Eros - PrincessKitty1 - Bleach (Anime & Manga) [Archive of Our Own] (2024)

There was noise coming from the living room.

Ulquiorra Cifer, age twenty-two, cracked one green eye open and sought the face of his alarm clock. It was 9:12am on a Saturday. Weekends were his sleep-in days. He lay on his stomach with one arm slung over his pillow and another underneath, wondering what sort of burglar would break into apartments on Saturday mornings. Then he recalled the date, and the letter from the office that had arrived in his mailbox two weeks prior. Stamped withThe Dome’s five pillar logo, it had informed him that he was getting a roommate: one Orihime Inoue, who neither smoked nor owned a yapping dog.

Ulquiorra pushed himself up and stretched, his back popping audibly. He’d been reading well into the night, hoping to stay ahead of his graduate level psych classes, but had gotten too relaxed and was now paying for it. His friends often made cracks about his good posture; sadly, he could not maintain it forever.

He made the bed, grabbed clean clothes from his dresser, and deposited them onto the comforter before stepping into the bathroom. The shower water beat against his back as if it were trying to save him from choking, so he never lingered more than he had to. As he reemerged, towel-clad, he heard a loud thud and a feminine yelp. “Oh, shoot. That says fragile, doesn’t it?” He put on a pair of jeans and a university t-shirt, procrastinated for a few minutes, then unlocked the door and twisted the knob.

The short hallway was piled with boxes, one of which had been knocked over, its contents spilling back into the living room. Directly in front of him was a young woman’s rear end, squeezed into tight ivory shorts. “Nothinglooksbroken. Good. Let’s see, this is all bath stuff, which means it’s going over—oh!” She’d straightened and turned around to find Ulquiorra standing silently behind her. “You scared me! Err, surprised me. I didn’t wake you with all the noise, did I?” She stuck out her hand. “Sorry. I’m Orihime Inoue, your new roommate!”

Ulquiorra surveyed the woman before him. She was beautiful, but stereotypically so: long lashes, plump lips, perfect round nose, doe-eyes, a bit baby-faced, full figure with a hint of muscle. Her auburn hair was collected into a messy bun, a few loose tendrils almost reaching her shoulder blades. The only uncommon thing about her was the size of her bust, which her blouse strained to cover. He shook her hand. “Ulquiorra Cifer.”

“Ulquiorra. So that’s how you say it! I saw your name on the paper and man, did I ever get it wrong!” Orihime rambled on, with enthusiastic—if not useless—hand gestures. “Sorry about all this mess, too. I’m a little… this isn’t permanent. I’ll be out of your hair before you know it!”

“Do not feel hurried on my account,” Ulquiorra said, and flattened himself against the wall as she passed with a box in arms.

“No, no, it’s temporary. I know the lease is up in a year, but Ireallydon’t expect to stay that long.” Her words held little conviction, and her tone was distant, distracted. She did not look at him when she said it.

Ulquiorra excused himself, intent on finding breakfast somewhere quieter. He was meeting his former classmate Grimmjow later in the afternoon to discuss bachelor party plans. Ulquiorra still couldn’t believe that a man so violent, rude, and uncultured had tricked a nice girl into marrying him. But such was life.

On the way out the door he noticed a framed photograph standing upright on the coffee table. It was his new roommate, directing a gaze full of love and adoration at a tall, orange-haired male. There was a crack through the glass. Ulquiorra wondered if the woman had noticed. It seemed like something she would not want to see broken.

Ulquiorra and Orihime’s lives did not intertwine outside the confines of their shared apartment. She did not ask him to go to dinner or grocery shopping with her, he did not ask if she wanted to attend a theater production at the university with him. They were roommates, nothing more, nothing less.

Orihime had graduated college a semester earlier than Ulquiorra, he learned through their brief conversations. Though seemingly airheaded, she was a brilliant student, and a hard worker. Despite this, she had no plans to further her education. She kept a full-time job at a local bakery and filled the refrigerator with leftovers.

But surely if she did not expect to be in the apartment long, she had to havesomethingin her future.

“Hello?” The woman’s smile faltered momentarily, then she spoke into the cell phone. “Oh, hey Rangiku. Mmhmm. All moved in! I told you I could do it myself.” She walked down the hall and, seconds later, her bedroom door clicked shut. Ulquiorra resumed his studying, which the woman had interrupted with an inane question about mustard before her phone had rung.

He’d barely gotten through one paragraph when his thoughts strayed from the subject at hand. Since the woman had moved in, Ulquiorra had noticed two things: First, she answered the phone as if her life depended on it. She would run out of the shower and into her room with shampoo still in her hair if she heard it ring. Second was the crestfallen expression on her face whenever she found out who was on the other line. He’d have thought that someone as cheerful as her would be happy to have so many friends to talk to.

Given the evidence, he suspected that she was waiting on an important call. But two weeks had passed since she’d taken up residence at The Dome, and that call had yet to come. Still, she answered the phone with the same eagerness. Day after day she found the strength to remain hopeful. How tedious.

Strange, he thought further, that the woman had so many friends, but none of them ever came to visit her. His own social life was busier than hers, and it was commonly said of him that he was an unsociable bastard.

One night, as he passed on his way out, he caught her sitting on her bed with her knees drawn to her chest, staring at her cell phone. She did not acknowledge him, and he made no attempt to start conversation.

Was this how she spent all her evenings: alone, waiting for some mysterious person to give her a ring?

“Dude, your roommate’s hot.”

“And you are engaged,” Ulquiorra reminded Grimmjow as they walked towards the student recreational center. The temperature was unbearable, but nothing short of a hurricane could stop Grimmjow from playing intramural sports every Thursday. Ulquiorra tried not to complain about the sweat cementing his shirt to his back.

Grimmjow snorted. “Prudish as always. Just because a man is taken, engaged, or even married for that matter, doesn’t mean he becomes blind to other women. Especially women with amazing tit*.”

“You’re a pig.”

“See, I knew you would say that. When was the last time you got laid? Be honest. If memory serves, you had a sort-of thing with what’s-her-face back in freshman year.”

Ulquiorra’s eyes narrowed. He did not want to talk about his sex life. Not in this weather, not with Grimmjow, not ever. “For your information, the woman is not suited to my tastes.”

“Which would be…?”

“None of your business.”

They stopped for traffic, and Grimmjow fidgeted impatiently. He never had been able to stand still. “Nnoitra thinks so too. About her tit*, I mean.”

“Of course he does.”

After growing accustomed to the woman’s solitude, Ulquiorra was surprised when she approached him, hands clutching her phone so tightly that her knuckles were white, and said, “My boyfriend is coming over tonight,” with a tremulous smile. “Notspendingthe night. I didn’t want to be insensitive.”

Ulquiorra recalled the orange-haired male from the photograph. He had seen that guy around campus once or twice, walking beside a petite young woman with raven hair cut into a bob. He refrained from asking why the boyfriend hadn’t come to see her sooner. “Would you like me to leave?”

“No, you don’t have to! Just give us a little privacy? We’ll be in the living room.” And with that, she skipped away, presumably to prepare herself. Ulquiorra packed up his textbooks and relocated to his desk, knowing he would fall asleep if he tried to study on the bed. He’d had a restless night and had given up banging on the doors of dreamland before sunrise.

It was not often that Ulquiorra had trouble sleeping. Even caffeine could seldom keep him awake once he was sufficiently relaxed. But if he read too much in one day, or if something was worrying him, he would be interrupted several times a night by racing thoughts. He chalked it up to stress over the speech he’d been begged to make at Grimmjow’s wedding. They’d asked him because he was an eloquent speaker, but failed to take into account the fact that he would rather get a root canal than deliver a speech in front of a crowd.

He would have to lie, too. It would hardly be appropriate for him to talk about his best friend’s wandering eye and untold number of sexual partners in front of his new wife and her family.

Ulquiorra took a break from studying to research wedding toasts and list the few facts that could be thrown into the speech. He could hear the woman moving around the apartment and slipped on his headphones to drown out distractions.

Two hours later he was embellishing Grimmjow’s good qualities when his stomach began nagging him for food. He checked the time. 8:32pm. He had accidentally skipped dinner. He sighed, removed his headphones, and listened for any sounds beyond the door. Nothing. Either the woman’s boyfriend had yet to arrive, or they had gone out for dinner themselves. He grabbed his wallet and car keys, grateful that in a college town there were plenty of restaurants to choose from. His bedroom door made no noise when he opened it.

“…just need a little more time. I’m sorry. You’ve been patient with me, and I appreciate it, Inoue. I do. Don’t make that face, please?” Ulquiorra stopped, clutching his keys tighter so that they wouldn’t give away his presence.

“I’m not making a face.”

“Come on, I know you better than that.” There was a brief moment of silence, followed by the chirp of a text alert.

“Is that her?” Ulquiorra heard the woman ask.

“Renji.”

“I’m surprised you two are still talking. He was so angry.”

“He’s a loyal boyfriend.” More silence. “Listen, I’ve got to go. I’m proud of you for doing this, Inoue. It was very brave of you, and the apartment looks great. Is your roommate a nice guy?”

“Oh, ah, yes, he’s very nice.” There was the sound of the front door opening. “Ichigo”—a brief pause—“I love you.”

A longer pause. “Take care. I’ll call you.”

The front door closed. Ulquiorra reopened and closed his own door, loudly enough for the woman to hear from the living room, then he emerged from the hallway.

She was on the couch, her hands folded on her lap, staring at the place where her boyfriend had once stood. Her hair was loose, tumbling down her back in waves and decorated with flower pins. She’d put on a dress, makeup, nice sandals, perfume that Ulquiorra could smell from a distance. Her eyes were wide, her lashes curled. Her smile looked like it had been painted on. When she turned to Ulquiorra, her bottom lip trembled, but only once. “He just left,” she said, in a way that sounded like she didn’t quite understand why her boyfriend had gone.

And in that moment, Ulquiorra saw a very uncommon beauty in her. “I’m getting a late dinner. Would you like me to bring you something?”

“No,” she replied in a half-whisper, “I’m not hungry. Thanks, though.”

He left her there, because he was not one to pry into anyone’s personal life. He walked to his car, remembering the way she had smiled at him when she’d told him her boyfriend was coming over. He compared that smile to the one he had received just then.

Ulquiorra sat behind the steering wheel of his vehicle and decided that he was annoyed.

The next morning was a Sunday, and Ulquiorra was pulled out of sleep by the throbbing beat of a high-energy pop song. He groaned, checked his alarm clock, then bolted upright when he saw that he’d slept past ten. His hands swept over his face, tangled in his hair. Where was that music coming from? He pulled on a plain green t-shirt and left his room to investigate.

The woman’s door was wide open. From within came a husky voice singing sugar-coated lyrics about everlasting love, but the flower-decorated room was otherwise devoid of its occupant. Ulquiorra found her in the kitchen, piling a plate with pancakes—at least, he’d thought they were pancakes until she slathered them with cake frosting. “Good morning, Ulquiorra! Want some breakfast?” the woman greeted him.

Her mood had done a complete one-eighty since he’d last seen her. She wore a white tank top and pink pajama shorts, and though her eyes were swollen from crying the night before, there was no trace of any lingering despondency. Ulquiorra declined her offer. She shrugged, sat on one of the bar stools beneath the counter, cut a thick slice of frosted pancake, and popped it into her mouth. “Sorry if I worried you last night! Ichigo and I are taking a break, and we’ve got some things to work on, so emotions are running high these days.”

Ulquiorra opened the refrigerator and withdrew a carton of orange juice. “A break,” he repeated, “as in still together, but suspending normal relationship activities?”

“Mmhmm!”

“I do not believe in breaks,” he declared flatly, pouring the juice into a glass. “People take these breaks because something has gone wrong with their relationship, and they think that by stepping back and looking at things objectively, they will be able to fix it. It is a farce. When you love someone, being objective is impossible.”

Orihime swallowed her pancakes. “That’s not a very optimistic thing to say.”

“I make it a point to refrain from indulging in optimism.”

She laughed at that. “Alright, I can agree with you to an extent. It’s like that for some people, but not Ichigo and I. We have history.”

“Do tell,” Ulquiorra muttered, if only to end his curiosity and gain assurance that his roommate would not cause herself physical harm while under the same roof as him.

Orihime licked frosting off her knife. Her cheeks became rosy. “Well, we met in eighth grade through a mutual friend. He went to another middle school, though, so it wasn’t until ninth grade that we had the chance to talk more often. I had the biggest crush on him! We got together in the summer before our sophom*ore year and stayed together throughout high school. We were even voted cutest couple in our senior yearbook! Never fought or had problems likeothercouples. People looked up to us, you know.” Ulquiorra made no reply, except to stare at her over the rim of his juice glass. “So we came to college together, and we made plans for our future, and talked about marriage. My roommate Rukia was very supportive when I told her I was moving in with Ichigo—they’d become friends during his visits to my dorm room, even though they bickered a lot. I guess that’s why I never worried about leaving them alone together, because there was no way that people who fought all the time could fall in love with each other, right?”

She pushed the pancakes around on her plate, cutting them into smaller and smaller pieces. “Rukia is a wonderful person. Ichigo thought so too. He was relieved that I had such a cool roommate. I really didn’t think much of her coming to visit more often, even when I wasn’t there, because she had a boyfriend and I trusted her. I trusted them both. They were happily taken, they didn’tneed anything else, they didn’t…”

Orihime squeezed her eyes shut and breathed in deeply. Ulquiorra noticed that her hands were shaking, and when she opened her eyes again, her tone had changed. “Two months ago, Ichigo confessed to me that he and Rukia had… that he’d been unfaithful to me. He felt horrible about it. I immediately started crying, and he apologized again and again, and told me he didn’t know what to do, he”—she laughed out loud—“had feelings forbothof us. And he didn’t want to hurt me, because Ichigo isnotthat type of guy. So I moved out, to give him space and time to think about everything.”

Ulquiorra drained his glass and put it in the sink. “And you believe that your relationship will be saved within the next few months?”

“Of course I do.” Orihime gazed at him earnestly. “Ichigolovesme. He’s my prince charming. We’ve come too far to be defeated by something like this!”

The marathon of pop songs had faded into ballads, but the theme remained the same: eternal love, never giving up, making things work, overcoming the odds. Ulquiorra could see that the woman was genuine—deluded, but genuine. She was in for a world of pain.

He would not try to dissuade her, however, for he had learned in life that the people who were on collision courses with reality were the ones who least appreciated advice. This meant that at some point he would inevitably be dealing with the aftermath of the woman’s disillusionment.

He briefly considered breaking his lease and moving somewhere else.

By late August, Ulquiorra was beginning to see signs of emotional fatigue in his roommate. The cheesy love songs became eulogies to dead relationships, she spent less time maintaining her appearance, and sometimes he wouldn’t see her for days. She’d also started going out at night on the weekends. Why this worried him, he wasn’t sure.

“You are by no means a bad person, Ulquiorra,” his friend Tier Harribel said to him when he brought it up. “Even though you cannot feel pity for your roommate’s circ*mstances, you’re still concerned about her because she’s in a very vulnerable state.”

“And with breasts as big as hers, there are plenty of assholes out there who’d want to take advantage of her,” added her boyfriend, Coyote Starrk.

Tier glared at him. “You’ve never even seen her breasts.”

“I’ve heard stories from Grimmjow and Nnoitra.”

“I am not worried that she will be taken advantage of,” Ulquiorra interrupted, before they could get into an argument. “The woman’s heart is too strong to be swayed by other men. My concern is that she will suffer a mental breakdown when she realizes that her precious boyfriend has moved on.”

Starrk and Harribel shared one of those obnoxious couple glances in which they communicated with each other telepathically. “Is it my imagination, or did you sound a little jealous there?” Starrk asked.

“Don’t be ridiculous.”

Orihime Inoue did not suit Ulquiorra in the slightest. She was too bright, too optimistic, too ready to blind herself to facts. She liked magic and fairy tales and romantic comedies that ended with a man running after a woman to stop her from leaving the country, because he’d realized she was the love of his life. Or so he assumed from the collection of DVDs she left in the living room.

But what irritated him most about the woman was that she had the capacity to be a mature adult. She’d moved out of her boyfriend’s apartment of her own volition, hadn’t she? That was proof enough that there was a rational creature behind that unwavering smile.

If she could but draw on that reserve of inner strength, she might be able to avoid, or at least survive, the impending disaster. Just because Ulquiorra found himself desirous of freeing her from the trap of wishful thinking didn’t mean that he was jealous of the undeserving boyfriend, or that he wanted the woman in any way, shape, or form.

There was nothing beautiful about someone who tried so hard to remain put together.

Close to two in the morning, Ulquiorra heard a loud crash in the living room. He stood from his desk, certain that this time it was a burglar, and picked up the sword Szayel had bought him for Christmas before exiting the room.

It was not a burglar. The woman was sprawled out on the couch, having just knocked over the entire end table. She giggled and failed two attempts to stand before she got to her feet. “Whoops!” she laughed. She bent over to fix the table, her hands groping at the empty air beside it. “Be quiet, dummy, Ulquiorra might be ‘sleep!”

Ulquiorra leaned the sword against the wall, then approached the clearly intoxicated woman. “Hey.” He grabbed her wrists and helped her right herself. “Leave that to me. Go to bed.”

“Ulquiorra! I amso sorry, I didn’t mean t’wake you up.” Her brow furrowed. “I was out with Rangiku and she kept ordering these pretty drinks, an’ I kept drinkin’ ‘em, and I think they might have been alcohol even though they tasted like juice.”

“You did not drive home, did you?”

“No, silly! I called Safe Ride. What d’ya think I’m stupid or something?” He put her arm over his shoulder and steered her toward the hallway. “I bet Ichigo thinks I’m stupid, ‘cause I’m dainty and cute and I like th’color pink. But I’m not stupid, ‘kay? I know he’s f*cking Rukia behind my back. I bet they’re f*cking right now.”

Ulquiorra had never heard the woman swear; even a simple “damn it” had yet to escape her lips. That was the magic of alcohol, he supposed. “I could not tell you,” he said.

“Way to be a liar, Kurosaki. You said sex was something special. Only people who were in love and going t’be married were supposed to have sex. He was my first—did y’know that, Ulquiorra? I’ve never slept with anyone else, becauseIam agood girlfriend.” She grabbed his shirt with her free hand and pulled him so roughly that he almost lost his balance. “I’m a good girlfriend,” she repeated, her eyes glassy with tears. “I’ve always been there for him. I went to all his soccer games and cheered him on, and I comforted him when he needed it, and I gave himeverythingbecause thas what lovers are s’pposed to do. So why did he cheat on me? Why did he fall in love with someone else? Wasn’t I good enough for him?”

“He’s an asshole,” Ulquiorra said.

“No he’s not!” Orihime yelled, pushing him away from her and stumbling towards the bathroom. “He’s wonderful! He’s a nice guy! He’s just confused, that’s all! He never meant to hurt me. He’ll come back for me. Any day now he’s gonna call and say he’s broken things off with her and he wants me to go home with him and snuggle on the couch like we used to.”

Ulquiorra helped her into the bathroom, where she sat down heavily on the counter, took two deep breaths, and let out an enraged scream that tapered off into a high-pitched “Oh God!” She grabbed fistfuls of her own hair, choking out a sob. Ulquiorra went back to the kitchen and retrieved two pain killers and a glass of water. When he returned to the woman’s side, she was crying without restraint, her nose dripping onto her legs.

“Drink these when you can manage. It will help lessen the hangover pain in the morning.”

She kept on crying as if she hadn’t heard him and beat her palms against her forehead. “Why would they do this to me? Why? I was good to them! They were my friends! I wouldn’t steal someone’s boyfriend, even if I h-hated them!”

Ulquiorra was becoming impatient. He forced her arms down so that she would stop hurting herself and was instantly arrested by the vision before him. She’d made a complete mess of her hair, and some of it clung to her wet cheeks. Her face was red from crying and from the alcohol she’d had, her eyes bloodshot, her lips pulled back into a grimace that was almost a smile, and her makeup was running as badly as her nose. But she was beautiful in her brokenness. She was a walking disaster of pent-up emotions and fervent denial.

And he knew that in the morning, she would go right back to smiling and pretending that she was alright, even though she was falling apart at the seams with no one there to witness it but him.

He hated it. He hated Ichigo Kurosaki for doing this to her. He hated the woman for wanting him back anyway, for sitting alone in her apartment with no plans for the future other than waiting for her piece of sh*t boyfriend to decide he wanted to marry her after all.

And he hated himself for the spark of desire that had shot through him at the sight of her face.

The day following her drunken breakdown, she had withdrawn to recover from her hangover. By Monday, she was her normal self, bustling into the apartment after work with a box of sweets. She dropped it in front of Ulquiorra, who was typing up a research paper at the dining table. “These,” she said as she flipped open the lid, “are for you.”

Ulquiorra sifted through the array of croissants, donuts, cupcakes, brownies, and other desserts. “Is it my birthday?”

“Not that I know of, but itwasmine. On Saturday. When I went a little overboard with the drinking?” She pressed her index fingers together. “I was upset about Ichigo and one thing led to another. But I really appreciate you taking care of me.”

Ulquiorra forgot the desserts. “Your boyfriend did not come to see you on your birthday?”

She shrugged, as if it couldn’t be helped. “We’re taking a break.”

“That is no excuse,” he said, “and you should not make excuses for him.”

“He’ll probably come see me later in the week.”

“No, he won’t. No one who calls himself a man would treat a woman that way, particularly a woman he has loved for eight years. If I were you, I would be infuriated by his inconsideration.” The last thread of Ulquiorra’s patience snapped. “Why is it so hard for you to accept that he has moved on? Do you honestly think that it will hurt more for you to let him go than to keep holding on while he drags you through the mud?”

“Stop it,” Orihime whispered.

“What comes next: he takes you back on the condition that he can still sleep with your friend on the side?”

A sharp crack filled the air, accentuated by a stinging pain across Ulquiorra’s left cheek. He stared at the kitchen counter, heard the woman’s heavy breathing, and lifted a hand to his offended skin. She’d slapped him. Such was her need to remain submerged in her hope-filled fantasy, that she had physically attacked him for trying to help her.

He looked at her. She snatched back the box of baked goods and marched down the hall. Moments later, her door slammed against its frame.

The woman did not talk to Ulquiorra for the next two weeks. Her boyfriend didn’t come to wish her a belated happy birthday. She spent most of her time away from the apartment, which Ulquiorra guessed was an effort to stay away from him and his negativity.

He was not sorry for saying it. Not in the slightest, and besides, he’d been right. But he did question his motivation. Ulquiorra did not like to get involved in people’s problems, because often there was nothing he could do to fix them, and his blunt manner of speaking had gotten him in trouble before. He did not believe in sugarcoating truths, skirting subjects, or trying all the least painful options before going for the agonizing one. Life was a series of bandages in need of ripping off, and he wouldn’t waste his time running them under water.

So why entangle himself with the woman and her boyfriend issues? Why was he so determined to shake her out of her delusion, to bring her back to reality, to see her do well for herself? Why did he care so much about Orihime Inoue?

And why did his heart race whenever he caught a glimpse of her? He supposed it could have been hatred, but normal people did not see the person they hated and become overwhelmed by the desire to run their fingers through the hated one’s hair.

It could have been love. The thought disturbed him. Ulquiorra had never been in love. He did not know what it looked like, felt like, tasted like. He was not sure of its symptoms. He had not considered what his “true love”—if such a person existed—should be like.

It did not make sense for him to be in love with someone whose blind faith he could hardly stand, but he’d often heard that love did not play by any set rules.

So he did not discard the possibility that he could be in love with his roommate, as much as it frustrated him.

“You don’t think he’d bring… you-know-who, do you? Hmm. Yeah, you’re right. He wouldn’t be that insensitive. Alright, you’ve convinced me! I’ll go. Is there a dress code? Uh… let me see if I have anything semi-formal in my closet, haha!”

Ulquiorra was doing statistics work in the living room when the woman came out of her room, phone pressed to her ear. “I’ll just have to buy something—hold on, Tatsuki.” She remained completely silent while walking past Ulquiorra, opened the front door, and stepped out of the apartment. He heard her chatter resume and narrowed his eyes at her childish behavior.

If this was love, he was most definitely insane.

From overheard snippets of conversation, Ulquiorra guessed that there was a homecoming party of some kind that the woman was attending. He wondered why universities even voted on homecoming kings and queens when nobody gave a sh*t. And who was eligible to run for those things, anyway? He’d never once seen an advertisem*nt asking for people to sign up.

The woman still wasn’t talking to him, which he would not admit was the source of the annoying pain in his chest. He was grateful for the work that kept him busy, and spent a lot of time in the psych department’s office running numbers through the statistics programs he didn’t have on his laptop.

On the day of the homecoming game, however, he was distracted by thoughts of the woman. He pictured her reconciling with her boyfriend at the party and bringing him back to the apartment for further “reconciliation.” It made him so sick to his stomach that he almost decided to crash at Grimmjow’s place that night, before he remembered that the chances of the woman prying her boyfriend from the other girl’s clutches were slim to none.

He left the psychology building after the football game had started to avoid traffic and rowdy pedestrians. The local restaurants were packed with all the people who hadn’t been able to get tickets to the game. They crowded around big screen televisions, drinking, cheering, and swearing when the referees made what they deemed to be a bad call.

Ulquiorra had dinner, then wandered the student district aimlessly. It seemed like parties were occurring in every apartment building he passed. He turned his thoughts to the research he would soon be doing, and was so distracted that he didn’t notice the body hurtling towards him until they collided.

His first instinct was to be angry, but then he realized that he knew the person. It was the woman, holding onto his shirt sleeves, and shaking so badly that he was afraid she was having some sort of episode. She was wearing a sky blue dress that had a large hole torn in the side. “Please,” she said, “take me home.”

“What happened?”

“Take me home,” she repeated, “before they notice I’m gone.”

Ulquiorra slipped his arm around her waist to hide the gash in her dress, turned, and started walking her back the way he’d come. She wasn’t drunk this time. She walked steadily beside him, though she never once stopped shaking. “What happened?” he repeated after they’d gone a considerable distance.

“I ripped my dress trying to climb the fence.” Her voice was flat.

“Why were you climbing a fence?”

“To get away from him and her without them seeing me.” She didn’t look at him as he spoke. “Ulquiorra, am I an idiot?”

“No,” he replied, “you simply choose to put your faith in the wrong people.”

“I have to put my faith in the man I love. If I didn’t, I wouldn’t be worthy of him.”

Ulquiorra’s jaw clenched. He led her to where he’d parked his car, opened the passenger door for her, then went around to the driver’s side. It was a silent, ten minute drive back to their apartment. Once home, she retreated into her bedroom, and Ulquiorra went to take a shower. He would go to sleep, he decided. There was no point in being angry about something that was out of his hands. Take a shower, check on the woman, then go to sleep. Ask Grimmjow who had won the game in the morning. Claim illness for not staying up for the results.

He finished his shower, then walked across the hall to the woman’s room. She’d left her door slightly open, and he made sure to keep it that way once he’d entered. The woman sat on her bed with her knees drawn to her chest, but she wasn’t staring at her phone this time, waiting for a call. She gazed ahead with a dead expression, tears sliding down her cheeks. “If you’re going to try to cheer me up…”

Ulquiorra took her face in his hands and forced her to look at him. “I am not here to comfort you,” he said, then leaned down and stole a kiss from her lips.

When he pulled away, she stared at him with eyes like steel, made cold by betrayal. Then she drew him back and crushed her lips against his. There was no affection, no tenderness, no love. She did not love him. There was only need, and her hands pulling him down onto the bed with her.

And he knew he should have cared a little more about the lack of feeling on her part, but he didn’t. He hadn’t expected it. She needed his help to get out of her living nightmare. He pinned her arms on either side of her head and trailed kisses down her neck. Her legs wrapped around his waist, causing her ruined dress to hike up past her hips. His hands explored every curve of her body. Her breathing grew harsh in his ear.

He should have cared, a small part of him tried to tell him. But she was yanking up the bottom of his shirt, and he discarded it, letting her trembling fingers burn paths into his bare skin. Then his mouth was on hers again, and she was unclasping her bra and throwing it somewhere, and his hands were on her breasts, and her hips were pushing into his with an insistence that demanded an answer.

“We shouldn’t,” she moaned into his ear, but he knew that she wasn’t going to stop him. It was the stubborn optimist within her, begging her to remain true to her one and only lover. He silenced the optimist with a hand down her underwear. Her mewls turned into soft whimpers, her nails left crescents in his shoulders.

“We can stop,” he offered, though he really didn’t want to. She answered by using her feet to push down his pajama bottoms. He slid two fingers into her, met with resistance, and remembered that it had probably been a while since she’d been with her boyfriend. But if it hurt, she didn’t say so, only whispering a curse as he worked his fingers inside of her.

He kissed her hard, devouring every moan that escaped her lips, fisting her hair with his free hand. She seemed to be approaching an org*sm, so he stopped his fingers and pulled them out of her. Her whimpered complaint told him he’d been correct. “Please,” she murmured, pushing against him and drawing a groan. How could he refuse her? In seconds her underwear was off, and he was positioning himself at her entrance, and she was panting in his ear. And then he pushed into her slowly, and the feeling of her surrounding him was almost enough to drive reason from his mind.

There was no waiting, no patience, no asking if she was alright or gazing into each other’s eyes. If she did that, if she stopped to think about what she was doing, she would be forced to acknowledge that she was being unfaithful to her boyfriend. So he thrust into her, and sucked on the skin of her neck, concentrating only on the warmth and the tightness that enveloped his length. And she writhed beneath him, moving her hips in time with his, calling out his name and incoherent curses while her arms circled his shoulders and her fingers dragged through his hair.

They forgot the day, and the time, and the party, and the game, and the fact that she was madly in love with someone else. They forgot everything but each other and the pressure building between them. Her moans grew louder. His pace quickened. The rhythm was lost in desperation. Then he slid his hand back down and worked the bundle of nerves between her legs and she came so hard and so suddenly that she couldn’t hold in her scream. It was too much for him. He buried himself inside of her and groaned as he found his own release, shivering through each wave of pleasure that washed over his body.

They lay there intertwined, struggling to catch their breath. He leaned in and kissed her, but her lips hardly moved in reply. She was coming down from her high, starting to rationalize again. He could see it in the way she stared at him like she’d never seen him before in her life.

Ulquiorra left her there, closing her bedroom door the moment he was out in the hall. He needed another shower, andthenhe would go to sleep, because he didn’t want to think about it. He didn’t want to admit that he hadn’t gotten through to her at all.

Ulquiorra expected many different outcomes to the affair: the woman moving out, the woman being angry with him and never speaking to him again, the woman killing him in his sleep. What he had not expected was to come back from breakfast and find Ichigo Kurosaki in the living room.

Up to that point, Ulquiorra had only seen the infamous boyfriend in the woman’s portrait and heard his voice the night he’d told her he needed more time. But now the youth was standing from the sofa, a friendly smile on his face. “Hey, you must be Inoue’s roommate.”

Orihime’s head poked out of the kitchen. “Ah, welcome home! Look who came to visit!”

“Must be a pain to spell,” Ichigo said good-naturedly. “Thanks for taking such great care of Inoue. She has a habit of doing unpredictable things. For example”—he turned his attention to the woman, who had emerged from the kitchen with a pastry in hand—“where did you go last night? Tatsuki said you were right behind her, then you disappeared without telling anyone. She freaked. We almost called the police.”

Orihime pouted. “I texted her later.”

“Well, yeah, but I was really worried about you,” Ichigo said, which caused her face to light up with a dazzling smile. Then his gaze landed on the pastry. “I thought we were going out for breakfast.”

“We are! I’m warming up,” she said with a giggle.

Ichigo smiled and shook his head, then turned back to Ulquiorra, who hadn’t moved since he’d come through the door. “Want to join us?”

Ulquiorra remembered how to speak. “No. I just had breakfast myself.” He nodded at Ichigo, then shifted his gaze to Orihime. She averted her eyes and took a special interest in the floor. “It was nice meeting you,” he lied, then walked to his room and locked himself in.

It quickly became apparent to Ulquiorra that the woman’s boyfriend had only taken her out to assuage his guilt over bringing his lover to the homecoming party. This was an immense relief to him, but the woman clearly did not see it the same way. To her, it was a drink of water for her parched hopes, a summer rain after a drought. It meant that she was right to believe there was still a chance for her and Ichigo to fix the damage done to their relationship.

The affair remained unspoken of. Nothing changed between them. Ulquiorra’s mood worsened as the days passed, something that his best friend didn’t bring up, if he’d noticed. They were eating lunch together at a fast food burrito place when Ulquiorra interrupted their conversation with a question.

“How did you know you were in love?”

“Dude, that’s the gayest thing you’ve ever said to me.” Grimmjow’s eyes narrowed suspiciously. “Why do you ask?”

“I could use more material for my speech, lest I fill in the gaps with your high school escapades.”

“You makeonereference to my high school escapades, and I’ll chop your balls off.”

“I’d like to see you try.”

Grimmjow leaned back in his chair and scratched the fuzz on his chin. He’d neglected to shave that morning, which Ulquiorra knew irritated him. Grimmjow was a firm believer that beards were either for fat old men past their handsome fifties or hipsters. “How did I know I was in love… well, I guess it was when I started thinking about her all the time and wanted to kill every bastard that tried to chat her up. I’d watch something on TV and want to tell her about it. I saw stuff in stores and wondered if she’d like them. That sort of crap.”

“Mmhmm.” Ulquiorra picked up a chip and broke it apart.

“Then one day I was sitting there making plans for the future, and she was in all of them, and I was like,sh*t, I want to marry her. So I bought a ring and carried it around for two months before I got up the nerve to ask her.”

“And the rest is history,” Ulquiorra said in monotone.

“Don’t be condescending. You’re the one who asked, you little sh*t.”

With the university students on fall break, many took the long weekend to go home and visit their families, leaving the town half-deserted. Ulquiorra enjoyed the lighter traffic and quieter nights.

The woman was in and out of the apartment. On occasions where he did see her, she seemed restless, annoyed. Her hair was losing its luster and there were bags under her eyes that hadn’t been there days ago. Ulquiorra knew that it was only a matter of time before she came home drunk again or landed in the hospital with fatigue.

But he made no comment on her moods and appearance. He gave no indication that he cared because if he did, she would recoil from him, and it would hurt.

Having given himself Saturday and Sunday to relax, he resumed studying on Monday, when a steady downpour of rain caused flood warnings to be issued for the county. The swollen river had prevented the woman from going to work, so she’d spent her day between the internet and a marathon of a popular science fiction show.

Darkness fell, and Ulquiorra opted to read in bed instead of at his desk, hoping the rain would lull him to sleep. He’d just finished a section on Type I errors in statistical research when his door opened a little wider and the woman slipped inside. He stared at her. She stared back, and nudged the door shut with her foot.

She wore a light pink nightgown trimmed with white lace, and wore her hair in a messy bun, held up by a clip. Ulquiorra set aside his textbook, waiting for her to speak. She said nothing. Her bare feet made little sound on the carpet as she crossed the room, and when she climbed onto the bed and sat directly on his lap, he saw that the bags under her eyes were more pronounced than ever. Unable to help himself, he laid a hand on her cheek and traced the gray smudge with his thumb.

I’m being used, he thought as he pressed his lips against hers. She’d been using him from the start, hoping to make her boyfriend jealous by taking up residence with a strange guy. He’d figured out that much when Kurosaki had mentioned how much she’d praised him. But he kissed her anyway, with deliberate slowness, starting out soft in the hopes of communicatingsomethingto her. He tilted her head and deepened the kiss, sucking on her bottom lip until she sighed. He pulled the clip out of her hair, letting the auburn waves tumble down her back. The kiss grew more aggressive, lips parting, tongues sliding against each other. Her hands explored his torso and tugged at his shirt suggestively. He broke the kiss only long enough to remove the shirt, then his mouth was on hers again, and his arms were around her waist, bringing her closer. His hands moved down her backside, and he was surprised when he felt no layer of clothing beneath the nightgown. Now why would she choose to forego panties on a visit to his room?

He reluctantly ended the kiss, but got no reprieve from her seeking lips, which began to wander along his jaw, to his ear, down his neck. She nipped his clavicle and received an answering throb from between his legs. He grabbed her hips and pulled her down, groaning. Why was she doing this to him? How could someone so seemingly naïve willfully string him along?

She lowered the straps of her nightgown and freed her arms, letting the pink satin fall away from her breasts. His mouth was on them instantly, sucking and pulling on the sensitive skin. She whimpered, combed her fingers through his hair, bucked against the throbbing lump beneath her. He trailed a hand down her stomach until he found the bare skin beneath her nightgown and rubbed her cl*tor*s. She moaned and jerked into his fingers, breathing his name.

It wasn’t fair, he thought as he undid the drawstring of his pants with his other hand. He’d never asked to want her so badly. Why had he gotten involved? She kissed him hard, and suddenly her fingers were past the waistband of his pants and closing around his erection. Then it was his turn to curse as she stroked him, still jerking her own hips in time with her ministrations. He closed his eyes, lowering his head to her shoulder, whispering senselessly into her skin. And then she’d pulled him free, and her wet folds slid against his length. He seized her waist, heaved her up with a growl, and brought her down on him.

The woman wrapped her arms around his neck and began moving her hips, her bare breasts pressing into his chest. He pushed his own hips upwards, finding a slow rhythm she could keep up with. It could have almost passed for lovemaking if he hadn’t known better. His lips sought hers and her tongue dipped into his mouth. He kept his thrusts shallow, too obsessed with her heat and the way her walls pulled him in to lose a single inch of her warmth.

If this was what it would take to make her give up on her fantasy, he’d submit to it willingly. He’d let her use him until there was nothing left but the realization that her relationship had ended the moment Kurosaki had stuck his prick into someone else. How would the idiot feel if Ulquiorra told him that his sweet, loyal girlfriend had come onto him wearing virtually nothing?

It was a selfish thing to want, but he was a goner, and she was so incredibly tight, and the rain was falling harder, and her moans were filling the room, and the creak of the bed was driving him insane. He didn’t care that he was making love to her, and she was just f*cking him to feel wanted. There was still hope—oh hell, now she’d gottenhimsaying it. His grip on her waist tightened as he thrust into her faster, tasting the sweat on her lips. Her toes curled, and her back arched, and her breasts bounced with each meeting of their bodies. He was teetering on the edge of his sanity, and when her org*sm forced her walls down on his length, he swore he saw stars. He came deep inside of her, moaning her name into her neck.

Once his ears had stopped ringing and the sound of the rain came back into focus, he opened his eyes. The woman fixed her nightgown in a hasty, self-conscious sort of way, mumbled something about a condom, and slid off his lap. He sighed at the loss of her warmth.

She made to leave, but hesitated at the door, keeping her back to him. “You haven’t… You haven’t told anyone about what we did, have you?”

“No,” he replied.

Her shoulders sagged with relief. “Okay. Thank you.” She disappeared into the darkness, and he hated himself a little more for loving her.

As the days grew colder, the woman’s moods became more erratic. She would be flying high one moment because Ichigo called her and she justknewthat their break would be over soon, and the next she would plummet into anxiety and despair, and that was when she’d seek Ulquiorra out. He could not predict the length of either extreme. All he knew was that he enjoyed her more often than he should, and Kurosaki seemed to be calling with increasing frequency, which he did not enjoy at all.

It wasn’t that he did not want the woman to be happy. He simply did not believe that her happiness would last long with the likes of Ichigo Kurosaki, who he’d seen on campus a few days prior, arguing with the petite, raven-haired girl.

If there was any happiness to be had, Ulquiorra wanted it to be with him. He was neither the best person in the world nor the kind of prince the woman seemed to crave, but that didn’t mean he was too incompetent to treat her right. If it hadn’t been for the unspoken rules of their affair, he’d have offered to take the woman out when she needed distractions. He’d have brought her things. He would have encouraged her to seek an even higher education, become a certified teacher, or take business classes and open her own bakery. She had the potential, and she’d expressed the desire.

He wanted to see her flourish independently, yes, but he wouldn’t have minded if she’d done so by his side.

“I feel really good about tonight!” the woman said as she adjusted her tight black dress. It was Halloween, and she’d powdered her face and painted her lips blue for a dead look. She’d wanted to be scary, but also cute, because Ichigo was going to be at the party, and she wouldn’t run away from him this time.

Ulquiorra let out a “hmm” and kept his gaze on his computer screen. He’d gotten an email from his head professor containing several published articles on the theory of equity in relationships. The woman sighed loudly.

“Can’t you at least pretend to be happy for me?”

Ulquiorra’s irritation flared. “No. I believe that no amount of seduction on your part will be enough to win back a man who has given his heart to someone else. You will get hurt.”

“You’re wrong,” Orihime declared, grabbing her purse and throwing her cell phone inside. “See, the reason I wasn’t getting anywhere before is because I kept playing the victim, but not anymore. No sir. I’m going to fight for my boyfriend, and he’ll be so impressed that there’s no way he’ll be able to maintain this—eep!” She’d turned and bumped straight into Ulquiorra, who had left his computer on the table and was standing beside her. “What—”

He interrupted her with a kiss and gripped the counter on either side of her body, trapping her there. This was definitely breaking the rules, but she had to know that this wasn’t a game to him. He didn’t sleep with her to do her favors. He wanted her all to himself, and she must have known that, shehadto know…

He pulled back and looked at her. She blinked twice, then her brow furrowed. “What are you doing?”

Ulquiorra felt like he’d been punched in the stomach.

He let go of the counter and walked to his bathroom, leaning over the sink until he heard the front door open and shut—the woman had left for the party. He lifted his gaze to his reflection and saw a pale face with dark smudges beneath narrowed green eyes, and lips tinged blue from the woman’s makeup. He turned on the water and wiped his mouth until it hurt.

On the day of the first snow, Ulquiorra came home to find the living room piled with boxes. He stood in the doorway, letting in the cold, until the woman appeared with an armful of towels and said, “Brr, it’s freezing out there! Close the door!”

“Is your roommate home?” Ichigo Kurosaki’s voice called from her bedroom.

“What’s going on?” Ulquiorra asked.

Orihime beamed at him. “Ichigo and I patched things up. I’m moving back in with him, effective immediately!” She dropped the towels into the box, just as the boyfriend in question came up behind her and kissed her cheek. “This one’s full, if you wanted to take it to the car?”

Ichigo reached over her and tucked in the box flaps. “We’re making good time,” he said. Then he addressed Ulquiorra, who had yet to close the door. “Nice to see you again! We’ll try to get this done as soon as possible. Packing’s noisy, I know.”

“Noisy,” Ulquiorra agreed. He held the door open for Ichigo, then let it fall shut as soon as the boyfriend was out of the apartment. “So that’s it, then,” he said to Orihime.

She was happy. Obnoxiously so. “It all happened so suddenly!”

“And you don’t think that’s suspicious?”

Her smile faltered just a bit. “Come on, Ulquiorra. I’m trying to be positive here.”

“Why?” he asked, walking up to her. “What hold does this man have over you that you cannot fathom a life without him? Why do you waste your time with him?”

“He isnota waste of time. He’s my boyfriend! He loves me!”

“And what about me?” Ulquiorra hissed. “What has he done to prove his love in the past few months? When has he ever once been there for you? He abandoned you to try to make things work with someone else and whenthatfell through, he settled for second best. How long do you think you’ll have him back before he cheats on you again?” Orihime stood her ground, glaring at him defiantly, and it only made him love her more. “I’m not saying this to be cruel or unfair. I am genuinely concerned for your wellbeing.”

“Thank you for your concern,” she ground out, “but this is my choice, and I won’t have you ruining my good mood.”

“Will you tell him, then?”

“What?”

“Will you tell him what you did with me? He loves you, after all, enough to be honest about his own infidelity. Don’t you owe him the same?” Her defiance vanished, panic evident on her face. “No,” Ulquiorra said, “you won’t tell him. And do you know why? Because your confidence in your relationship is a sham. You don’t believe that he will still love you if you’re anything less than perfect.”But I will,he neglected to add,I already do.

“Get away from her!” Neither of them had noticed the door opening, Ichigo entering and finding his girlfriend backed into a counter by her pissed off roommate. He ran across the apartment and shoved Ulquiorra away.

But that was the breaking point for Ulquiorra, and his fist connected with Ichigo’s jaw, sending his rival staggering. The woman screamed. Ichigo launched himself at Ulquiorra again, and then they were fighting, knocking boxes and furniture over, beating each other bloody. “Stop it!” the woman screamed. She grabbed Ichigo’s arm, but he pushed her aside and she hit the wall with a pained gasp. Enraged, Ulquiorra came at him with renewed strength. They ended up on the floor, with Ulquiorra repeatedly slamming his fist into Ichigo’s face. “Stop, please! You’re going to kill him!” He’d thrown her into a wall, and she was still on his side. Why? It wasn’t fair, it wasn’t fair,it wasn’t fair.

No one saw Ichigo reach for the knife they’d been using as a box cutter. Ulquiorra didn’t feel it go into his chest.

He did see it, however, and heard the woman’s horrified shriek. The man beneath him was barely conscious. Truth be told, he was feeling a little short of breath himself. He sat back and pushed himself away from Ichigo, staring at the handle of the knife protruding from his chest and the blood soaking his shirt. He settled against the wall for support, dazed, unable to believe that he’d lost his temper.

“Inoue,” Ichigo rasped, “call 911…”

Ulquiorra struggled for breath, felt the taste of copper in his mouth. He must have looked like a monster to the woman, some evil creature who wanted nothing more than to take her happiness away. Oh, the irony.

He sat there, gingerly touching the knife handle and thinking,So this is love: that deranged, fiery passion that drove good girls to sleep with their roommates and intelligent men to hurt nice women and fight each other like Neanderthals. So this was love, in all its disgusting splendor. He’d never asked for this. He’d never wanted it.

The woman had handed the phone to her boyfriend, who was trying to talk to the dispatcher through tears. “I didn’t mean for it to happen.” Of course he hadn’t. None of them had meant for any of this to happen.

Ulquiorra tried to blink away the blurriness of his vision, but it was getting worse, and he was bleeding so badly. He looked to the woman, held his hand out to her. She’d started all this. Perhaps she could end it, too.

She came closer, tears spilling down her cheeks.God, she was beautiful when she cried.

Her fingertips brushed Ulquiorra’s, but his hand fell onto his leg, and his head slumped to the side, and Ichigo sobbed, and the world reeled around Orihime and this wasn’t happening. It couldn’t be happening. She’d just wanted to be happy.

They’d all just wanted to be happy.

Ichigo Kurosaki was not found guilty. Orihime’s testimony was sufficient to convince the jury that he’d been overpowered and had acted in self-defense. After the trial, she left the college town, but not before her and Ichigo’s relationship collapsed under the strain of his guilt-ridden conscience. “Good f*cking riddance,” Grimmjow had said to that.

When they went in to clean out Ulquiorra’s apartment, one of the first things they picked up was the speech he had completed for his best friend’s wedding reception. It was as beautiful to read as all were certain it would have been to hear, and concluded thusly: