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Another weekend shift, another call-out at The Las Noches Shack. Actually, the word “Shack” was generous, since it was more like an over-decorated gazebo. The back held a wooden stand stacked with drinks, and just wide enough for a single person to move around before the long wooden bar stretched across the front. No chairs, nothing fancy. Just a shaded spot to escape the sun and maybe grab a drink or two.
At the center of the back wall, a narrow section broke the line of bottles where the sink was placed and a horrible make-shift sign that gave the only indication that this was indeed The Las Noches Shack. It offered a small place to lean without knocking anything over.
Ulquiorra, one of the temporary summer hires, stood against it with his arms crossed. Loose strands of dark hair slipped free from the ponytail at the nape of his neck, clinging to the sweat rolling down his face. He wore dark gray swim trunks and an unbuttoned, plain, muted sea-foam shirt.
Because of the call-out, he was stuck running the bar alone again during the busiest hours of the night, on top of the six hours he had already put in during the day shift.
Atleast the tips are best found at night, so Ulquiorra took that as the positive here. Maybe this time he’d actually get another chance to earn some. He figured working the quiet daytime hours was the reason he usually walked away with nothing.
Despite that one hiccup, he had to be grateful for the summer gig he’d managed to land between college semesters. For someone sensitive to the sun, working in the shade of the shack was far better than most jobs around here. In a beach town built on tourism, a spot out of the heat was a rare luxury.
Going to college in a beach town felt ridiculous, but walking away from a full-ride scholarship would’ve been even worse. So when it came to his sensitive skin, Ulquiorra had to eat it, atleast for the time-being until he graduated.
Where will you work? Where will you live? Can you afford your lifestyle? How will you afford it? What salary will you need to secure that comfort?
These were the questions that mattered: practical and necessary for success. Most people his age didn’t think that way, too caught up in the pleasures of the moment. He knew they would only realize their mistakes ten or twenty years from now.
So, despite the restless irritation of standing around at an almost empty bar, he found a kind of solace in mapping out his life-plan....and in knowing he was also getting paid while doing it.
But today, he found himself losing his ability to focus. It wasn't unusual for guests to come back to the bar a few times throughout the day, but one customer in particular was pushing it. At first she returned every hour, then every forty-five minutes, then every thirty. By the eighth drink, she had finally piqued his curiosity.
Of course when she walked in for the first time, he was surprised how he had been taken aback at her appearance. Flowing curves, a rack for days, and her sun-kissed smile even seemed to capture the gaze of all men and women within range.
There were many conventionally attractive women that found their way to the Las Noches Shack, but Ulquiorra wasn’t one that was swayed by such things. So he couldn’t pin-point why she seemed to elicit such a reaction from him.
It’s not that he had difficulty flirting or talking to women, atleast that’s what he convinced himself, it was probably just his appearance. Stark pale skin and a body that lacked the excessive muscles his coworker, Grimmjow had in comparison
Grimmjow was taller, carried a healthy tan, an attitude the ladies seemed to love, and muscles he never bothered to hide, strutting around shirtless. His looks and easy compliments made it simple for him to rake in tips.
So no, it wasn’t that Ulquiorra had any difficulty. It was just hard to measure up to Grimmjow. Yeah, that was it. He didn’t actually struggle to talk to women…and with Grimmjow not here, there was nothing stopping him from succeeding.
Still leaning back against the shack wall by the sink, he noticed the flash of bright orange as she approached the bar once again. And for the first time, he decided he might actually do something he’d never bothered with before.
Make conversation.
He quickly grabbed a couple of bottles, mixing their contents into the tumbler before giving it a brisk shake.
Also important to mention, it wasn’t about the money, or even that she was a pretty girl. By now, he was convinced it was simple curiosity, fixed on one question.
Why did she keep coming back?
Was she running drinks for her friends? If so, why didn’t they ever come with her? Why was it always her making the trips? Were they leaving her to handle the tedious work alone? And beyond that, why was it always the same order…?
“Another Halcyon Days, but replace the tequila with blue curaçao?”
Her eyes lit up genuinely so, she was probably taken aback at hearing his voice for the first time.
“O-Oh Yes...” She smiled awkwardly to herself as she placed the glass she was using 30 min ago back on the counter, allowing him to pour the concution for the 12th time today.
While the liquid fell, he found himself tracing over her features once more. Yes, as he acknowledged before, she was conventionally beautiful. The pink bikini top she wore with blue decorations barely seemed to hold her chest together, and the matching skirt suited her well.
Whenever he caught sight of her walking back toward the sand, a gust of wind would lift the fabric just enough to reveal the toned curve of her legs and hips.
The way she turned her face to the side, a faint red coloring her cheeks, puzzled him. No other part of her looked sunburned.
“Are you here with your friends?”
She perked up again at his question, just as startled as she’d been the first time he initiated. But the surprise quickly melted into a warm smile.
“I did earlier, but they left a little while ago.”
Her answer lined up perfectly with the last drops of the drink as he finished pouring.
“You made it really fast this time…” she remarked, tilting her head. “I thought you were supposed to shake everything together like before?”
“I saw you coming,” he replied simply.
She arched her brow. “So you started making it as soon as you saw me?”
“I assumed that’s what you came back for,” he replied simply, turning to wash the tumbler in the sink behind him.
She stayed quiet, and when he looked back, he was caught off guard by the way her eyes held his. The intensity of her gaze felt sharper than before, enough to make him pause. Most people tended to avoid eye-contact with him. His appearance, combined with his dismissive attitude, usually made prolonged contact uncomfortable.
Even with the surprise, his curiosity about her earlier answer lingered.
“When did they leave?” he asked.
“Who left?” she replied, raising her glass for another sip.
“Your friends.”
“Four hours ago.” The answer came too quickly. Which probably meant it was the truth, though she seemed to realize her slip only after. “Wait, I mean… some started leaving around that time, but--”
“Are you telling me you’ve been drinking all those Halcyon Days yourself for four hours? That’s about twelve drinks since.”
She blinked at him, caught in a daze by the sudden precision of his observation. “You were counting?” she asked in a soft laugh. A cute one he had to admit.
She didn’t bother correcting him or explaining further. Instead, she brushed a strand of hair behind her ear, her gaze flicking to the drops of condensation sliding down the curve of her glass.
“Sooo…” she drew out the word with a grin, “what’s your name?”
Ulquiorra’s eyes followed the motion of her hands, and he noticed something else. Her skin was completely dry, so she hadn’t been swimming either.
“Ulquiorra,” he introduced after a short pause. “Are you a tourist?”
“Yes! I’m here on vacation before I have to go back home for my last semester.”
Of course she was a tourist. Everyone here was. Still, for some reason, the answer made him bite the inside of his cheek.
“I see.”
An uncomfortable silence settled between them, and he decided that would be the end of their ‘conversation’.
“How about you?” she asked as he began to turn away, looking for something, anything, to make himself appear busy.
He stopped mid-turn and glanced at her from the corner of his eye. “I live here.”
“Wow!” Her gaze flicked down over his stomach before meeting his face again, an action she didn’t attempt to hide.
“I wouldn’t have guessed. You don’t look like a local.”
“I’m only here for school. I’ll be moving back home in the next few months… or wherever I land a job.”
She leaned over the counter, clearly excited, the movement pressing her chest forward and showing even more cleavage. Using her hands to lift herself, she pulled halfway across the bar.
“So we’re both about to graduate! I’m an art major. What are you studying?”
His eyes glazed briefly before he answered. “Biology.”
She leaned back, lifting her glass for another sip. “Hmm… interesting.”
“What’s interesting?” he asked, turning to face her fully. “Oh--one moment.”
Another guest appeared at the far end of the bar, rattling off a needlessly complicated order that took more steps and more time than it should have. Ulquiorra moved through the motions with his usual precision, yet a strange agitation stirred in him that he couldn’t quite place. All he knew was that by the time he finished, she would surely be gone.
When the guest finally walked off with a casual, “Put it on my tab,” Ulquiorra wiped his hands slowly on a rag hanging beneath the counter, deliberately taking his time.
And then, when he turned back, he froze. She was still there, leaning on one arm, cheek propped against her palm, her other hand lazily lifting her drink as she took another sip.
He crossed the space back to her with a brisk step. “I thought you would have left.”
The girl looked almost offended. “What?! We were in the middle of a conversation.”
The admission stalled him. Conversation? He tried to recall what had been said, but his mind came up blank. Everything began to feel static, his thoughts, the air between them, even the uncomfortable prickling of goosebumps along his skin.
Her lips curved into a half-smile, filling the silence for him. “You just give off a computer science vibe.”
“I get that a lot,” he admitted, stopping directly in front of her. “But I’m more interested in how living things are built and how they function.”
He slipped his hands into the pockets of his dark beach shorts, shifting his weight from one foot to the other. His gaze dropped briefly to the ground as he searched for the next thing to say. When he finally looked up, she was still staring at him, her eyes so bright it almost felt blinding.
The sun was beginning to set, its glow catching in her hair of warm auburn. His eyes traced her features once more before meeting hers again.
“When do you leave?”
“My flight’s tomorrow,” she answered without hesitation.
“I see.”
“When does your shift end?”
The question sent a tingle down the back of his neck. It felt like they were having another conversation beneath the surface, one without words, something she seemed to understand that he couldn’t quite grasp.
He struggled to find where to look, to decide what to say, but the answer was needlessly simple. His shift ended at midnight, since he was covering for Grimmjow. Yet the words that left his mouth betrayed the truth.
“In about two hours.”
The flicker of disappointment on her face unsettled him, and he couldn’t understand why.
The sharp ring of a phone broke whatever spell had bound him. To his relief, she pulled away from the table, slipping a smartphone from the side of her skirt where it had been tucked away. With a sigh, annoyance flickered across her features, the light from her phone only seemed to illuminate them more.
After a moment of silent deliberation, she silenced the call, slid the phone back into her skirt, and from the same place pulled out a few folded bills.
Ulquiorra cut in, “I already put it on your tab.”
She ignored him, setting the bills on the counter and sliding them his way. His fingers brushed against the edge of the paper as he took them.
“Silly, it’s a tip.”
And just like that, she turned and walked back toward the beach, the same way she had appeared a dozen times before. But this time, something in her stride felt different. Ulquiorra couldn’t shake the sense she wasn’t coming back. Why would she? The day was ending, she had already had more than enough to drink, and those calls had probably been her friends. It all made sense, yet the heaviness pressing against his chest left him uncomfortably aware of it.
Without hesitation, his fingers closed around the bills she had left on the counter. As he drew them back, ready to slip them into his pocket, a flash of bright pink caught his eye.
He turned the bills over and froze. Scrawled across the paper were two simple words: Call me , followed by her number.
He stared at it for what felt like half a minute before the weight of it sank in. Then, with uncharacteristic urgency, he pulled out his phone, dialed a number, and spoke flatly into the receiver.
“I’m not covering your shift.”
He heard curses on the other line before hanging up.
The next two hours dragged on endlessly. Normally, he would have spent the time sorting through his thoughts or mapping out his future, but instead his mind kept stalling, caught in the unfamiliar weight of the present.
Thirty minutes before his shift was set to end, he finally made the decision he had been circling all along. Pulling out his phone, he dialed the number he already knew by heart. The voice that answered sounded just as surprised as when she had left him ninety minutes earlier.
“I didn’t think you were actually going to call me.” She giggled softly through the line.
Something in Ulquiorra’s chest sank at her words, though a strange lift followed…she had recognized him instantly, without needing an introduction. “Are you disappointed?”
“Oh--oh no! That’s not what I meant,” she rushed out, her voice tumbling over itself before she caught her breath.
There was a pause, faint static humming between them, and then she asked, slower this time, her words breaking on hesitation:
“Are you… free tonight? When your shift ends?”
Ulquiorra felt a warmth settle deep in his stomach. “Yeah.”
They agreed to meet in front of the hotel where she was staying. She would wash up first and then meet him downstairs, while he wrapped up at the bar.
Ulquiorra waited with thinly veiled impatience as the last guests ordered their drinks. But the moment he caught a flicker of blue in the crowd outside, his eyes sharpened. He pushed through the wooden pallets that served as the bar’s rugged employee entrance and strode past Grimmjow without so much as a glance.
He cut through the boardwalk crowd, weaving around tourists as he made his way towards her hotel. To his right, the surf broke against the sand, its rhythm mixing with the rising voices as the nightlife began to awaken. His stride pressed into a brisk walk, the noise dulling around him as his mind slipped strangely blank. The hotel was only fifteen minutes away, so he knew he wouldn’t be late, so he couldn’t understand why he was rushing.
The last of the sunlight lingered over the beach, just enough to carve detail into the path ahead. Then something caught his eye. At the edge where sand met the boardwalk, a puddle of blue liquid bled from the grit sand and began pooling into the cement of the boardwalk
He slowed, then stopped as he approached. The smell hit him first, sweet and unmistakable.
Blue curaçao.
Enough of it soaked into the ground to account for eleven, maybe twelve Halcyon Days.
As the sun dipped lower, the lamp-posts lining the boardwalk flickered on one by one, their light sparking to life just as the realization struck him. Urgency surged from his chest to his feet, driving his brisk walk into a full sprint.
Wind and sand whipped against his face, loosening the tie in his hair until strands flew free. He didn’t understand why he was running. The future, his plans, the careful order he relied on had vanished, and for once he moved without knowing why.
And in the blankness of his thoughts, the last auburn light of the sun sank beneath the water, and with it lingered the scent of halcyon days with blue curaçao.
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