A/N: This is a kind of story that is born out of a few contradictory requests: for Renji going after Ichigo, for some Yumikkaku, and for Rukia standing on a way of a certain ship. It's weird even by my standards, yet it is fully compliant with the rest of the '36 views of Yumichika holding Fujikujaku' series, meaning that ShuuheixYumichika stands and so does RenjixByakuya.
1.
Why him? Why?
Sitting in the corner of Ichigo's kitchen, Renji asked the same question for the hundredth and first time, but his way towards the answer failed to shrink once again. He sorted through the list of the known gigai troubles: sometimes it was hard to get in, sometimes it was hard to get out, sometimes it simply felt uncomfortable, and it always required special care. Even Yumichika was not above openly equating his gigai with a condom, and delegating its maintenance to his mod soul. Yet these minor inconveniences never stopped anyone from adjusting to the living world.
Hitsugaya and Matsumoto were playing house with Orihime. Ikkaku was giving private gambling lessons to the locals, and Yumichika, uninterested in local affairs, immersed himself in his private daydream land. Even Rukia was enjoying the perks of normal family life so much that she wasn't even looking at him any longer. Had the circumstances been different, Renji might have taken offense, but his gigai inconveniences, by no means minor, prevented the thought from as much as even crossing his mind.
Thoroughly distressed, Renji tried his best to to focus on his surroundings and on Rukia in particular. She was cooking something with Karin and Yuzu, and from the fog that was filling his mind he was unable to figure what it was, but Ichigo was stealing bits and pieces from the countless vials and plates and enjoyed being yelled at and hit with a towel to the fullest. Normally, Renji would have joined the fun, even despite of the growing feeling of being an extra in the game that was no longer a secret from anybody, excluding the players themselves. Rukia's cooking smelled damn good, and he would have joined if only his gigai wasn't malfunctioning in a particularly unpleasant way that no one had ever heard of before. Or admitted, Renji corrected himself, for it was certainly not a problem that any shinigami with a spec of common sense would ever mention. Not to the friends, not to the enemies. No, they wouldn't.
Shielded by the table, Renji carefully touched the problem that firmly stood between him and all the exciting living world activities. It stood and it hurt. No, normally a boner wouldn't be such a bad thing, normally it would take only a few minutes to rub it off. Normally. This particular boner was solely made of special, this boner would give him ten minutes of rest and then come back up as good as new. But most of the times he had no luck at all.
Fuck.
He had to jack off. Now. Otherwise he would just burst. Impossible, of course, but the highly disturbing mental image of his gigai exploding into bloody pieces all over the kitchen, complete with Rukia's blanc face to top the disaster, wouldn't go away. Renji slipped from the table and headed upstairs. No one took a notice of his leave, and quietly he found his way to the bathroom.
Forty minutes and a few choice fantasies later, Renji knew that his luck was busy elsewhere. He pulled his pants back. He still could mask his boner with the shirt, but carrying on a simple conversation was a serious challenge now when his suffering was intensified by a throbbing headache. Obviously one too many parts of his body were throbbing. Renji opened the door and listened to the happy voices downstairs. The dinner was nearly ready and perhaps he had only a few minutes to compose himself before they start calling for him.
Renji sat at the edge of the bathtub, pulled a random towel from the rack, wet it, and buried his burning face in the cold cloth. It was getting warm awfully fast, but for a few precious seconds his pain subsided...
"Renji, what are you doing?"
Rukia's icy voice brought the pain back without fail. Something was terribly wrong. He looked down thinking that his pants might still be on the floor, and then he noticed that Rukia's eyes were glued to the towel in his hands.
It was not a towel.
It was a shirt.
It was Ichigo's shirt.
Fuck!
Renji threw the shirt away from him as if it was a poisonous snake.
"I can explain it! Rukia! Wait! I really can!"
"I don't think so." She slowly retreated to the hallway and carefully closed the bathroom door.
He sat back on the bathtub edge, dispirited, wishing for his his gigai to have exploded downstairs when it had a chance.
2.
Madarame-san had said she would find Yumichika on the roof. "He's counting clouds," Madarame-san had said. They both looked out through the window at the perfectly cloudless sky, and Madarame-san felt the need to elaborate. "From the other day," he added, but like always, clarification attempts offered by any member of the Eleventh, usually made much less sense, than their original remarks.
Whatever. They were all nuts, it was no secret from Rukia, since Renji would use Yumichika's opinion as a logical explanation for any mind breaking activity he was so quick to engage into. However, their insanity was in her side now, if her guess was right and if there was indeed anyone who could fix all the loose screws in Renji's head, that would be Yumichika.
She had to face it, the scene she had witnessed earlier managed to break her mind in more ways than one.
Yumichika was indeed on the roof, leaning at the rails, his face turned towards the sky and away from the city. "Seven. Always seven, no matter what you do," he muttered, loud enough for Rukia to hear, but not comprehensive enough for her to understand, and her confidence about getting any help here shrunk a little.
"Can you imagine a place that has seven small clouds floating around without any purpose?" Yumichika asked out of the blue.
"No," she said. Of course, he sensed her presence by the reiatsu, even with his eyes closed.
"Just checking." Yumichika said and looked directly at her. "What can I do for you?" he inquired politely, yet she could feel by forcing her way past his invisible 'Do not disturb' sign that she was violating his privacy.
"They say you can make two people fall in love."
Now she possessed Yumichka's undivided attention. He left the rails and circled around her with his gaze fixed on her.
"People say lots of nonsense. It would be easier if you just state you business," he said at last.
Well, Yumichika didn't laugh in her face as Rukia was afraid he might, but his smile was far from encouraging either. If anything, it was encouraging her to be concise and get the hell out of here as soon as she was done.
"I believe Renji belongs with my brother," she said.
"Really? What makes you think Kuchiki-taichou is interested?"
"His eyes. When I talk to him about Renji, his eyes show feelings I don't usually see there." She paused. It was true. Seeing these emotions was filling her heart with joy and she kept talking about Renji for the sake of seeing them again, yet this line of reasoning was insufficient for bringing the issue all the way to Yumichika.
"My brother deserves to be happy and I'll do anything in my power to help him," she added with conviction.
Yumichika's smile became broader. "That's marvelous. I believe you're aware that Renji has transferred to the Sixth precisely because of his unresolved feelings. Perfect match. What does it have to do with me?"
"I have reasons to believe that Renji's priorities have shifted."
"Shifted? That's all?"
"Yes," Rukia answered after a moment of hesitation.
Yumichika leaned closer, "Then why am I under the impression that Renji's priorities have shifted in the direction you are not too happy about?"
She felt her blood rushing to her face. "How dare you?"
"Please accept my apologies, if my suspicions are groundless. I won't dare taking any more of your valuable time." Yumichika turned his back and started walking away from her. Had she really entertained the idea she would fool him? Dismissing a pathetic declaration with few connections to reality was a choice, and Yumichika simply had chosen not to dismiss it.
"All right, I'll tell you. I nearly caught Renji doing something he wasn't supposed to be doing."
Yumichika looked at her over his shoulder in mock disbelief. "That's it? Renji is an adult male. Being a technically dead adult male doesn't stop him from having an urge to wank from time to time. Therefore, indulge him."
"Yes, but he was sniffing Ichigo's shirt. That isn't normal."
"It's normal, but I see you point, it's not entirely consistent. I expected him to be smart enough to steal something belonging to your brother."
Rukia shook her head fighting the mental image of Renji going through the drawers in Kuchiki mansion and then burying his face in the his captain's underwear, for it was undeniably worse than the picture that already had been imprinted in her mind.
"Well, now that you see I have a point, what do I owe you?"
"Nothing."
"Nothing? You don't do anything for nothing."
"I don't. However, Renji has already paid for you brother. If he had paid for Kurosaki-kun, he would have gotten Kurosaki-kun, but he has paid for your brother. That means no Kurosaki-kun for Renji. Very simple."
Very simple. Then why was she thinking murder?
3.
"We are always happy to see friends of Abarai-kun, Ayasegawa-san. Let me recommend you this fried eel..."
"The pleasure is all mine, Urahara-san." Yumichika's smile was matching Urahara's perfectly, as he suppressed a shiver running along his spine. "The eel is beyond all praise..."
Yumichika had no intention to meet Urahara in person so soon. Despite having no doubts that Urahara would instantly recognize a fellow manipulator, Yumichika had to reclaim Renji as his own, for the boner joke was going too far. Perhaps Urahara was thinking along the same lines and didn't really mind to back off, so their subtle negotiations continued on.
"I've heard your zanpakutou is quite famous in their world," said Urahara with a dreamy look in his eyes.
"So is yours," Yumichika bluffed. Fujikujaku hadn't told him a word about Benihime, despite his repeated inquires. It appeared, however, that Benihime was sharing too much information with his bearer, and inside his head Fujikujaku went frantic, "Don't let the bitch touch me! Under no circumstances! If we ever mess with him, that might be our only chance to survive. Out of a hundred. No! Out of two!"
Damn selfish bird. He could have said it earlier, instead of giving him a lengthy lecture on zanpakutou ethics, the ethics that not all zanpakutou were even following.
Urahara meanwhile moved on to describing his underground training facilities in the most humble, but elaborate manner. Yumichika, being closely familiar with the similar setup in Seireitei, nodded with enthusiasm, at the same frantically searching his mind for a way out. He remembered the deal stricken between him and Renji right in front of the healing onsen. "So if I forget about this place, you'll help me to get taichou?" Renji asked then, cross-eyed from the mind blowing perspective, "but why do you want it?" He never answered, for the purpose of Urahara's place was none of Renji's business, yet judging solely by the benefits it had brought him, Yumichika had gotten it awfully cheap. And even if he didn't really believe he would ever have to fight Urahara for real, he wasn't about to contaminate his pleasant memories of the place buried deep down under Seireitei.
"How do you feel about a little training session, Ayasegawa-san?"
Yumichika looked around a table and noticed a plate with spiced salmon inconveniently located between Renji and Jinta. The plate was half empty, but it didn't escape from him that Renji was the only one sampling from it. For everyone else the plate was as good as invisible. "Everything is so delicious," he repeated, picking a piece of salmon and not failing to catch a flash of horror in Jinta's eyes. Yumichika focused on the fish, looking as if he held the answer to the all questions in the universe between his chopsticks.
"I can't see why not," he said, bravely biting into the fish and reaching for the next piece. "Let me just catch my breath after such a magnificent feast, and I'll be all at your service."
"No rush, Ayasegawa-san", said Urahara, tossing a quick glance towards Jinta. In fact, Urahara's face was so expressionless, that Jinta somehow bacame smaller.
It was obviously not the payment that Urahara had in mind, but he had no choice but accept it.
"No rush at all. Whenever you feel like it. It was indeed very rude of me to forget that you might have already made plans for tonight. This city has a lot to offer..."
"Indeed."
Urahara was right. The night has a lot to offer and very soon Yumichika had to use that excuse and leave.
Yumichika stopped just outside the gate trying to assess what he got himself into, it didn't look like he could think very coherently though. Closing his eyes was only making him see a fake sun and seven clouds, lost on their tracks in the fake sky. Through the blood pounding painfully in his ears, he could hear a teasing voice in his head, "If you want to go home now, you lose for today." Yumichika didn't care now any more than he cared then, it's only that his home was far, far away, and he had a very pressing problem.
4.
"I repeat once again. You had fifty thousand yen each, and I had twenty. We take out our initial capital and we get four hundred eighty thousand. That's our profit. Based on the initial contributions your share would've been four hundred total, but since I did the job, I subtract fifty percent and you end up with a hundred thousand each. Got it?"
"I'm failing math," Keigo said with a grin, holding a fan of banknotes in front of his nose.
"I got it," Mizuiro said with an identical grin. His banknotes were spread on the table. "And you get fifty percent for dealing with yakuza. You're awesome, man!"
"You got it. And it's a bad idea to win too much at once. You've got to look like you're lucky by accident."
"And you aren't?"
"I've been playing for two hundred years, what d'you think?"
Both boys stared at him in awe. None of shinigami ever looked their age, but even being told, humans didn't seem to comprehend it completely. Two hundred years of gambling experience was simply unimaginable for them.
Ikkaku's moment of triumph was cut short by Yumichika slamming through the door. One look at his hair and Ikkaku knew it was bad. Normally, Yumichika would die before letting anyone to see his hair wet. "My nose looks too pointy," he would argue, and every time Ikkaku thought it was complete bullshit, but refrained from saying anything since his last remark on the subject, "just as pointy as always," had been met, to put it mildly, without any appreciation.
His flashback stopped when he noticed Yumichika's bloodshot eyes.
"What the fuck?"
"I had to stop by the fountain," Yumichika breathed out, rushing to the sink. "I didn't drink from it," he added, pouring himself a glass of tap water.
Ikkaku stared unable to utter a word. Maybe Yumichika didn't drink from the fountain, but he had definitely given the option some consideration.
That was really bad.
Three full glasses down the road Yumichika was off to the bathroom once again slamming the door shut behind him.
"Is he sick?" Keigo asked.
"Totally sick," Mizuiro echoed.
"Shut up, " Ikkaku hissed. "Shinigami don't get sick," he snapped, knowing it wasn't true at all. The names of shinigami who had managed to get sick started popping up in his mind and Ikkaku didn't like the cold knot forming in his stomach. In no time he was by the bathroom door trying to make some sense out of the sounds on the other side. Ikkaku was not a stranger to the signs denoting alcoholic poisoning, yet he could swear Yumichika wasn't drunk.
A few minutes later Yumichika came out from the bathroom white as a sheet. His gigai was left locked in and Ikkaku could hear the mod soul sobbing and cursing Ayasegawa-sama for being so inconsiderate.
"Ikkaku, I need to borrow your gigai," Yumichika said quietly.
"WHAT?"
"I cannot use Renji's gigai, because this idiot has lost his mod soul!"
Ikkaku stared. That was very bad. Indeed.
"I didn't lose it! I left it... at Ichigo's. Maybe... I think," Renji mumbled from the door and then collapsed right there.
Keigo and Mizuiro pulled Renji's body inside the apartment and then Mizuiro went to get some water.
"And what's wrong with him?" inquired Ikkaku. It's not that he really wanted to know, he actually would prefer not to, for his instincts, although belatedly, had made it very clear that tonight he should have gone out. However, he wouldn't dismiss the only possible way to drop the delicate subject of lending his gigai to Yumichika. It was a nice gigai and he wanted to keep it in that pristine condition it had been issued.
"It's... um... Urahara's hospitality. A severe case."
They both looked at Mizuiro's revival attempts, and Ikkaku thought that perhaps if this case was that severe, it was more merciful to let Renji regain the consciousness on his own.
"Madarame-sama..." called Yumichika's mod soul from the bathroom. "Madarame-sama?" The mod soul tried to open the door, but Yumichika was firmly holding it on this side, ignoring its pleas.
"I need your gigai, Ikkaku," Yumichika repeated slowly. "I'm in a committed relationship. I really need your gigai."
"Byakushi, I hate you..." moaned Renji, half-conscious.
"More water," ordered Yumichika and Mizuiro readily complied, turning a pitcher with iced water over Renji's head.
"What the fuck, Yumichika?"
Now Renji was fully awake.
"What the fuck?" Yumichika yelled. He jumped towards Renji and leaned over. "You dare asking me what the fuck? You stop eating at Urahara's, that's the fuck! And you get out of your gigai! Now! That's an order!"
Ikkaku felt that reminding them both that Renji was not in the 11th any longer would be counterproductive. If Yumichika could pull a chain of command out of his ass any time he needed it, Ikkaku was not about to stop him. Besides, he had to hold the door to the bathroom, preventing the escape of Yumichika's mod soul.
It took Renji a few minutes to struggle out of his gigai, and Yumichika had time to compose himself.
"Now," he addressed Keigo and Mizuiro, "You go to Ichigo's and retrieve Renji's mod soul. Remember, Kuchiki-san is your best friend there. Tell her you work for me and you'll be surprised by the level of her cooperation."
The boys were gone in a second.
"You and me," Yumichika hugged Renji's shaking shoulders, "are going for a little walk and I'll tell you everything about the substances that are safe to put in your mouth and the substances you flash down the toilet."
They walked limping towards the exit leaving Ikkaku holding the bathroom door with his mouth opened.
"Wait a second!"
Yumichika looked over his shoulder, not slowing down even for a moment, "I count on you, Ikkaku."
"Wait!"
No answer.
"Asshole!" he addressed the empty room. "What an asshole!" he repeated. Then he took a peek into the bathroom.
"Madarame-sama, I waaaaaant you," sang Yumichika's mod soul, peering suggestively through the eyelashes, and Ikkaku had to suppress his urge to vomit.
What choice he had, Ikkaku thought, reaching out for his mod soul dispenser. Then he tried not to think.