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Summer's End
by afrai

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The first time Kaien saw Byakuya after the funeral, he said,

"How're you doing?"

He felt stunned, at a loss. Life can be so cruel.

It took a moment for Byakuya to answer. His face was as carefully blank as ever, but on occasion his eyes moved helplessly, an involuntary glance from side to side, as if he was looking for something but had forgotten what it was.

"There is much to be done," he said finally, formally. "You will excuse me if I am unable to attend -- "

Kaien waited, but he couldn't remember what Byakuya was supposed to attend, and neither could Byakuya, it seemed. They stared at each other -- two grown men, fine members of the proud Gotei 13, sons of the nobility, goggling like goldfish. It would have been funny if Kaien hadn't felt so sick.

"I'm sorry," he said. "I'm sorry." Hisana dead, an unfinished story, and Byakuya looked like he was walking in a dream.

"I believe you," said Byakuya, with a strange absent-minded kindness, but he wasn't even listening anymore. It was the last time Kaien heard him talk like a human being.

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"I'll never not be ashamed," Kaien told Miyako later, burning with unhappiness. He didn't say anything more and she didn't push, so he didn't know if she'd understood -- that he hadn't meant that he was sorry for Hisana's death, though he was. He had been apologising because Byakuya had loved her, was shattered to pieces now she was dead, and Kaien hadn't known. And now he would never see him again, the Byakuya he had known.

"He's different," he said once to his captain, the only time he could bring himself to talk about it.

"Early frost," said Ukitake. His voice held far too much sympathy. "Sometimes it happens."

"We were kids together," said Kaien, as if it didn't matter much. People die, friends change. It happens.

* * *

"Don't take him too seriously," he told the kid once, handing her a drink. Kid could stand to loosen up a bit. Even Hisana had never had that stiff miserable line to her back. "He's a romantic, that's his problem."

The kid looked startled. "My brother?"

"Yeah, I know, doesn't look it, but. Still waters." What warning could he give her, he wondered, what advice could he pass on to help her navigate the hidden shoals in her way that wouldn't betray everything he believed in? If you don't want to hurt, don't fall in love. If you don't want to lose, don't fight. But then you might as well be dead.

"You want my advice, Kuchiki?" he said. "Never be a romantic. It makes for too many complications. And I'm talking from my own personal experience here -- " He stopped laughing and said, "Heroes and romantics -- they end up dead, or broken."

"Kaien-dono."

It was painful to see someone so locked in her own unhappiness, so unknowable. Kaien hoped she'd learnt the trick from Byakuya. It would be too depressing if she'd come up with it on her own.

"Alive's a good option," said Kaien. Don't do as I did, he meant. Don't make the same mistakes.

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