A/N: Thanks for all the suggestions... that sure was a lot. I'll think about them, maybe I'll get inspiration for one of them.
Anyways, this chapter is a little longer than most of them... yeah, not much to say.
I own nothing, and it pains me.

Chapter 8… Christmas

December 25th, Christmas Day. Christmas was almost worse than Valentines Day in Renji's opinion. On Valentines Day, you gave your special one a gift, but on Christmas, you gave friends, family and (sometimes) even mere acquaintances. At least, that's how Renji had understood when Ichigo explained it to him.

And furthermore, they had all these weird tradition that just didn't make any sense. Take the tree for example, why on earth did that have trees inside of their houses? Trees weren't made for standing inside of a house! They belonged on forests! No, Renji just didn't get the tree part. And what made the tree part WORSE, was the fact that they hang stuff in it! Like glitter, shiny colored (and apparently fragile) balls, and a whole lot of other shit that didn't belong in a tree.

Renji had been invited over to Ichigo's house along with Rukia, Inoue, Tatsuki (who hadn't been able to come), Sado (who couldn't come either), even Ishida had been invited, and to general surprise, he'd accepted to come.

Ever since they'd arrived at the Kurosaki resident and sat down in the living room couch, Renji had been glaring at that tree (Rukia had looked at hit and said that it looked nice, but nothing more). Ichigo's younger sisters had looked oddly at him while he glared at the tree, but in the end they decided to leave it.

Renji also noted that there were a lot of presents under the tree, some of which he'd lay there himself (after being forced to buy each of the others a gift). He totally didn't see the point of wasting money (even though he wasn't cheap) on buying stuff for each other like this when you weren't even celebrating a birthday or anything like that. To tell the truth, Renji found it ridiculous.

Alright, so the eggnog they'd gotten was pretty good, and the food was pretty good to, Renji had to admit that Ichigo's little sister was a good cook, and pretty cute for a kid (but that wasn't really the point). One good thing about Christmas was indeed the food. (But in Renji's opinion, the negatives still overruled the positives).

They'd been sitting in the couch, talking, for quite some time when Renji needed to go to the bathroom. After a quick description from Ichigo, he hurried away to find it. Once he'd "taken care of his needs" he went back, only to bump into Rukia in a doorway. He heard Ichigo snicker and looked up. … the hell?

Hanging from the doorframe above them was a little bunch of green stuff or something, he didn't quite recognize it. Of course, that's when Ichigo decided to be helpful. "That's a mistletoe, according to tradition, if two people stand beneath it at the same time, they have to kiss." Renji blinked, dumbfounded. That had got to be the most ridiculous tradition ever.

"You got to be shittin' me. That's ridiculous! If you wanna kiss someone, you wouldn't need mistletoe for it, and besides, if you DON'T wanna kiss someone, ye definitely don't want one o' those hanging above yer head. This has got to be the most ridiculous thing I have ever heard. You people are so weird."

Rukia had glared at Ichigo to. They were childhood friends, for Renji, it was like kissing your sister. Then he had an idea, bend over and kissed Rukia lightly on the cheek. "There, ye never specified WHERE to kiss, so that should do." Then he managed to get past Rukia (who being very mature at the time stuck her tongue out at Ichigo) and happily sat down on the couch again.

Five minutes or so passed by, and then (a very excited) Orihime exclaimed: "Time for presents!" Renji blinked, oh right… the presents that were currently lying beneath the tree. Ichigo got to his feet and sat down by the foot of the tree, grabbed a blue package and read: "To Kurosaki-kun… I'm guessing this one's from you Inoue." Orihime nodded, seemingly very excited. Ichigo placed that present next to himself and grabbed a red package. "To Renji from Ichigo" and then he threw the package over to Renji who caught it and looked at it, slightly suspicious.

What if Ichigo had gotten him something really mean… like phlegm? That would've been gross. But it didn't seem like phlegm, it was soft, but not squishily so. Whatever could it be? He shook the package next to his ear, no sound what so ever. Now he was really confused, the heck? What could it be? Seriously.

However, Renji was interrupted from his thoughts when a harder package smacked him in the face. He shook his head and glared at Ichigo; "What the hell berry head!" He received a glare for that comment before Ichigo answered his question.

"Well I'm sorry, your highness, but I did read out loud 'To Renji from Rukia' I thought you'd catch it and stop obsessing about what I got you. It's a serious present and not some joke so chill out about it already." Renji simply snorted and looked around. Several of the others had gotten pretty much all of their packages, Ichigo's pile was pretty huge… how the hell had he gotten that many presents?

The delivery continued, and when they were finally done, he had one present from each of the others in the group (minus himself though). Ichigo seemed to have a few more, most of which seemed to come from Orihime, hey; there was one from Tatsuki there to. Oh well, he didn't really care for material things, nor did he care about human holidays. But somehow, he still got wrapped up in them.

They decided to open their presents in turns, Ichigo started with the one from Tatsuki. It seemed to be a picture in a photo frame, Renji couldn't quite make it out, but it seemed to be at least three persons in it, Ichigo included. And the only reason Renji knew Ichigo was in it, was because he could see that bright hair even from where he was seated.

When it was Renji's turn, he grabbed the red package he'd gotten from Ichigo and started to unwrap it. His eyes goggled when he saw what it was. It was a long, emerald green and fluffy scarf. More precisely, it was the scarf that Ichigo had driven Renji mad when knitting. At that time, Renji hadn't even wanted to look at the scarf, he had hated it, but now… man it was really soft.

Renji realized that he'd been sitting completely still, staring and feeling the scarf. He coughed and tried to his the slight pink tone his cheeks took. "Uh… thanks Ichigo… its really nice…" Ichigo smirked and nodded his head as a thank you. The others were looking at the scarf, and then Rukia looked at Ichigo.

"Where did you buy that scarf? I want one of those!" She half wailed. Renji and Ichigo glanced at each other and sweatdropped slightly. Renji felt slightly smug, he could bet money on the fact that Ichigo hadn't thought that anyone would have wanted to know that.

"Well… I err…" It was kind of fun to see Ichigo not really knowing what to say. He, of course, didn't want to tell everyone that he knew how to knit, not that he'd spent quite some time on a gift for his rival/friend.

"He knitted it himself." Renji blurted out. Renji felt the evil glare that Ichigo sent him. "Well… you did." The others stared at Ichigo. But the glare he had sent Renji gave them the bright idea not to comment. However, Renji couldn't help but to regret a bit that he'd gotten Ichigo angry when he'd given him such a nice gift. After all, he could use a scarf. They dropped the subject and continued with the presents.

A couple of hours later almost everyone had gone home, Rukia had gotten too much eggnog and went to sleep in her closet, Yuzu were cleaning and Renji had wrapped the scarf around his neck getting ready to leave.

Over the last couple of hours, Renji and Ichigo had gotten along better than ever actually. So when Renji was just outside the door, Ichigo came to him and said: "Hey Renji… I never thanked you for the Christmas present… the chocolates were good… but did they have to be formed as strawberries?" He raised an eyebrow.

Renji grinned and shrugged: "Well of course, otherwise you probably would've thought that I take you seriously… or that I fancy you because I gave you chocolate. I learned stuff during Valentines Day ya know!" Ichigo snickered slightly at that.

"The mistletoes seemed to like you though Renji, you had to kiss Rukia on the cheek twice, Orihime and Yuzu once… that's 4 times under the mistletoe." Renji sweatdropped. It was all Mr. Kurosaki's fault. That man had hung a mistletoe in nearly all of the doorways. Ichigo had sneaked around like a ninja or something to avoid them. Renji had even seen him rip a couple of the down.

"Actually Ichi-nii… it's five times under the mistletoes for Renji." The heck? What was Karin talking about? Was the only thought that went through Renji's head. Could the girl not count or something? Twice with Rukia, once with Orihime and once with Yuzu… it was only four, not five. Then Karin point above their heads. A mistletoe… just great.

"… I'm going to kill the horror that is my birthfather…" Ichigo growled to himself. There they were, two straight (to the max bi… but no, straight) guys, standing beneath a mistletoe. A quick kiss on each others cheek, and a panicked goodbye wave, and then they were off in the opposite directions of each other.

Renji noticed how it started to snow, the white snowflakes feel silently and slowly. It was pretty nice really. The emerald green scarf was warm and comfy and he didn't have anything against it anymore.

Renji's last thought before he headed back to the Urahara Shop where he were staying was that, maybe, just maybe, Christmas wasn't so bad after all. He cast a glance back towards the Kurosaki residence, a silhouette in a window confirmed to him that Ichigo was in his room. And with a small smile on his lips Renji headed back to his current residence with a small white bag with gifts and a fluffy green scarf around his neck.

Owari

A/N: Eyup, that was it. For now... mwahahah... The scarf made a comeback! (mostly because knitting was funny to write because it was so wieird...)