Nanao resisted the urge to gape, blush and fry him with kido at the same time. What the heck did he mean by that? And what… What was going on? A tiny little section of her brain cried, "Why me?". [The other section of her brain went, "Me?"]

Kuchiki-taicho's eyes were more expressive than she had ever seen them before, considering the fact that he normally looked like a stone block. But… But… But… This was wrong on so many levels!

Sure, he was supposedly Seireitei's most eligible bachelor [not that Nanao had a thing for the slightly girly types… She rather preferred a different sort of type altogether, but never mind that], but he was a stone block.

People admired stone blocks from afar. They did not date stone blocks.

Or at least that would have been her reasoning to get out of this very, very sour deal.

The problem was, he was not behaving so much like his normal self at the moment, which was a severe understatement, but Nanao did not have the time to think about piddling little details since the other occupant of the room was still looking amusedly at her.

In fact, he was behaving downright… attractive. Oh gosh, girl! Get those thoughts out of your head now. She quickly took another sip of tea, noting the way his eyebrows raised again as she moved a little too fast.

Stop. Looking. At. Him.

This was so embarrassing.

She cleared her throat, calmed herself down, imagined it was Kyouraku-taicho sitting on that chair and looked sternly at him. "I'm afraid I will have to decline."

His eyes changed from amused to sharp and mildly incredulous. "I'm sorry? I did not quite catch that."

Oh, this was familiar ground. If anything, Nanao was good at putting forth sharp, cutting arguments. "I said I'm afraid I will have to decline."

"Why?" He took another sip of tea, lapsing slowly back into what seemed to be normalcy. Nanao resisted the urge to pinch herself to make sure that she had not been dreaming.

Had Nanao looked at him, she would have noticed the twinkle of amusement which had returned to his eyes. As it was, she noticed nothing but his forehead [because looking at people's foreheads was a very good way to intimidate them], and the fact that his voice had dropped two tones lower and was outright chilly.

Normal people would have been quaking in their tabi socks, but Nanao being Nanao and being used to superiors and subordinates constantly trying to intimidate her to get out of things, was not so easily shaken.

"This is extremely inappropriate."

"Why?"

"Why? But of course it is, sir! Fraternization within the Gotei 13 is highly looked down upon and…"

"Fraternization, Ise-san?" An eyebrow shot up and she was now completely, fully aware of that amused [and annoyingly attractive] twinkle in his eyes. "I said nothing about fraternization."

"But you implied it."

"I did?" He looked truly amused now, but that did not quite make sense. What was so amusing about this situation? It was a serious matter, and she was absolutely sure that being a serious person, Kuchiki-taicho would understand that fully.

"You were offering me a…" Nanao stopped, the metaphorical candle being lit in her brain.

His smile was back as he prompted, "A…?"

Her face fell as her cheeks burned. "A job," she whispered, mentally cursing and swearing for not noticing it earlier. Oh why oh why had she not been concentrating?

He laughed.

Oh yes. He was not being his usual self, and if there was something that Nanao did not like, it was things not going the way they usually went.

But she time to get back to more solid, familiar ground.

"What sort of job are you offering, Kuchiki-taicho?"

She sure was quick to regain her composure, he noted. An admirable quality, just like the way she was not easily intimidated, and the way she held and stood her ground very nicely.

"Personal assistant for this event, Ise-san, which would be why I called you here not on official business but in a more informal setting." He smiled genuinely, "I admire your professional work ethic and believe that your skills will be essential to the successful planning and execution of this tournament."

He turned to the back to get a teacup, "I do apologize for my behavior, the urge to tease you was simply unbearable."

She gaped at that sentence, not that he could see. What on earth did he mean by the urge was unbearable? Oh, never mind that. He must be addled in the head. Yes. Addled in the head.

He rose, leaning over the table to gently take the now empty teacup from her hands. "And you get a sizeable one-tenth of the profits if you so wish."

Profits? She had scrutinized the fliers very carefully. Yes, every single one of them which had crossed her table. Not a single one of them mentioned the making of money, other than the very large 'CHARITY' stamp in the top right hand corner.

Unless Kuchiki Byakuya was receiving money from a charity, which she severely doubted he was, then there was no money flowing in, only gushing out in humungous proportions. He wanted her to help pay? How dare he!

"I'm afraid you did not quite answer my question, Kuchiki-san." She was looking, almost glaring directly at him. But ah ah, glaring to intimidate him was as pointless as trying to break a stone with an egg. He had grown up around serial glare-ers after all.

An eyebrow raised as he chuckled slightly, taking in the annoyance on her face. "So I did not. Tell me, Ise-san, have you heard of the phrase 'The house always wins'?"

Nanao's jaw dropped as her brain whirred to catch up. Had he just implied what she thought he was implying? Because if he was… The figures which rolled around her head were in digits far larger than she had ever balanced, possibly large enough to balance any amount that he might lose.

"The Kuchiki always play a high stakes game," he paused, taking a sip of his tea, "and win."

He smiled.

Nanao blinked incredulously.

So this was the financial genius behind the Kuchiki Clan's immense wealth.

So this was where all the money of Seireitei had gone to.

Renji was starting to get a little jittery. It was a week after Lieutenant Ise had first visited the Captain, and now they were meeting on an almost daily basis.

If he did not know the Captain and the Lieutenant better, he would swear that they were dating or something like that. But he knew better than to say anything of the sort in front of them, merely holding his peace and watching them from afar.

There were several very curious rumors and whispers floating around the Division nowadays, most of which made him feel very uncomfortable of his position.

Honestly, what was a Lieutenant to do when more than half of his division had somehow come to the conclusion that either he or the Captain had feelings for the other?

He was not too sure about the Captain's sexual orientation, not that it mattered, because a man as girly-looking as him could very well afford to swing both ways, but Renji knew that he, Abarai Renji, was very straight, thank you very, very much.

Oh, he had nothing against guys who liked other guys, just that he wasn't like that. He was pretty sure of that fact, anyway.

Why then, did he have his ear pressed against the door of Captain Kuchiki's office, he had absolutely no idea. It could not possibly be because he was afraid, right?

After all, he was the one who was supposed to be doing the blackmailing. Why did this just feel so queer? Why did listening on their conversation give him the shivers?

"Are you certain you want to do it this way?"

"What would you suggest?"

"I do believe that this would be more profitable, as compared to your earlier proposal, Nanao-san."

"But how will such a small change in the plans affect… oh."

"Yes, exactly. While we can plan for all the eventualities, I do believe that creating certain loopholes and allowing them to attempt to exploit them would bring us much larger profits."

"Because it is much easier to collect back from those who have been publicly embarrassed and who have been shown to have attempted to cheated the system."

"Exactly."

"Now, about the location, you have already made the necessary arrangements?"

A chuckle. "And here I thought I was the one doing the employing, but yes, the location has been cleared and the construction is proceeding very well."

"I apologize for my forwardness, Kuchiki-san."

"Oh don't bother apologizing, Nanao-san. And please, do call me Byakuya. After all, we are in this rather together, are we not?"

Renji shuddered at the numerous implications of those last two lines.

He was getting out of there. Ignorance is bliss, he chanted to himself in his head. Rikichi looked at him funny as Renji shook his head, practically running down the corridor away from the Captain's office.

Ignorance is bliss.

At the next captain's meeting, he could not help noticing that Zaraki seemed to be eying him rather bloodthirstily.

He supposed he had sort of deserved it, but could not quite help the smug look that crept into his eyes. Pummeling Zaraki into the ground with Senbonzakura would a wonderful, wonderful feeling.

Ukitake was looking at him funny too, but he did not think that the senior captain looked like he was going to challenge anyone. He did look like he had a million good questions he wanted to ask that Byakuya did not want to answer, though.

(And everyone else was paying attention to the soutaicho except for Kyouraku who was dozing off as usual.)

The meeting ended quickly and quietly as did most other meetings, having said a lot but meaning nothing much at all. He would want to get out of there now to avoid talking to…

"Yo, Byakuya." It was Ukitake. Darn. Speak of the devil.

"Ukitake." He turned very, very slowly. He had not been looking forward to this conversation. Ukitake was nicer than most, but beneath that kind, warm exterior lay a man as sharp as his best friend, seemingly not at all, but astonishingly so.

He'd hate to have to admit that that one time he had been forcibly dragged out to Rukongai had done him a world of good, or that he was currently being blackmailed by his lieutenant of all people.

And Ukitake was very good at extracting such information out of innocent unsuspecting people like him.

"What's my favorite male Kuchiki up to now?"

"With all due respect, Ukitake-sempai, I am the only male Kuchiki you are acquainted with."

"Oh, tosh, Byakuya. I knew your father and your grandfather, but that's not the point."

Oh god. Give me a break please. Don't come so near. I'll end up spilling all my dirty secrets. No. No. No. Go away. Please.

It didn't work.

"You don't seem to happy to see me?"

Understatement of the century, sempai. Understatement of the century.

"What's eating you, Byakuya? You know you can always confide in me if you want to." Ukitake grinned good naturedly and Byakuya hid an inward wince.

After that disastrous affair with the ryoka and… KurosakiIchigo, his relations with Ukitake had warmed up quite a bit, especially since the white-haired man seemed to thrive off listening to his poor unsuspecting victims spew their troubles into his never-forgetting brain, and Byakuya had been pretty desperate to talk to anyone who didn't treat him like he was (or they were) about to keel over and die.

But that did not mean that he wanted to talk about what was going on. Not now.

Casting his glance around the entrance of the First division, Byakuya spotted a potential savior. "My many apologies, sempai, but I have a prior engagement I need to attend to. Do forgive me."

He swept off a little quicker than he usually did, that little Byakuya. Jyuushiro shrugged to himself until he saw that the younger captain seemed to be gravitating towards Ise-san. He had it on very good sources that she had been visiting his office more often in the past week, which would kind of coincide with the time when Shunsui had run to his office moaning that he had just lost his Nanao-chan to some man.

Brown eyes widened slightly before a semi-knowing smile came to his face and Ukitake Jyuushiro, the best information broker in Seireitei drifted back to his humble abode of Ugendou.

Oh ho.

How very enlightening.

"They're not together," mumbled Renji from behind a sake jug.

"Ya blind?" Ikkaku rolled his eyes from behind his sake dish as Matsumoto on his right leant a little too heavily on Kira who tilted violently before slumping forward and leaning onto the wooden surface of the table. "Ya said they were getting together nearly every lunch."

"And he walks her back to the compound," interjected Hisagi from the other side of the table, "I caught them laughing once."

"I went to pass some papers to Kuchiki-taicho once and she was in the room," muttered Kira from the table, "she was there when I went back the next day."

Yumichika, the sober one for this night, raised an elegant eyebrow. Since when had laughing been an indication of whether two people were together or not? But if Hisagi thought that two people were together, and Kira agreed, then it was most probably correct.

Matsumoto, who was not completely drunk yet, grinned. "You can't beat this, boys." Eyebrows raised and groggy eyes attempted to focus. She giggled and took a drink out of the sake dish in front of her.

"I heard he let her stay overnight last night."

There was absolute silence and a mouthful of sake splashed out onto the wooden table, courtesy of Ikkaku.

Hisagi was the first to break the silence. "Holy crap. You kidding?"

"Nope!" Matsumoto paused, before pouting slightly, "but she refused to tell me anything about it. Looked like she was in awe of something, if you get my meaning."

"Spoiler," muttered Kira.

Renji raised a half-shocked half-surprised eyebrow. "You liked one of them, Kira?"

"Nah," Hisagi rose to his friend's defence, "He's just curious, eh? Don't you want to know?"

"Know what? What they did?" Renji snorted, raising his head a little higher off the table, "Hell no, man."

Matsumoto giggled again, effectively shifting the focus towards her.

"You jealous of Nanao, Renji-kun?"

This time, two mouthfuls of sake splashed onto the table. Hisagi and Ikkaku gaped openmouthed at Renji.

Yumichika grinned at Renji's extremely red face. "Aw, our little one is growing up, boys!"

"I…I…"

"Don't tell me you don't like him, Renji. There's nothing wrong with liking guys, and Kuchiki-taicho is almost perfect. He's rich, powerful, hot and was single for so long. You've even been in contact with him for so long. It's your fault for not chasing him then." Matsumoto leant further forward.

"Oh," Ikkaku smirked from behind his dish, and Yumichika supposed that his best friend was perhaps not as drunk as he appeared to be after all, "Renji's been chasing Kuchiki-taicho since forever, eh?" He waggled his eyebrows suggestively.

"I-Ikkaku!"

"Nanao's got him now, so you've got no chance whatsoever, you know? That girl doesn't look like it, but she's as determined as anyone could possibly be. If she wants to, you can bet that she'll be able to out maneuver the Clan into accepting her. She's strong like that."

"B-But!"

"You know, Renji, we're here to drink with you when you're down. That's what friends are for. A man's gotta know when he's been beaten, kouhai, and you've just got yourself absolutely walloped, because there's no way you can beat her." Hisagi raised his sake dish, "To unrequited love!"

"But I don't…"

Renji was ignored by all except for Yumichika who gently patted him on the shoulder. "It's okay, Renji-kun. There there, you can let it all out. That's why we have Friday drinking nights."

Matsumoto, Ikkaku and Hisagi were continuing their conversation, and Kira was definitely drunk.

"You like someone, Shuu?"

"Not tellin'."

"Spoiler," muttered Kira from the table.

"They seem to believe we are… dating," Nanao said from a corner of the room.

"Hm?" Byakuya turned from his corner, to look at her over the numerous stacks of paper. "They do?"

"I heard from Matsumoto. According to her, half of Seireitei is talking about the event, and the other half is talking about your private life, which apparently includes me."

"Indeed," he had returned back to his papers and a rather stilted silence.

He paused. He needed a little more practice at interacting with people, so partnering with Nanao-san on this actually served a dual purpose. Firstly, that her organizational skills were absolutely phenomenal and her work efficiency surpassed even his own. And secondly, interacting with her was less uncomfortable than it was with most others as their idea of normalcy involved him being all over-friendly with them, something that he could not do.

He looked up before he continued, "If it offends you, you can remind yourself that I see you as, at most, a close friend. Besides, they must be blind for not seeing that you already have your eyes on someone else."

Nanao hid a small smile. If she wasn't already interested in someone else, had not been for such a long time, and had not been in his company for the past few weeks, it would have been easy to think that he might be interested in her. As it was, it was almost oddly cute how socially awkward he was. Cute in an older sister to younger brother sort of way, although he was actually older than her by just a little.

The clack of his brush on the wooden holder and the slightly increased proximity of his reiatsu a short moment later made her turn around in surprise. "I'm done for the day, and I suspect you are close too, Nanao-san. What say you to dinner? My treat?"

"Sure."

He raised an eyebrow at the readiness with which she agreed, "You do know that by agreeing, you are opening us up to more debate and discussion, right?"

Nanao rose. "And you intend to milk it for all the publicity is worth?" A knowing look came over her face.

He nodded.

"How devious of you, Byakuya-san." She sighed, looking almost exasperated.

He laughed and extended an arm.