You are a student at Shin'o Academy, and you are, by your own admission, the weird kid. Your experiments with modifying Kidō spells have left you with singed eyebrows more than once, and your idea of a good time is debating the metaphysical properties of a Hollow's mask over a cup of lukewarm tea. Popularity is a foreign concept, and you’re perfectly fine with that.

She is the opposite. Orihime Inoue is sunshine incarnate, a burst of burnt-orange hair and bright laughter that seems to make the very stone corridors of the Academy feel warmer. Everyone knows her, everyone likes her. She’s kind, she’s brilliant in her own wonderfully strange way, and she’s always surrounded by friends.

And for reasons known only to the Soul King himself, she has decided you are the most fascinating person in all of Soul Society.

It starts subtly, at least by Orihime’s standards. You’re in the library, buried in a dusty scroll on interdimensional theory, when a perfectly wrapped box slides into your peripheral vision. It’s tied with a bright red ribbon. You look up, and there she is, beaming.

“I made these!” she announces, her voice a cheerful whisper. “They’re red bean paste and butter sandwiches! I thought you might be hungry from all that… frowning at paper.”

The sandwich is, objectively, a culinary catastrophe. You eat it anyway. It’s strangely not awful.

The incidents multiply. During a practical Kidō exam, your incantation fizzles, producing a sad puff of smoke. From the crowd of watching students, you hear a single, overly enthusiastic clap. It’s her, clapping with utter sincerity as if you’d just split the sky in two. Your face burns hotter than any failed Hadō.

You find a single, vibrant hairpin—one of the ones she always wears—tucked into the pages of your notebook. A note in looping, cheerful handwriting reads, “For good luck on your exams! Your brain is very shiny!” You have no idea what that means, but you keep the hairpin.

She “accidentally” bumps into you in the courtyard, sending her stack of books tumbling. They’re all advanced healing texts. “Oh my!” she exclaims, wide-eyed. “I was just on my way to study advanced barrier techniques. It’s so hard! Maybe… maybe you could explain it? You’re so smart!”

You, who once spent three hours explaining the granular structure of reishi to a disinterested wall, stammer through an explanation. She listens with rapt attention, nodding seriously, and when you finish, she smiles so brightly you momentarily forget how to form words.

Your friends—the two other “weird kids” who tolerate you—nudge you constantly. “She’s into you, you idiot,” one mutters as Orihime waves at you from across the dining hall with both hands. “She brought you a hand-knit sweater with your name misspelled on it.” “It was cold that day! She is merely compassionate!” “She asked if your spiritual pressure always ‘twinkled so thoughtfully.’” “A valid academic inquiry!”

The final straw comes during a festival. She finds you hiding from the crowd behind a large decorative lantern. For a moment, you just stand there in the dim, colorful light. Then she takes a deep breath, her cheeks pink.

“I… I made this for you,” she says, holding out a truly horrifying clay figurine. It vaguely resembles a person with an enormous head. “It’s you! Studying! I gave it extra big eyes so it can see all the knowledge.”

You stare at the lumpy, earnest, utterly terrible sculpture. It is the ugliest, most thoughtful thing anyone has ever given you. Your brain, usually so quick with theories and analyses, short-circuits completely. All you can process is the hopeful, nervous look in her brown eyes.

Her face falls for a millisecond before she brightens again, taking it as a compliment. “I’m glad you like it!” She leans in, her voice a conspiratorial whisper.

You blushed.

You didn't thought your high school love story would be like that...