Chapter Three
Byakuya stood just a little after noon, finished with his paperwork for the day. As he stepped toward the door, he glanced down at where Renji sat addressing his paperwork. The redhead held his brush with an extremely firm grip, carefully concentrating on every line he put down on the paper. Byakuya smiled behind his mask, not letting the amusement even touch his exterior. It seemed his remark the other day had set in.
Like a child just learning his strokes, Renji seemed to have his entire focus on the brush he held. The effect on his handwriting was an extremely positive one, although he was taking quite a long time to complete simple papers. And, although Byakuya didn't want to admit it, he missed Renji's usual scrawl.
As Renji finished with the paper he was working on, he seemed to notice Byakuya's attention. He looked up, annoyance still creasing his brow.
"Need somethin?" Renji asked, sounding impatient and slightly angry.
Byakuya turned his eyes from the paper to meet his fukutaicho's reddish ones, keeping his face blank.
"Renji, if you keep writing so carefully, you'll be here all day," he pointed out, knowing Renji realized this already.
He then swept from the room, hoping Renji would take this properly and understand that the other day's comment about his handwriting hadn't asked for a change. Byakuya knew it was selfish of him to point it out so boldly, but it was the only way he saw that he would get his desired result: his fukutaicho back to his messy, wonderful self.
#
Renji stared at the door his taicho had just left through, the brush shaking in his clenched hand. He tossed it down on his desk, narrowly avoiding the paper he had just completed filling out. Closing his eyes for a moment to calm the sudden anger he'd experienced at his taicho's words, he took the brush up again, grabbing the top paper from the stack before him.
"I'm just never good enough for him, am I?" he said through gritted teeth. "Too messy, too slow, screw it all."
Dipping the brush viciously in his inkpot, he stopped caring about his handwriting, about the need for his paperwork to be legible. Slashing lines across the page in the proper places, he signed his name angrily and shoved the paper aside, grabbing the next one, filling it out in the same manner with much spraying of ink.
Before he knew it, he was done, a ruined and inky stack now sitting in the out box beside his desk. He leaned back in his chair, surveying the destruction, the fruits of his labor. His anger faded greatly at the sight, to be replaced with a slight shame at the mess.
"Whatever," he muttered, pushing himself to his feet, leaving the office with a nearly tangible irritable energy surrounding him.
#
The next day, Byakuya stepped into his shared office about a half an hour earlier than he usually did, relishing the cool morning. Turning toward his desk, he narrowed his eyes slightly. The stacks of paperwork on his desk seemed to be more than they usually were, much more. He picked up one of the top papers, noticing it was actually two papers clipped together.
The first was a blank piece of paperwork, something his fukutaicho would generally deal with. He flipped to the second, and his eyes widened. A mess of ink covered the page. Kanji and Kana were scribbled and scrawled near all the appropriate places, but it was almost impossible to decipher the intent of the ink.
Byakuya narrowed his eyes again, only recognizing the handwriting as his fukutaicho's because he had always enjoyed the way Renji did his strokes, a little over-exaggerated, a little messy. But this chaos wasn't normal even for Renji.
Running his hand through his long hair, Byakuya sighed deeply. He hadn't meant for his fukutaicho to take yesterday's comment this badly. He'd only desired that Renji's handwriting return to its previous state, the scrawls that Byakuya admired when his fukutaicho wasn't around.
Perhaps he needs a more direct method of informing, one that can't be interpreted as anything else.
Byakuya left the office to find "request for resubmittion" forms, enough to get the message across to his impatient, impossible, wonderful fukutaicho.
#
Renji managed to catch a proper night's sleep for once, avoiding waking up in a painfully stiff situation by the fact that he'd drunk all his stores of sake the previous night, and had therefore fallen asleep sober. A great deal of his angry mood had faded with this dreamless sleep, allowing Renji to enter the office he shared with Byakuya with only his regular glare in place.
He turned toward his desk, and nearly stopped in his tracks. There was at least twice as much paperwork on his desk as there normally was when he strolled in at noon. He moved toward the precariously tall stacks, taking a few papers from the top of one. He found them to be three papers, clipped together. The first was a verification for a mission some of the unranked members of sixth squad wished to participate in. The names and request seemed familiar to Renji, but he couldn't place why.
He lifted this page to get a glance at the second paper, and found his answer. Details and a signature were scrawled near the appropriate lines in an illegible, ink-splattered script. Renji guiltily recognized the fruits of his tantrum from yesterday, but told himself that it was still possible to decipher the writing, though barely so. He lifted this sheet, and found another piece of paperwork, this one filled out in full. It was a short request for the above paperwork to be redone and resubmitted. Renji instantly recognized the graceful script, as well as the kanji at the bottom that constituted a name. Kuchiki Byakuya.
He dug through the stacks of paperwork, finding much of the same: a clean piece of paperwork, a scrawled attempt, and a captain's request for better handwriting, all clipped together to form one statement. Renji turned to face his captain, holding the many papers he'd pulled from the stacks. Byakuya was still doing paperwork, and it looked like he had quite a bit left to complete. He must have spent a good part of the morning filling out the request forms. Renji imagined he must have enjoyed this, filling them out officially and impeccably in his perfect script, one after the other, putting his far-from-perfect fukutaicho in his place.
Renji continued to glare at his taicho, eyes narrowed in anger, waiting for him to glance up. But as the seconds stretched on, Renji decided that Byakuya had anticipated this and was outwardly and purposefully ignoring him, which only worked to further infuriate the redhead. Renji's patience, already short, worked itself toward the end, the anger and frustration of the past few days brimming over, crawling up his throat in a want to be expressed.
He spoke in a sharply calm voice, fighting to hold in his storm of emotions.
"Taicho."
Byakuya didn't glance up, didn't answer for a moment. He came to the end of the line he was writing on, then went to the next, finally speaking.
"Yes, Abarai-san?"
Renji suddenly realized he didn't know what to say. The reason behind his sudden bad handwriting, his tantrum, was something he would never let his taicho know. He settled for sarcastic reply in a self-confident tone, still holding back his true emotions.
"I thought ya didn't care for my 'neat' handwriting," Renji said, emphasizing the papers he held.
Byakuya glanced up through his eyelashes, giving Renji an almost exasperated look.
"I didn't mean for you to lose all regard," he said calmly, setting his brush down after signing the paper he'd been working on. "Paperwork does need to be read by others, after all."
Renji threw the papers he held to the floor, finally eliciting a response from Byakuya, who looked up, his eyes cold. Renji slapped his hands onto Byakuya's desk, leaning forward to meet his taicho's eyes.
"Nothing is ever good enough for you, is it?" he asked, wanting his words to come out in an angry snarl, and but instead finding them almost pleading.
He pushed himself away from Byakuya, storming toward the door, startled to find he was now holding back tears of much more than just anger. Behind him, he heard Byakuya stand, and say softly, almost expressively, "Renji."