A/N: Back to Grimmjow's POV.
Chapter Fourteen: One Crack at a Time
…
The period after the match was a time for celebration, but coach wasn't the type to go easy on his lot.
"Just because you've managed to kill Kanto's strongest it doesn't mean you ought to go lax on the succeeding matches. Keep in mind that, in part, we owed this victory to their lack of a decent quarterback."
"Tell me about it, coach. That Togakushu is a complete idiot." Our Cornerback Tesla Lindocruz piped up. When Tesla had joined the team last year, he had been silent as a mute. And then he had started hanging around his cousin Jiruga, and right now he could as much avoid being cocky as he could survive without fucking oxygen.
At that, half the team sniggered.
Coach ignored them and went on, "Next in line is Mikasa. They're strong; make no mistake about that."
"Has Mikasa won the Regional Finals match, coach?" Hisagi asked.
"Would I yap about them if they hadn't? Use your brain, Hisagi."
"Oh, sorry."
"But Mikasa's quarterback is even more of an idiot. I wonder how many times Ylfordt-san will blitz that loser." This time Tesla sounded problematic, and thereupon the team howled like a bunch of hyenas. Right then, coach gave up his useless lecture. He said,
"Okay, bastards, you can all crash into the headquarters tonight until two in the morning. I know you animals are dying to party. No alcohol or girls allowed."
"Oh, Yadomaru-san is going home? Where is she, by the way?" Gio Vega, our rookie reserve quarterback, inquired, looking around like some lost imbecile. The kid was always trying to impress the manager, like a fool possessed by puppy-love.
"She will stay to make sure you don't blow up the place or something. Now, I will leave cash for whatever food you might wanna order."
The dugout boomed with triumphant bellows. Only Starrk and I appeared unwilling to plunge into some animalistic revelry so soon. In moments like this, a whole day must elapse first for the sense of victory to settle in its final place. But I was detracted from further musing when Lisa entered the dugout and motioned at me,
"You have visitors outside. You might wanna take someone with you." Without elaborating, she turned to the rest of the team to start nagging and to allude to the consequences should our rowdy members go out of control. As for me, I was in no mood to discuss shit with people, but this mood of mine was of no use for the time being. Thus I flicked my head at Starrk, all the while wondering who in hell would have the audacity to require my audience in this so unholy an hour.
Outside, Madarame was waiting, Ayasegawa idling behind him. Both looked as though someone had splashed ice-cold water across their faces. Kyoushin's captain spoke first,
"First and foremost, I, on behalf of coach Zaraki, wish to offer you congratulations for advancing to the quarterfinals. See, it ain't my thing to interfere with the victors' merry-making, even more so because you're responsible for our elimination, but it looks like I'll hardly be getting another oportunity to send this message. It's this." Madarame produced a square envelope which waxed too familiar. As a matter of fact, I had long ago lost count of the number of times Lisa had handed one like this to me.
"Game footages of Mikasa Tigers, I presume." I commented.
"They've recently gotten hold of a certain rookie—"
"—Toshiro Hitsugaya." Came my reply.
It was Ayasegawa who spoke, "Hitsugaya-kun's not the problem. If anything, he's merely a nuisance; some stumbling block at most."
To whom was he referring to? I was sure the runt was the main threat of the team, provided quarterback Kira Izuru remained a pansy… gradually, the image of an unnamed player rose before me like a specter.
"Bull. You rascals are helping us out because? I'd be very interested to hear what you have to say for yourselves." I said with exertion.
"As your fellow Kanto contenders we owe you this much. Personally, I wouldn't wish what happened to me and Katakura-sempai last year to get repeated, not even on the athletes who caused us this elimination. Anyway, watch the footage; there's no way you'll miss the dude. That's all we came here for. Good night." Madarame finally announced.
"We can't thank you enough." Starrk muttered.
Nodding like a solemn priest, Madarame took to his heels, while on the other hand Ayasegawa nimbly skipped away as though there no longer was any reason for him to be dejected. When they had gone, I turned to Starrk,
"Don't sweat it. This fucking 'Baby Genius' will soon learn it ain't time for him to be weaned away from his momma's titties. As for the mystery dude, we'll have to let coach decide whether or not there's a need to wet our pants."
"Aye, boss."
…
I got home one hour past midnight. On account of that, I had to steal silently inside the damned house. Ichigo might have gone to bed already, and yet I was half hoping the case was otherwise. My hopes then went up upon the sight of light escaping from the gap between the door and the floor of his bedroom. I knocked, to which silence received me. At that, I pried the door open to find his nose buried in a fucking book.
"I knocked twice, ya know."
"So I heard."
His manner struck me as insolent, and of course I found this hard to ignore.
"You watched me rip dragon asses so why so fucking smug?"
Annoyance registered on his face, whereas the very same sentiment was beginning to beset me. My opportunity to ask was terminated right away when he blurted,
"It must have been swell fucking your math teacher."
First, I opened and closed my mouth like a drunken man. But hardly had the accusation made its full descent on my wits than it began to fucking repeat itself in my head, over and over. At the back of my mind, a number of unanswered questions were crowding in. More than anything, guilt was casting a shadow over me.
"Where the fuck did you pick that garbage up?"
"Oh, I think we're mistaking what matters from what doesn't. So let's hear what you have to say for yourself."
This was exactly the last thing I wanted to happen. On top of everything, I had already been absolved of this fucking scandal. After all, I had chucked the whore like some used doll. With that in mind, I deduced this could be sorted out by way of a decent explanation.
"It was swell for a fucking time. I assure you I've ended my shenanigans with her for good."
"It's true then."
"It was." I stressed.
He heaved a sigh, pulled himself from his bed, and drew himself to his full stature. My nerves, charged with anxiety or some other jangling feeling, began to cower. Perhaps it had to do with the bitter glare he was giving me, otherwise with the partial guilt which hadn't left me.
"I can take your word for it. But we're over, I guess."
I blanked out entirely. Frankly, I couldn't name three things in my life worse than this. Upon recovering, I started,
"Now you listen here—"
"—No. You listen—"
"—So what do you call those nights? Fucking mistakes?—"
"Grimmjow, this has been wrong from top to bottom, right from the beginning. I surmise this discovery is just some fucking wake-up call for us both. I mean, this can't go on; you and I."
He might as well have fucking stabbed me in the stomach, the fucking bastard. Was I being dumped? Me? Of all fucking jocks? Why, this was a first for me, and perhaps the last. Whatever the fucking case, I couldn't, wouldn't, accept it. And so my frustration went on to make me see red, whereby I began to clasp my hair and to wipe imaginary dirt on my mouth. In short, I was beginning to get mad.
"Are you dumping me, prat?"
"Looks like it. You're my brother, for crying out loud."
His answer and that alone, I suspected, made me recede to my former violent self. Without preliminaries, I stormed in on him and pinned him on the bed. A gasp issued from his mouth but that was hardly a reason to postpone my assault. My mind was reeling and was being invaded by hideous imaginations. I wanted to strip him naked. I wanted to get myself inside him, to do him while he was dry, to make him scream my name over and over, and to have him begging for more. The desire grew and grew, by the fucking minute, until it was very near to overtaking me. Indeed, rape was just around the corner.
But maybe I couldn't pull something like that.
No, I wouldn't bear to have him experience what I had experienced from my fucking teacher. It occurred to me that I had long before now started caring deeply. About him. Accordingly the imagined atrocities ceased right here. I asked,
"Tell me. Would you have thrown me—us—away if you hadn't learned of my past with that whore?"
"Yes. Sooner or later either of us would come to this realization. It just so happened that it turns out to be me."
"Fuck you."
Compelled by some bitterness I could not fully understand, I pressed him harder down his bed, my palms threatening to dislocate his shoulders. He seemed well on his way to groaning in pain, and was looking like it too. But then the door flew open, and Karin was standing there in horror. Why was she here? Perhaps she had started to observe my and Ichigo's activities long before now, right from the moment she had discovered we had most likely been screwing every night.
"G—get off him please, Grimmjow-san."
At first I was tempted to obey, perhaps due to the sternness of the expression on her face, and in fear of attracting the attention of the other inhabitants of this accursed house. In the next second, however, I realized no person, much less a girl, would stop me from doing what I thought I was entitled to do.
"Go away, brat."
Not realizing the full weight of my dismissal, I felt my right arm fly away from Ichigo. He had fucking slapped it away! I had forgotten how strong he was too. He was an athlete, for crying out loud. Before long a threat reached my ears.
"You'll not speak to my sister that way." Through gritted teeth and with a voice that was hardly his, he warned, protective.
He pushed me aside, with force. Having been caught off-guard I stumbled down the fucking carpet. And then, like some idiot who had come to the wrong neighborhood, I tried to pull myself erect after a humiliation. My lethal gaze shifted from him to his sister for many times and yet, still, their sorry eyes were more vindictive than mine. I felt like a fucking criminal. I went on feeling that way until I decided it was about time for this to end. As though reading a message I could not have read previously, I gave in, in the heat of my anger and amid the various oppressing sensations settling at the pit of my stomach. In the end, I wasn't one to beg for affection. Really, fuck that.
"You're right. We're over, fucking brother."
I stormed out, feeling like an older man. More than anything, what I needed was something on which to vent my feelings. Nevertheless, I dredged on, pulling on some grand show of emotional stability just when it was almost impossible to do so.
For the first time in what must have been my whole life, my heart felt like breaking.
TBC
A/N: I hate, hate, this chapter. Sorry for this! Oh, this is gonna get draggy; to my estimation, I still have six chapters left.
