"Keep an eye on her Ichigo. I don't know what it is yet, but something tells me it's not good." Ichigo could not stop thinking about what had played out the night before. "What was that reiatsu?" He questioned himself. The amount of reiatsu was not as troubling as the uneasy feeling he got when the sudden spike of power emanated from within her. But how can he find out what's going on without her knowing?
He shook his head vigorously to clear his thoughts. He had plenty of time to think about it later. Right now, he was running a little late on meeting up with Tatsuki to go shopping for a swimsuit to wear for when they meet up with all their friends for their beach party to celebrate the summer.
As he headed towards the shopping center, he was texting Tatsuki apologizing for the delay. He received her usual angry written messages scolding him for running late and lacking discipline. To anyone else they would think Tatsuki was genuinely upset, based on the language of the messages. But, to Ichigo, he could practically see her sending the message with that cute smirk she would have that could make Ichigo smile no matter what.
It was one of Ichigo's weaknesses that he would never admit could make him smile and ease any tension that he had. A beautifully evil grin on her face where she would scrunch her nose to complete the look that she would give you. It has been proven throughout their relationship to be highly effective against breaking through Ichigo's hard-headed personality.
When he arrived at their meeting spot, he looked around but could not find the absent Tatsuki. He figured she must have been late as well so he took a seat on a nearby bench as he fumbled around his pockets for his cellphone. Once he opened their conversation, he began typing letting her know that he's at their meeting spot and was waiting at a nearby bench.
He placed the phone back in his pocket and leaned back. The weather was perfect, light amount of bright white clouds floated in the sky above. The sun was shining brightly, yet the weather was a cool and comfortable temperature.
It was the perfect day for a trip on the beach. No doubt though, that the nearby beaches were going to be completely crowded with people trying to escape day-to-day life and just sit back and enjoy the perfect day. Luckily for him and his friends, Ishida was able to find a secret cove that's nearly impossible to find unless you knew exactly how to get there. After he came across the location, he made a path to the cove and covered the entrance so no one else could stumble upon the path.
Suddenly his train of thoughts were interrupted by his phone buzzing, indicating that he had received a text message. He opened his phone and then the message. A look of mild irritation came acrosss his face as he read Tatsuki's response.
"You took too long so I went ahead without you. :-) next time dont be so slow!" Then his phone started buzzing again as he received another message from Tatsuki.
"You're probably reading this with that irritated look on your face. Suck it up cry baby LOL!"
He let out a loud sigh and grinned as he got up from his seat. As he put his phone back in his pocket, he headed into the shopping area to start his quest on finding his mean girlfriend. The quest was short lived though because he had a very good idea what area she would be in.
The shopping center strategically placed many of the stores which sell women's clothing closer to the middle of the shopping center. There existed many routes to get to this section, all of which required a person to pass by many stores before they reached their destination.
Once he arrived, he began glancing through each store, but never going inside, to see if he could find the familiar light black/dark blue hair that sat upon his girlfriend's head. When he finally found those familiar locks floating through the racks of clothes, he entered the store and made his way to her.
Tatsuki skimmed through each store checking out the bikinis each store had for sale. She tried a few on just to see how it would look on her tiny, yet muscular frame. While looking around in one store, she unconsciously migrated over to the dress section where many of the summer dresses were hanging. Once she realized where she was, she looked around lost and confused and started to walk away from the section. Tatsuki never could see herself wearing or doing girly things. But then, a dress caught her eye. At first her conscious tried to fight from checking out the dress, but the more she looked at it, the more it intrigued her.
Next thing she knew, she was examining the dress with more interest. It was a simple red dress, her favorite color. The dress had some patterns sewn around, but it was nothing too extravagant. The tomboy part of her was getting upset that she was even looking over the dress and thinking about what she would look like wearing it.
Before she knew it, she was in one of the dressing rooms trying on the dress. As soon as she slipped her right arm through the strap, she looked at herself in the mirror. At first she almost didn't recognize herself seeing as how this was the first time she ever really wore a dress. She began to wonder how Ichigo would look at her if she were to wear this dress out on a date or something. A barely visible light red blush came across her cheeks as she imagined the reaction and the look on his face.
Needing a second opinion, she quickly grabbed her phone from her high cut jean shorts pocket and snapped a picture of herself in the dress. She sent the picture to Orihime with the caption, "What do you think?" Anxiously she waited for a response from her best friend. Seconds passed, though it felt like an eternity for her, and no response from Orihime. Frustrated, she took her dress off and changed back into her clothes, a sporty tank-top and a pair of high cut jean shorts that barely sat below her rear.
As soon as she finished re-dressing herself, her phone began to beep. Immediately, she dug into her pockets to grab open her phone. She excitedly opened her messages to see what Orihime had said.
"Wow who is that she looks so cute in that dress? Is that a celebrity!? Can you get her autograph for me!?" Tatsuki sunk her head and chuckled. Did her appearance really change that much by just wearing something girly? She replied back telling Orihime that she was the one in the picture with the red dress on. Moments after sending her message, she received Orihime's response.
"She doesn't even look like you! She looks way too much like a girl! Who is it seriously!?" This infuriated Tatsuki. She quickly dialed Orihime's number and waited for her to answer. Once she heard Orihime's voice, she unleashed a scolding that would make anyone feel horrible.
"WHAT DO YOU MEAN SHE DOESN'T LOOK LIKE ME! LOOK AGAIN THE ONLY THING DIFFERENT IS I AM WEARING A DRESS! HOW CAN YOU NOT RECOGNIZE YOUR OWN BEST FRIEND WEARING SOMETHING GIRLY!" Orihime began to wail on the other line and started to apologize over and over.
"Imsorry! Imsorry! Ishida-kun you were right that was Tatsu-"
"YOU SHOWED THE PICTURE TO URYUU! HOW COULD YOU! THAT PICTURE WAS ONLY MEANT FOR YOU TO SEE AND TELL ME HOW I LOOKED" For this, Orihime began to apologize even more trying to calm down her angered friend.
"What's all the yellin' for?" A voice called out behind Tatsuki. A chill ran down her spine as a slight blush crept up upon her cheeks. She turned around and came face to face with Ichigo, who stood a few feet away from her holding his hands to his ears to muffle the shouting. Suddenly the wailing and crying grew silent on the phone, yet it went unknown to Tatsuki who was stammering trying to speak, at this point, anything just to answer him.
They stared at each other for awhile, Tatsuki frozen in fear and Ichigo wondering why she didn't say anything. "Uh.. hello?" He inquired quizzically.
"Hey Ich-Ic-Ichigo." She stammered. She held the dress tightly behind her with her phone, still with Orihime on the line.
"Why are you acting so wierd?" He asked.
"Nothing. Just... you surprised me, that's all." She said with a nervous chuckle.
"Ok... did you find a swimsuit yet?" He asked as he looked around at the clothes around him. Tatsuki took this chance and quickly put the dress back on a clothing rack.
"Hey." Tatsuki froze for fear. Had she been found out? She turned around and, to her surprise, found Ichigo holding a dark blue two piece bikini in his hand.
"This looks pretty good." He said looking over the bikini. "You should wear this." Tatsuki grinned, amused that Ichigo had picked out something for her to wear. Ichigo, not thinking too much of it, looked over to Tatsuki and handed it to her. She took and gave it a quick look over. To her surprise, it was really cute now that she had really looked over it.
"Wow Ichigo, I didn't know you had an eye for fashion." She jokingly said. Ichigo scowled at her as they went to the register to pay. After they paid and exited the store, Tatsuki came up with an idea. Since Ichigo had picked out her swim wear, she would pick out his. As she said this, she flashed an evil grin at him which drew a concerned look on his face. He tried to reject the idea, but it was too late. Tatsuki had run off to look for a store, leaving Ichigo disheartened by the thought.
Instead of trying to catch up with her, he just continued walking at a slow pace accepting the inevitable fate. He began to imagine the silly trunks that he thought she would get for him. The one that really made him cringe was a pair of light blue trunks with strawberries all over them. Looking back, he wished he hadn't put much thought into her swimsuit and grabbed one of the silly looking ones.
He had lost sight of Tatsuki after she had made a few turns, who glanced back a few times with the same grin she had after leaving the store she bought her swimsuit at. He could faintly feel her reiatsu as she weaved through the shopping center, though he still was not good at it. After turning a corner to walk down another seemingly endless aisles of shops, he felt a sudden jolt of reiatsu. It wasn't anything too alarming, but it was higher than normal which caused him to lose his train of thoughts and look around.
When he looked up in the direction of where he felt the energy, he saw nothing out of the ordinary. Looking around, he tried to focus his attention on the reiatsu and to see if he could sense it again. Suddenly, his focus was gone again and this time something new grabbed his attention. He walked over to the front window that had on display a bunch of white dresses that were clothing otherwise naked mannequins.
He marveled for a moment on how beautiful a lot of the dresses were and began to imagine those dresses and how Tatsuki would look wearing them. As soon as he realized what his thoughts had conjured, he began to chuckle lightly at himself. 'There's no way Tatsuki would ever let herself be caught dead in one of those dresses.'
Still though, he continued to look at the dresses and let his mind wander to visions of Tatsuki in one of those dresses and just how it would add more to her beauty if she was wearing one of those dresses, with a small flower in her hair as she walked down the aisle of their wedd-
His eyes widened as he stopped his train of thoughts right then and there. A confused look fell upon his face as he began to backtrack his thoughts. 'Did I just imagine our wed-' Again he stopped his train of thoughts not able to bring himself to say that word in his mind. He felt a slight warmth in his cheeks the more he thought about the word that which he could not say. Little did he know, a surprise was creeping up on him.
"Hey scatterbrains!" The voice alone struck a deafening fear through his veins. His face suddenly resembled a bright red tomato. His legs, on their own, jumped and he turned his body faster than a blink of an eye. He stared into the eyes of a proud and triumphant Tatsuki Arisawa. Not realizing why Ichigo had the look of death on his face, she handed him a bag and proclaimed she picked a very special set of trunks for Ichigo to wear.
Tatsuki, realizing they spent a lot of time shopping, quickly checked her phone to look at the time. Terrified, she quickly grabbed Ichigo's hand before he could peek into the bag and started running citing they were going to be late and to hurry up to meet the rest of the group.
Remembering the look on Ichigo's face when she surprised him, she quickly glanced back at the store Ichigo was looking through the window. Her eyes widened slightly as she quickly hid the blush forming on her cheeks. 'Why was he checking out the wedding dresses on display?' She shook her head of the thoughts as they continued to run to the gathering point so that they could head to the beach. Unbeknownst to Ichigo and Tatsuki, two men watched them standing above the bridal store that Ichigo had been looking through the window at all the wedding dresses.
"Ah. To be young and in love again." One of the men proclaimed. The other, standing behind him had a slight grin on his face.
"You are such a cruel person, you know that?" The other man stated. The first turned and hid his big joyful smile behind his signature fan.
"Now Yamasaki, whatever do you mean?" The first man questioned hiding the giant child-like grin he had on his face behind his signature fan.
"Why did you lead Ichigo to this specific store, Urahara?" Yamasaki asked as he turned to watch the couple disappear behind a building as they continued their mad sprint to meet up with the others.
Suddenly, Urahara changed his expression from happy and joyous to serious and foreboding. "I believe you know the answer to that question." Yamasaki, agreeing with an understanding nodded, continued to follow the two's reiatsu as they headed to meet up with the others.
"Hopefully..." Yamasaki began, "we can contain this before things gets too out of control." He lifted his left arm and began adjusting his bracelet, an 8 beaded bracelet that has two strings dangling at an end that help loosen or tighten the bracelet. At the ends of the strings were crosses that allow the bracelet to expand to a certain point so that the bracelet doesn't come apart.
"I'll keep an eye on her." And with that Yamasaki headed off to meet with the gang for a day on the beach while Urahara headed back to his shop.
The first few chapters won't contain too much content in terms of the main story line. I'm trying to get back into writing and the first few chapters will be me getting back into the flow of writing. So, I didn't want to write the main story right off the bat and feel like the content was inadequate. Chapters will be released sporadically, based on availability to write and the amount put into each chapter.