For a week, Ichigo continued to deliver food to the king as if nothing had happened. No one suspected anything of what had transpired in that first encounter, and the Mother Queen didn’t even say anything to him, so Ichigo suspected Grimmjow hadn’t spilled the beans either.
Still, things felt awkward every time he stepped in the golden room -full of wonders and decorations and plants- and felt deep blue eyes studying his every move. As if the archangel was waiting for the right moment to jump at him and tear at his throat.
Ichigo felt anxious every time he was conducted into the monarch’s room, and he kept waiting for the other shoe to drop. It made working at the palace stressful, and he found himself messing and fucking up his other duties more than he should.
Still he could not protest. He needed the job to provide for his sisters and family. And so Ichigo endured, suck it up, and prayed for nothing to happen. He promised himself to never talk to the monarch no matter how pissed he was at him, he reported to the Queen, he said nothing to the man no matter the glares and tense atmosphere.
It was on Ichigo second week of attending the ruler of them all, when the angel finally snapped at him. Ichigo had been pulling away the last trail of food to substitute it for the new fresh one, and again he had felt the anger rising as he observed the uneaten plates of delicacies and meat that could help feed several families but that will be thrown away instead.
Despite Ichigo trying to control his emotions and expressions, something must have showed because the monarch spat a “What?!” while glaring daggers at him.
Ichigo remembered the rules. The last time. What could happen.
Without looking at the man in the eye, he shook his head, and continued exchanging half eaten golden plates for new filled ones. Spiced meat, aromatic rice, honey sweets, wonders Ichigo had only seen in here, and never ever tasted.
The king however only rose from his chair with a hard flap of white wings, the first time Ichigo had seen him move form it since he had started serving him, and go over to loom over Ichigo with raged in his blue eyes.
He was handsome, chiselled jaw, messy blue hair, and skin as unmarked and golden as the gold chamber around them. He was the appropriate amount of muscular, with rippling abs and broad shoulders. His wings were huge too, powerful and a shade of white so pure it was hard to look at him. He was a god. Perfection and wonder.
He could kill him with a word if he wanted to.
“If you have something to say, say it!” the archangel challenged, voice low, daring him to say something.
Ichigo again felt the conflict, the need to scream at the man, the notion that doing that might get him killed. He looked away doing the right thing. The blue gorgeous monarch however only huffed, as if mocking Ichigo’s surrender, as if he expected nothing else.
Rage again got the better of Ichigo. “You are throwing away food. Food that you don’t need. Food that could feel families!”
The other only snickered, pulling back as if bored, going back to his damn stupid chair “So what?”
“You could give it away to people who need it!”
The other sat once more in his chair before the window with a final sense, in the middle of his golden room, ignoring the rest of the world, secluded for eternity. “Why should I?”
“Don’t know, because they are your people? Because you are their ruler? Don’t you fucking care for them?” Ichigo asked sarcastically.
It was a word that left no room for debate. It was a word that left Ichigo speechless and cold. A king who couldn’t be concerned by his subjects suffering. People who were fucking dying in the streets because of his incompetence, and who still looked at him as if this man was something good.
The rage turned into something different and uglier, into utter disgust for the man before him.
“…You don’t deserve to be king” he said slowly as if realizing it himself “You are just another asshole.”
He saw only a flurry of motion. Golden and white and blue, and suddenly he was on the floor, the blue haired angel looming over him raising his fist once more to punch him a second time. Crude and angry and with no finesse. No holiness on his face, just violence and something even uglier.
Ichigo also let the rage and impotence burn inside him. Trashing, he managed to land a punch in the angel’s face. Then another, a kick, and soon they were rolling on the ground shouting and insulting one another like children of the streets. The trails of food felt into the ground, smashing and adding to the chaos as Grimmjow finally managed to pin him down, his strength a hundred times bigger than Ichigo.
They stared into one another. Rage, hatred and another hundred things between them.
The doors of the golden room opened and guards and the Mother Queen instantly poured into the room alarmed by the sounds. They quickly separated them easily, Ichigo already covered in blood while Grimmjow only seemed mildly thrashed. He was an angel after all, one of the strongest, deadliest and powerful, so it was no surprise Ichigo barely managed to scratch him.
The Mother Queen however felt next to his soon quickly and rubbed worried hands over his head as if wanting to soothe the pain, care for her son. Grimmjow only pulled back with a grimace and rose. He walked out of the room and into the balcony without muttering a word.
Once he was out, the Queen turned to Ichigo with death in the beautiful eyes. It was then, with that glance, that Ichigo realized what he had done.
“I guess fifty lashes would be enough” she told to the guards making them gasp.
Five lashes were a warning, fifteen a harsh punishment. Fifty lashes meant a quick and sift death.
Ichigo let the guards carry him out of the room feeling numb. However, tight before he left, he looked back at the balcony. Grimmjow was staring back, his white beautiful wings aglow, and his blue looks moving with the desert wings. Ichigo expected the asshole to smirk at him, in victory, smug, but the monarch only stared, no smile, no anger, only that intensity Ichigo was starting to get used to.
Ichigo was used to the pain with him being a human in a world controlled by cruel angels, and so containing his screams and whimpers as the whip painted red strippes on his naked back was easy. The blood loss however was different. On the fifth lash against his back his mind started to swim, on the twenty he started to blank and five lashes after he knew he was passing out.
The punishment however continued. The silence in the patio menacing, cruel, as two pairs of blue royal eyes observed the whole thing develop without a trace of mercy nor compasion.
