Bleach is owned by Tite Kubo, meaning it does not belong to me. I am in no way, shape, and/or form claiming to be the owner/creator of these concepts, though I do claim any characters not apart of the original Bleach storyline (such as Aporro[in character, not name]) mine. As such, I would appreciate fellow authors and readers to give credit where credit is due and not steal any of my characters and/or concepts. Thank you, and have a pleasant day.

"Repressed memories, Aporro?"

I barely looked up from the book I was reading, nodding and turning the page, "Mmmhmm…"

"….Trying to find a way to remember him?"

"I do remember him…" I skimmed down the page, "Somewhere I do… I just want to remember all the time… On my own."

"Aporro, when you came to me, your brain damage was extensive. Borderline vegetative. I'm surprised you remember what you do, even if it is in your subconscious. I highly doubt you'd be able to recover anything on your own, and even if you did it might only lead to psychological damage, possibly even so far as physical…"

"Mmmhmm…"

"…Aporro, I forbid you from looking any more into your life before Las Noches."

I stopped.

I looked up at him, blinking.

I thought.

This was the first time Szayel had expressly 'forbade' me from doing anything.

He'd always listed rules, he'd always strongly suggested I don't do this or that, he'd always warn… but he'd never 'forbade'.

This was new.

This was odd.

Szayel had a blank face on.

"Why?"

"…A tool does not question. A tool simply accepts."

"You call that a reason?" I quirked a brow, "Szayel, so long as I study to be you, work on my combat, and don't screw anything up too bad, you've never given a damn about what I do with my time. What's the problem now?"

"There is no problem." Szayel said airily, "I simply don't think it's a good idea for you to look any more into your past, thus I forbid it." I didn't fail to notice that he was now refusing to meet my eyes. I blinked when he reached out and took the psychology book I was reading, "And I'll be putting this back now."

I watched him walk away, then shrugged and leaned back in my seat, closing my eyes. Fine. Take the book. I didn't need it to work at remembering the past; I could try to do that on my own. I was just hoping there might be an easier way…

"Read this." I jumped and yelped when something fell in the table in front of me with a loud bang, then stared down at the huge volume that Szayel had dropped in front of me. Dear god, it had to at least be two thousand pages long… "A bit of light reading for your reeducation."

"………Light?"

"Also, you'll need to be prepared for a fitting soon. We'll need to have a faux Fornicaras uniform made for you…"

"Uh-huh…"

"Let's go."

"Huh?"

Szayel rolled his eyes and beckoned for me to follow, "I don't trust you anywhere alone, now. You're to start following me around as I work."

"…And how am I supposed to do that and read at the same time?"

Szayel looked like he was at a loss at this. I frowned and stared at him. Something wasn't right here. Not only was Szayel acting odd, he apparently also wasn't thinking clearly. And what was up with the sudden need to control what I was doing…

"Fine." Szayel grumbled, turning and walking into the lab, "You wish to stay there? Feel free, then. But you had better study!"

I stared after him, brow quirked. Then, if only to keep appearances, I opened the book and leaned against my hand, staring down at the page. And then… I started to think about my time as a normal human.

Other than a few scattered memories, mainly of Nnotira trying to kill me, and the name 'Kohaku', I had nothing to go on… What had I looked like? How old had I been? Did I have a family? What where they like… What had I been like?

And Kohaku… who was he to me? A brother? A father? A boyfriend? …A lover?

I found myself thinking about what he must look like… How long his hair would be, the color of his eyes, how his body would feel, how his lips—

"Aporro!" I stiffened, gasp caught in my throat. Inhaling, I turned to look at Szayel, blinking at his crossed arms and his narrowed eyes, "If you have time to daydream, you have time to read." Without saying anything else, he turned and stormed off.

I stared after him again, taken aback.

Ordering me to study was one thing, and keeping an eye on me fell in the same general category, but… he'd responded really fast. Had he been watching, waiting for me to start thinking? Shit, that was a different category entirely.

That was… I dunno… Stalker-ish? Creepy? I was half tempted to throw 'overprotective' in there, but that would insinuate that he was looking out for my best interest.

Which brought about the question 'why'; just why didn't he want me thinking about my past?

It seemed like something he shouldn't be too interested in, wouldn't be too interested in… Yet it seemed he was. For some reason, me thinking about my past angered him. At least, it angered him enough to make him lurk around corners to make sure I wasn't thinking about it…

Alright, Aporro, jumping to conclusions here. I needed more proof than his lack of forbearance for me searching into my past and one instance of him waiting around for me to think about it to stop it… I needed to catch him in the act. I needed to make a trap, draw him in, then catch him where he couldn't escape.

Alright, so the match is Szayel versus Aporro in a battle of wits!!

….Shit, I'm screwed.

Alright, so I figured that the easiest way to catch Szayel in the act of doing… whatever he was doing… I figured the easiest way to do it would be to do what he didn't want me doing; namely trying to piece together my past.

So, once I had escaped him and his insistent studying and teaching attempts, I wandered a ways down a random hall, sat down and leaned back against the wall, and started to think.

I remembered… the day Nnoitra tried to kill me.

It had just stopped raining, and the air was heavy and damp… Everything smelled so strongly of wet asphalt, car fumes and leaves…

If I thought hard enough, I could remember looking down at a pair of shiny black penny loafers, white calf-length socks, and the bottom edge of a black pleated skirt. And was that a lock of dark brown hair?

…And there… just to my right…

I couldn't look that far because my memory didn't go that far, but there was my arm, covered in a long, dark grey sleeve, and my hand… holding another hand…

The other hand was a shade darker than mine, and it was bigger and strong… masculine…

I was holding hands with someone.

I heard a voice, and just as I was turning to face it, I caught sight of Nnoitra, standing in front of us, and after that… everything got confusing… and red, with flashes of silver and—

"Aporro!"

When I opened my eyes and turned to Szayel, I had to blink passed tears. When had I started crying…?

"You're thinking about it again, aren't you?!" Szayel demanded, storming up to me.

"So what if I am?!" I demanded back, voice a bit thick, "What does it matter?! It's my past! Not yours!"

"I expressly forbade you from thinking about it!"

I rolled my eyes, "Ohh, what do you care what I think about?! So long as I'm a convincing 'you' on my possible deathbed, you don't give a damn about me!"

"That is—!!" Szayel stopped, balking.

Gritting my teeth, I stood and turned, glaring at him, "'That is' what?! What, Szayel?! What bugs you so much about me wanting to remember?!"

"…Why do you want to remember?" Szayel asked after taking a moment to compose himself, running a hand through his hair and straightening his glasses.

"Because…" I sighed, "I don't know about you Arrancar, Szayel, but memory… is an important thing to humans. It's… almost fundamental to our lives. Like air… it's something we need. Because without them, how are we supposed to know what made us… us? How are we supposed to know what truths…" I sighed, unsure of how to go on.

"…Do you even know what you're talking about anymore?"

"Not really." I looked up at him, frowning. "Szayel, just why does it matter if I try to remember?"

"…" Szayel stood straight, looking down at and adjusting his gloves, "I am the one you serve now, Aporro. Whatever happened in your past life should be irrelevant."

"…You're jealous?" Huh, this was a lot easier than I thought…

Szayel blinked, then smirked, "Me? Jealous? Of the sway your past holds over you?" He covered his face with one hand, the other pressing against his stomach as he doubled over and started laughing.

I stared at him flatly as he tried to 'compose' himself. Oh, yeah. He was jealous. "Well, if you're not jealous, then me looking into my past should be no problem."

"The problem with you looking into your past, Aporro, is it seems to distract you from your work." Szayel shook his head, still chuckling.

"What work?!" I sighed, exasperated. This was getting sad. "Szayel, you just blew up at me for sitting in a hall and thinking about my past, but the thing is I don't have anything else to be doing! This is my downtime from sword practice and studying; time you are also using as downtime to work on your experiments! You and I both know that following you around the lab, watching you work, isn't doing squat for me!" Really, it wasn't. I didn't understand half of what he was saying half of the time, and he was perfectly aware of that. "You just want me following you around so I can't think without you noticing, and the only real reason I can think of that you wouldn't want me to remember is that you're jealous!" I paused, giving him an exact replica of the 'Szayel brow quirk' and staring at him, "Unless, of course, you have a real reason for me not wanting to remember?"

"Post-traumatic stress."

"Think of something better than that."

"Advanced mental degradation."

"Can't you give me pills for that?"

"Possible false memories."

"At this point, I'd say anything is better than nothing."

"Then try being satisfied with what you have now."

I stared at him, blinking once, twice, thrice, a fourth… "…Satisfied with what I have now? WHAT DO I HAVE NOW, SZAYEL?!"

Szayel blinked.

"Everything I ever had is gone, alright?!" I went on, storming towards him, "You all here made sure of that! My family, my friends, Kohaku, whatever he was to me… It's all gone! How long have I been here?! Weeks?! Months?! Years?! I'd have nothing to go back to, and here what do I have?! Nothing! I get to walk around, free, just to look at what I can't have! Freedom! Power! You!"

Szayel blinked again.

"Who in the hell was I before I came here?! What ambitions did I have?! Hell, I don't know, but probably nothing like the ones I have here; survive, namely! 'Satisfied with what I have'?! Hell, Szayel, I'm looking forward to a life of experimentation, fighting, and ultimately an uncomfortable and probably painful death, alright?! I have nothing."

Just how had we gotten to this point? Up until now, we had been living in a sort of symbiotic relationship, though whether it was one of mutuality or commensality was still in debate in my head…

Still, either way, we had lived together in some semblance of peace, but now… it seemed that was crumbling. And, ultimately, I was the one who would pay.

Because he was the demon, and I was the human.

"Look at me, Szayel!" I held out my arms, begging him to take a look at me for all I was, "What am I?!"

A crude reflection of him.

A failed attempt at a clone.

Szayel prided himself on 'perfection'.

I was the opposite of that; I was a failure.

Just what was I in all of this…?

"You… are evolution."

I blinked, "What?"

"Evolution…" Szayel sighed, "You are imperfection seeking to perfect. You are attracted to perfection, and you will do anything to achieve it. You have adjustments made in your DNA with mine, yet your own flaws, not to mention the ones that came with the shortcomings of the Doppelganger Pill… Still, you're improving constantly. You are the ability to constantly move forward, and thanks to the Arrancar that has been mixed into you it is occurring at an accelerated rate. For your inferior species… you are the closest to perfection possible."

I blinked again, then balked, "Wh-what?"

"You are the closes to perfection possible for a member of the human species." Szayel reiterated, patient.

I blinked, opened my mouth, then closed it. For Szayel to say something like that… it was a damned big deal. And I couldn't think of a single thing to say.

"…Aporro, do us both a favor and give up on this futile search." Szayel started walking, veering slightly and intending to walk right passed me, back towards the lab. "Go and get some sleep."

And I was ready to do just that; trying to remember the past under my circumstances turned out to be emotionally draining. I was pretty damned tired…

Still, I had one last bit of unfinished business.

Just as he was about to pass me up completely, I reached out and grabbed Szayel by the arm, jerking him back towards me. I turned and pulled down on his arm, making him give slightly from the waist up and bend, pulling him down into a kiss.

"Hey…" I started when I pulled back a moment later, barely opening my eyes to meet his, "You don't have anything to worry about. I'm not looking to hook back up with him…"

The look on Szayel's face was priceless.

And the knock to the head I nursed on the way back to the room did nothing to subtract from the value.

Ah... the rating is going to go up to 'M' because after this things get rather... intimate.