Chapter Text
There’s a really cute cosplayer on Mydei’s social media feeds.
He had joined a new fandom just few weeks ago out of boredom. Had enough of his smutty novels and needed something for his brain to catch some break, otherwise he’d bust the gym’s sandbag again just to feel something. His dear friend Castorice’s constant relentless begging has finally win him over as well. The way she would lore dump the story with starry eyes, telling him stories about the character’s growth and their struggles, especially the famous ship. Especially the famous yaoi ship that has blown up in the Amphotube due to a fan edit.
If Mydei had to listen to Castorice bawling and sending him another fan edits batch of ‘The Ways in Which You Talk To Me’ of that said ship once again, he would strangle someone with his bare hands. Seriously. He had enough. His heart is hurting and it keeps on going because of those edits.
The anime itself is fun, Mydei has to admit. As someone who is used with supernatural things happening all his life, he had thought if he would’ve joined the introduced high school right away if it truly exist in this world. Maybe he would became an exorcist who fights the spirits with special gauntlets, changed his tattoos to be something that could ward off the possession attempts from the said spirits, and maybe have a fun life instead of the boring one that he’s living in right now. Perhaps he could’ve have friends, fall in love with someone worthy to be his rival and understand him without fearing the shame of showing his vulnerabilities, or maybe the thrill of being able to fight something on daily basis.
Doesn’t matter. Daydreaming is not something he often let himself to have.
Back to the said cosplayer that keeps showing up on his ‘For You’ timeline.
Mydei has never seen brilliant blue eyes sparkling from his phone screen, so blue that he could almost see the emotions hidden behind them every time the cosplayer posted a picture. With soft, cocky smile that fits with the character. This Gojo Satoru cosplayer is actually making this character feels like its’ coming alive for the whole world to see.
(Mydei grits his teeth as he pretends he doesn’t see sadness in those blue eyes. It doesn’t matter. He’s just overanalyzing people as usual, Mydei ought to stop doing that before he offended someone badly with his insensitiveness. It happens a lot lately ever since. That. Like he said, it doesn’t matter.)
Pretty, Mydei thinks. He stared at the picture a lot longer than he should have. Noting the way the eyes doesn’t look like fake. Are those the cosplayer’s real eyes? Gojo doesn’t have yellow tint on their eyes, so it must be real. Gojo Satoru has blue eyes, yes. Most of the time it is hidden behind black blindfold, or black round sunglasses. But those piercing blue eyes always found itself with prideful cockiness, as expected from the Strongest.
A half hearted cosplay, then? Mydei frowns. He had heard from Aglaea’s rant about fake cosplayers who just wear the character’s wig, and then wore something else as their ‘fashion’. Sometimes it couldn’t be known which character they were cosplaying, or if they are cosplaying someone at all. Remembers the way Aglaea would grip her chopsticks too tight, little bit dangerous, as she curses those kind of cosplayers underneath her breath, her pride never let her to create something any ‘less’ than perfect.
Mydei has never been interested with cosplayers before. They have their own world and cliques, something he desperately not try to get involved to because he had enough headaches from Aglaea’s and Cipher’s stories about that side of the fandom. He usually would just dabble in fanfictions, sometimes even fanarts, just to get creative juice run freely and to pour out his love, happily enjoying the comments underneath his stories that he checked once in a while. Sometimes he would write a lot, sometimes he would just be a reader and comment on others’ works to show his appreciation. Something to keep his life going, and if he escapes reality by reading stories, so be it.
Even though he’s friends with few popular cosplayers, and even attended events to help them carry their items, Mydei is never once interested to becoming one, or to be a fan of one. Not when he always remembered stories about cosplayers not loving their partners right because they keep chasing the spotlight, and demanding more than they ever given back.
Mydei shuddered when he remembers someone cosplaying his other favorite character, Kaeya, and being very touchy without his consent… a bad memory that he wanted to keep locked away, far from his mind. Maybe not every cosplayers are like that, he knew that fact. His friends are even more protective of him now than he was for them when they are out in events, trying to make sure nothing bad would happen to him ever again if they are around. Which was why he wants to keep away from this side of the fandom if possible, only sticking close to the ones he knew of, just to be safe.
But this Gojo Satoru cosplayer, though…
His name is Phainon, Mydei gathered by a short stalking attempt. Checking the profile, recent medias, and few tweets that Phainon randomly talked about. Another set of random tweets Phainon posted to reply fans’ thirst messages that were sent to him, both anonymously and not. Phainon is very kind, in Mydei’s opinion, because most of those comments are inching down to a questionable appropriate ones, but the cosplayer replies with gentleness without a doubt.
Phainon more often than not would cosplay the adult version of Gojo Satoru. The dependable teacher that the first years characters would love, someone who is strong both in the sense of power, and pretending like his heart is untouchable, despite having been broken the year before when his high school best friend-rival-lover-half of his soul died by his own hands. The sleek black teacher uniform fits well on Phainon’s body, and he also looks tall enough to be Gojo in real life. Smiling face as well, the kind of face that shows how happy someone could ever be.
Sometimes Phainon would cosplay the high school version of Gojo Satoru as well, and Mydei thinks this one looks better than the adult version. The round black sunglasses fits Phainon’s face well, and the easy boyish grin that young Satoru would have on his face made Mydei’s face run hotter than usual. Something he kept thinking back, even when Mydei knew he shouldn’t. And if Mydei liked or bookmarked the post, it’ll be lost to the sea of notifications that Phainon have anyways.
Honestly, Mydei likes Geto Suguru more. Actually agrees with Suguru’s point of view in the fucked system that the world has, the unfairness of it all even though Suguru is one of the four Strongest. The way that Suguru keep haunting the narrative despite not being the main characters for so long, been dead before the main story ever began. Suguru is beautiful, enchanting, deadly type that Mydei ever wanted to be.
But he hasn’t seen enough Suguru cosplayers, even though mostly Mydei would see both Suguru and Satoru cosplayers hanging out together in events and in his passing timelines. He wondered if Phainon ever has find his own Suguru to cosplay with.
He’s a funny person. Phainon, that is. Though, Mydei wasn’t sure if this is just an attempt for humor, to stick as close to the character he’s cosplaying, or because Phainon is simply stupid at times. The endearingly kind of funny that couldn’t be helped, yet successfully made Mydei chuckle whenever he came cross or see them. Mydei doesn’t know, doesn’t want to take guesses. He doesn’t know this person, and probably would never able to meet him, despite the fact that there’s very huge chances that his friends are in the same circle with Phainon. Okhema always hosts big cosplay events, there’s no way someone as popular as Phainon wouldn’t attend, at least once. And Mydei’s friends are permanent guests at those events.
Phainon is also friends with few writers in the fandom that Mydei equally enjoyed in his free time. Some that has the same username as their writer profiles, those who uploaded their story updates with tag previews, and talked to each other about ideas and prompts they wanted to write. Mydei would see Phainon replying to them every now and then, chiming in ideas despite not being a writer himself. Seemingly enthusiastic when he’s talking about Gojo Satoru and his beloved Geto Suguru, about their tragedies and hopefulness of finding each other in every lives.
Not that he’s a fan of Phainon, really. Just a passing viewer. No matter how many times he saw Phainon’s profile to the point Mydei would recognize him from that thirst-tap profile picture, Mydei never clicked the ‘follow’ button. He likes to keep his distance from people, especially strangers, except with few comments here and there. It is his private account, after all, and Mydei is welcome to do all he likes.
‘I want to read a fanfic where Satoru is a cosplayer and Suguru is a horny ragebaiter that is totally not a projection haha send tweet’.
Mydei squinted his eyes at that totally random tweet that showed up on his ‘For You’ page once again. No matter how hard he tries to ignore and scroll past Phainon’s profile, it kept coming back. Despite never, ever had he made contact with Phainon except to see how Phainon’s been doing after being huddled with enthusiastic fans in his anonymous’ page.
That is a projection, if Mydei ever seen one. But because he’s a very nice person, Mydei would not comment on that and only let out a small snort.
But asking a fanfiction of his own self, though? Now, that’s the funny kind level of ego. Don’t get Mydei wrong, it’s a fun idea. People can be creative all they want. Sometimes they waited for ideas given to them to start on creating something. Phainon is nice enough to be liked by people in this fandom, at least those who know of him anyway. And Phainon did, technically, asked nicely. He could see why some are eager to create something worthy for Phainon to like. Admiration is a huge encouragement for people.
And, yes. Mydei has been dying to read new stories. He kept refreshing ‘Gojo Satoru/Geto Suguru’ tag everyday for something new, or if there’s any updates on the stories that he kept in mind about. His love for stories felt like hunger that never ends. It doesn’t matter if it is something explicit, or something very short; Story is a story. And with Satoru and Suguru, they are always hopeful and happy stories. Mydei yearns for that.
So Mydei is actually excited to see if there’ll be Satoru cosplayers themed stories in the future. Someone definitely promised Phainon that they would do so, even asking for Phainon’s ideas to be put in the stories. Replied excitedly by the dog that is cosplaying to be a human right away, blasted for everyone to see if they wanted to take the idea as well.
…. or he could write it himself.
Mydei has always been a spontaneous writer. Someone who only writes when the inspirations hit right, and when his mood is encouraging him better than his laziness.
But he’s not… a porn writer. Castorice is the expert in this area, not him. Something different, then? Hopefully it is.
“Mydeiii, what the fuck are you doing?” Cipher’s loud groan filled in Mydei’s ears through the headphones. They are all in a Discord group call right now, as they always do every nights. Sometimes to play games, sometimes just to hang around. Mydei found himself enjoying the loudness his friends would yell as they destroyed people in their games, in contrast of the empty silence in his house that Mydei choses to ignore in his every waking hours.
“Why are you not logging in the game yet?!”
“He could be finishing a client, Cifera. Give him time.” Aglaea’s calming voice, in fact, failed to calm their friend. Him and Aglaea often would work late hours together when they are too tired to think, but still need to finish what they started. So Aglaea often understands well when Mydei was too busy to join in their game nights.
“Why is he still working at this hour, anyway?” Cipher muttered, not low enough to not be picked up by her cat eared headphone.
“I’m working on something.” Mydei answered. Technically not a lie. It is not work, it is fanfiction. Self insert fanfiction? He’s not sure on how to label this. He does feel bad to working on this when he should have been playing with his friends, but in his defense, he was waiting for his game to finish update. “But I’ll be done soon. My game is updated now.”
With few expert clicks, familiar opening screen of his most hated game booted up on monitor.
“Finally.” Anaxa’s sharp voice answered back. “I have grown tired having to queue with idiots who doesn’t understand the urgency of team work in a team based gameplay.”
“And yet, you keep coming back.” Agtlaea stated. Like the sky is blue, the grass is green, and Anaxagoras has no patience for stupid people.
“This is the only acceptable self harm that you allowed me to have.”
“I hope we don’t play in Icebox again. I had enough of that map, we went back to back for four rounds in that cursed map yesterday.” Mydei said, trying to change the topic before Aglaea and Anaxagoras starts to continue bickering until morning. On the other monitor, he’s typing few new tags before pressing the ‘publish’ button on the Astral Archive website.
“It’s been a while since we’ve been in Sunset.” Cerydra’s sleepy tone is in contrast than her usual voice. The infamous Furina cosplayer is also a V-Tuber on her spare time. “I miss Sunset a lot.”
“It is been a while since Sunset has been in the map rotation.” Mydei hums, agreeing.
“Maybe soon it’ll come back.” Cipher commented.
“I just hope Abyss is out of the rotation soon.” The venom in Anaxa’s voice is fueled with the rage of someone who fell down far too often for no reason.
Mydei hums once again, rereading the story that he has published once more to make sure that there’s no typos. He could fix the grammar one day if he feels like it, but he often publish without a second thought because he doesn’t want to second guess himself. There are far too many unpublished drafts of stories that he left rotten in his notes.
Maybe Phainon would read. Maybe Phainon wouldn’t. Mydei doesn’t want to expect anything, he writes just because he wants to, anyway. It won’t matter if Phainon likes it or not, but at least Mydei hoped that this doesn’t feel too strange, or too offensive, for the cosplayer to read.
Maybe he will keep an eye on Phainon’s public profile in the next twenty-four hours. Just to see if there’s a reaction. Mydei likes to see any kind of reactions, especially the welcoming ones. As a fandom lurker, being a creepy weirdo is the least he would want to be in the eyes of others. And maybe, just maybe, but Mydei wouldn’t promise anything, maybe Mydei would write more about this alternate universe if the fanfiction is being received well.
Anyways. It’ll be a one in a thousand stories with the same theme. Soon, it’ll be forgotten in the minds of people, just like anything ever does. Mydei is counting on that, actually.
‘I just hope that this can bring a smile to his face,’ Mydei thought to himself as the in game party queued for a match. The least he could do for a stranger on the internet. ‘And maybe to ease his hearts from the heavy things he’s been facing lately.’
Not like they would ever be more than strangers, anyway.