Jushiro had some trouble trying to process what Shunsui had just told him. After all, despite the fact that Ichigo had grown up into a lovely young woman, he had some trouble trying to wrap his mind around the idea of her desiring he and his friend in any capacity whatsoever.
Oh sure, he knew that the two of them were considered 'catches' by the opposite sex.
Women just seemed unable to resist them in one way or another. He also knew that many had perused them both in an effort to gain their affections over the years.
Those women had been terribly disappointed by their lack of interest in them. But he and Shunsui tended to be very careful about withholding their affections for very specific reasons.
Jushiro had been ill most of his life- and while definitely not an innocent young lad- he had never wanted to saddle a woman that he loved with him simply to watch him die. It would break his hypothetical significant other's heart and frankly, he didn't want that. It hurt his heart just to think about it.
Whereas Shunsui came from a noble family and had always had a weakness for women.
But ever since Aizen had betrayed them- his family- or what was left of them that were still alive anyway. He knew that they had been pushing the man to take a wife and beget heirs to carry on the family name and secure the clan's future.
Something that Shunsui had absolutely no interest in whatsoever. Mostly because his family was demanding it of him. But there were other reasons as well, even if Jushiro wasn't yet aware of them.
Not only that but learning that Ichigo was attracted to them was troubling for other reasons as well.
One of which was the fact that Soul Reapers rarely committed to anyone long term. Sure, there were some exceptions to this. Many of which were love matches, which was just as rare as a long-term commitment. But for others...the lack of any sort of long-term relationship was partially due to the fact that their lives were very, very long. Or even very, very short depending on whether or not they managed to survive various missions and dealing with hollows on an almost daily basis.
But it was mostly because in the Soul Society, the words 'till death do us part' tended to take on a whole new meaning. One where death rarely ever truly parted anyone.
If they were to decide to take Ichigo as just their lover, it would be so damned easy for them to fall for her that they would never let her go. Not even once she died a human death and finally became a Soul Reaper completely.
And if she were to disappear from their world or become separated from them- they would simply follow her.
They would be too mad with grief to care about anything else but finding her and binding her to them again in any way that they could. And the pattern would repeat over and over and over again so that not even the laws of the universe, nature, or reincarnation would stop them.
So, of course, he was uncertain about whether or not they should reciprocate. Though it wasn't because he thought Ichigo lacking or unworthy of them in some way.
Part of him firmly believed that it would only end badly for all of them if they did. While another part of him was practically ecstatic that someone was interested in the two of them.
"Have you thought things out yet?" He heard Shunsui ask him, causing him to blink owlishly at him before slowly responding to his query.
"I have." He said quietly. "However, I'm uncertain about whether or not we should even react to this information. After all, this isn't the first time that either of us have had someone set their sights on us."
Shunsui scoffed at his weak argument. "None of those damned women are Ichigo. The Ichigo. War hero, God slayer and our very own personal goddess of victory. I can't fathom why you wouldn't want to replicate her feelings. Heaven knows that she has her pick of men."
"Exactly! She has her pick, so why settle for us?"
"Because we're both irresistible eye candy." Shunsui said without thinking, a grin stretching his lips to an almost painful looking degree.
This time it was Jushiro's turn to scoff. "If that were the case then I worry for our future."
"You shouldn't be. We both know that Ichigo's not shallow. She doesn't tend to see others due to their appearance. If she did, she'd realize that you're pretty and I'm a wretched troll by comparison. Let's face it, we're both excellent catches."
Jushiro couldn't think of anything positive or negative to say to Shunsui's very honest words. So, he simply kept his mouth shut and gave his friend a blank look in an effort not to hurt the other man's feelings overly much as he mulled their conversation over a little bit more thoroughly.
Finally, he sighed and raised a hand to run his fingers through his white hair before saying. "I suppose that it couldn't hurt to reciprocate her feelings and see where it takes us."
Shunsui whooped and then looped an arm around his shoulders and began walking. "We should go see her now and make it official."
"W-What?" Jushiro stammered out as he glanced around, absently noting the darkness around them and then pointing out, "It's dark out. I doubt that she's even awake!"
Shunsui cackled, "Oh she's awake alright. I can sense movement from her from here. Her reiki is all over the place, so I don't think that she's able to sleep right now."
Jushiro sputtered for a second and then tried to talk his friend out of this ridiculousness. Especially since it could get them both killed by Ichigo for dropping by so late and unannounced. But his protests fell on deaf ears since Shunsui was already planning their first step in courting the woman.
And with him doing that and refusing to listen, Jushiro was now well and truly trapped. He just hoped that Ichigo understood that their dropping by so late in the evening wasn't his idea so that she wouldn't smite him.
She had spent the better part of her day since returning home, training in the dojo attached to her home, and trying to keep her mind as occupied as possible so that she wouldn't have to think about the fact that Shunsui had figured her secret out. Or the fact that Jushiro likely knew by now too.
Thankfully, she had managed to distract herself for a good while. But once she started to trip over her own feet because her vision had been blurry because of the sweat getting into her eyes- she'd been forced to stop. But only after she had stumbled and fallen over a piece of training equipment and hit the floor with a painful thud that had resulted in a sprained wrist and some bruises.
So, of course she had stopped after that. She had actually been in danger of breaking her neck!
After that, she had taken some time to treat her sprained wrist and then get cleaned up. And once that had been finished, and she had finally remembered the fact that she had left Jushiro and Shunsui before eating anything, then she had begun to prepare something for dinner.
Needless to say, so much time had passed by then that it was well into the night. Yet even so...she wasn't the least bit tired.
She was in her kitchen stirring some of the vegetables that she was frying on the stove while the chicken in the other pan was simmering over low heat. Her radio was on, and the music from the American band Whitesnake was playing. She had been quietly singing along to some of their songs while she cooked and now that her food was almost done- and none too soon either considering how badly her stomach was beginning to cramp up with hunger pangs.
She wiped her hands on the apron that she had donned so that her clothing wouldn't become messed up from cooking and turned around to grab some dishes and nearly jumped out of her skin and screamed bloody murder when she came face to face with a couple of bemused shinigami.
Her two unexpected visitors had obviously snuck into her home while she had been distracted and had become curious enough to search for her until they had found her.
And then they had apparently decided not to let her know that they were there simply because they had been engrossed in the entertainment that she had unknowingly been providing them.
She would bet that they had let their curiosity of what she was like whenever no one was around had gotten the best of them.
"Are you both trying to scare me to death?" She finally asked once her heart had slowed down enough for her to speak.
"Apologies, Ichigo. We announced ourselves repeatedly, but you didn't respond so we let ourselves in to check on you." Jushiro said with a soft smile, his green eyes dancing with amusement.
Next to him, Shunsui was doing his best not to outright laugh at her as he said, "We heard the music playing and figured that we'd follow it since you mentioned earlier that you enjoyed dancing. We were expecting to find you doing that- we weren't expecting to find you singing and dancing while cooking too."
"Yes, you're quite talented."
She flushed a little bit and muttered an awkward sounding thanks and then started to reach for some dishes again but was stopped by Jushiro placing a gentle hand on one of her shoulders and telling her to let them get the dishes while she saw to the food so that it wouldn't burn.
She didn't have it in her to bother to even argue. So, she moved aside and let them get the dishes, while she turned the stove off and had Shunsui move to help her with placing the food in various dishware so that it could be moved to the table in her living room and set out for consumption.
Thanks to their help, the dishes and food were set out within a few minutes. After which she went to grab some drinks for all of them since she didn't want the pair to think that she was a poor hostess.
Placing the drinks down on the table after she opened them for the men since she wasn't sure if they even knew how to open the tabs on canned drinks, she then sat down across from them and waited to see what they were going to do.
"Oh wow! You really cooked a feast, Ichigo." Shunsui muttered in startled shock.
"It looks and smells amazing!" Jushiro said happily as he scanned the dishes on the table with interest.
Ichigo gave a small huff despite not really caring about the fact that the two were about to invite themselves to eat some of her food. She usually had company visit her most days anyway. So, she tended to prepare more than enough food for several people to eat whenever she cooked.
Both men suddenly focused on her face, their expressions mirroring her thoughts as they gave her a couple of comical begging looks that had her laughing quietly as she motioned with her hand for them to help themselves.
The pair made happy sounds and quickly grabbed some of the extra dishes that they had set out, probably hoping that she wouldn't notice them right away, and began to help themselves.
Ichigo would be lying if she said that she didn't feel happy whenever they decided to taste some of the food and saw the looks of pleasure that flitted across their faces that indicated that they were pleased by the flavors.
She considered it pretty high praise as far as her cooking went.
"Oh," She heard Jushiro suddenly say as he stopped eating for a moment and looked at her in concern. Shunsui followed a moment after and cast a quick glance her way before figuring out what had his friend so worried. "Ichigo, do you not intend to eat?"
"Hn? Oh, yeah. Sorry." She said as she started to reach for her own dishes and was startled when Shunsui quickly grabbed it up and began to put a bit of everything on it. Weirdly, pausing every now and again to put certain, carefully selected morsels on it before moving on.
Once that was done and the dish was set back in front of her, the two men then waited for her to tuck in before they resumed eating themselves.