He shook his head. “Not weird. Necessary.”

“You think it’s weird?” she asked, cheeks pink.

When their paths crossed in that rain-slicked moment, it was an accident of timing and an umbrella he offered without thinking. She looked up, startled, then laughed — not the internet’s pointed critique but a warm, human sound. He hesitated, surprised by how much it steadied him.

They parted with a promise to meet again — not as idol and fan, but as two people who found, for a moment beyond subtitles and streaming, something unexpectedly true. In the days after, the forums buzzed as always, but for Hana and Riku the noise softened into a melody only they could hear.

Across the street, a smaller café pulsed with a different kind of light. Inside, Hana nursed her tea and scrolled through a forum thread where strangers traded subtitled clips and whispered theories about the band. She’d watched them grow from YouTube covers to sold-out arenas; she loved their voices, their stories, and the fragile sincerity under Riku’s facade.

The neon of Shibuya blurred into streaks as Riku stepped out of the studio, heart still racing from the last chorus. The crowd’s roar lived in his chest like an echo he couldn’t quite chase away. Tonight they had called him cold, untouchable — the “ikemen” everyone wanted but no one reached. He smiled for the cameras, a practiced curve that hid more than it revealed.

They talked for an hour that stretched into two, swapping playlists and confessions. Riku admitted he wrote songs he never released, songs that felt too real to expose. Hana shared the fanfic she'd penned in the midnight hours, a silly, earnest piece that imagined their favorite ikemen as men with ordinary problems.