Chapter Text
The first thing that Tsukasa does when he wakes up is to check his phone.
He wakes up early at seven, and his eyes open to the faint orange of the sunlight creeping into his room. Sitting up slowly, he stretches, hands immediately going to his nightstand to find his phone. He turns it on, to check it not for incoming messages or calls but instead for social media. He checks his Instagram first, immediately watching with eager eyes as the page loads in. How many likes had he gained over the night? How many new followers had found him while he was asleep? He knows he’s not big yet, not even close. He’s still quite underground, still inconsequential enough to be considered a small idol.
(Barely an idol at all, but he doesn’t want to think about that.)
Still, he can’t help but feel excited.
After a few seconds of anticipation, the page loads in properly, and it takes all his willpower not to feel like giving up right then and there.
All there is to greet him is a handful of follows, a dozen or so new likes. He finds himself gritting his teeth without realizing, before forcing his jaw to grow lax.
“Any engagement at all is something to be grateful for!”
He does his best to sound as thankful as his words, twists his lips into a cheerful smile, places his phone face down like he doesn’t feel like crying just from the numbers. He knows it’s an immature thing to have a breakdown over, he knows it’s childish and entitled of him to wish for more popularity, even if he did work hard for it.
(So why does he feel like he’s about to fall apart?)
Maybe doomscrolling will be a good distraction, he thinks, picking his phone back up.
Tsukasa suddenly realizes his hands are shaking, and wills them to be still. He’s happy, isn’t he? He has to be. No one will believe in you until you believe in yourself, after all.
He logs out of his idol account, tapping in the password of his personal account like clockwork. He’s not big enough that it matters, not even close, but it’s a habit he’s instilled into himself ever since he first decided to become an idol. After all, a star is always prepared for the future!
(Even if that future sometimes felt like it would never come.)
The first thing that appears on his for you page is a nature video, of sorts. A honeybee, flitting around to several flowers before finding a dandelion growing through the cracks in the concrete. It lands on those petals delicately. carefully drinking up its nectar, coating itself in its pollen, before gliding away again. Tsukasa wonders for a moment why the bee chose the dandelion, that which grew from concrete, that which had been kicked and stepped on and ruined, instead of a flower more beautiful. He likes the video, then scrolls down to see the next one.
The next video Tsukasa sees is of some idol group from overseas. He’s heard of them before, he thinks, but they’re not exactly his interest. He scrolls down from there, to look at the next video.
This time, he’s so excited he can barely hide his smile. When he remembers that he’s alone at home and that he doesn’t have to, he buries his face deep in his pillows and starts giggling maniacally.
Kamishiro Rui, more commonly known simply as Ruru. Idol, model, dancer, and overall worldwide sensation. He’s practically a household name, having been in the public eye ever since he was young. He’s just a few months younger than Tsukasa, and yet his incredible talent and effortless ability to always be nothing short of perfect had skyrocketed him to levels of fame unimaginable by nearly every other idol.
Tsukasa’s been following him on social media for years, and this is the earliest he’s ever been to a post. It’s a dance video, the sort made to hop onto trends, the sort that was really very basic but made magnificent by the simple fact that it was Ruru himself doing them.
Tsukasa likes it as soon as he sees it, obviously. One minute- no, two minutes after posting. He’s the one hundred and twelfth like. It’s the lowest number he’s ever seen on one of Ruru’s posts, and it excites him, in a way. Only a hundred-something.
He scrolls down.
All at once, Tsukasa feels his heart almost stop.
The next video was one of himself dancing, one he posted just yesterday. He tries not to look at the likes, at the comments, at the uncomfortably small number beside them, tries not to compare his day-old statistics to Ruru’s two-minute ones. His finger rushes to scroll down, to look at something other than proof of how badly he had done, before a certain number catches his eye.
Someone had shared his post.
He knows he shouldn’t be thinking too much about it. People share posts all the time, for plenty of reasons. Still, he can’t help but feel…well, he doesn’t really know how he feels about it.
His first thought is that he is being mocked. Shared like gossip between friends, whispers of did you see that video, did you see that post, did you see how badly he did?
After all, he’s not spectacular, not at all. Compared to Ruru- no, compared to any other idol. it’s- he’s, at best, mediocre. At worst…
He feels himself tense up, fingers loosening dropping his phone like it is red-hot and burning.
So much about wanting to feel better.
He thinks back to Ruru’s post, to how early he was. Only a hundred-plus likes!
Only.
For a moment, he wonders what it would be like if he got a hundred and twelve likes on his own videos. That’s the number he typically reaches after a day or two, maybe a little more if it’s the current trend. But to get it in hours, in minutes-
All at once, just as quickly as he felt excited from being so early, Tsukasa feels so jealous it feels like the emotion is rotting him away from the inside. He clasps a hand over his mouth, he thinks he’s going to throw up, but he doesn’t know why.
(He does. He absolutely does.)
It’s just a fact, plain and simple: No matter how hard he tries, he’ll never reach that sort of fame.
Granted, practically no one ever will. It’s obvious that there’s something special about Ruru, like a deal with the devil that’s something beyond replicable.
But Tsukasa is jealous, and Ruru’s the easiest target right now.
Tell me, Tsukasa imagines himself asking someone, anyone, his hands shaking, what does he have that I don’t?
He doesn’t have to ask. The answer comes to him immediately. That only makes him more frustrated. At this stupid, shallow, audience, at Ruru for being so good at capturing their attention, at himself for not being enough to do the same.
Tsukasa works hard. He really does! He does his best to post every few days, spends hours coming up with original concepts and funny jokes and polished editing, spends his days working on his vocals, his image, his movements. He wants nothing more than to be an idol, and he works hard enough to justify his goal.
And yet despite that, he’s always outperformed so easily.
He hates this. He hates all of it.
What’s there left for me to do?!
He knows he should be grateful that he got a chance at all. After all, not everyone gets the chance to drop out of school in favour of an online course that better fits the demands of his training, hell, even the gift to get the training in itself is a blessing. He’s privileged. He knows he is, he knows that this chance he’s gotten already makes him so much luckier than many other people.
He inhales slowly, carefully, picking his phone back up to replace it more gently on the nightstand. He forces a smile onto his face, a practiced star-worthy one, wills the wrinkles forming between his brows to smoothen.
“Many others would kill to be in my place!”
He says it confidently enough that he can pretend he himself is convinced, loudly enough that it drowns out the thoughts in his head.
He might be a small idol, but he’s still an idol, isn’t he? He might not be big yet, but it’s only a matter of time as long as he keeps working hard, right?
Because hard work will always beat luck, won’t it?
Tsukasa can’t help but find himself fantasizing about an easier life. In a world where he was naturally talented, in a world where he had exceptional beauty and wit and charisma, a perfect face with a perfect body and a perfect voice and a perfect mind…
That’s all he could ever want.
He wants the admiration others seem to get so easily. He wants to be idolized and loved, he wants the world to care about him, he wants to be so showstoppingly excellent, so undoubtedly brilliant, that the cruel, shallow, benevolent, wise audience will have no choice but to love him.
His thoughts drift back to Ruru, the way they always do. It’s difficult for him to resist it, no, it’s difficult for anyone to.
He loves Ruru. He hates Ruru. More than anything, he’s jealous.
What’s it like, Tsukasa imagines himself asking the idol one day, being so loved without any effort?
He tries to imagine how he’ll answer, plays that all-too familiar voice over in his head trying out words at random in hopes of finding a combination that sounded right.
”Ah, it’s quite nice, I’d say!”
Maybe something like that.
Actually, would Ruru even care at all? A child spoiled his whole life won’t see the continued spoiling as a blessing, after all.
That makes Tsukasa angry, for some reason. He doesn’t have proof, of course, it’s mostly a baseless accusation, but more than anything Tsukasa is jealous and his jealousy is always cruel, always selfish, always unkind and uncaring.
The fame is wasted on Ruru, all those gifts so easily lauded onto him that he doesn’t even care for.
If I were you, I’d be ecstatic!
Tsukasa works as hard as he can, he could use all that talent Ruru uses so carelessly. He deserves it more, he deserves all that fame and popularity and love that Ruru doesn’t even care for. Yes, he knows Ruru probably works hard, he knows that fame isn’t all that it’s cut out to be, but right now he really couldn’t care less.
With a sigh, he pushes his bangs away from his face, rubbing his eyes as if to rub away the haze fogging up his brain. He knows he has no reason to hate Ruru. He has no one to hate, no one that has truly done him wrong.
Hard work always beats luck- no, talent too.
All he has to do is work hard.
He sits up, opening his agency’s contact to check what his schedule for today would be.
(Yes, he has an agency! That's a privilege in itself, isn’t it? He has to succeed, to make it all worth it for everyone that has ever believed in him. There’s simply no other option.)
It’s nothing much, today. He has to record a few videos for the agents, a few dance trials, a singing sample. Later that morning, he’ll have to meet his vocal coach. That’s alright.
He should start warming up first, shouldn’t he? It’s always a good idea to warm up your voice in the morning! He kicks one leg off the side of his bed, then the other, standing up properly and walking over to his home recording setup. It’s not exactly a very complex, expensive setup – no, it’s the opposite actually. Just a basic microphone, a pop filter, his computer. But it works, doesn’t it? That's enough for someone like him.
After all, a truly extraordinary star isn’t reliant on fancy equipment, as his radiance will shine through despite it.
He scrolls through the songs he usually picks for his warmup recordings, before his thumb on the mouse wheel pauses.
Becoming Potatoes, Ruru’s debut song.
Before he can second guess himself, he clicks, and as the backing track starts to play he imagines himself as someone loved by the public.