Title: Methods of Seduction
Author:
black_gooseFandom: Bleach
Pairing: Renji/Ichigo
Word count: 2014
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: Some swearing.
Summary: Yumichika knows these things, after all.
"So you know how you have a crush on Ichigo?"
"W-what are you talking about, Yumichika-san?"
"Please, Abarai-kun, don't try and deny it. These things are obvious to an eye like mine."
"I really don't know what ya mean!"
"Maybe ya've got it wrong, Yumi-"
"Be quiet, Ikkaku. I'm not wrong. Now then, are you going to do something about it or are you going to continue pulling on his pigtails?"
"Yo, Ichigo!"
Ichigo stumbled forward, almost losing his balance from the force of an arm flinging itself around his shoulders. He looked to his left to see Renji's head on his shoulder, grinning, bright and happy and thoroughly annoying. He pushed his head off; Renji laughed and fell into step with him, arm still slung around his shoulder.
"Get off me, won't you?" Ichigo pushed half-heartedly at the appendage. Renji tapped him on the head with a fist.
"Ya would have noticed if ya hadn't been spacing out so much," Renji said, smiling brazenly at the glare sent in his direction. "Don't stare a' me," he said in amusement, "it's not my fault if ya prefer daydreaming over being alert."
Ichigo did manage to push him off then. Renji paused for a moment, almost losing his smile, before speeding up and falling back into step, their arms brushing as they walked. "So who were ya dreaming about?" He asked, refusing to let the subject drop. "Ragiku-san?"
Ichigo flushed red; to his credit, he also denied the claim so profusely that Renji found it hard to work out whether his stab in the dark had been correct of not. "N-no! I would never-!"
"Orihime-chan?"
Ichigo stayed just as red. However, his eyebrows narrowed quite significantly. "Why?" He asked in a casual voice. "Would you?"
Renji shrugged, unsure with where the conversation was going. "I wouldn't say no," he admitted, his tone off-hand. Ichigo looked at him appraisingly. Renji looked back in perplex ion.
"Stay away from Inoue," he growled.
"Why?" Renji smirked. "Jealous?"
To his surprise, Ichigo blushed and avoided his eyes. "Not really," he muttered, embarrassment evident in his voice. Renji watched him for a couple of seconds.
"You know," he said finally, "ya pretty cute when you blush." Ichigo stared at him with wide, shocked eyes. Renji stuck his tongue out at him. "Shame about the rest of the time."
Ichigo turned his face away, left eye ticking, though a pink tinge made its way back across his nose. They carried on walking, Ichigo in an annoyed silence, until they reached the Urahara Shop. Ichigo sped up to lose him; Renji stuck his foot out so he ended up sprawled in the dust just inside the gate. Cackling, Renji stepped over him carefully. Ichigo grabbed hold of his trouser bottom, and his companion went down in a tumble of limbs. Ichigo laughed meanly and Renji basked in the attention.
"I don't... is it really that obvious?"
"It's about as obvious as Ikkaku's head."
"Oi!"
"I hope you realise, Abarai-kun, that the way you're going about this is completely wrong."
"What am I supposed to do, then? Ain't like I'm going to walk up to him and tell him flat out."
"That's always worked out for me."
"You ain't exactly normal, though, are ya, Yumichika?"
"Quiet, Ikkaku. Why don't you try being nice to him for once, Abarai-kun?"
The first time Renji said 'good morning' to Ichigo politely, Ichigo was so shocked that he stared blankly at him until Rukia came up, kicked him in the shin and told him to move. Rubbing his leg, Ichigo told her what had happened; she laughed incredulously at him and asked him if she'd hit him on the head too many times. Renji refused to comment.
The second time it happened in front of witnesses, which caused Ichigo to point wordlessly at him, sending a 'told-you-so' glance over at Rukia; Rukia to gape in disbelief at him, and Keigo to hide behind Mizuiro, muttering about the end of the world. When Orihime laid a hand on his forehead and asked, sweetly and quietly, if "Abarai-kun was felling okay," Renji had decided he'd had enough.
"I ain't gotta take this shit," he muttered, and went into the classroom, leaving some very confused people behind him.
The third time he did it, Ichigo punched him.
"What the hell is wrong with ya?" Renji snarled, sitting up from where he'd been sprawled on the corridor floor, and touching his jaw tentatively.
"What the hell is wrong with you?" Ichigo asked, glaring at him and shaking the tension from his hand. "Why'd you keep saying 'good morning' to me?"
"Che. Was just trying to be nice, is all." Renji muttered, glancing away from Ichigo to the floor beside him. "Didn't need to punch me or nothing."
Suddenly Ichigo was straddling his hips, hands fisted in the collar of his shirt, pulling him around so their faces were very close together. "Are you fuckin' retarded or something? What, all those knocks to the head finally catch up to you, never mind about me?"
"Uh." Renji said intelligently, mesmerised by the fact that he could see every freckle on Ichigo's face, and also every eyelash. Ichigo shook him slightly.
"I don't know what kinda trip you're on, messing with my mind like this, but it stops. Stop being so fuckin' weird." He hit him again for good measure, before standing up and leaving, disgust written all over his face.
Renji, spread out in the middle of the school corridor, with a sore jaw and the beginnings of a black eye, realised that his heart was hammering in his throat and he was incredibly turned on.
"Oh shit."
"Um. Yumichika-san? I don't think bein' nice worked."
"I believe I can see that, Abarai-kun."
"Ichigo give ya that black eye, then?"
"Shuddup! He hit me 'cause I was being nice ta him!"
"What, is he nuts?"
"You were obviously just going about it wrong."
"I didn't! He thought I was being weird."
"Perhaps niceness isn't your thing. Why don't we try something different?"
The plan started with Yumichika, which Renji felt both reserved and slightly excited about; excited because damn if Yumichika wasn't absolutely gorgeous, but also nervous because wasn't sure how far it could go because Shuuhei heard and punched him.
The two spent the day together - because a day was all Yumichika would give him - and, in his opinion, it wasn't exactly a bad thing to have a beautiful man hanging off his arm and tittering every time he opened his mouth.
By the time they had finished the meeting in Ichigo's room, Yumichika was starting to get sick of the game, and Ichigo hadn't seemed to have noticed anyway.
Day one of the 'Make Ichigo Jealous' plan had failed.
The following day was spent with Matsumoto, who was perfectly willing to play mind games with Ichigo - he got adorably angry, she thought. He had to hand it to her, she put on a fantastic performance: if he hadn't been so focused on Ichigo's reaction, he probably would have had to follow Ikkaku's example and leave the room several times. She flirted so shamelessly that Hitsugaya hit her over the head a few times.
As it was, the only reaction they did get was a blunt denial when Matsumoto asked, cooingly, if he thought Renji was cute. And so another day passed without progress.
He then proceeded through nearly every single girl in the class, as Ikakku refused to have any part in it, and they didn't dare inform Hitsugaya of the plan. Renji bypassed the weird, pink-haired girl (on Yuimchika's advice), and Orihime's friend (of his own accord). He found he could be quite charming when he really set his mind to it, and then Yumichika knew an awful lot about being nice to girls for someone who was gay. Ikkaku commented that it was because he was like a damn girl himself. After that, it was Ikkaku who went around with a black eye, as if to prove just how ungirlish his friend was.
By the end of the second week, the girls in the class, plus a few seniors, were eating out of the palm of his hand, Keigo was crying, Rukia had kicked him five times for trying it on her, and the only thing he got from Ichigo was an eyebrow that slightly twitched when someone said "Renji-kun!"
Out of sheer desperation, he decided to go with his final choice. Inoue Orihime was a bit of a double-edged sword: on the one hand, it would probably get a reaction from Ichigo; on the other, the girl's friend would probably hit him, and that shit hurt.
Yumichika forced him to go ahead anyway, and he spent the day wrapping an arm around a bemused Orihime's shoulder, ducking punches, ignoring glares from Ishida and eating the most disgusting food he'd ever tasted, and that included the Academy slop.
To top it off, on his way out of the school doors, Ichigo cornered him, knocked him flat out again, told him to stay away from Orihime, or all the girls for that matter, and even girly boys like Yumichika, and then stalked off.
Renji had to take a long, cold shower.
"We should have gotten Kira to come over."
"Stay the hell away from Kira."
"I fail to see how that could have made any different, Abarai-kun."
"Ya ask me, Kira's cuter than anyone at this school."
"Stay the hell away from-"
"Quiet, Ikkaku. Perhaps now we should-"
"Why don't ya just kiss him and be done with it?"
A sleepless night spent wondering quite how to go about carrying out Ikkaku's plan of attack did not give Renji cause to be in good spirits; likewise, the fact that his jaw was now marred by a large bruise made him want to smack Ichigo rather than kiss him.
The call came through when he was trying to ignore Ikkaku, who was flicking pieces of paper at the back of his head. They quickly excused themselves - that teacher fell for anything, he swore - and by the time they arrived at where around twenty smallish hollows were roaming, he was so annoyed by life in general that he immediately released his shikai and took out three at once.
It didn't take them long to take care of the hollows, and Renji was just watching the last one disappear when he felt a slightly stronger reiatsu shift behind him. He turned and was hit across the chest by the arm of a much larger hollow, which had just stepped across the rift. Renji slammed into the ground, winded and gasping for air.
"Renji!" Rukia screamed, and he opened his eyes to see a long, sharp tail whip towards him, too fast for him to possibly move-
Ichigo appeared out of nowhere, stopping the attack effectively by cutting off the offending appendage. The hollow began to stagger around, until Hitsugaya calmly cut its mask in half.
"Thanks, Toushiro!" Ichigo called up as the last of the spirit energy faded away.
"It's Hitsugaya-taicho!" Was the angry shout back.
"Oi, Ichigo." Renji said. Ichigo turned around. Renji kissed him.
After a couple of seconds, Renji realised that not only were Ichigo's hands threaded through his loose-from-impact hair, he was kissing him back. He didn't, however, really dwell of that, preferring instead to wrap his hands in the material at Ichigo's neck and pull him closer.
Renji pulled away for air, and Ichigo grinned at him, flushed and slightly smug. "Been waiting for you to do that for week," he said casually, fingers playing in the hair at the base of his neck.
"Huh." Renji said, slightly distracted. He leaned in closer.
"Honestly. 'Good morning.'" Ichigo's voice dipped low at a bad attempt at Renji's voice. "You're a fucking moron."
"Huh." Renji said again, and then kissed him again.
In the end, it was Ikkaku Renji had to buy drinks for, something Shuuhei was complained to about, and Kira was gloated to about.