Disclaimer: Once again, I don't own the characters they belong to Kubo Tite so I'm only borrowing them for a little while. I'll be sure to return them in one piece and alive.
Summary: AU, challenge. It's strange how fate chose the simplest place to intertwine four different lives together under the same path…
Pairings: Various…but if you read my profile you can get a small idea.
Well here I am with the first chapter and about time I started to write it, also I'll like to thank to the persons that took their time to leave me a review, I must say that it means a lot to me.
Also, Angel, to answer your question…yes, you're right on that suspicion. I'll like to clear that well I'll not be using Orihime's group of friends, only Tatsuki and Ryo, maybe Chizuru will appear not sure yet…err…you'll know what I mean when you read on.
"The Bookstore"
Chapter One: A New Life.
Sunlight lazily poured inside the huge room through the half open curtains announcing the start of a new and bright day.
The sun rays swiftly moved through the floor and up the dark purple sheets of the four poster bed, the warm light gently caressed with its invisible fingers the fresh, young face of the slumbering figure on the bed. Deep midnight blue eyes fluttered open and stared at nothing in particular, she had slept rather peacefully with not a single worry, for a few instants she laid there waiting for the numbness that came after waking up to pass.
Finally she sat down and proceeded to stretch her muscles by raising her arms. When she was finished she stared at the light fluttering perfectly through the small crack in the curtains over her French glass door, the one that led to the balcony, announcing the beginning of a new day.
Just like the sun rose every morning to announce a new day, she knew deep in her heart that this day was the first day of her new life, a new life in which she hoped to leave all of her pain behind and only rejoice in the good memories of the past, a day that she hoped was a new beginning for both her and her older brother's lives, where the pain would somehow be left behind, starting a new record for them on a clean sheet of paper.
She kicked the covers aside in an elegant flutter and moved to sit on the edge of the bed. The first step of her new life was her first day in her new school and, as far as she had heard, it was a rather nice one, maybe not like the private schools in which she used to study back in her old town. Slowly she stood up and walked to the bathroom, she needed to hurry if she wanted to make a good first impression in her new school.
Idly she brushed her short black hair while she gazed at her image through the full-length mirror; she had to admit that the uniforms were better than the annoying red uniform with green stockings that she had had to wear at her old school; she definitely preferred the new uniform. She placed the brush on a nearby table, checked herself for the last time, took her backpack, and proceeded out of her room.
Silence was always his companion, he had grown used to being submerged in it's cold depths, only when his adopted sister came into the room did he allow that silence to break. Usually he only spoke when it was necessary and even then it was in short and direct sentences, it was rare when he had an actual conversation, which was something only the closest to him could achieve.
Truth be told, after Hisana's passing last spring, his demeanor had drastically changed, he had grown cold, distant, and silent towards everyone; the only exception being his sister. When his wife had died he had felt an indescribable pain that had torn his heart and soul. It was a pain he had decided to bear alone in silence
However, he knew that Rukia, in some instances, must have known what he was feeling. But she did not question his motives and he silently thanked her for that compassion because even a year after Hisana's passing he still wasn't ready to speak of it, not even with his closest friends. He still needed to recover from that blow, which had been twice as hurtful as any other he had received.
It was the still fresh image of his strong and energetic wife slowly consuming in a hospital bed while the doctors could do nothing to save her. The image of her fragile and pale figure lying in that bed was something that still tormented him in his dreams. But, not even Rukia knew that what had hurt most was that Hisana had been pregnant with his child at her death. (1)
According to what the doctor told him, Hisana had found out she was pregnant two weeks before she had suddenly fallen ill but had wanted to wait to give him the news of his child when the time was right. Yet that time never came, her illness had been so advanced and dangerous that the third day she miscarried. Hisana didn't need to be told about it and it was Hisana and Byakuya's wishes to never let Rukia know of her failed pregnancy.
So Byakuya's pain had been twofold and it was something he knew he would never overcome despite Rukia's hopes.
"Good Morning, Nii-sama" Rukia said, her voice echoing throughout the dining room, effectively breaking his reverie.
His gray blue eyes regarded her while she crossed the room and sat beside him "Morning" He mumbled.
"Are you alright, Nii-sama?" She asked when she noticed his rather cold greeting; usually his greeting towards her was a bit more, well, warmly "Did you slept badly?"
"I'm alright, do not worry about me," He answered, trying to sound a bit more normal with the tone he used on her, "But how about you? Are you nervous or anything?"
"I'm rather calm and, I must say, excited. I want to see the school and know if I'll do well in it like I did in my last one." She replied before taking a small bite of her toast with strawberry jam, "But I'm a bit worried too."
Byakuya raised an eyebrow, "Why?"
"You see, I don't have one of the required books that my school list asked for and I'm a bit worried about it." Rukia answered, she took a sip of her orange juice and another bite of her toast "However I won't need that book till Wednesday and I still have time to buy it"
"Do not worry about that," He replied neutrally before he raised his mug of black coffee to take a small drink, "But it seems you already know where to purchase that book, don't you?"
She gazed at him for a few instants deciding on what to tell him, "I do, I found a small bookstore yesterday and they had the book I needed, I'll return today and see if they have another one"
"Alright." He replied lightly.
"Oh, I'm going to be late!" She took a last bite of her toast and stood up quickly almost knocking over her glass of juice, "I'll see you later, Nii-sama."
Byakuya merely nodded and continued with his breakfast; luckily he still had time before going to work. Rukia took her backpack and left the dinning room. After Ayame wished her good luck, she walked to the dark-blue car so Shinji, the driver, could take her to school. She allowed herself to relax against the back seat while they en route to her new school.
Rukia took a deep breath while she stood in front of her new school, she knew that she shouldn't be nervous but she was. It was her first time attending a new school and she would have to make new friends in a strange place. With an air of security, she walked inside, sure of herself, leaving all traces of nervousness behind.
Like almost every new student she got lost, but was able to find the administration offices and after a small chat with the principal she was free to go to her new classroom. She had been standing in front of the shoji door for almost five minutes working up the nerves to enter.
The teacher immediately turned to look at her and he seemed a bit surprised to see her there. After signaling to the class to continue, he walked to her to see what she wanted, she immediately handed him the sheet of paper that explained her presence. The teacher looked at her before finally allowing her to enter and motioning her to stand if front of the class. The teacher closed the door and coughed lightly to get the class's attention the moment their attention had been gained they all focused on Rukia.
"Well class, today we have a new student in our midst." The teacher announced the obvious news, "She seems to have recently moved here and was transferred here from the Eiseki Girls Institute, please introduce yourself to the rest of the class."
"My name is Kuchiki Rukia and I hope to get along with you all." She quickly said, not wanting to in front of the class any longer than was necessary.
"I'm sure you're all going to make her feel at home. Now, let's see where I should sit you" His eyes roamed around the room until he finally spotted an empty desk besides a familiar orange haired student. "There, sit beside Kurosaki"
Rukia followed the teacher's direction with her eyes and immediately felt angry when she saw the guy who had taken the book she wanted the day before. With a slight air of anger she walked quickly to her new desk. Ichigo didn't even bother to pay attention to her; in fact he didn't even remember her. It wasn't until she sat next to him and fixed him with a cold, hard glare, that he took notice of her, and finally remembered her.
Well could you blame him for wanting to forget a girl who barely spoke more than four words with you and then slapped you? He could even still feel a small sting on his cheek. She kept glaring at him and he just shrugged it and focused on the class. Or at least he tried to, because every chance she had she gave him a worse glare than before. He didn't know what he had done to anger her so much, when he didn't even know her.
Finally the lunch bell rang, every chance she had she glared to him, but he seemed not to mind. Her earlier recesses had also been spent in the same way, she glared cold hard daggers at him and from time to time he will turn to look at her with a frown and then would return to the conversation he had with one of his friends. She had even spent some her classes planning what to do when lunch time came and she had decided to follow him and keep glaring daggers at him until he apologized.
Rukia patiently waited for him to move; finally the orange haired boy stood up and left with a white haired guy, who seemed a bit too young for their grade. She also stood up; ready to follow him, but her plan was ruined when a girl with chestnut hair stood in front of her.
"Ne, Kuchiki-san?" She asked in a rather sweet and childish voice "Would you like to have lunch with me and my friends?"
Midnight blue eyes looked at the girl who was now smiling serenely, and pondered on that. She now had two options: 1) to follow with her plan or 2) accept the invitation and possibly make friends. Two it was. "I would love to."
"Great!" The other girl beamed at her positive answer and suddenly remembered something, "Oh, I'm so impolite! Kuchiki-san, my name is Inoue Orihime"
"It's a pleasure, Inoue-san," Rukia politely answered, in the way her sister had showed her so long ago, "Thanks for inviting me to lunch with you."
Orihime shook one of Rukia's hands, "It's my pleasure, besides I know how it is to be the new student, Kuchiki-san."
With that said Orihime turned and motioned for Rukia to follow her. As they walked down the aisles, Rukia quickly found that Inoue Orihime liked to talk but sometimes she babbled too much and lost the point of what she was saying and often asked if she was making any sense in all. To tell the truth, Orihime reminded Rukia of a friend she had had in her former school, a friend that had been nicknamed Pumpkin, only that Orihime in no way looked like her.
Finally they stopped at a place where, Rukia assumed, they ate every day. It was a place that was cozy and was shadowed by some trees with deep forest green leaves and surrounded by neat, well-kept grass. Already underneath the tree were four girls, one with long, light raven hair who was reading a book while listening to the other three chat, the next girl she could see had a height similar to her own, light hazel eyes and dark brown hair that was tied into a bun with a white ribbon.
Beside this girl was another that was as tall as Orihime with long red hair tied in a high ponytail and light lavender eyes that was listening carefully to the girl with the bun. The last girl of the group had short black hair, hazel eyes and a rather blank expression while she also listened to the girl with the bun.
"Sorry, for being late." Orihime said, causing the four girls to look at her and then at Rukia, "Hope you don't mind, I invited Kuchiki-san to lunch with us."
The girl with the red hair smiled, "Of course not, the more the merrier."
"So, Kuchiki-san these are my friends, Ryo-san, Momo-chan, Tsukiume-san and Tatsuki-chan" Orihime presented them in the order Rukia had observed them and the four girls nodded to her, "I know you will get along with them."
Rukia smiled lightly, "It's a pleasure."
"It's a pleasure for us too, Kuchiki-san." Hinamori said and smiled, "But please sit, so we can have lunch."
The two girls sat down to have lunch and hear each other's stories. Of course they also asked Rukia a few basic questions, and, of course, Rukia only revealed what was necessary. She decided that if they became friends in the end she would tell them the rest, but only when the time was right and not before then.
"Kuchiki-san," Tsukiume said while she idly tucked a strand of her red hair behind her ear, "May I ask you something?"
Rukia gazed at the lavender eyed girl for a few seconds, "Sure, Tsukiume-san."
"I noticed something today through the morning classes, something that was constantly repeated once I gazed in your direction," The redheaded girl started, catching the attention of the others, "You were glaring at Ichigo-kun as if you wanted him to drop dead on the floor; do you dislike him that much already?"
"I was going to ask as well." Hinamori said before Rukia could answer.
"It's not that I dislike him, it's more like I'm angry at him." Rukia briefly explained to them.
"Angry at him, you say" Ryo's soft voice was finally heard after a pause in the conversation, she looked up from her book to peer at Rukia, "Why?"
"As I told you, I moved here yesterday and I decided to look around and get to know the area." Rukia started to explain to the attentive group of girls "And, well, I found this nice bookstore…"
"You're talking about "Kumiko's bookstore", aren't you, Kuchiki-san?" Orihime asked rather happily.
"Hai, anyway, you could say I met him there but he took a book I needed for our history class." Rukia finally finished.
"Ohh...it must be that book Renji and Hitsugaya used as a hokey puck last week." Ryo merely said and returned to her book. "Honestly, the nerves of those guys to use it for something stupid like that."
"It wasn't Shiro-kun's fault!" Hinamori quickly defended Hitsugaya and glared mildly at Ryo, "It was Abarai-kun who came with the idea!"
Tatsuki then looked at Hinamori, "How easy is to place all the blame on Renji?" She said rather softly and with a small frown, "It wasn't only Renji's fault, I don't recall Renji forcing Hitsugaya to do it. Hitsugaya knew what he was doing."
"Still its Abarai-kun fault!" Hinamori concluded and a small discussion started.
"What is going on?" Rukia asked.
"Ohh…you see Hitsugaya-kun is Momo-chan boyfriend!" Tsukiume explained to the stunned Rukia, "And Renji is Tatsuki-chan boyfriend"
"So, Kuchiki-san," Orihime once again caught the attention of the blue eyed girl, "Are you going to go to the bookstore to buy that book?"
"Yes, I have to," Rukia answered, "After all I'm going to need it for Wednesday's class."
"In that case," Ryo spoke, again not bothering to look up from her book, "Do you mind if we go with you?"
"No." The raven-haired girl answered.
"So it's a plan!" Orihime beamed, "We will go with you, Kuchiki-san"
The bell rang announcing the start of class; slowly, the group of girls stood up and walked back to the school building to continue with afternoon classes.
It didn't take Byakuya very long to get used to his new office in the new building, because those were the only new things in his work: a new office and a new building. His duty was still the same. After the small meeting the owner of the company held to introduce him, he had started to work immediately. At least he didn't have to be burdened with the annoyance of starting a conversation with someone to get to know about the usual happenings of the company.
To his good or bad luck, maybe it was fifty-fifty, Ukitake Jyuushiro, a man he had known since childhood and could be called his friend, worked in that same company and had been working there for at least three years now. It was Ukitake who had told him the daily goings-on of the company. Ukitake had also told him about some of their co-workers and the strange obsession the wife of their boss had to hooking people up. Now that Byakuya was the new one he was going to be her new victim.
Morning passed without any problems, he did his work efficiently like he always did, his secretary was competent enough, she had almost thirty years of experience after all, and Ukitake presented him some of the most important sponsors of the company who he would be helping, and so on. If he had needed to ask something he could have simply gone to the next door office and ask Ukitake, but he didn't find himself in the need to do so.
He was so occupied with the papers that his secretary had just brought him, that he didn't realize someone had entered his office. It wasn't till they tapped a pen on the smooth surface of his wooden desk that he raised his eyes from the papers. Standing in front of him was a man neatly dressed in a suit with gray hair that was almost white and hazel eyes that were currently looking back at him.
"Ukitake" Byakuya said, acknowledging the other man's presence.
"Byakuya, I thought you had left already." Ukitake simply said and when Byakuya raised and eyebrow, he merely shook his head, "To lunch."
"Lunch?" Byakuya's cold voice echoed and then gazed at his clock to see the hour, "Hmm"
"You better go, after all, afternoon is the busiest time of the day and you can rarely stop for a break." Ukitake advised and turned around, "Besides I can hear your stomach growling, so I recommend you go."
With that said Ukitake left Byakuya's office to have lunch himself because he was going to be as busy as Byakuya. It was not like he was following Ukitake's advice but he was a bit hungry. So after he had organized all the stuff in his desk, he stood up and left his office. It didn't surprise him to see the hallway almost empty and that was good because he would reach the elevator quicker.
The metal doors lazily slid closed and he took that chance to lean against one of the elevator's walls, so far he couldn't say that it had been a bad day because it hadn't, his tasks in this new work didn't vary that much as in the old one and he already knew someone really useful, so that was good. However even though his business life had begun well he couldn't say he had started a new life.
His responsibilities were the same and the always-present memory of Hisana was still intact. It was not as if he wanted to forget her but he believed that if he wanted to go on he needed to somehow detach himself a bit from her memory. But so far he hadn't been able to. The doors proceeded to open slowly and he stepped outside and walked to his black car. He didn't want to waste time so he decided to have lunch at the first restaurant he found once he was out of the company's parking lot.
The first restaurant he found turned out to be a French one, kind of ironic, since it was daytime and French restaurants were usually visited at night. The hostess didn't have any trouble finding him a table. French food wasn't his favorite, but even he had to admit that the food the small restaurant served was tasteful, even though he was eating it quickly. He didn't want to spend much time there, especially since a couple was in the table in front of him cuddling, only to remind him of what he didn't have.
After he paid the bill he left with the usual elegant and mature air that characterized him. He sat in his car for a few moments, thinking and remembering a happy and now distant past. With not a single emotion on his face he started the engine, ready to leave the restaurant and drive around for a while before returning to work. However, he was soon stopped at a traffic light.
A woman made her way through the crosswalk, her long raven hair was braided and her blue eyes were looking at nothing in particular. She was too lost in thought to truly notice where she was going. She did stop in front of a traffic light that was in her favor and a black car was waiting for it to change. Just when she was about to pass, her cell phone rang, with a small sigh she accommodated her books in order to answer whoever that was calling her.
Not only a minute later the call ended and after she put her cell phone away she continued crossing the street. However, she didn't notice that the light had already changed and wasn't in her favor now. The sudden sound of car breaks snapped her to attention and she looked just in time to see a black car coming.
Byakuya had been too idle to notice someone walking across the street. He had only seen the light change and had hit the gas. But he noticed the woman who was crossing just in time to restrain the car. Yet the front bumper of his car had still hit her side and pushed her. She hit the front of his car before falling onto the street. (2)
For a few instants that, to him, seemed like hours he sat with a small expression of surprise over his handsome features. Because not even Byakuya was so cold as to not be surprised by something like that. After all, it wasn't everyday you ran over someone. Finally he opened the door to see if she was all right.
Some books were scattered on the street, but the woman was now sitting with her head lowered and she was holding her left forearm. It had a bad looking bruise, and the blue knee-high skirt she was wearing had ripped.
In a tiny movement, she looked up at him, their eyes met and still not a single word escaped their mouths
Now that was a good way to start a new life, by running over a woman
Finally I wrote this; here I thought I wasn't going to be able to do it especially since I'm a bit busy. I know it might look a bit OCC but as I said before I'm a starter and well damn Byakuya for being such a difficult character to write about.
Also I'll like to express a million thanks to Bakageta for proof reading this chapter and fix the grammar errors, I just want to say, you rock girl!
First as you can see I have another OFC and you have discovered maybe three more pairings of this fic, but anyway still hope you liked it.
(1)Well that thing about Hisana being pregnant, it actually came from a movie and I know it makes it more sad a bit angst but as the fic moves on, you'll understand why I did it.
(2)That idea of the run over, it actually came when I was seeing the Korean soup opera "All About Eve" (I love that thing, is so addicting) and I thought that it was going to be a good idea, but then it also means another odd meeting.
Well I'll try to make and update as soon as I can, I know I said it was going to be weekly but some issues had come out and won't be able to, but I'll try to update as soon as I can.