He had done it before, therefore there wasn't anything standing in the way of forgetting, of repeating the process, unless he'd lost his balls somewhere. Forgetting Grimmjow Jaggerjack all over again, he assumed, was as easy as letting things flow in their own course. After all, eleven years had passed.
"Sempai," Ichigo started, his voice panic-stricken and his cheeks smeared with color, "you know, it's really nothing…but I really wanna kiss you… can I?" He sounded as though someone was running after him thick and fast.
Ulquiorra was staring a him and, right about this time, Ichigo had started desperately dismantling his brain to joke his way out.
"Is this where it should come down to?"
"N-no. No, I didn't think so. Sorry for bringing it up." Ichigo answered, sounding thoroughly apologetic if nothing else, and looking halfway through dying and wanting it upon closer inspection. Eventually, a nagging, never-ending sense of vexation began to overtake him. He risked a glance at his band mate, to realize neither will nor longing would avail for his happy ending.
"Obviously." Ulquiorra said, his expression constituting nothing of any meaning or anything that might affect the course of their conversation.
"Yeah. That's what I thought. I'll split now." Ichigo straightened up. For a moment he considered himself lucky for managing to string a few words together, and in the next minute had begun to think of several other things worse than getting turned down. Death was worse, he mused.
"Are you sure?"
"Yeah, sempai, forget about it."
"No I won't. Why the hell are you being so hesitant?" This time, Ulquiorra was showing feelings, or else his voice was doing the job, pulling Ichigo's travel towards the door to a halt. All Ichigo could do was to second-guess if the vocalist was indeed agitated or simply annoyed or, in the most extreme probability, excited.
"Well, excuse me for being hesitant, dammit. It's just that I don't really know what you're asking of me in the first place. Save you, you say? What a load of crap, sempai." Ichigo tried to pick up from his last step with obvious difficulty, as if the carpet was sapping the strength off his legs. Inside, he might as well be bellowing curses on everything and anything he could name.
"You stupid prat."
Ichigo deduced there probably was not a thing, nor an event, in the world that might be capable of extracting real emotion from this dude; not even Layne's Staley's resurrection. He was staring at him like a zombie which couldn't quite make logic out of anything it saw.
"You're the prat and I can't stand you. But if you let me, and if you don't mind my persistence, I'll do it." Ichigo spat back, surprising even himself.
"Oh, you're really up to it? Then go right ahead."
Ichigo whipped around, so fired up by the taunt, and lunged at Ulquiorra, who didn't have the time to back away. Just before allowing his honest intentions to take a definite form, he pushed the vocalist down the couch, pinning him against his weight, and kissed him in the mouth, amidst the barely intelligible protests.
Ulquiorra gasped, eyes popping wide, and was struggling powerlessly under the weight. Upon impulse, or whatever the premises required, he speared the bassist's stomach with his knee, the only part of his body free from inhibition, though not before the other had managed to rob him of a good snogging.
Ichigo stopped, paralyzed, his excitement drained by the sudden pain. "What? You said 'go ahead'." He said irritably.
"You were serious? And you shoved your tongue right into-"
"-Just shut up." Ichigo hissed. Under normal circumstances, he wouldn't have the scarcest of guts to act thus, much less talk back to him, but he was sure this was not the time to fail himself, as what he had done many times before. Hence with what little wit he had left, which could otherwise be expended on salvaging his dignity or putting on one last act of decency, he ran his palm between Ulquiorra's legs.
"Stop it, dammit-"
"-who are you to talk? You're hard here already."
To cut the dispute, which seemed to honor no end, Ulquiorra subdued, heaved a sigh as something of a return, and closed his eyes, doing nothing to prevent his fate. After all, Ichigo was right about him being aroused.
"Fine. Be my guest, but make it fast."
…
Making out with Ulquiorra was, needless to say, a blast. If truth be told, he couldn't remember a time when he hadn't wanted to kiss him or grope whatever he had underneath those clothes and trousers. With little deliberation, he managed to convince himself that what had happened between them had been consensual and at the same time inconclusive.
On stage, though, Ulquiorra was simply otherworldly, altogether magnificent, and more or less was ten reincarnations away from a person anyone could coerce into a foreplay-with another guy. He was wearing a tight pair of black leather jeans, the very contour of his legs flaunted most delicately. He had his hair tied low and loose, so that several strands deprived the audience a perfect view of his face. He had been singing for 25 minutes straight, guitar in hand, without taking a gulp for a break. A few feet beside him, Ichigo, sweating and out of breath from all the vocal assistance he'd been rendering for the same amount of time, couldn't quite help marveling at their vocalist.
They were debuting a new track, which pretty much highlighted the similarities between Ulquiorra and western performers in matters of voice quality. But amidst the crowd's booming and the seemingly great success of the night, Ichigo could make out a few faces from the crowd that stood quite apart from the rest. Grimmjow Jaggerjack, along with the rest of Los Espada, was seated serenely on the second row, disinterest prominent in his face. Upon closer look, he looked as though he was all set up to knock all Ichigo's teeth out, an action of which he probably was entirely capable and to which he was entitled.
When the day dawned to an end, Ichigo sprinted towards the dressing room, outrunning even their assistants. To his great dismay, and horror of course, someone was already inside to witness how he scrambled his way through the door.
"Grand. That was quite a performance."
Grimmjow commented. He was fingering the accessories on the table, like a detective conducting a preliminary inspection.
"How the hell did you get here so fast?" Ichigo asked, his eyes bewildered.
"Aside from being a celebrity, I have a backstage pass."
Ichigo looked wildly around, searching for something he might prop up for defense and desperately hoping for his band mates and manager to walk in on them. It was fruitless, though, for he had always known the routine: Shuuhei and Renji were most likely saying hello to the fans, and he was more than sure Ulquiorra and Inoue had gone down the next room for a few private interviews.
"Grimmjow, I…" He faltered, knowing there was too much to say.
"Okay. Let's start all over again." Grimmjow proposed, and, finally turning his gaze on Ichigo, withdrew his hands from the display cupboard. He dredged on, casually, "My name's Grimmjow Jaggerjack. My closest friends prefer to call me Jack. I'm the lead vocalist of this post-Grunge band people like to call Los Espada. I'm a rock star, yeah, and my most favorite band of all time is Alice in Chains. Layne Staley, by the way, was my god, and still is."
Ichigo looked away, his breath growing heavier by the seconds. He was certain he wasn't alone with a murdering psychopath, but he might as well be-with the way his heart was racing.
"He… Layne Staley was my god too. I never-I didn't throw it away. I didn't throw us away. I meant to show up at the station, but…"
"You remember now?" Grimmjow was surveying him now, mildly perplexed, yet somehow amused.
"I-yeah. Too long ago it was. I was ten years old, and ten-year olds aren't always good at remembering, and worse still is they're capable of very little. I wasn't so sure about myself, and of you least of all. It was like a dream; you were a dream. And dreams are never real."
"And that's supposed to explain it?"
"I don't have anything else to say."
"Am I still a dream now?"
Ichigo stared at him, his glance searching, not with confusion but with something very akin to pain.
"That seems to be the case. You're a star now. And maybe I am, too. Perhaps we'll go on crossing paths, but not very often. I never thought the two kids who met on the bus, brought together by a common worship for a dying god, would grow up to be so famous. Necessarily, I'll start with you again, Jack-if that's how you wish to be addressed. My name is Kurosaki Ichigo. I'm the background vocalist and bassist of this band we now know as Helios. The only band I'd die for is Alice in Chains, whose late front man passed on to be my reason for music."
He felt like Grimmjow's eyes were orbiting around him, front to back, inside and out.
"Know what, I don't believe in coincidences. You know that meeting eleven years ago was more than just about liking Alice in Chains. Let's fly out of here, you and me."
As much as he suspected Grimmjow could be dangerous, he really couldn't do much if someone like the front man of Los Espada was requesting a private audience with him. What's more was, he had this feeling that he would soon be a traitor to something he had recently promised himself into. But, more than anything, he was aware of the current necessity; to make up for the years he had spent without ever thinking of the thirteen-year old boy on the bus.
"Er, yeah. If my consent is equivalent to an apology eleven years overdue."
TBC
