The morning greeted Gilbert like a telemarketer call during Sunday dinner. The sunlight from the living room windows crept in through the curtains, he had forgotten to close the blinds. He groaned and sat up slowly, feeling his sore muscles ache. He wasn't used to sleeping on the couch and he made note that he wouldn't be doing it again any time soon.

Staring up at the ceiling, he remembered Roderich, most likely still fast asleep as he hadn't heard anyone else get up. He should probably offer him breakfast-

A buzzing underneath his arm snapped him out of his thoughts. Fumbling for a few moments, Gilbert cursed as he tried to locate his phone. He reached under the couch cushion for it, barely able to slide the screen across to answer the call in time.

"Hallo."

"Gilbert!" Antonio cried joyously.

"Uh, yeah." Gilbert was taken back by the volume of his friend's voice. His own voice was low and gravel-like from the full night of sleep.

"Why didn't you say anything about being a trending hashtag!"

"…Jesus, what…" Gilbert rubbed his eyes, afraid but anticipating what his friend's next words would be.

"Hashtag-find-gilbert. I didn't know it was about you! And it's made a comeback just this morning." Antonio's excitement was tangible, even through the phone.

"Oh god." Gilbert said, switching his friend to speaker. "Let me check Twitter."

Antonio continued to ramble excitedly as Gilbert waited impatiently for the app to open on his phone. Sure enough, trending hashtags included #findgilbert and #foundgilbert. Running through the tweets, it was the same excitement as a few weeks prior, but with reinvented exhilaration. The masses of Roderich's followers had gone off the rails, and Gilbert could easily trace it back to one tweet.

A singular photo of the two of them facing each other outside the museum. It resembled a paparazzi photo, or perhaps one taken by a stalker. The right half of the photo suffered from a terrible glare from the window, but there was no doubt it was Roderich and Gilbert. The tweet that followed was even creepier.

Musikwissenschaftin Saw RJ_Edelstein today in Berlin with a man he called Gilbert #foundgilbert !

It was undoubtedly the museum worker that had snapped the picture of the two of them, and unabashedly put it forth for the world to see.

Gilbert dropped the phone on his face and groaned. "Oh my god."

Antonio, still blabbering in the background, caught up with him. "-but you've met your soulmate! That's so exciting!"

"Dude… I'm going to have to call you back," Gilbert said with his eyes closed. "I've got to deal with this." Without another word, he closed out of the call, feeling bad about abandoning his friend. Antonio would probably understand, he reasoned.

Gilbert peeled himself off the couch, feeling worse than he ever had. Using his hand to guide him along the wall, he went straight for his bedroom, swinging the door open. "Roderich." He stated, surprised to see the man sleeping like a rock.

His facial features were stagnant, but not in the usual way. During the day he clearly worked hard to keep his face in as few expressions as possible, but now they were relaxed and effortlessly handsome. Gilbert recognized the face from the train station. The face Roderich made when he thought nobody else was looking. Gilbert sighed. This man was causing him a lot of trouble. He glanced down, seeing his hand resting on his chest and the other stretched out across the mattress.

Soon, hopefully. The outstretched arm held the Words, clearly visible for Gilbert to read even from across the room. He froze for a moment. Everything about the Words that had bothered him… it could be solved if Roderich would just swap his hands. He would finally have the answers to how he managed to cheat the system, or whatever had happened…

Roderich's eyes suddenly snapped open, making contact with Gilbert's for a moment. He shifted uncomfortably, sliding both of his hands underneath the blanket to unnaturally hide them.

Gilbert absent-mindedly put hands over his own wrists. "So modest, Roderich." He stated, his voice flat and irritated.

"Good morning." Roderich responded with the same tone. He stretched his arms, careful to keep the Words turned downward. "I'm curious as to what you're staring at." He spoke slowly, his mind still recovering from the inertia of sleep.

Gilbert blinked, looking away. "Check your Twitter." He said plainly. Roderich blinked back at him, reaching onto the nightstand for his phone. Gilbert watched as he opened the app, his eyes widening with confusion. He rubbed his forehead, scrolling silently through what Gilbert assumed was hundreds of tweets.

"It's been worse." Roderich stated flatly, shutting off his phone and rolling back over.

"It's been worse!" Gilbert repeated, mocking his indifference. "Are you serious?"

Roderich didn't move an inch. "Two years ago when one of the boys from the band tweeted a snarky response to some rabid fascist, all of us got caught up in the feed, it was viral for two weeks str-"

Gilbert threw his weight against the wall in disgust. "Oh my god Roderich. I can't believe you."

Roderich turned his head to face Gilbert, his face twisted in disgust. "I'm sorry my story isn't interesting."

"Jesus Christ, Roderich." Gilbert reached behind him and slammed the door shut, securing the two of them in the room together. "We have to talk about this. I'm not doing this again."

Roderich sat up straight, rubbing his eyes with his palms. He sighed and slowly reached for his glasses on the nightstand. He wiped off the lenses with Gilbert's blanket and perched them on his nose, perfectly symmetrical. Finally, he took a deep breath and faced the man. "What do you want to talk about, Gilbert."

It was more a statement than a question, and Gilbert felt the hot hostility rising from his guest's words. He didn't break eye contact for a second. "Look. All I wanted was some clarification on what to do. You've gone viral before, you're a damn celebrity. But I'm not a celebrity, and I want some answers about what to do when you've unintentionally become a hashtag."

Looking bitter, if not uninterested, Roderich picked up his phone. "Gilbert. We agreed that we would be friends. I would like to leave it that way until further notice. I can tweet out whatever you want me to right now about our situation, I can diminish this whole thing. I don't want to force you into any fame or limelight that you don't want to be a part of."

Shocked, Gilbert stared down the man sitting in his bed. This was the most genuine that Roderich had ever been with him. His sincerity was appreciated, but so unprecedented that Gilbert wasn't quite sure what to do with it. "Well…"

Roderich's phone suddenly rang in his hands, startling the both of them. He looked down at it in a mixture of disgust and surprise. "Scheisse."

"Who is it?"

"It's our manager…"

"Our manager!"

Roderich hissed back. "The band's manager, idiot."

Gilbert sat down on the bed, feeling defensive. He fell backwards onto the mattress and listened half-heartedly.

"Ja?" Roderich answered, pausing for a long while. "I'm not sure…. It's not fair to him… are you serious? ...I'll ask him. I'm just not sure… Alright." He hung up without a salutation, and sighed a deep sigh. "Well."

"Well?" Gilbert prompted.

Roderich ran a hand through his wavy hair, pulling it from his scalp more than the pillow already had. "My manager has an offer for us. Some gossip… news… platform, I don't know… DerKlatschTratsch is offering us five thousand euros a piece for our first official interview… as a couple."

Roderich seemed to be taking this news rather lightly, but Gilbert was dumbstruck. Five thousand euros? Where do people get this money?

"Is that… really? Like, this is actually a possibility?" Gilbert said, returning his back against the wall.

Roderich shrugged. "I mean we could easily barter with them for more. But it's up to you." He stood slowly as he waited for Gilbert's reply and found his shirt from the day before in a pile on the ground. Gilbert watched in horror as he slid the unwashed shirt over his shoulders.

"Do you want a clean shirt?" He found himself blurting out.

"Excuse me?" Roderich turned back to him, looking surprised.

"I mean, you wore that yesterday."

"Yes?"

"…I can give you a clean shirt, Roderich."

"It's not necessary, this shirt is fine."

Gilbert threw his hands up before walking across the room to his dresser. He shoved the top drawer open and threw a folded t-shirt at Roderich, knowing that it would probably be a size too big for him. Roderich caught the shirt at his chest, frowning. "Well, thank you." He said with no sincerity, and slid the shirt on without further arguments. "So, what do you want to do?"

Gilbert sat on the opposite side of the bed, staring out the window. "We could make money from this?"

Roderich sat on the bed facing the door. The two men with their backs to each other felt some sort of odd solidarity in their strange situation. "We could make some money from interviews, at least the first few. My selfish thoughts are that this could potentially be some very good press for the band."

Gilbert looked up at the ceiling, deep in thought. "Am I going to be famous?"

Roderich let out a puff of air, somewhere between a scoff and a laugh. "It's possible. I think you'll get to pick how famous you are, once this stops trending. You can choose to make appearances with the band, like Mendel's girlfriend does, or you could… not."

Considering his options, Gilbert laid down and stared at the ceiling. He felt overwhelmed by the huge decision he had to make. He had always wanted to be famous, maybe as a writer, but here fame was confronting him head-on. It would just be… given to him. It didn't feel right to not have earned it, but perhaps this would jump start his path to stardom that he had always thought about. He would try to keep his brother out of it, as he was perfectly happy with his privacy. But if he could make some extra money for the two of them, and perhaps become better friends with the man who was intended to be his soulmate, then why not?

"I'll do the interview. I'll play it by ear from there."

Roderich turned to look down at him, a semi-amused look on his face. "Is that a music joke?"

Gilbert returned the look, but with more smugness. "It is if you want it to be."