There for Each Other Chapter Eight (Bleach, Rose/Love)
Title - There for Each Other Chapter Eight
Disclaimer - Don't own any of the characters, I just lock myself in my room and make them bend to my muse's will.
Rating - Doesn’t start out at M but it will find its way there, we’ll just start out with T for now.
Word Count -3,949
Warning - There is het in here (Lisa/Love & YoruHara) but this will be yaoi so there are some overtones, if that bothers you (or vise versa).
Summary - It began with a stranger rescuing a stranger and went on from there. Love & Rose's story from Academy, Soul Society & beyond. There will be angst, UNF to the max, meddlesome YoruHara with help from a certain raven-haired be-spectacled visored - & let's throw in a Kuchiki!
Back to Chapter Seven!
Scandalous
Sōjun was late.
Not for this horribly boring seated officer meeting, that would never hold in Ginrei’s eyes. Violet eyes scanned the faces of the selected fukutaichō running the meeting, gaze not stopping until it was looking over toward sixth’s fourth seat beside him.
The small blue-haired girl was listening intently to every word said, her tiny hands taking copious notes…She would be able to tell him every word that was said, giving him the choice to make his tardiness of the fashionable variety. He could get up and leave and none of the officers gathered would say anything because he was a Kuchiki.
The noble didn’t even move, other than the rise and fall of the sigh he couldn’t quiet contain royal-training or not.
In the back of his mind, battling with whatever nonsense the vice captain in charge was currently talking about…were the sharpest grey eyes he’d ever seen. Their standing meeting time of the week ticked by as the statuesque woman on the podium in front of him droned on about changes in unseated shinigami’s uniform standards.
Who even cared about that?
Never mind the crisp black lines of his own shihakushō.
Dark head not moving, his eyes moved back across the room to the Kuchiki family guards that were standing respectfully by the door. His father had given them the duty of making sure he stayed true to his betrothed and his family. They were incompetent and slow to flash step, which meant naturally that he could get away from them without trying at all.
Ginrei wouldn’t know where he had gone but he would know that his son had gone somewhere. Since the Kuchiki heir had no other reason to defy his family it was pretty obvious where he would be going…or more precisely who he would be going to.
There was a loud thwack of dismissal and everyone started to shuffle their feet and stand. Sōjun realized he had actually heard none of the meeting points and wondered if it really even mattered. There would be nothing but a shell attending these meeting soon, no one inside.
Already he was mentally with her, his Kokoa.
As he thought her name a sigh of longing escaped his lips and the fourth seat looked up at him in question. Mind searching for something to say to her he murmured, “I will reinscribe the minutes of the meeting for Kuchiki-taichō.”
There was no argument, the woman fumbled a moment as she rolled the length of paper up and handed it to him.
Sōjun nodded and turned to start out of the emptying collection of benches and chairs, tucking the scroll into the front of his kimono as he walked up to his baby-sitters.
They were by far the worst he’d had. The best he refused to think about, and even as he resolved himself not to think about them golden laughing eyes were dancing in his mind’s eye, words of affection and encouragement in not only her jovial voice but her partner’s as well, the one always by her side.
I will not be jealous of Shihōin and Urahara of all people.
As they exited the building the sky opened up. Sōjun moved to one of the covered walkways his guards closer than he liked but it was as far as they would move at his behest. When he asked them to give him more room out of the blue they tended to get closer as if in anticipation of mischief.
As if Kuchiki Sōjun heir to the twenty-seventh Head of the Kuchiki Clan would be involved voluntarily in mischief. He might have been taught (under duress) by the best of them, but he had always known those uncouth skills would never be under his employ.
With a barely perceptible downward tilt of his lips Sōjun thought of the scant cover where he and Kokoa usually met. He had made her promise she wouldn’t stay there waiting for him for long, but part of him knew that she would be that foolish.
Pausing in the middle of the wooden walkway, violet eyes were unerring drawn to the spot he had so longingly looked toward during his gotei meeting…A small quiet spot close to the border of the Seireitei but still unpopulated by the nearby Rukongai.
Perhaps she would take cover under the nearby trees.
“Kuchiki-sama, are you alright?” One of the guards asked gruffly.
Sōjun answered by silently continuing his journey, back to where the sixth division was housed, to sit at his father’s side as he worked through paperwork across from his fukutaichō. There, was the only place he could get away from the two guards.
Quickening his steps a bit more he pushed open the office shoji and found Ginrei and his captain’s haori gone from the office. He said nothing but as he turned to slide the door shut both of the guards gave him a low bow and started back down the walkway, since their charge had nothing more scheduled that would take him away from his father.
Which would usually be the case if his father and his fukutaichō hadn’t been called away to the Soutaichō. Sōjun gave a small bow to the parting guards as he closed the door and moved across the room to exit the shoji that led out into the courtyard in the very center of the division. He stepped out into the rain but didn’t wait there long before he threw himself into shunpo.
#
It was both good and bad that Kokoa wasn’t there waiting for him when Sōjun arrived at their meeting place. Part of Sōjun wanted to search for her, there were places that she found sanctuary besides her family manor, but they most often met here. She had plenty of spiritual pressure to track, but like most nobles had been taught how to suppress it and since Sojun had began training her she had only gotten better at it.
As he turned to shunpo back to the Seireitei he caught sight of one of his guards and a mild curse left his noble lips as he realized how sloppily his flash step had to have been to be tracked so easily. Familiar teasing filled his head, the tiny voice female and distinctly like his second and final shunpo sensei one Yoruichi Shihōin.
Thankful there would be no way the werecat would know this had transpired since he planned on leading his pursuers away from this specific spot and thereafter tightening up his shunpo until not even Yamamoto could track it.
Not wanting the guards to know of this meeting place the noble set off into the forest letting his reiatsu leave an obvious trail as he flash stepped deeper into the trees. He stopped at a clearing some leagues away and took a deep, slow, focusing breath before he shunpoed back toward the guards angling a little to the right so they missed him entirely.
Sōjun only waited a few moments as he tracked the flashy spill of spiritual pressure that transported both guards further along the direction he had set. As soon as he was sure they were following the false trail Sōjun made quickly for the sixth division.
Just inside the Seireitei he paused and looked back into the trees a hand lifting to push away the strands of black hair that the rain pushed against his face. The motion, as did most things in his love-addled mind, brought to mind Kokoa and her habit of brushing his black locks from his face. She had even convinced him to move his kenseikan from the top of his head to the side so his hair wouldn’t purposefully lie in his face collecting it all in the hairpiece, to feel fleeting delicate fingertips touch along his forehead and cheek as she pretended to be put-upon by her nobleman’s eccentric habits.
The longing sigh was much like the others that had passed his lips today, none much louder than audible to the casual ear but almost on par with a loud belch in noble-speak. Ginrei would have cuffed his ear to have heard more than two of those in such a short time span, goodness how delinquent the girl was making him.
Something very like a smile titled the noble lips at the thought, one that Kokoa would have been proud of before he took off into shunpo toward one last stop before he returned to the sixth division.
Pausing at the gate of Shinō Sōjun gave a nod to the student guards on duty before he continued, slipping back into shunpo until his enhanced senses caught sakura on the breeze. As the smell filled his head he felt his zanpakutō give a delightful hum of content, and Sōjun couldn’t help but mirror the sound as pale pink branches came into view.
A familiar female voice was carried with the scent in the breeze to equally sensitive ears…
“…something to say about that?”
A deep voice accompanied his betrothed, someone he didn’t know. “It’s my room too, ’nd he seems to like you.”
It was times like these that he resisted recalling Ginrei’s words against eavesdropping, sandaled feet silently moving around the tree symbolizing his successful shikai until he saw a familiar spectacled face near Kokoa’s tree.
“He thinks he likes me, but when we’re doing things like…” Lisa’s stepped closer to the so-far faceless man she had brought into his courtyard, taking his hand in hers. “This…He might find some objections.”
There weren’t many dark-skinned students at the Academy; Sōjun couldn’t see the man’s clothes either from behind the trunk of the tree but he sensed both of their spiritual pressures and the nervousness trembling along it as the distance between them dwindled.
The man’s dark head moved closer as if to whisper to her, his voice audible even at this distance, “I don’t think so…but if he does we’ll just have to find somewhere else quiet.”
“There are a few places that almost match in solitude,” Lisa fibbed; Sōjun had found none as tranquil as the courtyard his father had funded.
“Problem solved, ne?”
“Yes--”
Violet eyes widened minutely as the stranger kissed his fiancée in the middle of his courtyard, the clandestine couple leaning against his Kokoa’s tree. Truthfully he was a little irritated by his betrothed’s audacity, but not surprised by it, she liked to make sure he saw what she thought of their engagement since she was no longer allowed to denounce it aloud.
There was a split second of fury however and although he quickly had it and the flare of spiritual pressure that had accompanied it buried there was no mistaking the stiffening of Lisa’s frame, and of course the sudden ending to their kiss. Her spectacled eyes flashed over toward him and Sōjun let all the betrayed anger show in the lifting of one sculpted black brow.
“Sōjun,” Whispered across the courtyard, her lips turning down into a frown as she realized this had been a few steps too far. Before her new beau could turn and catch sight of what she was looking at with such an expression she curled an arm around his shoulders and asked him if she could meet him back at his room.
“Y’all right?” He asked before he budged an inch and Sōjun could see in the way he held himself that he knew there was someone else here.
“I am, I’ll see you in a little bit,” She leaned in and kissed his cheek and ushered him back across the tree-lined space and out of sight.
It was only a fraction of a shunpo to the center of the field and manicured hands reached out to tentatively touch the soft skin of the pale white tree, eyes looking over the large branches with unease only to find them pristine. He hadn’t expected anything obvious like a juvenile set of names in a heart carved into the bark, but the noble couldn’t help but attribute his beloved’s pale skin to the tree that symbolized her.
“Won’t your keepers be looking for you?” Lisa asked, only a few feet behind him, having made no sound in her return.
“Unfortunately yes,” Sōjun answered as his gaze moved up and into the branches and the pattern they made with their white, green and the blue of the sky. “I had to be sure she would not stand waiting for me in the rain.”
There was silence a moment but Lisa didn’t bother to keep the frustration out of her reiatsu nor contain her spiritual pressure itself. “One would think these little bits of rebellion hurt everyone more than doing anything else.”
“Like your little bits of acquiescence Lisa-sama?”
“Ma knows what I really think, none of your family do. All you show them is what they want, they can hardly understand these little outbursts of mutiny,” The spectacled girl moved close, the intimacy of such an action lost on the two of them much like Sōjun felt while being suffocated by that cursed werecat’s bosom. Lisa didn’t quite task him as hard as the purple-haired noble did without even trying, but today she had gotten close.
“I believe I am experiencing what is called déjà vu I think I have had a similar conversation,” The slight twitch of his lip was a noble sneer, and Sōjun continued with a huffed, “Incessantly.”
“Ha, ha hilarious Sōjun,” Like Yoruichi the Rukongai-born noble knew the stock Kuchiki put in titles and honorifics, but said nothing because his family would think it odd he argue with his future spouse about using his given name. “You’ve found your soul mate, I deserve a chance to find mine…I’m sure I’d be much kinder to whoever it is.”
“Lisa-sama, there is no shame in you.”
“Birth defect,” Lisa replied with a shrug. “I think it’s a side-effect of being born in Rukongai.”
“I have seen others that frequently prove that hypothesis correct,” Sōjun mumbled (with perfect noble diction) thinking of Urahara.
“I’m going to tell Kisuke-senpai you said that,” Lisa said, knowing exactly who he was thinking about, because she herself had been tutored under the blond delinquent and his lady Yoruichi.
“I am positive I have already done so on several occasions. Do enjoy reminiscing with Urahara about it,” With a last run of fingertips over the white petals on a low-hanging branch he turned to go.
“Don’t go…if they catch us here together we can just pretend we’re getting familiar,” Lisa suggested and when violet eyes swiveled to look at her scandalized she laughed. “Only so you can stay, I remember the color being more vivid when you walked among them,” She pointed with a thumb generally referring to the trees. “Or maybe its Cherry…she strikes me as a green thumb,” She saw those violet eyes twitch upward, the usual reaction of her betrothed to the nick-name she’d given his zanpakutō, the noble equivalent of rolling his eyes.
Then…there was something that sounded kind of like a chuckle, something rarer than anything in heaven and earth from a Kuchiki, but like usual it didn’t do more than relax his shoulders a bit and nothing more. “I lead my guard on a wild goose chase just to come here and see you?”
“Don’t sound so dubious they’ll see right through it,” Lisa teased, having had enough time in their adolescence together to see through the rigid straight-man. “Just shut up and commune with nature or whatever tripe you usually call it when you visit Cherry.”
At the nick-name Sōjun gave a minute shake of his head, mostly in derision but also because she still surprised him with her flippant but occasionally helpful attitude. “Only if you try as well.”
“That was the idea…” With a nod she moved to sit just shy of the tree symbolizing Sōjun, so he would have room to sit amongst the trees.
“What exactly will you tell my guards?” Sōjun asked after a few moments to settle himself on the ground, getting comfortable and closing his eyes to focus.
“I’ll do all the talking Sōjun, you just catch me.”
#
“What?” The dark-haired noble asked, eyes still firmly closed in an attempt at meditation.
“Just be ready to nod at whatever I say…”
Rōjūrō had thought he’d noticed Aikawa’s spiritual pressure out here, near the classroom where they’d gained entry to the Academy and all of the advanced classrooms (reinforced against high reiatsu). He followed where he felt it passing through a beautiful tree-lined courtyard, only to almost run into the betrothed nobles bickering.
He had already gotten lost twice after brow-beating the snide guard that had retrieved him, sending the man back to his lord leaving the little prince to find his own way back. Not such a big deal if the nicest meeting halls weren’t on the opposite side of the school from anywhere that was familiar to Rōjūrō.
Cursing he tried to find another way without success and soon returned to see the two sitting together under the central trees completely silent, eyes closed. He had no delusions of trying to sneak past them, was surprised they hadn’t noticed when he’d almost run headlong in-between them his reiatsu cast out in front of him to track Aikawa’s.
Feeling he had only been thinking of what else to do for a few minutes Rōjūrō jumped as reiatsu swelled next to him sending him further down the walkway to avoid the sloppy shunpo that brought what were obviously Kuchiki family guards to the place he had just stood beside the courtyard entrance.
The blond distinctly heard Lisa hiss, “Catch me,” Before the guards turned to burst through into the courtyard.
Interest piqued as he heard both of the interlopers start to apologize over and over again Rōjūrō moved back into place, lavender eyes peeking around the corner as the two guards tried not to watch what looked a lot like pawing and nothing like meditating. Thinking of the little he’d heard of the Kuchiki heir both from his sisters and Lisa, Rōjūrō was surprised to see him with his hand on a girl’s ass like that in private or otherwise.
Lisa was right he was different from the noble one expected from one of the Four Houses.
Before Rōjūrō could think one of the guards was walking towards him. As soon as he saw the eavesdropper the guard frowned and moved to usher Rōjūrō further down the hall. “Do you need som’th’n?”
“Just trying to get to my room, if you’ll excuse me?”
“Not this way y’ain’t.”
Rōjūrō frowned and crossed his arms over his chest. “I’ve only just started here, I don’t know my way around--”
“Rōjūrō-kōhai,” Lisa’s voice made the guard actually retreat and stand at attention as she appeared with her betrothed standing behind her, not even a leaf in his kenseikaned hair. “I’ll take you back if you wish.”
As she walked toward him she held out a hand, not bothering to notice Sōjun’s guards’ parting shunpo. She took his hand and led him past Sōjun who seemed every inch the composed noble, until the blond happened to see the anger in his eyes almost molten with the heat of his fury.
“Oi,” Lisa tugged on the blond’s hand as he got stuck in the doorway pierced by eyes that he’d seen in his own mirror, angry and sad. Alone. “Ōtoribashi!”
Letting himself be dragged away he murmured immediately, “What’s with the fake out?”
“What fake out?” Lisa said loud enough for it to carry across the courtyard and Rōjūrō looked back to see Sōjun already gone. She took the blond noble out and halfway to his room before she slowed and even stopped in an empty hallway that looked a little familiar to him.
“He didn’t look like he was happy about having a girl on top of him,” Rōjūrō squeezed her hand.
“He is not interested in men,” Lisa answered in a teasing voice as if he were suggesting he did, shaking her head as she caught the slightest of blushes on the blond.
“Too bad, he’s beautiful,” Rōjūrō shrugged and went with the joke a moment before looking away with a small grin. “You know what I meant!”
“I do, I do….Sōjun has a girl…loves her even…I’m pretty sure they’ve even…” She trailed off and shook her head again, leading him into a hallway that clicked in Rōjūrō’s memory. “Never mind…don’t want that mental image.”
“You don’t have any feelings for him? You’ve known each other a while,” He was walking with her now since he knew which way they were going at this point.
“It’s complicated.”
“These kind of things usually are,” Rōjūrō whole-heartedly agreed his blond head nodding.
“Oh be quiet…He just doesn’t know he likes you yet…I feel…” She sighed as Rōjūrō couldn’t help but shoot her a dirty look at her lighthearted ribbing about Aikawa. “I feel jilted but…not…because I’m not jilted…I get him,” She didn’t sound triumphant saying those words at all. “I get to have him; because he won’t say anything for her…And I’m being jilted by a woman he can’t even stand up for….but…I’m not being jilted.”
“Lisa,” Rōjūrō stopped walking and released her hand to move his grip up her arm to her shoulder. “It’s hard to keep that feeling from happening, if what you said was true he isn’t there for you emotionally and won’t be…do you want him like that?”
“He’s handsome, he’s got this intelligent dry humor…we’ve become much closer since I started at the Academy mostly because of Yoruichi-senpai…she wants both of us happy,” Lisa’s sigh was exasperated at herself this time, at the thoughts spinning in her head as she contemplated Rōjūrō’s question. “He’s attractive in his own way but…we will never be more than friends and I have no problem with that. Not all noble marriage can be storybook romances like my parents’ but I hope we’ll at least be friends. I’m sure taking Matsuo away from him will ruin that as well.”
“You were right,” Rōjūrō said with a frown.
“I was?”
“It is complicated.”
“Yeah way more than having inappropriate thoughts about your roommate,” Lisa continued to tease and Rōjūrō both scowled and blushed silently telling his senpai way more than he intended.
“Stop it, he’s a sweet man but I’m not interested--he isn’t interested,” Rōjūrō turned and started toward the corridor leading to his side of the student quarters.
“You won’t mind if I spend less than scholarly hours with Aikawa then?” Lisa asked as she moved to catch up with the blond.
“I…” Rōjūrō stopped just outside the shoji to the room he shared with Aikawa. “Of course not,” He said after a moment, moving to slide open the door and get out of her way so she could precede him into the room.
Standing in the threshold he looked on as Lisa made a beeline for the spot where Aikawa was sitting on the edge of his futon. She sat down next to him their voices murmuring together as she worked on taking off her sandals, Aikawa’s face concerned even though her replies came in a nonchalant manner.
It was obvious Aikawa didn’t care for the careless way she dismissed his unease but the wrinkle to his forehead smoothed as she lifted a hand to teasingly touch the spot between his eyebrows.
Rōjūrō stared a moment as Aikawa leaned into the touch and her fingers caressed down his temple to cup his jaw, interrupting them with; “I’m….I’m going to get some tea.” He quickly closed the door and left them there alone.
Onwards to Chapter Nine!
Disclaimer - Don't own any of the characters, I just lock myself in my room and make them bend to my muse's will.
Rating - Doesn’t start out at M but it will find its way there, we’ll just start out with T for now.
Word Count -3,949
Warning - There is het in here (Lisa/Love & YoruHara) but this will be yaoi so there are some overtones, if that bothers you (or vise versa).
Summary - It began with a stranger rescuing a stranger and went on from there. Love & Rose's story from Academy, Soul Society & beyond. There will be angst, UNF to the max, meddlesome YoruHara with help from a certain raven-haired be-spectacled visored - & let's throw in a Kuchiki!
Back to Chapter Seven!
Scandalous
Sōjun was late.
Not for this horribly boring seated officer meeting, that would never hold in Ginrei’s eyes. Violet eyes scanned the faces of the selected fukutaichō running the meeting, gaze not stopping until it was looking over toward sixth’s fourth seat beside him.
The small blue-haired girl was listening intently to every word said, her tiny hands taking copious notes…She would be able to tell him every word that was said, giving him the choice to make his tardiness of the fashionable variety. He could get up and leave and none of the officers gathered would say anything because he was a Kuchiki.
The noble didn’t even move, other than the rise and fall of the sigh he couldn’t quiet contain royal-training or not.
In the back of his mind, battling with whatever nonsense the vice captain in charge was currently talking about…were the sharpest grey eyes he’d ever seen. Their standing meeting time of the week ticked by as the statuesque woman on the podium in front of him droned on about changes in unseated shinigami’s uniform standards.
Who even cared about that?
Never mind the crisp black lines of his own shihakushō.
Dark head not moving, his eyes moved back across the room to the Kuchiki family guards that were standing respectfully by the door. His father had given them the duty of making sure he stayed true to his betrothed and his family. They were incompetent and slow to flash step, which meant naturally that he could get away from them without trying at all.
Ginrei wouldn’t know where he had gone but he would know that his son had gone somewhere. Since the Kuchiki heir had no other reason to defy his family it was pretty obvious where he would be going…or more precisely who he would be going to.
There was a loud thwack of dismissal and everyone started to shuffle their feet and stand. Sōjun realized he had actually heard none of the meeting points and wondered if it really even mattered. There would be nothing but a shell attending these meeting soon, no one inside.
Already he was mentally with her, his Kokoa.
As he thought her name a sigh of longing escaped his lips and the fourth seat looked up at him in question. Mind searching for something to say to her he murmured, “I will reinscribe the minutes of the meeting for Kuchiki-taichō.”
There was no argument, the woman fumbled a moment as she rolled the length of paper up and handed it to him.
Sōjun nodded and turned to start out of the emptying collection of benches and chairs, tucking the scroll into the front of his kimono as he walked up to his baby-sitters.
They were by far the worst he’d had. The best he refused to think about, and even as he resolved himself not to think about them golden laughing eyes were dancing in his mind’s eye, words of affection and encouragement in not only her jovial voice but her partner’s as well, the one always by her side.
I will not be jealous of Shihōin and Urahara of all people.
As they exited the building the sky opened up. Sōjun moved to one of the covered walkways his guards closer than he liked but it was as far as they would move at his behest. When he asked them to give him more room out of the blue they tended to get closer as if in anticipation of mischief.
As if Kuchiki Sōjun heir to the twenty-seventh Head of the Kuchiki Clan would be involved voluntarily in mischief. He might have been taught (under duress) by the best of them, but he had always known those uncouth skills would never be under his employ.
With a barely perceptible downward tilt of his lips Sōjun thought of the scant cover where he and Kokoa usually met. He had made her promise she wouldn’t stay there waiting for him for long, but part of him knew that she would be that foolish.
Pausing in the middle of the wooden walkway, violet eyes were unerring drawn to the spot he had so longingly looked toward during his gotei meeting…A small quiet spot close to the border of the Seireitei but still unpopulated by the nearby Rukongai.
Perhaps she would take cover under the nearby trees.
“Kuchiki-sama, are you alright?” One of the guards asked gruffly.
Sōjun answered by silently continuing his journey, back to where the sixth division was housed, to sit at his father’s side as he worked through paperwork across from his fukutaichō. There, was the only place he could get away from the two guards.
Quickening his steps a bit more he pushed open the office shoji and found Ginrei and his captain’s haori gone from the office. He said nothing but as he turned to slide the door shut both of the guards gave him a low bow and started back down the walkway, since their charge had nothing more scheduled that would take him away from his father.
Which would usually be the case if his father and his fukutaichō hadn’t been called away to the Soutaichō. Sōjun gave a small bow to the parting guards as he closed the door and moved across the room to exit the shoji that led out into the courtyard in the very center of the division. He stepped out into the rain but didn’t wait there long before he threw himself into shunpo.
#
It was both good and bad that Kokoa wasn’t there waiting for him when Sōjun arrived at their meeting place. Part of Sōjun wanted to search for her, there were places that she found sanctuary besides her family manor, but they most often met here. She had plenty of spiritual pressure to track, but like most nobles had been taught how to suppress it and since Sojun had began training her she had only gotten better at it.
As he turned to shunpo back to the Seireitei he caught sight of one of his guards and a mild curse left his noble lips as he realized how sloppily his flash step had to have been to be tracked so easily. Familiar teasing filled his head, the tiny voice female and distinctly like his second and final shunpo sensei one Yoruichi Shihōin.
Thankful there would be no way the werecat would know this had transpired since he planned on leading his pursuers away from this specific spot and thereafter tightening up his shunpo until not even Yamamoto could track it.
Not wanting the guards to know of this meeting place the noble set off into the forest letting his reiatsu leave an obvious trail as he flash stepped deeper into the trees. He stopped at a clearing some leagues away and took a deep, slow, focusing breath before he shunpoed back toward the guards angling a little to the right so they missed him entirely.
Sōjun only waited a few moments as he tracked the flashy spill of spiritual pressure that transported both guards further along the direction he had set. As soon as he was sure they were following the false trail Sōjun made quickly for the sixth division.
Just inside the Seireitei he paused and looked back into the trees a hand lifting to push away the strands of black hair that the rain pushed against his face. The motion, as did most things in his love-addled mind, brought to mind Kokoa and her habit of brushing his black locks from his face. She had even convinced him to move his kenseikan from the top of his head to the side so his hair wouldn’t purposefully lie in his face collecting it all in the hairpiece, to feel fleeting delicate fingertips touch along his forehead and cheek as she pretended to be put-upon by her nobleman’s eccentric habits.
The longing sigh was much like the others that had passed his lips today, none much louder than audible to the casual ear but almost on par with a loud belch in noble-speak. Ginrei would have cuffed his ear to have heard more than two of those in such a short time span, goodness how delinquent the girl was making him.
Something very like a smile titled the noble lips at the thought, one that Kokoa would have been proud of before he took off into shunpo toward one last stop before he returned to the sixth division.
Pausing at the gate of Shinō Sōjun gave a nod to the student guards on duty before he continued, slipping back into shunpo until his enhanced senses caught sakura on the breeze. As the smell filled his head he felt his zanpakutō give a delightful hum of content, and Sōjun couldn’t help but mirror the sound as pale pink branches came into view.
A familiar female voice was carried with the scent in the breeze to equally sensitive ears…
“…something to say about that?”
A deep voice accompanied his betrothed, someone he didn’t know. “It’s my room too, ’nd he seems to like you.”
It was times like these that he resisted recalling Ginrei’s words against eavesdropping, sandaled feet silently moving around the tree symbolizing his successful shikai until he saw a familiar spectacled face near Kokoa’s tree.
“He thinks he likes me, but when we’re doing things like…” Lisa’s stepped closer to the so-far faceless man she had brought into his courtyard, taking his hand in hers. “This…He might find some objections.”
There weren’t many dark-skinned students at the Academy; Sōjun couldn’t see the man’s clothes either from behind the trunk of the tree but he sensed both of their spiritual pressures and the nervousness trembling along it as the distance between them dwindled.
The man’s dark head moved closer as if to whisper to her, his voice audible even at this distance, “I don’t think so…but if he does we’ll just have to find somewhere else quiet.”
“There are a few places that almost match in solitude,” Lisa fibbed; Sōjun had found none as tranquil as the courtyard his father had funded.
“Problem solved, ne?”
“Yes--”
Violet eyes widened minutely as the stranger kissed his fiancée in the middle of his courtyard, the clandestine couple leaning against his Kokoa’s tree. Truthfully he was a little irritated by his betrothed’s audacity, but not surprised by it, she liked to make sure he saw what she thought of their engagement since she was no longer allowed to denounce it aloud.
There was a split second of fury however and although he quickly had it and the flare of spiritual pressure that had accompanied it buried there was no mistaking the stiffening of Lisa’s frame, and of course the sudden ending to their kiss. Her spectacled eyes flashed over toward him and Sōjun let all the betrayed anger show in the lifting of one sculpted black brow.
“Sōjun,” Whispered across the courtyard, her lips turning down into a frown as she realized this had been a few steps too far. Before her new beau could turn and catch sight of what she was looking at with such an expression she curled an arm around his shoulders and asked him if she could meet him back at his room.
“Y’all right?” He asked before he budged an inch and Sōjun could see in the way he held himself that he knew there was someone else here.
“I am, I’ll see you in a little bit,” She leaned in and kissed his cheek and ushered him back across the tree-lined space and out of sight.
It was only a fraction of a shunpo to the center of the field and manicured hands reached out to tentatively touch the soft skin of the pale white tree, eyes looking over the large branches with unease only to find them pristine. He hadn’t expected anything obvious like a juvenile set of names in a heart carved into the bark, but the noble couldn’t help but attribute his beloved’s pale skin to the tree that symbolized her.
“Won’t your keepers be looking for you?” Lisa asked, only a few feet behind him, having made no sound in her return.
“Unfortunately yes,” Sōjun answered as his gaze moved up and into the branches and the pattern they made with their white, green and the blue of the sky. “I had to be sure she would not stand waiting for me in the rain.”
There was silence a moment but Lisa didn’t bother to keep the frustration out of her reiatsu nor contain her spiritual pressure itself. “One would think these little bits of rebellion hurt everyone more than doing anything else.”
“Like your little bits of acquiescence Lisa-sama?”
“Ma knows what I really think, none of your family do. All you show them is what they want, they can hardly understand these little outbursts of mutiny,” The spectacled girl moved close, the intimacy of such an action lost on the two of them much like Sōjun felt while being suffocated by that cursed werecat’s bosom. Lisa didn’t quite task him as hard as the purple-haired noble did without even trying, but today she had gotten close.
“I believe I am experiencing what is called déjà vu I think I have had a similar conversation,” The slight twitch of his lip was a noble sneer, and Sōjun continued with a huffed, “Incessantly.”
“Ha, ha hilarious Sōjun,” Like Yoruichi the Rukongai-born noble knew the stock Kuchiki put in titles and honorifics, but said nothing because his family would think it odd he argue with his future spouse about using his given name. “You’ve found your soul mate, I deserve a chance to find mine…I’m sure I’d be much kinder to whoever it is.”
“Lisa-sama, there is no shame in you.”
“Birth defect,” Lisa replied with a shrug. “I think it’s a side-effect of being born in Rukongai.”
“I have seen others that frequently prove that hypothesis correct,” Sōjun mumbled (with perfect noble diction) thinking of Urahara.
“I’m going to tell Kisuke-senpai you said that,” Lisa said, knowing exactly who he was thinking about, because she herself had been tutored under the blond delinquent and his lady Yoruichi.
“I am positive I have already done so on several occasions. Do enjoy reminiscing with Urahara about it,” With a last run of fingertips over the white petals on a low-hanging branch he turned to go.
“Don’t go…if they catch us here together we can just pretend we’re getting familiar,” Lisa suggested and when violet eyes swiveled to look at her scandalized she laughed. “Only so you can stay, I remember the color being more vivid when you walked among them,” She pointed with a thumb generally referring to the trees. “Or maybe its Cherry…she strikes me as a green thumb,” She saw those violet eyes twitch upward, the usual reaction of her betrothed to the nick-name she’d given his zanpakutō, the noble equivalent of rolling his eyes.
Then…there was something that sounded kind of like a chuckle, something rarer than anything in heaven and earth from a Kuchiki, but like usual it didn’t do more than relax his shoulders a bit and nothing more. “I lead my guard on a wild goose chase just to come here and see you?”
“Don’t sound so dubious they’ll see right through it,” Lisa teased, having had enough time in their adolescence together to see through the rigid straight-man. “Just shut up and commune with nature or whatever tripe you usually call it when you visit Cherry.”
At the nick-name Sōjun gave a minute shake of his head, mostly in derision but also because she still surprised him with her flippant but occasionally helpful attitude. “Only if you try as well.”
“That was the idea…” With a nod she moved to sit just shy of the tree symbolizing Sōjun, so he would have room to sit amongst the trees.
“What exactly will you tell my guards?” Sōjun asked after a few moments to settle himself on the ground, getting comfortable and closing his eyes to focus.
“I’ll do all the talking Sōjun, you just catch me.”
#
“What?” The dark-haired noble asked, eyes still firmly closed in an attempt at meditation.
“Just be ready to nod at whatever I say…”
Rōjūrō had thought he’d noticed Aikawa’s spiritual pressure out here, near the classroom where they’d gained entry to the Academy and all of the advanced classrooms (reinforced against high reiatsu). He followed where he felt it passing through a beautiful tree-lined courtyard, only to almost run into the betrothed nobles bickering.
He had already gotten lost twice after brow-beating the snide guard that had retrieved him, sending the man back to his lord leaving the little prince to find his own way back. Not such a big deal if the nicest meeting halls weren’t on the opposite side of the school from anywhere that was familiar to Rōjūrō.
Cursing he tried to find another way without success and soon returned to see the two sitting together under the central trees completely silent, eyes closed. He had no delusions of trying to sneak past them, was surprised they hadn’t noticed when he’d almost run headlong in-between them his reiatsu cast out in front of him to track Aikawa’s.
Feeling he had only been thinking of what else to do for a few minutes Rōjūrō jumped as reiatsu swelled next to him sending him further down the walkway to avoid the sloppy shunpo that brought what were obviously Kuchiki family guards to the place he had just stood beside the courtyard entrance.
The blond distinctly heard Lisa hiss, “Catch me,” Before the guards turned to burst through into the courtyard.
Interest piqued as he heard both of the interlopers start to apologize over and over again Rōjūrō moved back into place, lavender eyes peeking around the corner as the two guards tried not to watch what looked a lot like pawing and nothing like meditating. Thinking of the little he’d heard of the Kuchiki heir both from his sisters and Lisa, Rōjūrō was surprised to see him with his hand on a girl’s ass like that in private or otherwise.
Lisa was right he was different from the noble one expected from one of the Four Houses.
Before Rōjūrō could think one of the guards was walking towards him. As soon as he saw the eavesdropper the guard frowned and moved to usher Rōjūrō further down the hall. “Do you need som’th’n?”
“Just trying to get to my room, if you’ll excuse me?”
“Not this way y’ain’t.”
Rōjūrō frowned and crossed his arms over his chest. “I’ve only just started here, I don’t know my way around--”
“Rōjūrō-kōhai,” Lisa’s voice made the guard actually retreat and stand at attention as she appeared with her betrothed standing behind her, not even a leaf in his kenseikaned hair. “I’ll take you back if you wish.”
As she walked toward him she held out a hand, not bothering to notice Sōjun’s guards’ parting shunpo. She took his hand and led him past Sōjun who seemed every inch the composed noble, until the blond happened to see the anger in his eyes almost molten with the heat of his fury.
“Oi,” Lisa tugged on the blond’s hand as he got stuck in the doorway pierced by eyes that he’d seen in his own mirror, angry and sad. Alone. “Ōtoribashi!”
Letting himself be dragged away he murmured immediately, “What’s with the fake out?”
“What fake out?” Lisa said loud enough for it to carry across the courtyard and Rōjūrō looked back to see Sōjun already gone. She took the blond noble out and halfway to his room before she slowed and even stopped in an empty hallway that looked a little familiar to him.
“He didn’t look like he was happy about having a girl on top of him,” Rōjūrō squeezed her hand.
“He is not interested in men,” Lisa answered in a teasing voice as if he were suggesting he did, shaking her head as she caught the slightest of blushes on the blond.
“Too bad, he’s beautiful,” Rōjūrō shrugged and went with the joke a moment before looking away with a small grin. “You know what I meant!”
“I do, I do….Sōjun has a girl…loves her even…I’m pretty sure they’ve even…” She trailed off and shook her head again, leading him into a hallway that clicked in Rōjūrō’s memory. “Never mind…don’t want that mental image.”
“You don’t have any feelings for him? You’ve known each other a while,” He was walking with her now since he knew which way they were going at this point.
“It’s complicated.”
“These kind of things usually are,” Rōjūrō whole-heartedly agreed his blond head nodding.
“Oh be quiet…He just doesn’t know he likes you yet…I feel…” She sighed as Rōjūrō couldn’t help but shoot her a dirty look at her lighthearted ribbing about Aikawa. “I feel jilted but…not…because I’m not jilted…I get him,” She didn’t sound triumphant saying those words at all. “I get to have him; because he won’t say anything for her…And I’m being jilted by a woman he can’t even stand up for….but…I’m not being jilted.”
“Lisa,” Rōjūrō stopped walking and released her hand to move his grip up her arm to her shoulder. “It’s hard to keep that feeling from happening, if what you said was true he isn’t there for you emotionally and won’t be…do you want him like that?”
“He’s handsome, he’s got this intelligent dry humor…we’ve become much closer since I started at the Academy mostly because of Yoruichi-senpai…she wants both of us happy,” Lisa’s sigh was exasperated at herself this time, at the thoughts spinning in her head as she contemplated Rōjūrō’s question. “He’s attractive in his own way but…we will never be more than friends and I have no problem with that. Not all noble marriage can be storybook romances like my parents’ but I hope we’ll at least be friends. I’m sure taking Matsuo away from him will ruin that as well.”
“You were right,” Rōjūrō said with a frown.
“I was?”
“It is complicated.”
“Yeah way more than having inappropriate thoughts about your roommate,” Lisa continued to tease and Rōjūrō both scowled and blushed silently telling his senpai way more than he intended.
“Stop it, he’s a sweet man but I’m not interested--he isn’t interested,” Rōjūrō turned and started toward the corridor leading to his side of the student quarters.
“You won’t mind if I spend less than scholarly hours with Aikawa then?” Lisa asked as she moved to catch up with the blond.
“I…” Rōjūrō stopped just outside the shoji to the room he shared with Aikawa. “Of course not,” He said after a moment, moving to slide open the door and get out of her way so she could precede him into the room.
Standing in the threshold he looked on as Lisa made a beeline for the spot where Aikawa was sitting on the edge of his futon. She sat down next to him their voices murmuring together as she worked on taking off her sandals, Aikawa’s face concerned even though her replies came in a nonchalant manner.
It was obvious Aikawa didn’t care for the careless way she dismissed his unease but the wrinkle to his forehead smoothed as she lifted a hand to teasingly touch the spot between his eyebrows.
Rōjūrō stared a moment as Aikawa leaned into the touch and her fingers caressed down his temple to cup his jaw, interrupting them with; “I’m….I’m going to get some tea.” He quickly closed the door and left them there alone.
Onwards to Chapter Nine!