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On principal, Grimmjow considers himself relatively knowledgeable. Sure, he may have missed a few years of human innovation or whatever, but that stuff is easy enough to figure out. And if he can’t make something work, then he can either break it or bug someone into doing it for him.
TikTok doesn’t make any fucking sense.
Karin has spent the last forty-three minutes trying to explain this contraption and Grimmjow still doesn’t get it. He doesn’t understand why the little videos of people are so short, why they all do the same dances or say the same lines, or why Karin seems to think this one particular group of girls is better than the rest. Sure, one of them has cool hair, but his is better. Besides,
“But why is it named after a clock?” This is his third time asking. He finally learned how to set an alarm clock (early enough to wake Ichigo for a quick two-hour spar before he leaves to do boring human things), so he thought he knew clocks pretty good now. But this seems to be connected.
“Oh my god. I’m done. It’s an app, not a clock! Just listen, okay? Huntr/x is the best K-pop group going!”
“I still like the Saja Boys better,” Yuzu chimes in. Grimmjow’s brow furrows. He doesn’t know these boys; if they’re spending time with Yuzu, they’ll need to be vetted to see if they’re worthy of her attention.
“They had two songs!” Karin protests. “They didn’t even put out a full album before going on break!”
“It’s only been a year since “Your Idol” and it’s still in the top 100. They’ll be back. They’re too hot to quit this early.” Yuzu freezes. She glances at Grimmjow. He stares back at her.
“Is this one of those moments where you’ll give me something if I don’t repeat that to Ichigo or your dad?”
Yuzu nods.
Grimmjow hums and pretends to contemplate. He wouldn’t extort Yuzu — she’s the only one who still helps him with things without laughing at him first — and besides, he already knows what he wants: there was an ad on the TV a few nights ago about the health benefits of feeding your cats homemade treats. He doesn’t give a fuck about human health standards, but he wants those biscuits.
“I—”
“KARIN!” Ichigo kicks the door open, rattling the barely alive hinges. The door is kicked open often, so no one jumps to attention.
“Hey, Ichigo. How was work?”
“Don’t try to distract me, Yuzu.” Ichigo scowls at his sisters. “Karin. I just checked my bank account. What did you buy?”
“I didn’t do anything!” Karin protests. “How do you know it wasn’t Yuzu?”
“Cause Yuzu would ask me first before spending almost three hundred thousand yen!”
Grimmjow frowns at Karin. He’s pretty sure that’s a lot, and Ichigo’s been worried about saving money for his stupid degree thing. If that happens. Grimmjow’s still trying to convince him to just do a career in fighting people — he learned about those recently and likes that option. It’d be fun to watch Ichigo beat weak little humans up. Unfortunately, Ichigo disagrees.
Karin fidgets. “Look, don’t get mad. I’m gonna pay you back, alright? Before you need to pay tuition, I promise. I have some saved up and have a part-time job, so I can cover like half right now. But I needed a credit card.”
“For what? What do you need that costs that much?” Ichigo’s scowling and his fingers are clenched tight. Grimmjow frowns. He doesn’t like how stressed Ichigo has become over a dumb thing like money. Ichigo saved the world several times over — shouldn’t the world just give him money if he needs it?
Karin catches Grimmjow’s gaze. “Before I tell you the whole plan, I want to preface that Grimmjow is totally into Huntr/x—”
“Oh my god. You bought the concert tickets.” Ichigo sighs. “Karin, we talked about this weeks ago! Dad said you can’t go to Korea—”
“Alone!” Karin interrupts. “Dad said I can’t go alone. So — since Yuzu said she’d rather save up for the imaginary day the Saja Boys have a concert — I got two tickets.” She smiles sweetly. “You like K-pop, right?”
Ichigo’s eyes narrow. “No.”
“Pretty sure I’ve seen K-pop on your phone,” Yuzu whispers, a tiny smile tugging at her lips.
“No, I— Yes, I don’t mind some K-pop songs, but no, I’m not going to Korea with you.” Ichigo rubs at his forehead. Grimmjow frowns again. He clearly needs to do a better job sparring with his boyfriend; Ichigo looks exhausted.
“I mean, I guess I could sell one of the tickets online and just go with Toshiro.” Karin shrugs and turns back to her phone.
Ichigo freezes and Grimmjow sighs. Guess he’d better prepare himself for a trip to wherever the fuck K-pop is. It’s only been a few months since Karin and Hitsugaya’s first official “date” and Ichigo still hasn’t accepted the courtship. Grimmjow isn’t sure why. Hitsugaya is a decent choice — a strong, capable warrior, if literally a little cold.
“When’s the show?” Ichigo asks through gritted teeth. Karin beams.
Once they’ve exchanged details in a rapid-fire manner that Grimmjow doesn’t follow, Ichigo stomps upstairs, grumbling about a long shower. When he’s out of range, Yuzu clears her throat.
“Karin, you said you got two tickets — how’re you bringing Ichigo and Toshiro?”
Karin grins. “Toshiro and Grimmjow can just not wear their gigai. They’ll be able to come with us everywhere for free. I even went ahead and saved by not buying plane tickets; Grimmjow, you can do that portal-thing, right?”
“A garganta? Yeah, it’s easy. Ichigo can too.”
“I know. But Ichigo won’t want to leave, so if it depends on him, we’ll never get there.”
“Right. And why should I help with this?” Grimmjow examines his claws. If he’s helping, he wants to get something out of this, and ignoring the pleading gaze Karin is trying to weaken him helps his cause.
“I’ll buy more of those cat treats you like?”
Grimmjow hum, disinterested. Those get bought regularly enough anyway. That’s hardly an appropriate reward.
“Uh, I’ll buy you a heated blanket?”
He scoffs. “With what money? You have to pay Ichigo back, remember?”
“Oh, right.” Karin taps her lip. Yuzu goes to her twin and whispers something. Karin’s eyes light up. “Yes, that’s it! Grimmjow, you should help me because Ichigo is really tired and needs a vacation.”
Grimmjow huffs. “He doesn’t need a vacation; he just needs to spar more.” The twins exchange a look.
“Uh, no.” Karin shakes her head. “He needs a break. He’s exhausted and we can all tell. He’s grouchy and isn’t sleeping enough and probably needs a break from sparring too. A vacation helps him do all that.” Grimmjow’s brow furrows. Ichigo hasn’t said anything about wanting a break from sparring.
Without another word, Grimmjow heads upstairs and sits on Ichigo’s bed. The shower is still running and Ichigo doesn’t like it when Grimmjow goes in to ask questions when he’s showering, so he has time to think.
Sometimes, it’s hard to remember that Ichigo is part human. Ichigo is so powerful that his human limits often spring up when Grimmjow has forgotten them.
…How many hours do humans need to sleep to be at their strongest? Surely it’s only a couple. Ichigo sleeps for about four or five on a given night. That must be okay. But what about food? Human and hollow — Grimmjow doesn’t remember the last time Ichigo came with him on a hunt in Hueco Mundo. And Yuzu always tells Ichigo to eat more human food too.
Grimmjow rolls off the bed and lands smoothly on his feet. He glares at the laptop, warning it that he’s not taking any of its shit today, and opens the fragile screen.
When Ichigo comes in about ten minutes later, Grimmjow is reading an article on human health very intently.
“What’re you doing?” Ichigo asks, sounding overly suspicious. Sure, Grimmjow rarely touches the laptop, but that isn’t because he doesn’t know how.
Grimmjow get up and pokes Ichigo in the chest. Hard. “You’re supposed to be sleeping for eight hours! Eight fucking hours!”
“Uh.” Ichigo blinks.
“And you’re supposed to eat between two and three thousand calories a day, more if you’re active! I don’t know what it is, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen you eat a calory!”
Ichigo bites his lip.
“And— and you’re supposed to drink around three liters of water! Do you drink water? I think I should get you some water—”
Ichigo starts laughing. He clutches Grimmjow’s arm, still cackling all the while.
“What?” Grimmjow grumbles, his cheeks heating. This is stuff he should’ve been paying attention to. It’s not funny that Ichigo’s health is at risk; he needs to stay healthy to stay strong!
“Grimmjow, I’m fine. I help my dad at the clinic all the time, remember? I know all that stuff.”
“But the laptop says you need—”
Ichigo rolls his eyes. “Grimm, you’re reading Wikipedia. I’m alright, really.” Ichigo smiles, but there’re deep circles under his eyes, and their last few spars really haven’t been great…
“Fuck,” Grimmjow grumbles. He shoves Ichigo out of the way, ignores the incited protest, and hops the rail to land on the ground floor. Karin raises an eyebrow.
“Well?”
“We still have a chance,” Ichigo points out. “We can stay here, kick Toshiro back to the Soul Society, and have a nice long weekend.”
“No. You’re getting a vacation whether you want it or not.”
“I really don’t need a vacation. I need my money back.”
Grimmjow hums thoughtfully. “I could help with that.”
“With what?”
“Money.” At Ichigo’s raised eyebrow, he elaborates. “You can get paid to fight people for the TV, remember? I could do that. It’d be easy.”
Ichigo blinks, then shakes his head. “Let’s not do that.” His brow is pinched like it gets when Zangetsu is yelling something at him. “Yeah, no. Bad idea. Grimm, you’d kill people. That’s not—”
“I know how to fight without killing,” Grimmjow retorts, rolling his eyes. He’s an arrancar, not an idiot. He can pull his punches if he must.
Hitsugaya’s arrival puts a pause on their conversation.
“Apologies for my tardiness,” the soul reaper captain says briskly. “Rangiku was fussing.”
“You’re hardly a minute late, it’s fine.” Karin grabs Hitsugaya’s hand, making the captain flush and causing Ichigo to start growling. Grimmjow rolls his eyes. Ichigo’s dislike of his sister’s courtship was funny the first couple times, but now it’s gotten old.
“Alright, let’s just go.” He opens the garganta to Korea — apparently K-pop is a thing, not a place — just like Karin instructed and hops in, dragging Ichigo along after him. Karin and Hitsugaya are quick to follow. Yuzu waves goodbye as the garganta closes behind them, cutting off any chance of escape: Ichigo is going on vacation whether he wants to or not.
“Jinu, wake up!” There’s a groan, but no other sign that he heard her. “Jinu! I’m going to be late!”
“Five more minutes,” the heavy lump splayed over her whines. Rumi huffs and starts poking her demon boyfriend’s shoulder with a pointed nail. He grumbles some more then finally rolls onto his side of the bed, freeing her from his nighttime leech-like cuddling.
“See you at lunch,” Rumi says, patting Jinu’s cheek. He mumbles something and presses his face deeper into her pillow. Jinu’s really not a morning person. Rumi shakes her head fondly and starts getting ready for the day. It’ll be a long one, what with the concert coming up tonight. Bobby usually takes care of any last-minute problems for them, but you never know what strange things will decide to happen on concert day. It’s like the world knows they’re busy and tries extra hard to stress them out. But demon sightings have gone down dramatically since they reformed the honmoon, so maybe the day will be semi-normal after all.
Later, after a morning of rehearsal with Zoey and Mira, Rumi heads back to her room to let Jinu know lunch is ready. He tends to hide in there, says it’s a good space for naps, playing with Derpy and Sussie, and sometimes writing song lyrics that the Saja Boys may or may not ever perform. They’re still figuring things out.
Rumi finds Jinu sitting on her bed, talking to a squirrel that’s sitting in his cupped palms. The squirrel is bright orange. Rumi blinks, rubs her eyes, and sighs. That is definitely some kind of demon. She makes a mental note to go find some cash later. She’s almost certain Zoey will want to start a betting pool for how long it’ll take Jinu to make the squirrel a hat — one Sussie will inevitably steal.
No matter what anyone says, it wasn’t Grimmjow’s fault. In fact, it was Hitsugaya’s fault: Ichigo was complaining about people giving him weird looks and blamed it on his hair colour. Grimmjow half-heartily offered to beat up those eyeing Ichigo and was shut down, as he expected.
Then Hitsugaya offered to try a spell thing that would change Ichigo’s hair colour.
And now Ichigo is a squirrel.
“Toshiro,” Karin starts, “you better know how to undo this.”
The captain gulps. “Ah. Well, Rangiku only taught me how to perform the spell…”
“So you’re saying you turned my brother into a squirrel and can’t fix it?” Karin’s voice is too sweet. Grimmjow knows this tone and steps back, out of kicking range. He leaves the couple to their argument.
Grimmjow brushes the top of Ichigo’s squirrel head. It’s soft. Ichigo’s little paws hug Grimmjow’s finger.
“Huh. You’re kinda cute like this.”
Ichigo bites him, but his squirrel teeth can’t puncture Grimmjow’s hierro.
“I guess this counts as vacation still— HEY!” Grimmjow swipes at the air and misses. His fury grows. A bird just swiped Ichigo right out of his hands and is quickly flapping away. Ichigo squeaks and wriggles, but the bird’s talons hold right. Grimmjow growls and flexes his claws. That bird is dead.
He glances back at Karin and Hitsugaya. They’re still arguing. Some humans are starting to give Karin odd looks for yelling and waving her hands at the space next to her. Oh well. She can handle it.
Grimmjow takes off after the bird.
Tracking the bird (which was annoyingly tricky; Grimmjow has no idea how it kept vanishing, making him lose the trail and double back to find it again), Grimmjow finds himself at a very large house. It has a lot of windows. He debates climbing it to find the window the bird has flown through, but decides it’ll be easier to go in through the front.
The first few floors are empty, but Grimmjow eventually finds two humans sitting on a couch. He eyes them, then dismisses them: no threat and no Ichigo.
“Uh, who’re you?”
Grimmjow sniffs the air. He knows he’s close to Ichigo now, but the air is weird in here. There’s another scent, a heavy one that’s trying to lay claim to this territory. It makes him sneeze.
“Hey, we’re talking to you. How’d you get in here?”
Grimmjow rubs his nose. He really does not like that scent—
Not expecting it, Grimmjow narrowly dodges the knife that’s thrown at his face. It hits the wall, plaster cracking around it. Grimmjow follows the knife’s trajectory back to the two human girls. They’re standing now. The shorter one has more knives in her hands, and the taller one has a weapon of her own. Grimmjow frowns. He looks over his shoulder, but there’s no one there.
“Can you see me?” he asks.
“Obviously. You aren’t exactly sneaking around,” the taller girl with pink hair says. “What are you doing here?”
“Getting my boyfriend back.”
The girls exchange looks, but before they reply, another girl enters.
“Hey, so who wants to place bets—” She freezes, then has a blade drawn, pointing the weapon Grimmjow’s way. Grimmjow sniffs again and his eyes narrow.
“You smell like him,” he declares, taking a threatening step forward. “Give me back my boyfriend.” His claws flex. Ichigo doesn’t like it when he hurts humans… but maybe an exception can be made.
Then he squints, looking between the three girls. They seem kind of familiar. He feels oddly offended by the one girl’s purple hair.
“Oh, that’s it. You three are from the dance on the clock app.” He nods, pleased with his amazing memory. Damn. That means he really can’t kill them: these are the girls Karin wants to see sing. “Well, I don’t care who you are. You stole my boyfriend. Give him back.” He doesn’t bother with a threat.
“Rumi, do you know this guy?”
“No, Zoey, I don’t.”
“Has Jinu mentioned any weird demon exes?”
“No, Zoey.”
“You sure? Cause this guy really seems to think you’ve got his boyfriend. And the only boyfriend around here is Jinu, so…”
Grimmjow isn’t sure what a Jinu is. But he doesn’t care, because a huge blue demon cat has just walked into the room. It looks Grimmjow in the eye and brushes its side against the wall, its scent thickening in the air. Grimmjow’s lip curls. Who does this bastard think it is? Sure, this isn’t Grimmjow’s territory, nor does he want it, but this stupid cat should see that he is the superior predator. It should be cowering, not challenging him.
He growls low in his throat and does not break eye contact. The stupid cat stares back, unwilling to admit defeat by looking away first. Grimmjow’s eyes are starting to burn. He sniffs again. This cat is not human. It definitely does not fall under the category of things Grimmjow is supposed to not kill.
“Last chance,” he warns the stupid thing. “Back down, brat.”
“Hey, we haven’t even—”
“Zoey, he’s looking at Derpy.”
The cat smiles wider and flicks its fluffy tail.
Grimmjow snarls and launches at it, lashing out with his claws. The cat sinks into the floor, vanishing before Grimmjow can draw its blood. He hisses and slashes deep grooves into the floor where it stood for good measure.
“Hey, Derpy said there’s a weird guy here.” Another human appears. Though, this one doesn’t smell as human. Grimmjow squints his eyes, glaring at the newcomer. He almost smells like—
“You.” Grimmjow growls, a low, threatening note.
“Jinu, your ex is mega weird.”
“Not my ex, Zoey. I’ve never seen this guy before.”
Grimmjow takes a step closer, one hand drifting to Pantera. “Where’s my boyfriend?”
“Look buddy,” the guy says, holding his hands up placatingly, “I don’t know what you’re talking about—”
“Liar. I can smell him on you. What the hell did you do to him?”
“Why don’t we sit down and— WOAH!” Like the cat, this guy vanishes before Grimmjow’s claws can rip through his gut. The guy reappears a few feet away, eyes wide. “Okay. So we’re not talking this out?”
Grimmjow grips Pantera’s hilt. It would be overkill, but he’s starting to get impatient—
A tiny squeak draws his attention to the orange-furred head poking out of the large pocket on the guy’s sweater.
Grimmjow stills.
“Shh, it’s okay little guy.” The Ichigo-stealer tries to push Ichigo’s head back into the pocket. “Stay in there where it’s safe.”
“Give him back,” Grimmjow demands. His voice has dropped to a low, dangerous note; he isn’t playing around anymore. He doesn’t care if hurting a few humans will upset Ichigo if it means getting his boyfriend back safely. Karin will forgive him for murdering her favourite singers eventually.
Ichigo-stealer frowns. “Who? Look buddy, I really have no idea what you’re talking about.” Ichigo squeaks louder and his pocket-escape attempt is thwarted once more.
“Jinu,” the purple-haired girl starts, “if you did do something, you can tell me. I won’t be mad.”
“I really didn’t do anything! I’ve been napping all morning, I swear!”
Grimmjow flexes his claws one last time. He shifts his weight, eyes narrowing as he fixes his gaze onto his target—
The cat is back.
Grimmjow hisses at it. It blinks at him and doesn’t let up with its stupid grin. Grimmjow wants to kill this smug fucker so bad… but Ichigo is still kidnapped. His instincts war with each other: the urge to kill with the urge to protect.
He shoots the cat a glare that promises future pain. Unfortunately, being a boyfriend means he should put rescuing Ichigo first. Also, the Ichigo-stealer has started petting Ichigo’s fluffy orange squirrel head and Grimmjow now has a new archenemy. The cat is old news: he’s going to shred this fool’s face.
The Ichigo-stealer yelps as Grimmjow lunges at him and somehow manages to dodge by disappearing again. Grimmjow’s scowl darkens. Normally he would be intrigued by such an interesting opponent, but right now he’s just pissed off.
“Hey! Don’t hurt Jinu!” The purple girl levels her blade Grimmjow’s way. He doesn’t want to upset Karin, but rescuing Ichigo takes priority. The girl gasps as Grimmjow’s fist hits her side, sending her staggering several paces. He frowns. Odd; he was trying to shatter her ribs so they’d pierce her heart and kill her relatively painlessly (a mercy for one of Karin’s favourite singers) but she’s still alive.
“Rumi!” All three of the others cry out her name and rush to the purple-haired girl’s side. The two other girls hover around her as she groans and gets back to her feet. Weird purple lines are crawling across her skin — the same weird lines Grimmjow can now see on Jinu, the Ichigo-stealer.
When Jinu faces him this time, Grimmjow knows this one is definitely not a human. His eyes are yellow, his skin is a purplish shade, and he’s flexing claws of his own.
“Zoey, can you hold Pineapple?” Jinu hands a squirming, biting squirrel-Ichigo to the black-haired girl. Grimmjow almost lunges during the transfer but recalls with sudden urgency that Ichigo was in his human body when he was squirrel-ified. That means his squirrel body must be of the same material as his regular one. And his human body is frail and squishy. If Grimmjow were to snatch him too quickly or roughly, he could accidently hurt him.
“Fuck,” Grimmjow grumbles. That makes things a bit harder.
His instincts give ample warning to dodge the claws swiping at his neck, but Grimmjow has to block the second swipe. He goes to retaliate, but Jinu vanishes, reappearing behind him and almost landing a blow. The non-human’s eyes are cold, angry, and each strike of his claws is aiming to be a killing blow.
Grimmjow grins in a way that he knows looks feral. Fine. If that’s how this is going, then he can get on board.
Rumi has never been more thankful for her demon powers. While she still isn’t entirely sure what’s going on, she knows that, had she been a regular human, that blow would have killed her. A single hit. She swallows heavily. Mira and Zoey are at her side, watching the battle between Jinu and the blue-haired invader with calculating eyes. Zoey winces every so often as Jinu’s squirrel — apparently dubbed Pineapple for some reason — pokes through her skin with tiny claws.
“You two need to stay back.” It hurts to suggest, and she will certainly get flack for it, but Rumi says it anyway. “I’m serious. This guy, whoever he is, is really dangerous.”
“We’ve fought dangerous before, Rumi,” Mira retorts. “We can handle ourselves.”
Of course, just as Mira says that, the blue-haired guy draws the sword from his waist and spears it through the air— right into Jinu’s chest as he reappears.
Rumi forgets to breathe.
Jinu’s hands fly to the blade, his eyes wide. He paws at it, shocked. Blood drips from the edges of his lips.
“JINU!” Rumi screams and lets her power lash out. A wave of it knocks into the blue-haired guy and throws him into the wall. He lands on his feet and looks more annoyed than injured.
Jinu, on the other hand… By pushing their attacker away, Rumi forced the sword out of Jinu, so now he’s bleeding all over the place. Rumi’s hands are shaking. She doesn’t know first aid, doesn’t know if Jinu’s demon powers are strong enough to save him from a wound like that.
“Rumi…” Mira’s voice is small.
“He’ll be fine,” Rumi says. Her own voice is shaky. “Jinu, are you— can I help?” She takes a careful step forward. Whatever blade their attacker has isn’t a demon hunting blade. Surely that means Jinu can recover from this. He has to. They didn’t defeat Gwi-ma and reforge the honmoon just for Jinu to—
She kneels at Jinu’s side and takes his hand. She closes her eyes and tries to focus on using her demon powers to help, to heal, to do something — anything — useful.
“Look kid,” their attacker says gruffly, “I’m only telling you this cause Karin likes your songs, okay? But you should know that your, uh, friend here isn’t human. At all. I have no idea what he is, but human ain’t it.”
“You think I don’t know that my own boyfriend is a demon?” Rumi practically snarls the words, her own demon powers still rumbling under her skin. Her voice is a growl.
“Demon? Huh. Am I supposed to know about demons?” The question is addressed to Pineapple, who has stilled in Zoey’s hands. The squirrel seems to shrug and shake its head. “Alright. Noted. Now then.” The weirdly-almost-friendly atmosphere disintegrates. “Give me back my boyfriend, or I’ll start ripping—” The squirrel makes a panicked squeaking noise. “Jeez, alright. Fine. No ripping. I’ll stick to light, repairable maiming.” The guy rolls his eyes. The squirrel squeaks some more and the guy throws his hands into the air.
“Are you serious? It’s like you don’t want to be rescued! They kidnapped you. I’m saving you. That means I’m in the right, so a little murder or maiming really shouldn’t matter that much. I’ll apologize to Karin for killing her singers by bringing her to that other group. Uh, whatever it was that Yuzu liked. The something boys.”
“The Saja Boys?” Zoey offers, sounding as puzzled as Rumi feels.
“Yeah. Them. Karin and Yuzu will want to go, it’ll be great. We can even leave Hitsugaya behind.”
The squirrel makes a contemplative noise.
Zoey clears her throat. “Um. I don’t mean to ruin your plans, but Jinu is the lead singer and the songwriter of the Saja Boys. If he dies, their group is kinda over.”
The guy looks at Jinu then back to Zoey. “Are you fucking serious?”
“Um. Yeah.”
The guy mutters something Rumi can’t catch — she isn’t sure what language it even is — then declares: “Okay, fine. Stay put. Ichigo, I’ll be right back. I’m getting Hitsugaya to fix this guy. You,” he eyes Rumi, Mira, and Zoey, “are going to stay here. I’ll heal your boyfriend, then you return mine. Deal?”
Rumi looks to the squirrel, then to the crazy guy who thinks he’s dating a squirrel. “If you can heal Jinu, then yeah. Deal.”
“Fucking fantastic.” The guy sighs loudly, then vanishes.
The Huntr/x girls exchange looks. Rumi helps Jinu put pressure on his wound.
“So we all agree that this is the weirdest pre-show day we’ve had, right?” Mira asks.
“Yep.”
“Oh for sure.”
“I should’ve stayed in bed,” Jinu groans.
Grimmjow expects to find Karin and Hitsugaya on the street where he left them. But, of course, that would just be too easy. They aren’t there. And from the faint traces of their scents, they haven’t been here for a while.
“Great.” Grimmjow scowls. He’s never listening to one of Karin’s plans again: this vacation sucks.
Looking around, Grimmjow’s mood only sinks further. There’re a lot of people around, he’s never been here before, and he has no idea where Karin went. The concert obviously can’t be starting — it is both too early and the girls performing are at the house Grimmjow just left. So where could Karin have wandered off to?
A chilly presence warns him before the words come: “Do you know anything about human authorities?” The voice is cold, but slightly panicked.
Grimmjow sighs pre-emptively, then turns to face Hitsugaya. “Why?”
“Karin has been arrested.”
They stare at each other for a long moment. Soul reaper captain and arrancar come to the same conclusion.
“Their security was weak,” Hitsugaya offers. “And when Karin told me to leave, she said I wouldn’t show up on their cameras.”
“Fuck it, it can’t be that hard to break her out of jail.” Grimmjow hates the idea of waiting to go get Ichigo back, and that demon guy is still bleeding out… “Okay. I’ll go get Karin, you go to that huge tower over there. I may have stabbed someone a little, and Yuzu likes his songs, so you have to heal him.”
Hitsugaya stares at him, eyes colder than usual. “You stabbed a human?”
“I don’t know anymore,” Grimmjow sighs. “He said he was a demon. Ichigo didn’t know about demons either. Have you heard of them before?”
“A demon.” Hitsugaya’s blank stare doesn’t let up. “You are not funny, arrancar. I will investigate this. If you have harmed a human, then I cannot in good conscience allow you to roam freely in the human realm.”
“I never roam freely,” Grimmjow grumbles. “Ichigo never lets me hit anyone, not even that bitch that gives us weird looks at the vegetable market.”
“Regardless, the soul society can only overlook so much, even when it comes to you.” Hitsugaya dashes off, taking his brooding, icy aura with him.
Grimmjow flips the brat off, then sniffs, trying to lock onto Karin’s scent. Hopefully this part will be fun — he’s never interacted with the human authorities before. Maybe breaking Karin out will provide the entertainment this vacation is sorely lacking.
Rumi nearly screams when a kid pops up next to her. She’s still kneeling over Jinu, her hands covered in his blood as she attempts to stop the bleeding.
“Huh.” The kid squints at Jinu, unbothered by the blades Zoey and Mira level at him. “So this is a ‘demon’?”
“Who are you?” Zoey asks.
“Hitsugaya Toshiro, captain of— never mind. My…” his face twists “acquaintance has wounded your demon. Step aside so I can administer the required healing.”
Rumi hesitates. “You can help him?”
“Yes. Easily. It appears the arrancar was genuinely not trying to kill him.” The teen smooths back his white hair and makes a shooing motion. “Now move.” His words are cold, more an order than a request.
Rumi looks at Jinu’s pained, pale face, then shuffles aside. Zoey and Mira still have their weapons out, just in case, but Mira places a hand on Rumi’s shoulder. Zoey’s free hand is occupied hold Pineapple, who has gone limp and still, as if trying not to be noticed.
The white-haired kid — Hitsugaya — does something that makes his hands glow green. Rumi feels sudden pressure in the air and is about to ask what he’s doing when her eyes go wide: the edges of Jinu’s wound are pinching together.
“It’s working!” Zoey gasps, moving a step closer to peer at the magic with glee. “That is so cool! Think you could learn to do that, Rumi?”
“I have no idea.”
Hitsugaya scoffs but doesn’t say anything. It only takes a few more minutes until Jinu’s wound has closed and colour returns to his flesh.
“There.” Hitsugaya stands, and levels Pineapple with a glare. “As this isn’t a human, I won’t report this incident to the soul society. Regardless, be more cautious next time, Kurosaki. I’m leaving. Grimmjow will want to rescue you.” The kid vanishes, leaving as quickly as he came.
The girls stare at Pineapple, who is still pretending to be dead.
“I’m gonna need so much ramen after this,” Mira sighs, heading for the couch.
“OMG same!” Zoey follows suit, still holding Pineapple in her hands. She sets him on her lap, patting his orange fur. “Dessert too.”
“Great idea,” Rumi agrees. Her thoughts are distracted from food as Jinu groans and sits up.
“Ow,” he says.
Rumi scowls. She punches his shoulder.
“Ow!” Jinu repeats, more hurt this time.
“Don’t do that ever again!” Rumi snaps. Jinu nods, eyes wide as he rubs at his shoulder. “Good.” Rumi hugs him tight, her hands twisting into the material of his bloodied shirt. That’s twice now. Twice that she almost lost him. Rumi squeezes Jinu tight enough that he wheezes and vows that she’ll get stronger, strong enough to protect everyone she loves.
A knock startles them.
“Girls? Are you dressed for the concert yet?”
Their eyes widen. “Uh, five more minutes, Bobby!” Rumi calls back. The three Huntr/x girls sprint for their lockers. Rumi has no idea how she’s going to wash the blood off her hands in time.
So, Grimmjow has learned three things so far: that Karin was being kept behind flimsy bars, that the flimsy bars were in fact easy to break, and that the police think Karin is some kind of spiritual medium, which isn’t entirely wrong given the situation.
“Call off your ghosts!” An officer shrieks as Grimmjow kicks over another chair, a wicked grin on his face.
“Trust me, I’m trying!” Karin snaps, both arms around Grimmjow’s wrist as she tries to pull him away. “Come on, Grimmjow! We’re leaving!”
“I’m not done yet.” He punches a desk, splitting the weak wooden structure in two. Someone starts crying. Grimmjow’s grin grows.
“Seriously, Grimmjow! We have to go!” Karin is starting to sound extra worried now, instead of mildly concerned at the idea of breaking out of jail like she was before, so Grimmjow sighs.
“Fine.” He already trashed the place and got Karin back, so it’s not like there’s much else to do here. These humans are all weaklings; there’s no point looking for a fight.
Plus, he still hasn’t gotten Ichigo back.
“Let’s go.” Grimmjow slings Karin over his shoulder — much to her squirming protests — and uses sonido to escape.
He carries her to the concert hall thing where he and Hitsugaya agreed to meet. The soul reaper is already there, so Grimmjow drops Karin off next to him.
“Well, that was slightly more interesting.” He was rather amused when the officers started screaming about him being a ghost. Maybe Karin should get arrested more often… “But I’m going to get Ichigo now.”
“Okay, try to be back soon! You don’t want to miss the opening of the concert. I’m going to wait in line.” Karin takes out her ticket and does just that, Hitsugaya trailing at her side, asking quietly if she’s unharmed.
Grimmjow sighs and rolls his neck. This time, he won’t stab anyone. He’ll go in, retrieve Ichigo safely, and return. Unless that blue bastard mocks him again, in which case he’ll need to alter his plans to murder that stupid grinning cat.
But when he arrives at the tower, it’s empty: no singer girls, no demon guy, no Ichigo.
Grimmjow snarls and grabs the nearest thing — the couch — and throws it out the window.
“Zoey, why’d you bring Pineapple?”
“Cause he’s just so cute!” Zoey beams back at Rumi, holding the little squirrel out. There is now a sequined bow tie (one that matches their outfits for this concert) on the squirrel, who looks quite upset at this development.
“Zoey, what Rumi is trying to say is that you can’t bring a squirrel on the stage with us.” Mira sighs, going to rub at her temples but halting at the last second, remembering her makeup.
“Sure I can! Look, he fits in my pocket.” Zoey proves this by placing Pineapple — who seems to have accepted his fate — into her breast pocket. His orange head pokes out enough that the bow tie is visible.
“Girls! Are you all ready?” Bobby asks, rushing over to them.
“As long as Zoey doesn’t mess up the choreography because of a squirrel, then sure,” Mira says.
“I won’t! I swear! And if Pineapple gets overstimulated by the noise, I’ll pass him off to Jinu, promise.”
“Sounds good to me,” Jinu agrees, giving Zoey a thumbs up.
“Alright, let’s get out there and do this!” Rumi shouts. Mira and Zoey cheer with her, and with that, they march onto stage, eliciting cheers from their audience.
They start the show and get through only two songs before Zoey falters mid-rap. Rumi looks to her, worried, just in time to see an orange-haired guy appear out of nowhere, knocking Zoey over.
“Zoey!” Rumi rushes to her friend’s side.
“Shit.” The guy says, sounding exhausted. He quickly rolls off Zoey, ducking his face to avoid the murmuring crowd, and makes it about three feet before a blue blur tackles him.
Rumi has a split second to recognize that guy from earlier who attacked them, then a weird pressure fills the air and all the lights in the stadium shatter. People start panicking, wondering if a blackout is part of the show. Rumi swears under her breath, only to remember that she’s mic’ed, so people hear her and begin to panic further.
“Everyone stay call!” Mira says. “Stay in your seats!”
“Everything’s okay!” Zoey adds, sounding a bit breathless but otherwise fine. “This is just a technical error; there’s nothing to worry about!”
“Emergency power will be on shortly!” Rumi calls, hoping she’s right.
She hears a low growl, then turns to see Derpy’s eyes glowing in the dark. Derpy sinks into the ground, but Rumi still flinches as she hears the unmistakable sounds of something being shredded by claws. It’s a noise she’s gotten to know well since Jinu moved in; he’s broken several alarm clocks.
Backup power flickers on, illuminating the huge claw marks ripping up the stage. Someone screams and Rumi knows the show is officially over for the night.
She’s kind of glad. Today has been a mess.
Grimmjow swats at Ichigo’s arm, trying to get his boyfriend to loosen the grip keeping his ear hostage.
“That hurts,” he grumbles, swatting again. “Let go.”
“Not unless you promise not to turn back to go fight that cat thing.”
“But—”
“Grimmjow. Please. Let it go.” Ichigo sounds tired. Maybe more tired than he did before this whole vacation nonsense. Grimmjow frowns. That wasn’t supposed to happen.
“Okay,” he says, agreeing easily enough that Ichigo looks surprised, but still lets go. Grimmjow rubs at his ear. He can hear humans screaming, but he really didn’t do that much. They shouldn’t be scared… though most humans can’t see well in the dark. But it’s hardly his fault those stupid wires got in his way. Not that he expected shredding them to turn off all the lights, but still. It’s not his fault.
“Sorry your vacation was so bad,” Grimmjow says quietly. He isn’t quite sure why he feels so strongly about this — maybe because he wants to prove that he can do more than fight? Grimmjow knows he isn’t good at human things: he’s too abrasive, too quick to react with violence. Hell, he didn’t even know Ichigo’s health wasn’t doing well until it was pointed out. But if he wants to stay with Ichigo in the human realm, then he needs to do better. He won’t tolerate that kind of weakness from himself.
“It could’ve been worse,” Ichigo says in response.
“You got turned into a squirrel and kidnapped.” Grimmjow replies flatly.
“Yeah, but Urahara wasn’t here filming everything.”
They both grimace. Yeah, things could’ve been worse.
“Want to go home?” Ichigo asks. “We could watch a movie.”
“Yes.” Grimmjow rips open the garganta, tugging Ichigo along. A movie and the associated head scratches and snuggles sound perfect.
It’s only in the morning that they realize they left Karin and Hitsugaya in Korea. Ichigo’s dad is furious, chasing Ichigo around the house, yelling, as Grimmjow slips out to go fetch the missing kids.
He only brings Karin back — Hitsugaya had to leave for soul reaper stuff — and they return just in time to see Ichigo land a blow that sends his father into the wall. Neither Grimmjow nor Karin bats an eye.
Unfortunately, Karin tells Yuzu about getting arrested while still in earshot of the other Kurosakis, which means it becomes a three-way chase around the house and Isshin yells at Ichigo, and Ichigo yells at Grimmjow. Grimmjow chases Isshin just for fun, completing the circle.
They find out later that the Huntr/x band refunded all the tickets due to the cancelled show, which makes Ichigo rather happy. Grimmjow still recruits Yuzu to help him search for a job he could do. If Ichigo is worried about money, then Grimmjow is going to help. Yuzu promised she’d help him do something with limited social interactions, so hopefully that means Grimmjow won’t murder anyone. At least if he does, he knows jails are easy to break out of now.
The next time Karin shows him a video on the TikTok, it’s of Ichigo: him appearing on stage out of nowhere, then being tackled off camera by an invisible force. Apparently people online are speculating who Ichigo is and why he’s there. Grimmjow tries to convince Karin to ask all these people talking about Ichigo for all their money. She says no.
Three days later, Urahara shows up at their doorstep, that video pulled up on his phone. He’s laughing and doesn’t manage a word before Ichigo’s foot collides with his face.