085 – Damage Control

Prompt: Violent

Wordcount: 545

Byakuya was fully engrossed reading a report from the Sales Department he had got that morning. He almost groaned aloud in frustration when a knock on his door broke his concentration.

"Enter," he bit out, glaring coldly at the offensive door.

It swung over silently, revealing his assistant, who fidgeted nervously in the doorway.

Byakuya's frown deepened. Usually the woman had good sense, and knew not to interrupt him while he was busy.

"What is it?" he demanded to know.

The assistant bit her lip and then hesitantly slunk into the room.

"I'm sorry to disturb you, Sir… But I was just out on my lunch break and… Well, I saw this." the woman crossed to room and dropped a magazine onto his desk. Byakuya pulled it over to him and glanced at the cover. There was an image of his sister and that wild-haired boy she was seeing, and a big headline pronouncing their relationship to the entire world. Byakuya pinched the bridge of his nose, feeling the onset of a headache. He had just known that something like this would happen eventually, that his sister and that entertainer were being too careless, and now they were in the headlines. He heaved a heavy sigh.

Then, Byakuya straightened in his chair and fixed a stern glare on his assistant. She knew that look, and momentarily felt sorry for the people in the magazine who had incurred the wrath of the Ice King Kuchiki.

"Call my publicist and my lawyer, I need the both of them here, right this instant."

"Yes, sir!"

"And get me someone from that damn record company on the line."

The assistant nodded and hastily fled the office.

Once she shut the door, Byakuya gave into his impulse and brought his fist to the solid oak of his table in a frustrated punch. Then he cursed darkly under his breath for a moment, before he got the sharpest edge of his anger out of his system. The damage was done, but he could still control it. And that was precisely what he would do.

His phone beeped soon and he picked it up.

"Kuchiki," he spoke coldly to the receiver.

"Hello Mr. Kuchiki, this is Ishida Uryuu from SRT Records. I am the manager for Deathberry."

"I assume you are aware of the news?"

"Yes, I am really sorry about the incident, Mr. Kuchiki. Our company is working on it."

"As will I."

"We are sorry that your sister was exposed in such a manner. We should have protected her better."

"My sister is the sole person responsible for herself, not you or your company," Byakuya said.

"You don't understand, Mr. Kuchiki… Your sister worked together with Kurosaki, writing songs for the band. She has a contract with our company, but she also made us sign an NDA to ensure her identity would remain secret."

Byakuya was surprised to hear that, but also briefly felt proud of Rukia. Despite her stubbornness and flightiness, she was a clever girl.

"I will soon discuss our response and approach with my publicist and lawyers," Byakuya told the manager. "I will inform your company once we decide what we'll do."

"Thank you, we'll appreciate it." Ishida sounded relieved.

Byakuya bid him goodbye and hung up.


086 – Outburst

Prompt: Beggars can't be choosers

Wordcount: 538

"Oh damnit!" Rukia cried out in the kitchen.

"What is it?" Ichigo appeared to the doorway of his room, where he had been doing last minute edits on one of the songs. Rukia had been chopping up vegetables, and for a while he was alarmed she had accidentally cut herself.

"I didn't notice we had run out of the curry mix so I didn't get any from the store yesterday," she huffed. It was clear that she was annoyed, and he could understand why; the dinner preparations were already well underway, the rice was cooking and the carrots were already neatly sliced.

Ichigo couldn't help the smile that rose to his lips. She looked absolutely adorable when she pouted like that.

"I'll go to the store then," he gallantly volunteered. "Do we need something else?"

"We're low on the eggs and cup noodles," Rukia said after a moment of consideration.

"Alright then," Ichigo smiled. He walked over to his girlfriend and gave her a kiss. "Carry on with the dinner preparations. I'll be right back with the curry mix."

"Thank you," she told him softly.

Ichigo put on his coat and grabbed his wallet and keys before he headed out. The store wasn't too far, and it was a nice and sunny day. It actually was good to go out for a little walk, to stretch his legs and to let his mind wander. He had been having a little trouble with the song, he knew what he wanted to express but he couldn't quite find the right word, and in the course of the afternoon it had made him increasingly frustrated. Arriving at the supermarket, he quickly navigated through the store and located the necessary items. He even grabbed a few packs of chocolate pudding. It wasn't on the list, but he knew it to be Rukia's favourite, and she was going through the trouble of making his favourite food for the dinner, so she returned something good in return.

There was a line at the checkout, so he had to wait with his few groceries. As he waited there, his idle gaze chanced on the small magazine rack. It took a while before it registered in his brain that he was staring at himself. His trademark scowl deepening, he read the headline. He stared at the two kanji characters incredulously, his heart skipping suddenly a beat before plunging into the pit of his stomach with a sickly lurch. With shaking hands he grabbed the magazine and tossed it onto the conveyer belt since it was now his turn. Later he couldn't remember how he had got from the store back to the apartment, he just knew what had happened after he had burst in and strode over to the kitchen to the girlfriend. She turned to welcome him home, but her smile faltered the moment she saw his face.

Ichigo slapped the magazine onto the kitchen counter and crossed his arms across his chest.

Rukia's puzzled frown was replaced by a pale mask of stillness when she read the headline on the cover.

"Is it true?" Ichigo spoke in a dangerously quiet tone.

Rukia closed her eyes briefly, bracing herself for the inevitable, and then nodded.


087 – Falling Out

Prompt: Hakuna Matata

Wordcount: 655

Ichigo had never even realised he did not know Rukia's surname, before those two fatal kanji had glared at him from the magazine rack. At the moment, however, he was not really appreciating the irony. He was too caught up in his own emotions, at first he had felt hurt and betrayed, but now everything else was being consumed by anger. He could just stare at her, the woman whom he had just 30 minutes earlier believed to be the one person closest to him. Now he felt like he didn't know her at all.

She had been the damsel in distress who had not had a place to go or any money, and he had shared everything with her… But the poor young woman was in fact a member of the wealthy and prominent Kuchiki family. All this time, she had played him like a fool.

"You lied to me!" he spat between gritted teeth, hurling the accusation to her face.

He saw pain briefly flash in her deep violet eyes, but he was too hurt and infuriated to care.

"I never lied to you," she insisted softly. "Everything I told you was true. I did run away from home. I did not have any place to go. I told you it was just me and my brother, and that he was a businessman. I told you my family was old and well-known. I told you I felt stifled from the expectations that were piled on me because of that, because of the sake of keeping up appearances."

Ichigo glared at her through narrowed eyes.

"That's just semantics," he sneered. "You were lying by omission."

"And I suppose you've never kept any secrets from anyone?" she snorted, her eyes flashing with annoyance.

"That's different! You never told me your name!"

"It's just a name," she told him in a quiet, tired tone.

He laughed mirthlessly.

"Kuchiki is not just name," he shook his head.

Rukia flinched, as if Ichigo had hit her. Her hands shook as she gulped deep breaths.

"That is precisely why I didn't tell you," she told him in a trembling voice that betrayed how much his words had hurt her. "Because of the way you're looking at me right now. Because now you know, and the name is all you can see." she looked at him pleadingly.

He just glared right back at her in relentless indignation. There was no sympathy in that look.

Slowly, the pained deep violet of her eyes faded and gave way to the pale lilac, hard and angry.

"I'm more than just a name!" she exploded in an infuriated shriek. "All my life I've had to bear that cross. How do you think it feels when people look at you but don't see you? They see what they expect to see. I don't want to be Kuchiki, I just want to be me! Why do you think I ran away in the first place?!"

Ichigo reeled, her sharp words cutting through his anger. It shrank, leaving behind the hurt betrayal it had masked.
"Were you ever going to tell me?" he asked wearily. He needed to know at least this.

"Yes," she breathed, hugging herself. "I've wanted to tell you for a while now, but I needed to wait until I was ready. Until I felt confident enough to shoulder that name without letting it crush me."

Silence filled the room and they stared at one another. They both were hurt, they both felt betrayed, they both were angry. They had trampled on each other's hearts, whether intentionally or not. In that deafening silence they realised the damage had been done. They both knew something had broken, and neither knew if it could be fixed.

Idly, Ichigo wondered how cruel the world was, how a day that started out so beautiful and halcyon could end with his life as he knew it lying in ruin.