🤔 - What’s something they’ll never understand?
Renji has no idea what the Kidou Corps does.
He thought he did, even though he absolutely did not read a single word of the pamphlet he got on career day at the Academy. He assumed that they wrote kidou text books and stared into orbs and and made up increasingly high numbered hadou and bakudou that no one can actually cast (you know, like how physicists keep creating new elements in particle accelerators that only exist for 10^-16 seconds before decaying back into lighter elements).
He started to get suspicious when he first went to work for Byakuya, and noticed that Byakuya, who is excellent at kidou, would often get sent off to seal up small dimensional rifts or to diffuse horrible kidou traps that some evil shinigami from 800 years ago left out in the woods somewhere and other assorted stuff that he assumed was the Kidou Corps job. He couldn’t actually ask Byakuya about this because you can’t ask Byakuya about anything.
Then, after Rukia got arrested, and the Kidou Corp just showed up at his office? Never, in a million years, would Renji have guessed that the Kidou Corp had anything to do with executions, but they’re everywhere now, and they keep asking him if they can use the gym and he’s got a six inch stack of forms to fill out in triplicate that look like they came from another dimension.
As far as he can tell, Renji is the only person he knows who has actually fought someone from the Kidou Corps (he had to fight a whole crowd of them on the way up to Soukyoku Hill). They are surprisingly jacked, and they have their own fighting style that is mostly kidou-enhanced hand-to-hand, but they make heavy use of small, hidden weaponry, usually daggers.
Then, there was the entire Kidou Cannon incident. How long have they had that thing sitting around? What other sort of weapons of mass destruction are they casually working on? Renji asked Akon once at the bar if Squad 12 had anything to do with the Kidou Cannon and Akon shuddered and mumbled something about the Kidou Corps being “weird creeps” with “no regard for lab safety or version control.”
This is all to say nothing of the two months Renji had to spend doing chores for Tessai when he was staying at the Shouten.
In other words, every new fact he learns about the Kidou Corps just further confuses him.
👗 - How comfortable would they be wearing a skirt or dress?
So, if I took this very literally, in the sense of a Western style skirt or dress, similar to the sort of thing Rukia wears when she’s in the World of the Living, I think Renji would take it in stride. I mean, if he’s used to wearing (nominally) Edo-period clothing, I feel like a dress would actually be less weird to him than, say, distressed skinny jeans. We’ve seen multiple times in filler where someone tricks him into dressing like a complete clown, and he just shrugs it off, no matter how stressed out Ichigo gets about having to be in his general proximity.
There was the omake where Rukia spilled curry on his gigai and got Uryuu to make a very fluffy pink dress for it, and he did not seem very happy about that, but there was a lot to unpack there in any case. Conversely, there was a different omake where he swapped gigai with Rukia, literally for lols.
Anyway, I think Renji has great legs and he likes to show them off, he would be for dresses.
Taking the question a little more in the spirit that it was meant, how would he feel about dressing in a more traditionally feminine way back in Soul Society? I’m not sure Renji would feel fully comfortable going out in public in a full woman’s kimono, but I do think he enjoys pushing gender boundaries. For example, traditionally, men’s outfits are more subdued in color and pattern and I think we all know how Renji feels about that. I think Soul Society tends to have looser gender boundaries than the Living World generally-- women shinigami wear masculine hakama, and it’s common to see male characters with make-up and piercings. That being said, I think Renji definitely exists on the edgier side of that, and while his work presentation inarguably comes down on the masculine side of things, I think he would enjoy dabbling in incorporating more feminine elements from time to time-- softer hairstyles, maybe with kanzashi, creative make-up, some flowier sleeves, maybe even a higher waistline with a more elaborate, feminine-leaning obi. You can check out some really cool genderfluid kimono looks here, and I think Renji could and would rock any of them. (For that matter, I think Rukia would be into some of these, in the other direction, and I can definitely see them coordinating looks)
I have danced around this enough, we are all thinking this: Does Renji have his own Maid Cop outfit for enemies-to-lovers roleplays where he’s Maid Cop’s turned-evil predecessor who got kicked off the force for breaking too many rules? Obviously, yes.
💝 - What gestures do they really appreciate? How do you get on their good side?
In terms of his subordinates, I think Renji is a very straightforward guy. He appreciates people who work hard and who don’t fuck around. If a subordinate comes to him with a problem, presents what they’ve thought of and already tried, and asks him for help or advice, Renji will move heaven and earth for them. He is a sucker for people who want to improve themselves. He will make workout plans and carve out time for one-on-ones from his own off-hours for people who are sincere about trying to improve their skills. Now, getting Renji to help you with something is not for the faint of heart-- he often has high expectations, but his expectations are generally in line with what he knows the person to be capable of. I think this is why he puts up with Rikichi-- Richiki is sort of a tender baby, but he brings his best game every day, and Renji believes that will pay off in the long run.
As I said, this is for subordinates. All of Renji’s friends are full of bullshit. This is sort of what it means to have achieved friendship with Renji: he starts putting up with your bullshit, perhaps even grows to appreciate your bullshit. Renji will do pretty much anything for any of his friends for 0 kan, there’s not even any particular benefits to being “on his good side.” But! the way to make Renji feel appreciated is actually extremely easy: you just need to imply you were thinking about him when you weren’t actually in the same room as him. Showing up with taiyaki or an atrocious piece of fabric that would make a great bandana is always going to be a guaranteed winning move, but it can be as simple as saying “Oh, I was just down at the sunglasses shop and they’ve got a new style you’re gonna go nuts for” or “We were having an argument about the all-time greatest Seireitei football players, and we need you to weigh in.”
Now, everyone knows how effective this is, plus most of his friends as assholes, so he does sometimes get suspicious when people are nice to him, but if it’s sincere (or at least sincere enough), he will turn into a big, soft puddle. It’s adorable.
