My happiness lies in your hands. Be careful with it, won't you?

Sojun keeps hiding behind people, it’s a habit he’s picked up mainly when he’s with her. Of course, he doesn’t do it when he’s with his father, Byakuya-sama instils the same reverence in their son that he inspires in most people, which is naturally well and good – except the brunt of the boy’s so-called “bad behaviour” shows when in her care. Yukina-san has mentioned several times that is must be a sign of bad parenting, a particularly bad influence, but personally Satoko encourages his wildness, almost in spite. His freedom. If he dares to go to strangers to hide, he is not afraid to lose sight of her. He feels safe enough. The kind of Soul Society that wasn’t so is years in the past now. If nothing else, Satoko feels grateful for that.


The Manor is bustling with activity. Rukia’s and Renji-san’s wedding it tomorrow and guests have begun pouring through the doors. Although Byakuya-sama has been thoroughly invested in the process, Satoko taking a step back to allow him the honour, she has been busy today overseeing the last practical things. Food moving out of the kitchen. Guest rooms getting aired out and prepared for the overnight stay many have accepted the offer of beforehand. Currently, she is assisting Ume in carrying boxes of welcome gifts to the main reception room, although her maid has protested several times that it’s not proper, mistress, let me, let me. Being far ahead now, Ume is all but lost to the flood of servants rushing back and forth.


There are many people for Sojun to hide behind and she has lost sight of him again.


Sighing, she stops, five boxes stacked in her arms as she turns around, trying to spot him anywhere. A maid has to sidestep her, apologising profusely, bowing her head as she moves past. Sojun is nowhere to be seen. Satoko turns the other way, towards the open doors to the garden, knowing her son likes the koi fish as much as Byakuya-sama does. He sometimes goes, just to look.


”Sojun,” she calls, then, slowly moving through the hall, eyes moving from living hideout to living hideout, maids and servants, a nanny rushing to whom Satoko sacks with the ungrateful task of searching the storage room they came from, especially since she can sense his Reiatsu nearby. He hasn’t gotten far. Turning again, she almost crashes back-first into a hard front, the boxes toppling dangerously in her arms. Satoko halts completely.


His arms come around her, grabbing the bottom box and lifting all five of them out of her grip carefully, balancing them with some ease in one arm as Satoko turns around towards him. She notices his eyes first, kind eyes, then his hair (orange) and his Reiatsu (immense). He doesn’t introduce himself, and truly he doesn’t need to. The statue in the garden doesn’t look much like him but even so, she knows who he is.


“Yo,” he says and no one has greeted her that way for a long time, so casually. “Need a hand with these?”


“I don’t wish to inconvenience you,” she tells him, bowing her head slightly. When she looks back up, he’s glancing, head tilted to the side a little, at the commotion around them, it’s just a quick scan of the room, before looking back at her.


“It’s fine, I’m not doing anything.”


“Actually, I’m looking for my son,” Satoko clarifies, gesturing towards the tall tower of boxes, resting snugly in the crook of his arm. “It could take a while.”


“I’ll help you,” Kurosaki Ichigo just says, it’s not even an offer, it’s just a statement, like she could refuse, but he still would. Help her. Like he would help her regardless of her opinion on it or inclination. Satoko knows that’s how Kurosaki-san has helped them before, isn’t that so? She knows that is how some people are constructed, it’s fused into their very spirits; they will carry out what they feel is their responsibility, unable to focus on anything else until their mission has been completed. Yes, Satoko knows men just like him.


Her gaze softens, though she still protests, “the boxes…”


“They don’t weigh anything,” Kurosaki-san dismisses her, turning aside and looking around again. “Besides, he can’t have gotten far, your kid. I mean, how old can he be?”


From his question, she gathers he must think she’s too young to have a child over a certain age. Satoko purses her lips slightly, saying in a playful voice, “no doubt, that’s meant as a compliment”, then she smiles, once he turns his attention back on her. The edge of teasing is very soft, she’s hardly cutting him with it at all. He seems to notice belatedly and blushes, the bridge of his nose going bright red.


Satoko saves him having to stutter out a reply, instead telling him, “he’s almost three, but he runs like he’s five.”


“Even a five-year-old can’t run forever,” is Kurosaki Ichigo-san’s pragmatic response. He leads her through the hall to the gardens outside, gift boxes and all towering next to his head. Satoko follows, because she can’t think of anything she would rather do.



*



Ten minutes later, they are no closer to finding Sojun. They’ve fine combed the two nearest gardens and are on their way back to the main hall, when Kurosaki-san asks her, trying to sound casual about it – though nothing he could have said would have seemed casual in comparison to the very focused silence they’ve worked in, least of all this.


“So,” he initiates, ”do you work here or something?”


“You could say that,” she says, glancing sideways up at him, her smile back in place. He isn’t as tall as Byakuya-sama, but neither is she and therefore, he still towers a head over her. Besides, she isn’t as such worried about Sojun, the Kuchiki house is overrunning with nannies, someone else will find him, if the two of them don’t.


“What’s that supposed to mean?” he asks, blankly and unbothered by it. Most men that Satoko might tease this way would take great offense that she even dared. Kurosaki-san just wants to know. She drifts a little closer to him to allow a maid room to pass them on the pathway. Kurosaki-san doesn’t budge, simply lets her.


Aside from Byakuya-sama, Satoko isn’t used to being let. She looks up at him.


“I’m part of the Kuchiki household, I have my duties here,” she tells him, but knows he could gather all kinds of things from that, too, it isn’t very clear and truly, she wants to be forthcoming with him for reasons that aren’t entirely clear to her yet. “As Byakuya-sama’s wife,” she elaborates finally, for his benefit.


His expression changes comically, though he keeps on moving forward after only a minor stumble. ”No way, you’re Byakuya’s wife?” Instead, he now keeps staring straight ahead, as if he’s afraid to as much as look at her. Satoko’s lips curl in a small, amused curve. She’s beginning to think, there should be more statues to Kurosaki Ichigo in their gardens.


She’s beginning to understand why Byakuya-sama thought they needed one in the first place.


“Now that we’re properly acquainted, please call me Satoko,” she says. “It’s my pleasure to meet you, Kurosaki Ichigo-san.”


Mumbling, flushing bright red and not just across his nose anymore, Kurosaki-san repeats her polite phrasing, before asking in a somewhat sullen voice, something that really does remind her of someone else, long ago. “You know who I am, huh?”


“We have a statue of you in our garden,” Satoko explains.


“Oh, yeah, but that -- doesn’t look that much like me, does it?” He sounds uncertain, as if just having to ask implicates something on its own. Satoko simply smiles, small, mischievous. Kurosaki-san’s face draws closed, like a door being shut and someone hiding behind it. Her smiles disappears, as if it was soon to follow.


“Byakuya-sama has spoken of you,” she gives him. That much. He falters, abruptly. When she turns around, she is expecting to find him staring at her, possibly in some stage of wonder, but instead he’s looking off to the side, eyes fixed on something, like a hound during the hunt.


“That your kid?” he wants to know, pointing towards a koi pond and Sojun leaning on a rock next to it. Satoko breaks into a run.



*



The boxes with welcome gifts have been placed safely on the bench next to them, their knees touching slightly every time Sojun bounces up and down, placed on Kurosaki-san’s lap, his hands supporting the boy as he tries to jump up and grab at his hair, though Kurosaki-san is careful and doesn’t let him get properly off the ground. Satoko watches, feeling at perfect ease.


“Difficult to believe this is Byakuya’s son,” he says after some time, almost as if to himself. Satoko turns her face towards him, hands folded in her lap.


“Why is that?”


There is no judgement in her voice. He can reply however he likes, she won’t hold it against him. Her tone betrays that as well.


So, Kurosaki-san says, ”well, he’s cute, isn’t he? Hey, stop that. Ouch.” Sojun has finally managed to reach far enough up to grab a handful of Kurosaki-san’s orange hair, Kurosaki-san spending a good minute trying to make him loosen his hold again. “Ouch, ouch, ouch.”


Eventually, Satoko takes pity on him, leaning into his personal space and taking Sojun from him, grabbing his little wrist and making him immediately release his hold on Kurosaki-san’s hair, like magic, like a mother’s touch. While she’s leaned in against him like that, Kurosaki-san turns his gaze on her and it is uncertain in a way that makes her heart melt for him.


“Satoko-san,” he says. ”What have you heard about me?”


Holding Sojun in her right arm, she reaches out with the left and places her hand very lightly against Kurosaki-san’s shoulder. He looks down. Not demurely, not the way Satoko does it. No, in some kind of defeat.


”You’re the reason that Byakuya-sama had a home to return to, that’s what the statue symbolizes.”


She stands up, looking down at him, his bowed head, and then saves him the pain of finding a way forward from the corner he’s pushed himself into, emotionally. “If you would carry the boxes to the reception area down the hallway, I’d be very grateful. Thank you.”


Her ”thank you” is twofold and only partly a dismissal. It’s also a get-out-of-jail-free card, isn’t it? Kurosaki-san seems to realize this, standing up and picking up the boxes, truly like they weighed nothing, meeting her eyes over the top of the stack. “Anytime,” he replies.


When she smiles this time, she is beaming. Kurosaki-san scoffs and turns towards the doors leading to the hallway, soon disappearing in the flood of servants and staff, though she spots his orange hair every now and then as she glances in the direction he went.


“Kurosaki Ichigo,” Sojun says excitedly, pointing after him. Satoko nods and smiles and takes his hand, so he isn’t being rude with his pointing fingers.


“Yes,” she agrees, ”Kurosaki Ichigo.”

Kuchiki Yukina-san, herself the second cousin of Byakuya-sama, is married to a man who is, many times removed, her relative, also a member of the Clan, and the woman prides herself of this purity of blood, that she is a Kuchiki on both sides, before and after marriage. More than that, she is also currently the mother of the only male heir, albeit not direct, to the position of Head of the Family, because Byakuya-sama has produced no children. Not in his first marriage. Not in his second.


Once, when she was younger, she was also known to be very beautiful, but that memory – of Kuchiki Yukina’s beauty – has waned some after Satoko came into the family. Even before she and Byakuya-sama started connecting, people said Satoko was now surely the most beautiful woman, perhaps even member in the general sense, of the Kuchiki Clan. There was no competition.


These two things combined, that Satoko threatens her memory and her future, too, has turned Yukina-san against her irrevocably. Satoko understands her position, but family intrigues have always bored her, they did in her own family and even Byakuya-sama with his hands or his cock cannot make up for this harsh expression of his family’s ambitions.



*



The women of the Kuchiki Clan attend monthly meetings to go over future events to be arranged and prepared, to gossip and to exchange family news among themselves, all the things that don’t interest the men, like pregnancies, children, fashion tips and the likes, and most importantly to rearrange their internal pecking order.


Satoko, naturally, always attends these meetings.


The first six months, she was a quiet presence, tolerated mostly for the possibility of Byakuya-sama’s interest, but held in wordless contempt because everyone knew, he would rather have his hand chopped off in battle than touch her. Now, as things have changed, she has risen to the very top of the ladder, she is not only the most beautiful, she is also the most respected – the other women’s respect for her mirroring Byakuya-sama’s own. What does Satoko-sama think of this, or this? What is Satoko-sama’s opinion of these plans?


It has caused a rift down the middle of the congregation, because although a great majority of the attending female members of the family now listen to her without fail, Yukina-san is not alone in her position. The Kuchiki Clan is huge and someone is always on the verge of it, losing face, losing standing, losing status. Besides, Yukina-san also has a sister, younger, closer to Satoko in age, Yui-san, and together they are a force to be reckoned with.


They have friends. And those friends have sisters. And those sisters have ambitions of their own.


It is like facing a many-headed snake. So, Satoko dresses for war every morning as Ume helps her with her clothes, her makeup, her hair. It is her armour. It must hold.



*



They’ve been to the onsen, family expedition, just the ten highest-ranking women of the Clan, and afterwards they gather, skin glowing and blushing red, in Satoko’s bathing facilities, mirrors set out as a handful of maids tend to the various members’ hair and skin routines.


After her talk with Rukia, Satoko has been in a quiet mood, knowing Byakuya-sama has set time aside for their weekly tea meeting in a couple of days, at which she realizes it’s something she must bring to his attention. Not only for Rukia’s sake either. Byakuya-sama’s relation to Hisana-sama is none of her business, but his well-being is, still. Where the two intersect, she must make some difficult decisions. To overstep her granted authority or to stay behind, watching him struggle onwards on his own.


Byakuya-sama does enough on his own, really. Too much, already.


While Ume gets her clothes, Satoko starts in on her hair herself, Yukina-san seated on her right in front of her own mirror, applying creams to her hands and face. Satoko doesn’t look at her, observing her own features in the mirror while she starts combing camellia oil, the one thing she has her mother bring from home, her family has it specially made, into her hair in long strokes of her left hand. She can feel the other woman’s eyes on her all the while.


“What an interesting scent,” Yukina-san remarks, pursing her lips. “Is that a new product you’ve taken into use, Satoko-sama?”


“It’s not,” Satoko replies, already expecting that this will spiral out of control. “It’s an oil the Ayakura family has used for generations. It softens the hair, really, it’s magic.”


In the large bathroom, the silence that falls is absolute.


Turning slowly towards her on her knees, watching her as she finishes combing through her long, dark brown strands, Yukina-san’s eyes glint victoriously. Satoko calmly puts the comb down and reaches for the flask with the oil, applying more to her hands to start patting it into the surface of her hair, too, wetting it superficially. She uses about a flask a week like this, her mother brings them every time she comes by.


“Surely, you’re not saying, you bring in things from the Ayakura family. I must have misunderstood,” Yukina-san says, slippery like an eel.


“I’m sure what I said was perfectly clear,” Satoko smiles, her voice sweet but steely. Authoritative.


“Does Byakuya-sama know of this? I can hardly imagine he would approve, we are self-sufficient in the Kuchiki family, Satoko-sama.” Yukina-san looks around at the other women who nod and nod and nod, everyone knows how the Clan has a hand in all trade, everywhere, there is nothing they cannot procure if they want it, but the camellia oil is a recipe that was originally made by her great great grandmother and has never been commercialized. It was a family secret, the reason people for a time said, soft as an Ayakura woman’s hair, though the expression has gone out of use after their decline. Even the great Kuchiki Clan couldn’t buy this oil. It isn’t for sale. It’s a gift, mother to daughter. Perhaps all her mother gave her, besides life.


At the sight of her expression, interpreting it to be insecurity, Yukina-san quickly adds, “I’m not blaming you, Satoko-sama, you couldn’t know, being an outsider, of course.”


Drying her fingers off in a wet cloth Ume has left out, knowing this routine intimately, as it’s usually her doing it, Satoko turns her head to glance sideways at Yukina-san, her smile smaller, but unwavering. Innocently, she says, as if she was talking about the weather or the food they would be eating in some other context, “in my experience, the most Byakuya-sama cares about my hair routine is how he can get it down again.”


Once more, a silence falls, stunned this time. Yukina-san’s eyes go slightly wide.


“Satoko-sama!”


Heart pounding, Satoko returns to her hair, her reflectiton in the mirror, beginning to roll up long strands of it into their intricate shapes, pinning them against the back of her head. She can hear Ume and another maid entering, the maid rushing over when she sees what Satoko is doing, kneeling behind her with a muttered, please let me, mistress, and Satoko leaves the rest to her willingly. Out the corner of her eye, she looks at Yukina-san, Yui-san behind her, then the rest of the women in turn.


“You may bring it to Byakuya-sama’s attention if you find it necessary, but even if he should object to my use of it, I do not intend to stop. The bintsuke oil that the Kuchiki family favours is very fine and of an exceptional quality that I fully recognise, but I will not apply anything to my hair that makes it hard.” She looks back at the mirror, at herself in it, Ume behind her, the nine women a circle at the edge of her vision. Satoko concludes, “I do not think that kind of hardness suits me. Should this be a problem, that is something Byakuya-sama and I must solve on our own.”


Yukina-san scoffs, looking over at Yui-san, exchanging a long look. Both of them smile, small, sharp, as they return to their own makeup. Satoko’s hands are folded, still, quiet, quivering, in her lap.


“Really, Satoko-sama, what a speech.”


“You should think she was leading an army,” Yui-san adds, everyone laughing, hiding behind their hands.


Shouldn’t I hope to, Satoko thinks and neither speaks, nor laughs. Against you? A couple of minutes later, the conversation turns once more to who is most likely to end of pregnant next. As always, it doesn’t relieve the tension in the room, and in the end no one mentions Satoko among the candidates.


Does that make it a tie, between Yukina-san and her?