Serendipity

Hush

The Following Morning,
Urahara Shōten

"G' mornin'... everyone..." Seren said, yawning, as she stumbled into the kitchen and started trying to help Tessai cook breakfast.

"Good morning, Seren-dono," Tessai greeted the young girl respectfully. He watched as the sleepy teen picked up the chef's knife and one of the tomatoes he had planned on slicing to add to the omelets. "Seren-dono, you are still half asleep, please have a seat at the table and wait with Ururu and Jin—"

SLICE.

SLICE. SLICE. SLICE. SLICE!
CHOP. CHOP. CHOP. CHOP!

"..." Tessai said as he watched her proceed to slice and mince all the ingredients with the lightning speed of a master chef. It seemed she had improved her skills if she could do all that without cutting herself in the current state she was in... "Nevermind."

"Itadakimasu!" everyone said as they picked up their chopsticks and began to eat.

"It's yummy," Ururu said softly while she munched on the tasty omelet.

"Huh? I just realized Kisuke-san isn't here..." Seren said, blinking in confusion. A few sips of coffee had finally helped her wake up.

"He sleeps in a lot," Jinta commented carelessly as he scarfed down his food and held his bowl out to Tessai. "I'm ready for seconds!"

"It looked like there was a light on in his room when I passed by," Yoruichi said.

"I believe the manager is probably still working on an experiment," Tessai offered as an explanation. "He was suddenly struck with inspiration last night, after the three of you had gone to bed."

"... He's been working in there since we went to bed?" Seren asked, raising an eyebrow as she frowned slightly. Knowing him, he probably never went to sleep in the first place... If he didn't emerge from his lair by lunchtime, she might have to do something before he started to mold...

After Lunch

"..." Seren frowned with her hands on her hips as she stared down at the tray of untouched food that they had left just outside Urahara's door. It had been sitting there for over two hours.

That was it for her. Not only was he running on zero sleep, but this would make the second meal he was trying to skip. Time for a little tough love.

SLAM!

Urahara flinched when his door suddenly flew open. Very slowly, he turned to face the doorway. The only person who would do something like that was...

"You have one minute to find a good stopping place in whatever it is you're doing," Seren informed him firmly as she stood in his doorway, crossed her arms, and fixed him with a stern glare.

'I knew it...!' Urahara thought, smiling wryly to himself, as he sweat-dropped and scrambled to make sure all the reactions of his experiment were stabilized enough to be left on their own for a while. He could tell Seren meant business, and he had learned not to ignore her attempts to make him take breaks since that usually resulted in her pushing everything off the desk, ruining whatever he had been working on in the process.

He smiled when she grabbed his wrist and started pulling him out the room the moment he finished. Although having to restart those previous destroyed experiments from scratch had been frustrating, he wasn't angry since he knew she was only doing it because she worried about him whenever he became so absorbed in his experiments that he began to neglect his health. Urahara thought it was kind of cute how she acted like a wife taking care of her workaholic husband.