After My Favorite Tokusatsu Hero Starred in a BL Drama

When he was sixteen, the gong watched a tokusatsu series and fell madly in love with its passionate, steadfast protagonist.

He thought the protagonist was a hero who could save everything. He followed him, bought merchandise, cheered him on, memorized all his lines, and couldn't help looking up every bit of news about him.

The gong was determined to become a man just like him!

Until he saw that his idol had taken a role in a BL drama.

In a TV interview, his idol still wore that sunny smile typical of a shonen manga hero. But the poster behind him showed a still of him shyly holding hands with another man. He bowed warmly to the audience and said, "I hope you'll continue to support me!"

The gong was bewildered.

Very bewildered, he... started watching his idol's new drama.

Years later, the shou, now no longer a top-tier star, took on another new drama.

It was a BL drama. The other lead was a young actor he'd heard of, who was currently on the rise. A cool guy, not much of a talker, who had stared straight at him during the screen test as if they had some blood feud.

He'd heard this was the young man's first time acting in a BL drama. The shou sighed to himself, remembering his own experience many years ago. The young man probably wasn't used to the genre yet.

As someone who'd been through it all, the shou occasionally answered some of the gong's questions. It was a little strange to have to give pointers on intimate scenes, but it was normal for a young man to feel shy. And so the shou patiently guided his eager junior.

Until one day, he heard the young man was sick. As his scene partner, the shou went with the director, cameraman, and manager to visit the young star.

The shou knocked. The feverish gong opened the door, still half asleep.

Behind it was an entire wall covered in tokusatsu posters and merchandise: plastic model kits, transformation devices, and a solo poster of the shou. A flood of old memories came rushing back.

Gong: "..."

Shou: "..."

#My hero went into BL

#I have to save him!

#Wait! How did I end up in BL too...

* A sweet story told from both perspectives.

"Going into BL" is a joking way to describe a tokusatsu protagonist acting in a BL drama. In real life, many Japanese tokusatsu actors have gone on to act in BL dramas, giving their straight male fans a little shock.

* They are not actually going into BL, they are not actually going into BL.

* This story is not based on any real actor.

After writing the blurb, I felt that the second half was a little like a famous scene from a certain Japanese drama. Since I had already used a lot of Japanese tokusatsu elements, I considered revising it to avoid any resemblance. However, given the characters, circumstances, and setup established beforehand, this reveal was almost inevitable. Since this kind of reveal is especially exciting, this sort of fictional character unmasking is not unique, and the characterizations and other details don't overlap with the Japanese drama, I ultimately decided to keep it.

* I'm writing this here as a reminder to avoid other similarities.

Theme: xxxx