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1. papercut

"Argh!"

The yell from down the hallway caused Ichigo to glance up from his essay: thesound of thrashing movement afterwards caused him to jump up and race towards thebedroom, heart slightly faster as he pulled out his substitute shinigami badge.

He burst through the door onto a cursing Renji, who was jumping up and down, hismiddle finger on his right hand stuck in his mouth. He didn't stop even whenIchigo came in, merely ignoring him in favour of getting louder in his angryyells. "What the hell is wrong?" Ichigo demanded as he strode over to the tallerman, stopping him from jumping about. Renji let out a few more swear words beforepulling his hand from his mouth.

"Stupid book," he said, pointing to the copy of Harry Potter he had beenattempting to read for the past week, and which now lay messily on the bed. "Gaveme a papercut."

Ichigo stared at him for a full minute before bursting into incredulous laughter."A papercut?" He gasped at Renji, who was steadily turning as red as his hair."All that noise over a little papercut?"

"It hurt, okay?" Renji snapped, but Ichigo just laughed harder. He beganinspecting his finger, which already looked clean of any marks, as if it life-threatening, complete with a five-year-old style pout. Ichigo thought aboutsmiling at that but decided not to. Renji glared at him. "You can stop laughingany time, you know," he grumbled.

Ichigo was sober for a few seconds. "Papercut," he said, and started laughingagain. After a few seconds he was almost helpless; he sat down heavily on thefloor, tears beginning to fog his vision. Renji kneeled down beside him and kissedhim hard, sucking on his bottom lips. Possibly, this was an attempt to shut himup. When he pulled away, Ichigo was gasping, though no longer from laughter.

"Forget about it," said Renji, his hand trailing downwards, "and I can make itworth your while."

That night, when Ichigo is pushed onto the bed by a hard body and a hot mouth, heremembers when Renji sweeps the book away with a careless hand. "Careful," hewhispers. "You don't want to get a papercut."

Renji's retaliation makes him wonder whether it's more worth his while to notforget about it.

2. weddings

"You," said Renji, with only a slight slur in his voice, "aren't very nice to me."

Ichigo tried to focus on him, but it was difficult when there was at least two ofhim. They have drunk - he tried to count - a lot of wine, but they are at awedding and what else are you supposed to do at a wedding?

"Whaddya mean?" Ichigo asked, as he watched a giggling Orihime fall into Ishida'sarms, who remained the lone sober person in the room. "Inoue looks nice," headded, almost absent-mindedly.

"No." Renji said firmly, possibly trying to point at him but really pointing over

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his right shoulder at an unconscious Chad. "You had your chance. Anyway, it's notInoue anymore, it's... Ithida?" He shook his head, as if attempting to clear hisears of water. Anyway," he went on, almost sounding as if he know what he wastalking about, "you have never been nice to me."

"I don't-" Ichigo lifted his head off of the table. "- know what you're talkingabout."

"It's not my fault you nearly got Rukia killed." Renji sounded sulky. "You didn'thave to almost kill me."

"You almost killed me too" Ichigo said in outrage, the effect of which was spoiledrather by the fact that he wasn't even looking anywhere near him. "It was self-defence!"

"And then you tried to beat me up when I came to your school." Renji looked almostheartbroken and was clearly not listening to a word that Ichigo was saying.

"That's because you were dressed like you were from the 60s. And then when youleft everyone thought I was gay."

"That would explain a lot," muttered Renji into his drink.

Ichigo stood up slowly, his face full of thunder. His foot caught on his chair; hestumbled and almost fell over, but regained his balance at the last moment andstraightened up, a slight pink tinge on his cheeks. "I'm not gay," he hissed.

Renji sneered at him. "Really? What kind of a gay name is 'Strawberry', anyway?"

"It's not 'Strawberry'," yelled Ichigo. Chad woke with a start. "It means - itmeans something I can't remember right now, but it's not 'Strawberry'."

Renji watched impassively. "Then how do you explain that you don't even care aboutany of the girls who've thrown themselves at you?"

"It's not that I don't care about them." Ichigo said, slightly uncomfortable."I've just known them for too long."

"What about her?" Renji asked, pointing to a pretty brunette from Ishida's side ofthe family. "Would you sleep with her?"

Ichigo looked at her for a long time. "I don't know," he said finally. "She's notreally my type."

"That's because your type is men." Renji nodded sagely.

"I'm not gay!" Ichigo yelled again, and then tried to punch him. He missed

completely. For Renji, this didn't matter - the intent was still there, and so helaunched himself forward with a yell.

The fight lasted barely five minutes: both men were simply too drunk to cause anydamage and the fight was made up of bad aim and immature insults. EventuallyIchigo became sick of it and jumped forward: Renji caught him and, spinning himaround, slammed him against the bar.

The spark of attraction that came from realising his friend was quite hot had longpassed that in Ichigo's mind. The sleepless night were long gone, replaced bydreams that touched upon uncomfortable and made awkward the new emotion between

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them. Every touch was felt for minutes afterwards, and though Renji hadn't seemedto have noticed anything, Ichigo went out of his way to avoid the slightest touch.The drink tonight accounted for the overabundance of contact, and also possiblyfor what Renji was doing.

The simple crush of lips moved on. Ichigo reacted and it became harder; thebattened down lust overflowed and he soon pulled Renji towards him with insistenthands that shook only a little. Renji's hands tangled in his hair as his tonguemoved past Ichigo's lips, and Ichigo was suddenly glad that he was being held up,even if it was against the hard, unrelenting bar.

Between the pulses of blood in his ears, he became aware of yelling. Renji pulledaway, clearly also hearing it, and both realised with horror that a spotlight wastrained on them. Blinking, Ichigo could just make out that it was Rukia who hadpositioned it on them. He shielded his face: everyone was staring at them, some,like a fair few of the shinigami, laughing, others, like Orihime, Rukia andTatsuki, cheering.

"RUKIA!" Renji gave chase to the girl with a murderous expression on his face.Rukia barely had to run, being the rather more sober one. Ichigo took a sip of hisdrink and smiled as he watched the two.

"I love weddings," he said to an unconscious Chad.

3. plasters

"ARGH!"

"Shut up, will you?"

"It hurts, you know!"

"All I know is that you're a baby."

"They're just plasters; you can stop hitting me now."

"Yes, but you're taking half my skin off with them."

"You're enjoying - AH! You did that on purpose!"

"...Yes."

"Kurosaki Ichigo, you're a sick bastard."

"This hurts me more than it hurts you."

"Shut up, you pretentious twat. You're clearly getting some sort of twisted

pleasure from this."

"I wouldn't if you weren't screaming in pain."

"It hurts!"

"It's your own fault for chasing Kon through that thorn bush."

"Got him though, didn't I?"

"And then you insisted I covered every scratch with these things because they had

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pictures of monkeys on them."

"They reminded me of Zabimaru! Anyway, if I knew it would hurt this much, Iwouldn't have bothered."

"For the love of - OW!"

"You're like a five-year-old who's -"

"OW!"

"- just fallen off his first bike."

"The only way any of this could be worth it would be if someone was kissing thembetter."

"..."

"No."

"Come on!"

"No!"

"Please?"

"No."

"Ichigo..."

"That was nice."

"Do it again."

"NO."

"But it's stopped hurting, Ichigo-sama."

"That is cruel and unnecessary flattery."

"Worked though, hasn't it?"

"That is really nice."

4. the art of smiling

The day that Soul Society found out that Kurosaki Ichigo and Abarai Renji were

sleeping together had started out as normal day (at least for the two involved:Yumichika had to spend an extra hour doing his hair after an incident withYachiru) that slowly, but surely, turned into something quite horrific.

To begin with, with hindsight, perhaps they shouldn t have left the door to Renji s rooms open. And perhaps, just perhaps, Renji shouldn t have told Hisagi that he d be there, and to send anyone looking for him there ( How was I supposed to know? I didn t even know Ichigo was coming over in the first place. ) Also, perhaps, and this was the biggest perhaps, perhaps they shouldn t have been having sex at 3 o clock in the afternoon though, as Renji pointed out, when is a good

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time then?

But they both agreed that if they d known it was going to be Ikkaku who walked in on them, they probably wouldn t have done any of those things. Because Ikkaku immediately told Yumichika, who then ran off and told Matsumoto, who then told theentire 10th Division during a routine training session, and from there onwardseverything was lost.

After all, it wasn t every day that the shinigami world found out that two of their captains (who were war heroes, no less) were sleeping together, or that theyhad been for a few months now. The fact that the two of them, who were fairlyloud, shout it from the rooftops people, could keep it secret for so long was enough of a shock for their friends that they could not even bring themselves tofeel angry over the fact that it had been secret.

Once the shock from that thought wore off, everyone was then struck with therealisation that this was Renji and Ichigo who were in a relationship. Ikkakuthought the world was ending; Yumichika pondered the extent of which it could beconsidered beautiful; Matsumoto announced that it was absolutely wonderful, andHitsugaya wandered off in search of some painkillers.

It was not long before their closest friends were being asked if they had knownanything about the affair. Most truthfully denied knowing a single thing, butRukia smiled mysteriously and refused to answer, while Byakuya murmured that Renji

had been his vice-captain, after all.

But to those who don t know them, the lower members of the divisions, they barely noticed anything out of the ordinary between the two when they met in the streets between divisions, their conversation was never unusual, and they spokeand left with grins, no displays of affection at all. And they still went out withthe other men they knew were their friends, and laughed and drank together, andstill rolled into their separate divisions at around 2am, Renji and Hisagidemanding that everyone get them more alcohol, while Hinamori tried to stop Ichigofrom waking up the entire 5th division.

But to those who really knew them, they began to notice things that they hadn t before. And, astonishingly, it wasn t even the most observant member of them who noticed it first.

Zaraki Kenpachi did not pride himself on having a large amount of brains, but moreon his fighting ability. Yumichika might scorn that as being an ugly thing to havein life (Zaraki just reckons that s the gay in him talking), but the captain feels that even without the best brain in the world, it s easy to learn and grow, and fighting has helped him to do that. He can read people like its second nature now;missing something in a battle means death, and he rather likes to win. The abilitythat he s honed and sharpened over the years has given him the edge that keeps him at the top, but to be honest, it s not just in a battle that he uses it, because,

after all, what sort of man would he be if he didn t use his advantage for things like blackmail?

He s always thought that there was something a bit odd about Ichigo, but then so did everyone else in Soul Society, because of that incident with Orihime and thenot jumping her bones. So he couldn t really base anything on him, because he was pretty much a given. He likes watching Abarai the most. A man like that, he neverlearnt to keep him emotions buried down, and Zaraki noticed the slight touches onIchigo s shoulder, the momentary silence when the orange haired boy entered the room. He s noticed the eyes that flick back and forth between the other man and whoever Abarai happens to be talking to.

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But now that s it out in the open, and Abarai can follow Ichigo around and make sure that he doesn t get into any trouble, like he is now in their monthly fighting session, Abarai seems to be more obvious that ever. Zaraki can feel theglares in the back of his head like he s actually being stabbed (not that it would make any difference, more likely to just cut the other captain) and when they re finished that sprawled along the ground, bleeding and laughing (Zaraki) andbreathless (Ichigo), Abarai runs up, desperate and annoyed and hits Ichigo softlyon the head as he helps him up.

If I knew that this was what it was like every week, he tells the bloody man, I wouldn t let you do it. And it s said in the kind of voice that implies death if he disagrees with his assessment of the situation, and yet it s accompanied by a smile that recognises the importance of the training.

Ichigo just gives him this happy little smirk, and Zaraki thinks that if they re going to be so obvious about it, the two faggots deserve each other anyway.

When Renji stumbles into the fourth division holding a semi-conscious 5th divisioncaptain in his arms, the poor members on duty thought that the apocalypse had comeand they were being attacked for the first time since Aizen had been defeated how else, they asked, could one of the strongest (if not the strongest) captainsin the Gotei 13 be in that state? Unohara checked her calendar and then realisedthat it was the day that the 5th squad captain fought the 11th squad captain andeverything calmed down a bit.

The rumours surrounding Renji and Ichigo had even made it all the way to the 4thdivision, and they, like everyone else in Soul Society, were desperate to see forthemselves if what they had heard was actually true. Their captain and vice-captain had to literally push people out of the way as they attempted to maketheir way into the room Ichigo had been placed in. Kotetsu yelled a lot; Unoharacommented calmly that she doubted such noise was beneficial for a healingenvironment, and gave the kind of smile that stuff fear into the parts of theheart that even Zaraki couldn t reach.

Judging by the slightly frantic look on Renji s face, Unohara doesn t think that he s seen the aftermath of a fight that had just taken place. She likes to think that it makes Aizen s destruction seem tame. But still, she reassures him, because they have literally done this a thousand times before, and the injuries are not solife threatening that the 5th squad captain will need to be kept in overnight.

There s a sort of relief on Renji s face when she says that that suggests that he hadn t really believed her when she said it wasn t life threatening, and only the action of actually sending Ichigo home would convince him. She likes that look ofcomplete joy, a moment of pure emotion in Sereitei, which has changed, evolvedsince the betrayal, and perhaps not for the better. She knows that people find ithard to trust now; she can see everyone wondering whether that person that they

think they know well is really who they think say they are. And so that wide,goofy grin on the 9th division captain s face is something she welcomes and greets and loves.

The guys , as Renji likes to call them, are a slightly rag-tag group, with Yumichika coming up first, dragging Hisagi behind him, and Iba bringing the rear,wondering if he s the only straight one in the place. They re the friends that they have that they can trust the most, who they know will always be there tofight for them or protect them, if needs be, and who ll understand if it s something that needs to be done solo. Renji drank with them and went out with themand laughed with them long before Ichigo came along, and now that he s here

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4th division had crowded around and was watching.

Rukia said later that she wished she'd been there with a video camera. Renji saidthat the last thing they needed was photographic evidence.