Rukongai had never looked better to his inured eyes, he thought as he shielded said eyes with a calloused hand to protect them from the glaring sunlight. There had been no such thing as the grass being greener on the other side because the Seireitei definitely didn't have any grass. But it wasn't like he had ever stopped to appreciate the beauty of bright green weeds so high that they cast an ethereal glow to the sunlight-soaked earth beneath it.
Yes, even Abarai Renji could have his optimistic days.
Standing next to him, he knew that Rukia was probably thinking something along the same thing, just for the look on her face. Rukia's eyes were dangerous things nowadays. It had used to be something he would blame Ichigo for, claiming that he stripped her of an important Shinigami skill. Now, he would thank the redhead for it if it wasn't too mushy for him to bear - or Ichigo, for that matter. He would never be allowed to live it down.
Once upon a time, something like that would've been a big deal. Small things were always big deals, even now. He thought this with a fresh streak of pride added to the already-prominent stripe visible in his smirk as a tiny person waddled around his leg and screeched happily. Rukia laughed and cooed something; he could see the top of her head disappear from the bottom of his vision as she crouched down. When she reappeared, she held a tiny redhead with large, purple eyes and the beginning of a fringe that was already curving to the left. The baby giggled and reached out to Renji, who took him up to the higher cradle of his arms.
The baby had actually been a mistake. In fact, they had continued to deny its existence until Rukia began to physically show signs of pregnancy, because even Urahara claimed that it was impossible for a spirit to give birth to what would undoubtedly be another spirit. His thinking made sense, but Renji wasn't really one to concern himself with scientific reality, and especially not when he felt that the wriggling child in his arms was definitely here and in existence.
"Icchy!" And for such a small thing, he could certainly scream. Renji whirled around, despite his son's squawks that he was no longer facing his favorite person (other than his parents) and grinned at the approaching redhead.
"Yo. Glad to see you could make it."
"Yeah, well school wasn't exactly going to accept 'My best friends' - who happen to be dead – baby just turned a year old today and I'm going to another plane of existence to watch the family be mushy about it' as an excuse to skip, and I can't miss anymore without getting in some serious trouble," Ichigo explained, stretching a bit. "But I think I know what you mean when you talk about how gigai suck. I feel a ton better like this nowadays, which isn't good since I spend most of my time in my human body."
"Heh, no room for your power in there, huh? I guess before you just weren't strong enough," was Renji's smug reply, giving into the baby's whims and spinning him around so he sat on his forearm to look at Ichigo.
"Icchy," he repeated, but made no move to get closer.
"You've been talking to Yachiru too much lately," Ichigo said with an underlying tone of tenderness. Brash as he might be, he was excellent with small children. Rukia often said that Renji was the same way, but he always felt like he was too rough with his own child. The tangible trust visible in those large purple orbs contradicted this paranoia of his, but somehow it always felt like there was something about his awkward, bulky form that made him uneasy to hold a creature of such delicacy.
As he considered this, a familiar train of his thoughts, he stopped down a bit and let the baby down, who immediately waddled off to play with a weed. Ichigo watched him, smirking slightly. "It's actually kind of cute to see you with him," the orange-head remarked.
Renji's head whipped around to face his friend, disbelief quite visible on his face. "Did you just call me cute?" he asked incredulously. "No. I'm not cute. Hikaru is cute." He gestured to the baby. "Rukia is cute." This he said with a bit of a blush. "But me? I am most definitely not."
Ichigo laughed, practically doubling over in the apparent hilarity of this situation. This only proved to make Renji angrier, but while in past years he would have exploded on Ichigo, now he only turned a violent red and huffed.
"What's so funny?" He also refrained from swearing. Ichigo wondered whether Renji would turn into some kind of saint if Rukia popped out enough of their kids. He wasn't sure he wanted to see it.
"Your face," the younger man said, still grinning. "It was amazing. I might have to call you cute more often."
"I'm not cute," Renji defended. In the distance, there was a distressed squawk, and simultaneously both of them turned to where Hikaru had been playing before he leaned over too far and topped over. The rumpled redhead's expression softened. "That's cute, that over there."
"Yeah, and you know, three thousand years ago, that was probably you. So indirectly, you're cute." Ichigo's smug expression never faded. Years ago, Renji would've punched him. Now he just shook his head with a smile.
"Shut up, Ichigo." And the two met up with Rukia, soothing the toppled child a few paces away.