Summary:

Successful YouTube musician, ObscurasIV and his favorite commenter, VegaStrife00 have had an uneventful and anonymous internet friendship. It was nice. It was comfortable. Except Obscuras developed feelings for Vega and has secretly been pining over the words on the screen.
He's about to head off to college with his best friend with benefits, Nel who has feelings for him.
College puts him into social situations that he wants no part of. So what happens when he has college professors who just want to stick him in groups with a redhead who always seems to run late?
Meanwhile, Vega is trying to turn over a new leaf in her own life, but is thwarted by a sleezeball mentor and jealous peers who want to keep her stuck in the same routine.
A masquerade tale of jealousy and new love combined into showing the lives of two people bound together. What happens when internet anonymity fails and on online spark turns into an offline flame?

College/musician/social media AU

Notes: So we are back at it with another AU for you UlquiHime fans. This fic is LONG. It's almost 500,000 words and we're breaking it up into parts, so this will be a series.

THIS IS A WORK OF FICTION IN AN ALTERNATE UNIVERSE. We do not own Bleach nor the characters used. They belong to their respective owners. Please feel free to PM us or leave a review. We reply ! Thank you for reading!

CHAPTER 1: SING A SONG FOR ME

"You've got a comment."

That's all his long-time best friend said that started this entire obsession over two years ago. He'd been on Youtube and Instagram for years but never really posted anything. He watched and favorited videos. It was the summer between his sophomore and junior year of high school when he felt mopey. In a fit of sadness, he uploaded a video of himself singing and playing the Martin acoustic guitar he loved so much.

It wasn't often he went seeking validation or approval from people but when it happened, the need for it hit hard. All he wanted to do was make music.

It was a stupid song. It was pointless. Stupid Kelly Clarkson's hit Since U Been Gone. Nel loved it. She encouraged him to do it. She sat with him in his bedroom while he sang.

Ulquiorra peered at the teal-haired female's head with a glare. He was laying on his back on her bed staring at the ceiling. "What?" he asked her

"You have a comment. It reads like it's from some kid." Nelliel said, glancing back at him.

Of course, Nel was stalking his social media accounts.

She'd been acting weird ever since it happened. Normally, Nel hovered around him but since that truth or dare makeout session in the basement of the teen girl's house, she'd been bitchy. Snippy. Possessive almost.

"Yeah? What's it say?"

"It's from a VegaStrife00. Let me go see what this train wreck looks like." Nel stopped speaking for a moment. "Nothing. It's some anon. You've got a stalker, Cifer."

He had scoffed at his friend and continued to lay there and listen to music, letting the ambient notes wash over him.

The green-eyed male was pulled out of his memories by the same teal-haired girl yanking his arm, shaking him from those more innocent days. His glance shifted towards her as they stood in line to see a new movie. He didn't want to be out in public. People were dumb. They were assholes. "What Nel?"

"I asked how your little internet girlfriend was," she teased with a smile.

"Tch, she's not my girlfriend. We're two nameless and faceless people hiding behind a screen and corresponding over social media," he answered. "You're not allowed-"

"I'm not," came her reply. She obviously knew what he was going to say.

Nel wasn't allowed to get jealous. That was their agreement. They weren't dating. That's what they agreed to.

He wanted to roll his eyes at her but didn't.

Ulquiorra Cifer was grateful for his friend but sometimes she was damn annoying. He'd come to live in Ohio several months after he turned four years old. His mother and father were recently divorced. John Cifer had asked for custody of Ulquiorra. Maria Cifer said it was fine. She was too busy being a career woman to raise a young child. The music industry didn't wait for people who wanted to take time off to raise a family.

The town was cozy. It was where John grew up and he decided Los Angeles wasn't a good place to raise a child. It was big and loud. It was riddled with crime and greed. It wasn't a good city to be a single parent. Sure the culture was rich and the experiences would be plenty but Ulquiorra would be a number. There was no way he would be an individual. The pale, green-eyed boy needed a community which would nurture him.

Ulquiorra didn't remember much about his mother. He friended her on facebook but other than texts and an occasional phone call, he really didn't speak to her which was fine with him. The kid understood the need for success and accomplishments but his mother didn't bother to reach out to him even as he got older.

It didn't really matter.

He had other people to care about. There was his paternal grandmother. There was his father and his on again/off again boyfriend. There was his best friend.

Ulquiorra had known Nelliel since the day he moved into that two-story house that sat on the quiet street. Her mother had brought her and her brother over to greet him and his dad. The boy had hidden behind his father to peer at the blonde with big taupe eyes and the red cheeks. Her face lit up and automatically they were hand in hand, racing off to play on the swing set.

"I'm Nel! That's my brother Pesche. He's an idiot."

"I am not!" The blond boy yelled at her.

And that's how a fourteen-year friendship started. Nel was on the verge of destroying it with her behavior though. Ulquiorra had no interest in her or anyone else in a romantic way. He felt no desire toward his friend. She tried to gain his interest but nothing worked.

The bikinis he would glance at then turn his head away. The accidental towel slips or changing in front of him would be ignored. Ulquiorra wasn't gay. He knew that much. It was just no one seemed to interest him.

Well, that wasn't true.

He liked the mysterious commenter that popped up all those months ago but he never crossed any lines with this Vega. He didn't know what they looked like. He didn't know their gender. Ulquiorra was afraid to find this stuff out. Putting a face with a name could mean that there was the potential to lose interest on his part.

Ulquiorra didn't want that.

Vega challenged him with how they thought. They made him question himself on a regular basis. Every time he uploaded a video to Youtube or a picture to Instagram he waited for a comment from Vega to pop up in his notifications. They would tell him what they liked about the video or what he could work on.

Nel would just kiss his ass.

"You did great!"

"You look great!"

"I'm so proud of you. It was perfect."

He never thought so. Nothing he did was ever perfect. Vega pointed this out and he improved for his next post or next video.

Nel wasn't allowed to get jealous. There was no need to get jealous of the commenter. Vega was just words on a screen. Vega obviously had knowledge of musical performances and singing. Ulquiorra was drinking in this knowledge and applying it to better himself. Vega helped him and it made his fanbase grow.

It happened at the end of last year. It was Christmas, there was snow on the ground. It was late at night. The best friends were trying to build a snowman in Nel's backyard which escalated into a snowball fight then into Nel chasing Ulquiorra around the dark yard.

Ulquiorra shouldn't have done it but he stuffed snow down Nel's pants. She tripped him and then fell on top of him. It was cold in the snow but for some reason, Ulquiorra thought it would be nice just to see what it was like to plant a kiss on Nel. It was an experiment.

To be honest, he didn't expect her to react the way she did, sliding her hands into his hair and returning the kiss. After a moment or two, Ulquiorra turned and dumped her on the ground then stood. The two of them agreed to date, sure, but they weren't exclusive. The boy used the term loosely while Nel continued to get more and more clingy. She still went out with other people.

After three months, things got physical. Ulquiorra watched from her bed as she undressed. He didn't desire Nel. Sure, she was attractive but there was nothing there that caught his interest. They had conversations which led to fights.

Ulquiorra agreed to try the whole sexual activities thing as long as they didn't actually have sex. Of course, being the hypersexual being that Nel was, the teal haired female was not happy. It was that or nothing. He had already threatened to ghost her and never talk to her again if she continued to push the subject.

So, they fooled around. After each time, Ulquiorra would rush home to wash himself off or he'd do it in the bathroom at Nel's house. She thought his little OCD was cute. Ulquiorra knew it was annoying. He found it annoying.

His hands had to be clean. His clothing immaculate. Nothing could be out of place. It was how he functioned. It was how he felt like he was in control of something in his life. Nel knew all of this and yet, she still found ways to make him uncomfortable.

When they graduated, Ulquiorra's mom offered to fly him and Nel out to L.A. as a graduation present. That's when the first major incident happened.

They were sitting on the deck of his mother's Malibu Hills home, looking out at the city. The lights twinkled in the darkness. His mom had fucked off to some party or was trying to spit out another money making artist so they had the house to themselves.

"Ulqui," Nel whined.

"What?" he asked from the lounge chair he reclined on with his hands behind his head, eyes closed.

"I think it's time."

Time? What was it time for? When he looked over at Nel she held up a condom and was completely naked. The dark-haired male sputtered and made excuses before escaping inside the house. Once they got back to Ohio, things seemed to return to normal. Nel never said anything about what happened in California.

Ulquiorra woke up. He went to work at the local coffee shop his dad owned when he was scheduled. He started going through his things. College was approaching; the end of August would begin a new adventure. He thought he'd go to the university of his choice by himself.

No. That wasn't happening.

Nel applied and was accepted to the same school as Ulquiorra. It irritated him. This information started a screaming match on Ulquiorra's day off in the middle of June. The kid was glad his dad was at work that day.

"You don't even fucking like school," he stated.

"And? Maybe I know it's my only chance to be close to you. Jesus, Ulq. You're fucking dense."

His brow furrowed with irritation. "What? How am I dense?"

"I did it because I love you and I want us to be together!"

"WHAT?"

After that Nel had him pinned against the wall and was kissing him. Her hands seemed to be everywhere and he didn't complain. His body was actually responding to her without him having to overanalyze everything. His best friend jerked him off and it took almost an hour to get to that point. She gave him head and it took about as long too. Afterward, Ulquiorra and Nel lay on the floor of his room, her body lying halfway on top of his.

"Ulqui?"

"What?"

"Are you gay like your dad? Maybe that's-"

"No, that's not it Nel. Maybe I am-" Ulquiorra didn't know the way to explain it that wouldn't send her into having a major meltdown. "Maybe I'm one of those other sexualities? Maybe I'm asexual or demisexual. I mean I enjoy looking at women. Men, so far, do nothing for me."

He heard the heavy sigh come from her lips. "Maybe you don't like me," she said.

This caused Ulquiorra to look at Nel. "What? Of course, I like you. I wouldn't-"

"That's not what I meant. Maybe you're more attracted to the people behind those screen names rather than me."

She had to say that. She had to bring it up. How the hell could someone be so jealous of someone who he'd only exchanged comments with and liked their comments on his pictures? There had been no interaction between him and- "Vega."

He didn't mean to say it out loud.

"Vega," she repeated.

"You think I have feelings for Vega?" Ulquiorra had to laugh at this. "No, Nel. I'm just weird and-"

"It's okay, Ulq; I get it."

He knew it would be useless to refute her statement. She wouldn't listen. Nel didn't get what he was saying at all. He didn't know what was wrong with him. Ulquiorra knew he didn't tick like a normal, warm-blooded male. He was rather odd at times, he knew this. He was unconventional when it came to certain aspects of his life.

A couple weeks went by and Ulquiorra was sitting in Nel's room with his guitar in his lap. He was playing some chords and generally fooling around, trying to come up with some music. He wasn't aware that Nel was recording video of him singing and playing.

She knew better than that. He didn't want anyone to know what he looked like. He didn't want anyone to see his face. When he was done singing, Ulquiorra looked up to see her giving him a dazzling smile.

He returned the gesture briefly, giving Nel one of his rare grins that showed off his teeth and the two dimples in his cheeks. Maybe he was attracted to Nel. Maybe he needed to give her a chance.

So he did and things were okay until the first week of August hit.

"This is ridiculous." Nel stood in his room with her arms crossed over her chest.

Ulquiorra was sitting in one of his desk chairs tuning his guitar, "What is ridiculous?"

"This Vega and the number of comments they've left you. Also the messages. Come on."

"Why do you have my phone Nel?"

"Because I'm your girlfriend?"

Ulquiorra opened his mouth then closed it. They never agreed to that. They were dating. They had a friend with benefits thing going on but it was more for her than it was for him. She had no business on his phone. There was nothing but comments and DMs between him and Vega, but still, Nel was being rude.

She threw his phone onto his bed. "Are you recording today?"

His mouth drew into a thin line. "I was but you-"

"Don't. You should just stop doing it. You don't even like putting yourself out there. I pushed you to do it." Nel stood there with her hands on her hips.

Green eyes leveled a stare at the teal-haired female. "What do you want, Nel?"

Her answer led to what he thought of as the third incident.

"I want you."

He took her out that night. They drove through the country roads to some parking lot in the middle of nowhere. She wanted him; fine. In the end, Ulquiorra chickened out. He couldn't do it. He didn't want to have sex with Nel.

The air inside the car was warm. The two people laying in the back seat huffed as they caught their breath. Sweat collected on their bodies. Nel's back was against Ulquiorra's chest. They were both naked. Ropes of come decorated Nel's thighs.

This was happening more and more often and it was usually Nel who initiated things. She would come onto the green-eyed graduate hot and heavy. What they did was risky but it was the only sexual contact that Ulquiorra would allow himself with her.

"You lasted longer this time," Nel managed to say.

"Yeah?"

"Why does it take you so long? Most eighteen-year-olds can come quick."

The dark-haired teen laughed. "I don't know but I wish I could be a minute man. I wouldn't waste a couple of hours of my day trying to get off," Ulquiorra said. He lifted Nel off his lap before sitting up and scooting back. He turned his body and put his feet on the floor.

She cuddled up to him. "You okay?" Nel asked.

"You need to clean up," Ulquiorra answered, handing her several paper towels from the roll he kept in the back seat. He was already wiping away the mess on his legs and groin.

Nel frowned but took the offered items from him. "Ulqui?"

"Nelliel?"

"Why can't we do the normal thing and just sit in silence, enjoying each other's company?"

He had to refrain from showing irritation at her. She knew why. "Nel, stop," Ulquiorra chided.

She sighed. "I thought you were going to fuck me."

"I don't want you."

"What?"

He hadn't meant to say that. He didn't mean to say those words out loud and to Nel. "I mean I didn't want to. Not right now. It seems-I don't want to lose my virginity in my car."

"You meant what you said the first time," Nel stated. She sniffled. "How long have we been friends? You were just going to continue to string me along, weren't you? Hashtag, waste her time. You should post that on Instagram for your precious Vega to comment on."

Nel said nothing to him during the drive back into town. She didn't even talk to him a week after that. Whenever he saw her, she would turn red and look away from Ulquiorra. It made him feel awful.

The weekend before they were supposed to leave for university, Ulquiorra ran into Nel. "Hey," he said. That two weeks had been the longest they had gone without speaking to each other.

"Hey."

"You still driving up with me?" Ulquiorra asked.

Nel shrugged. "Pesche says he'll take me. He has nothing else to do. What dorm are you in?"

"One of the co-ed ones. I think it starts with a R or something. Nel..."

Her head turned and she stared at him with a guarded expression. "What?"

"I didn't mean what I said. I didn't want to in the car. It's cramped and-"

"What's your excuse every other time?"

"I didn't want to. I don't want to. It's not just you. No one interests me like that." Ulquiorra bit his lip and ran a hand through his hair. "I need more time. In the meantime, I kinda miss my best friend."

"Ulqui." Her voice had a whiny lilt to it.

And just like that, they were best friends again but there was a certain underlying tension to their relationship.

"You are going to do a concert class next month."

"A what?"

"A concert class," the professor with nut-brown hair and rectangular glasses said in a smooth voice, his lips carving a predatory smile across the lower half of his face. Sousuke Aizen was one of four tenured vocal performance instructors on staff, and he took full advantage of his position. He looked up and down the pretty young woman's figure slowly. "Usually freshmen don't do them, but you're Claire Cartwright's niece. It's to be expected that you will be more accomplished than your peers.

Orihime sighed. Yes, she was Claire Cartwright's niece. The Claire Cartwright. The soprano who had raised her since the age of three was a Julliard-educated classical singer with decades of performance experience and dozens of recordings under her belt. She had retired only recently due to irreparable vocal cord damage. It had been written about as a devastating loss to the classical music world. Sometimes in those articles, the writers would mention Ms. Cartwright's niece and protégé, the young Miss Orihime Inoue, who had been studying under Ms. Cartwright since the age of twelve. Ms. Cartwright was not only a great singer but also a generous spirit, who graciously took a step back from more demanding performance schedules to raise her niece after the untimely deaths of her sister and brother-in-law, Allison and Kenta Inoue.

"How many pieces?" Orihime asked, referring to the concert class, which was more or less a recital that a grouping of selected music department students participated in once or twice a semester.

"Three. You may use your two audition pieces from when you applied to the music program, but I'll have you learn one of the Brahms' Lieder in addition to those. Don't worry Orihime, I would never put undue pressure you," the middle-aged man said, brushing a piece of hair over her shoulder with his fingertips before sitting at his piano bench.

Great, another one of these vocal coaches, the nineteen-year-old woman thought. Freshly nineteen, by the way; her birthday had been yesterday, which coincidentally was her first day of school at OSU. Come to think of it, she had just turned fourteen when her aunt introduced her to another vocal coach, Mr. Miles Johnston, who had also been inappropriately handsy. Orihime had been relieved when the old man died before he had done any worse than squeezing her ass. That was saying nothing of a couple more of the voice instructors that had come and gone throughout her life since her aunt had decided to mold Orihime in her own image.

Professor Aizen, compared to the others, was a relatively young, handsome creep who probably got his way with attractive coeds more often than one might think. The thought made Orihime slouch in on herself in a self-protective posture.

"Ahem," the professor barked. "Shoulders back, tits out. You can't sing hunched over like that. Besides, it's a waste of your finer assets."

Orihime fought the nearly overwhelming urge to roll her eyes. Yes, she knew, she had a nice chest. Despite the inappropriate comment from Aizen, she dutifully obeyed his directive. This was her first class with the voice professor who would guide her through her entire four-year music performance degree. It was important to develop a good rapport, regardless of what kind of a man he was. She went through her vocal exercises and made notes on sheet music for Brahms' Dein Blaues Auge, and sang through it a few times before her time for the day was up.

She was happy to get the hell out of there. She still had chamber choir to go to, and then she planned to hit the gym. Choir was her last in-person class of the day on Wednesday. She was planning on working out with her new roommate at the only all-girls dormitory on campus, Tatsuki Arisawa. She had been surprised to learn she would be rooming with another student with a Japanese name, and half expected the girl to be an exchange student.

Both girls had a lot of unmet expectations after their first introduction. Orihime took after her mother and did not look especially Japanese, with her long, dark reddish-brown hair, fair skin, and predominately Eurasian, doll-like features. She had her father's eye color, clear skin, and short stature, and that was about it. Tatsuki was several inches taller than Orihime's five foot two inches. She was not an exchange student, and her mother was of Chinese descent. She was a general education tomboy interested in fitness and martial arts. Like Orihime, she didn't speak a lick of Japanese. They immediately bonded over the shared idea that whoever was in charge of room assignments must be the kind of well-intentioned but misinformed individual who might assume that because the girls had a shared heritage, they would automatically have lots in common.

It turned out that despite first impressions, that assumption was true. While Orihime was girly and dressed in fashionable, if somewhat theatrical clothing, compared to the more customary sweatpants/jeans and t-shirt combination that most other students, including Tatsuki, wore, the girls both were into fitness and worked out daily. Tatsuki's routine was significantly more intense than Orihime's, but it was nice to have someone to meet in the locker room and walk back to the dorms with after her barre class. They were both from out-of-state. Tatsuki was born and raised outside of Seattle, and Orihime was born in San Francisco and lived there until her parents died in a car wreck, then was sent to Minneapolis to live with her aunt. Neither of the roommates were stand-out students in high school, although both of them were in the top third of their classes. Both of them were currently single. They both liked to spend their downtime online. Tatsuki had a lot of athletic clubs she was into and Orihime had her practice, both for her classical voice and piano and for her secret endeavors: lounge acts and cover bands.

It hadn't taken her long to find a bassist and drum player to practice with. They were one pianist away from a lounge act, and there were plenty of weddings and cocktail parties that would be more than happy to hire an act fronted by a beautiful young woman with a sweet voice wearing a cleavage-baring dress.

She had yet to find a cover band but Orihime had been thinking of breaking out of that and doing some solo gigs. She had spent the summer practicing acoustic guitar, and although she wasn't very good at it, she could do some basic chords. She always had her high-intermediate piano skills to fall back on, but she had really been trying to improve her guitar abilities. She had been receiving help in that endeavor from an unlikely source; a YouTuber, with a large and growing following that went by the name ObscurasIV, had been answering her questions about it.

Truth be told, this back and forth between Orihime and the online musician had not just begun over the summer; she had accidentally found the first video he had ever uploaded a couple of years ago. She had been searching for a cover of Kelly Clarkson's, Since U Been Gone, and was unsatisfied with what the algorithm picked out for her based on "relevance". She wanted to find a fresh take on the song and turned to YouTube for inspiration. She decided to filter the search results by date: newest first, and found a video with zero views. She listened to a young man play acoustic guitar and sing the song in a softly emotional, kind of rich, sometimes gentle/sometimes aggressive baritone voice with a decent high register and lots of connection between both extremes of his voice.

Orihime immediately felt drawn to the singer's timbre and saw lots of potential in him. As a fellow musician, she felt compelled to comment on the video, encouraging him to continue and letting him know she really enjoyed his performance. She also felt obliged to point out that he would have better breath control if he phrased the verses differently, and that he would benefit from swallowing between phrases where he flipped into his high register to kind of reset the tension in his cords, but despite those pointers, she was really impressed and looked forward to more from him. She was his first subscriber.

At first there was no response from the singer, but Orihime hadn't expected any. After a couple of weeks, he released another video, which she thumbs-upped and commented on again. She applauded his song selection and left a couple of constructive notes on his performance. After her second comment, he thumbs-upped that comment and her comment on the first video. Orihime was glad that he seemed to appreciate her sentiments.

When ObscurasIV put out a third video, Orihime was surprised when she received a response to her comment on it. It was just a simple message: "Thanks for the comments and the critique. I tried some of the things you suggested and it works."

Orihime responded, "Oh, my pleasure! I'm really glad it helped. I'll be watching your videos in the future so keep making music. If you ever have any questions about what I'm talking about in my comments, let me know. XD"

This started a back and forth that continued until the present. And over the course of that time, ObscurasIV had risen to a decent level of fame. He had over 800,000 YouTube subscribers and each video averaged into a couple hundred thousand views. He had a significant Instagram following as well. Orihime had worried that as he got more and more popular he would start to overlook her comments and be too busy or overwhelmed to respond to her direct messages, but he never did. He always responded.

She would never tell anyone this, but he was the person she talked to more consistently than anyone else. She sometimes would spend large chunks of time in the comments section of his social media accounts talking back and forth with him. This was not an issue most of the time. Orihime didn't have a lot of friends in real life. Her aunt was very controlling. She didn't allow Orihime to have a lot of freedom to do what normal teenagers did. She was the one who insisted Orihime follow in her footsteps as a classical vocalist, even though deep down, Orihime had no interest in classical voice. She loved popular and rock music. Her favorite genre was 90's alt rock. She had been in a Weezer/Oasis cover band in high school, which she kept secret as best she could from her aunt. Her correspondence with ObscurasIV was her only completely unmonitored escape from the square hole that the rounded Orihime was being hammered into by the adults in her life.

That changed about a year after she started corresponding with the online musician. She met a guy in school; an exchange student from Brazil. She was very attracted to him and thought for sure that it was true love. She got swept away and completely disregarded her aunt, blowing off the woman's lectures and sneaking away at every opportunity to spend time with Paulo. She went to the free clinic and started taking birth control pills and lost her virginity to him a month later. It was a whirlwind of hormones and fantasy and lots and lots of sex. Orihime was sure that he was the one and that no one could come between them.

She still took the time to comment on ObscurasIV's videos though. She liked every single one. She'd give the encouragement and hit the like button like it was her job. She didn't do the back and forth in the comments section every time, though.

All good things must come to an end, she learned, when Paulo's term at her high school ended and he went back to Brazil. They had agreed that their love was pure and true before he left and wanted to continue a long-distance relationship. Orihime was devastated the day he left town. She cried for a week. The next week she was a bit better. The week after that she was almost fine. Shit. She realized only then that it probably wasn't love with Paulo; it had been lust. As soon the Brazilian was out of her physical space, she found that she really didn't miss him all that much and almost any other male attention filled that void for her. She ended up making out with a guy from her choir a month after Paulo left. She cried as she chatted with him online with him afterward and admitted that she had cheated. Those tears immediately dried up when he admitted that he had cheated too, but it had only taken him a week to do so. Whatever, Paulo. Have a nice life, she said.

She went back to how she had been pre-Paulo, but now she had a new appetite. Sex was never very far from her mind. But as pretty as she was, and as much as she was keen, it wasn't readily available to her. The company she kept in real life was comprised of a lot of boys who were either confused about their sexualities or just didn't have a lot of confidence. She ended up getting another boyfriend a couple of months later, only to have him come out to her as gay after a night of making out in the backseat of her car.

The majority of the rest of her experience had been through games of truth or dare, but there was the occasional short-term relationship that ended up going nowhere. Again, her only constant through the rest of her high school career was with ObscurasIV. She found that she enjoyed communicating with him infinitely better than the interaction she had with people in real life. Her aunt was pleased that she had stopped going out as much and took her reclusive ways as dedication to her studies. The older woman had no idea that computers were used for anything other than work.

Orihime was starting to feel confused by the strange, anonymous online relationship she had forged. It felt intense. It felt intimate. It felt real. But in reality, he had no idea who she was. She knew that. All the same, she couldn't help the feeling that he was important to her in a way that no one else was.

After her workout with Tatsuki, she went back to the dorm and took a shower. She walked back to her room and powered up her laptop, climbed into her swiveling desk chair and checked his accounts. No new posts in the past twenty-four hours. No new posts in the past week, if she was keeping track. He must be busy. She decided to send him a direct message on Instagram:

VegaStrife00

Hey, you've been away for awhile.
I hope everything is going alright for you. A lot of change has been in the air for me recently, and I think a song might make me feel a little more secure.
Hope to hear your voice again soon.
I miss you. - Vega.