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“No, fold your legs like this!”
“What the hell, that’s physically impossible!”
“Ha! Weak.”
“Fuck you, I’ll show you who’s weak—“
“Now, now, Grimmjow-dono, allow me to assist.”
“GAAAHH! Get off! It’s not supposed to bend like that!”
“Please endure for a moment, Grimmjow-san. This is crucial calibration data. We don’t want you to pull something in the middle of one of your fights with Kurosaki-san, do you?”
"I'll pull something off of you, you shit-eating shinigami fucker—!"
Ichigo slammed open the sliding door to the inner room of the Urahara Shōten, half concerned and half afraid of what he was about to see. All movement inside ceased as he stared, allowing him to see the tableau in its full glory.
In the middle of the floor, Yoruichi was contorted in a frankly painful looking position with her legs thrown over her shoulders, belied by her bored expression as she glanced over at him. Urahara stood over her, tapping away at a translucent pad, on which inscrutable numbers scrolled past like raindrops on a windowpane.
On the next tatami mat over, Grimmjow froze, curled up on his back in a lousy imitation of Yoruichi’s insane yoga position. Above him, Tessai stood between his legs and held Grimmjow’s feet in one massive hand, paused in the middle of pushing them back towards his chest.
Ichigo thanked the Soul King that everyone was still wearing clothes.
“Ah, Kurosaki-san!” Urahara was the first to react, lowering his pad and waving at Ichigo in the doorway. “How timely of you to join us! What would you say is Grimmjow’s flexibility limit during battle?”
“Don’t say a fucking word to that shitty scientist, Kurosaki!”
“I—don’t want to know,” Ichigo muttered, glaring balefully at the tableau, “I’ll get Yuzu’s order from Jinta. You guys carry on with whatever freaky shit you’ve got going on here.”
Just before he slammed the door, he saw Grimmjow curse, scrambling to get his feet out of Tessai’s implacable grip.
Ichigo stalked down the hall towards the shop proper, hands clenching around the reusable shopping bag Yuzu had given him earlier that morning. He wasn’t sure why his stomach felt like it was trying to squirm out of his abdomen, or why his heart pounded so heavily in his chest. So what if Grimmjow was…involved or something with the Urahara Shōten trio? That wasn’t any of Ichigo’s business. So what if he wanted to slap the pad out of Urahara’s hands, or drag Tessai off to a more decorous distance, or just come back with Zangetsu and challenge Grimmjow to a fight, make him forget about—about Yoruichi’s wiles.
It made no sense. He liked Yoruichi in the faintly terrified way he liked most pushy older sister figures in his life. Urahara was…bearable on his worst days and pleasant most of the time. And Tessai was a great cook and probably a good person actually. If anything, they should be the ones who didn’t deserve to have Grimmjow barging in to their lives and demanding ridiculous and unrealistic things, like weekly fights that ended in enough cardio to keep a man healthy and active into his nineties, and attempts to taste every little snack or drink smuggled into the house underneath Yuzu’s watchful gaze, despite the fact that he couldn’t actually eat much due to the fact that he was a ghost and had a literal hole for a stomach. And they definitely didn’t deserve to have an idiot who occasionally ran himself so ragged doing who knew what in Hueco Mundo that he fell asleep in inconvenient locations so that someone—usually Ichigo—was forced to drag his ass into the nearest bed—again, usually Ichigo’s, and—
Ichigo froze in the middle of the shop, among the shelves of miscellaneous candy and boxes of herbal supplements. Somehow, his thought process had derailed into something quite different from where he’d started. It wasn’t like he hated any of the annoying stuff Grimmjow did, and the thought of Grimmjow doing all that here, at the Shōten, without Ichigo, was. Well. He didn’t like it.
The sound of footsteps thundered down the hall after him, and the door slammed open.
“Kurosaki you asshole,” Grimmjow said, panting on the threshold, “wait the fuck up when I’m trying to pry my fucking foot out of a goddamn bear trap.” His face was flushed and his hair fell across his forehead in an uncharacteristically loose tousle. Something was off, and as Ichigo scanned Grimmjow’s face, he realized just what he had missed in the brief second on the floor.
Grimmjow didn’t have his usual jawbone mask.
“When did you get a gigai?” Ichigo said, chest flooding once more with a wretched sense of betrayal.
Of course. Grimmjow wanted a gigai, and Urahara was pretty much the only person who could provide him with one. And now he’d be able to eat all the sweets he wanted, and fight anyone else he wanted, and he wouldn’t need Ichigo to go to the conbini and buy him the savory shrimp chips that he insisted on eating despite the way they made his reishi go all weird and wobbly. Tessai’s cooking was probably better than Ichigo’s best efforts, and with Urahara’s inventiveness and Yoruichi’s flexibility, they would probably be able to keep Grimmjow busy, way more than Ichigo could with his classes and part time job and family obligations. Maybe that’s why Grimmjow was trying to get out of relying on Ichigo for all his living world needs.
“You weren’t supposed to be here,” Grimmjow said, glaring as if Ichigo’s current dejection were his own fault.
Ichigo straightened, an instinctive response to that challenging look. He couldn’t help himself any more than he could resist gravity.
“I was picking up some of Yuzu’s sweets, so don’t tell me where I’m supposed to be. Didn't think you'd be here until this evening anyways." For their fight, which neither of them had ever missed.
Grimmjow matched Ichgio's posture, shoulders squared in that stubborn way that had Ichigo's rising to match.
"You weren't—" he started, then broke off, a strange look coming over his face, like he was trying to figure out how to spit out a mouthful of words stuck in his throat.
"You weren't supposed to see it," he said again, glaring at Ichigo's stomach, like he couldn't quite raise his gaze to Ichigo's face.
Ichigo's hackles rose. So what if Grimmjow didn't want him to know about his—dalliance, or relationship with benefits, or whatever—with Yoruichi and Urahara and Tessai? So what if that felt like a blow across the face. Ichigo probably wouldn't tell him if he'd gotten a girlfriend, or gone out on a date with some cute boy. It didn't mean anything. It was none of Ichigo's business to begin with.
Then why did he feel so insulted?
"It's fine," he said, curtly. His fist curled around the empty shopping bag he'd brought, Yuzu's sweets forgotten in his need to be anywhere but here. The thought of staying any amount of time in the house where Grimmjow was getting—bent in half by the Shoten crew, was more than he could bear in the current moment. And Grimmjow still couldn't meet his eyes.
"Fuck," Grimmjow growled, shoving the door shut behind him, "I didn't mean—you're an idiot, you know that?"
At least the insults were to his face now. Ichigo could deal with that.
"Fuck off," he said, turning away, "I'm not going to sit around if all you're doing is insulting me. And you can forget about the fight tonight, since it's obvious you're busy—"
Grimmjow's eyes went wide. He took a step forward, mouth scrambling with words."Wait—you—argh, fuck it."
He lunged.
"Hey!" Ichigo should've been able to dodge something at that slow, human speed, but his attention was on trying to suppress the unwarranted emotions he was currently experiencing.
Grimmjow's whole body weight hit him full on. Arms clutched at his waist, and they fell backward. His head thunked against a shelf holding bottles of multivitamin gummies, and a pinwheeling arm smacked against another display, jostling the packets of chips lined up like accusing spectators watching them both fall writhing to the floor.
When he finally stopped seeing spots in front of his eyes, Ichigo groaned and looked down at the body still stubbornly clinging to him like a piece of staticky tape he just couldn't shake off. Grimmjow's chin pressed against his sternum, face still red and jaw stubbornly set.
"I'm not letting go 'til you hear me out," he said through gritted teeth. His arms tightened until Ichigo could almost hear his ribs creaking underneath the vice grip. Why the hell did Urahara give him a gigai with superhuman strength in the first place anyways?
"You're a fucking menace," Ichigo said, "if you crack a rib I'm going to make you get your own stupid shrimp chips." But the initial burst of resentment was fading; if there was one thing that could shake him out of a funk caused by his own thoughts, it was a good smack to the head. He stared up at the ceiling and sighed. "Fine, what did you want to say."
Grimmjow went uncharacteristically quiet. The only sound in Ichigo's ears for a long moment was the harsh breath in both of their lungs, filling the air with tension. Finally, Ichigo looked down, and saw Grimmjow chewing on his lower lip, like he could finally get the right words out if he softened it up enough. It might not be working for him, but something else, some knotted up tangle of feeling in Ichigo's chest loosened at the sight of this outward manifestation of Grimmjow’s nervousness. He let his tense posture relax and sagged against the floor. In response, Grimmjow's grip loosened too, and he lifted his head off Ichigo's chest to stare at him straight on once more. His eyes were clear, and full of grim determination.
"Was gonna surprise you," Grimmjow said at last. "Wanted to see the look on your face when I showed up at your front door wearing this meatsuit and ate a whole fucking plate of your stupid sister's dumb cooking. The idiots back there," he jerked his chin towards the back of the shop—where they both heard the telltale swish of a door sliding shut—"wanted to make sure it fit and all. Said it was just in case things got physical or some bullshit. Like I couldn't punch you with a stiff arm. They didn't tell me you were coming.”
The corner of Ichigo's mouth twitched. "I didn't tell them either, to be fair. Yuzu wanted to go shopping for Christmas presents, so she sent me here in her stead."
Grimmjow's frown didn't abate as he stared at Ichigo. "So are we still gonna fight?" he asked.
Ichigo snorted. His chest felt lighter. The fear that Grimmjow might be trying to replace him with scruffy shopkeepers, beefy assistants, and sexy cat women washed away like a bad aftertaste in the face of extra minty toothpaste.
Like hell would Grimmjow ever want to spend the rest of his fights trying to catch Yoruichi, or dodging Urahara's thousand weird gadgets. And Tessai's cooking was good, but it really didn't have anything on Yuzu's. Most importantly, none of them had promised Grimmjow a fight, over and over, for as long as either of them could still lift a sword. That had to count for more than all the rest put together.
"Nah," Ichigo said, grinning. When Grimmjow tensed, he added, "you said you wanted to eat a whole meal for once, didn't you? After one of Yuzu's meals you're not going to want to move a finger."
Grimmjow squinted up at him, eyes narrowed like he wasn't quite sure if that was forgiveness.
"I've never met a meal I couldn't take down easily," Grimmjow said, pushing himself up onto his elbows. He scooted forward until his face loomed over Ichigo, hair falling down into his eyes. "I'll eat anything you can fucking throw at me."
He lowered his face further, and for a heart-stopping second, Ichigo thought he might lean all the way down and take a taste of Ichigo first. Unconsciously, he wet his lips, and watched Grimmjow's gaze followed the sweep of his tongue, the way his eyes darkened with hunger, the tilt of his chin as he angled his head downward. When their faces were only a few inches away, Grimmjow jerked back. He scrunched up his face in a mix of pain and frustration, and gave a whole-body twitch before slowly toppling over, off of Ichigo and onto the floor.
"Ow, fuck," he said, grabbing at his back with a look of utter betrayal. "I think I pulled something."
“HA!” The sliding door slammed open. Yoruichi stood in the doorway, hands on her hips like the patron god of vindication. "I knew it! Get back here, we're not done setting up your gigai yet!" She said, reaching over in an attempt to grab Grimmjow by the scruff.
"Like hell! I've got a dinner to eat!" Grimmjow said, kicking at her hand with his foot, still twisted weirdly to keep tension off his back.
"Hmm, the taste sensors do still need to be calibrated as well," Urahara rubbed at his chin, pulling up his pad again, "why don't you take this questionnaire—”
"The hell is a questionnaire? I'm not fucking taking anything else from you, you shitty shopkeeper!"
Ichigo sat up laughing.
He wanted to take Grimmjow by the hand and bring him home, and stuff him full of shrimp chips and Yuzu's curry katsu. And maybe afterward, when Grimmjow was digesting away his food coma, they could revisit the idea of dessert. Ichigo could knead out all the tense knots in his muscles, and, calibration be damned, they could test out just how flexible the gigai was after all.