They stood off to the side of the pick-up counter while her other friends waited for their drinks.
Orihime hummed as she held her cup under her nose, glancing over it to her companion. He always looked so quietly lost when he pretended to be human. As if it was not only a couple of months ago that she conjured him back to life from nothing but a helmet, nestled haphazardly amongst the drifting sands of Hueco Mundo, and returned with him to live in her world.
He asked her at the time why she did it, and she simply shrugged and told him it was the right thing to do.
He did not believe her at the time, and he did not believe her now. His last thoughts before fading to ash were laced with regrets—so many what ifs crammed into such a short span of time—
"—pumpkin spice?"
Ulquiorra blinked. She must have been talking to him while he was lost in thought.
"What?" he asked without guilt. She was used to him spacing out and getting lost in thought by now.
Her first response was a mild frown. She was used to this, and it was slightly annoying, but she understood. Life here in the world of the living was overwhelming to him in its unfamiliar subtleties and customs. She sighed quietly and gathered her patience before repeating, "Have you ever tried pumpkin spice?"
Ulquiorra's brows dipped as he took the paper cup she held towards him, eyes focused on her name handwritten on its side. "No. What is pumpkin spice?"
"It's the flavoring in that coffee. I think it's mostly cinnamon and clove, but I could look it up?"
He ignored her offer, instead bringing the small opening in the plastic lid up under his nose and inhaling the aroma. The smell of freshly brewed espresso was the strongest scent, but just underneath he could detect cream and cinnamon, ginger, and nutmeg—with which he was familiar, having studied the contents of her pantry. But there was another stronger spice that rose above them that he had not yet encountered. "Interesting," he muttered, handing it back to her.
"Oh, come on, don't be shy, Ulquiorra. Take a sip!" Orihime offered along with a sunny smile.
Ulquiorra quietly sighed—a habit he had unwittingly borrowed from her—and put the plastic lid to his lips. The liquid inside was scorching hot, which he did not enjoy, so he carefully suctioned some of it into his mouth along with some air from outside the cup to cool it, making a loud slurping noise
Orihime giggled and glanced around to see if anyone heard him, and she thought she saw a flash of Ishida's eyes rolling behind his glasses, but she couldn't be sure.
She did not comment on how silly he sounded, though. She had all the time in the world to teach him proper manners, and it would be better not to cram them all down his throat at once.
She watched him nod once as he silently handed the cup back to her. It made her question whether or not she needed to re-evaluate the progression of his civility training schedule.
"So? How was it?" she prodded after a long pause.
"Interesting. I liked it," Ulquiorra said, tipping his face down slightly. It was the only signal he gave to show that he recognized how he had failed to respond appropriately the first time.
Orihime stared at him for a moment before relaxing her expression. "It is interesting, isn't it?" she asked, then turned to stand shoulder to shoulder with him so they could both watch her friends in line. "I only ever gave it a try last year."
"Why is that?" Ulquiorra asked, practicing that thing she called 'conversation'.
"I don't know," she said with a smirk before pausing to take a sip of her own. "I guess as people grow up, their tastes become more mature, too. I used to like some really wild combinations that a lot of people thought were ridiculous."
That made him frown. He took his own cup of black coffee away from his face and asked, "Like what?"
"Strawberry coffee." She glanced at him to see if he would react, but he didn't. "Strawberry coffee is only a little weird. But I would always ask for a cinnamon stick in any coffee I ever ordered, including the strawberry one. Strawberry and cinnamon coffee seems kind of bizarre. It's not bad, but it's not what most people think about when they want a sweet treat. It's no cinnamon and clove, that's for sure," she said, her gaze stopping on Ichigo's profile for a long moment.
Ulquiorra noticed. He tried to suppress the small stab of insecurity he felt as it pulled his belly tight, but he noticed that, too, before it quickly died down. "Would you like to go find a table?" he asked her quietly.
Orihime nodded and turned towards the seating area of the cafe. There was a counter at the windows and several four and two-top tables. She led the way to a two-top close enough to an empty four-top to accommodate their party while still giving her and Ulquiorra a little bit of privacy and separation for when he needed a breather.
Despite their truce for Orihime's sake, Ulquiorra and Ichigo were not especially fond of one another, having both killed the other at least once. It made things awkward, at least.
After they took their seats, Orihime took a long drink of her coffee, looking at Ulquiorra over the lid. He noticed a moment later and watched her stare at him. He eventually tilted his head in a silent question.
"This is better," she repeated, this time with a small, knowing smile on her lips.
Now he was confused. Was it the drink? His company? Being seated? "Better than what?" he asked.
Still looking into his eyes, she replied, "Better than cinnamon and strawberry. It doesn't go together as well as cinnamon and clove. Cinnamon and clove is a much, much better combination."
He narrowed his eyes; clearly he was missing something here.
She grinned and decided to explain. "You know how Ichigo's name also means 'strawberry', right?"
His eyebrows nearly joined together in a straight line. "...Yes?"
"And you know how I'm kind of a cinnamon roll?"
He remained confused. He understood the expression and how it did not only refer to the bakery treat. He nodded anyway.
"And you know… my hair color is similar to cinnamon's color… My whole vibe is kind of a cinnamon aesthetic in the fall and winter."
His shoulders dropped, knowing he was in for another lesson about some obscure topic. "No, but do elaborate."
She smiled and produced her phone, tapped in the phrase 'cinnamon aesthetic' and showed him rows and rows of pictures of cinnamon sticks with star anise artfully arranged around them, and a still life of sweaters, a book, little pumpkins, and a mug of brown liquid with a cinnamon stick in it.
There were also photos of sliced apples sprinkled with cinnamon, the aforementioned cinnamon rolls, and yet another sweater-cinnamon themed still life, this time with a candle. "Like this. Cozy, warm, sweet, and a little spicy. Some people might describe me that way."
"A little spicy?" Ulquiorra asked sardonically.
Orihime's mouth and brows flatlined, unimpressed with his ridicule. "Some people have a higher spice tolerance than others, mister cat-tongue."
Ulquiorra's enormous eyes rolled despite himself. She had previously explained that in her culture, people who could not handle hot temperatures (and sometimes spicy food) were described as having a cat tongue. It always felt like he was being compared to Grimmjow when she brought it up, an idea that made him cringe intensely.
"Perhaps I am too spicy for you. What do you think?" she asked, affecting a somewhat lofty air.
He stared at her silently for the better part of a minute before finally relenting and replying, "No. Well, maybe at first. Anyway, I still do not understand what any of this has to do with Kurosaki."
She sighed, this time with emphasis. "Well, if I'm cinnamon and Ichigo is strawberry and we don't go very well together, but I go well together with clove…" she trailed off, hoping he would connect the dots on his own.
His long, silent pause would indicate that no dots were connecting at all, except for the sporadic twitching of his brows, a habit she had learned usually accompanied him warring with conflicting ideas.
"...Are you comparing me to a spice, Woman?"
Her face lit up and she nodded with excitement while he sighed, shoulders dropping and everything.
"No! Look!" Orihime argued, again pulling her phone out and tapping in something about cloves into a search, then turning her screen to face him. There he saw rows of pictures showing a dark, rather phallic looking spice, which caused his right brow to rise in question.
He glanced back down at the phone as she ignored him to see more photos of dried phalluses against dark backgrounds or in black iron tin bowls.
The second row showed a black and white close up of the pale eye of a beautiful young woman with black lashes and brows, long hair covering the outer corner, which made his brow drop.
The next image showed black knives stuck to a brown corkboard target, the next held black bottles of wine, another displayed a hand with black nails holding a cigarette wrapped in black paper, and yet another showed a room decorate with dark furniture, its walls covered in artwork featuring bats and taxidermied crows on a bookshelf behind a ouija board table.
It didn't stop there. There was a man with black makeup extending under his eyelids, reminiscent of his estigma as an espada. When he saw a black record with a white and green label with the title, 'Clove Cigarettes' on it, he decided he had seen enough.
"This is what you think of when you think of me, Woman?" he finally asked with a frown. He did not like to be associated with such strong and dark imagery, his past notwithstanding.
Orihime turned the phone back to herself and frowned softly. "Well, a little, but not in a bad way, Ulquiorra. There is some romance in this imagery, too, but it looks like I accidentally tapped 'clove cigarette' aesthetic. Let me fix it," she said, tapping the screen again, then smiling before holding it back towards him with a smile.
Again he saw the phallic spices. But the next image, an underexposed photo of a man in a tweed vest's arm holding a bouquet of pale pink roses, was much more pleasant. However, the next one made his eyes widen and brows raise as he saw the small black phalluses impaling a ripe orange as if trying to impregnate it. "What are you trying to tell me, Woman?" he asked suggestively.
Orihime turned the phone back towards herself and frowned. "What are you talking about?"
He knew she was relatively innocent in these things, but she had to know the basics of human reproduction at her age. "Does this not appear similar to illustrations of the competition between male sex cells trying to fertilize a female sex cell?"
She knew those words. She didn't previously know that he knew those words.
She gasped, her own brows shooting up towards her hairline as her cheeks colored. "No it doesn't!" she denied, then swiped the screen of the phone and showed him another picture, this one of a pile of dark cloves with a few warm brown cinnamon sticks laying on top of them.
To Ulquiorra, it was a soothing image. Warm, soft, and comfortable, rather like the drink in front of her.
Rather like the home they shared.
Rather like the feelings between them.
The mischievous glint in his eyes settled and a hint of a smile pulled at his lips. "I understand you, Woman. Thank you."