Kisuke takes a step back as Rerugen rises from the bed, and immediately has to bite his lip to keep from reacting to how short Rerugen suddenly is! Normally Rerugen barely has to tip his head to meet Kisuke’s gaze, but now he’s almost as small as Yoruichi is in her human form!

(And so soft—)

(Wait, no, bad, Rerugen’s his annoying bodyguard, not someone he should be mooning over.)

(No matter how soft or fluffy the man looks in his were-form.)

“Don’t say a damn word,” Rerugen growls as he steps past Kisuke, tufted ears flattening against his head and whiskers pulling back.

“Maa, I would never,” Kisuke says as he raises his hands in surrender, barely able to keep the laughter out of his voice.

Rerugen scoffs but apparently decides to leave it be, stalking out of Kisuke’s bedroom and down the hall to the main room, leaving Kisuke behind without a backwards glance.

Kisuke sighs and pulls his fan from his sleeve, twirling it between his fingers as he considers their conversation; Rerugen had reacted less negatively to the reveal than Kisuke had expected, which is a relief but also a surprise. He’d thought he’d had Rerugen figured out, thought he knew how Rerugen would react to Yoruichi’s scheming, but…

Well, he hadn’t know about the werelynx bit, either, so maybe he doesn’t know Rerugen as well as he thought.

(Still, why would Rerugen just accept it so easily?)

(It doesn’t make any sense…)

Kisuke grimaces and shakes his head, trying to shake the questions free; the why doesn’t particularly matter in this case, and he needs to remember that. Yoruichi’s scheming is a nuisance, especially because he’s not entirely certain why she decided to push Rerugen’s patience like this, but there’s nothing he can do about it right now.

(He knows she wants him to have a guard at all times, but… forging some signatures to make them legally married couldn’t have been the only option, could it?)

(Ugh, he’ll never understand her.)

The scent of cooking snaps him from his thoughts and draws him out of his bedroom and down the hall to peek into the little kitchen area of his apartment; Rerugen is standing over the stove cooking some scrambled eggs, with some raw fish sitting on a cutting board next to him.

“If you want food, ask,” Rerugen rumbles without turning around. “Nothing I’m making right now will suit you.”

Kisuke blinks at the response and drifts into the room. “Maa, I don’t see why not, it’s just eggs and fish, I eat that all the time.”

Rerugen tips his head to fix Kisuke with an exasperated look, one ear folding back and his whiskers twitching as he says, “Feline. Feline sensitivities. There are no seasonings in this, Urahara, just eggs and fish. Trust me that you will absolutely despise the result.”

“Oh.” Kisuke considers that for a moment, then shrugs in agreement; he’s stolen enough food from Yoruichi in her were-form to know that Rerugen’s probably right. He might not be the pickiest of eaters, but even he likes to have a bit more flavor than ‘cooked egg and fishy’ if he has a choice in the matter. “I didn’t know you could cook,” he settles on instead. “Usually you just let Tessai feed the both of us.”

Rerugen huffs and turns his attention back to the stove, stirring the eggs a bit more. “There’s a lot you don’t know about me, Urahara,” he says as he sets the spoon aside and picks up the cutting board to dump the fish directly into the pan. “None of which I have any intention of sharing with you unless it becomes necessary,” he adds a touch primly, his little bob of a tail flicking. “You didn’t answer the question, though: food, yes or no.”

“Oh, ah… yes?” He’s not really that hungry at the moment, but now that he thinks about it he… doesn’t actually remember when he last ate. And Tessai isn’t going to be around for another few hours, since he has his own work to be handling today. Or, rather, since Kisuke accidentally chased him away while trying to put together some of his research into a form that people other than him can read.

“Right then, get some more eggs and the rest of the fish out of the fridge and I’ll make something,” Rerugen says as he sets the spoon aside and goes rifling through the cabinets. The little chrr he makes when he finds what he’s looking for — a bowl, apparently — is weirdly adorable, like when he’s caught Yoruichi in her feline form stalking birds through a window—

(No, bad Kisuke.)

(Rerugen is not adorable.)

(He’s an annoying bodyguard and nothing else.)

Kisuke shoves the thoughts aside and slips over to the fridge in order to dig out what Rerugen asked for; not that there’s much in the fridge to begin with, mostly leftovers and things that Kisuke can heat up in order to feed himself when Tessai isn’t around. The eggs and fish were probably something Tessai was planning to cook later today, actually, so… so he should probably tell Tessai they’re eating it, shouldn’t he.

Before he forgets, he sets the eggs and fish on the counter and steps back out of Rerugen’s way, pulling out his phone in order to send a quick text.

“I’m not going to make you anything fancy,” Rerugen says as he scrapes his own food out into his bowl, then sets the pan back down and begins to crack eggs into a small mixing bowl. He pauses at two, cants his head to give Kisuke a considering look, then adds a third before going to rifle through the cabinets again.

“Just letting Tessai know we’re eating,” Kisuke answers as he tucks his phone back away. “In case he was planning to use any of this for something later, I mean.”

Rerugen makes a soft noise of amusement. “And just to let him know that you’re eating,” he says wryly, pulling a few jars of spice from the cabinet and beginning to add some to the eggs. “I know how you get, Urahara, and I know the trouble Tsukabishi-san goes through to keep you alive.”

“Maa, but Rerugen-san is the one in charge of keeping me alive!” Kisuke can’t resist teasing, even when it earns him a narrow-eyed stare. “Well he is…” he mumbles a touch defensively.

“What I do and what Tsukabishi-san do are entirely different, and I wouldn’t want his job for any amount of money,” Rerugen declares with a sniff, even as he dumps the beaten eggs into the pan and tilts it around to spread them out evenly. “See if there’s any cheese in the fridge, actually.”

Kisuke blinks but obligingly opens the fridge again to start rummaging around. “What kind of cheese?” he asks as he digs.

“Whatever’s in there that you like, if there is any,” Rerugen answers. “You’re the one who’s going to be eating it.”

Kisuke rolls his eyes at Rerugen’s words, but keeps digging until he finds a block of some sort of cheese tucked away in the far back of the fridge, clearly something that Tessai had bought for a recipe and then only used a bit of. Still, it doesn’t look like it’s gone bad, and when he opens the little bag it seems to smell alright, so that’s good enough for him. “This do?” he asks as he sets it down on the counter near the cutting board.

Rerugen glances over from where he’s slicing the fish into thin strips and nods. “It’ll do,” he says agreeably, taking a moment to tend to the eggs before resuming slicing the fish.

Kisuke watches him for a moment longer, then takes a slow step back towards the main room. “Just… going to go look for a copy of my paper for you to read,” he offers when one of Rerugen’s ears swivels towards him; not that he really expects Rerugen to understand even a quarter of his research — hell, over half of his fellow researchers tend to have issues with it! — but the man did ask, so… might as well.

Though he’s not looking forward to trying to explain how fae-runes combine to build new magical formulas to someone with no grounding in the subject. That’s always the worst part, since fae-runes have weird, illogical rules about how they slot together. Kisuke has a better grasp on the subject than most in the field, but even he runs into problems with it, problems that can sometimes lead to explosions, or rips in space, or a spell randomly collapsing when it shouldn’t…

“It’ll be done in a few more minutes, so don’t get too distracted,” Rerugen says, dragging Kisuke from his thoughts.

“Right, right, I won’t,” Kisuke agrees as he retreats from the kitchen, trying to remember where he put one of his printed copies. He thinks he left it with the symposium booklet, which he left… somewhere. Ugh.

Maybe he’ll just text Tessai and ask.

That sounds like a better plan than trying to figure out where he last set it down.

Well, he’ll figure something out.