Title: Hate is a Lot like Love Except with Less Biting
Universe: Bleach
Theme/Topic: Unadulterated Loathing
Rating: PG-13
Character/Pairing/s: KenpachixByakuya (kind of) and Yachiru, Renji, Shunsui, Yumichika, and Ikkaku present or mentioned
Warnings/Spoilers: Crack, OOC, random. No real spoilers I can imagine.
Word Count: 2,640
Summary: Kenpachi wears on Byakuya's patience.
Dedication: cheloya's request on my drabble meme! I totally did not see your request until JUST NOW. SORRY!
A/N: YAY FINISHED WITH REQUESTS. Now I should probably do some real work or something. I am so out of practice with Bleach SIGH.
Disclaimer: No harm or infringement intended.

It builds over days and weeks and months and years, coming to life from a tiny seed of irritation that is unknowingly planted one day at random, without either of them really noticing. From there it is watered and sunned and tilled over time, until it is growing shoots and stalks and leaves, until it is budding and coiling and just on the verge of bursting open so that it can pollinate and propagate and create more of itself all over the world.

That first seed is a blatant lack of courtesy.

"Hey, Kuchiki-hime," Zaraki says to Byakuya first, when the twelve captains are all assembled and waiting for Yamamoto-soutaichou to arrive in the first division meeting hall, "I was drinkin' with Kyouraku last night and he said you used to be a pretty funny kid. Those fancy hair-curlers sealing in your sense of humor or something?"

Byakuya feels the first inklings of distaste for Zaraki Kenpachi in those moments, but chooses not to voice them out loud as he is the more senior captain as well as the better man (also, Yamamoto-soutaichou arrives at that moment and any counter measures Byakuya might have taken are thus rendered moot, though that is beside the point entirely).

From there Kenpachi proceeds to smirk at Byakuya for the rest of the meeting, while a cowed Kyouraku Shunsui lowers the brim of his hat over his eyes and tries to blame it all on the hangover. Byakuya thinks that he cannot respect people who callously gossip about others behind their backs, but even more to be loathed is someone who gossips as such and then blatantly brings the subject of conversation up to the party in question afterwards, with no regard for the feelings of his embarrassed coconspirator.

But Byakuya is mostly appalled because not many people dare to speak to him to his face like that.

The next encounter that Kuchiki-taichou has with Zaraki Kenpachi is indirect but garners no less distaste in feeling or impression from him afterwards; the sixth division captain hears it when the records department aides go crazy complaining about how Zaraki's paperwork is never in on time, how when it does get turned in it's messy and sometimes bloody and never in order.

Byakuya makes a face when he hears that and thinks that a man with no sense of responsibility has no business being here.

He runs into Zaraki Kenpachi a few hours later, as the larger captain terrorizes his lower seats in a horrifying game of avoid-the-death-blow.

As he passes by the eleventh division gate Zaraki catches the other captain's eye and grins manically before closing in on a flustered looking seventh seat.

Byakuya moves on and thinks that he will never willingly interact with people who put play before duty.

Distaste and irritation for Zaraki Kenpachi soon sprout into tiny shoots of actual dislike.

"Everyone says you're strong, but you won't fight me," Zaraki says to him as they pass each other in the courtyard one morning, months after Byakuya's initial impression of him as a thug and a lowlife have solidified into an immobile, uncompromising truth. "Doesn't that just make you a coward? Fight me and lemme see how strong you are, would ya?" Kenpachi demands, just like he's been demanding every day since he'd heard about the ferocity of Senbonzakura's destructive power through the grapevine.

"I don't need to fight you to prove I'm strong," Byakuya responds, just like he does every day when this subject comes up, and dodges a blatant first swipe by the larger captain. It blows out one of the walls behind him and Byakuya's eyebrow twitches as he walks away.

"You're no fun," Zaraki calls after him.

"Please stop causing unnecessary property damage," Byakuya answers.

Zaraki laughs and Byakuya's eyebrow twitches the entire way back to his office.

When the same thing happens again the next day and the next day and the day after that too, Byakuya thinks this is what it must feel like to start actively disliking someone.

Eventually he gets used to it, but only because he has to.

Zaraki Kenpachi's tenacity is singularly infuriating.

"How come you don't mind playin' with me but you never wanna play with Ken-chan?" Yachiru asks Byakuya some months later, around a mouthful of ice cream. "Do you hate Ken-chan?"

She looks troubled at the thought, and her brow furrows so that it is almost a mirror image of Byakuya's at the moment.

Byakuya sighs and wipes the corners of her mouth with a napkin. "We think very differently," he says evasively, because that is what adults do in the face of young children's innocently prying questions.

Yachiru blinks. "When I asked Ken-chan if he hated you all he said was that you're so uptight if he put coal in your ass it would come out diamonds."

Byakuya sputters. "Excuse me?"

"I didn't get what he means by that neither," Yachiru replies, and looks pleased that she's not the only one. Then she smiles again. "But he didn't say he hated you, and you didn't say you hated him, isn't that nice? Maybe you two can play together after all."

Byakuya wordlessly pushes his ice cream towards her, because that is all an adult can do in the face of a young child's unfounded optimism.

She happily, effusively accepts. "Yay, Byakushi you're the best! You always buy me nice things and have funny faces and now you can make diamonds too! You're really amazing, ne, even though Ken-chan tells me you're not."

Byakuya bites the inside of his cheek and for the first time in a long time, suddenly has the urge to punch Zaraki Kenpachi in the face.

Apparently he doesn't even have to be around to be annoying anymore.

"You shouldn't use that kind of language around a child," are the first words out of Byakuya's mouth later that evening, when he returns with a Yachiru who has, in the last few hours, hit her sugar high, gone insane from her sugar high, and then crashed in an unconscious slumber immediately thereafter.

She snores gently in Byakuya's arms now, nose pressed against his scarf and drooling.

Kenpachi blinks from where he is sprawled out by his window, drinking and looking out into nothing. Wasting more time, most likely.

The larger captain grins and sits up a little straighter when he sees the two of them in the doorway. "Well don't the pair of you make a picture," he says, and knocks back another cup of sake.

Byakuya's eyes narrow instinctively. "Did you hear me?"

"Heard you," Zaraki acknowledges. "Don't know what the fuck you're on about, though."

Byakuya feels his eye twitching again. "Yachiru felt the need to report to me exactly what you'd said about me and…diamonds."

Zaraki grins. "It's true though, ain't it?"

More twitching. Byakuya counts backwards from ten in his head. "As I said, please refrain from using those kinds of words around her. She's still young."

The larger captain is unmoved. "Hearin' please from you sure is pretty, but those aren't the rules I live by, Kuchiki-hime. You want me to listen to you, then you better prove to me that you're gonna kick my ass if I don't."

Byakuya bristles. "Nice try," he says, and goes to deposit Yachiru in her quarters before storming off.

Kenpachi shrugs absently as he leaves and goes back to his alcohol; Byakuya has to physically will his eye to stop twitching.

The way he does it is by imagining what it might look like to wipe that unapologetic smirk off of Kenpachi's face.

Renji laughs a little bit when Byakuya tells him about Zaraki's appalling use of language around Yachiru.

"I don't see why this is so funny, Renji. He's a horrible influence on her."

The vice-captain is instantly cowed. "Just uh, well, beggin' your pardon, taichou. But knowin' Zaraki-taichou, he wasn't jokin'. You beat him and he'll do as you say, at least for a week."

Byakuya blinks. "Why a week?"

Renji allows himself a small, entirely too fond grin. "'Cuz I figure that's the time he'll spend training before he'll figure he's strong enough to challenge you to fight again."

Byakuya sniffs. "How loathsome."

Renji shrugs. "He does lots of weird things, but least he always keeps his word. That's something, right?"

Byakuya is certain Renji is mistaken, because he cannot see Zaraki Kenpachi honoring an agreement like that if he can barely honor his responsibilities as a captain of the thirteen divisions as it is.

For some reason, the fact that Renji seems to still respect Zaraki Kenpachi so much is an added blow.

"Ken-chan said he tried to play with you last week, but you didn't wanna," Yachiru reports the next time she manages to convince Byakuya to spend time with her. She munches happily on dango as they sit in a small pagoda within the sprawling gardens of the Kuchiki manor.

"He did not invite me to play," Byakuya assures her.

Yachiru blinks. Sees something in his eyes and moves on. "There aren't lots of people Ken-chan wantsta play with, and Byakushi is always alone 'cept when I'm here; how come you don't wanna have fun together?"

Byakuya sniffs. "Please refrain from speaking with your mouth full, Yachiru," he says flatly, and pours more tea for himself. "And as it is, playing with Zaraki-taichou has no appeal to me."

Yachiru looks thoughtful. "Sorry!" she apologizes eventually, and holds out her plate while looking expectant for seconds.

The next morning, when Byakuya somehow, in the vast maze that is seireitei, runs into Zaraki Kenpachi again, he is with his third and fifth seats, as Yachiru perches on his shoulder and pulls on his hair.

"Appealing!" she chants enthusiastically, "You gotta be appealing, Ken-chan! Maybe you oughta learn how to ask pretty. Bet Frilly Brows can teach you!"

Zaraki scowls and grunts noncommittally while Madarame and Ayasegawa snicker at him. Their captain swats absently every once in a while at a giggling Yachiru in the meantime, at least until the he turns the corner and notices the sixth division captain standing in front of him.

Then he grins and forgets about the vice captain pulling on his hair completely. "Kuchiki-hime!" he greets, cheerfully. "Nice day out, ain't it? You waitin' there like that 'cuz you wanna fight me today?"

Byakuya's eye twitches in what he is beginning to think of as a conditioned response. "I don't have time for this," he tells Kenpachi, flatly.

"What, got a hair appointment? Nail appointment? Gonna get your makeup all done up nice for you at the salon or somethin'?"

Byakuya ignores him and keeps walking.

It isn't until after he passes by the group of them that he hears Zaraki's fifth seat twitter and declare, "My taichou, so that's what you're going for, is it? How surprising." Pause. Smirk. "Then, I suppose I'll teach you how to be appealing if you really want me to. I do love beautiful goals, after all."

Kenpachi growls and mutters, "Go die," to Yumichika before moving on.

He sounds oddly disappointed as he does.

When Byakuya gets to the sixth division headquarters a little while later, Renji blinks at him and asks why his face is red; Byakuya responds by resolutely telling his boggled vice captain to please go and make tea, while he locks himself in his office for the rest of the day.

He doesn't get any work done despite that, and blames it all on Zaraki Kenpachi because he hates him.

Yachiru visits again the following morning, with a familiar looking koi writhing in her tiny hands. "Ken-chan says I need to stop takin' these from here since they eat too much and splash around too much," she reports sweetly. "He told me to bring it back."

Byakuya blinks, and realizes belatedly, that that must be where all of their fish have been going. "You shouldn't take things that don't belong to you," he tells her automatically.

"Ken-chan said the same thing," Yachiru agrees.

Byakuya is surprised.

"Except he also said unless whoever you're takin' it from ain't strong enough to keep it for themselves," she amends with a cute laugh.

Byakuya twitches; it is now—officially— his body's new default reaction to Zaraki's manic logic.

"Oh! And Ken-chan also said if you want the rest of them back you have to come get them yourself." Yachiru adds. "He really seems to like Byakushi a lot!"

Byakuya opens his mouth to retort, but can't think of how without showing himself to be a hypocrite in terms of using vulgar language around young children.

He shuts it again.

"Well, I gotta go then. Let's get ice cream tomorrow, Byakushi!" Yachiru chirps, and then is out the window again, leaving the dying koi on Byakuya's desk, right on top of the report he'd been working on for the better part of the afternoon.

Renji lets himself into the office a moment later, citing "Taichou? I heard noises. Are…"

The redhead pauses when he realizes the state of the room. He blinks at the sluggishly flopping koi and his captain.

"Taichou," he points out after a beat, lamely, "your face is red again."

Byakuya hastens to return the koi to the pond.

As he watches it swim away, he thinks that Zaraki Kenpachi has a very strange way of communicating.

It is just before dinner time three days later when Renji makes an off-handed comment about how taichou looks like he hasn't been sleeping well lately.

"And you're behind on your paperwork, taichou. Are you feelin' sick or somethin'?"

Renji is right, Byakuya supposes.

He does feel sick.

Or something.

With that he sighs and wordlessly leaves his office, leaving Renji to wonder if he should ask if the fourth division makes house calls.

In the meantime, Byakuya heads straight to the eleventh division headquarters, twitching with irritation and something else less than civilized.

It is unacceptable, he tells himself resolutely, that men like Zaraki Kenpachi shirk their own responsibilities and do as they please, but to have it effect other captains who are actually trying to do their jobs is something that must be fixed as quickly and efficiently as possible.

He kicks open Zaraki's office door and draws his sword.

"Yay, Byakushi wants to play with you after all, Ken-chan!" Yachiru exclaims the minute the sixth division captain steps into the room, right before Kenpachi is absently telling her to "Get lost," and the two captains are silently, automatically slipping into shunpo and heading right towards each other without missing another beat.

She's gone without another word, just as the impact of their zanpakutou hitting against one another manages to destroy the entire left half of Zaraki's office, charring the wood furnishings black under the raging fires of their clashing reiatsu.

"If I win," Byakuya grinds out between tightly clenched teeth, as he thinks hate, hate, hate to himself over and over again in his head, "you'll do as I say?"

Zaraki looks overjoyed. "If you win, I'll eat my haori," he counters, and Byakuya can feel the way the muscles in the larger captain's arms quiver in anticipation of the fight as the two of them stare at each other between the cross sections of their blades, just a breath apart.

Inexplicably, when Byakuya realizes just how close they are he feels his face go red again; as it does Kenpachi grins and mercilessly, relentlessly presses the new advantage.

He manages to push Byakuya to the floor.

Some years later, when Byakuya and Kenpachi are sent out to retrieve their subordinates from the human realm together, Byakuya surprises himself when he can honestly tell his younger sister that waiting with Kenpachi at his side had actually been a pleasant way to spend the time.

END