Once Kisuke had his assignments, and Jushiro had already gone back to the room to tell everyone the great news. Ichigo decided to go and find her dad and talk to him about letting her marry. However, she wasn't expecting Shunsui to tag along with her when she left Urahara's.
Though she probably should have given the fact that he may want to speak with her dad as well.
It was well after dark when she stepped foot outside again and started to go when she heard Urahara's door slide open and then shut again. Causing her to pause because she couldn't help but wonder if someone needed something.
She took a second to turn her head and found Shunsui quietly walking up to her and cocked her head.
"Is everything alright?" She asked curiously, unable to quiet the feeling of nagging suspicion that was suddenly rioting inside of her head.
"Everything is fine as far as I know." He replied easily while stopping well within reach of her before tacking on. "I just thought that you could use some support speaking to your dad about marrying me."
She couldn't help the fact that she wasn't sure if that would be a good idea. But at the same time, she also understood that he may want to speak to her dad in person. Maybe even introduce himself and all that jazz. And since her dad was a former Soul Reaper and could possibly even know him...she couldn't begrudge them a chance to get to know one another if they didn't already. Nor to strike up an old friendship if they did.
So, she didn't bother to tell him no.
Instead, she just nodded her head in understanding and then turned and started walking again with Shunsui following closely at her heels for a little while until he decided to move so that he was walking alongside her.
And once he did that, she found herself casting glances at him every now and again. In all honesty she couldn't really help herself. Shunsui was a handsome man. Very much so, in her opinion. Not only that but he was well mannered, courteous, kind, patient- and did she mention that he was handsome?
Weirdly, she seemed stuck on that fact a little bit. Though she'd never considered herself shallow enough to care all that much about a person's appearance. And she didn't. But she supposed that it didn't hurt anything that he was handsome.
"At least I won't be the only trophy in the relationship." She muttered to herself, while thinking that she could actually drag him up to her dad and sister sometime and say, Look what I caught!
She was sure that they would be so proud of her ability to attract someone of Shunsui's caliber.
Shunsui subtly observed her from the corner of his eye as she kept casting glances his way, making him curious about what was going through her mind. She kept blushing and making funny little whining sounds. However, despite his curiosity, he kept quiet so that he could observe her a little bit more.
Mostly because he liked her blush. Call him crazy, but it was cute. Not only that but it intrigued him just how different she was when she was like this.
It was rare, he supposed, to be able to see this side of her that was so very different from the swordswoman and chaos bringer that he and everyone else usually knew.
So, this is what Ichigo is like when she's being a civilian. He mused to himself, finding this side of her utterly adorable. And was unable to stop himself from chuckling when she turned a funny shade of vivid pink and looked as if her mind had just completely petered out on her.
It was a look that he was familiar with since it was a sign of exhaustion. And when she staggered for a second, as if she were dizzy and he quickly wrapped an arm around her to keep her from falling and tucked her up against his side as he asked in concern. "Are you alright?"
"I-I think that my brain just died." She looked at him owlishly and stammered out.
He blinked at her, unsure of what exactly he was supposed to say to that. But still found himself nodding as if he agreed/understood how she was feeling and then because he was also a tad worried about her falling on her face, bent down and picked her up.
"Hey! W-What?" She stammered out once he had her positioned just right. With her bottom resting on one of his arms. And her own arms wrapped around his neck, bringing their faces closer to one another.
He hadn't meant to put them both is such a compromising position, honestly. Yet now that they were in it and he could see how red her face was, he felt torn.
The womanizer in him was dying to know if Ichigo's taste was as sweet as she appeared to be. And he was tempted to see. Very much so. But the other part of him, his rational mind, didn't like the idea of putting any moves on her because she was seventeen.
Shunsui had always been many things- but one who seduced and took children to his bed was not one of them. His honor simply wouldn't allow it. Besides, he wanted to woo and win Ichigo's affections first and forge a bond between them that would last for the many, many, many long years ahead of them.
Settling on a course of action, he chuckled and hugged her. Eliciting a squawk from her as he pressed her face against his shoulder and rubbed his cheek on the top of her head as he cuddled her.
"You're so cute, Ichigo!" He cooed in her ear, grinning madly when he felt her body stiffen a bit and her reiki flare around them in indignation.
"W-What?" She shouted into his shirt while trying to push herself back enough to free herself so that she was glaring at him mutinously as she yelled at him. "I'm not cute. I'm a monster! Roar!"
He blinked at her trying desperately to keep a straight face. But it was very hard after that whole 'Roar' thing, so of course, he laughed. He laughed hard.
His lips kept twitching, and he wouldn't swear to it, but he may have been shaking with mirth. He couldn't breathe either. His breath was caught somewhere between his lungs and his throat, and he was wheezing with every laugh that escaped him. And the look on Ichigo's face just got darker and darker with every second that he stood there laughing at her.
Yet despite that, all she did was grumble something rude, inaudibly and just waited for him to stop.
Once he finally did, he was surprised to realize that he felt lighter, and happier than he had been since all of this whole mess had first began earlier in the day. after realizing this, he gave her another hug and then put her back down on her feet again with a soft, "Thank you." Despite knowing that she hadn't made him laugh on purpose.
After that, they resumed walking together. Though he made sure to have a firm hold of Ichigo's hand, just in case she started staggering again.
A little while later, Shunsui couldn't help but wonder if they were lost. Nothing at all looked familiar to him. All of the shops and buildings from before were gone and they seemed in a residential area of some kind.
"Where are we?" He asked while curiously looking around. The houses that he kept seeing looked as if they were little more than shacks to him. They were small, worn down- some of them looked so old and damaged by years of disrepair that they kind of reminded him of some of the homes in the bad part of the Rukon district back in Soul Society.
"Hn? Oh, I forgot that you've never been to my family's home before," Ichigo said absently before explaining. "My dad and sisters live out here."
"You're family lives somewhere around here?" He asked in vague alarm and he eyed the place that they were currently passing warily. He got a weird feeling from the broken and boarded up windows... And in truth he was already half expecting someone to try and rob them even as he asked her, "You live here?"
She chuckled and reached out and patted his arm. "No. I don't live here, not anymore. I moved out of the neighborhood about a year ago and live in a nice place that I inherited from my late mom."
He felt some of his worry vanish upon hearing her say that. But not all of it.
"So, you live on your own now?"
"Yeah. I also have a job that I'm pretty good at and can work as many hours as I want as long as I meet my deadlines on time. And once I turn my work in, then I have some down time. I get to spend a few months just doing nothing at all if I want."
"Really?" He asked, intrigued by the fact that she worked and seemed to do alright regardless of the bizarre length of down time she had. Even so, he found himself curious and asked her. "What do you do?"
She grinned as she said proudly, "I write books and novels. I've had nine printed in all so far. Several of them are part of a supernatural thriller series that I began working on back when I was eleven."
Shunsui let his jaw drop open in surprise he tried to think of something else to ask her, but a loud banging sound interrupted his thought process enough to shift his focus away from her to find that they weren't alone anymore. There was a tall man with short cropped brown hair heading their way.
It took him a moment to realize that the guy was running right for them in a rush.
"Hi dad!" Ichigo called out with a wave from beside him as the guy slowed his pace a bit and finally stopped just shy of reaching them so that he was standing in shadows and his face couldn't be seen.
"Ichigo, what are you doing here?" The man asked, "You didn't come all this way to have dinner with us, did you?"
"No, dad. I didn't come to have dinner with you guys." Ichigo replied with a fond look on her face. "I came because I need your permission for something."
"Oh. Alright." The man said, sounding both a bit disappointed and yet not at the same time. "What is it then? And does it have something to do with Captain Shunsui Kyoraku of the eighth division being here?"
Shunsui went totally ramrod stiff for a second, his eyes narrowing at the man that was Ichigo's father. A million questions going through his mind as he tilted his head ever so slightly to the side and stared at the mysterious figure. Idly wondering if maybe it were possible that they somehow knew one another. Or if Ichigo merely spoke to him about them.
He was leaning hard towards possibly knowing the guy.
Lord knew that he certainly sounded familiar to him. But without seeing his face, there was no way to know for sure.
"How did you know?" Ichigo asked, sounding as startled and confused as Shunsui felt.
"I got a panicked text from Rukia earlier today about what's going on." The guy replied, sounding nonchalant about it. Next to Shunsui, Ichigo visibly bristled at the information that she'd just been given. Though he wasn't sure about why.
Ichigo let out a strange, frustrated sound as she stomped the short distance between, they and her dad and quickly grabbed the guy by the front of his shirt and shook him as she demanded. "When did you trade numbers with Rukia?"
"The last time that she was here," The guy laughed as Ichigo shrieked at him which only seemed to be like adding fuel to the proverbial fire as the guy chortled and announced proudly. "I've traded numbers with Orihime and Tatsuki too!"
"You are a disgusting dirty old man!"
The guy just laughed more, totally unrepentant about what he had done as she shook him harder.
Shunsui wasn't sure exactly how long he stood there watching and listening to the two of them banter back and forth. But he finally snapped out of it when Ichigo somehow managed to drag her father into the light. His eyes widened in shock once he realized that the man that had sired his soon-to-be wife was none other than Isshin Shiba. The ex-Captain of the tenth division of the thirteen Gotei.
"Shiba?" He said, uncertain of what else to say since Ichigo was a bit busy trying to throttle the man.
However, the moment that he said his name, she abruptly released him and allowed him to turn his attention back to Shunsui. The humor that he had been displaying mere seconds before, completely vanished as Isshin looked at him.
"Well, this is awkward." Isshin muttered as he rubbed the back of his neck with one hand and looked uncomfortable.
"Awkward? Awkward! I can't believe that that's all that you have to say for yourself right now. We thought that you had died! We held a memorial and everything!" Shunsui snapped at the other man feeling torn between snarling all kinds of obscenities at him or breaking down and throttling him himself.
Ichigo seemed to realize that something was wrong from his tone long before he started shouting at her dad, and merely stepped aside. Just in case he decided that violence was necessary.
Isshin didn't bother to look very upset about being shouted at. In fact, the man simply gave him a deadpan look and spat back at him in an annoyed tone. "Well, sorry. But I've been busy. You've met my kid, right?" The other man motioned to Ichigo.
Shunsui shut his mouth after that and looked over at his bride-to-be as it finally seemed to sink in that Isshin Shiba was her father. And not just hers either, but her two younger siblings as well.
Though he couldn't help but wonder how that was even remotely possible since a Soul Reaper shouldn't be able to father children with a human since they were spirits. But as much as he wanted to dwell on that fact, he had other things to do first.
Snaking his arm out, he grabbed Isshin by the front of his shirt and then practically growled at him to give his permission to marry Ichigo. Isshin's expression when he growled at him was priceless. And since the man's brain seemed to stop working for a second, Shunsui waited patiently for him to respond despite fighting the strong urge to deck him when Isshin finally replied, "Geez, the two of you were made for each other."
"Huh?" Both Shunsui and Ichigo said in unison.
"I can already see the various shakedowns that I'll be suffering every year. They should make some interesting family photos for our album."
"Dad is that-" Ichigo started to ask but stopped.
Isshin smiled, not bothered in the least by the fact that Shunsui still had him by his shirt and said, "Yes. You have my permission. And since I'm guessing that the wedding is happening soon..."
"Tonight." Shunsui said as he finally let go of him. "It's happening tonight. Ichigo insisted that we secure everyone else's safety before we do anything else."
Isshin looked at his daughter and smiled proudly. "She would." He said before tacking on. "Since that's the case, I've got some things to give you Ichigo. And I'll be breaking the news to your sisters as well."
"Dad! They won't understand." Ichigo cried sounding distressed. Shunsui was about to pull her into a hug when Isshin stepped forward and did so. Wrapping his arms around her and holding her for a few seconds as he said reassuringly.
"It's okay, sweetheart. I have an idea that will take the heat off of you and Shunsui. So, don't worry alright."