It had been raining since morning.
Grimmjow sat on the bed and looked outside the window, leaning over the windowsill sprawled. The wet reality couldn't reach him here, but that was all that was to it. He didn't like the rain. He came from the world where the water didn't exist and the cloudless sky was reigned by the fake sun and eternal moon. Rain was something new for him, and very unpleasant. The thing wasn't even that he felt electrified. During the cloudy and rainy days, when only the net of drops flowing down the glass separated him from the outside world, he was under impression everything was weeping. He felt like hiding in his closet and never sticking his neck out, curling up and waiting for a better time. Yet, he dwelt by the window, through the rain-tears observing the building and the street, enveloped in the fog, and feeling like an unhappiest creature in the universe.
He could talk about the tears, for he'd got to know their taste. He could talk about the sorrow, for he'd understood its essence. During the rainy days, it felt like the heaviness in his chest would never lessen. Equally hard it was for him to believe that sun would shine again. During the rainy days, he realized how justified it would be if he was left alone in the rain, for more than ever before he understood the sadness he had brought upon the others.
To find that others may suffer as well was a surprise, an unwanted one. In his world of predator, there was no room for sentiment; it was the power that mattered, the power to survive. As simple as it was, you killed or you were killed. If you got beaten, it was just fair. However, when he had been forced to look at the world with the new eyes - after his own world had wavered and crumbled - he came to realize that living by his primal instincts would bring him no-where. The real world functioned on different rules: it demanded more, but it gave more, too. He was patiently reminded of it - with a gesture, or merely a glance. He was patiently taught of it - with the words, or silence. He agreed to this, for empty Hueco Mundo - after fall of Las Noches and Espada - couldn't offer to him that one thing he had got used as an Arrancar, the presence of others, any more.
Grimmjow bowed his head.
First, he had learned to be sincere with himself and to understand himself - when he had laid on the warm sand of Las Noches, clinging to life and swallowing the bitter truth that the ally had turned an enemy and the enemy had turned an ally. Then he had learned that the pride was his own and his decisions belonged to him - when desperately trying to repay his life debt. Honour was the only thing no-one had had to teach him - it had been in him since the dawn of the world, and somehow he had managed to combine it with his predatory instincts. Why, then, now was he acting as if he had no honour at all?
He was taken in and given a place he could call home. He hadn't grasped that fact yet, for the very thought caused his chest ache - so he kept running away from it. He was not asked of anything and he was not blamed for anything. The everyday life was shared with him. He took it all with rapacity, not thinking, not thanking either. He took the advantage of the situation, never giving anything from himself. Though he knew that given voluntarily and willingly was of double value.
They gave him everything, yet settled for... nothing.
Only humans could be so naive. One of them, at least, for sure.
In spite of himself, Grimmjow smiled, at the same time surprised at the feeling that welled up in him, the feeling of...
Sincerity, he reproved himself himself. Calling things by their proper name.
Affection. Happiness that there was someone who offered peace, comfort and warm smile. Once he would laugh it out of court. Now he couldn't think about it without the painful pang in his chest.
He didn't earn it, for anything. Even the crazy realization that peace, comfort and smile were offered him for ever and unconditionally only increased his despair.
Whoever Kurosaki Ichigo was - Human? Shinigami? Hollow? Vizard? - was of no importance. He could be all of them, yet it was not what decided of him. He was a star - an eternal light that never went out. He was a sun that everything revolved around and everything depended on. Once attracted, one could never break free. After all, who wished for self-destruction?
Kurosaki Ichigo reached out to him and took him along. He created Grimmjow a new world - and let himself be taken advantage of in every aspect. And Grimmjow, during the rainy days, remembered that he had made him suffer and he had made him sad; he remembered every single blow he had stroke at him and at his important people - which had hurt much more. That drove him to despair.
Raindrops hit the windowsill harder, the rain grew heavier. In the end of the street emerged the figure, impossible to be mistaken for anyone else. Grimmjow clenched his hands on the window frame. The man walked on the smart pace, stooped yet buoyant. Before he entered the house, Ichigo raised his head and looked into the windows. Grimmjow thought he saw a smile on his face.
He wasn't able to look him into eyes. He wasn't able to thank him and ask for forgiveness - not because it would mean to avow his own errors; these he had got to know long ago. He was driven by a mean, low and disgusting fear - the most primal and fundamental instinct of all Hollows.
He fled to the closet.
Ichigo got himself ready for sleep. The moonlight brushed his face when he drew the curtains, and he realized it had stopped raining some time ago. The dark sky was clear; the fluffy clouds glowed here and there. He decided the next day should be sunny.
Grimmjow hadn't shown up for the whole day; even dinner hadn't interested him. Well, rain never improved his mood. Ichigo let himself a faint hope he would have a good sleep that night. He turned off the lights and went to bed, nicely tired after another day of normal life.
When drifting off to sleep, he heard the sound of sliding doors coming from the direction of the closet. He sighed inwardly, preparing himself for what was to come. Grimmjow used to jump on the bed like a cat and didn't bother if he landed on his belly or back. Considering his weight, it was somewhat unpleasant and sometimes even dramatic. Ichigo cautiously thought of taking the place by the wall, for the last time he had got pushed out of his own bed and he would have spent the night on the floor had he been not permitted return.
When nothing happened, Ichigo turned a head and opened his eyes. Grimmjow was standing by the closet, some strange determination on his face, as Ichigo could see in the dark room. Perhaps he was preparing for the night hunt, Ichigo thought and then he remembered what - or rather: who - used to fall a prey to former Espada, and sighed again. "Great, I really wanted to sleep," he thought with an amused irritation and opened his mouth to announce it to Grimmjow, but then Arrancar finally left his place. Ichigo only looked at Grimmjow, coming closer with that absolute grace of a big cat and then sinking to his knees by the bedside. Ichigo squinted his eyes as something was clearly off and he was about to sit up and grasp the situation, when he heard:
"Sorry."
Ichigo was so surprised he thought he imagined things, at first, but then Grimmjow repeated, in a whisper yet firmly, "I'm sorry. For everything... I've done. That's all... I can say. Nothing I can... repay with..."
Ichigo's eyes grew wider. Moonlight came in through the gap in the curtains and flickered on Grimmjow's fair hair, making him look like a ghost. But ghost didn't weep with tears, Ichigo thought, heart clenched, looking into turquoise eyes, now glistening in the silver light. Throat tight, he suddenly realized he had been waiting for that moment since... ever? Grimmjow lowered his head and rested his forehead on the mattress. He looked more helpless than ever before - Hollow, Arrancar, Espada who had lived unknowably long. In spite of his sixteen years, Ichigo felt like being much more experienced of them two. He stretched his hand and shove it into former Espada fluffy hair. Grimmjow stirred slightly.
"Thanks," Ichigo whispered with an absolute peace.
Grimmjow breathed out, he'd hold his breath for a moment now. His shoulders shrank. Ichigo drew closer.
"Repay? You're here and you're alive," he explained the greatest truth of the universe. "Never change. Enjoy your life. I enjoy it."
Grimmjow froze. "Does it mean... I can stay...?" he asked, face pressed to the sheet.
"Where'd you like to go to?" Ichigo asked in an amused voice. "You know you can."
For a moment, there was only silence, and then Grimmjow whispered, "I know," and his voice wasn't so broken any more.
Ichigo smiled, brushing his fingers through the soft hair.
"Don't sit there, or you'll catch a cold," he said. "Come, no need to freeze. It's chilly today, the flu's on the move," he added and moved over to make a place.
Some time later, when he was finally drifting off to sleep in blissful pleasure, he realized how true was the belief that nothing can beat a cat in the matter of keeping warm.