The Sun and the Moon
Chapter 12
A black-haired girl stood in front of the house, sweeping the dried fallen leaves to one corner.
What an idiot.
It was all that the red-haired pimply adolescent could think of, as he stared in annoyance from behind the shoji door at the girl who quietly went about her chore. Acting out of his unrestrained childish impulse, the red-haired boy revealed himself from his hiding place and ran towards the back of the seemingly oblivious girl. He pulled at the girl's black pigtails then pushed her roughly down on the ground.
The girl gazed back at him from the ground with a glossy-eyed bewilderment.
Having not received his intended response from the girl, the boy scowled, grabbed the broom from the girl's grasp and started hitting her head with it. The girl yelped in pain, while the boy merely continued to attack her, laughing menacingly.
"Stop it, Jinta, stop please!" the girl whimpered, attempting to block the blows.
"Take that, you're an idiot, Ururu!" the boy called Jinta spat sadistically.
Suddenly, Jinta felt large hands grab his wrist as he held up the broom above his head for another blow. Looking behind him, he saw towering above him was a tall man with incredibly orange hair.
"Don't you guys ever grow up?"
Jinta escaped from the man's grip, then stepped back away from him, pointing an accusatory finger at him. "You… you're—"
"Kurosaki-san," spoke the girl called Ururu softly, as she slowly got up and bowed her head towards the orange-haired man. "Arigatou. We are glad to see you again."
"Glad?" Jinta looked indignant. "Hey, you, carrot-top—"
Ichigo stopped the boy's attack with his right hand. As the boy continued with all his might to push against Ichigo's hand, Ichigo asked the girl, "Is Urahara-san here?"
Ururu nodded meekly, then shoving the boy out of his way Ichigo walked into the house with the sign saying "Urahara Shouten", opening the shoji door brusquely.
The room which Ichigo entered was exactly the same as he remembered it the last time he had been there. There were rows and rows of wooden shelves, arranged neatly beside one another like the shelves of a modern supermarket, but these wooden shelves held unusual, other-wordly objects. Out of the corner of his eyes, Ichigo spotted a strangely-shaped apparatus which seemed to resemble a miniature guillotine, and on one of the shelves hung a poster advertising for the release of Nekky the Cat, the latest character addition to the Soul Candy product.
"Why, if it isn't Kurosaki-san!" a sing-song voice came from the other end of the room. Ichigo diverted his gaze from the sickeningly cute feline drawing and found himself face-to-face with a man who seemed not much older than himself, and wore the most unusual outfit with green-and-white stripes, complete with similarly-patterned sandal hat and wooden clogs. If he had not known better, Ichigo would find the whole place very weird indeed.
"Urahara-san."
"For what reason do I owe his honour, Kurosaki-san?" said the owner of the shop, his whole face hidden behind a fan, except for his eyes which pierced scrutinizingly at Ichigo. Ichigo cringed at the irritatingly over-polite manner with which the much older man addressed him. He noticed a bowl filled with white liquid at the corner of the room. "Yoruichi-san is here?"
Urahara continued to stare at him with such intensity. With most of his face still hidden behind the mask, he replied, "No, Kurosaki-san. She's out hunting!"
The sing-song manner the older man replied and the giggle which followed after were getting to Ichigo's nerves. But he had to remind himself again why he was here again, after so long.
"Glad you thought to visit us again, Kurosaki-san," Urahara continued. Then his expression darkened. "How may we help you?"
Ichigo returned the intensity of the gaze with which the similarly exiled shinigami regarded him. There was a hidden sparkle in the older man's eyes, Ichigo noticed, as if he had just been let on to a mischievous plan.
Urahara observed the orange-haired man standing in front of him, who seemed to be scrutinizing him in return. The older man had an inkling of what his former student desired, and in light of the events of the previous week, he knew there was no need for him to ask the boy what he really needed. The events which also involved the even more unexpected visit of another shinigami to his shop, albeit that one was neither exiled nor adequate in height…
The orange-haired man was first to break their eye contact, and running his hand on his hair he said gruffly, "I need to change to my shinigami form."
For a moment, Ichigo looked down on his feet; he knew not why he could not bear to look into the eyes of the man who first taught him his zanpakutou's name. Perhaps he had expected the older man to laugh at his absurd request.
Looking up, Ichigo found the man merely staring back at him not laughing, but indeed his eyes held the look as if he could see right into his insides and know exactly what he meant.
Ichigo half-expected the man to ask him for a good reason to help him, but instead all Urahara said was, "All right, Kurosaki-kun," and disappeared through the back door into the other room.
Ichigo stood there confused. Why was it that Urahara did not even ask him a single question? Had he expected Ichigo to approach him for help? As Ichigo stood wondering, there came noises from the other room, sounds of moving boxes and falling products. Finally, when the older shinigami came through the door looking rather disheveled, he held out his hand and a small rectangular object shrouded in a white cloth lay on his palm.
Ichigo stared at the object. He had anticipated a familiar red glove with a skull print, or a wooden badge, or even a Soul Candy dispenser. "This is our latest product, Kurosaki-kun," whispered Urahara, with the exaggerated air of an eager merchant, "This item is the only one of the two we have! Extremely rare!"
One of the two…?
Ichigo took the object in his hands. It was unusually heavy for small object. He proceeded to unwrap the cloth when the older man swatted his hands away with his folded fan. "You must not open it now, Kurosaki-san!"
This alarmed Ichigo; the older shinigami was sure up to no good, and this would not be the first time Urahara had sold him a faulty product. Ichigo shoved the unknown object back to the shopkeeper. "Can't you just give me the Soul Candy dispenser? Or how about the glove which Rukia—"
Ichigo stopped mid-sentence as if he had just uttered a forbidden swear word. This did not go unnoticed by the shopkeeper, who now had his face hidden behind the fan again, and whose eyes twinkled with mirth. "—the red glove with a skull on it," Ichigo finished rather lamely, and he could feel his face burning up.
Urahara closed his fan with a flip of the hand, then pushed back the item into Ichigo's hands. "Those objects are useless for your purpose, Kurosaki-san. Did you think Soul Society would make it possible for a marked man to be able to use known items to do exactly what they hoped against?"
The shopkeeper's eyes were so transfixed on him, Ichigo was sure they were boring holes into his skull.
"And yet you are helping me? You do not think I deserve to be punished as Soul Society did?"
Urahara's stare did not waver for a second. "No, I do not."
"How much is this thing?"
"For you, Kurosaki-san, it is free of charge. I cannot, after all, charge for something that is not mine in the first place."
Ichigo stared in bewilderment at the other shinigami in exile. First Urahara agreed to his request without so much a second's hesitation, and now the stingy shopkeeper was selling him a "rare" item for free? "I cannot, after all, charge for something that is not mine in the first place." Was he selling Ichigo a stolen item? With much suspicion, he shoved the item back to the shopkeeper, who immediately pushed the item insistently back towards him.
Then almost suddenly, the shopkeeper broke into a huge smile, the tension in the air bursting like a bubble around them. "Well then, if you insist, Kurosaki-san. That will be 5000 yen!" sang Urahara, with a "Ka-ching" sound of an imaginary cash register at the end of the sentence, accompanied by exaggerated actions.
Ichigo glared at the shopkeeper before handing over rather reluctantly the payment. "There is one more thing, Urahara-san."
The shopkeeper tilted his head slightly in bewilderment. Ichigo held out his palm, holding out a round green object.
Urahara regarded the object carefully, then said, "We don't do refunds, Kurosaki-san!"
"I'm not asking for a refund, Urahara-san. I'm returning him to you."
A moment passed in silence between the two men, before Ichigo finished, "Will you give him a spirit-body and send him to Soul Society?"
The shopkeeper merely stared at him unblinkingly; Ichigo was not sure if he overstepped boundaries this time. Then, the older man replied, "Why, of course, Kurosaki-san. If you insist."
With that, Ichigo placed the green spherical object into the shopkeeper's palm, then he turned to leave. When he reached the front yard the two children who greeted him were nowhere to be seen. As he left the compound, Ichigo overheard Urahara's sing-song "Arigatou, Kurosaki-san!"
Urahara stared at the front door even minutes after his customer had left. He had barely even noticed the black cat which padded over to the tray of milk waiting for it at the corner of the room, until it finally spoke to him in a low masculine voice. "Are you sure about this, Urahara? The boy suspects something."
"The gears are in motion, Yoruichi-san," replied the shopkeeper in his usual melodious voice, as if not at all disconcerted by the posed question, taking the black cat to his lap and petting its raven coat. His eyes narrowed in gleeful anticipation, while his lips curved into a slight knowing smirk.
"The gears are in motion."