a formal affair | urayoru

ii

After having been poked, pulled and prodded for hours Lady Shihon finally pronounced that her daughter looked, for once, like a Princess. All Yoruichi felt was nerves. The Kimono she wore was not quite as bad as she had thought it to be. All the colors was a bit of an overstatement. It was many colors they were just different shades of orange. Deep orange, reddish orange—she looked like a fall leaf. A pretty one, her mother assured her, but a leaf none the less. Tugging at the obi around her waist, Yoruichi tried to find a way to move under all the silk encasing her frame.

She heard someone inhale behind her and turned to see Kisuke standing there.

She froze as well. He too was wearing silk, as he would have too of course, but whereas hers was orange his was a very deep green. His hair had been pushed back to reveal his features. He looked older, in a very good way. Yoruichi was about to bite her lip but she remembered the paint on it and stopped herself, settling instead for burying her hands in the folds of her kimono and clenching her fists until her short nails made marks in the flesh of her palms.

Across the hall Urahara was having his own troubles. When Yoruichi described her kimono he imagined it to be some candy colored nightmare that he'd have to lie and say she looked nice in until she called him out and they collapsed in a fit of giggles together. But it wasn't. The kimono was gorgeous but it paled in comparison to the woman who wore it. Yoruichi didn't look like the playmate he usually joked with, she looked like a grown up, like a Princess. And she looked very nervous as well.

Usually when one of them went as quiet as they both were one would break the silence but this time they both ducked their heads and looked the other way, words getting stuck in the back of their throat. Urahara shuffled off, feeling like more of a disgrace than he ever had in his entire life and Yoruichi turned back to the sliver of the ballroom she was watching through the door, trying to fight back tears and spare her makeup. She didn't want to be doing this alone. She wanted Kisuke by her side and he just shuffled off with his head ducked. Before she could turn around a find him someone called her name and she had to go.

The ballroom was spectacular but Urahara had no sight for it. Even Tessai was there decked out in some horrible eccentric robe that he only got away with because he was good at Kido and somehow that gave him a free pass to wear whatever the hell he wanted. He was even attempting—and badly—to grown in a mustache because he thought it would make him look older.

"You look like someone killed your pet," Tessai said bluntly.

"I'm fine," Urahara muttered.

"So how's the Shihon life treating you?" Tessai asked changing the conversation quickly.

"Its—" he sighed, "its alright."

"Alright? Kisuke you're living in a Noble house," his friend pointed out, "there's gotta be something pretty bad for you not to say something better than that."

"Its not bad," Urahara sighed, "its just—" he trailed off, "its complicated."

"Complicated," Tessai repeated, "well it can't be anything a little Kido can't fix."

"No, no way are you doing that stuff on me."

"You're gonna become a Shinigami, you're gonna learn Kido."

"The last time you did Kido on me I was bald," Urahara crossed his arms, "my head looked like your upper lip does for months!"

"There's nothing wrong with my upper lip," Tessai pouted, his finger stroking the expanse of his mustache almost defensively, "well if it's not something that kido can fix than what's wrong? You're still coming out of that room right?"

"Of course!"

"Well then I'm missing the problem."

"The problem? The problem is—" he caught a glimpse of orange out of his eyes, "is—" she was laughing at something someone else was saying, but not the real kind of laugh he knew she did but a polite kind of laugh that had her mouth covered by her fan, "is—"