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?

She hears nothing of it in the Kuchiki household, of course, no one mentions Kiyo-sama with a word, it’s like he existed one day and disappeared without a trace the next. Naturally, that is the way of existence, just as any day Byakuya-sama can be called to battle from which he might not return.


Some things, as a person with a beating heart, you learn to live with.


Kiyo-sama’s death is one of those things. The death of her first love.


Still, it’s not that she doesn’t honour his memory, so when one afternoon in the streets on her way to the markets, she runs into Kiyo-sama’s mother, wearing grief, her black kimono rich and luxuriant in quality, Satoko stops dead in her tracks an appropriate distance away, her full train of people, Ume and her guards, coming to a halt, too, immediately. The woman spots her like an afterthought and something unreadable passes over her features, hardening them, as she, too, pauses for a moment.


Satoko bows to her, wordlessly.


For a long time, there is no response, no respect repaid although Satoko ranks far above her now and everyone bows to any member of the Kuchiki family. Then, Kiyo-sama’s father emerges from a stall and stops as well, next to his wife, eyeing Satoko warily. It takes another second, then he – almost unnoticeably, but Satoko notices – presses a hand to the mother’s back and both of them, in perfect time, return her bow.


It's as if the whole street breathes a sigh of relief. And Satoko is aware what they were thinking. Although, as Byakuya-sama’s wife, she can’t acknowledge the half-rebellious atmosphere that Honda is building up in the aftermath of Kiyo-sama’s death, she has ears. She isn’t deaf to the news her father brought the previous week in a whispered voice, words not meant for anyone but her, though that is a difficult feat at the Manor.


Everyone knows when she enters and leaves Byakuya-sama’s bedroom, too.


She received the briefing, because that was what it was, regardless of how anti-militaristic her father is, with just a nod, nothing more. She hasn’t asked Byakuya-sama about it yet, perhaps she won’t, in the end. She doesn’t want to bother him with trivialities.


In the streets, a man and his wife continue on their way, while Satoko remains still, head bowed until they’ve passed her by. Only then does she lead her train toward the markets, as was the plan when all five of them marched out the gates at home, half an hour ago.

Somehow Ume, sitting on her knees on a mat near the sliding doors out, seems to know that Satoko is watching her, although Satoko is only sparing her fleeting, sideways glances, the way she has learned to observe people without getting caught back home and still uses here, in her new home. Nevertheless, sidelong glances don’t appear to be a foreign method of observation in the Kuchiki Manor and perhaps that is the reason Ume is not surprised by it.


Neither surprised nor shaken.


She remains seated, waiting to be addressed by her mistress, currently busy reading a scroll of poetry she’s had retrieved from the library. The steward himself brought it to her quarters. An original, Satoko-sama, he'd informed her. Not because he didn’t expect her to handle it with care, but because he wanted her to know why she was supposed to.


Currently, none of the waka really register with her. Is it because she’s not truly that interested? If nothing else, her mind is properly preoccupied, that much is true.


Satoko thinks about Byakuya-sama. Byakuya-sama who’d gone down on her the previous night, bringing her to the kind of climax that would no doubt live in the whispers of Yukina-san and her friends for days, it had been so unmistakable, Satoko had been fighting to breathe in the wake of it, staring up at Byakuya-sama while he slicked himself up to take her, get himself off in her. And while she loves that, too, she’s decided, she had still watched the motions of his hand on himself and wanted it to be some other part of her. Some other deep, intimate part.


Licking her lips, she closes the book and lets the original collection of old waka rest in her lap. Then, she glances back over at Ume.


Ume doesn’t raise her gaze from the mat floor, but she shifts slightly, uneasily.


With a sigh, Satoko finally says her name, making the servant girl raise her face immediately and look over at her. “Yes, mistress.”


And because she can’t stop imagining Byakuya-sama’s cock in her mouth, slicking him up, getting him off, she’s thought about the same thing for days now, Satoko finds the courage to ask, in quite an unaffected voice, despite the throbbing of her heart, “have you performed fellatio on a man?”


The servant girl’s blank face betrays how she doesn’t understand the question, most likely the rather clinical word threw her off. Satoko clarifies after a second, “what I mean is, have you sucked a cock?”


The blankness becomes understanding, then realization, then a harsh blush across the bridge of the girl’s nose. Ume, however, doesn’t falter either. “Of course, mistress,” she replies. Satoko thinks, if it’s so self-evident, why hasn’t Byakuya-sama asked her to do it yet? Doesn’t he like it? Doesn’t he trust her to perform well? Doesn’t he want her to?


She keeps her hands cradled in her lap, fingers curving around the spine of the book lightly, adjusting its weight on her thighs. A long moment passes where she doesn’t say anything and in which Ume seems to question whether she has said too much, in turn. Satoko takes a deep breath, releases it, forces herself to be brave.


Her husband is the Captain of the Sixth Division, if she can’t be brave, perhaps she doesn’t deserve to put her mouth anywhere near him, after all.


“Will you teach me?” she wants to know.


Ume stares at her with wide eyes for a moment, then she seems to run through an internal arithmetical problem that she doesn’t voice neither the process nor the solution to out loud. Instead, she straightens up and nods, sliding her foot forward as she gets up, her yukata wrinkling around her movements. “How big an eggplant should I get?” she asks.


Eggplant, Satoko thinks, confused for a second, until she realises and it’s her turn to blush. For the first time since Byakuya-sama started taking her to bed, she feels actually timid. Hesitantly, she measures out an approximate size, Ume studying her hands, the amount of air between them, meaning something else, intently and nods.


“Small eggplant, in that case.”


At Satoko’s expression of protest, the servant girl clarifies, “small eggplants are easier to swallow, so it’s a good thing, mistress. You got lucky.”


Satoko relaxes, as if she’s in fact defended Byakuya-sama’s honour and won.


“I’ll be right back. Please excuse me,” Ume says, bowing before she takes her leave.


In the meantime, Satoko stays behind with her original book of poetry that she reads none off, her breath caught in her throat and her lips feeling suddenly dry, which can’t be good for the poor eggplant. She wets them again.


When Ume returns with two deep purple egplants, one slightly bigger than the other, Satoko has to admit to herself that even the smaller specimen looks awfully big compared to the whole cavity of her mouth.


Sitting down next to her quietly, Ume hands over the vegetable and smiles in a way meant to bring comfort. “You don’t have to worry about all of it, just stroke what you can’t fit inside. He should appreciate that.”


And in this space, they’re suddenly sharing, her maid and her, Satoko thinks no one should dare to remind Ume that having opinions on what the master should and shouldn’t do could rightly get her fired in any other context.


Seeing as contexts that involve eggplants must surely operate by different rules, isn’t that so?

It isn’t Matsugae’s family who keeps him informed of Matsugae’s fate, they never approved of their friendship, Honda a mere commoner, beneath them in standing, but rather word of mouth. Have you heard, have you heard, Kuchiki Byakuya-sama killed Matsugae’s son yesterday. When Honda inquires about it, the usual investigative questions, what happened, why, he isn’t afforded any answers that would be worth much before a judge, but he gathers so much, the Head of the Kuchiki Clan took down a defenseless boy who could never have hoped to match the other man even in a fair duel.


As such, he thinks, making his way through the streets to the Matsugae Mansion, no duel between the two could ever be fair in the first place. This seems to him an essential problem.



*



Seated on his knees before the Matsugae head’s writing desk, watching the other man as he takes his sweet time in allowing him to speak, his brush moving slowly and carefully over the paper, Honda thinks of the many hours this man’s son and he spent together in school and outside of it. The many afternoons frolicked away in the gardens outside the open door. It’s late summer now. What a time to lose a child.


The man’s face is set in stone, unreadable and cold. Matsugae could adopt a similar expression.


“Yes, Honda-kun,” he finally acknowledges him without looking up. His brush continues to move down the page. There will be many formalities, of course, in relation to Matsugae’s death.


“Please let me extend my heartfelt condolences!” Honda bows so low, his bangs fall into his eyes and obscure his vision.


“For what?” The older man inquires, voice emotionless. That, too, Matsugae had mastered when he wanted. He was truthfully his father’s son, Honda thinks.


”The loss of Kiyoaki,” Honda clarifies readily. “Word is all over the streets, Matsugae-sama.”


“Yes, that part is very unfortunate.” Finally, Matsugae’s father puts the brush aside and leans back, resting his hands on his thighs and perceiving Honda through narrow eyes. Calculating.


That, too, Matsugae had often done.


“But, your son…” Honda begins.


“My son was a passionate fool,” the man replies, waving his hand at the way Honda opens his mouth to protest. “You knew him best, Honda, am I not right?”


Honda murmurs a quiet, I shan’t presume to have known your son well enough, evidently, and the head of the Matsugae household gets to his feet tiredly, walking quietly over to a stand with tea and sake. He pours himself a cup of the latter, his voice frustrated.


”If I had known he felt that way about the girl, don’t you think I’d have done something? We’re not poor, we could have offered the Ayakura family an eligible match, but every time I asked him if he really wasn’t interested in that Satoko, he firmly denied. What was I supposed to do? Kiyoaki was like that. Too proud. That pride cost him his life in the end.”


“Pardon my rudeness, but I don’t think so, Matsugae-sama,” Honda says, making the other man turn his head towards him mid-sip, sake shining in his small cup in the soft light from the sunset. Honda bows low again and waits for the approaching sound of footfalls before looking up. Matsugae, father not son, is standing before him, eyes dark and glittering. “Kuchiki Byakuya lost him his life.”


“Hm,” is all that Matsugae’s father has to say at first, sipping more sake, until he finally empties his cup and puts it on his working desk. “Do you know the full account of what happened, Honda-kun?” he wants to know after a few long moments.


“I don’t believe so.”


“Well, Kiyoaki and Satoko had somewhat of a flirtation going, before the Ayakuras struck gold and got her hitched with Kuchiki-sama. Still, the girl knows her place, they’ve raised her right, and she accepted the marriage, since it could save her family from ruin. However, once she began looking happy and satisfied in her new accommodations, Kiyoaki got a bloated ego and had to start spreading rumours about their former affair, saying she’d been unfaithful to the Head of the Kuchiki Clan. You don’t do that with the Kuchiki family, those types are much too powerful. He could as well have hit himself in the head with that bokken, Kiyoaki…”


The older man sighs. For the first time since his arrival, Honda senses that he’s truly troubled by the death of his son.


“Kuchiki Byakuya is a trained officer and an aristocrat with immense power,” Honda insists, knowing if he should hold any hope of reaching Matsugae’s father with his logic, now is the time. “Kiyoaki couldn’t have defended himself even given a sword. That is an unjust fight. Surely there must have been another solution.”


“You’re a simple commoner,” Matsugae’s father dismisses him, his voice once again hard as stone. “You don’t understand the ways of nobility.”


“That may be,” Honda agrees. “I am, however, son of a legal advisor and I understand the law. If you do not forbid it, I will make a case of this. Your son deserves a fair legacy. Your family deserves a proper redress.”


For a long time, Matsugae’s father only watches him, wordlessly, something unreadable in his gaze, then he scoffs and returns to his former seat, continuing his writing. “Do what you want, but keep me uninformed. I’d rather not be accused of treason next.” A pause. “This is enough.”


Leaving the Matsugae Mansion, Honda understands that he is alone in his pursuit of justice for Matsugae, but then again – he has been alone in his views of Matsugae for many years now. This is simply to finish it on that same note.



*



The next day, he seeks out his father in his offices in Southern Rukongai where he, in his spare time, offers free legal advice to small vendors and merchants, focusing mainly on debt collection and similar financial matters. His official occupation is as legal advisor to the lower nobility who often scuffle among themselves and aren’t as untouchable as the big Clans, not internally, at least.


No one from this district could have much hope of touching anyone in those circles.


That is why his father does this work.


That is how Honda has learned how to do it, too.


“Ah, Shigekuni,” his father says in greeting, when he’s shown in by the strict-looking secretary. “What brings you here so late? Surely you have homework to do.”


Honda doesn’t beat around the bush, knowing his father’s time is precious and unwilling to squander it. “Have you heard about the death of Matsugae Kiyoaki, Father?”


“Is that why you have come?” His father wants to know, walking from the bookshelf to his desk and sitting down slowly. Honda comes over and stops right in front of the desk. They both know, he’d never disrupt his father’s working time otherwise.


“It is.”


“I have heard, of course. A humiliating end to the Mastsugae family’s legacy.”


“No doubt, Matsugae misbehaved, but usually misbehaviour gets a scolding. From civilized people, I mean. Only criminals and animals kill a defenseless boy for so little!” Honda hears his own voice rising as he speaks and quickly tunes it down.


His father doesn’t correct him, instead folding his hands on top of the desk, waiting for the question they both know will come of this.


“Is there no way to prosecute the Kuchiki family, Father?” Honda continues. If anyone, his father would know, having straddled the vast gap between the common world and the aristocracy for a good part of his long career.


“They’re above the law, as you well know, Shigekuni,” his father replies and Honda’s shoulder’s drop, lose some of the strength born of pent-up anger. Then, as if recognising his son’s dedication to this single goal now, he continues in an offhanded manner, as if talking about the weather. “No, you can’t raise question about the law with them, but you can raise question about their honour. It will hurt them much more, regardless.”


“Honour…” Honda hears himself repeat. Yes, because what kind of honourable beings take over all political instances and run a society without reproach or advice from the people they govern? Honda nods to himself. Yes, honour!


“Are you prepared to risk your life for this friend of yours, even when he is already dead?” his father inquires, beginning to shuffle through papers. The audience will soon be over. “Because, you must know, that is what will happen. You may follow him there.”


“Do you forbid it, Father?” Honda only wants to know.


“No. I raised you to be an honourable man.”


“Then, I am prepared.”


“I see.” It’s all his father says before he calls for the secretary and has Honda shown to the door. Yet, Honda knows that although he will walk the road alone, his father’s understanding and acceptance pave the way. Wherever it leads, that will be Honda’s given destination.



*



A month later, after long after-school hours of spreading fliers and bulletins and pamphlets, getting the word out about “these dishonourable times of Soul Society”, holding rallies and speaking to the common people more than a little fed up with the aristocracy and the Gotei 13, Honda runs into her in the streets.


The girl formerly known as Ayakura Satoko.


Matsugae’s only love.


He doesn’t know why he’s willing to risk it, he has purposefully stayed out of the Kuchiki Clan’s direct path, making it a political debate rather than a family matter, but seeing her stroll through the markets, surrounded by servants on all sides, her hair done up and her kimono worth more, no doubt, than either his father or Mastsugae’s could make in a year, he thinks of something Matsugae had said, one time when Honda had complimented the girl’s beauty, after they’s run into her in the Matsugae gardens.


You have to be careful with her, Honda. Satoko-san never says everything she thinks. You can’t trust people like that, can you?


And Honda had looked sideways at Matsugae and thought to himself, no, I know.


Now, he breaks into a run, following her trails across the square, panting harshly and finally, yelling her name, again and again, heads all over the market turning after him. Satoko-san! Satoko-san! Satoko, too, turns after a long second, her servant girls lining up in front of her, ensuring that Honda can only talk to her from a safe distance. However, when she seems to recognise him, she motions for them to step aside. Let him closer. Honda stops in front of her.


”Honda-san,” she says.


”It’s been a while,” he greets in return.


“It’s been a while,” she repeats.


“Did you hear about Matsugae,” he asks her, directly, and not because he assumes she hasn’t. Her expression turns nostalgic, a little melancholy, like he’s opened the chest holding a long-lost childhood memory.


“Of course,” she replies, finally. Her smile is sad, but beautiful. Stunningly so. Honda hesitates only a brief moment, before saying what he came to say.


“Do you feel justified, Satoko-san?”


Although it turns a notch sadder, the smile doesn’t die away and Satoko looks off to the side as she replies, slowly, as if tasting the words as she speaks them: “Justice is a men’s concept, Honda-san. It has never served women right.” Her voice lightens, however. “We can only wait for a person to weigh their intentions for us against any societal idea of rightness. Do you understand?”


He shakes his head. ”Is that what happened?”


“That’s what happened. Kiyo-sama was found wanting and someone else was free to take his place.” One of the servants steps closer and whispers something in Satoko’s ear that makes her nod to herself and grasp her hands primly in front of herself, as she takes a short glance behind Honda who suspects they won’t be let alone for much longer.


“By someone, you mean Kuchiki Byakuya?”


The words that answer him are contemplative rather than sharp. She isn’t attacking, she’s wondering instead. “Who the man was, does that matter, when the justice done was to me? Or am I not part of the equation in your head?”


Belatedly, he realizes that he has no correct response to that. He could say no, and he would be in the wrong, morally. Or he could say she had been considered at any point, and he would be lying. Honda bows his head, shamefully, which she graciously accepts as his answer. Behind them, guards show up, one coming up to Honda and roughly pulling him back, away. Time to go, boy.


”Good afternoon,” Satoko tells him. Goodbye, it means.


With his back half to her, Honda mutters, “thank you for your time, Satoko-san.”



*



After that, it becomes even more of a political debate, completely severed from any talk about the Kuchiki family or Matsugae’s death. And like all political debates, it eventually loses the people’s interest.


Honda returns to his schoolwork.

Although it is Byakuya-sama who breaks the kiss, he doesn't leave her feeling wrong or out of line for her initiative, not with the way he leans their foreheads together afterwards, their noses aligning, his bangs hanging soft - like reminders of a constraint he is no longer wearing in any physical sense - against her skin. Brushes of softness that match the light of the setting sun and the quietness of the next half hour where she simply sits close to him, feeling the outline of his body that she would give herself to in an instant, but he isn't asking it of her, and perhaps she can be grateful for that, too. Perhaps the way he doesn't force her onwards, neither of them, truly, is what sets him apart from anything and anyone she has known before.


And once the half hour is up, she gracefully rises from her kneeling position, taking her wringed, wrought cloth with his blood, holding it like another gift between her fingers, as she bids him goodnight much the same way she did upon arrival.


Some things start where you would expect a natural end, she thinks, walking back the way she came.



*



The next day, she sends Ume to her parents' house to ask her mother for the recipe for dry-fried maitake with sprouts and Ume returns with one of her mother's usual, extensive lists that she, then, gives to the Kuckiki manor's own kitchen staff, asking them to prepare the meal without straying from the recipe. Follow it precisely, she says. The cook bows to her with the utmost astonishment, it is the first time he has seen her in his kitchen, after all, and she tells him to pack up the food in a bento and have it sent to Byakuya-sama for lunch at work. Please have it done no more than a half hour in advance, she instructs him, it is best lukewarm.


Yes, mistress, he replies, bowing a second time.


She goes back to her quarters quietly, Ume helping her change into her daytime kimono, styling her hair, and all the while Satoko stares at herself in the mirror, at her eyes that have livened up and her complexion that looks more glowing, so even Ume dares to comment on it, and she thinks, I'm someone's wife now, reaching up to push a stray lock of long, dark hair out of her face, where it's draped itself across her forehead, the same place he touched the night before. It's the first time...


Ume smiles at her, holding the second mirror up, so Satoko can inspect her work on her hair. Until recently, Satoko always wore her hair loose, perhaps held up by a bow, but the elaborate, intricate styles of married women were like a future she could barely envision herself living. Now, her neck is left bare to the elements, her floral face cream making her skin shine with moisture and life.


It's a part of herself she no longer minds displaying to the world.



*



A week later, Ume and a couple of their security accompany her to the nearby market. That, too, is a first. She hasn't left the house on her own for anything but to cross the district to her parents' home for more than six months.


As she walks among the stalls, she can hear her name, her full name, her new name, whispered excitedly amongst vendors and visitors alike, while every stall welcomes her with free samples and tiny bamboo plates of food to taste - and she is gracious about it, of course, as she has been brought up to be, she has Ume carry everything and she only ever takes one bite, so as not to get too full or spill on her clothes in the process. Ume whispers to her about the quality of the fabrics they're contemplating, beautiful patterns of cherry blossoms for spring, a tailor could have a kimono ready before winter.


The vendor bestows them enough yards of it for a whole set, kimono and matching obi, free of charge. It would be my honor, Kuchiki-sama, if a woman of your beauty would wear this lowly design, he tells her, when the pattern is much more intricate than just that. It looks like a thick cluster of cherry blossoms across the middle, cutting the pale blue background in half. She would drown in blossoms, wearing it.


Satoko thinks of Byakuya-sama and thinks, perhaps that would be a sweet fate.


Leaving with an armful of silk, Ume smiles at her, head bowed discreetly, as they both catch the vendor muttering excitedly to his assistant, didn't Kuchiki-sama look beatiful? So glowing, she shone from happiness, don't you think?


The assistant's reply doesn't travel the distance, but just the notion that it can be seen on her face, how she feels, it fills Satoko with a sense of pride that she hasn't known before. Something more integral that pride in family and pride in position or name. It's more personal than that. It comes from a more deep-seated place.


I'm proud of who I am, she realizes, halfway on her way back to the manor. I'm proud of who I am, when I'm his.


Like the kiss, days prior, the thought leaves her body warm. Satisfied.

On the day that the engagement was finalized, he sent Iinuma to the Ayakura manor and urgently insisted she meet with him in the Matsugae gardens, at the very back of the grounds where the cover of the maple trees would hide them from view. Although Tadeshina warned her of it, Satoko told her, watch over us in that case, so we won’t be disturbed, Tadeshina. Then she changed into a more discreet yukata and put up her hair in a style she didn’t usually wear it in, so that one wouldn’t necessarily make the connection and made her way across the district, her heart heavy and Tadeshina likewise dragging her feet.


He was waiting for her in their spot.


“Satoko!” he said in what would no doubt have been a distressed shout, if they were allowed such liberties now. She approached him, gaze lowered. He had no such reservations and came right up to her, grabbing her shoulders. “Is it true?”


Kiyo-sama, she found herself thinking, all of it is, between this moment and the next, whatever happens, it was true.


“Yes,” was all she said, still not looking at him.


“What do you mean, yes? You have to tell them you can’t, that you won’t! That you already have someone else!” His fingers dug into her upper arms, and she could feel her breathing hitching in her throat, whether from the pain of it – or from something else. Perhaps the difference was irrelevant, when all came down to it.


Whether her arm or her heart, it was an extension of herself, of course.


“It can’t be changed, Kiyo-sama,” she tried to explain to him, finally raising her eyes to his face, though it hurt her to look at him. He looked so vibrant, so full of life, in contrast she felt cold and dead to the core of her. “My family needs this connection. The Kuchiki family will secure us for the future.”


“Your family’s schemes matter more to you than me?” he demanded to know and his hands slid down her arms to her wrists which he gripped hard, shook her hands. In turn, her fingers curled into fists. How could he ask such a thing? How could he ever believe…? Meanwhile, Kiyo-sama was leaning all the way into her face, his dark eyes wide and desperate.


How could he…?


”You know my family’s situation very well,” Satoko heard herself bite out and although she tried to change the tone of her voice, it was too late. He was already drawing back. Letting go, looking scorned. As such, she could only carry on, her voice thick and trembling, ”you know I don’t enjoy the freedom that you have, we do not live similar lives, Kiyo-sama!”


“Who are you to put me in my place like this, Satoko,” he replied, turning his back on her a moment, his shoulders so elegant and so hard, why did he have to be so stubborn? His pride had always been his greatest weakness, ever since he was brought up alongside her in her father’s house. He didn’t take criticism well. Any little correction hurt him like daggers or fire. She usually found it a charming shortcoming in him, but not now. Now it frustrated her to no end. ”You aren’t my mother.”


She had answered him before she had time to weigh her words, she simply felt her temper flare, as if he was pointing a sword at her chest, threatening her whole existence with no valid justification. Her family’s existence, too. Oh, Kiyo-sama, she thought, did you absolutely have to?


“No,” she said and lifted her head with more pride than she felt, but it was this or cowering before him, which she didn’t want to. Reduce them to so little? Everything they had shared? Even going forward, she refused to do that. “I am not your mother, if I had held such a position in your life, surely I’d have taught you the truth about love.”


Before she turned away, towards Tadeshina who was waiting in silence and without any visible reaction just within hearing distance, Satoko caught sight of Kiyo-sama’s face. He looked crushed. She had crushed him. Her eyes felt wet. Satoko couldn’t run in her okobo shoes, so instead she hurried towards her nanny as fast as she could, as if bolting for shelter.


But before she could get away, Kiyo-sama had grabbed her by her left arm and hurled her back against him, making her stumble against his front. He caught her in both arms, holding her still, staring down into her face. She couldn’t look anywhere else.


”If you want to teach me about love, Satoko,” he said, his voice sharp with an edge of cruel intent, slowly bending his neck. Satoko shook her head and tried to tear loose, but he wouldn’t let her. “That’s what you should do, right?”


Then, he kissed her. Hard on the mouth. It hurt a little bit. A long moment, she hung like a ragdoll in his grip, then she twisted hard against him and tore away from the heat, the overwhelming heat of his body. Her lips were tingling, spit-slick and sore. He hadn’t held back.


More than anything, she needed him to not pursue her anymore, to never again want to.


“You’re a child, Kiyo-sama!” she yelled, ignoring Tadeshina’s brief look of horror that they might be found, discovered like this. “A spoiled child! Whatever I could teach you of love, you’d never understand unless you were to grow up first!”


His face fell the rest of the way. She turned away and began hurrying, all but running past Tadeshina in her tall shoes, not made for escape. And what was she escaping to? What waited on the other side?


The lesser of evils? She wasn’t sure.


The last thing she said to him before he couldn’t hear her any longer was, “I cannot help you with that, Kiyo-sama.”


She couldn’t even help herself, wasn’t that so?

In the streets, the dowry that her family has produced for her and, once the official announcement of the engagement has been published to the broader public, that they then have sent off to the Kuchiki house, is called lesser. After all, it takes no more than two official processions between her home and her new home to have the things moved, and people marvel not at the richness of the large, decorated trunks of heirlooms and newly commissioned kimono, screens, paintings, books and cosmetic items that only ruin her family even further, but at the dwindling number of them. Surely, they say, the head of the Kuchiki clan is doing the Ayakura family a great favour by marrying such a girl. She is quite old, too. For a first-time bride.


Satoko is barely 200 years, when she, too, is sent to enter Kuchiki Byakuya’s household. She leaves behind a love that extends at least 50 years, because Matsugae Kiyoaki naturally isn’t invited to attend the daytime ceremony, and she can’t socialise with men so freely anymore, once she bears the name of another. Thus, Kiyo-sama stays in his rich merchant house that still wasn’t worth her dowry, and she dutifully goes off to redress her family’s wealth and standing.


As a daughter should. As she must. And as she dressed her only child for the last day, that she would bear their name, her mother cried silently. Tears of joy, she called them, but Satoko sensed her sadness.


At the wedding ceremony, they decked her in white, then in red and black, and people who had attended the festivities would loudly tell each other, no doubt Ayakura Satoko is the most beautiful bride in Seireitei for a hundred years to come. That would be the last compliment she was paid as a part of her own family. From thereon out, she was known by another name. His.


The Kuchiki house is grand, much larger than most other residences in the city, and a steward leads her to her wing, while three maids accompany her to help her undress for the night. Behind a solitary screen which stems from her family home, to combat any homesickness, one maid tries to soothe her, her bridal kimono comes undone, is carefully hung away and she proceeds to dress in thinner and simpler nightwear. Ushered to her bed by another maid, so she won’t get cold on the way, Satoko thinks, she would not mind the thousand layers of rich fabric back.


If nothing else, then to shield her away properly. For protection.


In the vaguest of terms, as if Satoko didn’t already know of what men and women do together, her mother had explained to her what was expected of her on her wedding night, how important a wife’s duty is to her husband and most importantly, exactly how uncertain her position in the Kuchiki family would be, until she could deliver an heir. The inability to produce one was common ground for divorce, after all.


Lying down, surrounded by one screen that she knows the design of and a dozen others that she is completely foreign to, Satoko wonders if Byakuya-sama will divorce her, if she is not satisfactory to him. If she doesn’t perform well. If perhaps, then, she might be returned to her parents’ house and to Kiyo-sama.


Still, it would be extremely shameful and her family’s standing no doubt unsalvageable in the aftermath.


There are things that can’t be risked.


Her own happiness not counted among them.


Thus, all night, Satoko lies on her back with her head on the hard headrest, to keep her hairstyle from slipping out of its confinements, and she listens for him, and she waits, but no sound of footfalls announces his arrival and in the end, Byakuya-sama doesn’t come.


She shouldn’t be relieved, truly, and on the tenth night that nothing happens, she isn’t anymore.