Aftermath

What the hell just happened? was Renji's first thought. His taichou had fallen asleep in his arms, and Renji found himself staring at the Shinigami. It took all of his willpower to not touch his lips. I can't believe that happened! Renji thought as the scenes replayed in his mind. Kuchiki-taichou leaning against him as he spoke, the raw agony in his expression, and… I can't make sense of this! The red-haired Shinigami thought as he carried his taichou bridal style – which caused a hue of pink to frame his cheeks – until he reached the quarters Kuchiki-taichou would reside in if he decided to continue working until daybreak. He pushes himself too hard, as always, the vice-captain thought as he stared at the sleeping Kuchiki Byakuya. When I first became his vice-captain, I was always mystified why he would stay all night doing paperwork. In the eleventh, Zaraki-taichou hardly did any paperwork! All the seated offices were assigned the horrifying task, and it was fun when everyone had no idea what the hell they were doing! Renji half-smiled at the memory, thinking of how most of the time the paperwork would always be put off until the last minute because everyone – especially him – would be fighting and beating the shit out of each other. It was quite a change from the eleventh to the sixth…and I hated everything in the beginning…but now…

Did we really kiss? Now Renji touched his lips, remembering the moment when the supposed emotionless Kuchiki Byakuya kissed him. It was so soft I didn't even know what happened for a couple of moments. His heart leapt through his ribs at the thought of exchanging a kiss his taichou, and Renji swallowed thickly. I can't believe I said that too! The younger Shinigami burned as red as his hair, and he stared at Kuchiki-taichou, his thoughts becoming a chaotic mess as he thought of what had been said to him.

It feels like a dream. Although Renji had never said this, the first time he had seen his taichou without the kenseiken was when he was in the hospital following Aizen's defection. I thought his hair was…beautiful without the kenseiken. …Even more than usual, anyway. I wanted…to actually run my hands through his hair to see what if it felt as soft as it looked. Renji caught himself with his hand reaching towards his taichou's hair, and hurriedly pulled the hand to his sides. I never thought he had such feelings for me. I don't even know what to think! Renji looked back at his taichou as he reluctantly left the Shinigami's side. I like him…but did he truly mean that?

Somehow Renji found himself at a bar, the sake he was supposed to be consuming still in the small cup as the moment when Kuchiki Byakuya said those words echoing through his mind. How could he ever like someone like me anyway? I'm just a Rukon dog, and he's…

"Why aren't you drinking like you used to?"

Renji looked up from his drink and found a scowling Ikkaku with his own bottle of sake half empty. The eleventh division badge signifying his rank as a fukutaichou was across the top left of his arm, and Renji painfully looked away. He heard the bald Shinigami sigh and sit across from him, the usual companion Yumichika across from his friend.

"Aren't you supposed to be happy, instead making a disgusting face like that?" Ikkaku asked through a mouthful of sake. "Your taichou is awake and everything."

"Well, I would be if he hadn't kissed me," Renji retorted. Then his brown eyes widened and he looked across as Ikkaku choked and spat out his sake on Yumichika's face. The now-third seat did not seem disturbed by his friend's inability to breathe as the he continued to cough and splutter, and nor did he seem surprised by Renji's statement.

"I would prefer if you did not stain your bodily fluids over someone as beautiful as I," the vain Shinigami stated, and then promptly used a washcloth to clean his face from sake.

"Sh-shut up, Yumichika," Ikkaku rasped as he continued to cough. "And you don't seem surprised by whatever Renji said either." Ikkaku's small eyes glanced at Renji, who was doing his best not to look at his friends from the eleventh division. Ikkaku took another sip of sake.

"It was all the signs." Yumichika sighed exasperatedly another spray of sake landed on his face as Renji shouted "What signs?!" as the redhead desperately tried to hide the blush across his cheeks.

"Yo." Great, Renji thought as Ichigo came over to the bar with his gigantic zanpakutou across his shoulder and slouched down before staring at drenched Yumichika and a coughing Ikkaku. Just great. Now what the hell am I supposed to do? "Did you guys fight again or something?"

"Nothing of the sort, Kurosaki-taichou," Yumichika stated smoothly as he wiped off the sake off his face. "Renji was just telling us of how engaged in a sign of love with Kuchiki-taichou."

"I told you to –" Then Ichigo's mouth gaped open.

"WHAT?!" he screamed.

Renji groaned. Just kill me now, he pleaded. Just please, end this suffering!

"You didn't know?" Yumichika stated with a hint of a smirk.

"I thought…" Ichigo stated stunned, "that Renji liked Rukia!"

"Rukia?" Renji repeated incredulously. "She's a comrade!"

"But…" Ichigo seemed to find it hard to speak, and he continued to stare at Renji as if he had declared that he was in league with Aizen. "You pleaded with me to save Rukia when you got your ass kicked by me!" Don't remind me, Renji thought with a scowl. Kuchiki-taichou almost fired me for that. Then he got his ass kicked by you. A thought suddenly came to him. Is that why I wasn't fired after all that shit…? "And you protected Rukia from Aizen even though you got your ass kicked again!"

"Enough making me look weak, Ichigo!" Renji retorted hotly at the orange-haired Shinigami. "And Taichou protected Rukia too, with his own body from Ichimaru!"

"That still doesn't explain to me of how you actually like the guy who tried to kill you and had sex with him!"

Ichigo's shout was met with blank stares.

"I was talking about an exchange of affection, Kurosaki-taichou," Yumichika stated as Renji became as red as his hair and spluttered. Ikkaku was roaring with laughter. "They simply kissed, nothing more."

"Actually, he kissed me," Renji mumbled. The red-haired Shinigami didn't have to look to see that Ichigo's mouth had dropped.

"I find it hard to believe that Kuchiki-taichou would love anyone," Ikkaku interrupted. Ichigo nodded in agreement. "I mean, how can you stand him, Renji? He's not very exciting. I mean, Yachiru had a crush on him, but she was only –"

"Yachiru had a crush on Taichou?" Now it was Renji's turn to gap. "Since when?"

"You were in the eleventh division for forty years, Renji," Ikkaku drawled. "You tell me. Didn't you find it odd of how Yachiru was always in that stuffy mansion whenever she wasn't biting my head or playing with everyone? She called him a weird nickname too. Usually she called people by what they looked like, but she called him Byakushi." A snicker framed his face for a moment before a solemn expression appeared. "We still don't understand of what happened to her."

"You said that she disappeared after Kenpachi's fight with the Quincy, right?" Ichigo stated with a serious expression. He too had heard about the eleventh division's fukutaichou's disappearance.

"Yeah." Ikkaku was staring into his cup. "It took Taichou a long time to promote me to the vice-captain positon."

Kuchiki-taichou didn't take it well, either. Renji thought as he remembered as the dark-haired Shinigami abruptly went outside in only his yukata and stared at the frozen pond after Renji had told him about the pink-haired child's disappearance. I thought he hated her, but…he told me that he actually adored her. Telling me those things…wasn't like Taichou. It's been almost a year since the war, and still no sign of her. Most people think she's good as dead because she hasn't appeared since, but something tells me otherwise.

"Wait." Renji turned to find Ichigo staring at him with a mystified expression growing on his face. "Is that what you were about to say when I yelled through the window at the time when you guys were in the hospital after Aizen?" Immediately, Ikkaku and Yumichika leaned in.

"That's not it, teme!" Renji yelled as a blush ordained his cheeks. "I was just…going to tell him that I didn't actually hate him!" Before the bewildered duo could open their mouths, Renji continued. "I just…couldn't allow him to see him sad. Seeing his tears…it hurt. Like I would cry if I saw his tears."

Ichigo was quiet. His brown eyes darkened slightly, and he didn't speak for a minute.

"Inoue said something similar when she told me that she loved me," he replied subdued. "She smiled when I told her that I didn't feel the same way as her, but I could see that she was hurt." The orange-haired Shinigami sighed. "I'm glad Ishida is with her to help her."

"I can't believe we actually thought he was on Yhwach's side," Renji hissed in anger as he thought of how a grievously wounded Ishida had been brought into the fourth division, Ichigo yelling profanities and the other orange-haired human sobbing as the Hanatarou healed him. It was later revealed that Ishida had been against Yhwach all along, and had almost paid with his soul when he abandoned his post to fight his former king as Ichigo was about to die. He saved the entire world – all of them – by pretending he was an enemy. He lost his Quincy powers, and doesn't even have any spiritual energy anymore…but he seemed very happy when Inoue said that she would take care of him.

"I believe they will l fall in love as well," Yumichika quipped. "Although, I do believe this Ishida already had feelings for her."

"Matsumoto!" The Shinigami jumped at the sound of a familiar voice. Renji peeked to find Hitsugaya-taichou of the tenth division yelling at his intoxicated vice-captain. Beside the raging captain was Hinamori, who was attempting to calm the younger Shinigami to no avail.

"I had no idea she was there," Ikkaku muttered as he looked across at the unconscious female Shinigami. "Too caught up in Renji's supposed love affair."

The three Shinigami sweat-dropped as the youngest captain of the Gotei 13 lifted his drunk vice-captain on his back and left the bar. Hinamori stayed behind, her face worried as she stayed at the place where Hitsugaya-taichou had stood moments before.

"Oi, Momo!" Hinamori jumped slightly and gave a brief smile to Renji as the Shinigami stated her given name. "Have a drink with us," he almost pleaded. It'll place the attention off of me!

"No, I should go back to my division," Hinamori stated without a glance at her former classmate. For a moment she was silent. "Did you notice anything wrong about Shiro-chan lately?" she asked.

"Huh?" Renji asked, racking his brains as he tried to remember anything obvious since the white-haired taichou had been revived – because the real explanation was too damn difficult – by Mayuri. "What do you mean? He seems the same to me," he added, not noting of how Hinamori unusually called her childhood friend by the nickname she called him.

"He seems different, somehow," Hinamori confessed as worry continued to mar her small face. "Like there is something weighing on his mind, something that he won't tell me." A frown appeared on her face.

"Shiro-chan!" she called. "Wait!"

"How long do you think it'll take before they get together?" Yumichika asked.

"About as long as it took for Hinamori to get over Aizen," Renji said without thinking. "Crap," he said as he hung his head. "I shouldn't have said that, should I?"

"She actually visited him in his prison cell after the war," Ikkaku said with a frown. "She finally had the balls to tell him that she isn't the vice-captain who adored him, and is her own woman now."

"I still can't believe she had to save Shinji's ass," Ichigo snorted with laughter. "His expression must have been hilarious."

"I had no idea she had trained as hard as she did after what happened with Aizen," Renji muttered as he remembered the flames of the battlefield. "It was partly because of her that we even won the battle."

"And then you thought it would be a good idea to join your taichou in battle," Ichigo stated with a mystified expression. "I swear, Renji, you almost worship him more than Rukia does."

"And I bet that's annoying to you," Renji said with a smirk at Ichigo's frustrated expression. "It's always "Nii-smaa" this and "Nii-sama" that."

"Yeah," Ichigo grunted, "but I love her," he stated with a soft expression at the mention of the other dark-haired Kuchiki. "She my light, you know, and she stopped my rain."

"I do not doubt you love her, Ichigo." Renji said. "I just can't believe it took you that long to notice."

"I had other things on my mind!" Ichigo retorted. "Anyway," he said with a glance at the red-head, "what are you going to do about Byakuya?"

Even at the sound of his name now, Renji felt his heart begin to pound rapidly. A smile wanted to appear on his lips at the thought of his taichou, and he found that he could not resist. "I plan to talk to him tomorrow," was his reply. He didn't trust himself to look at them from the faint blush on his cheeks. "Hopefully…it goes well."

A dream? Byakuya thought of the dream he had, of Renji holding him across his chest. He had been crying. I…kissed him, Byakuya thought as the dream resurfaced in his mind. The faint brush of Renji's lips echoed in his mind. It felt so real. So real…I could feel his arms around me, and my heart… Byakuya lifted his hand and laid it across his heart, feeling the racing heartbeat. It's still racing, as if it actually happened. I have no idea how I ended up in the captain quarters, awaking to find no one. The tears that had caressed his cheeks had seemed so real as well. …Weeping because of the emotions I have, that are no longer under my control. I…was not able to suppress my feelings for Renji any longer, and although my mind told me to stop, my heart…

Byakuya closed his eyes and sat up in his bed, the sheets light against his skin. The dream felt so real, but cannot be. I…have done so many terrible things. One too terrible to admit. Too much guilt and shame to ever be worthy of your warm, beautiful heart, Renji. I –

A sudden movement made his thoughts cease, and Byakuya's eyes snapped open to find no presence. I feel a reiatsu…foul and tainted like a Hollow's, but something is different.

"Who is there?" he called. The Kuchiki reached out for Senbonzakura, feeling the familiar hilt against his palm. There was nothing. Then, inches from his face, he saw something.

It was a Hollow. It was almost pure white, with a black mask across its face. A dark hole was across it heart, and Byakuya was motionless as the Hollow reached its hand to touch his face. Cold… he thought. Inwardly, he thought of sheathing Senbonzakura but found himself unable to. Byakuya couldn't move. A gasp almost came from him as the Hollow slowly moved its mask from its face.

Only its eyes. Byakuya could see the dark gray eyes, the same shape as his own as they stared into his eyes.

Exactly the same.

"You…"

His world abruptly became black as the Hollow opened a garganta and pulled him away.

All the characters introduced/or mentioned in the story will have their part to play. Now the actual plot starts, and I hope people will enjoy it!