Recap:
Byakuya's eyes widened and it took Renji a while to understand why. But then it hit him and he quickly put his hands over his ears, blushing brightly.
Urch. This could not be happening. This just wasn't happening!
XXXXXX
Byakuya's gaze turned towards Ichigo, the obvious questioning look making Ichigo sigh deeply and show his ears as well.
"How did that happen." The noble asked, but he didn't seem to catch up on the whole thing yet. He didn't seem to notice the link between them and the cats he'd been taking care of.
"We had a discussion and somehow ended up in the 12th division storage room covered in some experimental liquid." Renji said softly, letting go of his head. "It turned us into hybrids." And now Renji as well seemed to catch up on the fact that Byakuya was not yet connecting things. The man was probably tired as hell.
Should they tell him? It was probably for the best. He'd be pissed off, having to find out by himself. Ichigo looked at Renji and knew that they were both thinking the same thing, so he walked up next to the redhead and stared at Byakuya. "We're only like this at night tho." He said softly, waiting for Byakuya to catch up, but continuing anyway. "we somehow become cats when it's day.
And that's what did it for the obvious overly tired captain. "you're the cats?"
Byakuya didn't know what to feel at that. Not that it really mattered because he wasn't planning on what he was feeling anyway.
Renji looked down softly. "yeah.. .We're the cats." He barely kept in the 'I didn't know you were a cat-person captain' he added in his mind. "We were actually trying to hide ourselves when you called out to us. We almost had a heart attack." He said, looking his captain in the eye now while Ichigo added that they were hiding because they feared that when Kurotsuchi finds out that his experiment didn't fail he'd want to test on them. And they wanted to avoid that at all costs, even when the freaky scientist was probably the only one who knew what they'd have to do to get back to normal.
"What about Urahara-san." Byakuya suddenly said, after a few seconds of intense silence. "He'd probably be able to figure out a solution as well."
Renji and Ichigo stared at each other. They hadn't even thought about that! They're tails moved in excitement, making them hold on to their towels so they wouldn't fall down.
"uhm… Taichou… would you mind… uhm.. leaving? Or looking away at least so Ichi and I can get dressed?"
They saw the noble man's eyes widen at that as he quickly stood up. "I'll leave you for the night. Just one question. Can you speak when you're cats?"
They shook their heads ."We've been speaking to each other all day and you haven't noticed. So I guess not."
"Then I'll see you tomorrow evening to go the living world to Urahara. We're going to get this fixed as fast as possible."
Now they both nodded and watched as the door closed behind the sixth division captain. A deep sigh escaped their lips as they dropped themselves on the first surface they came in contact with. That being the bed for Renji, and the sofa for Ichigo.
"Better get dressed." The older one of the two mumbled after about ten minutes before standing up and walking to his closet. He grabbed the first pair of boxers he touched and threw them at Ichigo before grabbing a pair from himself. They didn't really need any 'real clothes' since they'd be cats again by morning.
XXX
Renji's ear twitched when he heard movements in the office. He stretched and crawled out of the boxers he had been wearing before jumping off the bed and going out of the room. Ichigo could sleep just a little longer, he wanted to know what the sound was, and what his taichou thought about him now. Surely he wasn't happy with finding out that he'd shown a bit of who he really was at his fukutaichou. That he had shown his 'weakness'?
He scratched against the door when he found it closed, hoping that the person on the other side was able to hear him and would open the door.
But the door didn't open so he decided to do it the way he did it when he was extremely drunk and lost his key.
He went through the window.
Byakuya looked up at him briefly from behind his desk before looking back at the taichou who was standing in front of him.
Renji shivered when he noticed who it was. Kurotsuchi. The freaky scientist.
He quickly hid underneath his own desk when the freak went on another rampage, yelling about the destruction of his storage room and how some of his werecat-experiment-bottles had broken and how he just KNEW that it had been Renji and Ichigo.
"let me experiment on them!" he growled at the sixth division taichou who, by now, was really glad that he'd already found out about the cat-thing the night before.
"There is no way I can let you experiment on my fukutaichou and the substitute shinigami Kurotsuchi. They are well valued and you'd most likely end up killing them or turn them insane from the torture. Now please leave my office before I have to kick you out myself. You are being impossibly rude."
The scientist huffed and stormed out of the office, obviously pissed off beyond belief, and threw the door closed behind him with a loud 'BANG'.
Another shiver went through Renji. He was not liking the idea of Mayuri being after them for experimenting.
His tail stood up and he scurried back when a face suddenly appeared besides him.
"he's gone." Said a softly smirking Byakuya. "You can come from underneath that desk now."
A breath of relief escaped his lips as he came from underneath the desk.
"You know. I almost thought you were Yoruichi if it weren't for your reddish eyes I wouldn't have recognized you and let Kurotsuchi-taichou take you."
"You wouldn't have." The redhead said with eyes as wide as oranges.
"I would if it were Yoruichi."
"I had no idea you could be so ." Mumbled the younger one before loud meowing and growling suddenly sounded through the hallways.
They stared at each other before Byakuya quickly stood up and opened the door to go outside, seeing a cackling Mayuri with an orange cat in his arms.
He cursed. That bastard!
