Bleach 1. Valentines Day

**A/N: **This will just be some short stories with Renji's views on a few things, like Valentines Day... and maybe Ichigo's face, because I find that funny. It's just ridiculous plotbunnies.. don't hate me for them. Oh and I own nothing... beside the ideas...

**Chapter 1… Valentines Day**

Valentines Day… it must be the most unnecessary day of the year. In Renji's opinion it was silly to have an entire day dedicated to give your precious one a gift. Couldn't people just do that whenever they wanted? It was ridiculous, seriously. It was just another day of February, nothing special about it.

Of course, that was until a short girl with shoulder length black hair stopped him in the hall as he was walking to his class. She was blushing brightly and Renji realized that he'd never seen her before, so when she reached a small red package and said: "Ano… Abarai-san… would you accept this gift?" His eyebrows had shot up, but he quickly managed to regain his composure.

"Err… sure." The girl smiled brightly, still blushing, gave him the package and ran of with the words: "I really love your tattoos!" This left a rather confused Renji in the hall. After a minute or two he made his way into his classroom where he noted that Rukia, Ichigo, Orihime Inoue, Chad (or was it Sado?), Matsumoto Rangiku and Hitsugaya Toushirou were already present.

Ichigo had his nose in a book with his usual frown on his face, and Renji realized that he sensed a lot of anxiety in the air. Then Orihime rushed over to Ichigo with a huge red package and exclaimed:

"Kurosaki-kun, would you accept my Valentines gift?" Ichigo looked up at the gift. Renji figured that he was a little unsure since if it was something Orihime had cooked herself… then there was a big chance he'd get food poisoning. Or so said the stories of her cooking that he'd heard so far.

"Yeah… sure Inoue…" He took it and placed it in his bag and went on reading as Orihime returned to her desk happily. Next however, was Tatsuki, she threw her little red box in Ichigo's face and said:

"Here you go, Ichigo… do you accept my Valentines gift?" It was obvious that the last part was only there for show, Tatsuki had no intention of letting Ichigo refuse it. This amused Renji, who knew Valentines Day could be so funny? Ichigo grumbled something but put the gift down in his bag.

"Arigato, Tatsuki, Inoue." Then he went back to his book again. Renji couldn't believe how boring the kid was, seriously, he was one of the strongest shinigamis… and there he was… reading a book caring about nothing.

Suddenly Renji felt someone poke his shoulder, he looked down, Rukia. She had a smirk on her face as she half whispered half said to him: "This is where things get interesting." … What? What was she talking about? Suddenly a rustle was heard and several girls had walked up to Ichigo, each of them presenting their own gift to him, looking mildly terrified as he looked at them, all because of that frown. Ichigo accepted all the gifts, apparently seeing no point in not doing so and put them all down in his bag… which was almost overflowing with red and pink packages.

Renji snickered, Ichigo had that many admirers? That was ridiculous! Next thing he knew, Rukia had pulled his face down in the level of her own and she said: "I've been told that those girls have been trying to get the guts to give him those gifts for quite some time. Apparently, he's been too scary for them to have enough courage to go through with it." Then she let go of his face and Renji straightened his back.

Rukia's words sank in and he blinked a couple of times before bursting out in laughter. Humans sure were pathetic sometimes. Then the teacher stepped inside and before he took his seat Renji had enough time so see Asano Keigo glomp Ichigo before getting punched off and taking his own seat.

But it was Renji's conclusion, no matter how hilarious it was to see Ichigo walk home with a bag which was filled with red and pink packages, and no matter how hilarious it was seeing the shiny ribbons fall out of it into the visable light, Valentines Day was still one of the most unnecessary days of the year.

**Owari**

**A/N: **Yes, it's not nearly as funny as I wanted it to be... don't flame me for it x'D I wrote it in 20 minutes... bah... oh well...  



	2. Knitting

**A/N: **These are not my personal views of knitting since I mysef enjoy it. These short stories are stringed together, though it may not seem so but they are...  
I still don't own any character or anything... since I don't own Bleach... so yeah...**  
**

**Chapter 2… Knitting**

Knitting. Renji had been told when coming to the human world that knitting was something old ladies did. Heck, he'd even seen it on that thing that humans called TV. So, if knitting was something old ladies did when they wanted to give their grandchildren a sweater, then why the hell was Kurosaki Ichigo, the 15 year old substitute shinigami sitting on his bed with a fluffy green yarn and doing preparations for knitting it!

After about 20 minutes, the knitting had started to give result, and Renji found himself fascinated by how these simple movement of in, get the yarn, out take eagle of, repeat, managed to make something like that. The green yarn was of the kind that made whatever it was look really fluffy and lush.

"Err... what are ya knittin' Ichigo?" Ichigo looked up at him but continued to knit even without looking at what he was doing, after awhile he answered.

"A scarf…" Renji blinked a couple of times while looking at the bright haired shinigami substitute. A scarf? Yeah… definitely old lady material. This was actually pretty weird.

"… are you sure you didn't switch souls with some old lady?" Renji could see Ichigo's eye twitch and the next thing he knew, a hard math book hit him in the head. Ouch. As he sat up and rubbed his head, Ichigo was still sitting there knitting.

Suddenly the door slammed opened and a roar of "Ichigo" could be heard, Renji nearly had a freaking heart attack. It happened to none other than Ichigo's father out to attack him. Ichigo just raised his leg and kicked the man in the face.

"Not now you crazy bastard! I'm busy! Besides! You nearly gave Renji a fucking heart attack!" Isshin rubbed his face to soothe the ache and cast a glance at Renji who had gripped at his heart and was sitting still in shock mode. He had never been so shocked in his entire life.

"Ichigo!" Isshin roared, making Renji wince at the loudness of his voice. "Why didn't you tell me you had a friend over! Will he be staying for dinner? If so then I have to tell Yuzu right now! He is? Oh good!" After that, he rushed of leaving Renji alone with the still knitting shinigami substitute with strawberry for name and an orange for hair. Renji looked at Ichigo, who didn't seem to have noticed the man who'd just been in the room; he was still doing that infernal knitting thing.

Renji suddenly felt the urge to burn the yarn and snap those metal pointy thingies Ichigo used in half. Ichigo looked at him and said: "… sorry 'bout my old man, he's a pain in the ass. Could you close the door?" Renji shot him an angry glare, the hell? That didn't even count as an apology. He was going to have to talk to Rukia and ask her why she didn't warn him for that crazy man.

Yes, Renji concluded, knitting was the source of all evil. It got on your nerves faster than Asano Keigo himself AND it couldn't be healthy! You could poke an eye out and you'd probably loose a lot of work out to just sitting still doing that. And frankly, Renji had now made knitting the bane of his existence. Even if the scarf that Ichigo was knitting looked terribly comfortable…

NO! That's not how he's supposed to think! Knitting is evil! Argh!

Renji got up and jumped out the window in Ichigo's room with the words: "I'll be back for the dinner! And if you haven't stopped knitting by then I'll kill you! And burn it!" Then he rushed of, not wanting to see another person knit for the rest of his life.

**Owari**

**A/N: **Bah, once again it didn't turn out the way I wanted it to... oh well... if you puzzle together the times I wored on it... I would say about 20 minutes once again...**  
**


	3. Ichigo's face

**A/N:** Chapter three is up... hehe, last chapter was simply dumb... I know. But the one review it recieved cracked me up.  
I own nothing except the lame attemps of humor and the wonky story idea... yeah.

**Chapter 3…Ichigo's face**

Abarai Renji had always liked to observe things around him. It wasn't always things, sometimes it was people, or things about people. One of the things he'd observed since he came to the human world was Ichigo's face. Ichigo always had his eyebrows knitted together, giving him a pretty frightening look. When Renji thought back on it, he realized that he'd never once seen Ichigo smile…. At least not one of those happy smiles, because, well… his eyebrows were always knitted together, so it looked more like a smirk than a smile. And frankly, seeing the frowning boy smile at all was a bit freaky.

Renji had also noticed that Ichigo never had any other expression than that frown, not even if they were all sitting bored waiting for the next class to commence. Even if they were fighting hollows or if he seemed hungry, it was always that same frown. Frown, frown, and frown.

He had asked Rukia about it once; she had thought about and said that even when even when surviving from injuries or near death experiences, which he should have been thankful for surviving, the frown hadn't left his face.

When Renji had fought Ichigo one on one, both before returning Rukia to soul society and then inside of soul society, he had still had that frown on his face, almost as it had been carved into it like a piece of art in a block of marble.

Renji had also noted that Ichigo's brown eyes were one of a kind. They held determination at anytime, even if he didn't seem especially determinate. The only time Renji had ever seen that sparkle of determination fade was when he was lying on the ground in the rain, watching as Renji himself along with Kuchiki Byakuya had taken Rukia away, taken her back to soul society. It had only been for a second, it was as if he had given up, only to get determined to get her back, at once. And somehow, that sudden lack of determination sparkle in his eyes made the boy seem so very much more young, frail and scared.

He'd also asked Urahara-san about it, and even he'd said that he'd never even once seen Ichigo without the frown on his face, only with a smaller frown. Apparently, Ichigo even had the frown when sleeping after being injured, the rest of the residents at the Urahara shop could support that, and heck… Rukia could support the fact that he had a small frown on his face when sleeping uninjured (and she did). This was a very surprising and a little disturbing fact to find out, that mean that Ichigo never ever looked completely peaceful.

Renji would've gotten bored with frowning all the time, why hadn't Ichigo? It wasn't like it was any fun to go around with knitted eyebrows and a glare. Frankly, if he knitted his eyebrows for too long then he got a headache… maybe that's why Ichigo always were so grumpy… he had a headache.

Renji couldn't even remember how many times he'd been tempted to punch Ichigo's lights out because of that sullen and sour expression he always wore. With hair that bright one would've thought that the personality of the owner could have been at least a little bit brighter and happier… and not quite so angry.

At times, Renji had to admit that Ichigo's face had scared the shit out of him, especially when he gave of an aura of murder or bloodlust. Then his face was simply freaky and terrifying to say the least. Even Zaraki Kenpachi could be impressed when the scariness of it all was at its worst.

As his final thought, Renji hated Ichigo's frown. And he simply wanted to punch the other in the face because of it. He almost had an urge to start a quest to make Ichigo smile, but for now… he's simply suffice with the urge to punch him.

**Owari**

**A/N:**Yeah... maybe not as I would have wanted it to turn out (again...) but this'll do for now. There will probably be a whole lot more chapters because my brain keeps thinking of new stupid things for Renji to observe and think about... and one of 'em makes me wanna illustrate it... yay?


	4. Sharing a hotel room

**A/N:**Is it just me or is this much longer than the others? Oh well... this sorta sucks, I have no clue where the idea came from... I blame it all on lack of sleep... it's 4.23am... I haven't slept... this is all written now in this nighttime... oh joy... my most creative hours are after midnight... pretty much... yay?  
don't own anything... sorry (it's probably better if I don't)

**Chapter 4... Sharing a hotel room**

Why? Why the hell did this happen? Why the hell was he, Abarai Renji, forced to share a room with Kurosaki Ichigo? A room with only one bed no less! There would be murder! And lots of it! When he found out who made that damned mistake with the booking, oh there would be murder! And he'd enjoy it to!

-Flashback-

Rukia and Inoue had persuaded (forced) Renji, Ichigo, Sado, Ishida, and Tatsuki to join her at some sort of an anime and manga convention in some other town, way too far away from his home for Ichigo's liking, and too much of an anime and manga convention for Renji's liking. What Ishida thought about it didn't matter.

Tatsuki and Orihime had decided to book them some rooms at a hotel close to the convention, the two of them would share a two bedded room, Rukia wanted her own single bedded, Sado and Ishida was going to share one two bedded room, and Renji and Ichigo had insisted on getting separate rooms, they didn't really want to spend more time together than they were being forced to do.

However, when they'd arrived at the hotel (after one long and nightmare-like train ride) they faced another set back. Sado and Ishida had gotten their room, picked up their bags and gone up to it to unpack after they'd all decided on a time to meet back in the lobby, Rukia had gotten her room and left as well, Inoue and Tatsuki had gotten their room and left… all of them without a problem. Of course things didn't go quite as smoothly for Renji and Ichigo, much to their dismay.

The damned hotel had some sort of weird code system. When you booked a room, you received a code that you were supposed to give in the lobby, whoever sat there would type it into the computer and the booking would show up. Pretty smooth since then you couldn't steal someone else's room by giving up a false name or something of the sort. Renji didn't really get the system, it was odd.

When Ichigo had gone up to the desk and told her the booking number he'd received for it the woman behind it, who resembled Hinamori in a lot of ways, only with glasses, had typed it in and then exclaimed: "Ah, there it is. A one bedded room for Abarai Renji and Kurosaki Ichigo… correct?" Renji and Ichigo stopped breathing, blinked a couple of times before a loud roar of "WHAT!" erupted from their throats.

The woman shifted nervously in her chair and looked slightly frightened at the two who looked angrily and shocked at her. Had she really said what they thought she had? Renji felt a nervous bubble of fear, anger, confusion and a whole lot of other emotions bubble up in his stomach making him a bit queasy.

The lobby was looking at them and the woman started to speak, her voice shaking and she was stuttering. "I-I'm s-so-sorry gentlemen but… but… that's what the-the booking says…" She hid behind a rather big book which seemed to have a lot of numbers and names written in it. A large man with black hair came up behind her and put a hand on her shoulder before looking coldly at Ichigo and Renji who had both slammed their hands on the desk and were glaring holes in the poor woman.

"Is there a problem, Saruwatari-chan?" The woman was visibly shaking, as Renji noted that Ichigo had one of his scariest faces on. Oh dear, he'd better calm Ichigo down before the poor woman had a heart attack, by the looks of it, it had better be quickly.

"There se-seem t-to b-b-be s-something wr-wrong with these gen-gentle-gentemen's b-bo-booking!" She managed to stutter out making the man look at Ichigo and jumped a bit. Renji noted that even if the man was about his own height and therefore pretty much longer than Ichigo, he still found the teen rather frightening.

"Ichigo, calm down dammit! It's not her fault that something with this system is screwed up!" Renji growled at Ichigo and thus gaining his attention. He cringed a little at the dark shadow that passed over the teen's face; he actually wished that Zaraki Kenpachi was here if only to challenge Ichigo to a duel and taking his mind of this err… problem. Renji shifted a little and then turned to the two behind the desk, still feeling Ichigo glaring at him.

"Err, the thing is… we had booked two single rooms as we don't want to share a room… a single bedded one especially…" The woman's eyes widened slightly as if she just now realized that Ichigo wasn't Abarai Renji waiting for a female companion named Ichigo. Which could've been true, but obviously wasn't.

"Ohmigosh! How could this have happened! I'm so sorry sir! I'm looking at the booking, someone… eh.. the one who received a booking wrote it in as a single bedded room and we're out of rooms so there's nothing I can do! I'm so sorry!" Renji sighed angrily and felt the urge to slam his head against the desk.

"Dammit! I knew we shouldn't have let Tatsuki-san and Inoue-san book the rooms! Who ever took the booking must've thought that a male and a female were booking it since a female called and you've got such a freaking girl name!" Renji hit Ichigo over the head as he was saying it. This made Ichigo twitch angrily.

"Shut up you bastard! Don't you dare blame this shit on my name!" Renji just snorted and ignored Ichigo. Instead he cast a glance at the two behind the desk… they looked rather frightened again, then they glanced at each other and the man turned away and made a phone call, almost whispering into the cell phone.

"Ah err… to show how sincerely sorry we are, you won't have to pay for the room., and we'll give you a really large suite… even though I'm afraid it's single bedded. Giving you a large room with a very large bed is the best we can do I'm afraid." This time, Ichigo slammed his face onto the desk and Renji sighed in defeat.

"Fine… we'll just have to take it then…" he muttered and accepted the two key cards. "Let's go… Ichigo…" Renji didn't miss how Ichigo cast a last dark glare at the two behind the check-in desk before they left the lobby.

-End flashback-

So there they were, stuck in a hotel room together. Sure, it was pretty nice and big… and it was rather sweet that they didn't have to pay for it… but sadly, it lacked a couch or a spare bed, so they were nevertheless forced to share a bed. They'd tried to bribe Rukia into switching with one of them, they'd even tried with Tatsuki and Inoue, but all three had rejected the proposal. Though… both Tatsuki and Inoue had gotten a little bit too red on their cheeks when Renji had asked them to switch places with him, which he found rather interesting to say the least.

The group had eaten dinner in the hotel's restaurant (free dinner due to the room mix-up, no one could possible say that it didn't have its upsides) after the food intake, they split up and went to their rooms. While Sado and Ishida's, Rukia's and Inoue's and Tatsuki's rooms were on the same floor very close to each other, Renji's and Ichigo's were two floors higher up. Heck, they had a balcony with amazing sight, which didn't go unnoticed by either of them. The two of them actually stood, in silence, on the balcony staring at the view and the stars for about half an hour.

Time for bed, it was almost midnight before they started to undress and get ready for bed. With it being summer and all, the room was rather warm, so both of them chose to sleep in nothing but underwear and pants. They had a small fight over who was getting the large, bright and white bathroom first, but it worked out. However, they had some difficulties.

The two of them were standing at the end of the big single bed made for two, made for a couple; they stood there and stared at it… for ten minutes before Ichigo broke the staring silence with the words "I get the right side!" Then he ran over to what appeared from Renji's point of view as the left side… however, it would count as the right side when in the bed… oh whatever! Like it mattered anyways!

They slipped into the bed, both of them at their own side while glaring at each other and making a mutual and silent agreement on never ever to speak about the whole "sharing a bed for three nights" thing. Renji figured that things couldn't possible get any worse now.

-The next morning-

However, as Renji woke up, that last thought he had before sleep had been so wrong. Not that he knew it, at the time; he was still too sleepy to do anything or to think clearly. However, he did feel that he was holding something against his chest, something warm… wait a minute.

Renji's eyes snapped opened, the light from the windows stung in his eyes and he glanced down. Yep, he'd been right… fuck. In his harms, being held almost protectively by them was Ichigo. The other was still asleep, and Renji was almost afraid to move, he did realize that Ichigo's arm was flung around his neck, it was pretty much a mutual embrace… oh fuck.

Then Ichigo stirred. Oh fuck. Brown eyes blinked open, the body they belonged to tensed, Ichigo looked at Renji who was a tense as he was, Renji looked at Ichigo. Then at the same time they flung them selves backwards with a: "ack!" and each of them fell of the bed.

They looked at each other from where they were seated on the floor, each of them behind one side of the bed, then, at the same time they shouted: "Never speak of this again!" They each gave a nod before turning away from each other trying to calm down.

Oh fuck. Renji concluded that sharing a hotel room with Ichigo was going to be difficult, especially if they kept drifting towards the centre of the bed and snuggle together like this night… maybe he should just sleep on the floor. No… that wouldn't work. Oh fuck, he would just have to live through this one way or another. But he never, ever wanted to share a room with Ichigo again… unless that room had two beds, a bed and a couch at least. Fuck this, now he was going to drink a helluva lot of sake to forget about this. From now on, alcohol was his best buddy.

**Owari**

**A/N:** Yeah uhm... don't ask me where that came from... seriously... I think I'm gonna go to sleep now... it's late... 4.23am...**  
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	5. Busses

**A/N:** These are partly my thoughts on busses. I hate them! they're yucky and warm an... ick. oh well. A very short chapter horribly short actually.  
I own nothing... except the lame ideas.

**Chapter 5... Busses**

Busses. Busses were even more horrible than knitting. Renji knew this because he was currently sitting in one. They were going on a fieldtrip apparently, and the bus was filled with him, and Ichigo's classmates. They'd gotten assigned someone to sit with, sadly… Renji sat next to Ichigo. Which made him remember those "horrible" three nights of sleeping in the same bed as the younger man next to him. They weren't speaking, so it was just Renji and his thoughts.

Back to the bus musings. Even though it wasn't overly packed with people, the bus was still very warm and smelled sweat and was really sticky in general. Renji was dying for some fresh air, of course, he could stick his head out through the bus window (if he opened it… which was against the rules) however, that would mean leaning over Ichigo and just… no.

Renji picked up the water bottle he'd luckily brought along and drank some. The water wasn't cold anymore, but at least it was wet. And since it was wet, it was better than nothing, and at the time, Renji wasn't picky.

Renji glance out the window, firmly ignoring Ichigo who was currently glaring holes in the seat in front of him, outside there seemed to be endlessly many green fields. They reminded him of the part of Rukongai where he and Rukia had grown up. He fell back in memories, only to be shaken awake when the bus bounced and started to shake and cringe due to the uneven and bumpy road it was driving on.

Busses were health hazards. They were warm enough to make you delirious, it was crappy in turns and shook enough when driving to wake up a dead man, a bunch of weird sounding noises came from the front of the bus, and its speed slowed down until it stopped. Fucking shit, the bus' engine had broken down. There was another reason for Renji to hate buses.

The gym teacher, who'd, tagged along for the trip, told all males to stand up. Then he studied every single one of them closely before saying: "Alright. Abarai, Kurosaki and Yasutora, you three, go outside. After we get the motor running you'll have to push the bus a bit to get it running smoothly again. I want no objections."

Renji twitched, Sado just went out and Ichigo's face had darkened immensely before he left the bus. Renji took a sigh of relief as he came outside. While it was still hot and the sun was shining, there was a small cool breeze that just made Renji happy.

Busses. Yes, they really, really sucked in Renji's opinion, and having to push a bus along with only two other males made him hate them even more. No, busses took the place as the bane of Renji's existence and therefore pushed knitting out of its place. And as a now even sweatier Renji sat down to a sweatier Ichigo, he couldn't help but to plot a revenge action towards the gym teacher… maybe something nasty smelling in his desk or something.

**Owari**

**A/N:** It was short. It sucked. I'm tired. Reviews are appricated, tell me what I do wrong. By that I mean constructive critisism not flaming. Though I doubt this story is even worth it. Oh well. ...ZzZzZz...**  
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	6. Tattoos

**A/N: **I'm sick. As in really really sick. I've got a fever, I'm dizzy, headache, nausea and a whole lot of other shit. So this chapter really really sucks... I think.  
Anyways, thanks for your comments. I appriciate them a lot. And you who read this (you selected very few... i think) are welcpome to come with suggestions with things Renji could think and muse about.  
Disclaimer: I own nothing. (except the lame ideas) 

**Chapter 6… Tattoos**

Tattoos. Tattoos were awesome in Renji's opinion. That was why he had them, well… not completely because of that reason, but part of it. Sure, if you got one that didn't fit you too well or if you got it when drunk and regretted it afterwards, then it was damn hard to remove. That was probably the only bad thing about them.

The reason that Renji was even thinking about this wasn't because of his own tattoos. He'd seen those a million times, he even knew their lines when closing his eyes. Oh no, it wasn't because of them. As Renji remembered it, Matsumoto Rangiku had somehow managed to con Ichigo and some of the other minors into drinking some sake. The shinigami's had gotten drunk to, it was fun after all.

After that, the memory was kind of blurry; he remembered standing on a table swinging his bright yellow shirt with purple stripes around in the air, and someone doing pretty much the same thing next to him. Next, he and the other (whom he assumed was Ichigo) supported each other as they went into some bright white place. After that, everything was just a blur of colours and sounds.

The next thing Renji knew, he was waking up somewhere, on a floor. His head was pounding and he could hardly move, his hangover from the night before was actually that bad. He groaned and twitched slightly before trying to get up, nope, no luck with that.

After about 10 minutes of trying to sit up, Renji managed. NOW he recognized his location. He'd been sleeping on the floor in Ichigo's room. Oh and speaking, or more like thinking, about Ichigo, he was there two, his upper body lying on the bed and his lower body on the floor. Interesting.

This was when Renji notice something. On his left shoulder blade, Kurosaki Ichigo had a tattoo! Renji tried to get to his feet; he wobbled before slowly making his was to Ichigo's bed. He sat down on it and squinted with his eyes as he looked at the tattoo. Then he snorted in laughter, before bursting out in laughter that echoed in the Kurosaki resident.

Tattoos sure were great in Renji's opinion. Not only could they make you look good, they could also represent success or telling the world that you were in love with someone, they could also be a perfectly hilarious source of entertainment.

Ichigo had awoken now; he was groaning and pressing his palms to his ears, trying to drown out Renji's laughter. Then a brown eye cracked open and glared at the laughing man. After awhile, Renji calmed down enough to realize that laughing like that was not good for your hangover. Ouch.

"What. Was. So. Funny?" Ichigo muttered angrily. Renji simply grinned at him. The grin was wide and slightly sadistically looking. Then he answered Ichigo's question.

"Your new tattoo." That made Ichigo freeze, he stopped moving all together. Oh how fun tattoos could be. Sure, it stings a little when you get them, and you were usually very sore on the spot afterwards, but who cares? They were awesome nevertheless.

Ichigo scrambled to his feet, as he got up he looked very unstable, hangover big time. Then he rushed out of his room, Renji guessed that he headed for the bathroom or something. Now, how could Renji make fun of Ichigo without revealing for the rest of Ichigo's friends about the tattoo? It was perfect blackmail so he didn't want to give it away. He pondered this for while before the peace and quiet was interrupted by an 'AAAAAAHH!' screeched from somewhere in the house. Ouch, that hurt Renji's head.

Renji snickered and grabbed his head, ouch. Ichigo came back, he was hiding underneath a towel, and it looked really hilarious. Then again, Renji could understand why Ichigo was hiding like that. If Renji had gotten such a tattoo himself when drunk, he'd probably killed himself.

Yes, tattoos were great and hilarious at times. And the funniest Renji had ever seen belonged to Ichigo. Because on Kurosaki Ichigo's left shoulder, was a tattoo in form of a strawberry with shinigami written on it in kanji.

**Owari**

**A/N:** Yep, that was it... oh yay? I'm going to go to bed now, because I feel really really bad. Oh and this was really short... I know.**  
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	7. Tricks and Teasing

**A/N:** Yeah, the tattoo didn't turn out the way I had wanted it to (niether did this chapter). I had a better idea but I forgot what it was when I was writinng. Yay, as the common fact states; I'm an idiot.  
Thanks for your reviews, I'm always grrateful for others' points of views on things. (And I hope no one gets offended by the random sprinkles of Renji/chigo... it's not really intentional, but when yer a hardcore Yaoi fan like me... things tend to turn out like that wether ya want them to or not. But I think I've managed to do it pretty subtelty at the least.)  
Oh and I really hope they're not completely out of character... that would be bad.  
man how I rant on today...  
Don't own Bleach, never have never will. 

**Chapter 7… Tricks and Teasing**

Tricking people could be a hell of a lot of fun in Renji's opinion. Making fun of them was a thing he liked to do to. Once, on Halloween, he'd dressed as the soul reaper (or whatever the humans called him) and knocked on a door, the thing was that he acted like the real thing, good enough to almost make the woman answering the door faint. Man, her face was worth a million bucks at the moment he grinned and told her he was just joking.

Making fun of people was also a really fun thing to do. Like recently, ever since that drunken night, he'd gone around calling Ichigo by a new name. The name he was stuck with now was; Deathberry. Ichigo, while it wasn't really the correct meaning of this particular Ichigo's name, (and Renji knew this) could mean strawberry. And he WAS a substitute shinigami, and shinigamis are death god's after all, hence the name Deathberry.

He'd never gotten the idea if it hadn't been for that tattoo, oh how he laughed at it. Of course, he didn't tell anyone about it, Ichigo had made that perfectly clear that that was restricted area. And while Renji wasn't a genius, getting threatened to get your intestines pulled out through your throat and then be strangled with them would make ANYONE realize that it wasn't a good idea to disobey. (And the looming cloud of terrifying reiatsu filled with bloodlust really could help to tip in on how serious the guy was… really).

Oh well, it was just as fun calling Ichigo Deathberry while receiving a murderous glare from him and questioning and confused glances from the others. And Ichigo's many tries to hurt him were equally funny, but it was scary at times, but the good definitely won over the bad. For some reason, most things about Ichigo did.

Renji was thinking about some of the tricks he'd pulled on the dead spirits he had to guide to Soul Society when he was still pretty new to the 13 squads. One woman had been so set on the fact that she was going to hell (because she had stolen a candy bar, once) that she refused to let him use soul burial on her.

-Flashback-

"You'll send me to hell! I know it!"

"No, lady. Ye ain't goin' te hell."

"You're lying! I know you are! Don't come near me!"

_Sigh. Alright then… suit yourself._

"Fine… I admit it, you ARE goin' te hell."

_Sob._

"I knew it!"

_More sobs and whimpers, and some talking to herself._

"How 'bout we make a deal?"

_A puzzled look._

"A deal? What kind of deal?"

"If yah promise never to tell anyone 'bout this, then I'll send ye to heaven anyways. How about it?"

_Distrust._

"Can I trust you?"

"If I can trust you."

"Alright, then it's a deal then… you'll send me to heaven and I won't tell anyone."

"Good then."

-End flashback-

Man, that woman had been fucked up. Renji still felt his eye twitch slightly, even at only remembering it. How much wrong has there have to be in your head for you to believe that you're going to hell because of a candy bar? Seriously, it was ridiculous. That was one of those times when Renji was really glad that he was a good liar and trickster.

A new morning in school, same daily routines all over again, the teasing is ALWAYS the first thing on the schedule. "Mornin' Deathberry." And that's always followed directly by threats. But, for some reason, today was different, very different, because Renji didn't get a snarl in return for that comment. Something was wrong.

Ichigo grabbed Renji by the collar of his shirt and growled into his ear: "I've been nice for days by keeping this secret. I ain't the only one who got themselves a tattoo…" Renji had freaked when hearing about what kind of tattoo he'd gotten, and where. He hoped so badly that it was just a trick or something, but when he checked in the mirror of the guys bathroom, he realized that Ichigo wasn't lying.

On his lower back, a bit above his ass, Renji had the tattoo of a sun, with a happy smiley face. If that wasn't utter embarrassment, then Renji didn't know what was. The second he found out that Ichigo wasn't tricking him, he'd instantly wished that he had been. Tricks and lies were sometimes SO much better than the truth. Because now Renji had to help Ichigo locate that tattoo parlor in which the tattoos were made, if only so that they would finds a way to get them removed.

Final note: Tricks and teasing are some of the best things on earth, when they're not directed against yourself (And sometimes when they ARE directed against yourself. It depends on the situation).

**Owari**

**A/N:** Oh well... bah. Got suggestions for something that Renji can ponder about? Share 'em. Got construktive critism? Share it. Got flames? Stuff 'em.**  
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	8. Christmas

**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...)


	9. Memories and Dreams

**A/N:** Sorry that this took awhile, but school started up and I've been really tired. (I'bve almost fallen asleep during at least half of my classes). But I sat down today and inspiration struck me and I wrote... uhm yay?  
Thanks for the comments, it's good to know that at least a few besides myself are enjoying these.  
I don't own Bleach, ya hear?

**Chapter 9… Memories and Dreams**

Memories and dreams. They were weird things really if you think about it, at least in Renji's opinion. Sometimes, they were the same thing. It was weird, they existed in variations, there were good dreams, good memories, bad dreams (nightmares) and bad memories. It was odd how they could be connect and yet completely different.

He'd always liked dreams really, they were nice and it was a way to escape reality and life (death) without it affecting it at all. And he'd heard awesome stories about people predicting the future in their dreams, which would've been awesome really. However, Renji didn't especially believe in those stories anyways. He firmly believed that no one knew the future for real.

Memories were both good and bad, sometimes you wanted to remember the good things but sometimes you just really wanted to forget things that had happened to you. Renji remembered how he grew up in Rukongai with Rukia and their friends, those were good memories, but he also remembered his friends dyeing, those were the bad ones.

Sometimes, Renji couldn't separate his dreams from reality; sometimes they were too close, too similar, too real… It was hard sometimes, he couldn't always be sure that things really had happened, or if he'd just dreamed them. It was confusing, and sometimes almost frightening, he just didn't get it.

Renji sat up startled awake, cold sweating panting harshly with wide eyes. The cold sweat was flooding down his bare back dripping onto the futon. A nightmare. It had been terrible, that was for sure, it wasn't really clear what it had been about, he couldn't remember it too clearly.

_He'd been in a dark room, not seeing much really, until he'd looked down on his hands, they felt wet somehow and something was slowly running down on his lower arms as he lifted his hands to look at them, and he knew it wasn't water. And when some small candles lit up, Renji saw his hands covered in crimson blood._

_Startled he took a step back, oh god. Then he looked up, he couldn't see the other person's face clearly, but he knew instantly that he knew the other person, and rather well at that. The other was bloodied and bruised, deep cuts on his body. Renji felt turmoil of feelings, anger, fear, self-disgust and so much more he couldn't completely identify._

_The other fell to the floor, his eyes locked on Renji and they seemed like they couldn't believe this, his face was written with confusion, pain and fear and when he hit the ground, that was when the lights flashed, and on the walls around them, there were writings in blood. "It's you fault!" "You did this!" "His blood is on your hands!" "How could you!" "Monster!" "You betrayed him!" Renji spun around in the room, it was filled with accusations like that on the walls, written in blood, he screamed._

That had been when he woke up screaming, shaking and drenched in cold sweat. He couldn't go back to sleep, not after that, no way. Not a chance in hell. He got up from his futon and sneaked out of the Urahara shop and out in the cold December night. What the hells had that dream been about? It had terrified him beyond comprehension, and he didn't know why. All he knew was that it'd been awful.

The next day, he met up with Ichigo and Rukia in the park. He had the urge to tell them about his dreamed, but for some reason, he didn't dare to speak about it. Ichigo had dark circles under his eyes, but Renji hadn't noticed them until Rukia had asked him about it. Ichigo had shifted slightly before answering.

"It's nothing… I've just had the same nightmare over and over the last couple of nights…" Renji looked at him, Ichigo had been having nightmares? He'd just had one himself, but it had been enough to keep him up pretty much the rest of the night, trying to remember whose face it was, whom he, in his dream, had betrayed.

"… Want to talk about it?" Rukia asked, and looked worried at her bright haired friend. Concern visible in her face. Ichigo looked at her, and then he sighed and nodded slightly.

"Well… It starts with me being in a dark room, I can't see anything… then I start hearing these cutting sounds, and I feel something slicing my skin, shredding might be the right word though… next thing I know, blood is running down most of my body, and someone's standing in front of me, looking at his bloodied hands. I… I don't remember who it is, I just know that I know that person, rather well too, not just a mere acquaintance, but more along the lines of a friend, he looks at me then, he looks angry afraid and self disgusted at the same time. The pain gets too much and I fall to the floor, I'm confused and I can't believe that someone I know has done this to me, it's weird… I felt betrayed actually… then I hit the floor and the room flashes, but I can hardly see anymore, the last thing I hear before I wake up is that the other person screams…"

Renji flinched and fell of the bench. The memories from his own nightmare flooded back into his head, however, the other person had a face now, and it was painfully clear who it was… it was Ichigo. He shook his head, almost desperately trying to get the images out of his head, damn nightmares! Damn memories of nightmares!

The two others looked at him; their faces showed that they wanted to know what the hell was going on hit him. Renji got back up on the bench and looked away when he answered "It was me…" The two others looked confused, but then it dawned on Ichigo, and his mouth fell slightly open as his eyes widened slightly, Rukia however, still looked clueless.

"I… I had a similar nightmare last night… only… I was the one looking at my hands… I had betrayed and killed my friend… I couldn't remember the face when I woke up screaming but… when you said it… I did remember… it was you Ichigo… in my dream… I betrayed and killed you… you fell to the floor, looking at me… before the room flashed in light and the walls… so many messages written in blood… 'It was your fault'… 'You did this'… 'Monster'… all over the walls… that's when I screamed and woke up…"

The other two were silent, the two apparently connected nightmares had put a damper on the day, and dark clouds were rolling over the sky. No point in staying here. Ichigo invited Renji back to his house along with him and Rukia, but Renji said no, he felt bad about the dream, so he went back to the Urahara shop in which he was staying, and sat in the doorway watching the rain instead.

Dreams were wonderful, they really were, but nightmares could go to hell. And memories… they were only good when you wanted them, but right now, Renji wanted to forget.

**Owari**

**A/N: **Yep... t'was it. don't hurt me if it's crappy and doesn't make sense, it was a spur if the moment thing. oh and... cookies to those who reviewed.**  
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Bleach, Humor