So just because I like surprises, I thought, why not give you guys an epilogue? I was a little apprehensive, because I typically like to leave my endings more on the open side. However, if you like the ending how it is, then you can always disregard this. I personally think it's adds to it, but some people enjoy their stories not feeling so "finished" if you know what I mean.

Anyway, this is rather short and simple and lacks a lot of my usual flowery language, but I kind've wanted it to be that way. Something simple, sweet, and to the point.

xXx

Epilogue

Ichigo snickered to himself as he tightly packed some snow together. He took a quick peek from around the trunk of a sakura tree and furrowed his brow when he didn't see his sisters.

"Where are they, we're suppose to get Bya-"

Ichigo was sent onto his ass, flailing under a barrage of snowballs being pelted at this face. When the attacked stopped, and he could finally see more than white, Ichigo looked up to see a smug Byakuya standing triumphantly in the middle of his sisters.

"I know all of your tricks, Ichigo." Byakuya said, "but after five years, I thought you'd be more creative with your tactician skills."

"Yeah, yeah," Ichigo huffed. "If I had some loyal soldiers, this wouldn't be an issue! Does family mean anything to you two?"

Yuzu placed a gloved hand on her expectant stomach and looked up to Byakuya with a smile. "'Kuya-Nii is like a brother to us too."

"Yeah!" Karin agreed, "and we like him more."

Ichigo scoffed from his casual position against the sakura tree. "More like he bribes you. He probably offered you expensive candy or zanpakuto lessons."

Byakuya sniffed and turned up his nose. "I would never."

Ichigo smirked up at his lover. "I know all your tricks too, Byakuya"

A strange sound resonated from Yuzu's belly, prompting her to look up at Karin. "Will you walk inside with me, Karin? This little guy is acting grumpy."

"He probably takes after Ichigo," she said, flashing Ichigo an impish grin as she took hold of Yuzu's hand.

After they left, Byakuya looked down to Ichigo with a tilted head. "Are you going to spend the whole day pouting in the snow?"

"You're a prince, right? Shouldn't you offer to help me up?"

Byakuya perked an amused eyebrow and bit back a smirk. "I did not think you were a damsel in distress," he said as he walked up and extended a hand.

Ichigo clasped it, only to send Byakuya tumbling into the snow. He quickly straddled Byakuya's legs as he hovered above his now snow drenched lover.

Looking down upon Byakuya with a smile, he said, "Gotcha."

Byakuya pursed his lips and barely contained the urge to roll his eyes. "You do this every year, Ichigo. Do not overestimate your element of surprise."

"And yet you always let me."

Byakuya softened and caressed Ichigo's rosy cheek, the contact warm and inviting. "It makes you happy."

Ichigo turned his face and kissed Byakuya's palm. "What can I say? I like traditions."

"Says the man who constantly complains about all the traditions within my clan."

"Well maybe if those stuffy elders had any fun traditions, I'd like them more." He lowered himself steadily, and an instant heat ignited at the hard press of their bodies. Byakuya trembled at Ichigo's hot breath and gravely voice prickling at his ear as he spoke between sloppy neck kisses. "But I like traditions like these…my sisters coming up here… kissing you in the snow…watching fireworks from our second floor on our anniversary… and making love to you until you're dripping with m-"

"Ichigo!" Byakuya yelped as he threw a handful of snow in the man's face.

Through bouts of coughing, Ichigo said, "What the hell was that for?!"

"You were obviously getting too hot and needed to be cooled down. I swear, you are becoming lewder than your father."

"Hey, take that back!" Ichigo said with a scowl.

The sly smirk that emerged on Byakuya's face pulled at Ichigo's heart, and it thumped furiously as a result. "If you believe yourself capable, make me."

Ichigo returned the smirk in spades. "I'm going to make you regret those words, Byakuya."

Snow was upheaved and limbs tangled as they playfully scuffled, and though he put up a good fight, Byakuya ended up under Ichigo once more, drenched and shivering. Ichigo looked down at his lover through floaty eyes. As always, he was too beautiful to know what to do with. Ichigo was forever suspended between admiring him or ruffling him up. Byakuya's thick lashes were glittered by snowflakes, and his raven hair was tussled and splayed. The white droplets caught the light in such a way his locks looked interweaved with crystals. The cold stung red across his ivory features, from his cheeks to the tip of his sniffling nose. His lips quivered as if begging to be warmed by Ichigo's kiss, and his eyes gave a smile that his mouth would often refuse.

Ichigo brushed some hair out Byakuya's face and looked at him with the same tongue tied wonderment as he did under that blazing sky five years back, and he still held the same thought as he did then. Byakuya's beauty was so vibrant, it even left the fireworks in reverence. After all this time, Byakuya still hadn't lost his luster.

"You're beautiful. Do you know that?"

Byakuya gave a rare smile. "How could I not? You never let me forget."

"And I never will."

Ichigo could feel Byakuya's racing heart echoing through him, and he saw the way his cheeks went just a shade darker. "Are you simply going to stare at me or are you going to warm me up, Ichigo?"

"Well since you asked so nicely," Ichigo said, his smirking lips crashing into Byakuya's

Their fingers laced on either side of Byakuya's head as they indulged in their deep and mind numbing applications. Frost bitten lips turned torrid as they forgot exactly where they were.

"We leave you two alone for a few minutes, and you're making out in the snow like a couple of teenagers," Karien said.

"I think it's romantic!" Yuzu gushed.

Jolted from his daze, Ichigo pulled himself up and helped Byakuya on the way. "In my defense, I'm still young. It's this old guy over here you should be scolding," Ichigo said as they both knocked the snow from their garments.

As Ichigo helped Byakuya dust the snow from his back, the noble said, "I'll have you know, for Soul Society standards, I am rather young."

When Ichigo went to brush the snow from Byakuya's hakama, standing out of the view of his sisters, he discreetly squeezed his lover's subtle bottom, and in his ear, he whispered, "Hell yeah, you are."

"Hey, theres a child here!"

Byakuya and Ichigo both turned around to see Renji holding Ichika and Rukia standing at his side. Ichigo blushed and put on a sheepish smile at being caught.

"Yes, Renji, I see that you are here," Byakuya said, completely unfazed. At the sensation of a new pulse radiating from Rukia's stomach, Byakuya sent Renji a reprimanding glare. "Renji, could you stop impregnating my sister? She does have a career to concern herself with."

Renji matched the glare and said, "Only if you'll stop getting handsy with my best friend."

Ichigo blushed even harder and put on a defensive scowl. "Do I have any say in this?!"

Rukia just chuckled and shook her head in ridicule. She took Ichika from Renji and walked towards Byakuya. The little girl, who looked no older than one, had been reaching out for Byakuya in a tiff. "I believe you said something similar when I was carrying Ichika, Nii-sama, and now you two are best friends."

Byakuya scooped up his niece, and as she tugged at his hair, he put on a soft smile that he could never hide in the little girl's vicinity. "Hello my little heiress," he whispered as the girl wrapped her tiny hand around one of Byakuya's fingers and cooed happily. As Ichigo looked on at the charming display of affection, he thought about what a wonderful dad Byakuya would be.

"Yeah, sometimes I think she likes Byakuya more than she likes us," Renji said.

"That's because he spoils her," Ichigo said as he walked over to Byakuya and tickled Ichika's protruding tummy, causing the girl to laugh and clap her hands.

"I do no such thing."

"I caught you making her a flower crown the other day."

"And your point is?"

Ichigo snorted. "Never mind."

"Well maybe you two should have a baby of your own," Yuzu said, "since you're both so in love with Ichika!"

"Yeah," Renji agreed, directing an impish smirk at Ichigo. "You want an ankle biter of your own, buddy?"

Ichigo shrugged a shoulder. "One day, yeah. Why not?"

Byakuya, who had been paying the conversation little mind, looked up to Ichigo with marginally gapped eyes. "And will you carry them, Ichigo? Is there something you need to inform me of?"

"There are other ways to have a kid!" Ichigo shouted.

"I'd love a little niece or nephew!" Rukia added. "Nii-sama would be a great dad."

"What about me?" Ichigo asked

"Eh."

"I believe this is a conversation that should be had between Ichigo and myself. Besides," he said, handing Ichika to Yuzu, "I believe Ichika would like some hot cocoa."

"That sounds great," Rukia said as her and Renji started falling in line behind Yuzu and Karin.

As Ichigo went to follow, he was drawn back by Byakuya's guiding hand on his shoulder. He looked up with a furrow brow at his lover. "What's up?"

Byakuya closed his eyes briefly, and when he opened them, they were filled with a seriousness that surpassed Byakuya's usual heavy glare. "I need your assistance with something."

Ichigo fidgeted in his spot a bit. "With what? Is everything okay?"

"Yes, but I need your help in finishing this snowman we started."

Ichigo's jaw went slack as he glared dumbly at the man. "That's what's so important?"

Byakuya nodded his head in confirmation.

"Why the hell did you have to act like it was something serious! You scared me," Ichigo shouted, his typical scowl firmly in place.

Latching onto Ichigo's forearm, Byakuya began to drag the man through the snow, following the footprints they had created earlier. "This is of the utmost importance," Byakuya said simply.

Ichigo rolled his eyes and let out a resigned chuckle at his lover's, at times, quirky behavior. "You're lucky I find your weirdness cute."

As they stopped in front of the ungarnished snowman, Byakuya picked up some stones that had been left sitting off to the side at the impromptu snowball fight that had began when the twins arrived.

"Will you grab some twigs that are behind that tree, Ichigo?" Byakuya asked as he worked on giving the snowman a face.

Ichigo made a noncommittal noise as he retreated behind a withered sakura tree only a few steps off to their side.

Byakuya turned around right before Ichigo stepped back out into view, with him a thriving sakura branch grasped carefully between both hands. His eyes were shimmering, and his mouth grappled hopelessly as he looked up to a subtly smiling Byakuya with no words.

"Does that remind you of anything?" Byakuya asked.

Ichigo looked down to the branch perched in his hands and back up to Byakuya. "The paintings," he said, his voice choking as he attempted the words.

Byakuya nodded as the took steady steps towards Ichigo. "It was never that you saw me, Ichigo, but how you saw me that really mattered. Much like how many people see you, but few get the view that I do. No one else knows the way your brown eyes explode with color when the sun filters into our bedroom first thing in the morning. Or how you sometimes still have trouble sleeping because of nightmares from the war." Slower now, he inched closer, never breaking eye contact with Ichigo. "Few know how gentle you are capable of being or the way you melt into silence when I trail kisses down your body, and perhaps it makes me selfish to want to keep these things for myself," Byakuya said, his voice gravely and full of sincerity as he stopped in front of a misty eyed Ichigo, his face wide and unflinching. "But for once, I would like to be a selfish man." He placed a hand on Ichigo's fisted grip, and one by one, he uncoiled the man's fingers to reveal a silver band engraved with a sakura branch settled on a bracelet. His thumbs pressed gently into Ichigo's palms, and his voice lowered to just above a whisper. "If I promise to never hold you down, but to only to lift you up, can I keep you, Kurosaki Ichigo? Can I keep you by my side for the rest of our days?"

Ichigo was frozen. He spared not even a blink as tears rolled down cheeks that grew increasingly red. "Are yo- are you asking me what I think you're asking me?"

"I am asking you to become apart of my family, officially, if you so desire it," Byakuya asked, his fluttering heartbeat betraying the composed flintiness of his features.

Ichigo's eyes flickered frantically between Byakuya and the ring. "But what about the elders? I don't want to get you in any trouble, and I know they've been really adamant about you getting married and having kids, and w-"

"Ichigo," Byakuya said, relinquishing his grasp on Ichigo's hand to claim his chin and draw in his scattered attention. "You know as well as I do that when it comes to you, I will not bend to their whims. I will always take my responsibilities seriously, but I am the head of this house, and if we so desire to be married, than that's how it should be. I will not let them dictate my happiness. You are not dispensable nor optional."

If at all possible, Ichigo's eyes widened more, and he once again seemed lost for words. "Furthermore, though you say this now, if I were to truly sacrifice our relationship to appease the elders, you would have some choice words for me." He smirked only slightly. "Most likely of the obscene nature."

"Yeah...but…"

"Do not think about the elders or anything else. I want to hear what you want, Ichigo. Because if you so desire it, we can wed and have children of our own. We can be as much of a family as Rukia and Renji are." Tenderly, so full of wistful devotion and constrained anticipation, Byakuya echoed Ichigo's words from years past. "Now the question is, do you want to make this work?"

Ichigo looked down at the ring for a few painfully drawn out moment before he let out a shuddered breath. "Idiot," he said, only to look up with the same fiery determination Ichigo had towards all things he held a passion for. "Do you even have to ask?"

Byakuya's chin quivered a bit from the tears he encumbered, and his smile was delicate as he removed Ichigo's glove and placed the ring on his shivering hand. He looked up to Byakuya with a helpless, stupidly in love grin, one that Byakuya didn't see all too much these days after the reality of their affection became habitual. Seeing that grin so simply reminded Byakuya that, even if their feelings had become commonplace, dulled in sensation by the passing of time, they were still just as potent. An expression of that potency always lingering beneath the surface, just needing to be provoked.

He leaned in to offer his now fiancé a chaste kiss, but Ichigo had other plans as he looped his arms around Byakuya's thighs and lifted him up to where there bodies meshed and Byakuya's feet dangled above the snow.

The nobel laughed as his body was sandwiched between the trunk of the tree and Ichigo, and he dipped his head to join their lips in a bruising bout of intense kisses. He rested his hands on Ichigo's shoulders and wrapped his legs around his waist as well, trusting Ichigo's body to hold him up. When they separated, Ichigo buried his face in the crook of Byakuya's neck, and the noble felt a mixture of heated breaths and tears working at his pulse.

"Do you know how much I love you?" Ichigo asked, shifting to look back up at his lover.

Cupping Ichigo's face, Byakuya said, "As much as I love you, Anata."

"More every day."

Byakuya looked down at the man who had changed his life, revived his volition, and stirred a hunger for strong embraces and tentative touches he could call his own. He looked down at the man who both simultaneously deepened and satisfied that hunger, who shared in that hunger. He thought about how boring his life would be without this man. How, with Ichigo, even the most mundane of task were somehow special. He thought of how every little, frivolous moment of his life would be so much better when spent beside this man, even the not so easy moments that tested their love and resolve. He thought of how the simplicity of knowing he would venture into this unforeseeable future hand in hand with Ichigo, ready to face whatever the world threw at them as an inseparable pair, made him happier than he ever thought a man of himself capable of being. Byakuya thought that no matter what would become of them, he could not wait to take the journey together.

Smiling down at his fiancé, Byakuya said, "Then we have an indefinite amount of days to fill with this love."