"Oh, just leave it will you, Ryuken?"
Ryuken rolled his eyes pointedly and glared at his stubborn offspring. "I have told you a million times, Uryu, it is important to share information. You're not going to be able to do anything at all about your assailant from your hospital bed. Wouldn't it be best to let your friends know what is going on?"
Uryu snatched up his glasses from his bedside-table and put them on, fighting to prop himself up without injuring himself further. "Will you just shut up?" he demanded. "You're a fine one to talk about sharing information with Soul Reapers, considering just a couple of years ago you yourself made me promise not to associate with them!"
Ryuken frowned. He had to give it to Uryu, at least the boy had found the one flaw in his carefully-constructed argument. In truth, Ryuken was more concerned for the safety of Uryu's human friends than any sort of investigation into the culprit who had seen fit to use Uryu as a pincushion for their sword. No, it wouldn't do for his son to realise just how much of an interest Ryuken had personally taken in his friends; after all, these teenagers must be special indeed to be considered worthy by the infamously standoffish Uryu Ishida.
"Fine," Ryuken conceded, walking over from the doorway and standing by Uryu's bed. "What if I were just to contact the girl?" Ryuken scrutinised his son's face, noting how Uryu was now refusing to meet his eyes and how a slight pink tint appeared on his cheeks. Yes, Orihime Inoue would be the one to call; Ryuken judged that Uryu wouldn't dismiss her before a warning could be passed on. "The girl has healing powers, correct? As fine a job as I did sewing you up, I can't even come close to what she could do for you."
"You leave Orihime out of this!" Uryu insisted, resting his head back on the pillow. "I won't have her injured because my idiot of a father meddled!"
"And I won't have her harmed because I didn't meddle," Ryuken finished under his breath, pulling out the mobile phone he had swiped from the bedside-table when Uryu hadn't been looking, and searching through the contacts for Orihime's name, which was right at the top of the short list.
Uryu fumed, his eyes narrowing to slits. "Don't you dare phone Orihime, or I'll... or I'll..."
"Wallow in your own anger in the bed you can't even leave without my assistance?" Ryuken asked, coldly. "I'm phoning the girl, Uryu." Ryuken frowned slightly as Uryu's usually well-controlled expression betrayed traces of genuine upset. "You'll be glad I did," Ryuken eventually said, his voice softening almost imperceptibly as he pressed the 'call' button and heard a phone ringing on the other end of the line.
After a few uncomfortable seconds of listening to the line ringing, while ignoring the fact that his son was staring daggers at him so sharp they nearly cut, the beeping stopped and a female voice rang clearly through the speaker.
"Hellooo! What's up, Ury..."
"This is his father," Ryuken said quickly. "Am I speaking to Orihime Inoue?"
After a slight pause the voice replied. "Yes. Um..."
Ryuken raised a questioning eyebrow at Uryu, who nodded reluctantly. Of course he would know it's her, even from this distance, Ryuken thought. He probably knows the girl's voice better than my own.
"Good. I'm afraid Uryu has been rather severely injured and is currently in hospital," Ryuken said, turning away to avoid having to see his son's death glares.
"What?"
Reasoning that the girl's lack of manners in this situation was entire understandable and forgivable, Ryuken pressed on. "I have performed surgery on him myself..."
"Huh?"
"And he is in a bad state at the moment," Ryuken pressed on, ignoring the girl's exclamations. "However, he will recover fully..."
"I'll be there in ten minutes!" Orihime Inoue's voice declared, and before Ryuken could drop any sort of hint that the girl should be careful out and about on her own, the line went dead.
Turning back to his son, who was staring forlornly at the wall, Ryuken threw back the phone and folded his arms. "She'll be here in ten minutes," he repeated.
Uryu forced his gaze away from the wall he had been burning a hole in and glowered at his father. "I hate you," he said, in a small voice.
Ryuken forced himself to ignore his son's painful comment, choosing instead to check Uryu's charts for the hundredth time since his surgery, despite the fact that he wrote nearly everything on them himself and they hadn't been out of his sight since the surgery.
"I'm telling you," Uryu continued once he saw that his father wasn't going to respond. "If you get Orihime hurt..."
"Then I'm sure I'll feel very guilty as I sew her back up," Ryuken snapped, watching Uryu shake his head. "If whoever attacked you wanted you dead, I daresay you would be dead. Orihime is not going to die."
"Oh, that's reassuring," Uryu snarked. "I'd really rather she wasn't hurt at all!"
Deciding that arguing with his son would be futile, and that an assurance that the purpose of contacting Orihime was in itself an act of protection would not go down well, Ryuken strode out of the door without a word and headed towards the foyer, where an undoubtedly worried Orihime Inoue would no doubt be arriving in five minutes' time.