I neglected to mention this earlier, but big thanks to Luna12 for the beta work!
It seemed that Rukia Kuchiki was going to get to witness the majesty of the pastel tie-dye koi hoodie after all. The sudden torrent of late-January rain had washed away the remains of Renji's dignity along with most of his body heat, so he decided to just take it as a sign from the universe. He zipped it up as he emerged from his bedroom after changing out of his drenched clothes.
Rukia was not in the living room where he had left her.
"What the hell, buddy?" Renji grumbled at Zabimaru. "I told you to be hospitable. You tried to do your awful stand-up routine for her, didn't you?" Zabimaru, who was zonked out on top of his basking log, did not reply.
"I'm in the kitchen!" Rukia called.
Oh, no.
"Sorry about the mess," Renji apologized preemptively, following the sound of her voice.
"It's work clutter, not mess, and you weren't expecting me," Rukia replied, head and shoulders deep in Renji's pantry. She suddenly reappeared, waving a box of Sparkle Magic Unicorn Hot Cocoa. "I was going to make you some tea," she explained. "But can we have this instead?"
"That was on clearance," Renji pointed out. "You can see that it has a big clearance sticker on it. That's why I have that."
"Eighty-seven cents, a steal at twice the price," Rukia agreed. "So, can we?"
"Sure," Renji agreed, opening the fridge. "But I am a man of class, so we're using milk."
"Clearly," Rukia replied, eyeing the sweatshirt.
Renji tried not to eye her back, but she had taken off the fluffy cashmere sweater she'd been wearing earlier. It had admittedly been very attractive, but the strappy camisole she was wearing underneath showed off her arms in a way that was making his head spin. "Hey, I hear that impulse buying things at the beach is a thing classy people do," he tried to deflect.
"Oh, definitely." Rukia pulled a couple of packets out of the box and put it back in the pantry. "I just wasn't expecting you to be a Frank Miller in the streets, Lisa Frank in the sheets type. Mugs?"
Renji shot a finger gun at her. "That's a good tagline, and I'm putting it on my portfolio website. Mugs are here, in the tall people cabinet, sorry about that." He squinted at his horrible collection of thrift store mugs. "You want historically inaccurate dinosaurs, 'If Mom Says No, Grandma Says Yes', or basket of kittens who have seen some shit?"
Rukia stood on her tiptoes, squinting into the mug cabinet. "Is the handle on the first one a diplodocus neck?"
"Yes, of course," Renji replied, setting it down on the counter. "Man of class, like I said." He decided he couldn't handle the PTSD kittens, and pulled out the Wisconsin Bigfoot Museum one for himself.
"Do you, er, want me to do something with the stuff on the table?" Rukia asked hesitantly.
"You can just sort of push it into a pile," Renji suggested. It was mostly paper.
"Is this…tattoo stuff?" Rukia asked, frowning at a drawing of a cybernetic mermaid.
"Huh? Oh, no, I do most of the tattoo work digitally. That's all old stuff, actually. I, uh…" He paused while he ripped open the packets of cocoa and dumped them into the mugs, pastel star-shaped marshmallows and all. This was slightly embarrassing, and in an entirely different way than his taste in sweatshirts and sweet drinks. He decided to say it anyway. "The day we met, I realized I hadn't painted anything in ages, hadn't even thought about painting. I remembered I had graduated with a whole folder full of ideas I wanted to paint, before I just got caught up in work and paying bills and stuff." And stuff included a boyfriend who complained that the apartment was too small for paint smells and stray canvases lying around and who thought his comic book art was cooler anyway, couldn't he just stick to drawing?
"Boy, I know how that is!" Rukia nodded.
"So, I dug that folder out," Renji shrugged, carting the mugs over to the microwave. "To see if any of them were worth resurrecting."
"Find any gold?"
Renji chuckled. "It was surprisingly not as painful as I thought it would be. I dunno, though. None of it felt right. I feel very different from Renji-of-three-years ago."
"Might have to make something new then?"
"Yeah, what a pain, am I right?"
"I like this guy," Rukia announced, holding up a familiar pen-and-ink drawing.
"Yeah, I like that one, too!" Renji agreed. "I did them when I was on a big yokai kick. It's a nue, which is supposed to be a sort of monkey-tiger-tanuki, with a snake for a tail. It really just looks like a stripy monkey, though."
"The tail is definitely very snakey," Rukia frowned.
"True. I just think I could do better on the body-I got kinda into big cats a while ago and Momo helped me with some anatomy studies." Renji sat down at the table and passed Rukia a mug. "I also need to figure out a background, if it's gonna be a painting. Originally, I think I wanted to do sort of an urban monster thing, but maybe they would be happier in a jungle scene." He took a sip of cocoa. "They're a they because I think monsters with more than one head should be 'theys'."
"Makes sense," Rukia agreed. "Obviously, you should paint whatever makes you happy, but I love the idea of them living in the city. Perching on buildings, pretending to be a gargoyle. Eating pigeons and people who drive e-scooters on the sidewalk."
Renji snorted and tossed the page on top of the rest of the stack.
Rukia cradled her mug in both hands and took a long sip. "Mmm, this is so good!"
"It's the milk, I tell you. You might be shocked to find out how good it makes coffee."
"I think it's the storm, actually! This is so cozy! It's too bad it's not colder. Imagine if this were snow, instead!"
It was cozy. The minor soaking aside, Renji suddenly felt enormously grateful to be huddled around his kitchen table with someone who made his heart do somersaults while the rain pounded on the windows. Sure beat throwing back warm beers in an overcrowded bar where he could hardly hear Izuru shouting in his ear over the horrible music.
As if to deter him from getting too comfortable with the idea, an enormous flash of lightning lit the room, followed almost immediately by a crash of thunder that felt like it shook the foundations of the building. They both jumped. Rukia gave an adorable little shriek, and then laughed. "It's not gonna let up, is it?"
"Doesn't sound like it, does it?"
Rukia sighed and pushed herself up from the table.
"What's the matter?" Renji asked.
"Oh, I left my phone in my purse! Looks like I'm calling an Uber after all."
"On a rainy Friday, there's gonna be congestion pricing," Renji pointed out. "I'm sure the roads are a mess."
Rukia made an irritated grumble. "Well…I'll call Ichigo, then. He did offer." She returned with her phone, and took another sip of hot cocoa before unlocking it.
"Just tell him to swing by whenever he's ready to leave," Renji suggested. "You can snooze on the couch while you wait."
A cute dusting of pink suddenly lit up Rukia's cheeks. "I, er. Um." She suddenly became very focused on her phone. "Oh. Oh, dear."
"Is everything okay?" he asked. Another round of thunder and lightning rumbled through, unnecessarily, in Renji's opinion.
"Oh, er… I got a text from Orihime. 'Hope you got home before the skies opened up.'" She sighed. "They just left. Ichigo's dad is a doctor, he runs a little neighborhood clinic. He had a car accident come in and he asked Ichigo to go pick up his sisters from a party. They're high schoolers."
"That's nice that Ichigo helps his family out like that," Renji commented.
"Oh, for sure! The Kurosakis are really close-knit. It's actually for the best that he didn't drive me home, I imagine he and Orihime may just spend the night there. I mean, I've slept over there before, everyone's family at the Kurosaki house, but it gets kind of crowded, you know?" She heaved a tired sigh. "Okay! Back to Uber!"
"Rukia," Renji said slowly, as he watched her scroll through her apps. "It's late. It's pouring. You're exhausted. People are already getting in car accidents. Why don't you just spend the night here? It's not a big deal. I'll take you home in the morning."
Rukia's face turned even redder. "Oh, no. I couldn't."
"I mean, no pressure, but I promise I'll be a complete gentleman. I'm not very much of a gentleman, like, generally, but I am definitely a gentleman about this kind of shit. You can sleep in my room, it's got a lock. I can get you testimonials, if you need testimonials."
Rukia waved her hands. "That's not what I meant! I mean, I'm sure you're a gentleman, and I practice both aikido and kendo, even if you weren't. But I made you leave your friends and I drank your cocoa and now I'm taking up your valuable drawing skeletons time."
Renji scoffed. "Rukia, I told you I wanted to leave and I honestly forgot I had that cocoa and you can go to sleep and I can draw skeletons and pass out on my couch like I do most nights, anyway."
Rukia narrowed her eyes at him. "Is there something wrong with your bed?"
Renji snorted. "Are you sure you're a fancy business lady and not an FBI agent?"
"People try to trick me a lot. It doesn't work, though. I am un-trickable."
Renji shook his head. "I believe it." He threw back the last of his cocoa. "The only thing wrong with my bed is that it's too far from my kitchen table, which is where the skeleton magic happens." Well. That, and the fact that didn't like sleeping by himself, but that wasn't the bed's fault. He squared his shoulders. "Please stay. I promise you a luxurious breakfast of the best thing I can find in my pantry and it will be more fun to tool around town on the motorcycle in the daylight anyway. I see my friends all day at work, but I don't have people over much, and to be honest, I forgot how nice it is to have company, even if the company is just sleeping in the other room. It's been a while."
Rukia regarded him for a long moment, during which Renji decided that her eyes were the most beautiful shade of blue he had ever seen, so dark they were nearly purple.
"Fine," Rukia finally agreed. "But this elevates the favor I owe you."
"What, like you owe me two favors, now, or you owe me a jumbo-sized favor now?"
"Your choice, I suppose, but I will reiterate that an organ is still not a favor, even a jumbo-sized favor."
"Dammit, I was so close!" Renji swore. "I bet you have really Grade-A kidneys, too."
"My kidneys," Rukia replied, "are exquisite."