Disclaimer: Not mine.
This takes place after the latest chapters!
"What's that?" she asks, not out of childish curiosity, but because her one eye is so bruised over she can't see what lies on the plate in front of her. Orihime doesn't often speak to Ulquiorra anymore. She has given up on ever having conversation with a man like him.
"Food," is his flat reply, and Orihime is tempted to glare at him, but she knows her face would only make him laugh; it's a mess right now. The first night he had come back she had hoped he would show guilt at leaving her there to be beaten up by the two girls Arrancar. But nothing had flickered across his face… she is still angry about it.
"I don't want it," says ungraciously, turning her head to the side as if that proves her defiance.
Ulquiorra doesn't seem to care as much as he used to. "Your funeral," he informs her gravely, and she hears a hint of sarcasm or some sort of ironic humor in his words, but she doesn't fully understand. He's been distracted this last week, ever since Ichigo's…
But he doesn't leave. He stays standing at the end of the sofa, while she sits curled up on the other side. The cart of food rests a foot away from her, taunting her. She ignores it. She doesn't speak.
Neither does he.
"You can leave," she tells him curtly.
"I'd rather not; this is far too enjoyable." She can't miss the dryness in his voice now. But she has no authority over him. Orihime knows he is far too powerful for her to overtake (at the moment), and back-talking him will do nothing but anger him. That's not what she wants to do at the moment.
"I'm not going to eat. I'm not hungry."
"I believe you've already told me that."
She doesn't look at him, but she can feel his heavy gaze on her profile and she feels embarrassed. It is the side of her face that's purple and swollen from the bruises; her eye is hidden by damage made by that one girl with the dark hair. It hurts, but Ulquiorra had told one of his servants to dress the wounds. It throbs, but it's not bleeding anymore like it was a week (was it really a week?) ago.
"It doesn't hurt anymore, if that's what you're worried about," she finally tells him, rather unwillingly.
"I'm not worried," Ulquiorra says mildly. "You seem fine."
It's that one sentence that triggers something inside of her. Fine. Fine? How does she seem fine? She is stuck in a room, wounds on her face and covering her eye, trapped doing nothing while her friends fade away one by one. She doesn't have the will to live anymore, and he says she seems fine?
"Are you really as cold as you look?" she asks him sharply, still staring resolutely at the wall at the far end of the room. He doesn't seem to ever have a feeling flicker in his eyes, an emotion cross his face. He seems like a… statue.
Her captor is silent. She takes a chance to glance over at him. He is still watching her, arms crossed stiffly across his chest. His face is blank. Too blank. Ulquiorra is thinking about her words, but trying not to show that he is.
"Why don't you find out?" he finally asks, his tone emotionless to match his expression. But his words make something jump inside of her. Orihime doesn't know what it is, but she decidedly stands up and walks over to him. She hesitates only a brief second before lifting her arm and placing her hand delicately on his cheek.
It isn't normal. That's her first thought. He is too cold for a human, too cold for something that lives and breathes and moves. His face is like ice, and touching his cheek even as lightly as she is feels like she has jumped head-first into the Arctic ocean.
She steps away quickly, her teeth chattering. The feeling is so sudden, so abrupt, and so all-consuming that Orihime is thrown off balance. Ulquiorra looks the same as he always does; Orihime has seen nothing change in his face. It is so different from the time she slapped him. She had been so full of heated anger then that she hadn't noticed the difference. But now…
"You're hiding again," whispers Orihime softly. At these quiet words Ulquiorra's brow lifts a centimetre. She noticed, and Orihime wonders if that is a problem.
"Really?" he asks, and she can feel another, harder question coming from him. She anticipates it. "And what have you been doing all this time?"
Orihime wants to slap him again, but his face is innocently expressionless. She doesn't know what to make of it.
"I was right," she says instead, ignoring his query. "You're as cold as I thought you were." Orihime turns around with a swish of her Arrancar outfit and sits daintily at the far edge of the sofa, as far way from Ulquiorra as possible.
Silence ensues. It is only ten minutes later Orihime risks a glance in his direction and sees that he's left the room already, as silent as a shadow. As a ghost.