I Hate That I Love You - CH 6: Sixteen Days
"You may live for now, Grimmjow Jaegerjaquez," Aizen announced. "Just watch yourself or you won't be so lucky next time."
I accepted this new fate easily, quickly getting rid of old thoughts and emotions. I shrugged as if I wasn't rejoicing in the inside. "Fine with me."
Behind Ulquiorra's frozen mask, I knew his face would have been morph to anger and disappointment. He didn't want to see me walk out alive. Tōsen and Gin threw me sharp scowls; they couldn't go against what Aizen wanted, even if he had promised them that I would die today.
Ulquiorra, Orihime and I made our way down the hall to Orihime's room. She was real cheery about the final decision about me, completely ignoring the big talk she had with Aizen after I was set off the hook. Although, I felt like something remained wrong about Aizen letting me live. As if it was the wrong decision. I continued to look at her while a painful spark ignited in the pit of my chest. Every word, every touch, every smile…
This feeling… it won't go away. I don't like it. I was never completely satisfied, because I still loved her—the human girl who was pathetic and weak. I didn't want to love her the way I did. I had to do something about it...
When he reached her room, we lingered outside for a little while. She turned around to give me big smile, ignoring the fact that I almost killed her. Then she quickly bowed. "Goodbye, Grimmjow-san!"
"Wait a minute," I called, grabbing her shoulder before she opened the doors to enter. "I need a few seconds with you." I turned to give Ulquiorra a firm expression. "Alone."
"Ulquiorra, can he...?" she hesitated to ask him, knowing that he would most likely decline to my request.
He nodded after a moment of thinking it through. "Just one minute is all you get, Jaegerjaquez. I'm timing you."
Immediately, I pushed Orihime into her room and closed the door behind me. Despair shun at my eyes now that it was just me and her.
"What is it?" she asked, somehow feeling terrified.
The words were foreign in my mouth. They didn't roll of my tongue nicely. The syllables were uneven when it came out of my own mouth. "Th-Thank... you."
Her eyes widened to the same surprise I felt. "You're welcome," she whispered. "Feel free to come by tomorrow." Orihime's eyes dazzled at the thought.
"No, Orihime..." I shook my head angrily. "Don't you understand? I can't see you anymore!"
She blinked twice. "I'm sure Ulquiorra is allowing it if I—"
I interrupted her quickly. "I said no! I feel like I don't want to see you anymore. Got that?" I explained. It felt like something in my body twisted with unease.
"Wh-What do you mean?" she stuttered.
"I'll say it again, I don't want to see you anymore. It's not right for me to... It's just unhealthy for me. Besides… I always go through trouble when I'm with you."
She swallowed hard. "B-But, Grimmjow-san! I-"
"That's enough out of you, Orihime! You did this to me. It's your fault! I... I gotta go." I moved my legs in the direction of the door without thinking about it twice.
"Wait!" she yelled after me, grabbing my wrist with both hands curled around it. She was already in tears.
I withdrew my hand harshly, making her flinch in surprise. "Just go away!" With those final words, I decided to leave her life forever…
It's been sixteen days since I told Orihime to go away. Sixteen days since I last saw her. Sixteen days since I heard her voice. Funny... I never counted the days that went by before. Arrancars never grew old, so it didn't matter how many years pass by.
I've been a wreck on those sixteen days. I weakly ate three spoonfuls of soup each day and threw out the rest. Whenever I was bored as hell, I stared out the window again. Like I thought, it wasn't filling that gap. I could care less now if the other guys teased me or when Ulquiorra played around with words toward me. I've been skipping meetings lately only because I didn't want to see Ulquiorra and ask him how Orihime was doing—It was simply tempting.
I bet that chick is doing great without me. Has she made some other friends? I wasn't absolutely sure. I still hear other people talking about her crudely, and I recoil myself from defending her. They never call her by her real name—I've never heard her four-syllable name spoken again. Even with Ulquiorra. It was always "the girl" now. I bet she's getting a lot of praise from Aizen and his loyal disciples for having the guts to stay away from what they warned her for.
I was wrong sixteen days ago.
This was not healthy. Hell I'm a lot worse than before she came here. It might be healthy if I just visit her for one afternoon... No. I can't. I already humiliated myself by telling her all those shit. She won't accept me back, not even as a friend. Hey, I guess she was the first friend I had here too.
Life is a load of shit—at least for me it is.
And sixteen days later, I heard her name again...
"Orihime," that familiar voice said.
That name sent an electrical current through me. A shock like something had jumped in front of me and hit me in the gut. I looked away from the window I was gazing out at and met Ulquiorra's eyes. "What?"
He sighed. "You weren't listening to me, were you? I said, Orihime got punished yesterday during the meeting," he repeated, but all I seemed to hear before was that name I cherished.
I frowned. "Punished? Why?"
"Talking out of term—In the middle of Aizen-sama's lecture, she pointed to your empty seat and said 'he's not here'," he explained.
"She did that?" I smirked. "Idiot."
He locked his jaws tighter and scowled at me.
"And you're telling me this because...?"
"I figured you would be concerned, being her friend and such," he said. The guy could have rolled his eyes in addition. Even as her bodyguard, he never knew her well enough.
I let that comment slide. "So what's her punishment?" I asked, although I knew it couldn't be too severe.
"The girl got her hairpins taken away and is now in the possession of Aizen-sama. She may only have it back when she is assigned to use them," Ulquiorra explained.
I remembered my theory of Orihime manipulating me with her hairpins... Yup, I still felt something. It wasn't the hairpins after all. Shit... now she's got no protection if someone attacked her when Ulquiorra does a fucked up job of being her bodyguard one day by leaving her out of his sight. It's her fault. Or is it mine? She only had to say that because I don't come during meetings...
I didn't reply.
"I'm going away for an errand. I'll be back in two days, maybe three," he said.
I shrugged. "Why'd you have to announce that to me?"
"I wanted to ask if you could look after her for now."
"You can forget it." I turned back to looking out the window. The sand below did not distract me. I took down the chance of seeing her. Until this feeling went away, I had to keep my distance.
I heard the rustle of his clothes. He had shrugged his shoulders. "I'll try to be back soon then." In the next second, he was gone. Maybe that shrug symbolized a challenge. The asshole was seeing if I'd snap and come see her when he wasn't around.
"Orihime has no defences," I muttered to myself, letting the fact hit me harder. Fucking Aizen isn't doing a good job of keeping his servants safe. Damn that Shinigami.
Was I going to her room? I asked myself. "No. I'm taking a stroll," I answered my unspoken question aloud. Anyways, I was going to the opposite direction of her room—Might as well roam around aimlessly until it's time to sleep. The sound of my footsteps was the only audible sound in the silent corridor. It gave me permission to think things over, although this silence was ordinary.
A certain scent filled my nostrils. I somewhat enjoyed the stench. It wasn't Orihime in general, but this stench belonged to her. Blood. My mind took a detour, a huge one. Immediately, I raced through the halls toward her room. I couldn't stop my legs from moving as fast as they could go. What happened to my "stay away from the girl" rule?
I figured she was being abused again, taking advantage of the time Ulquiorra was gone to giver her a piece of their mind. Every wall was a blur as it zoomed by. The smell of blood came closer, and the silence remained. That was peculiar. It was too silent for the sounds of beating. No desperate scream, no thumps against the wall and floor. Nothing. Even if I knew this, I still kept moving. Finally her room was in my view. I flew through her doors.
And sixteen days later, I saw her again.
She was on the floor and on her knees, fidgeting with something. Her hands were bleeding as she picked up the broken fragments of a glass bowl. Every piece she picked up would cut her. Clumsy as always, huh? Slowly she turned her head. When we met gazes, her eyes grew wide like last time and she made a little gasp. "Grimmjow-san!" she whispered.
I froze for a second, debating whether I should make a run for it now, because I'll get swallowed up again. "What the hell are you doing?" I finally asked.
She gave me a sheepish smile and her cheeks turned scarlet in embarrassment. I always did catch her in the worst moments of humiliation. "I... I broke the bowl."
"I know that! But why the hell are you touching its fragments? Can't you see you're hurting yourself?" I sounded like an overprotective parent.
"I don't want Aizen-sama to get mad at me," she reasoned.
I rolled my eyes and walked over to her. Bad, bad, bad, a voice in my head said. I told it to shut the fuck up. I left her jaw hanging as I moved closer. Then I kneeled next to her and stared at her bleeding hands. I took them in mine, gentler than I've even been with anything. Blood was always like a perfume to me. Every battlefield needed a whiff of blood, and that made it glorious. "You know that glass here in Heuco Mundo is tougher than your guys' right?" I asked.
"I figured that out just now," she replied in a small voice.
She couldn't heal herself because she didn't have her hairpins. That's just great... Orihime would've cut her own hands off if I didn't come. I quickly tore two pieces of long fabric from my pants, and then wrapped them around her injured hands. The pleasant stench of salt and rust filled my nostrils.
"Wh-What are you doing, Grimmjow-san?" she said in surprise as I damaged my clothes. I was different from her in that category. She ironed and neatly folded her clothes and I threw mine wherever.
"Be quiet," I said.
She disregarded it. "How... did you know I was hurt?" she asked hesitantly.
"I could have smelled your fucking blood two towers away," I replied.
The scent now was faint since I covered it up with the cloth as it jammed the bleeding. Humans took weeks to recover in injuries like this. I'd have to ask Aizen if he could lend the hairpins to her just for this situation.
"Sorry if I made you come over here when you were busy," Orihime apologized.
I was no where near busy.
"Did Ulquiorra make you my bodyguard now?"
"...sure."
"Sorry," she repeated.
I stood up after I was done securing the cloth to her hand, and she copied. "Why are you sorry?" I asked.
"Because I know you wanted me to stay away," she whispered.
The look in her eyes told me that she took those words roughly. Just go away! It echoed in my head. I regretted saying it to her. "Oh well, can't do anything about it now." That was, in a way, my style of apologizing.
"Sorry."
"Stop saying that, woman!"
Orihime nodded vigorously. She made me feel like I was treated her like a pet—the way she added "san" every time she said my name, the way she seemed unhesitant to obey me.
There was another pause as we both waited for the other person to move next. I had two choices: I could stay, or I could do the "right" thing and leave.
"You can... sweep that up with a broom and dustpan now," I said, nodding toward the fragments that was scattered on the red carpet of her room.
"All right." But she didn't move from her spot.
I gave her a weak smile. "I gotta go." I seemed to be saying that I lot to her, and she gave me the same look every time too. I turned around and headed for the door. This time, she didn't say anything, but I thought I heard her mutter a goodbye.
I closed the door behind me and my hand froze on the door handle, debating if I should really just walk away like this...
A few seconds later, I opened the door again to peer in.
A/N: Hooray! I'm done writing out this whole story... on a sheet of paper at least. I have a total of 12 chapters. So I hope you're one to read that much chapters. Any thoughts? Review!