Disclaimer: I do not own Bleach or any characters therein. I do not profit by writing or uploading this work of fiction. Any similarities to people or places in real life is incidental and unintentional.
As a barista, Orihime saw a large variety of people. Fat, thin, short, tall, ugly, attractive, young and old all came in to get coffee. The café she worked in wasn't a huge chain, but it was still coffee. She liked to pride herself on remembering people and names. Some of the people who came in never came back, and some religiously picked up their drink of choice every day.
This was why she noticed a certain guy with green eyes who just kept coming in. She had hoped he wouldn't, actually. The first time Orihime had seen this customer was a slow and hot Monday afternoon.
"I dare you to write a cheesy pick-up line on the cup of the next customer's drink." Tatsuki drawled, from where she slouched over the counter, fanning herself uselessly with napkins. They hadn't seen anyone in the past three hours, and Orihime was dying of boredom and heat stroke. "Challenge accepted." She said, and they waited.
Half an hour later a man came in. Tatsuki's face went from dead to sly, and Orihime blinked. He wasn't incredibly tall, with a shaggy mop of black hair, but his eyes were incredible. It was hard to tell his body type under the suit that looked like way too many clothes for the heat wave outside, and Orihime smiled at him, a mental image of Kurosaki tugging loose a tie popping up unbidden.
Even with the heat, the man ordered a black tea. So Orihime popped loose a Sharpie to scribble her pick-up line. I don't have a library card, but do you mind if I check you out? Tatsuki snickered the whole way, and Orihime was glad for the heat to disguise her flushed face.
But then he came back. Next Monday, four-thirty. She ducked into the back and shook Tatsuki violently, nearly causing the demise of two mocha lattes. "He's back." She hissed, though it wasn't likely he could hear her. Her best friend rolled her eyes. "Ichigo?" She asked, and Orihime shook her head, heart racing. "The pick-up line guy. From last week." She clarified, and looked over her shoulder quickly.
Tatsuki laughed at her, snapping the lids on the two drinks. "Well, give him another one." The dark-haired girl said, and Orihime anxiously took his order. It was black tea, again, and she hastily scribbled on the cup: Your body is 65% water and I'm thirsty.
Each week, at four-thirty on the dot, he came in. Her messages ranged from sweet to dirty to ridiculous. He didn't make small talk, but she decided he was hot and always thanked her as though she had done a great service. "Ask him out." Tatsuki recommended, when the weather grew cold and the café crowded. She had spluttered, choking on her words. "I don't even know his name." She protested.
This wasn't exactly true, because a few weeks later, he asked if they had a newsletter, and then she knew his name, number, and email. Tatsuki had given her a very pointed look afterwards, and she blushed, ears burning. "It's against company policy to use customer info for personal use." She said. But every Monday morning she was looking up cheesy pick-up lines.
One week their schedule hiccupped. College students were off, and crowded the café for wifi and caffeine. It was a Friday, and chilly and pouring rain in a very Spring sort of way, when she saw Ulquiorra come in, with a blue-haired man in tow who was very loud and very close. His boyfriend, she assumed at first, because inevitably the guys she was attracted to ended up gay, like Ichigo.
But then they reached the counter and the man with the dyed hair raked her from head to toe with his eyes and grinned. "If all baristas looked like this, I would drink coffee 'till my heart stopped." They were both soaked, and their white shirts were transparent as a result. She was flustered by attractive male abdomens and flustered by the compliment and almost forgot to write a pick-up line on the cup.
Tatsuki was the life saver who gave them their drinks, and Chizuru handled the counter while Orihime tried to calm her racy heart and sudden horniness down. When she came back to the counter, to her horror, they were still there. "I hope you wrote something like, 'your clothes aren't the only things soaked'." Chizuru commented as Orihime tried very, very hard not to stare at the two who should have, judging by every other time Ulquiorra had been here, left immediately.
Six weeks and Tatsuki cornered her. "Ask him out. He's not going to ask you." She said, and Orihime stared with unhidden horror as she looked for an escape past her friend. Tatsuki was ruthlessly efficient, blocking Orihime's attempt to dash past her. "I can't. I don't know what to say or how to say it! Aren't the guys supposed to do the asking? Doesn't it mean he's not interested?" She wailed, with the same level of emotion reserved for ill puppies and world hunger.
Her friend was unrelenting. "Write something on his cup." She said, and scowled in an attempt to look foreboding. "If he says no, fine. If yes, great. If you don't, I'm setting you up on a date with Chizuru." And that was all Orihime needed to anxiously anticipate Ulquiorra on Monday, at four-thirty. She spent the whole first portion of the day googling lines, showing Tatsuki what she had found and then, finally, writing it on the cup and thrusting it into the green-eyed man's hands.
He thanked her, left, and she deflated. "He probably doesn't even read them." She said to Tatsuki, as wiped down one of the machines. Tatsuki had no rebuttal, offering a sympathetic look instead. Five minutes later, the bell at the door jingled.
Orihime watched more than a little fearfully as Ulquiorra strode across the café and slammed the cup onto the counter with an interesting show of force. Written neatly on the cup, her message lay:
If I were to ask you out on a date, would your answer be the same as the answer to this question?
He turned, strode out again with the same sort of fiery purpose. Orihime picked up the cup, worrying her lip between her teeth, and rotated it slowly. Scrawled on the other side with a pen was:
If the answer to that question is yes, then my answer is the same – Ulquiorra 356-4444
Later, she would never admit she had screamed and then passed out, even after he admitted he'd had a crush on her since the first day and awful pick-up line.