Bitter Pride

"I want an explanation."

Shunsui stood before his Uncle's desk, a dark defiance in his deep brown eyes as he stared resolutely at the floor, making no attempt to part his lips or even acknowledge that the man had spoken. Instead he traced the lines of the floor mosaic beneath his feet, counting idly the number of colours he could make out as they blended cleverly one into the other, creating the image of the Kyouraku family crest.

Though it was lustrous and bright in its depiction, Shunsui wasn't fooled.

On the floor, under our feet, that's the best place for it to be, he thought savagely, even as he heard his companion get to his feet, crossing the floor until the two of them stood mere inches apart.

So he was going to get another flogging then. Fine. So be it. He didn't care.

"I'm speaking to you, Shunsui." The Uncle's voice was soft and gentle, yet Shunsui's ears were sharp enough to read the edge that underlined each word, and he knew that, reasonable as the conversation had been up to that point, his companion's hair-trigger temper was within an inch of letting rip.

Slowly he dragged his gaze up, meeting his Uncle's angry eyes with defiant, unrepentant ones of his own.

"I want to hear your explanation." The man said slowly, meaning in every syllable he spoke. "As to why you've skipped out on three separate morning classes this week."

"I suppose I wasn't very interested in what was being taught, Ojisama." Now Shunsui answered, speaking with as much nonchalance as he dared.

"You're a child of barely more than twelve - what makes you think you have the right or the knowledge to decide what you should or shouldn't be taught?" The Uncle demanded, grasping the boy by the shoulders and giving him a short, sharp shake. "Your job is to do as you're told - to study when you're meant to study, and understand the ways of the clan. That is your only concern. Everything else should be left behind. Do you comprehend? This is what I expect from you - and I will get it, whether by easy or hard means."

Shunsui shrugged his shoulders.

"It's not like it matters so much as all that." He said lightly. "It's not like I'm the heir to the family, Ojisama. My brother's the one who'll be head of the clan, not me. So it's really nothing to do with me. There's no point wasting time on teaching me anything, either. I'm not as smart as all that. It's worthless."

The Uncle's eyes narrowed, and for a moment Shunsui thought that he was going to strike his nephew. Inwardly he tensed, waiting for impact, but then the older man thought better of it, lowering the hand he had instinctively brought up at the boy's fresh cheek.

"Your brother is nothing to do with this." He said, in controlled, forcedly pleasant tones. "We are discussing you, Shunsui. Not him. You."

"But it's still true though, isn't it?" Shunsui said matter-of-factly. "My brother is the one who'll inherit the clan. Not me. So it's a waste of time. Soon as he comes of age, too, he'll knock you off your perch and you won't be able to do anything about it either. So I don't know why you're worrying so much. It's not like any of this means anything. And I'm not cut out to be the study bug type."

His Uncle drew a deep breath into his lungs, clearly trying his best to hold back a burst of rage at his nephew's calm assessment of the situation. Shunsui met his gaze evenly, knowing that in this, at least, he was right. And that in fact, since the day he had been forcibly taken from his father's bloodstained estate, this was the one thing he had clung onto.

It was his brother, after all, not him who was now heir elect of the Kyouraku clan. And it would be his brother, not him, who would be forced to follow the pomp and ceremony of sucking up to important neighbours and getting involved in unnecessarily dangerous hero manoeuvres.

Shunsui had never met his older half-brother, for Tokutarou was six years his senior and had been sent away to train with the illustrious Shiba-ke the year before Shunsui had taken his first breath in the world. Though no one had said so directly, Shunsui had picked up enough bits and pieces from conversations he had overheard to realise that Tokutarou had been claimed by his mother's kin almost as soon as was reasonably possible after his father's remarriage. Ostensibly the reason had been to help the family 'adjust' to the changes, but Shunsui knew that it had been in order to prevent the boy from falling more heavily under the influence of his ever-failing father and his loose morals. Though Tokutarou had not made any return visits to his true clan, he had written often to Matsuhara up until his death, yet he had not acknowledged Shunsui's existence, and so far as Shunsui was concerned, he might as well have been an only child.

As the second son of the clan, Shunsui knew his position was more ornamental than of any great significance. And though for the time being his Uncle held the reins of power that brought the family together, in little over a year's time Tokutarou would come of age, with the power to overthrow his claim and grasp control of the family home and title.

Ever since he had realised this, Shunsui had liked to bring Tokutarou into the conversation at every available opportunity, observing with interest his Uncle's reactions whenever his brother was mentioned. Tokutarou was, after all, part Shiba, and Shunsui was smart enough, despite his claims, to realise that the man who had slain his father was worried about their family being swallowed up whole by the more powerful other clan and its claw-like connections.

In short, Shunsui knew he was a pawn - a potential stopping block in his Uncle's plan to prevent Tokutarou filling the Kyouraku retinue with Shiba men and women or taking revenge for the death of their father. And he both hated and resented it wholeheartedly.

No one had, after all, thought to ask him how he felt.

And so far as Shunsui was concerned, Tokutarou could send the Kyouraku family directly to the pits of hell.

He had no interest himself in a clan which condoned one brother slaying the other over petty matters of power.

Even now, he had not spoken to his Uncle of what he had witnessed, six years before in his Father's study. In fact, though he had written to his mother at least once a month since their parting, he had not even told her that he had seen his Father's demise, or overheard any of the things that had been said. He had locked it away inside of him, resenting it yet not acknowledging it, as he struggled with the problem of grieving for a man who had, for most of his life, been nothing more than a stranger anyway.

One thing Shunsui did know beyond all doubt, however, was that he did not like his Uncle's high-handed way of doing things. And as a result, he had decided that if his Uncle was wrong, his Father must, in some vein or form, have been right.

After all, flawed as he might have been, Matsuhara had not killed. He was not a murderer with the blood of his brother on his hands.

And Shunsui had long since decided that if there must be another battle between brothers, he would not take his Uncle's part. If he had to face Tokutarou in such a way, he would follow his Father's example, and submit, even if it meant his death.

There was no honour, after all, in spilling the blood of a kinsman.

As the silence threatened to stretch out between them, his Uncle suddenly sighed, shaking his head as if to clear it.

"Your father was useless, but I thought at the very least your mother would have taught you basic discipline." He murmured. "I always thought her a sensible type of woman."

Shunsui bristled, anger flaring in his brown eyes at this.

"You don't know anything about my mother." He said flatly.

"You're wrong." His uncle shook his head. "Because through you and your behaviour, I see her in a very, very clear light. A doting mother who spoiled her son - I wouldn't have guessed it, but I suppose, given the way my brother abandoned her to indulge his vices..."

He frowned, his grasp tightening on Shunsui's shoulders.

"In that case, there's only one thing for me to do." He said frankly. "Threats don't affect you. Whippings only serve to make you slower about your studies and give you an excuse to indulge your laziness even more in pretence of recovery. So I will do the last thing that I can. I will withhold your mother's mail to you, until you see fit to prove to me that you are capable of doing as you are told."

Despite himself, horror flooded Shunsui's lean frame as he gazed at his Uncle in dismay.

"But..."

"I will not tolerate any argument on the matter." The Uncle shook his head. "This indulgence stops now, Shunsui. You are a Kyouraku, and it's time you understood what that means."

His eyes narrowed.

"I was just as you are - the second son of two boys." He said softly. "Just because you were born last does not mean you can't strive to be first. Remember that."

Shunsui stared at him for a moment, an angry retort burning on his lips, but with some effort he swallowed it, unwilling to let his Uncle see how bad his threat had shaken him.

"I intend to be just like my Father." He said instead, keeping his tones even as he gazed at his companion obliquely. "Because I don't think I'm going to be able to be like you, Ojisama. We're just not the same kind of people, after all."

"Your father was an alcoholic and a philanderer, Shunsui. What kind of an ambition is that, to follow in his footsteps?"

"I don't know." Shunsui shrugged casually. "I guess I just think it's better that way. That's all."

Before his Uncle could respond, he had pulled gently free of the man's grip, crossing the chamber and slipping out through the sliding door, shutting it firmly behind him. Inside, his emotions were still swirling, but somehow he kept them under wraps, sauntering nonchalantly down the hallway and even whistling softly under his breath as he passed a couple of maidservants busy sorting the family's laundry. They turned as he passed, bowing their heads towards him as he shot them a rakish grin, but at that moment he did not want conversation, and so he did not stop, raising his hand in a wave as he disappeared up the winding stairs to the chamber which had become his six years before.

Once alone inside, he dropped down onto his bed, burying his head in his pillow as he clenched his fingers tightly around the edges of the silken, finely woven blankets.

Of all the bastard things for him to do! It's not like he even has the right to keep me here, and the only reason Mother let me go without a fight was on the understanding that we'd keep in touch. Now he's going to take that away from me too? Stupid, evil, cold-hearted man! Does he really think he can break me down, by trying to hurt me like this?

He rolled over, gazing up at the ceiling as he allowed his anger to flood through his heart fully.

But I won't give him the satisfaction of knowing that I saw what he did to Father. I won't give him the satisfaction of knowing that I've realised exactly what he's trying to train me for. I won't become his puppet to fight against my brother the way he fought against his. I don't care if I've never seen Tokutarou-niisama face to face before, or if he is going to sell the family out to the Shiba-ke when he comes of age. It doesn't bother me one bit. But I'm not going to be taught to fight someone I don't have any reason to hate, anyway. And even if I did hate him...well, I'm not like Ojisama. So I'm not going to kill anyone. Especially not to help him!

He sighed, rubbing his temples.

Not for the first time over the course of the past six years, he wholeheartedly hated the concept of nobility, and all the skeletons it meant keeping in the family closet.

I won't let him see that he bothers me, though. I won't let him know that I care if he stops me writing home or if he doesn't.

His lips thinned as he hardened his resolve.

I'm not going to play by his rules, no matter what ploys he thinks he can try on me.

He dragged himself to his feet, glancing at his reflection in the mirror as he ran his fingers loosely through his tousled brown hair.

Being nobility means people can be taken out and no one does anything about it because it's for the good of the clan. If that's really what's good for the clan, I don't want to be a part of it. I want to be a million miles away from all of this...but there's nowhere to go. Nowhere you can hide, when you're born to one of the Eight Families. Everyone knows just by looking at you...there's no escape.

He groaned, shaking his head as if to clear it.

Just one more year, though, till my brother is old enough to take control of the family. And when he does...dammit, when he does, I'm going to make him think I'm the most useless brother he could possibly have wished for. I'm going to make him think that I'm so hopeless that he sends me far, far away from the core of the clan...and then, maybe, I'll be able to live my life my way. Just like Father wanted to. Before he was killed.

He pursed his lips.

Only I won't make Mother cry in the way he did.

"Shunsui-sama? Shunsui-sama, are you within?"

The voice of one of the hall staff alerted him to the fact he had company, and his gaze flitted to the sliding door, anxiety in his expression as he realised he was probably about to be dragged either to the classroom or back to his Uncle's office to hear more strictures on his lackadaisical behaviour. To think was to act, however, and as the man knocked again, Shunsui grabbed the expensive sheet from off his bed, rolling it swiftly into a rope as he flung back the shutters on his window, judging the drop down to the ground below in a split-second. Even as he heard the servant call his name a second time, the sheet end was firmly looped around the hinge of the shutter, and Shunsui had deftly slipped down into the gardens below, giving the makeshift escape rope a gentle tug to bring it loose and close the shutters once more with a resounding bang.

He frowned, eying his escape route thoughtfully for a moment.

He'd have to think of something better for next time, since the sound of the clattering shutter was only likely to bring attention on his method of escape. Still, for now, he was free of his room, and he dropped the sheet on the ground, slipping away through the undergrowth through the network of pathways and short-cuts he had mapped out impeccably in his mind's eye. Though by nature he disliked having to hurry in any regard, there was some small satisfaction in knowing that he was evading his Uncle's attempts to bring him to heel, and before long he had reached the old boat-house which had become his second home since his sentence had begun.

With all the deft confidence of an almost teenager, Shunsui scaled the back wall of the old building, settling himself on the flat of the roof as he sat back on his hands, gazing up through the tall trees that surrounded the location to the narrow, vivid blue of the sky above.

He'd bought himself another couple of hours, he knew, for the house staff were unimaginative and would spend far too much time scouring the land immediately around the outside of the house before realising he had headed further afield. With a sigh, he relaxed back properly, watching the faint wisps of cloud as they drifted lazily across the heavens.

I wish I was like that, easy and free and able to move at my own pace. It's such a pain, being here. It's such a damn pain, when everything I do has to be calculated just to get a break away from his plotting and his strictures.

He let out a heavy sigh.

I shouldn't have to work so hard at doing nothing. It ruins the whole point. I hate being part of this family. I hate it!

"That's a big sigh, Shun-kun."

A fresh voice startled him and he turned, meeting the mischievous gaze of a teenage girl peering over the edge of the roof, messy dark hair falling haphazardly over her shoulders and an impish glint in her black eyes. At his surprise, her grin widened, and she hauled herself up beside him, tut-tutting as she gazed down at her companion.

"You're slipping." She scolded him. "You didn't hear me coming, this time."

"I wasn't really listening." Shunsui relaxed back against the roof, shrugging his shoulders carelessly. "It's not that I'm slipping, more that it was too much effort to pay attention to your scrabbling about, Saku-chan."

"Well, whatever suits, I suppose." Saku settled herself down more comfortably, glancing at him then up at the sky. "What are you doing? Aside from nothing, as usual."

"I'm good at doing nothing, so I like to make sure I get plenty of practice." Shunsui responded lazily. "What about you? Did your father let you out early, or did you escape from confinement, just like me?"

"Unlike the blue-blooded among us, Shun-kun, some of us don't hate the people we live with." Came the sparky rejoinder. "And I just finished helping him fit out the barn. So now it won't leak when it rains."

"Sounds like a lot of bother to me."

"I'm sure it does." Saku agreed. "You rich bocchan types don't get your hands dirty enough to know what a good day's work is like, after all."

"Mm. Something like that." Shunsui nodded.

"Did you have another fight with your Uncle, then?" Saku demanded, and Shunsui shrugged.

"Nothing new." He said dismissively. "He wants me to go to my classes. I'm not really interested. Same old story."

"I really don't understand, sometimes, why you don't at least let him kick some knowledge into you." Saku reflected. "A lot of kids would kill to have the kind of education you're skiving off, you know. It's not right, somehow, that way around."

"If those kids want it, they're welcome to it. It's not my thing." Shunsui pulled himself into a sitting position, shrugging his shoulders. "I'm not interested in Ojisama's ideas on education. I'd much rather hang out here with you."

"Sometimes I wonder if you spend time with me just because if your Uncle found out, he'd blow a fuse." Saku admitted. "It's hard to know what you're thinking sometimes, Shun-kun. Whether you even know I'm there or not, sometimes, when we're talking like this."

"Not know that you're there?" Shunsui looked surprised. Then he laughed, shaking his head. "Saku-chan, you're the only person I properly speak to here. Just because I'm lazy and stupid doesn't mean you can pick on me, you know. That's what's not fair, after all. You're too pretty for me to find a good comeback."

"And you're pretty cocky for a twelve year old." Saku retorted neatly. "Besides, as for lazy and stupid, you may be the first but you're not the other. You might fool other people, but you don't fool me."

"That's Saku-neechan for you." Shunsui said absently, and Saku shook her head slowly.

"You really are a lot too cocky for a twelve year old." She reflected, and Shunsui shrugged, sudden mischief entering his dark brown eyes.

"I'm thirteen soon." He said softly. "And thirteen is almost fourteen, which is the same age as you are. So I'm catching you up, aren't I, Neechan?"

"Hah. Not even close." Saku shook her head firmly. "You've a long way to go, Mr Precocious, before you're even close to catching me up."

"Well, you'll just have to teach me, won't you?" Shunsui said casually. "I'm sure I'd be a much better student, after all, if you were my sensei."

"Enough!" Saku held up her hands. "Stop talking rubbish you're too young to understand. All right? I hate it when you're like this. I don't know what to do with you."

"That's a pity, because you look pretty today." Shunsui shrugged his shoulders. "And if you don't teach me things, Saku, who's going to? That poe-faced old Uncle of mine? Not likely. I'm counting on you - are you going to let your good friend down?"

Saku sighed, shaking her head.

"Today's fight was obviously a bad one." She reflected shrewdly, getting to her feet. "But I'm tired, Shun-kun, and I'm not going to play with you today. I'm going to walk by the lake a while, all right? When you stop being silly, you're welcome to join me - but I don't want to have to deal with your messing around. Okay?"

With that she was gone, and Shunsui pursed his lips, watching her disappearing towards the lake with a pensive frown.

Even he did not fully understand it, the urge to tease and tweak at Saku's composure and the amusement he felt when she blushed or showed her embarrassment. When they had first met, he had not felt that way at all, but now he knew that Saku intrigued him, just as the maids at the estate sometimes intrigued him. Yet Saku was something else - something beyond his grasp.

He sighed, shrugging his shoulders.

Perhaps, in the end, it was just his failing - wanting to reach out for the things he could not have.

But what exactly the appeal was, he did not know. All he did know was that Saku had it, and his Uncle did not. And that, given a choice in the matter, he would happily have spent all day in Saku's company rather than an hour in his Uncle's office, listening to him drone about the ties of family, duty and honour.

He got to his feet, carefully negotiating the climb down from the boathouse roof as he headed slowly into the woodland beyond, following in the direction his young friend had gone.

Even if he didn't know yet what it was he couldn't have, or what it was about Saku that had begun to fascinate him so strongly, he knew that she was a much more interesting prospect than arithmetic or history.

With that thought in mind, he slipped through the trees, hurrying to join his companion.

"Saku-chan, I'm coming too!" He called, as she stopped to wait for him, a question in his eyes. "I've nothing else to do this afternoon - let's go!"

-------

Author's Note:

Is anyone else irritated by the character naming list in the Bleach category? Why is Ukitake listed surname first then initial and Kyouraku with his first name and last initial? I'm not really a fan of westernising Japanese names, but at least stick to either one method or the other, right...

Perhaps its because "Juushirou" and "Kyouraku" can be romanised in several ways, whereas "Ukitake" and "Shunsui" can't, really...and they're playing it safe.

Although that doesn't explain why Ukitake's name is spelt Ukitate.

Maybe someone needs to beta the character choices, too :Z

On the subject of romanisation...



Because I know there are so many thousand (exaggeration) versions of the boys' names online, I've been half waiting for someone to try and correct my spellings (lol). It hasn't happened yet, but I'll take this opportunity to explain it anyway. (People may already have noticed it in Rain Dragon with Ishida Uryuu, in any case).

I've always romanised exactly as a word would be written in hiragana. (The only exceptions to this rule are the sha/shu/sho/ja/ju/jo sounds, because although they're written shi + ya, shi + yu etc, the Japanese pronounce them as "shu" "ju" etc not "shyu" "jyu"). Otherwise, if a word has a long vowel, I write out the vowel. For example, Kyouraku's name is written in hiragana with the characters KYO-U-RA-KU. （きょうらく）. Juushirou's first name is spelt JYU-U-SHI-RO-U (じゅうしろう）. The Japanese often romanise their own words in several ways too.

In Japanese there are a lot of words which, where you change the length of the vowel, you get a whole other word (eg. yuki - snow, yuuki - courage). These extra vowels are pronounced almost as separate syllables, so they do matter. Having seen far too many romanisations where the long vowel is omitted but no indication given that it should be there - I grew to dislike them being omitted from the actual text.

All the various ways of spelling their names in roman characters aren't incorrect (providing the long vowels are correctly indicated, of course!). I just prefer this way because it makes the most sense to me :)

So yes, to get back on the topic...

Something terrible is going to happen in the next chapter. You've been warned :P