Kurosaki Ichigo never got along with his old man. He had always loved his mother more than his father, but people told him it was normal for boys to prefer their mothers to their fathers.
Ichigo never understood how Isshin's patients could like him so much. Couldn't they see that the man was crazy? How could they entrust their lives into to the hands of a man who thinks peeping under his adolescent daughter's skirt is funny and goes running whilst crying to his deceased wife's poster when he's bullied, and thank him with a straight face? How could his beautiful, talented, perfect mother have married such a man?
One night when he returned late from his shinigami duties, he heard noises downstairs from his old man's study. He glanced at the clock and hands informed him it was 3 a.m. in the morning.
Feeling curious, he tip-toed downstairs as quietly as he could. It was unnecessary of course, as his Isshin did not possess any spiritual powers at all (much to Kurosaki Sr.'s eternal disappointment). But Ichigo still felt unreasonably guilty as he slipped into his father's sanctuary i.e. his office.
His father's office had always been off limits when he was younger and as he grew up after his mother's death, he lost interest in trying to sneak in. But in his memory, it was a big and sunny room and his father's desk was as tidy as a pin because his mother would clean his desk every morning.
Now, everything in the room seemed to have shrunk and the desk was covered with documents and lab reports. Ichigo watched his father take off the pair of glasses he was wearing and pinch the bridge of his nose tiredly before returning the optical aid back to its original position. The older man they sighed and as he leaned forward and studied the papers before him, before referring to the computer screen on the desk.
Ichigo felt something rise in his throat as he slipped out of the room again. He didn't know how to explain the feeling in the pit of his stomach, but all he could think was his father had looked so old and tired in that small and dingy room surrounded by his work.
Kurosaki Ichigo never got along with his old man and probably never will. But perhaps he began to understand why his mother married that man a little bit more that night.
He also decided he that would get his old man an autographed copy of that Don Kanonji DVD for Father's Day next week.