Set immediately after Chapter -17 (130.5) of the manga. Also references Ch. 384/pg 15, in which Shuuhei says 'I went to Earth on a mission... and lost my right eye there.' Until that remark, I had always assumed that his injuries had spared his eye, but evidently that was not the case.

Disclaimer: Don't own, make no profit, just for fun. Yadda yadda yadda.

Pairing: Shuuhei/Kira. Yaoi lime. No like, see back button. Like, see review button. Thank you!

FRIENDLY INTEREST

Kira Izuru paused, hesitant, at the doorway of the room. Taking one more step would put him inside, breaching the delicate balance he'd been trying to maintain, between 'concerned' and 'invasive.'

"Y' might as well come in, you know. Standing around out there isn't doing either of us any good."

It was only by sheer force of willpower that Kira managed to avoid jumping clean out of his skin. He hadn't expected the other man to be awake... Tentatively, he slid the door open and stepped inside, pulling it closed behind him before he raised his eyes to the solitary figure in the bed.

Hisagi Shuuhei's face was still swathed in bandages, and the white linen was taking on a pinkish hue over where his right eye should have been.

Should have been.

"You, eh?" Hisagi said roughly, sitting up a little straighter in the starched bed. "What'd ya need?"

"Nothing, sir, I just... I came to see how you were doing," Kira answered softly. The roguish confidence he'd felt yesterday, when he'd bragged to Renji that he was probably more skilled than Shuuhei, was gone now, wiped away by the screams of Hollows and two sixth-year Shinigami trainees that would never draw breath again. Wiped away by the memory of Hisagi's bloodied face.

"How I'm doing?" Hisagi echoed with a snort. "Lost my teammates. Lost my eye. Lost my dignity, having a bunch of friggin' first-years save my ass."

Shocked, Kira automatically began to protest, until he saw the wry twist at the corner of Hisagi's mouth and realized the older student had been making a joke. Trying to, anyway.

"You... have a very disturbed sense of humor, Hisagi-senpai."

It had been meant as nothing more than an offhand comment, but Hisagi jerked upright in bed and stared at Kira as though he'd suddenly turned into a Hollow. Alarmed, Kira glanced back over his shoulder, finding nothing but the closed door.

By the time he turned back around, bewildered, Hisagi had started laughing; harsh, bitter laughter that he tried to muffle by biting his sleeve, laughter that had hysteria seeping in around the edges.

"Hisagi-san, what did I say?"

"Yesterday morning... Aoga. He said the same thing - that my sense of humor was disturbed," Hisagi explained, hiccuping a couple of times as he tried to get himself under control. "Never tell me that again, will he?"

Kira didn't have much of a response for that; Hisagi was clearly a finger's-breadth from the breaking point, a mixture of the strain and whatever drugs the Fourth had pumped him full of, trying to numb the pain of injuries both mental and physical.

Hisagi mumbled something under his breath, turning to glare at the twilight outside his window, and Kira stepped a bit closer, trying to hear.

"I'm sorry?"

"I said, 'idiot.' Aoga, not you. You're not an idiot, you're an absolute bloody witless moron. What were you three thinking, attacking a Hollow that size that you'd just seen kill two Shinigami with ten times your experience?!"

"I can't speak for the others, but mostly, I was hoping I could help you," Kira answered carefully, keeping his voice low and even. Hisagi's anger wasn't directed at him, he knew that. It didn't make being called a witless moron any more palatable, but he knew it anyway.

One second, Hisagi was staring at him, virtually boiling with uncontained fury - the next, he seemed to collapse in on himself, the passionate anger leaving his eye, muscles slackening as his head bowed.

"Yeah," he answered, so softly Kira almost missed it. "Help me. You did. I owe you three idiots my life. I'll have to recommend you to Unohana-taichou. She loves suicidally helpful morons like you." There was a long pause before he asked "What's your name, anyway? I've forgotten."

"I... I'm Kira. Izuru."

"Well, Kira Izuru, Unohana-taichou will be coming around to throw you out in a minute, so I'll say goodnight. Come back tomorrow."

"Is that an order?" Kira asked, bemused. Whatever drugs Hisagi was on must have been making him pretty loopy; he doubted it was normal for the older student to be quite so mercurial.

A snort of contempt answered him. "I've seen how well you follow orders, so no." Then, more gently, "It's just a request. Nice to spend time with someone who's not sticking needles in me."

Funny comment from a man with a tattoo, but Kira refrained from pointing out the irony. "Tomorrow, then," he answered, giving a short bow and turning for the door. Halfway there, though, he turned and glanced back. "I'm... sorry about your eye, Hisagi-senpai. I wish I could have acted sooner."

"Not an issue. Unohana and Kurotsuchi are making me a replacement."

Not sure whether he should be relieved or disturbed by that little revelation, Kira murmured a goodnight and ducked out.

"Heading back to the Fourth, Kira?"

He didn't jump. Really, he didn't. Though how someone with feet the size of Renji's could sneak up on anybody was beyond him. "Yes, I am."

"Che. Obsessive much? You tryin' to start something with Hisagi?"

"No!" Kira snapped, feeling a blush rising in his face and wishing his hair was long enough to hide his features. "Can't I have a friendly interest in his wellbeing without you interrogating me?"

"Friendly interest is visiting once, maybe twice, and buying him a drink when he gets out. You've been there every damn night for a week. What's the deal?"

"Shuuhei's lonely and he likes my company," Kira answered, perhaps a tad defensively, and Renji snickered.

"Shuuhei, is it? Not Hisagi-senpai?"

"He's given me permission to use his given name, yes."

"Okay, so it's not you that's tryin' to start something. You gonna tell him yes when he asks to pop your pretty ass?"

"Abarai!" He sounded scandalized, and rightly so. But, underneath that, he couldn't help wondering just how he would react if Shuuhei did proposition him.

Not, he thought wryly to himself as he waved Renji off and followed the now-familiar pathways to Unohana's division, that Shuuhei-senpai propositioning him was particularly likely. The man was so quiet, so self-contained! Well, he was quiet and self-contained when he wasn't on high amounts of painkillers, anyway.

When Shuuhei was sober, he was a sea of calm in the controlled chaos that was the Seireitei. What could someone like him ever want that someone like Kira could give him? Why would he ever want...

As the last thought unwound in his head, he stopped short on the path and groaned. It couldn't all have been Renji's fault; the redhead wasn't convincing enough to put these emotions into Kira's mind purely by force of will, which meant Kira must have been feeling those feelings all on his own, and simply not been aware of it.

He wanted Shuuhei to proposition him.

He wanted Shuuhei.

He had barely raised his hand to knock when Shuuhei's voice, only faintly muffled by the thin door, halted the action.

"Come in, Izuru."

The steady, even tone in his senpai's voice was a balm to Kira's nerves, which had spent the long walk from the Academy to the Fourth Division harping over Renji's comments. Certainly Shuuhei wasn't interested in Kira, he was just being polite... wasn't he?

He knew Shuuhei enjoyed his visits; the man told him so, honesty apparent in his remaining eye, and every night, he would call after Kira to 'Come back tomorrow!' The tone was imperious and commanding and a complete joke, one of many that was beginning between them.

Shuuhei's sense of humor was ironic, twisted, and a bit macabre, though perhaps the last was unavoidable as you became more experienced as a Shinigami. However, he made jokes, weak or disturbing as they might have been, though they had become funnier as the week had worn on and he regained his emotional footing. Although Kira didn't understand how, Hisagi was coping.

"Good evening, Shuu..." Trailing off, Kira stopped short just into the room. Shuuhei was sitting up in bed, his face unbandaged for the first time. The scars were there; raw and ugly and rough-edged, still pink-tinged and healing. Kira hadn't seen them since that night, hadn't realized what they'd done to that elegant, youthful face - Hisagi looked so much older, so much harder, that it was hard to believe it was the same cooly confident student who had lead them through the Senkaimon only a week before.

The scars weren't what caused Kira's surprise, though. Shuuhei was staring back at him with two eyes.

"Shuuhei-san, your... your eye!"

A few rapid blinks answered him. "They operated this morning," Hisagi said after a moment, answering the unasked question. "It's still blurry, but it works."

"I'm happy for you," Kira said softly, finally pulling the door closed behind him and stepping in.

"You looked so shocked when you first saw me. Are the scars that bad?" Something in the tone, or rather, the lack of tone, caught Kira's attention. Even the quiet, stone-calm Hisagi had undercurrents of emotion running through everything he said - it was when the expression vanished from his voice all together that he was trying to hide something.

"They don't bother me, if that's what you're asking," Kira answered, keeping his tone carefully mild. "Don't forget, I saw them when they were fresh."

Shuuhei snorted. "That isn't what I asked, Izuru. How bad are they? Damned idiots won't let me have a mirror."

"They're probably afraid you'd spend your free time primping," Kira teased, trying for a little levity; Hisagi's dry, narrow-eyed gaze informed him that his efforts had fallen flat.

"They aren't bad," he relented. "They're still healing, and it shows, but they were clean wounds, and they should heal well." He didn't want to mention his earlier thoughts - how much they had aged that youthful face - but even after only a week's acquaintance, Hisagi was able to read him only too clearly.

"What aren't you telling me, Izuru? What was that sadness on your face when you first saw me?"

"Am I really that transparent?" Kira asked, with mild despair. If Shuuhei could read his expressions that easily, what else would the man notice? Would he realize that Kira was beginning to wonder how right Renji was - that Kira was developing an interest in Hisagi that went beyond mere friendship?

"Stop panicking. And yes, you're as transparent as window glass. So tell."

Crap. "Ithoughttheymadeyoulookolder," Kira answered in a rush, hoping against hope that Shuuhei wouldn't look deep enough to see why he was panicking, and just attribute it to his earlier questions...

He'd expected Shuuhei would ask him to repeat himself, and felt obscurely disappointed when the elder grunted slightly and leaned back against his pillows. "Older, huh? Not hideous?"

"No!" he exclaimed, and, before he could think to control his tongue, "Nothing could make you hideous, Hisagi-san!!"

That earned him a raised eyebrow; Kira felt the blush crawling up his face towards his hairline, and vowed to start growing his hair out until it was long enough to hide his damned blushes behind. There were distinct disadvantages to being the palest-complected person in the entire class, and the blushing was one of the biggest.

"I thought I told you to call me Shuuhei," was the only comment, and Kira felt his blush intensifying. At this rate, his face would burn clear off from embarrassment, and he wouldn't have to worry about blushing anymore.

Kira threw himself face-down on his bed with a moan, earning himself a knowing look from Renji, who was lying on his stomach on his own bed, homework stacked around him.

"Make an idiot of yourself, did you?" his roommate inquired, turning another page in the textbook he was breezing through.

The only answer he received was another inarticulate groan as Kira attempted to suffocate himself with a pillow.

"If you want me to pretend to be sympathetic, you're gonna have to take your face out of the pillow and your head outta your ass, and tell me what you did," Renji grumbled at him, pausing to scribble in a notebook near his elbow.

"I... kinda-sorta told Hisagi that he's beautiful."

Renji stopped in mid-scribble, leaving an inkblot the size of his thumbnail on the page; cursing, he patted it off with the corner of the bedsheet before turning to stare at his roommate.

"You told Hisagi Shuuhei, the sixth-year legend that you're so enamored with, that he's beautiful?!"

Another groan, and Kira buried his face back in the pillow to make another attempt at suffocating himself to death. Or undeath, since they were technically dead... or would that be un-undeath? Or -

Ow. That would be Renji, dragging him up off the bed by the back of his collar and staring at him incredulously. Funny, Kira hadn't heard him move...

"Hisagi. Beautiful. Really, Kira?"

"He got the bandages off his face today, and nobody in the Fourth will let him have a mirror."

"Probably because nobody in the Fourth has a mirror. Aside from Unohana, they all look like they just rolled outta the sewers. And how the hell do you wind up telling him he's beautiful because they won't give him a mirror?"

"He's upset," Kira answered, reaching behind his head with both hands to dislodge Renji's grip on his uniform. The other obediently dropped him back on his bed, and Kira settled cross-legged while Renji went back to sit on his own rumpled mattress.

"He thinks that they won't give him a mirror because his scars make him ugly, and they don't want him to find out. It's not true - the wounds are healing quite cleanly, and they replaced his eye this morning. He's not going to have more than a few lines raking down his face, no disfiguration. But he asked me if they made him hideous, and I said no but he didn't believe me, and when he asked again, I told him that he could never be hideous, because his kind of beauty can't be damaged by scars."

"Poetic," Renji answered dryly, and Kira felt that damned blush start crawling up his face again. Maybe he should start borrowing Hinamori's foundation?

Oh, yes, that would go over well. If telling a male student he was beautiful wasn't enough to start rumors, the makeup certainly would.

"What am I going to do, Renji? He's not the kind of person that would have any interest in me! And now I've gone and made an idiot of myself and he's probably going to hate me -"

The sharp knock on the door was enough to make them both jump; Kira caught the edge of the previously-suppressed reiatsu and let out a strangled yelp.

"Let me guess..." Renji muttered dryly. "Door's open," he called, loud enough to be heard, and took two quick steps across the room to haul Kira back from the window he was attempting to jump out of just as Hisagi walked into the room.

There was a very long silence as the older student observed the little tableaux, his eyes darkening, and Renji realized with a grimace exactly how bad this must look; Kira, one shoulder and the side of his chest bared from where Renji's yank had pulled his kosode crooked, both their beds mussed, Kira with his hair all over his flushed face from his attempts to do away with himself via abuse of the pillow.

And then, with a wave of wicked glee, inspiration came. Shifting his weight slightly, Renji tightened his grip on Kira's sleeve just a little bit....

And then, in one abrupt motion, twisted around, spinning the startled Kira away from the window and neatly into Shuuhei's chest, sending them both staggering while Renji vanished out the open window with a chuckle of 'have fun!'

He wasn't entirely sure what he'd walked in on. All he knew was that it hurt.

It hurt, seeing Izuru, sweet, kind, stupid Izuru, who had been visiting him nightly for the past week, with his skin bared, in the hands of another man.

Dimly, he recognized the 'other man' as that redheaded punk from Kira's group in the assignment - hard to mistake that hair for anyone else - but before he could process the thought farther, the redhead grinned wickedly, and used his grip to spin Kira across the room and into Shuuhei's arms before sailing out the window.

"Have fun!" he shouted over his shoulder, vanishing into the night.

He'd get in terrible trouble if he were caught; first-years had curfew during the week, but he had Rukongai written all over him. Probably he was smart enough to avoid getting caught.

All thoughts of the rouge redhead were driven out of his mind, however, when Kira's warm body impacted his chest, slender fingers curling instinctively into Hisagi's kosode as they both stumbled, and Shuuhei found himself wrapping his arms around the smaller boy to keep them both on their feet.

They stood like that for a second, regaining their balance, and he could feel Kira tense with nerves until he was rigid in Shuuhei's arms.

Glancing down at the younger man - they were literally nose-to-nose in this position, Shuuhei tried to come up with something clever and witty to put the blond at ease.

"Hi."

Kira blinked. 'Hi'? Renji had just - literally! - thrown him into Shuuhei's arms, and all Shuuhei could say was 'hi'?

"Hello, Hisagi-san."

A low sigh gusted against his ear, and Kira couldn't help the shiver that racked his frame as the tickle it caused.

"I already told you. Call me Shuuhei."

The words were spoken close - so close! - to his ear, Shuuhei's mouth only a hair's-breadth from the skin.

"Hai, Sh-Shuuhei," Kira stammered, and shivered again when Shuuhei chuckled, the vibrations echoing through his chest and into Kira's own. "How... how are you?"

"Worried," came the low reply, and when Kira blinked inquiry at him, unable to get his tongue or mind to form words, he grinned and elaborated. "When you took off running earlier, I was afraid I wouldn't see you again."

"So you... came after me? Why?"

"Because I want to keep seeing you, of course."

Why, why did he have to phrase it like that, like there was something between them, something -

"I like our nights together," Shuuhei whispered, his mouth very close to Kira's ear, and then his mouth was ON Kira's ear, nibbling delicately at the earlobe, and Kira found that he made rather embarrassing squeaking noises when Shuuhei did that, but he did not object at all. And even if he had objected - not likely! - the delicious sensation of lips and teeth playing delicately over that little bit of flesh was turing his brain into something that probably resembled rice pudding, and was about as functional.

"Uhm... ah... uhm!"

Blessedly, Shuuhei pulled back a few inches, enough to give Kira room to think, and regarded him with a stern gaze.

"Izuru, talk to me. Do you want this to go farther?"

He couldn't get the word 'yes!' out fast enough - or at all, for that matter - and settled for nodding his head sharply, tightening his fingers in the older student's clothes when Hisagi drew back.

"Izuru, listen. I need you to be absolutely positive about this. I don't want it to be some kind of.. guilt-trip or hero-worship. I need to know that this is... something to you, something real."

Kira couldn't have forced words through his throat at that moment if his life depended on it, so he settled for reassuring the other in the only way he could; using his grip on Shuuhei's kosode to haul him forward into a kiss that left his body burning.

Hisagi tasted almost sweet, almonds and cinnamon, with a faint, bitter undertone that was probably the medications he'd been on. His tongue was rough, pressing back against Kira's own, and quite suddenly he was dominating the kiss, hot and hard and fierce, the press of lips and teeth bruising both their mouths, and Kira found himself melting under the surge of passion and reiatsu.

They stumbled backwards, somehow making their way to Kira's bed without falling; Shuuhei took full advantage of Izuru's loosened kosode, running a callus-roughened hand across the delicate skin of Kira's chest, down his sides, short nails scratching restlessly over Kira's ribs, causing the smaller man to squirm, moaning into the kiss.

And when Kira was on his back on the mattress, chest bared, arms pinned down with Hisagi's strong hands around his wrists, Hisagi's knees on either side of Kira's hips, the older student stopped again, panting softly with desire, and stared down at Kira's lust-hazed blue eyes.

"You're sure?" he whispered again, his voice rough, and Kira found enough of his brain capacity to mutter 'dammit, Shuuhei!' and buck his hips upward. Hard heat ground against hard heat, and he thought he saw Hisagi's eyes cross.

Things blurred after that; clothes were shed, skin revealed, Kira's ivory a startling contrast to Shuuhei's pale gold, and fingers and lips and tongues explored with fervor. A vial of oil appeared - Kira thought it might have been from Renji's nightstand, that would piss his roommate off but good come morning! - and those touches grew deeper, firmer, more purposeful.

Kira was, in every way, a virgin; Hisagi was not, and he led the younger through the explorations, being as gentle as their combined passion would allow, until the pain was eclipsed and overwhelmed by the pleasure and he swallowed Kira's screams of completion, screams he thought might have been his name.

Kira expected Hisagi to leave when they were finished, but much to his surprise, the older student prudently wiped them both clean with a spare towel, retrieved and untangled the bedsheets, and pulled Kira tight against his chest, one arm resting possessively over the blond's waist. Pressing a single, sweet kiss to the back of Kira's neck, just under his sweat-dampened hairline, he whispered a goodnight and quickly slipped into sleep.

Surprised but not at all displeased, Kira drifted off with Shuuhei's breath warm in his hair.

"Wake up, you idiot, you're gonna be late for class!!"

Kira came awake with a start, confused about several things at once, mostly why his bed was so narrow and his back was so hot, until what he'd thought was the wall behind his back moved and a callused hand tickled over his bare stomach.

Startled, he whipped around to stare at the man still occupying the other half of his bed. "Hisagi-san!"

Sleep-glazed eyes cast him an incredulous look. "Izuru, I really think we can dispense with the formalities, don't you?"

The memories of the previous night flooded back over Kira in a welcome wave, bringing a wide grin to his face. "Hai, Shuuhei -"

"OY!" A clean uniform sailed across the room to smack Kira directly in the face. Swearing - mostly with words he'd picked up from his indelicate roommate, who was currently scowling at them both from in front of Kira's clothes-chest - he yanked the mussed fabric off his head to glare at Renji.

"Do you mind?"

"Kira, I don't give a flyin' rat's ass who you're sleeping with, I know ya like Hisagi so I'm glad for you, but, in case you didn't hear me a second ago, you're gonna be late for class!"

Kira processed that for a half a second, then glanced at the angle of the sun slanting through their window and realized that Renji was, unfortunately, correct. He had less than ten minutes to get himself washed, dressed, hopefully fed, and across half the campus to the teaching halls.

"Go," Hisagi laughed behind him, and a warm kiss settled against the back of Kira's neck before firm hands pushed him out of the bed. "I have to report back to the Fourth for them to evaluate my new eye, so I'll be occupied for the day."

"Aa," Kira answered shortly, scrambling to retrieve his soap and towels and the clean uniform Renji had thrown at him, trying not to wince at the sting in his overtaxed muscles.

A faint frown flicked across Shuuhei's face at Kira's dismissive tone, but it vanished again when the blond paused halfway across the room, strode back, twined his fingers into Shuuhei's dark hair, and pulled him forward into another of those soul-searing kisses.

When they pulled apart, Kira blinked down at him, a a contented smile lingering at the edges of his ocean-blue eyes. "Shuuhei?"

"Yeah?"

"Come back tonight."

END