Chapter 6: The (Mis)interpretation of Sin
Lightning flashed through the shop windows, momentarily bleaching the walls and floors, illuminating the cold marble expression on Urahara's face as he marched through the narrow hallway in stony silence. Ryuken, your words are like poison. You are like the venomous snake in the garden, bringing corruption to all good things. Urahara's mind was a whirl of bitter, chaotic thoughts as he reached the door of the room that Ishida and Kurosaki sometimes shared. He rapped on the door, then with barely a pause, he opened it, allowing the soft, sultry sounds of music to drift into the hallway.
I've been tried
And I've been tested
I was born tired
And I never got rested
Harder than
Marble stone
I'm better off
Better off left alone
'Cause I'm not the one
No, I'm not the one
You wanted it all
But I give you
Give you none
I'm not the one...
A strobe light effect flickered through the dimly lit room, picking out and spotlighting the pale, sylph-like beauty of the boy lying in the center of the bed. The hand covering his eyes dropped, and the boy stared across the room at Urahara, the question forming on his face before the words left his lips:
"What are you doing here?"
"Get up. You're going home."
The Quincy's eyes widened in surprise at the words, at their icy delivery. He sat up then; awareness seemed to slowly creep its way back into his limbs. "Why? What's wrong?" Concern mixed with agitation colored his words.
"Never mind why, Ishida. Just...just go." Urahara choked a little over that last sentence. His eyes took in the contents of the darkened room: the cd player by the bed, the tiny tea-light flickering wanly in its rice paper shell, the empty bottles of pop on the floor, one of Kurosaki's school jackets tossed casually in the corner. Urahara could hear his own heartbeat pounding in his ears with the low insistence of a bass drum. It was a bad idea, letting those boys in here. Lightning flashed dramatically as Uryuu shook his head. "You're...you're going to make me leave in the middle of this storm?" he asked in disbelief.
Urahara swallowed. Swallowed guilt and bile and despair. It's no good. He answered with a single word: "Yes."
The dark-haired boy flinched as if he'd been struck. "Why?"
Urahara lunged forward, grabbing the boy by the wrist and pulling him up. Somewhere back in the rational part of his mind he knew this was a bad idea, but he did it anyway. The sting of Ryuken's words was working at him like bitter poison, clouding his judgement and pushing him beyond the constraints of common logic. He knew his actions were irrational, but he felt helpless against them. Subconscious guilt was a piercing barb urging him onward. Edging him toward impending disaster.
Just like it always did...
"Why are you behaving like this?" the boy choked out, his sapphire blue eyes wide with confusion. "I don't understand. I thought...I thought..."
"Thought what?"
"I thought you actually cared. I thought..." and here the boy paused, fidgeting under the effort of forming the words. "I thought maybe you were different from my father. I thought..." He broke off, lifting his head to glare defiantly at Urahara. But under the light of the storm, what Urahara saw was not defiance, but the shimmer of unshed tears.
Urahara abruptly released his hold. Moved by those young, mournful eyes filled with despair, he whispered, "I'm sorry."
A tentative hand reached out to him, pale as death in the darkness. A pleading gesture. Urahara looked helplessly at those desperate, outstretched fingers, and then he took the boy's hand and pulled him into his embrace. The boy melted into his arms, choking out a heavy sob in the process. "I can't do it anymore. I can't pretend I like being alone all the time. You and Ichigo, you're all I have. Please, don't make me-"
"Shh," Urahara hushed him quietly. The boy was trembling in his arms; it was heartbreaking, watching such a cold, proud soul falling softly apart. Not at all like Ryuken. Urahara cradled him in his embrace, holding him close in the violet twilight.
"What's this then?" A high strange voice said directly behind him.
It all happened so fast. One moment, Urahara was holding the young Quincy; the next, he was flying through the air across the room, colliding with the far wall. His body hit the ground with a quiet thud, his hat and cane clattering to the floor next to him. Lightning flashed, briefly outlining the darkened form of the other person in the room.
"Kurosaki?" Urahara rasped in a quaking voice. In that brief instant, when the light was on his face, Urahara had seen something unexpected: yellow irises embedded in unearthly, oily black eyes. And the voice was off; it was not Kurosaki who was speaking.
"Ichigo, what are you doing?" Uryuu all but yelled. No! Ishida don't! Urahara mentally begged. The shopkeeper clambered to his feet, stammering, "Ishida, get away from him!" But his effort was futile. The hollow controlling Ichigo's body turned and grabbed Ishida by the throat. Like he was nothing more than a rag doll, he lifted and swung the dark-haired boy against the wall by the door. The Quincy's head hit the round, hanging mirror positioned there with a dull, sickening crack!
"Shut your mouth, you faithless Quincy whore!" the hollow trilled as it held Uryuu suspending against the shattered glass. Outside, thunder raged; the smell of blood was thick in the air. Lightning flashed throughout the room, highlighting the hollow's evil grin. In slow motion, the hollow, via Ichigo's body, pulled Uryuu forward, and it was obvious to Urahara what the creature intended. The boy opened his mouth to let out a scream, but...
...it was abruptly cut short by another sickening crack! as his head once again collided with the glass...
Several years earlier...
The first persistent, intrusive rays of sunlight crawl through the blinds, chasing out the lingering shadows of the messy bedroom, pressing Urahara awake with warm, insistent fingers. Urahara's eyes crack open; he is lying in bed, and shafts of early morning dawn stripe his face, stripes like those covering his hat lying on the bedside table. He feels dead to the world, and the relentless pounding near the back of his skull makes it clear to him that he may have overindulged in the sake a bit too much last night. "I should invent a gigai that can better handle alcohol consumption," he thinks idly to himself as he stares at his hat, letting his eyes go unfocused, making the stripes swirl together in a green and white fun house-like blur. Next to his hat on the table, he sees a little red and white box. The box is familiar, yet oddly out of place. With sleepy, uncoordinated fingers, Urahara reaches out and picks the object up. Cigarettes...
"Since you're awake, why don't you pass me one of those?"
Urahara freezes, the hand with the cigarettes suspended in the air. A sinking feeling, like an anchor pulling at the prow of a ship, seizes his heart. He turns his head and is confronted with the image of Ryuken, lying just inches from him, his obviously naked form covered with nothing but a sheet. He's not wearing his glasses, and his back is propped up against the wall. Urahara has no idea how long he's been there, how long he has been awake. Watching him. In the early morning dawn, Ryuken is beautiful. Just like Urahara knew he would be. With a lean swimmer's build and perfect, unblemished skin. The sheet pooled in his lap leaves little to the imagination. But Urahara doesn't need imagination, because memories from the previous night begin to assail him full force. Memories of himself and Ryuken. Together. In his bed. Memories of Urahara violently pulling the glasses off his face and the shirt over his head and pressing him back into the pillows, his long-restrained lust for the young Quincy blazing dangerously, madly out of control...
Now, in the early morning sunlight, only cold dull feelings of guilt and regret and a sick, needless desire for self-immolation remain.
Ryuken makes an irritated noise in the back of his throat and reaches over to pluck the pack of cigarettes from Urahara's still suspended hand. He draws a cigarette from the pack, but then spends several moments fumbling around in his discarded clothing for a lighter. Urahara drops his face into the mattress. Oh god, why? he thinks to himself. Why did I do this? It was a mistake. A stupid, rash mistake.
Just like all of his other stupid, rash mistakes. And now, he will do what he always does with his mistakes. The exact same thing he has already done with the hougyoku:
He is going to hide it and ignore it and hope, in vain, that it will eventually go away...
End Chapter 6.
Note: the song used this chapter is the Black Keys "I'm Not the One." A nice counterpoint to their song from earlier, "The Only One." :)
Next update: Tomorrow or Saturday.