127A/N: This is a direct sequel to the previous chapter.
Verse: 'Half-Canon'.
The first thing Hisana awoke to was hunger.
Hunger. She hadn't felt that in a long time; at least not such an acute sting that barbed her belly. She'd spent months in a fatigue-steeped blur, and the closest thing to hunger then had been a whisper of hollowness in her gut.
But not now. She'd sat up on her futon feeling startlingly clear-headed—she'd almost forgotten what that felt like—and the distinct sensation of her belly rumbling. Akari and one of the physician's attendants, seated by her bedside, had scrambled to greet her, and both had looked stunned at the first words from Hisana's lips. Given her appalling appetite as of late, her voluntary request to eat was nothing less than a miracle, and Akari had shot to her feet at once. It was probably a relief to the handmaid, who'd spent the past months cajoling Hisana to eat.
Breakfast had been served: piping hot congee, miso soup, agedashi tofu, soybean pulp, spinach with sesame dressing and a warm cup of soothing nettle tea. Hisana had devoured the dishes with an enthusiasm that stupefied Akari and the attendant. So ravenous was Hisana that she barely protested about her meal being served in bed. Minutes later, she placed her chopsticks down, her belly comfortably full. While there were substantial leftovers on her tray, it was more than she'd eaten in a long time.
Seike had emerged in her quarters to clear her tray, and she'd felt a pang in her chest upon seeing the elderly steward.
Her husband was nowhere in sight, and Akari had informed her that he'd been called away for a meeting with the other Captains of the Gotei Thirteen. Her stomach flipped at the memory of last night, and she felt her cheeks flush deeply, both with embarrassment and shame.
Now that the numbing fog of delirium and exhaustion was cleared from her mind, her actions yesterday felt more egregious than ever. It was obvious she had been caught concealing her bruises—why else would her husband have summoned the physician had he not suspected anything amiss? In hindsight, she knew he must have noticed the jerky stiltedness of her hands as she attended to him last night. Had she been gratingly transparent from the get-go? After all, she knew how watchful and astute Byakuya was… how attuned he was to her being. She'd avoided bathing with him; had that been the first sign he'd picked up on?
She'd been exposed. Yet instead of showing remorse to the Head of the House, she'd gone and made the matter worse by begging him to allow her to return to the Rukon District. Hisana grimaced, her miniature hands curling into mortified fists. What had she been thinking?
The answer was simple: she hadn't. She'd been so horribly sick last night. Her thoughts had been clouded and jumbled, the horrible fatigue manacling every cell of her body. Reduced to a slave to instinct, she'd made a spectacle of herself. And by doing so, she'd made as clear as day the reason she'd concealed her bruises. There was no chalking it up to her not wanting him to worry—though that was a part of it.
Hisana was sure her lover could have guessed at the real reason even before her pleas, but this… She'd made it too obvious. The Kuchiki Head had never viewed her ventures to her hometown in a positive light, and the lengths she'd gone to preserve that would have only made his impression worse.
She'd made a terrible mistake.
To add salt to injury, she'd made a fool of herself, too. She remembered him bringing her to the bathroom, and helping her relieve herself. She wanted to curl up and die just thinking of it. By now, after years of battling her endless ailments, she should've been used to having her dignity stripped before her elegant husband, but this had been a whole new line they'd crossed.
But he hadn't expressed any disgust. If he did, she didn't remember it through her torpor, but that didn't mean anything. Her husband was not one who wore his emotions on his sleeve—what if, deep down…?
She must be growing less attractive to him by the day. An ice-cold sting of panic pricked her throat, and she struggled to tamp it down. She felt unappealing; useless; like a burden. For the nth time, her husband had spent the night taking care of her, even though his other more pressing duties awaited him at dawn. And that, more than anything else, hurt: knowing the sacrifices the man she loved had made for her.
"Hisana-sama?" Akari's voice was concerned.
Hisana looked up from where she'd been staring holes into her thick comforter, and forced a smile.
"I'm going to take a bath, Akari-san," she said.
She would rectify things tonight. Inexplicably, she felt a thousand times better than she did last night, and she refused Akari's assistance into the ofuro once the water was ready. By the time she climbed out of it half an hour later and towelled herself, she felt brand-new. She carefully combed her dishevelled wet hair and studied her reflection in the kyodai dressing mirror in her bedroom, her slight shoulders hunching under her pink silk haori.
There was some colour in her cheeks, when it certainly hadn't been there before. Even at the prime of her health, she'd never considered herself a beauty, but at the very least, she was looking better than she had the past weeks. Maybe she was really on the mend.
Good, she thought, relieved. It wasn't yet too late. She could still restore what was lost. It had been weeks since she'd last made love with her husband, but for the first time in a while, she felt well enough to attempt it.
She would show him how much she loved him, and how much she appreciated all he'd done for her. And she would try her utmost to undo that wretched side of her last night from his mind, until all he could think about was the pleasure she was giving him.
She'd promised herself before falling asleep last evening, hadn't she, that she would finish what she'd been unable to finish? This time, she would try even if it killed her. She was well-aware that her hands were weak and she was mediocre at best using her mouth, but she was well enough for intercourse now. She would do whatever he wanted of her, to let him take her in any position. He wouldn't have to be so very, very gentle whilst making love to her anymore, as if she was made of fine glass.
"Hisana-sama," Akari said. "Would you like to take your nap?"
She started guiltily, ripping her violet eyes from the mirror. Praying that her risqué thoughts hadn't materialised in her face, she stammered, "N–Nap?"
"Yes, Hisana-sama." Akari fidgeted from where she stood in the corner of the room. Her eyes were ringed with shadows and she looked haggard, and a worried Hisana wondered how much rest she'd gotten. "It's just… you usually nap at this hour, is all."
Akari was right. Her lethargy was a stubborn cloud over her senses most days, and if she wasn't headed for the Rukon District, she'd often lie back down on her futon in the late morning. The fact that she didn't feel the slightest bit tired now must truly mean she was better, and her heart grew wondrously light. She didn't know why her health had suddenly improved overnight, but did it matter?
If she was better, then it was just a matter of time before she could return to the Rukon District, and the nightmare yesterday would be a thing of the past.
"I'm all right," Hisana smiled. Then her forehead creased with concern. "But what about you, Akari-san? Are you all right?"
Akari blinked, startled, then bowed. "I'm fine, Hisana-sama. Thank you."
"Are you sure?"
Her handmaid met her eye a beat later, and Hisana wondered why the other girl seemed almost furtive. "Yes, I promise."
She hoped Akari wasn't lying. But then again, what would she even be hiding?
"Akari-san," Hisana said carefully. "Could you do me a favour?"
Akari straightened up at once. "Of course, Hisana-sama. What do you need?"
"Can you help me prepare some paper and ink?"
Akari's brows shifted. The question of why was stamped across her features, but she was clearly warring with herself because of its impropriety. Ordinarily, Hisana would have no qualms confiding in her handmaid—she had always felt uncomfortable with the lines between herself and the servants of the household—but she found it difficult to speak this time. It would be embarrassing to voice her intentions aloud.
What else could she say, other than: a love letter?
She didn't want to just wait for her husband to come home tonight. She wanted to write a letter—a little sentimental note—and have a Hell Butterfly deliver it to the Sixth Division. There were so many things she wanted to say to him, but she'd save most of it for when he came back. For now, she'd try her best to rid her letter of twaddle and stick to the point she wanted to get across most.
I love you.
Hisana balled the white paper up in her tiny fist, frustrated. This was her second attempt, and her handwriting was still atrocious. She'd always felt self-conscious comparing it to the Head of the House's beautiful, immaculate calligraphy, but now that her right arm was bruised, the scrawl of her writing was near unintelligible. The strokes of ebony ink were thick and fat, with unseemly blots growing at their corners.
During her bath, she'd noticed that most of the bruises on her arm and midriff had turned yellow. She had no doubt that the physician had used Kidō to heal them last night. Even so, the ache remained when she applied pressure to the ink brush, and her diminutive fingers felt stiff and unwieldy. Given that she favoured her right arm, she couldn't exactly swap hands.
She couldn't even write a letter properly. It made her cringe just to think of the Sixth Division Captain, unbelievably versed as he was in the art of calligraphy, receiving a child's smudged scrawl as a love letter. To him, the ink brush was his tool, one that danced at the beck and call of his clever hand, but it had always been her foe.
It wouldn't even form three vital words.
Frustration punched her gut. The feeling of uselessness from before heightened, threatening to drown her in its waves. She set the expensive bamboo brush with more force than was necessary against the inkstone on her husband's study desk, clenching harder around the crumpled paper in her other fist. The dull ache sharpened in her forearm.
She couldn't give up. She'd just try again until she could make it perfect. While she wasn't naïve enough to think she could even attempt to match her intended recipient's level of calligraphy, she had to be better than these smudged slashes.
She had to be better.
Hisana raised her hand, about to discard her draft into the wastepaper basket by the tidy elm wood desk. What she didn't expect, however, was the surge of undiluted frustration and self-loathing at that moment.
The next thing she knew, she brought her small fist down onto the wood with a muted thump, slightly shaking the neat stack of books and inkstone on the desk. Pain flared like white-hot needles up her contused forearm, and that only stoked her anger. She wasn't usually like this—wasn't ever prone to rage, much less violence. She had no talent for the latter, anyway.
But the ire remained, as did the chronic throbbing of her forearm. Maybe her mind wasn't as clear as she'd liked, after all. She knew she had to stop before Akari caught wind of what she was doing inside the study. Yet she found herself raising her fist again, the tendons of her tense wrist protruding against porcelain skin.
She brought it down.
It didn't make contact with the table this time. She sat there on the zabuton, blinking, momentarily disoriented. It took her a moment to register the warm long-fingered hand around her bony wrist, keeping it in place.
Akari was her first thought, but even then her instincts rioted against the assumption. The hand was far too big, too masculine, too familiar…
And it was gloved.
Her head jerked up, and her heart almost stopped in her chest as silver-white edges of windflower silk fluttered across her peripheral vision. She had to be dreaming—it was only half past one in the afternoon. Raising her head further, the sense of unreality deepened, and her pulse shot up.
"B–Byakuya-sama," Hisana forced out dazedly, her lips parting as she stared into beautiful slate grey eyes. She wondered if he could feel her erratic pulse, stemming from both delight and panic. "You're home early."
This was mortifying. She hadn't expected him to come home early, and catch her writing a love letter to him. Technically, he hadn't exactly caught her writing since the half-finished letter was balled within her fist. There was still her first draft, though, in the wastepaper basket, and her face pinkened.
She had meant to clear the basket by the time he returned home tonight, so that he'd never need to find out that hideous handwriting existed. She hadn't at all expected that he was coming back early.
Perhaps she'd been foolish, because it wasn't that inconceivable to think he would. Considering how ill she'd been last night, it was possible he had planned to return to the manor after the Captain's meeting all along.
She was torn out of her reverie when she felt her bony wrist being turned. Sucking in her breath, Hisana's heartbeat spiked again as the wrinkled paper jutted between her fingers. She instantly tried to close her tiny fist further around it, but failed to contain the letter.
"I–I was just practising some writing, Byakuya-sama," Hisana babbled. "I'm sorry for wasting the pape—"
"Why were you striking the desk?"
His deep rich voice was quiet; even almost detached. It was impossible to read his thoughts behind his liquid dark gaze, and her pulse skittered under his calloused fingertips again.
"I…" The air seemed to have fled her lungs. "I apologise, Byakuya-sama. I shouldn't have done it to your desk. I was just—um…" She was floundering. "It's just—"
His eyes narrowed.
"The desk." His tone was eerily flat, and she realised her mistake at once. "Is that where you think my concern lies, Hisana?"
"N—No," Hisana said hastily. "But I'm feeling quite all right, Byakuya-sama. My bruises are much better now, so…"
She stopped short at the reminder of the bruises she'd deliberately hidden from him, and a pregnant lull fell between them. She squirmed and lowered her eyes, unable to meet her lover's calm grey ones. The silence dragged like a chokehold, and in contrast to his unflappable mien, she couldn't stand it any longer.
"I won't do it again, Byakuya-sama," Hisana said softly. "Please forgive me."
She stood gingerly from the cushion, tiptoeing to plant a loving kiss on his chiselled jawline, followed by another on those mint-cool lips.
"I won't hide anything from you again," she whispered, her heart racing maniacally. "I…"
Byakuya watched her, but made no comment. She wished—oh, how she wished—she could decipher what he was thinking. His irises had darkened further, but she had no idea if it was out of displeasure or desire.
His large hand was still around her spindly wrist, she realised. His palm slid up the back of her delicate pale hand, his gaze on the crumpled ball of paper in her grasp. She stiffened immediately, her fingers flexing.
"There's nothing to see, Byakuya-sama." She bit her lip. "It—"
"Show me."
He was calm; matter-of-fact.
No. No! Her soul cringed at the notion of him witnessing her monstrous handwriting. Yet the irony of her actions did not elude her. If she disobeyed him—and that in itself was not something she often dared to do—she would be breaking the promise she had just made to him.
He was testing her.
Her fine fingers were trembling as she eventually turned and placed the sheet on the centre of the elm wood desk, then spread it open. She'd smudged the beetle-black ink further by balling it up, and it was almost impossible to read the words formed by the filthy fat, harshly jagged blots.
I love you.
"I wanted to write to you at the Sixth Division," Hisana managed. The embarrassment was too much, and she bunched the letter up again. "I–I know you spent the night taking care of me, so I wanted to… to let you know how I felt. But my arm isn't back to normal yet, and the writing came out all wrong…"
Her digits were still trembling, she discovered. It wasn't until her husband's gloved hand was over her petite one on the desk that she felt her rigid muscles ease.
Softly, he kissed the crown of her head. He was so warm, his scent—of petrichor, old books and something uniquely him—so heady and decadent that her body began to melt. He was behind her, around her, his shihakushō brushing her pink haori, but it wasn't enough. Suddenly hit by a deep yearning for more of him, she tried to turn around, only to quiver in shock as his lips brushed the sensitive shell of her ear. That was always one of her erogenous zones, and her husband knew it.
He planted another slow, lingering kiss along her ear, sending an electric current through her flesh and eliciting a half-moan from her mouth. Her stomach clenched hard, and she desperately reached around for him, her skinny fingers grazing his Captain's haori. He released her ear, his glossy raven head dipping so he could claim her awaiting lips instead.
They kissed, liquid gold pooling like ecstasy through her veins as she tasted the mintiness of Kuchiki Byakuya's sculpted mouth. She brushed against the tip of his tongue, mewling at how exquisitely molten it was in contrast, and the junction between her legs tightened as he slid smoothly into her in a velvety sleek rush. He continued to coax her open, their tongues intertwining snugly together.
The room spun, and the next thing she knew, his mouth had left hers, leaving her dazed, swollen and bereft.
"Byakuya-sama…?" Hisana fought for breath. She shivered as he gently kissed her forehead. It was only now that she realised that her knees had buckled, and she was slumped in his strong arms.
"Byakuya-sama," she said breathlessly again, when he did not reply. "Shall we…"
Her cheeks flamed. She didn't usually have to propose making love—there was no need for it as he could read her arousal well whenever he took charge in the bedroom. Yet for some reason, he had ceased his ministrations today.
It couldn't be for lack of male desire; she recognised his arousal too. Byakuya's eyes had darkened to the shade of volcanic glass, and she could scarcely distinguish his pupils from his irises. He studied her flushed features for a moment, then gently cupped her cheek with a slender gloved hand.
"Not today," he said quietly.
"W–What do you—" Comprehension dawned upon her, and her words spilled out in a torrent. "I feel much better, Byakuya-sama. I really do. I'm up for it today—I'm not tired at all, I promise."
He continued to regard her unfathomably without a word, and her heart sank. It had been over two weeks. She didn't want to go any longer.
"Please, Byakuya-sama…" Hisana exhaled shakily and squirmed against him. Her face was burning more than ever, but she couldn't help it. "I—I… I really need…"
She'd originally hoped that their lovemaking could erase yesterday's memory from his mind, but she'd underestimated how much she wanted him, too. She couldn't fathom his inhuman self-control. She felt hot all over, and unbelievably desperate for the man she loved…
An almost indiscernible softness entered his midnight eyes, and he lowered his head to kiss her once more. She emitted a keening sound of relief as his sensuous mouth slanted over hers, nuzzling her aching flesh. His arms went around her waist, and her heart thudded as he picked her up easily and set her down on the edge of his desk.
And then his lips left hers to kiss a fiery path down her exposed creamy throat and towards her clavicles, gently nipping the expanse of baby-soft skin. She mewled helplessly, her hands weaving through his silken raven hair, and he lifted his head to gaze at her. He was so hauntingly beautiful, so perfect, and she wasted no time kissing every part of him she could manage—his aristocratic cheekbones, his high blade of a nose, his brow, his lips, even down to his defined jawline. By the time she was done, there was almost no part of his face she hadn't caressed with her lips.
I love you.
I love you.
If she couldn't write it well, she wanted him to know this way.
He watched her with those bottomless eyes. She tried to reach for his face once more, but then his gloved hand was under the hem of her hadajuban, and her breathing faltered. His long fingers effortlessly spanned the width of her left thigh, gently separating it from the other. Her blood roared through her ears. He wouldn't take her, but if he was willing to soothe her with his hand, perhaps she could change his mind along the way. Maybe—
He knelt down on the tatami in a single graceful motion, the ends of his long silk scarf fluttering serenely behind him, and she braced both her palms on the desk, her ribs shrinking over her thundering heart. This—this wasn't what she'd expected. She wasn't sure if she was ready for that right now. The unpleasant memory of him helping her to the toilet was still vivid, and she'd used the toilet again just half an hour ago. It was one thing to touch her with his hand, another to…
"Byakuya-sama," Hisana whispered, stricken. "Wait. I, um—"
Byakuya had gone extraordinarily still. She struggled to get her next words out, only to notice his attention was elsewhere. His gloved hand remained on her slim thigh, and she looked down, mystified, at where the hem of her hadajuban had ridden up.
On her milky skin were blotches of pale violet. Her mouth went dry. These weren't from yesterday. All her bruises had only been on her midsection and forearm, and they'd gone yellow. But these ones on the inside of her left thigh were purple, still light, though a few more hours and they would ripen into a stormy dark violet.
New bruises. Why? Wasn't she getting better? She felt better. She was sure of it.
So what was going on? All she'd done this morning was eat, bathe, and write. There was nothing to warrant fresh contusions.
Every iota of arousal evaporated from her blood. She'd wanted so badly to forget her humiliation late last night, but the memory was rearing its ugly head once more, persistent and interminable. Her mind was a toxic miasma of confusion and disbelief, and she barely reacted when her husband took her hand, which she'd pounded on the table, and held it sideways in his bigger one. The edge of her demure palm was splotched with the faintest beginnings of purple.
Byakuya said nothing, but the heat in his slate grey eyes was gone, replaced by silver icicles. She opened her mouth numbly, wanting to say something but not knowing what, though he did not seem particularly interested. Instead, he gently scooped her slight weight up from his desk, and the rumpled love letter—bunched back in a ball—bounced off the table behind her and plummeted to the floor.
She wanted to grab it, but her arms had gone boneless. She closed her eyes instead, listening to the thump of paper on tatami as he carried her out of the study.
Even in the next room, she could still hear it falling.
:tbc: