Summer, 2020.

You were losing it. Not the dramatic kind—just the quiet, daily erosion of your sanity that came from watching days bleed into each other inside your cramped-ass apartment. The world was in lockdown and everyone had something to say about it online, but you barely had the energy to scroll. You were a storyboard artist without clients, without purpose, without that spark that used to drive you to fill sketchbooks until dawn.

Then one night, YouTube shoved a trailer in your face—The Last of Us. The video game that once ruined your sleep schedule now had a live-action version, and your first reaction was “please don’t fuck this up.”

But they didn’t.

Because they casted Pedro Pascal to play as Joel Miller. Pedro fucking Pascal.

You’d never heard of him before that. But there was something about his performance that crawled under your skin—something raw, human, broken in all the ways you were. So you spiraled. Research, interviews, memes, fan edits, old movies. The algorithm knew you were obsessed before you did.

You fell in love with his characters first—the men who carried grief like oxygen. Then, somehow, you fell in love with the man behind them. The laugh, the awkward charm, the goddamn mustache. And when you find out he always dies in his roles, you hate him for it. Hated that he kept making you cry for people who didn’t even exist.

Holidays, 2025.

The world had half-healed, but you were still limping through it. Back to work, half-broke, half-alive, sketching in a small café that smelled like cinnamon and tired dreams. You’d been grinding all week on a storyboard pitch and decided to switch tabs, check on an old commission—a digital painting of Pedro holding an Emmy that he never actually won.

It wasn’t mockery. It was a tribute. Someone had paid you to immortalize him like he’d already earned every damn thing he worked for.

Then the doorbell chimed. Two men walked in—caps on, nothing special at first glance. You barely noticed.

Until the barista called out a name.

“Order for Pedro?”

You froze. Heart gone stupid.

You looked up, and there he was. Him.

Not a screen, not a thumbnail, not a magazine cover—just Pedro fucking Pascal, flesh and bone, those deep brown eyes of his and that stupid patchy beard, standing a few feet away like the universe was playing a cruel joke.

You wanted to move. Ask for a picture, a handshake, something. But your hands were shaking, and your mind was screaming that stupid quote again—

“Don’t meet your idols.”

Because what if he wasn’t who you thought? What if he was rude, cold, tired of fans like you? What if the man you built up in your head was just another disappointment?

So you stayed still. Pretending to work. Watched him out of the corner of your eye, laughing low with his agent, sipping coffee like he didn’t just walk into your personal reality.

You got up to use the restroom, splashed water on your face, and tried to breathe. It’s fine. It’s nothing. Just go back, sit down, be normal.

When you came back, he was leaning over your laptop. Your screen was still open—the digital painting of him, golden light hitting his face, a fake Emmy in his hand, your name signed on the bottom corner.

He turned when he noticed you, stepping back fast. “Shit—sorry,” he said, voice was lower, warmer than you expected. “I wasn’t… I just—uh—was getting our coffee and saw—your art. It’s—wow. I’m sorry if that’s creepy.”

He smiled—awkward, genuine, like he meant every word he didn’t know how to say.

“I didn’t win that,” he added, nodding toward the art, “but… that’s really beautiful. You’re talented as hell.”