Ki wo tsukete: All the best

Jaa ne: See you, considered very casual. Rude to say to someone who's not a close friend

Out Of Focus

A week passed and the lounge beside Rhea's bed had started to learn the shape of Ichigo's body. He stayed there most of the time, only leaving to shower, eat, and exercise. Really, he didn't even have to do that. They had a cafeteria, gym, and bathing quarters, but the food at the hospital was overpriced, and sometimes, Ichigo felt like he couldn't even afford to breathe the same air as these champagne socialist.

Really, as big as the place was, it seemed so small sometimes.

Ichigo spent most of his time time using his laptop to look for a job. Something close by, perhaps at a doctor's office, would be preferential.

This wasn't where he thought he'd be a thirty years old, wasn't where he was suppose to be. He met Rhea in Tokyo at medical school. Ichigo was aiming for pediatric surgery. Rhea, the ever curious woman that she was, wanted to put her hands in every part of the body before deciding which one was for her. She was foreign, heavy with greek roots diluted by her American nationality. She spoke choppy Japanese, but radiated with a charming cynicism. Maybe that's why everyone loved her. She was a cultural anomaly in a country that valued conformity. She was witty and boisterous in a way that made her Japanese peers unsure of how to react to her. She didn't belong, but she also wasn't deterred, elbowing her way into acceptance by simply being herself.

She was head strong and family oriented, and after graduating medical school, Ichigo asked her to marry him. He was sure she'd say no. She was interesting and so open, and by comparison, Ichigo was pinched at all of his corners, endearing in such an acquired sense, nothing like Rhea at all. But not only did she say yes, she also agreed to do their internship in Karakura so that Ichigo could be closer to his family. Maybe if they had of stayed in Tokyo, they'd be working in this hospital instead of living in it.

At twenty seven they took their medical boards and passed, ready to start their residency and the rest of their careers, their lives, but then the accident happened. There was no planning for that.

Afterwards, he worked in his dad's clinic. He couldn't do his residency, couldn't walk down those halls knowing Rhea should be there too, because maybe life didn't care about what she deserved, but he sure did.

He'd sometimes watch the medical interns with envy. His fingers would twitch at the sight of a scalpel, and maybe that's why he had to periodically leave the hospital. It was a reminder of everything he, they, could've had if life wasn't so cruel.

Ichigo adjusted his messenger bag as he walked down the corridor leading to his wife's room. As he stepped closer, he heard the familiar voice of Byakuya. Ichigo hadn't seen the man since their less than stellar first meeting, and he felt a strange reaction to his absence. At first, he was relieved, but as days passed, he became indignant at the fact that Byakuya would go so long without visiting his sick wife. It wasn't until yesterday that he overheard one of the nurses saying that Byakuya was out of town on business. Apparently he was the president of Kuchiki enterprises, a corporation that owned hospitals all across Tokyo. Once again, Byakuya and Ichigo's assumptions about him left him with some unsettled guilt.

It wasn't until Ichigo was stepping through the door that he registered another, more flustered voice. Byakuya looked up to him, brows fretted into one, and a young woman snapped her head around with sharp eyes and scathing cheeks. She looked like a much healthier version of the woman lying by their side.

He floundered between those two glares before dipping his head and lumbering towards Rhea's bed. The young woman looked back at Byakuya and said, "Renji and I will see you for dinner tonight, yes?" Byakuya nodded tensely. "Right. Goodbye Nii-san."

Ichigo sat in a chair with a book opened and held up to his chest. He peaked over the dog eared page to see Byakuya looking between the door and the chair at Hisana's side. There was a flare of embarrassment in his eyes that Ichigo wasn't actually sure was there, but finally, as if in defiance of it, he sat down.

The silence that followed was so big that Ichigo couldn't even pretend to concentrate on his book. It was awkward and stifling and made the air feel itchy.

"Long day?" Ichigo asked.

Byakuya looked at him, and Ichigo had the thought that his eyes slid to whatever they touched, seemingly incapable of jerking or showing any substantial uncertainty.

"Not particularly, and your self?"

Ichigo shrugged a shoulder. "Everydays long when you don't have much to do. I've just been job hunting, really."

Byakuya nodded as if he understood what that was like even though they both knew he didn't. Then he looked down at Hisana, brushed a strand of hair from her forehead, and thoughtfully thumbed circles on her skin.

"I thought about your words," Byakuya said. "You're right, I've never had to give up everything to save a person I love."

Ichigo shifted under the man's unforeseen earnesty, but his eyes laid in hardened anticipation.

"But I do know what it means to make sacrifices, and I like to think that, if there was a chance of her waking up, I would give up everything."

"Maybe there is a chance…"

Byakuya tilted his head again, and it was like looking at his reflection in a pool of water, him but not quite, rippled and more tired and aged than Ichigo had ever seen himself.

"No, there's not," Byakuya said. They were unsinkable words, fact, and Ichigo felt them like lead in his mouth.

"How long?"

"Six years."

Ichigo nodded, unsure of what to say. He felt this odd coziness in their shared air of ineffable tragedy, as if he had never been more understood than he was in the presence of this man, a midas man who lived in a tower of gold, who Ichigo shouldn't even be able to see, let alone touch.

It was funny in a sort've distorted way how shared scars could bridge the greatest of gaps.

"That was your sister?"

"Sister in law, technically, but I have known her since she was young. She is like a sister to me."

"I have two. Twins." Ichigo scratched his neck and looked about with a nostalgic smile. "I spent most of my life worrying about them. Still do."

"And you always will," Byakuya said, an edge of sentiment sharpening his noncommittal tone. "That is the plight of any brother."

"Yeah, I…" He looked to Rhea and squeezed her hand. "We miss them, and I know they miss us."

"You always speak of yourselves as a pair."

Ichigo looked up at Byakuya who looked back with a curious tilt of the head. It wasn't a question but more a statement of intrigue, and it left Ichigo feeling strangely realized.

"Yeah, I guess I do. What of it?"

"It's a good thing," Byakuya said as he stood. "I will be leaving now. Ki wo tsukete, Kurosaki Ichigo."

"Yeah… Jaa ne, Byakuya."

Ichigo heard Byakuya huff something like 'always so informal' as he left, causing him to smirk.

'What a weird guy.'

xXx

The next day, Ichigo had fallen asleep with his headphones in and woke up not to music, but to a dead phone, a sore neck, and the baritone of Byakuya Kuchiki.

Ichigo's eyes opened to the couch cushion he was nuzzled against, and he laid there adapting to wakefulness.

"Rukia is angry with me."

There was a certain melodic somberness in the man's voice that Ichigo didn't expect. It was like opening up a jewelry box only to find music coming out.

"I suppose frustrated would be a better way to phrase is."

Ichigo realized Byakuya must've been speaking to Hisana, and even though it felt invasive, the idea of piping up now seemed horribly awkward. So he steeled himself to fake sleep until Byakuya left, or at least, stopped talking.

"It is partially my fault. She told me that I should consider 'moving on'. She said that she knows deep inside I want a life partner… I did not react well to her nosiness… You know how she is, respectful, but pushy when it comes to something that truly concerns her."

Byakuya paused for a while, and Ichigo almost considered sitting up before he started talking again. "She is not wrong. There is a part of me… that does yearn for that. What she doesn't know is that there is nothing to move on from. It isn't you or my love for you that stops me," he admitted softly. "How do I explain… I want the affection of another partner, but I feel as if my love for you drained me. I am exasperated, and I find myself wondering if it is worth the effort. Perhaps it's a sort've learned helplessness."

Byakuya paused again and Ichigo found himself unexplainably invested in even the slightest hitch of Byakuya's breath.

"Maybe it is time. I do not want to be hopeless anymore."

There was a heat at the base of Ichigo's neck that put sweat on his palms, and without thought, he was swinging his legs up and over the side of the lounge, ripping out his soundless headphones.

"You can't do that."

Byakuya's eyes widened marginally. "You were listening?" He asked.

Ichigo could see the assumingly impenetrable shield that both projected and protected Byakuya grow thinner and thinner. There was this sort've translucent calmness superimposed atop just barely discernible outlines of anger.

"I-I not on purpose," he said, scurrying to his feet. Byakuya stood too. "I woke up, and my phone had died and there was no music to drown you out, and it felt weird to just pop up, and well, that's not even the point! You can't just abandon your wife like that."

His shock vanished into a messy bluntness. The lines of his face turned sharp in a very unrefined way.

"How dare you," he said evenly. "You know nothing about Hisana or I, and yet you presume to know what she would want."

"From one man with a comatose wife to another, I know that if you want hope, you should put it in her." His lips curdled like rotten milk at the thought. "You're married. Thats till death! How could you cheat her like that?"

"You idealistic fool. I almost pity you, thinking that life's greatest tragedies can be put into these black and white boxes."

Ichigo's head grappled at thoughts and impulses, but before he could form a coherent response, Byakuya was walking towards the door. He reconsidered, turning around to add, "Remember, Kurosaki Ichigo, what someone dislikes about another person tends to be what they dislike most about themselves."

"What the hell does that mean?"

"You know," Byakuya said, continuing in his righteous strut.

"Where the hell do you think you're going. We're talking here."

"Our wives may share a room," Byakuya said, not even turning to regard Ichigo, "But I desire we be better strangers."

He left, and Ichigo stood there with his face in his palms and an insurmountable sensation of bitter shame.

xXx

Ichigo took a walk. He had to. The walls of that room got closer the more he paced between them.

The sky was a muted purple, sun retired below the horizon. He tugged his beanie down over his ears as he drifted against the chill of February, staring more at what was above than ahead. He stopped at the gallery and looked inside to see ten or so children running around.

Feeling compelled, he went inside and smiled at the brood of children taking chairs from stacks in a corner and lining them up in front of a half wall with a pulled down projector hanging from it. They made the menial task look fun as they skipped and sang and spun about.

Ichigo turned towards the photos, bypassing the skylines to look at the others. He regarded a cannon portrait of a man sitting on a bench. He had lifetimes etches into the skin of a hand covering his face. His form was slumped and he bared against his knees as if he couldn't support the weight of his day. Ichigo could feel that struggle manifest in his chest.

'This photographer's really good at making you feel what their subject feels.'

"May I help you?"

Ichigo spun around, but his words disappeared at the biting sight of Byakuya Kuchiki, whose apathy was only slightly betrayed by a widening of his eyes.

"Byakuya, what are you doing here?"

"This is my gallery. Those are my students, and that," he pointed at the wall, "is my work."

Crimson pooled in Ichigo's cheeks as his mouth grappled helplessly through an unusual mortification. Byakuya's unimpressed glare wasn't helping either.

"I- um, I didn't know. I-I-" He turned towards the exit and shuffled away, leaving behind only a muttered, "Sorry."

xXx

Ichigo wasn't sure how he ended up at a nightclub with the baseline of some American pop song thumping in his chest.

Okay, that wasn't entirely correct. It was Yumichika's doing, but how he managed to convince Ichigo was another mystery altogether. He just had this way about him, this infectious idealism. He could make standing naked in the middle of the Red Light District sound like an evening well spent if he wanted to.

Really, it was a subtle dose of manipulation, but Yumichika had this way of making you want to be manipulated by him, especially when it came from a place off good intent.

The first thing Ichigo saw when they walked through the neon flashing entrance of Dragon Men was two guys kissing by the payment desk.

"Is this a gay club?"

"Why? Do gay clubs frightened you?" Yumichika smirked and payed for both of their coverage charges before Ichigo could protest. "I hate to break it to you, but I'm gay."

Ichigo scoffed. "Really? And I thought Ikkaku was just a really muscular girl this whole time."

Yumichika gave him a witch's eyes and Ichigo held up his hands defensively. "Sorry, forgot." As they walked towards the bar, he said, "Anyway, I did date a guy in college, ya know?"

"Oh, yeah! I almost forgot. I thought that was just a flook."

"A flook?"

"You know, you're experimental college days." He rolled a shoulder. "You tried out men and the experiment yielded bad results."

They paused to order their drinks. Ichigo got a Tatami Cocktail and Yumichika a Green Breeze. When the bartender walked away, Ichigo gave Yumichika an aslant glare. "You can like both. "

"Ah, I know, bisexual men are a thing, but in this binary world of ours that loves putting people in boxes, who can fault me for forgetting?"

The bartender brought out their drinks and they sat, stretching out their vocal cords to speak over the music until Yumichika finally pulled a less than enthusiastic Ichigo out on the dance floor.

They danced with minimal complaining on Ichigo's part, and he was surprised to find himself having a good time. He told himself that this was okay. Told himself that it was just one night, that Rhea wouldn't mind. Ichigo needed to get out of that hospital. He spent the last week tip toeing around corners as if he was trying to avoid boobie traps when really he was avoiding Byakuya. So far he sidestepped the man's presence, but the tension of that inevitability still made knots of his shoulders.

After a few songs they ordered a couple more drinks. Yumichika went to the bathroom and left Ichigo idly circling the rim of his glass with his fingertip in attempt to dodge flirtatious looks. It was a good fifteen minutes before he returned with a grin too big to be innocent.

"So," he said, "I met someone."

"... You were gone fifteen minutes."

"When you're good, you're good."

"Wait-" Ichigo's face went slack. "You're ditching me, right?"

"You make it sound so malicious. This was my intention the whole time."

"What!?"

Yumichika gave a look of endeared patience before ordering another cocktail. "You need to meet people, Ichigo! And you can't do that if you're latched onto me like a safety blanket."

Ichigo scowled. "Yumi-"

"I worry about you. Just… give it thirty minutes. If you're absolutely miserable, come find me and I'll kick his very nice, very supple ass to the corner." Yumichika picked up his drink and nudged a pouting Ichigo. "You're in one of the best cities in the world, Ichigo. Live a little." He started to descend into the crowd and cut off Ichigo's objections with a loud, over the shoulder, "I'll be in the pool room upstairs"

Ichigo sighed and leaned against the bar. He had no intentions of living a little or whatever that meant. It was hard enough to maintain the relationships he had as is. The last thing he needed was to meet new people he could disappoint.

Ten minutes passed and Ichigo decided to find Yumichika and tell him he was going to go back to the hospital. He meandered through a mass of dancers, their limbs jutting like projectiles, and towards the stairs. The second floor was mellow, warm with golden light and low with indie music.

He stopped in an arched threshhold where he saw Yumichika backed against a billiards table, a pool stick in one hand and another pressed against the chest of the man he was kissing, face cradled in a firm grasp.

A lurching heat grew in Ichigo's stomach. He knew those strong hands, that broad chest and highbrow fashion sense. Ichigo, perhaps, recognized them more because of the way he clashed with his surroundings, like a lion amongst house cats.

'Byakuya.'

xXx

Tifanny91: Thanks love! This'll be a relatively short fic. Hopefully only nine chapters in all, all which should stay pretty short. Hope you enjoy. :)

sherryfanfic1999: Hope you enjoy this chapter

Emilytaylor5999: Thank you! Enjoy.