Disclaimer: The standard applies.
Chapter 23 – Inner Fireworks
It was the second Friday of the month, and that was when the bulk of gifts arrived at the talent agency. Depending on the artiste's popularity, the gifts could range from a small box to several sacks. They usually came from the devoted supporters, designer brands seeking to borrow more exposure, and authorized merchandise from the projects they worked on. Renji stashed three bulging cartons into the backseat of his red Wrangler Unlimited, another one strapped to the passenger seat, and two more in the car boot. It was a bumpy ride to his friend's house, and the redhead wasn't too pleased when he unlatched the boot only to see items pouring freely from the boxes. Spewing an arsenal of curses and vulgarisms he lugged them into the Kurosakis' house and upstairs into the room.
"Santa's here," Renji announced as he brushed past Ichigo and set the boxes down. "You're a total pain in the ass, just in case I have not told you today," he brusquely added.
"And your hair's the wrong shade of red, doofus," Ichigo shot back. He looked into the boxes, rummaged through them and to his greatest surprise found something he could at last not feel nauseous gazing at. It was an out of production polaroid camera, designed to look like a toy with its cartoonish mix of bright colors. He beamed brightly as he cradled it in his palm.
"Finally saw something you like?" Renji asked.
"More along the lines of something I can put to good use."
"Like what? A Polaroid camera screams high school, and high school girls at that."
The actor gave a mysterious smile. "I have other plans."
"Don't tell me." Renji shuddered in mock terror. "If you're taking the camera, then what about the rest? Left to die in your storeroom with your army of vacuum cleaners?"
"I'll bring these over to my sisters' room later. Maybe they will find something they like. For example, this." He gingerly held up a teddy bear by its ribboned ear. "Or this." He picked a tight-fitting football jersey, obviously for a female, from the box. Renji made an odd noise in reply.
"What's that?" Ichigo demanded.
"The sound of you breaking your fans' hearts."
Ichigo put on a condescending grin. "Compared to my lovely co-star I'm practically a saint." He placed the camera on his bed, stood up and walked over to the other side of the room.
"Ulquiorra Schiffer?"
The actor opened his closet, and without thinking, picked a grungy rock band tee and a pair of faded jeans. "Who else but him," he said. "I'm going to take a shower now. Don't mess up my room, OK?"
Once Ichigo was completely out of sight, Renji plowed through the box nearest to him. The items he scoured never failed to tickle his funny bones. He found a Malibu Ken doll with an accompanying red Corvette, some LPs from famous bands in the 60s and 70s, autographed photos of themselves (the fans) with suggestive messages inscribed behind them, a bottle of Cutty Sark, racy lingerie, and a set of character based plush dolls, courtesy of Soul Pictures movie studio. They were almost identical to the ones Ulquiorra and Ichigo had destroyed in the midst of their tiff. He remembered how Soi Fon had gripped the two damaged plush dolls and stormed down the hallway before barking down the phone at some random guy. Since then they were remade with being the target of a tug-of-war in mind.
Renji took the two plush dolls out and propped them up on the bed. He grasped the miniature Ichigo lookalike doll with his right hand, and held Ulquiorra's fictitious, tiny counterpart with his left, and made them hobble towards each other across the bed.
"Hey pasty faced jerk!" The redhead put on his best Ichigo impersonation, then switched on the dour tone Ulquiorra often employed. "Talentless imbecile."
"You make me want to punch you silly!" Renji pushed the Ichigo doll towards the green eyed doll, and used the felt hands to give the latter some slaps.
"You are a hopeless dolt. I can glare you to smithereens."
"Oh yeah? I am sooo scared. So scared that I'm gonna launch a torpedo kick at you! Yee-hah! Take this!" With the help of Renji, the Ichigo doll flew towards the other plush doll, tackling it to the ground. "Whoopee doo! I got you! Now you can't move! A-ha!"
"Says who?" The Ulquiorra doll refused to give up, and used its pudgy little fists to pound the orange haired doll. "Let me go. Let me go-" Renji twisted the chubby neck left, then right. "-we are on a bed."
"I hate you!"
"Me too. Let me go." The Ulquiorra plush doll struggled to get up but failed. "Let me go. Let me go!" he cried.
"I hate you so much!"
"I hate you more than you could ever imagine."
"I hate you way more than I could ever imagine in your imagination!"
"I hate you so much that I love you."
"Me too!" the Ichigo doll squealed.
In devilish delight Renji pressed the dolls' oversized heads together, squashing their pink felt lips together in an animated, over the top kiss, their stubby arms wrapped across each other's necks. His snickering grew louder and louder. Laughed as though it was the funniest joke in the world when suddenly he pulled back and realized what he was doing. He paused to survey his surroundings with caution, only to have his paranoia get the better of him. No one was at the door. He turned back to the dolls and smashed their faces together again. Somehow he could imagine them - not the dolls but the real living and breathing humans - do exactly the same. The same way of greeting they had for each other, the same reactions and jibes, and probably, the same unforeseeable declaration of love, and as all things went, it definitely must end well. But it quite went the other way when Ichigo emerged from his bathroom with a towel in hand, only to find his best friend in a most puzzling state of mind.
"Do you need therapy?"
Later that afternoon Ichigo headed over to his co-star's place with an overnight duffle. It was stuffed with two sets of clothes and clean underwear, his toothbrush and a towel. His script was rolled up and chucked into the space between handle and bag. He packed his newfound toy into the outer compartment and zipped it up. He was sure he would have plenty of fun with it, or if he got lucky, material for some cheeky blackmail. Straddling the duffle over his left shoulder, he scribbled a note - Folks, I won't be home tonight - and pinned it against the fridge, and drove off in his silver Impreza.
"Yo," Ichigo greeted as he came through the door. As usual he was given the silent treatment. He put his bag down by a corner and walked over to the balcony. The corners of his mouth quavered when he saw what his co-star was doing. "I never imagine I would live to see this!" he exclaimed. "You, doing your own laundry! How many gallons of water did you use up? Did the washing machine break down in the meanwhile? I know of a decent furniture store down Roppongi Hills."
Ulquiorra noticed Ichigo's bag was larger and bulkier than usual when he entered the house. It looked like it was made to pack for a short weekend getaway. That was none of his business, he thought, his co-star could go anywhere he wanted. A quick vacation before filming regained next Monday made sense. But with who? Ulquiorra shook his head inwardly. That was really none of his business. As long as they finished what had to be done today, his work was complete.
"It is quite unsurprising that you would make a mountain out of a molehill," he said.
"Fascinating stuff. I'm glad I brought along a special item. And ha - am I even more glad that I made the unceremonious decision to stay over for the night!"
"Stay over for the night?" Ulquiorra echoed.
"Yeah, like it or not. I'm having an impromptu sleepover at your place tonight."
"Sleepover?"
Ichigo folded his arms across his chest. "I don't care about what you think, or what you think I'm thinking, or what I think you're thinking. Can't I decide what to do what and when to do what for once?"
"Aren't you supposed to embark on a holiday with that woman?" Ulquiorra asked, his words edged with a conscious effort to remain impassive.
Surprised, Ichigo didn't know what to say, or how should he react. He shoved his hands deep into his pockets, only to pull them out a second after. "W-Woman? What woman? You OK? Or has doing household chores burned your brain? Standing out there and being exposed to the sun for a short while and you become this?"
Ulquiorra fished a wet shirt from the basin, wrung it dry, watched the water seep into the drainage by the side, and pegged the shirt to the clothesline. He retrieved a pair of chinos and went through another cycle, his actions slow and deliberate.
Ichigo coughed mildly, ridding himself off of the honest stumble he had ventured. "Standing in an area where the sun's rays can reach you is obviously doing wonders for you!" he said in a clear, loud voice.
The green eyed actor finished off the last of the pile, pegged it, and gave the dripping clothes a final rinse. Then he stepped away from the clothesline and scanned the precinct, as if acknowledging an efficient task done.
"Want to know why?" Ichigo asked. Hands on his hips, a cocky stance, and in a tone unnervingly teasing at first before growing fiery with determination, he said, "Because I'm all set to fight it out come Monday. Come on, it's only two and a half days away. I can't let something called 'night' take away what's left of the time we have for practice."
"We have more or less accomplished what we have set out to do," Ulquiorra replied, his eyes fixed on a point far beyond his co-star.
"Now, now. Don't look so grumpy." Ichigo whipped out the Polaroid camera from his bag and positioned it before his right eye. "Look what I've got here!"
Ulquiorra twisted his neck to the right and looked at the camera. "An electronic contraption that takes pictures instantly. As its name implies, it is highly favored by individuals who seek instant gratification."
"Bravo - minus the needless snipe. Know what this means? I'm sure it won't take you more than a second to have it figured out." A mischievous twinkle entered those hazel orbs. "Say cheese!"
Ulquiorra's lips remained tightly sewn together, refusing to emit even the tiniest slant. "Ludicrous."
"Spoilsport. Sakana-chan is dying to have her photo taken with me. After this it will be my sofa bed and I. Won't you do the honors, sad clown face?"
"I see no validation in your request."
"I need to use up the 35 shots."
"I trust you cannot do any worse than this."
Ichigo put two fingers in his mouth and whistled. As if on cue, the ginger kitty sashayed over from where she lay - on the coffee table, to her owner's feet. She purred softly, then gave his ankles a delicate lick. In the spur of the moment Ulquiorra lowered himself to the ground and scratched the cat lightly between the ears. The cat purred again just as a white beam of light blared in their faces. And another.
"Take One - OK! Take Two - Good! An annoying sheet of flour doing the laundry with his adorable little cat," Ichigo chuckled from behind his Polaroid camera. "What a decent spill this is proving to be. These are going into my scrapbook!"
Ulquiorra remained where he stood, immobile as a rock. "Do not expect me to chase you around the house for something as trivial as this," he said.
"Good!" Ichigo grinned cockily. "I wouldn't bet against that."
Kurosaki Ichigo couldn't seem to tire of his Polaroid camera. He took it with him wherever he went, openly snapping away at the house, at the luxurious sofa bed he had bought, at Sakana who willingly posed for him, and at times sneaking in a shot or two of his co-star. He didn't know if Ulquiorra caught him in the act but let it slip by without a mention. The man was as unreadable as a sphinx. Regardless, he felt that those were well-taken pictures. True that he was an amateur, but his co-star had a face meant to headline epic dramas and black and white photo shoots. At the right angles, it looked like a readily made movie poster. Ulquiorra hardly wore any expression other than slight sorrow, and Ichigo thought that funny yet fascinating, melancholic yet puzzling. He wondered if he looked like this since he was young, or had something affected him so profoundly that he stopped smiling, only to crack a scarce curve when the joy was immense. Ichigo knew he could be too sensitive here - Ulquiorra's mother was equally muted about the passing on of Mr Schiffer.
On a more jovial note, Ichigo thought as he studied one of the photos, maybe Ulquiorra doesn't realize he has this face on all the time and needs a gentle albeit crude reminder that the world is still running amok with happiness, if he knows where to find it.
Hours later they stopped for a short break. Ichigo went to the kitchen and came back with two glasses of iced lemonade. His Polaroid was tucked into the back pocket of his jeans.
"Throat's running dry," said Ichigo. He downed his glass in one shot and looked hungrily at the second glass.
Instinctively Ulquiorra wrapped his fingers around the glass. "I believe this is for me."
"Right, lazy ass. Go get it yourself."
"You took the ice cubes from my freezer. You took the lemonade from my fridge. The glasses belong to the top shelf above the sink."
Ichigo shrugged and chugged the leftover ice cubes into his mouth, crunching them loudly like an ice-making machine. When he was done with his drink, he brandished the camera from his pocket like a precious jeweled knife and waved it before Ulquiorra.
"Caption time!" he grinned. "Who's first? Me, you - the petty crook, the sofa bed or Sakana-chan?"
"Our break is over."
"Cheese!" Ichigo yelled as his forefinger tapped the 'Shoot' button. He lowered the camera and waited eagerly for the Polaroid shot to be processed. The mechanical gurgling and spitting was followed by a smooth, almost buttery flow of the printed photo. It bore a faint warmth. Ichigo held the picture aloft and shook his head.
"You blinked," he accused.
Ulquiorra glanced at the Polaroid shot. It was one of those horrific photographs which most celebrities or people of reputable standing avoided. Eyes half closed with a hint of redeye, mouth barely ajar and nose twisted in the air, as if straining to choke out words from the diaphragm.
"Great. Thank god you blinked, Quiqui." Ichigo heaved a sigh of relief. "I was just beginning to think that you don't ever blink. Whenever I look at you - don't get me wrong. I'm not interested in you at all, or just happen to look in your direction, your eyes will be flat-out large like saucers, staring into something or at something. Like you have these huge balls of energy waiting to be directed at them, waiting to blast them to pieces. But then you chose to blink! Like a lamp shutting off after a long night. Like the stars in the skies dying and becoming dwarves. Like the-"
"Kurosaki Ichigo, you talk too much."
"Come on. It's just one photo!" Ichigo urged.
"I do not want to be seen in the same frame as you. Imbecility is infectious."
"I'm warning you - quit insulting me! Who do you think you are anyway? That aside, come on, it'll take only one second!"
"No."
"You're going to rue this day!"
"If I oblige I will."
"One day when you've fallen off your perch and reminiscing about those good old days by a torn and tattered straw house on an island in the middle of the Indian Ocean," Ichigo fumed, "when you flip open the papers and see me holding an Oscar statuette in my hands, you will think, 'Damn why did I reject his offer for a picture back then? It can easily fetch thousands of dollars and I can at last hire a boat and go home!'. That is going to happen!"
The older actor gave him a bewildered stare, but behind the stare hid a sprinkling of mirth. "I would not be wrong if I were to suggest you quit the movie industry now and head over to Malta."
"Why Malta?"
"I hear they have bountiful sources of spiritual water. That might just be what you need to enhance your newfound clairvoyance abilities, and at last, embark on a career suited to you."
"Shut up!" Ichigo scowled. "All I ask for is just one miserable photo. One miserable photo! Something like a memento. Not of you, of course. But it's normal to have at least one shot of the living and moving things in the house you've been frequenting for the past three weeks."
After an hour, Ichigo's lack of tactful persuasion and grumbling finally paid dividends. He managed to have Ulquiorra pose together with him for not one shot, but a handful of them. It was originally meant to be just one, but the younger man had the guile and the agility to press the button several times in a row, resulting in a few similar shots taken in a flash. The only difference was the minuscule variation in expressions spread across their faces. Sakana sat between their ankles, her long striped tail up in the air and bent at the tip. The two men sat close together, their knees bunched up to save space, their shoulders touching. One of the photos showed an audacious Ichigo looping an arm around Ulquiorra's shoulders and grinning cheekily at the camera. The green eyed man seemed a little taken aback by his gesture.
Sitting in a lotus position on the floor, he laid out the Polaroid shots before him, taking his time to arrange and re-arrange the pictures while Ulquiorra was bathing upstairs. He scooped some up into his hands and carefully placed them in his bag. Those were the photos which could be misleading to either man - ones he took without his co-star's knowledge. As of then, Ichigo couldn't make up whether it was the intention or the product of the intention that was hounding him. He should stop fretting over it too.
The photos won't run away, Ichigo told himself, I can look them over when I have the time.
Besides, he was going to stay over at Ulquiorra's place tonight. On his own volition, too. It was best for all confusion to dissipate, or at least, go into hiding for the time being. He stood up, stepped over the photos and headed for the washroom behind the kitchen. When he emerged from the washroom, Ulquiorra was already in the kitchen, fixing a dish of cat food for his pet. He brushed past him wordlessly and returned to his spot on the floor. There was something amiss, Ichigo realized as soon as he gave the items a once over. The order in which the photos was laid out suffered no change but he prided on his instinct. He stubbornly scrutinized every single aspect, as though engaged in a game of Memory, and at last, he found the answer.
"There are supposed to be 17 photos here!" Ichigo exclaimed. "Now there are 16! What happened to the difference?" He narrowed his eyes at the photos. "Did you take it?"
"Doesn't surprise me that you cannot count," came Ulquiorra's answer from the kitchen. "Has it ever occurred to you that your initial tabulation was erroneous?"
Ichigo directed his frown at the kitchen. "It must be you! You were already here when I was in the loo. You saw the photos and hid the ugliest shot of yourself. Why didn't you take everything instead? Every shot of you looks equally crummy."
"You ought to visit Malta and stay there for ever."
At night after they had Ichigo's home-cooked spaghetti with meatballs together at the table, Ulquiorra switched on the TV. They sat next to each other on the sofa bed, Ulquiorra prim and proper with his back straight, Ichigo half slouching, legs fully stretched out, his face propped by one hand. A cushion was in his other hand.
"What's on tonight? J-League? Baseball? NBA?" he asked in a bored, drowsy voice.
"I do not follow sports."
"Then what? There's hardly anything on Friday nights. Cooking shows? You into them?" Ichigo hid a guffaw.
"There is a movie on one of the foreign cable channels," said Ulquiorra. He pressed some buttons on the remote control and the TV screen turned dark with foreboding music booming in the background.
"What's this?" Ichigo asked. Lightning emblazoned in the skies of the cinematic world. Soon after they were shown a shady looking motel in a suburban area. Raindrops pelted heavily on the monochromatic landscape. A car zipped across the highway at a frenetic pace. They could hear gales screeching through the bleak town and thick into the veins of characters yet to appear.
"Identity."
"Identity?"
"A movie."
"Any fool can see that coming from ten miles out. But who's in it and-" Ichigo was cut off with an icy glare from his co-star. The characters - a man and a woman with a fur wrap around her shoulders, had begun to speak. It was in English and there were Japanese subtitles running parallel to the base of the screen. "The subs are too tiny to be seen," he pointed out. "Why aren't you setting it to the Japanese dub? Unless you can understand English..." his eyebrow quirked upwards in disbelief.
"Yes, I can," Ulquiorra said.
"Oh," Ichigo replied. "Guess I will have to make do with reading their faces."
They watched in bated breath as the movie's events unfolded before them. One by one the characters were picked off, throwing the two men into a heady mix of mystery and suspense. The original English audio did nothing to deter Ichigo's determination to get his guess right. He had to squint hard at the subtitles to make some headway though. Some time during the movie he felt he was getting a little cross-eyed - his vision seemed to be tunneling into a singular focal point and elsewhere white spots danced around. Whereas Ulquiorra maintained his stoic position throughout, Ichigo sank deeper and deeper into the sofa bed, the cushion snuggled tightly against his chest. If it were any other movie he swore he could have fallen asleep. But this had him tossed left and right and centre with every twist. He rearranged his suspicions three times and each time he was proven wrong he yelled "No you've got the wrong guy! He's the killer, not victim!", much to Ulquiorra's annoyance.
"So, who's killing them?" the younger actor asked excitedly. When he got excited his voice naturally grew louder. "We are down to just four!"
Ulquiorra threw him a sideward glance, as if saying, "Will you keep your volume down?".
"I think it's the chauffeur!" Ichigo continued to chirp. "He's just everywhere. It must be him."
"If you had the slightest clue on the underlying themes of the movie you wouldn't be asking that. It should be a central question of which personalities are destroyed to make way for the emergence of the dormant but dominant personality."
"Are you giving me spoilers?" Ichigo retorted, obviously unimpressed. "They must have said something in English which I can't get and now you want to rub that in my face. Big deal. I'm way above that."
"No respectable suspense thriller gives away the perpetrator before the movie ends."
"I bet you've seen this before! Umpteen times!"
Ulquiorra remained unmoved. "More often than not my analyses are proven correct. We shall see."
The credits rolled on with the theme song playing in the background. Then it was replaced with the family-friendly Spiderman 2. Neither man were interested in it. They were far too preoccupied with their guesses going awry, their minds wrapped around it like a maze, refusing to let go of the fact that they had lost to the scriptwriter's wits. Ichigo breathed in, then breathed out, telling himself it was only a movie. No point getting all worked up about being right or wrong. Sometimes he was too absorbed to wean himself off the movie, and this was one of the times. Ulquiorra wasn't as forgiving of his mistake. He held a mug to his lips and stayed still. The hot chocolate was on the verge of tipping over.
"Watch the mug," Ichigo cautioned.
Ulquiorra snapped into action and set the mug back on the coffee table without drinking from it.
"Face it, you were wrong," the carrot top continued. "So much for your 'more often than not' line. You really can't speak too soon, can you? Talk about securing a victory before the battle has begun! Such a fine textbook example you are, Quiqui."
"At least she was the last to be killed, and I made only one guess and stuck to it. The same can't be said of you."
"My answer wasn't too far off either," Ichigo responded in an attempt to save his embattered pride. "Besides, who would have known that the main identity is actually a murderous little prat? We are all fooled by that explosion! Yes, including you," he mocked.
Ulquiorra clasped and unclasped his fingers on his lap. His fingernails were back to their normal color. No more black polish, at least for the time being.
"Your sense of humor continues to elude me."
"Till now the flashbacks of how he singlehandedly murdered the other identities send some shivers down my back." Ichigo made a face. "I will never look at a kid the same way again. Would you? All cute outside but inside they are devious little humans."
"Everyone is bound to possess at least two identities within themselves. Most tend to overlap with each other, thus having a core personality and a slightly wider variation of characteristics the core could take up, depending on the circumstances. The real issue arises only when the personalities are too distinct from each other or, on a more severe basis, one another. On a subconscious level they will vie to become the dominant identity, and usually in the midst of it all, people around the affected would not know which is slated to surface, when and where."
"Like the dude in the movie," Ichigo said, nodding.
Ulquiorra nodded and took a sip of his hot chocolate. "The doctor's experiment to draw out all personalities lurking in his mind is worth a further look."
"In this case, wouldn't actors be most susceptible to this kind of disorder? One minute you are someone else another minute you are back to being yourself. And along the way won't you get mixed up and you become your character at home and your character becomes you on the set?"
"Acting is never easy."
"Wow. Professor Schiffer in 'Stating The Obvious' shocker," Ichigo said with dripping sarcasm. "Anyway, now that we're onto this, I've been wondering about it myself too. When someone takes on another character and then sheds it off, would a piece of the fake personality linger on him? I'm not referring to crappy teen actors. I'm talking about serious actors who go through the whole method acting business."
"For the sake of art. Their bodies are but a heightened form of expression."
"Sometimes it goes too far without them knowing, isn't it? Tons of stories floating out there about so and so actor and actress being too deeply immersed in their roles that they resort to substance abuse and the bad stuff. They usually end up in the morgue and remembered for all the wrong reasons." Ichigo seemingly frowned at himself at the subtle descent into morbidity. "Hey, hold on. We're supposed to watch Spidey now, aren't we!" He threw his co-star a dirty look. "It's Friday night and I don't know about you, but I'm a regular guy and I just want to chill."
Ulquiorra disregarded the TV entirely and shifted himself on the sofa to better look Ichigo in the eye.
"To me," he said. "The perfect actor courts not personal tragedy but complete indifference of his environment. One who blends in so well because his emotional state is blank to begin with. Only when you are truly impassive from the start that you have the tenacity to take on characters of a wide range. Due to this trait, you are able to step away from it at the end of the day and return home with your core intact. Because you are indifferent, you are resistant to change, your main identity is not in flux but static. You hold on tight to this core and throw on another skin for the next project. You do not have to worry about anything and let your character gain full access to your body. You understand very well that there is distance, an untouchable distance where you, your real self, can sit in a room and glance at who you can turn into through a glass window. Behind it lies a mirror bearing your warped reflection. It is you but not really you at the same time. The distance makes you feel safe. You understand that it is after all, a job."
Ichigo took a brief moment to contemplate his words before realizing Ulquiorra had his piercing gaze boring down on him all along. With a sharp inhalation of air he averted his glance, almost bashfully.
"Is that your recipe for acting? Detaching yourself from everything."
"I would say so."
"As usual I can't bring myself to agree with you."
"Since when have you and I concur on the same matter?"
Ichigo swung back from observing the intricacies of the sofa bed to his co-star. "Exactly," he cracked a small grin. "Quiqui, you're starting to know me very well. And I, you."
"Suppose you belong to the emotional branch of thought."
"Why not? I believe acting should be relating to the audience. It doesn't go on and on in your head - which is what your approach is."
"It is all in the mind," Ulquiorra emphasized.
The younger man shook his head vigorously. "You've got to use your heart. True characters feel pain and joy and sorrow and emptiness. They feel real emotions and we, are supposed to display them. That I believe is what good acting is all about. We are playing humans in a realistic setting, not spaced out aliens wanting to dominate the world."
"Coming from someone whose only acting credentials is a vampire, I find it difficult to digest. Moreover an inferior stream of thought."
"Nobody's gonna force it down your throat, silly," Ichigo mumbled. "I believe in that, though. Yours may work for you, but mine is going to work for me. There's no inferiority complex going on here, OK?"
Ulquiorra gazed deeper into the younger man's warm depths before breaking contact. He felt if he were to look into them any longer, he would be inevitably pulled in. Sometime during their conversation the ginger cat had snuck onto the sofa and nestled there, content to stare at the TV. He gave his pet a few absentminded strokes, the other hand cupped around his mug.
"I can't really be much assed to argue with you tonight," Ichigo said, scratching the tip of his nose. "You can say anything you want, but so can I. At the end of the day what matters most is doing what you love, isn't it. If not, no amount of brain energy is going to make you or anyone else happy. In your case, going by how much you analyze your job, you must really love it."
"It is not too bad."
The carrot top tilted his head at his co-star, observing how nonchalant he always was. It made him mad. "Looking at you now, yeah, not too bad I'd say," he said. "You won an award last year, so of course, it is all within your grasp. Rest on your laurels while you can, pasty cool cucumber, because I daresay you won't be saying that after the movie's out next year."
"Are you inflating your ego by using me as a base?"
"I'm way above that, Quiqui. Don't be too sensitive. Acting is something I've grown to love, and I won't let it go that easily. As for all things I'm passionate about, I'll go all the way. No regrets."
The green eyed actor again felt his attention glued to Ichigo. There was something incredibly bewitching about the man when he spoke of those dearest to him.
"What is that makes you say so?" Ulquiorra couldn't help but ask.
"That's for another day. I kind of want to catch Spidey now."
When Kurosaki Ichigo opened his eyes it was already dawn. The skies outside were awash in a hazy spectrum of gold and navy blue. Curtains by the window fluttered lightly. He briefly glanced at his watch. 5.20am. He rubbed his eyes and struggled to remember what last happened before he hit the sheets. He couldn't recall walking upstairs to a vacant room and lying on the bed and dozing off to sleep. Maybe he did but his mind was foggy. His back was stiff and his vision was dominated by tiny white spots. He yawned and was about to stretch his arms and legs when he realized he couldn't move them. Too sleepy to bother, he rolled over on his sides and came face to face with a mass of black hair. Then he noticed where his limbs were - wrapped around a certain pale man, as if afraid that he would slip away into the night and never return.
Like a signal picking up cues from its surroundings, Ulquiorra stirred in his sleep. He shifted towards Ichigo, his arm carelessly strewn across the latter's waist. His face remained buried beneath raven locks, concealing any hints of sentiment he might have felt. As he moved, his white tee sloped to the left, revealing sharply defined collarbones. The rise and fall of his chest was more keenly observed this time. As he pressed against Ichigo, his heartbeat seemed to flow into him but the sound was muffled. The younger man closed his eyes. In the early hours of the morning he could hear their hearts thumping together. At first it was erratic and uneven - probably his, then it grew smoother and gradually a single, clear rhythm was formed. The beat danced along steadily, lulling him to sleep. In a faraway corner of his mind he could remember the unplanned kiss they shared that Friday night.
"And it has been a revelation," Ulquiorra had said.
Ichigo opened his eyes and found himself imagining what it would be like to run his fingers through those choppy locks and across that waxen chest under the tee shirt. To plant his lips upon the other's obstinately pursed ones. Color came easily to his cheeks and he looked away, only to gaze hopelessly into an endless swathe of pink plumes.
A/N: Have neglected this for three odd weeks. When I got around to opening Pages, I thought I might be stuck horribly - too rusty. Took a while for me to get going. Hope you enjoyed it, and thanks for the reads and reviews and alerts and faves. By the way, apologies if it got unreadable halfway there. Am working on the next chapter now! Gotta get back on track.