impasse

what are you missing?

She meets him on a rainy afternoon as she's washing pitchers and blenders, the same thing that she's been doing for two years straight now, at the same coffee shop, over and over again, four days a week. He is the new employee and she's supposed to train him like every other new employee, because she's friendly and comfortable and just generally a people person.

"I'm Orihime," she introduces, sticking her hand out to shake.

"Ulquiorra," he replies, and takes it.

She tries to pronounce his name at least ten times, not succeeding even once. He regards her with empty eyes (but green—they are very green), but doesn't comment.

"Can I just call you Ulqui?" she finally asks, a little flustered because no matter what she's clumsy or bad at, she's never failed to pronounce someone's name before.

He inclines his head, just a little, and the look he gives her sends shivers down her spine, because there is just something so chillingly empty about him and that makes her sad, because it's like everything that conspired between them in the last two minutes, her introducing herself with a smile, them shaking hands, and her inability to say his name, seemed to have no affect on him. "Ulqui is fine, I suppose."

—

The first mocha he makes is so sweet she nearly gags. "Too much chocolate," she croaks, nearly spilling the small cup. He takes it back and takes a sip himself, that permanent ghost of a frown adorning his lips.

"Coffee is confusing," he admits. "There are too many combinations of ingredients."

"You'll get it eventually! Don't worry, it took me ages to remember everything. You'll be faster than me—everyone is."

Ulquiorra comes to work on the dot every day, never early, never late. He puts on his apron and washes his hands and he's ready to work, even though when it comes to the actual work, he is still stunningly horrible at it. "You never tell me the proper proportions," he always says, putting the blame on her. "I don't know how much to combine of anything."

(But at the end of the day, of course, it's just the fact that coffee confuses him.)

That night, Orihime goes home and draws out a large chart for him, with little illustrations of every drink on their menu, its ingredients, and proportions. She puts little hearts and smiley faces beside the eiskaffee because that is her favorite, and beside the café mélange, she scribbles in an arrow and writes, "This one reminds me of you." And for good measure, she adds a little cartoon picture of his face.

She hands it to him the next day and he accepts it with no thanks, but he studies it carefully during all of his breaks, and from the next day onwards, he never makes a single mistake again.

—

"I never wanted this job," he tells her one Friday night. They're in charge of closing the shop today—it's nearing eleven o'clock and after counting the revenue, checking the receipts, and marking which supplies need restocking, they're sitting at one of the tables, drinking coffee. Eiskaffee for her, and café mélange for him. "My parents insisted that I needed to do something with my time. They're afraid of me, so they push me away."

"Afraid? Why are they afraid of you?" Her hands clasp her iced drink tightly, the cold glass pressing uncomfortably against her skin.

Ulquiorra tilts his head, as he seems to always do—when he's thinking, or trying to gauge her expressions and reactions. "I'm a clinically diagnosed psychopath," he says, and there is absolutely no embellishment to his tone, no flourish of his voice, nothing. "Those words scare them, so they try to keep me busy." There is nothing.

Orihime doesn't exactly know what a clinically diagnosed psychopath means, and she's sure he realizes that. "If you're a psychopath, does that mean…?" Her question lingers between them, unspoken.

He stands from his seat and grabs a sheet of paper and pen from the counter. "No," he says. "I have never hurt anyone before." He starts writing. "But I have thought about it."

She doesn't know what to say to that, so she doesn't say anything at all. She drinks her eiskaffee and watches him write, even though she can't read his tiny, organized handwriting upside down.

A few minutes later, he flips the paper so she's able to read it. "Here are common characteristics of psychopaths," he says. "The checked ones are the ones that apply to me."

Grandiose sense of self-worth. Cunning and manipulative. Lack of remorse or guilt. Emotionally shallow. Callous and lack of empathy. Prone to boredom. Irresponsibility. Poor behavioral controls.

"That's…a lot."

He shrugs. "That is about half of them."

She still doesn't know what to say, so she falls silent. She has a million questions whirling around in her head, but none of them are quite appropriate to ask. Things like: Why are you telling me this? How often do you think about hurting people?

How safe am I around you?

"I don't think your parents should be scared of you," she says, pushing past her fear and smiling. "If you've never hurt anyone before, there shouldn't be a reason why you'd start now."

"You smile when you say that. Why?" His question stops her in her tracks, and the smile fades from her lips. "Why do people smile? What does…what does happiness feel like?"

Orihime doesn't know the answer to that, so instead, she replies with a question of her own. "Why do you always frown, then? Why do you always look like you want to cry?"

Ulquiorra's frown deepens, and she wonders if he's even aware of it.

—

"That one's Hanako. She's one of the few girls in the class who like playing with toy cars like the boys. And that, over there, that's Yoshiro—he's sometimes a little shy so the other kids pick on him a bit."

They're at the daycare that Orihime volunteers at two days a week. They stand beyond the fence while the children play outside; she tells him about each child she sees, tells him about their habits, their quirks—little things that she's learned about them over time that no one else could know without doing the same thing.

"Why are you telling me this?" Ulquiorra asks brusquely, because he doesn't care about these children. She knows he doesn't.

She smiles. "Because you asked me what happiness is. Those kids are part of my happiness."

He doesn't answer because he's likely thinking. Orihime can still remember all of the psychopathic characteristics he wrote down for her that night. He can't read social cues—can't hold a socially acceptable conversation with someone, can't be empathetic. He tells her that people like him tend to understand over time, what the typical response is to a certain stimulus: people will be sad when someone dies, people will smile when they receive a gift. It's like memorizing facts for an exam, bullet point after bullet point, but they're just words arranged in a list—none of it really, truly makes sense to them.

"Those children look happy," he says, and on impulse, on a strange surge of emotion, she takes his hand. He glances down and their intertwined fingers, unfeeling.

"They do," she agrees.

—

Ulquiorra cuts himself while washing a blender one afternoon, thoughtlessly sticking his hand into it to get the blades, just like Orihime taught him to.

"You have to be careful," she scolds him once he rinses the blood off and she finds the first aid kit. The cut on the back of his hand is long and deep, an ugly gash that will be sure to scar. She finds the antiseptic and begins dabbing at it—his hand flinches at the sting. It's unfair, she thinks. Why can every nerve in his body tell his brain that something hurts, something is wrong, skin has been sliced and flesh is exposed, but joy can't fill his heart? Why does sorrow not affect him?

After she bandages his hand tightly, he raises it and flexes his fingers. "If I broke that blender," he says, "and pulled out the blades…" His hand moves until his fingertips touch her chest, right where her heart is. "And cut you open right here…would I finally smile the way you always do?"

She stays very still, trembling imperceptibly.

"If I tore your heart out and transplanted it into myself, would my parents stop pushing me away?"

She places her hand on top of his. He's warm. Ulquiorra is unfairly warm. "People don't necessarily smile just because they're happy," she tells him. "Sometimes, they smile to get through hard times. Or they smile in hopes that it will brighten someone else's day."

"What pointless reasons to smile. One should only smile for one's own benefit." He looks at her, straight in the eyes, and all she can see is green, green, green. "Why do you stay with me?" he asks. "Everyone I've ever known has always shied away, even if I didn't tell them about my diagnosis. But I told you, and you hardly flinched. And you are still here." His hand is solid under hers, above her heart. Because he is here. He is real. Ulquiorra is real.

She shakes her head. "I just don't think anyone should have to be alone."

"You pity me."

"No—no, that's not it."

"Then what is it?"

"Ulqui, I—"

His hand moves up, from her heart to her throat. His fingertips brush the skin there and her hand falls away. She does her best not to tremble even though she becomes more afraid every passing second, because it's true, they've been talking and seeing each other for months now, but what does she know about him, really? Does she know how far he will go? Does she know where he'll stop?

Who is this man standing in front of her?

His hand stays there for just a moment before it falls away, and she releases the breath that she's been holding. Just a small brush of skin and she was quaking in her shoes.

"You remember, right?" His voice is breezy, as though he didn't just talk about slicing her up. "I'm prone to boredom. You are my newest fancy."

"But I'm nothing special." She's still shaking, just a little.

"Nonsense." He turns to leave the storage room to return to work. "You are everything special, Orihime."

—

It is a sunny afternoon when she would honestly rather be outside than cooped up inside a coffee shop, that the door jingles as it opens, and he comes in.

"Oh." Breath whooshes from her lips and she nearly drops the cup she's currently drying in her hands. "Oh."

Noticing her change in behavior, Ulquiorra glances away from the drink he's currently making. His gaze follows hers until they reach the exact same point: the young man who just entered the shop, tall stature and broad shoulders and flaming orange hair and oh, Orihime did not expect to see that face ever again.

The customer raises a hand in a wave, that signature devilish smile on his lips. "Inoue."

It is so hard, so hard to contain her happiness.

—

"Who was that?" Ulquiorra asks later when they're alone in the back, grabbing the extra packs of coffee beans from the high and towering shelves.

"An old classmate. We went to high school together." She's humming a tune, more cheerful than she's been in weeks.

"Do you love him?"

She pauses in her movements, halfway to reaching the beans on the highest shelf.

"Not anymore." And there's a touch of sadness to her tone. "I confessed to him on the last day of school—even though I knew he didn't feel the same, because everyone knew he liked this other girl, you know? This transfer student, she came during our second year, and she's a little eccentric, but she's always been…" From her tiptoes, she falls back onto the flats of her feet, and the coffee beans remain on their shelf. "She's always been a better person than I'll ever be. That's why he chose her, and not me."

Ulquiorra steps up to reach the beans that she gave up partway trying to get, standing uncomfortably close, but at the same time, not uncomfortable at all. Ulquiorra doesn't care for personal space, can't possibly understand the concept of it, and because he doesn't care, she doesn't really care, either. "Orihime," he says, the heavy pack in his arms, "she is only better than you because she believes in herself." His words leave her hanging as he turns to return out front with the coffee beans. "And also," he adds, "I only asked if you love him. The simple 'no' would have sufficed."

—

"I have a surprise for you." She's grinning, ear to ear. Everyone else is gone—they're closing up again—and the coffee shop is quiet, in a way that has her calm and comfortable.

He stands, and waits for her to show him. And then she says his name.

"Ulquiorra." Her smile is bright enough to blind anyone. "I've been practicing saying it lately. It's still hard for me, but I can say it now, see? Ulquiorra. Ulquiorr—"

His fingers wrap around her throat, tight, winding, until she can't breathe. Her eyes are wide and she can't even be afraid, because pure shock is taking over her senses first. Ulquiorra has spoken openly about violence, of hurting and killing and taking people's lives, but he's never actually done it. He's never laid a hand on anyone before.

"Don't call me Ulquiorra." His voice is icy, matching the glint in his eyes. "I don't like it." His fingers tighten just a little bit more, like a threat, and she wheezes, struggling to suck in a breath. He takes a step forward and she takes a corresponding step backwards, until the small of her back presses against the counter and he pushes, and she arches as she bends backwards, her body pressing up against his as he leans down to look at her, like a god at an insect.

"U-Ulqui," she manages, even when her vision begins blacking out, even when tears spring to her eyes. "I won't. Ulqui."

His hand relents, just a bit, and she sucks in a desperate gulp of air.

"What is this?" he murmurs. His eyes search her expression, as if he's confused. And perhaps he is. His emotions are shallow—but it doesn't mean that he has no emotions at all. "What is…?"

Orihime wishes she knew. She wishes she had an answer for him. But she doesn't, and so she lets her back give out from under her and she lies down uncomfortably on the counter, arching in a way that she's sure will cramp, Ulquiorra standing between her legs and their hips pressing tightly together—but that is not the most disconcerting part, because that is saved for his hand still at her throat, but loose now, and his forehead pressed to her chest, as if trying so very hard to discern what she has inside of her and flowing thick in her veins. As if, if he stands there long enough, with their hips pressed together and his hand at her throat and his forehead to her heart, he will somehow finally have what she has.

—

He kisses her one day, in the middle of the street, in the middle of her sentence.

The humid summer days since their meeting have long since passed, and now it's snowing lightly. She has her dark pink scarf wrapped tightly around her neck and her fuzzy white gloves keeping her hands warm, and Ulquiorra's hand is still on her chin from when he forcefully turned her head so he could slant his mouth against hers.

Her blush is hot compared to the cold snowflakes in his eyelashes. She stares at him, speechless and bewildered, his eyes green and unreadable and what is he thinking right now? What does he want from her? What does he want from this?

"You never do what I expect," he murmurs, the perpetual frown on his lips. She continues to search his expression for an answer because she can't find it in herself. What is it that she feels towards him? An intimacy, yes, but one that has her wanting to spend lazy mornings with him and drinking coffee in a sunny living room, wearing comfortable sweaters and lazing in front of the television all day? Is how she feels towards Ulquiorra in any way similar to the way she felt towards Kurosaki?

Does it even matter, even if it is? "What are you expecting from me?" Her voice is unsure.

One of his hands is able to hold both of her wrists tightly, hard enough to bruise, even though she's never resisted him—never before, and not now. "I don't know."

There is something about Ulquiorra that breaks her heart—and not in that earth-shattering way, that has her falling to her knees. It's a small but persistent chipping, picking pieces of her away until she's a million broken fragments on the ground, and she's sitting with her knees to her chest and crying soundlessly. Ulquiorra gives her a quiet, lingering sadness that lodges firmly in her chest, and sometimes, it becomes so big that it's hard to breathe.

They're both searching for something in each other, but it's obvious that neither of them find anything. He disregards all of the people around them and his head dips down again, until their mouths meet once more. Ulquiorra is not gentle, but he is also not harsh either—he is prying, and perhaps a little messy—teeth grazing her lips, pressing her closer (because it always seems like he needs her as close as possible, as though what she has will pass through their skin and into him), a touch of desperation and a pinch of chills, and a single question in all of his actions: Who are you?

He is prone to boredom, and she is his newest fancy. Orihime is not foolish enough to think that he loves her, but she realizes as they kiss on that snowy afternoon, as snowy as it was rainy on the day they met, that it doesn't matter whether or not she loves him the same way she loved Kurosaki, and it doesn't matter that he doesn't love her back. Ulquiorra is not Kurosaki anyway, and she can love him enough for the both of them.

—

It's funny, because lazy mornings, coffee in sunny living rooms, and watching television in comfy sweaters is exactly what happens between them. Not quite in the lulling way that she's always imagined though—it's a little colder, just a touch gloomier, because Ulquiorra has always been a little cold and gloomy.

And they watch movies that Orihime normally would never go near. Gross movies with blood and guts spilling everywhere, with images that have her hiding behind a cushion, and sometimes Ulquiorra's arm too, if he's within reach. It's not that he particularly wants to watch those movies either, but he's indifferent to several things so she lets him at least choose their movie repertoire, and they always end up with things like these, because it at least piques his interest for more than two minutes.

"Predictable," he comments when a man has his fingers sliced off. "I would not torture a victim so blandly."

That's bland? "Then how would you do it?" she asks, because she's long since been accustomed to conversations like this, and sometimes it's a little captivating too, to hear his thoughts, and to see how his mind works.

"I would exploit them to the fullest. Find their weaknesses. Physical pain hurts, yes, but emotional pain? That hurts more. That's why no one can ever wound me." He shifts on the couch when she turns, sitting cross-legged and facing him completely, because it's not like she wants to watch the movie anyway. "For you," he continues offhandedly, watching her out of the corner of his eye, "I would find your boy first."

"My boy?"

"The one with the orange hair. I'd find him and hurt him instead."

Something inside Orihime trembles.

"But I think I would hurt myself too." He moves until she's falling onto her back and he's hovering over her—not at a threateningly close distance, but close enough for her to be just a little bit afraid. "That would be the best way to torture you. Hurting your boy, and hurting myself."

Because this is how his mind works: he just wants to take her apart.

And he is very good at it too. Ulquiorra is very good at reading her; he can predict her reactions, and what she will feel if he does something—he just has yet to decipher why. But time will pass and he will figure her out, and soon, he will know her better than she knows herself.

She is glad that he isn't a psychopathic murder, but if he were, he would be a very good one.

But she doesn't want him to figure her out. Because once he does, he'll leave to find something new. She still has the novelty and she doesn't want to let that go—not until, at least, she can make a smile grace his lips.

Orihime reaches up and touches his face, and gently pulls him down. His weight settles onto her, his ear to her chest and listening to her frantically beating heart. Listen to me. This is for you. Not for "my boy with the orange hair", but for you. Right now, my rawest wound is you. She holds him like a mother would embrace her child, and pets his hair because he is precious. If his parents don't love him, then she'll love him enough for the both of them too. She's always been told that she has too much love—well, now she has somewhere to put it.

"Kurosaki-kun isn't my boy, by the way," she tells him, even as he's watching the movie from his position. "You're my boy. I mean, if you're okay with that."

She feels him hum more than she hears him, his throat rumbling lowly. "That is fine, I suppose."

—

A white box, tied splendidly with a red bow, is presented to him on Christmas Eve. "For you!" she says brightly, with an equally bright smile.

He accepts the gift, the frown on his lips never once relenting. "Why are you smiling right now? Is it because you're happy? Or is there another reason?"

She thinks for a moment. "Well, I am happy right now, but I'm smiling for you, too. I guess you're rubbing off on me." She laughs sheepishly, shoving her hands deeper in her coat pockets to keep warm from the cold. "Apparently, I keep thinking that if I smile enough, you'll smile smile one day, too. Open your present!" She isn't surprised or hurt that he doesn't have anything for her—after all, she might as well be the very first person who isn't afraid of him for long enough to spend a Christmas together.

The object glints in his hand as he pulls it out. Then he looks at her, and she can tell that she has once again wholly and completely stumped him.

"Okay, now do as I say and repeat after me," she orders, holding up her hand. Ulquiorra mimics her action. "I, Ulqui…go on, you have to say it too!"

"I, Ulqui…"

"Solemnly swear that I will not use this to harm people, or myself, in any way, shape, or form."

He repeats the words like a robot, and once she smiles in satisfaction, she drops her hand. Because her Christmas gift for him, which is something she contemplated for a very long time, is a handmade pocket knife with a very sharp blade. (She knows it's very sharp because she accidentally cut her finger while trying to handle it—but it's all better now, because Hello Kitty band-aids do wonders.)

"You promised, Ulqui. You can play with it all you want, but you can't hurt anyone with it." He nods in response, flips the knife back into place, and slips it into his pocket. Then he grabs her and kisses her—a little different from all of their previous kisses, because this one isn't searching. She almost doesn't dare hope for it, but it almost feels like a kiss for the sake of a kiss—a proper kiss, full of emotion and everything that makes her lightheaded and giddy and so hot she burns up.

They part after a few moments and he presses hard kisses to her forehead, her brow, her cheeks, and then he demands, more aggressively than she's ever heard him speak: "Never leave me. If you leave me, I will hunt you down and keep you with me by force."

Orihime doesn't know why she nods and agrees when this is clearly not a promise she can keep, but she does anyway because this is the first breakthrough she's made in her months of knowing him and this moment is so beautiful and raw and past the logic, she really feels that maybe they can last, even though one day he will lose interest in her and she will want to find someone who can make her want to smile more than she wants to cry.

—

They find their way back to her empty apartment, her brother's shrine in the living room and an orange and two bananas in the fruit bowl. She finds herself slammed against the wall with Ulquiorra pressing open-mouthed kisses against her jaw and neck, feels his tongue on her skin, and this must be his way of marking her.

Orihime has always wondered what Ulquiorra would be like if he were normal. She wondered how often he'd laugh at her strange taste in food like everyone else does, or how irritated he'd be like she sometimes is when the kids at the daycare don't listen to what she says. She wonders how he would love, wholly and truly love a person, or how he would react to being loved, by parents who aren't afraid of him.

But every time she comes to the same realization: that isn't Ulquiorra. That person is a stranger to her, because her Ulquiorra is constantly frowning, unexpressive, and is not shy when touching her the way he's touching her now, with hands like a scientist, testing, trying, to see what makes her squirm and unravel.

He swore not to hurt anyone with his new pocketknife, so the next best thing for him is to dig his fingernails into her skin, almost, but not quite hard enough to draw blood. Ulquiorra bites and grips and hurts, but never enough to make her cry, which seems to be something he always takes great care in avoiding. He has always driven her close to the edge, but never pushed her over. He has never made her cry.

"Ulqui," she gasps, which draws his attention away from the task of unhooking her bra. "Ulqui. You told me never to leave you, but…" She blinks at him like a wide-eyed doe, unsure of which answer she's hoping for. "Will you leave me?"

A moment of thought, and then: "I don't know." He nips at her ear. "Do you want me to?"

She arches her back so it's easier for him to continue working on her bra. "I don't know," she answers back, and that seems to be enough for him.

—

Kurosaki and Kuchiki enter the coffee shop one day, hand in hand, and the image of that stings her, just a little.

It's a slow Tuesday morning, so Orihime and Ulquiorra are playing cards behind the counter (he tends to win, since he's the brain and she's the heart), but the moment the flash of orange catches her eye, her head whips in their direction, which leaves Ulquiorra casting a glance at her.

"Hey, Inoue."

She instantly puts down her cards without a second thought and rushes to the counter. "Kurosaki-kun! Kuchiki-san!" Ulquiorra trails behind her until he's standing unprofessionally close, his hands on her hips and playing with the waistline of her jeans. It's a thing that he likes to do, just fiddle with the seams of her clothing, as if contemplating how to take them off next. Ulquiorra is a person of decomposition, and she is no exception to his nature.

"How've you been? We just thought we'd drop by to say hi." Kurosaki's eyes flit towards Ulquiorra. "This is…?"

"Hm? Oh!" Orihime blushes. "This is Ulquiorr—I mean, Ulqui." It probably wouldn't be a good first impression if a hand was wrapped around her throat for not calling him by his nickname. "He's my, um…"

Ulquiorra extends an impassive hand around Orihime. "Ulquiorra. I'm Orihime's boy." She turns beet red at his bold declaration. Her boy. He's her boy.

Kurosaki quirks an eyebrow. "You mean boyfriend?"

Ulquiorra glances at Orihime for confirmation, and she stutters like she's never spoken before. "Y-Yes, I suppose i-it's something like that." She's never thought of it that way—because in no way is Ulquiorra conventional, and to her, he has never been her boyfriend. Her boy, maybe, but not her boyfriend. He is her Ulqui, and that means so much more than any labels society can put on people.

Maybe, he even means more to her than Kurosaki used to. Kurosaki was like a warm breeze on a spring day, but Ulquiorra runs deep in her bones, grabs her by the roots, and doesn't dare let her go. He is the oncoming storm that she can't avoid.

They chat for a while, Orihime and Kurosaki and Kuchiki, and those two look happy, she thinks—they're the couple that argues and then laughs and forget about it a minute later. They're the people who support each other and keep each other afloat. Orihime is genuinely happy for them.

"Why are you frowning?" Ulquiorra asks her later, once they've left.

"I-I'm not," she stutters. (Maybe Kurosaki runs deep in her bones too, in a different sort of way. Maybe he's the blood, and Ulquiorra is the marrow.)

"You're sad," Ulquiorra states, his own frown adorning his lips. His thumb comes up to trace her mouth, deep in thought. "He is still your boy too."

She shakes her head. "No. He isn't my boy. You're my boy." She forces a weak smile. "I only have one boy, and that's you. Unless you want to be replaced?" His thumb continues to run across her lips, until it suddenly stops.

"I'm your boy," he reaffirms, his hand moving down to play with the collar of her uniform. "You're my girl."

Her smile smooths out into something a little more genuine. "I'm your girl?"

"Mine. And no one else's."

Orihime beams. "Okay."

—

Everything fractures one cold afternoon, when Orihime hands him a steaming mug of tea, and the scalding ceramic scorches his skin and he drops it on instinct. The mug crashes to the floor, shattering upon impact and hot tea spilling onto both of their feet. She jumps away in fright, and then worries about what the heat will do to her poor floorboards.

"Ulqui, don't!" He's already kneeled down to pick up the pieces of mug, slicing the skin of his hands with shallow cuts, hardly drawing any blood, but enough to see the lines of inflamed pink on his skin. "Stop it, you're hurting yourself!"

He glances at her, and reaches out to grab her wrist when she kneels down to help him. "Don't," he says. He gathers the rest of the pieces and lines them up on the counter—and takes the largest piece with the smoothest break, turning it in the light. "Come here," he requests in a murmur. Orihime carefully steps over the puddle of tea to stand beside him.

"Ulqui?"

He looks her up and down for a very long time, thinking deeply about something—before he holds the piece of ceramic to her cheek, and drags.

Orihime jerks violently at the unexpected pain and she takes a step back, stumbling into the living room. Ulquiorra's eyes, still as green as the very first day, are empty as he watches her. Her hand clasps her cheek, feeling the wetness of blood and a familiar feeling bubbling up in the pit of her stomach.

Fear. She is afraid.

"Come here," he says again, and when she doesn't heed him, he moves towards her instead, the shard of mug still in his hand. Orihime takes a step back, and another, until she bumps into her coffee table and goes crashing to the floor. Ulquiorra continues to advance on her even as she shakes in her skin, her bones quaking.

He has never hurt her before—not like this. He's never drawn blood. Wrapped a threatening hand around her throat, yes, talked about prying her apart and ripping out her heart, yes, but to cut her? He has never. He's never hurt anyone before, so why now…?

"Don't," she whispers, as he kneels down above her, the piece of ceramic as frightening as a steak knife. "Ulqui." Her voice is shaking.

His hand is a mere inch away from her face when he freezes.

Because the wetness on her cheek is no longer from her blood alone—it's also from her tears. Without realizing it, tears have escaped her eyes and are lining a path down her face, gathering at her chin and dripping onto her shirt. It is completely involuntary and if she could help it, she would have stopped herself—because the look on Ulquiorra's face right now is paralyzing.

His lips curl into a deep frown, and he puts aside the piece of ceramic, the green and white now also decorated with the red of her blood. "You don't like that," he observes.

"No." She swallows. "I don't."

"You're crying."

"Yeah. I am."

His fingers brush her cut and it stings, but she does her best not to flinch. "I'm sorry," he says, even though he sounds unfeeling.

"It's…it's okay." But it's not, really—he hurt her and it's not okay, because he cut skin and she was afraid of him in that moment, truly afraid like he's a stranger, like she's never met him before. The Ulquiorra of that moment was completely unrecognizable and Orihime was absolutely terrified of him.

"I'm sorry," he says again, and kisses her bleeding cheek.

Are you really? she wants to ask, but she already knows the answer to that.

—

They still have coffee together in her living room and watch violent movies while wearing comfortable sweaters, but it's different now, somehow. Because every time Ulquiorra reaches out to touch her, she tenses up and her walls come up, a desperate attempt to keep herself from harm in case he intends to do any. He notices it but never comments on it, even if he does frown in displeasure. Sometimes he draws his hand away and sometimes he doesn't, and then his skin meets hers, a soft touch, and slowly she relaxes again even though the caution is still there, simmering quietly underneath her skin.

—

"You are afraid of me." He says this as they are walking through a park, the snow on the trees finally beginning to melt into something warmer.

She looks at him. "No," she says. "I'm not."

"Then why do you"—he raises a hand and she subconsciously draws back—"do that every time I want to touch you?"

"Because it's instinctual. People feel pain because it tells them what's dangerous. I do that every time you want to touch me because you hurt me. My instinct is telling me to run, but I haven't, because I'm not afraid."

He steps forward and his palm comes to caress her scarred cheek, in a way that she thinks he might not have been capable of when they first met. She tilts her head into his touch, a quiet sigh escaping her lips.

"You said you'd never leave me."

"I'm still here, aren't I?"

Ulquiorra frowns. "Somehow, it feels as though you've already left."

This strikes an unexpected sadness in her. Just as he's been learning her in the months that they've known each other, she's been learning him too. He wants her all to himself. He wants to take her apart—but can't do it in a way that will hurt her or make her cry, because he doesn't like seeing her like that. He wants her analyzed and broken but still smiling for him always, even if she is left shattered and bleeding on the ground.

He made one wrong move and everything is different now, but he can't understand why. Orihime steps forward and pulls him against herself in a tight hug, the tears in her eyes but never falling.

He's not a psychopath. He just lost something along the way.

"I'm here," she tells him. "I'm right here."

"I love you," he says, and for a moment, she freezes.

She draws back and holds his face in both of her hands, searching. "Do you really?" She holds no expectations for his answer.

The frown is still on his lips as he searches her expression as well. "Will that make you smile again?"

And there is only one question to counter his, even though she doesn't voice it, because it is something he will not understand or even care to understand.

What are we doing here?

—

Ulquiorra sleeps over a lot. Orihime has never once heard from his parents, and she has no family left to worry about letting a clinically diagnosed psychopath stay the night, so it happens often. She watches him sleep, soundless save for his even breaths. It doesn't matter whether he's awake or not; Ulquiorra is always quiet.

He is also a light sleeper, so he always wakes when she snuggles closer to him. But he allows it because he likes her close—and she does it because she's trying to find something more. She always knew this would happen, but this sadness that Ulquiorra carries around with him is beginning to suffocate her, and maybe it has something to do with her brother in heaven, but she thinks that if she's with someone, the pain will ease. Closeness has the ability to heal anyone, but in Ulquiorra's case, it just feels like putting salt on the wound.

"Are you happy?" she asks him quietly under the cloak of darkness. "When you're with me. Are you happy?"

He rolls so he's lying on his side. She can just barely make out the green of his eyes as he stares at her. "If happiness," he says slowly, choosing his words with care, "means to feel like you are needed…then yes." Something tugs are her heart. "If happiness means this constant weight on me, trying to make you smile…" He leans in closer until their foreheads touch. "Then yes."

"That's not happiness," she tells him, even though she half doesn't want to. "That's…pressure. And stress. I stress you, Ulqui."

"Do I stress you?"

She smiles, sadly. "A little bit."

"I won't let you leave me."

"Why not?"

This question catches him off guard, she's met with a staggering silence. "What?"

"Why won't you let me leave you?"

A heartbeat between them, and then two, before he says firmly, "I just won't." The feeling that strikes her heart nearly knocks her breathless, this suffocating sort of despondence that she doesn't know how to get rid of.

Kurosaki-kun, what do I do?

And the reason why she's so sad is because she knows all of the answers to the questions she asks Ulquiorra—she knows why he doesn't want her to leave, but what truly breaks her heart, takes the last of it and grinds it to dust and leaves her a frayed rag doll is the fact that even though she knows, he doesn't.

—

He doesn't show up for work one day, which worries her greatly, because he's never missed a single day since he got the job. He doesn't pick up when she calls him, so she sneaks into her manager's office and rummages through the employee files in the filing cabinet until she finds the one she wants, Ulquiorra Schiffer, and scribbles down his address onto her hand.

She visits him that evening after her shift has ended, and is let in by a middle-aged woman looking worn and weary. His mother, she's guessing.

Orihime climbs up the stairs of this oddly spacious, tidy, white house, up to his room. When she timidly knocks on the door, there is no answer—so she turns the doorknob and pushes it open, the hinges creaking just slightly.

"Ulqui?" In his pristine, seemingly untouched room, he sits on the floor with his back against his bed. She closes the door behind her and hazards a step closer, and then another, until she's kneeling in front of him. "Ulqui? Are you okay? You didn't show up for work today, so I was worried."

He has his head buried in his hands. "I hurt Father last night."

She reaches out to touch his knee. He's shaking, imperceptibly. "I know," she says quietly. "Your mom told me."

"He bled."

"I know." She pulls him into her chest. "It's okay. He's okay. He just needed a few stitches."

Because in those few words she exchanged with Ulquiorra's mother, she learned one thing: they are not afraid of Ulquiorra. They love him very, very much, but he can't process that, and so they do what they can for him—they leave him alone, let him do the things he wants to do, urges him to go out into the world and find something that intrigues him.

"He's a clinically diagnosed psychopath, but he's not a psychopath," his mother had said. "He just lost something along the way."

Orihime had smiled. "That's what I think, too."

"One day," his voice sounds tiny, muffled against her chest, "I'm going to hurt you. One day, I'm going to kill you."

"Yes." She presses her lips to his hair and breathes him in, the smell of coffee beans and freshly folded laundry. "I know."

"Would you let me?"

"The question is, would you let yourself?"

"I used to think that I would finally have what you have if I cut you open and tore out your heart." He lifts his head and their mouths meet, her bottom lip trembling against his. "But you may have given me something already."

Orihime smiles, a sad smile, the only kind of smile she knows how to show to Ulquiorra. "See? Isn't it better, to have your own heart instead of taking someone else's?"

"No," he murmurs. "It hurts."

She cries then, even though she's not bleeding anywhere, and even though he didn't hold a shard of a broken mug to her face. "Silly," she says. "It's supposed to."

—

The next day, he abruptly quits his job. It leaves Orihime slightly relieved but very, very empty, and every time she breathes, it feels like a rattling echo inside of her—as if there's a huge hole punched in her sternum and she doesn't know how to fill it.

Ulquiorra quitting his job only means one thing: that they are finished. He never cared for coffee in the first place, never cared about earning money, about remaining a barista—he stayed for her, he stayed because she piqued his interested and he stayed because he told her not to leave him. But he is the one doing the leaving, and maybe it was always going to be this way. They couldn't have lasted—they could have never lasted, with the lost boy and kind girl. This has never been a love story—it was two puzzle pieces unceremoniously forced together, two pieces that were never meant to be side by side, but were anyway.

It was always going to be this way, and Orihime knew it. But that doesn't make her feel any better, because there are still remnants of each other lying around—her chart of different coffees lying on his desk, the pocketknife he always carries around with him, the phantom touch of his hands on her back, his fingertips at the waistband of her jeans. The pile of movies he picked out that they rented to watch together, that are still sitting beside her television. Months and months of memories, and she doesn't know where to put them.

"I'm still your girl?" she asks him as he takes off his apron for the very last time.

"Yes."

"And you're still my boy."

"Yes."

"And I can still call you Ulqui, right? Ulquiorra is too hard for me to say after all, my tongue just gets all twisted."

He inclines his head, just a little, and the look he gives her sends shivers down her spine, because there is a quiet, lingering sort of sadness in his eyes, and she wonders if it would have been better if they'd never met at all.

"Ulqui is fine, I suppose."

—

It is summer again when Kurosaki enters the coffee shop, alone this time. "Hey, Inoue."

"Kurosaki-kun! Hi, it's been a while."

He leans on the counter and peers around. "Where's your boyfriend? He's always here whenever you are."

Orihime shakes her head, and smiles. "He's not in today. He's searching for something he lost."

He nods slowly at her vague answer. "Okay. So do you have any recommendations? I think I'm going to be sick if I drink another americano. What do you have that isn't too sweet?"

"Well," she says, "the café mélange is good."

"Cool." Kurosaki grins in that familiar and warm devilish way. "I'll have one of those."

A/N: I abandon Bleach for years, pick it up again, cry at Ulquiorra's death, and write this. A standard reaction, I'd say. I repeat, and I will say this as many times as I need to: this is not a love story.

I could've developed Orihime a bit more, but I kind of like the way she was just reacting to the things Ulquiorra did. I think he's a really interesting character, and if I developed them both, then this would have become a monster of a story.

Thanks Wikipedia, for the literal two things I pulled on psychopathy from you. :D