Red
Kuchiki Byakuya is not accustomed to red.
Red is blood.
Red is violence.
Red is anger.
Red is a discordant splash in the life of the nobles of Seireitei, an eyesore among black robes and white kenseikan and understated elegance that emphasizes the families of the highest officials in Seireitei.
Red is energy.
Red is rambunctious.
Red is unrestrained.
Red is power and movement unleashed, or never leashed at all, red is the color of someone who throws his whole self into being without either misery or contempt for the simple white dignity or black restraint.
Red is Abarai Renji.
Red is insinuating itself into his life and dismissing his kenseikan (status) and coat (authority), as unimportant.
Blood and air together is red, Unohana tells him.
Blood and air together is life.
To nobles of Seireitei, red is a commoner's color, red is to be avoided, red is ugly around the halls and personages of black and white nobility.
To Kuchiki Byakuya, red is Abarai Renji, and Renji is angry and violent and unrestrained and blood and air mixed together.
Renji is a life he thought died with Hisana.
Renji is heated kisses in the office and overtly warm hands inside his robes, around his waist, inside his pants. Renji is surprisingly skilled hands and mouth slowly driving him insane. Renji is all battle-hardened muscles and rough hands and a steady rhythm that's (somehow) calculated to make him beg.
Renji is energy and emotion and excess.
Renji is something Byakuya enjoys.
In the dark after a night together, with Renji's arm curled possessively around his waist (which is not as repugnant as first supposed), and his vice-captain's even breathing in his ear and some locks of Renji's hair under his head on the futon, red to Byakuya is love.
-end-