It's Simply That I've Always Loved You

Chapter 16

With winter in full swing and the ground outside covered in frost and snow, Renji can hardly go outside and pick flowers to bring back to Byakuya. There are a thousand ways to court an omega but most tend to choose the most traditional routes, something that is made easy when spring is in full bloom. Flowers would be ridiculous. Byakuya is pregnant with his baby and Renji should do better for him for that alone, so he waits until he knows Byakuya should be close to rising, sneaks into his kitchen, and makes him breakfast.

Sneaking, as it turns out, is really just Orihime letting him in when he knocks on the door and giggling as she watches him from the table with a cup of coffee. The young omega has been getting along well with their pack, particularly alongside Rukia, and Renji is glad for that. Any alpha would be happy to know an omega in their pack is happy, and he is no different when it comes right down to the smaller details.

“Your friends should be leaving this morning to go see Aizen’s pack.” Renji says for lack of anything better to say, his gaze intent on the stove. “You worried about them?”

“No. If anything happened to Ishida-kun, Sado-kun would be right there to protect him. He’d be able to tell if he was in distress no matter what.” Orihime smiles cheerfully up at him. “I don’t have a reason to be afraid. How is Byakuya? Is he still sick?”

Renji could lie but he doesn’t. “He’s doing better. Unohana gave him medicine and it’s helped get rid of the nausea. Think the situation and the weather’s got him run down.”

That isn’t technically a lie because it is the situation that has him so much more stressed than he would be normally, not just the pregnancy. So Renji cooks something that should be easy on his stomach and thinks about when the nausea leaves and Byakuya starts to show and maybe he gets a little too wrapped up in that, the thought of Byakuya’s skin curving softly with the weight of pups. They’ve got some time to go before that.

“You must really love him.” Orihime muses, and Renji looks at her. “When you get quiet like that, your scent flares up some. I think you must be thinking about him.”

“Uh, yeah.” That’s not a lie. “I just, he means a lot to me. Byakuya, that is. He’s… I don’t have words for him. He’s everything I’ve ever wanted in a mate and more.”

Orihime’s smile softens. “I know what you mean. It’s how I feel about Rukia. When we found her, I thought. I really thought she was going to die, that we hadn’t found her in time to save her. And then just like that, she turned around and she saved me.”

“I know that feeling. I don’t have any real drama with my old pack, I mean. This.” Renji taps one of the dark tattoos on his arms, the symbol of just how high he rose then. “But that was normal, not really something to leave behind. I just wanted a change, and there he was with open arms. The kindest and most thoughtful pack alpha I’ve ever met.”

Then, Renji had no idea Byakuya was an omega. It was later, much later, when he first inhaled Byakuya’s beautiful floral scent that he put two and two together. Now, he knows why he never picked up Byakuya’s scent. After all, suppressants muffle the scent.

The thought makes him unbearably sad, but he’s relieved to know Byakuya is fine now.

Orihime nods thoughtfully. “I understand. I had that impression when we met him. Rukia said he was cold, but he hasn’t been cold the entire time I’ve known him.”

“He’s opened up a lot since Rukia left. I think it might have been one of the big eye opening moments he really had. I’d like to think I helped out, too.” He wonders how much credit he can take, how much of Byakuya’s heart he thawed on his own. “Now, I just want to work on making him my mate officially so that I can spend the rest of my life adoring him.”