Bleach Fan Fiction ❯ Black Tears ❯ Black Tears ( Chapter 1 )

I don't own anything but my ideas.

 

Black Tears

 

“Good bye, Ulquiorra, have a nice day.” The soft purr was almost menacing, echoing through the long hallway to the front door, making the pale boy stop in his tracks, his hand clenching on the doorknob.

 

“Good bye, Mr. Aizen,” he returned, a sincerity in his voice though he felt nothing but repulsion. He was just glad the older man hadn't come to the door to see him off. He wouldn't have been able to stomach another first day of school if he had.

 

Ulquiorra pulled the door open silently and closed it, jogging down the path and away from the house before Aizen called him back. Ulquiorra gripped the strap of his bag tightly and broke into a run, not looking back over his shoulder to make sure he was being followed until he had reached the road and was safe from the covering of the thick forest surrounding that house.

 

Another first day of school, and another town. Ulquiorra had never forgiven his parents for dying. He had been too young to remember them, but he could never forgive them for leaving him with that man as his guardian. What parents did that to their only son? The only one they would ever be able to have? He was a surprise baby, but only because his mother was supposed to be infertile, and so they had protected him like he was the reincarnation of a god.

 

Another town, yet again. Ulquiorra had never been accepted anywhere. Every year Aizen's job too him to a new town, each one much too far away from the last to stay in touch with anyone. Not that Ulquiorra had ever had anyone to stay in touch with. He was always the new kid, and he was always the freak. With his pale skin, midnight hair, and the emerald eyes as green as the gemstone itself, it was obvious that he looked a little different from everyone else, and the scars running from under his eyes all the way to his jaw bone were obvious signs of abuse.

 

The first year after his parents had died, the child services hadn't been able to locate Aizen right away, and even after that they had there were so many papers to go through before he could live with Aizen. He had been placed with another young couple, who had somehow been able to fool the child services before Ulquiorra went to stay with them. Neither had stable jobs, the man was always drunk and abusive, and the woman was in tears half of the time and would never stop the man from hitting Ulquiorra. The worst night, the last night he had stayed with them, the man was so drunk he had taken their steak knives and carved two identical scars down the pale seven-year-old's face.

 

When the child service came to get him, and saw the large scars on his face, they had been forced to tell Aizen what had happened, and almost the next day the two had turned up dead in a police cell, poisoned. Ulquiorra had never asked how it happened to them. He had never needed to, he knew what happened.

 

He slowly merged into the crowd of students with the same school uniforms as him, and tried to ignore the glances they sent his way and how they all seemed to walk to maneuver out of his way. It was the same here as it was at any other school, he was used to the treatment by now.

 

The students milled into the 11th grade room and one by one found their seats before joining their friends in lively and happy conversations, all except Ulquiorra. He found his seat and stayed their, staring at the chalkboard like he always did. He could hear people whispering around him, but he ignored it. It was easier now, and presumably it would just keep getting easier as time went on.

 

“God, another day back in this shit hole.”

 

Ulquiorra tipped his head up to the intriguingly annoyed voice, his every narrowing in confusion at what he saw. Not only was this boy at least a head taller than almost everyone else in the class, but his open shirt and bright blue hair made him stick out more than a red beacon on the sea at night, but that wasn't what Ulquiorra was staring at. It was the tattoo on the boy's right cheek, which had been tattooed in black and white ink to look like the jawbone and teeth of a skull, so it looked like the boy had peeled his skin off to show the bones underneath.

 

The people around him were equally intriguing. The boy with bright orange hair and what looked like a permanent scowl; he had never seen anyone with such bright orange hair, it wouldn't even be classified as red. Another boy with bright red hair, but as red as it was Ulquiorra couldn't tell if it had been dyed. He had his hair tied back up in a very spiky ponytail, but again, the obvious tattoos scattered all over his forehead and neck were what drew attention to him. Ulquiorra could have sworn this school had a dress code.

 

The bell rang, a sharp, shrill piercing sound and everyone drifted slowly to their seats, all of them breaking into runs to get to their desks when the teacher pulled open the door. The blue haired boy was the only one who hadn't moved from his conversation over at the red and orange haired boys' desks, who sat adjacent to each other.

 

“Mr. Jaegerjaquez, will you kindly take your seat?” the teacher snapped, clearly annoyed, if not almost expecting this. She turned back to the board and picked up a piece of chalk, placing it with a small tick against the board when all of a sudden her glasses fogged over and the chalk snapped in half with the pressure she had put on it.

 

“Is that a tattoo, Mr. Jaegerjaquez?” she demanded, whirling to them. “And Mr. Abarai for that matter, too?” She did not look happy, Ulquiorra could see that very clearly. He had initially wondered why she hadn't made a remark about their hair color, but soon concluded that this hadn't been the first year of them with the unusual and loud colors.

 

“What do you think?” the Jaegerjaquez guy smirked cockily, turning his head so she could see it better and touching it with his thumb. “Got it the day we got out of school.”

 

The poor teacher just looked more stunned than anything, and Ulquiorra could hardly blame her, it was a very noticeable tattoo. She pushed her glasses back up her nose and picked up her attendance clipboard before something else happened and started reading off the names.

 

“Renji Abarai?” she ground out, moving onto the next name before he had even called out that he was there.

 

There were only a few people that stuck out. Renji Abarai, the boy with the tattoos on his eyebrows and the red hair, Ichigo Kurosaki, the boy with the orange hair, Grimmjow Jaegerjaquez was the boy with the blue hair, another name that the teacher spat, Orihime Inoue, the girl who had been so content with staring at Ichigo she hadn't even noticed the teacher call her name the first two times, and a few others like Rukia Kuchiki, Tatsuki Arisawa, Shinji Hirako and Hiyori Sarugaki.

 

“And we have a new transfer student, all the way from Sapporo. Ulquiorra Cifer.”

 

Ulquiorra stood on cue and walked up to the front of the room, picking up the chalk and scrawling his name on the board. This would never change either, he would never be in a school he had been in before, so that people knew his name and he wouldn't have to introduce himself to anyone. That would never happen, he was used to writing his name on the seemingly same black board.

 

“Does anyone have any questions for Mr. Cifer?”

 

these would also be the same. Where did you get the scars—does your dad have a job that makes you move all the time—how many times have you moved—was one of your parents albino—that question usually got the student sent out into the hallway, but it was always asked every first day of school, and the answer was always no. It would all be the same.

 

“How many times have you moved?”

 

The answers would all be the same too, robotic, automatic, he could fall asleep if he wanted and his body would automatically know that answer.

 

“Ten.”

 

“Where did you get the scars?”

 

“I fell on a pitch fork when I was four.” That answer was a lie, but there was no way he was going to tell them he was abused. That would just add to the freak stereotype.

 

“Does your dad have a job that makes you move that many times?”

 

“My parents are dead, but my guardian's job is constantly relocating.”

 

“When did they die?”

 

“Long enough ago so that I don't remember them.”

 

“What's the longest you've stayed in one place?”

 

“Nothing over a year.”

 

That one made a murmur pass through the class, the same murmur that always happened when he answered that question. It would never change.

 

“Was one of your parents albino?”

 

“Jiro Fugimoto!” the teacher screamed over the laugh of the class. “Step out into the hall and don't expect to come in before third period!”

 

Ulquiorra sighed silently. No, there was no change. He would be labeled freak, the questions would be asked, and then that was it.

 

“What's your guardian's name?”

 

“Sosuke Aizen.”

 

“How long have you been living with him?”

 

“Ten years.” That thought made him sick, that he had been with that man for ten years now, and he still had more to go until he could move out or legally run away, and even than the man would hunt him down like a rabid dog.

 

“How old are you?”

 

“I'll be seventeen in December.”

 

“Gay or straight?”

 

That one made Ulquiorra's gaze snap from a blank stare at the back wall toward the voice. Grimmjow Jaegerjaquez. And he was completely serious. That question… was different, the first difference in over ten years. Something cracked inside of him then, but he couldn't explain what it was, certainly something he'd never felt before.

 

“Grimmjow Jaegerjaquez! OUT!”

 

“I didn't get an answer!”

 

“That question is in no way appropriate for class! Out!”

 

“What makes it inappropriate? It's a perfectly legitimate question.”

 

Ulquiorra couldn't have answered even if he'd wanted to. One, because he'd never had the opportunity to find out, and two, because he was so frozen, so stunned by that one simple difference… was it actually possible… that things could be different here?

 

Lunch

 

Ulquiorra groaned to himself, flipping his bag closed again. He had been in such a rush to get out of the house and away from that man that he had completely forgotten his lunch.

 

Whatever, it wasn't like this would… change… Ulquiorra laid his head down on his arms on the desk. He was still stunned from Grimmjow Jaegerjaquez's question this morning. Who would have thought that such a simple question would…?

 

Ulquiorra had spent years building up his mask to perfectly hide himself from Aizen, and with that one simple question… that was what had cracked inside of him, his mask. Ulquiorra swallowed and clenched his shoulders. It was all right, he would rebuild it, it was just a tiny crack, and he would do it before he got home.

 

“Hey, Cifer.”

 

Ulquiorra looked up to the voice, the brash, demanding, rude voice, but the boy was still intriguing somehow.

 

“Yes?” he asked blandly.

 

“You want to sit with us?”

 

It wasn't a question. It was almost an order. “Sit with us.” He might as well have said that.

 

“All right,” Ulquiorra pushed away from the desk and stood, following the taller boy warily out of the classroom. Right away he was on alert. He'd learned to keep his emotions suppressed to get rid of as much of the pain as he could, but he couldn't take anymore.

 

“Where are we going?” Ulquiorra demanded quietly. The hallway was slowly losing its magnitude of people as they walked, meaning that they were getting further away from where most people were, and closer to a danger opportunity. Ulquiorra felt himself freezing up, though his legs kept moving. He'd gone through this before, followed those people pretending to be his friends so innocently, and he hadn't been able to trust anyone for three years. He would never let him go through that again.

 

“We always eat on the roof,” Grimmjow answered easily, unfazed by the unease in Ulquiorra's voice.

 

“Are you allowed up there?”

 

Grimmjow shrugged. “Not technically, but they got tired of getting us off it every day.”

 

The roof. And it was secluded and out of bounds. This was bad. This was really bad.

 

Grimmjow pulled open the door to a dark set of stairs and Ulquiorra ground to a stop. Sirens were going off in his head, everything inside him was telling him to run, to scream for help, to get the hell away before something happened—

 

“You coming or what?”

 

Ulquiorra looked up to Grimmjow's board and accusing face. He nodded, going against everything in him, and walked up the stairs, closing the door behind him and bringing the darkness on him.

 

He kept his breathing steady as he followed the sound of the footsteps, measuring the distance between every step as he walked, memorizing how many steps there were for if he needed to run, but all of a sudden Grimmjow threw open the door at the top of the stairs and the light of the bright blue sky flooded in, revealing a group of people sitting against the side of the roof, all watching them as they ate their lunches.

 

The group was interesting to say the least. Rukia and Ichigo were leaned up against each other the way a boyfriend and girlfriend would be, but they seemed to be in the midst of a full-out shouting war with each other. One of them said something that pissed Renji off, and in a half a second it was three-way war. Hiyori was also leaned up against Shinji, but she looked mad, and in a split second he had said something to her and she smashed her shoe into his face hard enough to chip one of his teeth. Yes, very interesting.

 

“Cifer, right?” Ichigo asked as Ulquiorra sat down next to Grimmjow. “You know how long you'll be here?”

 

“Most likely not passed the end of the school year,” Ulquiorra evaluated them each slowly. They were odd, but didn't look to be much of a threat…

 

“Wow, must be hard on you to move so much,” the girl, Rukia, said, sipping on a juice box.

 

“I've gotten used to it.”

 

“How can you get used to losing everything over and over—” Hiyori snapped before Shinji's hand snapped out and covered her mouth.

 

“Go easy on him at least his first day,” Shinji said, holding her down before her shoe smashed into his face again, literally sending him flying backwards. Yes, very interesting. Not to mention the fact that Grimmjow was sitting very close to him.

 

One Week Later

 

Now, not only that one thing was different, but everything. Everything was different. How was that possible? Everything had been the same, and then that one single question… had quite literally flipped Ulquiorra's world.

 

Aizen had been gone for the past week on business, so that in and of itself was a blessing, but there were other things too. So many other things, namely, Grimmjow.

 

He was different, there was no other way to describe him.

 

He was popular, but he didn't accept it and kept to his group with all of his other different friends.

 

He was a half a foot taller than every else at 6'1”, even Ichigo who stood at 5'9”, save Yasutora Sado, or Chad or whatever his name was, towering over everyone in the school at 6'5”.

 

Almost all the girls made moves on him, but he ignored every one and managed to tell them off nice enough so they weren't offended.

 

His best friend was obviously Ichigo, though the two fought so bloody much it was almost as if they had been archenemies dead set on wiping each other off the face of the earth the day they met.

 

His hair was blue, his shirts were always open and he had one of the most noticeable tattoos Ulquiorra had ever seen, but no one ever got on his back for breaking the dress code in so many ways you couldn't count them all.

 

He knew there were rules, and yet he ignored them so flamboyantly it was like he'd never had any discipline in his life.

 

And the strangest thing about him, was that he had not labeled Ulquiorra as a freak. Whether it was due to the fact of his own personality and style, or some sort of hidden disorder that made him want to be nice to everyone—he doubted that very much—he had even gone so far as to trade seats with some girl drooling over him to sit next to Ulquiorra. Actually, the entire group and accepted him like he'd been with them in school all of their lives. Ulquiorra couldn't remember the last time he'd had someone to even remotely call a friend, and then all of a sudden they were pulling him along to the beach and actually having him wrestle with them in the water. He'd expected Hiyori to get into the wrestling to beat the hell out of Shinji—who was shockingly somehow her boyfriend—but even Rukia had gotten into the ice cold water and beaten the hell out of Ichigo, who was also shockingly and somehow her boyfriend. The only embarrassing thing was that Ulquiorra didn't own a bathing suit. He'd never had any desire to go to a pool or beach, so he had to borrow one from Grimmjow, who's much more muscular and well-built form made keeping the bathing suit up difficult.

 

“Hey, Ulquiorra, where do you want to meet to work on the project?”

 

Ulquiorra looked over as the blue haired boy sat down next to him, the same cocky smirk on his face that he always had. The second week of the year, and they already had a project assigned.

 

“I'd say my house,” Grimmjow continued, leaning back lazily, “but then we'd have to deal with my damn little brother Luppi.”

 

“Well, Aizen isn't home yet, so we can use my house,” Ulquiorra offered. He would have normally said the library, unwilling to take anyone to his house, but Grimmjow had been the first person to make him open up in years. No matter how much Ulquiorra fought it, his mask was being slowly chipped away.

 

“What?” he asked, pulling back slightly at Grimmjow's confused expression.

 

“What do you mean? We wouldn't be able to use your house if your guardian was home?”

 

Ulquiorra froze, unable to believe that he had just let that slip. What was wrong with him?! If they found out he would be uprooted again…

 

“You're reading too much into my words,” he covered quickly, packing up the rest of his things. “Let's go, it isn't that much of a walk.”

 

“…Ok.”

 

Ulquiorra swore mentally. Grimmjow didn't believe him.

 

Later

 

“Nice place,” Grimmjow said, looking up the three floors of the front of the house.

 

“You can leave your shoes there,” Ulquiorra pointed to an empty spot in the corner for his shoes as he walked into the kitchen, silently thanking the gods that Aizen's shoes weren't there. That meant he wasn't home, and he could still get Grimmjow out before he came back.

 

“You got any food?” Grimmjow said, inviting himself in, as was his loud personality. Ulquiorra smothered a smile, it was all right, he liked the way Grimmjow made him feel relaxed, like nothing should be hidden around them.

 

“Help yourself to anything in the fridge.”

 

Grimmjow was in the enormous fridge in seconds, pulling out everything he needed to make a large—scratch that, huge sandwich.

 

“What do you want on yours?” he asked, balancing several different kinds of meat and three different condiments over to the counter where he set them down somehow all intact.

 

“I'm not hungry.”

 

“You're never hungry. What do you want?”

 

“Grimmjow, I'm really—”

 

“Seriously, you don't eat enough. You're as skinny as a rail and you never have an appetite, so chose something to put on your sandwich or I'll just make one up for you.”

 

Ulquiorra swallowed, mumbling turkey and mustard before he pulled the project out of his bag and walked as normally as he could to the stairs. “My room is on the third floor, the fourth door on your right, come up when your done.”

 

He waited until he was out of Grimmjow's view, up the first flight of stairs before he broke into a run, sprinting past the second floor, past Aizen's bedroom. He stumbled into his room and clutched at his stomach, trying to block out the screaming in his ears, screaming danger, wailing for him to run. He leaned against the wall, holding his breath and biting deep into his lip, his hands tight over his ears until the crying and screaming died down. he knew he wasn't crazy, it was just his body's natural reaction to danger, but his ears were still ringing and he thought he was going to be sick.

 

He straightened and composed himself as he heard Grimmjow on the stairs, moving over to his desk and setting the papers for the project down.

 

“Here.”

 

Ulquiorra looked over as Grimmjow set a simple turkey and mustard sandwich in front of him, and then moved over to the bed and started eating his triple layer sandwich, piled high with everything in the fridge.

 

Ulquiorra licked his lips and picked up the sandwich, taking a small bite out of it to try and convince Grimmjow that he did eat, just not a lot. He wasn't anorexic, it was just that every time he thought about the past he couldn't eat. It wasn't like he tried to not eat, and he couldn't remember the last time food hadn't tasted strangely like sawdust.

 

“Did you do your part of the write up yet?”

 

“Nope, been preoccupied,” Grimmjow said around a huge bite of ham and pickles.

 

“With what?” Ulquiorra rolled his eyes. “You couldn't take ten minutes to get it done?”

 

“I've been trying to figure out why you don't remember me, because I remember you very clearly.”

 

Ulquiorra stopped, turning slowly in his chair to look into the bright sapphire eyes. “From where? How could I possibly forget someone I met on the first day of school and have seen every day since after just two weeks? It's not like I fell and hit my head or something.”

 

Grimmjow reached into his bag and pulled out a piece of paper, a class picture, and handed it to Ulquiorra. He took the paper warily and glanced over the children. He could pick out himself easily enough because of his extremely dark hair and pale skin, but right next to him, his arm wrapped around the pale boy's shoulders, was Grimmjow. He didn't have the tattoo, and his hair wasn't dyed blue yet, a normal shade of dark brown, but Ulquiorra would have known that cocky smirk anywhere.

 

“That was my first grade class, I moved to this town in third grade, a year after you had left. We were best friends, closer than brothers, what I don't get is how you could forget that.”

 

Ulquiorra couldn't speak. Of course he couldn't remember, he had subconsciously erased everything from his memory after his first foster father had carved the scars into his cheeks. That was why he couldn't remember his parents, even though they died when he was six; that was why he didn't remember anything from before the abuse. He hardly remembered the abuse itself, just the pain. His mind had hidden it from him, to protect him.

 

“Something happened, didn't it?”

 

Silence.

 

“You were always quiet, but not like this. Now you look… scared.”

 

“People change,” Ulquiorra snapped, turning back to the project.

 

“Yeah, but not without reason. Fuck, Ulquiorra, I'm scared for you!”

 

“Well don't be, because there is no reason to be,” he flipped open his laptop and started furiously typing. “I have to write this because you didn't, please don't disturb me.”

 

Ulquiorra jumped as two hands were laid on his shoulders, and he felt the hot breath against his ear.

 

“What are you doing?” he demanded viciously, whirling to glare into Grimmjow's bright sapphire eyes. He shivered involuntarily as he felt something hot and wet slide across his ear. “Stop it.”

 

“Not until you tell me what's going on,” Grimmjow persisted, sliding his arms across Ulquiorra's pale chest to hug him gently, but clearly not about to let him go from behind.

 

“Nothing is going on, now stop,” Ulquiorra ordered, gripping the desk dangerous tightly, threatening to crack it.

 

“Something happened after first grade…” Grimmjow mused, staring at the wall without seeing it as he thought, “Was it your parents dying?”

 

“I told you I don't remember my parents,” Ulquiorra growled, trying to pull out of Grimmjow's impossibly muscular arms.

 

“You moved in with Aizen before you left.”

 

Ulquiorra couldn't stop his body from moving. His spine went rigid and he threw himself back into Grimmjow's chest, gripping the larger boy's arms as tightly as he could without breaking a finger. The second he realized what he'd done, he ducked his head and bit into his lip again. The screaming was back, starting to roar again in his ears, but he could still hear Grimmjow as clear as day for some reason.

 

“Is that what these are from?” Grimmjow asked, tracing his fingers across the long scars. The black tear marks permanently staining his cheeks.

 

Ulquiorra shook his head, clutching tighter at Grimmjow's arms. “Those aren't from him.”

 

“But they aren't from a pitch fork either. You know no one believes that.”

 

The silence seemed to stretch on forever, Ulquiorra didn't know what to say, Grimmjow had figured almost everything out. How was it possible? Had he let his guard down that much? Let himself out in the open too much?

 

His lips moved, but no sound came out. He gripped Grimmjow's arms until they would bruise, and forced himself to speak. “They were from my first foster parents. I don't… remember anything because of them.”

 

“Then what did Aizen—”

 

The front door clicked, and Ulquiorra whirled so fast he smashed into Grimmjow's face, making the taller boy stumble back, clutching his nose in pain.

 

“Damn it,” Ulquiorra moaned, hiding his face in his hands, “If he sees you here…”

 

“What? He'll hit you again?”

 

“No, he'll…” Ulquiorra stopped, realizing his second slip. His gaze snapped to Grimmjow, who was staring at him with his hands in his pockets, his stance completely relaxed.

 

“Get in the closet, there's no way you can sneak out now,” Ulquiorra ordered, pushing Grimmjow harshly to the large walk-in closet.

 

“Ulquio—”

 

“Please!”

 

Grimmjow stopped, recognizing the franticness in the smaller boy's voice, turning to the door at the sound of someone walking up the stairs.

 

“Just go in and don't talk and don't come out no matter what you see,” Ulquiorra pleaded, his voice barely above a whisper. Grimmjow stared at him for a moment longer before stepping into the closet and closing the door behind him. Ulquiorra raced back to his desk and pulled up any school document he could as fast as possible, and then his fingers were a blur across the keyboard, the almost undetectable tapping covering up the sound over his even quieter breathing as he stared unblinkingly at the screen, praying that Grimmjow wouldn't draw attention to himself.

 

“Ulquiorra?”

 

Ulquiorra composed himself before turning back to the older man. “How was you trip?”

 

“It was all right, but I missed you.”

 

Ulquiorra swallowed as the brown haired man closed the distance between them, leaning on the back of his chair as he dipped his head down to blow gently on Ulquiorra's eyelids. Ulquiorra closed his eyes, moaning slightly as he felt a hand push his shirt up and trace across his chest. He had to keep up appearances.

 

“Is someone here?” Aizen asked suddenly, standing up, though he kept teasing Ulquiorra's nipple with his fingers.

 

“W-Why?” Ulquiorra asked around another shaky breath, his eyes still closed and his head leaned back. He felt sick, his skin was crawling and his stomach was lurching as Aizen continued to touch him.

 

“Because unless you suddenly jumped to a size eleven in shoes, then those aren't your shoes by the front door.”

 

Ulquiorra's eyes shot open and he fought against himself with everything he had not to shrink back from Aizen's kind smile. He knew that smile, that was how the bastard smiled at him before he…

 

“My friend from school was over earlier. He probably forgot them because he had another pair of shoes from PE today.”

 

“I see,” Aizen mused gently, pulling back and walking over to the door. “Well, make sure he gets them tomorrow, you don't want him to be going barefoot, I know how strict the dress code of your new school is.”

 

Ulquiorra didn't breathe until Aizen was long down the stairs, and then he scrambled over to the closet and yanked open the door, only to have the front of his shirt grabbed and him literally lifted off the ground, his feet dangling three inches off the rug.

 

“Why the hell haven't you fought back yet?” Grimmjow snarled, his voice barely above a whisper, but just as menacing as if he was yelling. “Ran away or attacked him or something?”

 

“…I've been uprooted so many times, I don't—”

 

“So that makes it ok for him to—!”

 

“No so loud!” Ulquiorra hissed, clamping his hands over the larger boy's mouth.

 

“Ulquiorra?”

 

Said pale boy turned slowly toward his door, praying that Aizen wouldn't come up. “I'm sorry, it's the TV, I'll turn it down,” he called.

 

“Please do, we don't want our neighbors complaining this early in our living here.”

 

Ulquiorra let out his breath and let his head drop against Grimmjow's shoulder. “Not so loud, he hears everything.”

 

Grimmjow slowly lowered him back to the ground, but he didn't let go of his shirt, waiting for an answer.

 

Ulquiorra straightened himself, his voice stronger as he spoke. “I'm uprooted every year because he's afraid I'll get too close to someone. I wont do something like that and be uprooted again, this is hell on me enough as it is, and even if I run away, where the hell am I supposed to go? I'm living with hi because I don't have family, and I don't have friends that I can go to because I'm always moved after a year—”

 

“Hundreds of runaways live on their own,” Grimmjow snapped, threatening to lift Ulquiorra again.

 

“What would you know?” Ulquiorra snapped, grabbing the much larger hand. “How could you possibly know what I'm going through—”

 

“You'd be surprised.”

 

Ulquiorra stared in shock at the older boy as Grimmjow let him go and moved over to sit on the bed, running his hand through his blue hair, as bright as his eyes. Grimmjow snorted at Ulquiorra's stunned face. “Like hell I was going to stay with my dumbass foster family. Right now I'm living with Renji and his uncle, Kisuke Urahara, Renji's down here while his parents are away in America on business. It's not as hard as it seems, trust me, especially if you have a real reason to go.”

 

Grimmjow smirked, the evil cocky smirk, and somehow, Ulquiorra felt… relaxed. Was that why he was so fine to be himself around this boy? Because they had known each other before?

 

“You know, I turn eighteen in three months, and it's so easy to fake your age. No one ever checks,” his smirk was becoming larger by the second.

 

“What?”

 

“We could do it. We could run so easily. I don't have any attachment to this place, and it sure as hell doesn't look like you do.”

 

“Are you… suggesting…” Ulquiorra couldn't believe what he was hearing. This boy was so rash, so out in the open, so much like an open book, so arrogant, so impatient… but…

 

“Pack everything you can in your school bag, and don't forget my shoes.” Grimmjow stood and pulled Ulquiorra's window open, popping out the screen. “Tomorrow, meet me on the roof before school starts, I've got some money saved and I've got some from my parents.”

 

“Hey, we're on the third floor—!”

 

“It's all right, I've jumped from the fourth before and been fine. Just start packing, all right? Forget food, just do things like clothes and money, things we would be screwed without,” Grimmjow said as he heaved himself up onto the window ledge.

 

Ulquiorra nodded robotically, still a little shocked at what he was hearing as he turned and emptied his school bag.

 

“Hey, Ulquiorra.”

 

He turned to find himself face to face with Grimmjow again, but this time the bright sapphire eyes were closed, and Grimmjow very carefully leaned forward until their foreheads were touching. “Don't let him…” Grimmjow growled and opened his eyes to glare at the door with such intensity Ulquiorra thought he was going to burn a hole through the door, “don't let him do anything tonight, tell him you feel sick or something.”

 

Ulquiorra nodded, and then watched as Grimmjow leapt out of the window. He couldn't believe what was happening, but… he could feel his mask cracking again as he emptied everything in his school bag into the trash and started folding his clothes as neatly as possible so he could fit as many as he could into his bag. He couldn't believe what was happening, but… he wasn't about to run away, from Aizen, yes, but he didn't want to run from Grimmjow.