Their walls go down.
Her eyes are fire and smoke, staring at him with the intensity of small stars.
"I'm not you, Byakuya," Yoruichi says, fingernails against his cheek. "I can't be someone I'm not. You can wear masks and erect walls, and resign yourself to this life, but I can't. I refuse."
He tries to take her hand. She jerks it away. The room is full of gray and burgundy shadows.
Byakuya sighs, weary of this battle. Even after one-hundred years, she hasn't changed. It infuriates him that she is so alike her former self, while his childhood days seem eons behind.
She's right. She's always right. But he cannot say it; he can't say anything.
His walls go up.
"Then I have nothing more to say. I am not asking you to change. I am only asking you to stay."
He begins to leave, but she stops him. Her fingers clasp his wrist, pule beating against her skin. She expected his skin to be cold, but it's warmer than anything in the world.
She leans up to mouth words against his ear.
"It'll break you someday," she says, "but I'm not going to watch it happen."