A/N: Alternative title: "Shield's Hella Self-Indulgent ByaHisa Drabble Dump"

Hello and welcome to the second and final day of ByaHisa Weekend 2022! In keeping with the theme of "opposites attract," here is the "settling down" part of my chosen prompt "starting up/settling down."

It was an absolute blast to write this fic. Enjoy!


"The Question"

Byakuya is antsy.

Byakuya is never antsy.

Raising a proverbial eyebrow, Hisana pulls him off the footpath and into the shade of a tall maple. Its thin trunk bears battle scars both old and new, a timeline of abuse at the hands of uncaring passersby. Unsurprising for its location along the main road, but Hisana cares enough about both the tree and the man before her that she doesn't break the bark of either. Rather, she extends a hand for Byakuya's to ease into, which it does swiftly; they learned soon after the first kiss not to mistake daylight for modesty.

"We're nowhere near our destination," Byakuya says. His fingers pulse against her palm like vines, yearning for freedom from the trellis that gives them the structure to grow in the first place.

"I'm aware," Hisana tells him. "But what's wrong?"

A glimpse of that forsaken Kuchiki mask of his. He thinks it armor when in truth it is an insult, though she hasn't told him this. Her unvoiced complaint might make it fair that he hides himself like this, but one of these actions evokes concern where the other simply stings.

She sighs. Shinto leaders advise against hurting trees lest they house a Kodama, but the one beside them is evidence that humans cannot trust themselves to their promises. Whether out of boredom or something more sinister, they press blades against the tree trunk or pull at its bark with their bare hands. She doesn't want to, but Byakuya's mask won't permit anything else. She must carve away the bark.

Hisana releases Byakuya's hand to place both of hers on her hips. "We're not taking another step until you tell me what's the matter," she says, pulling up every inch of her short stature until she's as tall as a giant. Her eyes jump to the minutiae, the bobbing of Byakuya's Adam's apple, the lightest tugging at the corner of his lips, the narrowed brow.

He looks away when her indigo eyes pierce through him. "You needn't worry about me," he says quietly.

"I'm afraid I can't control that particular emotion," Hisana says, but she lowers herself some. "You've hardly spoken since you arrived, and you won't look me in the eye." She pauses, and in flows a realization. Her mouth parting in surprise that she didn't see it earlier, she takes a step back.

His eyes flash to her feet, wrapped in the sandals he bought her that contrast so harshly with the gray sack she calls a kimono.

Hisana pretends not to notice; how apt, ignorance. And how apt that this tree would not just smack her with a branch, but shred her limb from limb. "You…don't want to see me anymore," she murmurs. Let him shred. Let him tear her apart. Let it be over soon.

"Heavens, no," Byakuya says in a rush, his eyes gone wide. He takes her hands and holds them between them. "What have I done to make you believe such a thing?"

She blinks rapidly. "I...told you," she says. Where is the abandonment she sees so clearly before her? "You're very quiet and jumpy, so you must be anxious about something."

"I'm always quiet, dear."

"But not jumpy…."

Byakuya opens his mouth to answer, only to exhale, lowering their hands to waist level. "I suppose not," he admits.

Hisana can see him thinking. His brow is again narrowed, but small twitches betray his concentration. He releases one of his hands from hers, leaving the other to lightly squeeze her fingers on and off, returning to vines. Only now does she see small specks of dust on his usually impeccable shihakusho. The elegant shag of his hair is frizzed at the ends as well. She supposes it's a small miracle that Senbonzakura and not a waraji is tied to his side.

She musters up assurance in her free hand and sets it on Byakuya's face. At once his brow relaxes, and his cheek eases into her palm. His skin is smooth porcelain against the layer of dirt she can never quite lose in the forest brook before his arrivals.

"You can be honest with me," Hisana says. "Whatever is on your mind, let me carry it with you."

Stone gray eases into dual indigo pools. "You will not let us continue to our destination? I'd rather tell you there."

She pulls his head down with delicate finger pressure until their foreheads are touching. She smiles softly. "Not a chance," she whispers.

Another exhale; even at this close proximity she can make out his reserved smile, though it's gone by the time he's stood upright again. "Hisana…I do not say this because I have not given it thought," he says.

She forces a polite smile, even though her pounding heart and heaving stomach can't decide what to prepare for and so settle on the worst. "Okay."

He takes both of her hands once more. "I could make it as flowery and poetic as possible, but that will only detract from the point of it all."

The point? She squeezes his hands, willing him to say it.

He meets her gaze, holds it. "Hisana…."

"Yes?" Please just say it.

"I want to live with you, Hisana. I want to wake up beside you for the rest of my life. I want to make you the happiest woman in the world, and I want to marry you. Above all, I want to marry you."

Hisana freezes. All over. She hears screeching metal as her thoughts clash with each other, giving off sparks of new considerations that only aggravate the din. He didn't mean that. But he said it.

She dares meet his gaze as the internal screaming and blasts of dynamite increase. She is deafened, but she must speak. He expects it, and she owes him even that little bit. She swallows.

"…Why?" she whispers.

"Why not?" he says.

"W-well…." She trails off, shakes her head. "Byakuya, what will come of this? What do you see ahead of us that's so worth pursuing?"

Ferocity flares in his eyes, but it is not anger. "I see everything."

"Everything?"

"Yes." His eyes suddenly waver. "…Do you?"

Hisana blinks once, hardly shuttering the inner cacophony. But between the fiery chaos emerge snippets of the likely. The impossible. The inevitable.


"The Truth"

I didn't tell Byakuya that I had gone to Inuzuri again, but I didn't have to. He came into our bedchamber just as I opened to a random page of a book Miyako loaned me, an atrocious novel full of nothing but melodrama, too much sake, and a wedding I saw coming by page four. It was the perfect bore to finish tiring me, or it would be if I had felt tired to begin with.

"I see you're back to reading upside down," Byakuya said as he closed the door behind him. His tone lifted at the end, but I knew better than to trust his teasing.

I set the bookmark back between the pages. "It offers new perspective," I lied. "You never know what you will find this way."

"Is that so?" He untied Senbonzakura from his obi and set him beside his side of the futon. "I suppose it makes those novels more interesting, in any case."

A delicate kiss was planted atop my head as I admired the open rectangle of Senbonzakura's handguard. "Maybe I just wanted to be awake for once when you come home," I said. Which I would have been anyway. You can't just turn off the post-Inuzuri brooding.

Byakuya glanced over his shoulder as he removed his kosode and shitagi in one move. "You needn't wait for me, you know."

"I miss my husband." I raised an eyebrow as his hands came to his obi, but there they paused, until they were hanging at his sides.

Byakuya turned to me in full. The Kuchiki mask had been raised.

I closed my eyes. I was in trouble.

"Hisana, I would never restrict your movement," Byakuya said. The tatami mats gave shushed creaks as he came forward. "But I must ask…are you absolutely certain she is still in Inuzuri?"

I opened my eyes, stared at the floor. I should tell him, I thought. I should really tell him.

"She's there, Byakuya," I compromised. "I'm going back every day until I find her."


"Subtlety"

There were so many people. Not a few, not a couple, but many. And supposedly, Byakuya knew the names of each and every one.

Demuring down her awe, Hisana looked from the edge of the training field to the man in question, ever the image of a proud, modest wife. It was still so peculiar to see him wearing a captain's haori, but she supposed it was only natural after his haori-free figure had embedded itself in her mind during their courtship. Sure, first the scarf had come to provide a shock of pale blue to his dark image, but it could not compare to the black of his shihakusho or the hair she loved to run her fingers through. Now, however, the white haori at last created a balance. A true Shinigami, and more importantly, her true husband, a man of equal parts dark and light.

She might be in public, but Hisana did not disguise her smile.

"Assemble for Kido drills!" Byakuya called out to the training field. At once the squad split into neat lines, with select members fading in and out of view as their Shunpo brought them to the storage shed at the edge of the field. From it they withdrew targets that they set in front of each relay line, and with another sharp command, the Kido exercise was underway.

Preceded as they were by shouted commands, Hisana gasped when the first round of spells hit the targets, which to her surprise were not immediately obliterated but seemed to absorb the impact. The sound was like cannon fire, but the varying shades of blue, red, and yellow coloring the field brought to mind fireworks.

Absorbed in the display, she did not realize Byakuya was beside her until he said, "Wait until you see the advanced group."

"Oh!" Breathing heavily, Hisana clutched her heart. "I didn't even hear you!"

"Not so surprising." He glanced out at the field, his eyes darting left and right as he watched over the squad. As much distance as there was between them and the squad, he lowered his voice so she had to strain to hear it over the firing Kido spells.

"Perhaps you'll just have to make sure you can hear me no matter what from now on."

She blushed but briefly. Not daring to look at her husband, she allowed herself the smallest smirk. "Is that a challenge?"

"Perhaps."

She stood up straighter. "Fine. Just know that by the time I'm done with you, the entire Seireitei will know what we've been up to."

"How brazen, Kuchiki-sama."

"This is nothing, Captain Kuchiki. Just you wait…."


"Following Up"

After she waves him off to work, she's just pinching herself, convinced this is all a dream, when he flash-steps back into view.

Her gasp is silenced by the soft kiss he places on her lips.

Once more he fades out of sight, and she immediately decides that fantasy though it may be, she wants nothing more, if only for now.


"The Sleeping Angel"

Years have taught me how to manage its proximity, but I thought it was thunder the first time I heard it. Followed by a felled tree, the crack was so tremendous. Immediately I rolled over and looked up, fully awake and prepared to see the sky itself falling, but the stars were firmly set in place, framed by the shaggy branches of black birches that didn't even sway for lack of wind.

My eyes began to close again….

Another blast of thunder, this time from…directly beside me?

It was slowly—I distinctly remember this—that my eyes swept down from the stars, past the trees, and to the woman sleeping on my right. Curled into a ball beneath the quilt I had gifted her, her face was perfectly relaxed, missing the perpetual exhaustion that seemed to haunt her visage. Her thin, pale lips were gently parted, and while her dark hair was mussed from slumber and the general chaos of life in Inuzuri, it only contributed to this image of an angel, a wonder, my light in darkness.

So I am sure you can imagine my horror when from this angel burst forth a sound like a stampeding herd of wildebeest, complete with monotone lowing and high-pitched squeals. The pale, petite mouth grew three sizes into a gaping blackhole of agony, emitting a sound so vile and abusive that I am unsure it did not do lasting damage to my hearing. But the greater mystery, one I am still trying to unravel, is how it did not awaken the angel turned demon from which it sprang.

Determined as I was not to awaken this sudden beast myself, the more pressing matter was my need for sleep (and reluctance for tinnitus). One hand reaching for Senbonzakura just in case, with the other I gently tapped the angel's shoulder. This earned me something like a shuddering roar from that cavernous maw, but my retreat was for naught: after some seconds, my head was still firmly attached to my body. But my work was not complete. I tapped her shoulder again as another mighty snore emerged from that tiny form, and when this did not work, I began to shake her.

"Dearest, please wake up," I whispered—at least, until I realized how useless it was. "Hisana, I beseech you, wake up," I said in my lieutenant voice.

This did the trick. A pair of snorts announced her awakening, and after a final shake of her shoulder, at last the angel woke up, all evidence of her demonic side vanishing as her tired indigo eyes opened to the stars and her mouth contracted to its usual delicate state.

"W-what is it?" Hisana said, stifling a yawn. "Is something wrong?"

I opened my mouth to answer, but...what could I say? "You breathe like an old man with sleep apnea"? "I thought I was going to die three seconds ago"? "Are you aware that you snore?"

"Byakuya?"

"I just wanted you to know how beautiful you look in the moonlight."

"…You woke me up for that?"


"Unconditional"

Sometimes the morning brings resentment. She awakens the tense sort of reserved, her eye contact limited to the occasional glare when she thinks he can't see. The first few times this happened, he called in late to work, giving excuses ranging from oversleeping to diarrhea, facing any amount of humiliation in order to fix the problem. But he swiftly learned that his continued presence only exacerbated the issue. Her frown would deepen, and her hands would no longer clench, instead resting on her knees so patiently she could only be seconds from boiling over. But she did not lash out. At least, not in that moment.

On this morning, the early rays of sunlight cut through the October mist, and he understands it will be one of those days when she does not return his salutations. He dresses quickly, places a kiss atop her head, and flees the room. He has the remainder of the day to prepare himself. The squad must sense it too, though they know nothing. Not one toe is put out of line, the usual suspects not even smirking between themselves. It should be an ideal day, even with the mist clinging to his bare fingers and biting at his toes. The worst part is that it is a perfect day, but it won't be.

He returns home that evening just in time for dinner; experience taught him that arriving early only ruins their appetites. He helps himself to the assortment of beef, fish, and vegetables between them while she absently picks at a bit of chicken and steamed rice. This is not unusual, and he falls into the reassurance of the typical: He asks how her day went. Curses his error when she sets down her chopsticks.

He catches up with her moments later, letting her lead the way to their bedchamber. Her pace quickens as they walk, and he begins to prepare. All reactions are locked up, any sensitive memories packed away between layers of white tissue paper in sandalwood chests. And much as it kills him, he lets the Kuchiki mask rise up from within until he truly believes he never once had a heart.

She throws open the wall panel to their bedchamber and enters the room, where a servant is just delivering a spare blanket in preparation for a cold night. With a look, she sends the girl bowing from the room. She can be noble when she wants, he notes before he can wrangle in the observation.

As soon as the panel slides shut, the tirade begins. It blasts into him like a great wave, but he knows not to be anything but resolute, a stubborn oak thick with age. He listens to how he is a selfish fool for thinking he can get away with locking her away. How he can't possibly understand what links her to Inuzuri, not he who has been given every reason to distrust and despise anything outside the manor he was always destined to inherit. He thinks that just because he's pulled her out of a hellhole means she's happy now. He must've done his good deed and no longer has to worry where the wheel will fling his soul after he dies. But that's just classic Kuchiki Byakuya, isn't it? He thinks he knows everything. He's been told all his life that he'll get it if he screams hard enough, smashes enough vases, punches enough governesses. And if that doesn't work, he'll just shred them all to pieces, just like he's shredding her apart. Doesn't he see that it won't work? That if he really loved her he'd let her do as she pleases? So let her go to Inuzuri, dammit, let her walk as she will and speak to whomever she wants because he knows nothing. You arrogant bastard, you can't be right about everything.

She pauses. If this were a normal argument, he would interject with his rebuttal, raising his voice over her immediate opposition until they were both screaming.

Instead, he relearns that he is a fool for thinking he can blind her with displays of money and splendor, as though that would make her forget who she is. Roots are forever, even when they are rotten, which even he must think if he wants her to forget who she was—no, who she is. But all he does is pressure her into this incessant feeling of regret, as if she didn't have enough of that already. And she knows he sees he's killing her, Byakuya, so when I die, don't you dare blame anyone but yourself! When I die, know that I hated you every single second I had to put up with you!

She runs up to him, and he braces himself for the finale:

I HATE YOU!

Sleeves flailing, fists clenching, guttural bellowing.

I HATE YOU SO MUCH!

Only when she starts pulling at her own hair does he interfere. She beats against his chest, hard enough that he'll find at least one bruise later, but this does not force him back. He wraps his arms tightly around her, leaving her to thrash in a useless attempt at freedom. He steels himself again as her cries turn to shrieks, that he knows nothing, nothing at all, he is not a god, he is a man, a stupid, stupid man whom she hates, he is a liar who claims to love her when all he wants is to see her suffer, is this not enough, Byakuya, is this not enough?

She takes deep breaths, and her lungs expand her chest deep into his. Hiccoughing all the while, she reminds him that he promised her. He gave his word that he would not say anything else after she told him what she was really looking for.

He lets her believe she is in the right. The truth is that he only asked yesterday evening how the day's trip to Inuzuri had gone. Some days he receives an answer. Some mornings she wakes up resentful.

Her wails have turned into weeps that fall muted against his chest. When she quakes, he quakes with her. When her legs give way, he brings them both to the floor. When she clings to him, he at last lets the mask fall away.

This is not some vow he made before an audience of thunderstruck aristocrats, nor a basic sense of responsibility. This is as honest as he will ever be.


"Disbelief"

You don't know what you're saying.

You're asking the impossible.


"The Name Game, Pt. 1"

Hisana gasped hoarsely from her place in her husband's arms. "Did you see that shooting star?" she asked.

Byakuya's eyes jumped from her frail body to the dark sky, but he was of course too late.

"It had such a long tail," Hisana said, a sigh trailing the final word. She nestled deeper into Byakuya's arms and the quilt wrapped around both of them. It was the same one he'd brought that first time to Inuzuri, which had become her favorite. She once had a special dance whenever it was unearthed each autumn. Just a silly little shake of her hips, really, but it had never failed to make him whisk her up in his arms and smother her in kisses the second the servant left their room. This year, no longer capable of her dance for one reason or other, he simply cut to the kissing. She didn't oppose.

"Oh, another," Byakuya said, and this time it was Hisana skimming the sky for the last vestiges of the meteor.

"Too slow," she said, quickly raising a hand to cover her mouth as a deep, ragged cough pulled from her chest. He tensed against her back, but it was over quickly.

Relaxing, he nuzzled the top of her head, and within the confines of the quilt his hands came to rest on her stomach. "Might we play a game?" he asked.

She kept her eye on the stars lest any more of them fall. "I'd love to."

"Takumi."

A light, hoarse laugh left her mouth, and she stretched against his torso. "This again?" she said. "I thought we were already decided."

"We are. Takumi."

"Average," Hisana instantly replied. "Ryoichi."

"Too grand. Yorimasa."

"Not bad, not bad at all. Kaede."

Byakuya scoffed. "Only if we want a priestess. Chiyoko."

"No 'thousand' anything. We must have some imagination."

"Are we not allowed to honor ourselves…?"


"The First Time It Happens, He Is At Work"

He glares at his fifth seat.

"My apologies, Captain—"

"I said no disturbances."

"It's urgent, sir. There's been a message—"

"Nothing Shirogane can't handle, now leave me."

"Captain, it's from the manor."

"The manor? Is the former captain alright?"

"Sir, it's Hisana-sama. She collapsed—"

He shoves past the man and nearly sprints out of the building.


"Elsewhere"

He was on top of her, his hair falling from around his shoulders to hide his expression in shadow. Only the glint of his eyes came through, shining with something primal and dangerous that under ordinary circumstances would have had her shuddering and begging.

But as he slid between her legs, his eyes could not have been farther from her consideration. The events of that afternoon played on repeat through her mind. A pair of teenagers had raced from the street faster than her kimono allowed her to even think about. They'd knocked over a table, too, and the resulting chaos as other inhabitants snatched up goods blockaded the street. Within the free-for-all, she'd managed to slip down a side street, just in time to see the teenagers pass by. They were moving too quickly for her to truly distinguish their features, but not so quickly that she didn't see the red hair of the boy or the familiar flare of the girl's bangs.

Her heart raced, but after an hour of searching, she knew they were long gone. She almost lost herself to thinking she'd find them again, but Inuzuri's population was never so reliable. Besides, maybe she'd just been imagining the girl's hair. Wishful thinking was not such an uncommon sensation.

Another sensation brought her back to the present: stillness. She blinked away the fleeing teenagers and found her husband's eyes above her. They were still bright, but there was a hesitancy.

"You're not here, are you?" he murmured.

She smiled sheepishly, but then shook her head definitively. "I'm sorry, my love," she whispered.

If he was disappointed, he didn't show it. His only course of action was to disengage from between her legs and come to rest beside her.

She burrowed at once against his bare chest, and his arm wrapped around her. She closed her eyes, but the teenagers still did not leave her. She was unsure they ever would.


"Learn Your Place"

I wasn't ignorant to the whispers flying through the manor, but I didn't quite anticipate hearing them from below. All around me, sure, that was to be expected. I was a commoner without the decency to come from a higher district; I'd be more concerned if Byakuya's family had welcomed me with open arms. But upon returning to our bedchamber for a hairclip, I heard muffled giggling and tones reserved only for girlish gossip from behind the wall panels. The maids, of course, but when I heard my own name, I stopped short.

"…thinks she's above it all now," one girl said. "She didn't even help me put away her and Oyagatasama's futon this morning, like she 'suddenly forgot how.'"

"Ew, why would you even touch it?" the other said. "You might be a maid, but that doesn't mean you should clean up after a whore."

I started, and both cackled. It was just gossip, surely. My heart wasn't pounding. If it were, it would be for a good reason.

"I doubt she's even good in bed," the first maid said. "Oyagatasama probably just felt bad for her and now he can't let her go."

"That's what you get for shacking up with a slut," the second said. "They make you feel special, then they reel you in and you're stuck with them."

"Ooh, she probably gave him a venereal disease! He only keeps her around because he's ashamed!"

"Ew, then you really shouldn't touch their sheets!"

The girls cackled again, and in addition to my racing heart my eyes began to burn. It was just silly, senseless talk, I repeated to myself. Nothing to take to heart. Nothing to believe.

The first girl scoffed as she moved about the room. "She's not even that pretty. Imagine that, getting saddled with someone so plain for life because you couldn't keep it in your pants."

"Oh stop, it wasn't like he was looking at you either."

"Yeah, but I don't have a venereal disease…."

My eyes burned harder, but something greater began to build up in my fists. Something that froze my tears before they even formed.

"Besides, you know your place," the second girl said. "You'd never forget where you came from. Can little Hisana-chan really say the same?"

The first girl snorted. "Really though. Good thing the family's keeping her in her place."

"I hope they run her out."

"Yeah, but she's in for a big surprise when she finally learns her place. Once a class traitor, always a class traitor."

Class traitor?

Whatever was in my fists hit my chest.

I grabbed the wall panel and pulled it open. The two maids at once dropped the cloths they were using to wipe down the tatami mats. They could have had an ally, but now they had a Rukon rat with a title.

"Your lady requests your vacancy of this room," I declared, holding my head high and straight. "Now."

One of the maids immediately reached for the cloth she'd dropped, but the other sat up straight, her eyes defiant. "Y-you can't order us," she stammered.

"Oh, is that so?" I said. "And here I am, thinking you two would be delighted to leave the room of a whore."

The girl glared at me in silence. The other was shaking, but I didn't let my gaze linger. My title didn't have that kind of patience. Instead, I moved one step at a time toward the middle of the room, right on top of where my and Byakuya's futon would unfurl at night. "Leave now and keep your positions," I offered in a low voice, "or I tell Byakuya-sama exactly what happened and you'll never work again."

The girl with the cloth at once rose from the floor, bowing the entire way out of the room. I paid her no mind, instead staring down at the girl who remained. Her glare was still present, but it was beginning to waver. I didn't blame her; she had quite the choice. Speak now on behalf of her—our—kind, or dare oppose those who gave her more to do than wonder when she'd finally be murdered, trampled, or worse?

In silence, the girl stood up and made for the wall panel. I did not once let her out of my sight. With a stiff bow and final sneer, she left the room.

Triumph. I smiled outwardly just as well as inwardly, but before I knew what was happening, the gesture cracked my success in half. Whatever had been holding back my tears fled, and my eyes once again burned. Maybe they'd had a point, the maids.


"The Name Game, Pt. 2"

"Ichiro," Hisana croaked, near instantly triggering a scoff from Byakuya.

"That sounds too similar to Ichigo," he said. "Imagine having one of those in the family."

Hisana chuckled and cleared her throat before a cough could do it for her. "Maybe then you'd learn to like sweet things."

"Unlikely. Akihiko."

"That sounds so pretentious."

"It's my cousin's name anyway," Byakuya said. He pointed to another shooting star, and they paused to admire it, unknowingly wishing with all their might for the same thing.

"All the more reason not to use it," Hisana said once their wishing was complete. "Hajime."

"Apt. Kasumi."

"Oh, now that one's lovely. Midori."

"No. Saburo."

"How many children do you think we'll have? Saburo, really…."

"You never know."

"I know. Rina."

"Pedestrian. Misaki."

"I see you trying to sneak in Senbonzakura's suggestions."

"He is silent."

Hisana almost snorted. "Oh please, he is never silent."


"Consumption"

Byakuya hasn't been back in years, not since the day she told him the truth, about a sister she somehow lost, of why she returns to this awful place. The second he steps foot on the high street, he sees a woman smack the face of a child attempting to sneak an apple from her cart, and the boy goes flying into the packed earth. Within the clouds of dust he sends up, the boy pauses as he regains his bearings, but there are no tears in his eyes. Just a resolute anger, one that he thinks will someday take him from this place but that in all likelihood will just make him another cog in the wheel.

Knowing better than to help the child rise, Byakuya moves closer, hovering just enough for the apple seller to think twice about kicking the boy while he's down. The boy rises without issue, and into the crowd he slips. It's only when Byakuya sees just the dirt-encrusted bottom of the child's foot that he thinks to ask him if he knows Rukia. But it's no use going after the boy now; the crowd has swallowed him whole.

"You gonna buy something or what, Shinigami?" the apple seller barks.

Byakuya looks down at the woman glaring up at him. For all the ferocity and dirt embedded in her wrinkles, he sees her shaking. Even down here, where so rarely they are graced with the presence of a Shinigami, the people fear falling on the wrong end of a Zanpaku-to.

Fishing into his inner pocket, Byakuya tosses more coins than the whole cart is worth at the seller and selects an apple at random. Just as she's gasping at the sudden profit, he sticks an arm into the crowd, and it gnashes its teeth until it has swallowed him too.

It's impossible. To think that Hisana comes here—came here—every day, wearing the lowest quality kimono she could find in the manor, still sticking out like a sore thumb as she pressed through the streets, peered under trash heaps, scoured the outskirts of the nearby copse. She moved like a local, he is certain, but that didn't stop her from coming home one day with her purse robbed and bruises blooming over her legs and torso.

His free hand flicks to Senbonzakura, but the muggers won't be found after four years. Not even in this crowd. It is insatiable. It ate him, the boy, and Hisana. The only difference is that Hisana forced her way back out each day. Only, it has still left its mark. It has hurt her more than the muggers ever could.

Byakuya shoves the man in front of him, hardly looking back when he earns himself a pair of choice words. He can't stay in this mass, this writhing thing of destruction. It might not pose the kind of threat to him it does Hisana, but he will not give the crowd the satisfaction of holding him captive a moment longer.

Down an alleyway he disappears. He is halfway through to the neighboring street when it occurs to him he, too, should be checking the trash heaps and overturned carts lining the alley. Hisana told him that Rukia should be nearly an adult at this point, but if she's as large as her sister, that is, not at all, it is not unlikely that she would have found shelter as might a child. But when Byakuya crouches beside the overturned cart, shifts the damp and putrid trash aside with his bare hands, he does not find a petite woman curled into a ball. He does find a dead cat, though, and he supposes there is some glory in that.

But the joy is short-lived. The next street holds its own crowd, and cling to the edges as he might, Byakuya is pulled into its ebb and flow. His sleeves are pinched between arms, and Senbonzakura bashes into the legs of passersby. He supposes it is a good thing he left both scarf and haori at home, though this is only a reminder of how naked he is. He has that many fewer layers separating him from the horrors of this world. Maybe if he had bestowed that many more titles on Hisana—committee leader, gardening competition winner, hands-on mother—she would still be well. There would still be hope for her, and he would not have to do this impossible task on her behalf. There would still be a burden, too, yes, but it would not hit as hard. She would be armored. She would be whole. She would not be dying.

Into another alley, and Byakuya presses himself against the wall. Inuzuri has taken so much and not for a second considered giving. The cruelty of this place knows no bounds. Byakuya smacks the back of his fist into the wall, then again when it is not enough. He took her out. Why does it still pull them in?

Something clatters to his right, and Byakuya's head snaps in its direction. Broken wood slats, the jagged half of a clay pot, and a spilling jar of dirty water are on the ground. And above it all stands the boy from before.

"Dammit," the boy mumbles. He kicks the rubbish to the side and begins pulling through the trash heap from which it came. More broken bits and rotten food not even the desperate would touch tumble to the dirt.

As Byakuya watches the scene, his hands clench. It is only then that he realizes he still clutches the apple he purchased, and he glances down at the fruit. Its bright red skin is dusty, but his fingers feel no bruises. Leave it to someone with his privilege to find the best apple in this hellhole.

The boy continues to pilfer through the trash heap, and it is not until he comes up for a breather that he sees the Shinigami before him. His eyes narrow in suspicion, only for hunger to drive them wide when he is proffered the apple. His hands clench around the wood slat in his hands, then release.

Byakuya doesn't speak as the boy steps closer. There is dirt under his toenails just as well as his fingernails, and his kosode is heavily torn, having never known the tender touch of a mother's darning or dip in the brook. The boy's hair could be any color beneath the dirt caked into it, and his face could use a touch or three of soap.

The boy extends his hand for the apple, and gently but certainly Byakuya sets it in his palm. Where it sat comfortably in his own hand, the boy's fingers hardly come halfway up the fruit's sides. He will eat well, if he can hold onto it.

As one, Byakuya and the boy look from the fruit to each other, and it is only now that Byakuya sees the boy's eyes are a striking blue. They bore such anger earlier, but there is now a spark of something else in its stead. Perhaps not all is lost in this forsaken district.

Byakuya clears his throat. "Have you—"

The boy races from the alley, one arm folded out of view as he tucks the apple away in his kosode.

Byakuya watches the crowd swallow the boy once more.

He hangs his head.


"The Boss's Wife"

Hisana looks nervously about the office, not trusting herself to sit in the chair Byakuya pulled over for her. The bookshelves, emptied of their contents, have been pulled from the walls, and a sofa, small round table, and three chairs have been upended and crammed into a corner. Only the desk looks unmoved—indeed, it's simply immune to the renovating going on around it, with all the paperwork piled on top of it.

Which she understands was not the plan. She's seen Byakuya angry before, but up until five minutes ago, she'd never seen him Gotei Thirteen angry. He immediately pinned the two squad members painting the walls in place with a glare, demanding in a quiet, piercing voice to know which imbecile had decided to bring highly urgent, highly official documents into an active renovation. When their stuttering answers proved unsatisfactory, Byakuya shot at them something she could only describe as a death stare and sent them from the room in search of the idiot responsible.

As if he hadn't made both burst into tears, he brought one of the chairs over to her before turning to his desk.

Only now does Byakuya glance up from the paperwork. "You can sit, you know," he says.

She nods vaguely, but stops when it occurs to her that he might not be particularly fond of non-verbal answers at the moment. "I'm fine," she squeaks.

He looks back up, an eyebrow raised. "Are you alright, dear?"

"Yes." She takes hold of the back of the chair. "Just…proud of how ready you are to be captain. Jii-sama leaves the squad in good hands."

Something in his face loosens, and he returns to his paperwork. "I'm sorry you had to see that. I can assure you my squad members are not usually so incompetent."

"No, you were doing your job, I'm just a visitor."

"And my wife."

She doesn't know how to respond. Because where she's a visitor and his wife, he's her husband and a captain of the Gotei Thirteen. Even before now, these four identities coexisted. Though she's dying to know how.

"Come," he says suddenly, and she stands at attention as he hoists one of the stacks of paperwork from the desk. "It can't be pleasant to smell all this paint. We'll go into my old office."

She opens the door for him as he passes, having never been happier to leave a room.

"Inconveniences aside, I remain convinced all efforts will be worth it," Byakuya says as he stops before the office right next to his new one. "Though I don't regret that this office's renovation is not my responsibility as well."

"I'm sure the end results of both will be spectacular," Hisana says.

Byakuya begins to fish one-handed in his pocket for his keyring. "I'll bring you once it's completed—"

"No no no, that's just fine!" she answers quickly. "It's one thing if I interrupt your work, but I won't interfere with your lieutenant either."

"Nonsense, Shirogane interferes enough by himself." He unlocks the door and steps in. "And remember, your presence is always welcome here."

Left alone in the hallway, Hisana lets out a long, quiet exhale before joining her husband, the captain.


"Confession"

It was the last place I knew he wanted to be, but still Byakuya stood directly behind me as we walked the footpath into Inuzuri. Empty fields lay passively on either side of us, while straight ahead were brown houses that blended into brown earth. Home. Unfortunately.

Suddenly I was falling, and I gasped as the ground came speeding toward me. But I never met it: Byakuya grabbed me as I fell, and I exhaled severely as he pulled me back to my feet. We both glanced at the exposed rock responsible for my fall, and I gripped Byakuya's hand as his gaze lingered.

"I'm alright," I offered with a smile. "Just a little clumsy today, is all."

"Hmph." Byakuya's face didn't move. "This is not the honeymoon I had envisioned."

"Well, good thing we already went on ours," I said, though we had only arrived back from it the day before. I continued ahead, still holding Byakuya's hand.

"Will you now tell me what we're looking for?" he asked. "I'm curious to know what is so important we search for it now."

I was glad to be leading so he couldn't see my frown. Little girl turned woman. Black hair. Hopefully still with those violet eyes that pierced through my nightmares. For all the terror they brought me at night, I would never wish them gone for all the hope they granted during the day. I would find her. I had to find her. I'd make up for what I'd done countless times over, expose her to a life I never would have envisioned for either of us.

"Dearest?"

"My sister," I answered finitely. "We are looking for my sister."

"…I'm sorry, your sister?"

"Yes, Byakuya." I looked back at him. "My little sister."


"The Name Game, Pt. 3"

The shooting stars had gone unseen for some time now.

"Hiroshi," Byakuya said confidently.

Hisana scoffed. "I said no pretentious names."

"In what way is Hiroshi pretentious?"

"It just is. Kimiko."

"Entirely too literal."

"How so? It's lovely."

"To quote a beautiful albeit stubborn woman whom I love, 'it just is.'"

"Touché."

"Nobunaga."

"Are you out of your mind? No. Makoto."

"A classic," Byakuya said.

The engawa suddenly went dark, and as one he and Hisana looked up at the sky they had abandoned. Clouds had rolled in on their clear night, but they were too hazy to threaten rain. Like a backlight behind a scrim, the moon was actively resisting whatever coverage the clouds thought they had. Within seconds the clouds gave up the fight, and once more they had a straight view of the moon. Pushing back the edges of night, it was a silver beacon in a sea of shimmering black.

"Tsukiko," Byakuya said.

Hisana almost asked what he meant, but the context returned to her swiftly.

She smiled. "Tsukiko," she repeated. "You win."


"Reception"

Byakuya's head was swimming from the day's exhaustion and the sake people kept handing him, but he had only the clearest focus on his wife. Someone he thought might be him had started the rumor that Hisana could dance, which according to the nature of weddings had spread like wildfire. It had at last made its way to the band leader, who, also a number of drinks in, had asked for the bride to join the other performers on stage to lead a nihon buyo dance. True to form, Hisana started slow and shy, but by the end of the first number, someone had handed her plates as makeshift fans, and she was expertly tilting her head and signing the moon before all the guests.

Now, the band leader, the performers, and even some of the guests were circling around with Hisana as the band played the Suzume Odori, albeit much slowed to accommodate the bride's restrictive uchikake. Not one face wasn't smiling, with Hisana's bearing the widest grin of them all.

He had to smile. If they could dance with her, then maybe the family would come to accept Hisana. She'd no longer wake up to fish heads bleeding over her futon or open her wardrobe to find her new kimonos cut into jagged strips. She'd just be Kuchiki Hisana, lady of the house. And he'd be Kuchiki Byakuya, her proud husband.

Someone slapped his shoulder, and Byakuya looked up into the red face of his great-uncle. "Byakuya-kun, that gal of yours," he slurred.

Byakuya nodded slowly, appreciatively.

The great-uncle hiccoughed. "She might be trash, but my, can that girl dance." He slapped Byakuya's shoulder again before moving along.

For several seconds, Byakuya did nothing. There were too many options.

In the end, he chose the most logical: snatching up two plates as he weaved through the tables, he stepped onto the stage and spread his arms like wings to the delight of his bride.


"Afternoon Delight"

It's so subtle, the quick flash of pink as he catches the bit of nori sticking to his lip. His tongue moves with such purpose, so pointed and adept.

The memory of what it did just an hour earlier has me shivering, and at this, he glances up from our lunch. "Are you alright, my dear?" he says.

I glance at the servant beside us, and she holds up the rice paddle expectantly. "We'll be fine on our own, thank you," I tell her. She nods once and bows out of the room.

I turn back to Byakuya, and he raises an eyebrow in question.

My heart pounds in my ears. "Remember what you just did?" I say.

Both eyebrows go up now before coming to rest again. "It's not something I especially mean to forget," he says.

"Good." I slam my bowl down on the table. "Do it again. Right now."


"A Promise"

It doesn't matter who you are

or what you did

or where you came from.

All I know

is that I love you.


"The Answer"

The world slowly comes back into view, bringing with it greenery and stone gray eyes full of expectancy

Hisana takes a deep breath. What lies ahead won't be easy, and she'd be lying if she said she wanted one hundred percent of what was to come. But even she sees that she won't be alone. There will always be someone's hand in hers, someone's words in her ear, someone's lips on her neck. Someone who won't leave, and if she's the one to do it instead, who will follow right after her.

She reaches up to touch Byakuya's face once again. "I don't see everything," she says quietly, "but I see enough."

Byakuya's eyes flash. "Will you, then?" he asks.

She smiles shyly, then broadly. "Yes. Yes I will."