Recipes for a Fruit Parfait

Welcome to the Fruit Parlor Café, a BLEACH alternate universe that puts the ‘fruit’ in ‘fruity.’

As stated, this is an ALTERNATE UNIVERSE. If this is not your cup of tea, please look elsewhere. Also, this will have subtle, overt, flaming YAOI/SHONEN-AI/SLASH, so again, if this is not your cup of tea, please look elsewhere. At the other end of the spectrum, it may also contain HET/STRAIGHT, so watch out. I haven’t quite decided yet. This is blanket-rated T/PG13 for swearing, mild violence and sexy guys. If there is anything that exceeds this rating, it will be marked as such.

I am the only author on this project; so do not expect any form of schedule to be followed. Like Urahara allows, my schedule is so flexible it’s nebulous. Whenever inspiration strikes, I will give you a piece of these boys' lives.

As a disclaimer for this entire series, I will say right now that all concepts, places and people recognizable from the series BLEACH, belong to the illustrious KUBO TITE, and to VIZ Media, Shonen Jump, et al. Any and all similarities to places and people living or dead is most likely completely coincidental and not my fault. Any and all characters, concepts and places that are not recognizable, I have probably made up. These and the plot (what there is of it) belong to me, and I would greatly appreciate that my creative brainchildren be respected.

Introducing Black Cherry, one of our lovely wait staff.
Rating: T

( I am Kuchiki Byakuya. You may refer to me as Kuchiki... )

(A/N: My Bleach kick has waned, so updates will be sporadic, inspiration striking at very strange moments. Life's like that. I'm also working on getting my life ready to move to college, so that cuts into my time too. Thank you for being amazing readers.)

Introducing Strawberry, one of our lovely wait staff.
Rating: T

( Hey, I’m Kurosaki Ichigo. No, it’s not written ‘strawberry...’ )

(A/N: WOW. I thought ISHIDA whooped my ass. Hello, Ulquiorra. He is damn hard to write. Aw, hell, and I still have Byakuya to do. I'm screwed. Sorry about the wait. Hope it's worth it.)

Introducing Sour Apple, one of our lovely wait staff.
Rating: T

( My name is Ulquiorra Schiffer... )

(A/N: I took the weekend off, mostly because Ishida was being a pain in the ass. After the second half of the introductions, the update schedule will be erratic.)

Introducing Blackberry, one of our lovely wait staff.
Rating: T

( Hello, My name is Ishida Uryū... )

Introducing Pineapple, one of our lovely wait staff.
Rating: T

( Okay, Manager says to introduce myself. Generally I don’t abide by what he says, ‘cause he’s insane, but since he has the powers of the almighty, I will. I’m Abarai Renji... )

Introducing Cloudberry, one of our lovely wait staff. (right now I bet you're going "WTF is a CLOUDBERRY? Are you HIGH?", but it really does exist. Wikipedia told me so.)
Rating: T

( Only reason I'm doing this is because Manager said he’d dock my pay if I didn’t. Fine. I’m Hitsugaya Tōshirō... )

Introducing Blueberry, one of our lovely wait staff. (ohgod don't hurt meee)
Rating: T (language)

( I’m Grimmjow Jeagerjaques. Ain’t nothin’ I like more ’n a good fight... )

Introducing Plum, one of our lovely wait staff.
Rating: T

( Hey. My name is Hisagi Shūhei... )

In downtown Tokyo there is a small, rather innocuous café. Now you may be thinking, “Yes, there are a lot of those in downtown Tokyo,” but hear me out. It’s got a rather homey atmosphere; with mixed round tables with surprisingly comfortable wooden chairs and squashy couches and armchairs. The walls are painted in jewel tones, blue, green, purple and red, and each wall has at least one bookshelf. On those shelves you can find quite the eclectic mix of books, from philosophy to romance and cyberpunk to fantasy. The owner prides himself on having a little bit of something for everyone. The food served is good with several basic types of sandwiches and soups. But what they’re really good at is the fruit desserts. Anything you can think of that can be done with fruit, they have done, and they have done well. They also have the most excellent smoothies.

There’s free wireless internet, and a couple of the wait staff even have technical abilities if you have problems connecting. It’s frequented (and staffed) by college-age youth, and is, in fact, near a college. It sits nigh next-door to the small, inoffensive Torano College of the Fine Arts, or TCFA. The owner, called Manager-sama by his own insistence, has a way with these youth. He gives flexibly scheduled jobs with quite decent pay, so he has many applicants.

Whether or not they stay is another story. The owner is somewhat eccentric. He takes only young male staff, on the opinion that he wants to attract lots of young female customers. He also gives the wait staff a name to use on the job.

I said he was eccentric. For you see, this café is run by the infamous Urahara Kisuke.

I see by your reaction that you recognize the name.

Welcome to the Fruit Parlor Café. We hope you enjoy your stay.