I'm reading the book A Thousand Splendid Suns right now (you should read it too!) and came up with this story… hope you enjoy it :)

Set in a messed up era that I have created which is a mix of a lot of present and past so just go along with it :P

Beneath the Penumbra: Chapter 1

Pale faced and eyes stricken with shock. For months… not even, maybe years it has been that Renji had been arriving at the Kuchiki household and made careful of his every move and step as to please the head, Kuchiki Byakuya. He spent careful planning with bringing gifts from his travels to exotic lands. Most of them were places that Byakuya himself had been too many times, many more times than Renji, but it was a way for him to shoe the head his establishments: jades from China, ivory from India, spices from Afghanistan, gold from the Americas, literature from England, and much more.

"I beg you to reconsider!" Renji said in a pleading tone. He was sure not to let his voice complete choke to something that would come out of a beggar boy but to keep a cool underlining tone.

"I have made my decision and there will be no opposition. The answer is no." Byakuya said firmly before taking a sip of the tea that till now had been left untouched. His eyes closed when he brought the warm liquid to his lips. His composure was cool and steady. "She is too young."

A single sound was emitted from Renji before it was forcing it to stay in his slowly drying throat by the opening eyes of Byakuya. His eyes gazing down on this man sitting in front of him, making him feel small, little, worthless.

As if cued by an unknown force, a light knock was heard against the screen door. There was a silhouette of a thin and small frame that seemed so delicate, it could snap at the landing of a butterfly. When the screen doors slid open, a butterfly is was Renji saw in his eyes.

Her velvet eyes opened wide with initial shock but recomposed its self with a calm half smirk like she had been conducted to have when in front of a guest or stranger.

"Good morning Nii-sama," she bowed her head toward Byakuya then turned her direction to Renji and did the same, "Good morning Abarai-sama."

Byakuya's hard glare had softened. "Come in Rukia." She dutifully does. "What is it?"

An uneasy face falls across her features. And old habit of biting the innards of her lib when under pressure had suddenly arose. Using the best of her abilities to not squirm or fidget under is stare was getting harder and harder to bare. "Nii-sama," she said. He kept staring. A small calming breath escaped her and she suppressed a wince. "Nii-sama," she began again ending in a pause which caused him to lift a brow. "Ni-," cutting herself off and continuing, "I would like to go." She said finally.

There was a pause that Rukia was often used to, that pause that her Nii-sama often did after hearing her speak. Byakuya was one whom time is waiting for and not him waiting for time. "Go? Go where?"

Again, Rukia did her best not to fidget. She looked on the floor for a moment and tried to compose herself once more. "I would like to go study in America."

A startled appearance appeared on Byakuya's once composed and graceful face. The brows lifted, the lower lip fell, his eyes widened, and nostrils flared for even just a moment; and as quickly as it came, the same cold hard face came into place with and equally cold and hard, "Why?"

"I have gotten several invitations for applications on my unnatural excelling in academics and offers to study abroad." She said with new serge of courage.

Byakuya set down his tea with a heavy clank. "No."

Rukia looked at him in astonishment, him who had encouraged her to have the best education there was out there to strive and grasp every opportunity of success was telling her to refuse this offer. "Nii-sama, I-,"

"No!" He raised his voice causing her to wince. He continued in a slower and gritting tone, "I have already found you a suitor."

Both Rukia and Renji casted their full attention on Byakuya, revealing identical expressions.

"Rukia," Byakuya forced a false confident tone, "You are familiar with Abarai-san."

I first met Abarai Renji when I was ten years old. He had come and brought me a white jade elephant that he said was from the mystical lands of India. I had been to India many times, as I had been to many other countries but I never had the guts to ask for relicts and the like. So this small little elephant made me really happy.

After that encounter, I did not see much of him because he spent most of his time with Nii-sama talking in that little room that overlooked the dead or blooming Sakura flowers. He wasn't rude or unfriendly; in fact he was quite the opposite. He was nice and playful. Whenever he passed me he seemed to have made a point to smile and say hello before going on with his business. At the end of his visits, I always ended up with a new music box from Russia or white fur coat from Poland.

I didn't have much of a thought about him at all besides his deep, red hair he always seems to forget to cut and his interestingly shaped birthmarks that covered his forehead to the base of his neck, and what I saw from his partially open dress shirt, it went down his chest as well. I had never thought that all that time till now, a week before I turn fourteen, he had been courting me. It stunned me so much that I did not know what to think of it.

"Smile," a booming voice said and a monstrously coarse hand landed on my hands that rested on my lap. "You are a bride! A wife! Maybe soon a mother!" His hands would shake me with every word. I could not suppress my wince at his last statement.

I guess he noticed it and quickly said, "Of course we will have to let you settle first." He smiled then continued, "You will love it in Karakura. It's a small town but that is what makes it nice to live in, small and easy to get around unlike Soul Island where there are so many walls and hills."

"How old are you?" I asked monotonously.

"Excuse me?" he said with that smile that just made my stomach curdle.

"How old are you?" I said once more in the same manor.

"Thirty-two."

"Thirty-two," I softly repeated. Only nine years younger than Nii-sama.

"And you?" did everything he say have to be so loud?

"Almost fourteen," I said curtly.

"Really?" he said with wide eyes, "beauty starts young now a days!" he said laughing before looking out the window once again. And though I still felt uneasy with his ridiculous hand rested on mine, I felt a tinge of happiness when he said I was beautiful.

The car we had been riding in came to a stop a few minutes later in front of a decent sized house. It was smaller than Nii-sama's house but definitely large enough to hold at least two separate bedrooms. Maybe this would not be as bad as I had imagined it would be and it would just be like an adventure in a foreign world. Maybe that was what this was.

This is what I thought, till he grabbed my dragged me inside the house, the driver lugging my items behind him.

The interior of the house was very different to that of Nii-sama's. This was to be the house I was going to live the rest of my solemn life in? Was it so solemn if I had Abarai-sama with me? Could I be a good wife even? I had never really cooked before. Nii-sama was always afraid I would burn myself. And cleaning, cleaning was not new but again, not a specialty.

The walls were tall and rooms open, while Nii-sama's was a large compound with narrow halls and closed off rooms. Each room was filled with treasures of exotic lands and places that seemed to have popped out of a children's fairytale book. Nii-sama never brought things back from his trips saying it was just too much to carry around.

Still holding my hand, which was now starting to sweat, he brought me up a large mahogany staircase. He led me to a room that held a large king sized bed draped with blue and green pillows with matching comforters and blankets all neatly set. The room it's self was fairly decent size to hold a dresser and side tables with lamps rested on each.

"You can leave her stuff here," he said to the driver. Abarai-sama reached into his wallet and finally let go of my hand to give the driver a wholesome tip. With a short bow he exited the house.

"Well, this is our room so go ahead and unpack," he said smiling once again. I suddenly felt like puking.

"Our room?" I repeated.

"Yes!" he looked at my shocked face and that smile dropped, "it's what married couples do." With that hi left the room and head for the stairs.

Finally alone, I sat on the bed and took in all of this. In just less than three days, I had gone from an ordinary girl going about my own business to a wedded one. I had no say, I had no say. I walked over to the window on the other side of room and looked out to see an empty street. Where were the other children? Of course, it was Wednesday. They were all at school.

"Rukia," Abarai-sama reentered the room holding something in his hands, "come with me."

I followed him into a door that leads to the bathroom. He motioned me to sit on a stool in front of a mirror. "This is now yours." He said taking a choker and putting it on my neck. It was a sign that I was no longer single and had a husband. I had seen many of these on women in Soul Island. I always loved how elegant they looked walking with such a beautiful piece of jewelry. I remember once even crying to Nii-sama on how I wanted to be married because I wanted a red choker. But now that I see this blood red thing around my pale neck, I could now see why they made it look so splendid. To hide the aspect that made it look like a collar.

"It looks beautiful on you," Abarai said. This time, I did not appreciate the complement.

I looked at myself once more, and red blinded my eyes. How long would it be before I did what its name intended?

I looked up into the sky through the windows of my classroom. The teacher was dull and the lesson was boring, besides, I knew the information already. It was always sunny here, often not rainy at all. The sun shone brightly on this town of Karakura.

"Oi, Kurosaki," the teacher said irritated, "mind to share your daydreams with the class?"

I turned lazily to the teacher, paused for a moment, and said seriously, "It's raining today."

End Chapter 1

How'd you like it? Please comment and let me know and I'll do my best to get started on the next chapter.