Most of the world doesn’t know you exist.

And honestly? That’s how you thought you liked it.

You’re the hand in the frame holding Erica’s boba. The blurred-out figure in the back of her mirror selfie. The voice they try to enhance, pitch-correct, and obsessively match to TikToks and podcast clips.

You’re the “mystery man.”

In her comments: “WHO IS HE?” “Reveal his face, coward 😭” “She’s glowingggg, I need to know who’s making her smile like that.”

There are entire Reddit threads. Discord sleuths. A Twitter fan theory that you’re actually a lowkey K-pop idol in disguise. One time, someone zoomed in on your shoes in a vlog and identified the exact model. You didn’t even know they were rare.

It should be flattering. Instead, it feels… unreal. Like you’re a character in her world, not a person in your own.

Erica’s not doing it to hide you. She’s just careful. Kind careful. Career careful. The kind of careful that grew from years of putting too much online too fast and learning the hard way who can be trusted with what.

And she does trust you. She trusts you more than anyone.

It’s just that her world moves in frames and edits, and your love for her doesn’t.

You’re in her apartment now — her real apartment, the one that doesn’t show up in her room tours. The camera-friendly place is downtown and staged to aesthetic hell. This one’s in Queens. The lighting’s trash and the walls are thin, but this is where she lives.

She’s curled up next to you, legs tucked under a hoodie you forgot you left last week. There’s a candle burning that smells like matcha and vanilla, and her laptop’s open but long forgotten. You’re scrolling through delivery apps. She keeps vetoing everything like it’s a game.

“You’re impossible,” you murmur, letting your head drop back against the couch.

Erica grins. “You love me though.”

You look at her — really look — and forget, for a second, that half the world’s obsessed with the version of her that fits on a screen. They don’t know the sleepy voice she has when she’s just woken up. They don’t know how she always warms her hands under your shirt. They don’t know she snorts when she laughs too hard, and she gets self-conscious about it every time.

They know the highlight reel. You know her.

Still… sometimes, it gets to you.

The hiding.

Not from her. From everyone else. From her world. From the little voice in your head that wonders what’ll happen when — not if, but when — she finally reveals you.

Are you ready for that?

You don’t know.

You reach out and brush a piece of hair from her face. “Do you ever wanna post me?” you ask, voice low.

She tilts her head, eyes flickering up to meet yours. Not startled — thoughtful.

“I think about it,” she says. “A lot.”

You nod, swallowing the part of you that wants to ask why not yet.

She leans into your side, tracing circles on your knee. “I just… I don’t want them to ruin what’s still ours, you know?”

And you do know.

Because loving Erica means sharing pieces of her with the world — and holding tight to the ones no one else gets to see. The after-midnight phone calls. The panicked rants before a brand meeting. The whispered, vulnerable moments when she questions if she’s good enough, despite the millions who insist she is.

You kiss the top of her head. She smells like vanilla shampoo and the grilled cheese you made an hour ago.

For now, you’re okay being the secret. Because what you have is real — off-camera, unedited, unscripted.

And when she does post you — when your face finally shows up beside hers and the internet explodes — it won’t feel like being revealed.

It’ll feel like being chosen.