Disclaimer: I do not own Bleach.

I almost called this fic Kuchiki Family Values. Too bad I have a thematic titling thing for this AU.

Speaking of which, if you got here some other way than via the first two parts of the Chaos Theory universe... be aware that this story takes place in an increasingly-divergent AU from canon. The big things to know are that Ichigo died as a kid and Karin, Yuzu, and Uryū(!) are (or will be, at the point this takes place) shinigami. Nearly everything in this particular fic should make sense as long as you have those extra facts in mind.

Adhesion

A Bleach Fanfic

Chapter One: Choice and Conscience

We cannot live, except thus mutually
We alternate, aware or unaware,
The reflex act of life: and when we bear
Our virtue onward most impulsively,
Most full of invocation, and to be
Most instantly compellant, certes, there
We live most life, whoever breathes most air
And counts his dying years by sun and sea.
But when a soul, by choice and conscience, doth
Throw out her full force on another soul,
The conscience and the concentration both make
mere life, Love. For Life in perfect whole
And aim consummated, is Love in sooth,
As nature's magnet-heat rounds pole with pole.

Love - Elizabeth Barrett Browning

The teacup was still slightly too hot. But she'd only just picked it up, and she'd feel foolish setting it down too soon. Rukia discreetly adjusted her grip, not letting her fingers remain too long or too heavily on any one spot, in hopes of being able to bear out the cooling process with some modicum of dignity.

Across from her, Byakuya was as silent and still as ever. She thought that perhaps this was meant to be interpreted as serenity on his part, but recent insights into stoic personalities had gleaned her the knowledge that a lack of outward disruption was not to be equated with actual calm.

Beyond this singular observation, she could read him no further than she had before. She knew he didn't dislike her—or, at least, he felt obligated to look after her. This, he had told her outright. A promise to her sister. They also had tea like this now, once a week, on Tuesdays because those were light on divisional training for both of them. Could it be counted as a tradition after a year? She thought so—a tradition of sitting in the same room, drinking tea, and not really talking much. He did occasionally ask her about things at the Thirteenth. She asked him about the Sixth to be polite; honestly Renji's answers were more informative and much more comfortable to seek.

Her fingers were burning. She gave up and set down the cup without having taken a sip.

"How are your lessons?"

Rukia, startled by the sound of his voice, looked up too sharply. "Fine, nii-sama."

They were awful.

She didn't think she was cut out for this noblewoman business. In some ways, life had been much easier when Byakuya had completely ignored her existence. Adapting to the military culture of the Gotei 13 was much easier than trying to learn how to comport herself around people of distinction, never mind the considerable overlap.

"And your instructor?"

Possibly scarier than Zaraki-taichō, and twice as mean.

"Fujita-san is well-versed in her subject areas, and a very meticulous instructor."

Renji had used the words 'old bat.' Rukia thought that characterization had the benefit of being true.

"I see your diplomatic instinct has been sharpened to a fine point." Byakuya's tone didn't change—it was flat, emotionless, and dry. But… was he implying…?

His expression also remained the same, but he met her eyes over the rim of the teacup he held, taking a careful sip. Rukia wasn't sure how she was meant to reply to that.

"Sorry," she murmured. She supposed he must be subtly chiding her for her disingenuousness. It probably wasn't that hard to tell, for someone as practiced at this kind of thing as him.

He didn't reply. Rukia shifted uncomfortably in her seiza. She wished she were somewhere else. Her eyes found the window to the outside, but she forced them back to the table in front of her.

"I guess Hisana was probably better at all this comportment stuff than I am." Rukia still wasn't sure what to make of that, sometimes. Her sister had been Lady Kuchiki, for however brief a time. Rukia wasn't lady of anything—not really.

Byakuya's teacup made a soft clink as he placed it back on the table. Everything he did was elegant. "On the contrary. She was far worse."

Rukia felt her eyes widen fractionally. Lifting her head, she blinked at him. "She was? But…"

Byakuya didn't confirm it again. He'd already made the statement; she supposed he saw no need to repeat himself. She had, after all, clearly heard him. But in all the time since they'd started… talking to each other, if that's what this was, he'd never again mentioned Hisana. A door had cracked open here.

Rukia stepped through it.

"How did the two of you meet, anyway? If she was from Inuzuri…" She could not picture her brother ever going there. For any reason. Not even shinigami patrols made it that far out into the Rukongai.

He regarded her steadily. She still had no idea what in the world he could be thinking. For a moment, Rukia feared she might have asked something she should not have—perhaps he wouldn't want to talk about it. No one here talked about Hisana much; no one anywhere did. Was that because Byakuya had some kind of moratorium on the topic?

"Would you like to hear the story? It is… somewhat long, in total."

He was offering?

"I don't have any other pressing matters today, nii-sama. And… yes. I would like to know. About her."

And him, though she didn't say that.

He seemed to consider that for a moment, then inclined his head fractionally. "Very well."

Byakuya was dizzy.

He suspected this had something to do with the sake Kyōraku-taichō had been foisting on him all evening. While perhaps under ordinary circumstances he would have refused it after a certain point, Kyōraku was one of the few people at this gathering who could truly claim to be his peer. His superior, in fact—if only by seniority. He could not risk offense, considering.

He was not certain whose idea the celebration had been, only that it was ostensibly for his sake. But if that was so, it seemed rather unbecoming to leave him with the expenses, as he now found himself.

"I'm sorry to leave you, Byakuya-kun. But I really should get him home. He lost his latest vice-captain the other day, so I'm not sure anyone will remember to come looking for him." Ukitake supported a very intoxicated Kyōraku over his shoulders. He looked considerably wan himself, though not from liquor.

Byakuya could only nod his understanding, and try not to give sign of the considerable nausea the motion caused him.

Ukitake took his leave, and Byakuya found himself at an empty table. It had been much more occupied earlier, but most of the other celebrants had left at a reasonable hour. Much as he would have preferred to do. He considered the near-dozen empty sake cups and bottles around him with a slight frown.

Making to stand, he immediately fell back into his seat, certainly without making the choice to do so. The world around him tilted on a strange axis, and he thought perhaps it must be spinning. Which was absurd. But it was either that or he was spinning, and Byakuya Kuchiki did not spin. Nor did he tilt. His frown deepened.

The sound of laughter, too loud for his ears, reached him from another part of the restaurant. He attempted to divine its source, but his body was remarkably slow to obey his commands. Before he could properly turn his visual field, someone appeared in it.

"You look like you're not having much fun." The voice matched the laughter. Maybe.

The woman—for indeed the speaker was female—sat down across the table from him. She was wearing a cheap-looking kimono. It was brown, with an apron over it. Byakuya decided it was probably what the staff had been wearing.

"Your observation is irrelevant." His voice didn't sound quite right. Byakuya could not discern if this was because of his mouth or his ears.

"Is it?" She tilted her head to the side.

Byakuya wished she wouldn't. He wasn't sure he could handle more tilting at the moment.

"…yes."

Her mouth curled into a sunny smile, and she reached partway down the table. He tried to track the motion, but failed. She handed him what appeared to be an untouched glass of water. The ice had all long since melted; condensation slicked her fingers, and left a ring on the table where she set it down.

"Trust me when I say you'll want to drink that."

"I don't." He didn't want to drink anything else. He was never doing anything Kyōraku told him ever again. This was beneath his… beneath something. Beneath him.

She sighed, and rolled her eyes. "Of course not. Silly me."

Both of them fell silent. He couldn't go anywhere for the moment, as his attempt to stand had amply proven. She simply seemed disinclined, and spent her time studying him.

That, he was quite accustomed to; he ignored her.

"So, what's got you down?"

The question was quite apropos of nothing. He was confident he gave no sign of being 'down,' in any sense of the term.

"I am not."

"That's bullshit."

The word startled him; he was unused to hearing such vulgarity, particularly from women. Byakuya's eyes moved back to her. She still smiled, which was even odder.

"No one looks that solemn at his own party unless something's going on." She crossed her arms, straightening in her seat. "Come on. You can tell me. You'll most likely have forgotten all of this by tomorrow morning anyway, and it's not like you'll ever come back here."

Byakuya fixed her with a cool stare. "What leads you to such a conclusion?"

"You've thoroughly embarrassed yourself here by being drunk in public. The fewer times you're reminded of this night, the better."

"I am not drunk."

She snorted. "Whatever you say." The waitress leaned forward, placing her elbow on the table and resting her chin in her hand.

For some reason, she hadn't stopped smiling. Perhaps it was the same reason she had not left.

Without his own consent, Byakuya found himself speaking. "I was just promoted to captain," he said.

Condensation dripped down the outside of the glass of water. The droplets of moisture were reluctant to let go of the vessel, clinging until the last possible moment, when gravity pulled them away.

"And…?"

He felt a furrow form in his brow. "I do not believe I am ready to assume the position."

"Hm." Her kimono rustled—she'd straightened a bit. "Your friends didn't seem to have any reservations."

"They are not my friends." The glass wavered in his vision; he was no longer completely certain she'd only given him one.

"That's a shame. They seemed like fun."

There was some undertone to her voice, he thought, but he could not place it. It didn't really matter anyway. Another drop of water, grown too large to hold its place, slid downwards.

"Why don't you think you're ready to be a captain?"

Were there two glasses, or just one?

"…my father died in service to the Gotei 13. I am his replacement. If he were alive, I would not have assumed this duty for another hundred years, at least."

But his grandfather was retiring. There were no other heirs. This, like so many other things, was his duty. His burden to bear. He wondered if anyone else had ever felt stifled by it, or if they were all simply more prepared than he was. It seemed unlikely that they were, but Byakuya could not be sure. Everyone expected him to be.

"Do you want to be a captain?"

He forced his eyes up. She wasn't smiling anymore.

"What?"

"I asked if you wanted to do it."

"That is irrelevant."

She laughed, an inelegant sound that reminded him more of a barking dog than anything else. It grated.

"Irrelevant? Good grief. What the hell do they teach you in that big fancy Seireitei, anyway?" She shook her head, more to herself than him. "'Irrelevant,' he says. Unbelievable."

Byakuya frowned openly at her. He should have expected such an attitude from someone like her. "This is a matter of lineage and duty," he said, flattening his tone as much as his slight slur would allow. "I do not anticipate that you would understand, but you should at least respect it."

This time, when she cracked a smile, he could see the bitterness seeping into the edges. He wondered where it had come from.

"Respect, huh? Yeah… maybe." She sighed. "Wait here and drink your water, taichō-sama." The title curled off her tongue with obvious disdain.

Byakuya obeyed, but only because his mouth was suddenly very dry. When the water was gone, he set the glass back down, lining it up with the existing moisture ring on the table.

She returned not two minutes afterwards, a small canister in one hand. "Tea," she explained when his eyes fell to it. "You should make it in the morning, after you wake up. Or have someone else make it for you, I guess." She eyed him thoughtfully. "I think you're probably fine to go now. Just… you know how to get back home, don't you?"

He didn't dignify that with a response. He was not a child.

The woman sighed again. "I figured. Okay, here." She held the canister out to him.

Byakuya accepted it dubiously, tucking it up into a sleeve of his shihakushō. This time, his attempt to stand yielded greater success, and after a short moment to steady his balance, he discovered he could walk without much more than mild dizziness.

He left without looking back.

"So… you didn't get her name or anything?" Rukia picked her tea back up.

It was still warm, but tolerably so, now. The first sip scalded her tongue a little; the second was right at the edge of palatable.

She found it difficult to imagine her brother intoxicated. Surely she had never known him to drink to excess. Then again, this had been more than fifty years ago. From the sounds of it, things were mostly Kyōraku-taichō's fault anyway. That much, she could easily believe.

"I did not," Byakuya replied.

"Then… you went back to the restaurant and saw her again?" Rukia shifted, trying to settle more comfortably into seiza. Her hair was irritating the back of her neck, but she didn't feel comfortable adjusting it. Something about being under her brother's direct scrutiny made it feel like she was already far too undignified; that would only make it worse.

With a barely-perceptible motion, he shook his head. "I did not go back. She told me later that she had been dismissed from her employment there."

"Why?"

"She was apparently in the habit of removing leftover food from the establishment after-hours and distributing it to those she judged to be in need of it."

That surprised her. Theft was… not looked upon well in Soul Society, to say the least. Hisana could have lost much more than her job for something like that.

"So… how did you meet again, then?"

Rukia could have sworn she saw a tiny flicker of amusement on Byakuya's face, but it was gone before she could say for sure.

The kenseikan felt heavy on his head. Byakuya was tempted to pull it out, since the ceremony was long over anyway, but that seemed inappropriate. He should wait until he returned to his rooms.

He still didn't much favor the idea of it—living in the main chambers of the mansion. They had always belonged to his grandfather, for as long as Byakuya had been alive. Longer, in truth. Since Ginrei was still very much part of the household, it seemed… wrong. To assume his titles, to claim even his physical space. But it was his grandfather who had insisted.

In any case, Byakuya disliked his chances of being able to sleep that night, so he instead elected to wander the halls—a ghost in his own home. The servants were long since abed, the guards were posted elsewhere, and what scarce family he had left to him slept as well.

He wasn't likely to encounter a soul. At just this precise moment, he preferred it so.

So naturally, it was then that he heard a noise. It wasn't much, barely a whisper of sound; at any other time, he might have ignored it. But he knew there was no logical reason for anyone to be in this part of the house at this time of night. Pausing in his trajectory, Byakuya stilled his feet on the floor and listened.

He detected no reiatsu.

He was beginning to think he'd imagined the sound when there was another, this one with the distinct hissing edge of a breath expelled between teeth. Byakuya's eyes narrowed. There was a door on his left, one that led into an unoccupied guest bedroom.

Laying one hand on Senbonzakura's tsuka, he placed the other on the door, wrapping his fingers around the edge of the divot in the wood that allowed it to be pulled aside. Lifting up a bit first, he slid the door back with no sound, peering into the room.

Outlined against the moonlight filtering in was a figure. Apparently, someone was attempting to leave his house through his window. Stepping into shunpō, he was behind them in an instant, his hand on the collar of the figure's haori and Senbonzakura's blade pressed to the skin of their neck.

They—she—froze. Unwisely, she turned back over her shoulder to look at him. He adjusted his grip automatically, moving his zanpakutō so that it would not cut.

Her visage was familiar. He believed he'd seen her somewhere before, but she wasn't one of the servants—he knew their faces.

"You've got to be fucking kidding me," she muttered.

The distasteful baseness of her language jogged his memory, and Byakuya frowned, pulling her back into the room by the collar and using his elbow to shut the open window. He let go of her, but not before nudging her shoulder hard enough to force her to turn around and face him. He pointed Senbonzakura at the floor. He wouldn't need to actually reach her with the blade to halt her, if it came to that.

"Explain yourself." He used the same level tone he used for everything else.

"Uh… I think it's pretty obvious what I'm doing here."

He saw a glint at her wrist; it would appear she'd very nearly succeeded in burglarizing his estate. For a scintilla of time, he was more impressed by that than he was offended. It was not the common thief who could make it past the manor's guards without detection. The feeling faded quickly, however.

Byakuya narrowed his eyes. "I could kill you for this."

The Soul Society's law against murder was precious little protection against a noble house.

Her upper lip pulled back slightly; her expression was almost a snarl. "You could," she replied, tone sharp. "It would be petty, spiteful, and arrogant of you, but you could."

Byakuya considered that. It would be petty—she was correct about that. He was less sure on the other two counts. He did not believe he felt spite for this woman. He was displeased that she had caught him in a compromising position last time they met, and uncomfortable with the amount of information he had revealed to her—but none of that was her fault. She had only asked him questions and given him tea.

Come to think of it… he hadn't actually paid his bill.

"Why are you attempting to steal from me?"

She frowned. He did not believe her cheeks had always looked that hollow, and he could not recall the bruise-colored circles under her eyes being present before, either.

"…I didn't know it was you," she mumbled. "It's nothing personal."

He tilted his head—an invitation for clarification.

She sighed heavily, her shoulders sagging. "Because I'm dying," she replied. The tone of her voice might have matched his for flatness.

"I do not follow."

She raised a dark eyebrow. "Medicine, genius. It's keeping me alive. Couple little things from a house this expensive, and I might live another year. And I really, really want to live." She paused, then shrugged. "Plus I like getting one over on you snob types. You spend so much time checking for reiatsu that you never see people like me who don't have any."

He blinked. "You were gainfully employed previously. Was that insufficient?"

"Are you fucking kidding me? You live in a house like this, and you want to talk about enough?" She threw her arms wide, to encompass the guest bedroom. "This room is bigger than the house I live in, and I share it with two other people. Which is damn luxurious compared to some."

He did not reply. She still had not answered his question.

"Oh for—no, okay? It wasn't enough. Not even close."

Byakuya considered that for a moment. Sliding Senbonzakura back into his sheath, he studied her.

One of the things his grandfather had taught him was to look, where possible, for the arrangement whereby all parties were best served. The principle was meant for the context of negotiation with the council or the branch and vassal houses, but Byakuya saw no reason he could not also apply it here.

"How much does your medicine cost you?"

She made a face at him that involved wrinkling her nose, but she answered. The figure was smaller than he'd expected. Was her previous salary really inadequate for such a thing?

"Return what you stole. I will pay you that much to work for me."

Her jaw dropped. "Wait, what?"

Byakuya held her eyes steadily. "I do not repeat myself."

Her fists clenched at her side. "Okay, fine. Then why?"

"You passed by my guards undetected. If your skill is enough for such a task as that, then I would like to employ you as my messenger. On occasion, I have need for discretion in my communication." As she had rightfully pointed out, a person like her, with no reiatsu to speak of, had a considerable advantage in remaining undetected. She also clearly knew how to stay out of the range of visual detection—and aside from her mistake in letting her guard down once she was almost out the window, she was quiet as well.

Her mouth shut with a click, and she pursed her lips thoughtfully.

"I don't work in the mornings," she told him. "I have other places to be then. But I'll carry your messages in the afternoons, if you want."

She was scarcely in a position to be making demands of him, but they were not an imposition.

"Very well."

She nodded, and silence descended for a moment.

"Hisana."

His left brow ascended a few centimeters.

"My name. It's Hisana. In case you needed to use it. What's yours?"

He blinked. He forgot that sometimes people actually didn't know.

"Byakuya Kuchiki."

"So… Hisana was already sick before you were married?"

Byakuya inclined his head, taking a sip from his tea before he set the cup down. It wasn't until he'd started pouring the second one that Rukia remembered she probably should have done that. He didn't comment on it though—instead, he gestured for her to put hers down as well. When she did, he refilled it to the top. A fresh coil of steam curled up from the surface.

"For a while, the medicine she purchased slowed the progression of her disease." Byakuya sat back again, taking his cup with him and wrapping both hands around it. "I discovered some time later that she was only taking half the right dose, however."

"Why would she do something like that?"

He shook his head. "I was never certain. There were certain things she simply refused to explain. I had, even then, the sense that something… unsettled her, in a sustained fashion. I did not understand at the time that it was guilt."

Rukia suddenly understood. "You mean… about me?"

"Yes."

Well… at least he didn't mince the words. Rukia pulled in a deep breath. "So… what then? You fell in love with your messenger?"

It was kind of an awkward question to be asking her brother, but he seemed more open right now than she'd ever seen him, almost like talking about this was… pleasant, for him? That was the wrong word, but she didn't know what the right one was.

Byakuya shook his head. "Not precisely, no." He paused a moment, looking down into his teacup like there was an answer in it. "Hisana was… brash. Overconfident. Irreverent. Often self-centered. And the only person I ever felt like myself around. I suppose that to the outside world, it looked as though she were simply my servant, but I do not believe that was ever the case."

He raised the teacup to his mouth and took a sip. Rukia thought that maybe he swallowed a little too thickly for just that, though.

"She was far too easy to confide in. And I seldom noticed how little she confided in return."

It had become something of a habit of his, to be up much later than the rest of the household. He supposed his continued good function meant he simply didn't require a full night of sleep.

Hisana, of course, stayed up with him, and most nights, they sat on the engawa, he on a cushion next to the table, and she further to the front, always dangling some body part off the lip of the porch into the gardens. That night she lay on her back, parallel to the grain of the wood. Her outside arm toyed with the petals of a flower too close to the edge for him to see.

He frowned at the blank piece of paper on the table, but nothing new came to mind.

So instead, he spoke to her. "Do you ever sleep?"

She huffed, the beginning of a laugh that would never be. Her laughter was not so loud these days. It was a sign of her sickness—though Byakuya would never admit it, he would welcome the uproarious sound it had been before as a herald of her better health.

"I hate sleeping," she replied. "I always wake up feeling like I've missed too much."

He knew she left the mansion whenever she had nothing to do for him.

"Where do you go, instead of sleeping?"

"I wonder…" she murmured, reaching down and snapping the stem of the flower. It made a crisp sound; he heard several drops of water from the day's rain hit the leaves below.

When she pulled her hand up to her chest, Byakuya observed that she held a spider lily. The red color had faded considerably in the lack of light, until it was the dull hue of old blood.

"How are things at the division?" she asked.

His frown etched itself a bit deeper. "I have found myself the subject of a challenge," he replied, sliding his eyes back to the paper.

"A challenge?"

He pretended not to notice how much effort it took her to push herself into an upright position. Some days were better than others, but she rebuffed any attempt to help her—with physical force if she felt it necessary.

Byakuya nodded. "One of the other captains believes he would create a better divisional mascot than I would." Ichimaru was a strange one, but something about him made refusing even a simple challenge unacceptable. It was probably the semi-permanent sly smile on his face.

Hisana snorted. "A mascot? Is this what you big important captains do with your time?"

He blinked. "Not usually. But he implied my skill in the arts was inferior to his. It would be prudent to correct the misapprehension, but I cannot seem to think of an appropriate design."

She smiled and shook her head, shuffling over to the other side of the table. "Give it here, then."

Without really asking for permission, Hisana snatched the paper and brush from his side of the table and dragged them over to her own. She dipped the brush in the inkwell near the middle, then bent over the paper. The tip of her tongue stuck out of one side of her mouth; apparently, she was quite intent on her task.

Byakuya left her to it—she was a wilful person, and he generally found it preferable to avoid argument when she was this focused on something.

"There; done!" She grinned at him, perhaps the largest smile she'd given him since the night they met.

He glanced down at the paper she slid over to him, cocking his head a few degrees to the left.

The mascot she'd drawn appeared to be a mostly-amorphous blot with a face on it, though he could pick out three-fingered arms and a pair of legs. Its expression was, he thought, quite reminiscent of some of Hisana's own. Determined, but tinged with wry humor. She'd written a name at the bottom of the page.

"…You think the best representation of my division is the 'Wakame Taishi'?" he asked flatly. "Also, you are an atrocious artist."

"Hey," she protested. "You shut your mouth, Byakuya-sama."

He'd learned a long time ago to take the honorific with a grain of salt.

"And for your information, he is the best representation of your division, and you. Think about it: seaweed is good, and healthy, but it's kind of sour, and overall pretty bland by itself."

Byakuya honestly wasn't sure whether or not he should be offended. "I do not believe anyone has ever called me bland before," he observed.

"Then no one's ever told you the truth before, because you kind of are."

He hadn't known until just then what it was like to see laughter in someone's eyes. The idiom had seemed wildly inaccurate to him, in truth. But now, looking at Hisana, it clicked somehow, and it occurred to him that the figure of speech had been accurate all along—he had simply never known someone to whom it could be applied.

Any offense he might have taken faded like it had never been present at all.

"What do you mean, when you say that no one has told me the truth?"

She lowered the brush onto the table, taking care not to stain the wood with ink. "Pretty much what I said."

He gave her a blank look.

Hisana sighed. "People are afraid of you, Byakuya-sama. You're a Kuchiki." She waved her hands in a large, encompassing motion. "You own this huge mansion, and that damn scarf that's worth ten more. You don't express your feelings to anyone but your messenger—and you're kind of bad at it even in my case. So you come off like… a cold asshole with no feelings, basically. That works for you, with all the crap you have to deal with, but it can also make you damn scary, especially to us little peons."

His brows furrowed. "You are not afraid of me." Byakuya knew this without a doubt.

It was not a matter of physical prowess. Hisana had no reiryoku, no combat training. Destroying her would not be a difficulty for him, in the objective sense. He knew it, and he knew she knew it as well. But she showed no fear—she never had.

"Scared? Of you? Of course not." Her smile returned. "You don't show me the scary face. Not when you were drunk at my table and not now."

His lips pursed. "I wonder," he murmured, "if that will one day change."

Hisana hummed, slouching a little further and leaning back on her hands. There really wasn't an ounce of elegance or grace to her at all.

"Maybe," she conceded. "But even if I'm afraid, I promise to keep telling you when I think you're being boring, or stupid, or whatever." Her shoulders lifted, then collapsed back down.

Byakuya contemplated that thought for a moment, then inclined his head.

"See that you do."

"Wakame Taishi was Hisana's idea?" Rukia was familiar with the character—she'd always thought it kind of a weird side of her brother. It made a little more sense now.

He arched a brow, and she thought he almost sniffed.

"Of course. Do you truly believe I would be so poor at the arts?" There was a subtle hint of some feeling at the edge of his voice.

She couldn't identify it. It might have been affront, from someone else. Or even petulance. But this was Byakuya. If he was even capable of such a thing, he kept it well to himself.

"Okay," Rukia said, feeling a bit bold. "You draw something then. Here."

She pulled a small ring notebook from her obi—a relic from her time in the living world a year ago. Flipping through several pages of her own art and miscellaneous notes, she paused a moment, tilting her head.

"Huh."

Someone had cut out her dress design and carefully glued it to one of her notebook pages, wedged in between a few of her own mascot designs and some sketches she'd done of the residents of Urahara shop. The neat, thin handwriting on the side of the page notated her dimensions.

"Something interesting?"

She smiled slightly, shaking her head. "It's nothing."

Flipping a few more pages, Rukia found an empty one and handed the notebook over to Byakuya, who was holding his pen in one hand.

"Nii-sama?"

"Yes?"

She hesitated. "Do you like it?" Rukia nodded at the writing instrument in his hand.

He looked faintly confused, following her eyes down to it. "I use it, do I not?"

Her smile grew. "Yeah. I guess it was a silly question."

Byakuya regarded her with narrowed eyes for another few seconds, then turned his attention downwards, pressing pen to paper. The nib made little scratching noises on the surface, just a little different than the soft rasp of brush-strokes.

A suspicion grew in Rukia as she watched him form the lines, one that bore itself out when he sat back, stowing his pen in his shihakushō. She flattened the line of her mouth.

"It looks exactly the same as the regular Wakame Taishi."

"It does not."

There was something odd about Byakuya's voice. Rukia raised her eyes, ready to argue—and then her lips parted in surprise.

He was smiling.

It wasn't overt. If she hadn't been so used to seeing no expression on his face at all, she might not have even counted it as a smile. But for him, that tiny little quirk to one side of the mouth definitely qualified. It made his whole countenance softer, somehow, and she wondered if this was the version of Byakuya that her sister had seen.

Rukia had always been a little afraid of him.

But just then… he didn't seem frightening at all.

Term Dictionary:

Wakame Taishi – ワカメ大使 – "Seaweed Ambassador." Mostly shows up in omake segments. Byakuya is weirdly fond of it, and sometimes makes snacks and stuff with the shape. I appropriated it for use here. All three of the Kuchikis are atrocious artists.

So, as promised, this begins a series of shorter fics and one-shots in the Chaos Theory AU. This is a two-chapter fic, and a second part will be posted soon. I wanted it to give snapshots of important moments in Byakuya and Hisana's relationship (which I envision very differently from most people, I expect), as well as lay some groundwork for development for Byakuya and Rukia as siblings.

I realize my take on Hisana might be atypical, but I think of it this way—we only see basically two moments of her in canon: one where she abandons Rukia, and then another when she's dying. There's a lot of room in between those two things for her to have developed any number of ways. In an effort to minimize the trend of refrigerator-women in the Bleachverse, I'm trying to give her a personality and motivations and agency in her own life, while still keeping to the canon event of her death.

It should all successfully come around to that canon scene in the end, but maybe not in the obvious way.