Idia had spent forever handcrafting everything for his Pumpkin Knight cosplay; he deserved to show it off at a proper con. But that meant people and socialising.

Maybe he'd luck out and the place would be full of introverted nerds who never left their basements? Who was he kidding. He stood in the middle of the large expo hall surrounded by swarms of people.

The moment he saw the eager woman approach, he put on the pumpkin head and walked the opposite way. You don’t see me. You don't see me. You don't—

“OMG," She called out each letter loudly in a voice he knew he'd get tired of quick. "You're dressed as the Pumpkin Knight from Creepy Hollow, right?” She blocked his path.

He recognised her cosplay, a protagonist of a low quality shoujo about a girl who everyone was in love with. Sounds original, doesn't it? Nobody liked the story; it was just self-insert fanfiction for the author gone public. No sane person would enjoy it, let alone cosplay the pick-me MC.

And now he had to talk to said delusional person. I'm so cooked. He was already sweating bullets. This is why he never leaves his room.

"Um. Yeah." He tried to sidestep her, but she cut him off again. Omfg take the hint. I want to leave.

"That's so cool! Where'd you get the armour from?" She asked, placing a hand on the chestplate. "And that fire looks so realistic." She grabbed a strand, playing with it. She didn't know that was his hair and Idia would rather be buried alive than be here. "I bet you don't find a lot of cute girls into horror, huh? Don't worry, we exist."

Idia had to bite back a gag. Nope. Nope. He hates this. People actually talked like that? IRL? He thought it was just a trope that existed in crappy visual novels. Why me? There had to be a dozen other men who would eat this up, but she chose to ruin his day.

"Do you really think being a piece of shit makes you more attractive?" He was lucky that she couldn't hear him through the pumpkin head.