Summary: Ishida tells Nemu she will have to stay the night at his house. That's easy. Telling his father, that's hard. He can't avoid it forever. Can he?
They had Gym for their last class. As they separated to the boys and girls locker rooms, Rukia promised to keep an eye on Nemu to keep her out of trouble. He told her he would meet her again at the end of the day for clean up detail. He hadn't told her about staying at his house yet. Mulling the scenario over and over in his mind, the problem wasn't telling Nemu. He just didn't want to get her hopes up before he knew she could stay. The problem was telling his father. What if he refused? Considering Ryuuken's attitude towards shinigami, it was likely. Would he insist she stay in a hotel? What if some supernatural entity decided to attack? She'd be alone and vulnerable. What if his father decided to put her up in his hospital? No, that was just as bad as the hotel scenario. He thought about calling ahead, but with something this serious, he felt it would be better if he told Ryuuken face to face. It would be much harder to refuse with Nemu right on his doorstep. Not impossible, but much harder. He got a broom from the supply closet and returned to his homeroom. He walked in to see Nemu was already there and wiping down the windows.
"Oi, Nemu-san."he called out, "How did your class go?"
She looked at him over her shoulder. "Welcome back Ishida-san. We played kick-ball in gym class. Kuchiki-san advised me to hold back so as not to appear abnormal. In the hallway, our classmates kept giving me these. What am I supposed to do with them?"
She handed Uryuu a half dozen paper slips. Unfolding them, he found they had various crude messages on them from the male student body, most of them along the lines of 'Hey baby, what's your phone number?' and devolving from there to cruder, more direct requests.
"Traditionally, you burn them." he said, "but the trash will do for now." He crumpled the offending slips into a ball and tossed them in the nearby can. "Nemu-san, there's something we need to talk about."
She put down the spray bottle and paper towels. "Very well, I am listening."
Uryuu adjusted his glasses. "As we discussed before, it would not be appropriate for you to stay with me. However, nobody suitable has any room for you this weekend except for Urahara-san. Do you know him?"
"Yes," she replied, "all shinigami know of his shop and are warned to bring their own supplies when traveling to the real world to avoid his shameless price gouging."
Price gouging? Uryuu thought. Maybe I should have asked him much he charges for rent? "Well, although he said he could put you up for the weekend, he cannot let you stay tonight."
Nemu looked at him with her head tilted slightly. "What I'm going to do,"
Uryuu took a deep breath. "I'm…I'm going to ask my father if you can spend the night at our place. Just for tonight!" He saw how her eyes widened and wanted to make sure she understood. "And I can't guarantee that he won't say no."
"I have confidence you will find a way Ishida-san." She said. "We will go after we finish cleaning the classroom?"
"No," he said, "I have a club meeting after this."
"A club meeting?" she replied. "I do not remember reading anything about that in Kuchiki-san's book. She always wrote that she and Kurosaki-san go home after school." Uryuu saw he needed to fill in another gap in Nemu's knowledge of the real world.
"Kurosaki never was in any clubs. I expect being a part-time shinigami takes up all his spare time these days anyway. Our school has several clubs you can join depending on your interests. We have athletic clubs like tennis or karate, or clubs for popular culture like anime and manga clubs."
"What club are you in Ishida-san?" She asked.
Uryuu stood up straight and looked Nemu in the eye. "I am in the handicrafts club."
Nemu's face had no reaction to his declaration. "What does a 'handicrafts club' do?"
Ishida took a deep breath and prepared himself for the inevitable funny look. "We mostly sew."
Again, if this meant anything to Nemu, it didn't show on her face. Uruyuu was relieved. He was very proud on his skill, but he hated the way people made assumptions when he told them about him being in the handicrafts club.
"And not everyone is in this club you said?" She asked.
"Well Keigo and Mizuiro are slackers and don't belong to any club. Chad has a part time job. Arisawa-san is in the Karate club. Inoue-san is the only one of our group that's in the club with me."
"Inoue Orihime? The healer girl?"
"Yes, that's her. Would you like to come to the meeting after we're done?"
Nemu looked thoughtful. "Yes Ishida-san. I would like to go to the meeting with you. I would like that very much."
"This is where we meet three times a week." Ishida gestured to the classroom allocated for the handicrafts clubs use.
"Some of the projects use machines, some are done by hand. Materials and tools are stored in the cabinets in the back. I, of course, keep my personal set on me at all times."
He showed her a slim case filled with needles, pins, threads and measuring tapes all neatly arranged for maximum efficiency.
A small girl with black hair in a page boy cut approached from the corner of the room, "Ishida-san, I'm having trouble with this hem, can you help me?"
"Excuse me Nemu-san. Please feel free to look around while I handle this." Ishida went off with the girl to see what problem she had. Nemu wasted no time finding her objective. Striding across the room, she went to the table where the person she was looking for was working.
"Inoue-san," she said, "you are in this club?"
"Good afternoon Nemu-san." The red haired girl replied. "I'm glad to see you here. See what I'm working on? What do you think?" She held up a lavender blouse about halfway completed. "We're going to have an exhibition next week and I really want to enter this."
"It is lovely Inoue-san. Do you need any help?"
"You can sew?"
"Yes, it is one of the required skills for all twelfth division members." Nemu picked up a scrap of cloth and quickly demonstrated three distinct stitch patterns, all neat and mechanically precise.
Orihime was suitably impressed. "That's very good Nemu-san."
'Thank you. It is much easier when the item to sew is inanimate."
"Huh?"
"Never mind. What can I help you with?"
"You can start on the cuffs. Here's the pattern."
As Nemu sewed, she also looked over the rest of the room. Ishida was being pulled this way and that by the club members all asking him to help with a tricky seam or to demonstrate certain techniques or to ask his advice.
"Ishida-san seems very popular." She said to Orihime.
"Yeah, he probably knows more about sewing and fabrics than anybody in here."Orihime said. "He's a big help."
Yet another girl was asking for Ishida to look over her work.
"It seems he is the only man in this club." Nemu remarked.
Orihime confirmed her observation. "Well, most guys go for stuff like football or karate. Handicrafts are considered a little, you know, girly. Still, it's nice to have a man's opinion once in a while. Lots of times, after I finish something and try it on, I'll ask him if it's too tight or if the hemline is too high or the neckline's too low, you know what I mean? Just to see what a guy would think."
Nemu was not pleased. She decided to dig a little deeper. "As the only male here, I assume the girls pay him a lot of attention?"
"Well they would," Orhime said, "if he wasn't so snappish all the time. He'll do the nicest things for you, then he'll say something mean and spoil everything. I know he doesn't mean it, he's just kinda shy, you know? That's just how he keeps people at arms length." She dropped her voice to a whisper. "Of course by now a lot of the girls think he's gay."
"Gay?" Nemu asked.
"Yeah, you know." Orhime stage whispered, "As in doesn't like girls? Thinks guys are cute?"
Nemu didn't like the direction this conversation was headed. "Do you think he is…like that?" She asked.
Orihime burst out laughing. She quickly covered her mouth to keep from making too much noise, but that only changed it into a giggling fit. She soon started to get tears of in the corners of her eyes as she fought to calm down.
"I'm so sorry Nemu-san." She said as she wiped her eyes. "I know you weren't trying to be funny. But you don't know him like I do." She calmed down enough to stop laughing. "You see, I know for a fact that Ishida-kun is not gay."
Nemu stopped sewing. She slowly and with great deliberation put down the needle and thread and turned to look at Orihime directly. Her face was completely devoid of all emotion. "If it is not impolite to ask Orhime-san, just how do you know this?"
If Orihime took notice of Nemu's demeanor she gave no sign. She also put down her sewing and faced Nemu.
She leaned in and lowered her voice. "Well, maybe I shouldn't be telling you this. But when we were in Soul Society, he made Kuchiki-san the cutest dress. When I saw it, in the first flash of women's intuition I ever had, I knew, I just knew without even being told. He is in love with Kuchiki-san!"
Orihime stared at Nemu to gauge her reaction. Nemu appeared to be completely stunned. She broke eye contact first and resumed sewing.
Orihime also went back to her sewing and continued talking. "It's so tragic don't you think? Two young lovers separated, living in different worlds, never able to fully be together. It's sweet in a way…."
Nemu wasn't listening. She couldn't take anymore. Kuchiki-san was right. The real world made you think and feel things you never felt before. Right now she had the inexplicable urge to scream and pull her hair.
They walked through the trees and into the clearing.
"Here we are." Uryuu said as he spread out his arms, taking in the nearby rocks and stream.
"Yes, I remember this place." Nemu said.
Ishida sat down on a rock and rummaged though his satchel. "I always used to think of this as my secret place, but it seems everybody keeps finding me here." He handed Nemu a can. "Is coffee OK?"
"Nemu looked the can she held. "Ah. Modern beverage containers. Kuchiki-san covered this in chapter two." She turned it over and over in her hands. "Where is the straw?"
Without saying a word, Uryuu took the can from her and opened the top. Nemu sat down next to him and took a sip.
"How is it shinigami use cell phones and computers, yet you don't know about little things like modern packaging?" he asked.
Nemu put her coffee down. "Before the twelfth division was turned into research and development, there was no systematic way of integrating real world innovations to shinigami use. Since that time, we focus only on items that will help us track and kill hollows."
"I guess that makes sense." Uryuu retrieved another can from his bag and took a long drink. "I believe you know from surveillance I come here to train?"
"Yes," she said, "It was not easy to watch you when you lost your powers. You came here every day to practice. You never stopped trying."
He adjusted his glasses. "It wasn't easy to watch, but you did it anyway."
"Please don't be offended Ishida-san. You were my assignment. I did not wish to invade your privacy." She didn't add that she had watched him long after her allocated research time. He didn't need to know.
"I'm sorry." He said. "I shouldn't take it out on you." He took another drink. "This is a great place to train or to think, or to just get away from things for a while. It's where my grandfather taught me to use my Quincy powers. After he was…after he was gone, I would bring his old log books and histories here and practice techniques. It wasn't easy learning things you've never seen by yourself. I wanted to be as good as any Quincy ever was. I wanted to make sure the Quincy legacy survived. Just like sensei would have wished."
Nemu was glad he was opening up to her. His story made her wonder. Was this why Ishida knew so many advanced techniques? Because he believed he should be able to do anything in the histories? Because no one was here to tell him it was impossible? She took another sip of coffee.
"Ishida-san." She said. "Why have you brought me here?"
He turned to look at her. "To tell the truth, I'm procrastinating. We'll have to go home sooner or later. I'd rather it be later. I'm going to do my homework here where it's nice and quiet. It's not going to be either when we get back to my place."
"I understand." She said. "I will send my initial report while you work."
She brought out her cell phone and turned off the keypad tone. Uryuu watched in amazement as she began to text, thumbs blurring as she pounded the keypad. He wondered how many words per minute she was texting. He had to stop watching if he was ever going to get his homework done. He sat on the ground and used the rock as a makeshift desk as he brought out his books. The time he would confront his father was coming up fast. He did his best to put that thought out of mind as he concentrated on his schoolwork, enjoying the sound of the water moving across the rocks and the feel of the breeze on his neck. Nemu looked up from time to time. She felt privileged Ishida had invited her to be a guest in his special place. As she looked at him sitting in the sun she thought he had to be exaggerating about his father. Surely a man who raised such a fine son couldn't be as bad as Ishida was making him out to be. She was sure everything would be fine.