Disclaimer: I do not own Bleach.

…

He liked to smirk around like he was God's gift to women, but if he could spare me his dicketry once in a little while I could maybe start believing this life ain't as shitty as it seemed.

His name was Grimmjow Jaegerjaquez.

Grimmjow Jaegerjaquez was a basketball genius. He was the type on whom gravity would lose influence as soon as he decided to defy it. But just like his favorite object, whose similarities with himself were astounding, he had air for fucking brains. Playing the power forward position, he, alongside his slam-dunking ass, was easily the captain of the basketball club. And, because I was just your lowly shooting guard, I had to bow down to his Royal Jerkness most of the time and regularly accept the fact that I had no option other than to worship the ground he walked on.

One time, though, during a practice match against another high school team, we were running two points down with twelve seconds remaining on the clock. The ball was in our possession so it generally meant there was no need for us to run around like panicked headless chickens. And then our reprobate point guard, Luppy Antenor, thought it would be funny to act up like a bitch caught on fire at exactly the time when the clock started dictating the critical single digits—he passed me the ball. Maybe because my position pretty much suggested I was perhaps capable of shooting that he thought it was the best solution. The word 'shooting' in 'shooting guard' ought to fucking mean something, right? Well, the most I could do to control the situation was to fucking catch the shit and try to fire the shot, now or never.

But then I caught sight of the pompous son of a gun that was Grimmjow Jaegerjaquez. The look on his face said nothing much, except that he would scream the following words in the next second or two: give the fucking ball to me because there's no way I will miss this fucking shot! Anyone who was willing to buy that was either an imbecile or a fetus. Come on, he was stationed beyond the three-point line. Just what sort of justification did he have to warrant himself that amazing confidence? Genius or no, chances of his making the basket could not have amounted to 100%. Because of that, I fired the ball from eight feet downtown. Perhaps I did that to also annoy him shitless. At any rate, swoosh, the ball said, rendering the game into overtime. My teammates closed in on me, rubbing their fists against the top of my head. Except, of course, the prick. In the end, we slaughtered the opponent by winning by a margin of nine points. In many occasions, the more time I spent on the gym meant more unpleasant encounters with my asshole captain. So without meaning to prolong another purgatory, I whisked past my teammates over to the locker room. And look who had followed me.

"Dafuq was that all about, brat? Didn't you see me waving like a lunatic? Maybe I can poke your eyes to see if they're goddamned working." Grimmjow was hissing the words. I would most likely have earlier guessed that what he was trying to communicate was how much he wanted to rip me limb from limb, literally, but I was always hell-bent on refusing to understand the bastard.

"It was exactly because you were looking like a lunatic that I did not give it to you."

And that was that. From here on out, my high school life pretty much equated to getting jolted from one hell to another. First, he lunged at me, with a force which might have been enough to maybe dispatch me in the next life. The last thing I remembered was, he was on top of me, while I went on receiving whatever physical abuse he had chosen to inflict on me. But then my definition of 'receiving physical abuse' equaled to wrapping my fingers around his neck, in an earnest attempt to strangle him to death.

We were both thrown into detention for that.

…

I could believe my soul to possess some durability, or something like it. But with all the strength it had, it most definitely failed to handle my hatred for Grimmjow. While I was aware of this, and was ready to accept it as a potent weakness, it didn't have to reach the point where my heart would be broken. Really, that didn't need to happen. If fate and providence had somewhere along the way sought to gang up on someone, for the sake of, say, poking fun, they sure had pulled an overkill on me by making me fall for that one person who would subsequently and unwittingly push me to realize that there were things in this life which were off-limits, or otherwise impossible to attain.

His name was Ulquiorra Cifer.

It, the demolition of my heart, had started when I had snuck into the gym one Sunday morning to give myself a private training session. To cut the long story short; Grimmjow and Ulquiorra-sempai, who so happened to be the students council's president, had chosen that day to do things inside the locker room—things which were better off performed inside a fucking bedroom, or behind locked doors. Although the passion they had demonstrated then was nothing short of a testament to real love, the spectacle had been objectionable in every way I could've imagined. The only good things which had come out of that experience had been their failure to detect my presence and my success in preventing my mouth from foaming. Since then, I had often wished for Grimmjow Jaegerjaquez to undergo a certain phenomenon; instantaneous combustion. If that should prove too hard to achieve any form of reality, or possibility, I could maybe rest content if he were to launch himself to fucking Mars and come back as a corpse.

And now I had to sit inside the detention room, dumb as a mother duck crossing an interstate highway. And why was I here again? Oh, yeah. Grimmjow Fucking Jaegerjaquez had decided it was high time to quit being decent with me. And in so being in that state of mind, he had made a realistic attempt to dislocate both my shoulders and crush a few of my ribs, right after winning a game. Because I had thought it fit to rebel against the assault, there necessarily was a use in pitching me inside this room where delinquents learned their lessons through punishments. Go figure. The punishments normally were represented by a blackboard and a chalk. Should one take a serious guess, he'd right away figure he would have to use these commonplace objects to materialize words which were supposed to run counter against the offense he had recently committed. In my case, it then followed I had to impart something along the line of 'I will never again retaliate against a mentally incapacitated dude's attacks because that would be equivalent to child abuse.' And where was that bastard? Maybe he had accidentally realized he was tired of being an asshole but, since he could not have been anything else other than a fucking asshole, he had finally ceased to exist altogether. But then I shouldn't get my hopes up.

Just then Ulquiorra-sempai entered the room. The manner with which he strode in immediately reminded me of what had transpired several months back.

—flashback—

I was walking over to my locker, minding my own business, a stack of textbooks in my arms when, suddenly, King Jaegerjerk insisted on being particularly cruel for no apparent reason—other than his inherent propensity to be a jackass. Walking tall among the students, proud as a fucking peacock, he carried himself in a way which seemed to imply there was no reason for ignoble commoners like us to coexist with him. One look from his majesty was all it took for the freshmen to question their own existence. No shit. As for me, this shenanigan had gone long enough. I determined to trot past him nonchalantly without having to incur another episode wherein he would throw some nasty shit at me. And then my textbooks went flying over heads and shoulders only to fall flat on the floor in unpleasant thuds. That went fucking well. FYI, textbooks didn't go about hurling themselves in the air, so the mystery could be explained by Grimmjow, who had reached low in front of me to slam his palm against the bottom of my stack.

"What the fuck is your freaking problem?!"

"I meant to tell you not to be late for practice after school. Ciao, loser."

I was all set up return the favor when Ulquiorra-sempai emerged from the adjacent hallway. While conventional thinking stated I had all the reason in the world to suplex Grimmjow, my fury was shot down as soon as Ulquiorra-sempai knelt at my foot and started about gathering my books. My wits got demolished at that instant. All I could understand was, he was helping me. On the other hand, Grimmjow was blanking out, was possibly even humiliated. He cast a troubled look at his lover and then marched off to god knew where. At this point, I had gathered enough composure to scoop the rest of my paraphernalia. Upon rising up, Ulquiorra-sempai handed me my books, for our fingers to touch for half a blink. A sneaking feeling came on to me. We were at a standstill. Rooted there, motionless, getting lost in the depths of his oversized eyes, I knew my feelings would before long dislodge themselves from my chest, one way or another—granted I had half the heart to ever confess to this dude.

What this encounter meant, I would not have the least idea for a very long time, until it would assert itself as the prelude to a set of telling experiences which would sear themselves into my faculties for good. In the weeks to follow, I would run into Ulquiorra-sempai in a bookstore, the record store and even in a videogame store. What this ensured was, we read the same novels, preferred similar types of music and had identical tastes in game genres. As though we were soul-mates. You'd have to wonder what someone like sempai was thinking dicking around with a good-for-nothing son of gun. Why, we even shared the same interest in pets. Really, where did Grimmjow fit into any of this? I was sure that dipshit would slit a puppy's throat without as much as successfully guessing what was revolting in it. I ought to rest my fucking case here; that dickwad amounted to nothing more than your typical school jock whose IQ had not once dared to soar past 60. For the fucking life of me, I could as much fathom why sempai was flanking himself with that degenerate as I could punch the fucking sky above. It was like fate was either trying to make amends with me by bringing Ulquiorra-sempai and I closer through the similarities between our personal interests or was tormenting me by making me fall harder for the dude.

—end of flashback—

"I will be supervising you today." He announced before asking, "Where is your teammate?"

"No idea."

But my having no idea where the bastard was would soon end because he was now entering the room. It subsequently became apparent that Ulquiorra-sempai had volunteered to superintend the detention hall in this occasion for the sole purpose of stealing private time with his fucking boyfriend. This conclusion brought about some grand insecurity which nothing else could've delivered. Before long, Grimmjow was lounging around his chair while I proceeded with my punishment, scribbling more or less eighty lines of 'I will never again quarrel with a teammate'. Of course, I had to go first for Grimmjow to stay behind, in order to afford himself more carousing opportunities with sempai. Needless to even say, this harrowing afternoon was to come with a chaser of, say, enduring these two's shameless overtures and other hocus pocus they would be kind enough to stir.

And sure enough, I could see Ulquiorra-sempai, from the reflection on my wristwatch, drawing himself in front of the sitting Grimmjow. Not the slightest of rustles could be heard but I would be the last to deny they were holding hands or something, behind my back. Maybe Ulquiorra-sempai was on the brink of sitting on the git's lap. There was no determining anything for sure since I had no eyes at the back of my head. I endured this because this was pretty much the mildest physical exchange they would pull for the evening. By the time I would walk out the door, Grimmjow would pull sempai close to him to enclose him in his arms. As lovers should. They were in love, for fuck's sake. As it was, this punishment was overstepping the boundaries within which it was supposed to be confined. The purpose of this shit was to make me repent for my violent conduct; I hadn't been informed it also aimed to mangle my heart and make it bleed all over the fucking place. If anything, this was exactly like a warfare videogame—only you had to take all the thrill and fun out of it and add nothing until the only recognizable thing remaining was carnage. A carnage taking place inside my chest. In other words, all this was fine as long as you could consider daily sadism to be tolerable.

Out of all this, they were a match made in heaven.

Thirty minutes and countless pangs of emotional torment later, I was done scribbling garbage and was ready to storm the hell out. But Grimmjow bolted upright and announced,

"I'll split for now. Will be back in a jiffy."

Ulquiorra-sempai, as if obedient to Grimmjow's commands, gave a nod. No sooner than this silent gesture was tendered did Grimmjow disappear into the hallway. He left probably because staying put and acting nice were against his doctrine in life and because he had been doing both for like thirty minutes straight now. Due to that, he had to compensate for the loss and would have to avail himself some downtime, which would come in the form of harassing a random dimwit outside.

Now alone with sempai, I could neither rip myself away from this room nor stand being enclosed in this privacy. Suddenly, I was finding it hard to believe it had taken me several seconds to realize this was my chance. With Grimmjow gone, nothing now stood in the way toward that lone victory I could steal from that asshole. Indeed, this dilly-dallying had run its course. The next of my actions, be informed, would constitute the boldest stunt I had pulled yet, as far as I was concerned. I meant to get this show on the road because I didn't have anything much at my disposal other than what I insisted on calling guts.

I walked over to him and pressed my lips against his.

It must have lasted for seconds, maybe minutes, but now the satisfaction I should've been feeling lost itself somewhere during the saliva exchange. That was because he pulled away. We were now staring at one another, with hardly any distance between our faces. Any wordless communication was never precise in whatever it wished to convey and, as a result, we were both left guessing as to what was happening or what was about to.

And then he kissed me back.

This time, I resolved to do everything right. Making zero attempts to hold myself back, I carried the thing off with what zeal was commensurate with the strength of my feelings for this bloke. At length, it was over. I asked just then,

"I kiss better than him, do I not?"

He peered over my shoulder with a troubled look on his face. Grimmjow hadn't come back yet. What I had done was surely the quickest way to get the prick to either send me a death threat or to not bother with it and just go straight to the murder. And for that reason, sempai was feeling uneasy already. But he answered nevertheless,

"Yes—a lot better in fact."

That answer put me out of uncertainty and misery, not knowing it would yield a far greater consequence than I had initially believed it would. Only later on would I realize that what had just transpired would amount to much more than what I had construed to be simple bliss. Right now, all I could deduce was, I wasn't the loser Grimmjow believed me to be, simply because he lost to me on that one important aspect where the love of his life was concerned.

"I'll take that as a compliment, then." I heard myself.

"But go now. He may come back any minute."

At that, I wheeled around to tread my way home. The awful knowledge that he and Grimmjow would again find themselves lost in each other's arms once I was gone was nothing to me now. Meaningless shit. After this, no matter how frequently Grimmjow Jaegerjaquez bullied me, I would be easily appeased by allowing my mind to shore off to that one place in time where Ulquiorra Cifer and I shared special warmth. Not their affection for each other, nor the unlikelihood of my ever managing to defeat Grimmjow at anything, could nullify that. This truth, whatever it might have been, was a sanctuary no one could tear from me. This time around, I wasn't gonna allow reality to get in the way; the reality being sempai was Grimmjow's property.

Yes, Ulquiorra-sempai belonged to Grimmjow alone, but at one point, in one blinking moment in both our lives, he had been mine too.

END