Chapter Seventeen

When I awoke some time later, it was to an empty bed and a blanket over my rats nest of hair, as well as to shouts in the other room. Although it was quite hard to discern whose voices they were, it nearly sounded like Usagi and Grimmjow arguing, which was far more than likely since they seemed to be perpetually squabbling over some miniscule topic.

I sat up quickly and slid out of the bed, grabbing my messenger bag off of the floor as I moved. From the way the voices sounded, Usagi's was far louder and Grimmjow's was softer, quieter, but still contained a bit of force in his voice—almost like he wanted to shout, but was mindful not to.

The voices stopped the second I stepped into the other room; sure enough, I was right—Usagi stood near the door, one hand on her head and the other placed firmly on her waist. Grimmjow, on the other hand, was lounging on the couch, one leg stretched out in front of him and the other with his foot planted on the floor.

His jacket, I noticed, was still gone.

I bet you wished you'd woken up curled into his chest, the voice taunted. Maybe his arm curled around you possessively.

Shut up, I thought to myself, standing up straight.

Usagi was looking at me, a mask of horror dominating her face. "Kaori, why . . . are—is that blood?"

I glanced down, somewhat surprised to find that there were still blood stains on my once pristine white shorts. I mean, there was a new blanket on me when I had woken up next to Grimmjow, so my clothing should have been cleaned by the same logic.

"Uh, yeah. Yeah, I guess that's blood." Smoothly, I slipped my hands behind my back, because I knew that those were definitely still covered in blood. "And no, I didn't kill, stab, or maim any being big or small."

She rounded on Grimmjow immediately. "What in the world were you thinking, idiota?" And then Usagi was ranting, some of her words screeched at the top of her lungs. I took a half step back from her and into the bedroom, somewhat frightened of her, especially since she had began mixing her languages.

Grimmjow, however, ignored her and looked to me, bored look on his face. "Sleep well?"

"Well enough," I said with a shrug, bringing up one of my blood flaked hands and attempting to run my fingers through my tangled hair. Unfortunately, my fingers got caught up in the tangles and I wound up pulling my hair. I grimaced and immediately placed my hand back behind my back. "I mean, you know, despite a rude awakening in the middle of the night and then being forced to sleep again."

He shrugged back at me; with the action came a barely contained flinch, one which I only noticed because of the grimace that had struck his face like lightning, only to be gone seconds later.

They have a high pain tolerance, Kaori. They make perfect little soldiers that way.

I really wanted my medication; I thanked whatever higher power there was, though, that there was only one voice at this point, not two.

"You're the one who should still be sleeping anyways," I said, smirking.

"Not fucking even," he snorted, looking back towards Usagi, who at this point had gone cherry red in the face but had yet to begin to gasp for air or even slow down her rant. "I'm fine."

"Oh, yes," I said with a laugh. "Totally fine, minus a few burns and a missing arm. If you were a normal person, you'd be bedridden for at least a week in pain."

He rolled his eyes at me. "Fuck that." I noticed that he, too, was still splattered in blood—so he could get a new blanket, re-bandage his own wound, and manage to move me from the floor and into a bed with only one arm without waking me up, but he couldn't manage to get all of the blood off himself?

I said they were good little soldiers; I didn't say they were smart. I wanted the man in my head to shut up, to disappear, to just leave me alone, but I chose to do my best and ignore him as much as I could.

"Are you even listening to me?" Usagi demanded in her screech. My head whipped towards her immediately following her outburst, heart beating rapidly. Her voice had gone up a number of octaves, and the sudden change in it had frightened me.

"Fuck no," Grimmjow answered boredly. He was staring up at the ceiling, hand on the back of his head. "But if you care to fucking repeat it again, I'm sure I'll at least understand one out of a hundred words."

Usagi contorted her face into something that nearly looked like it jumped out of a horror movie or a screamer on the internet—I was sure to have nightmares about that face for a while, all twisted lips and sharp teeth and a harsh glare.

Had it been directed at me, I was sure I would have peed my pants.

But instead of screaming at him again, she turned around and stalked out of the room and into the hallway, slamming the door with an echoing thud behind her. I jumped at the noise; I had been expecting her to launch herself back into another rant, not storm out of the room in a huff.

A moment of silence passed before I could find my voice again.

"Wh-"

"Wait for it," he intoned, cutting me off. "Five, four, three . . ."

Before he could even reach one, the door was thrown open again and Usagi charged back into the room, ranting again.

"I can not even believe you, Grimmjow Jagerjaques! You defied Aizen in the worst way possible-" at that point, she slammed the door behind her, effectively keeping either of us from escaping through the door behind her, "-and you paid for it dearly! You lost an arm, and you lost your position. Your position! The one you fought tooth and nail for, remember? You're lucky Tosen didn't kill you at Aizen's behest! What in the world were you thinking when you did that? Tell me what you were thinking, because I don't understand! And then, then it looks like you came back here, missing an arm and bleeding and you what? You came in here and you, you, you . . ."

From what I could see, Grimmjow wasn't paying attention to her this time, either. But he had known she was coming back, even if he miscalculated the timing by a few seconds.

There was another moment of pregnant silence, punctuated only be Usagi's heavy breathing. She was glaring at Grimmjow, almost as if she wanted to keep going but wasn't entirely sure as to what she was going to say next.

"I believe the fucking words you're looking for are, "you came in here and woke up Kaori and bled all over the fucking place and then passed out and then woke up and then cleaned up most of what you could and then moved Kaori into the bed because the floor is really fucking uncomfortable." Or something like that," Grimmjow told her languidly. "You could even go on to say that I ensured that my fucking "charge" as that asshole Ulquiorra calls her to actually slept a little longer. So, yeah, bitch, I came in here after fucking Tosen cut off my arm."

Usagi stared at him for a moment before she turned around and very calmly walked out, the battered and abused door barely making a noise as she shut it. Her re-exit had been quite sudden, and I wasn't entirely sure if she had meant to leave—but she must have, because she didn't come back.

"She'll be back once she cools down," Grimmjow yawned. "It might take a day or two, but what the fuck ever." He yawned again and then stood, turning his head to look at me as he did so.

"Anyways," he continued, "let's go get this fucking blood off."

Y'all are brilliant. Your reviews are great, and I'd reply to them but I've been super busy this week because of a trigonometry project and two essays for English.

See you Wednesday!