When Shuuhei had thought of how he was going to confront Renji about the previous night, he hadn't thought that rinsing puke off Renji in the bathroom would really factor into that. He really shouldn't be surprised, though, if he considered the spiral of a lack of control his life had been descending down recently.

Iba and Izuru help Shuuhei drag Renji out of the office to the nearest public restroom, the rest of the lieutenants looking too shocked to react any. Fine then, they can deal with the sick-soaked potted plant if they really want to.

Izuru and Iba keep their relative distance, not wanting to become another target in the Renji Super-Soaker of Sick. Was a little late for Shuuhei, though. As it is he had to fight not to stop and gag from the disgusting squish of his tabi and sandals. Renji had better be really fucking grateful when he comes to and stops that pathetic whimpering that he's doing right now that's so concerning and makes Shuuhei panic just a little bit.

When the four shinigami reach the bathroom, Izuru and Iba do their best to drop Renji against the wall as gently as possible. Fortunately, it's empty, all of the urinals unattended and stalls standing open and empty. Shuuhei takes the opportunity of Renji being lifted from his person to kick off his sandals and peel off his socks with two fingers. Those get dropped in the sink and Shuuhei tries not to think of all the potential things that could be on a bathroom floor getting picked up by his bare feet.

This is, more or less, Shuuhei's fault. Shuuhei had theorized that he was afforded some time away from Renji because- honestly?- that kiss had screwed Shuuhei up inside more than he wanted to admit. He had gone straight home from the bar that night (after running away from Renji like a coward, who probably drank himself stupid and unwell enough to be in this state the next day). And when he jerked himself off before bed in an attempt to work some of the stress of his body he tried to think of the voluptuous, buxom breasts or graceful, dainty collarbones he had always found himself drawn to before, but his mind kept drifting back to the press of Renji's lips. Eventually the soft, feminine arch of the neck in his mind grew and rippled with taunt, masculine muscles. The shapely breasts shrank onto a chest hardening with sculpted muscles rippling under the thick lines of black tattoos.

Following that, his treacherous brain treated Shuuhei to a slideshow down memory lane of every time he had seen Renji shirtless or showering. The intensity of Shuuhei's climax was humiliating. Shuuhei practically ran out of bed into the shower afterwards, feeling guilty that he had used Renji's body as masturbation fuel. Feeling even more ashamed that it had worked.

Then just as Shuuhei was beginning to admit to himself that yes, perhaps Renji was maybe just a bit sexy, his shoes had gotten puked on. Renji curled up into a ball on the bathroom floor, bracing his head with his arms was nowhere near as attractive as he had been in Shuuhei's fantasies, but he was much harder to ignore and relatively easier to cope with.

"You" Shuuhei announces, wetting a paper towel before waving it threateningly at the destitute red-head, "are a mess."

Renji forces a bark of laughter, "Maybe just a little. What gave me away?"

"I think the smell back in the meeting room tipped everyone off." Iba comments dryly, fishing a water bottle out of the emergency supply cabinets. Oh yeah, there were other people here. Shuuhei had kind of gotten used to not having to share Renji.

Iba handed off the bottle to Renji, who tries to gulp it down and probably rid himself from the taste of illness in his mouth before it was slapped away from his face by Izuru. "No gulping. Only smaller sips."

Renji, who oh so hated to appear needt in front of people, looks like a deer in the headlights under the other lieutenants' watchful eyes. Wearing embarrassment and self-consciousness plain on his face, he lifts the water bottle to his lips much slower this time, in an attempt to shield his face just a little bit.

Shuuhei restrains a sigh, then decidedly put his hands on Izuru and Iba's shoulders. "Why don't you two go back to the meeting and try to control the damage there before a captain swings by or something. Renji and I will clean ourselves up in here."

Iba protests a little, wanting to prove that he was loyal enough to stand by Renji's side to the point of Shuuhei becoming concerned that the redhead would murder him. Eventually, however, he was pressed to leave, dragging Izuru who gave Shuuhei a more suspicious look after him.

Okay, so Shuuhei maybe feels just a little bit bad about that. Izuru is Shuuhei's best friend, and they had been nigh-inseparable since they were betrayed by their captains. There wasn't a lot that they kept from each other but Izuru would have to sit in the dark on this one, at least until Shuuhei could figure out what was going on in his own head.

Shuuhei sends the other two vice-captains flying out the door with a push to Iba and a light kick to the rear to Izuru. That done, Shuuhei locks the door to the bathroom before turning back to Renji. The eternal conundrum.

"Thanks…" Renji mumbles, curling in on himself again so the bottom half of his face was lost in his sleeves.

"Don't mention it." Shuuhei says, kneeling with the damp paper towels in front of him. "Really. Don't. This is gross. Head up."

At Renji's stubborn refusal Shuuhei takes matters into his own hands, taking Renji's chin in his hands and forcing Renji to face him. Now no longer impeded, Shuuhei set to work wiping Renji's face clean.

"I can do this myself, you know." Renji grumbles, taking more from the pile of towels on the floor to clean off his front.

"You are five years old." Shuuhei protests dully, which isn't actually an argument. "And anyways, maybe we should take this as an opportunity to, y'know, talk?"

Renji sighs, grimacing at the mess of his shihakusho. "Now, of all times?"

"Would there be a better time?"

Renji seemss to consider this, studying Shuuhei as he ran the paper towel over Renji's face. "I suppose not. So," Renji exhales heavily, "now you know that I like you. I have feelings, Shuuhei, and they are for you. I gave you my monkey."

Shuuhei pauses, lifting the paper towel from Renji to stare at him with confusion. "What?"

"The monkey is a metaphor!" Renji says, sounding insistent. "Anyway that's not the important part! I like you and I thought you liked me back."

Shuuhei cocks his head to one side, feeling more lost by the second. "How'dya figure that?"

"Well you did kiss me back!"

That was true. Shuuhei feels himself blush, a notion that did not go unnoticed by Renji. At first he appears bewildered by the reaction from Shuuhei, but after a second his eyes light up with the suddenness of understanding. His frown crawls upwards into an arrogant smirk. "You like me, too."

"I didn't say that. You just decided that for yourself!"

Renji laughs, but was not an unkind sort of laugh. He finishes with the paper towel and crumples it into a ball before tossing it away. "It's okay if you want to think about it. I'm not gonna force you to do anything you don't want to do." He adds cheekily, "But you so totally think I'm hot."

Shuuhei glares at the other man, narrowing his eyes dangerously even as the glow in his face deepened. But there's no use denying it forever. Shuuhei can't run from Renji forever, and there's not going to be a way for him to answer without saying what he's about to say right now.

"Ffffffine." Shuuhei bites out, needing to push the word out there to get in into the open. "There might be some feelings… like, hot-feelings. Feelings related to your hotness. I guess I hadn't actually thought about it that much. I don't know for sure. Wow."

Renji's expression is softer now. It's still not the sexy kind of vibe Shuuhei had conjured in his memories, but that doesn't bother him. Whatever, that was a stupid vibe anyways. "We could try it. You know, being a thing."

"A thing?"

"Like a relationship-thing."

"Yeah." Shuuhei admits in a small voice. His hand falls to the floor, finding Renji's. He touches Renji's hand that way Renji did what seemed like forever and a day ago. "We could. No promises. No commitments. We could just try it out and see where it goes from there."

Renji beams in response and it's ridiculous how much it makes Shuuhei's heart swell up at seeing that stupid, toothy grin. Shuuhei laughs despite himself.

"But I'm not going to kiss you right now. Because you probably taste like throw-up and that'd be so fucking disgusting."

"Aww." Renji pouts, looking dejected, "Way to kill the mood."

"You do that just fine by yourself. Make yourself decent so we can go back to work." Shuuhei comments, falling back on his heels and turning away from Renji so he can stand up.

"If you're so sure you want me decent now." Renji growls in a throaty tone, and Shuuhei's spine stiffens in surprise and he lurches forward slightly at the unexpected sensation of what he's 100% sure was Renji's hand swiftly smacking Shuuhei's ass.

Shuuhei, stunned, looks back to Renji with astonishment drawn across his face. Renji himself looks as if whatever burst of courage promoted the action has dissipated like snow on a hotplate. He snatches his hand back to his side as if he's afraid Shuuhei is going to lose his cool and bite it off. "Was that out of line? That was out of line, sorry."

Shuuhei doesn't lose his cool, although at his point he's not sure there's any cool left to lose. It's more surprise than anger or anything else. People don't often take an interest in Shuuhei's butt enough to know what do to in this situation. "S'okay. Just… don't do that in front of people, okay?"

Renji's smug look comes back faster than a flip of a coin. "Can I do that in private, then?"

"Why don't you go and puke all over yourself again?"

In Shuuhei's experience, if you threw up you went home afterwards. You threw your pants to the other side of the room and curled up under the bed with a large bucket of plastic tupperware placed strategically nearby. Renji disagreed, and Shuuhei can't really find it in himself to be surprised.

"I'm fine!" He protests against Shuuhei's nagging, "Just had to get all the sick out of my system. Totally good now. Could take out an army of hollows, throw the Eleventh Division across the Seireitei and other such claims of valor."

"And now you're suddenly so eager to walk back into a room full of people who watched you vomit?"

Renji considers this seriously, turning pale. "You know what, though? Maybe I am still feeling a little groggy. I'll skip the meeting and go back to the office."

The two men exit the restroom, Shuuhei's feet feelings kind of weird in his sandals without his tabi, which were deemed lost cause and tossed in the bathroom trash-bin. He'd steal a pair of Renji's later as retribution. Shuuhei had done "The Dating Thing" enough times to know that was a thing people did, and was even encouraged in one of those bizarre ways that being in a relationship made you an anomaly from the rest of society. Which did beg the question-

"So, uh." Renji says before Shuuhei could, awkwardly shifting his weight from one foot to the other, "What do we do now?"

Shuuhei didn't need to ask for elaboration to know what Renji was talking about.

Shuuhei chucks weakly, shrugging his shoulders a little. "Now that is a question, isn't it?" It came out a lot more coy than he meant it to be. He genuinely has no clue himself.

Honestly, Shuuhei's been trying to avoid really thinking about what he could be getting into. Renji is his friend, but he's pretty sure he couldn't picture any of his other friends kissing him like Renji did. But that Renji is so far away from Shuuhei's usual type- that he's not even remotely feminine at all. Shuuhei's adolescence spent in fascination with the female figure feels like it had betrayed him.

And what would that mean for them in bed should the situation arise, which assuming all things went well it undoubtedly would? Would Renji expect Shuuhei to submit to him sexually, or would Shuuhei have to deal with the guilt of having sex with Renji in a manner in which the redhead was not enjoying? Shuuhei's never even done anything intimate with another guy! Well, there was that one time in the academy, but he looked kind of womanish after all. It was all hands anyways and didn't count. Probably.

Shuuhei was so caught up in these thoughts that he hadn't noticed Renji's growing impatience at a lack of a response. "Shuuhei, something wrong?"

"Huh?" Shuuhei snaps back into focus.

Renji sort of sighs a longsuffering sigh, like he knew this was coming. "It's because I'm a guy, right?"

"Not necessarily." Shuuhei insists, although admittedly that was part of the conflict, "I'm just sort of wondering where we go from here, you know?"

Renji nods, giving Shuuhei a sympathetic look. But soon enough his face lights into a smile. "I'll tell you what. We can both go back to work and hang out with our friends and act like everything's normal." He leans into Shuuhei, and pressed a kiss to his forehead that Shuuhei guesses is far enough away from his mouth to be acceptable. "And then I'll go back to my quarters with takeout for two, and you can decide whether or not you want to join me."

Renji pulls back, face displaying a smirk at the visible reaction his words and actions as if he already knows what Shuuhei is thinking about his proposal. There's really no reason for that to be sexy. Takeout isn't sexy, but Shuuhei's craving it anyways. Renji walks away, and Shuuhei finds himself regretting that Renji is still too gross to kiss properly.

Whereas before Shuuhei's day had been spent thinking about what he was going to say to Renji and, admittedly, how to avoid Renji, now they were full of what Shuuhei should do with Renji. Obviously, the taller man didn't seem the kind to be swept off his feet, which was what Shuuhei had always done with all the girls he'd gone out with. Shuuhei's experience with "The Dating Thing" had taught him that was how it usually worked for him.

Shuuhei hopes that this spacing out into his own thoughts isn't going to become a thing with him. After the Vice-Captain's meeting (the majority of it Shuuhei greatly missed thanks to Renji) he returns back to the office, and Captain Mugumura notices as soon as Shuuhei's attention began drifting away from the layout for the magazine he was supposed to be designing.

The day creeps by painfully slowly, and in the later hours Shuuhei counts down the minutes for the first time in a long time to when his shift is over. Finally, by the time that the end of the day had rolled around, the sky darkened to a deep black-ish blue. Which, Shuuhei decided, was actually just dark blue. He's the editor. He doesn't have to be poetic.

On the way to the Sixth, anxiety begins to worm its way back into Shuuhei's mind. What would Renji be expecting from Shuuhei when he showed up? Would there be talking involved? With more emotions? Gods, this was very mature of Shuuhei, isn't it?

But any thoughts of turning back were gone when Shuuhei reached the room on the quarter's hall designated to Vice-Captain. He had barely even arrived when the room was flung open and Shuuhei was yanks inside and found himself with a Renji attached at his hips.

"Hey." Renji says in greeting.

"Hi."

Renji kind of just stands like that more a minute with his arms wrapped around Shuuhei. The confident grin stretched across his face sort of tapers off into a blank expression. "I'm not really sure what I'm doing here. I thought hugging you would be the safest option. So how was your day?"

Shuuhei chuckles, letting his hands come to rest on Renji's arms. His biceps are definitely hard and bulgy compared to a woman, but less so than he imagined. Sometimes Shuuhei forget how angular Renji is. He's like a boxer dog, all bones and sharp muscles but he wears it like he's much bulkier than he really is.

"Hey, Renji." Shuuhei says conversationally.

"What?"

Shuuhei leans in conspiratorially, and says in a husky, seductive whisper, "Do you still taste like puke?"

A flash of irritation at the reminder twitches in Renji's eye, but he matches Shuuhei tone for thick tone. "Nope. I brushed my teeth and everything. I swear."

It's not romantic at all and it's probably the dorkiest lead-in to a kiss Shuuhei's ever taken part it, but it does the trick.

The initiation is awkward because Renji is so much bigger than him, and Shuuhei's really not sure where he's supposed to grip or how hard or where to lean in or if leaning in is even okay at all. It feels like Shuuhei is a kid again having his first kiss, inexperienced and utterly lost in the nightmare of amateurism and sexual confusion. The best he manages is sort of repeating what Renji did last night, leaning in and waiting for Renji to part his lips in permission.

Renji wasn't lying when he said that he had brushed his teeth. He tastes minty like too much toothpaste, and when Shuuhei raises a hand to Renji's face to caress it and slightly adjust the position to give Shuuhei a better angle, he is rewarded by a hot breath and a mouth tasting of peppermint.

It's not as sexy as Shuuhei thought it might be, not in the way he was expecting at least. It feels sort of mushy and soppy and sweet. In all his history of past relationships Shuuhei was never one to invest too strongly in the idea of romance. Dating was a thing people did when they were attractive and could stand to be around one another. He's not sure if the way Renji kisses him makes him change his mind about it, but he wants it to because it feels like what that romantic feeling is supposed to be about.

And in the throes of lip-locking he realizes hey, Renji's pretty good at kissing. He also realizes wow, he better slow down because this is getting really sappy really fast and Shuuhei would prefer to keep some slight sliver of mystery regarding himself alive for now.

That option flies out the window when Renji sucks his tongue with a kind of pressure that implies that he's very talented in that department and Shuuhei opens his mouth for air and emits a kind of breathy sigh.

They both pull away from each other, Renji looking curious but not unpleased and Shuuhei embarrassed by his own responsiveness. He hadn't been expecting that of himself.

Renji gives Shuuhei a smug grin, but nuzzles into the hand on his face. "Whatdya say we move this to the couch. I have some cold takeout with our names all over it."

Shuuhei and Renji eat their dinner, and for Shuuhei it feels really weird because for a while they're both sort of ignoring the fact that they have kissed, will kiss again and just chat and laugh with each other as they shovel food into their mouths like horses as if nothing has changed between them at all.

Something has, though. Renji's hand lingers on Shuuhei's thigh when he reaches over for a second helping. Shuuhei rests his head onto Renji's shoulder as he whines about how boring the vice-captain's meeting was without him. And when they fall asleep like that on the couch, Shuuhei's worries about how the bedroom scene will work out completely delayed for now, Shuuhei doesn't think that he'll complain about how uncomfortable Renji's couch is when he wakes up.