Kisuke
Yoruichi grins at him like the cheshire cat she is. "It always was just a matter of time, Kisuke."
He gifts her with a large grin and fans his face. "No one can resist me."
Sakata Gintoki ignores them in favour of his newest discovery in Soul Society: the candy Urahara Kisuke made as a by-product of the mod-soul development. His blissfully happy expression tells Kisuke that perhaps he should have forgone becoming a Shinigami and instead turned to being a humble candy-store owner.
"I do think it's the sweets that attracted him, though," she teases as she watches the white-haired man indulging in his favourite pastime. "I've never seen a grown man make that face over treats before."
Slyly hiding his grin behind his fan he says: "That face isn't exclusively reserved for my candy balls, though."
She barks out a laugh, "Now don't go telling stories, Kisuke. Our spar earlier this morning indicated you were more on the receiving and of any candy handed out."
He loves her. How can he not love this woman?
"Bring him with you next time. I think I'd like to see exactly what your newest toy is capable of," she casts a teasing glance at Gintoki who looks up as she proclaims him a plaything.
He does the unexpected, grins widely and stupidly like she's just done something wonderfully in his favour, eyes her up and down appraisingly and answers her in a way Kisuke will commit to his eternally undying set of memories where Yoruichi Shihounin was embarrassed. "Is that an offer for me to taste your set of candies, princess? You didn't have to phrase it like it was something to be hidden. You see, it's entirely natural to be interested in your friend's playthings. After all, you always did share everything, didn't you? And there's plenty of me for you to have a bite as well," he winks at her.
Her look of disbelief as she stares at him is wonderful. Kisuke only wonders how it is that this man has them figured out completely after having interacted with them for one day. "Kisuke, what…"
But Gintoki has already popped another piece of the strawberry flavoured sugar in his mouth and returned to sighing happily.
Yumichika
It's the head of white hair that garners his attention. The broad back beneath the black shirt is also pleasing to regard. He wonders at the odd way the man wears his yukata on only one shoulder. Perhaps the man had pulled a muscle or something the like. Though the man is slouching against the bar on a barstool he possesses a quiet sort of grace. Yumichika thinks the man used to be a soldier, a leader of men before he came to Soul Society.
Yumichika is intrigued. He pulls a surprised Ikkaku into the bar with him. They order sake whilst Yumichika tries to inconspicuously make out the stranger's features. He cannot imagine what sort of face the man would have with that mess of white on his head. He eyes the broad, scarred hand that covers the half of his face that Yumichika would have seen from that angle. Evidently, he's been in plenty of bare-knuckled fights. Yumichika regards the curly strands on the stranger's head more closely and notes that it would for its apparent frizz be very soft to the touch.
A bumbling fight between two of the patrons blocks his view. The display is most unbeautiful. He's about to tell Ikkaku to rid the place of them when the white haired man gets up, sways drunkenly and takes them out in an instant. There's not even any property damage. He turns back to his seat at the bar and Yumichika sees a very bored visage with a straight sharply cut nose, a smooth curve of slack lips, prominent cheekbones and half-lidded wine red eyes.
Yumichika… is not appalled.
He watches as the master of the bar silently slides over a bottle of sake that the man accepts in a manner that suggests they have established a routine of sorts. The man takes care of the disturbances and receives sake in compensation. Not a bad deal, he supposes, for a man with little other means to pay for his drink.
Ikkaku, who has finished off the sake whilst Yumichika checks out the white haired man, eyes the free sake said man received enviously. He seems to think the man a laid-back person what with the lazy expression, the halfway put on yukata and the white frizz. Yumichika does not doubt he is, however, the man is clearly there to drown his sorrows. One does not come between a man and his sake when said man is drinking to forget.
He does wonder what it is the man wishes to forget. After all, every soul arriving to Soul Society forgets their previous lives within the first few days and he has evidently come to an arrangement with the barkeep. Not one to debate an idea for very long, Ikkaku gets up from his chair and sidles up to the man. He is not acknowledged. Slightly irritated he clears his throat. No reaction.
He does it again, pointedly. A pinky is shoved up one nostril. Yumichika does not know what to think. Perhaps he should revise his earlier opinion of the man's innate grace. It appears to have fled the scene.
The barkeep snorts, shakes his head and leaves Ikkaku to it. He has apparently witnessed similar displays before.
The man sips his sake unperturbed after flicking his boger in Ikkaku's general direction. Ikkaku manages to dodge just so. He is sputtering mad. "Oi!"
Nothing indicates the man has heard Ikkaku. His sake is almost empty. Another pinky is shoved up his nose. Ikkaku steps closer, an imposing figure net to the slouching man. Yumichika watches in amusement as the white haired stranger wipes his boger on Ikkaku's yukata. Ikkaku's face is hilarious.
It is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.
Ikkaku
Once they are done a few walls have been destroyed that the permy bastard informs the owners of he can fix for a few sugar cubes. Ikkaku has of course sensed the reiatsu surrounding the man during their fight, but why is he not in the academy? He certainly looks young enough and his sword skills are exceptional. Ikkaku would dare judge them to be on par with the captain's.
He asks. He sees a flash of pain in wine red eyes. "Waiting on someone," is all he receives as an answer.
Tetsuzaemon
Tetsuzaemon is following Ikkaku and Yumichika. Why? Without his drinking buddy aka sparring partner from the eleventh things in the seventh have admittedly become rather boring. He naturally decided to investigate why Ikkaku stopped showing up unannounced whilst Yumichika was off doing something involving beauty. He also ignored the faint sensation of abandonement.
He is surprised to see them turn into a run-down (unbeautiful) bar that he could have sworn Yumichika would not even have bothered to sniff at condescendingly. After waiting a short while he enters the establishment covertly. He sweeps his eyes across the patrons and is met with a wine coloured dead-fish-stare that slides away lazily to look at Yumichika to the man's left who has made a remark that Ikkaku rolls his eyes at.
They are drinking with the white haired man with the dead-fish eyes. They are joking with him. They good naturedly accept the teasing and needling he does.
Ikkaku spars with him in broad daylight in the middle of the street. He is beaten down easily, even with his shikai active. Why is this man not in the Gotei 13?
Kisuke
There had never been much room for secrets within the Gotei 13. Even less so after the Vizored had been hollowfied. It was because of this fact that Urahara Kisuke decided to establish a system of communication with Sakata Gintoki. He was neither willing to relinquish their connection, nor was he willing to allow the man to catch the eye of other high ranking Shinigami.
The solution to this: he developed the phone for Shinigami to use and so had a method of setting up meetings with the sugar addict.
He was surprised to discover that Gintoki already knew how to handle a cell phone and was pleased to learn that Gintoki had lived in close proximity with a young girl named Kagura who had been enthusiastic about finding three phones (in the excrements of her large dog) and had made both Gintoki and Shinpachi use theirs. Kisuke was certainly even more surprised when Gitoki made him bring money to him for gambling purposes, texted him rather useless knowledge of what he thought of his opponents and the one Shinigami who felt the need to patrol in Gintoki's favoured district of rukongai.
It was rather amusing up until he almost laughed loudly and conspicuously at this one text about being lucky he could no longer become a diabetic as a soul in a captain's meeting. This was when he brought Yoruichi in on it.
The innuendo-laden text messages exchanged were a welcome distraction from the guilt Kisuke felt for being the one to develop the method of turning Shinigami into Vizored in the first place.
Gintoki
"You do realise they're Shinigami, don't you?" the punk asks incredulously, angrily, and Gintoki finds himself reminded of that one time when he'd been asked what he wanted with that piss-poor excuse for a noble Takasugi. He stares as blankly as he had back then and employs his most useful skill for dealing with angry young men. Gintoki has always found his innate ability to rile anyone up by doing absolutely nothing but staring at them rather handy. The punk is steadily losing his already flimsy composure and furthers his lack of decorum by haughtily sneering at both Ikkaku and Yumichika.
"Y'know," Ikkaku says then, "Fer a noble yer brother was alright."
The bald (shaven, Gintoki-kun, shaven!) man says nothing more, stares no longer at the kid than it takes to utter the only kind of compassion he has to offer and sips his sake in a very un-Ikkaku-like manner, with reverence and posture. The punk both hates and loves Ikkaku instantaneously, left sputtering by the Shinigami's words. Yumichika, amused despite himself – no doubt due to the toll the amount of sake they've consumed takes – relaxes on Gintoki's other side as he watches the proceedings.
"Not that I don't appreciate the concern, Ganju-kun," Gintoki finally drawls, taking perhaps a Sougo kind of level of pleasure at the constipation on the punk's face as he puts slight emphasis on the suffix, "But I can assure you, I am with these two only for the pleasure of their," he casts a sidelong glance at Yumichika, "Esteemed company."
He does not hold back the idiotic grin he taught Kagura long ago as he witnesses the punk's blush at his insinuations. He loves Ikkaku for very blatantly slipping a pouch of sugar cubes into his yukata. The punk's eyes following the movement become impossibly wide. "Y-you're whoring yourself out for sugar cubes?" the punk shouts, "To Shinigami?" he adds almost hastily, having momentarily forgotten that he is the 'Shinigami Hater #1'.
Gintoki's grin stretches further on his face as Yumichika decides to join the fray, "What else would he be prostituting himself for?" Gintoki can hear Shinpachi sputter as Sakamoto laughs obnoxiously and Kagura accuses him of forgetting to barter for her pickled seaweed in the back of his mind. He faintly remembers Tsukuyo and shudders mentally at the memory of a drunken Courtesan of Death. That woman was delightfully scary in her less coherent moments. Not that she was ever not scary, but her loss of clothing when drunk was always delightful.
The punk, seemingly catching on that he is being taken the mickey out of, eyes them uncertainly, "Why d'you fix up 'em roofs then, if you've got such… filling work?"
One take note of the eloquence the young noble displays.
"'Cause, Ganju-kun," he loves how he can needle the punk further by calling him that, "I'm a man of very many talents," how he managed to make that sound sultry even Gintoki doesn't know.
The punk has some fighting spirit left, it seems, for he retorts – snarkily at that – with a scathing remark along the lines of Gintoki's perm keeping all other potential customers at bay.
It is then that Gintoki notes Kisuke's presence behind the punk, cheery grin in place, captain's haori nowhere in sight, replaced by a casual green yukata and resting Benihime inconspicuously in his hand. He steps closer, ignores the punk entirely, grins openly at both Ikkaku and Yumichika who are definitely tense with the captain of the twelfth squad this close.
"Sakata-san," Kisuke greets, "Ikkaku-kun, Yumichika-kun, what a lovely coincidence to meet you here."
Gintoki nods at him and shoves his pinky up his left nostril. He delights the slight tremble in Ikkaku's voice, "Yes, coincidence, lovely, yes, Yumichika?"
The punk is watching the proceedings aptly, unperturbed at being ignored. He knows Kisuke, Gintoki realises, and seems to admire him. Curious, that. Kisuke is a Shinigami after all.
"Urahara-taichou," Yumichika greets with a regal nod and Gintoki flicks his boger at him. It narrowly misses the glossy hair, and only because Yumichika is used to sneak attacks. The haughty glare he sends Gintoki is reciprocated by dead-fish eyes.
"Sakata-san," Kisuke says playfully, "I have procured a new flavour that you might find to be of the rather…" he casts an amused glance at the punk, knowing fully well that he will believe Gintoki is a prostitute when he is finished speaking, "pleasurable variety."
Gintoki allows his interest to openly show on his face and smiles, "I have always found it hard to tell you no, haven't I?" his tone is suggestive and leaves the punk no room – or is it every room – for imagination. Kisuke smiles brightly, "Of course, Sakata-san. I have never had trouble with securing affirmative responses."
Ikkaku shifts uncomfortably next to Gintoki, no doubt thinking of when Kisuke had been in charge of the Maggot's Nest.
Yumichika
Yumichika watches in parts amused, parts incredulous at the connection between those two, parts baffled as he watches Gintoki leave side by side with the one captain that never fails to raise Yumichika's caution. The young Shiba is gaping after them. He is undoubtedly still befuddled by Gintoki's prostitution. Yumichika notes absently how very few of the patrons are not openly looking in their direction.
He also takes note of Ikkaku laughing his arse off in a rather undignified manner. "Sleeping with bloody Urahara-taichou," he gasps, "Knew he was going about with someone, but the bleeding scientist? That's gotta be the funniest combo in history. The perm-headed sweets-addict and the resident hat-n-clogs."
Yumichika, never one to keep silent when he has a point to make gains Ikkaku's attention with a slight shift in his posture. "You realise that Urahara-taichou is rumoured to be close with Shihounin-taichou, yes?"
Ikkakus stops laughing. "You don't think…?"
The youngest Shiba has already understood what Yumichika is implying and chokes on his own spit. How very unbeautiful.