Sorry I haven't written in aaaaggggeeess. I'm back at scholl, which means lots of super fun GCSE coursework and the like. Sigh.
This chapter is dedicated to Niki, who nearly fainted a couple of weeks ago at the sight of Renji's tattoos. XD
Renji was scared. And not just 'oh crap there's a hollow coming towards me and I left my zanpakutou at home' scared. Proper, paralysing, heat-of-battle, chatting-with-Gin-Ichimaru, Captain-Kuichiki's-gonna- rape-me scared.
But interestingly, he wasn't doing any of the above. He wasn't even having any of the above done to him. No, right now he was hanging around on Ichigo Kurosaki's roof. And he was practically being sick with terror.
Captain Kuchiki had given him the day off to come to the human world. That in itself was about as surprising (and likely) as Nanao admitting that she secretly cherished a mad, uncontrollable, burning desire for captain Kyouraku, but Renji suspected that Byakuya had his own motives for letting Renji go. Possibly something to do with the way he'd whispered 'watch them!' just as Renji had been about to leave.
And so Renji was, like a good lieutenant, following orders and watching them. Well, watching Ichigo. But it counted, didn't it? After all, he couldn't spy on them both at once, and if they weren't together he was going to have to stalk each in turn. And it was Ichigo's turn first.
So far, nothing interesting had happened. It was a report that would have made even his work obsessed captain snore. All Ichigo seemed to do was shout at that annoying stuffed animal of his and do homework.
Renji wondered how he'd phrase all this in a report. He considered writing it in code, that might spice it up a little. Otherwise, the most interesting thing about it was going to be the surprise appearance of Ichigo's maniac father, but he left almost as quickly as he'd arrived. No sooner had he leapt through the door had Ichigo punched him and he'd fallen out the room again.
It probably wouldn't be a good idea to mention in his groundbreaking summary of the mission that Ichigo had good reflexes. It might be taken the wrong way. And Byakuya would have skinned the boy alive.
In my report, I'll call Ichigo 'Target'. Or maybe 'Perp'… Renji thought to himself, now watching Ichigo smack Kon onto the floor for making a very suggestive comment about his mother.
By the way, wondering why exactly Renji was thinking such insanely stupid and irrelevant things when he should have been getting on with the task at hand? It's because, as was previously mentioned, Renji was shit scared. And therefore was occupying his mind with anything other than what he was working himself up to do.
He'd been bracing himself for this moment for the last two days. He'd been to see anyone and everyone, desperate for advice.
How do you tell someone that you really like them?
Rangiku's answer was simple.
'Get 'em drunk,' she said confidently, 'that way, you'll have got it off your chest and if they don't feel the same way, you can both pretend it never happened!'
'That's a terrible idea, you idiot!' her captain had snapped, his head barely visible above his desk (the guy really was short).
'Abarai, just go and tell them face to face.'
'You think that's what I should do?' Renji asked uncertainly.
Toushiro raised an eyebrow from behind his stack of paperwork.
'Will it get you out of my office?'
Renji nodded.
'Then yes, that's what I think you should do.'
'Don't listen to him, Renji!' Rangiku declared, leaping up off the couch and waving her sake bottle like a flag, 'he just wants to get you outta here!'
She turned and pointed an accusing finger at her young captain.
'If that's what you really think, taichou, then why haven't you told Hinamori you like her?'
The temperature plummeted so fast that Renji's eyes couldn't keep up with the thermometer on the wall.
'Rangiku. Listen to me closely. I. Do not. Like. Momo. Did you understand that?'
Rangiku rolled her eyes, and said, in a voice that was dripping with sarcasm; 'Oh, ok, I'm sure.'
Renji left before the room froze over, still without any idea as to what to say to Ichigo.
After two days, Iba's moustache had started to return to normal and he was daring to venture into the outside world again. This meant that he, Renji, Ikkaku, and Shuuei had been able to have their weekly poker game, and Renji had been able to use the opportunity to ask his friends for advice.
'Who dya wanna tell?' was Ikkaku's immediate response.
'No one you know,' Renji lied, giving a meaningful glance in Shuuei's direction, who looked away.
'But it's someone Shuuei knows?' asked Ikkaku shrewdly, spotting the look that passed between the two.
'I got an idea. Buy 'em sparkly crap,' Iba suggested, 'nothin' says I like you like crap.'
There was a pause.
'No wonder you can't get a girlfriend,' Shuuei snorted, whilst Iba re-ran what he'd just said through his mind.
'Oh shut up,' he growled, once he got what he'd said, 'I didn't mean give 'em crap crap. I meant, girls love gettin' things like necklaces and jewellery and stuff. Makes 'em feel special. Unique. 'Specially if ya get somethin' they said they like, cos they don't expect ya to remember insignificant details like that.'
'How the hell do you know that?' Renji asked, both impressed and dumbfounded.
'My mum told me.'
'So it's not really your idea then, is it Iba, if you got it from yer mum…'
'I reckon you shouldn't say anythin' buddy,' was Ikkaku's reply, 'Who'd wanna date you? You'd just get rejected. The only person you can get is Shuuei, an' he's a guy. And he was drunk to boot.'
The conversation deteriorated here, probably because Shuuei and Renji simultaneously jumped Ikkaku and attempted to strangle him. Iba, who Ikkaku had been insulting all week about his facial hair, did nothing to stop them.
So they were no good either.
Renji had next visited Yumichika. He was starting to feel like he was living in a déjà vu. Hadn't he only just been running around like a rabbit the other day? He thought he was done with all of that.
'Well, Renji, if it was me you were attempting to impress…' Yumichika smiled slightly at him, and fluttered his eyelashes, 'not, of course, that you wouldn't try and impress me. After all, there is no one who could see beauty such as mine and not want it all for themselves…'
Oh god, he was getting into one of his 'I'm so darn beautiful!' rants. Mercifully, it was a fairly short one by Yumichika's standards. A mere eight and a half minutes later, Renji asked him again, and this time managed to get an answer. Kind of.
'Take them out somewhere. Be extra nice to them. Spent time together, and flatter them constantly. Only then is it safe to tell someone you like them, as by that point they should have figured it out for themselves,' Yumichika sighed dramatically, 'I have to tell you though Renji, on someone who has taste, these methods never work. I know all about these techniques, because you wouldn't believe the amount of people who attempt to win me over with such superficial gestures. Why do such people even think they stand a chance with me…'
They were back to Yumichika's favourite subject –himself- again.
'Err, right. Well, thanks Yumi. I guess,' Renji decided to leave quickly, before he had to listen to the pretty boy talk about how beautiful his own voice was.
'If only there was someone worthy of me…
'Bye!' Renji attempted to make his getaway.
'Is the Squad Nine lieutenant still single?' Yumichika asked suddenly.
'What, Shuuei?' Renji was a bit taken aback, 'Err, I think so…'
'Really?' Yumichika's smile was dazzling. Oh dear. Poor Shuuei didn't stand a chance.
After leaving Yumichika and gamely warning Shuuei of his newest admirer (Shuuei, quite rightly, sprinted off and barricaded himself in his office) Renji made a trip around the whole Seireitei, asking everyone he knew for advice.
Momo, like Toushiro, said Renji should just come clean. Of course, when Renji asked if she'd said that to Shiro-chan, she just turned scarlet and muttered something about 'having a lot of paperwork to do so bye'.
Captain Kyouraku said he should write a letter. Renji was quite taken by this idea, until Shusui offered to give him some help.
'I write lots of love letters to my beloved Nanao-chan,' he smiled serenely.
Renji decided then and there that if he did write a love-letter, he would not be asking the Squad Eight captain for help. Shunsui's letter writing clearly did not have the desired effect.
Zaraki told him to beat whoever it was with a stick until they submitted. Renji suspected that the Squad Eleven captain didn't have a clue what he had asked. He only understood one thing.
'I hear yer goin' to the human world? You best tell Ichigo to get his ass over here so I can kick it back to where it belongs!'
Yachiru said that you should always tell people when you like them.
'But you have to find out if they like someone else first,' she warned, 'that's what I'm doing. Spying!'
She giggled, and carried on trying to force Maki-maki, or whatever his name was, to eat the pie she had made out of cardboard.
'Yummy! Come on, Maki-maki, I made this pie special, it's called love-fest!' she kept saying, 'Yum, yum, eat up! Mmmm!'
'I didn't know you had a crush on someone, Yachiru-chan,' Renji asked slyly, 'who is it?'
'Not sayin'!' she giggled, blushing, 'Come on, Scraggly Moustache, eat up!'
'Please? What division is he in?' Renji teased.
'Ten. It's easy for me to spy, cos he's next door,' she grinned up at Renji, giggling like mad, 'I watch him sometimes over the wall, and see if he has a girlfriend or not. So far he doesn't…'
Yachiru paused and looked around, then whispered conspiratorially.
'He once wrote a girl a letter saying that he liked her, but I stole it before it got to her, so she doesn't know.'
She looked at Renji endearingly.
'Ne, don't tell anyone, Pencil Brows?'
'Promise.'
'Kay! His name issss…' she stood on her victim's head – sorry, sorry, her subordinate's head- and whispered in Renji's ear.
He left the division in amazement. Who knew that Yachiru had such a big crush on Captain Hitsugaya? That was kind of cute, actually. They were about the same size…
Renji learnt that day that absolutely no one in the Seireitei had any experience whatsoever at dealing with romantic matters. The advice he got was absolutely terrible. Apart from Zaraki's 'beat 'em with a stick', he got 'buy them candy!' from Jyuushiro Ukitake, 'Romance? What is that? Some kind of disease?' from Mayuri Kurosutchi, the disturbing; 'tell them you would kill for them' from Izuru Kira, and 'Get out of my office, you moron, do you think I have time to be sitting around gossiping about your love-life?!'
Naturally, the last one was from Soi Fong. She had also thrown a vase at him.
Renji got to the Squad Six office, was about to knock, then simply turned around and walked away. There was little point in asking Byakuya, even if he had been married once.
So, as he stood on top of Ichigo's roof, listening to the sound of the orange haired teenager tying Kon to the bottom of his bed, Renji was willing to admit he was scared. He'd never done anything like this before, and now he was about to walk in there completely unprepared, and tell Ichigo that he liked him.
It had taken a while for it to sink in. When Shuuei had told him that he had thought Shuuei was Ichigo (if you understood that. It made sense in his mind, anyway), Renji assumed it was just because he was drunk and Ichigo had taken him home.
But after a while, he'd begun to think that maybe it was more to do with the way Ichigo never seemed to give up, and the way he dared act obnoxious to Byakuya Kuchiki, and the way he constantly put his life on the line for his friends.
And then when he was lying in bed – the same bed which, twenty fours hours earlier (ish), had been occupied by Shuuei- he thought that maybe it had something to do with the way Ichigo's hair stuck up all over the place, and the broadness of his shoulders, and those deep brown eyes.
By morning, Renji knew he liked Ichigo.
He also knew he was screwed. Because he'd never actually told anyone that he liked them before. But he somehow felt that it would have been weird if he didn't say anything.
So, he was on the roof. And feeling oh-my-god-my-captain's-gonna-rape-me scared.
Renji gritted his teeth. He was gonna just go in there and do it. he was Renji Abarai, dammit, the lieutenant of Squad Six! Something like this should have been easy for him. Right. He was gonna do it. Now.
Right.
Right now.
Yeah…
Five minutes later, Renji decided that enough was enough. He leapt off the roof and, while his resolve was still set, knocked on Ichigo's window.
Reviews? please? xxx