A Modern Courtship

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A/N: Since I finished Growing Up Hisagi I felt like starting another multipart, and I asked my reviewers what they would rather see next, a Bya/Ren or a Grimm/Ulqui. More people want to see the Bya/Ren, so here it is ^_^

At any rate, this is different from my other fics b/c it's not porn. There will be sex scenes in the future, but unfortunately it's not the focus as it is for most of my fics. Hopefully it will still be entertaining, but we'll see. It's basically my spin on a canon get together fic.


Prologue


The first thing he saw were Rukia's eyes, wide open with surprise as they stared back at him. Her lips were slightly parted, as if she didn't know what to say. Her shoulders slumped, as though she didn't know what to do with her body. For once, bold, fearless Rukia looked. . . meek.

In front of her stood a man. The kenseikan attached to his silken black hair told Renji he was nobility. The white haori slung around his shoulders told Renji he was a captain of the Gotei 13. Renji's smile was half frozen on his face. He felt like an interloper, despite the fact that they were in an open classroom. Whatever this scene was, it was one that Renji wasn't meant to be a part of.

An old, bent over man mumbled something. The nobleman's gray eyes, cold and flat as the winter sky before a heavy snowfall, lifted from Rukia's face and fixed on a point ahead. Never once glancing at Renji. As though he wasn't there at all. As though he was nothing. As the nobleman walked by, his reiatsu knocked the breath out of Renji's lungs. The sheer force of it pushed his body down. His smile dropped completely as his lips parted and beads of sweat formed on his skin. And then they were gone, but Renji's eyes were still fixed on the floor.

"Renji."

Rukia's voice snapped Renji out of the lingering effects of the nobleman's reiatsu. He forced himself to smile, but it was more from nerves than anything else. He had noticed how small Rukia's voice had sounded.

"Oh," he said, forcing out a chuckle. "Rukia. Things were really tense in here, huh? What were you guys talking about?"

Rukia's eyes were looking down and away. Whatever it was, she couldn't even look at him as she said it. "They want to adopt me into the Kuchiki family."

One of the four great noble families. Rukia was saying more, but Renji's mind was spinning. If Rukia became a Kuchiki, she'd probably move out of the dorms and into their no doubt sprawling estate. If Rukia became a Kuchiki, she probably wouldn't be able to hang out with a street tramp from Rukongai anymore.

Renji remembered when they were young, when there were five of them. In the vast, cruel world of Rukongai, they only had each other. They had been helping each other find their families, and had eventually become a family of their own. But, one by one, they had gone, passed away. Until there was only Renji and Rukia left. Rukia, his only family. The only person in the world who knew him. And now she was being taken away.

He realized she was trailing off. His chest felt like it was constricting, but he forced his grin wider. He grabbed her arms and squeezed, maybe a little too tightly. "Isn't that great?"

He didn't even know what he was saying. But he knew. . . Rukia had finally found herself a family. A much better family than a ragtag bunch of street punks. A much better family than Renji. He shouted words of encouragement, broken only when Rukia's small hand came to grasp his wrist. She looked like she was about to cry.

"Really?" And then, two words that broke his heart. . . "Thank you."

She left, leaving him frozen to the spot. Thank you. She had thanked him for letting her go. . . because, in the end, she really would rather be family to a Kuchiki noble than to a man like him.

---

Gray eyes the color of a winter sky. Renji had never forgotten them, despite the fact that they had never once looked his way. They still didn't, focused instead on a white sheet of paper, on a quill dipped in black ink. Byakuya Kuchiki couldn't even deign to look up from his paperwork.

And here Renji thought that Byakuya had chosen him. That Byakuya had acknowledged him, at least as someone capable of being his vice captain. He guessed he was wrong. . . he was just the only person right now that fit the pre-requisites. Byakuya hadn't even memorized his name yet.

"I take it Ginjiro informed you of your duties."

"Yes, Taichou." Hands clasped behind his back, head bow slightly. But what he really wanted to do was to reach forward. He wanted to grab a fistful of Byakuya's pitch black hair and pull his face off that piece of paper. He wanted to make Byakuya look at him. To acknowledge him, at least, as someone worth looking in the eye.

"In that case," Byakuya said, still not lifting his eyes from off his desk, "I trust that you'll carry them out in a satisfactory manner. If not, you won't last long in this division."

Renji nodded, not sure of what to do next. He stood there until Byakuya's hand stilled on the paper.

"You are dismissed." Byakuya's deep voice, tinged with faint impatience.

"Yes, Taichou." And before Byakuya could get irritated even further, Renji left the captain's office. He made his way to his own office before collapsing in his chair. He buried his face in his hands, which he was horrified to see were trembling. Honestly, Byakuya's reiatsu shouldn't have such a big effect on him anymore. . . but it was more than that. He was nervous around Byakuya.

Byakuya had filled Renji's thoughts for the last several years. Ever since the man had taken Rukia away. Renji knew it was stupid, but he wanted to be, at the very least, Byakuya Kuchiki's equal. He wanted to be someone Rukia wouldn't be ashamed to call family. He wanted to be more than he was. And then, during his time in the eleventh division, Renji had started to think that it was possible. He had started to think that, one day, he could actually surpass Byakuya, and be fit to stand beside Rukia again.

But in the face of Byakuya's strength and will, Renji couldn't help but feel every bit the slum rat from Inuzuri. Surpassing the man was a joke. The distance between them was as boundless as the night sky.

Renji pulled his hands away and looked down at his desk. Unless he was assigned a particular task, there was only the obligatory paperwork to take care of. And if there was no paperwork, he was free to spend his time however he wished, although presumably some of that time would be spent evaluating his subordinates and encouraging their growth. Renji didn't have a particular task to take care of right now, and his paperwork was minimal. It would take him an hour, tops. He tapped his pencil on his desk. What would he do for the rest of his time today, then?

An hour ended too soon. Renji dropped his completed paperwork in a wooden tray marked "out," where it would be collected and delivered to the proper place by one of the unseated officers. He got up and left his office, walking by Byakuya's office along the way.
The shoji screen separating it from the hallway was closed, and there didn't seem to be any lights on inside. So his captain had left, without seeing fit to breath a word to him about it. Renji wasn't even sure why it bothered him, but somehow it seemed a sign of the way things stood between them. To Byakuya, Renji was as inconsequential as he was the first day they had met.

Frowning a little bit, Renji made his way to a second floor balcony overlooking the sparring courtyard. At any given hour there were usually a few members of the division sparring, and today was no different. Renji watched as as a few of his subordinates. . . and that was definitely a strange feeling, only having one man above him in his division. . . took turns fighting with one another. He didn't feel like offering input; it was his first day, after all, and he wasn't sure that they were comfortable around him yet. As a division closely tied to the Kuchiki family, it attracted a particular sort of shinigami, and that sort tended to be wary of street punks like Abarai Renji.

Renji watched for just a little while before leaving the division altogether. He went to the eleventh division to find some of his old drinking buddies, much more comfortable there than it Byakuya's prim, proper world.

---

"That's a pretty thin yukata."

Renji shrugged from where he was laying, said yukata falling off one of his shoulders as he did so. "It's what I wear to sleep. I didn't change when I woke up this morning."

He was sitting with Ikkaku in the hallway outside of his office. The hallway was rectangular, with Renji's office on one end, Byakuya's on the other, and a courtyard enclosed in the middle. The other two sides had branching hallways that led to other parts of the sixth division headquarters. It was a nice day, so all the screen doors facing the courtyard had been opened up, and the two men had a pleasant view of the perfectly manicured green garden that stood there.

"Kuchiki-taichou doesn't mind?" Ikkaku asked, open disbelief written all over his features.

"He doesn't even notice," Renji said. "As long as I do my work he doesn't give a shit. The only times he even talks to me are when he needs to give me something to do or get updates on how the rest of the division is doing. He doesn't keep tabs on them either."

Ikkaku frowned at the bitterness that seemed to drip from Renji's words. "Well. . . isn't that how captains usually are? I mean, it's not like Kenpachi ever cared about what we did."

"Are you kidding? At least Kenpachi hung out with us. He drank and fought with us. Maybe he didn't give a shit any more than Kuchiki-taichou, but at least he knew our personalities and our abilities. With Kuchiki-taichou, it's like we're not even here. We do our jobs, and if we don't, he picks up the slack. Like we're cogs in a machine that he doesn't even expect will work right half the time."

They were interrupted then by two female unseated officers, both giggling a little bit as they approached Renji.

"Abarai-fukutaichou," said one of them, holding out a stack of flyers. "I was just at the ninth division, and Hisagi-fukutaichou asked me to give these to you."

"Oh. Yeah. Thanks." Renji took the flyers from the woman, and then they both scampered away, still giggling.

"At least the other members are warming up to you," Ikkaku noted.

"They never really disliked me," Renji said. "They were just a little. . . wary, at first, I guess."

"It probably helps that you're walking around with your chest exposed."

A large, cocky grin spread over Renji's face, his tone of voice completely changing. "Hey, might as well give the ladies of division six some eye candy to look at. You know me and Byakuya were just voted best-looking captain vice captain pair in a poll the Shinigami Women's Association did."

Ikkaku scoffed at that. "Face it, you were carried by Byakuya in that one."

"Hey, don't be jealous just 'cause you've got no luck with women." Renji chuckled a little at Ikkaku's expense, while the other man scowled.

"Che. Not my fault shinigami women have lousy taste." Ikkaku leaned back a little bit, but he shot back up even more quickly, eyes huge. "Shit! I forgot, I promised Yumichika I'd go shopping with him today. He's going to kill me."

"What for?" Renji asked, mildly curious.

"Division supplies," Ikkaku replied. He was already climbing to his feet. "Look, I've gotta go, but I'll see you later."

"Yeah. Sure." Renji watched as Ikkaku ran out to the courtyard and then shunpoed away. He wondered what he was going to do with the rest of his day. . . division six didn't have much work to do lately, and Byakuya was with his clan for the day. Not that Renji had heard it from the man himself. Renji looked across the courtyard to Byakuya's office. No, he really only knew what Byakuya was up to because he made it a point to. He made it a point to study the other man.

They had fought, a mere two times, since Renji had come to this division. Occasional spars with his subordinates was something Byakuya was obligated to do, from time to time, and was a task the captain treated as mere annoyance than anything else. He was never really serious about it, never had to be in order to get his opponents to concede defeat. Renji lasted longer than the seated officers, sure, but had been defeated both times all the same. And both times, Byakuya had had a bored tilt to his chin, a dull gleam to his eyes as they looked off at some distant point.

But Renji studied. Studied Byakuya's every move, every tick that made the man who he was. He watched every time Byakuya deigned to accept a spar, watched every time they were on a mission together. Heart trembling but hands steady, he would watch and take note, waiting for the day he would be able to have a serious fight with Byakuya.

Renji sighed as he got up, brushing wrinkles from the fabric of his yukata. It still wasn't even noon; he had a whole day ahead of him. In truth, his days in the sixth division weren't much different than his days in the eleventh division. He had more work and more varied duties, but that was it. He spent his spare time here either training or practicing futsal, just as he had done in the eleventh division. He contemplated going to find Rikichi and hanging up the futsal recruitment flyers Hisagi had printed up for him, but he didn't really feel like it today. Renji dropped the flyers on his desk, and left the headquarters.

Renji popped back into his living quarters just briefly to change before leaving Seireitei altogether. He hurried through Rukongai, until he found himself in the wastelands surrounding it. It was quiet, here, one of Renji's two favorite places to train. He came to a familiar cropping of rocks, and sat underneath one of them, drawing out his zanpakuto. Zabimaru, he knew, was always up for a spar. He held his sword in his lap, calling out Zabimaru's name and transporting into his inner world.

Only to find himself falling into deep, deep water. His limbs flailed for a moment as water started to flood his lungs. He held his breath and swam upwards. Or, at least, he swam in the direction he thought was up. Thankfully, miraculously, he broke the surface. Renji gasped for breath as his head and chest all but exploded into the air, water flying everywhere around him. He had fallen into a lake, surface green from the broad foliage reflected there. All around him was a thick, vibrant jungle of primordial scale. Zabimaru's jungle.

Renji swam, than waded, to the surface, clothes and hair saturated and dripping with water. There was a shadow in between some trees, darker than those around it. A hulking shadow with a familiar shape.

"You're too slow."

Renji pulled out his zanpakuto and got into a defensive stance.

"Your progress is too slow. How do you ever hope to surpass him, when you shake just treading on his shadow?"

Steel clashed against steel, and Renji found his feet skidding back a good foot. He lost himself in the fight. In the clash of sword against sword. He was strong, he told himself. He was a vice captain of the Gotei 13. He could be as strong as, stronger than, Byakuya. A litany, repeated over and over in his mind, motivating him. It felt like hours that he spent in his jungle. The water evaporated from him, only to replaced by sweat. Zabimaru, the perfect training partner, never tired, only spurred him on as he grew more and more fatigued.

And then, out of nowhere, the jungle turned dark. The shape of the trees and leaves could barely be seen, the light cut off as if by the thickest of clouds. They stopped mid-strike. In the stillness Renji could hear something foreign. Heavy breaths that didn't belong to him or Zabimaru.

"There's something out there," Zabimaru said.

Renji cried out as a flash of pain coursed through him. It yanked him from his inner world, back into his real body, just as said body was thrown into the side of a large rock. As he was knocked down on all fours he propelled himself back up again, back a few meters, sword up. In front of him were the skeletal mask and fluid black body of a gillian.

Shit. At least it was alone. Renji jumped up into the air and shot towards the gillian, his arms swiping his sword in a downward slash. Despite its slowness it was able to avoid the majority of the stroke. The stroke still cut, liquid still came oozing out of the wound, but it didn't incapacitate. Renji felt the gillian smack him backwards, its body hitting Renji's stomach with enough force to push the air out of his lungs. He flew backwards in the air, catching himself just in time to mostly avoid the jagged edge of a rock. But the rock still sliced a line through his kosode, cut through his skin, sliced through a few centimeters of fat and meat.

Renji managed to fall onto the ground without breaking any bones, even as the pain spread through him in waves. He pressed a hand against the wound, feeling hot liquid pour over it. His hand was shaking. If only the gillian hadn't caught him unaware, he wouldn't be in this position right now. . .

And then the Gillian cried out. A pitiful, painful sound, before the spirit particles that made the Gillian up were disbursed into the air. As it dissolved the man standing behind it came into view. Byakuya, his zanpakuto drawn, having just slashed through the gillian. For once, those gray eyes were staring directly at him. Not through him and not past him, but looking directly into Renji's own brown eyes. And there was nothing but derision and scorn in them.

How weak are you, they seemed to say, that you can't defeat one solitary gillian.

"Renji," Byakuya said. "Get cleaned up. We have a mission in the human world."

Renji nodded. His breath was caught in his throat, his heart sinking into his stomach. It took all his fortitude just to ask Byakuya a follow-up question, and his voice still cracked when he did it. "What is it, Taichou?"

"We are to arrest Kuchiki Rukia under charges of transferring her powers to a human and remaining in the human world for too long. She must be back brought to Seireitei to be sentenced."

Renji felt his blood run cold. Rukia. . . those charges. . . they were felonies punishable by death, in some cases. But, no, she was a Kuchiki now. Byakuya wouldn't let anything happen to his sister. They were family now, after all.

Renji forced a grin onto his face. They'd go find Rukia. Renji would give her a hard time, just like he always did. They'd maybe fight a little, and then they'd come back to Seireitei. And everything would be okay.

"Can I have ten minutes, Taichou?"

"Be ready in five," Byakuya replied, and then he was gone. Renji was all too quick to follow.