Orion had been dating for a while now, he'd been off and on with some girls, guys and whoever fit his weird little standards. He did whatever he could to avoid Viktor mostly.

He'd spend most of his life before regaining his foresight focused on his mental health struggles and every moment after focused on his mission at BioPort. This was perhaps the first time he was actually able to think about his identity beyond that. 

He was genderfluid, something more common for Shadows than humans, perhaps even more common for a Shadow that was a human. But it was hardly a side note in regard to figuring himself out.

Being asexual in the 'not feeling attraction sort of way' made things complicated. Sure, he could have labeled himself as pan, bi or cupiosexual, but it didn't quite feel right. If they were that interested, they'd just ask about it instead of making assumptions. 

He enjoyed relationships and stuff, but he just didn't feel that way towards anyone in particular. He could still bond with people once he was dating them, but he had to actually be dating them to feel any sort of way. Maybe even demisexual would be fitting, but bonding and attraction still seemed like something a bit different to him.

His lack of attraction still made the dating pool far too wide to consider finding someone without trying to find a way to narrow it.

At first it was a little bit of a joke considering how his first love happened to be blonde, but it became more of a habit to try to hook up with any blonde person he vibed with. This arbitrary decision would end up being labeled as a personality trait. Not to say he exclusively dated blondes, but it was a noticeable pattern to the point Freyaa made fun of him for it.

It wasn't important to him if their hair was natural, dyed or extensions since it wasn't the point. He had a lot more relationships this way than he had when he'd overwhelm himself with far too many options, considering the local hang outs were always overcrowded with interesting people.

While most of these relationships ended up being short lived, they never ended on bad terms. Orion knew some of them weren't meant to be from the start, but it didn't stop him from trying to maintain the relationship. He really struggled with being able to trust them. More often than not, people wouldn’t have reacted well to him not being human. He kept it a secret, but he could tell with his foresight that it wouldn’t end well if he hadn’t. Which only made it harder to feel comfortable around others.

Things like relationships weren't particularly detailed in the book, save for the Viktor scenario, so he figured it didn't matter who he actually ended up with as long as he followed everything else.

He had a lot of fun, but Orion didn't have much longer before he'd have to stop playing around and begin his research. Unfortunately, it also depended on him finding a specific person, or hopefully said person finding him. Whatever it meant, he wasn't quite sure yet, but it was going to be soon.

There was a particular girl who appeared fairly invested in her relationship with Orion. He was quite enamored with her; she was a perfect match. The only caveat being, of course, she was a human…

Her name was Vanilla, and she sure did match it. She had long blonde hair which was always brushed back with a headband and brown eyes that glowed beautifully in the sun. She was petite but lean, she liked to go to the gym on occasion with her friends.

When she approached Orion, she was almost instantly clingy. It was like she had no intention of ever letting him go at times. But she behaved in a similar way with Freyaa too, so he didn't think much of it at first.

"Hey, we've met a few times before. Orion, right?" Vanilla smiled brightly.

"That's right. You're one of Freyaa's friends, Vanilla?" He responded.

"Yeah. Wow. Now that I'm looking closer... Well, I knew you were twins, but I didn't think you two looked this similar." She said.

"Technically speaking we are identical. Which I guess seems weird since we're different genders. But there's a reason for that." Orion explained but she didn't seem all that interested in what he was saying.

"And you know what? Now that I'm looking closely, your eyes do look really familiar. They're quite beautiful." Vanilla looked him directly in the eyes, giving him a rather sultry expression.

"Are you flirting with me?" Orion blinked, it occurred to him in this moment that she might have been flirting with Freyaa too, but she was taken.

"Obviously." She pulled him closer and gave him a little kiss.

"So uhh... You wanna go out some time?" Orion smiled awkwardly.

"Yeah." She giggled.

Her biggest hobby was rock climbing, not exactly Orion's cup of tea but she lit up the world when she spoke about it. Her smile was soft, and her gaze always appeared to be far away.

She seemed like she had been having a rough time recently, but she never talked about it much, only that she was worried about her father with no particular context.

---

Finals week had just ended, and everyone was hanging out outside. Vanilla looked up at the sky Earths moons were just starting to become visible on the horizon and suddenly she had an idea.

"You know, it's been quite some time since we could see all three moons together like that." Vanilla said, "You like space, Orion, maybe we should have some sort of party."

They spent the rest of the afternoon getting snacks and drinks together with their dorm mates and waited for night to fall. It was only a small gathering of people, mostly people from the dorm.

"I can't help but feel like some of the stars out there are missing." Vanilla said as she finished looking through the telescope.

"I wonder if it's all the light pollution" Freyaa said taking a look at it herself. "Do you have any idea, Orion?"

"I'm not all that knowledgeable on astronomy so I couldn't say." Orion responded.

The distortion was the cause of it of course. It hadn't been disclosed yet but, it was true some stars were no longer in the sky, several that wouldn’t have died out so soon. The effects of the distortion were a lot more noticeable than they had been only a year ago. 

Orion wasn't quite sure what excuse the Lucidians posing as astronomers had come up with and clearly Freyaa wasn't privy to that information either. It was going to be much harder to hide the changes from the general public from now on.

The others continued to play with the telescope and chat about random things, Orion and Vanilla kept to themselves over at the makeshift bar/patio table next to the cooler.

"You seem down, Orion. What's wrong?" Vanilla leaned up against his arm.

"I'm worried about the stars, I guess." He said looking up at the sky again.

"It'll be fine." She took his hand in hers and squeezed it reassuringly. "You're always so deep in thought these days, are you sure there isn't something else going on?"

"It's kind of complicated and, I don't really know if I can put it into words." He paused, "I've been waiting for someone to contact me about some job thing. But I don't know who's supposed to contact me or when and I'm worried I missed the opportunity or something like that."

"I'm sure it'll work out, but you should probably stop leaving your phone on silent. That might help." Vanilla laughed.

"Yeah, I guess." Orion sighed, if the book had been more detailed about it, he wouldn't feel so anxious right now. 

He was also anxious because he knew he'd have to leave her side for quite some time while working on that mission. He wasn't quite sure how to handle the situation yet. 

His foresight showed him that if he told her about the mission, perhaps even about being non-human she would react well enough. But that was only on the surface of things, he couldn't be sure what she was thinking deep down.

He was afraid to find out.