Chapter 18

La Corte Royal ("The Royal Court")

"I knew you were absentminded, but not this absentminded! Wake up!" Tatsuki bobbed Orihime on the head with her fist lightly, making Orihime wince, disturbed. Immediately, Ulquiorra gave her friend a look of warning. Tatsuki ignored him, plastering a stern look onto her face before taking Orihime by the arm and leading her past the school gates. "How's your ankle?"

Orihime smiled at her friend, feeling more cheerful. "It's ok!" Already, her ankle was fully recovered, but she opted for the wrappings on her ankle instead of her usual thigh-high socks just to avoid raising suspicion.

Tatsuki's voice dropped as they looked back at Ulquiorra, who followed them apathetically. "And how's Ulquiorra?"

Instantly, Orihime's mood changed, her cheerfulness dipping. She lowered her eyes to the ground, blushing slightly. "Things are…awkward."

Tatsuki abruptly forced Orihime to face her, the girl's eyes big with disbelief. "Don't tell me that you and him have…have…done it." A few students stopped to stare at them.

"'Done it'?" Ulquiorra's deep voice came from behind them, making Orihime redden even more. Of course, Ulquiorra wasn't too familiar with colloquialisms yet, but it didn't stop him from knowing that certain things they discussed included him. She could feel his green eyes watching them, making her extremely uncomfortable.

"N-no! Of course, not!" Orihime responded hotly, her face burning red with embarrassment as she waved her hands around to dismiss the idea. If she wasn't careful, her skin would just turn red from all of the humiliating things her friends suggested. "Why would you think that?" She turned away from her friend, heading towards the building entrance.

As they entered the school, Orihime noticed a few students turning to look at her, their lips frozen in whispers. Nervously, Orihime moved for her shoe locker, taking notice of the murmurs and clouded expressions on the other students' faces.

She heard Tatsuki gasp from behind her. "Orihime!"

Her eyes widened in disbelief. Her tiny shoe locker, which was normally a storage for her shoes, held many envelopes cramped ungracefully into the small slots on the metal door. Quickly, Orihime pulled out the envelopes from the slot and examined them, realizing that they were all love letters. Some had ill-drawn hearts and others smelled like cologne. Orihime coughed, trying to wave away the strong smell, before she opened her shoe locker. Inside her locker, she found flowers overcrowding the small space.

"Wow, you're so popular!" Tatsuki commented, peering over Orihime's shoulder at the flowers. She looked her friend in the eye. "What're you going to do?"

Orihime smiled weakly. "Return them, of course," she answered, pulling the flowers and her indoor shoes out. "I'll feel bad if I don't."

"Woman," Ulquiorra suddenly ordered, causing Tatsuki to jump before glaring at him. One glance at him, and Orihime couldn't help but smile marginally. In his school uniform, he looked like a model waiting to go back to a photo shoot. Even the irritated aura he gave off completed his perfect appearance. "Show me my shoe locker immediately."

Just as Orihime opened her mouth to answer, a girl's hand appeared from behind him and took his arm. "I'll show you, Ulquiorra." A brown-haired girl stepped into Orihime's vision, her face peering at Ulquiorra with a confident smile. Ulquiorra merely glanced at the girl before giving her a nod and allowing her to lead him away. Watching them walk together, Orihime's heart dropped into her stomach. What was this feeling? Was she jealous of the other girl? Maybe she was just overjoyed that someone else was stepping in to help her with Ulquiorra, no matter how small the task. Orihime forced a smile onto her face as she told herself that everything was ok.

The girl took him only a few steps down the line of shoe lockers before pausing at a locker. "This is yours," she said, pointing at a shoe locker with love letters stuffed in it. Orihime blanched at the amount of letters he had received. It was obvious that Ulquiorra had many ardent fans in their school.

For a moment, Orihime felt a mixture of emotions hit her, none of them that she could clearly identify. Something in the air suddenly changed, leaving her feeling strange. She gasped as she brought her gaze to the love letters stuffed in Ulquiorra's locker.

They were falling out. As they scattered on the floor, Orihime noticed that each visible letter was cut in half. She wondered if one of Ulquiorra's fans did this, but something told her this was not the case. She vaguely remembered that each letter was intact before they hit floor. Or was it just her mind playing tricks on her?

It was no surprise to Orihime when Ulquiorra pulled the rest of love letters out of the locker and quickly deposited them into the girl's hands. A few shocked gasps came from some girls at the other end of the locker, but Ulquiorra paid them no attention. Even the brunette's brown eyes went wide with astonishment. Slowly, Ulquiorra pulled out his indoor shoes, slipped out of his shoes, and placed his shoes into the locker before turning away from the girl.

Although Orihime felt bad for the other girls, she couldn't help but realize their mistakes. Nothing like a love letter could reach Ulquiorra's hand, let alone, his heart. These girls didn't know a thing about Ulquiorra.

"Orihime Inoue!" A small bouquet of flowers appeared in front of her eyes. She turned to find one of her male classmates on one knee. His nervousness was written all of his face, though Orihime found it slightly enduring. "I've always liked you. Please go on one date with me!" His face reddened as Orihime stared at him with big eyes.

"A date?" Despite knowing her own popularity with her male classmates, no one really asked her out on dates. They thought she was too strange to be someone's girlfriend. After all this time, why now? The boy nodded eagerly, grinning.

Without permission, a white hand came forward and took the love letters and flowers out of her hands. Ulquiorra quietly placed the items into the boy's arms, and in the blink of an eye, he grasped Orihime's free hand. Electricity went through her veins, shocking Orihime even more. To everyone's amazement, Ulquiorra pivoted on his foot and nearly dragged Orihime with him out of the locker area.

"Ulquiorra!" Orihime called out when they were finally out of earshot. He slowed his pace until they fully stopped. Taking a deep breath, Orihime steadied her nerves, somehow disturbed by Ulquiorra's impulsive actions. He planned everything, counting on even the most minute details. Something was wrong, and she wanted to know what.

"Woman." Ulquiorra's voice reached her ears, low and dangerous. Releasing his hold on Orihime's hand, he stepped away from her, putting some distance between them without facing her. "Do not accept any gifts from those humans you call peers." He glanced over his shoulder, sending her a wary eye, before Ulquiorra stalked down the hallway alone. Orihime watched his back, stunned into silence.

Despite Orihime's inability to grasp the meaning of his words, the emotion he expressed wasn't lost on her. What amazed Orihime the most was how much he changed. She would have never thought that Ulquiorra Schiffer would one day show his jealous side. Instead of feeling stressed, Orihime found herself to feel somewhat relieved. She couldn't place why she was relieved, but she was happy to see this unguarded version of Ulquiorra.

As happy as she felt, there was a nagging feeling in the recesses of her mind. Seeing Ulquiorra react impulsively at school wasn't the only time she witnessed his developing emotions. In the dream, she watched another her kiss him without reserve, leaving him stunned. Just the sight alone made Orihime hurt, like a deep cut to her body, until her anger seized her mouth.

"Stay away from Ulquiorra."

She had really uttered those words. Her, Orihime Inoue, a girl who disliked inflicting pain on anyone or anything, had said those words as a warning. Like Ulquiorra's quiet but smoldering jealousy, her own jealousy couldn't be hidden.

Was she changing as well?

The mathematics teacher was incredibly boring, Ulquiorra decided, turning his attention to something more interesting. Already, the answers for the problems came easily to Ulquiorra, but to other students, they struggled. He could see the fear written across many students' faces. The students who weren't scared or asleep seemed to hang on to every word the teacher uttered, leaving only the teacher's monotonous voice to echo in the room.

Ulquiorra's seat, conveniently located next to a window, gave him a view of the sports field, allowing him to watch more intriguing things than his dull class. From his view, he watched a gym class begin, the students playing soccer out on the field. He noticed Orihime and her orange hair right away.

Though he had seen Orihime in less clothing, her gym outfit didn't give much for the imagination. Her large breasts pressed tight against the white fabric of her gym clothes and the shorts that normally sagged on other girls only conformed to the roundness of her butt. What Ulquiorra found striking about her was her hair. Instead of being free and loose, Orihime had tied up her hair up into a ponytail, exposing her elegant neck and skin.

Ulquiorra watched her laugh with her friends, and immediately, he wanted to be there, next to her. He liked the way her steel-colored eyes brightened whenever she smiled, and the way she said his name always seemed to touch a part of him he didn't know existed. He knew he was changing, but after the dream he had, he decided that change wasn't something to fight. Sometimes change made a person stronger, like when he reached his second release in Hueco Mundo.

He had always trained his spiritual energy, understanding that it would make him stronger. Now, as a human, Ulquiorra began to recognize the heart. Similar to spiritual energy, if he made that aspect of himself stronger, he could face anything. But the problem lied in the heart itself. Though Ulquiorra couldn't see it, he felt it beating in his chest, yet he couldn't make it do anything that he commanded. He realized that the heart wasn't just something that kept him alive. It was something that existed in the depths of himself, and the owner couldn't make it or train it to be stronger. Instead, the heart naturally developed, growing or deflating without pace or permission.

This heart he found interesting.

It seemed that his invisible heart reacted to Orihime. Gradually, he was gaining more emotions, developing more sensations, and understanding the building blocks that made humans. The part that frightened him the most was that he knew there were boundaries, most of which were set by his personality. He wasn't the kind of person to cross into one world while his foot remained in another world. He believed in keeping with a resolution.

But he had absolved himself of his own resolutions in Hueco Mundo. The heart, he realized, one could lose themselves in what it was—whatever that was. That alone changed him. Then Orihime became a constant part of his life, and he changed again. No matter how much he changed, Ulquiorra still felt like himself, that his actions were still that of himself. But he knew he was different. He knew he was—

"Ulquiorra Schiffer." The voice snapped him out of his thoughts, causing him to look at the speaker. A boy stood in front of his desk, a surprised expression on his face. "Are you Ulquiorra Schiffer?"

Ulquiorra peered around the room to find that class had ended and students were preparing for homeroom. He turned his green eyes onto the boy who looked like a cowardly child. "Yes."

"One of the students wanted to speak to you," the boy murmured, his eyes shifting nervously to the floor from behind his thick glasses. "I'll show you to them, if that's ok."

Ulquiorra could practically smell the fear on the boy's breath. He was scared of something, and whatever it was, Ulquiorra knew it had to do with someone stronger than himself. Standing up, Ulquiorra faced the boy and glared at him.

"Show me, boy," he stated, earning a shocked expression from the shorter student.

"O-ok." Ulquiorra followed him out of the classroom, past a group of staring girls, and up the stairs to the rooftop. The boy opened the door to the rooftop, allowing Ulquiorra to pass before he closed the door behind him.

Standing before them were a cluster of boys, all from Ulquiorra's grade, staring back at him with loathsome eyes. Ulquiorra immediately acknowledged the situation, but he didn't budge. If they were provoked by him, he'd give them a reason to be scared of him.

One burly boy with bleached hair stepped forward, his jaw set in anger. "Do you think you can have Orihime?" he spat out, glaring intensely at Ulquiorra. "Do you think you can just waltz into this school and take Orihime from us? Well, think again, foreigner." He cracked his knuckles loudly.

Ulquiorra didn't care. They were just insecure children afraid that someone would take away their favorite toy. He just waited until they were brave enough to come at him.

After all, it had been some time since he tested his close-combat skills.

Next Chapter: El Matador

Although Ulquiorra tries to keep his cool, things take a turn when Orihime shows up.

A/N: If you've ever read manga, especially with the bishounen or pretty boy types floating around in the story, I'm sure you've seen many scenes with love letters coming out of their shoe lockers. Since I live in Okinawa (the islands at the bottom tip of Japan), the students don't use shoe lockers like on mainland Japan, so I just went off of what I normally saw in anime and manga. Love letters are pretty common, though, because kids in Japan are rather shy. The whole "love confessions" thing is a BIG deal in Japan. But in English class, a lot of (male) students say to me, "I love you" so...

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