Even without a domestic release, Death Note had somehow welded itself to the top of every entertainment feed back home, squatting there like it owned the place. Headlines multiplied across platforms, each one louder than the last, as if volume could substitute for having actually watched the film.
"Who could've guessed? In the New Year blockbuster season, the real breakout wasn't even showing locally - Alex's debut film Death Note just ripped overseas box offices apart with a $300 million opening day!"
"Lucky and tragic at the same time: lucky because other films didn't have to face that monster Alex… tragic because our audience can't even watch it!"
"Reliable sources claim outbound travel has surged. Interviewed travelers say they're flying out for one reason only: to see Alex's new film."
"An almost zero-negative-review mystery mind game - what kind of story is it really telling?"
Alex stared until his eyes went flat with disbelief. Back home, half these outlets clearly hadn't seen a single frame… yet they were praising it harder than the foreign press. It was almost impressive in a cynical way: if you didn't watch it, you could gush endlessly without getting caught.
But the moment you tried to list flaws, you risked revealing you were bluffing - so better to keep the praise broad, dramatic, and safely unverifiable. Overseas, at least the criticism was honest, even when it made him want to bite through his own phone: most complaints weren't about the acting or the cinematography or the pacing - they were about his favorite sin. Cliffhangers.
The same move again. People accused him of dangling answers like bait, of getting audiences addicted to unresolved tension, of treating suspense like a drug and then acting surprised when everyone came back shaking for another dose.
Five or six days into the run, the ripple finally hit home. Major domestic review sites - despite the film not having an official local release - opened a page for Death Note anyway.
And then the first wave returned: media crews who'd flown out to cover it, professional critics, ordinary fans who'd saved up, bought tickets, and treated the trip like a pilgrimage.
Jet-lagged and triumphant, they came back with one urgent need: to rate it.
The score climbed so fast it looked like a lie.
9.8.
When that number appeared, nearly everyone still stuck at home - refreshing forums, pretending they weren't waiting for a "link," acting above it all - went quiet in collective shock.
That good? Seriously? Alex knew how this worked; early ratings were almost always inflated. Films, series, anything with hype: the first wave was passion, momentum, image management, fans piling in to defend a moment they wanted to belong to.
Unless something was catastrophically awful - unless it was the kind of project that became a meme before it finished screening - first-week ratings tended to hover near the ceiling.
Still, even by that standard, 9.8 wasn't a rating so much as a warning: this wasn't just "popular," it was being treated like an event people would shame you for missing.
He didn't have time to savor it. The roadshow kept moving, city after city, country after country - polished interviews, rehearsed anecdotes, the same warm smile delivered under different lights.
He'd even brought Jenna McKay along for a short stretch: not because he planned to push her into the international market long-term, but because a little shine never hurt. A few red carpets, a few photos that made her look like she belonged beside bigger names, a quick coat of prestige - then, once the point had been made, his assistant sent her home.
The center of gravity stayed where it always had: Alex, plus the international cast - Timothy, Megan Fox, and a rotating parade of co-stars and producers with trained smiles and handshakes that felt like contracts.
They looped through Europe, and then back to the States - because if there was one place on earth where hype could be converted into money without apology, it was America.
That was when Alex opened Google's trending page and felt reality stutter.
"Timothy is allegedly Alex's boy toy?"
Alex froze so hard his brain refused to process it for a full second. Boy toy? He blinked, then blinked again, and his thumb - traitorous, curious - tapped the headline anyway.
The piece read like it had been assembled by someone who'd never once encountered shame. Hollywood had endless stars, it argued, so why would Alex "choose" Timothy? Hollywood was a war zone of scandals and hookups, so how was it possible that a twenty-something heartthrob had stayed so "clean" lately? Therefore, obvious conclusion: he wasn't clean - he was claimed. By Alex. Which meant, naturally, "confirmed": Alex was bisexual.
And the worst part was how many people believed it, not because it was convincing but because it was entertaining. The loudest ones weren't even traditional gossip addicts - they were shippers, the kind of fans who didn't watch stories the way normal humans did. Give them two men with a meaningful stare and they'd build a cathedral out of subtext.
Give them brotherhood, battlefield loyalty, a "we'd die for each other" bond, and they'd twist it into romance with the confidence of surgeons and the creativity of poets.
Anyone who'd ever brushed against anime fandom, gaming fandom, comics - any fandom with enough oxygen - knew it: the power of shippers was terrifying. Naruto and Sasuke. Zoro and Sanji. Jotaro and Kakyoin.
Entire merch economies had been built on nothing but eye contact and unresolved emotional tension, and their purchasing power was so monstrous that creators in Alex's past life had learned to feed them on purpose, tossing "fanservice" like scraps to a pack that would turn it into gold.
That was what made it dangerous. Because in the second half of Death Note, there really were scenes - psychological warfare wrapped in obsession, tension so tight it felt intimate - between Light and L that could be misunderstood by the wrong audience. Not romance. Never romance.
But fandom didn't need intention; it needed material. Alex stared at the comments exploding into edits and theories and flirtatious "evidence," and a cold thought slid through him: When we film the rest… are they going to treat it like proof? Are they going to hijack the entire public conversation until the movie becomes a dating sim in their heads?
By the time the team boarded the plane back to America for the next leg, Alex's patience was a dark, tight knot. Timothy noticed the expression first. He glanced over like he was approaching a sleeping tiger and asked carefully, "Sir… what's wrong?"
Alex didn't even lift his eyes from the screen. "People are saying you're gay."
Timothy blinked. "Huh?"
Alex finally turned, narrowed his eyes, and snapped, "And why are you making that face?"
"What face?"
"That one," Alex said, pointing like he could stab him with a finger. "The shy one."
Timothy's mouth twitched into a helpless grin, hands coming up in surrender. "I'm not shy. This happens all the time in Hollywood. If you don't date publicly, people start writing fanfiction with your name in it."
Alex almost accepted that - until he thrust his phone toward him. "Read the headline."
Timothy took it, squinted, and went still. A beat later he jolted like he'd been shocked. "WHAT?" He scrolled fast, reading deeper, face collapsing by the second, until he lowered the phone like it was a cursed object and looked at Alex with genuine panic. "Sir… what do we do?"
"We recast you in the next film," Alex said, calm enough to be cruel. "If you stay, they'll keep saying you got the role by selling me your ass."
Timothy's soul visibly tried to exit his body. "No - BOSS - please - " He lurched forward on instinct like he was going to grab Alex's sleeve, then froze when Alex shoved him back as if dodging a scandal mid-air.
"Don't touch me," Alex hissed. "What if someone takes a picture?" That was the problem with rumors: once they existed, they stained everything.
They made proximity look suspicious, made normal camaraderie feel like evidence, made you see a person through a warped lens you never asked for. Timothy swallowed hard, voice suddenly small. "Please don't replace me. I'll… I'll date someone. I'll post pictures. I'll do whatever."
From the aisle, Megan leaned over with a smirk that belonged on a magazine cover. "Alex. Want me to kiss you at the next event? That'll shut them up."
"It won't," Alex said immediately.
Megan's brow lifted. "Why not?"
"Because they're saying I swing both ways," Alex replied flatly. "A kiss just becomes 'proof' I'm 'covering.'"
Megan laughed, genuinely entertained, like the chaos was a party and she was holding a drink. Alex wasn't laughing.
Not because he cared what strangers fantasized about, but because rumors had gravity: they attracted more rumors, warped professional relationships, replaced real discussion with cheap angles.
He glanced at Timothy again and hated that a stupid thought even existed - he really does have the kind of face fandom would adopt as a 'pretty boy' - then shut it down like a door being slammed. Enough. Make the money. Finish the run. Go home.
Alex had ambition, sure - wolfish, relentless - but he also had lines he didn't cross and messes he didn't collect.
He wanted control, and he wanted peace, and the fastest path to both was to wrap this up and disappear back into his own territory before the internet invented a sequel.
Meanwhile, outside an American theater, Rebeca Verne stood near the entrance with a mask on and a beret pulled low, scrolling her phone as the crowd gathered. When she saw the headline, laughter burst out of her before she could stop it - not because the subject itself was funny, but because the rumor was so shamelessly confident it felt like reality had been dared and lost.
"Rebeca," her mother murmured beside her, calm and watchful, "time to go in. Make sure your mask is secure."
Rebeca waved it off, still amused. "Do I really need to be that careful? It's not like people recognize me here."
Her mother didn't argue - she just tipped her chin subtly and said, "Look around."
Rebeca did, and the amusement faded into surprise.
There were more familiar faces than she expected - not individuals she knew, but the shape of them: the posture, the cadence, the way people clustered and spoke like home. Tourists. A lot of them.
Not casual travelers either - the kind who flew out during the holidays like their lives depended on it, all for one purpose: to watch Alex's movie. So the reports were real.
People were crossing oceans for a film they couldn't get back home. The realization sat heavy in her chest, because Rebeca knew how hard it was to get a true breakout, how many talented people worked their whole lives and never got the moment they deserved.
And then there was Alex.
First film.
And the world moved for him.
It wasn't envy, not exactly - more like an irritation at the imbalance of it. She'd been in this industry for years. She'd carried roles, sat under lights until her skin felt borrowed, fought for recognition that always seemed to arrive half a step late. And now this guy shows up and detonates the box office on his debut?
As she stepped inside, her eyes narrowed above the mask. Alright, then. Let's see what you made.
Two hours later, Rebeca walked out into the night air like she'd just surfaced from deep water. Her gaze was unfocused - not empty, just distant, as if part of her was still trapped in the film's world, still chasing the logic of its turns, still feeling the pressure of its silences.
She stood there a second too long before blinking, and in her mind it wasn't even the movie anymore - it was Alex himself, standing in front of her with that calm arrogance of someone who knew exactly what he'd done, lifting his hand and slapping her across the face with the bluntest message imaginable:
Yeah.
I really am that good.
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