Author's Note: I do not own Bleach, but I AM trying to read the whole series, which, may potentially, take up my whole life only for me to get pissed by the ending (as I did with Naruto, but I stopped after chapter 124 cause then my friend's like, "Naruto ended! He ended up with Hinata and Sakura married Sasuke!" Sorry if you haven't read Naruto and seen the ending). Anyway, THIS ONE IS DEDICATED TO MY FRIEND, because it's less depressing and I realize that she's not exactly the most embracing of depressing things. There is a touch of depressingness in this story, but not really, so I hope this one is lighter. It kind of got away from me and I haven't really looked it over yet, but anyway, here you go! Please review, no flames! Oh yeah, and we went over what "consent" is, in class a couple of thousand times so all those times when someone kisses you and doesn't ask, yeah, that's not consensual unless you've told them it's okay!

Of Stolen Kisses, Consent & Flies Made of Butter
By: Setkia

"What was that?" she asks the fourth Espada, touching her lips gently.

There is no hesitation, no emotion in his reply. As usual. "That was the joining of two mouths for," here he pauses briefly, "approximately two seconds. It is, I believe, what humans would call a kiss."

"No," she says, shaking her head. "What was that?"

Though his face does not change, nor do his eyes flicker with confusion his tone has a slight rise at the end, indicating his lack of comprehension. "You already said that."

"What did that mean," she corrects herself. "Why ... why did you kiss me?"

"Did I need a reason, woman?"

"Yes!" she cries, "yes you needed a reason! Do you know what the significance of a kiss is?" She stares at the ground and remembers that before she left she had been so close to him, so close to having her first kiss with him, but she had stopped herself at the last second. Now her first kiss was stolen by the enemy.

Ulquiorra looks at her with the same void expression. "The meaning of the touching of two mouths-"

"It's a kiss, okay? It's called a kiss!" Orihime cuts him off. "If my name is Orihime, then you call me Orihime, not woman! And if the touching of two mouths is called a kiss, you call it a kiss!" Shaking her head she sighs and runs her fingers through her hair. "Why did you kiss me?"

Ulquiorra blinks. "Woman, do not repeat pointless things to me."

Orihime sighs once more and throws her hands into the air, giving up on the idea of getting an answer from the pale Arrancar. He doesn't do it on purpose, at least, she hopes not or else he's truly infuriating, he just doesn't understand humans, or "trash" as he calls them. She turns to leave, or rather to head to her usual corner of the room when he speaks up.

"Did it bring you displeasure?"

She spins around at this and looks at him incredulously. "Did it bring me displeasure?" From the way he frowns, though he always appears to be frowning, he doesn't understand why she's repeated his words. "How about you? Did it bring you displeasure?" she mocks his fancy way of speech, her tone sarcastic and her voice containing a trace of venom.

Ulquiorra blinks once more, confusion, though well-hidden, visible in his eyes. He looks slightly taken aback. Blinking once more, he seems to think for a moment before replying, "I did not find it unenjoyable."

"Did not find it unenjoyable?" Orihime repeats.

"It's becoming tedious of you to continuously repeat what I say," he says with the closest thing to a sigh Ulquiorra is capable of.

"Until you give me a good answer, I shall continue to be 'tedious' as you so eloquently put it!" With this, she crosses her arms and stares at him defiantly. "Why did you kiss me?"

"Did it bring you displeasure?" he repeats, traces of annoyance beginning to creep into his voice. He doesn't enjoy it when she repeats herself and he clearly hates repeating himself as much, if not more.

Orihime realizes they're at an impasse. They will not move forward until she answers his question and she refuses to answer it. Being the first to break would disprove the whole point of going to Hueco Mundo. The goal was to lessen the burden on others, to prove that she can fight as well as Rukia-chan or Sado-kun.

Ulquiorra is looking at her with those emerald eyes of his, the ones that hide so much and show so little. He's getting impatient, she can already tell, though it's strange considering he is usually mild-tempered.

Biting her lip, she shakes her head. "N-no, it didn't bring me displeasure."

Ulquiorra gives a curt nod and turns around, his tailcoat long and sweeping across the floor when she grabs his arm and he freezes.

"What are you doing, woman?"

Her mouth goes dry and she honestly does not know. She wasn't even aware she had reached out but now she's holding his arm in her frail, warm hand while his cold of his skin can be felt through his uniform. It's different from touching Kurosaki-kun, but though she feels like shivering, she doesn't quite hate the feel.

"You act like it was no big deal, but that was my first kiss!" she confesses.

"It was mine as well," Ulquiorra says as though he's merely mentioning the weather.

"Do you know the significance of a kiss to humans?" Orihime presses. "Do you?"

"I suppose you relate it to one of your pathetic 'emotions', correct?" he deadpans.

"Our emotions are not pathetic! Girls remember their first kisses, a first kiss means something to a girl, it's like a milestone in their life, they can't take it back, it's happened and its a big deal! You didn't even ask my permission, you just kissed me! What if I didn't want to kiss you? Then what would you have done?"

Ulquiorra's frown deepens, if possible and a trace of confusion can be found in his eyes. "You say if you didn't want to kiss me, which means you wanted to kiss me, so I fail to see how my negligence to inquire whether or not you wished for me to do as I did is relevant."

"Fail to see how it is relevant?" Orihime repeats. "It's the principle of the whole thing! You can't just steal a girl's first kiss and not expect her to be angry about it!"

"I see," he says slowly and she's certain she can see the clogs turning as his brain tries to process this information as he relates it to their conversation. "Though I do not recall taking anything from you, unless you believe that the fact of kissing is synonymous with the act of theft, I suppose one could be upset. Would it have been more preferable if Kurosaki were the one to rid you of your first kiss?"

Orihime's brows furrow. Not because she finds what he says confusing, though it is no doubt, far too wordy to convey a simple question, it is because she is not sure. Would she have preferred Kurosaki-kun to have been her first kiss?

She tries to remember standing over his body, leaning in close and feeling his silent exhales touch her face. She had stopped before their lips had even grazed each other. Why had she stopped?

Perhaps it was because she didn't truly believe she would be gone, that he would save her and she would return and she would have another opportunity to kiss the orange haired Shinigami. She does have much faith in his ability to defeat his enemies and though saving her from Hueco Mundo would be asking for much, she has no doubt he's capable of it.

But no, she had been surprised when Ulquiorra had announced their arrival. She had not thought he would come, she had not believed in Kurosaki-kun's strength to rescue her and yet she had not kissed him when she had the chance.

Maybe it was because he was sleeping and she wanted her first kiss to be with him while he knew who she was, who he was kissing, but when she believed she would never return again to the World of the Living, she wouldn't have cared whether or not he was asleep.

Did she really save her first kiss because she didn't want Kurosaki-kun to be the one to take it?

Ulquiorra watches her as she analyzes her actions and tries to come up with a solid conclusion. He watches the way her brows furrow and her hands fiddle, how her eyes are so very focused, unaware of the strand of hair that's fallen into her line of vision. Human emotions flicker across her face, her eyes and her eyebrows, her mouth and her nose forming expressions, the way she mouths some words aloud, the way her nose crinkles in concentration. Human emotions have always been pointless to Ulquiorra but now, watching this Inoue Orihime concentrate, he finds them amusing. He does not find them to be a weakness, does not think of them as a nuisance, no, he finds them. . . beautiful.

Or perhaps it's the one who is portraying all these emotions.

Probably not though.

He's an Espada, Espadas do not have time to stand rapt in awe at the beauty of a long, orange haired girl with eyes the colour of ash. And yet he does not look away.

Finally when the silence becomes too much, he speaks. "Have you come to a conclusion, woman?"

She doesn't even tell him not to call her "woman". Instead her head raises slightly and she meets his gaze. There's the slightest widening of his eyes, unable to believe she has the courage to look at him head on. "Yeah," she says quietly. "I think I have."

Ulquiorra remains silent, not wanting to seem anxious, though there's a feeling welling up in his chest and his non-existent heart is beating furiously, pounding against his uniform, against his rib cage. He does not want to press but he has to bite the inside of his cheek, which goes unnoticed by the contemplating girl, to keep himself from speaking.

"Yes, I think I may have preferred Kurosaki-kun's kiss to be my first, as opposed to you, Ulquiorra."

He's expecting it but still, he aches a little. Five lifetimes. Five. It may be a lower rank than he, but it is significant to humans.

"Because," she continues, "then you would be my second. If you were my second and Kurosaki-kun was my first, then I would be used to it and know whether or not this feeling in the pit of my stomach is normal or not."

"Feeling in the pit of your stomach?" he repeats and mentally chides himself as he does. He hates repetition.

"Yes, it feels kind of funny, sort of like there are butterflies in my stomach."

"What are these butterflies you speak of?" Ulquiorra asks. The fauna in Hueco Mundo is limited to sand and rocks, conditions he assumes are not suitable for flies of butter, if that is indeed what they are.

"Their little insects that are absolute beautiful," Orihime replies, "they have really pretty wings and- I think you're like a butterfly," she says suddenly, tilting her head to the side slightly.

"Oh?" He can't help the word that escapes his mouth before he can force it shut.

"Yeah, I mean, they're really pretty, like, really, really pretty with lots of colour and stuff-" seeing Ulquiorra's blank expression, she hurriedly adds, "but there are some that are very simple and have few colours, sometimes only three in total. But anyway, they don't always look like that. They're caterpillars first and caterpillars look ugly in comparison. They have to transform through metamorphosis to show their true colours. You remind me of the Monarch. It's a kind of butterfly that has poisonous eggs to protect others from eating them. You need to grow and when you grow, you become beautiful and yet you're still venomous and very protective. Like a Monarch."

Ulquiorra is shocked to say the least.

Beautiful.

He has never known the word before and has only ever come to understand it since meeting this bubbly girl with the magical hairpins. Beautiful is colour, light, strength and courage. Beautiful is the defiance in one's eyes, their will to stay strong and alive, even when the world is against them. Beautiful is what he would call the woman in front of him.

But beautiful could never apply to himself.

"I see ," he says slowly. "And did you perhaps consume a butterfly for it to be inside of you?"

Orihime gives him a small smile and shakes her head, giggling a little. "No, it's an expression."

"And are these metaphorical 'butterflies' a good sign, or a bad one?"

Orihime shrugs. "I'm not quite sure. I don't feel good, exactly but it's not necessarily bad."

Ulquiorra wonders how this woman manages to confuse him so much with so few words. A mere few minutes ago she was horribly mad at him for "stealing a kiss", which has nothing to do with actual theft and now she's turning red and staring at the ground.

"Why are your cheeks red, woman?" he asks.

"Because," she says in a quiet voice, "you're very intense, did you know?"

Intense? What does that mean?

"Um, Ulquiorra?"

"Speak up woman, I can't hear you," he commands sharply, trying to sort out his mind while staying on task at the same time.

"C-can I kiss you?"

Ulquiorra stares at her with his "intense" gaze. "Is this the permission you spoke of earlier?"

"Y-yes," Orihime replies, staring at the ground once more.

"You will look at me when you speak to me," he instructs her and she hesitantly looks up. Her eyes are wandering around the room, trying to look at anything but his own. "Look at me," he commands.

She does.

"Does this permission, consent-asking, must it occur only for kissing?"

"Um, n-no," she says. "It can apply to other things." She avoids his eyes before remembering his commanding voice and meets his gaze once more, though she trembles under it.

He is much taller than her, not as tall as Kurosaki-kun, but he is tall. Slowly, he approaches her and towers over her and she finds herself shaking not with fear, but with anticipation.

He leans down and gently presses his lips against hers, holding still for approximately four seconds. Odd numbers are too much of hassle for him to bother with. He pulls away and looks down at her.

Orihime blinks.

Slowly, her mind seems to process what has just occurred. Suddenly, she realizes once again, he has done something with asking for her permission.

SMACK!

Ulquiorra does not blink.

"I did not consent to that, Orihime."