Bleach is Kubo's property. Enjoy!
"And in the end, I was defeated miserably. I am ashamed of all this." he admitted to Ichigo Kurosaki as he was dying at the hands of his own Bankai.
"Your heart. It's still here. You're still here." her sweet voice echoed in the background.
Byakuya Kuchiki shot up in bed with a start and he could feel sweat dripping down his back and his forehead, causing his hair to cling to his skin. This nightmare in particular had been haunting him for several months now. Groaning as he flung his feet over the edge of his bed, he stood and stalked over to his bathroom and turned on the light. He almost didn't recognize who he saw in the mirror.
Scratching at the stubble on his chin that he had been neglecting for several days now, he took notice of the bags underneath his eyes. As he suffered through this nightmare for the past few weeks, her words roused him from his suffering. Never had he felt such a desire to breathe the same air as that woman—to spend all of his time in her presence. As he walked back to his bed, he looked at the picture of his late wife that he kept at his bedside and shook his head as a strawberry blonde took her place in the picture.
He could not stop thinking about her.
Rangiku Matsumoto was special.
She scribbled her signature haphazardly on a document before sliding it over to the stack of finished papers. Rangiku Matsumoto absolutely abhorred paperwork and anything that didn't involve makeup, fashion, alcohol, and napping. She only concentrated on her work when she needed a distraction from something, or someone.
She could not stop thinking about him.
Byakuya Kuchiki was different.
It had been a few weeks since their incident at the War Memorial and she tried to go about her life in vain. Never had she opened herself up to someone like that, not even her captain and not even Gin. At the dual captain and lieutenant meetings, she begged her captain to leave promptly at the end of every meeting because she wanted to avoid being around him as much as possible. No matter how she tried to focus on her tasks, all her mind could focus on were his eyes. So expressive—so pained and in need of comfort. Rangiku was a kind woman to a fault, it was a shame that Gin failed to appreciate that aspect of her until he died.
She winced at the thought of her deceased lover, it was nearly five years since his death and it still pained her every second of the day. Rangiku felt immense guilt over Gin's demise because had she known his motivations, she could have tried to stop him. Instead, she was useless and broke down over his deceased body. Sighing to herself, she cracked her knuckles and dug back into her stack of forms.
Rangiku wasn't the sort of woman to connect with someone beyond the superficial level, yet her encounter with Byakuya stirred something within her. She picked up on his pain and felt an odd obligation to help him through it, but she couldn't even talk to the man much less acknowledge him in public since that night. The strawberry blonde woman rested her forehead on her arms, suddenly uninterested in her work.
"Matsumoto," her captain's gruff voice broke the comfortable silence of the room, but she sensed the concern in his tone. She looked up to see him standing in front of her desk with a file in his hand. "I need these delivered to the 6th Division as soon as possible."
Rangiku blushed slightly. He was there.
"Are you ill? You've turned red." Hitsugaya observed as he placed the file down. "Stop by the 4th if you need to."
Rangiku nodded silently, gathered up the file, and left the room quickly.
"Rangiku-san!" Renji Abarai called out to his friend.
Rangiku smiled amiably at her drinking buddy and approached him. "Hey Renji! It's been so long since you've hung out," she teased him. Renji sighed, the baby and his lieutenant duties made it so that he never had time to himself anymore, and he'd rather not be on the receiving end of Rukia's punches or Kuchiki-taicho's cold glares for shirking on his duties as a father and a lieutenant.
"Try having a kid, Ran. It's a full-time job—taicho just sent me home for the day so I'm gonna see if I can drop by the bar before Rukia comes home with the kid," he started to walk away, "you coming?"
Rangiku looked pensive, "I still have some work I have to do. You'll see me there if I can make it!" she exclaimed as she hurried away without giving Renji the chance to say goodbye. After turning through a few corridors, she arrived at her destination. His office. Her hand hovered over the door to knock and she suddenly had cold feet.
Before she could even work up the nerve to knock, the office door cracked open and a single grey eye peeked out to see who she was before swinging open completely. There he was in all his glory—his gold trimmed captain's haori lay fitted on his shoulders, his hair pieces nestled on the crown of his head. She even noticed a bit of stubble on his face—she couldn't imagine Kuchiki-taicho growing a beard like Shunsui.
"Matsumoto-fukutaicho," he greeted her and gestured for her to enter. "Please, enter my office."
Rangiku hesitated before complying with his request and strolling in. Perhaps he needed her to relay a message back to her captain? She was trying to rationalize the reasons why she would need to be here beyond dropping off forms. Rangiku turned around once she had approached his desk and saw that he was still standing at the office door, watching her every move.
"Those eyes," she shivered as door shut behind him with a click and approached her slowly. Her heart thumped loudly in time with the noise of his footfalls on the wooden floor.
"Kuchiki-taicho?" she questioned. "I have the forms from the 10th Division from my captain." she stuck out her hand stiffly, looking away from the man. He reached for the forms and haphazardly tossed them on his desk. Those were unimportant to him now, the only thing that mattered was that her eyes looked into his. She mirrored his sentiments and drifted her gaze back to him.
"You're staring at me," she teased him in an attempt to mask her own insecurities. "I feel like you're trying to undress me with your eyes, Ku-chi-ki—tai-cho." Rangiku took pleasure in provoking men to embarrassment, even at the expense of her own self-respect. She needed to regain control of this situation before she did something she would ultimately regret.
"Shh," he hushed her and disregarded the comment as he looked deep into her baby blue eyes, wanting to memorize every single aspect of her face—from her eyes, to her full, luscious lips, to her beauty mark at the corner of her chin. "Let me enjoy this, you are exceedingly lovely to gaze upon."
Rangiku's attempt of flirting the man to submission failed miserably and a mortified expression comically took over her face. She stammered hopelessly for several moments before Byakuya spoke again.
"Since that night, you have been on my mind endlessly. I cannot recall a moment in that time period when I was not thinking of you," he admitted quietly, "Rangiku-san." He tested the sound of her name and decided that he liked it.
As a man who had been married and in love before, the sensation she felt in her presence was different from that than his late wife. Byakuya had surmised over a week ago that this was a start of a growing interest in her that he should probably nix while he was ahead of himself, but the woman in front of him was so mesmerizing. He could not attempt to stay away from her even if he wanted to.
Rangiku bit her lip slightly and thought about how to respond. She would by lying to herself if she claimed to have not had the same thoughts about the man in front of her, and what woman wouldn't? Yet, any idea of an arrangement between the two of them would be inappropriate. Rangiku was the last woman in the Gotei 13 to care about appearances in such a way, but she could not help but think that this was the result of poor judgment.
"Is that why you summoned me here? To seduce me?" she questioned him. He hadn't even touched her and still felt like she was being used. Gin used to make her feel uncomfortable sometimes—most times, actually—but never like this.
Byakuya vehemently shook his head. "The opposite, in actuality. I simply wanted to be in your presence again and, if possible, have the opportunity to discover more about you."
Kuchiki-taicho's inability to speak informally irritated Rangiku quite a bit. Although she was very well read, she could not tell if he was using a wordy explanation to tell her that he wanted to sleep with her or not. Even if that was the case, this behavior out of the man was odd. Sure, everyone in the Gotei 13 had their eccentricities and ways of dealing with their way of life after the war, but this was not the Byakuya Kuchiki she knew.
"I wouldn't mind being your friend, Kuchiki-taicho," Rangiku responded, pointedly ignoring the slight look of disappointment on his face that he quickly willed away. "It's remarkable how I have known you for over a century without actually knowing you." A century ago, everyone knew who Byakuya Kuchiki was—the grandson of the 6th Division captain and heir to the Kuchiki clan. Rangiku graduated from the Academy several years before he did, so she did not know him personally.
"I was hoping for something more than that, Rangiku-san," he thought to himself as he listened to her speak. He wished he could vocalize what he was thinking. "I cannot help but be dissatisfied with just being friends."
Clearing his throat, he decided to change the subject. He strolled over to his cabinet and procured a bottle of sake, her favorite, and two sake dishes. A small smirked played on his lips as he watched her sky-blue eyes dart towards the bottle.
"A taste, Matsumoto-fukutaicho?"
Rangiku gulped. This man was really about to exploit her weakness, wasn't he?
"Sure," she affirmed breezily as she deposited herself in the chair across from Byakuya's chair at his desk. She'd have a quick drink and then she would exit promptly. Might as well take advantage of the man's patronage, no?
The sake dish scrapped against the wood of the desk as Byakuya coaxed it slowly in her directly. He sat in his seat across from her and gazed into her eyes as he picked up his dish, "Cheers," he saluted before tipping the glass to his mouth. The booze burned at his throat—he did not drink alcohol under normal circumstances—but remembered the brand of the bottle she had brought to the War Memorial and made it a point of purchasing one for himself.
"Cheers," Rangiku played along and shot the contents of the glass to her mouth quickly. She paused for a moment, "What exactly are we toasting to?"
"To you."
Rangiku thought she might have been experiencing one of the weirdest dreams she's ever had. "I'm not following. Before that night, I don't even recall even having a real conversation with you before—I hope this isn't some type of joke." she said with a hint of insecurity in her tone.
Byakuya shook his head dismissively and prepared himself to speak on a topic that he had never addressed outwardly before. "You helped me to realize that my life still has purpose, even when I believed my survival to be some sort of cruel punishment for my past transgressions. Those words you spoke to me that night about my heart—it roused my will to endure." He paused and awaited her response.
Rangiku felt genuinely flattered at the man's words. She would have never expected to be credited with helping someone with their confidence before and she couldn't help but smile. Maybe Kuchiki-taicho wasn't so bad after all, regardless of what she knew of him before. Underneath that ice-cold exterior was still a human being who felt the same emotions that she felt. Who knew experiencing a man's genuine feelings was so refreshing?
"I wouldn't consider myself to be the beacon of sound advice, taicho," she joked from behind the rim of her glass that was just replenished. "I do appreciate the praise, however. It means a lot to me; and I am glad to see that you are doing better." She said genuinely, smiling warmly at the man.
"You sell yourself too short, Rangiku-san," he replied, using her first name again. "You've become someone special to me since then." His gaze softened at the sight of her surprise. "Gorgeous," he immediately thought to himself.
Her eyes widened in surprise at his confession and she turned away from his gaze. Byakuya was slightly disappointed in her reaction to his advances and decided to back off for the moment. He was so accustomed to women fawning over him that he was not aware that not all women were the same. Especially her. He was unfamiliar with not getting his way, but he was willing to put in the effort for this woman—for his pride. Rangiku Matsumoto was a woman that had to be earned, not taken.
Rangiku wanted to kick herself, here she was, spurning the advances of one of the most attractive single men in the entire Gotei 13. Part of her welcomed his actions and an even smaller part of her felt guilty. She vowed to never look at another man the way she looked at Gin, but she just could not help herself. Throwing caution to the wind, she decided to indulge.
"There is more to this conversation than you just thanking me for speaking with you, Kuchiki-taicho," her eyes glinted with mirth. "I appreciate the sake, though—it's a nice consolation." He brought out her favorite, that was a plus in her mind.
A flash of amusement was in his eyes. "I have wanted to see you since that night, so I requested your presence specifically from Hitsugaya-taicho. My lieutenant would have interrupted the time I wish to spend with you." He smiled warmly at her—the slightest upturn of the lips, but she could see that he was genuinely happy to have her here. Her heart fluttered slightly at the sight. Since when did Byakuya Kuchiki smile?!
The lieutenant hadn't expected the captain to be so taken with her, especially after such a short conversation.
"I feel like there is more that you're not telling me." Rangiku replied cautiously, fearing his next words. She drank from the sake again to calm her nerves and wondered how much of it she had drank.
The Kuchiki clan head took a deep breath before responding. He made sure to establish contact with her beautiful sky-blue irises before he spoke the words that would change their lives from then on.
"I am infatuated with you."
"I am infatuated with you."
"Oh." Rangiku replied lamely after several agonizing moments. This…was unexpected.
Byakuya silently watched her go through several emotions—shock and guilt were the main ones. He wondered if she felt the same way—everyone in the Gotei 13 knew that she still retained feelings for Gin Ichimaru, the same man who hurt her time and time again, but Byakuya was undeterred. He would never stop loving his deceased wife, but his heart was capable of moving on.
"You hardly know me." Rangiku finally found her voice.
The man across from her was unfazed, "We could undoubtedly change such a thing, if you are willing." One of his hands slid out to embrace hers, but she drew away from his touch quickly.
"Are you asking me to sleep with you?" Rangiku balked at the idea.
Byakuya blinked. This was not the reaction that he had anticipated. He was the king of calm, but alas, he panicked.
"Would you like more sake?" he immediately reached for the bottle, hoping to draw her attention away from his error.
"No!" Rangiku hissed as she stood up, planting both arms on his desk and leaning forward to hover over him. "You will not use booze to change the subject! What the hell do you think you're doing?" Byakuya's eyes widened at the woman's sudden fury, he was grossly unprepared for her reaction.
He slowly placed the bottle down and racked his mind for an appropriate answer. "Rack," he thought absentmindedly as Rangiku's bosom bounced enticingly in front of his face.
Rangiku followed his gaze and squealed in displeasure, "Perv! I'm outta here!" she exclaimed as she stomped towards the door. She paused for a moment and doubled back, grabbing the bottle of sake. "I'm taking this too!" she exited and slammed the door loudly. A picture of his garden that was hanging on his wall fell off at the impact and crashed to the floor.
Byakuya let out the breath he was holding and rubbed his eyes. That was a disaster—he didn't exactly have a plan of how he was going to confess but he did not expect her to lash out at him. He wondered if he should follow her and ultimately decided not to, she needed time and he would supply it.
Welcome again! Byakuya may seem to be a bit OOC in this fanfic, but wouldn't anyone in his position make the effort to change their outlook on life? My biggest struggle in writing is trying to keep everyone in character, especially since I have not watched/read Bleach since it ended. Never the less, I hope everyone enjoyed this chapter! Please review!