Functioning, Chapter 4

A/N: Thank you, G. Ai Inoue for reviewing every chapter! Authors thrive on good reviews, so it always makes my day! X3

Disclaimer: I would be surprised if Tite Kubo actually went on this site.

Anyway, CHAPTER FOUR, START!

"I'm not entirely sure what went wrong," muttered a pile of soap suds, or in this case, the fourth Espada inside the pile of soap suds.

"Isn't it just cleaning clothes?" Grimmjow asked, not sure what to do himself. "Besides, where's everyone else?"

Soapy moved in a way that signified a shrug.

"Oookay… so, let's just call… uh… someone who knows about this stuff, I guess," Grimmjow sighed, glancing worriedly at the impending puddle that was oozing underneath a closed door nearby.

PAGE BREAK! YEAH!

"So you ask me…" Ichigo Kurosaki seethed, "to help you, powerful villains, to do your laundry."

"Yup," Grimmjow responded with a deadpan expression. Ichigo narrowed his eyes threateningly.

"Fine," Kurosaki snapped, trudging through the now flooded living room and opening the wet door to the soaked laundry room. "Okay, first, we turn off the washer," Ichigo glared at Ulquiorra, pressing a large button. "Next, you clean your house. I'll come back when you're done with that step."

"Wait!" called Grimmjow.

"What?" Ichigo hissed, with an expression eerily similar to the one he donned the night at the Kurosaki's when Grimmjow calmly implied that he made more money as a stripper than the Strawberry. Grimmjow backed up a few steps before gathering the courage to speak.

"Uh… how do we… uh, clean it?" Grimmjow asked, feeling small.

…Well, at least the mop that was thrown at his face was less painful than the punch would have been.

A FEW HOURS LATER

"Okay, Ulquiorra, you start the wash, pour the detergent in—remember to rinse the cup out a few times in the water here so it doesn't get messy later on—and the you close the lid," Ichigo explained, giving the fourth Espada a meaningful look, "and do whatever the hell you do while you're waiting for the clothes to get clean."

"Alright, thank you for this service of teaching me," the moody Arrancar replied, watching Ichigo's moves of mirroring his instructions intently.

"Ah, uh, no problem. Just being a… good neighbor, is all," Ichigo rubbed the back of his head sheepishly.

"No. I shall repay you in some way, that is absolute."

"Dude, seriously, it's fine."

Ulquiorra didn't respond… In some way, that worried the observing Grimmjow a little bit.

"Okay! Well, thanks for helping us with our… little problem," Grimmjow said as he led a confused Ichigo through the (now dry) living room and out the front door.

"Yeah, uh… what are neighbors for, y'know?"

THAT NIGHT…

That night, at about 9:30 pm, Ulquiorra Cifer was sitting on Nnoitra Jiruga's bed, staring at a pink box he had found on the third Espada's, Tia Harribel's, bed. Nnoitra and Grimmjow were doing the same, examining the foreign pink box.

"What do you think is inside?" Nnoitra smirked, an eerily… strange look on his face.

"We'll never know 'till we open it," Grimmjow pointed out.

"I don't believe that Miss Harribel will be very pleased that we looked through her personal belongings," Ulquiorra commented.

"Well... she's a woman, it is our right," Nnoitra scoffed. Grimmjow merely raised a brow at the comment as he ripped the box from Ulquiorra's hands and tore it open.

"Are these… candies?" Nnoitra asked, staring at the cylindrical objects wrapped in pink paper. Ulquiorra gently picked one up by his thumb and forefinger, examining it.

"Possibly," he remarked, holding the pink… thing, to the light.

It was then that Grimmjow had had about enough of the guessing, and yanked one out from the box, before he ripped the wrapping to shreds. The object in question was made of pink plastic, half of the cylindrical thing larger, and the end of it was round, the smaller half ending flat. "Y'know… I think it's some kinda weapon," he muttered, holding the… whatever it was in his palm.

"You mean, like a torpedo?" the fifth remarked, grabbing the one Grimmjow was holding and pressing his hand to a smaller piece of the cylindrical whatsit.

"You know… Dude, I think you're right!" Grimmjow yelled, grabbing the object and slamming his hand on the smaller half, aiming at the fifth. A soft …cottony thing* hit Nnoitra with a thump, before the black-haired Espada narrowed his eyes threateningly.

"This is war," the fifth Arrancar whispered menacingly, smirking with a mischievous grin.

One War Later

"That…" Grimmjow panted, "was AWESOME."

Needless to say, the room was a mess. Cotton balls attached to string were everywhere. Nnoitra and Grimmjow battled long and hard with the twelve torpedoes they had, while Ulquiorra sat back and worried about what Tia Harribel would say once she realized her weapons were stolen.

"We need to get more of those," Nnoitra pointed out. "I wonder who supplies them to her… should we check some nearby gun shops? Those looked like they were from the world of the living."

"Hmm… maybe," Grimmjow thought, before promptly falling asleep.

The Next Day…

The next day, Grimmjow was out shopping again, because his piggy comrades ate up all the food already. Jeez.

Anyway, he was out shopping again, and this time, he wanted to explore the freakin' store; he wasn't satisfied with just the produce section! He wanted to know exactly what strange and interesting things the World of the Living had to offer.

So, he was exploring… feminine hygiene, apparently, he thought to himself, after glancing up and reading the aisle sign. … Wait, what the heck is that?

So, as the great and powerful Grimmjow, the sixth Espada decided… to snoop. After a couple minutes of finding the usual: hair brushes, hair products, all sorts of strange paints, he found… those pink boxes—those torpedoes!

Grimmjow had just hit weapons jackpot… ignoring the fact that he found them in the same section where one could find shaving cream.

After jamming about twenty boxes into his wire cart, he noticed a shocked and very pale Rukia.

"Oh, hey, shorty."

No response.

"I didn't know you had these weapons here! They're amazing!" Grimmjow said, pointing to his stuffed cart, trying to at least dispel some of the awkwardness.

"Grimmjow," Rukia whispered, "those aren't weapons."

"The hell're you talkin' about? Nnoitra and I fought a friggin war with these last night," Grimmjow pointed, yet again, at the stuffed cart.

"Did you ever wonder why those are in the 'feminine hygiene' section?" Rukia said quietly, her eyes still wide, and looking… frankly, a little scared.

"Well, kinda, but…" Grimmjow rubbed the back of his head in confusion.

ONE AWKWARD EXPLANATION LATER…

Grimmjow was, once again, speechless, staring at his hands with a rather terrified expression. "I could've lived long, long time without knowing that."

"Yeah," Rukia agreed, staring at the floor, her face red from explaining.

"I'm gonna go wash my hands now."

"'Kay," Rukia nodded, still looking away.

The cart, suspiciously filled to the brim with the aforementioned objects, was abandoned. Grimmjow would never look at girls the same way ever again.

That night, after refusing to fight another 'war,' and explaining to Nnoitra why, it was awkwardly quiet within the Espada household. Through the silence, Grimmjow Jaegerjaquez swore he could have heard hoots of laughter from a certain Ichigo Kurosaki coming from next door.

[A/N: I am so, so sorry—I just had to write this. It was my original idea that came to mind when I first thought of this, so… yeah. I'm sorry. Anyway, I'm fairly sure the next chapter will be a little less… awkward. I just had to give poor Grimmjow a bit of an awkward moment, y'know? So… yeah.]

*Remember, Grimmjow's perspective