Thanks for reading this story!

This fic was done for the theme Jealousy for "Theme Of The Week" over at the UH FC on BA.

Summary: Ulquiorra was jealous at Orihime and he didn't care.

Disclaimers: I do not own Bleach and their characters (definitely); they are all masterpieces from Kubo-sensei~

I used italic word to describe the monologue or thought of the characters or maybe it just some strong feeling of characters I want to put in to that word.


JEALOUSY

As the one who experienced death many times, Ulquiorra thought it was never a big deal to him, because meaningless engraved deep in his existence.

There was nothing beyond the death. Only emptiness.

The feeling of physical pain had been dull since long ago. However, another different kind of pain had just surfaced somewhere at the edge of his reason for being existed, ever since the time he met that woman. It was vexing, because he couldn't figure out the reason for why it could happen.

Never ever, Ulquiorra thought that he would be angry with himself nonetheless. How in the world that he let such thing happen in front of his grasp?

He would have taken her by force. He would have made her succumb under his true despair, terror at his deadly existence. But he failed, for such he realized that he could never be able to hurt her, both physically and emotionally.

There were two things in this world that he would never allow himself to act on her.

One is to "harm her".

And two is to "frighten her".

Never ever, Ulquiorra had felt such kind of helplessness when it came to this woman. For what was the cause of all his turmoil? Ulquiorra didn't know.

He couldn't understand.

He couldn't see anything.

His eyes existed to give him the truth. He believed in what they saw. What they didn't see didn't exist.

Yet for some reasons, that invisible and nonexistent thing just now threatened his existence. It was something that he couldn't fight against even if he had his powerful 2nd release. It was something that the woman in front of him could understand and see clearly, yet he could not.

He couldn't comprehend her rambling of the fictional object called heart while making such content expression.

What is it? Where is it?

If I rip the chest apart, will I see it? If I crack open the skull, will I see it?

Ulquiorra didn't know. He had to figure out by himself, through him - that shinigami trash -

This was the battle that he couldn't afford himself to lose against.

He had to win. Against her.

He had to prove what the heart brought only death and despair.

So the logic of the heart that would be ceased from her mind, so that his existence would not be ceased from her thought.


He lost.

...

Utterly.

Ulquiorra, Cuatro Espada, - hollow - was defeated by the same substitute shinigami - human - that was lost his heart and turned into hollow. How ironic.

"If I have beaten, my existence no longer holds meaning."

He had nothing to lose for, but her.

But he had already lost her, since the time he decided to kill the shinigami.

The pact that he held on himself for her had been broken by his own hands. He had harmed her in the most damaged way as ever. He had frightened her.

In his humiliate moment below the feet of the hollowfied Kurosaki Ichigo, when the cero above his head kept getting bigger and bigger, he realized that he didn't care anymore. Death was the only atonement that he could do for her right now. It had been better if he could somehow erase his existence, so that she wouldn't cry anymore.

It was always him who made her cry, wasn't he? Comfort her was the action that he would never be able to enforce properly. It had always been that way.

Everything divided us since that day.

"Do it"

A-ah, it didn't matter anymore. He felt jealous at her. That's all.

He felt jealous at her being a human: stubbornly struggling to survive for herself, yet willingly sacrificing herself for others without a thought, foolishly beaming with hope in the midst of despair, yet easily falling in distress at the death of others, beautifully talking about the heart as if she could hold it in her hand, and happily donating it to those who needed. He felt jealous because he couldn't do the same thing as her, even when he tried to put himself in her shoes.

He felt jealous because such kind of human like her would never belong to him. He felt jealous because he didn't belong anywhere in this woman.

Neither in her body, her mind nor her heart.

Her body and her mind didn't belong to him. As she had put it, they belonged to Aizen-sama deceitfully.

Her heart didn't belong to him. As she had put it, it belonged to her friends - her stupid trash of friends - and that orange-haired shinigami – the trash of trash - that didn't believe in her and her heart at the first place.

"STOP, KUROSAKI-KUN!"

A shout from a familiar voice snapped him out from falling deep into the abyss of the ocean, bringing his consciousness back to the world of the night. By the time he realized with his mind, his body moved instinctively, already sonido-ed up to the hollow, already had lighting lance in his hand and going to cut off the horn, yet not the neck. As if there was another force somewhere besides his mind manipulating his own body.

Ulquiorra couldn't figure out his body function at that time right now, but all he knew that he must stop whatever "Kurosaki-kun" was going to do.

He must fulfill that anguish shout from her even if he had to sacrifice himself.

I must stop it.

Strangely enough, even when he woke up from hollow slumber, the deeds he had done would not be erased. Never ever he had felt such burning sensation throughout his body. It wasn't even from the pain of his regeneration. It was hurt more tenfold.

The shinigami had fallen again, dead. The woman still ran toward the shinigami's side, crying for his lifeless body.

What should he do? He couldn't comfort her. Because he was the one who couldn't undo such action, harming and killing her friends. He didn't have right to be by her side anymore.

Ulquiorra turned away, trying to walk far away from her as much as possible. For the first time, he felt such regret and sadness for the things he had done. He didn't understand what caused him feeling like this. But the pain he felt creeping at the edge of his hollow hole wasn't an illusion, more so than the pain of losing his organs inside. It was as real as what he could see with his eyes.

It must be my punishment. Ulquiorra thought so when he heard his wing exploded and dissolved into ash.

For some reason, he felt strangely pleased because it only meant that his wishing for being erased from his meaningless existence had been granted. The pain had been dull once again. He felt nothing right now. There's no pain, no gain of anything. He just returned back to where he should belong, the ground, of dust and ash.

In that helpless moment when Ulquiorra thought that he couldn't be able to move any muscles of his body anymore, he casted his gaze on her, the familiar pure white figure with sunset hair that he had come to accustom with. How come? In this messy state of her body, she looked so beautiful and angelic to him.

What a strange human, this woman.

"Are you afraid of me, woman?" Surprisingly, his hand lifted up along with his speech, reaching toward her. He didn't understand his action, but he didn't mind nor hate it. For the first time, he accepted whatever his body wanted to do. Because his mind wanted to do the same thing.

Or was it because of his heart?

"I'm not afraid." She was looking straight at him with her glistering tears on verge of flowing out from the corners, unleashing such choking voice toward him. Yet, there was a firm tone in it, just like the first time when he asked her whether she was afraid and she also replied the same thing.

Strong. The woman he had come to know was always like that. Her strong spirit was what he couldn't beat.

Though, at that time, he hoped that she could spare him from being too much stubborn about the heart. He didn't have it, and he was jealous. She had it, but she didn't get his feeling nor have the same feeling toward him.

But this time, he watched her face, heard her voice, felt her everything even if he couldn't touch her. When his vision started to blur, it shifted from her face to his ashen hand, to his blackened fingers, stretching out and moving closer to her body. At this moment, he saw another image moving closer. Her fingers, her hand, her body, everything of her were reaching toward him. Another different kind of sensation rushed throughout his body when it supposed to be dull long ago. It started from her hand to his hand which was already dissolved into ash, to his body was going to become one with the wind. It was the sensation that he couldn't dare to give out a name. Because it's as such mysterious as whatever it could be named.

What is it?

I see.

Thu- Thump.


Ulquiorra was always jealous at Orihime's tear. Because he couldn't cry.

His tear marks just showed off how fake he was. How sarcastic he was, to don on his facial mask in such expression as in crying while the man himself couldn't feel any emotion. That's why he was jealous because he would want to do nothing more but wiping off those tears from her face, yet couldn't bring himself to do it everytime. He couldn't cry. He couldn't understand why she cried.

When Ulquiorra opened his eyes, tear drops fell like rain on his facial mask, dripping and flowing like a small river down to his mouth.

Salty. He thought while tasting it.

His vision started to be clearer and clearer. It was always his eyes that could materialize first. Seeing those existed and those didn't. Unfortunately, there was a red curtain hanging down, spraying all over his eyes, covering his vision for a moment. He wanted to lift it up to see the sun.

His sun.

When his mind was finally as light as a cloud, he started to feel his whole body.

Strange. Why is it so heavy?

He felt like a stone as if something had been structuralized inside him. Something very heavy to the point that he could felt it everywhere in every muscle of his body.

Regardless of the unfathomable weight of his body, he lifted his right hand up no less. Touching every curl of the red hair. Reaching up to the nape of the neck, to the hollow yet peachy cheek. His fingers moved toward the destination that was the corner of her eyes, to remove the salty liquid that kept falling off, with such tenderness. And then it lay there. His palm cupped completely in the plane her soft cheek.

Warm. For the first time, he finally felt her temperature and his slowly melding into one. Just from one touch.

When the curtain had been lifted, he finally saw her face clearly now.

There were no spoken words, no specific movements. He only gazed her. She only gazed him.

During that moment, everything they wanted to say to each other had been conveyed through their eyes.

"Ulquiorra" Woman

"You're back." I'm back.

Though, there was one thing he wanted her to know. One thing that he would proudly inform her. So that he could enjoy seeing her proudly reacting to his news.

"The heart. I found it."

Orihime widened her eyes for a second, but soften her gaze as if she understood what he meant.

She lifted up her hands to touch the back of his hand on her cheek. Finally, entwining their fingers together.

"Here. I see you, woman." Ulquiorra squeezed his grasp on her fingers slightly.

Though what he didn't expect next was a smile beaming from Orihime, toward him.

"Orihime. Call me Orihime." She said, gently. Finally, her tears were completely wiped off.

"Orihime" Whispering in an audible tone enough for her to hear, Ulquiorra closed his eyes, falling into sleep.

Unknowingly to him, the woman he had interest for dyed her face in another cherry blossom color while hearing him whispering her name.

Especially when she witnessed a slightly stretch in his lips as in smiling.

He was jealous after all.

But he didn't care. He had it now.

The heart.

Her.


JinxJen's note:

This fic was written in Ulquiorra's POV in the events of chapter 353/354.

There were shattered thoughts somewhere when I wrote this fic for the theme, but thankfully, it had tied up in the end.