7.

Country/Western Music

Grimmjow made a strange face lost somewhere between confusions and...Well a little more confusion, "Country? Which one?"

"Seriously?" Rukia sighed, pinching the bridge of her nose, "Are you seriously serious about asking that? Seriously?"

"Bitch if you say 'seriously' one more time I'm gonna start a drinking game!" This was the epitome of Nnoitra's contribution to the interview.

"You've been playing drinking games all day!" the fiery young girl snapped back.

"Mommy and daddy are yelling and I'm scared!" cried Renji who was curled up in one corner of the room sobbing and covering his ears. Ichigo stared at him in disbelief, then at the others and then back at Renji. It didn't seem to help at all...

"What? Aren't I the Daddy? Wait, how can we even be a mother and father when we haven't even had kids? We haven't even-"

"Shut up! Answer the question already!" Rukia screamed just in the nick of time, her cheeks burning bright bloody red.

"Huh? Oh right! Country music. You know I never really understood it. I mean what's so great about singing about farms and farming and living on a farm and driving a pick-up truck or a tractor? There's no fun in it if nobody dies!"

"There's more to it than that you know!" said a rather adamant Renji who had mysteriously recovered from his even more mysterious emotional breakdown earlier. No-one had expected him to burst out like that.

"Really? I've never heard anything more than what Ichigo said." replied Rukia with a thin smile.

"Don't be ridiculous! If it was only about farming why would people in the city listen to it? Who gives a flying fuck about driving a tractor when you catch the bus to the office every day?"

Ichigo rolled his eyes, "Fine then wise-ass, tell us what country music is really about since you're the expert all of a sudden!"

"Seriously? You don't know?"

"I'm drinking!" roared Nnoitra.

Renji closed his eyes and took a deep breath, shaking his head slowly from left to right. "How typical of you metal-heads to just sweep everything under the rug and not even care to understand it. It's so easy to damn something when you don't know the first thing about it. Have you ever even listened to country music? I doubt it if you still have that stereotype about farm songs!"

"Dude, calm down, we're talking about country music!"

"No, I won't calm down! It pisses me off that people always make the unfair judgement on country music before they even give it a chance! They always say 'oh that's just for rednecks and old people' or 'all the songs are about tractors and farms and shit' well I'm sick of it! They don't even understand the heart of country music!"

"Well give it to me straight doctor, what is it?"

Ichigo's attempts at being smartass only made Renji wince before finally taking another deep breath. By now Nnoitra had started another drinking game and was guzzling down another bottle since Renji took his dramatic breath.

"Country music...At its core...Well, it's about..."

"Being poor?"

"Being a farmer?"

"Which country?!"

Ignore Grimmjow, he just wants attention.

"No!" Renji shot up until he was standing on the table and proudly declared with excessive volume, "Country music is about having an ugly, bitching, nagging whore of a wife who you absolutely loathe to the point that it makes you sick but for God knows whatever reason you always stay with her anyway!"

A room full of blank faces and empty silence ensued thereafter from Renji's revelation.

"R-Really?"

Ichigo bowed his head as the tiniest traces of a smirk crossed his features. It was time to be a smart-ass again!

"Ha! Maybe I should become a country singer then?"

All the guys laughed like hyena's, rolling on the floor until tears flowed.

Rukia however, remained sitting on the couch, her eyes closed, hands by her side, stuck in some sort of meditation pose. When she opened her eyes she glanced so very softly at the cameraman and whispered so quietly that only he could hear...

"Leave the room now. I can't guarantee your safety if you stay and I really don't want to drag an innocent by-stander into this."

Having a wealth of experience and documented evidence of Rukia's violent mood-swings the cameraman placed the camera down and ran out of the room. He slammed the door shut behind him and stood outside, listening intently, but all he could hear was the boisterous laughter of the others.

Then...

"GRRRAAAAAAAAAARRRGGH!"

More screams followed.

The laughter died.

Country music was never brought up again around Soul Reaper...

Pop Music

"Pop? You mean metalcore?"

"Is that stuff like Metallica and Slipknot?"

"No you idiot! Remember, we're not from their world. It's what they think is popular!" said Ichigo who in a disturbing turn of events had become the voice of reason for the group.

Nnoitra slammed a mug carved from a human skull down on the table and roared in an even drunker slur than usual, "Fuck that shit!"

And so the bickering began amidst the boisterous, testosterone-driven boys of Soul Reaper. Meanwhile, Rukia sat on the edge of the couch leaning forward eagerly with rosy cheeks as she let out what was definitely a fangirl-squeal.

"Oh~! I love, love, love J-pop! Oh my god I love it!"

…

Rukia looked around at the shocked expressions and her smile dissipated behind a thin frown.

"What?"

"That's my line!" Ichigo yelled, standing up for no explicable reason aside from possibly putting on a show for the camera, "What's all this about loving J-pop huh? You traitor! I mean it was bad enough that Renji gets a fucking hard-on over Old Ronald McDonald but I will not stand for you listening to...Hang on what in the Hell is J-pop anyway?"

A long bead of sweat dropped down along the side of Rukia's head, dumbfounded at his question, but a cautionary glance at the rest of the band revealed they were all fairly eager to learn the answer as well. With a dramatic sigh (Possibly learned from Renji's escapades earlier) she shared her divine wisdom, "J-pop is Japanese pop. You know, J for Japan?"

"What difference does it make if it's from Japan? Why not just call it Pop music like the rest of the world? Besides we're in Japan why do you need to call attention to where it comes from?"

"Because what the rest of the world calls 'pop music' is worse than shit! The kind of foul, rotting, steaming, putrid pile of pus-ridden diarrhoea slurry that wouldn't even sustain a garden! The kind of crap you find in a public toilet cubicle that smells so heinous that no matter how far you move away from the toilets afterwards, the smell still lingers and follows you wherever you go! Their pop music is like the kind of shit you find in a McDonald's bathroom smeared on everything but the bowl that you sincerely wish that the person who made it suffered while doing it or had hopefully died at some point in the process. It's-"

"Stop!" Ichigo waved a white flag he had procured from thin air, "For the love of God please stop!"

Nnoitra slammed down his drinking cup once more, this time with a dazed look in his eyes and slightly green cheeks, "Ugh, I think I'm gonna puke...And not because of the booze!" He promptly left the room and the unfortunately close proximity of the toilet to the living room where the interview was conducted allowed everyone to hear the violent tiger-esque roar and sonic splatter of vomit against the ceramic sink.

"Geez, Rukia...I've seen a darker side to you today. I'm really not impressed." Grimmjow shook his head like a father ashamed of his daughter, which doesn't really add up when said father figure was still hung up about trying to get into her pants...

Ichigo strolled up beside her and held out his hand expectantly, "Rukia, hand me your IPod."

"Huh?"

"NOW!" commanded Drill Sergeant Ichigo Kurosaki.

Rukia hastily handed over her IPod and recoiled from Ichigo's grave expression as he scrolled through her songs.

"What the...? Perfume? That isn't brutal! I bet they don't sing about infanticide! Passpo? Did they reach the character limit before writing 'passport'?"

Rukia averted her gaze and bowed her head, "I think it's cute..."

"Hang on! Houkago Tea Time?! You've got their fucking songs on your IPod?! How dare you!"

Rukia shrank back further, curled up into a ball and hiding behind a fort of pillows, "I-I love them..."

Suddenly Ichigo's eyes narrowed. "And what the Hell is this?! Kyar...Kary...Kyara? No hang on." Ichigo brought his face closer to the little device and squinted, "Kyary Pamyu Pamyu? Rukia, explain!" said in the manner of a strict father discovering his son's porn stash.

The defendant in question, one Rukia Kuchiki burst forth from her palisade of pillows and lunged at the laptop resting on their coffee table. What followed was a brief YouTube clip of 'Ponponpon'.

While Rukia was bobbing up and down and humming to herself, utterly delighted, the others seemed to share terribly confused, somewhat terrified and stunned expressions.

"What the fuck is that?"

"What are those?!"

"Where did that come from?!"

"Am I high?"

Usually Grimmjow's comments are to be ignored, but for some reason this time the bass player's words seemed to resonate within the other men of Soul Reaper.

A COUPLE OF BONG HITS LATER

"Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha! This is awesome! I love you Rukia!" Well that was a first for Ichigo...

"Dude...I think I found the meaning of life!" said Renji whilst spooning the armrest of the couch.

Nnoitra had experienced a seizure and passed out.

Rukia was still dancing and singing despite playing 'Ponponpon' for the twelfth time in a row now.

And the wise old sage Grimmjow? Well...

"AAAAGGHH! Did you see that?! She like...Vomited a bunch of eyeballs! Who did she eat?!"

He was freaking out...

A week later the entire band went to a Kyary Pamyu Pamyu concert, stoned out of their minds. Rukia was over the moon to meet the young star in person but the moment was ruined when Nnoitra, who not only had a dangerous amount of cannabis but also a dangerous amount of liquor resultantly threw up on the poor little songstress and got everyone kicked out.

So, the moral of the story is...Actually I don't think there are any morals in this story...Well I hope you enjoyed it anyway. Please review!