pseudonyms and sarcasm

1.3

Rekken dragged his body into his room and attempted to dive face first onto his bed however he misjudged almost everything and nearly cracked his skull against the wall.

Great. Just great.

School had a way of sucking all the life out of him like a Dementor. He was a lot more outgoing than most, but still he felt like he was performing when around other people.

His mum was picking up Yu from her winter concert practice, so the house was silent. The muffled tones of the neighbour's television was ample background noise for his impromptu nap.

He kicked his bag off from his bed and slid up towards his pillows. While stretching himself out towards the corners of the mattress, his back cracked worryingly. He'd always known his body had glow stick tendencies.

Taking slow breaths, he reached his hand into his pocket and pulled out his phone. He unlocks it to see that Oliver's contact information as the last thing he had open. He smiled despite himself. He'd have to give Mikumo a glowing review on rate my teacher. Maybe his stares across the class had been a little less subtle than he thought.

He flicked between apps on his phone checking messages (a text from Black Knight asking about his plans for the upcoming convention), reading emails from potential sponsors and heavily considering tweeting something dumb for the hell of it.

His tumblr, like the rest of the website, was pretty dry. He had planed on just scrolling through his dashboard, maybe liking a few outfits ideas and videos of cute puppies, but then he saw as a bright red number staring aggressively at him from the corner of the app's icon.

88.

He had 88 messages.

   "What?" He thought out loud. It was pretty common for him to get messages. Usually it was just people asking for cosplay tips, or maybe even sending him fanart they did, but 88?! That was way too high.

   "Oh god, what happened?" He breathed to himself. Did he said anything offensive? Oh no... was he being... cancelled? He could see it now #rekkenisoverparty trending on Twitter. People who had never heard of him before making long threads with leaked screenshots from some of his friends. Anime convention companies removing their interviews with him off of YouTube. He would never be able to go out in public again. He shuddered at the thoughts and braved himself.

His thumb was shaking as he clicked on the app's icon.

Amy-Lee asked:

Whoa, whaaattttt? What do you mean you don't know Solux? I swear I've seen you guys together in photos before? Have you never properly introduced yourselves?

Anonymous asked:

SHUT YOUR ASS. What do you mean you don't know Solux??!!

Violet McRae asked:

DUDE. DUDE STOP WHAT YOU'RE DOING. Go check out Solux right now, because he's super cute, and honestly I could stalk his socials all day. Also he's hella talented. Seriously. Go!

Tr3DD asked:

HOW DO YOU NOT KNOW SOLUX?! His Erwin got superrr popular like a few months ago. Also his Joseph Joestar is the thing dreams are made of.

All of Rekken's messages were like this.

All of them.

He was so confused he couldn't even begin to reply to any. What were they even talking about? Why was he being attacked like this? WHO THE HELL WAS SOLUX? And why was he such a big deal?

Rekken looked through his previous asks, thinking someone must have asked him about it. And sure enough there it was. An innocent question and a username that Rekken had only recognised a couple times.

Solux. Thinking that he had to find some way to appease the masses before they found him, he clicked he link.

Oh.

Oh.

This guy.

Rekken had (previously had) no idea what his name was, or even that he had a decent following, but yes. Rekken absolutely knew this guy. He had just happened to have been calling him "That really hot British cosplayer" in his head. He was definitely talented. Enough so that Rekken really thought he was going to beat him a few times in competition. Obviously he wouldn't but the threat was still there.

But his costumes weren't what pulled Rekken in. It was the way his sly smile charmed everyone around him, and how he moved with such confidence and poise. His laugh (on the rare occasions it occurred) could be heard tinkling like Christmas bells in the convention halls, and he was always warm and welcoming and literally so perfect.

So absolutely nothing like Rekken.

Rekken was pretty, but distant. He couldn't have animated, passionate conversations with literal strangers the way this guy could. God... how many times had he wanted to congratulate him or at least say 'hello' or something, but had then chickened out at the last moment?

A few too many for comfort.

Rekken spent the next two hours drooling over his blurry twitter selfies.