Work Text:
You wake up, and you know.
It’s the beat of your heart, the breath in your lungs, words you can’t scrub from your brain, and something coiling slowly under your skin.
It’s a word, a phrase, a touch, a kiss, a hug, a hi-five.
(It’s a word, a phrase, a touch, the kiss of a knife, a fist to your gut, a black eye.)
Someone out there loves you dearly, sometimes desperately, sometimes with the passion to burn the known world and keep on obliterating every single obstacle in their path. You bear the echo of the moment they realize it.
~~I~~
Betrayed brown eyes are superimposed on everything Kisuke sees.
~IiI~
Urahara Kisuke doesn’t quite know when he looked at the teen he’d turned into a weapon and realized he was beautiful.
At first, it's just from an aesthetic perspective. No one can say that the captains of the Gotei 13 are ugly, and you can similarly say the say of most of the vice-captains.
(Part of Kisuke will always refuse to see Kurotsuchi as the head of the Twelfth, just as another part will deny he has any right to that division. He may have created the base, but it was never his in the way it was for predecessor or former subordinate.)
But Kurosaki-kun…there's something about Kurosaki-kun is a little more alluring to Kisuke.
Certainly, he’s pretty, and a puzzle, for all that Kisuke can figure out what his decision is going to be 99% of the time – it still counts if what Kisuke thinks his decision is, “something I’m not expecting.” Yoruichi-san may scoff, but he’s not wrong, and neither of them are part of the Onmitsukidou anymore. It's close enough (it's not and it means that Kisuke is never bored).
He’s fascinating, and powerful, and a puzzle.
He’s brash, reckless, intuitive, and smart, besides.
Really, Kisuke should’ve seen this coming.
~IiI~
“Seriously, Urahara-san, you can call me Ichigo, at this point.”
“…Maa, Ichigo, then.”
~IiI~
Kurosaki Ichigo knows exactly when his brain and body and hormones decided that having a crush on Getaboushi was a great idea.
Why? Because, of course, it was in the middle of a spar.
Meeting Kisuke’s eyes as Zangetsu met Benihime and shot up sparks that might as well have been romantic fireworks for all that Ichigo sat up, metaphorically, and realized that Urahara Kisuke was very, very nice to look at, and, come to think of it, the few times he wasn’t plotting things and dodging questions by talking in circles, he wasn’t bad to have a conversation with, and his hair also looked quite fluffy, what with the bucket hat squishing it down….
But, it’s just a crush, and Ichigo doesn't have time for things like that right now.
(The fact that the man can kick his ass seven ways to Sunday and knows about a thousand other ways to do it, while challenging him, pushing him? Ichigo does not have words. Shakespeare, Ichigo is pretty sure, doesn’t have words.
The fact that the man also shoved him down a pit for three days in an attempt to restart his Shinigami powers and nearly had to kill him? Well, he did ask for the training….)
But he needs to rescue Rukia, and then he needs to focus on controlling his inner Hollow, and then he needs to rescue Orihime, and then he defeats Aizen and is powerless.
He tries not to think about any of the Shinigami, or his friends, or his family as they either stay away, or completely cut him out of that part of their lives.
So he tries to respect that distance, respect that now he’s useless, and tries to live.
(It’s hard.)
And then it’s a year and a half later, and he meets Xecution through Chad, and finds out what Fullbringers are, and finds out that they, too, just wanted to use him.
And then he gets a sword through his chest, meets the eyes of his father and of Urahara, and realizes that he’d forgive one of those people so much more easily than the other – has already done so, even if he still feels betrayed.
Realizes that he’d forgive Urahara a lot of things.
Realizes that that crush he’d had had never really faded, and wasn’t that the worst of it?
Realizes it might not be just a crush.
Realizes that he might be dying now, because of his father and Urahara and the sword through his chest they both helped put there….
~IiI~
Maa, Ichigo, then.
~~I~~
There’s a pulse of warmth, and Kisuke – Kisuke was definitely not expecting this to be his soulmate: brave, reckless, passionate, protective.
Ichigo laughs instead, and if it’s a little hysterical, well, Urahara-san isn’t in any position to judge, gaping as he is.
“Does this mean I can call you Kisuke?” He asks, smirking a little.
Kisuke rallies. “Well, Ichigo, I think this means you can call me whatever you want.”
Ichigo blushes slightly and ducks his head at that.
Kisuke takes the opportunity to hide his own blush, but fails completely when he sees an incredibly smug black cat, along with Jinta, Ururu, Karin, and Yuzu peeking around the shop door.
And that's a wrap for today!
Comments, kudos, and concrit welcome -- just make sure any crit is constructive, please!
~Fins