Geek Fashionista

I need to keep this fresh in my mind before I write it, yeah? ULQUIHIME!

~

She was late. 

Ulquiorra could not recall the last time it had taken him more than ten minutes to retrieve an herb from the garden. He fought the urge to tap a finger against his desk. Its surface, he noticed, was no longer dusty. The woman had seen to that. Somehow this only made his irritation grow.

“If she cannot identify rosemary by now, she’s hardly worth your time.” Kokuto picked scum from his fingernails with the tip of a dagger. “Even that witch Unohana’s pious assistants are capable of that much.” He smirked to himself. “The tall one–what is her name again? I’m having so much fun with her. Such monstrous height, and she can’t even have the decency to flower into a beautiful woman.“

“I am surprised Unohana hasn’t tried to stop you.”

“I’m surprised you still think Unohana cares about anyone but herself.” Kokuto threw Ulquiorra a grin. “You’re both cut from the same cloth.”

The study door creaked open and the woman rushed in, footfalls echoing off the high ceilings, her boots still covered in snow. Kokuto, of course, had vanished. Ulquiorra had a quip prepared, but the distressed expression on her face turned it into a question. “What happened?”

She stopped to catch her breath, the ends of her long brown hair sweeping across the surface of his desk. Without a word, she thrust her arms out towards him. Ulquiorra observed a mess of blood and feathers cupped in her gloved hands, staining the white fabric red. “Please,” she gasped. “I am not yet knowledgeable enough to save it.”

Ulquiorra’s eyes lifted from the bird to the woman. “You have delayed our lesson for an insignificant kestrel?”

Her own eyes met his, and he was struck again by the life in them. How transparent, her soul: its light illuminated her entire being. “This bird was attacked. Look how it still breathes! Is it not the very purpose of a doctor to mend a creature, as long as it still breathes?”

“If the bird allowed itself to be attacked, it does not deserve to live. Go put it back in the mouth of whatever flea bitten mongrel you found it in.”

The woman recoiled from him slowly, brows drawn, tears unshed. Her disgust struck Ulquiorra with all the force of a fist in the stomach. “Never mind. I will tend to the bird myself.” She cradled her bloodied hands to her chest and marched towards the door, where she hesitated before turning back to him. “It is true that your knowledge is unparalleled in this land, Mr. Cifer, but I do not have it in my heart to call such a cynical man a doctor.”

As soon as her footsteps had faded, Kokuto reappeared. “There, you are rid of her at last. Shall I tell Giriko to prepare the carriage for her return home?”

Ulquiorra sat back in his desk chair, unable to erase the image of her blood-stained gloves from his mind.

…

Some hours later, Ulquiorra emerged from the shadows of another study, one the woman had claimed as her own. In daylight t had a view of the snow-covered garden in back of the house, and beyond that, the rising slope of the mountain, its gnarled and tangled trees. The room itself was sparsely furnished: a work bench, a sofa, a fireplace, a sink. 

Here Ulquiorra found the woman, dozing at the bench. In the glow of the firelight he could see the leftover tracks of tears on her cheeks. Before her, a rusted cage she had procured from God knew where contained the injured bird. Ulquiorra reached past the woman to open the cage door and inspect her work. Having no knowledge of avian anatomy, she had done her best to stitch the wounds, but it was clear the bird still suffered. It gazed at Ulquiorra with eyes glossy and beak open.

Ulquiorra removed his glove. He drew a penknife from his coat pocket and pricked his thumb, then held it over the mouth of the bird until a drop of blood landed on its tongue. The bird blinked rapidly. Its wings fluttered once, twice, then it hopped to its feet and regarded Ulquiorra with a tilt of the head. He closed the cage door and licked his thumb to heal the self-inflicted wound.

Beside him, the woman sighed in her sleep. Ulquiorra watched the firelight cast dancing shadows upon her face. “Cut from the same cloth, am I?” he whispered, then left the room the way he’d come.

Ulquihime feels + period hormones + an idea from sOMEBODY that I kind of… flipped. This is a brand new AU(!!!), that I will scribble because this western is giving me hell.

~

The things reflected in my eyes have no meaning. The things that cannot be reflected in my eyes, don’t exist.

How could he possibly say that to her?

“Thanks for letting me hang out with you. My friends were all going to try that new rock climbing wall at the rec center and, well, I could try it with them, but I don’t think the university safety policy would allow that.” In one hand, his arm. In the other, her walking stick. Even when she had him to guide her, she took small, hesitant steps. It forced him to slow down.

“It isn’t very kind of them to go without you.” A squirrel hopped through the grass a few feet away from them. He pointed it out to her, as she’d instructed him to whenever they walked through campus together. The things reflected in my eyes have no meaning…

“Hello squirrel!” she said. Her sightless eyes did not try to seek it out, but rather stayed on the path ahead. “You’re wrong, by the way. I think it would be unkind of me to hold my friends back. It’s not their fault I can’t do stuff like that.” Her smile widened. “Things were difficult after the accident but they never abandoned me. If it wasn’t for that, I’d have lost hope a long time ago.”

The things that cannot be reflected in my eyes, don’t exist. “Hmm.”

They stopped at a bench across from a fountain. She’d told him it was her favorite spot because she could hear the water droplets, as well as the birds that congregated there. Without sight, she could imagine she’d wandered into a forest teeming with life. Until someone power-walked past them with coffee, anyway. Then it was like trying to listen to ambient noise at a Starbucks. “How does the fountain look today?” she asked.

“The same as it did yesterday.” No meaning. “Only…” It has no meaning. “There is a large cloud partially eclipsing the sun at the moment, so the shadows have almost blended with the light.” He glanced at her, and saw in her smile a warmth that wrapped itself around his heart.

How strange that he should allow this blind girl to influence his own perception

Ah geez. Okay. Muse. FLUFF WARNING.

~

Ulquiorra was halfway through a dream about being late to a test he hadn’t studied for when a hand smacked his side and catapulted him out of slumber. “Wake up!” Ms. Inoue was bouncing up and down beside him, apparently forgetting that he’d paid for a mattress where she could do so all she wanted and he would remain undisturbed. “Wake up, wake up, wake up!”

Of a few things he became certain as he opened his eyes: it was still dark outside, his alarm hadn’t gone off, and therefore it must have been too early for his anti-morning girlfriend to be waking him. But there she was on the other side of the room, ripping open the curtains and bustling about like it wasn’t – dear God, 5AM? Was she drunk? “Is the building on fire?” he asked instead, lucid enough to remember questioning her sobriety would make her angry.

“What? No. Do you hear any fire alarms?” Orihime clicked on the beside lamp with her elbow, revealing a coffee mug in each hand. Ulquiorra stared at them blearily.

“You’ve been in the kitchen. There must be a fire,” he said, to which she rolled her eyes. She pressed a mug into his chest.

“Just take that and drink it.”

He took it, but he didn’t drink it. “Is it laced with something? Are you kidnapping me?”

“Oh my God, if you don’t shut up and drink your coffee.” She left the threat open to his imagination as she crawled over him, handling her own steaming mug carefully. Ulquiorra had several objections to consuming food stuff in his bedroom, but he figured he would need the caffeine to deal with… whatever this was. He took one sip and immediately noticed that it wasn’t his usual coffee. Orihime was watching him over the lip of her mug.

“What is this?” he asked, though her concentrated stare was enough to revive his suspicion of the drink being drugged somehow.

Orihime took a deep breath and spoke rapidly into her mug. “They were selling it at that frou frou coffee place next to Tiburon. I went there with Rukia yesterday, remember? And they had these like gumball machine lookin’ things filled with coffee beans and they weren’t all that expensive, so I got whatever this is because I couldn’t pass up a name like Billie Bean is Not My Lover, and, well, anyway, do you like it?”

Ulquiorra took another sip. Billie Bean was, in fact, much better than his usual coffee. “Yes,” he answered slowly, his eyebrows furrowing. “But did you have to wake me up at five in the morning for this?”

“No…” She looked away.

“Then why am I awake?” he asked, noticing her toes digging into the blankets. There was a stubborn little pout on her face; the kind she wore when she didn’t feel like telling him something.

“I wanted to watch the sunrise.” She mumbled it so quietly that he almost didn’t hear her. Ulquiorra blinked. She didn’t need him to watch the sunrise. There was no reason to be embarrassed about something like that, unless… unless there was an implied, silent “with you” tacked onto the end of her statement. Which certainly seemed to be the case. She chanced another look at him and immediately looked away again. “Sh-shut up!”

“I didn’t say anything.” A rosy, pleasant feeling was spreading through Ulquiorra’s chest. It was a happiness bordering on obnoxious, the kind that made people walk around half asleep with goofy grins on their faces. But Ulquiorra, being a man of little expression, could only manage the tiniest of smiles; the rest would be left to his eyes. He sat up and moved beside Orihime, reclining against the wall. “What time does the sun rise?” he asked.

She opened her mouth, then frowned. “I don’t really know.” Her cheeks were adorably pink. Ulquiorra leaned closer to her. She relaxed, shifted her legs, and leaned back.

“Then we’ll just have to find out,” he said, turning his gaze to the window.

Other Stories:

Eros (Rated MA for sexually explicit content and a blatant disregard for your feelings)

Bleach Fic Translations:

Musa (Muse, Spanish)
Reflexiones (Musings, Spanish)
Mantente Guapa (Stay Beautiful, Spanish)
Estremecerse (Flinch, Spanish)
Convencerse (Tell Yourself, Spanish); also on Wattpad!
Из разных миров (World Apart, Russian)
Прекрасный незнакомец (Beautiful Stranger, Russian)
Tell Yourself (Russian)
Stay Beautiful (Indonesian)
Flinch (Russian)
Unmistakable (Russian)

Miraculous Ladybug Fic Translations:

Life Sentence (Russian)
Collision Course (Russian)
Lucky Us (Polish) - on Wattpad
Make Me Like You (Polish) - on Wattpad
Lucky Us (Russian)
Make Me Like You (Russian)

Other Links:

Fan Works
Tell Yourself Timeline
Fan Fiction and Music
FanFiction and Music II

~

Inoue hadn’t been the same since the virus was deleted from her laptop. Ichigo still saw her in class, but she never spoke to him. She didn’t speak to anyone that wasn’t Tatsuki, and according to Tatsuki, her perpetual cheerfulness had yet to return from its wanderings.

So when Kisuke Urahara requested to meet with Orihime, she refused. For two days, she refused. She was tired. Her exhaustion made it hard for her to get out of bed. She’d been skipping classes and meals, sleeping more often. She hadn’t touched her computer in weeks. But if seeing the hacker would help her get back to normal somehow, what did she really have to lose, other than a little bit of time?

“So happy you could join me, Inoue-san,” Urahara greeted her upon her arrival at the hospital fountain. Why he’d wanted them to meet there in broad daylight was a mystery, but asking questions would extend the interview, and she would rather not be in his company longer than necessary. “You’re wondering why I’ve asked you here, eh? Skeptical? I’ll cut to the chase, then. I’ve discovered the true nature of Aizen-chan’s viruses.”

Orihime stared at the cascading water. “That has nothing to do with me anymore,” she mumbled, but it sounded weak, childish.

Urahara smiled. “Hear me out first. As you’re already aware, my anti-viruses were commanded by living humans from a remote location. Because I was working in secret, my machinery was not the best quality, and endangered the lives of everyone involved. Aizen’s viruses were different - artificially intelligent… or so I assumed.” He gestured to the hospital beyond the fountain. “This is where Aizen worked. Hacking was only his hobby, see. Neuroscience was his true field of expertise.” Orihime stared at the hospital uncertainly. “What Aizen did was use his position and the hospital’s resources to run his terrorist operation. He introduced a new technology that claimed to stimulate the minds of comatose patients, in order to speed their recovery. Gave false hope to the families when he was really trapping his victims into doing his bidding.

"Some, like Grimmjow Jaegerjaquez, were able to resist - rebel, even. Four of the patients died when their virus selves were erased. The rest survived, and some have even regained consciousness in the aftermath. Do you understand what I’m saying to you, Inoue-san?”

Orihime’s eyes, fixed on the hospital, had widened considerably. “There…?”

Urahara stood from the fountain and guided her into the building. An elevator ride and several twists and turns later, they arrived at a quiet ward filled with unconscious patients. Orihime’s entire body trembled so violently her teeth were practically chattering. When Urahara stopped beside a door and motioned for her to go in ahead of him, she found herself unable to move. So he helped her inside, keeping her steady as her gaze landed on the bedridden patient, his familiar black hair, his pale skin, the tangle of wires attaching him to advanced hospital monitors. He had no wings, no horns, no stains on his cheeks, no hole in his throat. But it was him. There wasn’t a single doubt in Orihime’s mind.

“Inoue-san, meet Ulquiorra Cifer,” Urahara said cheerfully. “31 years old, works for a software development company, no living family to speak of. Five months ago he was struck by a car and slipped into a coma. Aizen got to him shortly after.”

Tears slipped down Orihime’s cheeks unnoticed. She could only stare.

“According to the doctors, his physical injuries have healed, and his brain activity is healthy. He’s expected to make a full recovery, whenever he wakes up.”

“Can…” Her voice didn’t make it past a whisper. “Can I come visit him, until he does…?”

Would he remember her? Would he think it strange, a nineteen year old college student taking interest in his well being? Would he dismiss her, return to his life as if everything they’d gone through had been a dream, as if he hadn’t held his hand out to her when he was certain he was going to die? She saw that hand now, stuck with an IV, and when she tentatively reached out, when her fingertips registered flesh and not a computer screen, her sobs burst from her chest. He was real.

Urahara smiled gently. “Visit him? Of course. Guy with no family, he’ll probably come to the moment he realizes he’s not alone anymore.”

~

There was nothing left. Hard to believe - impossible, really - but everything from the swirling ashes to the tendrils of smoke forced him to. Of the house, the forest, the picturesque mountain view, his happiness; there was nothing left. Only the photographer’s instinct to capture the ruin for posterity remained.

The glow of still burning embers in the ground, for example, looked a bit like runes. And the charred archway that marked the entrance to what used to be his home - still miraculously standing - made a solemn, almost noble figure. It had endured, and it deserved the admiration, the praise.

Beyond the doorway, little landmarks reminded him of what he was looking at. There was the kitchen island. Some broken glass from blown out windows. The ceiling fan, on the floor, mangled. Here was the hallway, open to the gray sky above. And finally, the bedroom, with the bed a steaming, sunken ruin.

There he found the ring. A plain, thin gold band, sitting on the mattress. Perfectly formed. Unmarred by the fire, and cool to the touch. Exactly the way it had looked when he’d slipped it on her finger. And he thought, of course it would be here. She always hid in the bedroom when she was scared.

The ring became a blur. Something was building, building in his chest, rising up like a tidal wave.

She’d been scared.

He stumbled out of the house, into a scorched, blackened, and unfriendly world that he no longer recognized. His refuge. His place of safety. A realm beyond the false glamour of Hollywood where magic - real magic - had once existed.

She was gone. He cried, he rebelled, he got sick, and he cried more. But the scene remained unchanged. He couldn’t bring it back with filters and proper lighting. He couldn’t manipulate her into his life again.

There was no magic in him. There never had been.

~

“Yoo-hoo!”

What descended on the woods that afternoon was more mist than rain; a shroud of gray that crept silently from mountain to mountain, cool and refreshing to the touch. Its scent filled every room of Ulquiorra Cifer’s spacious home, wafting in through an open window.

At that very window, a lump of auburn hair appeared, followed by the top half of a face, peering in with wide brown eyes. “Ulquiorra, are you there?”

Standing on the tips of her bare toes, Orihime frowned when no reply came from within. He never would have left the window open if he was going to step out of the house. “Hmm…” She lowered herself from the screen and bounded lightly over to the back deck, nearly slipping on her own muddy feet with a yelp of surprise. When she tried the door, it came open with neither creak nor resistance. He must have been home, then.

Just inside the door, a towel hung from a recently installed hook. Above it was a handwritten note: Dryads, Please Wipe Your Feet. Orihime rolled her eyes, but took the towel and removed the mud from between her toes before leaving the welcome mat.

From what she could hear, the television was on, but nothing else. “Ulquiorra?” She received no answer. Walking past the laundry room she entered into the living area, with its high ceiling and walls of windows, framing a picturesque view of the yard and the mountains beyond. A black and white movie was playing on the flat screen TV, beautiful human actors in long coats talking to each other in crackling, accented voices. Across from it was a modern white sofa, and there Orihime found Ulquiorra at last, sprawled on his back, a hand on his stomach, fast asleep.

Orihime crept to his side and crouched down. She’d never seen Ulquiorra sleep before. He looked younger that way; a little less cranky. A few strands of black hair had fallen into his face, and just as she was about to sweep them away, his eyes opened, and she recoiled. “Ah! You scared me!” she cried.

Ulquiorra blinked, his gaze unfocused. “Clearly I did no such thing, as you have managed to maintain a corporeal form.”

Orihime stuck out her bottom lip at the jab to her flighty nature, but she was quick to recover her smile. “I was surprised. You’re always awake when I come by, so I kind of started to think you never slept.”

“That isn’t far from the truth,” he murmured, searching the cable box on the console to see how long he’d slept. “There was a wrap party last night for cast and crew. Couldn’t get out of it. Had to call cabs for a few less-than-sober people.” Orihime blinked at him. Right. He might as well have been speaking Greek for all that she understood of the human world. “Nighttime gathering. Merry-making got out of hand.”

“Ah,” she said, drawing out the sound to show comprehension. Her smile softened, and Ulquiorra noticed that her hair was damp, curling slightly. “You must be tired.”

He stared at her for a long moment. She was close - close enough for him to pick up the rich, earthy scent that seemed to cling to her. Only now it was mixed with the rain, leaving him with the impression that he was out wandering the forest, rather than dozing on his couch. He reached out and laid a hand on her cheek, marveling at the smoothness of her skin, the way her lips parted. But the confusion that spilled into her eyes made him remember himself, and he retracted his hand, ignoring the painful twist in his chest. “You don’t know the half of it,” he said.

~

The human woman was listening to that song again…

Humming, bouncing along in her seat, tapping her pencil to the beat. It was the tenth time she’d listened to it in the last two hours, and she was beginning to pick up the lyrics as well, even though they were in English. He watched her from the corner of her desktop, his avatar stationed close to her pencil-tapping hand, though in reality it was the stationary webcam that provided him with sight. “Woman,” he addressed her, his voice cutting into the music, “why do you play this song repeatedly?”

She copied something from her textbook onto a note card in tiny, neat handwriting. “Why?” she wrinkled her nose. “Because it’s my favorite. My current favorite. My last favorite was…” she turned to the laptop and clicked open her music player. He did not so much watch her scroll down the playlist as he did feel the commands given. “This one!” She double-clicked on the title and the music changed into a Japanese ballad.

Ulquiorra listened to a minute’s worth of the song before speaking again. “I do not understand.”

Orihime leaned forward on her arms, staring at the green-eyed sprite standing above the start button. “What don’t you understand?” she asked him, always curious to hear what he had to say.

“This former favorite and your current favorite have nothing in common,” he said. “Should not these favorite songs be similar to each other?”

She blinked. “Why would they be?”

In answer to her dumb question, he took control of her computer and went to the music market. “Patterns,” he explained, sifting through thousands of songs in the space of a second. “The familiarity should be comforting, reminiscent of that which you already know you have a preference for. Like so.” A sample of a song nearly identical to the English one began to play. Orihime smiled at him.

“You’ve got a good theory,” she said, “but it doesn’t work that way.”

“Why not?”

Orihime shrugged and tapped the screen with her index finger. “The heart knows what it wants, I guess.”

The heart again. Ulquiorra was no closer to understanding it than he had been weeks ago. All that appeared to remain constant was the fact that the heart was illogical. It followed no rules, obeyed no orders, bowed to no authority. “I do not accept that response,” he said, resuming the Japanese song where it had left off.

“Then I don’t know what to tell ya.” Orihime yawned and closed her eyes. Her dorm room window was open, allowing in the springtime breeze and the sounds of students talking on their way to class. “Can you feel that, Ulquiorra-kun?” she asked, not waiting for an answer. “It’s warm today. There are these trees around campus that put out white flowers right about now, and you’d think that they smell good, but they kind of smell like fish. They’re still pretty, though. I call them the fish trees.” Her lips curled up into a soft smile. “I can smell them through the window because there’s a few outside of my building. If you come with me on my phone tomorrow, I’ll show them to you.”

“You are going to fall asleep,” she heard him say, and perhaps it was her imagination, but his voice sounded gentler, almost fond.

“Wake me up if it starts raining…” she mumbled. Seconds later, she was dozing.

The window was in the webcam’s line of sight. Ulquiorra could see the sun, and thanks to the microphone he could hear the breeze as well, though it sounded far away. But he could neither see nor smell any fish trees. Nor could he feel the woman’s breath, though it created a little circle of fog on the laptop screen. She would get sick, he thought, and stared at the blanket on her bed, all the way across the room. He could not retrieve the blanket and place it over her shoulders. He could not close the window for her, so that she could sleep undisturbed. He could not stand or grasp or move at all.

But he could sleep, couldn’t he? The webcam light turned off, the laptop’s humming quieted, the flow of viruses into the university’s network slowed to a stop. Yes, he realized, as his avatar’s eyes closed; he could sleep.

~

The evening sea breeze pushed the curtains into the hotel room. A single lamp illuminated Orihime Schiffer where she sat on the edge of the bed, phone pressed to her ear, flipping through a brochure of things to do in Genoa, Italy. “Trust me, I wish I’d gotten here when you and Klaus did, but you know how your father procrastinates when he has to perform. If it was anyone other than Natalia, I’d worry about him falling asleep at the piano.” She frowned. “Don’t tell her I said that.”

“She’s retiring. I hardly think it matters,” Ulquiorra chimed in from where he lay behind her, then said in a louder voice, “Good night, Scarlet. See you tomorrow.”

Orihime rolled her eyes. “We’ll be on the 8:15 from Genoa, so meet us at the station. Bring some water… and possibly a barf bag. Night, sweetie. Try not to get pregnant until we’re stateside again.”

“Mom!”

“I love you!” She hung up and set the phone on the nightstand. Laying beside Ulquiorra, she wiggled the brochure in front of his face, hitting him on the nose several times. “Look here, they have a booze cruise. Can we do that before we leave the country?”

Ulquiorra took the brochure, irritated. “You wish to pregame our flight home. Why does this not surprise me?” He turned in her direction, placing a hand on her hip. “If you were the slightest bit more embarrassing, you’d be fighting drunken middle aged white women at county fairs for a crown.”

Orihime stuck her tongue out at him. “You love me.”

“I do,” he agreed, so easily that she narrowed her eyes, suspicious. “But how about we save it for our anniversary?” He pulled her closer, lowering his head until his forehead rested on her shoulder. “I want to go home,” he murmured. “I want to see Tchaikovsky. You know how anxious he gets when we leave him at the pet hotel.”

“Oh my God, if someone’s scratching his rump, he’ll hardly notice we’re gone.” Orihime combed her fingers through Ulquiorra’s hair. There was more gray in it, obscured by the black that had been touched up prior to their coming. The stress was doing him in, she thought, and kissed the top of his head. “Fine. We’ll bring Tchaikovsky on the booze cruise in April, but if he gets into the alcohol, it’s on your conscience.”

Ulquiorra sighed. “I don’t say this often enough, but I am so glad I married you.”

“Damn straight,” Orihime replied. Then, because neither of them were tired, they stayed up half the night trying to make each other tired.

In any case, there would be plenty of time to sleep on the train.

Originally posted 3/7/2015

This was in my head ALL DAY.

~

The future Mrs. Schiffer had gotten into the wine.

Despite having more money than two people in a cheap one-bedroom apartment knew what to do with, Ulquiorra and Orihime didn’t go on vacation very often. This hotel adventure hardly counted; Las Noches could be seen from the balcony of their room, jutting out of the Hueco Mundo district like a cold sore, if they turned south and craned their necks a little. But Ulquiorra had had a thing, and Orihime had dressed very nicely for the thing, and dancing had been mandatory at the thing, and bedroom eyes had been made until they’d had no choice but to extend their hotel stay. Who would miss them at Las Noches, anyway?

“You know who you’re like?” Orihime asked as she rolled over to face Ulquiorra, nearly knocking over the food and dish tray she’d eaten her breakfast-in-bed on. “You’re like… a sexy Beethoven.”

Ulquiorra thought the drunken compliment over. The afternoon sunlight glinted off of the nearby empty wine bottle, of which he’d had one glass, and Orihime the rest. He shifted his leg under the scratchy sheets and the bottle rolled off the bed. “I don’t have a powdered wig, though,” he said.

“That’s okay, we’ll make ya one,” Orihime patted his stomach reassuringly. “Well need a couple dozen Barbie dolls and some powdered sugar.”

“I’m not sure that’s correct, Ms. Inoue.”

“Then you can put it on and I’ll screw your brains out.”

“Hold on, let me find my phone. I doubt that you can text in your condition so we’ll just have to record a verbal contract, for future reference.”

“Oh no you don’t!” This time she succeeded in knocking over the tray, which flipped over the edge of the bed and landed on the floor with a noise of broken dishes. She threw her entire body across Ulquiorra’s skinny midsection to prevent him from moving. “I’m too smart to fall for that again.”

“For what again?” Ulquiorra asked innocently.

“Verbal contract a-k-a blackmail!” she cried. “‘Cause you’re an asshole. A sexy Mozart asshole.”

“Wasn’t I sexy Beethoven?”

“There’s a slight to major possibility that I might not actually know the difference.” Orihime tried to lift herself up, then went limp. “There’s also a slight to major possibility that I’m drunk.”

Ulquiorra stroked her naked back. “That’s fine. You’re engaged to me, and social convention dictates that I should take care of you in your vulnerable state, not lock you out of the room in nothing but a bed sheet, no matter how badly I want to.” He tilted his head to look her in the eyes. “I really, really want to. I’m letting you know this because I love you, and hope that you’ll forgive me, should I give in to the temptation regardless of our premarital status.”

“I don’t want to marry you anymore,” Orihime grumbled. “I was gonna make you a powdered wig and wash your underwear and cook you dinner sometimes but you can forget all that now.”

“Were you really?” he asked, sounding much too cheerful for someone who was being dumped.

“No. Maybe. It doesn’t matter 'cause I’m not marrying you anymore. I’m leaving just as soon as I throw up in your piano.”

“I’m so touched.”