You wouldn’t consider yourself famous or important in the slightest. Sure, you had a Spotify artist profile, and a small fanbase, but that’s about it. Your songs never made it to the radio, but they would show up online sometimes.

That changed, however, so suddenly that it had you entirely unsure of what to do with this new popularity. After all, you went from a small artist to someone much more when a certain, much more famous musician mentioned you. It wasn’t anything special, but he’d been asked in an interview what his favorite underground artists were—and one of his answers was you. Your name and some casual praise of your style.

Within hours your comments were flooded with @hozier mentions or question about if you heard his shoutout. You hadn’t, until then. And with your new “status,” you decided you might as well give it a try. You’d gained a fun blue check on your Instagram account so, hoping to get a response, you DMd the Hozier. The whole reason why you would even attempt this.

It’s a simple message, pretty much thanking him for his kind words and then a joking question about whether he got confused. You send it the. immediately back out of the screen, sure you won’t get an answer.

@hozier sent you a message.

You practically fall over when you read the notification, scrambling to open the app and check your DMs; no lie, Andrew’s official account had replied to you, assuring you that it wasn’t a mistake.

”I assure you, I meant what I said. There’s something about your work that really pulls me in, and I think you deserve to be recognized for that.”

That’s the entire message, and you stare at it for a very long time.