"Really, Shiro? Really? In my apartment?"

"Your window had the best angle. Also, you knew what you were getting into."

"Only after you said 'Oh, by the way, I'm an assassin, so if you ever need anyone taken out, you know a guy'!"

"Didn't stop you from agreeing to see me again."

"For reasons I've yet to understand." Ichigo sighed and leaned back to stare up through the leaves of the tree he was sitting under. "So that's why you wanted me to go back to Karakura to visit my family."

"Plausible deniability, babe. You needed an alibi, and 'out of town to visit the folks' is watertight, especially with your family."

That was true. Ichigo sighed again.

Shiro snickered over the phone. "So. I'm in town. Dinner?"

"You're paying."

"-lucky I even own a suit," Ichigo muttered to himself as he entered the restaurant, fiddling with his cuffs. He didn't want to admit it, but he was nervous and scared; all their previous "dates" had been simple dinner-at-a-chain-and-a-movie type things, or a picnic in the park that one time to watch the fireworks for the summer festival.

The restaurant looked to be the high-end of high-end, modern style done in traditional materials, completely spotless, with men in suits and women in suits and dresses talking business and politics while quiet servers delivered food. He had never felt more like the nearly-penniless university student he was.

"Kurosaki-san?"

Ichigo jumped when the hostess spoke to him. She was a tiny little thing, dark hair and violet eyes, but with a spine of steel. "Ah, yes, that's me."

"This way, please. S-san is already seated." She turned and expertly guided him through the restaurant.

"How did you know it was me?"

"S-san gave us your description," was the reply.

"…what kind of description."

"He said that you looked like him but in color, with orange hair. He very distinctly specified that it was orange, not red or ginger. Here we are, one moment please." She stuck her head into the cubicle. "Whitey, your date's here."

"Piss off then," Shiro shot back, just as playful.

The hostess stepped back to let Ichigo enter, even as the assassin rose to greet him. "Shiro, I feel so out of place," the student hissed before giving him a light peck on the lips.

"Relax, Ichi," the assassin purred, leading him over to the table, "Let me do something nice for you in exchange for turning your apartment into a crime scene."

"People are staring." Mostly the staff, who seemed to be intentionally taking routes that would take them by their table.

"Because I've never come here outside of business, and they're nosy busybodies."

That made Ichigo roll his eyes, but it seemed to be true. He could catch the occasional whisper around them, mostly the ladies cooing over them an imagining what kind of tangled events brought them together. It was actually a lot simpler than they thought; someone tripped him on the stairs on his way down to the subway, and he fell into Shiro, who caught him. (Of course, he wasn't going to tell them the truth, either; they'd probably crow about it being so romantic and how Ichigo fell in love when he fell into the assassin's arms. At the time, he'd just been grateful to avoid a hospital visit and took Shiro out for coffee in thanks. And then they'd crossed paths at his second job…)

"…Shiro, there aren't any prices on this menu."

"Don't worry about the cost, Ichi. I'm paying, remember?"

And he did, with a Visa credit card blacker than his soul. As they walked out of the restaurant, Ichigo had to admit that it had been some of the best food he'd ever eaten, right up there with Yuzu's cooking, and Shiro made sure he got plenty of leftovers.

(He hadn't seen the bill. He wasn't particularly sure he wanted to know how much the infamous White Devil had dropped on their dinner. He wasn't sure he wanted to know how much Shiro got paid for his kills, either. He might have considered changing careers, or becoming the assassin's kept boy.)

(More than he already was.)

Since the crime scene team still had control of his apartment, Shiro took the student to his hotel, and stashed his leftovers in the fridge there. The full-size fridge. Because of course he had a suite in one of the nicer hotels in Tokyo.

Ichigo sighed. He did that a lot around Shiro. Speaking of…

The assassin was seated on the couch in the living area, cleaning his already-spotless rifle, Zangetsu, some news program on low on the TV. Ichigo sat down next to him and rested his head on one of his doppelganger's shoulders, careful not to interfere with the other's automatic movements. "I hope this doesn't make me an accessory to murder," he mumbled, already half-asleep.

"I think you've been an accessory ever since you let me stash that one politician's body in your bathtub," Shiro hummed.

"I came home to find you'd packed a corpse in ice in my bathroom. What was I supposed to do?"

"Call the cops?" he suggested helpfully, and snickered when Ichigo tried to elbow him in the side and missed. The student muttered something uncomplimentary and drifted off.

"He's with me."

"Got yourself a plaything, huh, Shiro?"

"Be quiet, Jinta."

Ichigo was careful not to tense when he woke with strange voices in the room, but Shiro noticed anyway. He curled an arm around the student's shoulders, pressing his face into his throat, and Ichigo heard the faint rattling of metal.

"Hey, hey! I'm just playing!"

"I told you to be quiet, Jinta," said the other voice, "Now is not the time." Footsteps came closer, and something heavy was set down on the table in front of the couch. "Your payment, as promised."

"All of it?"

"Yes. Urahara-san is well aware of what happened to the last man who tried to cheat you."

"Good. Then you're done here."

"Come along, Jinta."

Footsteps headed away again, Jinta muttering under his breath, and a door opened, closed.

Ichigo opened his eyes and lifted his head slightly to look around. Not much had changed, but Shiro was holding Zangetsu, reassembled and loaded, and there was a large sack on the table in front of the couch. He was about to speak when the assassin put a finger to his lips.

Shiro swept the whole suite with his rifle in hand, then returned to empty the bag over the table. More money that Ichigo had ever seen in his life spilled out, and he gaped while the assassin counted and checked ever stack, then the bag. "We're clear," he said at last, "No bugs."

"How much money is that?" was the first thing out of his mouth, and Shiro smirked.

"A little over eleven million yen."

The student choked on his own spit, forcing the assassin to thump him on the back until he could breathe again. "I need to consider changing careers."

"You're doing just fine, Ichi," said the assassin, "You're not wanted in thirty countries."

But that reminded him – "Urahara? As in Urahara Kisuke, the Minister of Education, Science, and Technology, and all that jazz? He hired you to take someone out?"

"The very same. And believe it or not, but this one actually did deserve it. I imagine you'll be hearing about the investigation soon, now that he's not around to block it. But you don't need to worry about that. Go back to sleep."

"I'm definitely not going to sleep now. Gods above, eleven million…"

"He was a very high-profile target."

"…how high-profile."

"Aizen Sousuke."

"Ai- the president and CEO of Takeda Pharma?!"

Shiro hummed an affirmative and sat back down on the couch, pulling Ichigo into his arms so he could nuzzle the student's throat. Ichigo tiled his head back to give him more room, but Shiro didn't go further, instead sighing and settling. "I missed you. Is that weird?"

"Considering I missed you too? Not really." He absently ruffled the assassin's white hair and closed his eyes. "You were over so often there for a while that it felt weird not having you here."

"Any of your clients given you trouble?"

Ichigo thought back. Since the White Devil had shown an interest in him, the Agency had given him clients who were more along the lines of 'husbands and wives bored with their marriages' rather than 'tough guys and gals looking for a quick, rough fuck.' He'd also been hired for a threesome, once, but there hadn't been any trouble. "No, nothing."

"Good." Shiro's arms tightened around him. Ichigo heard him mutter something about borrowing his bathtub again if someone hurt him.

"No more corpses in my apartment, please. I have enough problems as it is."

"I won't make any promises," the assassin murmured into his collar bone.

Ichigo stirred automatically when he felt Shiro get up out of the bed. There was a phone ringing somewhere, loud enough for him to hear it but not enough to wake him fully. The assassin answered the call and talked quietly for several minutes, then hung up.

There was a long silence. Then Shiro returned to bed, Zangetsu in hand. The assassin carefully settled the rifle between them, along with two hand guns, concealed where their bodies lifted the sheets. That woke Ichigo fully, and he met Shiro's eyes.

The White Devil stared back, half-lidded eyes empty of emotion. "Breathe deep and even," he commanded in a soft, level whisper that was very unlike his default speech, "I'm expecting some uninvited guests."

Ichigo swallowed, and did as ordered. Shiro closed his eyes, deepened his breathing, and to all appearances went back to sleep. The student matched his breathing – at least until one of the silenced hand guns was put into his hand. "If you have to shoot, keep both eyes open," the assassin murmured, positioning both his hands into a solid grip, "aim for the torso, and fire when you exhale."

A faint sound reached their ears, the barest whisper of displaced air. The intruders were skilled, but in the silence of the suite even the rasp of their shoes broadcasted their location, their approach. Two shadows appeared in the doorway to the bedroom. Shiro still appeared to be asleep, and Ichigo watched him through the narrowest gap as the intruders moved to either side of the bed.

Before they could strike, Shiro moved, throwing their blankets to tangle Ichigo's opponent before turning Zangetsu on his own. Ichigo was only half-aware of his ensuing fight, too focused on his own opponent. The assassin's distraction bought him precious seconds he needed to bring the hand gun up and squeeze off a shot. The first one went wide, but the second drilled through the left side of the assassin's abdomen. The assassin grunted in pain and lunged for him, but instincts honed by years of schoolyard fights took over. Even though he was barefoot, it still hurt when he stamped on the intruder's toes, then drove his opposite knee into the gunshot wound.

That stunned the intruder long enough for Ichigo to put three bullets through his heart – overkill, but he wasn't taking any chances.

Behind him, Shiro said, "Ulquiorra Cifer, one of Aizen's pets." He checked the one Ichigo killed. "Zommari Rureaux, also one of Aizen's. The only really loyal ones. Com with me, Ichi."

He took the student to the living room. He had Ichigo lie down on the couch with his feet elevated while he moved quietly around the suite, returning with blankets and a damp washcloth that smelled faintly of bleach. When he was wiped clean and bundled up, the assassin made a call and spoke quietly for several more minutes before hanging up and returning to the bedroom.

'I killed someone.'

At some point, more people arrived in the suite, cleaning up the signs of the fight and the corpses. Ichigo didn't notice until Shiro returned with a doctor, whom he introduced as Tsukabishi Tessai. Tessai checked him over, wrote him prescriptions for sleeping and anti-anxiety meds, and told Shiro to stay with him until he came out of shock. When he finally did, he was still bundled up on the couch, but his head was now on the assassin's thigh.

Shiro was carefully cleaning the weapons they had used, and a new katana taken from one of their would-be killers.

"Does it ever get any easier?" Ichigo asked quietly, trying to forget the gunshots and the thud of the body hitting the ground, the warmth of the blood on his hands.

"Only if you're a monster like me." The assassin paused to give his hair a brief stroke, then resumed cleaning.

Ichigo was still exhausted from all that had happened in such a short amount of time. Even though the sun was just starting to creep over the horizon, he started to drop back to sleep, but before he was completely gone he murmured, "A monster's not a monster when you love it."