Humble Shopkeeper

Disclaimer: As usual, I have not acquired the rights to Bleach between the last chapter and this one.



AN: Your reviews are wonderful! I just want to snuggle into bed with them and kiss \'em all over.(but in the absence of a printer, I just snuggle into bed and dream happy dreams) Thank you so much!



Chapter 3: Kisuke\'s Killer Kisses



(subtitle: Or How Isshin Discovered What His Son And Old Friend Were Up To)



There was a light breeze coming in through the window, bringing with it the distinct smell of that moment of the day when the world slowly sheds its agitation, gets purer and clearer and becomes night. In other words, it was a beautiful, soft evening and Urahara wondered whether Ichigo would show up, whether the boy would have told anybody about this foolish blackmail – which, if he did, Urahara would deny, of course, and say he had been misunderstood – and whether it wasn\'t, in fact, going to rain later on.



He put his fan down on the windowsill and went to the shop part of the house to arrange a few items on shelves, less from necessity – his shop was well taken care of – and more to find something to do while he waited. Ichigo would come back. It was the moment when he would do so that bothered him – too late and.... He looked at the sweet shelves and decided that the chocolates needed to be closer to the ground, because chocolate was much more in demand nowadays and people would look for it regardless of where it was, while the bonbons were generally forgotten about, so they should be placed higher, to be seen and remind people of their existence.



He took the chocolate down slowly, methodically, almost artfully, trying to achieve that state between concentration and relaxation that got one to simply do things without rush or boredom. He aimed for the total absorption that the simple gesture of taking an object from one location to move it to another one gave, a nearly meditative state. It was this particular set of mind that made him patient, able to cope with every surprise and impediment of life. He would not fidget while waiting for the boy. It was simply not his style. And as he was a more than one hundred year-old shinigami, his style was not something that would be there one moment and discarded the next.



His resolution regarding Ichigo was made for now and, seeing as he was entirely certain that he was doing the right thing, all worries and arguments were discarded. There was no point in agonizing over something he\'d reached a conclusion on until he got further data. And he would postpone hating himself until the moment when Ichigo was out the door again. In other words, he would not give himself ulcer over it. Mind over fretting, that sort of thing. Mind over matter was much easier to achieve.



Urahara suddenly wondered what people would say if they knew that, in the depths of his heart, he could be just as stoic and collected as Kuchiki Byakuya, regardless of outward appearance. But, alas, Urahara was just a handsome, lonesome shopkeeper, not a noble captain of the Gotei 13 (mind you, he\'d been a captain at one time, just never a noble and that seemed to make a difference. Nobody actually cared whether, without being in one of those families he could\'ve played the part of a member to perfection. Except Yoruichi. She knew and she cared.)



He heard the clinky noise that accompanied anybody entering his shop and his head turned around fast in a mask of slight surprise meant to hide the fact that he had been waiting for the boy almost anxiously – which turned into a very real sort of surprise when Urahara noticed that the visitor was not, in fact, Ichigo.



“Yamada Hanatarou,” he said aloud, his lips forming the name that his mind was just drawing a file on. “San,” he added almost as an afterthought, as he realized he\'d spoken out loud. “Welcome to my humble shop. What can I help you with?”



He got up and brushed a few specks of dust from his knees, offering his very charming buy-something smile.



“Urahara-san,” the shinigami bowed low. The shopkeeper suddenly remembered that he\'d left his fan on the windowsill and the thought gave him a feeling of being exposed. He slowly considered the thought of being addicted to the fan. “The Gotei 13 would like you to make a few gigai.”



“No problem. I still have the ones that they used so far and they are still good. Of course, I can make new ones if they have found fault with the previous batch.”



“Oh, no, nothing of the sort,” Hanatarou said, almost excusing himself. “It\'s just that other shinigami want to come to the real world and it would feel strange to be in somebody else\'s shape, don\'t you think?”



“Right. Well, then, if you\'ll send me the files for those who are coming.... In fact, who are they? I can get started on the more tedious, non-aesthetic parts of the job right now, if I know the basics.” Plus, he thought, it would keep him busier than non-existent shop shelf trouble.



“Ukitake-taichou and Zaraki-taichou.”



Urahara\'s blank gaze focused on the small shinigami, silently demanding more detail as to why those two would want to come to the real world. As the boy ummm-ed in some distress, he realized that perhaps the seventh seat of the 4th division wasn\'t getting told much nowadays, so he sighed dramatically.



“I wonder what Soul Society is up to, ne? My, my, I\'d better check if I have enough raw material, Zaraki-san tends to be on the larger side of the scale.” He took a look at the shelves he had just been arranging and then smiled at his visitor. “Would you like some chocolate, Yamada-san?”



“Errrr....” Hanatarou turned beet-red and shuffled his feet, so Urahara prattled on cheerfully.



“I heard it was hard to get in Seireitei. It is one of my favorite goods, decent profit, many sold items, if there\'s a food crisis it can keep you better fed and happier than a can of pickled beans would. Well, I\'m afraid they sent the last batch to me too close to its expiration date, so now I give them around. It would be a pity to see such a wonderful edible item wasted, don\'t you think? Want one?”



“Errr... Yes, please, Urahara-san.”



\'Poor kid,\' thought the shopkeeper. The small shinigami tended to be so shy, awkward and respectful that Urahara always wanted to offer him something to make it all better. He looked like a kicked dog most of the time and there was just something in the shopkeeper\'s heart that couldn\'t resist feeding the strays. Probably the same thing that got young people all over the world screaming to their one-finger-keyboard-typing grandparents “Gah! Just let me, I\'ll type it for you, alright?!”



Urahara knelt on the floor again and picked up a milk chocolate bar with peanuts and offered it to his visitor. Then he wondered what Ichigo would think if he popped up and realized that not only did blackmail happen in that shop but also a giving of sweets to small, boyish-looking young men. The gesture was, however, entirely innocent. It was the proof that the shopkeeper needed to offer himself that he was capable of disinterested actions – except that, if it was done in the interest of doing something disinterested, it couldn\'t be disinterested anymore. Ah, well. A handsome, amazing shopkeeper like himself couldn\'t be bothered with such details.



Hanatarou took the chocolate with exaggerated thanks, then bid his goodbyes and left. Urahara realized he was no longer in the mood to make an art out of sweet-arranging. He was also preoccupied with the reason why the two captains wanted to visit the real world. Ukitake was generally too sickly to take on missions and Zaraki.... Something felt odd there. Also, would he need to make a gigai for Yachiru? How old was she nowadays? Or, how old did she look? He\'d do it anyway. She was not to be parted from her captain, no matter what orders said.



“My, my,” he muttered, looking at the shelves and picking up the chocolates to arrange back. “How much work one makes for oneself.”



He finished with the chocolates, picked up the bonbons and arranged them fast, making a neat circular arrangement with the lollipops, sticking them into a support that allowed them to spread at angles, like a blooming flower. At least, it looked like a blooming flower in his opinion. It might have also been random angles making it look like a lollipop battlefield.



And, as he was placing the last of them on the support, he noticed that while the chocolate was nowhere near the expiration date, the lollipops were. And, as he\'d told Hanatarou, he hated wasting sweets, so he took one, unwrapped it, stuck it in his mouth, started sucking and, shortly afterward, commenced humming a happy tune. It was, of course, then that Ichigo came in the store, saying a careless “Evenin\'” before stopping short and staring at Urahara as if he\'d grown another head. Urahara popped the candy out of his mouth and twirled it between his fingers, pointing it carelessly at the boy.



“Want a lollipop, Kurosaki-kun?”



Ichigo was quiet for a few seconds and then he said, slowly, deliberately, incredulously, “Pervert.”



“What?”



They stared at each other, trying to understand what the other was thinking. In Urahara\'s case, this meant trying to figure out what Ichigo thought he was thinking from the confused, worried, disgusted and uncertain look on his face. He suddenly stopped wondering at the boy\'s thoughts and started marveling at the expressiveness of his face.



“Does that stand for something?” Ichigo asked. “Is this some fucked up way of asking me to do something really perverted on you?”



Urahara raised his hand and looked at the lollipop in surprise, studied it for a second, then turned his eyes back on Ichigo with a wide, teasing smile.



“Kurosaki-san.... You have a much dirtier mind than I. No symbolism was intended.”



“Then you\'re just trying to get me to suck and lick that thing. After you\'ve sucked it an licked it yourself.” Ichigo made a face.



“Near the expiration date, nothing more. And I was offering another one.”



“Don\'t tell me you\'re not a pervert, I know better than that.”



“I\'m not one now, Kurosaki-kun. Right now your mind is in the gutter. Mine is clean. I just don\'t like to see good sweets go to waste.”



“Yeah, right. And decide already, am I Kurosaki-san or Kurosaki-kun or what? You keep calling me both and driving me up the wall.”



Urahara paused. He\'d switched automatically from one to the other, but if he had to choose something to call him constantly, then he\'d go for the first name. He sucked on the lollipop thoughtfully, unmindful of the weird look Ichigo sent his way. It would feel quite awkward later if he were to stick to polite suffixes during intimate moments. He popped the candy out of his mouth. “Ichigo. You\'re Ichigo. Especially if you\'ve decided to take up on my offer. Have you?”



“Can\'t you just let the subject drop?” The boy didn\'t expect him to, but he could see the hope there and almost, almost wished he could. But right now his own mind was slowly telling him what Ichigo could suck and lick, now that he mentioned it, and it was, frankly, very tempting. Very stirring. He gave the candy a few superficial licks, his tongue darting out of his mouth suggestively while Ichigo scowled darkly.



“Not really. Let me lock the shop and then we can move to a much more pleasant location, shall we? I am done rearranging these shelves. So, would you like a lollipop?”



“No.”



“Would your sisters want lollipops?”



“No.” And after a second, he added, “Nobody I know wants lollipops.”



“Well, you can still think about it. Otherwise I\'ll have to give them away to children at school and people will get the wrong idea.”



“The right idea.”



Urahara fiddled with the keys and the shop door, feeling strangely as if he were playing the evil role in a horror movie. He could see the story now: every few days, a customer who came to the Urahara shop would be locked in with the insane owner, who\'d proceed to feed them sweets, then tie them up to the bed, ravish them and, because this was a horror movie he was supposed to star in, since locking the door was involved – that was creepy – there would somehow be blood splattered all over the walls before the show was done. But he had no intentions to do anything like that. The blood part. The ravishing sounded good.



He finished fumbling with the door and realized he had spaced out. “Sorry?”



“They\'d probably get the right idea, not the wrong one. Perv.”



“Ichigo, I am not a pedophile. You look, and are, older than your age.”



Not that Urahara wasn\'t breaking every rule instated for the safety of young people everywhere. He smiled charmingly at Ichigo and gestured to the rest of the house. The boy didn\'t know it now, but he\'d soon find out that they were heading straight towards Urahara\'s bedroom. The shopkeeper discreetly got rid of the lollipop in a trash can in a corner. He hated wasting sweets, but he had something else to do with his hand and mouth and he simply had nowhere to put it.



“And that\'s why you were offering me a lollipop. Because you want me to be and look as mature as possible.”



“Expiration date, Ichigo.”



“Yeah, right.”



Urahara shrugged.



“What do you want from me?”



“As I\'ve said. I want to fuck you and make you like it. Is it really that hard to understand?”



“Yeah, but....” There was a furious blush on the boy. “I can handle that, I think. I\'ve been in a lot of pain, ya know. And discomfort. And there\'s the Hollow inside of me. You\'re a fucked up pervert, just for the record. I can\'t believe this is what you\'d ask for, but hey, old enough to kill and get killed against your will, old enough to fuck a man who was supposed to be on your side.”



Urahara threw a look sideways. Ichigo was so young at times. So innocent. It was not the same thing, not the same thing at all, and even if the boy was trying to put on a show of bravado – or was that irony he was trying to throw at Urahara? - he was doing it badly. And did he honestly not know how different it would be to have himself molested from having himself nearly killed? The latter got your body. The first got your spirit.



The physical inconvenient was much smaller, true, but....



“Kurosaki-san....”



“There you go again. Make up your mind how you want to call me. Anyway, I hope you don\'t want me to do anything really fucked up like pretend I\'m a ten year-old or wear dresses or whatever.”



Urahara stopped in his tracks and caught Ichigo\'s arm, frowning.



“Kurosaki-san,” he repeated, darkly, wishing he had his fan again. He was addicted to it. “As I\'ve said, my intentions are to sleep with you and give you pleasure. Your first time shouldn\'t be something you bear. And I am not going to do anything of the sort to you. I am not a man who dreams of something else than he attempts to obtain. If I wanted a ten year-old that bad, I assure you, I would get a ten year-old.” No, that wasn\'t true. He\'d never act on it. But an argument was an argument. “If I wanted a woman, I would get a woman. As it is, I want you. No dresses, no games of play-pretend. No romantic dinners in which you play the female. Or does that scare you even more? That you\'ll have to be yourself?”



“I\'m not scared, old man,” Ichigo scowled. “I\'ve been through worse.”



\'No, you have not,\' Urahara thought. Ichigo had always been able to fight his attackers off, to find a way to get better, to improve so that whatever hurt him would never happen again. But this.... This would be intimate. This would be something he wouldn\'t be able to escape. But outwardly, he nodded. “If you say so.”



They started walking again and soon enough Urahara was inviting the boy into his bedroom. The younger man frowned, had a slight hesitation, but went in, observing the room\'s sparse furnishings. A futon, a tiny bed stand (odd to see it there without a bed), a low table possibly used as a desk.



“So, this is it, eh?”



Urahara didn\'t answer that question, but shut the door behind them. The image of the horror movie jumped into his mind again. The room was dark, since the sun had pretty much set by now and he hesitated whether to turn on the lights. Ichigo sat down on the futon, looking distinctly uncomfortable. Light. There had to be some light. Eventually, Urahara went to the very low bed stand and turned on the bedside lamp that he used for reading. A bunch of books were piled up on the bed stand and around it, since he was never sure what he wanted to read before bedtime – and he also kept forgetting to return them to their proper shelves. The orange lamp gave off a soft, warm light that was just enough to ward the “I\'m going to rape you immediately” sort of feeling away. Ichigo picked up the first book he laid his hands on, opened it and frowned, reading very slowly.



“Sen kyuu hyaku sanjuu go nen, roku gatsu, watashi ha minami america ni aru noujou wo hanare, rokkagetsu taizai suru yotei de, igirisu ni modotte kita.[1] Hey, I didn\'t know you could read English, Urahara. What is this?... A-ga-tha Christie. “The A.B.C murders”?”



“I have varied literary tastes, Ichigo. And varied talents.”



Ichigo put the book down. “So.”



“So.”



“How exactly does this work?”



Urahara grinned at him.



“Why, now you get seduced by the wonderful, handsome, perverted shopkeeper, of course.” He would have liked to flutter his fan around to make a point. Well, he\'d remember not to leave it lying about again. Instead, he grinned at him and sat down on the futon. Time to get to the seducing part of the business, especially since there was no point in beating around the bush. They both knew why they were there.



Urahara gently touched Ichigo\'s chin and raised the boy\'s face so they were looking at each other. He tried to keep his calm, but found that his stomach and his nether region were distinctly holding their own against his usual coolness. He caressed softly before leaning in and gently, slowly touching Ichigo\'s lips with his own. Then, when he realized the boy wasn\'t about to sprout and run off, he sneaked his tongue out, drawing it across Ichigo\'s mouth sensuously and receiving a hitched breath for his efforts. Thank God for teenage hormones, Urahara thought as he carefully tangled his hand in Ichigo\'s hair, drawing him closer, taking his lower lip between his own, sucking on it, scraping it lightly with his teeth. He heard another sharp breath from the younger man and he couldn\'t deny the growth of his arousal that demanded that he just drop the slow motion and promptly have his way with a half-willing victim. Pound Ichigo through the floor. Have him, mark him as his own. He had denied himself for so long that control was difficult. And as for Ichigo, that one had never satisfied himself in the first place and his body didn\'t care what the mind had to say about the partner\'s gender.



Despite wanting to take it slowly, carefully, seductively, he found himself pushing the boy down on the futon and leaning over him. He had to take it slow, dammit. Remind himself that ravishing a virgin who didn\'t really want him was not the best way to go about it.



“Ichigo, you are so tempting,” he muttered, hoping that the words would keep him in check, that hearing his own voice would remind him not to become a dark, lusty monster of an incubus. “You have no idea.”



He caught the other\'s mouth with his own again, darting his tongue between Ichigo\'s lips, opening his mouth wider, exploring it, tasting it almost desperately. The younger man tried to reply in the very same fashion, but Urahara realized that he was awkward, that he didn\'t know what to do, that he unsuccessfully attempted to copy what was being done to him. He sighed somewhere between thrill and pleasure.



“You\'ve never kissed before,” he stated, pulling back with one of those annoying perverted smiles that would throw a lot of people off.



“No, dammit. If you wanted a professional you should\'ve gotten one. Are you gonna demand I be very good at this from the very start?” Ichigo was scowling and blushing at the same time, looking up on the ceiling.



“No need to get upset. Kissing is an art.... How about I teach you?”



And he did set out to teach him, focusing on being a teacher again so as not to be his own perverted self who would pounce on him and ruin everything. He showed him how to nibble on a person\'s lip, to suck on it, how to tease, to shift between hot, demanding, bruising kisses and light, tantalizing feathery caresses of the lips and tongue. How to surprise with a daring dart of tongue and then pull back to allow the other the space to desire and want more of the same. He whispered his advice, gasped his encouragement, let his natural reactions show when he might have hidden them otherwise. Ichigo, on his side, caught on quickly, as he usually did, delighting in his new found skills, aiming to get better, to become a master of the art. Urahara realized between two hazy thoughts of ever increasing lust that he\'d managed to somehow find a path that would get the boy fine through all of this. He left himself all open, showed his appreciation openly and only his his smiles when Ichigo started to grin, to get cocky, to have an initiative of his own, to enjoy the power he had over him. That\'s how they learned, Urahara thought. Show them the right way and reward them for it.



As time went by, his inexperience faded, being replaced by his trademark daring, at least as far as lips were concerned. He managed to roll them so that Urahara was underneath and delighted in his control more than he did in the pleasure or in the person he was with. And that was fine with the shopkeeper. He lived to serve. Or something.



But as time went by and they stopped from time to time to say something, to take a breath, to take a break, Urahara realized that Ichigo was not ready for more, not yet. That this was enough for him, that he had been given wings and loved them. He did not need a full airplane yet.



The metaphor wasn\'t perfect, but Urahara\'s mind was getting cloudy. He was no virgin. This was not enough for him. He wanted more, his body knew more and soon it would demand beyond the point of no return, when he\'d need to be pleased.



And when that time came, he excused himself with a grin, fell on his back, loosened his kimono and, under Ichigo\'s very, very wide eyes, masturbated shamelessly, hard, willing himself to forget that the boy was next to him and very, very tempting.



“What are you doing?”



“Ichigo, that is such a stupid question,” he said, with the last of his coherence, as Ichigo watched in fascination as Urahara brought himself to completion with a groan.



“Why?” he asked, after the man had finished. “I\'m.... I said I would....”



“Because I didn\'t want to overwhelm. Besides, I would not have been at the height of my prowess and control, Ichigo.”



“But now....”



“Did you really want to be fucked tonight? Pounded into the mattress mercilessly? It is enough for now. Trust me.”



“But I....”



Then he turned back towards the boy and remembered that he was probably sporting an erection, too.



“Do you want me to ... aid you, Ichigo?”



There was a pause as the teenager hesitated between two possible courses of action. Finally, he whispered, “no.” And that proved Urahara\'s point. “Can I use your bathroom?” Well, most of his point anyway.



“Second door on the right.”



“Yeah.”



It was all Urahara could do not to burst out laughing as the younger man disappeared to take care of his own problem in private. Ichigo, meanwhile, found his way to the very same bathroom where Urahara had shaved not that long ago and, cursing himself, leaned against the wall and went through the approximately same motions that the blond had gone through not long before. He figured the older man would know what he\'d come to do, but couldn\'t bring himself to care as his lust grew to a level he\'d never quite experienced before in the same conditions. He moved his hand fast, with arrhythmical movements and cursed as the pleasure skyrocketed and engulfed him whole. He bucked his hips into his hand and kept moving slowly even as he came down from the clouds. Then, as clarity slowly returned to him, he went to lean against the sink, turned on the water, washed his hand and his cock and, cursing, but this time not from pleasure, grabbed a rag that was lying behind the sink and washed the floor with it. He needed to be more careful about where he did some things. And when all was said and done, he washed his face and hoped desperately that Urahara wouldn\'t mention that he knew.



When he returned, the shopkeeper just gave him a small smile and invited him on the futon. Ichigo figured that his situation was singularly strange, but he also had this odd feeling that he had a choice in this. And that the older man was his teacher yet again. This was ... an exploration, not a submission. Urahara gave himself to Ichigo in return, taught him. He could, in some weird way, trust him again. As a teacher. Sensei. Teacher. Literal meaning, “born before”. He\'d never thought about the literal meaning of the word\'s components, but now he did. How old was the shopkeeper anyway? Since when had he been doing things like these?



“Did you always like guys, Urahara?” Even now, he couldn\'t bring himself to call the man Kisuke, not really. It was about the role, he guessed. And Urahara didn\'t ask him to do so, either.



“Hmmm?... Oh. I\'m bisexual, Ichigo.”



“Really?”



“Yes.”



There was another pause in which Ichigo stared at the wall, trying to figure out whether this could be, indeed, qualified as a teaching situation. Whether this was some sort of complicated, messed up plan made by a complicated, messed up ex-Gotei 13 captain. After awhile, Urahara decided to ask.



“Anything bothering you, Ichigo?”



“Can I ask you a question?” There went the test, he guessed. He\'d found something he wanted to ask about.



“Certainly. You can always ask. I might not answer.”



“Erm. Well. The thing is....”



“Yes?”



“I never understood....”



“What?”



“The pleasure in getting hickeys. I mean, I\'ve heard girls giggle about them and all that, but I can\'t see the pleasure in getting a bruise.”



Urahara grinned very widely and Ichigo thought that he could\'ve chosen a different subject. He also thought that it was only Urahara that could make this situation seem so casual. He also considered the fact that this was a lot weirder than any of his encounters with the Arrancar or shinigami who had done him harm. It was.... More intimate, yes. How would it have been had he simply slept with Urahara? Would he have been subject to the same sort of blackmail again and again? Would he be so now? How could he still trust this person even when.... But there was just this hint of goodness, of decency about the shopkeeper that made sense, that made him human, that made Ichigo unable to hate him for this. Perhaps it was his liking of the man as a person.



On his side, Urahara could have replied – but wouldn\'t have – and explained some psychological things that made sense. But he was too busy amusing himself with the question. “Oh, poor, innocent Ichigo. Let me show you. The way to do it will only be taught in lesson 2, though. I do not guarantee for my actions if we continue tonight.”



He rose in a sitting position and applied his lips to Ichigo\'s neck, sucking and nibbling until he had the boy nearly get an erection again. Eventually he pulled himself back.



“There it is,” he explained. “Now you have a hickey.”



Ichigo touched his neck, surprised.



“Really?”



“Oh, yes.”



/////////////////////////////////



Isshin couldn\'t help but notice that Ichigo got home very late that night, but a certain certainty and power could be felt in his reiatsu, unlike the worried, scowling countenance he\'d had the previous afternoon. It was almost dawn. But, knowing that the boy had a messed up life, he decided not to let on that he was awake or aware. He had followed Ichigo the previous day, to make sure he wouldn\'t get into trouble and had calmed himself knowing that he was at Urahara\'s shop. It seemed now that Isshin\'s old friend had managed to set his son on his own two feet again and that was good. He\'d probably offered him tea and a talk, or whatever that man did.



Isshin went back to bed, relaxed with the knowledge that all his children were safe.



//////////////////////////////////////////



That morning at breakfast, Isshin suddenly noticed something on his son\'s neck. A bruise. A bruise that looked exactly like a....



“Where\'ve you been last night?” he asked his son. “I know it, Ichigo! I know you came back late! Have you been with a girl? You can tell dad if you were with a girl, it breaks my heart that you\'re so grown up, but....”



“Urahara\'s.”



“Oh.” He abandoned his cheerful prattling speech before taking on another one. “Was any of your friends there? Have you decided to use Urahara\'s as a love hotel? I\'m quite certain that....”



“Nah, nobody but me and that perverted shopkeeper.”



Isshin felt his heart being gripped by a certain dread, especially when Ichigo added “perverted” to “shopkeeper”. Granted, that was how Urahara referred to himself, but.... What if there was more to it? He pretended to be casual, prattled on annoying all his kids, while wondering whether the bruise was nothing more than a bruise or, indeed, a hickey. Was the boy lying and had there been somebody else there? Like Rukia or Yoruichi? Had he left Urahara\'s and gone to see somebody else during the night? Was Ichigo lying to him? Please, let the boy be lying to him.



...Or was that bruise courtesy of the shopkeeper? He remembered Urahara quite well, too well to not consider that option. And the more he thought about it, the more he considered it, until he started feeling almost certain about it, when he sniffed the trace of a man\'s cologne while attacking his son. He asked Ichigo when he left for school what cologne he\'d used and, hearing that he hadn\'t used one and never had, as his father knew too well, he felt that he was slowly reaching a dreadful certainty.



He\'d have to murder Kisuke. There was no other way about it.



/////////////////////////////////



AN: Woohoo! Another chapter done.



Footnote 1: The first sentence of Agatha Christie\'s “The A.B.C. Muders”. Original English: “It was in June of 1935 that I came home from my ranch in South America for a stay of about six months.” The Japanese version says pretty much the same, except it mentions the home being England. I figured this: if they\'re from Japan and I\'m writing in English pretending they\'re speaking Japanese, then I might as well use Japanese for when they want to say something in English. It makes perfect sense. At least right now it does.



So, if you\'ve read it, please review! Best present for an author!