"Ulquiorra…" Orihime stood next to the window of their room, hours after the canned camera fun was over. "Do you think I did the right thing? I…I think I hurt Ishida and Chad-san feelings." She could not find it in her heart to stop replaying the events of the meeting in her mind. "I…"
"Don't fret over it." Ulquiorra advised, coming over to search for stars in the darkened sky. "What is done is done. It is for the better, I feel."
Orihime turned on him. Her face livid with anger."How so?! I just turned away people I have known for years! An-"
He placed a finger on her lips. "Shh… It will be fine. Everything with be fixed. Humans cannot stay hurt for long and I, personally was insulted when the soul reapers stated you were to be a simple officer. Orihime… Sometimes, you need to take care of yourself. And you have been doing a wonderful job at doing so. You must realize that you deserve better. Not in friends as I could clearly see that those two human men care about you; but you deserve to be respected and deserve to be acknowledged for your actions."
Orihime wrapped her arms around Ulquiorra and began to cry.
"I did not expect you to react so…" He was not sure what to do. "Strongly."
"I.. I'm sorry! I… You… You're right." She wished she could stop, but all of these emotions were too much for her to keep inside. "I do… deserve everything. All of my life, I've tried to tell myself I don't because….It…It was my fault Sora died! We got in a fight and… If he hadn't been so stressed, maybe he wouldn't have gotten into that car crash. I … I blamed myself all of these years and I thought, since I wasn't a good enough sister, I didn't deserve to be happy. Or anything and…just serve someone to pay my debt in life. And you're right! Sora wants nothing for me to be happy. He… He told me that and…so I'm gonna do that."
"Be happy?" Ulquiorra winced, finding all this crying a little awkward. "Good. Now, can you please not- never mind… Cry all you want."
"Ulquiorra!" Orihime's sweet laugh rang through the room. "You are so funny sometimes."
"…Great?"
More laughter echoed in the room a second later.
"What should I do?" Yylfordt Granz asked his reflection that morning as he got dressed for the day. "Should I be… Barbie? Or should I be Little Bo Peep?"
"Why don't just you be you?" Ciricci asked, walking over to the bathroom mirror to put on her make-up.
"Because, I, Yylfordt Granz is boring." He frowned at his reflection, hating it.
"How so?" his girlfriend inquired, never hearing this before. "I find him rather interesting and I would kind of like to go out with him. Not Barbie."
"Well, I like to be Barbie because it's not me." Yylfordt need to dress up to hide his face from the world. "If you don't like it, then you can go find some other Arancarr."
"Wow…" Ciricci rolled her violet eyes. "Like I'd ever do that, hun. You are my baby doll after all. And besides…" She reached over and brushed his messy blond hair out of his face to reveal his brown eyes and masculine features. (Save the nose.). "What's so bad about this handsome man I see in front of me?"
"Lots." Yylfordt confessed, putting his hair back the way it was supposed to be. "And I don't want to talk about it right now. I just want to decide who I should be today. It makes life easier when I lose myself."
Ciricci put down her make up brush on the white counter and wrapped her arm around his waist. "I don't think so. I think it just makes it harder for you to be you. And today, I'm banning you from dressing up. You need to face what ever is on your mind."
"A lot is on my mind that I want to forget."
"The sad truth, you can't forget. Been there, tried that. It doesn't work."
"I hate how you say that…" Yylfordt muttered, turning his face away from the mirror.
"Glad you do." Ciricci wasn't going to sit by and let him get away with this. It was time to dish a bucket load of tough love. "Tell me what's on your mind all the time."
"It's not on-"
"It is." How could she miss how his eyes always seemed distant and trapped in the past. "I can tell."
"Not right now." Yylfordt snapped, brushing her hand off his shoulder. "I need to get ready for the day and since you don't want me to dress up, I am going to have to find something suitable to wear." Like a paper bag over my head.
"Fine enough, dear." Ciricci turned back to her make up, letting him have a little space to himself while he went to search for something normal to wear. "And please, this time…don't dress up in Lederhosen. That still counts as a costume, Yylfordt."
She heard a muffled curse come from the closet full of clothes. "And wigs do count." Another curse. "And heels." Yet another. "Just tell me why you don't like being you!"
"No!" Yylfordt wandered into the back of his closet where he kept a small collection of normal white clothes to wear when needed. (Aizen never liked it when he came dressed up for some reason. It gave him the creeps supposedly.) He stared at the small rack of 'acceptable clothing' and began to sort through it. "Not. This…." He tossed a white robe over his shoulder. "Not this…'" A dress…"Not…Why do I have to be myself?" He threw the last piece off the rack and sank to his knees in the sea of clothes he created. "I… I don't want to me. I… can't be me… don't you see, Ciricci?!"
"You can." She appeared before him, a cross look on her face and compassion in her eyes. "You just don't want to be."
"I… can't be." He hardly cared that his freshly clean hair was becoming stained with tears. "I don't want be…I…want to be someone else."
Circci bent down and joined him on the floor. "I just want to know why. Ever since I've met you, I have hardly seen any of you."
"You…" Yylfordt looked away as she tried to make their eyes meet. "You don't want to. It's better if you like the 'me' I've created. Yes… I have. I created a me."
"And let me guess, hun…" She sighed, "This is, you, you."
"Yes. It is. I'm not…crazy. Or ridiculous like I pretend to be. So, in short… I'm a fraud who you fell in love with."
"Darlin' I'm not all I crack up to be, either." Ciricci tried her best to smile. "I'm not a country gal. I wanna be.. But I'm not and I have many a thing I wish to forget as well. That's why I have a hole right through me, hun. You too. It's the regrets and pain we feel that create it. So, I understand. But you need to stop hiding behind clothes and crazy antics."
"I..I don't want to." Yylfordt's voice came as only a whisper. "If I do, then…I'll have to…"
"Face the past? It ain't that bad. Now, why don't I help you fin-"
"But it's not!" He cried. Wishing that he could have just made his mind up about what he wanted to wear that day with out talking out loud. "For you it might be easy, yes. But, I…"
"I…what?" Ciricci was so close, she could almost hear his next words. "What did you do?"
"…I… destroyed my family."