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The day was pleasantly clear at the riverside — picturesque with a bright blue sky and a gentle breeze, making it perfect for waiting until Ichigo's return from Soul Society, and yet here Kisuke was, surrounded by those he cared for the most, feeling quietly out of place.
Waiting for Ichigo was the least he could do, after all. Kisuke had only seen him for a matter of minutes before the fight with Ginjō began, then afterward he'd had to retrieve Inoue and Sado and let Riruka heal at the Shōten. None of them had stayed long, Ichigo included. Everything had happened so quickly.
Now it was over. Isshin stood beside him silently while Yoruichi was in her cat form, lounging atop his head with her tail swishing back and forth. It wasn’t a long wait before a Senkaimon opened in the distance and out came Ichigo. The moment he jumped down and reached the ground, his friends and sisters circled him immediately, asking him questions and joking around as inevitably things returned to normal.
From the corner of his eye, Isshin stayed still and edged a smile. Kisuke thought it looked a bit too thin but understood. The excitement of the others was hard to watch.
His traitorous mind kept overlapping Ichigo's smiling face with the memory of him in tears, fresh betrayal cutting across his face. Kisuke was no stranger to the expression, but he’d hoped (despite the probability) that he’d never have to see it on Ichigo, much less be the cause of it. His skin was prickling with the need to fix. To somehow reverse the role he’d chosen to play.
But those were just thoughts. Asano was making an exaggerated gesture and Arisawa smacked him fondly, prompting the others to laugh when the boy sulked. The group's palpable joy at having Ichigo with them erected a wall he'd be a fool to break.
After a few minutes in observing silence, Isshin strolled over to join the circle too, morphing his smile into his typical caricature as he said something stupid and Ichigo yelled at him for it.
He and Isshin had nothing to say to each other anyway. They couldn’t take back the decisions they'd made now; Kisuke had asked him so many times beforehand if he was sure of what they were doing that Isshin had gotten deeply irritated with him. They hadn't truly talked since beyond terse conversations.
Kisuke glanced over at Tessai instead, who knew him too well and was already studying him with an old patience. After an answering nod, Tessai muttered something low to Ururu and Jinta, so Kisuke took his leave. Better to get a head start.
“Wait, Urahara-san!”
He’d reached the top of the stairs leading to the road before the words reached him, forcing him to stop dead still. A grin plastered itself onto his face as he turned around. Isshin had the right idea sometimes.
In front of him, Ichigo had broken away from the circle of his friends and family; his eyebrows furrowed as he approached Kisuke, taking the stairs two steps at a time in his haste. The group below were not so inconspicuously looking this way, obviously curious, but at this distance they wouldn't be able to hear. The teen — or young man at this point, really — paused, blocking the path, and it allowed him his first real look at Ichigo with his powers regained.
He stood tall in his new shihakushō, like the world had finally righted itself. His typical scowl made its appearance, too.
“You’re leaving?” he asked, the accusation in his voice light.
Kisuke maintained his smile and flicked open his fan out of habit. “I’m afraid so. While I’m glad to see you again, I do have some things to attend to.”
He didn't, honestly. All of his actual effort had gone into creating the sword that would restore Ichigo's powers, so he didn't have any projects that needed monitoring at the moment. He would have to find something new to devote himself to beyond silly little inventions against hollows.
Ichigo's scowl deepened, and even the slight displeasure twisted a knife into Kisuke's stomach.
“Let's talk later, then? It's been a while.”
The determined glint in his eyes (which was so, so familiar, though Kisuke hadn't seen it in so long) revealed that later really meant sometime today. Yoruichi dug her claws into his hat as a warning. He'd almost forgotten she was up there; normally he’d whine at such a thing, but her worries were warranted.
It's not like he was actually able to deny Ichigo anything, though.
“Certainly! We’ll meet soon, Kurosaki-san.” He snapped his fan shut with a small placating gesture.
That lessened a bit of Ichigo's harsh expression, thankfully, and he walked down the stairs to rejoin everyone. Kisuke huffed a quiet sigh. Yoruichi's tail idly flicked against his forehead.
“I hope you know what to say,” she muttered on the way home.
I hope I do, too.
Once he was back at the Shōten, he moved on autopilot, head stuck in the myriad of ways the impending conversation could go. It was his best trait, after all, to be prepared for anything and everything. Emotions were just one of the few things that were harder to predict. Anger, disappointment, and frustration were all possible; but to what extent? How much had changed in those seventeen months apart?
How much had Ichigo himself changed, at least beyond the basic things that Kisuke kept track of like his school life and part time job? The curiosity ate at him, as it always did, yet he had long since resigned himself to this.
By the time it was dusk, however, Ichigo hadn’t appeared, and he had no idea what he had actually done in the Shōten for the past several hours. At least he was sitting at a table and probably hadn't destroyed anything in the meantime. Yoruichi startled him the moment his head left the clouds by jumping onto him and clawing into his hat again. This was becoming a bad habit of hers, he swore.
“Please be careful, Yoruichi-san, my poor hat-”
She bapped him in reprimand. “You've put it off long enough. Go find him,” she said, succinct as ever. Her eyes met his with an unwavering confidence, and that was enough to urge him to his feet.
Then with a little wiggle of her tail, clearly satisfied, Yoruichi walked away to go do whatever it was she usually did as a cat. Kisuke sighed.
Finding Ichigo was simple, of course. Even if he didn't have a tendency to leak reiatsu despite his best efforts, Kisuke had long ago developed a subconscious habit in the back of his mind to always keep tabs on his signature (strictly for practical reasons). Ichigo was currently at the same riverside they'd been to earlier today.
With Shunpo, it took less than a minute to arrive. The lighting was more than enough to see Ichigo in his shinigami form sitting by the water’s edge where the sun cast him in a reddish glow. His normally bright hair was only even more stunning like this, a fiery orange shadowed by gradients of pink and purple like a living sunset. He acknowledged Kisuke’s presence with a soft noise.
Kisuke sat cross-legged to Ichigo’s right, opposite of where Zangetsu was laying on the ground, although Ichigo kept staring out at the water, legs loosely pulled toward his chest with his arms wrapped around them. It was a bit silly, considering everything, but Kisuke hoped he wasn’t cold. There was a chill in the air that was harsher than was typical for April evenings.
A glance over the water told him nothing about what made it so interesting. Tentatively, Kisuke asked, “If I may, what made you choose this place?”
Ichigo laid his head on the top of his knees.
“I sometimes come here to think. It's quiet,” he replied after a moment.
His voice held a shallow honesty; there was more that he wasn’t saying. Rivers had to hold grim memories, so Kisuke wondered what it meant if he actively sought them out.
Suddenly, Ichigo flung his hands into the grass behind him, reclining back.
“So, you visited the old man for me?” he asked, meeting Kisuke's eyes with an amused quirk of his lips.
Kisuke matched it. “Of course. I- no, all of Soul Society, owes you a great deal,” he said. It was an easy truth for once, so Kisuke didn't hesitate to say it. “And I can be rather persuasive when I want to be.”
Ichigo rolled his eyes. “When you want to be a nuisance, you mean.”
“Yes, isn’t that what I said?” he replied, just to earn a short laugh, which made it worth it.
He’d actually been on his best behavior. His cause was too important for him to fail. Before he’d petitioned the Captain-Commander — his ultimate last resort — he’d poured as much reiatsu into the sword as he could, and then gone even further still, until darkness crept into the corners of his vision. It hadn’t been enough.
But there was also the unspoken reason why the Captain-Commander had agreed, and Ichigo knew it, too. His conscience pushed him to add, “You being able to defeat the first Substitute Shinigami was an added incentive.”
Maybe it was a bad idea to immediately start them on this path; Ichigo's face dropped into something blank, his mouth flattening out.
“Part of why I went was to ask for his body back, you know. To bury him,” he admitted.
Kisuke couldn't hold back a thoughtful hum. He'd thought that Ichigo would've left the matter to lie. The fight was over, after all. His friends and family were safe, which had always been his top priority. He didn't owe Ginjō anything. But he always had been kind to those who didn't deserve it.
Ichigo sighed, apparently having read his mind. “I've already forgiven him. Though he and Tsukishima made my life hell for a while, he was… he was just a human once, like me.”
That's when Kisuke realized - this was the first time Ichigo had killed someone alive.
Not a hollow, Arrancar or otherwise.
And who had been the one to teach him the resolve to kill? He tugged on the end of his hat, his own form of penance. “Kurosaki-san, it shouldn't have been your burden to bear. I…”
His words petered out. The silence didn’t last long, though.
“Where have you been?”
He felt compelled to glance up, and Ichigo's gaze pierced straight into his soul.
That was the crux of the issue, of course, and trust Ichigo to get right to it. It was the whole reason that they were where they were now, strange mutedness and all. What was Kisuke in the first place? Who was he meant to be? Perhaps a mentor at one point, and then most certainly a benefactor, but nothing more. Ichigo had his own people who he wished to protect, and Kisuke had whatever festering feelings that he refused to name.
To make matters worse, he was selfish. Knowing the right thing to do and actually doing it with Ichigo staring at him (with understanding, always understanding) were very different in practice. He stated the obvious answer first.
“I was working on the sword that would give you your powers back.”
Ichigo's expression turned contemplative.
“For the entire year after Aizen’s defeat?” he asked. Miraculously, he didn't sound incredulous.
Kisuke idly noted the texture of the grass from where his hands had fallen beside him; his fingers itched to twist the blades into knots and then tear them apart. This restlessness was his bad habit.
“I had to be sure my method would work without any side effects,” he decided to answer.
Ichigo exhaled in response and eventually turned back to the water, so Kisuke did the same, watching how it rippled in slow waves.
Without the sounds of birdcall or crickets chirping, the riverside seemed so very desolate. Aside from the two of them, there was nothing but the setting sun and the chilled breeze of dusk. The silence lasted long enough that Kisuke gave in and tore a single blade of grass with his index finger and thumb. It was slightly wet from gathering dew.
He threw the severed piece away. It wasn’t like he had lied — combining the reiatsu of dozens of people in one single inanimate object wasn’t as easy as one would think — but for some reason, it still felt like he had.
“That’s why you were conveniently out every time I visited the Shōten?” Ichigo's voice cut the air. “I gave up after the fourth time. You'd rather avoid me than disappoint me, I guess. That's so like you, Urahara-san.”
The quiet acceptance in his words struck more than blatant anger or sadness. All of his rumination before had been for nothing. His predictions were wrong. Ichigo always did manage to surprise him, again and again… or maybe Kisuke had spent too many years expecting the worst.
He hadn't expected resignation.
“It wasn't quite avoidance. I was just waiting for the right time…” he trailed off.
Ichigo gave him a disbelieving look. Kisuke bowed his head.
He'd been putting this off like Yoruichi had said. Revealing the truth had never come to him naturally, but that wasn't an excuse. If he could ever make up for even a second of Ichigo's heartbreak from betrayal after betrayal, to fix his errors and the complacency of indecision, it would be now.
Delicately, he tried to explain, “I wasn't sure if it was best that I be in your life anymore. You were human, after all. You'd finally won the peace you deserved.”
That was the conclusion he'd come to after the final battle against Aizen, and painstakingly so. He remembered the conversation they’d had then with perfect clarity. Ichigo had chosen to sacrifice so much, and yet had had such strong empathy for the enemy. Regretful, but not for himself. Therein was the conundrum: Ichigo's best qualities caused him to suffer more than a lesser man ever could.
Then he'd collapsed, screaming while curled up on the ground. Kisuke had stood there paralyzed and helpless as the teen's friends had rushed over, and yet been helpless all the same in the week after, when he'd counted down the minutes until Ichigo would awaken. He'd had plenty of time to think in those days.
But he hadn't visited Ichigo despite his desire to. In Ichigo's last moments with his vanishing reiryoku, Kisuke wouldn't be the shinigami he'd want to see. Nor did he have the right to be part of that moment, anyway, when the completion of the hōgyoku was his fault. And what exactly had he fulfilled by creating the cursed thing? His sick curiosity, because he could?
The one good thing the hōgyoku ever did was allow him to stabilize the Vizards, but look where his misguided help got them for a hundred years.
So he'd manufactured circumstances as best he could so that Ichigo would be the one to defeat Aizen, to do what he failed to do, while obfuscating the whole way there. It was the aftermath that he'd then had to reconcile with. Kisuke had wanted to never hear Ichigo be in such agony again, though that was obviously in vain. Ichigo's screams of anguish after having his powers stolen by Ginjō were still ringing inside his head.
To him, at least at the time, keeping his distance certainly couldn't make anything worse.
“...It'd be remiss of me not to acknowledge how much I've put you through,” he finished. The admission felt lacking but it was the best he could find.
Ichigo made a face, his usual worn mask of determination fighting the other conflicting emotions in his expression, as he sat up to turn towards Kisuke fully. “I've told you this before, I would've done all of that stuff anyway,” he sighed in frustration. “Even when you're not being honest with me, I can trust you to have my back.”
Then his voice grew soft, accompanied by an edge that immediately put Kisuke on alarm. It was a sharpness he didn’t recognize.
“...or, I thought I could. Ginjō actually tried turning me against you. And it worked. I became convinced that you were my enemy… I just didn't know how to confront you.”
“That's understandable, Kurosaki-san. It's not like I've done anything to earn your trust recently,” Kisuke quickly assured, because he was the one in the wrong here, regardless of how it pained him to hear.
Ichigo shook his head.
“Urahara-san, I hate…”
A pause.
Kisuke wouldn’t be surprised if he’d managed to garner his hate. That wouldn't be too unwarranted-
“I hate that I doubted you,” Ichigo declared. “You're the reason I have my powers back, and I'll forever be thankful for that. Really. Thank you. But…”
Suddenly, his frame shuddered and he physically withdrew; that was the best way to put it. He curled back into the position he'd been in before, wrapping his arms around his legs and hiding his face in his knees. It made him look too small. Like a child kneeling at a river, Kisuke regretted thinking.
Ichigo made a mumbling noise, and whatever the words were, they were too muffled to make out.
“Kurosaki-san…?” Kisuke shuffled closer. He reached a hand out, but pulled it back. He wasn’t sure if the touch would be welcome.
Impossibly, Ichigo shrunk further, and that certainly hurt. At this distance, though, Kisuke could hear his next words.
“I missed you.”
The confession was quiet — hushed in the way that it was uttered almost unwillingly — but it cracked like thunder all the same.
Kisuke had learned long ago how to treat his own emotions. In order to gain a more objective view, emotions needed to be pushed aside, tucked away until the time came to examine them and pick them apart. That was how he’d functioned in the Seireitei, during his exile, and the day he decided that it was worth using an innocent boy as a pawn for war.
He wondered how many times Ichigo had pushed his own emotions aside for the past year.
All his teachings were failing him. His heart felt like it was pouring out, so crushingly heavy, drowning him; just another ship capsizing out of hubris.
Kisuke clutched his hat and rose on unsteady feet, only managing a crouch. He stuttered, “I- how stupid of me, I'll leave you alone-”
Because his emotions were the one thing he truly couldn’t fix, and Ichigo deserved the version of him that he could rely on. Pragmatic, nonchalant, always ready with an answer. But Ichigo grabbed onto his hand before he could move, forcing their fingers to align in a desperate grip.
His eyes were alight as he glared, molten amber to match the sun. “You heard me say that and immediately try to run away? You are pretty stupid.”
Kisuke slammed his knees back onto the cool grass.
“I don't- I can't- it seems like I’m best at making things worse-” he attempted to explain in a trainwreck of words, but thankfully he was interrupted.
“Just stay, idiot,” Ichigo said quietly. “That's all you have to do.”
His glare wasn't angry, Kisuke realized, but the only form of pleading that he knew. How was Ichigo so good at tugging at his heartstrings without a word? He clenched his own hand, restless and longing, but said hand was occupied.
They both then realized they were still holding hands, simultaneously flicking their gazes down for a second to observe. Their fingers seemed to fit together perfectly. Kisuke lifted his eyebrows in question but Ichigo gave him a fierce look at even the thought that he'd let go. That scowl was accompanied by a blush, lovely and red like camellias.
Kisuke, obviously, didn't let go.
Ichigo somehow only became redder. The spread of color was fascinating to watch. The tint was strongest in his cheeks, but dispersed all the way to his ears and partially down his neck.
“Well, what about you?” he rushed out as Kisuke stared.
It wasn't his fault that Ichigo's face was so distracting when they were this close, and he was a scientist first and foremost. But Ichigo misinterpreted the lack of response, and his frown grew.
“I said something emotional so now you have to,” he stated in a tone that clarified there would be no arguments. “It's only fair.”
This was…
This was Ichigo giving him another chance, and the correct answer was obvious: the truth.
“You're right,” Kisuke laughed. Then he swallowed dryly to focus. “I missed you too, Kurosaki-san.”
He poured as much sincerity in his voice as he could. The Shōten truly hadn’t been the same for the last year.
A century ago, he’d had to adjust to the solitude of him and Tessai, the two of them left on their own except for when Yoruichi would occasionally visit. Then it became a little livelier with the addition of Jinta and Ururu, having to figure out how to play a parental role for mod souls that really were just children. But there was something missing nevertheless, and it had taken until Ichigo and his friends came along for him to fully realize it.
It was a purpose beyond himself. A space that could become more than his own, but Ichigo’s too, as he gathered and brought humans and shinigami alike under his cause. It was- it was nice, to have people around regularly again. To be considered the first place to go to in a situation. To be useful.
Without Ichigo there, his failures only became all too apparent.
“Every time Karin-chan came by, all I wanted to ask her about was you — how you were really doing — but I stopped myself most of the time. I was the one choosing not to be a part of your life, so I didn't deserve to know.”
Interestingly, Ichigo didn't look too surprised at the mention of his sister. Either she had told him, or he'd figured it out himself. Another thing Kisuke had kept from Ichigo that he should've shared.
“I'm sorry, Kurosaki-san.” He said it once, but it wasn't enough; so he said it again, voice cracking. “I'm so sorry.”
He was sorry for the past, the present, and now the future, because now that Ichigo had his powers restored, he was one step closer to him-
Ichigo's gaze searched his face. Whatever he found, it must've been enough, because the corner of his mouth curled up ever so slightly.
“I forgive you.”
Then he tightened his grip and yanked. Kisuke had no choice but to fall into Ichigo, who rose to a kneel and met him halfway, finally letting go of their linked hands to grab onto the front of his haori instead. He floundered for a moment, paralyzed, before he understood the normal thing to do would be to reciprocate.
His arms wrapped around Ichigo cautiously. There were many reasons he hesitated — too many to list, truthfully — but they all faded when he noticed the most minor tremble coming from Ichigo, as if he was trying to hide how the tense lines of his body betrayed his emotions. Even now, he wanted to appear like he was fine.
Kisuke pulled him closer until there wasn’t a single centimeter between them, clinging to him like a lifeline.
“Sorry, sorry,” he kept repeating under his breath. Almost all of his experience with comforting others came from reassuring Ururu, as she was a sensitive girl despite her strength (especially when she was younger), and now this unfamiliarity made him feel particularly out of his depth. None of the tension in Ichigo lessened, however, so he took a gamble.
He raised a hand to gently run his fingers through the bright orange locks he’d secretly always admired, caressing the back of Ichigo’s head in a way he hoped was soothing rather than awkward; his hair was just as soft as it looked, and Kisuke marveled at the fact that he was allowed to do this.
The motion seemed to work after an excruciating minute. Little by little he could feel Ichigo relax, melting into Kisuke and returning the hug more fiercely than before, and then that's how they stayed. He stilled his hand and closed his eyes.
For once, Kisuke let himself enjoy the moment.
He usually wasn’t a physically affectionate person, but here, the warmth in his arms was tangible in a way very few things were.
“If you ever do something like this again, I'll kick your ass,” Ichigo suddenly muttered into Kisuke's shoulder, his face basically nuzzling into the bare skin of his neck where his haori had fallen loose, causing Kisuke’s breath to catch in his throat.
Of course, ‘something like this’ had to refer to his absence in the past year.
“Please do,” he replied a bit windedly. This proximity wasn’t the best for his heart. “Yoruichi-san already has her hands full in that regard.” He mentally thanked her for the wordless confidence earlier, and made a note to tell her in person.
Ichigo snorted lightly. “You deserve it.”
Though there was a shade of condemnation in his tone, he didn’t move away from the hug at all, so Kisuke did nothing but nod and agree.
How did I get so lucky?
The only answer could be that he’d done something good in his past life, because nothing he’d done in his centuries of existence had earned such a blessing. It made him wonder what his karma would grant him next — if a moment like this could be the grain of sand that tips the scale of time.
Kisuke opened his eyes. The sun was much lower now, covering them in the encroaching darkness, and it felt like the moment would shatter if they broke apart.
There was nowhere else he'd rather be than here, but every night has its end.
Unsurprisingly, Ichigo made the final decision. He pulled back just enough to gaze up with a kind of tired happiness and something new that Kisuke would doubtlessly lose sleep over trying to decipher.
“Hey, Urahara-san, can I come over for dinner tonight?”