AN: Hi guys. I just wanted to give a shout out to my lovely reviewers: teetertotter23, ulquihime7980, yuli2401, Livingdeadclaire, chibisamasempai20, Guest and Kyon-sama. It means a lot to me. As this is a multi pairing story with one end game, I realise now that I won't be able to make everyone happy. However, I hope my story communicates the different relationships and Orihime's growth through them well. This chapter mainly focusses on Byakuya and Orihime. :)

Disclaimer: Characters belong to Tite Kubo.

Chapter 4: What the Heart desires

Orihime did not remember the last time she had been this possessed. Inherently she was extremely stubborn and when pushed to it, gave her 110%. This was mainly the reason why she had been a top student and gotten into Tokyo U. But even then she had worked hard, but never had to push herself so completely. If she were being honest with herself, she was actually enjoying it.

Orihime seldom found herself overworked at her job. But this was different. There was a purpose. To prove Ulquiorra wrong.

Of course he looked smug when telling her she was going to lead. He knew she would fail. He WANTED her to fail. But would she? Oh no no. Ulquiorra Cifer had chosen to mess with the wrong person. And he would pay! Oh how he would pay..

"Orihime, I am a bit.. worried."

"Huh?! Ah, Rukia chan! No no don't worry about me. I am fine.. ehehehe."

"No, I am worried about whoever you were thinking about right now." Rukia smirked knowingly.

"Oh, batman then."

"Batman?" Rukia was accustomed to Orihime's wild imagination, but she had never seen it used when she spoke about work.

"Yeah, Batman. He came from Gotham to make my life hell. Or so he thinks. Dude doesn't know what's coming at him though. He gave me the lead of this project because he wants to see me fail. But I am NOT giving him that satisfaction, Oh no.."

"Wow! I must meet this batman then!" Rukia said in wonder.

"Huh?! Why? He is not much. Puny little bat!"

"I doubt a puny little bat would have you so wound up, Hime. So….. is batman hot?" Rukia winked.

"Yes…I mean.. no! I mean, what does his hotness have anything to do with this?!"

"Aaaaand I have my answer! Anyways so long Orihime. I should get back home now. Renji has been a bit too needy these days."

"I don't know what you mean Rukia chan, but eww.. TMI. I don't need to know what you and Renji do behind closed doors."

"I meant needy for my attention, gutter brains. Where has your head been lately? I will have to reprimand this batman.." But Rukia never finished. One look at Orihime's pouted face and she burst into laughter. Her friend was so clueless and cute, it was adorable.

Well, hot or not, she was glad that in some weird twisted way, batman was influencing Orihime positively. For, in all of the two years since Orihime had started working, Rukia had never seen her so alive.

Byakuya looked at his messages. Orihime had cancelled on him; again. As an entrepreneur he understood that things could get busy, but this was a bit ridiculous. They were to meet 2 weeks ago, and Orihime had forgotten about that meeting. Then she had called and apologized profusely, and they had scheduled to meet in a few days. Only for that meeting to be cancelled too.

If Byakuya did not know better, he would have thought that Orihime was trying to avoid seeing him. But the woman didn't seem capable of such cunning. She was just busy.

But Byakuya didn't like being hung loose. It pissed him off. So he had decided that enough was enough. One did not give a cold shoulder to Kuchiki Byakuya. So he drove towards Orihime's home, thinking all the while how this was very illogical, but unable to stop himself anyways.

He walked up to her apartment, still considering turning back, when the door opened. The woman in front of him looked completely out of sorts. She was wearing a tank top and pajama with one leg dragged up till mid thigh. Her glasses were propped on her head (wait she wore glasses?), she was staring intently at her ipad, while chewing a pen and her thick auburn hair was tied in a messy bun with strands framing her face messily.

She looked absolutely delectable. Byakuya's eyes widened, more at his train of thought than the appearance of the woman in front of him. She had noticed him too. And that she had not been expecting him was an understatement. Ipad flew out of her hand, as the pen fell on the floor. Byakuya gracefully caught the ipad.

"Kuchiki san! I … I wasn't expecting you! Errr, pardon me for my appearance."

"Not at all. I was the one who came unannounced. I should be the one apologizing." Byakuya said, calm as ever. Plus, the woman need not apologize for her appearance.

"Ah ok… umm, come in! Ah, its super messy though! I am usually not THIS disorganized but things have been crazy at work." She rambled on, as she stepped aside and let him.

Briefly, Byakuya mused at how Orihime maintained her well-behaved and polite demeanor despite her appearance and how shocked she was at what was rightfully a breach of her personal space. Then he took in the appearance of her one bedroom apartment. Papers and cups of coffee were everywhere, with smattering of clothes in between. Was that a bra?!

The woman had obviously been bringing work home. Actually that might be the understatement of the century. He felt a pang of guilt of coming unannounced, or rather coming at all.

"I apologize again. I knew you were busy. I should have called." Called and what? Byakuya thought. Why had he come here, seeking her out?

True they had now been on all of 3 dates as a part of an omiai. But those would hardly count as dates. They were more meetings to discuss the business of marriage. And had he not been the one to tell Orihime upfront that this was to be a business deal? He had no plans of loving anyone as he had loved Hisana. He would be a good husband, but nothing more than that.

In his mind, therefore, this was just a way of whetting the candidates for crazies (as Renji would say), discuss if there were at least some common interests, make the girl aware of his circumstances, and then pick someone whom he could tolerate. Walking in unannounced after being jilted did not feature in this plan. According to the plan, he should have simply rejected Orihime due to her tardiness and moved on to the next candidate. As it were, he needed to find a way to cut down the long list his family had created.

However, much to Byakuya's chagrin, he found himself doing things that didn't make sense when it came to Inoue Orihime. Byakuya briefly pondered if maybe he was falling for her, but quickly dismissed the thought. He knew what love felt like; he knew very well he could never feel it again. And this did not feel like love.

Yet, he couldn't help himself from checking out the frazzled woman in front of him as she desperately tried to clean up and make space for him to sit and then went about making some tea (only to realize that she had run out of cups; all of them currently holding stale coffee). The lack of organization was strangely comforting.

"I can take my tea in a glass Inoue san." Byakuya gently mentioned when Orihime started looking positively distressed about the cups.

"Oh no! Tea in a glass just doesn't suit you Byakuya san!" she blabbed before she could stop herself. Oh great! Now I have no restraint on my speech even when that dictator bat isn't around!

"If you think that Inoue san, then you simply don't know me." Byakuya said, with a glint of mischief in his eyes as he went ahead and poured the hot water and tea leaves in her pink hello kitty glass.

"Ah, I always wondered if it would be a good idea to make seaweed admiral merchandise. But then again, that would make the admiral very commonplace and peasant like." Byakuya sighed, talking about his trademark plushie as if it were a person.

Orihime's eyes widened. What the hell was up with the men around her lately?! Were they all secretly hiding some sort of a dual personality they had decided to unleash on her all together? First it was that Ulquiorra being all cutesie and smug despite the fact that he was supposed to be emotionless. Then it was Kurosaki kun who was supposed to be indifferent to her, giving a damn. And now Byakuya, who literally oozed nobility and propriety, sighing over seaweed admiral, drinking tea from her hot pink hello kitty glass, while propped on a cushion that was barely covering her bra… oh shit! Her bra.

Quickly grabbing her lingerie, Orihime threw it under the sofa, and poured herself some tea too.

"So, what brings you here Kuchiki san?" she said, trying to change the topic from whether seaweed admiral should have merchandise (of course they should! Chappy was her favorite and would have replaced everything hello kitty if Byakuya would just stop treating his plushies like modern art! Not that orihime would tell Byakuya, something told her he would be furious.)

"Oh, I was simply wondering if you were all right. Your cancellations were…, uncharacteristic."

"Oh, that's sweet of you Kuchiki san. And I am sorry. It's just that work has been crazy. "

"Then I must be keeping you. I'll take my leave" Byakuya made a step to move.

"Oh no! Its ok! I haven't seen a person in a week, since I last saw Rukia! This is actually… nice. If you don't mind the mess and drinking tea from a glass."

"Please don't apologize for the mess. As for the glass, I don't mind really. I have always admired the handiwork on Hello Kitty, unimaginative as a cute kitty might be for plushies."

Right. Noble and hot aside, Byakuya WAS the founder and owner of a plushie company. Orihime found his seriousness extremely cute and stifled a laugh, as he enlightened her some more about how the various strokes of Hello Kitty's whiskers were a work of art, but how he had really tried to push the boundaries of such art with seaweed admiral. She almost felt guilty for thinking of seaweed admiral as a blob. Almost.

Soon Orihime was filling Byakuya in about the project. Byakuya was surprised, to say the least. He had always thought that Orihime didn't care much about her job and possibly even lacked career ambition. Why else would a woman appear so somber on weekends, as if just going through the week had drained her of all her energy? But the Orihime before him was not like the Orihime he had met the three times before.

Her eyes burned with a strange fire as she spoke passionately about how urban development should be about the people who experience it and not those who control what goes where. How a company's job was not just to make profit but also to create something meaningful that affected peoples lives. Byakuya was surprised by the articulate and intelligent way in which she expressed these thoughts, not once appearing just idealistic and naïve, but someone who genuinely cared about people and knew the limitations of achieving this in the current corporate environment. Even when she digressed about some batman, Byakuya simply chalked this up to her wild imagination (wait she had one? He hadn't noticed before). Before they both knew, they had chatted up for more than two hours.

Orihime was surprised at how light she felt after talking about her work to Byakuya, and Byakuya was surprised that for the first time in a while he had actually had fun. Then he looked at the time. It was way past when it was appropriate to be at a woman's house.

"This has been…, delightful. But I think I should take my leave. And you should get some sleep." Byakuya said, getting up to clean the glass.

"Ah, don't worry about the glass Byakuya san.. I mean, Kuchiki san…"

"You can call me Byakuya. And I am not so ill mannered that I cannot clean up after myself."

Strange, she had thought he would expect everyone to serve him.

"Ah ok. Umm, thank you Byakuya san." Orihime said, as Byakuya grabbed his coat and made his way to the door.

"It was.. fun! I am really thankful for the distraction! It was relaxing.. hehe." Orihime said, smiling and scratching her head.

Maybe it was that dorky smile, or the messy appearance, or the fact that they had had an unforced and actually fun conversation. But for some reason, Byakuya found himself leaning towards Orihime, putting a strand of her hair back behind her ears, as if it were of utmost important that the strand not be in her face.

Orihime froze at the intimate contact, and then looked into Byakuya's eyes. That snapped the limited rationality in his mind, and he leaned in and kissed her, full on lips.

It was a light kiss, not forced or urgent. Technically it would really be just a peck. But Orihime froze nevertheless. Apparently so had Byakuya.

As if coming out of a trance, he suddenly realized what he had done. He felt his heart give one singular thud.

"I will see you once you are less busy. Rest well.. Orihime." He said appearing as calm as ever, then turned around and walked away as if kissing Orihime had been completely natural.

Orihime stood transfixed at the door. Slowly her hand went up to her lips. The extremely regal and devastatingly handsome Kuchiki Byakuya had just stolen her first kiss.

PS:The batman inspiration is from Bleach Lists Girl. You should check her out on Tumblr, she has a list about Ulquiorra and Batman locked in a room.