must remember, I did nothing but remind them of the truth about you."
"Shut up! You promised never to speak of that again!" snapped the raven-haired man, his gray eyes blazing, "I gave up everything to keep you from saying those things. Now, all I have left is this company...and Tetsuya."
"Yes," said Aizen, "Tetsuya. Tetsuya is precisely why I have come to see you.
"He seemed very focused on that young man's fate. But then, after what happened to him..."
He thought back further, to the first time he and Byakuya had been together sexually.
Byakuya turned onto his side, looking quietly out the penthouse window at the winking lights of the city. Aizen's fingers captured the damp, silken strands of black hair that had plastered themselves to the younger man's throat as they had made love, and he pulled them back before laying soft kisses on the petal-soft skin.
"My apologies. I really didn't bring you here for the purpose of seducing you. But you are too lovely to resist."
He noticed immediately the look of uncertainty and doubt that invaded the young man's comely features.
"You still look troubled, Byakuya. What is it? Surely you don't still think yourself undesirable now. You are beautiful. Too beautiful for me to resist."
"I am an abomination," Byakuya sighed, "That you chose to overlook that and have sex with me, even after seeing..."
"You are not an abomination," Aizen breathed onto his skin, "You are different, yes, and some people are afraid of people who are different. And, in any case, what could you have done anyway? It isn't something that was under anyone's control."
"No one was ever supposed to know, Sousuke. The family is terrified what will happen if word gets out. And now, you know."
"Are you afraid?"
Byakuya closed his eyes and let out a slow breath.
"You are a dangerous man, Aizen Sousuke, and you have made it clear that you are after my grandfather's company."
"I admit I am," Aizen confessed, kissing a pale earlobe.
"That places me between you and them," Byakuya went on, "I feel like the blossom cupped in you palm, Sousuke. I don't know whether to feel protected or to expect your hand will close and crush me."
"Such a thing to say," Aizen said, shaking his head, "But then, your condition makes you shy and not terribly trusting. I was surprised you took my invitation to meet here."
Byakuya's lips trembled softly as he struggled for words.
"It is rare that someone makes me feel...appreciated...noticed...desirable."
Aizen brushed his cheek against the younger man's, comfortingly.
"You are all of those things. It is a crime that your family doesn't recognize that."
"My grandfather and father are kind to me. They love me, Sousuke. But the two of them cannot shield me from the rest of the family. They only accept me at all because I inherited my father's talents. But even that will not be enough to save me from their wrath if word gets out about..."
"Do not worry about that. Come. Be with me. I will make you forget those people entirely."
Aizen shook his head unhappily, recalling the last time he had seen Byakuya before his long disappearance.
"You promised me!" the raven-haired man exclaimed in a wounded voice, "You said that nothing bad would happen! What do you call this?"
Aizen reached for him, but Byakuya pulled away, his gray eyes flashing with unnatural hatred.
"You bastard! Somehow you already knew, didn't you? You knew or suspected and then you seduced me to make sure you were right! Didn't you?"
"No," Aizen said solemnly, "I had no idea when I seduced you. I thought you were just resistant because you worried that I would use the affair against you."
"And you would have if you hadn't found something more damning to use! I can't believe that I ever listened to you! They all warned me what a liar and a manipulator you were, but I couldn't see it. I was so surprised at someone finding something to love about me, I didn't want to see anything else."
"I do love you," Aizen said, reaching for him, only for Byakuya to step back to avoid him, "Byakuya, whether you realize it or not, this is a better fate for you. We can be together. You'll work right here at my studio, singing the music that you love. And no matter what comes out about you, you can weather it better because you will not be in an industry so filled with bigotry and posturing. You can be yourself and not have to apologize for that. What is so wrong with this?"
"What is wrong is that you are destroying the company that my father and grandfather built! You are threatening them with something that will destroy the company if you ever reveal it. And you are using me to do this!"
"This is business, Byakuya," Aizen reminded him sternly, "The only way to get them to listen is to..."
"But you are not just doing this to them. You are doing this to me too! I am a Kuchiki. I am the future of this company, the only child my father has! The only one he can have. And you are using me..."
"To gain control, yes," Aizen admitted calmly, "But you must see that this will be better for you."
"Better how?" Byakuya cried, "You know that they will not sit still and let you win. If you take over, they will destroy me themselves! That is how they work. The board is insidious. They won't listen to reason. Even my father and grandfather cannot control them completely. Sousuke, you are going to bring everything down around me. And when the company is destroyed, what will be left to interest you? Me? I think not. You only took me to bed and told me those lies so that you could do this!"
"That's not true. I love you. I wouldn't let you be hurt, Byakuya."
"Well, take a good look!" the younger man shouted, picking up a flower pot and hurling it at the full length mirror in the room.
The mirror shattered and collapsed to the floor in small shards.
"I am already destroyed! Because of you, they are sending me away."
"I won't let you go, Byakuya."
"You can't keep me here. I don't want to be here anymore. The farther I am from you, the better! You have taken everything from me!"
"What are you talking about?" Aizen asked, frowning, "Surely, the board will see that..."
"No! It is over. They have already shut the door on my future and you are the one that caused them to do that."
"But, this doesn't make sense. Why would they send you away? What is really going on, Byakuya? There is more to this than the board protecting you from what will happen if I expose your secret, ne?"
"It doesn't matter," Byakuya said in a shattered tone, "It is over. As far as they are concerned, you can tell anyone anything you want. I won't be here to be shamed."
"Where are you being sent? I can..."
"I am not telling you. And don't think you can follow. My family will make sure that you don't. I just had to make sure that you knew in all fullness what you had done to me before I left. I won't be called a coward. I've said what I needed to say. I am going."
"I won't let you go."
"You don't have a choice," Byakuya said savagely, "I didn't come here alone. And if I do not come out in the next five minutes, my bodyguards will break in and take me out forcibly. But that doesn't really matter to you, does it? You don't really want me anymore, now that there's nothing in it for you!"
"Byakuya..."
"Goodbye, Sousuke. I suppose you have what you want now. You couldn't get your hands on our family's company, so now you have made me pay. The company will be fine. It will go on as planned. The only one you really hurt with what you did is me!"
"That is not what I wanted at all. I wanted us to be together. I was trying to get you away from them."
"You liar!" Byakuya gasped in a half-sob, "You just cannot stop lying, even when it is obvious what the truth really is! If you wanted us to be together, you would never have done this to me! I despise you, Aizen Sousuke! I wish I had never laid eyes on you!"
The younger man turned and burst out of the penthouse, where a group of men waited to escort him out. Aizen moved to the door, catching Byakuya's devastated gaze for a moment before the elevator doors closed between them.
Aizen frowned, his brown eyes dark and brooding as he continued to fix on the past.
"There was something odd about that entire exchange. I feel as though I missed something important. There was something that you didn't say that day. What was it, Byakuya? And why do I feel that there was more to your leaving than what you told me?"
He sighed in resignation, his heart aching strangely inside his chest.
That whole affair was more trouble than it was worth. Yet, I would do it all again because it meant I was able to be with you, at least for a short time, Byakuya.
I still dream of you.
I still love you.
And I will have you back in my life...
No matter what it takes.
XXXXXXXXXX
"It is clear that Aizen Sousuke, once again, has his eyes on the company," Byakuya told the group of men and women gathered in the company board room.
"I tried to tell you all years ago that it was no good trying to cover everything up," said Orochi, "We should have simply kept you and that little bastard child off away from here, so that he wouldn't have another chance at this. But not only were you the one who originally let him seduce you and attempt a hostile takeover, now you have set up the little troll to be his next victim. But, I suppose, like..."
"Shut up!" Byakuya snapped furiously, "Do not dare to speak about Tetsuya in such a manner! He is the only one left among us who can lift this company out of the hole that you fools placed it in while my back was turned. I defy any of you to step up and try to perform as he can. Unless, perhaps, you just want to hand the company over to Aizen Sousuke now, you had best change your perspective and help me to protect him!"
"Well, honestly, I don't see what all of the fuss is about," said Kuchiki Arisu, shaking her head dismissively, "Why don't we just cut our losses and let Tetsuya record the duet with him? It will give us the money we need to go on."
"But it will take Tetsuya out of the arena of opera performance," explained Kuchiki Nori, running his fingers through his fine, silver hair, "You know how the opera folk look down on popular music folk who try to cross over."
"We could negotiate a deal to allow Tetsuya to perform the duet after the first run of the new feature," suggested Kuchiki Fumio, "That way, he would be crossing over in the other direction."
"That would work if Aizen didn't have another agenda," said Byakuya, "But it is just too odd, him coming after the company when your mishandling of it has nearly run it into the ground. He wants something else, and I think I know what it is."
"What would that be?" asked Nori.
Byakuya took a steadying breath.
"If he gains control of the company, he will be able to plunder my father's unreleased operas."
"What?" cried several voices at once.
"How does he even know about those?" demanded Orochi, "Did you tell him about them while you were letting him play between your legs, Byakuya?"
"Enough!" snapped Nori, "You are out of line! But, I must ask, Byakuya. Are you sure that he knows about them?"
"I did tell him that my father had written material for me to perform, but I did not tell him how many features were completed. I do not know if he somehow found out about them. But we all know that, given my father's fame, those operas would be priceless on the open market."
"So, why not sell them and just use the money from them?" asked Arisu, "The operas were made to showcase your abilities, ne Byakuya? So, anyone else performing them would not do as well with them."
"Why doesn't Byakuya just perform them?" asked Kuchiki Ryuu, "Aizen would likely not want to chance destroying the company's worth by spilling the beans about Byakuya's..."
"No," Byakuya said firmly, "I will not chance this company being undone if he should get vengeful and decide to use that information against us. We are going to go with having Tetsuya perform the feature that I just finished writing for him. We shall simply have to keep Aizen and his henchmen away from Tetsuya until the performances have begun."
"I don't understand," said Nori, "Byakuya, you know that we have all of the sets, costumes and people to play the parts in your father's piece, Petals on the Breeze. It has sat on the shelf for years. Why don't you go ahead with it? Or teach your part to Tetsuya and let him do that one?"
"I considered both," Byakuya explained, "However, the lead role was written with my stage presence in mind. Tetsuya's is wholly different, and requires a different style. And I will not put the company back in the position it was in before, when Aizen tried before to take over. It would make it too easy for him. I am still too easy a target, even now."
"We could advertise the piece without naming the lead role," suggested Fumio, "We could save that and make a sort of mystery out of the whole thing."
"Except that if we reveal that my father composed the feature, Sousuke will know it was written with me in mind. I think the only avenue is to get the feature I wrote for Tetsuya up and running as quickly as possible."
"But Byakuya," said Nori, "You understand that he could find out the secret that you kept from him. And if he does, he may become infuriated and take the company down, just to get back at you."
"That won't happen," Byakuya said, lowering his eyes, "Because despite him learning what he did about me, he didn't learn everything."
"You sound very sure of yourself," Orochi said sarcastically, "But, if he made a fool of you once, he can do it again."
"Mind your tongue, Orochi!" Nori said warningly.
"Aizen Sousuke will never get the better of me again," Byakuya said resolutely, "I will die before I let him do that to me again. My last secret is safe. I know for a fact that he doesn't know, and I will never let him have that information!"
XXXXXXXXXX
Tetsuya slipped the company financials into the cabinet at his desk and locked them safely away, then stood and started to leave the office. The phone rang just as he reached the door, making him sigh impatiently as he turned back to answer it.
"Kuchiki Family Theater, may I direct your call?"
"Tetsuya," said Renji, "Sorry, I'm running behind. Why don't you have a cup of tea and I'll meet you in a half hour, okay?"
"Very well," Tetsuya answered, good naturedly, "I think I need to wind down a bit anyway. You can imagine how things were today, ne?"
"Oh yeah," Renji chuckled, "I'm kinda glad I wasn't in today. Anyway, I'll be there soon."
"I will see you when you get here," Tetsuya assured him.
Tetsuya set down the phone and looked around the office, listening as the loud voices continued in the nearby board room.
"Gods, I need to get out of here," he sighed.
He left the office and rode the elevator down to street level. Walking out onto the still busy street, he made his way over a few blocks to a small cafe, where he sat down and ordered a cup of tea. He sipped at it quietly, glad to be away from the tense atmosphere of the office.
"Hey, what're you doin' in here?" asked a familiar voice, "Good to see you again, Tetsuya-san."
"Oh, hello, Grimmjow-san," the young man said wearily, "I was just having a cup of tea while I was waiting for Renji. We're going out tonight."
"Ah, the club?" Grimmjow asked, "Will you save me a dance?"
"Actually, we are just having dinner," answered Tetsuya, glancing out the door, distractedly.
While his head was turned, Grimmjow smirked and slipped a small amount of pale powder into his drink. He pulled his hand away as Tetsuya's head turned back, and he smiled disarmingly at the young man.
"Well, I guess another time, then. Hope to see you around, okay?" Grimmjow said, rising.
He watched as Tetsuya sipped at his tea, then nodded.
"Enjoy your evening, Grimmjow-san."
Grimmjow walked to the door, then paused in the entry, watching as Tetsuya frowned and put a hand to his head. He started to stand, but swayed dizzily. Grimmjow ran back and caught him around the waist as he started to lose his balance.
"Whoa, hey, are you all right, Tetsuya-san?" he asked, "You must be overtired. Come on. You can rest for a bit in my apartment. It's just a little ways away from here."
"N-no..." Tetsuya objected dazedly.
"It's okay," Grimmjow assured him, "I'm just going to give you a place to lie down. I'll call Renji if you like and tell him."
"No...n-no, I want to...go..."
Tetsuya's voice faded out and he leaned heavily against Grimmjow as the vocalist held him on his feet and led him to a waiting car. He lifted the overcome youth into his arms as Tetsuya lost consciousness and laid him down in the back of the vehicle.
"Get us outta here," Grimmjow told the driver, "Take us back to my place."
He laughed softly as Renji's car passed by them.
"Good luck finding him," he said mockingly.
Then, he looked down at Tetsuya and his grin grew even more wicked.
"Or maybe...I should make sure that you find him..." he laughed softly.