"I have to admit," Professor Nanao Ise said with a conspiratorial air, "my inclination was to just delay my appointment until Momo was feeling better. But I'm very glad she talked me into letting you do it, instead. I had no idea that four hours could pass so quickly."

Renji grinned sheepishly as he rang her up. "It's not my fault you've got such an interesting job. If someone'd told me you could study horror stories for a living, maybe I wouldn't have gone into tattooing."

Nanao laughed. "A loss for us all, I think! You'd be very welcome at book club any time, though."

"I wasn't actually much of a reader before I met Momo," Renji confessed. "I definitely wouldn't have read any Shirley Jackson if it weren't for her. I'm glad you took her up on her recommendation. I always like collaborating with Mo, but this one was extra special for me, too."

Nanao took a moment to admire the design on her forearm- a child's mug, bright blue, in a woodcut style, emblazoned with gold stars with more stars rising out of it, like a cloud of steam.

"If you decide you need one for the other arm," Renji suggested, "I could probably draw you up a pretty gnarly Hill House, and let Momo draw it on you. Or maybe something from We Have Always Lived in the Castle. What was it Merricat said they had on the moon? Lettuce and pumpkin pie and death cap mushrooms?"

"And 'cat-furred plants and horses dancing with their wings, and no ghosts at all'," Nanao provided. "Don't tempt me."

Renji laughed. "Well, if any of your grad students are jealous of your sick new ink, you can let 'em know we're doing a flash event on the last Saturday of the month." He nodded toward the stack of flyers on the desk.

"Oh, can I take one of these? I'll put it on the department bulletin board," Nanao said warmly.

Shuuhei and Izuru watched her depart with feigned disinterest. They had set up a folding table in the reception area so they could keep an eye on the front desk while they worked on picking out designs for the aforementioned event.

"Nerrrrrrrrrd," Shuuhei intoned, once the door had shut behind her.

"Shut up!" Renji protested. "She's a cool lady and she's Momo's friend!"

"He wasn't talking about her," Izuru clarified.

"Very cutting, coming from the crown prince and royal consort of Nerdsville," Renji replied dryly, flopping down on the couch next to Izuru.

"Which one of us is which?" Shuuhei immediately demanded.

"Why does 'Nerdsville' have a monarchy, anyway?" Izuru pressed. "Seems iffy."

Renji screwed up his face. He should have known better. "Fine…um…Chief Bard and, uh, Poet Laureate of Nerdsleton?"

"Acceptable," Izuru nodded.

"I'll take it," Shuuhei agreed.

"Speaking of which," Renji said, "d'jou you guys have a nice time after we split up last night?"

"Yeah, the cocktail place was nice," Izuru replied.

"I got laid!" Shuuhei announced triumphantly.

"Well done!" Renji commended him.

"I'm sitting right here," Izuru grumbled.

"Congratulations to you, too?"

"You're such a pest. Anyway, who cares about us? Did you do it?"

"Do…what?" Renji asked blankly.

"Confess, you moron."

"Come on! Of course I didn't!"

Shuuhei sat up straighter in his chair and jabbed his pointer finger at Izuru. "I told you! I told you he legitimately just wanted to go to the diner!"

Izuru shook his head in disgust. "I was sure you actually had a plan for once."

"We did! We were giving you guys some space!"

Izuru looked absolutely horrified. "Are you kidding me?"

"Okay, fine, it was Rukia's idea, I can't take credit for it."

Shuuhei leaned forward and rested his forearms on his knees. "Renji, in all seriousness, you are aware of how awesome she is, right?"

"Yes!" Renji protested. "Jeez, did it seem like I didn't?"

"I mean, she's beautiful, obviously," said Shuuhei.

"Yes," agreed Renji.

"And has an amazing sense of style. Cripes, that dress!"

"Yes!"

"She seems brilliant."

"She is!"

"She is also very rich," Izuru put in.

"Yeah, that's a bonus, I guess," Renji shrugged.

"But she's also very strange," Shuuhei went on.

"Whaaaaat?"

"Very strange," Izuru nodded. "But in a good way? I mean, she laughed at our jokes."

"Oh, yeah, yeah! The strangeness was definitely a feature!"

Renji scowled. "She's not strange! She's very normal! You just think she's strange because the two of you have never met a normal person, ever in your lives."

"Most importantly, she likes you."

"Everyone likes me, I'm very likable! Also, Rukia is just a nice person. That's probably also why she laughed at your corny-ass jokes."

"She is a nice person," Izuru said slowly, obviously trying to think out what he was trying to say. "But it's not just that."

"A lot of people like extrovert Renji," Shuuhei said, in that same thoughtful way. "Great-hair, fun-at-parties Renji."

"I don't like where this is going," Renji muttered.

"Did you notice that she asked Renji to send her pictures of our wack-a-doo set design project, but she did not ask you to send her a copy of Renji Abarai, Sports Illustrated Cover Model?"

"I did notice that!"

Renji jabbed a finger at Izuru. "She said my beautiful plywood ribcage was a 'marvel of engineering', and that stupid soccer picture is readily googleable, she probably just didn't want to come off as a creep."

"Renji," Izuru said, very seriously. "How long did you date Bazz before you told him about your folks?"

Renji wrinkled his nose. "That's not fair. Bazz had a bad relationship with his dad and-"

"How long did you know us before you told us about your folks?" Shuuhei interrupted.

"Are you guys mad about that? Because I didn't plan to tell her, it just came up. You know it's just that I don't like people forming impressions of me based on that."

"Of course we're not mad," Izuru reassured him. "We're just…impressed that she managed to get it out of you. She's an amazing woman, she likes you in the way that we like you, and you seem more like yourself around her, which is a nice change."

"What Izuru means," Shuuhei put in, "is that you need to lock that down, Renji. Tell her how you feel. Life doesn't hand you this sort of opportunity every day, and if you screw this up, Izuru and I will be very personally heartbroken."

"What the Hell are you talking about? You two are on, like, try number seven hundred thirty-six!"

"We are different," Izuru announced very serenely. "Shuuhei and I are like a pigeon and a rat. We may go our own ways for a time, but we know that we'll find each other again at the next bag of cold, abandoned french fries."

"I hope you put that in your wedding vows," Renji deadpanned.

"You've always been the second-best of us, Renji, right after Momo," Shuuhei said, and Izuru nodded along. "If any of us deserves to be swept off their feet in a fairytale romance, it's…well, one or the other of you."

"I've definitely lost the thread of wherever you guys were going with this. Am I supposed to ask Rukia out, or is she supposed to ask me out?"

"What would you say if she did?" Izuru asked.

"Well…I'd probably say 'yes'."

"Probably?!" Izuru and Shuuhei gasped in unison.

To be honest, the possibility hadn't really crossed Renji's mind, and the idea of Rukia putting a move on him sent electric shivers down his spine. "Rukia doing the asking doesn't solve the problem of her being my client," he grumbled. "The 'probably' just reflects the likelihood that I get so overcome that I forget all my principles and say 'yes' anyway." He tried to shake himself loose of the mental image of Rukia Kuchiki leaning over from the driver's seat of her car, shooting him a smoldering gaze, and purring "You should let me take you to dinner sometime," in that deep, smoky voice of hers. "Why're you guys so hopped up about this anyway?" he grouched. "I told you I'd ask her out once her tattoo is done, and I mean to. I don't think a week and a half is gonna make that much difference in her opinion of me, either way."

"It just…" Izuru waved his hands vaguely. "It seems like you had a really good opportunity."

"The snow was falling. The stars were out. Rukia was all smiles from the opera," Shuuhei sighed.

"We were just a little worried that… you know…"

"That I'm gonna blow this?" Renji supplied. Like I always do, he didn't add.

"You're just usually so…confident when it comes to dating. Perhaps overly so, sometimes. It just seems…a little out of character, you know?"

"'You sure nothing's eating you?' is what he means," Shuuhei translated. "You aren't getting cold feet or something?"

Maybe I'm just not ready for it to end, is what Renji wanted to say. Because she is too good to be true, and I'd rather hold onto the fantasy for as long as I can. But he knew that if he said that out loud, Izuru and Shuuhei would just try to be encouraging, and his hopes were already high enough that it was going to hurt a lot when they crashed down on him.

"Usually, you're on my case for being too impulsive, and now that I'm trying to actually take my time, you're giving me grief for that, too!" he said instead. "Just trying not to make another mistake and waste two more years of my life. Dating a rich, fancy lady sounds like a ton of work, don't you think? Maybe I'm not even up for it. Geez, do you know how long it's been since I've dated any kind of woman? What if I don't remember how to-"

Izuru closed his eyes painfully and waved his hands. "Point taken! Point taken! I'll lay off!"

Shuuhei regarded him very seriously. "We know you know what you're doing, buddy. Or at least as well as any of us do. We just wanted to make sure you knew that we like this one."

"Well, I appreciate that," Renji declared. "I like her, too."

"Also, as far as womanly things go…" Shuuhei said, stroking his chin. "You were somewhat renowned for that in college, weren't you? I am confident it'll come back to you. It's like riding a bike, really."

Izuru rubbed his hands over his eyes. "I hope Momo gets better very, very soon."