CHAPTER SEVEN
A thick snowfall blanketed the landscape of Seireitei as Kurosaki Ichigo trudged across the parking lot towards his hometown's arena.
It looked like the perfect day. Crystal clear. Bright and still.
A limitless, blue sky spread itself out above the orange haired hockey player. He squinted against the daylight as he paced across the lot. The sun's reflection on the fresh snow was so bright it was nearly blinding. That was the thing about winter days. Even though the picture perfect scene always gave the illusion of sun and warmth, it was in fact very cold.
It was late afternoon, four pm to be precise about it, and the sun was already bearing down on the horizon. And despite the fact that a lazy wind was beginning to blow, signalling a change in the weather, and slipping her icy fingers right down the front of his open jacket, Ichigo did nothing to prevent the goosebumps from raising the nearly invisible hairs on his chest. It was refreshing. Invigorating. He was enjoying it, savouring the chill, because in less than three hours, he would be nothing but hot, sweaty, fatigued, and frustrated.
A cloudy apparition formed in the air as he sighed aloud. It curled and spread like steam in front of him, then vanished as if it had never been.
Ichigo wished for a moment that he could perform the same trick, take a day off, or two, or three, or move... to another city, another team... hell... another career.
The thin layer of snow that had ducked beneath the blade of the plough squeaked beneath the souls of his winter boots. Brown eyes shut for a moment. He was being ridiculous... a child. He did not have the luxury of being a child anymore. Ichigo opened his eyes and looked to the thing that usually lifted his spirits, and he snorted at the irony, that another glance up to the purest blue sky had only served to pull his mood lower. That mask of blue was just an image for the world to see, a shell, a false beauty that hid what really lay behind it... a cold, violent, empty space. Blackness and distance. Unreachable.
Annoying.
Ichigo shook his head and looked up at the rounded building that dominated the landscape ahead of him. Hockey. He had to keep his mind on hockey. Just that, and only that. Okay, then.
So far, Ichigo's day had been good. Well. Nothing bad had happened, anyway. But he had a pretty damn good idea how the night would end. Another loss was practically inevitable. It was a terrible attitude to go into a game with, but he was struggling just to keep his head straight these days. In fact, he did his level best not to even think of hockey until he was at the stadium.
He heaved his gear higher up onto his shoulder as he avoided a slick patch of ice.
"Nice Ichigo," he mumbled. "Avoid your problems, why don't you?"
And why the hell not? They'll still be there tomorrow
Jesus Christ. Listen to him.
He snorted, then glanced around, eyes scanning the parking lot in a transient burst of concern to see if anyone had noticed.
Nothing.
Ichigo growled to himself, shrugging further into his jacket out of habit, and kept walking. The lot was nearly empty except for a few cars that had pulled in just ahead of him. He was one of the first to arrive. He didn't want to be here, but he needed time to gear up and get mentally ready for the game. He needed to focus. And as soon as it was over, he'd stuff it all back into his hockey bag and throw it in the corner and think about the other things in his life that mattered. Like his family.
Christmas was nearing, and though it was still a week away, it seemed like the day was already upon them. He had to admit, he was excited about the season, despite the intolerable advertising campaigns and Christmas jingles that had been jamming up the airwaves of every television and radio since practically the day after Halloween.
Ichigo had always liked Christmas as a rule. The time he spent with his family... well, his sisters... he always considered time well spent. And this year he could afford to get them the presents they really wanted, instead of sticking to the family rule of forty dollars or less. Ichigo's father had always been a bit of a stickler over giving presents. He'd made it a firm rule not to spend outrageous amounts of money on special occasions, because gifts, he said, were about the thought you put into it, about showing that you knew a person and cared enough to pay attention to the things they enjoyed, not how much you spent. Well, his old man may be a bit 'round the bend most of the time, but he'd gotten things right as far as raising his kids was concerned. They'd all turned out pretty darn good in Ichigo's opinion, and they did know how to make each other happy on forty dollars or less.
Too bad Ichigo was going to break that rule this year. And there was no way his dad could throw a fit about it either.
Things weren't always sweet at the clinic and sometimes Isshin had to make small sacrifices to give his family all the things they needed, like college tuition. Ichigo knew his dad had set up college funds for both the girls, but it wouldn't even cover half of everything. And though the girls were both seventeen now and had jobs of their own, it would still be a struggle. Ichigo didn't want his sisters to worry about payments and jobs while they attended classes, nor did he want them to be saddled with debt after college, so he was going to make a hefty donation of his own to each of the girls' funds.
On second thought, his dad would pitch a fit, and he would probably go and scratch at that insufferable painting of their late mother, whining on and on about how Ichigo was now acting like the man of the house, yadda yadda. Well, someone had to be. He smiled to himself as he crossed the parking lot, content to be lost in thought. But, as Ichigo neared the outer doors, and the massive building loomed ever larger, his smile faded.
He had another home game tonight, and on no conceivable level was Ichigo fucking looking forward to it. Not even for the workout. For the first time in a long time, the last thing he felt like doing was playing hockey.
They were barely two and a half months into the season, and the team was playing like it had lost an engine. Things weren't looking good for the Reapers at all. Not at all. Ichigo, for one, was off his game. His usual average of twelve shots on net per game, and at least two or three goals, had fallen in just a few weeks down to a miserable five and fuck all. Ichigo had been towing the line in penalties lately too. His normally only moderately volatile temper was now a complete disaster.
And despite Ichigo's best efforts to avoid the humiliation of a shut out, their last two away games had resulted in exactly that. They didn't score a single goal. They were fucking skunked, and by teams that by all rights they shouldn't have had any trouble beating. Last night's home advantage win against the Hollow's had given the team a small boost, but their confidence needed a lot more than just a one goal win in the closing minutes of a neck and neck game to be restored.
Ichigo was at a complete loss. He wasn't used to sucking this bad. It just wasn't his style. He almost always found a way to break through the other team's defences and take down their goalie. His shots on goal weren't the highest in the NHL but usually, when he saw an opening and took a shot, it invariably found its way in. There wasn't a goalie in the league that wasn't a little bit shaken when they saw number fifteen cross the blue line into their territory and wind up for a slap shot.
Or at least that's how it had been until recently. Ichigo was in some kind of slump. His timing was off. His temper was short. And his nerves were shot. Something was definitely upsetting Ichigo's and the team's mojo, and Ichigo could point to at least one giant, blue, upsetting thing, a key source of friction, the one player who was the nails to Ichigo's chalkboard. By now, Ichigo was so far off his game that he wasn't entirely sure if getting away from the sexta would even help, but Ichigo had asked for a change in his lineup anyway. And surprise surprise, the team's coach wouldn't hear it. He felt like he'd hit a brick wall, but he wasn't alone.
The whole team was in an upheaval, and they needed to start winning some games if they had a hope in hell of ever making the playoffs.
Last night had been one giant fuck up after another, until the dying minutes of the game when Ichigo actually managed to break the tie and slide a shot past the Hollow's goalie. And he'd done it after Grimmjow had been kicked out. He felt rather vindicated by that fact, but he wondered if it wouldn't somehow come back to bite him in the ass. Maybe he was being paranoid, but he swore up and down that Grimmjow had given him one mean look as he left the ice after pummelling Ulquiorra into it. He was pretty sure Grimmjow was going to find a way to blame him. He always did. The Sexta was known for throwing world class hissy fits when things didn't go his way. Some might call it hockey, but Ichigo knew better. The blue haired enforcer often vented his frustrations on the other team's players. You could almost rate his anger by the body count.
And from Ichigo's recent personal experience, the enforcer wasn't shy about taking it out on his own teammates as well.
In a round about way... more aptly... a passive aggressive bitch way... Grimmjow had taken some of his ire out on Ichigo last night. And he had a rather embarrassing set of bruises in a very personal place to show for it.
...
The cold metal frames of the doors to the building screeched in protest as they dragged against each other, then closed, and the team's private parking area was again devoid of movement and sound. A minute or two passed before the wintery peace was once gain breached, this time by the distant deep rumble of eight cylinders and a large exhaust pipe.
A lone bird, perched atop a light post, took flight as the guttural growl drew closer.
Grimmjow swung into the parking lot and kicked the gears of his sports car down with careless disregard as he brought the vehicle to a hard stop in what he assumed to be the general vicinity of his usual spot. He couldn't quite make out the lines between his space and the next with the dusting of snow that had settled since the plough had been by, but as of now that was of little concern to him.
The engine continued to idle while his right hand remained clasped tight around the black leather clutch as if it were a vibrating lifeline. He wasn't really here until he let it go. Hell, he might as well have been napping at the wheel on the drive over. He was so fucking distracted, he barely even remembered getting here.
Grimmjow growled to himself inside the vehicle. He had half a mind to slip the clutch back into first and just keep on driving, but he was under contract. It was a job. And he was no flake. But did they even need him?
The minute Grimmjow had left last night's game, the party had started. The Reapers had won. Life had gone on without him, only better.
Tonight was day two of back to back home games. Grimmjow had been ejected from the game last night, and no amount of creative diversion could unlock the jaws of his mind from the grudge it had been set on nursing. Grimmjow had woken up late in the morning just as disgruntled as he'd been when he'd finally gone to bed the night before.
He'd done his laundry, failed at jacking off, tried to watch a movie, then ended up pacing holes in his carpet before eventually heading out to the gym down the street and working out his not so repressed anger and sexual issues on the punching bags in the corner. Thank god the place was open late and virtually empty. His patience for people was drained dry. He needed to be left alone to let his grievances out on the sand hard, black bag. Not that his workout had even scratched the surface, let alone made a dent in his sour mood. He'd wailed on the leather bags until his knuckles ached, but there was no relief for it. The bag was a lousy replacement, and he couldn't take his frustrations out on the one person he wanted to. The image of the orange haired root of his problems was consuming, and the beating he wanted to lay on him was filling every conceivable space in his head.
Grimmjow pulled the keys from the ignition. Just the thought of seeing Kurosaki again sent an unpleasant shudder of uncontrolled anger careening through his gut. He wanted that punching bag again, but he had to shake it off. He had to get his anger under control. This game was important. The media and his team would be watching, even more so because of his less than stellar performance last night.
His father might even be watching. But he had given him nothing to be proud of.
The curve of the steering wheel was still cool as it pressed against his forehead. The dashboard rattled at the impact as the side of his fist came down hard.
He was coping. He was coping fine.
"Dammit," he muttered.
Grimmjow shoved the door open, hauled himself out of the driver's seat and slammed the door shut before heading to the trunk for his gear. He didn't know what surprises tonight's game was going to hold but he had a feeling, just an odd feeling, that something was going to come to a head, especially if last night's game against their much loathed opponents, the Hollows, was any indication.
...Last night's game
They'd been fighting tooth and nail for two straight periods, and as they headed into the third, the battle weary Soul Reapers were beginning to feel as demoralized as they were physically exhausted. From the moment the puck had dropped, the Hollows had had them on the defensive. Their strategy, it seemed, was to run the Reapers into the ground with bruising hits and a barrage of aggressive attacks. They were as dirty as ever, and even the referees didn't seem able to catch all the penalties. Dirty distraction tactics were making the reffing difficult, and the Hollow's were getting away with murder.
Shots on net were nearly 30 to 12 with no sign that the Hollows were slowing down. They had always been a dangerous team, but in just a few months, their new coach, Aizen Sosuke, had turned them into soulless animals. Their mandate was to either score or destroy.
And winning or not, they just didn't let up.
The Reaper's blue-eyed enforcer was barely able to keep up with the onslaught. His presence was having little impact, and his frustration was growing visibly. He was far from alone, though.
Even Ichigo's temper was fraying. It was one of the roughest games Ichigo had played in a long time, and the calls against the Hollow's were having little effect on their unsportsmanlike behaviour. Another Reaper was dumped into the corner by an illegal hit, and Ichigo let loose on the referee standing closest to the injured player.
"Hey ref! I thought we were playin' hockey here!" Brown eyes flashed in anger as number fifteen tagged after the referee. "Open your friggin' eyes! That's a five minute penalty!"
According to the ref, though, a two minute penalty was good enough. Ichigo fumed as he left the ice to catch his breath.
His own piss-poor performance and the growing list of bad calls weren't the only things bothering Ichigo as the orangette took a seat along with the rest of the Soul Reapers. He and Grimmjow had been fighting like proverbial cats and dogs all evening. They were just as out of tune as ever but for some reason, the tension between them had risen high enough to melt the very ice they played on.
They were helping out the opposing team more than their own with missed passes and timing that was so far off, even little kids on their first set of skates could have made it look easy. Grimmjow had been no help whatsoever in the first two periods, and Ichigo had been accused of shooting his mouth off as usual when he'd barked at the bluenet to try to play with his teammate for a change. The words Grimmjow had used in response were simply not fit to print.
The end of the first period saw the two rival teammates locked in a heated discussion in the hallway to the locker rooms as players gave them both a wide berth. The blue-haired enforcer had his lips pulled back in a threatening snarl as he and Ichigo faced-off over the same tired disagreements. Accusations were flying back and forth. Finger pointing and denying were in full force. The last of other Reapers shuffled by. They'd seen it before, though not quite so intense as this, but everyone seemed willing to let the two players settle their own problems. No one wanted to get between them.
"I was wide open, and you didn't fucking pass the puck! I coulda scored, asshole!" Grimmjow's arctic blue eyes were staring straight into heated brown as he tried to tear a strip off of Ichigo. Tried, was the operative word. He knew it would only lead to more frustration because Kurosaki was the mouthiest know-it-all Grimmjow had ever had to play with.
"The Hollows were all over you! You never would have made that shot. If I'd passed it, they would've grabbed it and run with it and probably scored another goal on us!"
"Don't you fuckin' tell me what I can do!" Grimmjow drove a gloved finger into Ichigo's shoulder. Something sparked in amber eyes and Ichigo yearned to set his fist against the side of that angular jaw, but the shorter player ignored the jab. If he didn't, there would be a brawl and that would be totally unprofessional, even for them.
"You know what? Quit bitching at me about it. What about the shot you had just before that, huh?"
Grimmjow's scowl turned darker. He knew what Kurosaki was going on about, and he knew he'd blown a good scoring opportunity. And he knew this conversation wasn't going to get him anywhere, but for some inane reason he'd started it anyway.
"Yeah." Ichigo smirked and nodded at the look Grimmjow was giving him. "You had a chance to score and you didn't take it. Maybe the coach has gone blind and didn't see it, but I did."
"What're you, the fucking scoring police? I don't give a shit what y-..."
"Well, maybe you should give a shit! You had an easy shot when their goalie went down. If was a fucking gift shot! We could have tied the game right then but you were more interested in fucking rubbing one out!"
The heated conversation seemed to lurch to a sudden and decidedly awkward stop. Grimmjow's snarl fell away, and his angry expression slid into stunned confusion before slowly, gradually, morphing into wary bemusement.
Ichigo cringed as he realized what he'd just said, his tongue full of Novocain, and his brain left scrambling for purchase. But it was too late to pull the words back and reorganize them. They were out.
The silent lull that hung in the air between them, before the bluenet found his voice, stretched from seconds into centuries, until it began to seem to Ichigo that time itself had stopped to see what all the fuss was about.
Grimmjow's head finally listed to the side and one eyebrow twitched upwards while the other one drew low.
"Say what?" he demanded slowly, his voice dropping into a low tone laced with uncertainty and bluenet's whole demeanour seemed stranded, straddling the line between aggression and confusion.
"I mean... rubbing out one of their players!" Ichigo corrected himself at a volume that was much higher than he needed to use to be heard. His blunder and that gravelly tenor were combining in ways that were oddly distressing to the younger man, and he felt his face heat up another ten degrees, flushing yet another shade of angry red as he seethed.
"Fuck! You piss me off!" he snapped.
"Hah!" The bluenet barked into Ichigo's face, taking another step closer and looming in front the shorter man. He cocked his head to the other side and sneered.
"Piss you off," he began, voice lowering to something taunting yet quietly intimate, "or turn you on?"
Ichigo bristled further at the ludicrous insinuation that he was into men, especially Grimmjow, and he rose onto the balls of his feet, determined to meet the bluenet eye for eye. Ichigo was frankly at a complete loss over his Freudian slip. His stomach was busy trying to turn itself inside out, and the blood in his face was scorching his cheeks, but if he backed down now he would definitely look like a chump.
"Piss. Me. Off," he growled. Without another word, Ichigo turned and stormed away. He dearly hoped the bluenet wasn't going to take a parting shot. One word. Just one, and was going to lose it.
Grimmjow watched with amused interest as the younger man fled. And that is definitely what it was. Fleeing. Grimmjow had won this argument fare and square. He didn't even care anymore what they were fighting about, or that it hadn't been resolved. He'd won. Didn't matter how he did it, especially against Kurosaki. Winning was all that counted in his books.
Grimmjow frowned as he turned and walked in the same direction. That had been an odd turn of events. He knew he had the goods, but com'on. Seriously. That oddly worded remark had weirded him out for a moment, and he'd nearly drawn a blank. Nearly. He didn't really think the kid was gay or anything, but Kurosaki had just made it so easy. How could he not play with a line like that? And the effect it had on the kid left him feeling deliciously sated, for the moment. Kurosaki had turned seventeen shades of red. It was the best thing that had happened to Grimmjow all week.
He thought about it for a moment, then grinned as he pictured the angry blush and the subsequent clash of orange and red. Yup. It was indeed the highlight. His one regret? He wished he'd had the means to snap a photo with his cell. It would look great blown up and stapled to the locker room ceiling.
...
The second period dragged on and the Reapers were quick to empty the bench and try once again to regroup for the third. It had been just another twenty minutes of... well... same shit, different period.
As soon as the buzzer sounded to signal the end of the second period and the bench had cleared, Grimmjow made a beeline for Ichigo in the hallway once again, catching him on his way through the door to the dressing room, hoping to have words with him before the coach came along.
Ichigo had yelled at him to pass off the puck, but Grimmjow had been winding up for the shot. It was good, goddammit. The goaltender was being screened by his own defence-man, and there was every chance that the puck would slip through. But no. That smarmy shit had screamed Grimmjow's name at the last possible second, and something in the orangette's tenor had seriously thrown Grimmjow for a fucking loop. He'd nearly tripped over his own skates. The fuck?
Grimmjow caught up with the shorter player as he straggled behind the team heading into the locker room. He grabbed the shorter man's arm and swung him around.
"Don't distract me like that again, ya little twerp," Grimmjow snarled. "I had that shot until you fucking threw me off!"
Like a live wire, Ichigo was instantly reactive, so much so that it actually surprised the blue-haired Sexta.
"As if I threw you off!" the younger man barked back. "And you should have passed," he added, scowling and gesturing wildly with one gloved hand. "I had the whole damn net!"
The bluenet barely heard the younger man's response over the din in his head. He almost regretted saying anything, and he needed to get away from him already or he was going to lose his shit. But, he came here to make a point, and he was going to make it.
"You fucked me, asshole!" Grimmjow hissed. "Do it again, and I'll fuckin' ruin you!" He snarled down at Ichigo, barely snapping his mouth shut before he actually caved to the sudden strong urge to bite the orange-haired man. Instead, he shoved Ichigo roughly aside so that he could enter the change room just as the coach came around the corner.
Ichigo's heart thudded inside his ribcage, and he rubbed his chest where the the bluenet had pushed him. He barely noticed how fast his heart was racing. Instead he rolled his eyes at the bluenet's ridiculous attempt to intimidate him while he watched the retreating man disappear into the crowded locker room, brown eyes taking in the outline of the naturally broad physique that he knew lay disguised under thick layers of gear.
"Kurosaki. What are you standing around for?"
Ichigo flinched as if he was a little kid who'd just been caught doing something bad, and his deep amber eyes swung around towards the gruff voice of the team's coach.
"We need to do some damage control here. Let's go," the man ordered.
Ichigo abruptly leaned his weight onto his bladed heels, pressing his back into the door frame to let the coach get by before he let himself into the room.
"Alright boys." The older man's booming voice was dampened by the bodies of Ichigo's team mates as he passed the orangette and moved deep into the change room. "We're down by one point and we've got twenty minutes to fix this. Now, what are we gonna do about it?"
Ichigo straightened up and squared his shoulders, a small smirk making its way onto his face as he followed behind the coach. For such a bad boy, the Sexta was a real comedian. He was going to ruin Ichigo? That was the emptiest fucking threat he'd ever heard.
