This silly little piece was written as a birthday present for debbiechan.

Eight Years of Yukio

By some magic of the universe, even bachelors gets the children they deserve.

Yukio, age 5

Urahara Kisuke was deep in an experiment when he caught a flash of orange out of the corner of his eye. He looked up, startled, to see that he had a visitor—a small, female visitor who was looking at him with intense interest. “How did you get in here?” Urahara wondered aloud.

The Ishida child sidled around a lopsided pile of discarded boxes and smiled at him with angelic sweetness. “I walked.”

“How did you get past the wards?”

“I don’t know.”

Urahara frowned at the child. The wards on his doorway should have been more than adequate to keep her out. “How did you get into my laboratory?”

She shrugged. “I wanted to come in, so I did.” Urahara’s eyebrows shot up in surprise. It wasn’t unheard of for particularly powerful children to get around wards, but it wasn’t common either. He groaned inwardly. Ishida brains, a penchant for mischief, and more than ordinary abilities—the child was a recipe for unending disaster.

She was a very winsome little disaster, however. Her hair was as red as her mother’s and her eyes as blue as her father’s; her fine bone structure was her father all over again, but that straightforward glance was her own. And she was evidently without fear, because despite his lowering frown she approached the lab table, eyeing the mortar and pestle and pile of leafy stems heaped beside it. “Is that woundwort?”

“Yes,” he said repressively. And then, because curiosity was one of his besetting sins, he asked, “How did you know?”

“My mother says it grows in the woods,” she said. “And sometimes in the garden. She showed me. I was in the garden the other day. It’s nice and warm there. It’s warmer than here.”

“It does tend to be cool in the shop,” Urahara said. How old would she be now—five, maybe? She was well-spoken for a five-year-old. “If you’re feeling cold, you should go back to the garden.”

“No, I can’t,” said the child definitely. “Mommy says I can’t go to the garden when it’s time for school.”

“Ah.” Urahara, wending his way through child-logic, came to a sudden unhappy insight. “Are you supposed to be in school right now?”

“Yes,” the child said, leaning against his worktable.

“Why aren’t you in school, then?”

“They were coloring again,” she said, heaving a great sigh. “Coloring is so boring. Are you grinding it?”

“The woundwort? Yes.” He was going to have to call her parents. Which would interrupt his experiment at a rather important stage. He thumped the mortar into the pestle, and decided to ignore her. Perhaps if he ignored her, she would leave and he could pretend she had never been here. But no, she was climbing onto the boxes, which tilted precariously underneath her, and seating herself on top.Once situated to her satisfaction, she returned to questioning. “Why?”

“Why what?”

“Why are you grinding the woundwort?”

“Grinding releases the oils, which makes it more effective.”

“Can I help?”

“No.”

The child watched him silently for a few moments, swinging her feet back and forth. Urahara worked on the woundwort for a few minutes, casting the child a sideways glance. She had a considering look on her face. After a time, she ventured, “If you let me help, I could do a good job. Ken-chan says I’m a very good helper.”

“Ken-chan?” Urahara looked up, betrayed by his damnable curiosity again. “How do you help—er—Ken-chan?”

“I helped him tie his ribbons. I did a very good job.” The child’s face, glowing with remembered pride, suddenly fell. “But Mommy won’t let me help him anymore.” Urahara was not surprised that a conscientious mother would want to keep her only child away from the 11^th’s mad captain. “She was awfully cross.”

Urahara worked in silence for some time, listening to the sound of the little girl’s feet gently swinging. Who was supposed to be watching her? The Ishidas were very protective—not without reason—and would surely wring the neck of the poor sot who had let the child slip her leash. Not that the child would come to any harm here. Still,“What’s your name, Ishida-chan?” he asked.

“I’m Yukio,” she told him. “Ishida Yukio. What’s your name, onii-san?”

“I’m Urahara Kisuke.”

“That’s a nice name.” Urahara looked at her from under the brim of his hat, and she smiled that angelic smile at him. “I wish I could grind the woundwort. You could let me try, and see if I do a good job. Then you’d know if I could be a good helper or not.”

“No,” Urahara said, but there was no venom in it. The child was charming, and quite against his will, Urahara found himself charmed.

Yukio picked up on his change of tone immediately, her expression changing from crestfallen to crafty. “I don’t know who’s my favorite,” she said suddenly. “Auntie Tatsuki is my favorite, and Rukia-chan is my favorite, and Sado-san is my favorite. Only Auntie Chizuru isn’t my favorite. She pinches my cheeks.”

Urahara smirked.

“I can’t choose who my favorite is. I like everyone.” Yukio looked up at him from under her lashes, blue eyes limpid. “You might be my favorite now.”

Caught very much by surprise, Urahara almost laughed out loud. He arranged his twitching lips into a fierce scowl. “You’re going to have a promising career as a politician one day, Yukio-chan. Or a con artist.”

Yukio dimpled engagingly at this notion. “You’re so silly. I’m going to be a doctor, like Mommy and Daddy. Can I try grinding? I’ll do just as you tell me.” She smiled hopefully at him, and Urahara, still amused, beckoned to her. She came trustingly, and he picked her up and perched her on a high stool. Yukio beamed at him, taking the pestle from his hands with a constant stream of chatter. “It’s heavy! Is this right? Am I doing it right? This smells good. Am I a good helper?”

Urahara stood behind her, one large hand hovering behind her back—she looked none too steady—and the other anchoring the mortar. Yukio tilted her head back to smile at him. “See, onii-san? I’m doing it!”

“Yes, yes.”

“I’m doing a good job, aren’t I?”

“Yes, yes, a very good job.” Yukio relaxed into silence, lifting the heavy pestle carefully up and down. She wasn’t very effective at grinding, but she was thoroughly absorbed and looked blissful. Urahara felt himself relaxing too. He couldn’t really say how much time had passed when the door banged open and two voices called out in chorus: “YUKIO!”

“Mommy! Look, I’m helping!” Yukio beamed at her parents. “And I’m doing a good job!”

The Lovely Orihime rounded the table. The other Ishida stared at Urahara. There was an unnerving quality to Ishida’s gaze, as if he was holding Urahara at swordpoint.

Meanwhile, The Lovely Orihime had thrown her arms around her errant child. “Yukio,” she said mournfully, “you know you’re supposed to go to school on a school day. And you’re not supposed to bother people while they’re working.”

“I’m not bothering,” protested the child. “I’m helping.”

Ishida shot his daughter a quelling glance, then turned to Urahara. Bright blue eyes met his own, still wary, but sword temporarily lowered. “I’m sorry she disturbed you, Urahara-san.”

“Yukio-chan wasn’t a disturbance,” he contradicted, out of a desire to be disagreeable. Something about Ishida Uryuu raised his hackles and always had, ever since the boy was a bow-waving show-off not much older than Yukio. Even today he carried himself with a certain arrogant, erect assurance, as if he had never met an equal, let alone a superior.

“Thank you for looking out for her,” The Lovely Orihime said, her face lit with a radiant smile. Urahara’s hackles smoothed out immediately. No wonder Ishida never went anywhere without his wife.

“But it won’t happen again,” Ishida said. “Time to go, Yukio.”

“No!” Yukio protested immediately. “I want to stay with onii-san! Please, Daddy, I was helping!”

“You should have been in school,” he said sternly. “You know that.”

Yukio’s little shoulders slumped and her voice was forlorn. “But I like it here. Onii-san can teach me. He’s a good teacher. He taught me how to grind it, and I did a good job.”

“I am a good teacher,” Urahara observed, that little bit of contrariness asserting itself again. “And Yukio was a good student. She can come back whenever she wants.”

He could tell the moment Ishida’s resistance crumbled. So could Yukio, who smiled her mother’s glorious smile.

“I suppose,” Ishida said reluctantly, “that if you wish you can come here on Tuesdays after school. Your mother and I have office hours then anyway. That way you won’t have to go to the daycare.”

“Thank you, Daddy!”

“I’m not a babysitter,” Urahara said, annoyed.

“You’re the one who told her she could come whenever she wanted,” Ishida shot back.

“I can come back and help again!” Yukio stood up on the stool, the better to throw her arms around Urahara’s neck. “Thank you, Kiki-nii!”

Behind him, Tessai guffawed. When had Tessai started watching them? “Kiki-nii!” Urahara shot the man a warning look over his shoulder, and the guffaws were quickly muffled.

Yukio beamed up at him, shining like a small, grubby star.

Well, thought Urahara. He wasn’t usually doing anything on Tuesday afternoons anyway.

Yukio, Age 10

The text was brief: Come meet me at the train station. 11:10 train. Hurry!

Urahara went. Anything that involved Yukio was bound to be interesting.

Yukio bounded off the train and made directly for him. Urahara braced himself for the onslaught of her affection. She had never gotten out of the habit of throwing herself into his arms, but she was a good deal bigger now and it took a real effort to keep himself upright under her enthusiastic embrace. But his efforts to curb her ardor weren’t necessary in this instance, as Yukio appeared to have more urgent matters on her mind.

“Here, take him!” she said urgently, thrusting a small black puppy into his hands. “Don’t let Mom see you. I’ve stolen him!”

Without blinking an eyelash, Urahara tucked the creature into his kimono, just as The Lovely Orihime exited the train. “Mommy, I’m going to the shop!” Yukio shouted.

“If it’s alright with Urahara-san,” said The Lovely Orihime.

Under his kimono, the puppy squirmed and scrabbled against his chest. Urahara swore under his breath and shifted his grip, trying to contain it without crushing it. It whined. The Lovely Orihime looked at him inquiringly, and Urahara patted his stomach. “Excuse me,” he said, smiling blandly. “I’m afraid lunch didn’t agree with me.”

The Lovely Orihime gazed at him for a moment, and Urahara felt himself squirming, puppy-like. “I’m so sorry to hear that,” she said finally, and then turned to her offspring. “Don’t be a bother! Come home for supper!”

Yukio grabbed Urahara’s hand and danced along next to him, so happy that her blue eyes blazed in her small starry white face and her red hair bounced up and out of its confining pigtails. Urahara waited till The Lovely Orihime was around the corner before dragging the child to a nearby bench and depositing the puppy in her lap.

“Would you like to explain why I’ve got puppy pee all over my front?” he demanded.

Yukio rubbed her cheek against the puppy’s head, looking blissful. “This is my puppy. And I need you to keep him for me.”

Urahara pushed his hat back, so it wouldn’t obscure his look of utter disbelief. “I beg your pardon?”

“The problem is,” Yukio explained, “that I can’t keep him in my room. Mom would have a fit. You have to keep him for me.”

“There is no way I’m keeping a puppy,” Urahara said. “I absolutely forbid you to leave it with me.”

“But you’re the only one I can leave him with,” Yukio pleaded.

“Takeshi would keep it for you.”

“I can’t leave the poor little thing at the Kurosakis. They’ll love him to death. Besides, Takeshi can’t keep a secret to save his life. You’re the only one I can trust.”

Urahara fixed her with a cold eye. “What have I told you about flattery?”

“Use it judiciously,” said Yukio.

“And never on me.”

“That wasn’t flattery! That was true!”

Urahara quirked an eyebrow, and Yukio dimpled. Irrepressible little brat. He looked down at the puppy with disfavor, and it wagged its tail at him. Urahara sighed. “How in the world did you come to be in possession of this—this—repulsive creature?”

“He was wandering around in the Shibuya station,” said Yukio. “He was in a box tucked against the wall. It was the saddest thing, nii-chan, he was whimpering and trembling. I checked to see if he had a collar or a tag, and he didn’t. So I asked the station master where he was going. He said he didn’t know where the puppy was going, and it didn’t have any identification so he was going to make some calls. And if he couldn’t figure out where the puppy was going he would have to take it to the animal shelter. It seemed such a pity, really, to leave the poor little thing crying there, all alone. Especially if he was going to end up in a shelter anyway.”

Urahara eyed her narrowly. “So you just took him?”

“I just took him,” Yukio confirmed, with her strange mix of forthrightness and guile.

Urahara regarded her from under his hat.

Yukio squirmed a bit in her seat. “I know that just taking the puppy without asking someone is a little like stealing. And of course stealing is wrong.”

Urahara said nothing. Yukio was capable of immense and impressive feats of rationalization. He wouldn’t have interrupted for the world.

“But it’s not that simple. I mean, there was the puppy, practically dying of thirst, all alone in the train station. I couldn’t just leave him there, could I? What if he had gotten out of the box and gotten to an open door and fallen onto the tracks or something? He could have been hurt.” She gave the creature a little hug, and it obligingly licked her chin. “And there I was, someone who would love him and take good care of him. Why should he have to stay there all alone when I could take care of him? It was just—too perfect. And he was probably going to end up in a shelter anyway. So taking the puppy might have been a little bit wrong, I know that, but not taking the puppy would have been stupid.”

“Stupidity is reprehensible,” Urahara agreed. “The Diet is going to be very happy to have you, Yukio.”  

“Don’t be silly,” she said. “I’m going to be a doctor.”

Urahara had his doubts. “I suppose it can stay,” he sighed. “But you’re going to have to come here every day and train it. If it poops on my floor even once I’m throwing it right out.”

“You won’t mind cleaning up the poop,” Yukio assured him. “And we can call him Kisuke! After you!”

Urahara surged upright. “Don’t you dare give that thing my name!”

Yukio smiled at him. “But I love your name, nii-chan. It’s a beautiful name.”

What was beautiful was Yukio’s glorious smile. Urahara’s resolve crumbled, and of course Yukio knew the moment he gave way. She threw herself into his arms. “Thank you, nii-chan!”

“Let go, you’re strangling me!” Urahara yelped. At last he emerged from her throttling embrace, crushed, vanquished, but amused.

The puppy, named Kisuke, stayed at the shop. Tessai cleaned up the poop.

Yukio, age 13

“Nii-chan, am I ugly?”

The question came as such a surprise that Urahara ruined a very delicate experiment by dropping it on the floor.

“Are you ugly?” he repeated blankly. “Why do you ask?”

“Someone at school called me an ugly girl,” Yukio said.

“You’re starting at the end,” said Urahara. “Go back and tell me the beginning of the story.”

“The other day a boy confessed to me and asked me if I would be his girlfriend,” said Yukio obediently. “And then today after school, a bunch of girls said that I shouldn’t act so proud, and that I should stay away from Tamanaka-senpai because he was everybody’s, and that I was an ugly girl who should just be glad someone like Tamanaka-kun was taking pity on me and being nice to me.”

“What a stupid thing to say.”

“I thought so too!” Yukio exclaimed. “I told her so, and then she knocked me down.”

Urahara’s heart skipped a beat. “She knocked you down? What did you do?”

“Oh, I kicked her in the knee,” said Yukio. “Then I got up and her friend slapped me, so I knocked her friend down, and then they all started to come at me so I ran away.”

“I’m glad to see you’re not wasting your effort and resources on fruitless battles. You can get revenge on them another day. Do you think you’re ugly?”

Yukio traced the grain of the wood on the table, looking unhappy. Urahara felt sick suddenly. He put a hand over his stomach. Yukio was never unhappy, and she always knew what to say. If she couldn’t speak, then she was really very deeply troubled. Urahara waited as she tried to make words, his heart pounding as if he’d just been chased a long distance. He didn’t like the feeling.

“I don’t look like everyone else,” Yukio said at last. “I don’t think like everyone else either. I’ve tried but I can’t. I stand out even when I’m trying not to. No matter what I do, I don’t fit in.”

“Do you need to?” asked Urahara. “Would you really rather be dull and dimwitted instead of brilliant and beautiful?”

“If I actually was brilliant and beautiful, nii-chan.”

“Drop the false modesty. It’s not a good look for you. You’re frighteningly brilliant and annoyingly beautiful, and you know it.”

Yukio sighed and laid her cheek against her fist. “Are you just saying that to be nice to me?”

“When have I ever said anything to be nice to you?”

That drew a reluctant smile. “That’s true. That’s why I asked you. I knew if I asked you, you’d tell me the truth. Even if the truth is that I am ugly.”

“You’re not ugly,” Urahara said. “You’re not as beautiful yet as The Lovely Orihime, but you probably will be.” Urahara found himself unaccountably irritated. To think that stupid, small-minded little girls were going around telling Yukio she was ugly. To think that Yukio would believe it, even for a moment. “Aren’t you my only student? You should have more confidence in yourself.”

“It’s hard to have confidence sometimes. Especially around boys.” Yukio looked thoughtful now, rather than unhappy. That was an improvement. “I can’t talk when I’m around boys.”

“You’ll figure it out eventually,” said Urahara. The churning in his gut began to fade. “Around the time you start wanting to get married.”

“I suppose,” Yukio said, sounding doubtful. “Unless I marry you, nii-chan. I’ve been thinking I might.”

Urahara dropped his spoon. He dove back under the counter for it, glad for the chance to hide his dumbfounded face, while something inside him gibbered and his stomach twisted again. Yukio was thinking of marrying him?

“That’s all right, isn’t it?” Yukio looked over at him, blue eyes wide and guileless. “You wouldn’t mind, would you? I mean, you’re not planning to marry anyone else.”

Urahara tried to form words and then stopped, wary of saying anything his frighteningly brilliant pupil could misconstrue or twist to her own purposes. He really regretted teaching her how to do that. He was saved by the shop door banging open. A cold wind blew Kurosaki Takeshi inside.

“Hey, moron, you’re supposed to be at our house,” Takeshi said. “Idiot. I had to come looking for you, and it’s cold and I was in the middle of a game.” Takeshi grabbed a glass paperweight from the counter, tossed it in the air, then caught it.

“Don’t call me an idiot. Little boys should be more respectful of their elders,” Yukio said, intercepting the paperweight before Takeshi could toss it again. “And stop tossing that around. You’re going to break it.”

Takeshi, who hated to be reminded that he was three months younger than Yukio, scowled and snatched the paperweight back out of her hand. “You’re so noisy. Just get your stuff and let’s go.”

Yukio went to the back room for her school bag and coat, and Urahara looked Takeshi up and down. He was tallish for his age, and nice-looking, and not too stupid, considering he was a Kurosaki. And Yukio had no trouble talking to him.

“Takeshi-kun, did you know Yukio was getting bullied at school?” Urahara asked casually.

Takeshi dropped the paperweight, but managed to snatch it up again before it hit the ground. Urahara was impressed in spite of himself. The boy had incredible reflexes. “Bullied? By who?”

“Some boy confessed to her yesterday, and evidently some of the girls objected to it.”

Takeshi, who had almost dropped the paperweight again when he heard “confessed,” placed it on the counter with great care and clasped his hands behind his back. “Who would confess to that hyena?” he scoffed, and then, in the next breath, “Do you know who it was?”

“Tamanaka, I think she said. Do you know him?”

“Yeah, he’s on the soccer team,” Takeshi said absently, his gaze fixed on the door Yukio had disappeared through. “Lots of girls like him.”

“Is that so? Well, after he confessed to Yukio, some girls cornered her and knocked her down.”

Takeshi flushed. “Why didn’t she say something?”

“She’s a very responsible person. And she doesn’t like to ask for help.”

“Stupid,” Takeshi muttered.

“Don’t go poking your nose into anything,” warned Urahara. “You can’t help. It would only make things worse. I just wondered if you knew what was going on.”

Takeshi’s scowl deepened, and he opened his mouth to say something, but then Yukio came back with her things and whatever the boy might have said was lost in a flurry of leave-takings.

“I’m ready, I’m ready.” Yukio blew a kiss at Tessai, threw her arms around Urahara’s neck and then sailed through the door, leaving Takeshi to swear and run after her.

It was very quiet for a minute, there in the shop. It always was after Yukio left.

“Do you think the Kurosaki boy is enough to distract her?” Tessai was polishing a teakettle. “You may not have acted fast enough, you know.”

Urahara scowled. “Be quiet, old man.”

“If she really decides she’s going to have you, I’m afraid that you’re going to find yourself married to the future prime minister of Japan in spite of yourself.”

“Didn’t I say to be quiet? Besides, I have it under control. That’s what Takeshi is for. She needs someone to manage, and he’s very manageable.”

“True, true.” Tessaid nodded gravely. “Tell him to do something and he’ll do just the opposite. Much like his father. Yukio, on the other hand, is impossible to manage.”

“Extremely impossible,” Urahara agreed fervently. “Whatever poor fool marries Ishida Yukio is going to find himself managed to within an inch of his life.”

“True, true.” Tessai blew a non-existent scrap of dust off the teakettle. “Still,” he said in a meditative way, “I don’t think it would be so terrible, being managed by Yukio.”

No, thought Urahara.

Not so terrible.

Really, not terrible at all.

Please, he prayed into the air, never, ever let Yukio figure that out.