Chapter Text
By the time Ryuuken exits the hospital, the sky is already awash with the cool evening gray, a glint of early summer sun disappearing behind the horizon. He hasn’t been working late shifts for at least a year now, but the dusky humidity is still something his body is catching up on and it’s uncomfortable. His throat feels parched for a smoke and his hand goes to his back pocket on instinct, like an itch he can’t quite relieve.
He’s trying to quit. He really should be working on quitting.
A gaggle of nurses spill out of the hospital's revolving doors and his eyes are grateful for the distraction. There are only a few that he knows by name, having long lost that on-field familiarity since he was pushed to Director all those years ago. Most days, he’s weary to the bone of his own company, but no one wants to catch a few drinks with the boss, least of all one that’s as distant as Ryuuken is. Distance makes for discomfort.
Any man that would rather work with his papers than his people shouldn’t be working with people at all, Soken would say, and if he was here, Ryuuken would ask him to kindly fuck off.
He sighs and reaches for his phone instead.
Are you free? he types out, watching the slate gray of his chatbox deliver with a soft ‘click.’
He doesn’t have to wait too long for the answer, which should be surprising to him, but isn’t—not really. In this small-town stretch of land he’s lived in his whole life, there’s only one other man he can bank on to keep his evenings open, and, lucky for him, the man is as much of a bore as he is.
As long as you’re paying ≧◡≦, the message reads.
Ryuuken scoffs, even as his fingers twist the keys into ignition. It’s like they finally have purpose now, overeager and fumbling with sweat even as he replies back to the text with one hand. It’s embarrassing how relieved he is, but relief trumps embarrassment and so he sets his course for the road and taps out his message when he’s backing out of the driveway.
I’ll see you there.
____________
When Ryuuken slides into the bar, the nine o’ clock lull is in full effect. His eyes sweep across the room and instantly land on Isshin Kurosaki at a booth further back. He purses his lips in greeting when Isshin grins, approaching the table with a tired slouch.
“Just got out of work?” Isshin greets and Ryuuken catches the way his eyes snag onto the curve of his bottom when he leans over to set his briefcase down.
“I don’t intend on starting anything before dinner tonight,” Ryuuken warns, in a sort of greeting of his own as he drops down on the lounge chair.
“And just what kind of a man do you think I am, you old sod?” Isshin grins, eyes twinkling with a teasing light, even as his mouth warps into a horrifically dramatic gasp.
Even as he bristles at Isshin's antics, Ryuuken can’t deny that there is some charm in the way the man plays the flirt. The light from the paper lanterns overhead catches on the sides of Isshin’s face, the long L of his stubble gleaming low, almost seductive. Ryuuken can almost feel it, the raspy, sandpapered drag of it across his neck and he finds himself clutching his knee to prevent giving anything away.
“The kind that I’d avoid if I knew better,” Ryuuken mutters eventually, knowing he’s stared too long at Isshin’s mouth for the insult to really land, and the way Isshin smirks, Ryuuken knows he knows it too.
“You insult me,” Isshin carries on, nonetheless, a pout dragging his full bottom lip down. “At least wine and dine a guy before you try to get into his pants, jeez.”
This time, Ryuuken smirks back. “As if I’d have to try so hard with you.”
Isshin arches a brow, clearly enjoying the challenge, the lout. “You callin’ me easy?”
“No, you’re far too difficult for that,” Ryuuken shoots back, content with letting the barbs hang in the air for a moment before shifting an uncomfortable gaze towards the ashtray. It’s stuffy here. He almost hadn’t noticed.
“Let’s get rid of that,” Isshin comments, large hand gingerly lifting it towards another table. When he turns back to Ryuuken, his eyes are dark and contemplative. “That’s what’s gotten you so antsy tonight, then?”
Ryuuken scoffs, signalling for a waiter to bring them a couple of beers. It bides time, but the reality is that these things are as much about the conversations as they are about anything else. Or at least, that’s what he reckons. He doesn’t know what Isshin thinks about it all. About their arrangement.
“I’m trying to quit,” he admits, watching the edge of his nail dig into the table to avoid the way Isshin’s eyes turn soft with sympathy. He’s no good for that.
Around this time last year, he collapsed from a stroke right in the Karakura General parking lot in front of a few unsuspecting trainees. It wasn’t that big of a deal, just a hazy incident that had culminated from too many late nights, but Uryu had yelled and yelled, face sheet-white with fury; when Ryuuken weakly commented that he didn’t wear anger well, he yelled some more. He was always so dramatic, just like Soken, but when Ryuuken watched his eyes twist with helplessness, he knew there was a little bit of Kanae in there too.
That was the catalyst. After another series of callous arguments and poking and prodding, Ryuuken had agreed to cut back on his hours at the hospital and work on leaving the pack of smokes at home, while Uryu agreed not to bring up a counselor again.
Compromise. Negotiate. Those were the rocky foundations they were building on.
“Don’t look like you’re trying too hard,” Isshin remarks lightly, and Ryuuken tries not to watch the way his hand slides down the thick, glossy underside of the bottle. “I don’t get it.”
“Get what?” he echoes, raising his own bottle to his mouth.
“How a man like you spends his Thursday nights alone,” Isshin says, and Ryuuken is astounded to find that he’s serious . “I mean, come on. There’s got to be some nurse—some bored, tonnish gyno looking for a quickie in the supplies closet. You’re telling me you’ve never thought about it?”
Ryuuken shifts his glasses up his nose. “Are you telling me you’re ungrateful for my company, Kurosaki?”
“Don’t get like that,” Isshin nudges his forearm with his own, “I’m just saying. There’s no shortage of people wanting to know what goes on in that head of yours when you get all quiet like that.” His lips split into a salacious grin. “It’s kind of sexy, you know.”
Ryuuken cringes. “Your idea of dirty talk disgusts me.”
___________
It’s a few hours later, and Ryuuken is just barely blinking the spots out of his eyes when Isshin rolls over, the bedsprings creaking under their collective weight. The critter songs are faint to his ears, a thin sheet of sweat misting their cooled bodies. His neck stings with the trailing ache of beard burn and phantom body heat, but he’s content with the knowledge that there’s someone else in this bed, warm, and solid and alive. Overhead, the fan rattles loudly, a repetitive and tinny whir.
“How’s that for dirty talk?” Isshin asks smugly. Ryuuken doesn’t have his glasses on and the edges of Isshin’s face are fuzzy, but he hears it, if that counts for anything.
“Passable,” he comments anyway, without any real heat.
Isshin lets out a soft snort and the large expanse of his thumb sweeps under Ryuuken’s ribs. “You alright?”
“Given the circumstances,” Ryuuken replies quietly. He’s fifty-three as of March and he knows his bedside companion is teetering on at least a few centuries himself. His muscles burn, they don’t always flood with sparks, and there’s no shortage of talk about dynamics and angles, and what feels good versus what doesn’t do anything at all. But it’s comfortable, and he feels no qualms about saying that that is precisely what he seeks most days. The comfort of languid kisses and Isshin’s godawful snores when they sleep well into dawn. The comfort of closing his eyes and not having to fathom the state of a body beyond recognition, the cavernous pit of emptiness that grows and lingers and—
“So,” exhales Isshin, the rounded tip of his thumb travelling past Ryuuken’s ashy gray hair and digging into his scalp as if to anchor him. “The gyno. Ever thought about it?”
It takes a moment for Ryuuken to catch up to what Isshin is actually talking about, still heady with orgasm, but his mouth flattens into a line. “I can’t say I have.” His head shifts on the pillow. “Have you?”
Isshin chuckles, bunching the ends of Ryuuken’s hair in a fist where they branch out, the pressure of it just enough to flood warmth through his veins again. “Can’t say I have,” he teases, mouth barely skimming past the slender line of Ryuuken’s throat. “Who would want to wine and dine a sad old coot like me?”
Ryuuken scoffs, because the ‘I just did’ hangs in the air and Isshin is a notorious compliment-fisher—he’s not going to give the man the satisfaction unless he does something to earn it that's beneficiary for both parties.
Isshin leans over Ryuuken's lithe figure and reaches for his phone, elbow digging into the bed beside him. When he crouches back, his eyes are squinting into the bright light.
"Ah. The girls should start to wake up soon," he says, and Ryuuken simply watches him as he powers through the brightness instead of just turning it down. What an oaf. When he sinks back into the bed, Ryuuken catches the colorful splash of his background. It's a family photo from the wedding, predictably, with his son standing tall in the middle, one arm around his bride, the other reaching for his twin sisters.
He wonders how Isshin does it, looking at what he's made without thinking of what he's lost because some days, Ryuuken feels like no time has passed since Kanae at all; it’s like he can stride downstairs in the morning and find her there, dusting some heirloom or keepsake with a small smile on her face.
"I should go." Isshin yawns.
Ryuuken wonders if asking him to stay for breakfast would seem desperate; his daughters are still in their freshmen year of college, still in their beds, a few city blocks away. Their father will be in by the time they wake, and life will carry on until the next time they grow bored, or weary, or God forbid: lonely.
"Oh. My daughter-in-law is pregnant, by the way." Ryuuken's eyes snatch away from Isshin's waist and settle on his smiling eyes. His heart flips strongly for some uncertain reason, a few insistent pulses between his ribs.
"How is your son taking it?" Ryuuken asks slowly, reaching for the glasses that rest on his bedside table.
Isshin scoffs. "He's bricking it, but he wants me to think he has it under control." Sunlight glides in patches over his back as he slips his dress shirt on. "Stubborn little shit."
"Typical." Ryuuken smirks lightly, thinking of Uryu. His eyes soften, however, when they settle on the graying hairs of Isshin's beard again. "And you?"
"Dealing with it about as well as I deal with anything."
"So. Poorly, then?"
Isshin heaves a labored sigh and Ryuuken pretends not to be endeared by it. One hand reaches idly for a pack of smokes in his bedside drawer without looking, eyes still fixed on Isshin's moving form. When Isshin's hand curls around his wrist to stop him, he tilts his head up and their mouths brush into a soft, sleepy kiss.
"You really should quit, Ryu-chan," Isshin says gently, something quick and teasing tugging the corner of his mouth. His eyes are warm.
Ryuuken bristles at the nickname.
"Stay for breakfast," he decides.
___________
In the years fading out from the war and into the new, Ryuuken Ishida can say that very little about his life has changed. He still wakes up tired, and goes to bed tired, except now his doctor wants him to pop a few pills before he brushes his teeth and he’s...seeing someone—casually. It’s been six years since Yhwach was pushed back into the shadows but flashes of black still streak across telephone poles often. They don't trust him yet, obviously—maybe they never will. Ryuuken cares little about what the shinigami think of him, but he supposes they would leave him alone if they knew he cared more about the perils of the living than that of the dead.
There are a few developments, however, that he doesn't exactly hate. On Saturday, Uryu stops by, shrugging off his coat in a well-worn habit of indifference.
"Father," he says in greeting, and his eyes land on the dishwasher. "Did we have guests over?"
"The maid was on vacation," Ryuuken replies, thinking back to breakfast two days ago and how Isshin's ankle had hooked around his as they ate at the table.
It's not exactly a lie. There are about three days worth of dishes jammed into the washer, even if they're not all his.
"I see." Uryu shrugs it off and moves to the house slippers, a thin gold chain catching the light when he drops his head. When he makes his way to the kitchen, he helps himself to a cup of tea and Ryuuken tries not to gape at him. Uryu doesn't live at the manor anymore, but their mending relationship means he stops by on weekends and they both pretend that it isn't awkward or disconcerting to breathe the same air for more than a few minutes.
"How are your courses coming along?" Ryuuken asks, lifting his eyes briefly from his newspaper to stare at the chain again.
"Fine." Uryu shrugs and takes a loud and undignified sip from his tea before clunking it down on the table without a coaster. Ryuuken doesn't know if it's a trick of the light or if there's a gleam in his eyes at the sight of his father's visible flinch. "I have some news."
Ryuuken's eyes sharpen on him, thinking back to the conversation he shared with Isshin the other day. That familiar pulse is back between his chest, expectant with news. Palms slick with nervous sweat. Ryuuken has not put a lot of thought into this new future—about how he would react if Uryu brought him news similar to the kind that Isshin's son brought to him. They have never had that kind of relationship before, and it leaves Ryuuken feeling high-strung. Walking on eggshells.
"Kurosaki and Inoue-san are expecting," Uryu says, and Ryuuken really wonders if it really is a trick of the light in here because his son's eyes have softened. "Rather, I should say, Kurosaki-san, shouldn't I? Either way—" he fishes into his bag and retrieves a little envelope, "—we've been invited to dinner next week. It should be a casual affair, but I do expect you to be on your best behavior."
Ryuuken tries to conceal his surprise. They don't do collective, family things and it's not like Ryuuken can't pretend in front of the Kurosaki children for a night that his acquaintances with their father are anything more than appropriate, but a heads-up from the Kurosaki patriarch would have been ideal. He reaches for his phone, already thinking of twenty ways to complain to Isshin and get under his skin.
Sry I was gonna tell you, but it looks like your boy got to it first, Isshin replies, sending a stream of hearts and tongues in quick succession. I'll make it up to u.
A sudden heat flares in Ryuuken's belly. Twat.
"It's alright if you don't want to go. Kurosaki only invited you so his father will be distracted enough not to bounce his wife around in joy every few minutes."
"He does tend to do that," Ryuuken murmurs, not thinking too deeply about the implications that he's been invited to keep Isshin busy. Like he ever has a hard time doing that.
When, he taps back, distractedly humming at whatever it is Uryu murmurs next. He's so full with anticipation that he doesn't even bother to click off his phone. If Uryu thinks anything of it, he doesn't say anything, taking his cup of tea with him upstairs just as the next text rolls in.
What are you doing this afternoon?
___________
“You could have told me.”
“Why? Afraid you won’t be able to keep your hands to yourself at dinner if you don’t get a warning in advance?” Isshin challenges, a pleased light taking on the hazel-brown of his eyes as they walk up a narrow sidewalk together, hands in their pockets.
“As if,” Ryuuken snorts. “I was more concerned about your restraint. We all know you have the instincts of a boar.”
“Only the appetite.”
Their eyes catch and Ryuuken can’t help but return a small smile as an echo to Isshin’s wide, fuller one. He’s under no assumptions that they form any kind of image to passers-by on the street, but Ryuuken thinks about how close their hands are and how no one will look at them as anything but friends or colleagues or old acquaintances in a town like this. It’s not the thrill of the illicitness or some misplaced feeling of youth he gets when they’re together. It’s the naked openness of having already seen the worst, not having the spoons to put on their best. How many people in this plane of existence could say they had seen each other at every turning point in their lives? At every rock bottom? The thralls of youth had them chasing after their first loves with a burning, soaring passion. Now, all they have is each other to pick and prod at the charred debris.
“Wanna go fool around in the clinic for a bit before the girls come home?”
Ryuuken grins wryly. “I thought you’d never ask.”
______________
It’s less than elegant, really, lying down on a clinic bed like this, but Isshin mutters something about the air conditioner here being cooler than in the house, and they’re far too spent to take this elsewhere anyway.
“Been a while since you came over,” Isshin says idly, playing with his own chest hair. “I was going to do the whole tour thing on Friday, take you around the house.”
“I’ve been here before,” Ryuuken reminds him, staring up at the high ceilings. If he has to describe the place in a word, homely is really the only definition necessary. Quaint little decorative pieces, plush rugs, the constant squeal of children up and down a set of creaky stairs.
Masaki always hated the vacant, flat expanse of the Ishida Manor—even if she never expressly admitted it. They spent many days in their youth in the library, the one room that was warm and crammed inch-to-inch with books on every subject under the sun. Though the room was once Soken’s self-assigned study, they often snuck in—Masaki, snorting at the high-nosed portraits they’d hung of great-aunts and uncles they never knew. They had the courage of fools back then — of children.They always thought they’d gotten away with something—but thinking of it now, it’s obvious Soken must have known. Ryuuken’s stomach shrinks with the embarrassment that he never said anything. A Quincy family never had the luxury of fostering the inner child; they were spread far too thin for that. Yet, Soken must have known. Must have always known. And the bastard never said anything.
There’s a section in this house that is quite reminiscent of that library, and knowing Masaki, Ryuuken is sure the resemblances are intentional. The woman had a habit of making a home wherever she went.
“We’ve got to redo a few bits,” Isshin says, after a while. “Some stuff going old with mold and all that crap.”
“What’s keeping you?”
Isshin shrugs, his eyes wistful and sharp. “It feels wrong to change what she built. Most days, it feels like her spirit is the only thing holding this place together anyway.”
“Change is inevitable,” Ryuuken points out simply, even though not a single ornate armchair has been lifted from its original position in his own home since Kanae died. Even though that library’s been locked for thirty years. When he turns his head, however, he runs one thin thumb along the edge of Isshin’s mouth. “I’d say your rambunctious spirit puts up a good enough fight on most days.”
Isshin chuckles. “Did always know how to do that.”
“You raised a family,” Ryuuken argues, shrugging on his office shirt and checking the light of his watch. He has to be back at the hospital in half an hour, and Isshin himself has to reopen the clinic, but the warmth of the home slows him down. When he turns around, Isshin is looking back at him. “I find it odd that you don’t take your due credit for your role in that.”
“Awww. I always know how to get a compliment out of you, Ryu-chan,” he says lightly, but his eyes shine with an unspoken gratitude when their gazes lock.
“You did always know how to do that, too.” Ryuuken flicks his knee with two fingers, folding them when Isshin curls his larger hand around his.
“Get here early on Friday night,” Isshin mutters, resting the other hand on the back of Ryuuken’s neck; warm. “I’ll show you around the bits we reworked.” He wags his eyebrows in exaggeration and Ryuuken shoves him off, pretending to be unamused.
It feels like a good day.
___________
Somehow, things get blown six ways to Sunday before they even get to Friday.
“This is becoming a common occurrence, huh?” Isshin says sympathetically around the mouth of his beer bottle and Ryuuken takes a long, long drag from his cigarette.
He should have known there was something odd about that necklace—should have seen it coming, really—but he didn’t. Call him a fool, but Ryuuken was born into a generation where his only responsibilities were to produce an heir and master a business. The realm of fatherhood was yet a mystery to him.
On Wednesday, Uryu came over to “oversee” (see: bully) Ryuuken into making it to his doctor’s appointment, which led to both of them begrudgingly sharing the back of a cab in a touchy silence. Uryu said little, but the air was so tense that it honestly didn’t take much for it to snap.
“What’s that on your neck?” Ryuuken asked stiffly. “Wearing jewellery in your line of work is unbecoming.”
Uryu touched it unconsciously, but his eyes were wary. “It’s a gift.”
Ryuuken frowned. A gift? “From whom?”
“How does it matter?”
“It was a simple question.”
“Well, I find that simple questions sometimes have difficult answers,” Uryu spat, and Ryuuken felt a twisted sense of glee in getting a reaction out of him. It was wrong, and Uryu didn’t deserve to be punished for the simple act of caring for his no-good father, but Ryuuken was no saint. For all the years he spent as a physician, he sure hated going to the hospital; it only felt appropriate at the time to lash out at the one person who didn’t want to see him going to his early grave.
“Perhaps the answer isn’t as much difficult as it is a sign of cowardice,” Ryuuken said coolly, which, much to his surprise, had Uryu going pallid with rage.
“It’s a gift from my boyfriend.”
Ryuuken watched his eyes go instantly wide with regret—felt his own eyes going wide with surprise. For a split second, the taxi driver’s oblivious humming was the only sound as father and son stared at each other. There were no words Ryuuken could have said in that moment of blankness, but whatever expression had flashed on his face must have been dour enough to send Uryu a message.
“Pull over, please,” he finally said to the driver, voice quiet with bitterness, and Ryuuken ended up going to his infernal appointment alone.
“If he had just waited—” Ryuuken cuts himself off when the bartender sets down their bourbon, and they both nod their thanks.
“Ah, just call him,” Isshin says, thumbing at the rim of the glass. “Unless—”
“He won’t receive them,” Ryuuken finishes flatly, and he can tell by the way Isshin’s brows soften in empathy that they both are truly, utterly garbage at this. It brings him little comfort, but little is more consolation than none. He sighs. “Here I was, thinking you’re a worse father than I am.”
Isshin’s face blooms in expressive protest like a firecracker but fizzles out sheepishly; the worst kind of hope rises in Ryuuken’s chest.
“Well.”
“Do tell.”
“There was this one time, when Orihime-chan had come over—” Isshin rolled his eyes and gestured vaguely. “You know I like to joke.”
Ryuuken tutted in exaggerated disappointment, shaking his head for some added flourish.
“I was just joking! He takes everything too seriously,” Isshin grumbles. “I sent him a few selfies to rile him up, hoping he’d be mad enough to call me—even just to tell me to stick it—but ultimately he’s his mother’s son, through and through.”
“He gave you the cold shoulder?”
“He gave me the cold shoulder.”
“Boys,” they say in unison and clink their glasses.
"At least I've got my daughters," Isshin concedes with a shrug.
Ryuuken shakes his head. "One Uryu is enough. I cannot imagine having three."
For a while, they drink deeply in silence and there’s that warmth again—the one that lights up their weeknights and makes everything a little less miserable, but at the thought of his argument with Uryu, he just feels like he’s been dunked in ice-cold water. Waking up in the morning is harder now than it was thirty years ago; waking up alone in a giant mansion is another ball game altogether. He still remembers the sharp edge of envy when he was younger, watching his son attached at the hip with Soken. Of whom he was jealous of, he did not know, but it was so easy to feel left behind when everyone else seemed to move away or move on.
“Sometimes I wish she was still alive,” he murmurs, more to himself than his drinking companion. “She was better at dealing with sensibilities than I was.”
“Hmm?” Isshin raised his head, his own face etched in a deep and drunken ponder.
“Kanae.”
“She was a good one, wasn’t she?” Isshin sighs. “They both were.”
The air is fraught with a sudden sadness.
“Get up, Ryu-chan,” Isshin decides, groping around his trousers for his wallet. “We’re getting out of here.”
Ryuuken realizes—in a sluggish, belated way—that he might be drunk, and that Isshin is the only other person in the world who knows what this ravenous dread is like. Maybe he’s the only other person in the world, ever. Not forever, but just for tonight. All the other figures in the bar are just shapes, and all the ghosts stalking the streets are just goosebumps on skin, and the only thing that matters is that he might be alone, but he isn’t alone by himself.
“Where are we going?” Ryuuken mumbles, holding on to Isshin’s elbow.
“Outta this shithole! C’moooon!”
Isshin leads him away from the bar and out to the pavement.
The night is cool outside.
___________
“I think I’m going to die alone,” Isshin admits.
Ryuuken snorts. “You’re going to be a grandfather. If anything, that increases the chances of you being surrounded on your deathbed.”
“I’m too young to be a grandfather.”
“Please. Remember Fujimoto-san?”
“The ah—the old bloke with a bad hip, right? The one you stole from me.”
“The one we took off your hands,” Ryuuken corrects with a small frown.
“What about him?”
“He was only fifty-four when he had his first granddaughter. You’re gaining on him by a few centuries.”
Isshin pretends to be offended, smacking Ryuuken’s thigh. “I’m young at heart.”
Ryuuken tries to snort again, but it comes out as a half-choke. Isshin hears it as a laugh, though, and he chuckles along, making both of them chuckle. They made it to Isshin’s bed somehow, but they’re both too tired to move, ties still in place, half undone, staring up at the ceiling. Ryuuken would have never dared come here on a week night before, but Isshin’s girls are at a friend’s and for all the man’s posturing, Ryuuken would rather spare him the misery of returning to an empty house—even for a night. Even though they’ve never just slept over for the sake of sleeping over before. It feels new, like a crossed line, but all the lines seem watery and worth crossing in his state of sleepy drunkenness.
“I think my family always wished it was me instead of Kaien.” He tries to say it like it’s a natural extension to their conversation, but his contemplative tone makes it sound as though he’d been thinking of it for a while tonight. “I never really made anything of myself until I got here. Feels like I was just bein’ pushed around—doing what was expected of me. Saving Masaki was the first real choice I made, and saving lives—”
“—made you feel alive. Made you feel like you had more purpose than what your life had set for you so far.” Ryuuken isn’t an idiot. He’d seen multiple Quincy uprisings in his lifetime; he knew what war did to a people, and he wanted none of it. Two years into medical school, he had stripped his house bare of all his crosses and the weight with which they tailed him — constantly. Soken revelled in ideology and praxis, but war spared no one—not even men of peace. Even on her deathbed, Mother had never forgiven Ryuuken for not following in his footsteps. For not charging into the world like his father had, with no regard or remorse for who he left behind.
“I should call my son,” he whispers, blinking spots out of his eyes.
“You should,” Isshin agrees, rolling over to his side and flinging a lazy arm around Ryuuken’s figure. He’s warm, and he smells like alcohol and his aftershave, but Ryuuken’s eyes are already closing. “Do it tomorrow.”
They sink into the deepest slumber—quiet, intimate, and entirely unassuming.
___________
In the morning, Ryuuken emerges from Isshin’s bedroom, head pounding and fingers trembling with a sense of timelessness. They both definitely overslept, even though Ryuuken is really the only one who might get into trouble for it. His mouth is stale, and he’s definitely hungry, but Isshin’s daughters being gone means there’s more probability of there being a rabbit on the moon than actual food in the kitchen.
Luckily, when he rummages around a few cabinets, he finds a neatly packaged leftover box with a sticky-note on top. God bless Yuzu Kurosaki indeed, he thinks, chuckling at the note that begged her father to eat, behave himself, and not set the kitchen on fire, please. For a man who had no idea what a microwave is twenty-five years ago, it sure is a miracle Isshin hasn’t burned anything down yet.
Suddenly, the front door rattles open with a quiet ‘bang,’ startling Ryuuken.
“Old man!”
Ryuuken goes still, feeling very much aware of himself in the loose, leopard-print robe from Isshin’s closet that he’d thrown over himself hastily. Atrocious as it is, he didn’t think anyone would actually see him in it.
Ichigo Kurosaki saunters in, mouth already wide open mid-speech when he stops in his tracks.
Ryuuken can only imagine the picture he’s presenting, a deer in the headlights amidst the Kurosakis’ cereal boxes and leftovers. If the boy didn’t know who he was, Ryuuken is sure he would’ve been mistaken for a trespasser.
“Good morning,” Ryuuken says stiffly, when Ichigo just continues to stare. “Can I help you?”
“Ah—” Ichigo closes his mouth. “Well—uh—there was a patient outside so, I— um.” His eyes trail down Ryuuken’s chest where the robe was loosely hanging open and he starts, a mortified flush staining his cheeks when he quickly snaps his gaze away to the nearby rug. “I thought I’d come get him but…I gotta go!”
He bolts back out the front door, kicking up a tornado of dust behind him.
Ryuuken sighs.