Gaoyu didn't actually need anything. He only needed to raise Szayelaporro's favorability.
But he had to ask for something.
It was to put Szayelaporro at ease.
Someone like him would never believe in a gift. He only believed in give and take, in transactions.
Dealing with these heartless Hollows was exhausting. Their thought processes were completely different from those of Soul Reapers and humans. They were an exceedingly stubborn and extreme species.
Gaoyu had originally thought it would be easy to raise Stark's favorability above eighty. After all, Stark desperately wanted a friend.
But after spending time with him, Gaoyu realized that although Stark's favorability did rise fairly quickly, it was nowhere near as fast as he'd imagined.
And, just like with Shunsui Kyoraku, the higher it climbed, the more slowly it increased.
Gaoyu guessed it might be because Stark had lost many "companions" in the past. Those friends had all had their lives snuffed out by his overwhelming spiritual pressure.
So although he yearned with all his heart to find a friend, he was also afraid that his next friend would meet the same fate.
For a Hollow, that sort of conflicted mindset was already relatively healthy.
According to the basis Aizen would later use to divide the Espada—the "forms of death"—Stark's form of death was loneliness.
And Stark was already trying to fight that loneliness. Perhaps that was precisely what made him the most unusual Hollow: one who had broken his mask of his own accord.
The other Espada, by contrast, all embodied their forms of death perfectly.
Barragan was devoted to aging, Tier Harribel revered sacrifice, Nnoitra reveled in despair, and Grimmjow was fixated on destruction...
Perhaps that was why Stark, who sought friends instead of embracing solitude, could break his mask on his own, and why