The clock beside the bed was difficult to read. Telling time was something I had always secretly struggled with. The room was dim and damp. I reached for my phone, then remembered where I was: France. I had demanded an entire day of rest and isolation after the show, something I could not imagine regretting. Yet, in this moment, I did.
The name nearly everyone in the world as I know it calls me is Felix. It's a saint name, one I allowed mainly because I found it funny. I have other names, in other languages. Acknowledging them felt demonic at times. The first one I was aware of was Anthony. Tony. Toto for short.
I was legally bound not to let anyone know that.
But there were people who were even more determined to expose it.
And last night was proof of how serious they were.
Of course I was nervous. Despite years of training for this type of gig, walking for a brand like Louis Vuitton was something that could make or break an artist in my position. A position of needing not only exposure, but money. Lots of it. Money to pay people off, mostly. People who wanted me dead, or worse.
Things worse than death were what felt like this. I could hardly believe it happened, and worse, there wasn't really any proof of it for most. But judging by the response from the audience the night before, it really had.
I groaned audibly and sat up, pouring myself a glass of water. I was in Nicholas' guest room, regrettably. No one was home. I had requested this but didn't expect it, considering how he had been acting. Further evidence that the event last night hadn't been a figment of my imagination.
I'm sure you're impatient to know what the hell I am talking about. Well, firstly the walk had been a disaster in that the look was complete trash. All white with feathers. I looked like a chicken barely surviving slaughter. But to top it off, someone had projected a hologram visible to the entire audience somehow.
Of her.
Her?
I'm not even sure how to address this person.
Madelein. That was what most people knew her as. I knew she had other names, and sometimes she identified as other genders.
And sometimes, in fact, nearly always- I identified as her.
ii.
Jin could remember scrolling through the files for the first time alone. He was in the dorms and with a spare moment, got into a program that his manager recommended. It was barely legal, so all of the information was encrypted. The site was linked to a private network and the design was very simple. There were searchable profiles of people in the program, some of whom were aware of it, some of whom weren't. Stats like age, race, gender and so forth were listed beside a basic visual representation.
Like most teenaged boys his age, he was looking for a girlfriend. The company he worked for, Hybe, didn't allow dating of any kind. What they did allow outside of work was volunteering. That's what his manager described the program as: a sort of sponsorship, where you could choose a person to pretend to be with.
Some of them actively participated, but Jin wasn't interested in this. He was deeply shy, and secretly wanted to be with someone who didn't know he existed. Especially now that BTS were becoming so popular. He found the women and girls exhausting in almost every single way, particularly the way he had to act around them.
He stopped scrolling at a photo of a girl with the most active subscribers out of curiosity. She was listed as being totally unaware of the program. She was a little older than him and had the bluest eyes he had ever seen. He clicked through to look more closely, and realized they were contact lenses. Before he could continue he decided that she was the one he wanted, and made the request.
iii.
The game was simple: you pretend to be someone else. The person would have an implanted device that made them remotely accessible. When connected, it would seem as though you were that person. But it wasn't that simple: it could go badly awry. So, there were many rules. And if you broke them, it could cost you your life.
This was what I was afraid was happening to me.
I could clearly remember the day I got my implant. We all flew to Beijing as a group to get them done. After, a few of us went to a love hotel to test them out.
Before that, I would have to use devices. That was how I first saw her outside of my mind.
It was on Myspace. I was pulled onto my father's lap, who was often found in the basement desktop computer. He showed me a photo of her and asked if I knew who she was.
I was only three or four at the time, but I already knew how to lie.
"Sky." I said stupidly. Because they had asked me many times what I was seeing when I saw her, and I almost always said sky. I was just looking at the sky. I could see her better when I was outside and I could feel the sky even when I couldn't see it.
I never claimed to be brilliant. Although allegedly, I am.
Sort of how allegedly, my name is Felix, and I'm a member of a musical group called Stray Kids.
Anyway, we supposedly got the implants so that we could perform better. I was struggling with the language, and they told me they could feed it into the implant. It worked. We could also use them to communicate with each other, and it was supposedly to be extremely private. It was also extremely expensive. I just didn't care. My whole life, I didn't remember caring about anything except her.
So imagine my mild surprise at finding out I wasn't alone in this. She had a small nation of people just like me. Which was why I worked so hard to stand out and gain her attention.
I just wanted to feel like I deserved to be near her.
Times like this were when I would turn to God. It felt like I was being crucified. And as much as I despised my Catholic upbringing, I could sort of understand my place in it. It gave me a refuge from my all consuming obsession with her. Confession was another perk. Because I couldn't imagine saying any of this out loud anywhere else, after what had happened in therapy.
Maybe that's where I was headed now. My eyes were still burning from the lights. The image of her marching beside me, completely naked except for the heavy backpack. I was so used to seeing this in my mind, I didn't react. Then, I looked out into the crowd and realized I wasn't the only one. They were seeing it too.
But I had paused the feed so I wouldn't get distracted. She was walking the streets in Missoula, Montana. It was difficult to watch, but I wasn't sure what I could do to help without risking exposure. So I just kept trying to make more money to help her. In the game, there was a system for this that players were forbidden to go outside of. It was sort of like the movie Battle Royale. Someone who tell someone else on through a chain of command what the request was. It was very expensive, and time consuming. So if you wanted to get someone say, a jacket for winter, you might have to plan a year or two ahead. It got pretty exhausting. And did I mention expensive.
In the moment on the runway I realized nearly everyone in the room was somehow also involved with her. Looks of recognition from bald to faint stretched from hairline to jaw of nearly everyone in the audience. And in the back stood Nicholas, his handsome face twisted with this smug sensation I immediately registered as key involvement.
But I needed the money. For her. So I ignored it and kept walking.
iv.
I was invited to the game by someone I had idolized almost as much as her: Jin, from a group whose company rivalled ours. Our meeting felt dangerous but was arranged like a sort of playdate after a near nervous breakdown I had when the visions of Madelein (whose name I wasn't entirely certain of, at the time) completely stopped after getting my implant.
It had been something that felt like a mixed blessing. Something I had moments of practically begging for. Because she wasn't the only person I had these visions of: it seemed like she had a sister, who was a little closer in age to me. In dreamlike sequences, it felt like we all traded bodies somehow. I wasn't interested in the sister at all, or the brother, or any of that part of her family. They were awful, and all I could do was beg them to tell me how to find her.
That was around the time the holograms started. It was something everyone in the industry was experimenting with: renting images of yourself to fans. For me it felt divisive, because I knew all of this was biblically abhorrent. But I already felt like I was in hell. After we got our implants, they measured us for these. I was to meet with a mentor to improve them, because some very wealthy people paid to access live ones.
My mentor was Jin, and he was the one who invited me to the game. To anyone listening, it sounded innocent enough.
"Can you help me with something?" he asked.
And of course I would. He was my senior, in an industry that was dependent on connections.
"I'm having trouble with my girlfriend."
I was immediately consumed with curiosity. This type of information was something that could destroy an idol's career, but the since the meeting had been arranged by contracted lawyers from our respective companies I felt like it might be safe to discuss.
And he told me about the game, describing it similarly to something that would be available on the market legally.
Then we linked our systems, and I realized it was her.
Madelein.
Sky.
Whatever her name was.
We were seeing the same person.