Another hot day in the summer

Running around the flower beds, Yuzu couldn't help feeling a bit better. The greenhouse where she worked when she wasn't on lectures or taking a shift in the phone company was a nice complex in the outskirts of Karakura. People came around to buy flowers for weddings, christenings and funerals, as well as parties and other events that needed a big batch of carnations and roses. It was also the place where the students who specialized in botany went to work and observe the material they'd been studying in the lecture rooms, and where Yuzu went three days of the week to forget everything.

She knew she was more than a little pale, but spending the night crying had contributed to that, hadn't it? Thankfully, everyone was too busy carrying stuff, watering and weeding to pay attention to her composure, so she was free look how she felt, and it was a small relief.

A very small one, to be sure. Even though Yuzu had spent the night tossing and turning and weeping sad fountains, she hadn't put her feelings in order, let alone make peace with herself and accept the fact that things had been kept from her for her own safety. Well, she couldn't accept it. Why should she? Why should she not?

Because she wasn't a little girl anymore. Ever since HE had saved her, she had worked hard to separate herself from the image of a little girl, a useless deadweight. She wanted to do something useful, to be appreciated, not only by her family, but by the one she loved. And HE had been there for her, supporting her quest for independence, supporting her…For the first time, Yuzu realized how much Byakuya had affected her life. And it wasn't like she didn't like the new feeling of completion, but…suddenly, it all felt in vain. As if all this time, he hadn't just lied to her, he had considered her a little girl…and maybe still did.

Shaking the thoughts off, she grabbed a pair of scissors and started trimming a rose bush. It had lost its blooms when summer started and now was nothing more than thin twigs, green leaves and sharp thorns, but she had to take care of it, so that it would bloom again next spring. Stopping enough to contemplate the places where the gentle red buds had been, Yuzu couldn't help smiling-it was a little like Byakuya-kun, beautiful, reserved, but simply irresistible when its time came. You also had to be careful with it, because those thorns were sharp enough to draw blood.

Yuzu got up with a sigh and headed to the corner where they kept the fertilizer, still thinking about whom she might talk to about this thing. Her father wasn't exactly the one to be asked about advice, not without her telling him the whole story, and it wasn't very likely that he would believe her in the first place to be serious about it. Ichi-nii was still somewhere in Africa with Rukia-chan…unless, of course, they weren't fighting some Hollow not ten blocks from her. She sighed-she really didn't feel like going to him yet. Karin-chan was a possibility, but Yuzu couldn't reach her in Spain, with practice and Chad, and if Byakuya had indeed just told her about the whole shinigami business, she wouldn't know what to say.

So there, she found herself with no-one to speak to and no-one to ask for advice. Great! Not only had Byakuya turned her life around, he had left her without a soul to confine to whenever necessary. Her friends wouldn't even begin to understand, and…

Looking up to the shelf where the bags of fertilizer were, Yuzu cursed the fact that she was so short and put her foot on one of the lower racks and grabbed onto the rim of the stand so that she could push herself up. Her hands burned with the effort, but she found some equilibrium, before trying to find her way to the edge of the bag.

Unfortunately, she wasn't exactly an athlete, and she couldn't grip onto the stand for a long time. Her fingers slipped and she fell backwards, pulling the rack down with her. Yuzu closed her eyes, fully expecting to be crushed on the ground, when she felt a strong arm wrap around her and a familiar voice mumble "Bakudo number 12: Fushibi".

The shaking stand settled in mid air, then went back t its previous position, without anything falling or breaking on the ground. Nobody seemed to have noticed the incident, but Yuzu had seen the sparkling net covering it. Trying to turn around to face him (because his vice-like grip on her leaves her little place to wriggle between the stone muscles of his body), she forced her voice to sound normal as she said:

"This is one of the spells you guys use, right?"

"That is true…" Byakuya carefully set her down and let go of her "Did you see it?"

"I see lots of stuff…" but since his body was pretty much real, she guessed that other people might see him, so she pulled on a business face (very easily with her part time secretarial job), and titled her head ever so slightly "Is there something I can help you with?"

For a second, he didn't answer. He just stared at her pretty, soft features, and wondered for the nth time how could he have been so stupid as to leave her last night. The hard work had painted her pale cheeks red, her eyes gleamed and her hair was sticking out of every possible direction. The worn out jeans and the dirty white T-shirt she wore were only making her delicate figure stand out, and overall, she was absolutely breathtaking.

"I…wish to talk…" he tried to give some emotion, some warmth to his voice, but apparently a few centuries of trying to maintain an icy compose had rendered him unable to express himself more…humanly.

"Now?" putting a tired note to her voice, Yuzu hoped he'd get the hint and leave her alone. "I have a lot of work to do."

Well, Byakuya obviously thought that it didn't matter as he followed her back to the flower beds and loomed over her like a very beautiful column as she started cutting the dead leafs once again. To give him credit when it's due, Yuzu thought rather bitterly, the shade was welcome-the day was so hot it felt as if time was running backwards. However, they were in the greenhouse, and there were lots of people, and those people would (eventually) stare at them, wondering what was going on, because a/ that's what people do, and b/ Byakuya was incredibly handsome. Wiping a strand of hair from her forehead, Yuzu couldn't help looking up at him…

Well, since he was looking back, she had to avert her eyes, lest he should speak up, but the truth was that he ATTRACTED the attention. It wasn't the way his features were womanly delicate, but held the strength of a man, or the fact that his simple clothes did nothing to hide his in-born grace, but it was more the fact that his mere presence DEMANDED attention and respect. Was that nobility? Standing out amongst plebes like her, even though you're trying to pass as one?

Ok, maybe not exactly trying to pass as one-his suit looked suspiciously like Armani. Gods, if anyone saw him, they'd think that he's with Yakuza. If this was a Gigai, as he had said, it was a god damn good one.

"If your goal is to ignore me, it will not work. I'm used to waiting for a long time."

"Is that supposed to be funny?" she rolled her eyes "Look, I really don't see what else do you have to tell me, since last night the information was more than enough, but if you do, can you please save it for later. I have…a lot on my mind right now as it is."

"You're still angry at me." He stated

Yuzu managed to stop herself from rolling her eyes (too much of a childish gesture for her), and got up from her crouching position.

"That's not the point." She said suddenly, while walking down the narrow road to the next green house (with Byakuya in toe)

"In what exactly?"

"In…talking…about that…thing…" she sighed "What's done is done, is all I mean…I learned so much in one night and…I don't really think I can take up more." Turning briskly to him, she stared straight in his eyes "Haven't you ever learned something and you wished you never did?"

Byakuya nodded.

"Well…" she went on "In such cases…don't you just…want to tune out for the entire world?" another nod "In that case…why don't you leave me alone?"

"I cannot do that." He shot out "My…leaving last night was a mistake enough."

"A mistake? No, no, actually, it was quite well, I really think I might have lashed out at you if you…continued to talk…last night." She said, trying to sound as calm as possibly. Actually, she would've hit him last, night, if he went on talking and…didn't kiss her again. "Everything that I learned...was a bit too much to take on for one night."

"I understand. However, I shouldn't have left you alone. It was…very immature." He stared at some point beyond her ear. "I should've been more considerate. You must've felt horrible."

"Horrible? Horrible!" they were standing to a makeshift fountain, topped with orchids and a Venus statue, something they made to attract fiancées, so Yuzu dropped her voice before she became hysterical "Actually, I don't know. I think that it was genial, and you know why-because for the first time in my life, somebody treated me like an adult. Because somebody decided to tell me the truth. So yeah-thank you very much for that. But I don't think I can take anymore for now."

"I don't think you fully understand. There are important things I haven't told you."

"Then why did you leave last night?" Bull's eye. Gods, he was dead, Byakuya thought as he watched her watch him expectantly. How on earth was he supposed to compose a coherent sentence when she stood there, right in front of him, at arm's reach, just waiting for him…darn, those eyes of hers were practically begging him to come close and kiss her.

Too bad he didn't.

"I was…confused by your reaction." He managed

"You panicked." Yuzu crossed her arms in front of her chest "And now you've come back to make sure I hadn't done something to myself. Jesus! I'm not a little girl anymore, Kuchiki-san!" the use of his name set both of them aback for a second.

"I cannot say I considered you a little girl for a day in my life."

She narrowed her eyes dangerously. To claim that he didn't consider her a little girl when he treated her as one-HOW DARE HE?! Suddenly, Yuzu felt angry-really, REALLY angry. Lying was for children. She wasn't a child!

So she decided to push him away from her. "Very mature, Yuzu." She told herself grimly, when instead of getting some distance between them, she bounced off his sculptured body and fell straight in the basin behind her. He had tried to stop her fall, but this time there was no time to act.

Yuzu sat in the shallow water, feeling her clothes cling to her most embarrassingly, and wished for a quick and painless death-as if everything wasn't awkward enough between them.

Byakuya immediately averted his eyes from her body, before he got enough material for images he'd definitely regret, and offered her his hand to stand up, trying to ignore the tangling feeling of their skin meeting. He took off his upper coat to cover her shoulders, and, thankfully, the arrival of some of her friends from college speared them the discomfort.

He stood aside while they gathered around her, asking her whether she was alright or not, about what happened, even scolding her for being so uneasy on her own legs. Yuzu just smiled and shook her head in response to their offers to take her to the hospital.

"Who's that, anyway?" asked somebody, probably a comrade from college. "He's not your boyfriend, is he?"

"No!" Hastily, Yuzu waved off the idea, and said quickly "He's a friend of my brother's, he came around to say hi!"

She went by his side, wrapping the light coat around her, and said: "I better go home now. My shift's over anyway. Goodbye…"

"I'll take you back to town." He offered, placing his hand quickly on her back and urged her forward-a perfectly familiar, friendly gesture…

But that was only how it appeared from the sidelines. Nobody could see the electric spark that ran through both their bodies, or the almost tangible feel in the air between them. Byakuya tried to look at where he was going, but it was useless-her image had already imprinted itself in his mind. Her hair framed her face and shoulders, her eyes were bigger and brighter than ever, her lips were slightly parted and cherry red from the sudden shock…

He shook his head and tried not to think about that. He still had the worst coming up ahead of him.

Yuzu wondered how long it would take him to realize that he simply couldn't take her to her place, mostly because he couldn't come to the bus with her. The sight of a black sports car parked in front of the conservatories was, therefore, a surprise, but maybe not as much as the fact that he sat himself in the driver's seat and opened the passenger's door for her.

"I never imagined they had cars in the afterlife…" she'd never actually given the afterlife a thought before him, but for the last 35 hours and half, it had been one of her central distractions.

"They don't. Urahara-san helped me acquire a driver's license and a vehicle." Byakuya explained, as a matter of fact "I came to a decision that moving around the human world would be easier that way, since a gigai is quite useless for someone used to move in great speed on will, and my cover as a businessman required, quite naturally, a car." He looked at her, as she fastened her seat belt "You seem displeased."

"No." she un-furrowed her eyebrows "Actually, I think that's the longest sentence I've heard from you, Kuchiki-san."

"Byakuya." He answered courtly as he started the engine. "We're not on such official terms, Yuzu-san."

"Oh, really?" she answered, trying to force all her indignation and sarcasm into those two words. "I don't think so."

Byakuya narrowed his eyes. Something was definitely wrong, but with her not telling him, he had to take shots in the dark…and if he missed, that only got her angrier, and she closed even more to him and…yeah, it was a sinister little circle they were dancing in.

"There is something on your mind." He stated calmly "Will you tell me what it is, or should I continue guessing?"

"Huh?" she stared at him. Good thing he had to keep his eyes on the road, if he looked at her, he'd be lost. He knew it.

"You're upset about something, and you seem to blame it on me. Will you tell me what it is?"

"Nothing…" she mumbled, barely suppressing an urge to bury her nose in the collar of his coat and inhale his scent. Did a gigai carry the characteristics of its usual owner? His looks, his smell, his…wait, with that it actually turned out that the Byakuya she knew could easily be a totally different in appearance, in age, in…everything.

Well, they do say it's the soul that counts. Their current situation suddenly gave the expression a totally different meaning. "I was just…wondering why you didn't tell me earlier…all this. We're friends, right?" Friends. How horrid did this word sound when it was applied to him, even now! "I thought I deserved more confidence. Why did you tell me all about that…shinigami business right now?" for some reason, she knew that his answer wouldn't be to her liking.

Ok, now he was standing right over the edge, Byakuya thought. Only the many centuries of stoic training stopped him from panicking now. She had been right-last night, in her apartment, he had panicked. Seeing her frigid, immobile like that, it had been shocking, terrifying…so unlike her usual lively countenance. Still…he couldn't lie to her. It was just about worse than keeping things hidden from her.

"Did the Winter War continue for so long that you couldn't tell me until now?" the thought of him being in mortal danger while she was writing her idle letters to him was really freaking her out. However, his response quickly stopped that feeling.

"No. It was over before I met you." Was his answer "I had seen you, you and your sister, during some of my…visits to the living world, but it wasn't until that summer that I was officially introduced to you."

"Oh? So did anything else come up? Someone else…attacked Soul Society and you didn't want to put more people in danger?"

"No. I had no reason regarding your physical safety to keep the truth from you." Gods, she must be so mad at him now. Of course, Byakuya had learned all her letters by heart before burning them, as a mean to hide her from the Kuchiki clan and their assassins, and in each and every one of them, she had spoken about her wish to be on her own, to gain freedom. And the Kuchiki clan wasn't a good enough threat-she'd probably ask him about what could a bunch of old, dead geezers do to her. Especially with her appearance-they wouldn't consider her much of a danger, right?

"So it's because you thought I couldn't handle it?!" she fumed. Byakuya sighed-this was suicidal, but he had to tame her in a way.

"Do you think I wanted to hide it from you for so long?" he asked "Did you ever give a thought about how this looked from the outside? An older man courting a girl of fifteen? It's not just frightening, it's unnatural and illegal. If I made advances on you back then, your brother would dismember me, and that would be just the start of it all."

"Made…advances? What are you, in LOVE with me?" she asked, still a little baffled. Byakuya shook his head.

"I kissed you, didn't I?" he held out a hand to stop a comeback from her "I already told you, I cannot talk of my feelings before I've told you everything."

"Actually, you haven't. And how much more is there of this story? Don't tell me you told me only what you thought I SHOULD know?"

"No. That's the truth. I doubt that the inner workings of Aizen and his henchmen, as well as the battles we led are of any importance to you now, but I doubt you understand…"

"What I understand is that you're treating me like a child!" she repeated for the nth time "Just get it over with, Byakuya!"

She slapped a hand over her mouth, taken aback by the fierceness of her emotions. Byakuya, however, let out a small smile.

"It's not as easy as you make it sound. There are things that stopped me from telling you the whole truth, but I doubt you'll fully…They just won't have the same meaning to you as they do to me."

"Try me." She shot out. The car took a series of turns, which bought the nobleman some time to gather his thoughts.

"Whether you like it or not, your age was if significance. I am a spirit, centuries old, compared to me you are like a baby. Even if your family saw nothing wrong with out…attachment, people might say things…our relationship wouldn't have been accepted as well as it would be now. Then, there is the fact that I am dead-that too, could be a problem, until you saw the full picture. Aside from that, I couldn't know if you loved me back." The last sentence was barely audible, but Yuzu heard it…

The car pulled over in front of her apartment complex and Byakuya finally looked at her. His grey eyes were clouded by some sort of wild, dark emotion, but he restrained himself too well. He was looking at her, again, in that expectant way, waiting for her to decide whether the outcome of these revelations would be good or bad. Yuzu looked down at her hands, crossed in her lap, and let out a small sigh.

"So is this it…" she turned her eyes to him "You thought I was too immature to deal with it…to deal with my own feelings." She laughed a bit "Back to square one again. Let me tell you something…I loved you back then. Even before you saved me, there was something about you that made me feel…different. Pretty. As if I had been given wings. And all those years, my feelings never changed…it's surprising, really, since you managed to throw them in chaos over one night." She shook her head "Maybe you're right, I couldn't have handled it. Maybe I can't handle it even now. I just feel so…confused. It's as if the world is spinning too fast and I can't catch up with it…or with you."

"Perhaps, then, you'd need some time to reconsider…" he asked in a dead tone. Damn, he was pushing her away from him. Stop her, do something, his inner voice screamed, but Byakuya knew well enough that if he forced her into a hasty decision, they'd regret it for the rest of their natural and unnatural lives. "Perhaps I'm rushing things over."

Yuzu closed her eyes, trying to find some equilibrium. A part of her, a very big part of her, was rejoicing at the thought that finally her idol, Kuchiki Byakuya, was there, and had feelings for her, and actually everything was (almost) just as in her fantasies. That part wanted nothing better than to go to him, embrace him, and drink the euphoria that this relationship was going to produce.

But another part of her lingered in the shadows, and with affecting sobriety reminded her that this drunken period would only delay the important issues at hand, and that sooner or later, she'd go back to the questions, the doubts, the incertitude. And that pert reminded her that there would never be a 'Happily ever after' until those issues were cleared out for good.

And somehow, Yuzu didn't feel like resolving them now.

"Yes…perhaps I need some time to think." She nodded, looking at him "I'm sorry."

"Don't be." He unlocked the doors of the car for her "I shouldn't have been so…egocentric to not take into account your feelings."

He ached to say something more. Something warmer, more comforting, kiss her and take those doubts away with the sweep of his arm. But he couldn't. He knew that if he did, he'd lose her forever.

Getting out of the car, Yuzu gave him one last sad smile before entering the building. Byakuya lingered there a little longer, staring at her windows, and after noticing her silhouette run through them, sighed one last time and started the engine. He'd wait. He had done so for a long time. And if she wanted him, she knew she could reach him.

Little did the two of them know that a certain somebody would cut their thinking time short.