Rukia is a world renowned chef. Sleepy Grimmjow is sleepy.


My door bell rings.

"Morning." Rukia comes holding a tiny potted cactus in her hand.

She pushes her way through inside before I can think anything of the situation and heads straight into the living room. I follow her.

There, I find her moving stuff from my window sill and looking at it from all the angles.

Does she think she's some researcher?

She shrieks.

A mad scientist, definitely.

She takes my half empty - I had some?- tic tacs and throws it in the direction where she assumes the dust bin is.

I almost shriek. I changed it's place, dammit.

I stand there and watch as she carefully places the potted plant on the window sill -not before dusting the place off like some well mannered hostel warden- and then she huffs.

"I have been invited to Australia to be the guest chef for a cooking competition. I wanted to leave my baby with you."

I'm not sharp enough to control my face.

"I mean my Echinocactus." she waves vaguely. I don't respond. She looks unimpressed. "My cactus. This plant. I want you to take care of it."

I want to tell her I know what a cactus is and then ask her why I'm the last person to hear about this arrangement when I'm being held responsible for another life form.

But Rukia had woken me up from my sleep. The sleep I have had for roughly an hour.

"You aren't talking much. Graveyard shift?" I frown at her.

She rolls her eyes. "Look. Taking care of my cactus is easy. Sunlight at all times. Moderate watering and with warm water. Nothing more or less." She takes out her phone, possibly to call her manager. "Any faults and I will have your balls."

I grimace and start to head towards my bedroom, giving up.

But there's a knock on my door.

I open it and I want to say that I have a doorbell. This isn't the 1900's.

And that it's really very early in the morning.

I find my neighbor on the other side.

"Hello, I'm Ichigo, your neighbor." I notice the friendly smile on his face and then the bag of cookies in his hands.

"Oh yeah. This." His smile is apologetic now. "It's for last week when I puked in your bathroom. I was really drunk." He extends the bag of cookies like a peace offering.

"Sorry, man." His eyes are really sparkly. Like some small animal's. Like a Deer's. Like Bambi.

"Thanks." I say finally. I take the bag and put my other hand on the back of the door.

Well. This is not awkward.

"Okay! So I'll just," Bamb- Ichigo tucks his lips between his teeth and points a thumb toward his own door.

I give a nod.

He pats his shorts with both hands and turns around. I close the door.

Rukia is walking toward me with her gaze fixed on her phone screen.

"I messaged you with instructions because you are clearly being a dumbass right now." She looks up and then frowns.

"Where didja get the cookies?"

"Neighbor."

"The hot one?"

I don't dignify that with a reply.

She looks horrified. "You opened the door looking like that?"

I look down.

...

"Where are my pants?"

She snorts. "More like, where is your brain."

Rukia snatches -steals the bag of cookies from my hands and opens the door.

"Don't kill yourself, and much more importantly, don't let anything happen to my cactus."

"Dumbass." She says and closes the door.


I have never eaten an authentic cookie.