The concrete ground made for less than comfortable sitting. Most likely, in part, because it was concrete. Ichigo muttered another curse as he slowly rose to his feet. A nearby science major (because he wore a nerdy science shirt with a joke normal people wouldn't get) was snickering at Ichigo's expense.

"Dammit." Ichigo adjusted his bookbag against his shoulder, dusting bits of dirt off his pants.

"Found the stop sign, huh?"

The voice was unmistakably that of Tatsuki Arisawa, who strode near him wearing a smirk in idle amusement. Some woman who Ichigo had never seen before was walking beside her. The woman's long, bright orange hair was distinctive and clashed with Tatsuki's locks of indigo.

"That- That guy nearly ran me over!" Ichigo pointed vaguely towards the crosswalk.

"They'll do that," Tatsuki said with a light shrug. "No one ever stops at that thing."

"You've got to be careful, I've heard about this," the other woman said, soberly. "The statistics online show only five percent of drivers make any attempt to stop! Even Rollers are rare." She nodded for emphasis, her eyes wide.

"Really?" Tatsuki tilted her head, considering. "Huh. I'd believe it."

"What the hell are you talking about?" Ichigo growled. His shoulder still hurt slightly from the awkward way he hit the pavement. And his heart was still pounding in his chest.

"Hey, I don't think you've met- This is Orihime Inoue, my roommate," Tatsuki nodded towards her friend. "This is Ichigo Kurosaki. We went to the same secondary school."

It sounded so casual the way she said it- never mind she was one of exactly three people he was actually friends with from secondary school. Or… from anywhere.

Orihime smiled. "Oh! I've heard of you! Tatsuki's mentioned you. I'm very pleased to meet you in person!"

For a moment, Ichigo wondered just what that meant. If Tatsuki had mentioned anything about a certain video, and incident with a light striped dress, trimmed with lace; Yuzu shouting-

He shook his head to clear it. "Uh," He blinked. "Hi. Yeah." Then he frowned, looking behind him to see the crosswalk again. A small van sped through it in a blur of white paint. His face crumpled in confusion. "What're you talking about? What the hell's wrong with this thing?"

"It's online. There's a webcam over there broadcasting everything live." Tatsuki pointed just behind Ichigo.

Following her gaze, there was a camera attached to a lamppost covered in some kind of plastic housing and a couple of antennas.

"We're online right now! They can probably hear what we're saying, too," Orihime smiled. She waved happily towards the camera. "I hope everyone is having a nice day!" she suddenly bellowed, causing Tatsuki and Ichigo to flinch and cover their ears.

In a world with precious few entertainment options between the internet, television, and movies, a livestream of a stop sign where no one ever stopped was an obvious attraction. Enough that it averaged five to ten thousand viewers at any given time, spread out over eighty countries. Bored, procrastinating students and lazy office workers all started to keep track of what the cars did. While the vast majority of cars didn't stop, there were the few that slowed slightly to a fast roll, ('Rollers' as they were called) and even fewer who actually stopped at all. It tracked behind other, equally riveting streams such as forest nighttime critters in upstate Pennsylvania and a grandmother in Italy who made crochet doilies.

"We should probably go somewhere else to chat." Tatsuki stepped up to the crosswalk, waiting until the next two cars sped past. "Now!" She bolted across with Orihime close behind.

Orihime waved. "Hurry up!"

Ichigo bit back a curse as he placed a foot forward, rocking backward on his heel as a black sedan zoomed around the corner and past him. The wind tossed his hair and shirt hem enough to make his heart race. He darted forward in the next gap in cars. The girls had moved on down the walkway, leaving the crosswalk, webcam, and the demonic drivers far behind.

Tatsuki was shouting something near a trash can. This wasn't an unusual sight for all who knew her. There was something triggering about the laziness of refusing to throw away trash when a garbage can was merely footsteps away. Enough for the woman to remember all her frustration about the human race in an instant. There was no excuse for it, she thought. How hard was it to put garbage in a trash can? How lazy did someone have to be? Few things annoyed her in that way. Not even nails on a chalkboard.

A few pieces of paper and a cup were scattered on the nearby grass. She very loudly muttered a curse- muttered, to spare Orihime's delicate ears- while stomping over to the trash, plucking it from the ground and throwing it away. It wasn't a problem of hers, per se; she'd just gotten in a couple of fistfights over it during primary school. And secondary school.

"Lazy idiots," Tatsuki muttered as she rejoined Orihime and Ichigo, wiping off her hands on her pants. "Anyways, I see you made it to campus in one piece."

Ichigo shrugged. "Yeah, I just got done with… a meeting," he said, gaze flickering subtly to Orihime. She didn't notice.

Tatsuki frowned for a moment before understanding dawned on her. She nodded slowly. "Oh. Right. That meeting. How'd it go?"

"Fine," he said.

When it was clear he wasn't going to add anything, she snorted lightly. "See? I told you. You're in, it's fine."

"Oh! Are you joining something, Kurosaki-san?" Orihime asked.

"Don't worry about it, Orihime," Tatsuki smiled.

"Join what?" Ichigo asked.

"A club! The school has a lot of them! Dozens, in fact. That's where we're going now," Orihime said.

Ichigo thought about what he knew about campus clubs. Which was nothing.

"Yeah. Most everyone finds a club they can hang out with. They've got them for… everything, really," Tatsuki said.

"They have a big open house at the start of every semester! You can go and shop for whatever club you want, like a giant fair. Tatsuki-kun's part of the Martial Arts Enthusiasts club," Orihime said.

That explained why she was wearing her Gi. "Oh," he said. Then, he smirked. "Yeah. Makes sense."

"I'm one of the leaders, actually," Tatsuki smirked. "You wanna join? You don't have to have any formal training."

"I don't have time for clubs." He shoved his hands in his pockets.

"You have time for clubs. Even Ishida has time for clubs," Tatsuki said.

Beside them, Orihime stopped in her tracks, eyes wide and staring at Tatsuki. "H-He does?!"

"I'm pretty sure he mentioned it at some point," Tatsuki tapped a finger against her chin lightly. She turned to Ichigo. "You're his roommate, don't you know?"

"I've only been his roommate for a week. I just got here, remember?" Ichigo shrugged, shoving his hands in his pockets.

Orihime watched Ichigo intently. "You're Ishida-kun's roommate?!"

Tatsuki raised a brow skeptically. "You're friends, though, right? I thought you've known him for years. Don't you keep in touch?"

Ichigo huffed. "No," he said. It was true, he thought. They didn't talk in secondary school, or while Ishida started his first year at Karakura University and Ichigo stayed home. That was something friends did, and friends they were not. Instead, they occasionally sent brief messages to each other related to life events, and followed each other online. Occasionally, they turned up at the other's door, coincidentally around mealtime. On birthdays, a message of 'Have a good one' and 'Yeah' would be texted between them. And they would talk in the dorm, now, but only because they were roommates and it was difficult to ignore someone living across the room. No, they were absolutely not friends.

A conversation from earlier that day sprung to mind. "Oh. I think he's in a club about crafting," Ichigo said.

Orihime locked eyes with him, absorbing the information so eagerly it looked like she was going to bounce off the nearest wall. A newfound determination flooded her. "C-crafting? Of course! I knew it!"

Ichigo considered. "I think it was… Handicraft Club?"

Orihime nodded, her hand forming a fist and slamming it on her open palm. "Of course!"

Tatsuki let out a sigh. "Okay, okay. You found out about his club. Come on, we need to get going. I've got my shift manning the table." With practiced ease, she started nudging Orihime with a light sustained push. "See you around, Ichigo. Take care."

"Yes! Thank you! It was very nice to meet you!" Orihime called.

Ichigo watched them go, realizing far too late that he was still lost in an unknown part of campus- and with no idea the chain of events he had just set into motion.

The evil mansion was proving troublesome.

It was to be expected, Rukia supposed. An evil mansion didn't typically lend itself to casual strolls by candlelight.

"Damn."

She moved her character down another looming hallway and into a dark abyss. There was still one more cursed set of glasses she needed to collect in order to finish the quest. The stylized map in the corner showed her going in the right direction- straight into a dead end.

"Dammit."

The chat sped up on her second screen. She only chanced a glance, enough to see bits of advice and direction. "No! I can figure it out on my own," she said. "It shouldn't be this hard." Still, she glowered at the screen, which turned quickly into a glare. "Why are the glasses cursed? And why are there three of them- what are the chances of that happening?" She let out a half-frustrated sigh. Her gaze drifted to the list of viewers and the username list. Still no Protector15. She frowned.

A ghost popped up across her screen.

She jumped.

She also let out a faint 'eep' in shock. The viewers laughed.

She grit her teeth. Even for a horror game, she thought, they didn't need to program it to scare you so often-

Her phone buzzed on the desk next to the computer. Rukia peered at the display, which read 'Chino Utsumi- Kuchiki Corp'.

"Ah-" She grabbed the phone, scrambling to check her stream settings. "Sorry. I'll be right back." After pausing the game and muting her mic (double-checking, just in case) she moved away from the computer to the other side of the room. Invisible and unheard to her viewers.

"Hello?" she asked, her tone even and clear.

"Ms. Kuchiki," the woman's voice sounded, curt. "Time for your check-in."

Rukia folded an arm against her chest, the other hand holding the phone close to her face. She nodded soberly, even if it was invisible to everyone but herself. "Ah… Yes." It had been nearly two weeks since the last one. Typically, Ms. Utsumi waited about every three weeks. Something must've happened- related to Kuchiki Corp, or even just in the news- to make her call again so soon. Probably another scandal making waves across the internet.

"I see you've adhered to the posting schedule we arranged," the older woman continued, "Have you received any requests from media?"

"No."

Someone asked a question in the background. Rukia recognized the sounds of an office and bustling coworkers, with the sporadic rings of telephones. "Have you- hold on." There was ruffling in the receiver. Utsumi could be heard, dimly, as the phone was slid away- "Yes, go with that one- Overnight it. The red ones."

Rukia paced the room, pausing to tap her foot. On the other side, her computer screens still showed the buzz of conversation despite the empty corner where her avatar usually sat.

"Anyway. Where were we?" Utsumi finally asked.

"I haven't received any unusual messages, or seen anything of concern," Rukia said, recounting the questions in her mind word for word, in exact order. Her voice dulled with the repetition. "I haven't seen any press on campus or near the house. I haven't spoken with any publications or reporters since we spoke last."

"No unexpected public appearances besides campus?"

"No, I haven't gone off campus," she said. At least that was true. Getting picked up by Minamoto didn't count. It hardly endangered the Kuchiki reputation if someone saw her briefly walking down the sidewalk in order to get in a car.

"Very good. And you haven't posted anything online off-script?"

She glanced at her computer. The view count had dipped to two-thousand viewers.

"No. I haven't."

Rukia Kuchiki hadn't, anyway.

It took Ichigo another hour to find his dorm. The campus was still a labyrinth of buildings that were added on, destroyed, then rebuilt entirely over the years, resulting in a hodge-podge of styles and eras on display. "The campus has been under construction for fifty years," Ishida had noted idly the other day.

The building was a tall, towering structure that was showing signs of age and wear, like almost everything else on campus. He scanned his entrance card at a reader next to the chipped green doors, making his way past common areas, hallways, and stairs to get up his floor. It wasn't that he liked the exercise from the stairs or anything like that. He just didn't want to bother with elevators and the strained, empty conversations he was forced to have in them. It was the last thing he needed on any given day.

The common area for his floor was crowded. Chad was sitting in front of the TV playing on the video game console, with two of his neighbors flanking him with controllers of their own. Ichigo couldn't remember their names. That wasn't surprising, as he only knew the names of three other people in the entire school. One of them sat in front of the television playing video games. And, just recently, that number had been raised to four. Or it would have, if he hadn't already forgotten Tatsuki's roommate's name.

"Hey! Ichigo!" One of the guys called, turning his back on the game still raging on the screen. "Want to play?"

Chad paused the game and turned to regard Ichigo. He gave a silent nod. 'How did it go?' it asked.

Ichigo nodded in return. 'It's fine,' it said.

Chad gave a nod of acknowledgment, his eyes barely seen under his slightly messy deep brown hair. He was the sort of person who would hold open a door for someone else, only to keep standing there as an additional thirty people continued to stream past and into the open doorway. He was the sort of person who complete strangers felt they could trust with holding their place in a long line. He'd done so, many times, for many people. The silent sentinel. He was also the type who could- unintentionally- make insecure men question their own strength. Something Ichigo noticed in their time at secondary school together.

Somehow, two of their neighbors had taken to playing video games and hosting LAN matches in their floor's common area. They were loud enough for Ichigo and Ishida to grumble about it in their room, separately, but in unison.

"Ichigo doesn't play games, remember?" the other player said.

"Oh, right!" said the first player.

Ichigo scowled. "Shut up," he grumbled, turning his back pointedly at them as he made his way to his room. It didn't matter that they were right.

In the dorm room, Ishida was lounging on his bed off to the left. He was engrossed in his phone, scrolling downward; his glasses glinting the light in a way that obscured his eyes.

"You're back late," Ishida noted idly.

Ichigo grunted. "I got delayed."

Ishida- Uryu Ishida, if one were to use his full name- was still focused on his phone, staring intently at the recent round of comments on his latest post. QuincyFashion featured an outfit comprised of a white leather jacket, simple back top, and light blue pants that were slim-cut but not in a distasteful way. He'd gotten almost ten thousand likes already. His followers approved, clearly. As they always did.

He was, by far, the most stylish man on campus. Although one wouldn't necessarily know it by the understated way he dressed.

Uryu also kept certain activities over the past year buried in a vault of his own design- figuratively speaking. Things that haunted him at night which he longed to forget which were cloaked in shame.

But Ichigo didn't know about any of that.

"How did it go?" Ishida asked.

Ichigo shrugged. "Fine. No problems, really." He tugged the tie loose from his collar and held it outwards. "Thanks," he muttered, almost mumbled.

"It's fortunate you have me to help. Your original outfit left much to be desired." Ishida grabbed the tie without even looking up from the phone. "I take it you're still a student here?"

"Yeah, yeah. It's fine."

Ichigo sat at the desk on his side of the room. He pulled out his laptop, flipping it open and clicking the internet browser shortcut to Chappy's stream. Then, he made sure to slightly turn the screen at an angle that was less visible to Ishida's side. He didn't need the smart-ass commentary on 'that rabbit stream.' Again.

Chappy was playing something else, apparently having enough of jump-scares to move onto a game with cute animals racing around cartoon kitchens. She played that one, sometimes. Sometimes she seemed a little tense while doing so. Usually, she played that kind of game to get her mind off something else- or so he suspected from the way she was sometimes interrupted by something off-screen, eliciting a sober expression as she stepped away for a bit. The cooking game wasn't, however, the game she played to blow off steam. The game she played for that involved quite a lot more violence and general destruction. And a surprising amount of deadly missile-shooting cars.

Her game choices followed a pattern, but the variety was all across the board- RPGs, horror, some shooters, cute farm simulators, virtually anything. She always approached it with a level head and analyzed how it was played. Then, she'd even explain interesting facts about how the game was made. But Ichigo didn't care about that, really, because he didn't play video games.

Some people are liable to make such a claim, all while still enjoying the occasional cute mobile game on their phone or odd exception with friends. But that wasn't the case for Ichigo. Any game became a disaster as soon as he touched it. Teammates were confused for enemies in a bloody fray. Goals were missed. Pits were fallen into. Cars were brutally crashed. There were rare occasions when it seemed like he might actually, kind of, be okay at something- but those were few and far between. Ultimately, it wasn't worth his time. Or the frustration of his teammates.

That didn't stop him from watching Chappy's streams, though.

On the screen, a big timer was counting down in angry red numbers, bouncing in place, as Chappy raced to cook virtual pots of rice and prep sheets of seaweed in a frenzy. Orders scrolled up in a corner which seemed to change every few seconds. Food was thrown. Cute animals raced back and forth with dirty plates and cooking pots. Then, a fire broke out in the corner. When the timer finished half of the kitchen was on fire.

"Damn," The rabbit avatar frowned. She folded her arms. "Fire doesn't behave like that. This game isn't realistic at all."

He typed into chat: 'You're playing as a turtle wearing a chef hat while making sushi. It's not gonna be realistic.'

Her cartoon eyes focused on something to the side. "Quiet! That's still no excuse."

Chat flooded with shocked and laughing emotes, which only irked her more.

Protector15: Still haven't unlocked the rabbit, huh?

She snorted, giving the camera a flat look. "It's taking longer than I anticipated. That's all."

Three failed attempts later, she started a new game, this time joined by two other players as cute cats and bears also wearing funny hats. Ichigo was pretty sure they bought their way into the game using channel rewards. He'd never seen her play with what seemed like regular friends, apart from the rare mildly successful streamer working as a collab.

Anyone could earn channel awards and save up to play with Chappy herself. It just took watching the stream for a very long time. For each consecutive stream watched, the greater the payout with channel points- and from there, her channel awards could be redeemed. The biggest award was to play one multiplayer game with Chappy. It cost thirty thousand points for each session. Earned only by dozens of hours by watching the stream without missing any of them.

Ichigo sat back in his chair to watch the virtual madness unfold. There was a lot of key mashing and talking over one another. It was a pitifully amusing attempt at cooperation- and the kitchen caught fire, again.

He set up his textbook on the desk and minimized the video window to the top left corner of the screen. Then, he lowered the volume in his headset just enough to hear Chappy's shouts and sighs of frustration. Despite her tone, it was a low and mellow sound even through the voice filter. The words blended together only slightly, all but fading into the background as he worked. The hectic day of classes and meetings and scrutiny were truly in the past. He existed only in the present, in a serene bubble of mundane reading assignments and Chappy's faint voice in his ears.

Technically, 'passive' viewing rewarded fewer points- but Ichigo never cared about that, because he never redeemed any points at all.

He had almost two hundred thousand.