A/N: Hokay guy, ya'll got me down on my virtual hands and knees pathetically begging for feedback. Heres the deal: there are four chapters left after this, and I'm going to try to get a chapter out per week until it's finished. I may have to enter into a blood pact with some creature of the night or promise my first born child to do so, but Imma really try. I didn't get a lot of feedback on the last chapter which kills my motivation because it's like I'm screaming into the void. So help your girl Ashes out and drop me a comment(Even if it's mean. I thrive off flames)
Terms to know
I should probably clarify for those who don't know that a "Swan Song" is a song/gesture given when something or someone is dying. It's in relation to the title and a line later on in this chapter.
Imouto: little sister
Song: A Great Big World's "Say Something."
The Black Swan Sings at Midnight
xXx
"And I am feeling so small.
It was over my head.
I know nothing at all
And I will stumble and fall.
I'm still learning to love,
just starting to crawl.
Say something, I'm giving up on you."
Being a Kuchiki was like encountering a continuous series of open doors that you could never pass through. In this, Byakuya learned how to walk away from the things at a very young age. Sacrifice became his native tongue.
That's how it was suppose to be, how it had been for generations, a lifetime of watching all the things he'd never let himself have through a transparent wall of expectations. There would always be something bigger than his own desires.
Maybe it was his fault for always wanting the wrong things. Or maybe his wealth and status were supposed to be some sort of consolation prize, one he should be beholden to, but how could he feel gratified by such superficial things when loving Ichigo made him feel richer than any amount of money ever did?
He should've expected this, because as random as life could be, it was also predictable in its cruelty. He was destined to be a vacant lot. Anytime he tried to build something of his own, his Kuchiki blood would tear it down for resources. It was to the point where he convinced himself for so long that being vacant was what he really wanted, but in reality, he was sparing himself. There was a mercy in having no doors at all, opposed to getting his fingers slammed in every open one he dared to walk towards.
Only Ichigo wasn't just one singular building in the remnants of his once full life. He was a bustling city, alive and expanding. Byakuya was a fuller person because of Ichigo, and he wouldn't stand by obediently and watch it be burned down right in front of him.
"I do not understand," Byakuya pushed, voice pointedly tense, "I was suppose to have six more months left before marrying."
"Yes," Daichi agreed, "but we, the council, fear that once the peace treaty laws are officialized, there will be little to keep you from backing out of our previous agreement. You do recall that it was your decision to support Kurosaki Taishi without our council that put you in this situation, yes?"
"Yes, but I also recall agreeing to the arranged marriage from the very beginning, along with the lies you manipulated me with."
"I never lied. I told you that we needed you to act as an example, and that was and is still true."
"You know what you did, Head Elder Daichi," he stated definitely. "Not only did you lie with the intent to manipulate me, but you later used my choice to aid Ichigo in justifying actions that you had done well before my supposed disregard. Do you not see the hypocrisy in this?"
"I thought you plucked that rebellious streak out of him a while ago," another said, laughing, and with the way they talked about him as if he was a wild horse in need of taming, he wondered if it was them who changed or him. Had they always been breaking him in or did he, until recently, not have a spirit to break? It had been so long since Hisana, it was hard to recall.
"You know better than to come to this council making exclamations of injustice," Daichi dismissed. "What I did was, yes, a fabrication, but it was an executive decision for the betterment of all noble clans and the population of the Gotei Thirteen as a whole. You, on the other hand, acted unlawfully, and not at all like a clan leader should act."
"What I did was, too, for the good of the Gotei Thirteen. For the entirety of Seireitei. Admittedly, I should not have-
"Nonetheless, there is no discussion here. You have your choices, Lord Kuchiki, but I think we both know which one you will pick."
With such a big world depending on his choices, it amazed Byakuya how he could feel so small. It always came back to this, didn't it? If he didn't agree to the council's terms, not only would it hurt him, but more importantly, it would make all of Ichigo's efforts little more than wasted time. He had no choice but to appease the council. For now.
Byakuya closed his eyes and took a bracing breath. "I had expected more from you, Head Elder Daichi."
The head elder sighed, and if he sounded regretful, Byakuya couldn't find within him a morsel of empathy.
"So does this mean you're accepting our condition?"
"Very well… I will marry in four days time."
"Good… And you, Kurosaki Taishi, what is it that you have to say? You've been unexpectedly silent."
Byakuya, too, was curious about Ichigo's lack of reaction. He had expected, if not partially wanted, a typical show of Kurosaki outrage, a string of expletives accented with hints of violence. Something! But instead, there was only this agonizing, almost taunting silence.
There was none of that all or nothing audacity that had become synonymous with Ichigo, none of that uncompromising fire he wielded when protecting his priorities, but maybe that was it. Byakuya was dispensable, a compromise Ichigo could make.
"I have nothing to say about it," he said, and Byakuya realized that words had never been able to hurt him unless they came out of Ichigo's mouth.
"...Because it's not happening."
It was the feel of his voice rather than the words that shook Byakuya. It was creeping. It was thoughtful, holding more weight than it was willing to give away. Mostly, it hid it's anger in it's undertones, hard to hear by unequipped ears but undoubtedly present.
This wasn't Ichigo's typical storm, but the lull before it, sounding more like Byakuya's approach than his own. How many sides did Ichigo have? Had he just witnessed the birth of a new one?
"Excuse me?"
"I think you heard me, Head Elder Daichi. Let's go, Byakuya."
Byakuya's feet felt inclined to follow before his logic had time to give its two sense, but it didn't matter, because Daichi was talking again.
"Are you sure you're making the right decision?"
"Right?" Ichigo echoed calmly, letting the word hang, flustering the air. "We have two very different definitions of right. To me, manipulating someone who has been nothing but dedicated and loyal to his family into a marriage he doesn't want isn't right."
"And what do you know about right or wrong, Kurosaki Taishi?" Daichi snapped. "Because you picked up a sword and fought you think you have a monopoly on moral high grounds? I hate to be the one to inform you, but the majority of the Gotei Thirteen does and did the same thing long before you graced us." He scoffed, and Byakuya couldn't recall the last time he saw him so shamelessly bothered. "Picking up a blade, fighting against malevolent forces, while hard in execution is a cut and dry decision, but only when you've faced something not so black and white, when you've had to make the tough decisions with little comfort other than knowing you had the best of intentions, then you can talk to me about right and wrong, Kurosaki Taishi."
"I think you don't give me enough credit, Head Elder Daichi. I have my experience with decisions like that," Ichigo admitted, a wistful sadness mingling in his voice. "Look, I'm not here to debate morals with you."
"And neither am I. Either way, Lord Kuchiki will marry. So is your futile stubbornness really worth the consequences?"
"I'll find another way."
Daichi tutted. "Is that so? How?"
"I'll present it to Central without your backing," Ichigo declared, "and they'll listen because it's right."
"There's that word again. You do realize that we can both back and oppose new laws and dictates, yes?"
"You would really put the future of the Gotei on the line for one marriage?"
"I could ask you the same thing. I am not risking anything because I know how this will go. You will understand your predicament," he said slowly, stirring each word before adding the next as if to make sure they mix with every part of Ichigo. "You will understand that, to oppose us to is to have your peace treaty fail. You will understand that as a result of its failure, Lord Kuchiki will be the one punished, and because you are a good man, you won't let that happen."
With the silence that followed came a despondency, and Byakuya wasn't sure if it came from the creases of this situation or from within him. Was it's his own hopeless realization that made the quietness crawl through his ear and into his head to burrow and rot? Was that why every second of silence felt like the death of something?
Finally, Ichigo asked, "What you really want here is an heir and for Byakuya to be an example to others, right?"
Carefully, Daichi said, "... Yes, you are correct."
"Then what about the cloning project?"
There were mumbled exclamations of surprise cut off by Daichi. "I have not considered it as a possibility. It's only been used to create children from the dead, not the living."
"But it could still apply here."
"Well, yes, but why would we do this for you?"
"It's not for me," Ichigo declared, "but for Byakuya. And why not? It's a win win situation." At Daichi's contemplative hum, Ichigo said, "Look, I know I don't know a lot about what it takes to be a noble, but I do know that after the war, with so many dead, it's unclear of how the power dynamics will change. Byakuya told me that it's unfavorable to align yourself with another clan while the spectrum of power is leveling itself out. So isn't this the better option anyway?"
While Daichi sat wordlessly, undoubtedly weighing the idea for it's worth, Byakuya was confronted by conflicted feelings. There was something ridiculous in listening to his future be tossed back and forth between hands that were not his own. The reality that his life was and had always been little more than a business negotiation was almost humorous in such a pitiful way, and yet, there was a sincere comfort in Ichigo's advocacy.
In his life, despite his noble superiority, there were always strings pulling on him. His movements were never completely his own, and the dominance he exuded was a mere farce. They created him, and therefore, in many ways, they controlled him. Even when he resisted, pulled back on these strings, his grasp often slacked with loyalty, but Ichigo's hands had always been stronger than his own.
"I see no problem with this as long as Lord Kuchiki is comfortable with it."
Byakuya's eyes opened, and the words came out as if they had been waiting for an introduction. "I am fine with this arrangement."
"Very well. Kurosaki Taishi, you will head to Wandenreich at dawn and begin to draw up a draft for the treaty. Then, only after council approval, will we support this new legislation. We will send a Jigokuchō to inform Kyōraku Soutaichou. Does this fair well with you?"
Ichigo let out a yes that sounded more like a grunt before turning to leave without word to either the council or Byakuya. Before the nobleman could even consider to follow, he was gone.
xXx
A gazebo overlooking a lake near the gathering hall was as far as Ichigo's frustration carried him. He pushed his palms into the railing, giving his feelings to the wood. That was all he could do, feel, feel so much that he couldn't begin the sort through it all.
If you asked Byakuya, he'd say feelings were meant to be managed, sorted into the petulant and the worthy. Whereas Ichigo's philosophy was closer to, I feel, therefore I express or suppress with no room for middle ground. He had found that their views worked best in compromise, the most advantageous behavior yielded somewhere in between sitting and screaming. Only with his emotions cluttering him like a stuffed closet, he couldn't get to that place. There was the too much to shift through.
These emotions only bulged at the sound of Byakuya walking up behind him. Ichigo turned to see Artemis waiting by the bottom of the steps and the nobleman standing in the center, his expression guarded, ready, as if he was gauging the demeanor of an opponent, and maybe he was.
"Ichigo," he said simply, said as he had everyday before, easily and with a staggering amount of tenderness imbued in his rich voice. When Byakuya said his name, it sometimes felt like the noble's tongue cradled it with comfort only reserved for Ichigo. It was calming, but tonight was different. Tonight, it was the turning of a knob. All of those emotions had only one place to go.
"What were you thinking?!" Ichigo shouted, grabbing Byakuya's haori in a flicker of jutting limbs. "Just offering yourself up to get married like, like- Were you so eager to marry that noblewoman?"
The words felt wrong, lacking in their accuracy, but they spilled all over, creating a mess that hid within it something closer to the truth. Maybe he would've considered what that was, but the mouth that collided into his took up everything.
Now he felt only one thing, and that was the heat between their needy lips as they exchanged passion and longing in the form of clumsy applications. It was deep and wet and not a kiss thought into existence, but a kiss born from the consequence of unchecked emotions, and Ichigo, if even just in this moment, didn't need anything else.
Their hands moved more for the need of sensation than a want to savor, rushing over every neglected part with a greedy consumption. They were incapable of lingering, fearing the seconds would slip away from them like they so often did, caring more about distance than depth.
When Byakuya pulled back, Ichigo was clutching onto his forearms as if holding on to the moment, and he found something reassuring in the way Byakuya kept his arms steady against him, both riding this out for as far as it would take them.
"I agreed to the marriage only to buy time so that we might figure out a solution together," Byakuya said, his breath still on Ichigo's tongue. "Do you really doubt my affections for you?"
That wasn't it. He could feel Byakuya's affection all around him. It was in the scarf around his neck and the hands on his waist. It was in the way he said his name. It was in the bend of his body when they were alone together. His affection was never the question and jealousy certainly wasn't the answer.
"That's not the point," Ichigo said, pushing himself from Byakuya's hold.
The noble frowned. Not in indifference, but in the way a child might when having something taken away from them with seemingly little reason, and Ichigo felt both grateful and guilty at the way Byakuya's face could never hold itself around him.
"Then what is the point?"
Byakuya might as well have asked him the meaning of life, because like that, the answer was hidden within a convoluted array of gray area and life experiences. Ichigo just didn't know himself well enough. He didn't have the insight nor the emotional maturity to be any good at this. He was lacking.
"When I saw you dancing with those noblewoman, I kept thinking that you couldn't be with them, because they'll never know you. They'll never know that you like to read poetry when you can't fall asleep, or how when you have a headache, you take your tea with one sugar. They'll never know that you're fascinated by human festivals or that cute thing you do with your lip when you're concentrating."
Ichigo knew he was rambling, rummaging through that now collapsed closet of thought in search for the point of this all. Somewhere in there was the sentiment he wanted to convey, and if he kept up with this babbling, maybe he'd blunder into what he was looking for.
"But then I thought, maybe they could know all of that."
"And what of it?" Byakuya asked. "I'm not sure I am following you."
Ichigo grabbed his nape, having to consciously control the impulse to stomp out his frustration like a tantrum ready child.
"What I'm saying is, you shouldn't just be married off without any say, but if you wanted to get to know that noblewoman you were dancing with and go at your own pace with her… you should."
Ichigo felt like a tourist in a foreign country, bastardizing each shakily delivered word he attempted. There was something almost right about what he said. Right for who, he was unsure of, because it felt like with the departure of those words something else left him too. With them they took an important part of Ichigo. They felt like loss. They felt like sacrifice, and Ichigo wondered if that was what Byakuya felt like all the time.
He watched as Byakuya's eyes sank deeper into his head, submerged by confusion.
"But that is not what I want, Ichigo-"
"Well maybe it should be," Ichigo snapped, causing Byakuya to flinch. He pinched the bridge of his nose just to have some he could abuse. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't be shouting at you. Look, we- we have time now to take this slow." He paused and looked up to Byakuya. "We don't need to label what this is."
His words seemed safe enough, but they caused a change in Byakuya. His eyes burned with the blood orange light of recognition as he chuckled, breathy and curt, and there was something darkly humorous about it, like his thoughts were the butt of some morbid joke. His chest jolted in a quick instant, paired by a small smirk that felt almost masochistic. He was amused by his own agony, laughing in it's wake.
"We do not need to label this, you say? What a romantically idealized way of saying you do not want commitment." He said, spitting daggers. "There are many things that I am uncertain about, but I do know that in a lover, I am looking for a partner, not some complicated fling."
"What happened to being patient?" Ichigo shouted.
"Patient for what?" Byakuya shouted right back, and at the way outrage flagrantly filled every hollow and nook of the noble's face, Ichigo couldn't think to do anything else but admire it. His anger was as red, rare, and rounded as a blood moon, and Ichigo was frozen by the fiery beauty of it all. "I am willing to be patient, but one must know what they're waiting for. I do not expect promises of forever from you, but I am too old and too prideful to be pinning for someone who doesn't even know if they want to be with me."
"I know," Ichigo said, dipping his head, feeling like a pathetic child.
Byakuya sighed, exasperation clear in the way his eyes seemed to shut not by choice but necessity.
"What do you want, Ichigo?"
"I...I...I want you to be mine, but I don't want to have to share you with them! Those stuck up elders who don't give a shit about you. That whole world."
Wrong. So wrong. Wrong didn't give justice to the magnitude of his blunder. Only he couldn't take it back, because he knew there was something real in those words. They were a half truth, and the answer to how he really felt was in the part he couldn't yet articulate. He kept taking pieces of his thoughtlessness and gluing them together into a picture that he hoped Byakuya could be sympathetic towards, but when he looked at him, all Ichigo could see was the mistakes he made reflected in his eyes.
Byakuya looked flatter, airless like the skin of something that once contained all of life's possibilities. He had been punctured by Ichigo's words, and all of the hope and romanticism that extended his now sagged limbs drifted in the air, echos of what could've been.
Ichigo wanted to catch all of that lost momentum and put it back, but he found his hands incapable, useless. All he could do is let it float away, give itself to the night sky.
Ichigo could spot the moment when the seasons changed within Byakuya Kuchiki. The fluid lakes of springs heat were stolen by a harsh and unexpected cold front. Ice castles erected inside of him, and Ichigo knew if he didn't break them now, then they'd only get thicker in the solitude of winter.
He went to say something, but all he could do is catch the frost in his open mouth. The methods he had used to melt Byakuya before had been unintentional, natural in their execution. It wasn't that simple this time. Nothing was.
"I see," Byakuya finally said, "That world is and always will be apart of me. If you do not want that, then you do not want me."
"Byakuya-"
"It is my fault, truly," Byakuya said, his tone bordering on clinical. "I apologize for entertaining such foolish ideas. We should put to rest all discussion about this before it gets further out of hand."
"Byakuya, what… what are you saying?"
"I am saying that men like you do not fall in love with men like me. You are incapable of it." Something about that angered Ichigo, but before he could figure out why, Byakuya was talking again. "It is for the best. I would ruin you, and you would only resent me in the end."
Byakuya began walking away. He made it to the bottom of the stairs before Ichigo said, "So that's it? You're walking away? You don't want this… me anymore."
The noble turned back to him. Midnight had struck in his eyes, dark blue, the color of love in vain.
"I believe we wanted this before we realized what this actually meant."
Ichigo wanted to grab the noble, stop him, put light back in his eyes, but as the saying goes, actions are meant to back up words, and if he didn't even have those, where did that leave him?
Struck by silence, he watched as the noble left, a snowstorm trapped within moving limbs.
xXx
Ichigo stood freshly showered and stark naked in front of a full length mirror. He dressed himself slowly, ignoring the pain in his chest as he did so.
He grabbed his haori from a coat rack, and like it did for the past couple of days, his hand hovered over the hanging scarf in indecisiveness. After a few conflicted seconds, he dropped his hand and grunted. He wasn't sure why he brought that thing. Possibly to torture himself.
Ichigo left his guest room and made his way through the long hallways of Ishida's palace, every step like walking on wet sand. He had traded out one mansion for another, and right now he'd do anything for a modest house with shabby furniture. His world seemed too big these days.
Although being mansions were where the similarities place had none of the welcoming charm of Byakuya's home. Everything was hard edged and bigger than necessary, meant to make you feel smaller as if being watched by god. It traded out soft cherry wood colors for a more industrial palette, and where Byakuya's mansion had the ever present scent of ginger root and flowers, all he could smell here was the cold.
He continued ambling with no sense of urgency, trying to think of anything but Byakuya Kuchiki. Which seemed impossible with the way Ichigo saw parts of him in everything. One thought would lead to another which would eventually lead to Byakuya. Rather he was talking politics or eating soup, Byakuya was always with him. It was a pain, but one he didn't want to live without, a comfortable aching of sorts. A memory that made the nights a little less lonely.
In all the thinking he had done, none of his thoughts were useful in bridging the chasm that now existed between them, nor was he even sure how he felt about what happened before he left. All he knew was that these unresolved emotions were dead weight in his gut, making the air harder to move through.
'Maybe you'd know how feel if you stopped avoiding it!' Zangetsu screamed in his head.
'All I've done is think about Byakuya.'
'Yeah, you've thought about Byakuya, but not about how you're going to fix things with him. Every time you've started to think about what you want to do, you chicken out." When Ichigo just grunted, Zangetsu said, 'I'll tell you what you want. You want to rush back to Moonbeam, get down on your hands and knees, and beg for him to take your sorry ass back.'
'Hey, he's the one who walked away!'
'Yeah,' the spirit countered, 'and you held the door wide open for him.'
Ichigo really didn't need to be having this conversation moments before he met with Ishida, but he had never learned how to not let Zangetsu goad him into an argument.
'He said he didn't think I was capable of loving him. He said he didn't want me. He walked away, not me.'
'King, you're an idiot.'
Before Ichigo could respond, he heard Ishida's voice coming from around the corner he was a few steps from turning at.
"Make sure to post extra men at the Kurosaki Clinic. The situation is getting worse in Kurakora."
Ichigo didn't notice he had stopped moving until Ishida walked into view, face twisting as if he stepped in a bear trap.
"Ishida, what the hell is going on?"
xXx
Byakuya knew he should've been paying attention to the Soutaichou, but he was feeling a little too self indulgent to listen to the man drag on about minuscule issues that the commander himself could hardly bare to talk about. So instead, he stayed inside of himself, entertaining the pity that seemed to be his only companion these days.
The last two days had been punctuated by empty spaces, spaces once occupied by Ichigo. That was the hardest part of all of this, the fleeting moments of expectancy he had every time he looked beside him and the sensation of disappointment that always followed.
But then again, that wasn't really the hardest part, because the distance between them knew nothing of miles of separation.
'I want you to be mine, but I don't want to have to share you with them! Those stuck up elders who don't give a shit about you. That whole world.'
His whole life he had been picked over, kept for only the parts each individual found favorable. In the end, Ichigo was no different, and what hurt the most about that was, in some small way, Byakuya knew this would happen, and yet he still let it all the same. Yes, they had soul lock, but it was such an ambiguous thing, unable to be defined in any simple terms, different for each person. For them, all it amounted to was wasted potential.
"I am saying that men like you do not fall in love with men like me. You are incapable of it."
No one was capable of it. How could they be? Burdened by duty or burdened by desires, all he had ever been was a weight no one could carry. Baggage to be plundered through for his most desirable parts. For the elders, it was his loyalty and noble pride. For Ichigo, it was everything else in between, and that was almost enough, but as Byakuya once told him, he wanted too much. He wanted to be both the man Ichigo loved and the leader of his clan. He wanted those to be the same person.
Byakuya use to think that, for the right person, he would be portable, carried as a whole instead of in pieces, but if the boy who moved mountains with his will couldn't even do it, than Byakuya was sure no one ever could.
'Master,' Senbonzakura interjected, 'I hate to hear you think of yourself this way. I don't think Kurosaki-sama rejected you, but that he merely needed time-'
'Leave this, Senbonzakura.'
Ichigo was so above him, living right beyond the stretch of his fingertips, but he was still the most enticing possibility yet. Byakuya never knew the sound of a door shutting could sting so much until it was theirs, and he wouldn't let himself be taken by the fanatical idea that it could be opened again. There was only so much disappointment one man could take.
'Master, I will say one last thing. So please heed it. There have been many times where your hope did not suffice, where you were uncertain, and it was Ichigo's that you leaned on. Perhaps instead of pushing him away, you should consider that he now needs you to lean on in his time of uncertainty."
Before Byakuya could contemplate the words, the commander clapped his hands in way that said it was time for all the drifting ears to start listening.
"As most of you should know, the situation in Hueco Mundo is having negative effects. The hollows are dying out rapidly and have moved to The World of the Living to feed at an alarming rate. We will need to increase the number of posted soldiers."
"Were already running low on men as it is," Tōshirō said.
"Which is why we're lucky to have the Quincy's help, and with Urahara-san aid, we don't have to worry about their purging methods disrupting the balance."
"But isn't this just putting a band aid on the problem?" Iba asked. "We can't go on like this forever."
"You're right, and Urahara-san and Kurotsuchi Taichou are both looking for a solution, but as of right now, we'll have to hold out."
"Soutaichou," Byakuya spoke up. "I may have an idea. Although, I'm unsure of if it'll work."
"The floor is yours, Kuchiki Taichou."
"Kuchiki's, our reiatsu has the ability to stabilize the land, as it was gifted by the soul king himself. I am unsure if this would work in Hueco Mundo, but-"
"That's brilliant," Kurotsuchi exclaimed. "I am almost peeved that I didn't consider it before. That is exactly what my plans are missing, an enzyme that can construct a stabilizer strong enough for Hueco Mundo."
The commander chuckled blithely before saying, "Well you heard the man. Great Idea, Kuchiki Taichou."
"You know what else is a great idea?" said a familiar voice that had Byakuya's heart playing hopscotch against his chest. "Telling me about all this."
He didn't need to see Ichigo to understand his animosity. It felt almost pointed, like his icy skin was condensating under the direct heat of the sun.
"Kurosaki-san, when did you start attending taichou meetings?" the commanded asked, a forced lightness in his voice. "You barely want to attend your own meetings."
"Save the cheeky comments for someone who cares. I just came to tell you I'm going to The World of The Living. I'm sure you can guess why."
"Now, Kurosaki-san, I know some might think I don't act like it, but I am your Soutaichou. It doesn't work like that."
"Would you try to stop me?"
Ichigo asked the question as if it was a dare, and there was a silence felt by everyone, because even though Ichigo was a typically reasonable man, he was not the type you wanted to say no to when he was determined.
"That depends," the commander countered. "Are you planning on coming back?"
Ichigo scoffed.
"Relax, Kyōraku. I always keep a promise. After everything's settled there, I'll come back and be your taichou."
"Ichigo-kun," Jushiro spoke up, "You do realize that everything is already taken care of, yes? We have ample about soldiers protecting The World of The Living, your families clinic especially."
"That's not the point," Ichigo said. "I should be there protecting them. Not my friends and allies. They're my family!"
"What about the peace treaty? You're at-"
"I will stand in his place," Byakuya offered reflexively. At the silence that followed his mini outburst, Byakuya added, "When Kurosaki Ichigo is determined to do something, opposing him is a waste of breath. I have been involved in the process up till this point, so I'll have no issue in picking up where he left off."
"Okay then… If it's alright with you, I'll allow it," the commander said, but everyone knew it was just a formality. No one could stop Ichigo from doing anything unless they wanted another war on their hands.
After that, Ichigo left, and the rest of the meeting was nothing more than discussing the semantics of how they would use Byakuya's reaitsu in their plans. Once walking out of the first division, Byakuya went to where he sensed Ichigo head towards.
His mansion.
xXx
"How could you lie to me?" Ichigo demanded to know as soon as Byakuya entered his home office.
"Hello to you, too, Ichigo."
"I'm not in the mood, Byakuya. Just answer my question."
Ichigo followed Byakuya as he moved to sit at his desk with a casual indifference, and just the sight of him and that feigned apathy was enough to stoke his anger.
When seated, Byakuya said, "I think the word lying is an exaggeration."
"Like hell it is," Ichigo snapped. "They're my Imouto, you should've told me that their powers emerged, that they had been the victims of hollow attacks."
Byakuya looked up, his head tilted, and Ichigo had to turn away. His sweet breaths were intolerable to the ear, and Ichigo thought It was amazing how something so simple could go from sounding like the serenade of a saint to the swan song of Satan in the matter of a few conversations.
"I do not know what you're talking about."
"Yeah right," Ichigo scoffed in disbelief. "You're telling me you didn't know that when Yhwach's reiatsu flooded all three world's, Karin and Yuzu's powers were awaken as a result? You didn't know that Ishida and Urahara have been teaching them to use their powers?"
"No, I did not," Byakuya said, and he did so with such a bluntness that Ichigo didn't know what to do with the arsenal of animosity he'd been preparing to launch. "Let me ask you this, Ichigo. Why is it that you are so angry at me when you did not exchange one bitter word with the rest of the Gotei Thirteen?"
"We- well, that's because you're my…"
"You're what?" Byakuya asked, brow perked. When his question was followed by more silence, he added, "You are making this whole ordeal into something nefarious when that is not the case. A few months ago, it came to our attention that hollows had began to invade Kurakora in greater numbers, and a taichou, who shall remain nameless, suggested that we keep the information to ourselves. Not to trick you, but as a gratitude for all you have done. We did not want you to carry around that weight." Byakuya's voice lowered, in it something incapable of indifference. "Is it that hard to believe that we wanted to be the ones to protect your most important things this time? Do you really believe I would purposefully attempt to deceive you?"
Ichigo squirmed in his spot. It was unfair, fucking criminal. Byakuya had stolen all of his thoughts and his sleep in these last couple of days, and dammit, Ichigo wanted to keep his anger. What right did Byakuya have to talk to him in that tender voice and drown him with those beautifully blue speckled eyes after he walked away, after he surrounded himself in ice and told Ichigo that whatever existed between them was over as if he was just canceling a lunch date? It was cruel, taking both Ichigo's love and his bitterness as if they belonged to him.
He clutched his hands as if his resentment might seep through the crevices between his fingers. He refused to let it walk away from him too.
"It doesn't really matter why you guys didn't tell me. It's done with, and all that matters now is going back to The World of the Living. Karin and Yuzu shouldn't have to use these powers. They shouldn't be involved in this life."
"Ichigo," Byakuya said, standing to walk in front of his desk. "I understand the need to protect what is important to you, but what I learned in my battle with As Nodt is that you are not only dishonoring your sisters by not trusting them to protect themselves, but you are also carrying a weight that does not belong just to you."
Ichigo wanted to scream that Byakuya didn't care. He wanted to tell him to take his fake concern and fuck off. He wanted to take all of those nasty, new feelings Byakuya put in him and give them right back, and yet, he didn't want that all.
He was immature, he knew it, but wasn't that the problem all along? When it came to love, he was an infant attempting his first steps. Only he had hoped that, Byakuya, the first person he trusted to care for parts of him that Ichigo himself often overlooked, would be there to hold his hand through it, but instead, he left Ichigo to stumble through these uncharted feelings all alone.
He couldn't explain how much it hurt to have that shoulder taken away the moment he needed it the most. He felt equal parts heartbroken and stupid that he let himself get so attached when he knew it would end up this way. Ichigo could never keep the people he loved the most.
"This doesn't have anything to do with you," Ichigo said, his aggression suffocating words he wasn't big enough to say.
'Don't walk away.'
'We're more than this.'
'I'm sorry. I know this is my fault. I should've never made you feel like I didn't want you.'
But he couldn't say these things. His pride was too big to swallow, and he had already let himself get hurt by expecting more from them than either were capable of.
Ichigo needed time and Byakuya had none to give. They were both lacking, and at the moment, he hated them both for that. He never wanted their love to be reduced to a disappointment.
"I suppose you're right," Byakuya said, dipping his head.
'Don't make that face. Don't make this harder when you're the one who gave up. I just needed time. I was just scared of you getting hurt because of me, of losing you. I just…'
Ichigo dug nails into his palms.
"I'll be back," he said, unsure of what else to say and unwilling to go. He knew he should. He was just a ghost here after all, haunting himself, unable to leave behind something that was dead to them.
"Of course," Byakuya said evenly, "You did make a promise."
"Yeah, one I'm starting to regret," Ichigo said, thinking he couldn't hate himself anymore than he did while telling such a callus lie.
When spitting venom, you burn your own throat too, and he wasn't sure who those words hurt more, because with them a familiar loneliness returned to him, one he'd been numbed to until he found companionship with Byakuya.
He was exercising what affection lingered between them, taking their love out back and shooting it in the head, making sure it was dead. He was killing it for mercy. With those words and the little bullet holes they created in Byakuya's eyes, he was sure he had buried them, and there was both a great pain and relief in that finality.
"I am not such a cold man that your words do not hurt me, Ichigo." Painfully, Byakuya whispered, "I am sorry that I was nothing but a regret to you."
Ichigo felt like he'd just jump from a bride only to realize he still wanted to live a moment too late. It was an act of futility, but with one last pathetic attempt, he tried to breathe life back into all the things that had grown between them.
"I shouldn't of said that, Byakuya. I'm sorry-"
"There is no need to apologize," Byakuya interjected, his voice fighting for a harshness it just didn't have the stamina to win. "Just… please take your leave from here. When you return, we can start the process of moving you to your new division. Until then, I will tend to the peace treaty in your place."
Ichigo stepped closer, thinking that maybe something as insignificant as fewer inches would make the distance between them feel not so insurmountable, but Byakuya took a step backwards as if he feared Ichigo's warmth.
"Just… be careful," he muttered. "The people behind the bombing were never caught, and-"
"I fared perfectly fine before you came into my life, and I will continue to do so when you are not," Byakuya snapped, and as well deserved as his spit felt, it was met by the return of Ichigo's anger.
It always came back to throw a fist in this half-hearted fight of theirs, but Ichigo was pulling his punches, causing wounds only to wrap them up with useless apologizes and sad eyes. Because he was angry, but he was so much more than that too.
Ichigo wiped his sweaty pulsating hands against his uniform, forcing himself not to grab at his wailing chest, and he thought his heart was beating pretty fast for a man who felt half way to death.
"You were ready to go into seclusion after the war!" He hissed. "Those elders, this world, it made you think that the only thing that makes you worth anything is your powers. That's not fine!"
"This world is intrinsic to the man that I am. So when you say that you want me, but without any of the trouble that this world brings, you are rejecting a whole part of me. I am not furniture, Ichigo. I am tired of being rearrange to people's liking." Byakuya's face was flushed, blisters of ice protecting his skin. They were so fragile, practically imploring to be melted, and yet Ichigo could find none of the warmth necessary. "You are no better than those you condemn," he exclaimed with a trembling certainty. "No, you are worse, because I expected more from you."
A stillness came over Ichigo, a cold anger that made his blood feel thicker. They stood there, silently, their heights matching. They stood proud like giants, monuments to their mutual bitterness that refused to crumble, but they felt all of three feet tall. They were so much smaller than this situation, so helpless to it's depths.
"That's what you really think of me?" Ichigo asked, his voice painfully quiet. "I guess we don't really know each other like we thought."
"I suppose not."
Ichigo turned to leave, but his hand caught the door. That part of him that was more than anger, that was sadness and guilt and longing, so much more longing than one person should be capable of containing, had something to say, and it wouldn't let him leave until it did.
"It was never a lie."
"...Excuse me?"
"This, what I feel for you, it was always real. Sometimes I think it's the realist thing about me."
And then Ichigo flashed away, because there was no reason to keep pestering the dead. What he and Byakuya had was rare and real, something he couldn't regret, and it deserved to rest in peace.
...
Up Next: It only hurt's when it's dark, unfinished business, going home
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Tifanny91: Hello dear. First off, thank you for your concern. You have me worried about you! Surgery? Yikes, I hope it's nothing serious. You're in my thoughts. Okay, well, I know the elders do pretty crappy things. However, I personally don't think their bad people. It's human nature to think of your own interest, so it's easy for them to justify their actions by saying it's for the best of the noble clans. But this story isn't really about that, so that's neither here nor there. Now, I'm excited to see what you think of these turn of events, and I think you'll be surprised(hopefully pleasently surprised) with how things play out in the next chapter. Thank you for your review! Until next time.
Darklight14: Your comment gives me life. Seriously, I needed to hear that. Thank you. I hope you enjoy what little is left of this story.
Guest: Hey love. It was just a joke. Sorry if that was unclear. As Uchi explained, Kuchiki's give hairpieces when courting. Thank you as always.