Chapter 9

El Principe Practicante ("The Practicing Prince")

"Orihime!" Orihime snapped out of her nap, looking up from behind her arms as Tatsuki ran up to her. A worried expression crossed her friend's face again. "Orihime, are you ok?"

Orihime sat up and rubbed her eyes, a bit disoriented from the sleep. That's right, she thought, peering around the empty classroom. She was at school now. "I'm fine," she replied, smiling weakly. "Just a bit sleepy."

Orihime felt Tatsuki's fingers on her cheek as her friend pinched the skin, producing a red spot. She gave a cry of surprise before Tatsuki leaned towards her with a murderous glare. "You didn't stay up watching TV again, did you? You've got dark circles underneath your eyes."

"No," Orihime pouted, "I couldn't go to sleep. It's because of Ulquiorra that I'm not sleeping at night."

Tatsuki gasped and grabbed Orihime by the shoulders, leveling her eyes with Orihime's. "Don't tell me…"

"What?" Orhime was confused.

"Don't tell me Ulquiorra…" Tatsuki pressed on, squeezing her shoulders, "Ulquiorra…and you.." Tatsuki visibly gulped. "You guys…did that?"

"Did what?"

"You know…" Tatsuki pretended to kiss the air, and the message became loud and clear. However, Orihime's sleep-deprived mind popped an image into her head of her and Ulquiorra leaning into each other to kiss. Ulquiorra's lips mimicked Tatsuki's lips, closing in on Orihime's face.

"What?" Orihime cried out, feeling her face burn with embarrassment. She waved her arms wildly to make the dirty thoughts disappear. "No way! I wouldn't do that!"

Tatsuki lifted an eyebrow as it dawned on her that Orihime was telling the truth. Her expression became softer, allowing Orihime to calm herself down. Tatsuki crossed her arms. "How's it going with that Ulquiorra fellow?"

Orihime laid her head on her desk, the wood top cooling her pink face as she thought about the past few days. "He's like a child," she whined. "He doesn't know anything about the Living World. Every day, I have to teach him everything that I know, or else, he gets irritated with me." She pouted. "I thought it would be fun to have someone stay with me. I didn't realize how much work it took to teach someone something."

Tatsuki patted Orihime on the shoulder. "That sucks," she stated, "for him having to learn from you." It was a barb meant to produce some kind of laughter from Orihime, a tactic that she had accepted as part of her friendship with Tatsuki, but Orihime was too tired to even react. Instead, Tatsuki laughed mockingly at Orihime. "I mean, last time you tried to help me with my math homework, I was so confused I had to ask Ichigo to help me!"

"Unfair, Tatsuki!" Orihime whined, lifting her head up and pouting profusely. She didn't feel that Tatsuki's affectionate teasing was helping her feel better. "You don't get it! Ulquiorra is so hard to please! I made him some dishes I thought he'd like, and he hardly ate anything. Then I went to get him some clothes I thought he'd like, and he said, 'These are atrocious.' And when he sleeps, he makes a big deal about the lighting in the room and the exact distance between us when it's bedtime. He's never satisfied!" Just the thought of Ulquiorra saying again, "This is atrocious", made Orihime exhausted. She had heard him say the same words or the same meaning of the words several times in a day.

"I thought he wouldn't care, seeing that he was in Hueco Mundo," Tatsuki said, amusement in her voice. "I guess he's a prince after all."

Orihime put her head on her desk again, closing her eyes. "Shouldn't a prince be more princely?"

"Well, you know, you could just send the prince to school. You won't be responsible for displeasing that guy then."

What a great idea! Orihime opened her eyes, a new determination fueling her body and pushing the sleepiness away. She raised her body from her desk and took Tatsuki's shoulders by her hands, earning a look of surprise from her friend. Orihime smiled widely. Why hadn't she thought of that? All of the Soul Reapers who had long stays in the Living World always came to her school posing as transfer students. Why not Ulquiorra?

"Let's go, Tatsuki!" Orihime dashed out of the classroom, holding Tatsuki's hand as she made her way towards the Urahara Shop.

"Ta-da!" A grey shirt appeared in front of Ulquiorra's eyes as he sat at the window, taking him away from his daily human observations. Orihime beamed him with a smile that said, "I'm so happy for giving you something atrocious again!" Ulquiorra felt dread seep into his stomach as he stared at the plain grey shirt in her hands. Before Ulquiorra could ask a question, Orihime seemed to answer it. "It's a top to your new school uniform!" The tune along her words signified that this article of clothing was a good thing, which normally meant that it wasn't good for him.

"Starting on Thursday, you'll be attending high school with me!" Orihime announced, pushing the grey shirt into his arms.

"School?"

"Yup!" Orihime confirmed, producing a bag from her side and pulling out a pair of matching grey pants. Ulquiorra could only stare at the clothing as she dropped to her knees to reveal more clothes from the bag. "You're holding your winter jacket, and that's your regular slacks for all year long. I also got you some white business shirts embroidered for you.*" She held up a white shirt with buttons on them and pointed at a blue spot on the breast of it. "Can you read this? It says—"

"Karakura Senior High School," Ulquiorra finished, garnering a gasp from Orihime. Her slate-grey eyes went big as she stared at him in disbelief.

"You can read kanji**?"

Ulquiorra didn't understand why it was so strange to learn the writing system in the Living World. For some reason, the characters spoke to him like a forgotten memory being dug up from burial. It didn't take long for him to grasp how the characters worked together in common sentence structures. Although Ulquiorra wouldn't admit it, he secretly liked studying all of the characters from Orihime's old native language*** textbooks. The time she went to her school, he was studying either Japanese or humans.

Orihime continued to stare at him. "Wow," she breathed in awe, "you're so intelligent."

"Why must I attend school?" Ulquiorra inquired.

Orhime folded a white shirt as she answered, "Well, since you're human, you should know more than what I can teach you." She beamed at him again. "I thought school would be a great place for you to learn!" The expression on her face was one of excitement, and Ulquiorra could feel it warm his heart slightly. It seemed that they had reached a limit to her ability in teaching. Not that she had any to begin with, but she was certainly a good enough student to guide him in his self-study.

"Besides," Orihime began, holding up the grey shirt to him proudly, "I wanted to see you in this uniform. I bet you would look nice in clothes other than what you've been wearing for the past week."

"What is wrong with wearing these clothes?" Ulquiorra looked down at his clean white shirt and black pants. "I prefer simple clothes."

The girl just shook her head. "You prefer to be boring."

"I would prefer boring to atrocious," Ulquiorra returned, hoping his comment wouldn't damage Orihime's very fragile feelings. Thankfully, she ignored him by picking up some of the clothing from the floor and dropping them ungracefully into his arms.

"Try them on!" she beamed, hopping from one foot to the other in excitement. Her breasts bounced with her movements, and Ulquiorra couldn't help but be transfixed. They were far larger than what he recalled in Hueco Mundo. It seemed like her shirt could barely contain them within its material, straining to hold them still.

The lower limb in his body responded to Orihime's chest, a strange feeling settling into his stomach and spreading downwards. He could feel the limb grow bigger in his pants causing him to push his new clothes over it to hide it from Orihime's eyes. Whatever was influencing his limb to be so active, Ulquiorra figured it had to do with Orihime's chest.

"N-no," Ulquiorra found himself stammering, trying to get a grasp of the new sensations flowing through his blood. Quickly, he composed himself more seriously and pinned Orihime with a frosty glare.

Orihime leaned closer to him, smiling brightly. "C'mon, Ulquiorra! It's just a boring uniform! Just do it!"

Why was she becoming so familiar with him, forcing herself into his personal space and making him feel things he shouldn't? Ulquiorra's patience was wearing thin, as was the material against his new hard limb. It seemed as time went on with Orihime was in front of him, his limb was becoming more and more affected.

Thoughts that didn't belong to him began to invade his mind, and Ulquiorra tried his best to suppress them. Images of Orihime's blouse bursting open, revealing her uncovered breasts, made its way to the forefront of his mind. Ulquiorra could feel his face becoming hot.

Orihime noticed his sudden change in mood, but she misinterpreted the situation as she always did. "Are you feeling ok, Ulquiorra?" Orihime asked worriedly, leaning closer to him and pressing a hand to his forehead. With widened eyes, Ulquiorra realized that Orihime was touching him, sending a wave of new energy through his body and making the sensation in his limb grow stronger.

Batting her hand away, Ulquiorra stood up—with the clothes over his lower body—and glared menacingly at her. She stared at him with surprised but concerned eyes. "Leave me alone, woman," Ulquiorra all but growled. "I am having…difficulties right now."

"Difficulties?" Orihime responded softly, her eyes softening. "What do you mean? You don't want to go to school, do you?"

Ulquiorra sighed, exasperated. Sometimes, Orihime was too oblivious. He wondered how she managed her life as a human thus far. "Not school, woman. It is my body." With that, he made a gesture to his lower limb. However, he felt he didn't feel it was appropriate to show Orihime directly.

Immediately, Orihime understood the gesture, turning a bright pink and covering her eyes. "Oh, I get it! Ok! I'll…I'll help you…somehow!" To Ulquiorra's surprise, Orihime made a blind dash for the door. "Just stay there! I'll…figure something out!"

The door slammed behind her and Ulquiorra was left feeling perplexed. If she was going to help him, why was she running away?

Next chapter: Super Gracias, Campaña de Competencia de Parejas

Ulquiorra learns what real fear is...in the form of girls and competitions.

*In Japan, students wear two kinds of uniforms throughout the school year. One is a lighter uniform for the summer, and the other is a heavier uniform for the winter. Most uniforms have the school's logo embroidered on the breast of the shirt or jacket.

**Kanji is one of the formal writing systems in Japan that comes from Chinese characters. Though many characters are written the same way or have the same meaning, these characters use Japanese sounds.

***In Japanese high schools, students take Japanese under the name kokugo (国語), or native language.

A/N: I included a little more Japanese culture into this chapter. Obviously, I take a lot from my experiences living in Japan and being a foreigner myself, so hopefully, it adds to the authenticity of writing a Japan-based fanfic. Do you think it's a good thing or bad thing? And, of course, I had to add some obviously "manly" consequences of a male and a busty female living together! Did I do Ulquiorra justice? -_-;