Chapter VII: The Visitor

I scramble about, not knowing where to put my thoughts next, as the night stretches on to be a potential, if not certain horror, what with Grimmjow Jaggerjack, a vampire unidentified, hanging around outside my window in God knows what manner. Whether he's currently floating in midair or doing some Spiderman-class acrobatics out there I don't wanna know.

"Will you let me in?" He repeats, and his voice now assumes some type of impatience. I am trembling, trembling in very much the same manner that normal people do when they're confronted with realities such as being haunted by a real-life, blood-sucking hound of hell.

I'm carping about my room as I put behind the urge to slap the shit out of my mouth for responding to the bastard's call, because there's a shitload of more crucial things to undertake; I gotta get my hands on a Bible or a cross; any damn protection from the impending evil—

"Hey, Kurosaki, I know you can hear me. I can hear you from ten miles away, what with the ruckus you're concocting with the pieces of furniture in there. Come on, open up." He warns with a gathering, rather urgent, emphasis.

"N—no fucking way!"

"Eh? Just—dammit, if you don't, I'll—"

"—I'll call the police! No—I'll call a priest and fetch a Bible if you so much as try to enter!"

"What the—? What the hell is your problem? Just what the fuck is with all these stupid threats like anything holy would damn kill me?"

"Hah! You think horsing around like that would be your salvation? FYI, I have a stack of Bibles in here, man, and if you don't clear the hell out I swear I'll—"

"—dammit, Kurosaki, at least draw the fucking curtains so I can at least see you. And stop being a stupid prat; it's embarrassing, other than making a damn racket at this time of day, if you must know." He says without resorting to a high note. Didn't he just say that in a pleading tone, so as to suspend all the unnecessary shit enlisted in my mind?

"…"

"Please?" It's not something I can classify as absolute sincerity; on the contrary, I have a pretty good feeling the word was wrenched out of him through tightly clenched jaws.

"W—what do you want, Grimmjow?"

"I—I want to—dammit, I asked if you could part the curtains. Can you do that?"

"No—yes— no—I don't know! What did you come here for?"

"Know what, Kurosaki? This is fucking stupid, and I hate, seriously hate, to be trapped in a fucking stupid situation just like precisely where I am now. Now you'll save me the trouble of cutting the stupidities by parting the damn curtains, in which case half of the stupidities goin' on will be eliminated. How's that?" He proposes. I gotta give him props for the guts, and then I can fetch a goddamn stake and impale his damn chest with it.

Somehow, I've come to restore order in my mind and managed to say, "You're the one who got yourself into this, moron; no one asked you to climb the shit all the way up here. If you must know, this day has been the most tiresome one I've had to date. And now here you are, destroying my lovely peace. And if it isn't too much to ask, what in bloody fuck do you want, Grimmjow?"

"You're the one who's being a fucking, tedious, unmanageable git. What sort of imbecile is incapable of parting the damn curtains anyway? Or do you want me to use your front door? Your dad's downstairs, munching on a bucket of popcorn with your two li'l sisters. I presume they'd give me a more pleasant welcome than what you're pulling on me right now."

Like a quick sedative his threat extends to me to nullify my ungrounded hostility. Slowly, I draw the curtains out.

He is seated on the narrow molding of my windowpane with his back against the glass. Explaining how he managed to heave his way up here seems to hold no attraction for him as it is unsurprising to me.

"What do you want?"

He doesn't turn his head to me, which comes to me as a contradiction of his earlier pleas about drawing the curtains shit and wanting to see me.

"I wasn't even able to say goodbye to you. The next thing I knew was you had gone off and had hit the damn road." He states with some difficulty.

Amid the directness he has shown so far, he still hasn't come around to looking at me, and I, being always insufficiently quick of the brain, merely twitch.

"T—that's all? You came all the way here for that?"

"Yeah. Now that it's said and done, you've all the right reasons to point your damn finger at Ulquiorra, that crazy prick. He took about, what, ten hours to pack you in your dad's car? The fucking maniac. Of course I couldn't have gotten anywhere near that jerk, if ya know what I mean."

Man, this dude has far overstepped my comfort zone. Even in between the curses and low-level name-callings, I can clearly guess the whole point of this meeting; he's saying he wants to see me, and all this doesn't suggest less than that. This is getting sick, I'm telling you.

Feeling impelled to lift my guard, I say, "Alright. You can't remain seated there for a second more."

"Good idea."

I throw one window panel open. With incredible agility he conducts himself into my room. For my part, I try to look composed—to little spectacular avail. Hints of approval are visible on his face upon his entrance.

"It's not too much." I say, offering more explanations than what's needed.

"It's neat; I can give it that." He turns to me with a face that seems to watch for more than words from me. With what little space there is between us, he draws near. He's so close now; close enough for me to scrutinize his damn face and relate it to the light that falls on it. But, upon longer inspection, I learn that being this close to him reveals to me a sort of beauty which no manipulation of light could have conveyed.

"So you have eyes only for Ulquiorra?"

That kills the gathering staleness that's threatening to overcome us.

"I can't make fucking head or tail on why you keep having this atrocious idea about me and your damn brother. To be quite frank, this sort of joke doesn't even strike me as funny anymore." I snap, in full knowledge of having taken my annoyance farther than I had to.

"Okay, okay, fine. I didn't come here to piss you off. Will that do for a start? As I have already mentioned, I only dropped by to say goodbye."

"The deuce you did. That's a lotta bull, Grimmjow. What the hell do you want? I mean, I'm not even gonna ask you what sort of sorcery you applied on your goddamn legs to vie against my dad's driving which can pitch up to an unholy 155 on the speedometer, mind you, and that's saying I don't even know who got here first. Yeah, you don't have to inform me that you didn't drive your way here."

A restrained amusement now seems conspicuous in his manners. Without a second of hesitation he answers, "Your dad drives faster than what my body can pull. You guys beat me into arriving here first; that, I gotta admit. I can go for as high as ninety, but only for a few seconds. A little above that would be pushing it. I reckon Stark can go as fast as 120 or so. So, now that you know, are you disappointed in me, Kurosaki?" He is smirking in the most obtrusive way even in realizing his candor is not appreciated, a fact made evident by my exaggerated scowl.

"Not really. I think you're kinda fast, inhumanly fast, if I may be allowed to venture. Inhuman. Yeah, isn't that the perfect word for you?" I answer, as if this sort of conversation were a mere accident of the day. My thoughts, though vague, force themselves onward, only to reveal that the fear I had since the dream hasn't left me, just as my mental, ardent pursuit of their secret hasn't effaced.

He continues to grin, a grin whose malignity has the frequency, regularity, permanency, and the inevitability of the sun. He raises his palm and reaches out for my hair, stroking the strands with his fingers. Unfortunately, this approach I neither defy nor conform to, because I've never once been remarked by a clearness of mind.

I hear him ask, "Now that you know what I am, aren't you scared of me?"

With a million shit-piles preying on my mind, though somehow at the same time feeling no bodily fear can deter me, I answer,

"No. I can't possibly be scared of someone who goes around as though he couldn't have lived without me. You know, someone who follows me around, always ever on the lookout for some chance of an encounter, has no absolute chance of scaring me. Tell me now, Grimmjow, do you want my blood?"

He freezes in motion, as though my words have hit him like something that's capable of shattering out his existence. It appears all that's left for him is to withdraw his hand from my hair and postpone the activities of his formerly smirking face.

"What makes you think I want your blood?"

"Vampire, that's what you are."

He's looking thoroughly taken aback now, perhaps unable to identify which appropriate reaction to choose.

"Ulquiorra didn't tell you anything that leads to something like that."

"You were friggin' ten yards away when Ulquiorra and I were talking in front of your house, and in very low voices at that too; like, we were pulling some major 0.002 decibels back there. You heard that too, huh, superhuman?" I say it almost like an indiscreet accusation.

"…"

I continue with high conviction, "You want this sort of game, don't you? You thought I wouldn't be of the right material to recognize anything upon the slightest pretexts that you ain't normal. You touched down, equipped with the best of your malice, perhaps aiming to scare me off my wits with your subtle implications of you being supernatural and all. And now when I've gone past half-believing it you're giving me that sort of face? What is it that you want, exactly?"

In his confusion he seems to be losing his grip on his usual demeanor. He takes a step backward before allowing his arms to drop on his sides with a heavier weight than they should have. But his gaze remains fastened on mine, ponderous and cautious, with neither condition predominant, and at long last he opens his mouth,

"What makes you so sure I am what you claim to be?"

"Intuition? Frankly, I can't be too sure. Perhaps it has to do with the fact that, underneath it all, I'm smarter than I think I am. Returning to the subject, you still haven't answered my question." I say sternly, and, coming from someone who has never before made a consistent effort to dare, I have to say I am deserving of a few credits here. On a more realistic scale, my boldness now is probably only one wink short of suicide.

Grimmjow looks away with a serious attempt of assuming a face that's least allied to discomfort. He can have been a picture-perfect sight if it weren't for my being in danger of getting myself killed any minute now, which I wholeheartedly think isn't a contingency but a certainty.

He sinks on my bed, and slides his palm over his forehead and all the way down to the back of his head. With careful inhibition, he plunges into a more or less censored account of his plight,

"I wanted to draw you into me. When I first stumbled upon you, that time in that accursed fire exit, I figured you were, without a question, something—someone who was suffused with that specific scent that could've sent my world tumbling headlong to chaos. Yes, it's your blood that I want."

Our eyes meet in such a fashion that bodes nothing remotely consequential, at least not yet. I surmise it's too late now to regret having cared more for immediate satisfaction than for remote consequences. I have unraveled the secrets of Dr. Aizen's family, and in doing so have called my due; I'm gonna die here, all because I went too deep into this mess just to feed my curiosity.

"You came to kill me." I speak out, not as gravely as what my words imply.

He gives a start, and a series of disapproving facial contortions reoccurs hereafter. He's shaking his head distastefully, as though he's denying an assertion made by someone somewhere.

After a long silence, he mutters with some disgust, "I wouldn't do that on god's green Earth."

This remark makes no result other than the gradual cessation of my fear and the abrupt accumulation of incomprehension.

"You're not gonna kill me? You said—"

"I said I only dropped by to say goodbye, Jesus. Wanting your blood is scarcely derivable to killing you. Crimeny, you turn out to be more difficult than a damn army of lunatics."

His irritation surfaces into a fine distinction amidst his strained mannerisms. I make for the empty chair beside my bed. He doesn't intend to kill me, he said. With one small claim so lacking in full assurance my discomfiture has departed elsewhere. The fear he generates and the lurking hazards residing in his being have dissolved to mere potentialities in this one swift minute. Finally, all my misgivings about this have become dim almost to extinction…

"How's it like being a vampire?"

"What—I'll tell you some other time. After all, I've no plans of outstaying my welcome. Rest the night away. I'll see you some other time." he bids curtly with a slightly demanding reticence that hints on his need to steer the subject to a different direction.

He stands up, in which an influx of thoughts loosen themselves from the narrow prisons of my mind. I ask him,

"You said it's my blood that you want. What that alludes to is your thirst for it. Then why won't you bury your damn fangs on me?"

His pace slackens until he becomes entirely bereft of motion. Don't get me wrong; pulling one's scramming to a stop isn't generally my idea of a brilliant last-minute, parting remark. It's that I really can't make out why he has chosen not to subdue his hunger for my blood by attempting to drink from my veins.

"If I do that you'll get killed. I can't do that because, well—yeah, you're probably right; I'm this someone who wouldn't perhaps live without you."

TBC

A/N: There's GrimmIchi for everyone. This is scarcely edited; pardon me for the errors.