n

n

n

n“I am signing a new movie, and I don’t have much time on my hands,” he made an excuse.

n“We can’t wait to find out!” the MC said, but Cage was already peeved. He didn’t loiter much and kept the interview as succinct as possible. The show went on break and the two of them let out exasperated sighs.

n“He just went there.”

n“They broke up months ago!”

n“Didn’t you see? He looked so tired today.”

n“Do you think he is unwell?”

n“He is too busy to take care of himself.”

nTheir conversation went on as the ads did. They fussed over how stupid Keira was to cheat, how foolish people were to dislike Cage, etcetera etcetera. The media were hungry for news, always grabbing onto the leg of every person that had a bad day. Cage was only pictured without a smile whereas the headlines showed Keira out and about dating different people all the time. It was frustrating for fans to see the gloomier side of their idol.

nFrom what they knew, Cage was not dating anyone. If he was, he had kept the news hushed. It made Katherine and all the other fangirls believe that there was a tiny chance that one day Cage Cavanaugh would be theirs.

nWhen the show began again, the MC asked Cage about his gaming addiction. Katherine grinned as she watched. If the man played the same games as her, she would totally want to play him, even if she lost to the clearly addicted man. He sent on and on about the new games he was playing, but not once did he mention what games he played or what his ID was. Katherine could imagine that a massive number of people were searching for Cage Cavanaugh on their gaming apps, hoping to play against or with the actor.

nEven Lily, who had been busy looking at the TV was now looking at her phone, pulling out a game she knew Cage liked and typing in keywords and sending invites to people.

n“Are you really going to try?” Katherine asked, amused.

n“You never know, there is a chance I will find him. You can call him your brother-in-law when he marries me. Don’t be jealous.”

n“What did you type in?” Katherine laughed.

n“His name and every character he played. If I don’t find him, at least I play a couple of games. Productive.”

nKatherine got up, shaking her head at her friend who thought there was a chance she would stumble upon the actor. She knew how serious Lily could get when it came to finding someone online and it was rare for her to not find the person.

nShe chuckled. It would do her good not to try in vain. She could appease herself by looking at him from a distance. No need to try and grab him for themselves. He was everyone’s to begin with. Why should one person stake claim on such a beautiful piece of art?

nKatherine sat down on her work chair and opened her illustrator. She was satisfied with seeing Cage’s face and had gotten inspiration for her fanart from there. She took out her handy pen and started sketching. It took a couple of hours before the sketch turned into a lively, realistic portrait of Cage Cavanaugh on the show. She leaned back, satisfied with how the image had turned out. She rendered and saved the image as a jpeg file and then opened the fan page to post the image. She was one of the many people who were taken by Cage Cavanaugh and she expressed herself in art. Her artistic rendition of his features was an act of love like no other. She knew that this man could never be hers but she could adore him from far away, cheering him on as he goes on with his life.

nAs a book cover designer, her artwork of him had accumulated a lot of fan following for her, she had heard from big companies that wanted artwork for their romance books. It was a good business, with the amount of books being published, Katherine made a good sum of money every month to survive in her three-bedroom apartment that she shared with her friend Lily and Angelina.

nLily was a photographer for a big magazine and because they were based in the film capital of Country M, she saw big and small stars all the time. Lily had yet to meet Cage, though, and she couldn’t wait for the day her magazine would do a cover of him.

nIt was past midnight when Katherine realized that she had slid into her gaming mode and forgotten about the time. She continued playing on her PC until late at night, silently cursing herself for pulling another all-nighter when she had a deadline the next day that she needed to finish. Her obsession with Cage and ‘Return of the Heroes’ had cost her more time than she would like to admit. As a freelancer, time was precious cargo, but there she was using it to quench her thirst for gaming and beauty.

nShe realized that someone was finishing her targets before she could make her way to them. Her female hero was a double-bladed warrior which ranked high on attacking and speed, yet some other player was beating her to it. Frustrated, she began searching the world forum for an explanation.

nRinten: Find the mortal who is stopping this goddess. She typed in and pressed enter. A flurry of comments came up, she looked from one screen to the other, playing the game on one side and replying to comments on the other. She was leisurely strolling around in the meadows of the game.

nRayKon53 one said.

nIt’s our master who is eating your gold. Another one typed.

n