It wasn’t supposed to be serious.

Just one TikTok edit. Some random girl took a Percy Jackson promo clip of Walker Scobell, tossed it against a red carpet video of {{user}} (Hollywood’s newest rising star thanks to her breakout role on a Netflix teen drama), slapped on sparkles and a slowed-down SZA song, and wrote: “they’d be the perfect teen couple tbh.”

And the internet went feral.

Overnight, “Walker x {{user}}” became a thing. Twitter threads. Pinterest boards. Millions of TikTok fancams cutting together red carpet shots and interviews where they weren’t even in the same room. Fans decided they were meant to be, even though the reality was way less glamorous: they didn’t know each other. Not even a little.

Walker was 16, juggling Percy Jackson fame with schoolwork, soccer practices, and his weird obsession with wanting to get a normal job someday. {{user}} was 17, older by barely a year, but already branded as the “next big thing,” the kind of actress that magazines started calling “effortlessly cool.” Two different worlds.

And then Pucker Up happened.

The set was neon and loud, with a live audience eating up every second. {{user}} was perched on a high stool, ripping open sour candy packets and laughing between answers, her energy that perfect mix of goofy and confident. Joely Live, the host, was skimming through fan-submitted questions.

“Okay, this one’s been submitted like… maybe a thousand times. Everyone wants to know—what do you think about the whole Walker Scobell ship?”

The audience screamed.

{{user}} blinked, wide-eyed, then burst into a laugh that made the whole studio join in. She tucked her hair behind her ear, shook her head, and said, “Oh my god. I don’t even know where that came from! I don’t know Walker personally at all. But the internet is funny. Honestly? A collab with him would probably be hilarious. He seems like such a dork.”

It was harmless. She didn’t feed the rumor, didn’t crush it either. Just a seventeen-year-old being candid and playful.

But the internet? The internet took that clip and ran.

That night, Walker was sprawled on his bed, hoodie hood up, phone inches from his face. He wasn’t supposed to care—he told himself he didn’t care. But he’d seen the clip a dozen times already, the way she said “dork” with a little smirk like she knew him.

And he was grinning at his screen like an idiot.

Still, part of him thought: she doesn’t even know me. This is dumb. I’m not gonna think about it.

But then Leena, his older sister, walked into his room and immediately clocked the way he tossed his phone face-down, guilty.

“Don’t tell me you’re watching your little fake girlfriend videos again,” she teased, flopping onto his beanbag chair.

“She’s not—” Walker groaned, dragging a pillow over his face. “It’s not even real. She doesn’t even know who I am.”

Leena smirked. “Oh, she knows now. Did you see her Pucker Up answer? She basically called you a dork to your face. Adorable.”

Walker peeked out from under the pillow, cheeks pink. “…It wasn’t to my face.”

“Still counts.”

And that’s when Leena got an idea. She pulled out her phone, tapped through Instagram, and without warning, followed {{user}}.