Huang Zitao was a huge fan of the rising actor, Wu Yifan. But then again, who wasn't? Girls pined after him - buying magazines like GQ and Vogue China only for his looks, watching his movies only to imagine themselves in the actress's place, listening to his songs only for his soothing raw tones. Boys secretly took tips from his Greek-God looks to impress said girls, and were loving it.
But Zitao insisted he was different.

For he didn't have posters of the actor (okay, so he did have a few pictures on his phone, but that was it), didn't rave after him like the others. But he was a hardcore supporter.

Whenever he spied hateful comments on the actor's Weibo or Instagram accounts, he would jump in and passionately defend Yifan's actions. Whenever anyone proposed to stalk the actor around, he would dissuade them and contribute to letting said actor enjoy his free time.
Yes, it was a tiny contribution, but that was how Huang Zitao showed his love for his favourite actor.





But deep down inside, he, too, had his own fantasies that were hidden somewhere only he knew.
After all, he did turn to bat for the other team thanks to Wu Yifan. But nobody knew that, nor did he ever plan on letting anyone know that.
























'Come on... come on...!' Zitao muttered to himself, his brows knitted together in a frown as he waited for his feed to reload. The comments section popped up with a lot of haters bashing Yifan, when the actor had only put up a picture of himself in Paris. Zitao nibbled on his lower lip and his thumb hovered over the Direct Messaging folder of the app, his mind going back to a dream he had had recently.


'But it could happen, mama! It---'
'Don't be ridiculous, Zitao,' the eighteen year old's mother chided. 'This actress you keep talking about won't even bother looking at your message - you're just another fan to her, after all! Even if she does, why would she reply? You said she doesn't even know Chinese! Besides, you can't even pronounce her name. Some die-hard fan you are.'
'Mama!'
'Just go and buy these from the grocer's, don't bother me right now.'




Zitao hurriedly pocketed his phone and scrambled to get into the train as it arrived on the platform, huffing when a schoolgirl elbowed him in the ribs to get in first.








The teen could barely pay attention in class, daydreaming about various movie-like scenarios that all started with him daring to make himself known.
It was just moments before the recess ended that he had decided to actually do it. To actually message Wu Yifan.

So there Zitao was, seated at his desk with his phone in his hands, fingers trembling as the keyboard popped up. He smoothed out the paper where he'd scribbled down what to type and very slowly typed the message out, scrutinizing every single character before sending the message.

Zitao gulped, his heartbeats ringing loud in his ears as he waited nervously.

Sorry, your internet connection is unstable. Try again later.

The dejected teen let out a heavy sigh and put his phone away as students started filling the benches around him.

























While in the train back home, the full intensity of his actions hit Zitao hard.
'I just sent Wu Yifan a message. I just sent Wu Yifan a message. IjustsentWuYifanamessageIjustsentWuYifanamessageIjust---'
'... !' he cursed, ignoring the offended looks he got from the elderly male seated beside him.















































A week had passed since the incident, and Zitao had managed to somewhat distract himself from the immense embarrassment he had been burning in. He did feel a little sad that he had gotten no reply, but reminded himself that his mother was right - the actor would be way too busy to actually read it.











Zitao was at the platform, waiting for the train to arrive. He was fiddling with his phone's playlist when a notification popped up with the Instagram logo to the left:
galaxy_fanfan has replied to your message.





White noise. Everything around the teen was drowned out in white noise as he read the words over and over till their were a blur. He breathed harshly through his nose as a huge grin tore through his tinted cheeks.
'galaxy_fanfanhasrepliedtoyourmessagegalaxy_fanfanhasrepliedtoyourmessagegalaxy_fanfanhasrepliedtoyo--- WU YIFAN HAS NOTICED ME!!!'

Zitao's train stopped at the platform and people rushed to get in, but he remained seated at the bench with his phone tightly clutched in his hands.

The next train was to arrive twenty minutes later. On a normal day, he'd scrunch his nose up and whine to himself but this time, all he did was hyperventilate, once again ignoring the weird looks he received from those around him.

He stared down at the words typed out in Mandarin and bit his tongue with excitement, not even minding the harsh sting or the tell-tale metallic taste of blood in his mouth.

Thank you for your support, hztttao :) It's good to know I still have fans like you around.





































































Zitao groaned, slapping his alarm to silence it. He sat up after a while, grabbing his phone and checking his LINE messages - Yifan had sent him five long messages over the night. A sleepy smile spread out on his cat-like lips as he read the messages on the party Yifan had attended the previous night.


Zitao had built up the courage to send one more message, which turned into a few, till he had revealed his LINE ID just to be able to contact the other better. Technically, Yifan had asked for it.
"It would be much more convenient to continue our chat somewhere else, don't you think?" were the exact words of his message.

Almost seven months had passed since that day - not that Zitao was counting, believe him.
Over the course of those seven months, the two of them had become very much well-acquainted. Yifan would encourage Zitao as the te