Chapter Two: My Jet-black Heart
…
As revealed earlier, my mother was intent on tying the knot with the geezer no matter what. No matter fucking what, I repeat. The best explanation she could offer me was, she was tired of being left alone and being treated badly by men. Whether or not she realized that marrying was one hundred percent NOT the answer to this sort of dilemma, none could tell. But, at any rate, all that was left of her faculties, as it turned out, was her determination to marry Ishiin Kurosaki.
The civil ceremony took place right after my team's trial/practice match against a relatively strong team in the same region, Kanto. This team was the Juujika Gakuen Bullets. In the city hall, my brother and I plus Ichigo and his twin sisters were the key witnesses to the everlasting bullshit vow. Since I, together with my loser teammates, had lost the fucking practice game earlier on, whatever comfort I might have availed myself throughout the so-called wedding could perhaps be traced from the fact that it was briefer and simpler than I expected. In the end, however, it occurred to me that this little ceremony was no more than the tip of the iceberg. Soon, the newly pronounced man and wife would have to move in with each other, if only to adhere to the conventions of society, and with them should come their children, which included… me.
For me, the whole issue of having to crash into a house full of strangers was secondary to the moral aspect of the whole affair. At any rate, it was around seven o' clock then, one day after her wedding, when she walked into my room while I was grudgingly watching the replay of the accursed practice match my team had just lost. My soreness went as bad as to fasten my eyes on the fucking footage, which was currently showing how the Bullets' sophomore Linebacker, whose name was Renji Abarai, tackled the shit out of Hisagi. Well, Renji Abarai was said to be the strongest Linebacker in Kanto so maybe this time I could forgive my teammate. All the same, I couldn't tell why I went on to repeatedly watch the stupid game footage. Perhaps my imagination went as far as to have myself expecting we'd win if I rolled in the footage for like twenty times or so. But I heard my mother say,
"I know it's difficult for you, Grimmy, but you and Szayel need a father."
"Correction: you need a husband."
She simply failed, without allusion to anything else, to understand. She failed to understand that my brother and I had been faring along perfectly fine with how things had gone on—until she had decided to pledge herself to someone. Hadn't I been living my life without ever getting to know whose sperm it had been that had fucking converted her egg to the human that was me?
"Son, understand that I'm still young. The fact is, I managed single-handedly to raise you just fine because you were mostly alone during your childhood. And now Szayel is growing up. My hands are full, as things are."
If this happened to be the best argument she could come up with, screw it, I'd quit being her son as soon I get a decent job. Moreover, her delusions of having raised me just fine was irking me. Just fine? I didn't even have the slightest idea as to who my father was!
"I'm effing busy." I muttered, and I truly was.
"Well, your room will be in the attic of our new house. You'll have the entire attic floor to yourself."
She left, with no further entreaty concerning my lack of cooperation, much like someone who was short on ideas on how to counter an intellectual response, leaving me thinking of my kid brother.
It wasn't a wonder why I found it hard to trust women and their judgments. Sometimes, they were liable to bring about their own unhappiness, and more often they were responsible for other people's ruin. Take my math teacher for instance. On the first time she had laid eyes on me, the gaze suspiciously had lasted longer than necessary. I right away had figured something in her had been screaming to be defiled. Sure enough, upon handing over my first failed major exam in mathematics, she had summoned me to her cubicle where a negotiation had ensued. Rumor had it that she was exactly the type who would not take the effort to give her students the coveted second chances. For that reason, students like Starrk, who was lazy as fuck, would rather accept the glaring 'F' than to conduct negotiations. In my case, I only had to unzip my pants to set her altering my unfortunate grades. I'd been fucking her brains out every Friday night since then outside the knowledge of everyone else besides us, with the exception of Ulquiorra, who was a confidante to me.
Did I enjoy screwing her? Sometimes yeah, and sometimes my trip to her apartment ended up more of a duty rather than a means of fulfilling carnal urges. But in many of these occasions, I left her bed disgusted with myself.
Disgusted with my life.
…
Kurosaki Residence had only three bedrooms excluding the extra room on the uppermost floor, which was to be mine. For my convenience, Dr. Kurosaki had had it cleared of dusts and other such junks so that it now utterly looked less like an attic as a living room was. On the whole, it was now fit for human dwelling. However, its size and makeover look did nothing to dispel my misgivings.
That I was pissed with the new environment was of little doubt. Less freedom was in store for me. To add on that, I had two pairs of parental eyes to detain my delinquency and to monitor my temper. To be quite honest, I was putting up with this arrangement as best as I could, but the prospect of having to endure less privacy for a long time ahead was too much for me to contemplate. With all these restrictions, the difference between cursing aloud and raising my middle finger could mean life or death.
So now I was heaving box after box of the useless junk I liked to call my things over three flights of stairs. Sweating like a bastard and panting like a sprinter, I reckoned the sound of shrieks issuing from the family hall on the second floor was enough to raise bloody havoc in my chest. Why? Because the twin girls were playing some childish board game with li'l bro.
Just when I was starting to think I could only give their enjoyment cursory attention, Ichigo burst from his room. From the corners of my eyes, I could see he had a pair of Beats headphones around his neck and he was wearing a pair of overlarge reading glasses. To complement those, his tight jeans were patched with Karakura Soccer Team's emblem. His v-neck plain white tee was loose in contrast. Fucking hipster. I hardly managed to get past the desire to bury my fist in his tummy.
But, on my fourth descent, I managed to steal a glimpse of the group, whereby it became apparent to me that Szayel was sitting on the hipster's lap, showing his new big brother the meaningless set of cards he was holding. They both looked so interested in the shit I was almost sure they were looking at some naked women's photos. Well, if this immediate intimacy had a rightful claim to my jealousy, I'd be damned.
Damn...That brat would normally wriggle out of my grasp if I so much as tried to grab his wrist! The hell was this shit!
I tromped off to the garage to haul from the trunk the last two of my boxes, which chiefly contained videotaped training drills, feeling as though I was in dire need of a shot in the arm, as the weight of my boxes had taken a toll on my biceps… not to mention I was pissed at Szayel. Hell, I couldn't forget the sight of him in so close a proximity with that bloke. Shit.
Just then, in the middle of my bitter musings, I detected someone behind me.
It was Ichigo.
He had left his headphones upstairs, which partially toned down his disagreeable attire. Nevertheless, the look he was giving me only served to aggravate my current frustrations.
"What?" I asked, my irritation shooting through lord-knew-where.
"Need a hand?" There was not the slightest hint of earnestness in his tone, much less amiability. Really, if my name wasn't Grimmjow, his offer might just enrapture me utterly until all I could feel was some sense of gratitude. So unless he could hand me the fucking playbook of his school's Football Team, the answer remained; 'No, I don't fucking need a hand. And shove off, prat.' Yes, that was what I was gonna say, with no self-restraint, no holds barred—
"Sure."
Shit. Just what was with this sometimes-comatose-and-sometimes-overactive state my mind was swinging off to? Damn it. Thus it happened, this idiocy or whatever name fitted it, as Ichigo approached the one remaining box in my mother's Camry's trunk.
I couldn't remember the exact manner by which he carried it about but we soon reached the attic with no word coming in between us. Upon relieving his arms of weight, he took his time nursing his forearms, surveying my room as he did so. Fact was, there had been a time when this type of outstaying a welcome, mine in particular, would have bothered me like hell; back when I had been more prone to losing my temper. But now I realized this dude ain't worth my time, much less my attention. So the offense was nearing its ripest form when I decided to open my mouth, only to be intercepted right on smack,
"Listen, I'm sorry about last time, about being cocky and insinuating that Kugo-sempai was gonna be the sure-shot MVP this year. I kinda browsed the website of the Football Tournament League yesterday, only to find out you are also a candidate for the MVP race this year. What I'm trying to say is, I didn't mean to sound rude or insensitive. It's just that my emotions got the better of me when you called European Football lame."
His apology was definitely not something I had expected. Nevertheless, it wasn't a guarantee that sincerity had been present in his little speech. For all I knew, he was simply fond of small talks. Because I was a vicious asshole, I stepped toward him, jeered in a way that was nearly predatory, and stopped my advance only until our faces were maybe five inches apart. I answered,
"If you're thinking I give one horseshit about the MVP award, you're mistaken. All I care about in this fucking world is winning, no more no less. An athlete like you ought to have realized that victory is everything. It's all there is to every freaking competition. Or have I overestimated you, Kurosaki Ichigo? Are you just some kind of a pretentious, passionless hipster under the guise of a sports jock? What do they call ya again, Attacking Midfielder? Fancy name for a pseudo-athlete, if you ask me."
At this point, both of us more or less had an idea as to how this exchange was going to end up. As he now was looking quite unfit for another insult, he took a step back and raised his palms as if to say 'I give up', and declared,
"Okay, know what, Grimmjow? We don't have to go this far. I know considering me as a friend is right at the bottom of your to-do list, but—"
"—Listen up because I mean to get this straight: this whole one big happy family charade disgusts me. You're my brother now as ordained by the law—I can't do a shit about that—but the connection ends there. So thanks for helping me with the boxes and piss off."
This time the expression on his face swelled to a form of some severe dislike, and with this development came a suspecting glare which seemed to assume I was off to launch a vendetta that would make everyone's life miserable. Or maybe I was imagining it. Whatever the case was, I had long before now resolved to make matters worse for my mother and my stepfather. And that was that, no more, no less.
"Well, at least I tried. Good day to you, then, brother." He muttered resignedly.
With a parting nod, he turned to his heels, fists stuffed in pockets, to complete a spectacle of an utter lack of concern for whatever my boorish conduct had been proposing to his imagination. Why, if only he knew what I was capable of and what I was willing to undertake, he'd be cowering behind his little sisters. So with more inward satisfaction, I grabbed him by the shoulder, to which he halted and I declared,
"I will break their marriage apart."
He gently brushed my hand from his shoulder, looking anything other than rattled, but his gaze, rest assured, looked very far from the unfeeling regard for which he seemed to be striving. Indeed, the next words he uttered pretty much spoke for the best threat he could come up with,
"Fine with me. But if you make any of my sisters cry a single tear or hurt my dad in whatever means, I swear to make you sorry for it in the future."
He commenced his exit, leaving me no feeling of insecurity, much less self-doubt, which could also mean I was such a heartless prick that any sharp observer might be sorry for me for the darkness plaguing my soul—if ever I had one. Of course, this also meant that my chances of enlisting his help to access the confidential recorded training drills of the Karakura Gakuen Football players had just went down the fucking drain… this was a wrong move perhaps. I should've pulled this shit off later, admittedly.
But something weird was happening. Just what was with this sudden inability to extricate my eyes from where stepbro had been, even as he had gone for a number of minutes? To top it off, the feel of his hand on mine was barely effacing, my heart beating in a crazy pace.
Could this mean I was not entirely heartless, at least not in a literal sense? Well, it couldn't be helped. I had just made an enemy out of my stepbrother. To be honest, my jet-black heart so fucking wished he hated me to hell already. Like, really.
TBC
A/N: Boring chapter, I know. Next chap coming right up soon. I happen to be just in the mood to continue this crap after having it rot in my hard disk for nearly two years. This may drag on up to several chaps, as I can't really limit myself to a few chapters. Sorry for that. And, oh, I may actually be capable of finishing this without delay lol.