Rules of the Game
Blue eyes stared at the board in front of them. Though 'glared' would be a far more accurate way of saying it. As he fingered the letters in his hand, the owner of said blue eyes couldn't hold back a low grunt.
At 21 years of age, Grimmjow Jaegerjaquez was now a healthy young man studying his second year in Koyomiya College and only half of the delinquent he used to be in his teenage years (much to the dismay of his former partner-in-crime, Nnoitra).
He took his eyes off the board for a second and shot a quick glance at the man sitting right across him who was too busy sipping his tea to pay any attention to him. The emerald-eyed twenty-seven year-old Ulquiorra Cifer was now a renowned Literature teacher in Karakura College who had recently published his first novel and was gaining popularity with an incredible speed.
Well duh, it was a pretty cool book.
And Grimmjow grunted again.
Even though they had been going out for nearly three years, their relationship hadn't changed that much since Grimmjow was in high-school. They did live together now –back when Grimmjow had proposed it, Ulquiorra's only response was "Sure. That way I can move my things here and open up more space at my place to store my books."- but Ulquiorra still acted like a teacher to Grimmjow, making sure he didn't fall behind with his studies. And of course, they still played Scrabble every Friday, because it was too much of a tradition and Ulquiorra was too attached to his routine to let go of it.
But tonight Grimmjow was definitely not in the mood for this shit. And the heavy silence in the room was not helping at all. Cifer had never been a talkative man, but even someone as dense as Grimmjow could notice the heaviness and awkardness in the environment. He seriously wished he could get out of here.
He knew it was partially his fault. He had been the one to start that fight three days ago and things had somehow gotten out of control, both had said some hurtful shit and Ulquiorra had been sleeping in his apartment across the hallway for two nights now. And yet he had showed up for their mandatory Friday Scrabble game (Grimmjow was pretty sure by now that the guy had a serious OCD problem). But even though they were both there sitting right across each other, none had said a word for three hours. It was utterly nerve-wracking.
Still, he had had a good reason to be angry. What with Ulquiorra being the new hot stuff in town with his book he had a really busy schedule: book signings, press conferences, interviews and whatnot; plus his already excessive workload from the university. Since the novel had been released two months ago, he had only been able to see his lover for their Scrabble games on Friday. Every other day the older man would be busy since the earliest hours and came home well past midnight, completely exhausted. So when he had announced that he would be leaving town for a four-day tour to promote the book around Japan, Grimmjow decided enough was enough.
Once he gave it more thought, he realized he had been unfair and unreasonable in being angry at Ulquiorra for being so busy. It was not his fault that his book was successful and he should be happy for his lover. But somewhere deep inside he wished Cifer could at least try to make some time for them. He was starting to wonder if the raven-haired teacher loved the Scrabble game more than he loved him.
"You have been 'thinking' for twenty-two minutes. Are you going to play or do you want to switch your letters?"
Ulquiorra's deep, calm voice cut through the silence like a razor and brought him back from his inner turmoil. He glanced back at his letters -he hadn't been paying much attention to them up until now- and realized he didn't have the greatest of games.
He switched his letters, getting a new set from the pouch in hopes of a better combination. Maybe he was overthinking it. Maybe Ulquiorra didn't care that much about that fight and he wouldn't have to apologize (he'd hate to. He was way too proud).
Except he had to. If Ulquiorra didn't care, he wouldn't be sleeping in the other apartment.
As Grimmjow fingered his new letters, Ulquiorra mindlessly placed a random word on the board game and bit his lip subtly.
Hurry up and apologize.
He was still mad at Grimmjow. Admittedly, he had also said things he wish he could take back, but his lover should not have picked up the fight to begin with. Thus he had resolved not to talk to him until he apologized, but it was proving harder than he expected. It made no sense, he wasn't one to indulge in useless chat, yet he yearned to hear about Grimmjow's week, his school, his teachers, Nnoitra Gilga's annoying calls, and everything else he used to say while they played. Maybe it had become a part of his routine too.
He felt bad for Grimmjow too. Even if he had started the fight and the reason he had done so was bordering in the absurd (especially since he was going to ask Grimmjow to come with him in the book tour), he knew he hadn't been giving him as much time as he deserved. And he wanted to spend more time with his young lover but his life had become so convoluted, so unscheduled and non-routinary since the book had come out that he had yet to find a balance between his two occupations and his personal life.
So really, if Grimmjow could just apologize, he would forgive him quickly and tell him that really important thing he'd been wanting to say for some time now. He didn't want to leave for the tour without settling things with his blue-haired lover (again, because he wanted said blue-haired lover to come with him), but they were both too stubborn to take the first step. Ulquiorra was starting to get worried. Even if it had just been a stupid little fight, he feared that the longer it stayed unresolved, the harder it would be to get everything back into place.
He sighed inadvertently, while Grimmjow placed the word 'shit' on the board. The young man had been playing an awfully terrible game tonight, and Ulquiorra began to wonder if his mind was fixed elsewhere rather than the board. With another long sigh, he wrote 'futile', striking a double point, and looking up to the other male. Someone had to be the adult here.
"Look, this is not getting us anywhere. I think we should leave it like this, the end result will not change anyway." He moved to put the pieces back in the pouch, but was stopped by the wrist before he could start picking them up.
"Wait, wait! I've got a good one here. Don't just run away because you're scared I'll turn this shit in my favor."
Truthfully, Grimmjow didn't have any "good one". He had just panicked. He knew Ulquiorra was bullshitting him. It didn't matter if the result would be the same (up to this day, there hadn't been a single time in which he had managed to defeat the green-eyed teacher), Ulquiorra always said that the exciting part was not the end, but the path that lead to it. If he didn't find entertainment in kicking his ass in Scrabble anymore, Grimmjow could very much consider their relationship as over.
He scanned the board and his pieces, surely there must be something that would at least spark up the game. And when he found it, he bit his lip. He knew what he had to do. Enough was enough.
'Sorry'.
Ulquiorra's eyes widened when he saw what Grimmjow was writing. Not only did he score a triple point box (he wasn't lying about 'having a good one', that was worth a considerable amount of points), but he understood exactly what it meant. It wasn't random, he knew; Grimmjow would've never used such a word given the current circumstances, unless he wanted to get something through. And Ulquiorra got the message loud and clear.
He sipped his tea quietly and glanced at his own letters, then at Grimmjow's last word. A hint of a smile drew itself briefly on his face, but it quickly disappeared.
"I admit I am impressed. It is quite an unexpectedly good move." He commented nonchalantly "I, on the other hand, have not been smiled upon by fortune. I'm afraid I have to swap".
He noticed Grimmjow rolling his eyes. The blue-haired man always did that when he caught him using complicated figures of speech.
As he pulled out a new batch of letters, he smiled again. Now fortune was really smiling at him.
Grimmjow noticed his confident smile and quirked an eyebrow with curiosity.
"Well, I'm not that cool either, guess I'll swap too."
Ulquiorra knew what that meant. Grimmjow was waiting for his answer, and he was ready to give it. He took a deep breath and placed the letters on the board with stern concentration. His heart skipped a beat when he placed the last letter.
'Marry me'
Grimmjow stared. He blinked perplexed and he stared some more.
"Oi! You can't write two words! I don't care if you use the "blank", you're not supposed to write more than one word, stupid!"
Ulquiorra then stared at Grimmjow, blinked perplexed, and stared again.
"Grimmjow, I just proposed marriage to you and you are lecturing me about the rules of Scrabble."
"Well of course I am! You were the one who was always 'Grimmjow, you can't use names', "Grimmjow, you can't use shorthands", 'Grimmjow, blah is not a word', so if I have to respect the rules then obviously you… you did what?"
Ulquiorra smacked his face with his hand. Grimmjow's absentmindedness could be cute at times, but some other times it was just too much for him to bear.
"Do I really have to ask you to read it?"
The blue-haired man slowly redirected his sapphire eyes to the board to reread the words written on it. Then he looked up to meet Ulquiorra's emerald eyes.
"You… you really… What the fuck? What kind of proposal is that, to begin with? It's more like you're ordering me to do it, rather than asking! And, and… Gay marriage is not legal in Japan, you're supposed to be the smart one, why do I have to tell you something so obvious?..."
Ulquiorra ignored Grimmjow's rant for a minute or two. He sipped his cup of tea while watching the younger man fuming and hollering whatever incoherent things. It was somehow amusing. But when he ran out of tea, he covered Grimmjow's mouth with his hand and looked at him straight in the eye.
"Yes, I am making a statement, not asking for your opinion; yes, I know it is not legal, which means much less paperwork."
The sapphire-eyed male blushed and looked away.
"W-well, if you really thought it through that much, then at least propose properly, you idiot."
The emerald-eyed teacher held his former student's hand and took it to his lips gently. He looked up to meet the younger one's eyes. With his free hand he reached out to the board and grabbed a couple of letters, just to place them on his lover's open palm.
"Marry me." He read out loud, from the words he had picked up from the game.
Grimmjow blushed harder and glanced at the letters on his palm for a moment, unable to keep Ulquiorra's intense stare. He then picked the letters himself and rearranged them, removing most of them and showing the resulting word to Ulquiorra, unable to read it aloud.
'Yea'
The raven-haired teacher smiled, he stood up and pulled Grimmjow upwards as well, dropping the letters to the ground.
"You do know you missed an 'h', right?"
"Oi! If you can get away with writing two words, I'm allowed to skip one letter. You didn't use an 'h' in your stupid proposal you…!"
Ulquiorra cut him off with a sudden kiss.
"Marry me."
Grimmjow sighed in defeat and smiled.
"Yeah."
End
Because many people asked for it and I wanted some sort of romantic closure to the story, I give you this little epilogue for my Tales of Imagination. I liked how I had used the Scrabble game in chapter three of the original story, so I tried to bring that back for this one.
Just a few notes. Koyomiya is a play on words with Las Noches. I just fooled around with the pronunciation of the Kanji –to the point I forgot for a moment where I got the name from- The word "Sorry" if striking a triple point, can give you 24 points. Nothing spectacular, but pretty decent –useless info is useless.
I hope everyone enjoyed it and I hope it didn't come out to OOC. Review please!