Truth be told, he had considered entering his division with that much practiced smile on his face. Well, he had considered it. And then decided that it would probably work better on Friday, when they had combined practice with… which division was it again this week? He would have to check.

Having decided not to do so, Byakuya's day at the Sixth Division began as normal, at seven o' clock sharp. [And no Renji, who always came in at eight anyway.] It began as normal, but whether it would stay as normal… The edges of his mouth turned up slightly before he smoothly wiped it away.

[The courier from the Eighth Division would swear that he had caught Kuchiki Byakuya smiling, but no one would ever believe him.]

"You can… cook." Renji blinked. And rubbed his eyes. And then blinked again. The morning had been perfectly normal. In fact, if not for that sinister little light pink note left on his desk, he would have assumed that the Sixth Division Captain had completely forgotten about those five terms. What the note had been was just some written stuff, some black and white to show that yes, the Almightiness that was Kuchiki Byakuya did in fact agree to these (and it was hinted) 'outrageous' terms.

"Yes, Renji. I can cook." Back facing Renji, in an… no, it was not an apron, it was just a set of what looked to be extremely expensive yukata, [Renji was pretty sure that to the King of Money And All Things Cash Related, it was a 'cheap set' and thus to be worn for 'menial tasks' such as cooking.] Byakuya pottered around [no, he glided, but who the heck glides around in a KITCHEN?] the stoves, stirring mixtures and occasionally chopping up random vegetables.

"Is there a problem?" Byakuya stopped in mid-hum, enunciating every syllable clearly. Renji wanted nothing more than to lop his head off with Zabimaru. Firstly, the guy was one of the sole reasons why females wanted to get into the Sixth Division. Secondly, the guy had a kickass [although it was pink, but still it kicked ass, and yes, many other zanpakutos also kicked ass, but why did the captain have to have one as well when he had so much else already? Life was so unfair.] zanpakuto. And now, he could cook?

Mind you, Renji could cook too. Whipping up a quick meal was nothing too difficult for him. But whyyyy? Why was it that the 'Perfect Kuchiki Byakuya' also knew how to cook? Life was unfair. Life was seriously, seriously too unfair. [Why couldn't there be something that he, Renji could do that the Captain could not?]

"Renji?" The man in question scowled before turning and leaving the room, leaving the Captain to his whistling, merrily ignoring the question. He took a few steps down the corridor.

And stopped in his tracks.

Wait. Wait. Wait. Just hold on a minute. Just… whoa. Renji took in a deep breath. He looked to his left. No one. He looked to his right. Also no one. He blinked again. And shot off back in the direction of the kitchens.

He caught the edge of the doorframe, rapidly decelerating. "Were you whistling, taicho?" Renji poked his head around the doorframe, blinking owlishly at the captain still gliding around the room, slicing up things and sliding them neatly into pots. Said captain stopped in mid-glide, a handful of carrot slices in his hand, before turning around and raising a black eyebrow.

"Why yes, I was. Until I was so rudely interrupted, that was." Renji's jaw proverbially dropped. He blinked again, forcing the blood to flow back into his head so he would not faint and collapse in a heap on the floor.

The captain laughed.

Renji very nearly died of the shock as he stood there gaping like a fish. [To be more accurate, he was gaping like one of those underfed koi in koi ponds. Like the ones at the ponds where they made people pay money to buy the fish food to feed the starving fishes. His mouth was moving in an exact imitation of such a fish. Open. Close. Open. Close. Open. And it stayed open.]

"D-Did you just laugh?" He stared at the captain who had just turned back to slide the handful of carrot slices into a big pot of what looked like soup. No visible reaction on the part of the captain, but Renji could just sense the air of 'Why yes, you idiot,' emanating from that part of the room.

A sigh. "I have no need to answer that question, Renji. And if you are quite done ogling the food, could you please leave the room? The lunch menu today is confidential till the time it will be served. Besides, I do recall a small pile of paperwork with your name on it arriving from the Eighth Division this morning." The captain's reiatsu did not quite flare, but rather was released slightly.

Renji ducked out of the room and did just as the Captain had ordered as he escaped back to his office. [He never thought he would ever escape to the office. Escape from? Hell yeah. Not escape to.] But now, now more than ever, he was quite glad to be away from that… that… thing, that robot in human skin that was currently cooking up a storm in the kitchen. [Well, not so much a storm, but it smelled pretty decent, so hopefully it would taste that way too.]

Lunch came. Nothing much happened. [No, seriously. Nothing much happened.] Other than Renji looking out weirdly as though something might happen like the pot of soup spontaneously implode, or the huge wok of fried vegetables suddenly turn itself upside down and empty the contents on his head.

Which did not happen.

Byakuya had better taste than that. Besides, letting good food go to waste was not a habit of his.

Neither was cooking or even taking lunch with the division, but he was not going to think too much about that. He merely sat there at the head of the long table, eating quietly and doing a very good job of ignoring the first five minutes of excessively loud muttering about 'Why the Captain was having lunch with us'. [After which the division as a whole settled down to lunch and nothing even remotely remarkable happened. The food tasted slightly different from what it did on normal days, but whether it was good or bad, the Division was not quite so sure. It was different. That was all.]

Which puzzled Renji, and then proceeded to puzzle the division because it was very obvious when Renji was puzzled. Those tattoos on his eyebrows crinkled up and he was constantly look to the food and then back at the captain, which was very, very weird. It was puzzling because there was nothing particularly out of the ordinary at lunch this time. [Except for the captain being present, but even then, the captain was just being the captain. He was just sitting there and eating in silence. There was nothing out of the ordinary.]

Then it happened.

The Fifth seat would swear that it happened because Lieutenant Abarai was looking between the Captain and the food so much that his eyebrows appeared to be waggling.

The Ninth seat would swear that it happened because the Captain had been doing something funny to his food. [Like playing with it, but oh no, Captain Kuchiki never played with his food. Never.]

The Captain's mouth twitched.

The Division winced silently. When the Captain got angry, his mouth twitched. And when his mouth twitched, that normally meant that he was getting angry. The thing was, there was absolutely nothing that could get him angry.

Unless… They looked at the Lieutenant. At the weirded-out face he was having. At the chair he was sitting on. At the food.

And promptly came to one horribly, horribly misguided conclusion. [Later on, none of the Sixth Division members would ever admit to have thought this way, but the fact was, they all had.]

Oh god.

Was the Captain gay for the Lieutenant?

Was the Lieutenant jealous or something? There was actually nothing much to be jealous of the Captain about. Apart from the fact that he was a Captain, that he was one of the richest people in the entire of Soul Society, that he happened to have Lieutenant Abarai's crush/love as a family member and that he was very, very hot. The Seventh Seat promptly smacked herself [mentally of course] across the head at the last point. No. Bad thoughts.

But it seemed that those bad thoughts had been running through the minds of most of the shinigami, as there came a simultaneous eep from all four corners of the room. The female shinigami exchanged horrified looks. The male shinigami smirked, sighed, and shook their heads sadly.

The Captain's mouth twitched.

The Lieutenant was still happily oblivious. He was still looking at the food and at the Captain.

The Captain's mouth twitched. And twitched again.

The Sixth Division held its breath. What had they done this time? [Surely they had not done anything bad enough to deserve punching bag status for the Captain to vent his frustration on love-related matters on them, right? Whatever Lieutenant Abarai did surely had to be his own fault, right? Right?]

The Captain's mouth twitched. [And anyone who dared to look up at the portion of Captain Kuchiki's face that was not his mouth at this point in time would have noticed that his eyes were sparkling with something that was not quite anger.]

A particularly daring [or rather uninformed] new recruit looked up from his rice bowl, met Captain Kuchiki's eyes, and blanched before falling over backwards.

That was the last straw. The Division was now too curious to hold back anymore. At least their last act, before being telepathically condemned to death would be trying to satisfy their curiosity…

They looked up. [Blinking eyes looking up as one, with fear and something that was not quite curiosity [because they were smarter than that] was amusing, actually. Highly, highly amusing.]

The Captain's mouth twitched a little more violently before he burst into laughter, eyes twinkling with mirth.

"Oh. My. God." The Seventh Seat was the first to react. She gaped at the Captain.

The Captain chuckled.

The roof fell down. [No, the figurative roof did, which would explain why half the Division had just fallen off their chairs.]

Renji dashed out of the room, and now that they noticed, he seemed a little red. Five and Nine exchanged glances.

The Captain smirked before leaving the room.

[And a whole lot of besotted fangirls behind him.]

"Ten thousand says the Captain's gay for the Lieutenant." Five got up on the table right after the top two left the room.

"Here's another ten thousand!" Nine scrambled onto his chair as Four whisked the bet-taking notebook from Seven's limp starry-eyed grasp.

"Twenty thousand says it's the other way round."

"L-Lieutenant M-Matsumoto?"

I'm really, really sorry for the long hiatus, but I'm more or less back. Chapters for my other fics should follow soon.

Hope you enjoyed this one,
Tan