Chapter Six: The Biological Father

Suddenly my mind was wandering over the varied surfaces of my existence. In my life I might have earned more enemies than friends, more hatred than love. The people I could assume to hold earnest concern for me were few. And that was counting Szayel who doubtless would learn to deplore me as soon as he reached his teens. There was my mother, and it was clear she was enduring me more for the fulfillment of the role designated to her by my birth than for any serious maternal affection.

Next came Shizuka, the whore teacher. Being twenty-eight years of age, she apparently saw it fit to declare her undying love for me. That demented bitch. I might've passed for twenty but what the fuck had I to offer her, my collection of Nintendo DS cartridges? On hindsight, she might've been truly in love. In the end, however, I had been merely seduced by what I had come to believe was a dark, thrilling venture. In other words, I had allowed my dick to do all the thinking instead of using my head. Once I had had my fill, the sexual thrill had gone out the window. And all that was left now was to leave her in the gutter to rot, broken hearted.

Moving on, Nnoitora Jiruga was one. He had been my classmate throughout junior high but, being the incorrigible delinquent that he was, he had been made to repeat his freshman year, so now we barely saw each other. In spite of that, he'd ring on me time and again, to satiate my monthly supply of weed, of which Ulquiorra did not approve. In fact, so-called best friend had in one occasion given me an ultimatum. 'Your other wild propensities I can at least leave alone. But if you don't stop doping around, I guess we're over, Grimmjow.' Ulquiorra had told me, as if breaking up with an imaginary boyfriend. My dope intake had found itself reduced ever since.

And then there were the Panthers. Sometimes I hated my teammates, and coach most of all for always screaming at me. But those instances were limited only within the confines of a football field. Outside of that, coach believed in me, while the rest respected me, looked up to me, admired me even in spite of my arrogance.

Lastly, Starrk. He, Ulquiorra and I went way, way back. Obviously, Starrk had long ago drifted away, leaving me and Ulquiorra like strangers, for a reason I'd rather not discuss for now.

On the other hand, the shadow of my biological father's existence loomed eminently over me. Never bitterly dark, never actually comforting, his mystery had hung over me all through these years, until it had started to wear itself away little by little. It had worn itself away completely when I had got used to this house. I had realized my mother and I had done without him, so why need that absentee bastard now?

"He said he'll call back in the morning. I'll hand the phone to you when that comes." Mother said that night.

"Dinner tonight at eight pm, Hanazawa Drive, Gate 45. I'll have a chauffer fetch you… son." These were the first words my father spoke to me, and he said them over the fucking telephone. There was no guessing his character by his tone of voice simply because there was not the slightest hint of anything worth noting in it.

As it was, once again I left training sessions earlier than usual. By the time I grabbed my duffel bag, coach was all set up to wring my fucking neck in front of the whole team. And then at home, mother produced another one of my suits from the closet, all the while babbling directives as to how to behave in front of my father and all that shit.

"Your father is a very respectable man. He is only two years my senior, which means we had you when we were both very young. I'm sorry I didn't get the opportunity to prepare you for this."

She owed me an explanation, but apparently there wasn't a lot to explain. At length, in what appeared to me as five minutes, the chauffer arrived. When I went down to do what I was set up to do, I was greeted by a black Lincoln Continental whose windows were so heavily tinted you'd think some important bastard was gonna issue from the vehicle soon. Apart from that, the commemorative plates screwed on the bumpers weren't like the ones on ordinary vehicles. To complete the spectacle, a very well-dressed lackey bolted out the passenger seat.

"Grimmjow-sama, I've been given orders to pick you up." He then nodded graciously to my mother and Dr. Kurosaki, who had followed me downstairs.

Not knowing what I was exactly doing, much less guess what meaning I could derive from his strange address to me, I gave a gesture of assent to the lackey before casting a last look on my mother and stepfather. Having secured myself in the car, I raised my eyes to the second floor window of Kurosaki residence. Sure enough, a light was shining on Ichigo's window. A closer look would confirm he himself was looking over the driveway. It would be stupid to assume he hadn't been watching the whole thing. But the sight of his silhouette altered the complexion of my mind. As abrupt as the news of my father's appearance, a certain image was stabbing me from the inside. I realized I was recalling, in vivid details, what had transpired last night. Ichigo and his fucking chick classmate had kissed each other goodbye on the night prior, right in front of his other four pals—on the fucking lips. I had blanked out right then, honest. The immodesty, man. I fancied if he had gone on to liplock the petite, black-haired chick as well it wouldn't have altered the indignity I had felt, because it had already been at its breaking point.

Hell, he could've also snogged Sado Yasutora, for the hell of it, and it wouldn't have made the slightest difference. I shouldn't have watched them from my fucking window, a voice kept repeating.

For some ungodly reason other than my issues with my father, my disquietude multiplied to exponential figures.

Hanazawa Drive Gate 45 looked like a fucking mini-mansion. Its size was moderate but the neo-classical details employed on the exterior were, if anything, arresting. Details aside, I deduced soon enough that I was delivered to this part of the town where diplomats and ambassadors were welcomed should they propose to stay for long periods of time. Clearly, this was a government-owned facility. In consequence, my curiosity for his identity increased. In time, I was led to a richly-decorated dining room, where only two sets of dinner were served. I accepted this as a meaning that he alone would receive me. And then he entered the room.

"Good evening, Grimmjow."

He was tall, quite as tall as I was, and complementing his impressive stature was his face. It was the sort from which women could derive positive satisfaction. Nearly forty years old and looking much younger than that, he perhaps had had more than his share of womanizing. Although his foreign looks added much to his majesty, hints of oriental features were equally in existence in his countenance. Why, ain't this dude fucking handsome. No wonder my mother thought nothing of the consequences when she parted her legs for this bastard, I thought.

"Yoh."

He made a motion for me to sit, thereby commencing his meal. A few minutes passed by with hardly a syllable between us, but soon, with amiability, he proposed to speak of trivial subjects, like the weather in the country and other such diplomatic and political concerns which didn't interest me in the fucking least. To my credit, I successfully silenced all urges to yawn and to scowl, while he went on to talk about himself,

"My name is Sousuke Aizen, and I'm an official serving in the Foreign Affairs branch of a government-funded establishment. I don't believe your mother talked much to you about me."

"She never talked about you, at all." I clarified. At this point, it was taking all my goddamned reserves to refrain from snickering.

"Just as I thought. Well, to start with, I am the only son of a Spanish ambassadress to Japan, that is, your grandmother who is nearly retired. She married a local of this province, Sanosuke Aizen, my father, but soon they divorced. Throughout my youth I bounced back and forth from Barcelona to Kanto."

That explained my Caucasian features, but not the rest. So I was about one-fourth Spanish, with good ancestry as far as my father's and paternal grandmother's professions were concerned, and yet none of these pieces of info was enough to warrant giving a damn. Really, I was beginning to get so fucking bored I was on the brink of inquiring if there was a television set around. Even so, he pursued his life story, thereby giving me more or less half of what I cared enough to know. It turned out he had met my mother on one of his vacations here. He had been seventeen and she fifteen.

He continued, "For two years the romance bloomed on and on, until we both realized she was carrying my child. She had just turned seventeen then. And so she, being ever so unreasonable, chose to break away from me to never see my face again."

"I see." I commented, if only to assure him I hadn't got anything stuck in my fucking windpipe. In truth, I would rather not utter a damn shit because, fuck this, I didn't know whether to care or not.

"Yes. But please understand that for five years following our separation I sought her far and wide, until I came upon a common friend. Reluctantly this friend referred me to her new hometown. Hence without announcement or any such ceremony, I knocked on her door. There we came face to face for the first time after five long years. Immediately I inquired as to the fate of her pregnancy, the subject of which she was swift to dismiss, as if to imply she had had a miscarriage. Her conducts, however, gave her away. I deduced she had kept the child so I demanded to see it—you. She wouldn't allow me. We argued endlessly on the hallway, her neighbors popping their heads out their windows to examine the commotion, but nothing gave. You were probably asleep all the long while; so near to me and so far all the same. It enraged me. In the end, she handed me a photograph of you, and that was enough to pacify me for the meantime. But on that frame I saw my own eyes. You looked strikingly like me; you still do."

Aizen Sousuke then reached deep into his pocket, and in no time he was spreading the contents of his wallet on the table. When I looked closer, old photographs of my younger self were looking straight at me. My smile in one shot reminded me so much of Szayel.

"Neat."

"We came into an agreement. She promised to inform me of her location every year and send me photos or video footages of you regularly, and in return I would provide for your financial needs."

In that remark, everything now fell into place. My father was somewhat wealthy and for that reason his former lover and their bastard son were living in comfort. Still, I saw him as a vague entity, never as a father.

"Cool, I guess."

"That's a father's duty." He said mechanically, folding his arms across his chest, completing a look of utter respectability. Losing no opportunity to express his intentions, he resumed, "Now that it's said and done, I wish to take you away, son. I talked to your mother about this over the phone yesterday. It appears she and your stepfather have agreed to leave the choice to you, as you are already eighteen, after all."

"Where to?"

"To Europe or America, depending on my next job assignment. I'm entreating you to take up your college education from either continents, under my supervision and financial aid. You will be provided for generously; a car of your own, a nice place to stay—everything. Furthermore, we can make use of your skills as a quarterback to ease up your entry in your desired university. I've always watched your games on broadcast, by the way, and I must say this: you are quite a talent. I doubt you would find it hard to qualify for a slot in some elite fraternity in any western university. Needless to say I'm endowing you with everything your education may require, I'm also ensuring you a life of utter comfort. Understand that this isn't an offer as much as it is an entreaty. You see, I haven't married and I have no immediate plans to, which goes to say I'm living alone… Grimmjow, you are my blood, my one and only son."

All in a single train of sentences my inattention to the matter collapsed. In a dozen heartbeats the whole of this shit was taking an entirely new route. I found myself thinking of my life here in Japan, of the world I had always known, of mother, Szayel, Ulquiorra, and Coach Muruguma—even of Starrk. Of football, most of all. Indeed, their images were enough to push me to some deeper sense of regard. I had something going on here. To forsake them all at once required more than your usual amount of deliberation. But then, in America, football was the biggest thing. College League. NFL. Superbowl. I could make a name for myself over there, even build a future…be like Tom Brady. Getting drafted in the NFL had always been my wildest dream. Surely, this was an extremely attractive offer which only a straight-out moron could decline.

And then something arose from the depths of my consciousness. Somehow, for some motherfucking reason, a certain pair of brown eyes and orange hair were zooming in and out of my imagination.

"I will need time to think it over."

The evening ended with that.

TBC

A/N: I sure hope none of you died of boredom after reading this lol. Sorry to waste your time on this one but what unfolded here is something you might call elemental to this crap's so-called plotif it has any. I will try to make the next chap eventful, to the best of my ability (which means you ought not to get your hopes up haha). As for Aizen being G's pops, well, I'm too lazy to think of someone else.