AN: The way I portray Rukia at the beginning is entirely out of character. Which is my intent; you see, Rukia is smart, takes up the role of an innocent girl (as you can often see in the manga/anime when Rukia is on Earth), etc. so it's only natural to act like a sweet kid in front of her brother.
Of course, Renji doesn't know it in the beginning… oh, you poor thing (-cackles evilly-) And thank you, my only reviewer! You shall be loved ; D. And I'll try to squeeze in some of that pairing you asked for. They need more love anyway ; D.
Chapter 2: The one with the flour
"Sooo, I take it you got the job?" Ichigo asked, letting his best friend into his apartment who was grinning from ear to ear.
"You bet your ass I did, man!" he exclaimed, slapping a hand across his mouth once he spoke the sentence. Ichigo raised a questioning eyebrow at him. "It's 'cause I have to watch this kid. I can't go around and say 'ass' when the girl is near me. Gotta watch my language, y'know?" he explained.
"I'm sure that Rukia-kid knows the word 'ass', Renji," Ichigo replied, shrugging. "So, how's the kid? Did you meet her?"
"Yeah, it'll be a breeze," Renji replied, grinning. "She's pretty adorable, and obedient. Then again, aren't girls usually less trouble? Bah, doesn't matter, at least she's a good kid! Calls her brother 'nii-sama' though. Che, seems kinda formal, but whatever." Ichigo nodded as he grabbed two bottles of beer from the fridge and tossed one to Renji, who took it gratefully. After that tense and awkward meeting with his new boss, he sure could use something to loosen him up a little.
"Anyway, how is Kuchiki Byakuya?" Ichigo asked, flopping onto the couch. He took a sip from his beer, watching amusedly as Renji splattered his all over the floor when he mentioned the name. "Whoops, you didn't know that I know him? I used to work for the guy, stuck-up jerk but so frickin' hot."
"Bastard," Renji growled. "Couldn't you have warned me that he was the world's biggest asshole on the planet?" Ichigo grinned at him, not fazed at all by the menacing tone in Renji's voice.
"Must've slipped my mind," he said innocently. "Besides, you got the job, didn't you? And as usual, I was right. So, how much are you gonna get paid? If it's Byakuya, you'll get a fair amount of cash—he always was pretty generous when it came to that kind of stuff." He watched as Renji was cursing himself and blinked. "You didn't ask him how much it was gonna pay? Man, you're an idiot," he continued, laughing slightly when Renji chucked the already-broken remote control of his TV at him. He easily dodged it, since Renji didn't have the best aim in the world.
"Damn fruity," he muttered, scowling.
"Well, there's another 'damn fruity' coming over for dinner tonight too," his orange-haired friend said.
"Wha—Ishida? He doesn't like me that much," Renji commented. "And he doesn't like you either, what did you do? Blackmail him into coming here or something?"
"Ishida will take anything that's free, you know that. Both of you are a bunch of freeloaders," he muttered afterwards, ignoring the protests coming from Renji. "And we're colleagues, so we need to be able to stand in the same room without killing each other, or else the office will turn into a warzone, don't ya think?"
Renji waved him off. "So? You bunch of secretaries need to have a little excitement in your life anyway," he said.
"Damn it Renji, for the last time, I'm not a—"
"Whatever. What're we havin' for dinner?" Ichigo chucked a spoon at his head, hitting him square in the face. Unlike Renji, Ichigo had a wonderful aim. "Ouch! Damn it, this is the last time I'm honouring you with my presence!"
"Oh please almighty Renji, would you please forgive me for my insolence?" Ichigo said sarcastically, rolling his eyes.
"You're forgiven, my loyal subject. I shall grace you with my presence tomorrow night as well!" He grinned when he saw Ichigo's horror-struck face and had to duck for an incoming knife this time.
"No way man, I got a date," Ichigo declared. Renji perked up a bit, closing in on Ichigo.
"Male or female? Name? Age? Hot or not?" he asked immediately—he had always been interested in Ichigo's love life, since the boy practically didn't have one. Sure, there were plenty of people crushing on him, but he always was oblivious when it came to things like that and, as Ichigo had told him once, he didn't fall in love that easily. There were just too many things on his mind and he hardly had time to even think about a relationship. Renji didn't understand—you could just go out and have some fun with a person, why would you immediately want to have a relationship with someone? They were just boring and the tattooed boy couldn't imagine himself committing himself to only one person. There was just too much of his hot body to go around.
"None of your business, not telling, twenty-one, hot," Ichigo said firmly, grinning slightly when Renji's faced drooped a little.
"Ah, come on! At least tell me if it's a he or a she!" he insisted. Ichigo sighed, rolling his eyes.
"Dude, you need to get a life yourself. It's a 'he', okay?" he replied, continuing to prepare dinner. "I might just tell you his name… if you cut the onions," Ichigo said, seeing the disappointed look on his friend's face when he noticed Ichigo wasn't going to tell him the name.
"Yes, sir!" he said happily, grabbing the onions.
The next day Renji headed out to his new job, wearing his normal clothes. A pair of ragged jeans, a simply t-shirt and his headband that he almost always wore. He didn't know whether or not it was enough for Kuchiki Byakuya, but he found that he didn't care too much. Clothes weren't really that important, he figured, so he didn't really care.
Renji didn't think the girl seemed to be too bad; she was only seven and when Byakuya told her to go to her room, she obeyed without question. So Renji didn't expect too much trouble from that girl anyway, and since she would be in school most of the time… well, that was only a good thing.
He arrived at seven-thirty as Byakuya had said and rang the door. It took Byakuya only seconds to answer it this time though and Renji had momentarily forgotten the cold stare the Kuchiki was always giving him. Is it just me or does he treat others the same? he thought vaguely, as the Byakuya just took a step aside and let him in, not even saying a 'hello'.
"Good morning to you too, boss," Renji said mockingly, saluting him in the progress. Byakuya scowled at him, taking a sip from the coffee he was holding in his hands.
"You should learn to—"
"Respect you? Yeah, yeah, but you ain't respecting me either, so I won't do it unless you start being a bit nicer to me," Renji said, interrupting him again. "So, where's the kid? What time does she have to be in school?" he asked, looking around for the small girl. Byakuya raised an eyebrow.
"Didn't I tell you? She is being home-schooled," he replied. Renji cocked his head to the side.
"Isn't that kind of lonely? I know this kid who was being home schooled too and man, was he miserable," he commented, giving Byakuya unnecessary information about people he didn't even know. He really wasn't interested.
"It was Rukia's own wish," he just said. "She's not the kind of person that easily makes friends, if you must know. She's rather on her own." Renji shrugged. "Besides that, she's highly intelligent and going to school would only hold her back. This way, she can develop everything more quickly."
"Nii-sama, is Renj—" both of the men looked up when they heard a small voice coming from down the hall and they turned around to see Rukia, who had stopped in the middle of her sentence, standing nervously in front of them. "Oh, he's here. Hello, Abarai-san," she said, giving him a small bow. Renji blinked at her, laughing slightly.
"Don't be so formal kid, just call me Renji," he said, waving her protests away. "Really, I hate it when people call me that—makes me feel old, y'know. I bet you don't like it to be called 'Kuchiki-sama' or something, do you?" Rukia immediately shook her head, smiling a little.
"Right, I take it you know most thing about taking care of a child?" Renji nodded, though he mentally shook his head. "Very good, then I will say what you are allowed to do and what you are allowed to do not. You are forbidden to hit her; if I so much as see a scratch on her by your doing, I will not hesitate to give it back to you one hundred times worse. Understood?" Renji rolled his eyes, but nodded. He wasn't that impressed with the menacing look the Byakuya gave him and he didn't look all that strong either, so he wasn't intimidated. Not that he would ever hurt the kid, but that was besides the point. "Good. You are not allowed to go into my office or my personal room, other than that you can go anywhere you wish, provided that you watch after Rukia, of course. You will also have to make lunch and dinner for me and her and, even though I do not agree with it, Rukia insists that you stay for dinner as well." Oh, that's nice of her, he vaguely thought, though he found it was pretty logical; after all, he made the dinner, so he should be able to enjoy it as well. "Other than that, please also make sure there is enough food in the house; if you go out shopping, take Rukia with you, but that's only natural, of course," he said, giving Renji a small smirk.
"Of course," he agreed. Byakuya nodded.
"I've left an envelope with some grocery money for this week, it should be more than enough—there is also another one, the yellow envelope, which has your money for the coming week. If I'm not satisfied with your work, I will let you go and if I am, you will move into my house and take care of Rukia fulltime." Renji nodded absentmindedly, only hearing the words 'your money' and barely registering anything else. It took him a couple of seconds before he realised that Byakuya had added something more.
"What! Move in here?" he demanded. "You never mentioned that before," he then continued to accuse, pointing at the man.
"It will be more convenient for the both of us," Byakuya said, shrugging. "You will be able to live here, for free, and you can take care of breakfast, lunch and dinner. Not to mention the fact that there will be many evenings I have to stay late at the office and there will be mornings I have to leave earlier."
Renji took a couple of moments to think about—he certainly was right when it came to the hours he had to work. Byakuya seemed to be a real workaholic, so it was only logical that he would be working as many hours as he needed to, which meant there would be a lot of changes in Renji's hours. If that was the case, was it really worth it going home just to sleep and only go back there a couple of hours later?
Besides that, he could live with Byakuya for free and earn money too, just by babysitting some sweet, little girl that wouldn't hurt a fly.
But, on the downside—he would have to live with Byakuya, who was a cold-hearted man. And sometimes quite scary. He thought about what Ichigo would say in such a case, before he promptly shook that thought out of his head ('Dude, what're you waiting for—that guy is hot, I'd so live with him just to have some mansex with him!'). Really, his best friend was quite useless sometimes.
"I'd like to think about it," Renji replied. Byakuya nodded.
"Good, then I'll be off. Good luck," he said, putting on his coat as he walked out the door.
"Have fun at work, boss!" Renji said mockingly, waving him off. Byakuya turned around, giving him a small glare, though Renji spotted a small bit of emotion in his eyes. It was gone in a flash as his new boss turned around and stepped into his black car. Renji sighed as he closed the door, looking around for his charge. Now where is that girl? Didn't she go into the kitchen… he wondered vaguely, heading into the direction Rukia had gone off to.
"Oi, Rukia? You there? You got breakfast yet?" he asked as he poked his head into the kitchen. He let out a shriek of surprise when he suddenly felt something thud on his head and when he saw flour everywhere. Someone had thrown a bag of flour onto his head. Whoever had done it, was going to die. Painfully. "Who the fu—" he was interrupted when a loud, girlish laughter came from the other side of the kitchen. He glanced into the direction and, through the cloud of flour, he saw Rukia laughing at him. She was pointing and laughing, at him! "Did you do this?" he growled, hardly believing it himself. This really was that shy little girl he had seen earlier?
Oh man… he groaned. If she was like this, he was going to have trouble.
"What if I did?" she asked him, mockingly as she put her hands on her hips and silently challenged him to do something about it. "Come on, funny-brows, you gotta clean up this mess. If nii-sama ever found out you actually dropped the bag of flour… he's going to be so mad," she grinned.
"F—funny-brows?" he asked in disbelief, pointing at the girl. "You're so dead! You're grounded for the rest of your life, you little rat! You clean up this mess right now, damn it, there's no way in hell I'm gonna do it!" Rukia just wiggled her index finger at him, shaking her head.
"Who do you think nii-sama will believe? Me, the cute little girl, or you? I think it's obvious he'd pick me," she said. Renji just stared at her with his mouth hanging open. This kid… she was actually seven? She was saying things he had never heard any seven year old say. Damn, so this is what Byakuya meant with the fact she had unusual intelligence? It was true, she was smart… but if she thought she could go against Renji, well, she was terribly mistaken. "Besides, you can't hurt me, I heard nii-sama tell you that! And you don't want to hurt the sister of one of the richest men in all of Japan, would you?" she questioned daringly, again mocking him.
"I'll get you," he growled, and leaped forward, lunging at her. She let out a shriek as he was able to grab her by the waist and lifted her up, throwing her over his shoulder. "If you honestly think I'm gonna let you walk all over me, just 'cause your rich and just 'cause your 'nii-sama' said I couldn't harm you, then you're really mistaken, kid. I ain't letting nobody walk all over me, got that? But I'm not one to treat others unfairly either, so let's make a deal; you clean up that mess and I'll make breakfast for ya, how's that?"
There was a moment of silence as Rukia took her time to think about the situation. There wasn't much she could do… and she really was craving pancakes, which she couldn't make. "Can you… make pancakes?" she asked him, her resolve fading slightly. He grinned, getting her away from his shoulder and held her high up in the air.
"I can, how much do ya want? Ten? Twenty? You need to get some fat, you hardly weigh anything!" Rukia huffed, crossing her arms.
"I want five, with syrup," she said, pouting slightly. Renji raised an eyebrow at her, staring. "Please?" she questioned, cocking her head.
"So you do have some manners, I'm surprised!" A little miniature glare was shot his way. "Now go clean that up, so I can get to work. When's your teacher going to be here?"
"Hanatarou-sensei should be here in half an hour," she said. Renji blinked. Hanatarou? I know him… vaguely, I think. "He's a real wimp," she stated, making Renji chuckle. "But he's nice too, so I guess that's alright. How come you have those weird eyebrows?" she asked.
"They're not eyebrows, but tattoos," Renji said absentmindedly as he searched the cabinets for the ingredients for the pancakes. He had completely forgotten about the fact that Byakuya didn't want her to know they were tattoos and quickly tried to talk himself out of it. "I—I mean, they're eyebrows. Very weird eyebrows," he added, grinning nervously at Rukia, who raised an eyebrow.
"Fool, I know what tattoos are. Nii-sama hates them," she said. "Anyway, it's not like I want them or something, they hurt," she continued, shrugging her shoulders as she sat down at the table. Renji was surprised the whole kitchen had been cleaned up so quickly by her. Well, not that this kid hadn't surprised him earlier—her whole change of attitude was surprising, as well as the fact that she talked and acted as a boy. She didn't seem to be like Byakuya at all either; she gave off more of a warm feeling, even though she seemed to be tough.
Definitely not like Byakuya.
After ten minutes, Renji was completely finished with her five pancakes, and two for himself (even though he had already had breakfast; the guy had a big stomach) and sat down at the table with her.
"How old are you?" Rukia asked. Renji raised an eyebrow, as he took a bite from his pancake.
"Twenty-one, why do you wanna know?" he retorted.
" 'Cause you're going to be my babysitter, right? I'll have to know some things about you. Married? Single? Divorced?" she continued asking. Renji spluttered.
"That's none of your business! What's that got to do with being your babysitter? I can see why you wanna know my age, but—"
"If you're going to live here, wouldn't it be a bit difficult for you if you are in a relationship? Fool," she added, raising an eyebrow at the now fuming Renji.
"Damn it, you're a real smartass, aren't ya?" She happily smiled at him and nodded. "But, as I said, I like making deals. So let's make one now, 'kay?" Rukia cocked her head, blinking.
"What kind of a deal?"
"For each question you ask me, I get to ask you one. And it can be about anything, so if I want to ask something about your brother, ya have to answer me and vice versa," Renji replied.
"You think I'm going to ask you something about my brother?" she asked, humour evident in her voice. Renji growled.
"Man, you're a difficult kid. Is it a deal?"
"Sure. What do you want to know?" Renji stroked his fake beard as he thought about it.
"Okay. Have you always been living with your brother?"
"Maybe. My turn! Are you single?" Renji blinked.
"Wait, that's hardly an answer!"
"Well, you never said how I was supposed to answer!" Rukia retorted stubbornly and pouted. Renji gave her a threatening glare however and she held up her hands. "Fine, fine. No, I've started living with him for a month now, I think. So, are you single?"
"Yes," Renji replied. "Been single for a long time now. "Where were you living before you came here?"
"At an orphanage!" the girl replied. The other raised an eyebrow, but before he got to press on, Rukia asked him the next question. "Do you like boys or girls?" Renji practically spit out the piece of pancake he had in his mouth.
"Excuse me?" he exclaimed. "You're seven! Act like one!" Rukia shrugged.
"There was this boy at the orphanage who liked boys. What's the big deal?" she asked innocently.
"I—I don't know if your brother's going to be happy hearing this," he muttered darkly, thinking about all the ways Byakuya was going to use for killing him.
"I promise I won't tell," she offered. Renji's narrowed his eyes at her, seeming to not believe her. "What? Just because I threw a bag of flour on your head, you don't trust me?"
"I don't trust evil things," he said darkly, even narrowing his eyes further. "But I guess, since you're so far ahead with these kind of things, I can tell ya. I like both."
"You like both?" Rukia repeated.
"Yeah, just don't tell your brother, got it? I'll be fired for sure and you'll get some old chick who smells and wears diapers for a babysitter. You wouldn't want that, would ya?" he threatened, grinning slightly at the way Rukia gulped.
"I won't tell," she repeated. "Your turn to ask a question."
"Right, right," Renji muttered, tapping his chin. "Ah! Why were you in the orphanage in the first place?" Rukia shrugged.
"I dunno, they told me someone had left me there and nobody came to pick me up again. Except for nii-sama, but he's not really my nii-sama. He says he was interested me because I look exactly like his wife who died a couple of months ago," she replied, shrugging. Renji blinked. Lost his wife? Well, that would certainly explain why he was so cold towards others, but it wouldn't explain the fact that he took in Rukia. If it had been Renji, he would have stayed away from people who looked like a loved one; they would only bring up memories, right? "Oh! Hanatorou-sensei's here!" Rukia exclaimed when the doorbell rang, seemingly happy about her sensei's arrival. She quickly jumped off her chair and ran to the door, opening it.
Renji tagged along and gasped when he saw the small and thin body of the teacher, black hair and the nervous eyes. "H-Hanatorou!" he said, waving at the man who was busy greeting his student. He looked up and blinked, before smiling nervously.
"Abarai-kun!" he replied. "It's been so long!"
"Yeah."
"You two know each other?" Rukia asked curiously.
"Sure do, we were in the same class together a couple of years ago," Renji replied. "Though, I can't say we got to see each other that much—I usually was always out getting myself or others into trouble," he grinned guiltily, rubbing the back of his head.
"Really? You seem like a troublemaker," Rukia agreed, crossing her arms and nodding her head. Renji huffed in annoyance.
"Che, what's that supposed to mean? Takes one to know one!" he retorted, sticking out his tongue at her.
"Peh, funny-brows!"
"Baldy."
"I'm not bald!"
"Your face is!"
"So? Your face is bald too!"
"No, it isn't."
"Yah-huh!"
"Nuh-uh!"
"Eh… Abarai-kun, Rukia-san, please—" Hanatorou began nervously, holding up his hand and smiling lightly at the fighting pair. They both stopped their argument and huffed.
"Well, I'm gonna clean up the kitchen," Renji said, sticking his nose up in the air as he headed back to the kitchen. Rukia sniffed too and headed to the 'classroom'.
"And I'm gonna study! Come on, Hanatorou-sensei," she tugged his hand and guided him through the house, all the while not noticing the small smile her teacher had on his face.
This was probably the first time in weeks that she had opened up a little.