Her hair was the colour of sunshine. Warmth, brightness, joy… the sun, basically, of which Ulquiorra knew nothing about. All he knew of were white walls, black sky, white moon. The only colour he probably knew of is crimson, that is, if bloodshed could be considered colourful. Yet the woman crashed into his life, her hair, no, her very being, radiating warmth, brightness, joy… of which he never experienced.
Her eyes were the colour of moonlight. Ashen, shining eyes, reflecting whatever emotions she felt at the pits of her soul, like a silvered mirror. The grey eyes were clear and alive with the woman's passion, yet they were also infuriatingly mysterious, shrouded in the mist of the woman's vague reasoning of everything. The woman never did as Ulquiorra expected, nor did she ever do anything that Ulquiorra comprehended.
He could, and after a week, cannot understand her.
Inoue Orihime is an irony. Hair the colour of the sun, eyes the colour of the moon. She does one thing that Ulquiorra can understand; she does the next thing that he cannot understand. She talks of her friends with iron-like determination; she talks of the heart with a misty vagueness.
And Ulquiorra was more drawn to her than he ever could be.
Is she starting to see herself in him? After all, they had a lot in common. Bright orange hair, expressive eyes, burning determination, and a kindness to every creature, be it friend or enemy.
They say opposites attract. Maybe that would explain why the prospect of Kurosaki-kun being her knight in shining white armour is starting to get her… jaded.
Jade. Like Ulquiorra's eyes. And the hilt of his-
Orihime's eyes widened in alarm. She was doing it again! Orihime had a racing train of thought, but recently, that train only seemed to head to one destination: Ciffer Ulquiorra.
They flashed again in the train tracks of her brain. Jade, emotionless, yet pleading. She sighed, and glanced at what she had been childishly doodling.
There was a spiky-haired, lanky boy, in white armour, standing victorious, while a man with a mop of black hair lay on the ground, defeated. A girl with flowing hair stood behind them in an ivory tower behind, staring at her knight dreamily, dizzy with love and joy. The sun behind them was smiling down at the scene of happy reunification and smugly deserved comeuppance below.
This would have been a nice drawing if only there wasn't a huge cross, hastily tearing across cliché.
Orihime wanted to laugh at how… ironic this painting was. Kurosaki-kun always wore black, and Ulquiorra was always immaculately white. The painting should have a crescent moon smirking at loss instead of a sun celebrating gain. She glanced at her drawn self and frowned. Is she an irony too? Would she be in the ivory tower, heart swelling with love at her savior, or would she be at the side of the enemy, weeping that he never got the help he needed?
Orihime feared that the latter would probably happen.
The worst part of the painting was that Orihime did not have colour pencils. There was no way in telling the viewer that the enemy had the most beautiful eyes in existence. They also would never know that the enemy once smiled with complete sincerity, because the girl with the flowing hair made him do so, despite all the pain he only knows of.
Though Orihime wasn't sure that colour could tell the viewer that. It was also probably honest to admit that Orihime had not gotten around in doing that yet. Getting Ulquiorra to smile, that is. It has been a week, but no progress at all. Ulqujorra strangely listened to whatever she talked about, and sometimes she could see the slightest emotion—normally irritation and some form of apathetic bemusement—rising but quickly ebbing away in his irises.
She heard the oh-so familiar three smart raps, then the sound of the door swooshing open. She looked up at Ulquiorra, who shifted his eyes across her room.
"Ulquiorra-san," Orihime greeted. She no longer stuttered his name out.
Orihime tried her best to subtly shift her back in order to hide what she has been doodling. It didn't work, because she saw Ulquiorra's cat-like pupils register that slight movement. He didn't probe, though.
"I'm here to socially interact with you again, woman," Ulquiorra dead-panned.
Orihime giggled. That never got old! He kept saying that every day despite Orihime stressing that he doesn't have to announce whatever intentions when it comes to social things. Humans don't really do that; it's awkward, she said. Obviously he didn't listen. He doesn't bother about humans.
Orihime wanted to ask about her friends but she stopped herself in time. Normally conversations with Ulquiorra about her friends led to frustration on his part and tears on hers. Besides, she hasn't felt any sign of their presence in a long, long time. No, the signs were there, but they were so small that Orihime soon got… what's that word she used? Jaded. Jaded of being stuck in the limbo of wanting to be saved, yet at the same time wanting to protect herself. Jaded of wishing her friends were here, yet at the same time wishing that she was alone in comfortable silence with her captor and his jade, jade eyes.
Wait. Did she just think that?
The woman was staring at him. Again. Ulquiorra felt irritation tug oh-so slightly at his thick eyebrows. She appeared to be in deep thought, as always.
"What are you contemplating?" He asked, breaking the silence.
The woman jumped. She let out a startled gasp and her eyes focused once more on his face.
"Your reaction is foolish, woman," Ulquiorra stated, though he didn't add in the part that he thought it was endearingly foolish.
"Sorry, Ulquiorra-san."
Her silvery orbs suddenly lit up. She rummaged through a thick stack of paper, yellowed with age (they didn't have a constant supply of paper at Hueco Mundo), and pulled out a drawing. In her haste of pulling out a piece of paper, she didn't notice that a few loose leaflets fell out and floated gently to the ground, rustling as they settled. Some of them landed face down, but one happened to be facing up. Ulquiorra eyed it curiously. A pair of eyes, intensely shaded, with slits instead of regular pupils, was drawn there. After a while, his insides recoiled when he realised that the pair of eyes were his. If this was what the woman drew in her free time, what else could there be in that thick stack of the woman's mindless drawings?
"- and this is Grimmjow-san, with pink hair, though you don't really know it's pink because it's not coloured. And Szayel-san here has blue hair, which you can't tell either. And both of them are wearing bunny costumes, because I was particularly craving Easter Egg Risotto while I was drawing—Ulquiorra-san, you are listening, right?"
Ulquiorra's gaze snapped back to the woman's slightly indignant face when she said that, but it was too late. She followed where his gaze was previously upon. Her cheeks suddenly blushed deeply, the colour just like the crimson of Aizen-sama's sash.
Ulquiorra was starting to take note of the increasing occurrence of this phenomenon, and he could not keep his question to himself anymore. "Woman, why is your face red?"
At this question, the woman's face flushed even more, if that was physically possible. She spluttered a bit before awkwardly tossing her head down, effectively blocking her youthful face with dense orange locks. Bending down, she quickly gathered up the loose sheets of paper, but again, in her hurry, one sheet fell out. Ulquiorra could vaguely make out a lot of black and two lone figures, but the woman snatched it up before he could clearly see what it was.
"Why is your face red?" He tonelessly repeated, keeping his irritation at not understanding the woman's actions out of his cool voice.
"Ah… It's h-h-hot?" The woman lamely suggested.
"Even an idiot like Yammy can tell that you are lying."
"I'm embarrassed!" She blurted out, before gasping and covering her mouth with her tiny hands, eyes wide.
"At what?" He asked, with a little edge in his voice. The woman is tiring him by making him ask incessant questions. Why can she not just explain everything she did, without melodrama, and with common logic he can understand?
The woman looked up at him with confusion, as if not believing that he still did not understand why her face was so red. "You saw that right?"
"Your mindless drawing? Yes, I did."
"Hey, they aren't mindless! If drawings of you are mindless, then I have more mindless drawings!"
An awkward pause ensued. The woman understood what she just said with horrific realization. She shut her eyes, and buried her face in her small palms, groaning. Ulquiorra almost wanted to smirk. The woman was so foolish, yet very amusingly so. Her naïve impulsiveness was something fresh, something he never experienced himself. Everyone in Hueco Mundo had witnessed horror and violence; everyone had moved beyond innocence and youthful rash behaviour.
Suddenly the woman burst into a bright grin herself. "You're smiling, Ulquiorra," She crowed. "Well, halfish, I guess, in your Ulquiorra emotionless way." Her grin disappeared as fast as it came. "But you're not smiling because of happiness. You're laughing at me, aren't you?"
Ulquiorra noted the lack of honorifics. He didn't mind, though. However, he was beginning to feel overwhelmed by the woman's random outbursts and sudden swings in temperament. First she was mortified, then jubilant, then victimized. Ulquiorra could not wait until he figures out the mystery behind the complex human mind.
"I am not laughing at you, woman. Neither was I smiling. However, I am fairly interested in knowing what other mindless drawings you possess."
The woman sucked in her breath. After a while, she exhaled, and started selecting a few sheets of paper from the tall stack on her desk. It seemed that in the past week, all she had been doing is drawing, since Aizen-sama thought it would be healthy for the guest to have what he called a 'creative outlet'. Aizen-sama probably deduced that his favourite Espada wasn't the most cheerful and positive person to have for company while in the clutches of a ruthless kidnapper, so he was being more and more liberal with the girl, appearing to genuinely care for her wellbeing when this is actually all part of his scheme for power. And Ulquiorra just followed, as Aizen is his master, and he is the servant without a say.
"Alright! Here!" Ulquiorra glanced at the woman, to see her gesturing excitedly to the desk, where a few drawings have been neatly laid. His insides squirmed again when he noticed he was in all of them, and a strange, molten warmth surged through his chest.
"See, this one is you on MySpace, because you always remind me of the kids with swooping haircuts and the make-up, and they always take pictures of themselves with fancy SLRs, and—"
"I do not wear make-up." Ulquiorra cut across the woman's rant. Again, he was completely lost on what she was talking about. She was probably referring to human popular culture, of which he blatantly did not care for. He had informed the woman of his indifference before, but she didn't listen to him.
"Well, I have an artistic license, right? Anyway, this one is me and you eating ice-cream, because I like ice cream. You can't tell but you're eating green apple, and I'm eating double chocolate chip peppermint with steak sauce and bacon bits." She let out a dreamy sigh, as if tasting the sustenance on the tip of her tongue.
Ulquiorra listened to her detailed description of her pictures. He never appeared to be listening but honestly, he was hanging on to every word, action, and giggle of the woman's. He wasn't particularly amused by the woman's drawing of Grimmjow pointing at him and laughing, though.
Why was he bothering, anyway? Well, Aizen-sama did task him to make sure the woman doesn't fall into the depths of insanity. However, a major part of him was sincerely interested in the woman's thought process, though he never got anywhere in making a real deduction of it, which ultimately infuriated him. This was the irony he was thinking of earlier. But the best part of paying attention to the woman's rambling is her smile. Joyful, carefree, and devastatingly gentle. This gentleness is the woman's devastating power, and she was completely unaware of it.
Orihime wiped the imaginary sweat off her brow. She had explained each drawing to him, which was quite taxing on her part, because so many thoughts ran through her head when she penned down the pictures. She had one last one to go, the one she was purposely saving for the last. She checked to see if Ulquiorra's gaze was still on her. It was. It always was on her. Fizz bubbled from her chest all the way to her toes. This is another reason why she was so fond of Ulquiorra. It was because he listened and never judged her without sufficient evidence.
The fact that he was so cute is another reason. In his Ulquoirra-ish, emoish, way. Of course she kept this to herself.
"Alright, last one! Finally!" She saw agreement flash across Ulquiorra's eyes and she felt a bit embarrassed again.
She ploughed on, though. "See, this one is of you smiling!"
The calm expression on Ulquiorra's face immediately got upset, before it reverted back in a blink of an eye. Orihime had a hunch that a normal person cannot pick up the changes in Ulquiorra's expression, but she can. It's probably because that when you see only one person for months at end, you tend to take note of whatever idiosyncrasies they have. Ulquiorra's one was obviously involuntary facial twitching, from where she reads his emotions like a book. This is another fact that she kept to herself.
"This pathetic drawing only exists in your idealistic world." He finally intoned.
Defensiveness shot through her. "What do you mean pathetic? It's of you, you know!" She blustered.
People say that Orihime's quite a good artist, when she's not drawing pictures of ice-skating soccer players, or astronauts having a show off with Martians. She thought her work was pretty decent and realistic, if she put her mind to it. And this sketch took quite a lot of effort. She thought that Ulquiorra's smile would be the half-smile sort— dignified, yet genuine. It took a lot of redrawing to capture that elegance and sincerity. She wanted to make it perfect. Just like the moment when he would finally smile. Perfection. Not would a whole missing half of his world come rushing back to him- a world of emotion and empathy, but Orihime felt that a chip of what's missing in her world would be given to her too. The fact that she finally managed to help someone, instead of someone having to help her.
"I realize the drawing is of me, woman. I look completely pathetic and weak." He coolly stated.
Oh. That's the case then. He wasn't really insulting her drawing skills. He still is staunch on believing that showing emotion equates to being completely vulnerable. And Orihime actually foresaw that this would happen.
Fine. It is time to pull out the big guns.
Orihime inhaled again, deeply. She lifted the portrait of Ulquiorra, and flipped it over. There were several diagrams, almost scientific in nature, and a few flow charts. She realised that Ulquiorra needed hard logic and facts to believe things. Alright then. Hard logic and facts are what she would present.
OMGOMGOMG I am SO sorry. It's my rambly mood again, and I realised that I could go on for another eight pages and this would go nowhere.
SO. I will split Chapter 3 into half. This is part one. That's why this ended so abruptly.
Yes, this story isn't over. I promise it will be next update though! Sorry this is dragging so much ): It's unlike me to drag things out, but I really can't continue this update when the ending is so far away. Thanks for bearing with my wordiness so far though, and my sluggish updates (:
And I guess I should confess this. The World Cup is going to go on in two hours! It shows at 2.30 am where I live and I also need to catch some sleep because the next day is school for me. This is also why I can't go on.
So yeah. One last thing. HOLLAND FTWFTWFTWFTW! Sorry to you Spanish supporters. You can flame me if you like. It won't change the fact that the Dutch do awesome rebound goals. Or that Sneijder is hot as Mexico. Just sayin'.
Update: Fine. Holland lost. On the other hand, whatever Spain! 1-nil? SO unexpected. Right now I would love some nice octopus salad, though.
And UlquiHime4Life, if you read this, I was kinda kidding about Sneijder being hot. Ish. because well there really isn't anyone particularly hot on the Dutch team and I thought that stating a player that is hot will magically win people's support for Holland. I realise that didn't make sense. And you gotta admit Holland played really defensively last night, though Spain is of course no different. It was quite an underwhelming and boring match, because both sides were so scared of counter-attacking, if I must say so myself ):