'To thine own self be true'
Chapter 1
There is something very beautiful about the autumnal season. The sun is always shining, which is weird considering summer has been and gone and we hardly ever had a good full week of sunshine. The grand, tall trees are losing their leaves; which gently cascade towards the ground, foreshadowing the snow that will arrive in the following season. Also the food is sublime! Soups, casseroles, pies, hotpots, roast dinners… all deliciously warm and satisfying… "Jesus, learn how to drive idiot!" The young girl was roused out of her thoughts as the bus came to an abrupt halt. A few of the standing passengers actually tumbled to the floor it was that abrupt. The driver kicked open his door and scrambled out of the bus to argue with another equally angry driver. Several passengers started to get off the bus and attempted to break up the verbal fight, judging from the bus drivers' angry red face and animated hand gestures it would soon be turning into a physical one. Orihime sighed and tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ear 'it looks like we aren't going to be moving for a while' she said to herself as no one else was on the bus. She stood up, adjusted her shoulder bag and stepped out into the warm autumn sun.
She was only two stops from home so she didn't mind walking the rest of the way. Besides, this was her favourite season and wanted to enjoy being outside as much as she could before it became too cold outside. Today was Friday, her favourite day of the week. Although I suppose it is nearly everyone's favourite day of the week. Her last lecture ended fairly later than usual as her professor was having difficulty with the computer display again 'I don't know why we have to use these damm computer things anyway! Literature is about the study of language and reading books not fiddling with screens and microchips!' Poor professor Arthur had a hard time adapting to the new technology the university installed over the summer, his colleague the sweet Dr Liz would always be there to smile and nod at his complaints while fixing the problem. However she was away on research this week meaning the students would have to suffer his extremely annoying stubbornness as he refused help from anyone other than her. 'I don't want you to mess anything up or Liz will be annoyed! Look I just made it onto that google thing!'
Orihime smiled while remembering these events, although she was fast become very tired. Her assignments would have to wait until the weekend – tomorrow she groaned at the thought. 'Another weekend dedicated to work' she thought, it had been ages since she met up with her friends. They had all applied to different universities and gone their separate ways, so she only really got to see them on the few weekends when they would come home to Karakura town. She decided to stay in her hometown and study at the local university which was just as good as the others, the main reason was money. It was cheaper for her to continuing to rent her apartment as the rent wasn't too high and she was near everything so she didn't have to spend too much on travel. Plus her part time job at the local florist and her student loan meant she wouldn't go without food or shelter, so she was in a good place. Although, without any close friends or family nearby, at times she could get lonely. But she always did her best to pick herself up and do something else to distract herself. Such as reading, something she loved to do and the main reason why she wanted to study for an English degree.
She was only a few streets away, when she spotted that the new restaurant in town was open. It was already decided that she was not going to cook dinner for herself tonight, 'screw the money, come on its Friday!' she thought. It was very popular and she had heard many students complimenting their delicious pizzas and pasta dishes. Coincidently, Italian meals were without a doubt her most favourite of all the worlds continents. Orihime looked both ways and crossed the road, trying to stop herself from sprinting in the restaurant, knocking out the chef and gorging herself on the food. 'I hope they do takeaways' she thought as she pushed the heavy metal door open.
The restaurant was swarming with customers, from what Orihime could see nearly all the tables were occupied. She walked into the bar area at the front of the restaurant and was greeted by a very smiley waiter, "Good evening miss, would you like a table for this evening? As I'm afraid you would have had to have made a reservation." His silvery hair and tall stature made him appear very attractive; however his ever present smile was getting a bit creepy for Orihime. Nevertheless she returned his politeness with a smile of her own "No thanks I was just wondering if you do takeaways? I was hoping to get a vegetable pizza." The waiter continued to smile and said nothing for a while; Orihime shifted her weight from foot to foot feeling extremely uncomfortable. 'Is this guy a perv or what?' she asked herself mentally. However she didn't want to leave as she was starving. After what seemed like an eternity he replied "Yes of course miss, if you could kindly wait at the seating area over there I will bring your pizza over to you when it is ready." He indicated to an area towards the left of the bar with plush sofas and armchairs. Orihime thanked him and started walking over to one of the sofas thinking to herself 'God this furniture looks really out of place for a restaurant, maybe this is the v.i.p section or something. It would make sense to push me out the way to wait since the restaurant is bustling.' She sunk into the sofa and surveyed the lush restaurant, there were many other waiters nimbly balancing meals in their arms and chatting to customers, they seemed to be normal (well normal to Orihime's standard). 'Thank God' she thought 'If they are all like that weirdo I think they would be out of business. Either that or flocks of women who adore freaky men would be the only customers coming here.'
About forty minutes had passed and the creepy waiter still had not returned with her pizza. She had played the tennis game on her phone at least twenty times now and was becoming extremely fidgety. Glancing towards the bar, she saw the waiter still smiling chatting with another waiter who had really vibrant blue hair. 'What cheek, slacking off when I'm starving' she mumbled as she got up and marched over to the bar. Mr Smiley stopped talking as her saw her approaching and even though Orihime thought it to be impossible, he smiled even wider. 'Ok serious joker tendencies' she inwardly cringed "Excuse me, will my pizza be ready anytime soon?" The other blue haired waiter who was leaning on the bar turned to look at her; she noticed his eye colour was a shade or two darker than his hair. It seemed at that moment that both waiters were scrutinising her appearance or something. Like many other young women she couldn't help but be self-conscious about her appearance, this in no way was helping her. The blue haired waiter took a swig from the beer bottle he was holding and started to grin at her. 'Are these people on some serious happy pills or something?' She was not smiling anymore, screw manners she just wanted to get out of there and buy a microwave meal. "Why of course miss, your pizza must be ready now. Come with me to check, my apologises but you will have to carry it as I have to carry out a crate of beer and would not want to squish your meal." Orihime frowned as the waiters smiled, 'well he wouldn't be stupid enough to grope me in here, I'm sure with all these people someone would hear my scream.' She nodded as Mr Smiley led the way to the kitchen.
He held the door on the far right open for her, the smell of food hit her straight away. There were at least ten chefs busily crafting the exquisite food. The clattering of pots and the chefs' loud voices seemed to rebound off of the walls. Mr Smiley swiftly walked through the kitchen towards a small table at the back, which seemed to be a communal area of sorts for the staff. She had to strongly control her temper, as there was her pizza in its box, on the table. She was just about to civilly complain to the waiter (in other words rip his head off) when someone else spoke. "Well who is this beautiful young lady and what is she doing in my kitchen Gin?" The voice belonged to a man who appeared from another door leading out of the kitchen. He was dressed in a fine suit, which Orihime thought must cost more than the second hand laptop she had purchased the other month. His brown hair was immaculately coiffed and styled perfectly; he exuded confidence, charm and charisma. He walked around to the two, staring at Orihime with a smile on his face. 'Note to self definitely not coming here again' she thought as she forced herself to smile back at him. Mr Smiley now Gin, replied "Mr Aizen, this young woman is here to collect her pizza that she ordered, although I fear I may have kept her waiting a little too long." He was still smiling, Orihime mentally flipped, 'Too right you kept me waiting, more than a little I'll have you know! And why are you still bloody smiling!' The man named Aizen crossed his arms and tutted, "My, my Gin this will not do, what have I told you about keeping customers waiting?" Gin dropped his head in mock shame, while Aizen continued to berate him; 'this is like a weird dream or something, why am I here?' Orihime could smell her pizza and was beginning to salivate. It seemed that Aizen had finally finished mock lecturing Gin and once again turned his attention to Orihime, "I am deeply sorry for the service you have received today young lady, as compensation there will be no charge for your meal." The smile soon returned to Orihime's face "Thank you very much". She picked up the pizza and once again expressed her thanks (if theres one thing Orihime loved, it was a free meal) and was just about to leave the kitchen when Aizen spoke "I do hope you will visit us again young miss, you attend Karakura university don't you?" Orihime froze 'how the hell does he know that I'm a Karakura student? Im not wearing my ID and have never seen him before.' She turned and uttered a timid "sure" before once again making her swift exit. She did not miss their smiles, weirdo's.
Orihime was inhaling the scent of her pizza as she dashed through the kitchen corridor; she was so engulfed in her pizza that she missed someone walking towards her carrying an armful of clean plates. Both could not see (or in Orihime's case did not notice as her face was in the pizza box) each other so the inevitable happened. The sound of plates crashing to the floor echoed though the corridor. Orihime's head snapped up, 'please, no, why me?' she thought as she stared at the mess on the floor and then at the man in front of her. He was wearing the same white shirt, black trousers and black apron as the other waiters so it wasn't hard for Orihime to guess why he was there. He was extremely pale which contrasted with his dark black hair giving him an almost ethereal appearance. But that wasn't the reason why Orihime could not stop staring at him; his eyes were the deepest shade of green she had ever seen. 'They have got to be contacts' she thought, but they were so enchanting she hoped that they weren't. The man with the gorgeous eyes coughed, she snapped out of her daze forced herself to act like a normal person. He looked down at the remains of the plates and then at her, amazingly she still had a grip on her pizza (when food is in danger, Orihime will protect it to the death!). Orihime felt her face go red "Oh my God, I'm really sorry. I wasn't concentrating on where I was going." The green eyed angel said nothing, his face was utterly expressionless. She couldn't tell if he was angry or happy, it looked like he felt nothing at all. The silence was starting to become extremely uncomfortable, Orihime was at a loss for what to do. "Here, please let me clean this up for you…" She began as she placed her pizza on the ground and bent down as she began to reach for pieces of ceramic. A pale hand suddenly gripped hers; she looked up into that endless sea of green and wished she could drown in them. "Umm… please I'm very sorry for the trouble I have caused you, I would like to help." Again he said nothing as he continued to hold her hand; he just stared at her with that emptiness expression. The door behind them that led to the kitchen opened, Aizen and Gin walked out towards them. Aizen must think of himself as a father of sorts to the waiters as he stopped in front of the pale God and began wagging his index finger at him. "Naughty, naughty Ulquiorra. What have you done?" Both Orihime and the man now known as Ulquiorra stood up, "No please sir, it was my fault I wasn't looking where I was going and crashed into him. I will clean this up myself and pay for some new plates." Aizen turned his smile to Orihime "Dear lady, I take offence at your offer. I can afford to replace plates at my own restaurant, so please go on home and I will see to it that everything is settled." She was about to protest when Aizen once again spoke "No, no I insist I can see it was an accident, although Ulquiorra should have been more observant." Orihime looked at the silent Ulquiorra and then back to Aizen while she began to insist it was all her fault. "My apologies sir, I was being careless" Ulquiorra said in what Orihime thought to be one of the most attractive voices she had ever heard. "No harm done Ulquiorra, but please see to it that this mess is dealt with." Aizen replied, he reached for Orihime's pizza and took her hand while leading her towards the entrance of the restaurant. Orihime paused for a moment and turned around to see Ulquiorra stooped over collecting the fragments of plates in his hands. "I am very sorry for all of this… Ulquiorra." He then looked up at her and she was greeted once again with that blank, empty stare. She couldn't put her finger on it, but there was something eerily familiar about him. He then looked down and commenced with his work, while Aizen and Gin escorted Orihime into the bar.
"Well I do hope you grace us with your presence again miss, we would all love to see you again wouldn't we Gin?" The still smiling Gin replied "Why of course sir". Orihime too was hungry, tired and freaked out enough for one day; she uttered another apology and thanks then headed for the door.
The sky had considerably darkened since she had been in the restaurant; she crossed the street and looked back at the building. The lights had been turned on while she was in there and so had the outside lights as she could now see the name 'Aizen's' in great red neon lights. She shuddered slightly both from the cold and her experiences in that strange place. She reached her apartment trudging lazily up the stairs while pulling her key out of her pocket.
After a nice shower and now in a clean set of Pyjamas, Orihime finally tucked into her now cold pizza while watching TV. There was no way she was going back, that was certain. 'What a creepy place' she thought, 'although that Ulquiorra guy was so gorgeous, as usual I had to make a fool of myself in front of a good looking guy'. She sighed and discarded the now empty pizza box, walking around her apartment she turned off her TV, lights and other electrical appliances (safety first!). Orihime settled herself in her bed under the covers, finally she could rest. As she waited for sleep to take her, her thoughts once again drifted to that strangely beautiful man and his celestial eyes. "Ulquiorra" she whispered as she closed her eyes and feel into a deep sleep.