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Shinsou isn’t one to get easily recognized in public. Sure, he’s one of the most well-known streamers in the country as of now, but only a select few people know of the person behind his famous alias. He streams in complete darkness most of the time, the only light coming from the streams of sunlight that failed to be blocked by his curtains and from the purple mood lights around his room. He speaks in a goddamn voice-augmenting microphone and makes sure to never show any part of his face.
But of course, fans are fucking crazy sometimes. You can imagine Shinsou’s surprise when people start to find out about his secret identity. It starts small. Family friends’ kids start watching replays of his stream during dinner, and glance at him for a few seconds too long, eyebrows wrinkling in deep thought.
Terrifying, honestly.
It’s not that he needs to hide his identity. He just wants to, because he’s seen the bullshit his other streamer friends have to deal with on the daily. Mobs of fans suddenly swarming around them out of nowhere is normal at this point, and Shinsou would much prefer that over creepy ass stalker fans that stuff fan mail into their mailboxes.
And also. The goddamn shipping.
Shinsou streams with a lot of his friends often. Namely, Kyouka, Denki, Sero, and Katsuki. They all started skyrocketing to popularity around the same time, and had created a small team of sorts. For the first years, people were obsessed with theorizing about the relationships within the group, and not just platonic ones.
It had taken two years of constant questions for Kyouka to snap. She had dedicated a whole stream to teaching her girlfriend — the juxtaposition of the two girls always made Shinsou chuckle; a streamer that basically lived off of Red Bull and straight black coffee, and a PhD student that also part-timed at a florist — how to play Valorant. Shinsou didn’t realize how many people thought that the term “girlfriend” coming from Kyouka’s mouth meant gal-pals, or girls that were just friends. She had a septum piercing for fuck’s sake.
Katsuki has taken less. It took him one question from a random person asking if he was dating Kyouka — typical, because she was the only girl in the group — for him to come out as gay. Rather aggressively at that.
He was already getting shipped with a few people in the group that had expanded over the past few years, and while he didn’t mind some speculations because yea, he was harbouring some sort of feelings for them, Shinsou knew that he wouldn’t be able to handle fans screaming over any time he hung out with someone in public. What happened to healthy friendships just being healthy friendships?
It was getting a little funny though. A few weeks ago he hung out with Kyouka at an arcade to cheer her up. (“My girlfriend is too busyyyyy. I miss her.” “I didn’t ask. Besides, you always miss her. It’s honestly a little disgusting, and a little cute. Disgustingly cute.”) A few fans had recognized Kyouka and she was occupied for most of their hangout, chatting with fans and taking pictures with them. Kyouka was basically as introverted as Shinsou, and he had unlimited respect for her for putting up with so many people in public throughout the day. Someone had asked the two if they were siblings. Motherfucking siblings.
“Nope! Just friends!” Kyouka had smiled.
The fans looked suspicious of the two.
Three days later, his Twitter feed was filled with speculations about Kyouka Jirou’s mysterious new friend. Some people were still clinging onto the notion that they were siblings which wasn’t too much of an outlandish speculation in his opinion. They both had purple hair, eye bags that never went away, and had similar mannerisms and personalities. He could see why people would think that. And others were trying to figure out why the dude in the photo felt so similar.
Kyouka had called him the day his Twitter feed was becoming increasingly more full of the rumours. “Ayo, they’re analyzing your fucking hands from the photo. I think they saw the ring you wear on streams.”
Fucking hell.
And just like that, hundreds of 17-year-olds had managed to uncover his actual identity over a grainy ass photo that didn’t even show his face.
Terrifying! Truly.