An Evening Stroll (Snazzy)
The sky was particularly clear on this day, the temperature was also fairly moderate. These factors were the primary reason that Ichigo felt that a run would do him some good. Ichigo was breathing heavily as he came to a stop, he stood still at a street corner as he started to regain his breath and wiped the sweat from his forehead. He reached into his bag and pulled out a bottle of water and proceeded to drink half of it.
"Geez, how long have I been at this?", Ichigo pulled his scroll from his pocket to check the time, 3:04 P.M., he sighed and put the device in his pocket once more.
"Almost two hours now. Gotta say that ain't too bad," He put his arms above his head and stretched a bit before turning around.
"Probably best to start heading back now," Ichigo took a deep breathe and started to run back.
A rather pleasant breeze passed by as the orange haired teen was making his way back to Beacon. Despite him being a fairly fast runner, the trip back to Beacon would probably take at least 30 minutes at the pace he was going, after all Vale is fairly sized city. He slowed down as he came up to a small convenience store, the store was rather small, obviously a local business, there was one thing that stood out to him however. There was a picture of a young girl in a small silver frame resting upon on a small wooden table, surrounding it where candles and an assortment of various flowers.
"Those poor people, must've been tough for them," Ichigo looked at the store and shrugged before entering it. A bell chimed as he opened the door, he looked around to further inspect the interior of the store. There was a few aisles, around four or five to be more precise, one row of coolers that held some frozen foods and drinks that varied from sodas to some teas and coffees. There were also a few displays that held some name brand chips and other snacks as well as some candy that extremely geared towards kids.
"Good afternoon, may I help you find anything?", Ichigo turned around to see a Faunus woman, who looked to be in her mid-thirties. He looked at the counter she was leaning on, turns out this small corner store also has a deli up front. He looked behind the woman to see some signs that advertised a variety of different sandwiches as well as other foods.
"Yea, umm. Could I get a buffalo chicken sandwich and uh," he reached over to one of the displays and grabbed a bag of chips before quickly walking over to the coolers and grabbing a bottle of soda. He placed the two items down on the counter as the woman nodded.
"One moment please," she walked to the left of where she was standing and pulled some bread, meat, and cheese. She began to slice the bread as Ichigo patiently stood there.
"I take it you were out for a run? It'd make sense considering what you're wearing," Ichigo looked down at his clothes, navy blue tank top, black shorts with a purple stripe on the side, and a pair of neon green sneakers. He chuckled a bit and shrugged.
"Well y'know, figured a run would do me some good on a nice day like this,," the woman chuckled as she started to slice some cheese.
"I hear that," she looked at him for a few seconds as if she was inspecting him.
"Say, you're not really from around are you?"
"No, I'm actually from Karakura Town, it's a pretty big town in the mountains," the woman shot him an inquisitive glance.
"The mountains eh? You folks ever have any problems with the Grimm?", Ichigo shook his head.
"No, the Grimm don't really come near the town. Not to mention the Rukongai isn't too far away from us, so the Shinigami usually deal with most of the Grimm in that relative area."
"Shinigami, that Huntsman faction?", Ichigo nodded, "Well, at least Grimm aren't that big of a problem there. Anyways, if you're from all the way out there, then what are you doing in Vale?", Ichigo rubbed the back of his head when she asked this question.
"I'm actually attending Beacon," the woman's jaw nearly hit the floor.
"Beacon! You must be one hell of a fighter to make it into a school like that!", Ichigo chuckled a bit at her remark.
"So, how long have you owned this place?"
"About 11 years now. It was originally owned by my father but he gave me ownership in his later years," Ichigo nodded as she spoke, his eyes drifted towards the door. It seemed that the picture outside was still on his mind.
"I don't mind to be rude but, do you know anything about that picture outside?", the woman stopped what she was doing, the two stood there in silence.
'Oh no, I shouldn't asked about that.'
"If it's a private matter then it's alright if you don't want t-"
"No,no it's fine," she looked towards the door and sighed heavily before looking Ichigo in the eyes.
"That picture is of my daughter," the woman began to continue cutting the meat as she spoke.
"You see, she was a frail girl, constantly getting sick. Her father, who had just proposed to me when I found out I was pregnant, was a normal human, so it was actually quite rare that she came out without any Faunus qualities, Doctor said that she was going to be getting sick for a while but there was a good chance that she would start recovering."
"That must've been rough, I'm sorry to hear that."
"Oh it was, to make matters even worse her low life father ran out on us, decided that our daughter's health was going to hold him down," the woman took a deep breathe, these memories seemed to be quite painful for her to talk about.
"Found out he was cheating on me for three and a half years, told me himself when he left. And y'know something? That son of a bitch had the nerve to send a picture to us with a note on it. In the picture he was with a few younger looking women, turns out he went to Atlas and was partying instead helping me take care of our little girl. And yet he had the stones to write a message on the note telling my sick, little girl that he loves her and hopes she's okay."
"He sounds like a real dirtbag to me."
"I stopped caring at that point, all that mattered to me was that my little girl had food on her plate, clothes on her back and a roof over her head and she did."
"What happened to her?", though he asked Ichigo had a sinking feeling in his gut that the answer was quite obvious.
"Well, about a week ago her illness got the better of her...she passed," tears could be seen forming in the woman's eyes, her expression seemed vacant, like she lost any positivity she previously had.
"Oh shit. Listen, I'm really sorry for bringing up such a touchy subject," the woman wiped the tears from her eyes and waved off his remark.
"It's alright, it's better to actually tell someone about this rather than to hold all of it in. I figured that if I had said anything to some of my regulars they might've started to look for other places to go and business is not exactly booming at the moment."
"Oh? What made you change your mind?", the Faunas woman shrugged.
"You asked," Ichigo chuckled a bit at her response.
"Hey, if you don't mind me asking. What was your daughter's name?", the woman smiled a bit at his question.
"Her name was Elisabeth."
"Ah, that's a nice name," she nodded as leaned on the counter a bit.
"That is," she sighed once more, "It's a shame that I won't get to see her gr-", the conversation was cut short by some crashing noise outside of the store followed by some laughter. The woman rushed from behind the counter and looked outside. Curious, Ichigo shuffled over to the door and took a peek outside. A group of people were walking down the street cackling like a pack of hyenas, behind them was little memorial to Elisabeth in shambles. The woman rushed over to it and tried to fix it, unfortunately the table that held up the picture was completely broken. Ichigo scoffed and stepped outside.
"Hey!", the group turned to the annoyed teen, though now that he got a good look at them they don't appear more than a year or two older than him. One of them stepped, a lanky man with tan skin, he had a small goatee and clef with an assortment of piercing on his face and to top it all off, he had his head shaved except for his small swoop on the right side of his head.
'He looks like some wanna be punk rock star,' the man spit on the ground as he was walking up to Ichigo. He raised his head in an extremely confident manner as he glared at Ichigo.
"You talkin' to us?"
"Yea, matter of fact I am," Ichigo pointed over his shoulder to the broken memorial, "You guys break that?", the man started to chuckle and his little clique joined him shortly.
"Yea," he leaned in closer to Ichigo, "Is that a pr-", his sentence was cut off by Ichigo punching him straight in the nose. He hit the ground and groaned as he clutched his face, his group walked over to him and helped him to his feets. The man glared at Ichigo.
"Kick his ass," the first to rush at Ichigo was a girl in a hoodie that looked three sizes too big for her, she reached into her pocket and pull out a switchblade. She swung it at him and missed miserably, the girl growled at Ichigo before rushing at him again. Ichigo cracked his neck as the girl ran at him, he intercepted her swing by grabbing her arm and punching her in the stomach. She went to rear over but her jaw instead met with the back of Ichigo's fist. He grabbed her arm with his free hand and threw her over his shoulder and onto the ground. Ichigo looked at the girl for a few seconds before hearing more footsteps heading towards him.
"Guess reptilian Faunas do exist," he turned around to short guys rushing at him. Ichigo ducked as the first tried to hit with a straight, he then turned and sprung up from the ground and elbowed the second in the jaw, causing him to topple over. Ichigo turned to the first who attempted to punch him and delivered a harsh roundhouse kick to his ribcage. The lanky man ran at Ichigo and threw a very sloppy haymaker at Ichigo, in return he sweeped the man's feet. He groaned as he hit the ground, as he looked up he could see Ichigo walking over towards him. A loud smack could be heard as Ichigo's shoe met with the man's jaw, he rolled onto his side and yelled as he clutched his face. Ichigo stomped his foot on the ground causing the group to look up at him.
"Apologize!", he pointed to the owner of the store. The group scrambled to their feet and shouted in unison.
"We're sorry for the trouble!", they darted off in the opposite direction as Ichigo sighed and walked over to the woman.
"Sorry for fighting in front of the store," he knelt down and picked up the pieces of the table. He held them up and turned to the Faunas woman.
"Here let me fix this for you," the woman smiled as finished reorganizing the candles and picked up the picture.
"Thank you, you're acting like a Hunter already, y'know that?", Ichigo chuckled a bit.
"Well, I guess I just like to help people."
A few hours had passed since the little 'incident' at the corner store and Ichigo was well on his way back to Beacon by this point. He slowed down as he saw the massive Academy in the clearing and began to move at more of a leisurely pace. He took a sip from the bottle of soda he bought and crushed it due to the contents of it being drained. Ichigo tossed the bottle into a trash bin as he walked by and reached into his pocket to retrieve his scroll; the first thing he checked was the time, 3:58 P.M., he shrugged as he read the time and went to put his scroll back.
'Got back here quicker than I thought I would,' he was caught off guard for a second as his scroll began to ring.
"Who's calling me? I told them I'd be back so-...oh no," the oranged haired teen groaned as he answered the call.
"What is it Uryu?"
"Kurosaki, where are you now?", Ichigo scratched his head.
"What the hell do you mean? I'm on my way back to Beacon!", he turned and scowled at some of the people that sent him some mildly judgemental looks for raising his voice.
"Ah! Well, that's perfect actually. Come to your team's dorm, I have your suit."
"Wait, you're in Vale? With my suit and their dresses?"
"Yes, I don't see the problem with that."
"It's only been a few days! How the hell did you make all of that and get here that fast?!"
"Well, I am very dedicated to my work Kurosaki," his tone was as condescending as ever.
"Lay off with the attitude four eyes. Otherwise, those glasses just might end up where the sun don't shine."
"Tch, just get here soon. The appointment I made with Riruka is in 47 minutes and I want to be there early."
"Yea,yea whatever you say, kiss-ass," before Uryu could retort Ichigo had already hung up on him; Ichigo looked up and started to jog a bit in an attempt to get to Beacon before he had to hear anymore of Uryu's complaints.
"Alright, I'm here. Now let's hurry up a-", Ichigo's words chose to remain in his mouth as he was greeted by a rather pleasant sight. Orihime and Tatsuki were wearing dresses, Orihime's was a long, bright red ruffle dress whilst Tatsuki wore a more modest knee length purple dress.
"Am I...am I interrupting something here?", Orihime waved at him and smiled a bit.
"Not at all! Uryu just wanted us to pose for some pictures. He said he wanted to show them to a fashion designer he's meeting," Ichigo sighed as he saw Uryu walking over to him.
"And how come I have to come with your little meeting?", Uryu examined the pictures he had just taken on his scroll once more before putting it away.
"Because as I said before, you owe me a favor for making this suit. Especially since it was a last minute thing," he adjusted his glasses as Ichigo rolled his eyes.
"Whatever, let's just get this over with," he went to leave but was yanked by Uryu.
"Oi! What the hell is your problem!?"
"You're not going anywhere looking like that Kurosaki," Ichigo's expression deadpanned.
"You're kidding me," Uryu let go of Ichigo's collar.
"We are going to meet one of the finest designers in Vale and you're fine with going in the clothes you just went for a run in."
"I'm not seeing the problem here…", Uryu groaned as he began to rub the sides of his head.
"You are one of the only people I have honestly wanted to punch," Ichigo scoffed at his remark.
"You'd probably have a hard time reaching from down there," there was a valid point in his sentence, Ichigo had a good five or six inches on Uryu, it's not that Uryu is short Ichigo just grew a bit more before leaving for Beacon.
"Look, could you please just put something else on?", Ichigo sighed and shrugged.
"I guess," he walked over to his dresser and opened it up, "Just let me see what I have here," Ichigo grabbed a some clothes and headed into the bathroom to change before emerging a few minutes later. Ichigo tilted his head and put his arms out to the side.
"This good enough for you?", Uryu began to look over his outfit choice; he wore a white v-neck shirt with a blue jacket and black jeans accompanied by a pair of black canvas shoes.
"It'll do," Uryu adjusts his glasses and picks up a duffel bag from the bed and exits.
"Come on Kurosaki. We can't be late!," Ichigo shoves his hands in his pockets and hunched over a bit as he followed him out of the room.
It took the pair about 13 minutes to get within the general vicinity of their destination. Ichigo looked around, all he saw was shopping centers and other stores. However, the two seemed to be getting closer to the upper-class district of Vale. Uryu led him for a few blocks before coming to a complete halt.
"We're here," Ichigo sighed at his announcement and turned.
"Finally…", he looked up and cocked his head to the sigh, "What the hell is that?"
"It's our destination of course," Ichigo examined the shop, it was rather large and obnoxiously bright. The shop was called 'The Dollhouse', as indicated by the name being plastered in some classical royal font on a bright pink sign that could probably provide light for the entirety of some little mountain town.
"That sign is way too bright," Ichigo turned away for a second and covered his eyes, "For fuck's sake I feel like I just stared into the sun for a straight minute. Uryu looked over at Ichigo and sighed.
"Come on, we're going in."
"You're kidding?," Ichigo hopped up and pointed a finger at the shop, "I'm pretty sure this is a strip club or something! Just look at the damn sign! What kind of clothing store is called The Dollhouse?!", Uryu sighed and walked forward.
"Stop spouting nonsense Kurosaki," Uryu entered as Ichigo groaned and followed in with a deep scowl on his face.
"And it looks exactly like I thought it would," Uryu continued forward as Ichigo stopped and began to look around, examining his surroundings. The walls were sky blue and the floors were pastel pink.
"These colors...are hurting my eyes a bit," he turned his gaze else where and began to observe the type of the clothing of clothing that this store dealt. Ichigo was unsurprised however as saw that the store was lined back to front with a variety of frilly dresses along with other staples of Lollita fashion.
"I should take Yuzu here one of these days. She'd probably like something in here."
"Kurosaki! Get up here!", Ichigo rolled his eyes and followed the voice towards the front of the store. He was greeted with the sight of Uryu impatiently tapping his foot upon arrival. His bespectacled companion shoved the dufflebag he was carrying into the orange haired teen's hands.
"What the hell is this?", Uryu sighed and adjusted his glasses.
"That bag holds the different outfits you'll trying on and showing to Ms. Dokugamine," Ichigo made an extremely exaggerated facial expressions to show his disapproval of the whole situation.
"How many outfits are in this thing exactly?"
"Four if we include your suit for the dance."
"Alright, point me to a dressing room and let's get this over with," Uryu pointed to his left as Ichigo proceeded to sourly walk over to aforementioned room.
"Can I help you?", Uryu turned around to face the voice, it was a short young woman with red hair styled into twin tails wearing a black dress with a white blouse and a ribbon as well as a white hat.
"Oh, Ms. Dokugamine! It's Ishida, I made an appointment to show you some of my designs," Riruka looked at him for a few seconds before checking the time.
:Well, you're about three minutes early," she looked behind him, "Where's the guy you were bringing?"
"Oh, Kurosaki? He's getting into one of the outfits I designed right now," before either of them could speak Ichigo's voice came from the dressing room.
"Uryu! What the hell am I starting with here?!", Uryu groaned at his remark before responding.
"Go with the suit first! After that just pick whichever one you want next!"
"Gotcha," Riruka crossed her arms and narrowed her eyes as she glared at Uryu.
"Your friend doesn't sound very professional." Uryu felt his blood running a bit cold at the moment, nervously he adjusted his glasses before forming his response.
"Well, he's not really a model...he just owed me a favor," the redhead didn't ease her glare but instead raised one of her brows inquisitively.
"But, I assure you that he'll do just fine!", Riruka scoffed at his statement and walked to her left to retrieve a chair.
"So, tell me Ishida," she sat down and crossed her legs, "What does your friend do exactly?"
"Well, it's not really my place to say."
"Please, I insist," Uryu sighed deeply at her persistence.
"It would very rude, and not to mention a tad unprofessional, if I were to tell that to you without him giving me permission to do so," Riruka sighed and leaned back in the chair a bit.
"Well then, what's his name?"
"His name is Ichigo."
"Ichigo? Interesting name…" footsteps could be heard, the source would most likely be Ichigo approaching the two.
"Man, I really am not used to suits," Ichigo rotated his shoulders a bit and adjusted his tie. He opened the door and noticed Uryu talking with redheaded woman, who was sitting for some reason. Uryu raised his hand as if he was telling the woman to wait for a second before walking over to Ichigo.
"Kurosaki," Ichigo tilted his head as Uryu approached him, "I need to introduce you to someone," he shrugged and followed Uryu impatiently.
"Ms. Dokugamine, this is Ichigo," the redhead looked up from her seat with a sassy look on her face. Her eyes met with Ichigo's, nearly causing her to fall out of her chair. Ichigo grabbed her by the shoulders to help her regain her balance and ended up once again looking her straight in the eyes.
"Uh, you okay?", asked Ichigo in a very nonchalant tone. Riruka quickly removed his hands from her and leaned back in her chair a bit.
"D-does it look like I'm alright?!", her face was blazing red, which caused the two males to cock their heads to the side as they begin to question what could've caused this type of behavior. Riruka looked up at Ichigo, he wore a black suit with a red trim, underneath it was a dark red dress shirt with a black and grey stripe pattern tie. Ichigo blankly stared at her with a raised brow before sighing deeply.
"Alright then," he turned his head to Uryu, "So, should I go change into one of the other outfits?", Riruka almost immediately lunged out of her seat at the mention of more outfits and began to frantically wave her hands.
"No,no! That's quite alright!", she put her hands to her side and took a deep breathe.
'If he stays any longer I might actually die!', Ichigo rolled his eyes at the girl and went back to change into the outfit he had initially wore out. As he left the room the redhead seemed to gain her composure in an instance. She stood up from her chair and walked over to Uryu.
"Well, Ishida I see you have potential. So, I'm going to make a deal with you," Uryu adjusted his glasses and seemed to prepare himself for what she was about to say.
"I'm going to have you design some more outfits, you'll be in a hotel in Vale, paid by me of course. If I like what I see then, you'll be working for me."
"I see...I have one question however," she titled her head as he said this, "Is there a reason you only needed to see the suit? I had three more outfits prepared you know."
"Well, I-I just saw you had a lot of potential…", Uryu shrugged at her reasoning, figuring that he shouldn't pry any further.
"Uryu, let's go," Ichigo walked over to the two holding a small pink dress. He turned to Riruka and held up the dress.
"How much does this cost?", she leaned forward and closely inspected the dress.
"About 200 Lien," Ichigo groaned and handed her a card. After receiving the payment she took the dress and removed the tag before carefully placing it in a bag and handing it over to Ichigo.
"Thanks," he quickly grabbed the bag and proceeded to follow Uryu out of the store. Ichigo turned to look at the store once more before scoffing.
"Glad that's over. Felt like I walked into a little girl's idea of heaven," Uryu sighed at Ichigo's complaints.
"Can you stop over exaggerating? It wasn't nearly as bad as you say," Ichigo shrugged as he jammed his free hand into his pocket.
"Also," the orange haired teen turned to Uryu with a raised brow, "Is there a reason why you bought that dress?"
"Of course there is you four eyed jackass," he held the bag up a bit higher, "I figured I'd get Yuzu something for she comes to visit me with the rest of the family," Uryu nodded and continued on.
"Awfully thoughtful of you Kurosaki."
"I don't know what you're implying there but, if you wanna keep your teeth then you better shut your damn mouth."
AN: Sooooo, I haven't updated in awhile now but, I'm happy to present you with this new chapter. Nothing too exciting in this one, pretty relaxed compared to some of the previous chapters and some of the ones I have planned. Also, I'd like to take a moment and say that as of right now I am not going to have a consistent update schedule, at least for the most part. If something changes and I end up being able to update the story according to some sort of schedule then I will let you all know.
Now, not much I have to say about this chapter overall but there are a few things I'd like to comment on real quick. For starters, the sandwhich choice was random and pretty the first thing that came to mind at the time and the whole convenience store debacle was something I wrote on the spur of the moment. Ichigo's suit was probably predictable for the most part but I did want it to compliment his battle attire; In this story Lien will pretty much be like USD, I was planning on making it similar to Yen but decided to change it.
Alright now that all of that is out of the way, I hope you guys enjoy the chapter and the story so far. Be sure to leave a review to tell what I'm doing right and what I need to work on as well as any other thoughts or opinions you wish to share with me. Until next time.
