Disclaimer: Sadly, Bleach and all its sexy characters do not belong to me.

Kuchiki Clan Confidential File #182398

1. Zanpakuto

Byakuya knows what others think of Senbonzakura – that it's as fruity and gay as Kyouraku's pink kimono, maybe even more so. His zanpakuto is, after all, an expression of his soul, whereas Kyouraku's kimono may just be questionable fashion sense. It used to bother him a little though he'll never confess to being affected by the gossip of riffraff until Hisana told him to look at it this way: at least it proves he's secure enough in his masculinity to be seen with all those showers and waves of pink flower petals.

2. Ginpaku kazahana no uzuginu

It enhances his swishiness. It's white, and therefore matches just about any outfit. So of course he always wears it. Only Hisana knows that the real one – the one made of mulberry silk in flowing crepe de chine weave and worth several mansions – is stowed away and worn only on special occasions. He has countless less expensive replicas, some of which aren't even silk, including several woven from steel threads that he has used to great effect in battle. He's successfully strangled an enemy to death with one before. Hisana asked for one as an anniversary gift, and he buried it with her after she died.

3. Kenseikan

When Byakuya was younger, he used to be able to use it to style his hair so that the bangs obscured both of his eyes – very handy for days when all his classes were lecture courses, allowing him to nap without getting caught, which would shame the Kuchiki name. Now that he's older and he's grown, that's not possible anymore, but as a captain who has diligently cultivated an aura of Leave Me The Hell Alone Or You Will Be Minced, Literally, he's free to sleep through all the meetings and no one ever calls him on it.

Hisana received a set when she married into the Kuchiki clan, though the hands of the man who gave them to her shook so hard it was obvious he thought destroying them was preferable to giving them to Rukongai trash. She tried them on a few times but couldn't get used to having her hair block her eyes. Byakuya didn't complain; he hadn't liked seeing her lilac irises obstructed. Unlike him, she had a vivacious spark in her eyes worth showing off to the world.

4. Hair

Byakuya has held the title for Most Gorgeous Hair (second most prestigious title given by the Female Shinigami Association, closely trailing the title of Sexiest Ass) ever since he was old enough to be entered into the candidate pool. His hair products are all made from recipes that are closely guarded family secrets. Quite a few have approached him trying to bargain for them, the most persistent being Ayasegawa Yumichika who actually offered a millenium of doing his paperwork for him. It was a tempting bribe, but a) Ayasegawa is a seated officer in the 11^th Division which has the highest casualty rate and b) he does have his pride as a Kuchiki to maintain.

He has won the title of Sexiest Ass several times, coincidentally all during the years of his marriage before Hisana fell ill. He has his suspicions but no proof that she somehow rigged the vote.

5. Working Relationships

Byakuya has three categories for his colleagues: Barely Tolerated, Beneath Him, and Utterly Loathes. There are only two members in Barely Tolerated for two entirely different reasons: Yamamoto Genryuusai because the old man is his superior and therefore by definition not beneath him, and Yachiru because anyone who can call him Byakushi and not make him want to drop his bankai on their ass deserves some respect. There is only one member in Utterly Loathes, and contrary to popular belief, it's not Zaraki.

His categories for the general populace is largely the same. The only addition is a category whose only member is Hisana. He's never found an appropriate title for it, and since he knows she will always be the sole member, he's decided just to call it, “Hisana”.

He is still trying to convince himself that Rukia is in the “Beneath Him” category. It frightens him to think he might need to make a new one.

6. Hobbies

When he was very young, in between lessons, he liked to watch his mother and from her learned the subtle art of ikebana. He found that he liked shaping the natural chaos of nature into his concept of beauty. When Hisana fell ill, he gave up ikebana. When she died, he swore he'd never pick it up again.

7. Addictions

Hisana got him hooked on mystery novels. She wasn't very good at reading (it'd been nearly a century since her death, not that she'd ever received much formal education in the mortal world anyway; besides, the rougher districts of Rukongai weren't exactly ideal locations to brush up on one's literacy), so she had him read them aloud for her. Now he can't get enough. Murder mysteries, supernatural thrillers, conspiracy theories. He owns all 56 volumes of Meitantei Conan, which Rukia inadvertantly introduced to him when she accidentally left a copy of Shounen Sunday in the bookbag she brought back from the human world. He makes up excuses to visit the human world every time a new volume comes out, or sneaks there if need be.

Part of the reason he likes Conan is that he's terrible at guessing the culprits and their tricks because he keeps forgetting they can't use kidou or shunpo.

8. Luck

Byakuya has abysmally bad luck. It's the reason he almost ever wins at poker, blackjack, blackgammon, or mahjong. Of course, he doesn't really believe much in luck. To him, the fun in games is in the planning and execution, which is why he has won Seireitei's annual Go competition for two consecutive centuries and doesn't plan on losing it any time soon.

Hisana, on the other hand, had fabulous luck. She actually made a tidy sum gambling.

9. Music

Byakuya is completely tone deaf. He cannot sing (his vocal range consists of about two notes, if they can indeed be called that), and he can barely distinguish a C from an F sharp. Consequently, music has never interested him much; he's always preferred the silence anyway.

The only music he has ever enjoyed was Hisana's imitation of bird songs. When she died, he thought he would never be able to venture outside during spring again because hearing them surely would break his heart all over again. Then Rukia came into his life, and he found out she shared that talent with her sister. He's learned to enjoy spring again.

10. Kurosaki

What Byakuya resents most about Kurosaki is not the fact that he broke about every single law in Soul Society in his absolutely insane attempt to save Rukia, or the fact that the brat still thinks it's ok to address him, Captain of the 6^th Division and 28^th Head of the Kuchiki clan as “Byakuya”. It's the fact that he's made so many cracks about Rukia's horrific drawing skills. After all, Byakuya taught her how to draw.

What Byakuya is most thankful to Kurosaki is not the fact that he saved Rukia. It's that he forced Byakuya to finally face memories of Hisana. He couldn't handle the pain when she died and day after day all he could feel were Hisana-shaped vacuums everywhere. Kurosaki's disappearing reiatsu was what alerted Byakuya to the danger at Soukyoku, and when he took the fatal stab meant for Rukia, he realized if he didn't come to terms with Hisana's death, there would be Rukia-shaped vacuums in his life, added to the Hisana-shaped ones, and there were already too many vacuums in his life.

11. Friends

Byakuya never had friends growing up. Isolation and aloofness are inevitable facts of life as heir, and eventually, head of the Kuchiki clan. Having never learned to trust or converse with another, he treated his zanpakuto the way he treated everyone else: with terse commands. Sheer force of will and his immense reiatsu got him through shikai and even bankai, but he couldn't control his bankai with such a stilted relationship with Senbonzakura. Hisana actually befriended her first, after she found out one could actually converse with zanpakutos and began pestering him to talk to his for her. It was proof to him of just how amazing she was, to win the affection of a zanpakuto when she herself wasn't even a shinigami. It turned out the two had similar personalities and immediately bonded over the common interest of annoying the hell out of him. It was through Hisana he learned to understand Senbonzakura and earned her trust, but when his wife died, there was suddenly a gaping Hisana-shaped hole separating them, their teamwork was off, and his bankai was all messed up again.

It wasn't until his fight with Kurosaki and Gin's attempt to kill Rukia, which forced him to face his memories of Hisana, that the Hisana-shaped hole filled and he remembered how to talk to Senbonzakura.

12. Alcohol

Unlike most of his colleagues, Byakuya really can't hold his liquor. Few of the Kuchiki can, and most of the exceptions are Kuchiki by marriage, including Hisana. He doesn't really mind though; he's mastered the art of Zui Quan so few ever try to get him drunk. No one knows that Hisana taught him that particular combat skill.

13. Hidden Talents

Byakuya is an excellent liar. It is part of his job description. One doesn't head a politically powerful noble clan and hold a high ranking military office without becoming a master of deception. His skill isn't so much as in charming others into believing him as being able to say everything with the same impassive tone, poker face, and Upright-Holier-Than-Thou attitude. Thanks to this little-known talent, he has everyone believing things like that Zaraki is an honorary member of the Female Shinigami Association because Ayasegawa's got him dabbling in crossdressing, and that Ukitake's illness is reallly syphilis, not tuberculosis.

Hisana was not nearly as good at lying, but she is the only one who's ever gotten away with telling Byakuya half-truths and white lies even though he saw through it every time.

14. Words

Byakuya has a sufficiently developed sense of aesthetics to critique works of art, but he doesn't really have any aptitude for producing them, unsurprisingly. After all, he's hardly the imaginative, soulful type, and how could he be, when he spends over 60 hours a week having his mind turned to mush by paperwork? There is only one form of verbal creativity he's a master at: profanity. He learned from the best – Yoruichi and Hisana, who turned swearing into a high literary art and could easily steamroll any of the 11^th division thugs in a cursing contest. He's saving his best “speeches” for the suckers who try asking him for permission to court Rukia – he's sure the shock will be far more effective than going bankai on them.

15. Renji

Byakuya is perfectly aware that Renji's reason for transferring into the 6^th Division is all based around Rukia and his inferiority-complex. This is the main reason he hopes Renji continues being an idiot male and too afraid to make a move on Rukia, because he thinks if Renji ever works up the nerve to ask him for permission to date her and he has to give one of those “speeches” he's prepared, it will blow up that inferiority-complex to astronomical proportions when Renji discovers The Priss of Seireitei is better at cursing than the street-wise Rukongai ex-11^th Division gangsta.

Byakuya wishes Hisana were still alive to give Rukia a proper education in cursing. Renji and Kurosaki are woefully inadequate as mentors and verbal sparring partners, and as a Kuchiki, she ought to be instructed by the best.

16. Walks

The female population in Seireitei is under the severely misguided notion that his enjoyment of nighttime walks is proof he's a romantic at heart – after all, how can anyone who professes an inclination for moonlit strolls not be? Actually, he doesn't really care when he goes for strolls since he doesn't see much anyway; it's his way of clearing up his mind after it's been muddled by paperwork by coming up with tortures for those who caused said paperwork. It's just that the mornings are taken up by the daily captain meeting (at the crack of dawn) then a grueling paperwork session and afternoons are completely filled with more paperwork and overseeing training. Evenings are packed full with – you guessed it – more paperwork, wrap-up meetings, and routine inspections. This leaves no time for any strolling except late at night.

Hisana liked meandering around at all times of the day. Morning walks, afternoon walks, late night walks. He couldn't join her for the afternoon ones, but he went with her on the other two, to the hell with his morning duties. He didn't see how the moonlit ones were more romantic than the morning ones – in the light of the rising sun, he could see her better and that was the only thing he was interested in viewing on these walks. He hasn't been on a morning stroll since she fell ill; he's found he's lost his taste for them.

17. Secrets

His biggest secret is that he is at least as big – if not bigger – fan of Chappy than Rukia. He has every version of the Chappy Mod Soul Candy dispenser that's been produced and the Ultra Special Extremely Limited Deluxe Edition of the Hopping and Singing Chappy that even Rukia couldn't get a hold of (he used all of his political influence and no small amount of blackmail to get it, too). But no one will ever know because he hides the memorabilia in the hidden closet in the Kuchiki head's office. Sure, he's supposed to use it for confidential family records, but really, the fact that the Kuchiki head is a Chappy fan is a more critical secret so he relegates the family documents to a safe in his Gotei 13 office instead.

Like most of his secrets, Hisana knew of this one. Their first big fight was when she tried to convince him of the superiority of Keroppi the frog. He still doesn't understand how she could think a slimy amphibian would be more loveable than a furry little bunny, but in the drawer of the shrine below where he keeps her picture, he's saved her vast collection of Keroppi memorabilia.

18. Favorite Beverage

Byakuya's favorite drink is green tea, but unfortunately, the drink he consumes most often is coffee. There isn't enough caffeine in green tea to keep him awake through the 10+ hours of paperwork he does each day. He once calculated that the amount of paper that passes through a typical captain's hand each year is enough to bury an entire district of Rukongai. Thankfully, the Gotei 13 has a very good recycling program in place.

It didn't take long for Hisana to find out Byakuya had no idea about the existence of decaf coffee. So whenever they had a fight, she worked off some of her anger by switching his store of coffee at home with a decaf version. He thought at first that she put sleeping pills in his coffee because it just wasn't keeping him awake, but all the tests came out negative. So he had no choice but to learn how to not make her mad if he didn't want to drown in a huge backlog of paperwork.

19. Potluck Dinners

Several centuries earlier, there was an eccentric captain who sold Yamamoto-Genryuusai on the idea of annual potluck dinners to “promote friendly relations between the captains and their respective divisions”. Of course that was a whole lot of bullshit and it didn't work at all, but it's stayed a tradition nonetheless. Hitsugaya's dish always looks and tasted inedible (he claims Matsumoto makes it for him), Soifon's is never much better (she's a terrible cook but insists on preparing her own dish every damn time), and Zaraki's is always unexpectedly fabulous (everyone is sure he bullies Ayasegawa into making it for him). Byakuya is the only one among them who can stand spicy food and always manages to sneak his dish onto the table unseen, so the annual game is to see who's the sucker who eats a mouthful of his dish and has to down the five gallon jar of water (appropriately adorned with the label “For Byakuya's Bitch”). The only year that there was a “reprieve” was when Hisana replaced his dish with her own, and a deceptively attractive one at that. Unfortunately, the victim was spared having their mouth burned off only to be hospitalized with severe food poisoning. Hisana was never allowed in any kitchen in Seireitei after that incident.

20. Fatherhood

He has babysat Yachiru for Zaraki on several occasions. No one will ever know of course, because Zaraki will never admit to letting his daughter hang around someone he reportedly thinks is the biggest pansy in all of Seireitei, and Byakuya will never admit to doing the work of a servant. But Zaraki and Byakuya both caved in when Yachiru actually threw A Full Blown Tantrum to get Byakuya as her babysitter, and there is no force in any dimension that can withstand A Full Blown Yachiru Tantrum.

The first time he babysat her was the day he earned Zaraki's respect. To date, he is still the only one who's survived an entire night of watching Yachiru (besides Zaraki that is) without being sent to the Fourth Division.

The day Zaraki earned his respect was when he told Byakuya that he was sure Hisana would've been a damn good mother. Any woman who could whip a captain without having a drop of reiatsu was worth fearing. It was the first time he agreed with Zaraki on anything.

The two have reached an unspoken agreement. He will continue babysitting Yachiru when needed, and when he has a kid, Zaraki'll be first-choice babysitter. Byakuya will never ever ever tell anyone, but he thinks Zaraki is a pretty damn good dad. He wishes he'd had a dad like that. He hopes he'll be as good of a dad.

Zaraki's pretty sure Byakuya will be a damn good dad. He's more concerned about who's going to be the mom. He hopes Byakuya's got enough left in him to turn down the Kuchiki advisors' choices of those wussy, pathetic, brainless bitches all dolled up in too many layers of silk with no shit underneath and pick a real woman, like Hisana was. He was fucking worried at the way Byakuya acted when Rukia's death sentence was announced – when he threatened to kill Rukia himself, he was trying to stir up some sense in the bastard. Luckily, Ichigo seemed to have succeeded where he failed, so now he has high hopes for Byakuya's kids. He's looking forward to babysitting them.

Author's note:  I'm actually looking for a beta reader since my current one doesn't really follow Bleach and therefore can only really look for grammar errors, etc.  I'd like to have someone who I can also bounce ideas off of about characterization, etc. (I have a very long multi-chapter Byakuya fic almost done, hence, the keen interest in a beta reader =P).