Romance and Rivalries

Chapter Twelve
by Ray

Yumichika was almost famous for having an eye for beauty (almost as much as he was well known for being utterly appealing physically); this of course made him rather successful as a photographer. His photographs were set out in frames on his walls, or collected in the large volumes of photo albums. Sometimes when he was waiting for Yumichika to get home, or finish preening, he’d go through them. There was an interesting range of parks, animals, forests, historical places, pretty buildings, light hitting objects at a beautiful angle… and a couple of people (a small set of photo’s of Rangiku were incredibly sought after). Yet there was none of Hisagi. In fact from looking through the photo’s Yumichika’s general lack of high school and middle school friends was completely exposed. Ikkaku had always been an out-going, social guy who made friends easily. It was something he’d never found difficult. But Yumichika, despite being out-going once he was with a group of people, never went out of his way to make friends. It wouldn’t bother him if he sat alone, or with people he wasn’t particularly close with. To put it into perspective, Ikkaku would guess the best example was that Rangiku was probably the person he was closest too (prior to being involved with Renji or Shuhei), and he and the busty woman didn’t get along. Anyone he was close with was up to twenty years older than him, the only friend his own age appeared to be Hisagi Shuhei. The beautiful man spent his teens sitting at the grown-ups table as one of them, which was a little ironic now when considering his lover was nearly four years his junior.

After last night, Ikkaku felt so damn lucky to be were he was now. Not in school, not at home, sat on Yumichika’s bed, riffling through his belongings, while the love of his life was showering away in the next room. He also felt considerably lucky that he didn’t have a hangover… He’d called Kenpachi this morning, only to find the line occupied… and later to be told by Mr… Kenpachi’s assistant with the moustache… that Zaraki-Sensei was out of town. He’d called in school (on instruction of Yumichika) to report himself ill, and from checking his phone he discovered that most people from the party had. Yumichika, ever since that stupid night, was no longer inclined to let him skip school in order to just lounge about at his place, but considering Ikkaku was still gloomy about the Hisagi thing, he couldn’t really deny him one day with his lover. Today Ikkaku had struck gold.

He hummed to himself and took out another piece of candy (a present Yumichika had been given from a fan a few days ago), it was a sweet strawberry flavour, he wriggled out, making sure his feet didn’t touch the pillows… something that would probably result in being thrown out by his ear. The bald man flicked to the next page of photos, he had been looking at a lovely one Yumichika had taken of himself on Tokyo tower. With a small sigh, he caught sight of one of the more artistic photos in the back of the album; it was one he’d always assumed his boyfriend had taken in class. It depicted a muscled back with flexed arms and hands resting on the back of the neck at the base, lower down, it also showed off a nice round and generally very tight looking butt. Normally he’d pass over it and skip onto the next album, which had a lot of nice action shots of the kendo team in combat… but this time something caught his attention.

A tattoo on one of those firm upper-arms… the same patterned tattoo on Shuhei Hisagi’s arm. And one closer inspection, he could see dark hair just above the hands… Holy shit, this was a naked photograph of Yumichika’s first fuck buddy. He’d never asked Ikkaku to pose for him like that – and he knew there was one of Renji at one point (but it had been deleted as the redhead felt embarrassed about being pictured naked like that). And he’d taken something so shamelessly erotic of fucking Hisagi?!

No – maybe he was jumping to conclusions… after all; it wasn’t like Hisagi was the only person in the whole world to have that sort of a tattoo. This was high school or even university… lots of people had tattoos! If he went off on one about this and it wasn’t a photo of the older man, then he’d look like an idiot and Yumichika would laugh at him.

“What are you doing, Ikkaku?”

The bald man slammed the album shut and cast a look over at his boyfriend, who entered the room wearing a light blue bathrobe, his hair was perfectly smooth, which meant he’d most likely spent the last fifteen minutes preening before he came out to present himself to Ikkaku.

“Just looking through your photos.”

Ikkaku shuffled on the bed to make room for him. If he had to think about it, he couldn’t remember seeing Yumichika in a natural state… the other man had always done something special before he saw him, like in the morning, he always made some sort of effort to be up and stunning before Ikkaku was awake. Not that he was going to object to having an utterly jaw-dropping boyfriend, but in his opinion Yumichika wouldn’t be any less beautiful without all that hard work. Still, it made him happy to make an effort, so who was he to put him in a situation where he felt uncomfortable?

“Aha,” he climbed onto the bed gracefully, raising a hand to place it on Ikkaku’s back, rubbing along his spine before resting upon his shoulder, sending shivers down his spine, “Oh yes, my hair was so long back then,” he chuckled, flipping back to a rather flattering photograph of himself in New York. Back in his high school years Yumichika had hair down past his shoulders, he sometimes wore it in a ponytail, but here in the photo it was long and flowing past his slim shoulders. He looked truly lovely, perfect skin, perfect hair… it was easy to see why he’d been signed onto a modelling contract as soon as he was out of school.

Ikkaku tilted up on the bed to capture his lips in a kiss, holding Yumichika’s chin in place so he was leaning down to kiss him. He felt those soft hands reach down, one settling on his shoulder, the other cupping the back of his head, stroking along the bare skin. He felt Yumichika tilt down to lie on his back, his hands moving to Ikkaku’s back, pulling him almost on top of him, breaking the kiss for moment, before pulling the younger back. It had been a rare thing for the two of them to be intimate like this, ever since the drunken fighting incident Yumichika hadn’t made love to him since the night he was let out of hospital; it was almost heavenly to be like this now, Ikkaku could see his lover’s soft white skin as the bath-robe began to open, feel the tenderness and heat in his kiss. He was almost terrified he was going to get excited and ready for the unsaid promise of sex, only for Yumichika to tell him to ‘go take a cold shower’ or he ‘needed to work’…

He had to test the theory… reaching down he clasped onto the tie on the bathrobe and tugged it open. The other day they’d been making out at his place, and he’d attempted to give him a rub-job through his jeans and Yumichika had pushed him off… despite the fact Ikkaku was sure he was going to get lucky… He had to make sure now wasn’t going to be like last time.

Alright, the tie was off… Ikkaku peered up at Yumichika’s face, and smirked a little when he saw the others slightly flushed cheeks, his eyes closed and his face pressing against the covers, his whole body looked like it was tingling for intimate touch. Despite his restraint (his God-given restraint!) Yumichika wasn’t a perfect human being; no sex and all this foreplay had to be messing with him too. Still, what was with this sudden change of heart? Just yesterday he’d told Ikkaku to get off again… Maybe it had something to do with last night’s revelation.

“Hey, are you just being so nice because you think I’m mad?”

And painfully so, he’d actually hit the nail on the head there… Yumichika peered up at him with a nervous smile, “Erm… are you still mad?”

Ikkaku frowned, lifting his arms so he was pinning Yumichika to the bed, sitting on top of his waist. He’d never force his lover to do anything he didn’t want too, but sometimes it was fun to tease the beautiful man by showing off his physical strength over him. He leant down and nipped at Yumichika’s ear.

“I just don’t see why you didn’t tell me before.”

He scowled and shook his head back and forth to try and get Ikkaku’s lips away from his ear, once the other was at a good distance away; Yumichika looked up at him with an exasperated expression, “Because you’d react like this.”

“That isn’t true! I only reacted like I did because a drunken Renji told me! If you’d told me months ago that you used to fool around with that dick-head pretty boy, I wouldn’t have cared!”

“Don’t even lie!” Yumichika snapped at him, turning his head to one side, his nose wrinkled in distaste, “You know as well as I that you’d loose your temper and stomp your feet no matter when I told you! And I don’t even see why it’s relevant!”

The bald teenager scowled and bit Yumichika on the shoulder lightly, but enough to snap the other out of his ranting, “Hey! It is relevant! You both work for Vizard – you think I’m not gonna be funny about you being in close conditions with your ex?”

“We weren’t even dating! Ikkaku, I’ve seen him at work, you’re acting childishly, let me up, and bite me again, and you’ll loose something.”

Ikkaku pouted his bottom lip and kissed Yumichika tenderly on the mouth, softening his approach and deepening the kiss, stroking his boyfriend’s shoulder lovingly to calm him down. He broke the kiss and shot him a sad little smile, “Is it because he had hair?”

Yumichika burst out laughing, he broke a hand free to cover his mouth as he sniggered, before laying it back down on the bed, pecking him on the cheek, “You know, it’s sort of cute when you’re like this.”

“Don’t even,” he grumbled. See, Yumichika was going to laugh at him…

“Ikkaku, I love you,” the older boy chuckled and wrapped both of his legs around him as a sort of lower down hug, nuzzling his neck as Ikkaku leant in closer to him. The two of them stayed that way for a few minutes, nestling into each other’s embrace, Ikkaku with his nose against Yumichika’s hair, still holding his hands down on top of the others wrists.

“So,” he said after the longest time, “are there any other skeletons in the closet I should know about?”

“Well… nope, none that I am aware of.”

“So you and Hisagi then?”

He sighed heavily, “Yes, Ikkaku.”

“Was it… good?” He was teasing him now, Yumichika was clearly uncomfortable on this topic, and although he was curious, it was funny to see him all evasive and pinned under him.

“Maybe.”

“So he was very good then?” he taunted, “Was he your first?”

There was a pause; Yumichika’s face went pink, “Yes.”

Well at least that made him the third… if it turned out there was more than just two before him; he’d feel a bit pissed.

Ikkaku nodded his head, then rubbed his own head a little nervously, “Erm, say, Yumi, did you ever take any naked pictures of Hisagi?”

In the slightest corner of his eyes, something flinched. Yumichika laughed a little nervously, “No.”

“Are you being serious? You were seeing someone with that charming princely look and you didn’t take any photos?”

Yumichika swallowed and looked across at the wall, “Well… there were photos, but I gave them to Shu – Hisagi-san.”

“You didn’t even keep one as a keepsake?”

“Ikkaku, you’re making me sound like some sort of a stalker,” he said in a cold blunt voice, his eyes narrowed as he gazed up at his boyfriend. “I mean, I didn’t have any of these… keepsakes when I broke up with Renji.”

Ikkaku scowled and leant back, he had to voice it now otherwise it would bug him, he scooped up the photo album from the edge of the bed and flicked to the page with the naked man, “Alright, then tell me this isn’t Hisagi! It has his tattoo!”

Yumichika’s face had never looked so flushed, his wisteria eyes instantly reverted towards the wall, “That was for college work.”

“That’s not answering my question.”

“I think this is getting a little stupid…”

“Come off it, it is him! Why’d you take so many photos of him? You said you gave him some. You never asked for a photo of me.”

“Fine, it’s him, okay?” he snapped, his eyes drawn into a complete expression of irritation. “Are you happy now, Ikkaku? It’s a photo of Hisagi-san.”

Ikkaku glanced back at the photo… Damn it, not only was Hisagi was bloody pretty boy but he had a nice body too… and hair. He had short dark hair most girls just wanted to run their fingers through. And he was so charismatic and likeable… Yumichika had totally been with a guy like this!

“Do you like him more than me?”

“Well… he never sat on top of me and asked stupid questions…” His face fell… Yumichika rolled his eyes, “Oh you idiot, I’m joking. I couldn’t have liked him that much because we didn’t date.”

Ikkaku bit his lower lip, juggling his options, he half wanted to sulk and get over it… have Yumichika just laugh a little more and overall just calm down. On the other hand he could let his passion rule him, straddle the other and just take him right there and then – he had to claim him and just show him who was in charge!

Who was he kidding? What he needed to do was perfectly clear. Who on earth would pick having their lover smirk and laugh at them, over wiping that smirk off his stupid beautiful face and fucking him into the sheets?

“Ikkaku, come on, let me up,” he rolled his eyes, pushing at his shoulders, sitting upright and wriggling back against the wall, “Sometimes I forget how… immature you can be,” he taunted, pinching his cheek.

That tone was just asking for it!

Ikkaku grabbed a hold of the hand pinching his cheek and pinned it down to the bed, his other hand fastened on Yumichika’s hip, yanking him down onto his back with one swift tug. The beautiful man yelped and turned his head to the side, instantly using his other hand to jerk his palm against Ikkaku’s chin.

“Hey – Ikkaku!”

The bald man didn’t look like he wanted to listen; he snarled a little, his lips twisting into an aggressive smirk, his hand lifted from his hip and seized the others wrist (jerked against his chin) and pinned it down beside the other, clasping both of Yumichika’s wrists together under the pressure of one of his hands. He glanced down at his boyfriend, who looked considerably furious with him… his bath robe was coming open; he could see one perky pink nipple exposed. Ikkaku’s eyes swept along the body pinned to the bed beneath him, he smirked, grinding his hips up and down against his lover, wanting to get Yumichika to loose all his composure sooner rather than later.

“For fucks sake,” Yumichika grumbled, whimpering and twisting his body to the side a little, trying to dislodge the younger man, “Get off my wrists – this is not beautiful!”

“Oh shut it,” he muttered, bending his head and capturing the revealed nipple between his lips, he nipped it, smirking at the sound of his lover releasing a soft ‘ooh’ sound. He pulled back to examine a haze of crimson on Yumichika’s face, before he lowered his head again and gave the nipple a tender lick, lowering his hand to undo the tie on his bathrobe, opening it up and lifting it out to reveal that gorgeous body. Glancing back briefly at his lover he could see the embarrassment on his face at being stripped like this. “You’ve been holding out on me, Yumichika,” he purred, “You know how I get when you hold out on me.”

Yumichika shifted his hips, “Oh don’t even! You know what I said about you touching me after the shit you pulled-!”

“Well, it’s been a little while, and there’s been a few revelations since then, haven’t there?” he grinned wider, lowering a hand and pressing it against one of the others long legs, he rubbed along the flesh gently, letting his hand trace down to the inner thigh, before yanking it upright and onto his shoulder.

The beautiful man rolled his eyes, turning his face irritably to the side, “Oh for fucks sake…”

Ikkaku licked his lower lip, his lover was well known for being super-humanly stubborn… Oh well; he had the next few hours to change his mind.

***

The house was in an unbelievable state of disarray. Renji could feel sympathetic eyes on his back as he scrubbed at the bathroom floor, dried vomit didn’t exactly smell like a basket of flowers… and it certainly wasn’t the kind of thing you wanted to do whilst sporting a hangover. He remembered little of last night, just something about Hisagi-senpai and Yumichika. He also remembered talking to Ichigo, though after that seemed to have descended into waking up and vomiting all over Kisuke’s feet… In fact for a few minutes he wondered why he was still alive.

“Hey, Renji-kun, want a drink?”

He brushed his bandana up a little, and peered over his shoulder at Isshin Kurosaki, who was carrying a tray full of tea. Ichigo’s dad was a ridiculously nice guy, even if he was a little enthusiastic and scary; he was always smiling and constantly bothering his children. If Renji remembered correctly, he could distinctly picture the man chasing his daughter Karin down the street, trying to give her a kiss goodbye before she went to school. Good God, that girl could run! Isshin Kurosaki was definitely something of a family man; although, there wasn’t much of a family resemblance between him and Ichigo. He’d seen a photograph (well you couldn’t exactly miss a giant wall-sized picture on a kitchen) of Ichigo’s mother; he mostly took after her. In fact there wasn’t even a family resemblance in behaviour either… Isshin was loud and excitable, and Ichigo was stern, self-conscious and irritable.

Isshin was nowhere near as mean as Kisuke… Renji thought to himself as he smiled gently at the older man, “Thanks, that’d be great!”

“Well here ya go, gotta keep your strength up, eh?” he handed him one of the larger cups, “I have to offer one of these to the others.”

Kisuke and Isshin had roped a few others into helping out around the house. That freaky Luppi guy was still here, and his friend – that Stark guy – had apparently told him to ‘do one’ when he tried to get in a taxi with them, so Kisuke had him vacuuming and scrubbing the floor. There were also a few drunken teenagers around doing various chores, but none of them were as nasty at this bathroom job. He’d spotted a set of girls who were allowed to just take out the trash, and then Tessai gave them a ride home… (Of course he’d later learnt that they had been friends of a friend to Tessai in some way, but it was still unfair.) Renji wanted nothing more right now to be at home in bed like Ikkaku.

He could hear Isshin down the stairs, chatting reassuringly to a boy who was crying after waking up and finding himself covered in his own vomit and stinking of whisky). What a great guy!

Though Kisuke wasn’t a bad father – in fact he was great too, just mean as a snake and craftier than a fox – he knew how to teach his kids a lesson… Tessai was lovely too, just scary. They’d tell him off for this and that, make him do some nasty chores, but they were also supportive of nearly everything he tried. They’d been great when Yumichika broke up with him; in fact they were great about him dating a guy anyway (not that they could really object to it). Isshin Kurosaki was supportive of Ichigo too; in fact Renji had heard him talking on the phone to that blue-haired jackass earlier… something about Grimmjow staying the night at the Kurosaki place. Karin and Yuzu were there, so he hoped Ichigo and Grimmjow hadn’t been getting down to business.

Renji turned back with a little disgust on his face as he noticed a load of clumped up hair in the bathtub – fowl! He’d been in here for nearly and hour and it still didn’t look much better! Well, at least you could see tiles now.

“It smells better in here.”

He turned his head again to see Uryu Ishida leaning against the doorframe. Just looking at him made Renji feel somewhat ticked off… He was wearing his pyjamas, looking well rested and perfectly serine.

“Yeah, an hour of work will get the vomit out of things.”

“It’s a shame really. Ryuken would be furious… he only recently had this bathroom re-furbished,” he trailed pale hand over wall tiles.

Renji rolled his eyes, and grunted angrily. This was so annoying – why was he cleaning Ishida’s house, when Ishida seemed to be so happy about having a house that stank of vomit and booze?! It was just a waste of time if the owner of the house wasn’t happy about the cleaning!

“What the hell’s gotten into you?” he grumbled, not looking at the slender boy as he kept scrubbing, “You’re normally so pristine and stuff, Quincy boy.”

“I don’t believe that’s any of your business.”

The redhead tossed a dirty rag at him, “Oh get over yourself – I’m cleaning your bathroom, you poncy little git!”

Uryu let out a disgusted sound and stepped out of the way of the vomit-covered rag, kicking it aside with his white slipper, “I wouldn’t expect you to understand.”

“Try me!”

He shrugged his shoulders, “I’m acting like a teenager.”

“You don’t know how to be a teenager – you’re wearing old men’s pyjamas!”

“At least I don’t smell like vomit.”

Renji was too exhausted for this; his head was killing him… “Whatever,” he said, knowing it must sound childish and pathetic, but that was just about all he could muster. “My head hurts, go give someone else your shit.”

“You were really drunk last night,” he said after a long pause, “Urahara-san made you clean up the mess you made in the living room?” He didn’t want to mention that there was sick in Renji’s hair…

“He did,” he mumbled.

“You asleep on the living room floor, Madarame-san asleep in the flower beds,” he made a small tutting sound, “the two of you were like a group of delinquents.”

“Beat it.”

“Poor Grimmjow-san, he gets assaulted on his way home, and has some drunken leech kiss his boyfriend right in front of him.”

The other’s tone was enough to tell Renji who exactly had kissed Ichigo… He went completely pale and for a minute was sure he’d vomit again. Shit! It wasn’t like he’d never wanted too – he’d wanted to rebound onto Ichigo for months – the orange haired boy had been his first crush since before he knew Yumichika existed. But the fact he’d done something as bold as kissing him while he was drunk – it was a miracle he didn’t have a huge black eye… Ichigo wouldn’t have hesitated to kick his ass.

Which begs the question – why had nobody beaten him up? Surely if not Ichigo, Grimmjow struck him as the possessive type.

Uryu sat on the bathtub side, peering down at Renji, “Remember anything else, Abarai-kun?”

“I didn’t… Did I?” he asked nervously… part of him wishing Uryu was kidding, and part of him hoping he wasn’t (he could hardly believe his own nerve, kissing Ichigo with Grimmjow in the same room!).

“Oh you did,” he nodded his head, pushing his glasses further up his nose; “Grimmjow knocked you on the floor. It was a nice job actually, who knows what else your drunken little mind would have considered a good idea.”

Well that made sense… he did remember falling on the ground… In fact he also remembered a pain in his left leg, almost like someone had stepped on it. Still he should be thankful it was only that. But that definitely didn’t explain Ichigo – the other boy was always so quick to smack him one for as little as leaning in too close to him… “What about Ichigo?”

“Ichigo was drunk too,” Uryu said after a moment’s pause, “I think after it happened he went to sleep on the sofa. At least he wasn’t sick on it; I don’t think the stains on the sofa will come out.” His tone at that last comment was grave, shaking his head for effect. Although the smirk on his pale face sort of betrayed any portrayal of feeling sorry for his actions.

So Ichigo was like Izuru, and lost his personal bubble with a bit of magic potion in him? That was certainly something he’d make note of for later: delightful.

“Oh well, Mr Perfect,” Renji grumbled at him, “Did you get drunk? Kiss anyone?”

“I didn’t touch a drop of that poison.”

Despite his position (and it was a dreadful one: cleaning vomit off surfaces), Renji couldn’t help but laugh at Uryu’s completely disgusted tone at the consideration he’d been drinking.

“Ah, oh well. I guess your plan failed.”

“What?”

Uryu stepped upright, crouching down so he and Renji were facing each other, he was scowling slightly, “What do you mean ‘your plan failed’?”

“Well, whether or not the house is a mess, Mr Ryuken Ishida is gonna come home to a recently cleaned house, apologetic friends who’ve taken care of everything… and a son who, despite throwing the party, didn’t touch a drop of alcohol, shag anyone or break anything. What a good boy.” Renji shot Uryu a mocking smile, flashing shiny white teeth, “So all this effort was… sort of for nothing, see?”

That sure as hell wiped the smug look off his face.

The redhead laughed to himself, “Bet you hadn’t considered that. And isn’t your dad like, due back in the next fifteen minutes? Now, considering your downstairs looks almost perfect, Kisuke and Isshin have all sorts of apologies and reassurances, and his dear son looks like he’s had a good nights sleep, wearing clean pyjamas and not covered in love-bites, vomit or the smell of booze… I think he won’t feel too bad.”

“Don’t be an idiot – the house is hardly immaculate!”

Renji just shrugged his shoulders, “Kisuke and Isshin will say ‘Uryu threw a party, don’t be too upset with him. Boys will be boys, at least he wasn’t irresponsible’. And there you are the evidence of just how good you were.”

Uryu stood up and turned towards the door, looking a little frantic. Damn it, Renji was right – was there any alcohol left? He was sure he’d heard Urahara-san say something about locking it in the garage! He wouldn’t need to drink any, but he could still pour it over his clothes and then put his clothes on?

“I wouldn’t bother, Ishida. There’s no way in hell you’ll pull it off. You value yourself too much to drink or make yourself sick… So you’re pretty much stuck as you are.”

“Actually,” Uryu turned back towards him, getting down on his knees, “There’s one more thing I can do before he gets here.”

Renji wasn’t sure where this going, or if he’d like where it lead, “Oh yeah? And what is that?”

A slender hand clasped onto his chin, and Renji’s eyes widened as he saw Ishida’s face coming dangerously close to his. He parted his lips in protest, until he felt a softer set upon his own. He let out a muffled noise, attempting to turn his chin out of Uryu’s hold, but stopped, calming down as he felt his body responding to the kiss. The first real kiss he remembered since Yumichika’s last. His eyes closed and he felt a flush dance over him, raising a hand to clasp onto Uryu’s pyjama clad shoulder.

***

Ryuken cast a dark gaze towards the garage, the door was open and he could see a huge stack of alcohol inside. Now at first he might have been tipped off by the neighbours peering around at the front of his house, some of them looking at him with sympathy as he climbed out of his car. He wondered why the garage door was open… and why there was so much alcohol there. As a doctor he tried to keep himself in best order, apart from smoking, he rarely drank, didn’t take drugs and kept his body healthy. Isshin claimed to have quit smoking, he’d say (probably thinking he sounded very bad ass) that he only smoked one cigarette when he went to visit his wife’s grave on the day she died, to this Ryuken would hold up his packet and say, ‘Oh, so you wouldn’t like one then?’ It was cruel, but there was something satisfying about his friend’s expression.

So the alcohol wasn’t his… and normally he wouldn’t think Uryu would purchase that sort of thing. As well as being underage (and he was pretty sure his son didn’t have any irresponsible over 18 friends), Uryu was keen to become a doctor too, and made it his business to have no addictive habits. Ryuken walked to his garage, and bent down a little, peering at the small pile… bottles of beer, a six pack of larger, a half empty bottle of whisky, a flask with RUM written on a post-stick note on it, a few bottles of a bright blue liquid… and a bottle of vodka (seemingly unopened). Truly a real good high schooler’s stash…

Suddenly his mind drifted back to his argument with Uryu the morning he left… If memory served correct, he’d said something about his son not behaving like a real teenager? Good God, the boy could be pedantic.

“Ishida – it’s not what it looks like!”

He rolled his eyes… now he was getting interested. Turning around he saw Kurosaki, holding a tray with what appeared to be cups of tea on it, wearing a white bandana on his head, khaki shorts, no shirt and a chef’s apron with the words ‘Kiss the Chef’ faded on it. Under his bulging left arm, he was carrying what appeared to be a teenage girl.

“What does it look like?” He asked, keeping his tone dangerously calm, and grimacing slightly as he saw vomit dripping down from the girl onto his nice white outdoor tiles.

Isshin looked a little worried for an answer, then he heard the girl groaning, and let out a worried yelp, sitting her upright on a flowerbed, and placing the bucket (he’d carried in his left hand) under her chin.

“Luppi-san, Luppi-san, here, please keep a hold of the bucket.”

“Urgh… shit…”

Shit indeed. He recognized that voice. The ‘girl’ he’d been sure Kurosaki was carrying a minute ago, was actually one of the Arrancar lawyers, a twenty-seven-year-old man to be exact. He wondered mockingly for a moment if Luppi Trepadora wore skin-tight snakeskin shorts to work, or if it was just a party thing.

“Ah, Ishida-san, I see you’re home!”

He turned around to see Kisuke at his side, beaming at him. So if he had to make a good guess, he’d say Uryu was responsible for this, and somehow (perhaps through Kurosaki’s son) his two friends had gotten light of this and intervened.

“Is it safe to assume Uryu is responsible for this?” Ryuken asked, inspecting his nails and wondering if he’d have felt better about this if he hadn’t just been on a 12-hour flight…

“Well, Ishida,” Kurosaki spoke up, diving towards his side and clasping an arm around his shoulders (Something he really hated him doing as it made him look notoriously skinny), “I’d rather think of it as your boy showing off his bright youthfulness! I mean, think about it, if he acted like an old man, would you get to experience his tender excitement over boyish things?”

Ryuken raised a thoroughly irked eyebrow, “Kurosaki, my son is fifteen, not twelve.”

Kisuke stepped forward and patted him gently on the arm, “I think what Kurosaki-san means is that when it comes down to it all, boys will be boys. We have the house nearly cleaned up, with the help of a few stragglers, like Luppi-san here,” he gestured to the lawyer vomiting into a bucket and laughed politely, “Just punish your son and don’t think too hard on it.”

The white haired man took a deep breath, “After my house is in order, and I’ve thanked the two of you for all this trouble, my son and I will be having serious words.”

Kurosaki patted him on the back, “On a slightly brighter note, Ishida, Uryu-kun didn’t touch the alcohol, or cigarettes, or do anything irresponsible. Even resisting the temptation of the opposite sex; that’s reassuring, right?”

***

Renji let out a soft gasp as he felt a hand slide between his legs as the clasp on his belt came undone, sliding down his zipper; his eyes roll back slightly as those smooth beautiful fingers rubbed against his cock. The redhead felt his hair fall down his shoulders, knowing it was wrong, knowing he shouldn’t…

“Ah – Ishida, we shouldn’t…” he released a whimper as the other man’s thin lips pressed against the sensitive skin of his earlobe. “Your dad – h-he’ll be back soon…”

The dark haired boy pulled his hand out, reaching up to hold onto Renji’s shoulders, kissing him gently.

It had been so long for Renji, a teenage boy, to feel an intimate touch, to have lips on his, lips on his skin, his ears, and his neck, to have his arms around a smaller body, gripping it and holding it. This was so weird, he was making out with Ishida, Ishida who had fashion magazines and sewed! Mr Quincy Pants!

He couldn’t even help himself! He wanted more – Renji reached up and yanked at Uryu’s top few buttons on his pyjama’s, he pulled the shirt open, revealing more of that soft pale skin. He needed to feel it under his fingers, pushing back Uryu’s head to kiss and tease the flesh of his neck. He revelled in the soft gasps of the other boy, pressing his body up against him, and reaching down to grip his backside.

Uryu gasped, holding Renji’s head by his neck, encouraging him to suck and nibble on his flesh… keeping his hand down there, not removing the now firm erection from his boxer shorts, but teasing him through the material. He moaned as he felt the redhead suck upon a particularly sensitive place on his neck – oh, that did feel good!

“Hello, Uryu-kun, your father is home, Uryu-kun?”

He could hear footsteps on the landing. Renji was too busy being in la-la land to recognize them… but he could hear the murmurs of Urahara-san and Ryuken… along with the loud calls of Kurosaki-san. All right, it was now or never!

“Ah – Renji-kun – Renji-kun – there – right there!”

Renji blinked, taking his lips from Uryu’s neck; briefly letting his eyes run across the red marks he’d made… he caught sight of the other’s face, blue eyes focused on the door to the landing. Why was he making noises like they were…?

He wanted to ask, when all of a sudden, the door rammed open, revealing a very concerned looking Kurosaki-san. Shit – he could see Kisuke and Ishida-san all stood behind him, looking… well, he chose to leap to his feet and start doing up his belt rather than look into the face of his father… Uryu stood up, folding his arms, and looking fairly flushed, “Couldn’t you knock?”

‘Couldn’t you knock?’ Was he trying to get them killed? Renji looked at the other boy in horror – why was Uryu shifting his weight slightly, almost like a guy who’d just had a good fucking… Shit!

Renji remembered starting to stutter, something like ‘It’s not what it looks like’, the classic. But what he actually ended up saying was, ‘He’s still a virgin’, which was not only totally inappropriate, but sounded like a complete and utter lie.

Ryuken Ishida stepped into the room, seized his son by the wrist and yanked him outside and into one of the other rooms. Seconds later Renji heard raised voices, and the door slamming. He looked up with wide frightful eyes, and the look on Kisuke’s face made him wish he could just faint.