Izuru had been trying very hard not to be petty about this.
He'd been very good about the whole thing, to his credit. Even though it went against his every instinct to allow it to happen, he saw Shuuhei and Renji drifting towards each other before they saw it in themselves. They were like a high-speed collision playing in slow motion, their point of impact predictable yet still somehow shocking. And of course they were the ones most oblivious to the whole affair only up until it became impossible to ignore any further.
Admittedly, Izuru had been tempted to stand in their way. His two best friends began to find each other, ensare each other in a way that neither of them had before and for a time longer than Izuru would like to admit, he couldn't shake the fear that they wouldn't be able to handle it. That maybe they would implode and everyone around would be ripped to pieces by their shrapnel. And as their mutual best friend, Izuru was standing the closest to the danger zone. If anyone was to get hurt in this if it went wrong, it would be him. And as for if it went right-
If it went right… well, what would even be the point of Izuru anymore, then? Because as long as the three of them were friends, there was a distinct balance. No one was owed more attention than the other, no weight went unshared among them equally. But when there became an "us two" within the "us three", the excluded one couldn't shake the feeling of… purposeless? Transparency, perhaps. As if maybe, if they weren't careful, Shuuhei and Renji would look right through Izuru just to see each other.
Still, that was a risk Izuru had to take. It wouldn't be fair to either of them, to rob one of the other and vise-versa. Because Izuru could tell, better than anyone, that Shuuhei and Renji just worked. It didn't make sense, they were both clumsy and reckless when it came to their feelings. By all logic, they should have clashed against their own personalities and sent their relationship down in a spiral of flames from the very start.
And yet, they worked. They fit. Shuuhei's drive fit Renji's passion. Renji's loyalty fit Shuuhei's honor. Shuuhei's love fit Renji's love. And when they thought no one was looking and Izuru caught a glimpse, Shuuhei's waist fit in the alcove of Renji's arm, and Renji's head fit between the junction between Shuuhei's shoulder and his neck. They looked natural like that, together.
So Izuru stayed out of their way, and let them have each other. It ended up being a lot easier than he thought it'd be. They mostly kept their personal business to themselves, out of the way. Sometimes, it was almost like nothing had even changed at all. But that didn't mean it was always so simple.
Case in point- Izuru shared a dorm in the academy with Renji for a handful of years. He had seen Renji do a variety of disgusting things, from eating food off the floor to picking wax out of his ears with his fingers. He held Renji's hair while he vomited into a trash can. So if there's anything Izuru absolutely did not need, it's a description of how much Renji liked having his nipples played with.
"He just gets so… y'know?" Shuuhei babbled, more than moderately intoxicated. He had this glazed look in his eyes that told Izuru that his usually self-controlled, slightly reserved best friend was lost to all sense of common decency by this point. "It's awesome. Kira, never ever underestimate the value of the nipple. Well, I mean, it's not fer- for everybody. Sometimes you're going down on it and the other person is like 'the fuck are you doing up here?' but in this situation with Renji it is relevant."
"Please stop this." Izuru pleaded. Some mysterious adhesive force kept Izuru from leaving, unable to tear himself away from the information that could be directly classified as Too Much coming from Shuuhei's mouth. It was like witnessing a train wreck. An awkward, sloshed train wreck.
This did little if anything to deter Shuuhei, lost in his own foggy haze of being both drunk and in love. The bottle was still in his hands, though Izuru had half a mind to remove it from there. His face stretched into a dopey grin, cheeks glowing blood-red, and spoke in a way that seemed aggressively slurred. "An' he makes the cutest noises. These little grunts and the keening he does right when he's all worked up! Shit, there was never a person sho-so much fun to tease. He's precious." His voice was too loud, too happy. Izuru was not going to be responsible for the consequences if Shuuhei was overheard on this particular topic. "I swear, Kira, you shoulda been there last night-"
"Okay, thank you." Izuru interrupted, finally deciding Shuuhei was drunk enough not to notice Izuru taking the bottle out of his hands and moving it out of arm's' length.
As expected, Shuuhei continued to ignore Izuru's attempt at defending decorum, though not in the way he expected. Izuru took the bottle from Shuuhei's hand and his fingers briefly chased after it before giving up on the search and falling limply to hang at his side. Shuuhei tipped his head up to the ceiling sleepily, but there was a livid, star-like glint in his eyes.
"You shoulda been there, Kira." Shuuhei repeated, blinking slowly. "Just- his hair. And his eyes an' shit. Was really something. Wish you saw."
And that's about the last thing Shuuhei said with any sort of coherency and emotional depth for the rest of the evening. There was a longer, more intensely bridging the yawning gap between sleep and consciousness bout of staring at the wall. With those same glazed eyes and that stupid smile that Izuru had only ever seen on Shuuhei when he was wasted.
Izuru didn't really feel like he could appreciate Shuuhei's sentiments. How can you look at someone and see the same individual that the person that loves them sees? The finer beauty, no doubt, would be lost on Izuru from the very start.
-.-.-.-.-.-
At the repose during a training session, Izuru wonders about Renji.
Renji rubbed an inked eyebrow with his palm, sweat from training accumulating even in the frigid weather. Izuru wondered if Renji knew what it was that Shuuhei sees in him. Like if thats part of the terms and conditions of having two rather blunt people be in a relationship, or if that was something that they kept a little closer to their chests.
Somehow, Izuru doubted it. Renji didn't seem like the type to catch on to that sort of insight, anyways. Izuru liked that about him, because he'd always been the same way himself. Neither of them could easily fathom someone liking them, let alone seeing nebulas in their smiles or hearing angels in their voices or anything like that. It's too much a leap to assume they can be loved by someone more than they love themselves.
Izuru found himself wondering what details about Shuuhei kept Renji wistful long into liquor-soaked evenings. He tried to gage Renji's eyes for something of that happily listless stare that Shuuhei had. Or maybe he was looking for that certain quality in Renji that seemed to stick in Shuuhei's mind in the dead of the night. Perhaps to do so was invasive, and Izuru would do well enough to do what he'd always done up to his point and stay out of the way.
But as far as Izuru's recollection went, Renji had always seemed too unsubtle to have something "secret" about him that only his lover could see. When he slumped over with his ankle crossed over his knee and bit his teeth down to the nub just because he was bored, that was exactly the kind of Renji one was expected to get in all situations, the Renji that was callous, casual, and didn't have anything to hide.
Izuru had a difficult time fathoming Shuuhei's descriptions, because this Renji appeared so distantly removed from the Renji that keened for more. The Renji that liked being teased. Izuru had to wonder-
"What's with you?" Renji jabbed Izuru in the ribs, blissfully unaware of what Izuru had been thinking about a few moments prior.
"Nothing at all." Izuru said too quickly, too suspiciously. Renji's brow rose and a skeptical scowl forced Izuru to try and reclaim the conversation. "Hisagi wants to go out drinking again, and I've only now recovered from the last time we went out. I'm wondering about the best way to shine a beam of light against the floor for him to chase until he gets tired and forgets about the whole thing."
Renji nodded as if this explained everything. "I only wish it were that easy. I worry about what the two of you get up to when you guys go off on your own, into the cold, cruel world." Renji's lips split into a grin, and be knocked his elbow against Izuru's shoulder. "A guy could get jealous, y'know."
Izuru blanched as he tried to imagine Renji wandering onto the scene of Shuuhei waxing lyrical about him. Shuuhei losing interest in Renji seemed to be the very least of his problems.
"How is it going between the two of you, anyways?" Izuru quickly shifted gears again. He tried to mimic Renji's relaxed pose, but ended up feeling stiff and awkward.
"Uh, I dunno. Why do you ask?" Renji's eyes flicked over to the big clock just visible inside the halls. In fifteen minutes the two of them would have to start rousing their subordinates back into training. No doubt Renji will find himself swaddled with the rapt attention of a handful young recruits in desperate need of swordsmanship pointers, and those more interested in advancing their kido skills beyond the abysmally rudimentary levels required to graduate the academy will gravitate towards Izuru.
Izuru shrugged, brushing hair out of his face in an automatic attempt to look casual. He caught himself and forced his hand to stay still in his lap. "No reason, really. Neither of you really talk about that kind of thing a lot."
"We didn't think you wanted to know." Renji retorted in the very matter-of-fact way that he always does when he doesn't recognize common courtesy.
"Well, I can't just leave you to unattended for too long." Izuru said, in way of explanation. "Something could happen and I might get reported for child neglect."
Renji gave Izuru a fond smile, the kind of grin that shows too many teeth and arches his brows up into the mischievous look of self-satisfaction that was one of the many reasons the teachers at the academy sat him in the front row. Izuru hadn't seen that expression on Renji's face in a while. He considered that happiness looked kind of goofy on Renji. "Kira, where would we be without you?"
-.-.-.-.-
Hollows that have weirdly specific natures are up there somewhere on the top of "Reasons Why Izuru Thinks the Universe is Against Him" List. Really, he'd rather just take the hollow as the next random soul-eating monster that pops its ugly head up. He didn't need all this thematic nonsense with it.
The hollow disagreed. But really, it's not like Izuru had been expected a whole lot of support from a cackling, partially invisible, worm-like hollow with an insatiable appetite for cold cuts as well as human souls, and a magnetic pull towards bloody meat that rivaled Shuuhei's pull towards free food.
The butcher's shop that had been an unfortunate victim in the whole event was just as- if not more so- distraught by the situation as they were. Which is how Izuru wound up with Shuuhei in his office and both of them still smelling of barbecue sauce while they tried to file an extensive damage report.
"How about next time we work on catching the hollow before it literally eats through half a store-front?" Izuru suggested, signing a squiggly approximation of his signature on one form or another.
Shuuhei held his forehead in one hand and an ink-stained pen in the other. He had a sleepy, not-quite-all-there look about him, blinking slowly and breathing heavy. It was cute. "Make a wrong turn one time…"
"If you didn't know where we were going, you should have said so in the first place and I could have lead-"
"I didn't know that I didn't know. I thought I knew!"
Izuru leaned over Shuuhei's shoulder to cast a glance at his paperwork. It was slightly smudged with meat grease. "That's not how you spell 'digestion'."
"I didn't- aw, fuck." Shuuhei blotted a word out with his pen and made an attempt to compensate with a brief paragraph.
This continued for some time, lost in the void of pencil-pushing until the spell was broken by Renji's cheerfully unannounced bursting into the room without knocking. He was carrying a manilla file under one arm with the corners carelessly folded down. "Holy shit, what smells so delicious in here?"
Izuru gave him a dead-eyed look. "Us."
"A'ight." Renji said without missing a beat, holding up the folder. "Does it have anything to do with why I'm dropping off this form from the 'Life-Threatening Accidents' section of filing? And if so, do I want to know?"
"Bring it over here, we're having a big ole' filing party as we speak." Shuuhei gestured to the papers spread across the desk between him and Izuru. Izuru had forgotten what the surface of the desk looked like.
Renji tossed the folder down, sending a wave of papers floating into Izuru's lap, much to his chagrin and various noises of irritation. "I'll pass this time. Try not to have too much fun without me and I'll catch up later."
Izuru's eyes slid up from the paper when Renji made to move away, stopped at the last moment by Shuuhei's shift in his seat. Catching the hint, Renji leaned down as Shuuhei leaned up and the met halfway for a kiss just over Izuru's line of sight.
And in the split second, Izuru saw it. The way their lips met and seemed to send waves rippling through their bodied as one. When they pulled away, and Shuuhei and Renji's eyes met, and something lit up their faces as if candlelight was glowing from inside them.
Renji ducked out the door and retreated before he could be asked to do any more helpful tasks as Shuuhei sat back down and went back to his prior task of glaring at the countless number of forms.
"Would you two just get married already?" Izuru deadpanned, eliciting a slightly embarrassed but mostly crude fit of snickers from Shuuhei.
Izuru made the mistake of looking up, and catching Shuuhei's gaze. Shuuhei's eyes were narrowed into crinkly, crescent moons that radiated contentment. He looked far from tired then, more awake and alive. It was look that Izuru wanted to see on Shuuhei's face always.
-.-.-.-.-
Like the pieces of the puzzle, bit by tiny bit Izuru's fascination with what drew his two best friends together began to make sense.
From his studies, Izuru could conclude that it first needed to be understood that when one is in love, anything short of adultery and homicide can be cute under the right circumstances. Shuuhei might wake up one morning and find that Renji had somehow turned into a fat, hairy spider the size of a dinner plate overnight, and as long as Renji was one of the less poisonous breeds and was fine with being carted around in a very large jar Shuuhei would probably still be completely besotted with him.
That being said, Izuru also inferred that being in love didn't do anything to prevent one party from driving another up the wall.
Over time, Izuru became familiar with a routine that they had all developed. Either Shuuhei or Renji would come stomping in, seething and fists clenched tight. Izuru dutifully asked what was wrong, opening the floodgates for the visiting party to vent about whatever the other had done most recently. That he did this or he said that or he didn't implicitly give any indication of such but I could tell that he was thinking this.
Fortunately, it was an emotionally charged yet usually brief affair. Izuru would then be tasked with tipping enough sake into their mouth until they shut up, fell asleep, and forgot why they were mad and all would be right in the world.
The next day proceeding the venting/drinking would have very blatant markers of mutual success for both individuals. Renji and Shuuhei would walk into their respective offices bright-eyed and bushy-tailed. There would be nice, dark pinpricks of teeth-marks in semi-circles inching up Renji's collar. A dark red bruise blossoming on Shuuhei's throat, just above his adams apple. They smelled like the same soap and aftershave, and at times Izuru thought they were both humming the same tune inside their heads.
It was disgusting, really. How far two wolf-whistling, bar-crawling hooligans could fall from the grace of bachelordom. Izuru just wasn't really sure at what point he got caught up in the cycle as well.
-.-.-.-.-
Renji was the guy who never read the instructions to board games.
Izuru could tell, because that's just the kind of guy Renji was. Act first, regret later. Easier to ask for forgiveness than for permission. Shoot for the moon, and if you miss drift aimlessly in space until the next rocketship swings by to pick your stupid ass up and take you home.
It happened on one of the nights when Renji asked Izuru to join him for some late-night drinking. Izuru agreed, but needed to swing by his quarters to pick up his wallet. Izuru found his wallet but Renji found Izuru's sake. One thing led to another and neither and neither of them ended up going to a bar at all.
It wasn't unusual. Izuru and Shuuhei had done the same thing plenty of times, especially after the Winter War. It was easier that way, to just stay in and share in the comfort of each other's presence than to leave and face the less-than-understanding attitudes of the world outside. It lead, perhaps, to more drinking that there strictly should have been. When the war was over and Shuuhei put down more bottles than he picked up, he made Izuru do the same. Some days, Izuru still wondered how he did it.
Now he was in the same place, more or less supervised by and supervising Shuuhei's boyfriend. Funny how that worked.
And right there during that train of thought in which he had been recollecting, Izuru noticed Renji's eyes, hooded and following Izuru in a way that made him wonder if Renji had ever thought about him before.
To his credit, neither of them had drank very much when Renji slung one leg between Izuru's knees so he could sit half-way on Izuru's lap. He crouched down enough that he was nearly at eye-level, lips hovering just above Izuru's and said with excitement bubbling quite blatantly in his voice, "I think you should kiss me. I bet you'd like it."
And so, without any further questions on the matter, Izuru tipped his head up and did just that. It was the kind of kissing Izuru tried not to think too hard about Renji and Shuuhei doing with each other, but he couldn't bring himself to feel guilty about this. Not when it fit so nicely, Izuru beginning with a light press of his lips to Renji's, than another open-mouthed, much less chaste follow-up.
Renji made like wanted to speed things up, bucking a little against Izuru's mouth when the blond pulled back. Izuru was suddenly struck by the memory of Shuuhei saying how much Renji liked being teased, and he smirked to himself into the third kiss.
He coaxed Renji into a slow pace, and pulled their bodies closer. Renji smelled vaguely of Shuuhei, a comforting combination of clean air and metal and bitter laundry detergent. Izuru's hands went up Renji's neck, the pads of his fingers finding the marks of Shuuhei's teeth.
Renji groaned when Izuru curled a fist into the loose hair in his ponytail. The sound rumbled in his chest and sent vibrations into Izuru's.
When they pulled back for good this time, Renji's cheeks were blotchy pink. Izuru got the impression that were was only one other person in the world who had heard Renji made that kind of sound before.
Renji said, in a voice that was only a little breathless. "Izuru, I want you. Shuuhei wants you, too."
"I want you, too." Izuru replied, and for a second he felt stupid that he was only just saying it now.
"Both of us?"
"Is there any other way to have you?"
-.-.-.-
Izuru wasn't sure what to say to Shuuhei when they crossed paths in the break room the next day. Somehow "By the way, I was just making out with your boyfriend last night. He said you'd be cool with it." doesn't seem like the safest way to go about it.
But he didn't get the opportunity, not before Shuuhei smirked in a knowing way and looked him up and down as if he could see traces of Renji on Izuru's reiatsu. "Renji says you like to kiss slow."
"I take my time." Izuru defended, wondering if that was odd. And he let his chin be cupped in Shuuhei's hands as he leaned in and kissed softly, slowly, hotly.
He hadn't even registered Renji's presence until a set of arms that weren't Shuuhei's were wrapped around Izuru's waist. Renji pressed an open-mouthed kiss to Shuuhei's neck. "I'm always late."
"I let you talk to him first. Count your blessings." Shuuhei remanded, leaning to the side a little bit for Renji to crane his neck over his shoulder and kiss Izuru, this time at his pace with a hearty crashing of lips that sent Izuru's head spinning. And he didn't see stars being born or hear angels chorusing but he saw Shuuhei and Renji cheek to cheek and looking at him with adoration in their eyes that burned brighter than any distant sun and they are so fucking beautiful.
-.-.-.-
Getting one individual undressed was a two-hands job, nevermind three at once. It didn't seem fair because too little skin was exposed too slowly and yet Izuru didn't have enough hands to touch all the bare, scarred flesh like he wanted to. To trace the wiry muscles along the coltish lines of Shuuhei's limbs or the sharp edges where Renji's bones were tight against his skin.
Renji's hair tickled Izuru's face when he kissed him, the heat of the kiss making Izuru ragdoll and let himself get pushed into lying down on the bed. Renji was broad enough and big enough to cover Izuru completely, he was heavy and possessive and he kissed with the will of someone who was fighting life or death, throwing their whole selves into it. He kissed like he had nothing to lose, at by this point it was a fairly accurate way of going about it.
Something of that strict focus and aggressive composure shuddered, rumbled like the shift of the tectonic plates during an earthquake when Izuru touched him back to return the favor. Renji basked in attention, keened (in that way that Shuuhei loved) for affection. Izuru could feel the moans in Renji's chest when he slid down and traced kisses across Renji's tattoos, stopping to fix his mouth on a nipple and satisfy a longstanding bout of curiosity for himself. The growl Renji made and the strained, shallow pumping of his hips against Izuru's stomach, rubbing his hardened dick against the flat plane of Izuru's abdomen, were proof that Shuuhei hadn't been lying.
Out of nowhere, Shuuhei's hands were on Izuru's thighs, bonier and colder than Renji's hands but less so that Izuru's own. They raised gooseflesh up Izuru's legs and although he couldn't see it from underneath Renji's assault on his mouth, Izuru perfectly knew that Shuuhei was kneeling between Izuru's knees, crouching down over his cock in a way like he was waiting for just the right moment. The mental image that he knew so well he was sure he could trace every detail of it while blindfolded was more than enough to made Izuru's legs spread of their own accord and he only felt a little betrayed by his body for his troubles.
Shuuhei's voice came out smooth, rich, invaded Izuru's senses like a smoke screen. Izuru could feel Shuuhei's breath on the inside of his thigh. "Would you let me do anything I wanted to you, if I asked nicely? Would you let us? We'd do anything for you, Renji and I both. We want you to ask us to. I'd like it if you did."
Izuru moaned into Renji's mouth, lips slipped to the corner of Renji's so enough of Izuru's mouth was free enough to tell Shuuhei, "I want you to shut up."
In response, Shuuhei took Izuru's cock all at once, and Izuru just knew the older shinigami relished in the gasp that stole its way out of Izuru's lung at the sudden switch from the cool air to a fiery-hot mouth. Shuuhei's tongue curled around the head of Izuru's cock in a way that made his mind go fuzzy like a burst of static and Izuru reciprocated the motion with his own tongue in Renji's mouth, because that just felt fair between the three of them.
-.-.-.-
It's always good, with the the three of them. Sometimes, to Izuru, it felt as if nothing had changed at all. Not in the way where everything went back to how it it had been before, but in the way that it was almost like they were leading up to this from the very start. This was the part where the wind and the rain came together in a storm, the sum of the parts.
Maybe it wasn't written in their destinies to be this-waking up in bed with Izuru's face in Shuuhei's chest and Shuuhei's forehead pressed against Renji's cheek and Renji's arm thrown across Izuru's waist. No fate could predict this outcome except for themselves, who always knew better anyways.