Title: For the Man Who Has Everything
Universe: Bleach
Theme/Topic: Byakuya's birthday
Rating: G
Character/Pairing/s: Byakuya, Rukia, Ichigo, Yachiru
Warnings/Spoilers: Slight spoilers for Byakuya's backstory and the SS arc. Also, OOC and excessive schmoop.
Word Count: 2,104
Summary: Rukia wonders what to get for the guy who's got it all.
Dedication: For my baby brother, whose birthday recently passed. 18! He's 18! I feel so old. ;;
A/N: Uuum, this was clearly written with my bias of love towards big brothers, and so probably doesn't accurately reflect Byakuya and Rukia's relationship at all. BUT I CAN'T HELP IT, daddies and big brothers are my big woobie weaknesses.
Disclaimer: Not mine, though I wish constantly.
Distribution: Just lemme know.

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The birthday wishes began rolling in exactly two weeks before the actual day of Kuchiki Byakuya's birthday, and from experience Rukia knew these were the well wishes from those who couldn't remember the exact date of an important man's birth and thus made a vague guess so as to not offend the most powerful family in seireitei. The cards were usually signed by secretaries anyway, and generic gifts of expensive wines, fruit, flowers, and rare silks were the cool, impersonal norm.

Rukia watched her brother read the cards and make a cursory note to send his own thank you card to the senders when he had the time, before the gifts were all gathered up and the foodstuffs were distributed to the servants to take home to their families—with Kuchiki-sama's compliments—and the clothes were folded away in one of his massive closets to be worn once for diplomacy's sake before being stored for the better part of the garments' remaining lives.

And thus, the only things she could discern from her observations of these strange noblemen's rituals over the years was what not to get Byakuya, which really was of no help to a clueless younger sister who otherwise might have attempted to bake her big brother cookies or cake or, if she was ambitious, sakura mochi (because her niisama had a strange affinity for things that were pink). But seeing as to how he didn't give most of the food he received a second look before sending them off as nice gifts to the help, that was more than out of the question, and because she was fairly certain that the pink kimono Renji liked to wear around when he was off duty was actually something he'd gotten from one of her brother's impressive closets, either as an end-of-year bonus or simply a new year's gift, she didn't fancy going to the trouble of picking Byakuya out a nice new outfit for his birthday either, even if she had been saving up her pay for a good long time now in case she found the perfect kimono.

As for everything else, Kuchiki Byakuya was stunningly practical for someone with so much money, and only bought the bare necessities of what he needed for his daily business. No fancy brushes with the family crest emblazoned on them or ink with gold dust in it like some of the other nobility liked to use, no exorbitantly expensive furniture to adorn the many rooms of the Kuchiki manor. Her niisama only used the very basic brush sets and black ink to write his missives, only had simple low tables to write on or read on in most of the mansion's rooms because he liked simplicity and open space and walking unhindered through his home without fear of tripping over any magnificently overpriced clutter.

He wore no jewelry, drank only in company, read all his books from the gotei-13 library, and had one favorite old tea cup and one favorite rice bowl, which he used during mealtimes. His chopsticks were wooden and unadorned, and the futon and pillow he laid his head down upon at the end of every day was no different from any of the ones Rukia had ever seen in the servants' quarters.

A man who had everything he needed, wanted nothing he didn't, and who considered himself first a soldier and never the prince everyone else did.

And while she admired him very much for his principles, Rukia couldn't help but be slightly frustrated by the fact that everything about him that made him the person he was also happened to make him the hardest person to buy a simple birthday present for— in this world and the next.

When she complained to Ichigo about it he was (unsurprisingly) singularly unhelpful, leaning back on his bed with his latest comic and grunting, "He should like whatever you get him, unless he's a real dill-hole."

She didn't know if this came from the fact that he was an older brother himself and a simpleton all at the same time, but when she heard his answer to her problem she simply sniffed at him and told him he was as such, and thus would never understand the finer workings of men like her brother.

He snorted and put his book down for a moment, turning on his side to regard her. "Look," he began, and sounded long-suffering, "a big brother likes whatever his younger siblings get him. It's just a rule, okay?"

"Well clearly it only applies in your odd and very small universe," she responded, and tucked her knees up against her chest, feeling strangely self-conscious under his gaze when she thought about it.

Byakuya had given her so much after all; the least she could do was find him something suitable to show her gratitude for his efforts.

And maybe through it all, let him know how fond she was of him too.

Ichigo seemed to catch something in her tone then, and sighed, looking at her thoughtfully for a moment. "It's gotta be special, huh?" he asked, and sounded like he knew what was going on here despite being decades her junior. She really hated that about him sometimes, but ignored it in lieu of dealing with the greater picture here.

"Of course it has to be special. Niisama is very discerning."

Awkwardly, he reached out and patted her head. "Well, I'm sure you'll think of something."

Somehow, the little gesture of assurance made her feel somewhat better, and later, she made Ichigo take her out for shaved ice, telling herself that for the few days that remained until Byakuya's birthday, she would just have to watch him extra closely and figure something out.

Of course, her niisama was no help on the matter at all.

He even persuaded the head housekeeper at the Kuchiki manor that this year he absolutely had to work on his birthday and thus they would have no big party in his name like they sometimes did—because the rest of the nobility expected it—telling the flustered old woman to please send out notes of apology to previous invitees explaining that after the incident with Aizen and company, the rest of the gotei-13 was simply stretched too thin for him to take even a day off for something as trivial as his birthday.

If he didn't even want people to acknowledge his birthday, the issue of buying him a suitable gift would be just that much harder, Rukia surmised, and sighed to herself at the hopelessness of the whole endeavor.

On the eve of the big day she was almost resigned to simply buying him another nice bottle of wine like she had over previous years for his birthday, and if not for a strange little incident she happened to witness in passing between her older brother and a chattery, bouncy Kusajishi-fukutaichou, would have stepped into the dreaded winery without further thought—utterly defeated.

"Please, Yachiru," he began, sternly, "clean your hands."

Yachiru responded by dutifully wiping them down the front of her hakama.

Byakuya sighed.

"Clean!" Yachiru insisted, and held her hands up to him for inspection. The fact that they would still be sticky apparently did not faze her.

He looked down at her as she waited for his approval, torn between exasperation and a hint of amusement at her antics. "And now your uniform is messy. I won't buy you ice cream again if you don't learn to keep tidy after eating it."

Yachiru pouted. "Really?"

He nodded, all severity.

Yachiru looked thoughtful. Then sighed herself. "I should go wash my hands?"

Byakuya nodded. "You should go wash your hands."

Another dramatic sigh from the pink-haired girl—perhaps something she'd learned from Ayasegawa. "Ookay, fiiiiine," Yachiru conceded, after a moment.

The sixth division captain quirked a small smile. "Very well then," he said, and by some miracle of fate, Rukia witnessed his hand as it moved forward, almost unconsciously. Ready perhaps, to ruffle Kusajishi Yachiru's hair.

But he caught himself at the very last minute and quickly withdrew—looking surprised at himself—before tucking the offending hand behind his back and hastily wiping the little half-smile from his face. "I'll await your return here then," he told Yachiru haughtily instead.

The little vice-captain laughed at his authoritative tone. "You're always such a snooty-pants, Byakushi! But 'kay! Be back in a jiff!" she told him, before zipping off, almost faster than Rukia's eyes could follow.

And she wondered at what she had just witnessed as Byakuya looked after a rapidly disappearing eleventh division vice-captain, Rukia thinking to herself that perhaps, there was no such thing as a person who wanted for nothingin this world after all.

If anything, it gave her an idea.

On the day of his birthday Kuchiki Byakuya was in his office immersed in paperwork, and while gifts of all sorts continued to float in even well past the evening hours, he ignored them in lieu of doing his job—soldier first, birthday boy second.

He only allowed himself to take a moment of that day to miss Hisana and thank Renji for the taiyaki and tea his vice-captain had brought him, before bending his head to his desk and tackling the tasks at hand.

And additionally, he only took but a moment to wonder vaguely at not having received his customary bottle of wine from Rukia today, though he supposed—with a small sense of regret—that the events (more specifically, his actions) of the past year had not given her any reason to maintain any sort of connection to him, however cursory.

Thus—some odd hours later— he was genuinely surprised when there was a quiet knock on his door just a little while before midnight.

"Come in."

Rukia slid through a crack in the door and greeted him with a little bow. "Niisama… I'm not bothering you, am I?"

"Rukia." He blinked, confused, and stood to properly greet her on instinct. "Of course you aren't bothering me. Is er… is something the matter?"

She kept her gaze on the ground and looked somewhat unsettled, which instantly put him on alert. "Are you alright?" he blurted, before he could stop himself, and very nearly blushed after he did.

She looked up at him then, a sort of funny, unreadable expression on her face. "I'm fine," she assured him, quickly. "I just… wanted to come say… um… h-happy birthday, I suppose."

For a moment, he was so surprised he didn't know what to say.

"Thank you," he managed after a long while, once he had regained himself in part. What to say next however, completely escaped him.

But Rukia cleared her throat then, and he watched—both fascinated and boggled by her movements in this unfamiliar territory they now both found themselves in. "I uh… I didn't know what to get you," she admitted, and her cheeks were pink when she spoke. "Because niisama has everything he needs and doesn't want anything other than that. It's very hard to buy you any gifts when you refuse to be extravagant at all."

He moved to tell her that it wasn't necessary for her to buy him things, but when he looked like he was going to speak she quickly pushed on, one hand rubbing her other arm awkwardly, as if she were trying to give herself the fortitude to continue.

"So I thought and I thought and I thought and this is the only thing I could think of after everything, and I know it's not much but even still, I uh… I hope you like it."

He would have assured her that he would enjoy whatever she got him no matter what, but before he could, she gathered all her courage and lunged forward, wrapping her arms around him.

He stiffened reflexively in her embrace—it had been so very long since someone had last touched him like this, or at all really— but after a moment he felt himself relaxing, even felt his own arms come up to tentatively return the embrace, to pat her back.

Apparently a hug was something you never forgot, no matter how long it had been since your last.

"Happy birthday, niisama," she murmured, voice muffled by the front of his captain's jacket.

They stayed like that for a while, and after a moment, he felt himself smile in return, a gesture as simultaneously foreign and unforgettable as the embrace he found himself in.

"Thank you, Rukia," he said, softly.

He thought it was the best birthday present he'd ever received.

END