Chapter Text
Byakuya never thought that he’d find love, yet here he was in the space program, currently in the USA, alongside the woman of his dreams who he’d happened to have met while at the base in Russia. Well, better than his dreams actually! His dreams never included falling in love!
He and Lillian had become fast friends at the base in Russia, but as they continued to get to know each other better and better, they fell in love, and she ended up popping the question! He was now an engaged man!
They’d posted the photo of their hands wound together, both sporting engagement rings, on both of their social medias, and the news went absolutely CRAZY! Both of them had since received multiple interview requests.
Pretty much the only question they’d answer though was that they weren’t getting married for a while, as they were going to wait to get married after getting back from space. Though, their coworkers weren’t too thrilled about it, as there were often press people buzzing about outside of the facility wanting to get the scoop.
Byakuya often had to hold back snickers as Shamil was almost always exasperated with their antics.
It was now early in the morning. They had a brief rest period before they had to get back to work.
He quickly checked his phone and furrowed his brow as he noticed that he’d gotten a notification of a direct message on one of lesser used social media accounts. He had no clue who it could possibly be, as if it were Senku or Taiju and his family, they’d just message his phone.
He entered his password and entered the app to check on what the message was. He furrowed his brow as the message sender name was ‘Anonymous’ and the message was in English.
He thought to himself, ‘That’s strange. This is a private account that shouldn’t be able to get anonymous messages.’
He then clicked on it despite his inner voice warning him that it could be some sort of spam or virus that could infect his phone.
However, as he read the contents of the message, he went paler than pale and his hands started shaking. He was starting to panic.
The last thing he’d ever expected to read greeted him. A death threat. But that wasn’t what was so terrifying. He’d gotten death threats since he’d first started getting involved with Lillian. He could handle that (so long as he never told Senku those occurred, that is). What was terrifying is that this one was aimed not at him, but at HIS SON.
He read over it again, 'Break off the engagement, or your son will pay with his life.’ and a picture of Senku through the window of the apartment was attached.
“What the hell?” he said aloud as his hands shook.
He took a deep breath to try and calm his panic. Once he’d gotten the panic down to a manageable level, he screenshotted the message and dialed Senku’s number.
He waited with heightened anxiety as the phone rang.
He let out a relieved breath when Senku finally answered with, “Byakuya? What’s up? You usually don’t call around this time.”
Byakuya said, “Did you lock the door or close the shutters for the night yet?”
He could practically picture Senku’s confused face as he answered, “Yeah. I locked the door after I got home since Taiju didn’t come over. The shutters are still open right now though because I forgot to close them this morning after having to open the window to air out the room after a reaction gone slightly wrong.”
Byakuya responded, “Ok, please go ahead and make sure the windows are locked and the shutters closed.”
Senku made a confused noise and Byakuya relaxed slightly as he could hear Senkuu doing as asked.
Senku then questioned, “What’s this about, old man? You got some sort of spider sense for when I forget to do something?”
Byakuya bit his lip. He didn’t want to alarm Senku, but this was serious.
After moments of silence, Senku spoke with a concerned lilt, “Dad, really, what’s wrong?”
Byakuya glanced at the message on his phone as he said, “Just, please make sure that they stay closed and locked.”
Senku answered, “I will, but I still want to know what’s going on. You sound scared. Did you get another death threat or something? You know the press doesn’t know where our apartment is, right? Plus, I’m not active on any social media aside from my science blog where I don’t show my face.”
Byakuya paled. How did Senku know about the death threats?!
Byakuya bit his lip before saying, “Something like that. How did you know I got death threats.”
Senku huffed a bit, “Tabloids plus the fact that I’m not illiterate. I can read responses to posts on yours and Lillian’s pages. I’ve seen some of the more hostile comments before they could be taken down.”
That really didn’t make him feel any better.
Byakuya sighed before saying, “Just, stay safe, son. I know all anyone really knows about you is that your name is Senku, but I will always worry. You’re going to be the stepson of Lillian Weinberg.”
Senku groaned before responding, “I know, and I absolutely hate that some of the others at school that know us are already trying to kiss up. To be honest, it’s amazing that no one has posted about who Byakuya’s ‘mysterious son’ and Lillian Weinberg’s future stepson is.”
Byakuya smiled slightly. That was definitely true, though if anything like that did happen, there would be hell to pay, so he doubted anyone would be that daring. Then again, he did just receive a message detailing a death threat towards his son.
He sighed again before saying, “Just, stay safe and text me whenever you leave home or school, please. Promise me.”
He could hear in Senku’s tone that he wanted to ask more questions, “Ok. I will. I can tell something’s freaking you out, but I trust that you’ll tell me if whatever’s spooking you gets worse.”
The phone call then ended. Byakuya’s hands still shook slightly as he took another look at the threatening message. He had to report this to some sort of authorities.
~~~~~~
Lillian was just as worried as Byakuya when he showed her the message.
“Oh my gosh! That’s terrible! We need to go to the authorities right away! Have you already reported this to the company that runs the social?” she said as she read over the message on Byakuya’s phone.
Byakuya responded, “I haven’t yet. I think since this involves both of us, we should go to the authorities together.
Lillian nodded her head in agreement. They were expected to be back to training pretty soon, but with extenuating circumstances, the trainers would just have to understand.
~~~~~~
Byakuya was the angriest he’d been in an extremely long time.
“What do you mean nothing can be done? This message was sent to me when no one but my family should have access to do that and it also has a PICTURE of MY SON attached to it!” he said as Lillian held onto his arm in support.
Lillian looked just as angry at the situation.
The guy explained, “I’m sorry sir. There hasn’t been any harm done and we don’t currently know the origins of the message. Even though it’s a threatening message, since it was sent from an unknown location and through a non-American owned social media company, it’s not within our jurisdiction. There’s nothing I can do to help. If it makes you feel any better, these types of things usually end up being false alarms.”
Byakuya was practically shaking with fury as he clenched his hands. He got up, Lillian following close behind him. There was no reason to stay for any longer if they weren’t going to help him.
Once outside, Lillian said, “Maybe you should report it to Japanese authorities. Perhaps they could do more than anyone here could.”
Byakuya nodded and said, “I’ll have to set up a virtual meeting and file a report.”
The two were soon back on their way to the training facility.
~~~~~~
Byakuya rubbed his forehead as the virtual meeting ended. It had taken a while to set up since it was two very different time zones, but he was able to get approval to take a break and handle the situation.
Unfortunately, though, they hadn’t been able to do much either. They advised that he and Lillian cease to post pictures of the two of them together for a while. The main benefit though was that he was able to convince them to monitor the area around the apartment more closely.
For now, though, he had to get back to training, though he doubted he’d be able to focus very well considering the situation.
~~~~~~
Lillian and Byakuya were both concerned as fans went crazy when both of their accounts went radio silent on the same day. They knew it’d probably draw attention, but they hadn’t expected fans to panic like they were!
Lillian’s PR team was begging her to at least post something. Even if it was just a picture of what she was eating for lunch!
She had reluctantly done so, and things were calming down a bit.
That was, until the next day when Byakuya received another message.
He’d immediately gone to Lillian and showed her.
“I still see a ring on a finger, Ishigami. Break it off now. Final warning.” the message read while there was a picture attached.
The picture showed Senku, Taiju, and Yuzuriha at lunch at their school.
He saved screenshots of everything and the two of them made reports. Byakuya had spoken on the phone with Senku for about an hour. Senku insisted that he hadn’t seen anyone or anything out of the ordinary lately around the apartment or school. Byakuya had also caved and told Senku what was shaking him up so bad.
The boy had been understanding and had promised to be careful.
This time, the threat was taken a bit more seriously and taken a bit higher up in the chain. Unfortunately, the origin of the messages was still not able to be tracked. They were given some advice for what they could do though.
However, they were unsure if they could follow the advice given to them.
Byakuya and Lillian had listened as they were told, “We understand that you two are in a dedicated relationship. However, if you think there is any possibility that these threats may come to fruition, we recommend that you two fake breaking it off.”
The two shared a look.
Byakuya bit his lip before finally making a decision and saying, “Lil, I think we have to do it. This is the second time, and both have had close proximity pictures of Senku attached. I’m scared.”
Lillian nodded. It was going to be hard, but they were going to have to stage a messy break up.
~~~~~~
Senku raised a questioning brow as he heard a gasp echo through the classroom when one of his classmates checked their phone, and then said classmate began to stare at him and then back at their screen before blurting, “IS IT TRUE?” and disturbing the whole class.
Before he could even actually question whatever they were talking about, the other student was hushed as they were in the middle of a lesson. Senku just looked back at his notebook and continued working on his equations. He may still be required to attend the general science class that he was currently in, but that didn’t mean that he couldn't work on his advanced stuff while the teacher spoke of something basic that he already knew!
He then felt his phone buzz. His brow furrowed and he pulled it out of his pocket and checked it. He’d gotten an ungodly chain of text messages from Taiju. What?
He not so subtly stuck his phone on his desk, which usually wasn’t allowed, but the teacher was used to him doing so at this point as he would sometimes look up scientific articles on his phone.
He then scrolled through the messages that Taiju had sent him. They included screenshots of what was obviously some sort of tabloid article as well as what appeared to be screenshots of some posts from Lillian’s account.
He took in all of the information after texting the big oaf to calm down.
He furrowed his brow in confusion. Don’t get him wrong, he’s not one for love, but something was suspicious. His sentimental dad would not just break it off with the so-called woman of his dreams willy nilly. He observed the screenshots of photos from Lillian’s most recent posts.
She appeared to be wearing more makeup on her face than normal, so of which appeared to be giving her fake eye bags. Her eyes were extremely red as if she’d been crying for hours. One hand on her cheek as if about to rub some tears away, the absence of an engagement ring shining through in the photo. The post simply tagged with: ‘Status Update: Single again, y’all’ alongside multiple crying emojis.
Senku thought to himself, ‘This is most likely fake. Between the extra makeup to make her appear more disheveled and the situation that Byakuya told me was going on with his messages, this has got to be staged.’
He briefly glanced at another text that came through from Taiju and rolled his eyes. The big oaf was asking him if it was true again. He wasn’t going to dignify that one with a response.
He shut his phone’s screen off and glanced back at his notebook. He wasn’t going to waste any more time on that nonsense.
~~~~~~
Lillian nodded as Byakuya looked over her shoulder at the image she’d just posted. He winced. Man, people are really going to hate him now. He was not looking towards the social media backlash, but he was hoping that this would be an end to the threatening messages towards his son.
He tensed slightly as he heard a sniffle. He frowned as he realized Lillian had started crying for real. He sat beside her, and she leaned on him. He rubbed her back in support.
She was sniffling as she said, “I really didn’t want to post that one.”
She then rubbed her eyes before laughing a little and saying, “Well, at least this way we’ll have a private ceremony when we get back from space.”
Byakuya smiled softly before saying, “Yeah. There’s that. Oh, here’s your ring back!”
Lillian took the ring from him again and sighed. The two stayed close together as she fiddled with the ring.
She said, “I’m going to hide it in a drawer until we get back and tie the knot. It’s not safe to have it on until we can get hitched and all move in together in a more secure place.”
Byakuya nodded in understanding as he took his ring off too.
Lillian shot him a confused look before he said, “Keep mine with it. That way they’re together like we are. Besides, if the press or anyone happens to catch a photo of me with the ring still on it’ll ruin the facade.”
Lillian nodded in understanding.
~~~~~~
Senku huffed as he listened to his dad’s proclamation over facetime, “Senku! I’m sorry I forgot to tell you before now! It’s just a ploy!”
Senku cut Byakuya off from saying anything else as he said, “Relax, I figured that out by analyzing the picture and connecting it back to what’s been going on.”
Byakuya sighed in relief as Senku shook his head in exasperation, “I’d have to be an utter idiot and extremely unobservant to believe that post. I’ve listened to the two of you over facetime and phone conversations to know that there isn’t anything that would cause you two to actually separate.”
Byakuya responded, “Well that's a relief. I’ve been getting hate mail posts ever since the post went live.”
Senku responded, “I’d imagine so, considering how crazy some of Lillian’s fan base is.”
Byakuya nodded and looked back as he heard his name being called out by presumably Lillian.
He said, “Got to go now. Still stay safe though and never forget to lock the door when you leave for school!”
Senku nodded as he ended the call.
It was time to get to school.
~~~~~~
Avan watched as the boy left the apartment, locking the door behind himself.
No matter, getting in later would be no problem.
The bugs she’d planted in the apartment before she’d sent the first message had just given her all of the information she’d needed to know.
Lillian was supposed to remain single! She wasn’t supposed to get married like all of those other losers! Not to mention the differences in their ages was just downright disgusting! That stupid gold-digging man didn’t deserve Lillian! She was supposed to be the one person that could always be looked up to for remaining single and successful!
Ishigami Byakuya and Lillian Weinberg were trying to fool her!
Well, it wasn’t going to work.
They’d see.
Ishigami Byakuya would regret not following her demands.