happily ever after
The dream is incredibly muddled and it's a flash of white gray black and clashing swords, empty rooms and eyes. When Orihime wakes up all she can remember is a single figure in ripped white robes change to black and disintegrate in a matter of seconds. Ulquiorra- she thinks, and suddenly she remembers how green his eyes were, like the sour apple popsicles only the store down the street sold that she ate no matter what the season, and her thoughts swirl and swirl until all she can imagine is Ulquiorra's eyes as popsicles, and the lines down his face as dripping juice. She promptly gets out of bed, brushes her teeth because you always should, even when you had eaten nothing between the last time you had brushed your teeth at night, and heads to the convenience store without remembering to change out of her pajamas. She buys two popsicles and heads home.
She realizes that popsicles probably aren't the best thing to eat in the mornings, but when she looks at her clock it's already eleven, so it's technically lunch time. Scrunching her face up, she tries to imagine what Tatsuki would say in this situation- she always gave Orihime the best advice, like oh, Orihime, don't eat instant ramen for a week if you're low on money, it's not healthy, just come to my house and Orihime didn't think she would approve of popsicles in the morning, or around lunch. Well, she's already started to eat them, and it wasn't good to let things go to waste, so she finishes the two and starts making lunch. Why she even got popsicles in the first place, that's a thought just out of her reach, but it had something to do with Ulquiorra.
It's been a long time since she's thought of Ulquiorra. Orihime's always been good at pushing things she didn't want to remember away, but maybe things always came back anyway. She thinks about this for a moment, and then looks to down to see she has added too much butter in the mix, in fact, she's added more than too much. "Oh well!" she says aloud. "I like butter." The words ring throughout the empty house.
When the food is done, she sits down and sticks her spoon in it, and she can't quite recall what she was attempting to make, but the end result is buttery and salty and she can taste red bean paste, which is funny because she didn't put that in. She sits primly on her chair on like a lady and thinks that it was a pretty good meal. The meals at Hueco Mundo had been tasteless and boring, not at all what she was used to, and it was hard to force them down. But during those times she always pretended she was back home, and the food was really marvelous cooking she had done with lots of spices and flavors, or she would pretend a famous chef had prepared this all for her and it was delicious. Sometimes it worked and sometimes it didn't, but she always at it because she knew Ulquiorra would shove it down her throat without even blinking, if he even blinked, because Orihime can't remember anymore. Orihime wanted to rebellious for her friends, but someone force-feeding her probably wasn't going to help them, she had reasoned.
She wonders idly if Ulquiorra would eat what she cooked . Then she remembers he had a hole in his throat and he was dead, anyways, dead, evil, and dust. Aizen was probably like that too. They had won- Ichigo had won, Orihime had won, and the good guys prevail again. It reminded her of a movie she had watched about space aliens, or had it been astronauts, maybe it was the same movie, and how the space aliens had all these cool powers that the astronauts couldn't even believe but in the end they somehow won. It's the same now, and even when she thinks of defeating Aizen a bubble of happiness wells up inside her and she smiles, but things didn't turn out perfectly. Orihime had it all planned out; her confession to an awake Ichigo, Ichigo's reaction, maybe some drama here and there to make it more interesting, but it always ended up with Ichigo falling in love with her too. Instead he's heading off to the Soul Society to train, maybe, or to be with Rukia, and while Orihime might be important to him, he wasn't falling in love with her, was he? Uryuu's also important to Ichigo but they're not in love. Chad's important to Ichigo, too, and they're not in love. Why did she think she was different?
Because that was how it was supposed to be, she thinks stubbornly, and she takes it back because she wants Ichigo and Rukia to be happy too.
Ulquiorra- what did he look like again? Sad expression, blank expression, green eyes and green lines. She knows this much, but she can't quite picture this together. And he had black hair, Orihime suddenly recalls, and that funny horned helmet hat. She also remembers giant wings like a dragons and spidery feet with clawed feet. She was like the princess, she thinks, and Ulquiorra was the dragon guarding her, and Ichigo was her prince, ready to do anything to save her. In fairy tales Orihime always hated when the dragon was killed because dragons breathed fire and had beautiful scales, and it was just their nature to capture princesses for no reason.
Her lunch is cold, and she doesn't feel like eating anymore, so she shoves it in the fridge for dinner. She realizes that she still hasn't changed out of her pajamas so she goes and changes into a bright green dress that people always said went well with her hair, which didn't make sense because wouldn't orange go better with her hair, or red, but she's not really a redhead even though people call her that. Her hair is orange. She really likes this dress because it's the same color as grass, and she can sit there and pretend she's a fairy with clothes made out of leaves, living in a little hole in a tree and eating honey all day long.
They're not green like his eyes, though, and she wonders if that color would go with her hair also. Somehow, it really bothers her that she can't remember what he looked like, because what if one day she wakes up and wonders what his name was, or how she knew him, or why he even mattered? What if one day she could only remember his green eyes and nothing else?
Of course not, she chides herself, she would never forget that. There are some things in life that just can't be erased out of your head, and being kidnapped was one of those things. She wouldn't forget Ulquiorra either, because he was his captor and she had watched on TV that captors leave big impressions on their captives, or something like that. She hadn't really been paying attention at the time but she thinks that's what the program had said. And maybe tomorrow she'd wake up and picture him perfectly, like he was right there standing next to the bed with those big green eyes staring right at her in the way only he did. It had been like he was looking at her very soul and trying to figure out how it worked, like a soul was some kind of machine that could be taken apart, examined, and repaired.
She walks to Sora's shrine and just kneels there for a while, thinking. It's like a tradition; kneel, think in silence, and then maybe say a few things. Orihime can feel an entire story on her tongue, waiting to be told, but somehow she gets stuck telling it. "Onii-chan, she starts, "Remember when I told you about the time when, um-" She trails off in the middle of the sentence, composes herself, and then begins again. "When I was help captive, there was a-"
She's not sure how to explain this though, not even to her brother, whose shrine sits there patient and waiting for her words. In the end she asks, "When I was little you always told me not to eat too many sweets in a day, right? Well, um, I was wondering if maybe I could break that rule for just one day. It's just a day, honestly. I think that will be fine, don't you?"
Her brother's picture smiles at her, and she feels a bundle of confidence. "Alright, thanks onii-chan!"
She slathers on some sun lotion for protection because the summer sun here burns her pale skin until she's covered in red patches when she forgets, and heads out the door in her grass-green dress. The heat outside is sticky and oppressive, like honey is being thrown over her, and the walk seems too long. Finally she reaches the store and feels the air conditioning prickle at her skin. They've changed shifts already, it seems, because there was a different girl at the counter than the one from the morning, and she gives Orhime a friendly nod as Orihime walks.
Orihime buys two popsicles, one for her and one for nostalgia, and eats them outside in the sweltering heat. Once, out of the corner of her eye, she sees a silent black haired figure, but when she turns her head the image dissolves like dust.