Chapter Text
The light ringing of the metro brings him back to the real world. Hioki dozed off like he always does on his way to work. His eyes water with the intensity of the yawn that feels too long. His arms tingle for a good stretch but it’s nearly impossible with all the people around him almost digging into his body in the loaded metro. Another ring and the almost inaudible announcement tells him he’s reached his destination.
Today’s schedule is packed for the whole “gang” and he needs to get there quickly. He flies past the crowd with a precision of a cat without getting halted even once by the busy yet scarily slow office goers. Hioki stands a little to get himself together the second he’s out of the station and away from the crowd. He wonders fleetingly if it’ll ever be possible to buy a car for himself.
The dressing room is already moving as Hioki expected but he’s not late, nuh uh, Hioki is never late. He’s someone who can’t help but take his responsibilities seriously, doesn't matter if the responsibility in question is “entertaining” otakus in drag.
Hioki doesn’t hate his job, not at all, hell he’ll even defend his job because at the end of the day it pays well enough for his own place in a city like Tokyo and not to mention the endless stream of mostly flattering gifts from his fans. But he didn’t get into it willingly per se and he’s not delusional enough to think this is something that’ll set him for life.
His “fans” are most of the time unfortunately eye sores too but he can look past that now thanks to the company focusing more on streaming channels and performance instead of “on field” duties where he had to be up close and personal with them. But it’s still disappointing that there’s barely any fan in the crowd who will catch his eyes and make his heart flutter even for a minute and he knows today won’t be any different.
Hioki is infinitely grateful to his fans and their support but it’s really unfair that when reading a letter he can’t even imagine a dashing face because he knows most of his fans are middle aged men and most of them are not lookers.
Sometimes he does see one or two good faces but well, they’re almost always onlookers who get curious by the crowd. They’ll never send him letters saying how they wanna marry him or make a shrine dedicated to him with some photo attached of the shrine in question. Even the anonymous letters that seem to be sincere and not perverted.
The good looking guys are never otakus and even if there are some, they never show up at the events. Good looking guys have more things going on with their life and it’d definitely not be a good look for a young good looking guy to show up in a fan gathering of some crossdressing streamers.
Well at least he has his handful of fangirls that he adores. They’re nice to talk to and smell nice, too bad he isn’t attracted to them like Tsujitani is. Hioki fleetingly thinks if work would’ve been a little bit more enjoyable if he was straight like Tsujitani with all the right kinds of eyes on him and him also wanting them back? He’s also stuck with a mostly middle aged male fanbase but at least the people who his eyes look for subconsciously in the crowd actually wants him back, Hioki can’t relate.
Matter of fact, he's quite exhausted from Tsujitani's daily bragging session on how this older woman with “amazing racks” paid for his expensive gaming rig or some designer item. Hioki gets spoiled too but that doesn’t come with hot guys who’re blessed down there.
His internal self pity party comes to a halt with Anna’’s voice booming across the room calling his name. Right, he needs to get his makeup done. He strides across the room with a half jog half walk.
Anna doesn’t talk much the whole time apart from some “chin up, close your eyes, sit straight”. He can’t really blame her; it's too early to form a conversation. Her hands move in almost a mechanical precision. She could probably do this makeup with her eyes closed at this point, Hioki thinks.
The brunette wig sits snug on top of his head. Out of everyone, Hioki's “get up” is the simplest. He’s been assigned as the innocent, cute one thanks to the baby fats on his cheeks so no heavy contouring, no bright lipstick and not even a fun little colorful dress. His fans are too into the black and white maid dress and he cannot risk losing fans over a dress so maid it is.
He does switch it up sometimes but only for his exclusive streams where you’re paying strictly for non maid Piopi Chan. Still, the rule of thumb remains, Piopi Chan is cute so nothing too raunchy and he’s not allowed to go against the brand code anyway.
He’s tying his heels when a smack lands on his back. Playful or not it’s still the hand of a full grown adult dude so the impact is quite painful. He looks back in annoyance, planning to cuss out whoever it is.
Misami stands there in full drag, half leaning onto the table with a cigarette dangling from his lips.
“You’re not allowed to smoke with the clothes on” Hioki mutters as he goes back to tying his heels.
“It’s just one. They’ll live” Misami says while puffing out a big cloud of smoke as he walks in front of him.
Hioki doesn’t feel the need to add to that so he focuses on the work at hand without gazing up.
“Is our Piopi Chan sad today? I saw you standing on the corner all blanked out”
“I’m just tired” Hioki grumbles as he ties the last loop of the never ending ribbon on his heels.
Did he look too sad while having the little mourning session for his love life earlier? Him being tired isn’t completely a lie either since he was up almost the whole night because of the noise made by his new neighbor. He hasn’t met them yet, no idea if it’s a man or woman but he makes a mental note to mention the noise issue if they meet.
The crush/love complex within him is concerning. He might be more bothered about the whole thing than he allows himself to think but no one has to know about it, especially Misami.
Misami is a good friend but Hioki can’t help but be a little careful around him. You can say he’s a little intimidated by him, he’s tall, older and only one in the group with a clear dominating older woman persona. There’s a rumor that he used to work as a femme dom before but Misami never really talks about his past.
Which is fair because even Hioki doesn’t like talking about it. Apart from the short period of time he worked as a proper host, his real past isn’t anything worth talking about either. Divorced, dead or bad parents, that’s where it starts for most of them.
There’s a certain level of dissociation and craving you need to achieve to get into this line of work. Could Hioki make a living out of doing normal work? Probably, but he got turned down from too many things a normal child and teenager should’ve had and he’s not about to live the same life of compromising and coping in his 20s. Hioki loves to get spoiled and spoil himself, he cares very little about the process.
Misami breaks the silence by urging him to hurry up because they’re apparently getting late for the short practice session before the event starts. Hioki stands up, brushes off the non-existent dust in his dress and follows behind Misami.
—---------------------------------------------------
The crowd erupts around Watarai. He wasn’t expecting so many people, he felt a small tinge of jealousy washing over him. It’s not ok to feel jealous over someone he doesn’t even know in real life, Watarai is well aware of that but he can’t really help it. This is the very first time in his 23 years of living he’s feeling this way. It’s not like the other party will ever know so he lets himself indulge into this obsession a bit more by attending one of their live shows for the very first time.
Watarai has it all, that’s the common belief of everyone around him. “Straight A student with a face like that? God has his favorites”, a misconception or rather a lie he’s living. Only Watarai knows what he is, a pervert who can only get it up by thinking about a crossdressing streamer named Piopi Chan.
He knows the attraction isn’t just external as people might assume, no. He likes how Piopi Chan talks, he likes how smart he is, his interest for photography is so attractive too. Watarai never thought a streamer who very clearly caters to a specific demographic can be so interesting and captivating.
And that’s how it started for him and in no time he found himself subscribing to all his exclusive content, missing hangouts with his friends just because he didn’t wanna miss out on Piopi Chan’s live stream.
Watarai thought that’s where it’ll stop, but then one day out of thousands of comments the streamer read his comment. It wasn’t anything special. Watarai just complimented his new photography dump and Piopi Chan just replied with a little thank you and a smile tugging on his face and that was enough to turn Watarai’s world upside down.
In no time he was writing anonymous letters and sending him gifts. He tries his best not to come off as a creep every time he writes a letter. He hopes the streamer thinks of him as an admirer who truly enjoys his work and not a 40 year old perv.
But all that hard work and commitment to look good in Piopi Chan’s eyes, crumbled a few weeks ago when he woke up in cold sweat with a dick so hard it’s almost painful to touch. The realization of what just happened hit him after a few seconds. The dream wasn’t even that crazy, it was the streamer propped up over his crotch with his legs engulfing Watarai’s waist and whispering in his ears while his white lace headband tickles Watarai's cheek.
He was almost starting to mourn the loss of the sensation of his voice filling up his ears and the light pressure on his crotch from the contact before it dawned upon him what just happened. Safe to say, the next 20 minutes were easily some of the most shameful moments in his life.
But at least that confirmed he doesn’t have erectile dysfunction like his ex claimed. But it’s embarrassing to unload on his hand while his whole mind is consumed by someone he doesn’t even know in any shape or form. He wishes he could say he knew his name at least but that’s not the case either, Piopi Chan is his stage name and his company is very strict about maintaining the cosplayers identity.
He didn’t even wanna think about how he’s getting off to the thought of a man but does it really count as one if the said man is always dressing up as a woman? But then again Watarai is sure his attraction goes deeper than just the physical desire so does it even matter if it’s a man under all that makeup and dresses?
Watarai had a hard time all throughout his life figuring out what he likes, what he doesn’t like when it comes to love and sex. For a certain period of time last year he was convinced he was gay because all his dating attempts were unsuccessful due to his great impassiveness about sex.
It’s not like he couldn’t have sex, he could, but it was mostly a hassle and barely satisfactory for Watarai. And that would piss his exes off. Trying to make them understand that he’s not doing it intentionally was almost always useless but he can’t really blame them either, these people clearly equate his physical attractiveness to his skills in bed. Even when he tries to slowly make them understand how that’s not the case, the message never really goes through.
Watarai accepted a long ago that people around him are delusional about him and all he needs to do is not let anyone into his world to sustain that false persona.
The gay thing comes to an end too after countless porn watching in an attempt to feel something, anything. He admits they were hot but like his heterosexual relationships it also barely did anything.
So Watarai did what’s best for him and people around him, he stopped dating. He told his family and friends he’s too busy, college and internship taking up all his time but that’s far from the truth. He has plenty of time and he dedicates that time to none other than the cosplayer taking up all his waking (and sleeping) thoughts.
That wasn’t his plan at all but it just happened. He was quite firm on his decision to not to date until he figures himself out but the universe clearly likes to play jokes on him.
And the joke only got funnier when he solemnly accepted the fact that the obsession is going nowhere while standing in the crowd, eyes fixed on a singular moving presence in front of his eyes.
His plan to come and see the streamer in flesh was not because of vain reasons like wanting to let him know about Watarai’s sad and lonely presence, no. he thought maybe seeing him up close, where his male features are more prominent and not hidden behind some beautifying filter, where his voice sounds more booming and deeper in attempt to communicate with the crowd opposed to him deliberately softening his voice during his streams, would turn him off.
That’s why he stood there blending perfectly with the onlookers with a mask on his face. The mask ended up being an unforeseen blessing. With him moving into a new apartment and all that dust from moving his furniture ended up giving him a bad allergic reaction but he’s glad that happened. Imagine this snot filled, sleep deprived state being the streamer’s first impression of him.
He clears his throat while glancing at the people around him nervously, too startled by his own thoughts as if people around him will somehow end up hearing him.
It’s too much, he just wants to be like any other 23 year old but he’s stuck here, endlessly fascinated by this stranger who’s also not real. He wonders how the real Piopi is as a person. Would he understand Watarai if he ever got the chance to meet him without all these layers of dress, makeup and false personality? Or would he get creeped out by him like all those stories he’s heard about people meeting their idols?
He can feel himself getting sad again. It’s really not fair, he’s someone who naturally craves connection but maybe his fate was being an example of divine comedy. He’s tired of the conditional connection people hand out to him as a friend or romantic partner like a to-let flyer.
The only person who he was ever able to make a real connection with was Morisaki, his best friend since school days. Morisaki’s friendship didn’t come with a list, he barely cared about anything and that was exactly what Watarai needed so he attached himself to Morisaki and they became best friends, well at least Watarai thinks so.
To no one’s surprise the only person who’s aware of Watarai’s double life and hyperfixation was Morisaki and it was him who suggested Watarai to go see a live event of Pretty4U just to test the waters.
Well that was clearly not the best idea as Watarai feels himself getting more and more entranced by that one figure on stage. He tries to convince himself by saying it’s normal for his eyes to follow the person he’s a fan of, it doesn’t mean anything escalated way beyond his reach but only he knows it’s far from the truth.
With each second his chest tightens more and more, in no time the show will end and he’ll have to go back to his cold and lonely apartment again diving into the delusion that’ll keep his head clear enough to put on the next act.
He takes out his phone to take a picture. He’s already accepted the fact that the pull he feels towards Piopi Chan isn’t going anywhere so why not just capture the moment of him seeing the man (person?) of his dream for the first time?
Watarai doesn’t know this song Pretty4U is performing now but he could sense it was almost ending with the beats getting faster. His eyes still on the moving, swaying figure with a black maid dress on, like a starved man. And that’s when it happens, Piopi’s eyes clearly land on him, with a last spin and a wink they end their show.
But the scariest part? Watarai is clearly on the other end of the wink. An action so damaging to an already tumbling Watarai that he feels his knees shake.
“This is it, there’s no going back to the normal Watarai ever again” he thinks as if a normal Watarai was ever really a thing.