Zoe's Refresher

The Meeting

HAPPY BIRTHDAY ZOE!!!

Byakuya has been in a meeting room with council members since early in the morning. He left his place around five thirty and it's now ten in the morning. The council member have been arguing with him about his involvement with Zoe, for the past five hours.

"I don't know how many times you're going to make me respect myself. If I ever see or hear that you all are mistreating my wife, the other master of our great clan, you'll lose your positions. End of story."

These five hours, the only time he put his opinion in was in the very beginning. The rest of the hours all of these people were squabbling like infants amongst each other. He's grown tired of hearing these demented nuisances that target his wife.

"I will not be marrying anyone else. She is your other master. Respect her. I'm tired of hearing your nonsense. I will be retiring to meet my wife. If you ever so much as bring your daughters around me in hopes I'll change my mind, you're gone. If you talk about my wife in a rude manner again, you're gone and not without injury either. You'll be gone from this place without the benefit of a tongue."

Byakuya stomps out of the meeting room and decided to wait for Zoë in the world of the living. She works and goes to school there so sometimes he goes down there to see her. Of course, the world of the living isn't a place he likes to be but he's found that some places can be enjoyable. He quite enjoys sitting at the park outside of Zoe's school. It's quiet and Kenpachi can't find and annoy him when he's there.

He opens the senkaimon and goes through, once he reaches the park he sits at a bench and thinks over the entire meeting.

'I should've told them off sooner.' He thinks to himself. Their corruption went a lot deeper than he originally though. He had believed that the council was doing everything for his sake and that he could trust them but now it's obvious what they really wanted.

All they had wanted from him was the benefit of having one of their daughters to be his wife. They noticed how he treated Zoe as an equal, a partner, someone who he can trust with his clan and his life, and they got greedy. They wanted that for their daughters.

When they saw that he wasn't denying them aggressively... they started to push stronger.

'It's my fault that they ended up getting this far and hurting Zoe.'

He sighs, covering his face with his hands.

'I'm always hurting her... I need to stop making mistakes like these. Rukia almost died because of a mistake I made that was similar to this and now I put my wife in a mess like this too. When will I ever learn?'

After moments of him drowning in self pity he looks up only to see Zoe coming out of the school building. He smiles as he watches her walk down the building steps and he uses flash step to hurry over to her.

"How was school?"

"It was fine, how was the meeting?"

"Well, it was endlessly long and their incessant arguing gave me a headache. However, I've cleared it up for good."

Zoe looks at her husband's tired visage and she smiles softly at him. She reaches her hand out to touch his cheek and he nuzzles his head in her hand.

"Let's go take a long nap."

"That sounds lovely, Zoe."

The couple head back to Byakuya's place and spend the rest of the day lazing around. When they weren't taking little naps, Zoe forced him to watch anime (he didn't particularly enjoy it but he liked seeing her happy), Byakuya made them lunch and they fed each other their food.

"Mmmm, Byakuya the food you make is always delicious!"

"I appreciate that, you've given me a bit more confidence."

Zoe grabs a piece of her chicken from her chop sticks and she gestures for Byakuya to open his mouth. The piece of chicken lands safely in her husbands mouth. She smiles as she watches the man chew his food.

"I'm so happy today, Byaku."

"Ahh, I'm glad Zoe."

Byakuya grabs her hand and gives her a gentle kiss on her lips. He stays there for a moment, savoring the feeling of his lips on hers and then he gets up from the table, ready to wash the dishes.

"I love you, Zoe."

"I love you too."

END.