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pin-k-ink · 1 day ago

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THE PRICE OF DUTY ⋆✦⋆ kuchiki byakuya

synopsis ➸ they agreed on a marriage without love. too bad neither of them could keep their hearts out of it. now, pride and desire are the only things standing in the way.

tags ➸ marriage of convenience, power imbalance, verbal aggression, angst, hurt/comfort, masturbation, handjob, nipple play, dirty talk, heavy breeding kink, cunnilingus, unprotécted séx, creampie, praise kink

wc ➸ 17.6k (apologies in advance)

The bedroom was cloaked in stillness, the only sound the faint whisper of your steady breathing. Byakuya couldn't tear his eyes away from you, lying there fast asleep beside him. Even in slumber, you radiated an almost regal poise - back straightened by years of disciplined nobility, features composed into a serene mask of quiet confidence.

Just looking at you was enough to stir that familiar ache in Byakuya's chest. The one he tried so hard to suppress these days, burying it beneath the responsibilities and traditions he clung to like anchors in a stormy sea. But the truth was becoming harder and harder to ignore with each passing night spent at your side.

He was in love with you. Hopelessly, painfully, desperately in love.

The realization would have been terrifying enough on its own. But the true fracture in Byakuya's stolid facade came from the fact that after nearly a century of sharing this marriage bed and household with you...he remained utterly uncertain whether you returned even a shred of those feelings.

Your union had been one of pure pragmatism from the very start, after all - a business arrangement between the Kuchiki and your clan, nothing more. Two proud noble houses joined by political motivations rather than any sense of romantic affection or sentimentality. You had both agreed to those terms readily, never wavering in upholding the boundaries of polite cordiality between married partners.

No consummation or intimacy beyond the bare minimum required for public appearance's sake. Only the singular, chaste kiss exchanged during the ceremonial binding of your vows all those decades ago. An unspoken acknowledgment that this convenient partnership held no deeper meaning.

At least, that was what Byakuya had believed when you had first agreed to the arrangement. He would be lying if he claimed the idea hadn't stung a bit back then, still haunted by the ghost of his beloved Hisana even years after her passing. But you had been his dearest friend since childhood, his confidante and the one person who understood the heavy mantle of duty both of you carried.

If this rational partnership was the way to honor your family obligations while still retaining that precious bond...well, Byakuya had accepted it as a worthwhile compromise.

Until now, that was.

Now, as he stared at the delicate rise and fall of your chest with each quiet inhalation...as he drank in the elegant line of your throat and the slightly parted serenity of your lips...Byakuya found his carefully constructed walls of restraint crumbling like sodden papier-mâché in the deluge.

He ached to reach out and caress the soft skin of your cheek with the barest whisper of his fingertips. To bestow the kind of tender, adoring touch two people intimately bound were supposed to share without condition or self-imposed barriers. Most of all, he burned with the need to finally, finally lean across that maddening divide and capture your lips with his own in a searing release of all the wanting he’d silently endured for decades.

The thought caused a familiar flare of heat to spread through Byakuya's core, settling like molten embers in his loins as his eyes raked shamelessly across your sleeping form. How many times had he lain awake just like this, jaw clenched and fists knotted in the sheets as his tortured mind supplied increasingly vivid fantasies of what your body might feel like pressed against his? Of the breathy gasps and unraveling expressions he could tease from your features with each doting caress and sinuous shift of intimate, tangled limbs?

Countless. The answer was countless, relentless iterations - each more depraved and indulgent than the last.

Sometimes, in his most lascivious reveries, Byakuya allowed himself to picture taking you fully and completely as his wedded wife in truth. Of burying his aching length within your welcoming heat over and over until your hoarse cries painted the very air itself with ecstasy. Of feeling your nails scoring fire along the straining cords of his back as he devoted every ounce of himself to mapping your body's every secret erogenous plateau with fervent, open-mouthed worship.

He fantasized about losing himself so deeply in the throes of your shared passions that even coherent thought became an impossibility. About giving himself over to that feral, primal part of his soul that sang for nothing more than to claim you, ravish you, seed you with his issue in the most profane yet somehow sacred of acts.

Byakuya's breath caught in his throat as he felt the telltale stirrings of arousal needling at his groin, precipitated by those wanton daydreams that always seemed to slither in unannounced. He clenched his jaw hard enough for the tendons to strain in his neck, fighting off the growing urge to reach down and alleviate the steadily blooming ache with his own hand.

Because he knew that would only be a temporary balm, one that failed to come anywhere close to satiating the true source of this fevered, all-consuming hunger. The one solution that remained stubbornly, infuriatingly out of his reach due to years and years of accepted boundaries and ingrained propriety between you both.

In the end, Byakuya settled for clenching the bedsheets in a white-knuckled grip until his quickened breaths evened out and the lancing jolts of desire settled into a steady, smoldering thrum. All the while, his eyes remained resolutely trained on your sleeping figure, hungrily cataloging every detail as if it were the first and final time he would be permitted such an unguarded view.

Like every night preceding this one, Byakuya would persevere in silent, aching torment rather than risk shattering the delicately restrained dynamic you had both sworn yourselves to upholding. No matter how corrosive the fires of ardor raging within him might become.

He was the head of the Kuchiki Clan, after all, steeped in honor and tradition down to his very marrow. To act on these deviant urges, to forsake the promise you had made and the boundaries you both tacitly agreed to all those years ago...it would be an unforgivable, disgraceful surrender to weakness.

No matter how much his soul screamed for the exquisite release of reciprocated intimacy and desire, he would remain steadfast. Even if it meant suffering the agonizing pangs of perpetual, unrequited yearning until his dying breath.

At least, those were the maudlin affirmations Byakuya kept repeating in a desperate internal mantra as his eyes finally drifted closed, immense weariness settling over him like a shroud. Tomorrow, he would bury these tumultuous cravings once more, as he had every single day preceding this ill-fated descent into torturous infatuation.

But tonight...tonight, he would allow himself to indulge in the exquisite agony of loving you from afar for just a little while longer. To burn with smoldering embers of infinite wanting that may very well consume him entirely if left to their own insatiable devices much longer.

Byakuya's eyes fluttered open to the pale light of dawn filtering through the bedroom window. He blinked a few times, momentarily disoriented, before the soft sounds of movement from the adjoining bathroom brought everything sharply into focus.

You were awake already, no doubt freshening up and preparing for the day ahead like the steadfastly disciplined woman you were. Just the thought of you sent a flicker of heat stirring low in Byakuya's belly.

Almost of its own volition, his gaze drifted down to the tent his morning wood had pitched beneath the sheets pooled around his waist. He bit back a groan, simultaneously aroused and dismayed by his body's instinctive reaction.

For nearly a century, he'd been waking up like this more often than not - cock straining eagerly against the fabric restraints, aching and full just from the promise of another day spent in your maddening proximity. At this point, Byakuya had lost count of how many times he'd been forced to silently take himself in hand and reduce the swollen, throbbing length to a pitiful, dribbling spent mess while imagining it was your tight clenching heat milking him instead of his calloused palm.

Lost track of the mornings where he'd emerged from heated fantasies of pinning you beneath him and driving into that welcoming slick over and over, relishing your desperate whimpers and pleas for more echoing off the bedroom walls. Or the ones where he bent you over the closest surface and took you from behind like a lust-crazed beast, savoring the sight of his cock disappearing into that perfect, dripping cunt again and again.

Byakuya shuddered hard, gripping the sheets until his knuckles turned white. Even now, those filthy thoughts and scenarios were playing out in vivid detail in his mind's eye, stoking his desire into an insistent throbbing demand.

The soft click of the bathroom door sliding open jolted him from his indecent reverie. You stepped out, already dressed and regarding him with that carefully neutral expression you always wore.

"Good morning," you greeted him simply, as if he wasn't lying there with a painfully obvious erection tenting the sheets. As if the two of you were little more than casual acquaintances rather than husband and wife.

"Good morning," Byakuya replied stiffly, voice rougher than usual with pent-up arousal. He watched, throat tightening, as your gaze pointedly dropped to his lap before you arched one brow delicately.

"Need a hand taking care of that?" You nodded towards his straining arousal. "I am your wife, after all, even if only in name. Assisting with such...needs...falls within the parameters of our arrangement."

The clinical way you referred to what could be an incredibly intimate physical connection made something twist viciously in Byakuya's gut. His jaw clenched so hard his teeth ground together.

"That won't be necessary," he bit out, shoving the sheets aside to rise from the bed - utterly uncaring about putting his prominent erection on display. Let you get an eyeful of what you'd spent decades neglecting despite calling yourself his wife. "I'm more than capable of taking care of this on my own as usual."

Your lips pressed into a thin line at his rebuff, eyes following the rigid length jutting obscenely from the nest of dark curls as he brushed past you towards the bathroom. There was a flicker of something in your gaze - curiosity, perhaps, or fleeting interest quickly smothered.

Just before he slid the door shut behind himself, Byakuya paused and glanced back at you over his shoulder. "Though I appreciate the courtesy of looking after my basic needs, you needn't feel obligated on that front," he stated gruffly. "I have no expectations of you as a wife beyond maintaining the appearances of our political union."

The words were a lie, and you both knew it based on how your eyes narrowed almost imperceptibly. Byakuya didn't give you a chance to respond. He shut himself in the bathroom, turning the lock with a decisive click as he leaned back against the door and shoved his hakama the rest of the way down his hips.

His cock sprang free, achingly hard and leaking at the tip already from his frustrated arousal. Byakuya wasted no time in wrapping a firm hand around the throbbing shaft, biting back a groan as he started to stroke himself with harsh, efficient tugs.

Closing his eyes, he instantly conjured vivid fantasies to chase his release. Of bending you over the bathroom vanity and driving into that tight, dripping heat from behind with punishing thrusts. Of your cries of pleasure echoing off the tile walls as you begged him to fuck you harder, deeper, to fill you with his seed over and over.

Byakuya's pace sped up as the scenarios played out in excruciating detail in his mind. He could almost feel your nails scoring down his back, hear your gasping moans right against his ear as he claimed you with carnal, undignified abandon.

All these decades, he'd been starving for you. Craving the feeling of his cock stretching you open on that first delicious thrust, of your feminine heat convulsing so perfectly around his rigid length as you came apart beneath his relentless pursuit of release.

With a harsh grunt, Byakuya's hips stuttered forward as he spilled his release over his pumping fist and dripping onto the polished wood below. Orgasm ripped through him in searing waves, so intense yet still pitifully unsatisfying without the real thing to chase.

When the last tremors subsided, Byakuya opened his eyes and stared numbly at the sticky mess rapidly cooling on his skin and the floor. As always, the brief moment of physical relief brought with it a crushing loneliness as he was reminded that no matter how vivid his imagination, it would never compare to the transcendent bliss of experiencing those intimate acts with his actual wife.

With you, his best friend, his equal and confidante in every sense of the word. The only person who knew him more intimately than he knew himself.

The one person eternally off limits due to the terms of the loveless marriage you had both so willingly entered into a century ago.

Byakuya cleaned himself up quickly, shoving the aching tangle of desires back into their solitary cell for the time being. When he finally emerged, you were waiting in the hallway. Likely having heard his muffled sounds of self-pleasure and aware of exactly what he'd been doing behind that closed door.

There was no judgment or recrimination in your expression, though. Just the same measured indifference he'd come to expect regarding the personal boundaries between you two.

"I'm heading to the dining hall for breakfast," you stated calmly, as if nothing untoward had occurred. "Would you care to join me?"

Byakuya stared at you for a long moment, searching for any hint of softness or deeper emotion in your carefully neutral features. As always, he found nothing save his own warped yearnings staring back at him.

"Of course," he replied tonelessly. "Let's not keep Rukia waiting."

Side by side, you fell into step towards the dining hall - closer than mere acquaintances yet separated by impenetrable walls built by years of restraint and propriety.

Byakuya couldn't help stealing sidelong glances at you as you walked, fantasies and urges already stirring anew, ravenous and insatiable as always.

Perhaps one day, when his desire overwhelmed him entirely and his noble resolve crumbled to dust, he would finally succumb to the relentless longings you so effortlessly provoked. But until that day came, he would persevere - waging a silent, never-ending war against his own unrequited needs behind the ever-present mask of indifference.

Even if he burned from the inside out holding true to the boundaries you'd sworn yourselves to so very long ago.

The dining hall was its usual stately quiet when you and Byakuya arrived, the only sounds the soft clink of porcelain and hushed voices of the staff serving the morning meal. You led the way to the head of the long table, back ramrod straight and expression composed into its typical serene mask.

Byakuya followed half a step behind, eyes tracing the elegant line of your neck before flickering away guiltily. He couldn't stop replaying the image of you from earlier, standing there so coolly offering to pleasure him out of some bizarre sense of wifely duty. The thought still made his jaw clench with a confusing swirl of arousal and irritation.

You took your customary seat at the head of the table, back facing the ornate family shrines and ancestral portraits lining the walls. Byakuya settled across from you, stealing another sidelong glance as you delicately arranged your napkin across your lap.

For a few minutes, the only sound was the soft scrape of chopsticks against porcelain as you ate in your usual refined, unhurried manner. Byakuya found himself unable to look away, absently pushing the food around his plate as he studied the slope of your nose, the fan of dark lashes brushing your cheeks with every deliberate blink.

"Is the meal not to your liking this morning, dear?" you murmured without looking up, using the affectionate term for 'husband' out of propriety despite the distinct lack of warmth behind it.

Byakuya started slightly at being addressed so directly. "No...the meal is fine," he replied gruffly. "My mind was simply...elsewhere."

Your lips curved in the barest hint of a knowing smile before you returned your attention to your half-empty bowl of rice. "I see. Well, do try to join me in the present for at least a few moments. I wish to discuss some matters pertaining to the upcoming council meeting with the elders."

And just like that, the veneer of the poised noblewoman and clan leader was firmly back in place. You launched into a succinct overview of the agenda items and your proposed positions, speaking in that same clipped, matter-of-fact tone that always made Byakuya's chest ache for reasons he could never put words to.

It was so eerily reminiscent of how his grandfather used to strategize and plan, never allowing anything as frivolous as emotional attachments or indulgent fancies to cloud his judgment regarding the clan's best interests. An echo of the same pragmatic adherence to duty and custom above all else that the Kuchiki advisors had no doubt admired in you so ardently when suggesting this marriage all those decades ago.

You were the ideal partner from their skewed perspective - unflinchingly devoted to preserving the clan's power and noble heritage with the same ruthless single-mindedness as the most stringent of the elders. No distractions, no silly romantic dalliances to clutter your focus or judgment when it came to the matters that truly mattered.

Byakuya swallowed thickly at the realization, fighting a wave of bitterness. Was that all he would ever be to you? Another piece on the chessboard of responsibilities and lineage maintenance rather than an equal partner to share your life with? The thought settled like a leaden knot in the pit of his stomach.

He was roused from his brooding reverie by the sound of the dining room door sliding open. Rukia bustled in, the youthful glow of her features at odds with the weary lines of strain carved between her brows.

"Pardon my tardiness, nii-sama, [Y/N]-dono," she said by way of greeting, bowing slightly as she hurried to take her usual seat beside Byakuya. "I was finishing up some paperwork for Captain Ukitake."

"It's quite alright, Rukia," you replied, the barest hint of maternal warmth tingeing your tone in a way Byakuya had only ever witnessed when addressing his adopted sister. "Please, help yourself. We were just discussing the upcoming clan affairs."

Byakuya watched in guarded silence as the two most important women in his world interacted with far more open affection than he had ever experienced from you. Despite your composed decorum, there was an unmistakable softness suffusing your features as you guided Rukia through the meeting notes with the same patient attentiveness he always admired about you.

It only served to reinforce the ugly, thorny resentment taking root in his chest over the detached, clinical treatment you reserved solely for him by comparison. Even now, after so many years walking in the minutely inhabited sphere of your marriage, you remained this untouchable, unknowable enigma behind an impenetrable wall of propriety. A cold, regal mystery that seemed destined to forever elude his ability to breach it no matter how fervently he yearned to.

"Speaking of important clan affairs," Rukia ventured after swallowing a bite of egg. "When do you two intend to begin the process of securing the next Kuchiki heir?"

Her innocent query hung in the air like a lead balloon as the temperature in the room seemed to plummet ten degrees instantaneously. Byakuya felt his spine stiffen, heart pounding as he cut his eyes towards you guardedly.

Your features betrayed not a single flicker of discomfort, perfectly smooth and implacable as you gathered your words to deliver the expected politic non-answer with surgical precision.

"There are no immediate plans to address providing a successor within our marriage, Rukia," you stated, each syllable clipped with familiar indifference. "Should the clan elders deem it relevant in the future, Byakuya and I will of course uphold our duties. But for now, it remains a non-issue."

The icy formality with which you brushed aside such a deeply personal matter grated on Byakuya's nerves. He could practically feel the gnashing, clawing hunger inside him rearing up in protest.

'It's always just "duties" and "obligations" with her. As if the thought of lying with me, making a child together, doesn't stir even a flicker of longing beyond cold calculations...'

He carefully schooled his features into an imperious mask as he turned his attention to Rukia, not quite able to mask the edge of rebuke in his tone. "You heard my wife. We will address the matter of an heir when the clan leadership sees fit to make it a priority for us."

'My gorgeous, maddening wife who remains as untouchable as a desert mirage no matter how feverishly I burn for her touch...'

Rukia shrank back slightly at the undercurrent of tension she could no doubt sense thickening the air between her brother and sister-in-law. She opened her mouth, perhaps to protest or simply ask another ill-advised question.

But you smoothly cut her off, ever the picture of aristocratic poise despite the hint of challenge flickering behind your gaze as it locked with Byakuya's.

"There's no need to make too much on the subject any further this morning, Rukia," you said evenly, perfectly level save for the barest undercurrent of steel woven through each syllable. "We have larger matters of importance regarding the clan's future to focus our discussion on."

'Once again, she deflects—just as she always does when the conversation nears the unspoken voids in our marriage. The empty spaces I long to fill with the genuine intimacy of a true partnership in every sense.'

The unspoken challenge simmered between you, charging the atmosphere with an electric tang that seemed to crackle along Byakuya's heated skin. He opened his mouth, some part of him aching to cut through the dense fog of pretense and avoidance and lay everything bare in that moment—

'I want her so badly it feels like there's a roaring furnace consuming me from the inside out at all times. My own wife, and yet she remains the singular source of torment and unfulfilled desire that may very well raze me to ashes before I draw my next breath—'

"Well!" Rukia's overly-bright tone sliced through the fraught silence like a klaxon blast. She was already half-risen from her seat, gaze pinging uncertainly between the two of you. "I can see this is a...rather delicate conversation I've stumbled into. I'll just go ahead and give you two some space to discuss things...privately."

She paused as if awaiting either an agreement or dismissal, but your attention remained utterly arrowed upon Byakuya. He held your stare levelly, hoping his eyes at least betrayed a fraction of the rawness currently scorching through his veins.

'Look at me, damn you—see the wretched, lust-crazed state you’ve left me in after decades of relentless yearning. The unraveling of every noble restraint I’ve forced upon myself in the name of restraint and duty.'

There was no retreat or softening in your inscrutable mask as the weighted seconds ticked by in suffocating stillness. Finally, Rukia made a small noise of surrender and simply excused herself, the shoji door sliding shut behind her in a dissonant clap of finality.

You and Byakuya were finally alone with the inexorable gauntlet lying between you thrumming with all the pent-up intensity of embers slowly fanning to life. A conflagration they both knew could either be extinguished with cold resolution once more...or finally permitted to immolate every fragile, artificial barrier separating you in one searing, cataclysmic release.

The weighted silence stretched between you, palpable and loaded like a tripwire primed for detonation at the slightest provocation. Byakuya's grip tightened fractionally on the edge of the table, jaw flexing as he struggled to maintain his veneer of implacable stoicism.

Inwardly, he felt like a treacherous inferno was raging barely restrained – one he'd been ruthlessly fighting to smother for decades upon decades. The searing licks of unanswered desire and unrequited ardor scalding through his veins each time you so much as met his stare, reminding him of every scorching fantasy he'd indulged regarding his wife.

His beautiful, untouchable wife who remained irritatingly oblivious to the all-consuming obsession slowly unraveling him from the inside out.

You arched one elegant brow, the picture of regal poise and control despite the fraught undercurrents swirling around you. "Is there a problem, dear?" you asked coolly, each syllable clipped with that familiar indifference.

Byakuya felt his throat constrict at the clinical detachment in your tone. A large part of him – the darkly primal, starved facet he'd been denying for far too long – ached to shed every last shred of pretense in that moment. To unburden himself of the ravenous truth gnawing away at the very foundations of his sanity like a relentless psychic parasite.

That he loved you, truly and desperately in spite of the pragmatic circumstances binding your marriage. That every fiber of his being howled to sear the boundaries you'd sworn between you into ash so he could finally slake his depraved thirst upon your flesh. To kiss you, take you as his wife in actuality, to make you cry out his name in rapture as he buried himself to the hilt over and over in that welcoming, scalding heat reserved only for him.

In the end, what emerged past Byakuya's gritted teeth was a mere fraction of that roiling, consuming truth.

"None, wife." He fought not to let his voice betray the barest tremor, but couldn't quite keep the roughened edges from scraping against each word. “Simply… reflecting on this morning’s discussion.”

You regarded him through narrowed eyes for a long beat, clearly sensing the evasive dishonesty behind his clipped reply. When you spoke again, a hint of that same challenge he'd glimpsed earlier bled through the deceptively mild lilt of your words.

"I see," you murmured, lips pursing in a subtle moue that Byakuya tried desperately not to fixate upon. "Well, should you need to...reflect anything further, you know where to find me, dear."

The blatant undercurrent of suggestion in that final endearment was like a lightning strike directly to Byakuya's groin. He shifted unconsciously on the cushion, fighting a full-body shudder as a shockwave of white-hot arousal detonated through his core. The mere thought of you extending such a brazen overture, of allowing him to indulge those perverse compulsions he'd kept on a punishingly tight leash for over a century.

It took every ounce of Byakuya's legendary self-restraint not to surge across the short distance separating you and seize your smaller frame against his body right then and there. He could practically envision it – the delicious give of those curves molding against the painfully rigid planes of his torso...your sharp inhalations of surprise quickly melting into pliant acceptance as his hands cupped the soft weight of your jaw, tilting your mouth up to finally meet his in a searing, devouring kiss.

The first of countless such shattering embraces he fully intended to worship every inch of your body with before the night was through, untold lifetimes' worth of bottled cravings finally attaining sweet, rapturous release in the most intimate joining of—

"As it happens..."

Byakuya grated out the demurral through a clenched jaw, the sharp consonants punctuated by audible strain. He ruthlessly banished the vivid fantasies, shoving them back into the shadowed recesses of his psyche before they could completely upend his tarnished control like a towering tsunami.

When he lifted his gaze back to yours, the full intensity of his longing had been masked once more behind those impenetrable walls of frigid civility. But the subtle tightening at the corners of his eyes betrayed the staggering effort it took to keep those virulent compulsions leashed.

"I just realized I have a few matters requiring my attention in the clan archives this afternoon," he continued tonelessly. "But I will see you again later this evening, [Y/N]."

The words held a pregnant pause, unspoken but no less palpable for the weight carried between them. They both knew the undercurrents simmering below the surface could only be ignored or avoided for so long before the dam finally ruptured in spectacular fashion.

Tonight may very well be when those relentless, rising tides finally crested and swept away every carefully constructed barrier fortifying the hollows between your souls.

You seemed to grasp the implications as well from the minute tightening around your eyes and the measured rise of your chest. But you simply inclined your head in a regal, understated acknowledgment.

"Very well. Don't let me keep you from those...pressing archive matters, my love." The intimate endearment seemed to drip from your tongue with heavier insinuation this time, rife with unspoken challenges and the potential for upheavals to come. "I'll be...keeping myself equally occupied until then."

With that final subtle barb lancing straight through his composure, you turned and swept from the dining hall in a billow of silk and unshakable poise. Byakuya watched your departure through a creeping haze of spiraling arousal and quietly simmering outrage.

Tonight, the shattering culmination of this exquisite torture between you would finally reach its tipping point – one way or another.

For both your sakes, he prayed fervently that you would choose the path of brutal honesty and passion when you inevitably collided once more. For he wasn't certain his beleaguered restraints could withstand another evening of needless, self-inflicted torment at your measured hands.

Not without snapping completely and simply...taking what he'd starved for all along, propriety be damned.

Night had long since fallen over the Kuchiki estate, blanketing the ornate gardens and walkways in velvety darkness. Byakuya made his way through the winding corridors towards the bedroom he shared with you, footsteps muffled against the woven tatami.

As he approached the carved wooden door, he couldn't help but slow his gait infinitesimally. Each measured step seemed to carry a strange, leaden weight - like he was being pulled along by an inexorable gravitational force rather than propelling himself by conscious will.

The soft sounds of movement filtering through the door only intensified that sensation, raising the fine hairs along the back of Byakuya's neck in a rippling wave of heightened awareness. He knew without needing to be told that you were inside, likely preparing for bed or some other nightly routine.

Just the thought of you undressed or partially disrobed in those private chambers you shared was enough to spark a dull, insistent flare of heat coiling low in Byakuya's belly. He grit his teeth against the reflexive rush, silently cursing the towering lack of restraint chipping away at his noble reserves with each passing year.

This was his wife - his childhood friend, his respected equal through every twist and tribulation life had thrown their way over the decades. Under no circumstances should he allow his thoughts to linger on such depravities and urges unfitting for the partner fate had inexplicably bound him to.

And yet, as Byakuya's hand finally wrapped around the polished wooden latch, he couldn't quite smother the vivid images scorching through his consciousness. Of you standing there disheveled and deliciously rumpled from slumber...loose sleeping yukata slipping invitingly off one shoulder to bare tantalizing hints of the feminine curves lying just beneath...

He shook his head sharply, irritation flaring as he ruthlessly banished the inappropriate fantasies. This pointless internal struggle against his baser impulses was quickly becoming exhausting in the most demoralizing sense of the word. Steeling himself, Byakuya slid the door open and stepped across the threshold with his usual implacable confidence.

You stood beside the ornate vanity, hands resting against the lacquered surface as your head turned fractionally at his entrance. Your lips parted as if to speak but whatever greeting might have tumbled forth stilled on your tongue as you took in Byakuya's rigid, almost brittle poise standing there.

For several suspended heartbeats, the two of you simply appraised one another in thick, weighty silence. Byakuya's jaw clenched hard enough for his molars to grind as his eyes traced the artfully tousled tumble of your soft tresses...the plush swell of those lips still parted in a delicious moue of surprise...the exquisite cut of bare collarbones teasing at the shadowed hints of cleavage peeking through the loose drape of your robe.

You were the very picture of artless, slumberous beauty in that moment. And Byakuya felt the ravenous ache of deprivation howling through him at the mere thought of reaching out to caress so much of that inoxicatingly soft, warm skin as had been steadfastly denied him for decades upon decades of their hollow union.

That single, maddening compulsion threatened to shatter the last tattered threads holding his civilized veneer together in one reckless surge of motion. He nearly staggered beneath the crushing tides of wanting, of pure visceral need clawing up from where he'd ruthlessly shoved it down for far too long.

"Byakuya?" Your voice cut through the thick, heated haze swirling in his mind - low and slightly rough from disuse. "Is...everything alright?"

He blinked sluggishly, realizing that in his momentary lapse of control, he hadn't so much as shifted from where he stood frozen on the threshold. Simply remained there, gripped motionless in the throes of that overwhelming flood of longing like a man stumbling across a poisonous serpent mid-coil.

When Byakuya finally found his voice, it emerged with slightly more strain laced around the edges than he would have preferred.

"Yes," he bit out tersely, still rooted there as if held in place by the forbidding gravity well of your presence alone. "I simply...was not expecting you to still be awake at this hour."

It wasn't quite an apology or excuse for his unseemly lapse, but it was enough to prompt you into action. You turned more fully towards him, clasping the sumptuous folds of your sleeping robe tighter like shielding armor against his searching eyes.

"To be honest, I wasn't expecting you anytime soon tonight," you countered evenly, that same subtle edge of challenge gilding each word like a barely-there blade's caress. "But since you're here now..."

You trailed off, the lingering unspoken invitation hanging pregnant between you like a looming storm front. Byakuya felt his fingers curl into fists at his sides, nails biting half-moons into his palms as his body reacted with visceral sensitivity to even the barest implications from your lips.

"I did not mean to keep you waiting," he murmured after another fraught pause. "Merely...following your earlier suggestion regarding matters requiring further processing between us, that's all."

The corners of your lips quirked upwards for the span of a solitary breath, infinitely knowing and dripping with unsubtle implication. Your tongue darted out to graze across that full lower swell for a scant second, the entirely unconscious motion searing itself across Byakuya's retinas like a brand.

"I see," you hummed lightly, gaze flicking deliberately up and down the rigid lines of Byakuya's form in a leisurely, measuring perusal. “Well, don’t let me keep you from unpacking those heavy thoughts any longer, dear. If I remember correctly, I did say I’d be available if you need any further processing.”

The taut, loaded silence stretched between you like a tightrope pulled to its breaking point. Byakuya felt the insistent thrum of his heartbeat thundering in his ears as he appraised you – still achingly tempting despite the guarded set of your shoulders.

He allowed his gaze to deliberately roam the elegant lines of your robe-draped figure one more time. Drinking in the visual splendor of soft, silken fabric pooling in artful disarray to reveal teasing flashes of skin. The delicate hollow at the base of your throat where your pulse fluttered with each subtle inhalation. The careless tangle of tresses he longed to rake his fingers through and thoroughly dishevel.

When his silver-eyed stare at last found yours again, the hunger simmering in those smoldering depths must have been plain for you to discern. Because you visibly stilled, lips parting around a nearly imperceptible hitch of breath as color bloomed high on your cheekbones.

Byakuya didn't miss the way your eyes cut away, unable to fully meet the unguarded intensity blazing in his own. A flicker of something like uncertainty crossed your features before the impassive mask slipped seamlessly back into place. But that single infinitesimal crack in your unflappable poise was all it took for the first tiny ember to ignite deep in his chest.

"You're right," he stated, the low rasp of his voice tinged with an uncharacteristic roughness that caused your lashes to flutter involuntarily. "There are...significant matters still requiring discussion between us. Issues that demand brutal honesty if there's to be any hope of processing them properly."

Moving with an unhurried, measured gait, Byakuya crossed the polished floor until mere feet separated you. At this proximity, he could detect the clean floral notes of your favorite soaps mingling with that subtle feminine musk unique to you alone. Headier and more intoxicating than any finely aged sake he'd ever indulged in.

You watched his slow approach with guarded attentiveness, throat bobbing convulsively as you fought not to retreat further. When he halted just shy of your personal space, you finally found your voice again.

"And what sorts of brutally honest discussions did you have in mind?" You arched one shapely brow, feigning nonchalance despite the sharp edges now gilding your words. "Nothing too untoward or...unbecoming for a noble lady such as myself, I should hope."

Byakuya didn't take the bait, refusing to be drawn into your familiar dance of evasion and veiled deflections. He simply canted his head slightly, cataloguing the minute shifts in your expression as he let the weighted silence drag out between you once more.

This was the closest they'd stood since that night, decades ago, when they had tentatively exchanged the customary ceremonial kiss to bind their vows in front of the clan elders. He could still remember the barest ghost of friction from your lips brushing his in that clinical, detached facsimile of greater intimacies to come.

The recollection sparked a sudden visceral pang in Byakuya's chest, like lancing open an old suture left to fester for far too long. He frowned, unable to suppress the melancholy ache bleeding into his tone.

"Do you remember the first time we embraced as children?" The words slipped out unbidden, scarcely above a murmur yet somehow carrying the crushing weight of ages across the limited distance separating your bodies. “Not just a casual gesture for appearance’s sake, but a genuine, heartfelt expression of familial affection, freely given?”

You blinked, momentarily thrown off balance by the seeming non-sequitur. But when you spoke again, it was with a calculated indifference cloaking whatever genuine emotion may have flickered beneath.

"If I'm meant to recall some specific childhood incident, you'll have to be more clear." You tilted your chin up a fraction, holding Byakuya's searching stare levelly. "My memories are not necessarily as adept at trifling nostalgic reminiscences."

The bald dismissal felt like a slap, uncoiling the first lashes of frustrated irritation across Byakuya's composure. His expression hardened further as he stepped fully into your personal space, the heat radiating from your proximities suddenly suffocating rather than tempting.

"Don't play coy, [Y/N]," he bit out, each consonant ground out through gritted teeth. "You remember as well as I the intimacies we used to share – meaningless trivialities in your estimation, perhaps, but cherished moments to my recollection."

He paused, gaze raking hungrily over the delicate fan of your lashes, the subtle part of those lush lips as they parted around a sudden inhalation of breath. Seemingly despite yourself, you had leaned infinitesimally closer as he spoke, drawn in by either his proximity or the naked emotion lacing his words.

"Back then, you were not simply my dearest friend," Byakuya continued, voice lowering to an intimate rumble thick with layered history and complex longing. "You were my other half, the twin flame to my own restless spirit. We shared every precious childhood intimacy two souls could experience together – long embraces, whispered secrets, all those small yet infinitely meaningful expressions of vulnerability and trust between kindred beings."

He lifted a hand as if to reach out and cradle the elegant line of your jaw. To forge that physical connection he suddenly ached for with an intensity that stole what little air remained between you. But at the last second, rigid self-restraint locked his muscles, leaving his fingertips hovering just shy of actually making contact.

"And now..." His voice caught minutely on the hushed syllable, lashes dipping as he marshaled his next words through a tangle of tangled regrets and denied yearnings. "After nearly a century of keeping our marriage bound solely by hollow ceremony and obligation...I can scarcely recall the last time we even indulged a simple, meaningless human touch between us outside of obligation."

Byakuya's eyes slitted open again, finding yours with heated focus like answering a siren's call. The anguish and naked vulnerability burning in those mercurial depths very nearly stole your breath completely.

"Tell me, wife..." His fingertips finally skimmed the slope of your jaw in a scarcely-there caress, coaxing an audible hitch from your lips. "When did we become such utter, desolate strangers to one another?"

Your expression shifted almost imperceptibly at Byakuya's hushed accusation, lips pressing into a thin line as you visibly bristled. When you spoke again, the bald undercurrent of challenge lashing through each syllable nearly stung with its sudden force.

"Don't you dare try laying this at my feet," you stated in a low, clipped tone that brooked no argument. "Need I remind you who approached me with the suggestion of a political marriage all those years ago?"

Byakuya felt his own jaw tighten at the barb, even as a niggling sense of rightful chastisement niggled beneath the knee-jerk defensiveness flaring in his chest. You weren't wrong - he had been the one to initially float the idea of binding your ancient bloodlines through marriage, albeit couched in pragmatic inevitability rather than the least hint of amorous intent.

Your eyes narrowed, no doubt catching the fractional tells betraying his momentary concession. "That's right, I didn't think so," you continued coolly. "If I recall, the proposal involved an explicitly loveless arrangement focused solely on satisfying our family obligations through a legitimate legal partnership."

You paused, sweeping an imperious look up and down Byakuya's increasingly taut form. The full curve of your lips twisted in a wry moue, somehow both condescending and undeniably enticing all at once.

"An arrangement to which I readily agreed in good faith, never once expressing any...unreasonable expectations of deeper intimacies being involved." The final words carried an undercurrent of acidic rebuke that felt like the silk cords binding your marital pact tightening to noose-point around Byakuya's windpipe. "Unlike some, it seems."

The implication lanced straight through the last vestiges of Byakuya's carefully crafted affectations of stoicism like a red-hot branding iron. He recoiled slightly at the unveiled slight, shoulders squaring in blatant affront.

"Do not presume to cast my perspective as 'unreasonable expectations', wife," he growled, using the archaic title like a challenge rather than a term of endearment. "I have done nothing if not honor our agreement to the absolute letter these past decades, no matter how..."

He trailed off, fighting a sudden upswing of emotion clogging his throat like an iron fist. When he spoke again, the words emerged ragged and whetted against the sandpaper grind of barely restrained frustration.

"No matter how infinitely empty that hollow, affectionless existence has left me feeling inside," Byakuya rasped. “You claim to have fulfilled our ‘arrangement’ to the letter. Yet, I must take issue with such blatant dishonesty regarding the implicit matters you have so grievously neglected in your duties as my spouse!”

It was your turn to visibly bristle at his implied slight. You straightened infinitesimally, chin tilting up in blatant affront as a flash of genuine anger sparked behind the impassive facade.

"Duties?" you parroted with blistering sarcasm. "Please, elaborate further about which of my daily responsibilities running this entire household and clan I've allowed to fall so woefully short."

Byakuya crossed the final distance between you in a few heated strides, stopping just shy of your personal space and pinning you in place with the sheer barely-restrained force of his towering presence. Close enough to feel the coiled heat smoldering between your bodies, yet still maintaining that hair's breadth of respect keeping you from true physical contact.

"Your role as noble matron of this clan may be perfect," he rumbled lowly, unable to fully keep an edge of bitter ire from leeching into the words. "But your performance as my wife leaves everything to be desired, if we're speaking with such brutal honesty."

Tension coiled and crackled between you at the unveiled slight - the first volley fired across the bow of what rapidly felt like an inevitable descent into the uglier side of marital confrontation. You bristled even further, eyes flashing in a way that should not have set off such visceral sparks of perverse interest ricocheting through Byakuya's core.

"How dare you question my devotion to upholding this marriage!" The words finally detonated from your lips in a low growl, lush and vibrating with barely leashed outrage. "I have remained a consummate and steadfast partner to you in every way we agreed upon from the very start—"

"Except where it counts most, or so it would seem!"

The retort burst forth from Byakuya before he could fully leash it, reverberation through the hushed air between you with enough resonant impact to finally silence your heated tirade. His chest heaved with increasingly ragged pants as the blistering splinters of accusation began spilling unchecked past his lips - the first cracks in centuries' worth of emotional artifice and restraint finally fracturing past the breaking point.

“You behave as though hiding this loveless charade behind empty ceremony and detachment absolves you of any responsibility for the intimacy that one should rightly expect from a wife!” He snarled, raking you with a look of such heated hunger and repressed ardor, it very nearly singed your exposed skin. “As if a few meaningless gestures here and there could somehow absolve you of the responsibility to offer genuine emotional sustenance and vulnerability to the man whose name you bear!”

Silence swelled in the wake of his harsh accusations, ripe and viscous enough to scald. Byakuya realized distantly that you had both crossed into uncharted territory - stumbling into the precipice of an argument fueled by long-overdue confrontation in a way he could scarcely recall from your lifetimes shared together.

Part of him felt awash in the foreign exhilaration of finally breaching those banked emotional bulwarks you had both so rigidly maintained over the centuries. Another, smaller voice buried deep within quietly lamented the loss of equilibrium you had strived to preserve no matter the personal cost to your individual souls...

But the expression searing across your features in that suspended moment utterly scattered those introspective whispers to the seven winds. You stared back at Byakuya with an amalgam of shock, indignation, and something else infinitely more complex simmering behind your depthless irises. The sight of which catalyzed a firestorm roaring back to searing life in the deepest chambers of his psyche.

This simmering new crucible awaiting you both...this trial by fire and unleashed anguish and unslaked rapture suddenly coalescing between your mirrored souls...

You were going to burn together with Byakuya at its merciless epicenter, whether you welcomed the cleansing immolation or not. The deciding crucible was whether you both emerged from this transformative conflagration as heartbroken embers or twin flames reforged into something unbreakable and new.

Byakuya's eyes fluttered open, blinking groggily against the pale morning light filtering through the bedroom. Awareness came back in increments - the soft, rumpled bedding tangled around his legs, the subtle floral notes of your shampoo still clinging to the sheets.

And you, lying there mere inches away with your back turned towards him.

Memories of last night's confrontation slammed into Byakuya like a physical blow as he studied the elegant curve of your spine rising and falling in a slow, steady rhythm. He could still hear the words echoing like shards of sharpened obsidian between them.

His bitter accusations that you were failing as a true wife by withholding any semblance of deeper intimacy or vulnerability in their marriage. Your enraged retorts branding him as entitled and unreasonable for expecting you to indulge those unspoken yearnings that he'd sworn from the beginning were never part of your practical agreement.

The knot of residual tension coiled fresh in Byakuya's gut as those echoes ricocheted through his consciousness again. Part of him still simmered with righteous indignation at how swiftly you'd dismissed his anguished confessions as nothing more than petulant whining.

After all, what gave you the right to judge the validity of his starvation for a genuine intimate connection in your marriage? One you continually denied him time and time again through your detached aloofness and steadfast refusal to acknowledge anything beyond cold, impersonal obligation between you?

Still, another part of Byakuya felt a pang of remorse as his gaze traced the delicate hills and valleys of your sleeping form. He knew the anger clouding his perceptions last night had been equal parts years' worth of repressed longing boiling over and sheer, virulent desperation to finally breach the icy walls you'd so skillfully constructed around yourself.

Perhaps he had been too rash, too heated in flinging those recriminations at you. Not that the central truth behind them was any less valid or raw after finally being given voice. But now, in the stark sobriety of morning after, some of the barbs and more scathing denouncements rang with an ugliness that Byakuya couldn't help feeling a flicker of regret over.

You began to stir, shoulders rolling back in a slow, languid stretch that momentarily bared the elegant sweep of your neck and collarbones to his rapt stare. Byakuya tried not to fixate too brazenly on the ephemeral glimpses of soft feminine skin emerging and vanishing beneath the shifting fabric.

He really did intend to avert his eyes with some sense of decorum once you'd fully roused. But then your torso twisted, yukata parting wider to afford him an unobstructed vignette of the lush curves barely concealed beneath – the swells of your breasts cradled in silken folds, the shadowed promise of flushed nipple peeking between sheer layers of fabric.

Byakuya's next inhalation stuttered harshly in his throat, every primal instinct searing straight to full readiness. He felt the first telltale stirrings between his thighs as his groin tightened with dull, pulsating interest. The thin bedding rapidly grew stifling, clinging snugly against the burgeoning swell claiming territory there with alarming swiftness.

As if sensing the raw undercurrent of attention suddenly searing you from behind, you turned over fully to face Byakuya with those same heavy-lidded eyes. For a breathless few heartbeats, you simply regarded one another across the scant divide separating your bodies. Byakuya's gaze was instantly, helplessly, snared by the newly exposed swell of cleavage cupped in delicate silk, your breasts rising and falling in tandem with each slow inhalation.

Your head canted infinitesimally, chin dipping in a subtle motion that allowed the yukata to drape lower with each passing second. When your gaze at last lifted and locked onto Byakuya's, there was no mistaking the sultry intensity reflected there – or the fact you had undoubtedly noticed precisely where his attentions were so raptly fixated.

He could have sworn your lips twitched towards the barest ghost of a smirk before your expression smoothed into studied neutrality once more. It was at that precise moment the rumpled bedding chose to further betray Byakuya's state. An unmistakable ridge had pitched itself into stark relief, proudly tenting the cotton in the general vicinity of his increasingly interested groin as his stiffening arousal continued taking form.

The knowing look you slanted his way made it abundantly clear you'd noticed that particular development as well. Byakuya instinctively shifted as if to conceal the obscene display, but your eyes had already traced a molten path down to the disheveled sheets before flickering back up to meet his increasingly flustered stare.

"Need some assistance this morning, husband?" you purred, raw challenge dripping from each perfectly modulated syllable.

Instantly, Byakuya felt his hackles rising at the unblushing acknowledgment of his body's state as well as the brazen implication lacing your words. Of course, on some level this blatant goading shouldn't have necessarily come as a shock – not after the no-holds-barred confrontation last night that felt like a point of no return in stripping away pretenses between you.

Still, your utter ease at addressing such deeply intimate matters so unsubtly sent a complicated slurry of emotions roiling through him. Indignation, carnal intrigue, residual resentment from your earlier dismissals...they all crashed together in a turbulent riptide that very nearly drowned out the capacity for coherent speech entirely.

In the end, what emerged past Byakuya's gritted teeth carried more growl than question.

"And just what sort of 'assistance' did you have in mind, wife?" he bit out tightly.

You didn't so much as flinch at the belligerent edge gilding his words. Simply regarded Byakuya through lowered lashes that framed you in an entrancing play of light and shadow across your delicate features. An infinitesimal pause stretched out before you wet your lips with a slow, deliberate sweep of your tongue, seemingly savoring the effect the unhurried motion had on Byakuya's locked stare.

"Perhaps..." you began, voice a low, throaty purr that immediately stoked fresh vitality blazing up his spine. "A more...hands-on approach would suffice to meet your needs this morning?"

The thinly veiled overture hung in the air like a lead weight, coaxing Byakuya's breath to stutter anew as you smoothly untucked one hand from beneath the disheveled bedding. His features remained a stolid mask, but you seemed to read the roiling tides of emotion and want churning behind his eyes with unsettling accuracy.

Without preamble, you reached down and firmly grasped the sheets tenting over Byakuya's prominent erection. Your fingers curled around the swollen length, squeezing with just enough pressure to drag a harsh grunt from between his clenched teeth.

"[Y/N]..." he rasped in a low warning, silver eyes blazing. "What do you think you’re doing?"

Rather than answer directly, you simply met his searing stare and began sliding your fist up and down his trapped cock in slow, purposeful strokes. Each languid caress over the rumpled fabric had Byakuya's abdomen clenching, thick shafts of arousal lancing through him with undeniable intensity.

"Isn't this what you accused me of failing at?" you murmured, voice tinged with dark challenge as you twisted your wrist on the next firm upstroke. "Being an attentive, dutiful wife?"

Byakuya's nostrils flared as he fought for composure, every tendon straining against the urge to rut shamelessly into your snug channel of a fist. When he remained stubbornly silent, you leaned in until the suggestion of cleavage peeked from your loosened robe - close enough for him to smell the first faint wafts of your clean, feminine musk.

"Don't try to play coy with me now, dear," you breathed, lips brushing tantalizingly along the sharp ridge of his jaw. "We both know this is exactly what you've been starving for all these years..."

To punctuate the taunting words, you slowed your strokes to an agonizing grind - just the slightest bit of delicious friction to keep Byakuya teetering right on the maddening edge of release and denial. A ragged rumble vibrated up from the depths of his chest as his hips jerked uselessly, chasing that infinitesimal amount of relief.

"I'm waiting for an answer, husband," you husked against the thrumming pulse at his throat. "Is this level of wifely care and attention up to your...standards at last?"

The mockery bled through with clear insinuation, stoking the smoldering embers of Byakuya's restraint into a roaring bonfire. Before he could fully process the action, he had snarled and caught you by the nape - bodily yanking you forward until you collided against his heaving chest.

You gasped at the sudden impact, lips parting in shock as Byakuya crushed your smaller form flush against the unyielding planes of his torso. He glared down at you through heavy-lidded eyes, chest heaving with each ragged inhalation as he struggled to marshal his words.

"Don't think for one second..." He bit out the gravelly syllables like serrated blades. "That I don't see right through this pathetic little tantrum of yours, woman."

Byakuya's hand spanned the curve of your throat, fingertips digging in with unspoken warning as you swallowed audibly against the grip. Your gazes remained locked in pointed challenge, bodies thrumming with every unvoiced slight and bitter grievance still rippling between you in the aftermath of your confrontation.

"If you truly believed indulging me with empty carnal comforts alone was enough to absolve you of being such a useless, frigid wife-" He broke off in a strangled growl as you deliberately ground yourself down against his aching erection. "-then you're even more depraved and clueless than I previously gave you credit for."

There, he'd said it - flung the full brunt of pent-up frustration and accusation straight into your face with nothing left to mince. Let you retaliate or storm away in a huff, he didn't particularly care at this stage. Anything to disrupt this maddening spiral you seemed determined to plunge them both into once and for—

The thought withered in his throat as you abruptly surged forward, claiming Byakuya's parted lips in a punishing kiss that obliterated every shred of higher reasoning from his consciousness. His muffled noise of surprise quickly morphed into a guttural groan as your lithe tongue slid past his slack defenses, exploring the scalding velvet of his mouth with unrestrained ardor.

Then it was his turn to gasp as your hand snaked down underneath the sheets, fisting around the base of his cock and squeezing hard enough to send lightning bolts of rapture searing along every nerve ending. Byakuya bucked mindlessly against you as your tongue and roving palm set an unforgiving rhythm of slick heat and friction designed to thoroughly undo him, piece by agonizing piece.

Through the haze of spiraling ecstasy and bewilderment, he was dimly aware of your other hand tangling in the tumbled lengths of his hair - nails scraping deliciously against his scalp as you held him immobile against the ferocity of your mouth's onslaught. Byakuya simply surrendered himself to the maelstrom, hands roaming across every lush curve he could reach in desperation as you both finally, irrevocably shed every last pretense and barrier fortifying your union.

After what felt like an eternity had lapsed and still was nowhere near fucking enough, you finally tore your lips from Byakuya's with a harsh gasp. Hazy eyes sharpened to glittering diamonds of sheer, unfettered want as you stared into his ravaged expression like a woman beholding her next great conquest splayed out before her.

"Shut up and just take what you've been craving all this time," you husked against his swollen mouth, accent thickened with exertion and challenge. "And maybe I'll consider making an honest man out of you yet..."

The words had barely faded when you wrenched the bedding out of the way, freeing his flushed erection from its confines. The head wept a thin rivulet of pre-come that smeared against your thigh as Byakuya's hips rocked upwards, searching for some semblance of friction to relieve the excruciating need coursing through him.

He groaned deep in his throat when your palm encircled his throbbing shaft, stroking the heated length from tip to base with torturous deliberation. You watched the effect of your ministrations play across his features like a master sculptor studying the progress of her greatest masterpiece - an artistry crafted by the sensual friction of your palm and fingertips and the subtle squeeze of your thumb rolling against his swollen cockhead.

Byakuya could no longer tell how long the exquisite torture lasted. Each languid upstroke had his spine bowing in supplication, the downstroke dragging a guttural cry from somewhere deep within the caverns of his chest. Your touch was an irresistible torment - just the right balance of pressure and friction, a firm twist of your wrist as you reached the base, and the subtle scrape of your blunt nails on the way back up to the sensitive glans.

It was only after his vision began swimming that Byakuya realized his eyes had slipped shut against the deluge of sensation. The moment he forced them open again, you were there, close enough to feel the heat radiating from your naked breasts. Close enough for him to easily lunge forward and catch one plump nipple between his teeth.

Your answering moan reverberated through Byakuya's whole frame, sparking a visceral triumph that he'd finally found something to throw you off balance. He lathed the rosy peak with his tongue, suckling and nibbling until the sensitive bud hardened into a stiff pebble beneath his attention. You whimpered brokenly when he switched his attentions to the other neglected peak, your grip weakening just as the first true shivers of climax began to rack his frame.

The loss of contact dragged a guttural whine from Byakuya, muffled by his lips still fastened around your swollen nipple as his hips bucked up futilely as he searched for your hand or lips or tongue to bring him over the edge. You seemed intent on prolonging the torment, though - fingers sliding down to cradle his aching balls, nails scraping gently against the taut sac.

Byakuya's vision flashed white, entire body jerking as the first surge of release crashed through him. He came with a harsh groan, hot spurts painting his stomach and chest before your hand moved to milk the final drops from his pulsing length, inadvertently gathering the last few, pathetic remnants of his seed onto your hand.

The two of you lay there in the aftermath, chests heaving as the last tremors of release ebbed away. The heated tension that had been simmering between you both for decades evaporated into the heavy, musk-laden air.

You slowly extracted your hand from where it had been firmly gripping Byakuya's spent cock, letting the sticky evidence of his undoing streak across your palm. He watched with hooded eyes as you glanced at the pearly streaks almost distastefully before using the rumpled sheets to wipe it away.

An awkward silence descended as the post-orgasmic haze lifted and you both seemed to fully register what had just transpired between you. After nearly a century of stubbornly denying any deeper intimacies, you had just engaged in unambiguously carnal acts with the sole intent of bringing Byakuya to shattering climax.

And from the way his silver gaze kept roving over the pebbled peak of your breast - slightly reddened and slick from where his mouth had suckled with ravenous intensity - he had indulged just as greedily in whatever flesh you offered up.

Now, in the quiet stillness that followed, you seemed unable to meet Byakuya's eyes as you carefully rearranged your sleep robe over your disheveled form. He could see the faint blush tingeing your cheeks, the tension knotting your shoulders as if bracing for scathing recriminations.

But Byakuya found himself utterly bereft of the capacity for further anger or hostility in that moment. All he felt was a profound sense of...of what exactly? Satiety? Confusion? A complex snarl of emotions too tangled to fully parse in the wake of the cataclysmic shift that had just reshaped their relationship forever.

Eventually, you cleared your throat and slid off the bed, bare feet whispering against the tatami mats as you moved towards the bathroom door.

"I'm going to bathe," you stated simply, voice tightly controlled as you refused to meet his weighted gaze. "We...we can discuss...this...later."

You gestured vaguely with one hand, as if that single ambiguous wave could somehow encapsulate the entirety of what had just occurred between you both. Byakuya watched you slip through the doorway without another word, limbs feeling unaccountably heavy as the silence resettled around him.

Now alone in the aftermath's quiet stillness, he slumped back against the disheveled bedding with a ragged exhalation. His eyes drifted shut as he attempted to process the whirlwind that had just ransacked every carefully constructed barrier and unspoken agreement in their marriage.

The brutally honest confrontation triggered by years of simmering resentments and unvoiced desires...the way you had so deliberately, undeniably provoked him with those lascivious acts in retaliatory challenge...the searing, unraveling rapture of finally indulging in the intimate connection he had starved for from you throughout their union after holding back for so impossibly long...

It had all happened with such cascading swiftness, crashing over them both in a tsunami of unchecked passion that continuing to deny or ignore the fundamental seismic shift between them simply wasn't an option anymore. Not after the boundaries keeping you both so rigidly bound behind those frigid walls had been obliterated so irreparably.

The mocking, heated accusation you'd hurled at Byakuya in between each deftly skilled caress still echoed like smoke-tinged rasp in his mind.

"Shut up and just take what you've been craving all this time...maybe I'll consider making an honest man out of you yet..."

Even in the raw, blistering throes of that confrontation - and the subsequent shattering of every remaining constraint between you - he had never managed to put words to the raging, all-consuming yearning scalding through him. Not in any way that could accurately encapsulate the countless unfulfilled cravings and fevered imaginings he'd harbored deep in his most guarded recesses regarding you.

But now, with the undeniable taste of your skin still clinging to his tongue like a shameless brand...now that the walls restraining your union had crumbled to ash and the foundations left to be rebuilt upon smoldering rubble...

Byakuya could no longer avoid naming the ugly, visceral truth underlying every gnarled facet of his existence as your husband in cold, stark clarity.

He loved you. Utterly, irrevocably, with every fiber of his wretched being in a way that utterly defied the conventions of blood relation or the hollow pretenses you'd both sworn to uphold so rigidly over the years. The realization felt like a physical blow - undoing intricate ribbons of delusion that had kept him stumbling through their union in wretched half-measures and self-denial for far too long.

Byakuya opened his eyes again, throat growing viscously tight as a thousand half-formed recollections began playing out in disjointed succession across his memory. Subtle moments and infinitesimal details that now took on heightened significance in retrospect - illuminating how the towering edifice of his hubris and pride had kept him walled off from acknowledging the deeper truth flourishing beneath even as it festered like an untreated cancer.

Your rare, fleeting smiles that had always unknotted something deep and unreachable within his core...the elegant poise and unshakable pride you carried at all times that never failed to provoke stirrings of perverse, maddening desire in him...the banked spark of keen intelligence glinting behind those depthless russet irises anytime you saw straight through to the core truths he tried so desperately to conceal from the world.

It was all part and parcel to the tumultuous, passionate infatuation - no, the feverish embodiment of love itself - that had snaked its tendrils through the framework of his soul so inextricably that he could no more uproot it than rip out his own throbbing heart.

As for whether those same treacherous undercurrents flowed both ways between your entwined existences? Byakuya no longer felt certain enough in his previous delusions to discount that terrifying possibility out of hand either...not after you had so forcefully, irrefutably demonstrated your capacity to match his darkest hungers in kind mere moments ago.

A decade ago, even a year ago, Byakuya would have scoffed at such foolishly naive romantic notions about the true essence undergirding your joined fates in utter disdain. But now, as his seed dried in rapidly cooling streaks across your discarded sheets and the final ashen fragments of composure crumbled away around his raw, naked nerves...

Now, Byakuya faced the terrifyingly inescapable truth that he had always loved you, even when neither of your fractured souls could bear the weight of admitting it for what it truly was. And with the irrevocable upheaval of cataclysmic intimacy now binding you in ways you had both fought tooth and nail to avoid over the decades...there was simply no running from that ugly, all-consuming reality any longer.

Byakuya remained lying in the disheveled bedding long after the sounds of running water ceased, staring up at the ornate wooden beams spanning the ceiling above in contemplative stillness. Part of him anticipated your eventual re-emergence after finishing your bathing rituals, steeling himself for whatever terse conversation or emotional confrontation might be looming on the other side of that closed door.

Yet the shadows gradually shifted across the room's layout, morning light trickling away into the dimmer hues of late afternoon...and still you didn't return to face him. A knot of unease began unfurling low in Byakuya's belly as the weighted silence stretched on interminably, broken only by the occasional muted sounds of the manor's daily operations filtering in from beyond their private sanctuary.

When night had finally fallen in earnest over the Kuchiki grounds once more, he could no longer ignore the stark truth sinking its hooks into his resolute defenses - you were quite deliberately avoiding crossing paths with him after your earlier...indiscretion together. An ugly, all-too-familiar sense of roiling anguish stirred in Byakuya's chest as his mind immediately leapt to assume the worst possible implications.

You regretted the escalated passion that had flared so violently between you, the way your bodies had betrayed that dark, gnarled undercurrent of unfulfilled hunger in such an obscene manner. More than that, you no doubt reviled Byakuya himself for being the one to provoke you into casting propriety and restraint aside so recklessly. The disgust and recriminations you must be wallowing in at having permitted such a lapse in control, in having sunk to his depraved level even briefly.

He couldn’t help but regret installing that connecting door to the adjoining room—the one you might have used as an escape route.

Byakuya could practically envision the self-loathing and righteous indignation painting your lovely features into a rictus sneer, condemning your own moment of weakness as well as the vile man who had catalyzed it so shamelessly. He raked a hand through his disheveled hair, squeezing his eyes shut against the barrage of visions and harsh realities he had only just begun bracing himself to confront.

Still, some defiant kernel of determination flared hot and brilliant in Byakuya's core as his hand fisted in the mussed bedding. No, he wouldn't simply resign himself to wilting in the wake of your retreat and rejection - hadn't he sworn to himself that he would persist in laying his truth bare no matter the consequences? This tipping point had been years...decades...lifetimes in the making between your fractured souls. To simply allow it to wither and dissipate without being given the chance to finally bloom into its full, radiant potential.

Well, he would be forsaking his fundamental identity as a man who stared down damnation without flinching from the abyss glaring back. So Byakuya rose with unhurried grace, already tugging his rumpled yukata into order and fastening his obi with sharp, precise movements. If you refused to seek him out and confront this pivotal event head-on, then he would come to you and force the issue into the blistering light of day whether you welcomed his presence or not.

It didn't take much effort to pinpoint your location thanks to the ingrained spiritual awareness thrumming between your soul strands like a richly textured vibration Byakuya could follow with eyes closed. You had retreated into one of the private studies nearer the rear private gardens, no doubt seeking solitary refuge from the intrusive reminders of your...lapse throughout the rest of the manor's confines.

Though he made no particular effort to mask his presence, Byakuya still swept through the veiled doorway like a specter born from twilight's ominous womb. You sat with your back angled towards him in a regal sprawl across one of the plush zabutons tucked into a quiet alcove. The motionless line of your shoulders betrayed no hint of having registered his arrival despite the absolute stillness enveloping the chamber around you.

Still, Byakuya knew you had felt the faintest whisper of his reiatsu sliding across your metaphysical senses like an insistent lover's caress the moment he crossed the threshold into your sanctuary. He allowed the weighted pause to fully permeate the space between you as he crossed the inlaid wood in unhurried strides, barely daring to draw an unnecessary breath.

Finally, he halted a few scant paces behind you, near enough to detect the subtle notes of your preferred jasmine oil wafting up from the elegant tumble of your hair. Byakuya felt his next inhale rasp with visceral longing to simply surge forward and draw that rich fragrance deep into his core through means more intimately satisfying than filtered air.

"You've been avoiding me," he said at last, refusing to couch the blunt statement in any veneer of pretense. They had both crossed too far over the precipice earlier to retreat back into vapid niceties and propriety at this juncture.

Your shoulders stiffened minutely at the flat declaration, though you otherwise remained facing away from him in rigid silence. Byakuya allowed the lingering beats to draw out into a fraught pause before continuing in that same measured, unhurried timbre.

“Was what transpired between us this morning truly so vile that it warrants treating me like an outcast within the walls of my own home, [Y/N]?”

There it was - the undisguised hint of challenge woven through his softly uttered words like dull razors' edges catching flesh. Your sharp inhalation was the only audible tell, but Byakuya easily detected the full-body shudder ghosting across your shoulders in the wake of his barbed implication.

"Don't be ridiculous, Byakuya," you parried at last, equally stripped of the archaic verbal niceties you typically shrouded yourselves in. "You know precisely why I require...space after the events of this morning."

Your voice hitched with the faintest waver on that last word, immediately firing a pulse of dark satisfaction lancing through Byakuya's vitals. So his earlier suspicions regarding the origins of your abrupt withdrawal and subsequent retreat appeared to have been well-founded.

"And just how long do you intend to continue deluding yourself with such hollow deflections, I wonder?" he rumbled, relishing the sharp edge lacing each acidic syllable.

You whipped around to face him fully, Back stiffening as that familiar spark of challenge flickered to life in your eyes. "Deflections?" you echoed with a derisive snort. "Rich words coming from you of all people, Byakuya."

He arched one brow cooly, undeterred by your opening volley. "Am I wrong? Or have you simply become so accustomed to your own lies that you've forgotten what emotional honesty even looks like anymore?"

The barb hit its mark, visibly ruffling your composure if only for an instant before the icy mask slammed back into place. You lifted your chin in that subtly arrogant tilt Byakuya knew so infuriatingly well.

"Why don't you just come out and say what's really eating at you already?" You took a few pointed steps across the study until you could glare up at him directly. "This self-righteous hostility of yours is getting quite old, dear husband."

Byakuya felt his jaw tighten fractionally at the thinly veiled insinuation lacing your words. That you thought him simply lashing out blindly out of bitterness or spite rather than addressing the real, scathingly painful truth festering between you.

"What's really 'eating at me', [Y/N]?" he ground out, leaning in until your noses were nearly brushing. “I’ll tell you—it’s the endless, damnable pretense we’ve both been dancing around for decades. This pathetic farce of empty rituals and unfulfilling obligations we bound ourselves to, all according to everyone else’s terms but our own.”

You bristled like an affronted cat, color heightening across those sharp cheekbones he'd spent many a furtive hour admiring from afar. "You make it sound as if we entered this arrangement under coercion!" you hissed, voice lowering to a throaty rasp. "Need I remind you who initially proposed our practical partnership to begin with?"

"Hardly," Byakuya fired back without missing a beat. “I distinctly remember proposing a pragmatic political union that met the bare minimum requirements, while still sparing us from the messier entanglements that would be unbecoming of our stations.”

His lips twisted into a cutting smirk, daring to dig a little deeper under your defenses. "What I don't recall is swearing any vows about outright neglecting even the most perfunctory of marital obligations, wife."

As expected, the implication regarding your wifely "failings" hit enough of a raw nerve to earn him an outraged snarl of breath as your fingers clenched at your sides. "How dare you attempt to frame this entire situation as me being negligent! You arrogant, entitled—"

"Entitled?!" Byakuya cut you off with a harsh bark of laughter that was anything but humorous. "You're calling me entitled for wanting more than scraps of acknowledgment and empty gestures from the woman whose name I've carried on my soul alongside every particle of my existence? Do you have any idea how that sounds leaving your lips?"

Your eyes flashed pure venom at the unsubtle dig. "So sorry to disappoint you if I haven't properly stroked your ego and fragile male pride during our several lifetimes together," you shot back with biting sarcasm. "But I wouldn't exactly consider succumbing to meaningless romantic frivolities to be one of my sworn 'wifely duties' either!"

The sound of Byakuya's teeth grinding together audibly filled the sudden stillness as you both froze in the wake of your words. He searched your indignant expression hungrily, feeling that same maddening kernel of yearning beginning to pulse with heated vitality once more.

"Meaningless frivolities..." he echoed with a slow shake of his head, relishing the way your throat worked on a tight swallow as he leaned incrementally closer. “You truly want to sit there and try to convince me that’s all you see intimacy between us as? Just empty, meaningless fluff unworthy of your precious emotional investment?”

Byakuya watched in smoldering silence as the first hairline fractures began splintering across your icy veneer of composure. You licked your lips in what seemed like an unconscious tell of discomfort before regaining yourself with visible effort.

"I'm not going to justify such a ridiculous line of inquiry with any further response," you stated, each word enunciated with utmost precision. "Especially not from someone so incapable of viewing such deeply personal matters through any lens beyond their own selfishness."

Before the words even finished leaving your lips, Byakuya had closed what little distance remained separating your bodies, his chest hovering a hairsbreadth from yours. You sucked in a sharp breath at the sudden proximity, those quicksilver eyes of yours widening a fraction before narrowing in obvious challenge at his unspoken provocation.

"Selfish?" he rumbled, the words vibrating between you like a livewire set to combust. "Maybe if you repeat the same bitter delusions often enough, you'll eventually convince even that dark, shriveled thing you call a heart that I'm the one poisoning everything between us with my indulgent selfishness."

You seemed to swell with indignant fury at the blasphemous insinuations scoring so close to bone. Byakuya could practically taste the sparks of vicious heat flaring off you in waves.

"I will not be spoken to in such a disrespectful manner!" you hissed in a low rasp of warning. "Especially not by you, Byakuya. Not after everything I've endured, everything I've sacrificed to uphold the sacred integrity of this family!"

His chuckle emerged low and ominous, teetering on the knife-edge of mockery in a way he knew would enrage you even further. "Do go on, by all means. Tell me more tall tales about all the terrible suffering you've endured at married to a man burning with obsessive passion for you."

Byakuya trailed off with a pointed look that left no illusions about his meaning. He watched your throat work convulsively around what was either denial or revulsion at the blatant overture.

“As if your painfully unrequited infatuations somehow undermine every bit of my integrity and sense of duty to this household,” you countered with naked disdain. "Just because you've become so blinded by the pitiful compulsions poisoning your perspective..."

Your next inhalation wavered audibly as Byakuya slid that final few millimeters forward until your bodies meshed seamlessly together from shoulder to knee - achingly intimate in a way you both recognized with dawning horror. Still, there was no use retreating or separating now - not after so much raw, scalding truth had been unleashed between you.

"You can keep deluding yourself with those tired old self-deceptions, wife," he growled, mouth practically grazing your own. "Or you can finally release that bitter, ugly pride for just this once and admit that you feel the same sick, gnawing hunger to finally unmake every single lie between us. The choice is yours..."

The gauntlet he laid at your feet seemed to ring with all the momentous impact of shattering glass against frozen steel. You stood there, breath mingling with Byakuya's in that razor-thin span of space as the last tortured seconds separating your joint fates stretched out precipitously.

He could practically taste the vortex of indecision and teetering control swirling between your dueling spirits in that viscous, electrically charged pause. As if the entire cosmos itself held its infinite breath awaiting your answer, silently screaming for you to grab the final threads of this elaborate fictional web binding you both in misery...and simply burn it all to exquisitely smoldering purification once and for all.

The silence stretched out between you, laden with decades of repressed tension and unvoiced yearnings. Byakuya watched you intently, silver eyes blazing with challenge as he awaited your response.

Finally, you inhaled a shuddering breath, squaring your shoulders as if bracing yourself.

"You want the truth?" you asked, voice low and raspy with pent-up emotion. "Fine. The truth is, I've been holding myself back from you for years, Byakuya. Holding back every urge, every desire, because I was too much of a coward to face what was happening between us."

Byakuya felt his breath catch at your frank admission, but remained silent, letting you continue uninterrupted.

"Do you know what it's been like?" you pressed on, taking a step closer until you were nearly chest-to-chest. "Waking up beside you every morning, body aching to be touched...to be held by you? Having to leave the bed and pretend like I didn't notice your...problem...when all I really wanted was for you to take me right then and there?"

Your eyes shone with a mixture of bitterness and naked longing. "I've thought about it. Dreamed about you kissing me, really kissing me. About us taking baths together and washing each other's bodies. Falling asleep tangled up, skin on skin, after making love all night long..."

You exhaled a shaky breath, reaching up to trace the sharp line of Byakuya's jaw. "But I could never let myself give in. Not when I knew you were still holding on to memories of Hisana. I didn't want to ruin that for you with my selfish desires."

The anguish in your words was unmistakable. Byakuya felt his throat constrict at the realization that some part of you had harbored insecurities about his feelings all this time. Before he could voice a response, you barreled onwards.

"I kept telling myself that whatever you were feeling for me, it was just physical," you said bitterly. "Lust born from decades of sexual frustration, nothing more. That if I gave in, let myself fall into bed with you, it would just ruin everything between us eventually."

You shook your head, eyes glistening with unshed tears. "But God, Byakuya...I'm so tired of fighting this constant war inside me. Tired of denying how badly I want you, crave your touch, your kisses, your—"

Byakuya surged forward without warning, capturing your mouth in a searing, all-consuming kiss that obliterated whatever confession was about to tumble from your lips. You made a muffled sound of surprise against his mouth before melting into the embrace with a desperate whimper.

His arms came around you, crushing your body flush against his as he kissed you with every ounce of the repressed passion that had been steadily unraveling him for decades. This was no chaste brushing of lips - this was a man staking an undeniable claim on the one person his entire universe revolved around.

When you finally parted, gasping for air, Byakuya leaned his forehead against yours. His eyes bored into you with an intensity that made you shiver.

"Listen to me," he rasped, thumbs stroking your flushed cheeks. "Whatever lingering ghosts you think still bind me to my past with Hisana...let them go, my love. You are my present, my future, the only person I've truly allowed to take up permanent residence in my heart and soul."

His words seemed to steal whatever breath you'd regained. You stared up at him with naked vulnerability shining in your eyes as he continued.

"I love you," Byakuya stated simply. "Every part of you - your strength, your pride, your beauty, and yes...even your maddening stubbornness. I have loved you for longer than I can remember, and I will continue loving you until the stars burn out in the endless sky."

A solitary tear traced down your cheek as you tried to process his declaration. Byakuya caught it with the pad of his thumb, lips quirking into the barest hint of a smile.

"So please," he murmured, dipping his head to trail kisses along the curve of your jaw. "No more pushing me away out of some misguided sense of honor or duty, beloved. Let me worship you the way my soul has longed to for eternity. Let me love you the way you deserve..."

The rest of his words faded into a heated brush of mouths and shared breaths as you surged up to recapture his lips in a desperate, needy kiss. Byakuya groaned low in his throat, the sound vibrating against your mouth as he walked you backwards until your back hit the nearest wall with a gentle thud.

His hands roamed over every inch of you hungrily, bunching the fabric of your clothing as he sought to eliminate any remaining barriers between your heated bodies. You gasped into the searing kiss when his palm found the soft swell of your breast, kneading and tweaking the hardened peak until you arched shamelessly into his touch.

"Fuck, [Y/N]..." Byakuya panted against the scorching skin of your neck as his mouth blazed a path of open-mouthed kisses downward. "You have no idea how many times I've imagined this, dreamed of having you like this."

His teeth scraped along your racing pulse before soothing the sting with an ardent sweep of his tongue. You fisted your hands in his hair, tugging sharply in a silent plea for more as you rolled your hips against the insistent ridge of his cock.

"Tell me," you rasped, voice already wrecked with need. "Tell me what dark, filthy fantasies you've been entertaining about me all these years, Byakuya."

His answering growl vibrated against the swell of your breast as his mouth found the exposed flesh there, lips and tongue lavishing devout attention until you were keening softly. One broad hand slid possessively down your body to hitch your thigh over his hip, grinding his clothed erection against your core.

"I've thought about bending you over every available surface and fucking you until you couldn't walk straight," he rasped, punctuating each crude word with a sharp roll of his hips that had you both panting harshly. "About spreading those gorgeous thighs and feasting on your cunt until you're a sobbing, incoherent mess beneath my tongue..."

You whimpered at the lewd confessions, nails scoring down Byakuya's back as the delicious friction against your rapidly dampening sex left you nearly delirious. He captured your mouth again in a punishing kiss, all heat and slick desperation as you ground together frantically.

"But most of all," he growled when you finally parted for air. Stormy silver eyes bored into yours, pupils blown wide with lust and something deeper...something primal and proprietary you'd never seen in their depths before. "I've burned for the chance to make you truly mine in every sense. To bury myself so deep inside this perfect little cunt and pump you full of my seed over and over until you're round with my child."

The guttural cadence of his words punched the air from your lungs in a harsh gasp. Byakuya took full advantage, mouth and hands growing rougher, more demanding as he scented the first hints of your arousal sharpening in the charged air between you.

"That's what you want too, isn't it?" he husked against the swollen curve of your lips, tongue flicking out to taste the desperate whimpers spilling past them. "You want me to breed you properly, the way a husband should stake his claim on his wife...don't you, my beloved?"

The only response you could formulate was a strangled keen of sheer ecstasy as Byakuya seized your other thigh, bodily lifting you until your legs were wrapped around his narrow hips. He rolled his pelvis against your molten core again, savoring the way your head tipped back shamelessly at the promise of that delicious friction.

"Yes..." you finally rasped, arms looping around his neck as your lust-glazed eyes met his burning stare pleadingly. "God, yes, Byakuya! Take me, breed me, do whatever you want. I'm fucking yours, always have been..."

His lips crashed back onto yours in a searing, utterly possessive kiss that seared you all the way down to your bones. Byakuya's hands cupped your ass firmly, kneading and squeezing the soft flesh there while he walked the two of you further into the room, intent on laying claim to his wife at long last.

You barely registered the moment the backs of your thighs hit the edge of the desk until you were sprawled back onto the polished wood, legs splayed wantonly and chest heaving with rapid breaths. Byakuya stood there for a few moments, drinking in the sight of you spread out like a decadent feast before his ravenous gaze.

"My beautiful, infuriating wife," he growled, palming his aching cock through the strained fabric of his pants. "What have you done to me..."

You moaned, squirming impatiently as you watched him strip the rest of his clothes off in quick, efficient motions. Every inch of his pale, lithely muscular body was pure perfection - from the elegant sweep of his neck and chiseled planes of his chest, down to the proud jut of his erection, thick and leaking against his lower belly.

Your core clenched involuntarily at the thought of having all that glorious manhood buried inside you to the hilt. You couldn't recall ever feeling this needy and desperate for another person in your entire existence, let alone centuries worth of memories.

"Byakuya..." you panted, reaching out a hand to beckon him closer. "Come here. Please, I need—"

The rest of your sentence dissolved into a high pitched squeal as your husband all but lunged forward, hauling you back up against him by the waist. His mouth claimed yours in a bruising, hungry kiss while his fingers worked furiously at the fastenings of your clothing, clearly beyond the point of patience and finesse.

You tugged off the loose silk robe and top, leaving you clad in nothing but your undergarments. Byakuya's palms ran over the newly exposed skin reverently, lips trailing hot, wet kisses across the tops of your breasts before tugging the straps down to expose them fully.

He thumbed one pert, aching nipple, rolling and pinching the hardened bud until you were writhing helplessly against his chest. You cried out at the first wet, scorching suckle, spine bowing with pleasure as he worshipped your sensitive breasts with a thoroughness that bordered on obscene.

"Mmmm, I wanted to do so much more to you this morning," he husked, laving his tongue across the pebbled nub before giving it a firm, sharp suck that had you keening. "Wanted to see how long it would take me to make you cum, just from worshipping these gorgeous tits..."

Your breath hitched audibly at the erotic admission. The mental image of waking up to this version of Byakuya, all sleepy-eyed and ravenous, laving his wicked mouth and clever fingers all over your breasts was so intoxicating, you couldn't stop the broken whimper from slipping past your lips.

Byakuya smirked against your skin, seeming to sense the effect his words were having on you. "I know," he crooned, fingers pinching and pulling at the other nipple. "I've spent a good portion of our marriage imagining how many times I could get you to cum on my tongue alone before begging me for my cock."

You whimpered at the vulgar picture those words painted, hips arching off the desk in a silent plea for relief. Byakuya's palms glided down the slope of your abdomen, thumbs stroking the tender skin of your inner thighs.

"You can’t blame me," he continued, mouth descending lower, leaving a hot, wet trail of open-mouthed kisses and teasing nips across the sensitive flesh. "You never even gave me a chance to see what this tight little hole looks like stretched around my cock. To taste your honey as you gush for me over and over..."

The last of his words dissolved into a filthy groan as his teeth latched around the lacy band of your panties, tugging them down and off in one swift motion. You could barely contain the breathless cry of shock as Byakuya's lips and tongue immediately found the slick juncture between your thighs.

He lapped at you hungrily, broad hands holding your hips pinned against the desk as he ate your cunt like a man starved. You cried out, fisting a hand in his hair while the other grasped desperately at the edge of the desk for purchase.

Byakuya groaned low in his throat as the musky, earthy taste of you flooded his mouth. He could have spent hours between your thighs, just drinking in the honeyed sweetness of your desire and reveling in the desperate little whimpers you made each time he dragged his tongue across your throbbing clit.

He settled into a relentless rhythm, alternating between firm, flat-tongued licks and sucking your swollen bud until you were a writhing, babbling mess atop the desk. When he finally slipped two long, slender fingers into your dripping core, you nearly sobbed at the delicious fullness.

"I don’t think I can wait any longer," Byakuya growled, curling the digits inside you just so until you were practically drooling with pleasure. "Not when you're this hot, and wet, and eager for me. Not after you kept me waiting so long..."

His thumb circled the swollen bundle of nerves at the apex of your slit, watching the way your eyes fluttered and your thighs trembled with the telltale signs of a rapidly approaching climax. "Do you think you're ready for me, sweet wife?"

You managed a weak nod, still reeling from the mind-melting pleasure his fingers and mouth were wreaking on your body. Byakuya leaned in, capturing your lips in a bruising kiss as he withdrew his digits and guided his straining cock towards your entrance.

A ragged moan slipped past his lips as the swollen, leaking head brushed the soaked, molten heat of your core. It took every ounce of his iron will to keep from slamming home with a single brutal thrust. Instead, he teased your entrance with shallow, gentle strokes, watching the way his length glistened each time it emerged coated with your essence.

"Byakuya, please!" you begged, nails scoring down his back. "Fuck me already, I'm dying—"

He silenced the rest of your desperate pleading with a savage, searing kiss, hips jerking forward just enough for the swollen tip to slip past the fluttering rim of your cunt. Byakuya savored the way you moaned brokenly into his mouth at the sensation, the way your body instinctively arched up to seek out more.

He broke the kiss, leaning his forehead against yours and meeting your heated, half-lidded gaze with an intensity that seemed to pierce straight through to your soul. "I want you to look at me," he murmured, the words little more than a growl as he began to slowly, inexorably sink into the tight, slick heaven of your body. "Look at me as I take you for the first time, make you mine in the most primal, sacred way possible. Don't look away..."

The command was issued as much to himself as to you. He couldn't recall ever seeing anything more exquisite than the sight of you taking him inch by agonizing inch - flushed cheeks, kiss-swollen lips, eyes blazing with need and desire and an emotion far more profound than he could possibly name.

"I love you," you choked out, tears streaking down your cheeks at the sheer rightness of being connected to him this way. "Oh God, Byakuya...I love you so much!"

His heart stuttered at the declaration, and it took every last vestige of his fraying control not to slam home with a single, savage thrust. Byakuya paused halfway, giving your body a chance to adjust to his considerable size as he brushed a lock of hair away from your tear-stained face.

"I love you too, my darling," he husked, kissing you with aching gentleness. "More than I could ever find the words to say."

With that, he surged forward, sheathing himself completely within the scorching, slick confines of your cunt until you were both gasping for air. You clutched at him, arms and legs locking around his torso as if desperate to hold him in place, to keep him buried inside the molten depths of your core forever.

"B-Byakuya," you stuttered, the syllables dissolving into a high, needy whine as he began to withdraw slowly. The drag of his thick, hard length against your inner walls was enough to make your eyes roll back with ecstasy.

When only the flared crown remained buried within you, Byakuya snapped his hips forward, burying himself to the hilt once again. He set a punishing pace, fucking you hard and fast against the polished wood, until the only sounds filling the air were the slap of sweat-slick skin and your combined moans and cries of pleasure.

"God, you feel amazing," he rasped against your mouth, hands cupping the supple curve of your ass, tilting your hips at just the right angle for him to hammer against that perfect, spongy spot deep within. "Like you were made just for me."

You whimpered, unable to form coherent words as you met each thrust eagerly, rolling your pelvis and matching him stroke for stroke. Every nerve ending in your body felt like it was on fire, coiling tighter and tighter as the friction and pressure of his thick, unyielding cock began to unravel you.

Byakuya felt the familiar, molten tension coiling in his lower belly as well, his orgasm racing towards the breaking point despite his best efforts. He didn't want this to end, didn't want to leave the paradise of your tight, welcoming cunt even for a moment, but he knew there was no way he could hold out much longer.

He reached down, finding the swollen bundle of nerves above where your bodies were joined and circling it with his thumb. "Cum for me, my beloved," he growled, angling his thrusts until he was hitting that spot inside you over and over. "Show me how beautiful you look when you fall apart for me."

Your body obeyed his command immediately, back arching and head tossing wildly as your core clenched around his throbbing length. A scream ripped free from your lungs as the dam broke, and the pleasure washed over you like a tidal wave, stealing the very breath from your lungs.

Byakuya cursed hoarsely at the exquisite feeling of your slick, molten cunt fluttering and pulsing around him, nearly bringing him over the edge himself. He rode out the waves of your release, groaning when the hot, sticky flood of your honey began dripping down his balls.

It took all the willpower he could muster to resist the urge to spill his seed right then and there. With a ragged breath, Byakuya slowed his movements, gently rolling his hips as your shudders subsided. He peppered the soft skin of your neck and collarbone with light, worshipful kisses, murmuring his adoration as you slowly came back to reality.

"My beloved wife," he crooned, the possessive timbre of his voice making you shiver. "I've dreamed about the sight of you cumming around my cock, but the reality was a thousand times better than anything my mind could ever conjure up."

Your face flushed at the erotic confession, eyes fluttering shut when he pressed a gentle kiss against the corner of your mouth. You could still feel the thick length of his erection pulsing inside you, the subtle twitches and jerks telling you just how badly he needed release.

"Please, I need more," you whimpered, clenching around him. "I want you to fill me up, make me yours..."

The words were like a shot of pure lust straight to Byakuya's brain. His control snapped, and suddenly you were on your back, legs splayed wantonly over the edge of the desk. Your husband braced his palms against the wood, fingers tangling with yours as he loomed over you.

"Look at me," he demanded, hissing as the new angle allowed him to go even deeper. "Keep looking at me, no matter what."

You barely had a chance to process the command before Byakuya began to move again. This time, there was nothing slow or gentle about the way he drove into you. It was fast, and deep, and rough - his thick cock pistoning in and out of your dripping cunt with the singular purpose of breeding you, making you his and his alone.

Each powerful stroke hit that spot inside you perfectly, the head of his cock dragging across the sensitive bundle of nerves with a force that had you nearly sobbing with ecstasy. You struggled to keep your eyes open, watching the way his muscles rippled and flexed with each thrust, the way his eyes burned with a possessive, primal light as he claimed you in the most basic, visceral way imaginable.

Byakuya was utterly lost, drunk on the feeling of your velvety walls clamping down around him and the knowledge that he was the first and only man to have you like this. That you had waited all these years, just as he had, for this moment. He could feel his orgasm threatening to shatter him at any moment, the molten heat pooling in his abdomen, but there was no way he was going to let go before bringing you over the edge again.

He slipped a hand between your writhing bodies, pinching and rubbing the swollen, hypersensitive bundle of nerves. Your cry was near-hysterical, nails scoring down his back and legs trembling as he pushed you ever closer to the edge.

"Byakuya! I—I'm going to—"

Your breathless warning was cut off by his mouth, devouring the keening wail of your release as the tension in your belly snapped and the waves of pleasure crashed over you again. The feeling of your slick cunt fluttering and convulsing around him was enough to shatter what was left of Byakuya's fraying control.

He buried himself as deep as possible, the head of his cock grinding against the deepest, most intimate parts of your body as his climax tore through him. He groaned brokenly against your mouth, hips jerking reflexively with each spurt of cum, painting your womb with his seed.

The two of you remained locked together, sharing shuddering, gasping breaths as the aftershocks rippled through you. Byakuya nuzzled into the crook of your neck, inhaling the intoxicating, uniquely you scent while he tried to convince his body to move.

"Don't," you whispered, arms tightening around his waist as if sensing his intent. "Just stay like this, please."

He chuckled, pressing a tender kiss against your throat. "Believe me, I would love nothing more, my sweet. But I‘d rather we continue this in the comfort of our bed, preferably before any of the servants return and catch us in such a compromising position."

Your face flamed at the reminder that your husband had, in fact, fucked you within an inch of your life atop his desk, with the door wide open. "Good point," you mumbled sheepishly.

Byakuya finally pulled out, both of you groaning at the sudden sense of emptiness. He scooped you into his arms, pressing another kiss against your temple. "Besides, we're not even close to finished yet, my love. I have centuries worth of fantasies to make a reality, and a whole lifetime to breed you properly. We're just getting started..."

#bleach smut #bleach x reader #bleach x reader smut #kuchiki byakuya x reader smut #byakuya x reader smut #kuchiki byakuya x reader #kuchiki byakuya smut #byakuya smut #byakuya x reader #byakuya kuchiki

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urinarythreatinfection · 2 days ago

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As a Shanks fan I need you to stop tagging your posts and making us look bad. The more you write the more clear it is this is a bad faith reading, bashing while not understanding the writing. Your only precedent on examining these characters is based on stacking morality points on how nice and good they are, rather than their roles in the plot and their thematic relevance as narrative foils, their longstanding history and familiarity, the continued relevance of their intertwined journeys and emotional energy in the story. You seem set on seeing them as abusive when that’s clearly not what Oda means, their character dynamics play a role in telling the story and I assure you it’s not a message of abuse. But of course, there are fans who think Nami hitting the Strawhats is abusive so I shouldn’t be surprised. You can’t even seem to reflect on your own self and realize your own views are infinitely more toxic.

So Buggy left when they were both 15 and traumatized and somehow thats the most unacceptable thing. Yeah, whatever, hate them for petty things, but don’t act like you have some superior understanding when it’s just the most typically shallow reading. Your dislike is your own, but policing others because you lack the ability to comprehend is not okay.

Is this apologizing business really some big thing to cry over? Shanks wanted Buggy to come with him, Buggy turned him down. They were ex-comrades and pirates, obviously Buggy was free to leave and start his own pirate crew, Shanks even said they both should. Many of Buggy’s complaints are just petty things Shanks probably doesn’t even care that much about. But to Buggy it does matter so he cares more about getting closure from that time. Shanks doesn’t even care about the fruit or the map, he’s just glad to see Buggy again. They might fight but ultimately Shanks cares more about Buggy than any petty grudge and is more likely to forgive and apologize for little things, even just jokingly or to appease him, because it’s not a big deal for him to do it. To Shanks, friends are what’s important, so words and actions needed for his friend are a small thing. Villainizing Buggy and resenting his rejection is probably the last thing Shanks would want in that situation. He’s not gonna be a spiteful victim because someone got mad and left of their own free will. He’d rather be a loser who apologizes and begs for his friend.

The whole issue with ‘apologizing’…it’s not a big deal. A lot of times it seems to be treated as a joke. The treasure map is supposed to be seen as a stupid reason not worth getting up in arms about. Buggy being mad over the treasure map is treated as a joke and an excuse as a way to cover up that he really cares about Shanks. But this whole thing just seems like you’re mad when Shanks simps for Buggy and Buggy acts like he typically would. How is it hard to believe that Buggy is important to Shanks and Shanks would express that to him? Are you really so caught up on just hating on Buggy’s personality and him being a regular pirate you can’t stand him being treated like someone important? He’s one of the Four Emperors going after the One Piece and you don’t think his desires and feelings have some significance?

Buggy may have left, but that was all within his rights to do so, even the other Roger Pirates left these kids. For the current Buggy to apologize he’d probably struggle to get over his feelings, but to Shanks why get hung up over petty grievances if it’s for a friend? That’s just their personalities. Sure, Buggy could apologize, but it’s just not like him, and it’s not even that necessary anyways. Obviously knowing Buggy’s character he gets overdramatic and too emotionally invested he can’t let things go, while Shanks will let go of things because he cares. Luffy too learns to forgive and let things go, it’s one of the things he learned from Shanks. We get hit on the head so many times by this kind of message. When Luffy happily bows down and passes up on the opportunity to leave Amazon Lily just so he can save a few people he just met…there’s nothing wrong with giving in and bowing down when it’s not worth it otherwise.

Shanks couldn’t communicate his real reasons and wanted Buggy to join him but got rejected, so as the Captain who was rejected by Buggy who was willing to be part of his crew, it seems like Shanks was the one who lost out. Of course Shanks longs for his friend and would care for him. Luffy would also chase someone if it was his friend. This isn’t an abuser and victim relationship, it doesn’t matter who was wrong because there was never any actual communication. We don’t even know Shanks’ perspective and his reasons, only Buggy’s, so we just see they had their differences and Buggy felt disappointed. They wanted to prioritize different things because that’s how they’ve always been as pirates, not because one is an abuser, they are grown men who used to argue a lot.

If Shanks wanted to truly protect Luffy he would’ve done something like actually reach out to him and communicate to him. Shanks knew the risks when he encouraged Luffy to be a pirate and return his hat. He knew Luffy would be in danger especially with his fruit. That’s how it is in the pirate world, you can’t make it if you don’t put your life on the line and fight others. Luffy had to survive and overcome that if he wanted to get anywhere near the New World, Shanks knew that. He knew people would try to kill Luffy, that’s how the pirate world is, but Luffy would never become strong if he didn’t experience that. Anyways, Buggy is obviously supposed to be a tame joke villain. He didn’t even kill the villagers in Orange Town, the villagers evacuated to a shelter beforehand and he just raids the houses and blows them up.

I think you have this image of Shanks as this delicate abuse victim and Saint-like Christ figure (ironic) when he’s just a pirate who knows he and others have had to make sacrifices. All I can say is, you really think that? Okay, can’t help you there.

You just seem to really hate Buggy and refuse to accept any positive take on Buggy. You even hate him for harmless things he did as a literal child. You want Buggy to be portrayed as trash and dirt compared to Shanks, but in a ship where fans love both characters and Shanks cherishes Buggy that’s obviously not going to happen. It’s clear that you’re biased so you can’t reasonably have a good take on this, all you do is victimize Shanks. How hypocritical that you complain about others having no insight when you’re way worse.

There’s so much stuff about Shanks fandom to criticize but the fact that you fixate on Shanks caring about Buggy as the worst thing, that’s just mindless hate you shouldn’t be tagging. The best understanding of Shanks I‘ve seen was from shuggy fans, I’m gonna trust them from now on.

Also are you seriously trying to compare your petty hate of a fictional character to speaking out about the literal atrocities done by colonizers of America? Please think before you speak.

Okay im tired of explaining this just as is so im just gonna take bullet points and say my piece and thats it because ive made two posts now explaining as best as I can and still somehow its being misunderstood as me being some sort of toxic Shanks fan thats making them look bad for some reason. This is literally me analyzing him and showing the problems of Shuggy people don't want to accept.

"The more you write the more clear it is this is a bad faith reading, bashing while not understanding the writing." Im not saying this in bad faith. That is why i tagged it as Shuggy. Not for some sort of ragebait or to spew hate i just really want the dynamic of angst fix-it stuff to change or atleast be more popular. And again, I understand the writing perfectly well. I'm rereading the manga and literally have not just been saying whats on the top of my head im looking into it.

"Your only precedent on examining these characters is based on stacking morality points on how nice and good they are, rather than their roles in the plot and their thematic relevance as narrative foils, their longstanding history and familiarity, the continued relevance of their intertwined journeys and emotional energy in the story." If this is how even if Buggy is bad it means they can still be together because they work well i literally agree its the dynamic. I cannot stress this enough i don't know how this isn't going through.

"You seem set on seeing them as abusive when that’s clearly not what Oda means, their character dynamics play a role in telling the story and I assure you it’s not a message of abuse." Oda has included abuse, suicide, addictions in his story and you really think he wouldnt sprinkle in the fact that Buggy was an abusive friend. Im not even saying he 100% was i said at worst. An abusive friendship is different than one thats a relationship too, and again i said at worst.

"But of course, there are fans who think Nami hitting the Strawhats is abusive so I shouldn’t be surprised." What she does was objectively bad, and she's toned it down a LOT post timeskip. Part of her character development that now you can safely say when she hits they either kinda deserve it or she doesn't really go rough with it.

"So Buggy left when they were both 15 and traumatized and somehow thats the most unacceptable thing. Yeah, whatever, hate them for petty things, but don’t act like you have some superior understanding when it’s just the most typically shallow reading. Your dislike is your own, but policing others because you lack the ability to comprehend is not okay." I never said it was the most unacceptable thing, i meant it was the most shitty thing he could do. You mentioned somewhere elsr they were 15, which is true, but as time goes by and Buggy doesnt change that excuse is out the window.

"Is this apologizing business really some big thing to cry over?" Its a major thing, and is something thats used for Shanks to Buggy that is seen as a major thing i dont know why im being posed as overly dramatic when i say it would be way better if it were buggy apologizing to Shanks.

"Shanks wanted Buggy to come with him, Buggy turned him down. They were ex-comrades and pirates, obviously Buggy was free to leave and start his own pirate crew, Shanks even said they both should." You're acting like Buggy turned Shanks down civily and it was not a decision of emotion.

"They might fight but ultimately Shanks cares more about Buggy than any petty grudge and is more likely to forgive and apologize for little things, even just jokingly or to appease him, because it’s not a big deal for him to do it. To Shanks, friends are what’s important, so words and actions needed for his friend are a small thing. Villainizing Buggy and resenting his rejection is probably the last thing Shanks would want in that situation. He’s not gonna be a spiteful victim because someone got mad and left of their own free will. He’d rather be a loser who apologizes and begs for his friend." And this is the problem! this! Just because Buggy cares more than Shanks doesn't mean that Shanks doesn't deserve to be atleast understood. Shanks would rather act like a loser to get Buggy than value himself is literally a toxic behavior for relationships. I beg of you to think of this in real life. Imagine Shanks as some chick and Buggy as the boyfriend and its very very clear that you just brushing it off as "oh well Shanks can handle it" sucks! It sucks! I've seen relationships like that and they suck! Its okay for comedy the same reason Nami's hitting is or Brook's panty loving is but when you're writing or drawing it seriously you can't just paint it as something okay when the reason why Shanks would put himself down for Buggy is because Shanks is mentally unwell! He deserves a Buggy that would actually treat him preciously instead of the now normalized "oh you're trash but ill forgive you I guess" Its not even a point of "oh well Shanks wouldn't mind!" You're right! But YOU should! Because you are the outsider looking in, the one that can look through an objectjve lens where you arent a dependent man that needs any sort of companion.

"He didn’t even kill the villagers in Orange Town, the villagers evacuated to a shelter beforehand and he just raids the houses and blows them up." This literally doesn't matter since Buggy has talked about killing before and I don't even think is true. There was a shelter because he just likely didn't kill all of them, but "just" some. And doing that is pretty bad in of itself.

"Buggy being mad over the treasure map is treated as a joke and an excuse as a way to cover up that he really cares about Shanks." Here with the "oh but Buggy's just a tsundere" If i never do anything for you ever because you made me drop my icecream 10 years ago does me being a tsundere just make it okay. This isn't even fully true. It's not a cover-up Buggy isn't just some little cute tsundere he holds malice. He IS mad about that still its not a cover up because oh well he still cares it can be both, and its mostly just actual anger. Because why else would he bring it up even when he doesn't have to cover up affection.

"Luffy too learns to forgive and let things go, it’s one of the things he learned from Shanks. We get hit on the head so many times by this kind of message" Letting go and liking the person is two seperate things. You're acting like Luffy is just some angel when he has also been shown again to really not like Buggy and some people. In impel down he doesn't want to rescue Buggy but ends up doing so so he can get to Ace "which buggy tries to betray" and in basically every instance where Buggy is brought up around Luffy Luffy has literally only bad things to say about Buggy so idk why you're acting like Luffy is some saint that would forgive anything. Im rereading impel down and he also didn't want to forgive Crocodile, he just needed the help, still doesn't like Crocodile too. Luffy shows dislike, its just not super loud, he shows it through not helping. He even only helped Hachi during pre ts only when Nami said it was okay. Shanks doesn't forgive everything either. The lesson Shanks taught Luffy wasn't "forgjve everyone". Thats what Luffy THOUGHT it was when he was a little kid. But thr actual lesson was just to be more mature, to be careful. To not fight at every chance because you could be endangering others. Difference between forgiving someone and just letting it not bother you so that you can use them, as Luffy has showed.

"Buggy may have left, but that was all within his rights to do so, even the other Roger Pirates left these kids." Rayleigh leaving Shanks was not a good thing for Rayleigh to do, especially since Rayleigh also knows whats going on, but he just left a 15 year old to just deal with it because he wanted to toughen the kid up or something idk, theres a lot of "just suck it up buttercup" in One Piece because thats what Oda thinks is cool and nice and manly, he isn't perfect. Also Buggy did have the right to leave, the problem is that he didn't leave because he wanted to start his own crew or find the one piece himself it was just because of the conflict between him and Shanks. It was not a clear decision.

"If Shanks wanted to truly protect Luffy he would’ve done something like actually reach out to him and communicate to him. Shanks knew the risks when he encouraged Luffy to be a pirate and return his hat. He knew Luffy would be in danger especially with his fruit. That’s how it is in the pirate world, you can’t make it if you don’t put your life on the line and fight others." I agree with this and I also feel it was the right thing to do unfortunately, s Luffy has a huge thing he needs to do even if he isn't aware of what he's doing. However, this is what Shanks chose, Buggy didn't go for Luffy because he wanted to toughen Luffy up he went for Luffy because he hates Luffy and his strawhat that reminds him of Shanks and the fact that he's also developing the same complex with Luffy that he was with Shanks, though not as strong since they aren't really together often.

"But this whole thing just seems like you’re mad when Shanks simps for Buggy and Buggy acts like he typically would. How is it hard to believe that Buggy is important to Shanks and Shanks would express that to him? Are you really so caught up on just hating on Buggy’s personality and him being a regular pirate you can’t stand him being treated like someone important? He’s one of the Four Emperors going after the One Piece and you don’t think his desires and feelings have some significance?" I don't know how you came to the conclusion this is what I think. Im not against Shanks simping for Buggy, I believe Shanks would be a simp in any relationship, this is more about how Buggy reacts in turn. Would be fine if it was just some shyness but its not. Buggy's harmful. I really don't know where i said I don't think Buggy is important. I just hate him as a person. As a character hes funny and a good character objectively and I think that he matters in the story I just don't like him as him. I'm not some person that wishes he would stay unimportant, i never said that. This is not about the story of One Piece this is about Shuggy.

"Shanks couldn’t communicate his real reasons and wanted Buggy to join him but got rejected, so as the Captain who was rejected by Buggy who was willing to be part of his crew, it seems like Shanks was the one who lost out. Of course Shanks longs for his friend and would care for him. Luffy would also chase someone if it was his friend." Would missing out on being a crewmember of a famous crew not be way more of a loss than not getting an already disloyal person as a subordinate. Shanks was important to Buggy too, I don't know why you're acting like Buggy is so precious in comparison to Shanks that its only Shanks that could miss out. Also, my friend, did you miss the ENTIRE ARC WHERE LUFFY LET GO OF A FRIEND BECAUSE HE WAS DISLOYAL!??? Did that just disappear in your mind?? The difference between Buggy and Usopp is that Usopp actually manned up and apologized in order to get on the crew. The entire point of the last scene was that if Usopp did not apologize they were actually going to leave him! Luffy is different from Shanks because Shanks would depend on someone toxic, atleast in the Shuggy that's normalized, while its canon that if a friend was truly toxic and a crewmember was bad that Luffy would leave. Cmon man! Why are you telling me I don't understand the story like I'm stupid when you just completely glossed over water 7 😭

"I think you have this image of Shanks as this delicate abuse victim and Saint-like Christ figure (ironic) when he’s just a pirate who knows he and others have had to make sacrifices. All I can say is, you really think that? Okay, can’t help you there." Its funny how you say ironic when it is ironic. Thats the point. That Shanks is a sacrifice. That is what Oda is alluding to with Shanks if not consiously than unconsious. I beg of you to think about it. A person that has sacrificed everything, their dreams, their friendship, their sanity, and even their limb, for a God of Freedom to help free the world. That is what Shanks is, a sacrifice for the greater good. Just like how they were trying to portray Robin's death/servitude in enies lobby as a sacrifice for the greater good. It is not "ironic" it is the point. It is not the first time Oda has pitted someone as a sacrifice for the greater good.

"You even hate him for harmless things he did as a literal child." Ah yes the harmless actions like creating an entire fake devil fruit to eat so that he can pocket the actual one and sell it for money to use to kickstart his own crew and find treasure on a map that he kept from the same crew that raised him with care and freedom. He didn't just do that on a whim, he planned that shit. It was only stopped by Shanks interruption. If not he would've straight up left the crew that raised him and done what he wanted. Im not saying him being a child doesn't constitute some slack but theres only so much slack you can give when it was so very clearly thought out on his end to betray.

"You want Buggy to be portrayed as trash and dirt compared to Shanks, but in a ship where fans love both characters and Shanks cherishes Buggy that’s obviously not going to happen. It’s clear that you’re biased so you can’t reasonably have a good take on this, all you do is victimize Shanks. How hypocritical that you complain about others having no insight when you’re way worse." ????? You can love both characters of a ship and admit that theyre bad. Crocodile shippers do it all the time. So do people who like all sorts of other villians. Kaido, Crocodile, Akainu, a lot. It really feels like Buggy is the only villian that people ship and use while pretending like he's not been truly horrible. Zosan shippers are more aware of the toxicity that could be between them, and use that as a story point and not something to just brush aside or even romantisize without some sort of angst thing where they know its toxic. And their dynamic isn't nearly as toxic as the normalized Shuggy one. It really feels like you have more bias than me since the plot points so far some of them have clear holes or are ignoring huge things. And again with the Shanks thinking, a toxic relationship can be toxic while the victim thinks everything is okay. A lot of bad relationships stay relationships because of that.

"There’s so much stuff about Shanks fandom to criticize but the fact that you fixate on Shanks caring about Buggy as the worst thing, that’s just mindless hate you shouldn’t be tagging. The best understanding of Shanks I‘ve seen was from shuggy fans, I’m gonna trust them from now on." No. The understanding of Shanks that YOU want is with Shuggy fans. Because when you're a Shuggy fan you get to just deny that anything is wrong with Shanks mentally and that he's just a handsome man that can swoon over his lover and not someone who has very clear faults and mental issues. You can just pretend like Shanks is completely clear of mind so you can use him as a little puzzle piece to fit into anything you want to add a "simp" factor to a ship. Because if you really wanted the "best" understanding of Shanks you'd accept the fact that he is not a completely alright person. He doesn't "brush off" things like they don't matter. They hurt. He just holds it in. With Uta he bit the bullet and left for her sake, but he held it in. When he lost his arm and Luffy despaired we never saw him do anything to show distress over his lost arm, because he held it in. The only time we ever notice that he does feel pain is when he's talking with whitebeard and confesses to the scar on his eye stinging, and surprise surprise, it wasn't to vent his emotions, it was just in attempt to save Ace. Not for himself. He was sad that he's missing an arm, because in the same scene he even says "the scar that hurts most/more is my eye" not "the one that hurts" showing that his arm does hurt. Because losing a dominant arm would hurt anyone. Especially when it lost him Mihawk, another relationship he sacrificed to save something or someone. Yet unlike Buggy Mihawk still is somewhat amicable to Shanks. Mature. Even if he isn't perfect either (ex: completely okay with dying by Zoro's hand and doesn't have any goals now that he achieved world's greatest swordsman. His only friend was Shanks who he left once he couldn't be a suitable rival, showing a dependence on what he knows as Shanks was likely the only one that he had in his life to teach him any sort of friendship).

"Also are you seriously trying to compare your petty hate of a fictional character to speaking out about the literal atrocities done by colonizers of America? Please think before you speak." What the hell did you want me to do. Clearly just saying what I mean isn't working, metaphors are what usually help people finally understand. Yet instead of seeing the metaphor i used you just focused on that it was a cruel one like the point of me using it wasn't to show the cruelness. What other metaphor did you want me to use. You need to learn that a metaphor =/= me saying its the same thing. You brought that up just to make me seem like im a mindless hater that brought up atrocities for nothing. Do you get mad when people who talk about history compare the way slaves were treated to the treatment of cattle too? Since using your logic whatever a metaphor is must mean that you think they're the same thing. A metaphor or comparison is a just a tool. Unless you're gonna send some thing calling me crazy because i used another comparison.