A/N: This chap is dedicated to Firetender: it's not exactly what you asked for, but it did give me some ideas (muah ha ha), which I went with. This chap – at the Urahara Shoten!

Of Children, Hats, and Nakedness

A ridiculously tall, strong, and somewhat apelike man sat down at the store counter and grumbled through his moustache. Despite his rock-solid, stoic appearance, the stress of maintaining a store and chaperoning two children was beginning to get to Tessai. He grumbled again, more pensively this time, rubbed his eyes, and opened an old green ledger.

Flipping past pages of transaction records and descriptions of goods that needed to be restocked, he finally came to a more personal section of the enormous book. Here was where he wrote down tips for coping with the most tiresome part of his job: Jinta.

He tried his best to respect the boy, and be kind to him. Unfortunately, he was so undeniably rude and off-task that this was often impossible. So he resorted to less cushy methods… for example:

"Tessai's List of Last Resorts in Dealing with Jinta-dono

"threaten to withhold his dinner

"actually withhold his dinner

"Tessai death poke! (not at full power, of course)

"to keep him working, place cardboard cutouts of self in places where they will cast a conspicuous shadow over where he is working (in practice, only worked for two weeks before he found out)

"pick him up by the hair and grumble at him

"Tessai scary face!

"crush his annoying little head (just kidding, ha ha… hmmm…)"

"And how are things going with that brat, eh, Tessai-san?"

"Oh, ah, Tenshou! I mean, fine, why do you ask?" the huge man stuttered, guiltily closing the ledger with one hand, as he pushed up his glasses with the other. Urahara could not possibly have read his entries; he left the tedious work to Tessai, and even now he was on the opposite side of the room.

"It's not important, just asking," Kisuke replied. "I figured he could be kind of a nuisance sometimes."

"Oh, er, yes… quite a nuisance, I suppose."

"Well, I have some work of my own to do," he added, clopping back through the doorway into the back room, "and just be sure to fix that window sometime today, hmm?"

"What wind—" Tessai began, then, "right away, tenshou," as he heard a shout coming from the front of the store.

"JINTA HOMERUN!"

There was a loud crash, followed by a bloodcurdling grumble.

The infamous sandal-hat man stood in front of his open closet and self-consciously scratched his neck.

He was staring at row upon row of his old hats, lined up in a mildly organized jumble; an embarrassing testament to his years experimenting with headwear. What was I thinking, if anything?

From left to right: a floral-patterned fisher's cap, a sombrero, a blue flannel turban, a scaled-down model of a pope's hat (what on Earth?), a raspberry beret (which he'd bought before the song came out, thank you very much), a flame-print bandana, a women's straw Sunday hat complete with stuffed canary (that was from his "confused" years in high school), a fur headdress, and (GASP!) a commemorative Grateful Dead baseball cap (no one, NO ONE, must ever know).

Kisuke heaved an aggravated sigh. "I oughtta make a list of things to get rid of in here," he muttered to himself, "but that's more Tessai's thing…"

A darkly voluptuous woman sat in the kitchen with an enormous bowl of fried rice and a hand-sized flip-pad. She shoveled several lumps of the stuff into her mouth and flicked open the notepad.

"People to Flash:

"Kisuke (check)

"Ichigo (check, indeed… must flash virgins more often)

"Byakuya (well, half-check… he'll get the other half eventually)

"Kisuke (check again)

"Ukitake (check, but never again… he enjoyed it too much)

"old man Yama

"Kon (NOT!)

"Kisuke (yup, check)

"Yumichika (he's always on about beauty, it's about time I show him the real deal)

"Ishida Uryuu (should be almost as fun as Ichigo, unless the rumors are true…)"

"Oh, my! Err—excuse me!"

Yoruichi looked up. "D'you need something, Kisuke?"

"Err, no, it's just – um—you might want to put something on…"

"Yeah, just a sec," she smirked, scribbling again on the notebook.

"Kisuke! Check check check check check check check AND CHECK!!!"

"By the way, Kisuke."

"Yes?" came the response, from behind a paper fan.

"Do you have to take out that damn camera every time?"

-e-n-d-c-h-a-p-t-e-r-3-

A/N: Yesss!!! I am so evil! Well, I hope it was as much fun to read as it was to write… this is seriously the perfect stress reliever. Hurrah! Crack!