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2.26 AM Urahara's place

"Boo" Yoruichi said, half laughing. "Didn't think you'd actually show up her with a woman."

"Of course" he said. "You."

Urahara wasn't even flustered over the situation, neither was there any red glow to his cheeks. He only stood there, in the doorway to his own bedroom, looking at her. He didn't think twice about his nakedness or aroused state. It wasn't in their nature. It had never been and would never be.

"Damn she was hot," she said as if it was news to him. The cat woman stretched in an almost inhuman way before she fell to lay sprawled across the bed. Her yellow eyes burning holes in the ceiling. "I almost feel bad for you."

"You should," came the stifled reply. "I needed a bit of a tense release."

"Really?" she said laughing, eying his body in a way that said that she was bored of looking at him. Unsurprised.

"I've never seen you like this," Yoruichi admitted. There was a pause and she laughed. "You honestly didn't even sense my reiatsu?"

"No" Urahara replied taking a deep breath.

The dark woman laughed cruelly as she moved to sit up.

"You are so cute, getting all worked up over a woman" she commented. He could see every teeth in her mouth when she smiled like that. She looked a bit like a tigress that was playing with her food, waiting for it to give up and succumb into nothingness. "Come on, you got to admit it was a bit amusing."

"I feel like crying from hilarity," he said. He was looking at a bug that was trying to escape into the wooden floor just a meter away from his feet.

"Naw, don't look so hurt," Yoruichi replied. "I can smell the sarcasm all the way here."

There was a pause, when they just looked at each other. Both trying to navigate into the other ones soul. As always it left them with a strange connection. The deep grey eyes of the blonde shop owner told Yoruichi what she already knew. They were comrades, not lovers. At once Yoruichi felt a weird tingle run through her body. He actually looked a bit hurt, she thought to herself.

"Hey, I know! Do you want me to help you finish?" she offered with a wink.

"Yoruichi" he said turning the lights off. "So not funny."

"Actually, I think I might be a bit serious. Really, you look like it is hurting."

He also looked damn sexy, but that was something she could keep to herself. He didn't have to know that her boredom was only a facade, that she had been trying to steady her breath ever since the light had been turned on by that woman. His nakedness had come as a bit of a chock, at first had he only had his back against her but the sheer knowledge that he would have to turn at some point had left her with a smile she couldn't hide. That poor woman, she must have seen the hunger in my eyes, she thought. It really was a bit of truth in what Yoruichi had said, but if Urahara wanted to ignore or dismiss their connection as friendly mockery, she was too stubborn to do anything about it herself.

"Could we not do this right now," he muttered as he walked over to his bed.

"You even walk funny," she said in a tone that made it obvious that she was a bit amused over his current state. There might have been much darker thoughts running through her head at that moment too, but it wasn't anything she would ever admit or let show. Especially not now, when he was that burdened with trouble.

"Yoruichi," he said warningly.

There was a darkness in his eyes. It had been a long time since she last had seen Kisuke the man instead of Urahara the friend. These feelings of want and lust had been there just below the surface the last time too. At that time it had been difficult to imagine a world where her friend was not more to her than a friend once more. However, time passed and none of them did anything to express the change in atmosphere between them. After a while, the broken facades began to heal and the walls between them rebuilt. Before long, the incident, when she walked in on Urahara with a woman, was forgotten and they were true friends once more.

Could she recover from this as well? She hoped so. Or at least she thought she did.

"OK OK I'll stop," she said. Eager not to let him see the emotions that had awakened inside of her dance behind her eyes, she yawned and continued "Fine, I'm sorry I spoiled your game."

He climbed into the bed next to her.

"Good, now move over. I need some sleep."