Hola! Guess what? It hasn't been a month yet, and I updated! You proud of me? ^^ As I've said before, my chapter lengths are generally inconsistent, but lately they've been ending up a little over 2,000. So...basically, I'm going to try to keep most of my chapters around there. Obviously, there's going to be some exceptions, but I've found that's a good length for me. For now, at least.

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Not Normal

Chapter 6

Ichigo

I stared up at the house in front of me critically. It was a nice place, that I'd admit. Dove gray wood made up the outside, with white trim framing the roof and windows. The roof was shingled and navy blue, and it spread out in parts to partially cover the porch that wrapped around the front of the house. A neatly trimmed green lawn surrounded it, ending at the sidewalk I was standing on, and at the trees bordering the building. I liked it, but it was a little too neat looking for me. I wasn't sure what I had been expecting from Hitsugaya's house, but this wasn't it. Still, the building somehow fit.

My potential partner opened the door and walked out just as I thought that. When he raised his head and caught sight of me, his eyebrows lifted a few inches in mild surprise.

"Oh, you're actually on time," the boy observed. A vein pulsed on my forehead. Icy little bastard.

Why was I here again? Oh yeah, I was supposed to be helping Hitsugaya learn about supernaturals. Exactly how I wanted to be spending my Saturday: stuck in a library with an annoying kid.

"Is this a friend of yours?" a surprised voice asked from inside the house.

A brunette popped out from behind Hitsugaya, and I was met with a pair of warm brown eyes, big and doe-like, now trained on me.

"No, Momo, he is not," the white-haired teen responded flatly.

"Ouch," I feigned a wince, to which he only rolled his eyes.

"He's not?" the girl, Momo, asked with a puzzled stare. "Then why's he here?"

"Cause," was the unhelpful response.

"Fine," she muttered sulkily. "Don't tell me."

"I'm sort of like a tutor, I guess," I took pity on her, answering for him. Momo gave me a quizzical look.

"Tutor? But Shiro-chan always gets the highest marks in his classes..."

"What?" I guess I sounded more shocked than was necessary, because Hitsugaya sent me one of the darkest glares I'd ever seen.

"And why, pray tell, is that so hard to understand?"

"Um..."

"What he meant was I'm tutoring him," he lied smoothly to the girl. "He just confused them because he's quite dumb. Hence the tutoring."

"Oh," she paused, but seemed to accept the answer with a smile, which kind of pissed me off more than the original comment. "Alright then! Are you staying here?"

"No," we responded at the same time.

"We're going to the library," the boy continued, grabbing my wrist and towing me away. "See you later!" he called over his shoulder.

"Um, bye?" Momo blinked twice in confusion, not fully comprehending what had just happened. Her cousin was actually tutoring someone? How uncharacteristic of him. "Well, maybe he's trying to be more outgoing," she mused to herself happily, stepping back inside the house. "They seemed to get along well."

* * *

"So that girl was what, your sister?" I asked, finally breaking my wrist out of the brat's iron grip. He was deceptively strong, despite his fragile appearance. "You don't look alike."

"Cousin," he answered tersely. "She's staying with us for now because the college she's going to is really close."

"She's in college?!" The girl looked barely older than Hitsugaya! Was she really older than me?

"I know, my family's short," he snapped. "Get over it."

We lapsed into an uncomfortable silence. The day was warm, but fall was moving in quickly, as could be seen from the changing leaves adorning the trees lining the street, and the cool breezes that brushed past occasionally. He led me to a small park in his neighborhood, and I stopped.

"Why are we here?"

The boy plopped down on the ground next to a clear pond in the center, stretching out in a cat-like way. "It's too nice out," he declared. "I'm not going inside yet, and you can't make me."

For a minute, I just stared at him in disbelief. When he made no move to get up though, I sat down with a sigh. We sat by the pond in the center, skipping stones and enjoying the sun. I felt relaxed and happy, and found myself not really wanting it to end. But, of course, it had to.

"What now?" Hitsugaya asked with a sigh about half an hour later.

"Hm?" I responded lazily.

"I think we've wasted enough time here," he explained, regret laced through his words. "We should probably get to studying."

"Not yet," I said dismissively, not quite ready to go back to the underground base. "I'm kind of hungry. What do you say to grabbing some lunch first?"

"Sounds good," he agreed.

"What do you want?"

"Um," he thought for a minute. "How's Italian food sound?"

"Perfect," I said with a grin, then stood, brushing the dirt off my hands. He did the same. We headed into one of the busier parts of the city, and after much debating, decided on a little cafe a few blocks down from the White Lily. It was a nice place, and we sat outside, which made it infinitely nicer. The tables and chairs were made of black wrought iron curling in swirls and lines, with carved flowers scattered around, giving the impression of flowering vines. There was a white umbrella erected in the center of the table, providing some welcome shade. We talked quietly until our waiter showed up. Hitsugaya seemed to recognize him.

"G-Grimmjow?!" he asked in shock. "You work here?"

The waiter looked surprised too, eyebrows raising to almost touch his electric blue hair. "Yeah," he admitted grudgingly. "I needed the money. Who's your friend?"

"Not my friend," he responded immediately. "This is Ichigo. I'm tutoring him."

The blue-haired teen (Were strange hair colors popular in their school or something?!) didn't look convinced. "Whatever you say." Nothing else was said on the matter. "Well, moving on, what do you two want for lunch?"

"Pizza," my companion answered, thankful for the change of pace.

"Thought so," Grimmjow jotted it down on the small notepad in his hand. "Just cheese, right?"

"Yeah."

"How 'bout you?" He turned to me.

"Guess I'll have the spaghetti."

"Good choice," he wrote it down. "Drinks?"

"Water's fine," we responded at the same time.

He stared at us with a touch of skepticism, then shrugged. "Whatever. Makes my job easier. Be right back," he walked away, presumably to place our order.

"So he's got a job, huh?" Hitsugaya wondered, more to himself than me. "No wonder he's never around anymore."

"You two are good friends, then?" I asked.

"Yeah," he nodded. "I met him two years ago, when he transferred to my school."

"Hn." He took my response as a signal to continue.

"Actually, I didn't really like him at first," he admitted. "I thought he looked like a delinquent. That changed pretty quickly, though."

"What happened?" I asked. "Still looks like he could be in a gang to me."

He bit his lip, hesitating. "I used to be bullied when I first entered the school. I transferred at the beginning of the year, a few months before Grimmjow. A lot of people thought I skipped a few grades or something, which I didn't, cause of my height. That, plus my hair, kind of made me stand out, so..."

"Go on," I urged, genuinely curious.

"Well, one day I got to school and found my that some guys had spray-painted my locker as a joke. There were some swear words, and other stuff which I'll leave to your imagination. They even signed their names." Here, he snorted. "Idiots. Anyways, I ran away after that. The week had been bad so far, and I didn't need that shit right then."

I was surprised to hear the curse thrown in there, as it was a little unusual for him to just throw around swears like that.

"Anyways, Grimmjow's the one who found me afterwords. I don't even know if we'd talked to one another before then, but I guess he'd seen me leave school and followed. I was in the same park as earlier, cause I didn't want to go back to the house yet. He asked what was wrong. I needed someone to talk to, and didn't want to go back to school to find Matsumoto or Renji. So, I told him what had been going on the last few months. He listened to my rant without any interruptions, then, of all things, he started laughing afterwords. Surprisingly, it calmed me down a lot."

It was kind of weird to hear Hitsugaya basically telling me a story like that with such a blank face. He started smirking at this point though.

"When I got to school the next day, I found out the other boys had been beaten up pretty badly, and that my locker was completely clean. He's never said it to me directly, but I can guess that Grimmjow holds at least partial responsibility for all that. We've been friends since then. Honestly, he's like the older brother I never wanted until I met him."

"Is that so?" came a gruff voice from behind him. He jumped. I'd seen the other boy approach, but hadn't wanted to interrupt.

"Grimmjow!" he exclaimed, cheeks flushing. "How long have you been here?"

"Long enough," the other said, unashamed, and set down a glass of water in front of him.

A few moments of awkward silence followed while he put down our food. Hitsugaya reached for a slice of his pizza, but his friend was faster. Grimmjow snatched away a piece and bit into it, ignoring the boy's cries of indignation.

"Think of it as my tip," he winked, then sauntered away.

"Good, because you're not getting anything else!" Hitsugaya yelled after him. The blue-haired teenager's laughter faded as he walked away, and my companion resorted to sulking.

"Your pizza's getting cold," I pointed out before taking a bite of my own meal. That got his attention.

"Oh right," he grabbed a slice and bit down, savoring the flavor. "Mmmmm!" he mumbled something that sounded vaguely like "The pizza's great here!" through the food.

"Didn't your mom ever tell you not to talk with food in your mouth?" I reprimanded mockingly.

The boy swallowed. "Maybe she did, maybe she didn't."

"That makes sense," I muttered sarcastically. He shrugged. Silence fell on us as we ate. When Hitsugaya was full, he leaned back into his chair, apparently satisfied.

"...Thanks for listening," he said quietly.

"Hm?"

"Thanks for listening earlier," he repeated in embarrassment. "You're the first person I've ever told that story to. Even Matsumoto and Renji don't know what actually happened, though I think they can guess most of it." What he didn't say, and what I wouldn't know until long afterwords, was that this was the most he'd said to a single person since when he'd met Grimmjow in the first place.

"It's nothing," I mumbled awkwardly. I wasn't good with these sorts of things. More silence followed. I decided to go out on a limb. "If you ever need someone to talk to about that stuff, um, I'll, well, you know where to find me," I finished lamely, mentally kicking myself for how stupid that sounded.

He stared at me for a minute in surprise, then gave me a small smile. It was a beautiful, genuine smile, the kind that makes you feel warm inside. My stomach fluttered momentarily. What was that about?

"Thanks," was the soft response.

My food suddenly seemed very interesting. Hitsugaya seemed to think the same thing.

"Tutor, huh?"

We both jumped at Grimmjow's voice. The white-haired boy turned to glare at him.

"Will you stop doing that?" he yelled.

"Doing what?" the other asked innocently.

"You know what I mean! Don't play innocent with me!"

They continued like this for a while, Grimmjow's frown getting less prominent by the minute. By the end, he was laughing.

"What do you want, anyway?" Hitsugaya calmed down slightly.

"This," he held up the check, trying to regain control through his fit of chuckles. He sort of succeeded.

"Oh right," I remembered, taking the slip of paper from him.

"I'll-" Hitsugaya started, but I quickly cut him off.

"I'll pay," I said, fishing around in my pocket for my wallet. I checked the amount written on the check, then handed the blue-haired boy a few folded bills. He counted them quickly, then nodded.

"You want change?" he asked.

"Nah," I was in a good mood.

Grimmjow smirked at Hitsugaya, who was now scowling.

"Whatever," he grumbled. His friend reached over and ruffled his hair.

"See you on Monday," he said before walking away. Hitsugaya watched him leave, a smile tugging at his lips. I checked my cellphone for the time, then groaned.

"What?" he questioned.

"We got to go." I sighed. "Now."

"Okay." We left the restaurant, and headed down the street. There was little conversation. I guess we were both too wrapped up in our own thoughts.

I know I was.