#ulori

The morning tide washes up the shore when he finally reaches the beach, panting at the added weight of her body. He throws her against the sand, not sure what to do with her —drowning humans he knows well. Saving them, on the other hand, is a complete novelty. The impact of the hit brings her back to consciousness, and he watches in disgust as she coughs air back to her lungs, her lips parting to throws up the sea water out of her system.

Humans are ugly, he thinks to himself. Their skin so pale and bland, not a single scale shining on their body. He glares into her eyes, a dull and boring brown against the shimmering emerald green of his own, takes in the lack of gills around her neck and wonders if cutting a pair of slits with his claws would help her breathe underwater. He entertains the thought for one second, while she looks back at him with a perplexed look, eyes bugging out in utmost terror.

Is this her first time meeting a merman, he wonders? It must certainly be. His kind isn’t prone to make acquaintances with humans; the females lure their ship, the males cause the sea storm that sinks them. That’s how it’s always been, and he’s not about to change anything in that pattern.

Except he already did.

“You’re alive.” He points out, somewhat accusingly. As if he’d taken personal offense. As if he wasn’t the one who snatched her away from death’s arms.

She almost flinches at the severity of his tone, struggling for a brief second before she can find her voice, “Y-Yes… t-thank you.”

His lips frown with distaste at her words.

“Stupid girl.” Mocks Ulquiorra, gesturing proudly at the raging sea. The sky thunder over the wreckage, dancing waves swallow everything in their path. “It was I who brought down your ship.”

“I know,” Her voice, though shaking in a mix of fatigue and revulsion, is almost defiant. “So why did you save me?”

White as the sand beneath them and shiny as the stranded seashells on the beach, his skin glistens ghostly under the sunshine. She realizes that every inch of his body is covered with scales. From his face, framed by his stern expression, to his majestic tail of jade green.

“You don’t belong in the water.” He warns, bringing her out of her reverie. “Don’t come back again.”

Before she has a chance to reply, a big wave washes down the shore and she’s all alone in the beach. 

.

But she does come back, and no matter how he lies to himself about it, he keeps waiting for her.

.

She dips her bare feet into the sand and leaves a trail of footsteps along the way to the place where he waits for her every day. She comes to him with stories about bakers and smiths and four-legged horses, with treats he refuses to taste and gifts that slowly melt underwater. He always sits in silence, watching her eyes gleam with marvel as she speaks, curious of how the sun kisses her peach skin to a lovely hue of red and the sea breeze tangles in her strawberry curls. He sits with her until her voice is hoarse from talking, until the horizon paints the sky a similar shade of her hair, until the evening wind is so chilly that her legs start shaking. 

They become unlikely friends, as much as he wants to deny it. She opens up her heart and pours all her secrets and dreams out to him, never asking him to do the same.

“Do you believe in soulmates?” She asks him one day, pecking at fresh baked bread she brought for him, which he refused to try.

“Merfolk don’t have souls.” He replies, unfazed.

To his surprise she laughs, carefree and genuine. “Who told you that?”

Ulquiorra doesn’t answer. It’s common knowledge, after all. He never thought it was necessary or practical to question it.

They stay silent from a while, she watching the imminent sundown and he lost in the possibility of lost causes.

“I’m leaving,” She says out of the blue, face turned to take in his reaction. A crumb of  bread falls into her feet, soon to be washed away by the waves. “To a faraway place, up in the north mountains. They say I’ll like it there. That the air won’t be thick and it won’t smell rotten.” Her voice is empty as the words she recites by memory. Ulquiorra doesn’t move, doesn’t make a sound to her monologue and she takes that as an invitation to keep going, “But I don’t think it’s true. I love the smell of this beach. I wish I could take it with me. I wish you could come with me.”

For the first time, he looks back at her, his eyes vacant and expressionless. She turns her sight to the setting horizon.

“D-Do you… believe in soulmates, Ulquiorra-kun?” She repeats, her fingernails digging into the embroidery of her golden dress, the hem damp and heavy with sea water.

“Merfolk—”

“I’m going to marry.” She interrupts, eyes swelling with unshed tears. “The prince in the castle up the North Mountains.”

Ulquiorra's stomach feels oddly light weighted, as if he hadn’t eaten for days.

“You don’t seem happy about it.”

She chuckles sadly, an odd gestured that arouses his concern.

“I was promised to him before I was even born. We don’t really have a choice.”

He seems to consider her words for a brief moment, weighing the rationality behind them and failing to understand. “You humans are so strange."

The girl sighs with what he thinks to be resignation, and emotion he hardly discerns. “We are indeed, aren’t we?”

“And your king won’t assist your situation?”

“Sora? Oh, no. I can’t do that.” She shakes her head vehemently, dismissing the smallest possibility of consideration. “It’d be sentencing our countries to war. And what is one person’s happiness against the life and safety of thousands?”

There it was, that thing about her that he couldn’t ever begin to comprehend.

“So you are sentencing yourself to a lifetime of suffering.”

Her laugh is bright and clear this time, he’s left puzzled at her sudden change of attitude. “Who knows? Maybe it was meant to be. Maybe he’s my soulmate.”

She’s met with a kind of silence that reminds her of their first encounter in that same beach.

.

.

“Where have you been?” The girl cries, her tone pitching between relief and indignation as he emerges from the lagoon. “I’ve been waiting for you all week!”

Humans are rotten in hypocrisy, the merman thinks to himself as he swims lazily to her. She’s the one who’d been gone missing the past few weeks, too busy in her romantic adventure to spare some time for him.

“I’ve come to say goodbye,” Her voice is strained, almost desperate. “I might never come back.”

He takes one second to let her words sink in, yet doesn’t let himself be bothered by the empty feeling burning through his chest. She looks at him expectantly, as if waiting for a response he can’t give her.

What difference would it make, anyway?

“Farewell, then.” Ulquiorra flicks his tail around and without a second look at her he heads towards the ocean, leaving her behind.

“Wait!” She shouts at the crashing waves, “Don’t leave like this, please!”

The ocean breeze drown her words, together with the last memory of her —the only memory of her he wants to forget.

  —Once, twice, times upon a time— 

The room is so dark when he opens his eyes that it takes him a while to realize he’s awake. Chest heaving at his rapid heartbeat, Ulquiorra brushes a hand over his forehead, bangs damp with a thin layer of sweat. He fells exhausted, as if he’d just run a marathon instead of sleeping. The dream replays in his mind like an old movie told in snapshots; yet he remembers it with overwhelming accuracy: the color of her hair, a pair of feet buried in the sand, the furious raging of a sea storm. He licks his lips expecting to taste the sea water, holds his fingers before his face in search for scales. Realization sinks in —it was just a dream. He doesn’t want to delve too much into reversed fairy tales that don’t make sense, no matter how realistic they might be.

The boy pulls himself out of bed and shrugs his shirt off, soaked with sweat from his almost-nightmare. On the way back from his wardrobe he picks up the cellphone resting on his desk.

Four AM.  

Sweeping his fingers over the screen, he reads six more messages from Grimmjow sent three hours ago. It makes him wonder why he even needs friends, but childhood acquaintances are something he really treasures, even when the one and only he has gets unbearable at times. A resigned sigh escapes his lips as he types a one-word reply to his incessant text messages:

Fine.

The lights on his bedroom are on —it’d be pointless trying to go back to sleep. Ulquiorra yawns against his palm before turning his attention to his laptop. Now seems like a good time to be looking for places near his university, but Tokyo is expensive and his family too big, he doesn’t want to become a burden to his parents. Co-renting a decent place nearby would do, and what he saves of transport plus any part time job he can find will make up significant part for his tuition.

Morning meets him as he circles down a name and an address. He closes his laptop and gets ready for the day. It promises to be a productive one, and it’s not even seven AM.

.

.

.

Karakura is quiet in the most ominous way, and Ulquiorra can’t help but feel uneasy about this strange town. Grimmjow, on the other hand, seems ecstatic to have his best friend sitting at the bleachers of his long-awaited baseball match —the last, since they’re graduating — even when he proves to be the worst cheerleader of all time.

Stoic and expressionless, Ulquiorra stares at the blue sky imagining it filled with dark clouds of grey, the omen of an impending storm forming.

He’s brought back to reality by the sudden high-pitched cheers of the crowd, and people around him start moving. The match must be over. Down the arena, there's a small commotion of people gathering around both teams. He spots Grimmjow celebrating with his teammates, the smuggest smile hanging on his face. Ulquiorra can feel his own lips curling. He’s happy for the bastard. Maybe now he can have some quiet time too, although knowing Grimmjow he will probably pester him with rennactings of his heroics for the next week or so. He’ll cope, as always.

Something suddenly catches his attention. A faint glint of burnt orange hair amidst the crowd, waist length and unmistakably familiar, makes her way to exit the grounds. Time stops for a second before he realizes she’s getting away. Without a second thought he darts out to from his seats and follows, heart pounding madly on his chest. He must know. Her face, her voice, her name—

A tight grasp on his shoulders stops him from the chase. Grimmjow's brows furrow into a preoccupied expression as he asks, “Oi, where are you going?” 

Ulquiorra scoffs with frustration . When he turns around to seek for the girl, she’s gone.