Chapter Four
Murder and Ice Cream.

"Ichigo.." he squinted in his sleep, becoming half awake. He disregarded it and tried to go back to sleep. To return to the surprisingly calming dream. "Psst. Ichigo."

"What?" he doesn't open his eyes.
"Wake up, Kurosaki.."

Inside, Ichigo groans and then opens his eyes to be staring into dark turquoise eyes, a sweet warm breath leaving lips just a few inches from his face. Aki is over him, her eyebrows raised. Ichigo pushes her away quickly, "What the hell do you think you're doing!?"

"Trying to wake you up, what else?" she smiles, sitting as his desk.

"Did you have to invade my space!?"

"Calm down, Ichigo. Your family is still asleep."

Ichigo growls and looks at his clock, it's just past five in the morning. "What are you doing here?"

"Well, you see. Renji and I had to deal with a few Hollows. I was just going to invite you to Urahara's for breakfast and we could hang out today."

"You had to come at five in the morning to ask that?" he scowls.

Ichigo watches in the dark as Aki purses her lips and then nods, "Yep."

"How did you even get in here?"

"Magic. Hey, is this book any good?"

Ichigo squinted his eyes and looked and the title, "Yeah, I guess."

"Cool. I'm stealing it for the morning. Anyway, will you come?"

"Yeah, sure.."

"'Kay. Later." she gets up and he watches her disappear. He questions if she was even here or if it was just one of those dreams that felt like reality.

A couple of hours later, Ichigo wakes up on his own and takes a shower and gets ready for the day. He walks down stairs where Yuzu and Karin are already nibbling on breakfast. "Good morning, would you like some breakfast Ichigo?" Yuzu smiles brightly, like always.

"No thanks, Yuzu. Hey, where's Dad?"

"Already working in the Clinic." Karin answers.

"Do you have any plans today?"

Ichigo looks back to Yuzu, "Yeah, hanging out with a friend."

"Is it the girl you were hanging out with after school yesterday?"

Ichigo didn't know how to correctly answer that but he said yes anyway.

"Oh, that's wonderful!" Yuzu squeals.

All Ichigo could think was how he was so glad his father wasn't around. "She's just a friend, Yuzu." Ichigo corrected.

"What about you, Karin?"

"Huh? Oh, soccer practice."

The two sisters started talking and Ichigo just excused himself and went out the door. He walks into Urahara's shop to see Aki organizing the shelves. "'Bout time you got here, Ichigo." Aki states as she blows dust off a box.

"Where's Renji?""He just woke up, so he's fixing his hair and hating his gigai."

"Why would he--""I'm forcing him to come with us. I think he should explore Karakura with me."

"Then why do you--""Need you? In case we get lost. Duh."

"Why me?"

"Because it's funny when you get frustrated. That book was great too, by the way."

Ichigo looks taken aback, "How in the hell did you read it that fast?"

"I like reading. The book wasn't that long and when it's quiet, I read extraordinarily fast."

Renji comes from the hall, and it's strange to see him in anything but the traditional Shinigami clothing. The redhead is stuck in jeans and a white shirt and it's obvious he's uncomfortable.

That's when Ichigo notices Aki changed into a red tube top and the colored stripe in her hair matched it and yet she had different ripped jeans with shoes to match.

"How did you change--""Magic.""Will you stop cutting me off!!"

"Never."

"Calm down Ichigo, the best thing to do is get used t'it."

Aki and Renji watch as the orange haired boy slaps his hand to his face.

"Come on, we need to go. The mall is opening soon." Aki skips towards the door. "Do you even have any money?""Of course. I wouldn't send myself here without having money to spend."

"Send yourself?"

Aki rubs the back of her neck, "Oops, guess I didn't explain it all then, huh?"

"Ya think?" Ichigo fumes.

"Oh come on, I'll explain once we get some ice cream."

"This early?" he twitches, it's only nine.

"I need sugar to wake up. Speaking of sugar, apparently Renji likes it."

Renji stays quiet, "He tried coffee this morning."

Ichigo looks towards the redhead, "You've never had coffee?"

Renji starts to reply but Aki cuts off once again, "Ichigo. Today is going to be fun."

"Aren't you in the same boat as Renji?"

"What 'cha mean?""You can't have all that much experience with the human world."

"I feel insulted. I did technically live in the states before coming here, ya know."

"Technically?" Renji gives her a weird look.

Aki leans against the mall's railings, poking at her ice cream.

"I was normal until I found out about my power. So I went to school, had friends.. A boyfriend even."

"What happened?" Ichigo and Renji join her on either side, Renji for the most part glancing around, admiring everything.

"I got my power, tried to keep the normal life up. Eventually, I just had to give it up."

"What about your family?"

"Well, all I had left was my father. Turns out he was a traitor to my kind, so I had to kill him."

"You killed your own father?" Ichigo tried his best to keep his voice down.

"I'm not proud of it. More importantly, I hated the fact I had to grow up and do it."

"What?"

"By killing my father, I took over our council."

"Then why didn't you send someone else to do what you are?"

"Why and miss out on hanging out with you two? Please. Plus, this is like summer break for me. I haven't been able to relax this much in like fifty years."

"Twenty? How old are you anyway?"

"Well, if you minus the dying and coming back to life thing, really, I'm just fifteen."

"And if you don't?"

"'Round about three hundred."

Ichigo's and Renji's jaws both drop. "What the hell?"