Captivated

Ichigo leaned against the wall, his eyes studying the pale arrancar sitting across the room. The emerald eyed arrancar was thumbing through a novel, paying rapt attention to each word that he read. It seemed that ever since the slender arrancar had arrived in Soul Society, he had been busying himself trying to understand the human race; a race that he found extremely fascinating.

So fascinating that he would question Ichigo about everything to do with humans. Ichigo often wondered whether the pale arrancar's curiosity would ever be quenched.

The young Vaizard scowled. This was not how he had wanted to spend his time. He did not want to spend his time babysitting an ex-Espada. Especially one that had tried to kill him before and nearly did.

Renji thumped him on the back sympathetically, shaking his head. "Come on, Ichi. It ain't that bad. I had to keep an eye on that guy for a few days and it wasn't that bad. All he does is sit quietly and sometimes stares at you. Creepy, yes, but he won't try to kill you."

"That's because he has never tried to kill you before," Ichigo said darkly, remembering the intense battle he had with the pale arrancar a few months ago. That thing had very nearly killed him, for God's sake! Surely Renji had not forgotten?

Apparently, he had.

"Yeah, but he saved Ishida, didn't he?" Renji said. "So he can't be that bad. Give him a chance."

Well, he had a point.

The first few days of babysitting the pale arrancar was not as bad as he had thought. True to his word, Renji was right about the arrancar minding his own business the whole time. Except to occasionally send him a barrage of questions about humans which, due to the arrancar's nature, was having difficulties to understand.

The pale arrancar had left Las Noches about a month ago, choosing to join their side after realizing that Aizen only saw the arrancars as mere, disposable tools. While the shinigami of Soul Society were overjoyed to get a new recruit (and a very powerful one at that), they were also very cautious. They had been keeping an eye on the slender arrancar. And now, it was Ichigo's turn to look after him.

A fact that did not make Ichigo happy.

Other than nearly killing him before, there was something else that made him reluctant to take the job. It was just that every time he was around the beautiful arrancar, he felt all hot and uncomfortable and thus making him irritable. He had been pretty short tempered with the arrancar even though the arrancar had been nothing but pleasant, if not distant, to him. Maybe it was the way those large, mesmerizing emerald orbs looked at him. It made him feel funny. It was a feeling that one would not associate with an enemy (okay, fine, ex-enemy) but Ichigo could not quite put a finger on it.

"Kurosaki Ichigo," Ulquiorra Cifer said.

He sighed. Here it comes. The former Cuarta Espada was going to ask him a question.

"What, Ulquiorra?" Ichigo snapped.

Unfazed by Ichigo's tone, emerald orbs continued to gaze into his brown ones. Ulquiorra had placed the novel that he was reading on his lap, his hands folded in front of him demurely. "Why do humans have sexual intercourse?"

Ichigo nearly choked.

What did he just say?

Turning red, Ichigo turned his face away from those curious eyes and said, "So that we can breed. We talked about this before."

More like Ichigo had done most of the talking. Matsumoto had been giving the pale arrancar novels to read since the arrancar wanted to learn more about human emotions. Unfortunately, most of her books were romance novels. Whenever Ulquiorra read one of the books, he would knit his eyebrows together, trying to understand why humans were wasting their energy pursuing love since it did not offer any use in battle. But he kept on reading, determined to understand. To quench his curiosity. This lead to him asking Ichigo numerous questions.