Title: Colour-blind

Fandom: Bleach

Pairing: Urahara/Yoruichi

Rating: PG

Word Count: 593

Summary/Description: Kisuke is a kaleidoscope, Yoruichi is colour-blind, and somehow, it works.

Warning/Spoilers: Spoilers for Urahara and Yoruichi’s past. Sorry, don’t know the exact chapters or episodes, but it’s pretty late on in the manga/anime.

A/N: Written for Aki-omoi’s weekly challenge. Prompt: Colorblind by Counting Crows. I can’t say how much I adore this song. I fell in love with it after the first listening, and have been playing it at every chance I get since then. (And singing it too, much to my family and friends’ mutual horror and amusement). I had to write for it. Had to. I suggest you listen to the song, or at least take a gander at the lyrics before reading, in order to really understand what I’m trying to do, and fully comprehend how I butchered this lovely piece.

Disclaimer: Maybe the Anime Santa will be give me Bleach for Christmas this year. I doubt it though. Maybe I can knock out an incisor, and try my luck with the Anime Tooth Fairy.

---

Yoruichi jerked into awareness, bolting out of sleep as she sensed someone above her. Golden, cat-slit eyes peeled open, and for a moment, all she could see was an egg-white blur against the dark backdrop of her bedroom walls.

“Yoruichi,” the blur said, and it was Kisuke’s voice, pleasant and benign and unassuming as it always was. The Shihouin princess rubbed her eyes sleepily, giving a tiny mewl as she stretched.

“So, we’re going, then?” were her first words to him, soft and forward and serious. She watched her childhood friend intently.

“Yes.”

She rolled off of the bed quickly, knowing that they probably did not have that much time. Completely unabashed in sleek nakedness, her rich brown skin seeming almost coffee-black in the absolute dark of the room, she stalked across the room to her drawers, and began pulling on clothes. Kisuke watched silently, draped in white and unmoving.

The purple-haired woman clasped her bra deftly, and reached for a pair of pants. She was not one for second thoughts, but a small, insignificant part of her mind was arguing that she didn’t know what the hell she was doing. She was abandoning her family, her duties, her troops and her protégée… all for this man, Urahara Kisuke. The eccentric genius, the Twelfth Division Captain who also led the Technological Development Bureau, and was now leaving Soul Society to follow a path that only he truly knew.

And she was going with him. Nothing this grave and paranormal should have been so simple… but it was. Kisuke was a complex man, with many colours and shades that blended and mixed in order to encompass the person she knew. There was seldom anything straightforward about him and his nuances. In his own little way, he was a kaleidoscope of bright and varying hues, spinning and folding and unfolding.

But Yoruichi… she was colour-blind. She saw the blacks and the whites and the notable greys in between, and still, she understood him, maybe like no one else ever really could. Kisuke was her friend, – her best friend – and as much as he needed her for this, she needed him. And that was why, despite all the contradicting factors and reasons that branded this as madness, this all made sense, and she was going with him.

“I’m ready,” she said, pulling her shirt down over her stomach. She tucked a few armaments into the pockets of her clothes, and strapped on her sword. She knew she couldn’t carry too much; they had to travel light.

“Okay,” he said shortly.

The pair walked over to the window quickly. Beyond it, Seireitei was a lolling town of lights and ghosts at their feet. Getting through it without catching the notice of the guards wouldn’t be hard; they knew the schedules pretty well. In addition, they were Shihouin Yoruichi and Urahara Kisuke. If trouble cropped up, they would be able to handle it.

Kisuke made as if to help her out from the inside, lending a pale limb for her to grasp onto. Yoruichi rolled her eyes, pushed his hand away, and stepped out herself, slipping easily into Shunpo. He gave a wry smile, and followed after swiftly.

He caught up with her in a minute or two. The wind smoothed over their faces with biting coldness as they blurred between spaces along the rooftops of Soul Society.

“You okay?” he asked once, glancing over at her, almost concernedly.

Her brows rose a little in surprise before she gave a quick reassuring grin, and a wink.

“I’m fine.”

---

A/N: Anything you have to say is appreciated.