Author's Note: I've decided not to include a little preview of the forthcoming chapter, cuz I don't really write according to plan. He he. My imagination runs away with the characters. Enjoy! I really adore writing this.
Chapter 5 – A Little More Conversation
"What's this?" Ichigo asked, as Renji carefully placed a UFO plush doll adorned in downsized black Shinsengumi robes, on Ulquiorra's dressing table.
"Duh. Ain't it obvious?" Renji snorted in response. "It's for Ulquiorra-san to peruse."
"He has one? What about me?" Ichigo made a nasty face at the doll. It was adorable, no, make that truly, hopelessly, squeal out loud kind of adorable, but nonetheless the deformed reincarnation of the number one name on his freshly made black list.
"It's in another package, someone will bring it here for you later," came Renji's reply, as he busied himself with thumbing through the day's hectic activities of movie preparation.
Ichigo stared at the super deformed plush doll set against the mirror, picked it up, then gave it a few pokes in the eyes and earth-quaking shakes, making the doll suffer some much maligned injuries.
"Hello to all of you, my beloved nutty fans. Today, I present you with...my chibi self! Stodgy, fat legs. Ha! Plump, flabby arms. Ha! Look Ma, no neck. Ha! Fake felt hair. Ha! A face whiter than flour. Ha! I'm an idiot, and I'm an idiot. It feels so wonderful to be an idiot! I'm an manipulative spastic who is always up to no good. I love makeup, they make me so pretty! I love them black too, because I'm so hardcore! Head bang! I love skirts too! Can't tell? I love myself. I'm Ulquiorra the Imbecile. I'm a little teapot, short and stout! Nice to meet you, and you, and you," Ichigo said in a distorted sing-song voice, twisting the doll's cushy limbs back and forth, the blank tone mimicking that of his stoic co-star's, and finally, pushed the lifeless plush doll into taking a bow.
"Hey! Don't touch that!" Renji cried, and snatched the UFO plush doll away from the orange haired man's grasp. "This is only a prototype, one of its kind. It's for you guys to look at and provide feedback to the doll makers, before they release it wholesale during the movie release!"
"I do what I like, dumb pineapple," Ichigo snapped, and grabbed the poor plush doll, then ran to a corner of the room like an immature child. "That pasty faced jerk doesn't deserve something as remotely cute as this! Hence I'll torture it. Torture it! Torture it!"
"Are you a psychopath? It's just an UFO doll! Oh yeah, speaking of cute. It's really well done. I wonder what would Ulquiorra-san think when he sees his own super deformed self," Renji commented, as his eyes followed the doll with a pair of globular, unblinking green eyes, and long, felt black hair pulled back into a bun.
"Torture it! Torture it!" Ichigo continued to ramble on gleefully, flinging the helpless doll into the air, then caught it, and flung it upward again. "Serves you right for pissing me off all the time, you ill-mannered black head! Snooty green eyed bastard! I'm having my revenge now bwa ha ha-"
"Do you really think your crazy actions help? You have some deep issues, methinks," Renji said, now a little worried for his famous friend.
"-ha ha ha! And I'll strangle you! Then I will jab you with the pointed end of a plastic comb! You're so dead, Ulquiorra Schiffer! I'll curse you, curse you, strangle you, str-an-gl-e you!" Ichigo ignored his manager completely, and proceeded to choke the innocent Ulquiorra UFO plush doll with both hands planted firmly round its throat.
"Is this you?" a chillingly familiar voice pricked the devious joy overrunning in the room. It was the man himself, with all scraggly black hair and jade eyes and green lines flowing a thin stream down his ashen cheeks. He gingerly held an orange haired UFO plush doll by the ear, and a gigantic pair of scissors in the other. Evidently, he certainly wasn't too pleased to see his personalized plush doll being tormented needlessly, and by his much despised co-star at that.
"Hey! Don't manhandle Chibi-Me!" Ichigo snarled at the real life representation of the doll he had mishandled earlier on, and attempted to free his doll from Ulquiorra's hold, but to no avail, for the smaller man had jerked his hand away in the nick of time.
"They did a brilliant job, I have to say. It resembles you. It's ugly," Ulquiorra stated clearly, never mincing his words. "And dopey."
"How dare you..." Ichigo growled, incensed at the sight of his difficult co-star. "Yours is worse! It looks suicidal!"
"No, you gotta admit, Ichi, it's way cuter than yours," Renji added.
"Shut up! Whose side are you on?" Ichigo griped. "Can I sack you now?"
"No," Renji replied with all due seriousness, and flashed a quick grin at the green eyed actor, whose namesake easily fetched a high price for his agency. "Unless Ulquiorra-san wants to hire me."
"Traitorous baboon."
"Two against one," Ulquiorra said, with a subdued hint of victory, and his normally placid emerald eyes sparkled to life suddenly. "You lose, Kurosaki Ichigo."
"Don't look so delighted, Ulquiorra Schiffer," Ichigo muttered dangerously, and threw the raven haired doll onto the floor like a filthy piece of rag. He raised a sneakered foot and gave the doll a good stomp before kicking it aside. "Oops! There goes your doll. Not so cute anymore."
Ichigo observed in wicked mirth as Ulquiorra's face further paled, and almost appeared to make a free lunge for his tiny misrepresentation, but hastily decided against it as such an action would no doubt ruin his 'cool guy' image. Said green eyed man never believed in getting even, but the topping of what was afflicted on oneself. He stayed calm as always, and breathed regularly to maintain a steady pulse, never once displaying his innate ire and heartfelt thoughts of tearing the insolent, talentless, mightily annoying carrot top a new hole.
"This," Ulquiorra began, and pointed at Ichigo's doll with the shiny edge of the scissors. "Is the very embodiment of trash. As all trash goes, they should be binned." He then placed the UFO plush doll's neck, or rather the lack of, between the twin incisive blades, and left it hanging there for a while, before closing the scissors' fatal grip on the soft material.
"Don't d-"
SNIP!
"-o it," Ichigo whimpered, as he witnessed the prematurely tragic death of his plush doll.
"Oops," Ulquiorra mocked, and angled his head for emphasis. "Dismembered."
Ichigo was left reeling in horror as his unflinching co-star hurled his beheaded miniature self into the wastepaper basket, but not before bouncing the round, plush head in one hand, and tossed it nonchalantly at Renji, who was equally taken aback, for good measure.
xxx
"WHO DID THIS?" Soi Fon yelled irritably to the crowded room of people. She held up a headless UFO doll in her right hand, and in her left hand, a dirtied, deformed counterpart of Ulquiorra. Much to her chagrin and nobody's surprise, there was no show of hands. "No one? Can't be a phantom's work, am I right? The culprit had better own up. Before I find out for myself and send you to hell for good! I'm counting to three. That's my limit."
Ichigo fidgeted and at once dodged a penetrating stare hurtled in his direction. He pretended to take interest in watching his fingernails grow.
"One..."
Soi Fon glanced meaningfully at Ulquiorra, who seemed set on evading any means of eye contact with anyone and absolutely everyone.
"Two..."
Across the vast spaces that stood between them in the room, Ichigo and Ulquiorra's gazes somehow connected. Definitely not of attraction, but perhaps out of guilt, or perhaps the underlying chance to push the blame onto each other. The tension beheld in their mutual looks sizzled and hissed in the air like a firecracker, threatening to burst into a tumultuous sea of flames any moment.
"Thre-"
"It's him!" they cried (Ulquiorra uttered, unfazed of course) at the same time, forefingers pointing happily at each other.
Ichimaru Gin opted to make an overdue appearance then, and he signified it by clapping his skeletal hands off. "What joy!" he grinned. "Such tremendous rapport!"
"No time for nonsense," Soi Fon argued, and shoved Gin aside roughly. "Now, how am I going to answer to the makers of these dolls? They're the only ones they have made!"
"Uh, I'm sure they can remake it?" Ichigo offered meekly.
"They should scrape yours entirely," Ulquiorra piped in without invitation.
"Why yo-" Ichigo grimaced, and shook a fist at his co-star, of which earned him no reaction, for the latter was quite the unmovable mountain.
"SHUT THE HELL UP!" Soi Fon shouted, her face flushing a deep shade of red. Clearly the blood had swam upward to her head, defying gravity, making her see stars all of a sudden, and staggered a few steps backward, only to crash straight into a tall, forlorn looking man with wavy dark locks falling about his masculine jawline.
Gin stifled a chuckle at the sight of a harried Soi Fon, who quickly got to her feet and mumbled some inaudible lines as a form of apology. The man in question merely nodded in reply, and he seemed to have not slept for a thousand years.
"I'll handle the part about your bloody UFO dolls. But don't assume you two will be off the hook just yet. I'll find some ways to deal with you later. Although the press conference held last week garnered a more than optimal reaction towards the movie. Maybe I'll overlook your misdemeanor in favor of the not too poorly done promotion this time. Onto the important segment," Soi Fon whipped out her black PDA. "Gin, will you?"
"Huh?" Gin hummed leisurely, his attention momentarily captured by the two leading men, who had halted their verbal fracas, but still cast contemptuous glares at each other from time to time. It definitely would make for a most interesting turn of events, he thought snidely. Besides, it wasn't everyday that the emotionless Ulquiorra Schiffer could be bothered to rebuke his colleagues' words, and that already had happened more than once. Since last week, there was nothing in the Japanese entertainment circuit but talk about Autumn Chrysalis, and how incredibly witty and gifted the two main actors were. In some glorious addition, Ulquiorra's barrage of verbal assaults was targeted at the same person, the sole pathetic bull's eye, though he probably deserved it too, given his consistently cliched red-blooded young man temperament.
"You're as hopeless as them!" Soi Fon fumed. What was wrong with these people? They couldn't even handle two UFO plush dolls with delicate care, and now, building sandcastles in the air while in the middle of a crucial briefing. "Do your usual useless act."
"Right on," Gin chirped merrily. "Anyhow ladies and gentlemen, since this is a period piece we're doing, there will of course be tons of fights! Physicality is needed for sure, especially our two leading men," he paused to wink cheekily at Ichigo, who deepened his frown, then at Ulquiorra, who stared right through him.
"Not that many," the impassive tall man interjected.
"Yeah, maybe," Gin laughed shortly. "To you, that's for sure, and maybe him as well. But not the rest I'm afraid, Stark old pal."
"I'm no old pal of yours," Stark replied tiredly, and fell back into the shadows.
"Nice cameo," Gin gave the sleepy man a thumbs up, then resumed his ditty-like speech. "Everyone will be required to clock in at least two months of training. It's April now, and this means the session will carry over to summer!"
A chorus of groans and unhappy moans rose spontaneously, with most waving their much anticipated summer break goodbye.
"Aww come on peeps!" Gin cajoled soothingly. "Ain't filming Autumn Chrysalis a dream of ours? Summer will come again next year, but not the movie!"
Soi Fon nodded. "I expect everyone to exceed their capabilities! If not, be prepared to see a new face taking over your role."
Lackluster sounds were speedily replaced by a cacophony of energetic, if not forced, grunts. Eager to latch onto this false wave of good will, Gin waved his hands about to gain the attention of the boisterous lot, and said, "Aren't you excited to know what's really in store for you?"
"Don't treat us like some elementary schoolers," Ichigo sniped. His lack of patience was already worn thin by Ulquiorra, whom he engaged in an eyeball lock-down still, and then there was this looney of a silver haired movie executive who thrived on treating fully grown adults as little toddlers who stumble and fall and wail and poop in their diapers. That said, his mood was further dampened by the newsflash that he would be stuck in training sessions for the entire summer. And probably with his frustratingly, infuriatingly, emotionally stunted retard of a co-star. Talk about a great vacation, ruined.
"Gee, I'm not!" Gin protested. "I'm just being jovial!"
"Yadda," Ichigo scoffed, and instantly berated himself for letting a shade of his true colors slip through. 'It's all that green eyed, make-up loving spastic's fault,' he thought.
"Whatever happened to your 'Nice Guy' persona?" Ulquiorra asked bitingly. "It falls away faster than flies dropping onto the ground."
"Shut up. You don't exist," Ichigo said, brown eyes narrowing.
"I do. I can see myself. But not you," Ulquiorra replied. "You're alarmingly imperceptible even under the scrutiny of a microscope."
"Whatever!" Ichigo retorted hotly, knowing fully he could yet reach the raven haired man's honed level of dishing out scathing insults.
"I wonder who started it?"
"You don't exist. La la la."
"If you hadn't disturbed me in the first place, you wouldn't be saying this now. In other words, you brought this onto yourself, and have only yourself to blame. Even if one of us has to disappear to maintain some sort of civility in this room, it would be you. Because you started it, Kurosaki Ichigo."
"You'd better shut up before I-I..." Ichigo scowled in frustration, but trailed off abruptly when he realized his quick tongue got the better of him again.
"You what?" Ulquiorra challenged, and advanced toward his co-star, adopting a dangerous presence not dissimilar to a predator stalking and entrapping its prey completely. Part of him secretly wished for Ichigo to rebuke with an impressive comeback (and he wondered what it could be), so he could better it and prove his imperious aptitude and intellect over the short-tempered man with equally impudent mannerisms, whereas the other simply wanted to thoroughly ignore him. Ulquiorra succumbed to his inquisitiveness however, and raised his chin defiantly. "Hit me?"
"I-I will do that...if you continue to come any c-closer," Ichigo stammered. He noticed the green eyed man's face was hovering a miniscule distance from his, and closing in on him. Ulquiorra then swiftly grabbed the front of Ichigo's black tee with one pale hand, making the younger man gasp at the strength possessed.
Ignoring the rest who were obviously watching on with nail-biting anticipation, Ulquiorra inched his lips toward the orange haired man's left ear, who at their proximity blushed a delicate pink, and with an air of caustic disquietude, he said, "Grow up."
Clouds of uneasiness grew increasingly dense, and soon it was broiling to the point where skies darken and an immense downpour looked inevitable. Even the foolhardy Soi Fon and Gin hadn't a clue what they could do to dispel the brewing storm, hence they broke into a laugh.
Laughter resolves everything. Laughter switches everyone's minds around. Laughter makes unpleasant events bearable. Not a simple upward twist of the lips, and neither a vague widening of the mouth, nor would a miserly churning of vocal cords and some lung power suffice. But a loud, maniacal, rip-roar of a laugh. Seeing Gin laugh was actually of not much percussion, but Soi Fon?
For a moment, everyone pushed the impending fist fight between the two leading men to the backs of their heads, and blatantly gaped at Soi Fon, who laughed her head off. Ulquiorra let go of Ichigo's shirt, and made a deliberate motion of swiping his hands clean, then stuffed them into the pockets of his trousers. The raven haired actor had also the acclaimed ability of letting his eyes speak for themselves, and then for one singular second, Ichigo thought he caught a pair of luminescent jade orbs smirk at him in all due superiority.
"Asshole," Ichigo grumbled under his breath, and furiously brushed away at parts of his shirt previously in contact with Ulquiorra's deceptively frail-looking limb.
"I'm in tears," Ulquiorra shot back, mouthing the words as he did, not wanting to have the spotlight fall on him once more. He thought it to be uncharacteristic of him to be baiting Ichigo like this, but if the orange haired ex-teen star assumed he would be his equal in terms of stature, then it was his responsibility to have the latter humbled.
"Alright guys, break it up!" Gin intervened, pushing the two apart. "Make love, not war. That said, where did I stop at? Such a comely interlude, huh?"
"The training session," Soi Fon added while rubbing her temples. It was only a month into the production schedule, and already the two fundamental blocks of a supposedly majestic structure were crumbling; they were adamant on accomplishing a complete collapse. She had to salvage the situation before it could get out of hand. It was her job.
"Yeps, training. Everyone is to take up sword fighting and learn basic stances. All but Ichigo and Ulquiorra! Since you two are paid more than anyone else in the team, other than the director, naturally the hard work falls to you," Gin said, his faint brows crumpling, looking almost apologetic. "You'll have body doubles, because we wouldn't want you hurt and have your agency coming after us demanding for compensation. But, there would be some frontal shots, yes I mean fighting scenes, not those scenes yet, so Ichigo, quit impersonating a dying goldfish."
Ichigo closed his mouth at once and brought his enlarging pupils back to their normal sizes. He was too preoccupied with acting flustered at the mention of those intimate scenes, he hadn't noticed Ulquiorra was looking pretty nervous himself too, though the latter did an admirable job of masquerading it.
"Ichigo and Ulquiorra will be having personal trainers of their own!" Gin announced, and turned to address the two leading men. "You'll need to pick things up really fast, and they'll make sure it be a done task come the end of summer. If not, I don't know what to think, no, they would really ensure things be done. Absolutely, no? Stark old pal? Kenpachi-san?"
"Heh, hell yeah!" a raggedly coarse voice rang out from behind Stark – who promptly fell into a deep slumber whilst leaning against a dresser, and a sequence of bells could be heard ringing. "I'll be getting this guy called Ichigo eh?"
Gin yelped in agreement. "And Ulquiorra will be having Stark dude for his trainer."