Disclaimer: Tite Kubo's, etc.
Loser
Renji was very good at losing. He'd done it plenty of times, on plenty of occasions.
Yes, the list of people who had kicked his ass, multiple times, was very long. There was Kira, and Byakuya, and Ichigo, and oh yes – let's not forget Rukia.
Things that other people had handed to them on a gilded platter were things that Renji had to fight for like a madman. He'd crawled up from the gutters just to kiss the asses of people who liked to lord their superiority over them. He thought a lot about proving himself, about getting people to see him as their equal instead of as scum.
There was a point, however, where Renji got sick of being jealous. Green had never been his color – it made him look like a tacky Christmas tree.
Maybe the final moment was when a chained Rukia, dressed as a prisoner, defeated him with a look. Maybe it was then that he'd realized he would never win. All he could to was struggle all the way to his inevitable defeat. It was all about fighting with all you had until you got there. There was no point in the destination, only the journey.
It was vanity to think he was protecting anything, let alone Rukia. Rukia had never needed protecting.
It made Renji feel sickly smug to know that Ichigo was wasting his time. Rukia wasn't a woman to be kept like that. Didn't he know that firsthand?
So really, it didn't make him angry when Ichigo's hands grasped Rukia's slim body as he tore her away from her execution.
Not at all.
But then she looked up at Ichigo with those eyes and touched him with those hands and Renji forgot about his resolution to accept inevitable defeat. He forgot about Ichigo being that insufferable brat who never, ever lost anything precious to him. He wanted to take Rukia.
But he couldn't. It seemed that Rukia did need to be protected, and Renji was too weak to do it.
Yeah, Renji was a loser.
But he fucking hated losing. And next time he would win.