READY. SET. RESET
By Ayame213
Byakuya absentmindedly picked at the food in front of him. As usual, his schedule for the day was incredibly packed but for some reason he still continued to linger. It was as if he was waiting for something. His eyes subconsciously kept traveling back to the shoji screen door on the other side of the room.
It finally pulled open a few minutes later...but it just happened to be one of the servants who had come in to clear the table.
Byakuya suddenly realized he had actually been waiting all along for a certain highly troublesome female character (Hisana) to be the one to walk in through that door.
"What am I doing…?"
He was certainly not in the habit of waiting around for women (or anyone else for that matter) but the present situation was starting to become quite perplexing. Could it be that she truly disliked him? Him…? Seriously?! The idea just seemed so far fetched. And yet...after spending the third morning in a row eating breakfast alone, it was getting harder and harder to ignore mounting evidence to the contrary.
"Enough..." Byakuya thought as he finally left the room to start his day.
He had figured that things would return to normal if he simply gave her some space but it seemed like that approach was just not going to work. He therefore resolved to speak with her tonight to settle the matter once and for all. If she was still upset about what happened, then he would rather listen to her grievances directly instead of continuing on with this absurd silence.
Hisana stared at her reflection in the mirror with growing unease. As promised, Karin had delivered a thorough yet subtle upgrade to her appearance but then had run out of time to coach her on the details of her upcoming "I'm-sorry-please-don't-be-mad" talk with Byakuya. She would have preferred to postpone the whole thing altogether until her friend was more available but Karin had absolutely insisted on her moving forward with it tonight, come hell or high water:
"Just do it!" she had scolded her earlier that day. "It will just get worse if you leave things like this any longer. Besides, trust me - it doesn't really matter what you say….as long as you look hot saying it" Karin had concluded, laughing and making obnoxious kissing noises as she zoomed off to finish her household duties.
Hisana had of course chased after her, pissed off at her incessant teasing, but the end result had still remained the same - she was flying solo tonight.
So Hisana paced back and forth in her room trying to figure out the best way to approach the situation at hand. The problem was that she always talked too much when put under pressure and it was clear that certain minor details needed to be left out of this conversation;
Like how what happened that night had actually been her first kiss (she figured that Byakuya's current opinion of her was already at a low point - there was no need to add insult to injury).
Or like how she thought she might be in love with him (the entire concept was still too new and too scary and Karin would surely kill her for ruining the "Ultimate Master Plan" she had concocted)
An idea finally came to mind: she would center her thoughts and calm the butterflies in her stomach by writing down every word she was going to say. It was indeed a brilliant idea. However after several hours of rehearsing, writing and rewriting, Hisana somehow found herself stuck with nearly 8 pages of small font, single spaced text that no amount of editing could seem to reduce.
She glanced down at the stack of papers on the desk and then at the clock on the wall
"Whyyyyyy?!"
The whole thing was much too long and now she had run out of time to fix it. Byakuya might even already be asleep if he had an early morning planned.
"What should I do…?"
A part of her wanted to give up. But then she thought back to the way he had looked at her that day and she felt a sudden tightening in her chest,
"Byakuya-sama apologized to me...even though it was all my fault. Even though I'm the one who should apologize…I...I have to try…!"
A look of renewed determination swept across Hisana's features. She ran her fingers through her hair, reapplied her lip gloss and rearranged her kimono for what seemed like the hundredth time that evening. Hugging her notes to her chest, she took one last deep breath and timidly knocked on the shoji screen door on the other side of the room.
Byakuya was in the process of putting back away the contents of a small pile of unmarked boxes lying on the floor. At the sound of the door, most of them were swiftly kicked into the nearest closet while the rest were shoved into the coffee table drawer.
- "Come in" he finally answered.
- "Byakuya-sama...good evening…" Hisana tentatively poked her head in the door. "Can I...uh...I hope I'm not disturbing you? I'm sorry if it's a bad time...you're probably working, right...?"
- "No. Come in"
- "Ok...thank you"
Hisana sat down at the coffee table, facing him. She hadn't thought such a thing would be possible but it seemed like the awkward vibe between them had only gotten stronger. She started to say something but then their eyes met and she was forced to look away for a moment until the beat of her heart slowed down to a more decent level.
It looked like Byakuya was starting to say something too to break the silence but Hisana managed to beat him to it,
- "Uhm…there's..there's something I want to say...please, will you listen to me? I wanted to say it properly but I tend to ramble on when I'm nervous so I wrote everything down. You don't mind if I read from my notes do you? I hope it's ok. It's probably ok…right..."
Not waiting for an answer to any of that, she took in a deep breath and quickly started on her first page:
- "Dear Byakuya-sama, I just wanted to let you know that I feel really bad about what happened and the way I acted. It's no excuse, but you should know that I may have a slight tendency to overreact to things. I realize that this is a character flaw and I'm determined to work on it because I know it has sometimes gotten me into trouble. For example, I remember being repeatedly sent to the Principal's office at my elementary school because I kept high-fiving my classmates whenever I got a right answer. It wasn't on purpose or anything but I think this sort of behavior has become somewhat of an unfortunate reflex. And then there was this one time…"
Byakuya listened without a word, a variety of thoughts running through his mind.
"Could it be that she is...trying to apologize? If so then…she wrote a speech…? Or at least some sort of verbal letter..."
"Also, why are there so many quotations? I suppose she does not realize how obscure these human references are to me…for instance, who is this Dalai Lama? Tupac...?"
"This is one of the longest speeches I have ever heard in my life. It seems we have covered her childhood years and now I believe she is detailing what happened to her on the first day of high school…"
Actually, he didn't really mind the fact that she had now been talking for close to 30 minutes without a pause - he was mostly relieved that she was speaking to him again. Perhaps he also found it a little sweet how much effort she seemed to have put into this.
And maybe it was because he hadn't seen her in the past few days but...she looked even prettier than usual tonight.
- "...anyways, I just wanted to let you know that I'm really sorry for the way I acted and I really hope that you'll accept my apology and that you'll find it in your heart to give me another chance. Sincerely, Hisana" she concluded a few minutes later and finally looked up at him. "...uhm...that's all I wanted to say...I'm sorry it was so long...w-what do you think...?"
She looked so serious and apprehensive waiting for his response that Byakuya did his best to measure his words;
- "So in summary...you do not hate me..."
- "Eh?! No! I...that's why I wanted to explain…" she frantically shuffled through her papers "...see, that's the subject of the last two paragraphs on page 4. Should I...should I read it again?"
- "No. That will not be necessary."
- "Ok….are you sure? I think page 5 also goes into a similar topic with maybe a bit more clarity…"
- "Yes. I...I am quite sure"
- "Ok...but...but you must know that I...I don't...I don't hate you!" she insisted. "Of course not. Please don't say that...I don't want you to think…there's no way...that I could...I don't hate you…I really don't…hate anything about you…" Hisana trailed off, suddenly blushing crimson red up to her ears.
Byakuya was caught off guard. A single eyebrow slightly raised up at her in astonishment,
"...what kind of reaction is that?"
He was tempted to probe a little further but she was already getting up to leave.
- "Well...I...haha...oh my, look at the time! Thank you for listening...I should probably go...it's so late! You probably want to get some rest, right? I've been talking your ear off all this time...I should sleep too. Yup, sleep is good…great...absolutely essential…"
Hisana was halfway to the door when he suddenly spoke up,
- "You are right, it is late. However, there is another matter of some importance that I...no, nevermind. There is no reason you would want to get involved…"
He waited for her to turn back around before sighing heavily and looking away as if preoccupied
- "What...? What's wrong?" Hisana asked in concern
- "I was just on my way to discuss this with you before you came in...the Clan is thinking of organizing a fundraising auction for the Seireitei Literary Society and I was going to enlist your help in selecting the auction pieces. A woman's opinion is needed."
- "You...want my help? You mean like help...coming from me?...Are you sure? This sounds like something important...I don't know if I would be any good…"
She sounded so incredulous that Byakuya knew he needed to act fast in order to close this deal. He reached into the coffee table drawer, pulled out one of the mystery boxes, and opened it to reveal an exquisite backgammon game set. He looked up and sure enough, Hisana's eyes were already shining with interest.
- "This is one of the items that was delivered to the Mansion today. It is originally from the Human Realm but now seems to be gaining popularity in Soul Society. I assume you are familiar with the rules..." he said
- "Wow, how beautiful! Yes, I've played many times before...it's quite a fun game you know? And these pieces look really amazing...are they hand-carved…?" she took a few steps closer towards him
Byakuya raised the stakes a little higher by taking out a second box from the drawer.
- "This also came in from Jean-Pierre's establishment. Although I cannot tell if they are any good..." he casually opened it to reveal a selection of beautifully crafted chocolate truffles.
Hisana's eyes shone even brighter as she took the last remaining steps closer. She stared down in wonder at the opened box and swallowed hard,
- "...do you think...is that...white chocolate hazelnut praline?"
- "...there is only one way to find out"
- "Please allow me to help you, Byakuya-sama!" she eagerly exclaimed, immediately taking a seat back at the table in front of him.
So they proceeded to test out the game, while Hisana also provided her expert review on the sweets. Before long, the awkward vibe that had existed between them at the start of the evening had completely disappeared and they naturally fell back into a more familiar pattern of interaction.
Byakuya felt a slight touch of guilt as he watched her roll the dice on the backgammon board.
Truth be told, the whole charity auction thing was a complete fabrication. He had only wanted her to stay a little longer, but had somehow not been able to bring himself to just say that. Instead he had found a way to come up with such a painfully lame cover story.
"Really...what am I doing?"
Byakuya knew then that his pride was likely making things more difficult than they needed to be. However, did that mean that he would eventually admit to having purchased these gifts (and more) for her alone in an effort to smooth things over between them and restore dialogue?
No, probably not.
He looked over at her again. She seemed almost back to her usual lively and cheerful self in his presence and he was certainly not going to do anything now to upset the balance. However, would he go so far as to bring to life an event which just moments ago had merely been a figment of his imagination just to have an excuse to spend more time alone with her?
Yes, yes he would.
Apparently the First Annual Kuchiki Benefit Auction For The Seireitei Literary Society would be scheduled to take place six months from now. The auction items to be presented were so unique that the selection process leading up to the event would require multiple screening sessions (such as the ones he and Hisana were conducting now). Every evening. For at least an hour.