The second batch of promotional stills went live, and the reaction unfolded with the kind of predictability Alex had learned to respect. It wasn't excitement first. It was hunger. The cameras didn't "arrive" so much as they swarmed - reporters spilling into the production hub in tight, restless knots, eyes sharp, questions already loaded. They weren't there to talk about choreography, costume design, or the way the lighting team had re-created a world people had only ever seen in ink and imagination. They were there for one name.
Rebeca Verne.
Bell noticed it before anyone said a word. He watched two international faces - his own and Megan's - turn into set dressing the moment Rebeca's photo hit the timeline. It wasn't personal, not exactly. It was the mechanics of attention. Still, something in his jaw tightened. He'd worked long enough in enough countries to know that "recognition" was never evenly distributed; it traveled through whatever story the public wanted most. And right now, the public wanted a scandal.
Megan's expression didn't change much, but Bell caught the small tell: her fingers rubbing her thumb as if she were smoothing an invisible crease. She'd been in the industry long enough to look unbothered, yet the way she glanced at the reporters said she understood the insult of being treated like a decorative silhouette while a storm formed around someone else.
Alex stepped into the questions as if he'd been born to absorb them. He wore the pressure lightly, not because it didn't weigh on him, but because he refused to let anyone see where it pressed. When the microphones thrust toward his mouth, he didn't retreat. He didn't lean forward either. He stayed exactly in the middle, a man deliberately refusing to be pulled into anyone else's frame.
"Casting Rebeca Verne was a decision based on ability," he said, voice even, calm enough to frustrate anyone hoping for a crack. "Her presence and temperament fit the role. Fans don't need to worry."
The answer was clean. Too clean. The reporters exchanged quick looks, the silent disappointment of people who'd been handed water when they'd come for gasoline. One of them - bold, young, eager to earn his headline - pushed harder.
"Some people online suspect you cast Rebeca because you and her… well - because you're in a relationship. Is that true?"
He'd wrapped it in polite language, careful not to repeat what the comment sections were screaming with the gleeful cruelty of anonymity. Still, the question landed the same way. The cameras leaned in, sensing the possibility of a moment.
Alex's smile didn't shift. If anything, it became gentler, like he was indulging a child who didn't know better.
"People are overthinking it," he replied. "I'm a straightforward guy. I cast based on performance and suitability - nothing else."
Straightforward.
Bell almost laughed. Not out loud - he had too much control for that - but the word sat in the air like a joke nobody was allowed to acknowledge. Megan's eyes slid sideways, the faintest flicker of amusement cutting through her composure. She didn't have to say it. The world didn't believe "straightforward" from a man whose orbit was crowded with rumors that didn't require confirmation because his behavior confirmed them all by itself.
The reporters, denied their explosion, did what reporters always did: they saved what they could, trimmed it into something provocative, and moved on to the next angle. The machines of media didn't need truth. They needed momentum.
…
Online, the battlefield grew faster than the day could keep up with.
The loudest war wasn't Bleach fans versus Bleach fans - not at first. Most of the screaming came from Rebeca's haters clashing with her stans, dragging the project into an old feud like a hostage. The real Bleach crowd - especially the people who'd followed the production since the first announcement, who'd watched Alex build this universe step by step - weren't as eager to burn the house down.
They trusted him.
They didn't have to like every decision, but they believed in his instincts. Whatever else could be said about Alex, nobody thought he'd be reckless enough to gamble his flagship series on someone he believed couldn't carry the role. And the "box office curse" label the internet loved to throw around was always selective, always louder than it was accurate. Rebeca had delivered strong work in television. She wasn't the helpless disaster the comment sections pretended she was.
The real question among actual fans wasn't whether she "deserved" to be there. It was what her character meant.
They caught the surname immediately.
Shiba.
The same family name tied to the woman who'd helped the protagonists infiltrate Seireitei back in the Soul Society arc. A shared surname in a story like this wasn't decoration. It was a hook. It suggested bloodline, history, a buried thread that could snap tight at any moment.
So who was she?
A sister? A cousin? A forgotten branch of the clan?
And with that, the internet's self-appointed "Bleach scholars" emerged in force, delighted to turn one still image into an entire conspiracy wall. They started pulling scenes from the Soul Society arc, screenshotting dialogue, arguing over implications like it was courtroom evidence. Theories multiplied not because they were true, but because the idea of being the first to "figure it out" was intoxicating.
That was how the wildest take was born.
…
"I think Rebeca Verne's Shiba character is very likely Aizen's ex-girlfriend."
The line came from a popular film-and-TV livestreamer known online as FANSE, a man with a calm voice, careful cadence, and the kind of neutral posture that made audiences mistake confidence for correctness. He wasn't the biggest name on the platform, but he didn't need to be. People trusted him because he sounded like someone who'd thought things through.
The problem was that FANSE had one particular weakness - one that his audience knew so well it had become part of his brand.
He loved romantic chaos.
Love triangles. Betrayals. Jealousy. The kind of storylines where characters ruined each other and called it passion. Every time a series dipped into that toxic sweetness, his chat would explode with the same phrase, delighted and mocking at once: FANSE is thriving. It had happened before, and it was happening again now, because the idea of tying Aizen to a personal romance fit the shape of the drama people wanted to watch.
FANSE leaned forward, eyes bright with a joy he tried to disguise as analysis.
"Based on the surname," he began, "this Shiba character is likely related to the Shiba woman we met in the Soul Society arc - an older or younger sister, maybe. Now remember: that character said she hated Soul Reapers. That matters. So here's my theory. This new Shiba girl is already dead, and she was killed by the Central 46."
He lifted a finger, like he was delivering a lecture the audience had paid for.
"Aizen massacred the Central 46 because he was avenging his ex-girlfriend. That's why he lost faith in Seireitei. That's why he snapped. That's why he betrayed Soul Society. It's personal. It's tragedy. It's motivation."
It was the kind of theory that sounded satisfying because it gave everything a clean emotional spine. It didn't matter that it was built on assumptions. It didn't matter that it shoved one character's tragedy onto another. It gave the audience a reason they could repeat in a single sentence, and single-sentence stories traveled faster than anything nuanced ever could.
The chat detonated. Clips spread. Hashtags rose. The take jumped platforms like a spark landing in dry grass.
Then it hit trending.
And, as if the universe were amused, it landed right in Alex's lap.
He saw it while walking between sets, the phone vibrating with notifications as if it were trying to warn him. He stopped, read the thread, watched the clipped segment of FANSE's analysis, and felt a laugh tug at his throat - one that wasn't amusement so much as disbelief.
Unreal.
They weren't just theorizing. They were transplanting a completely different character's emotional blueprint onto Aizen, rewriting the myth to fit the romance they wanted. They were taking a story shaped by ideology, control, and ambition and trying to soften it into something as ordinary as heartbreak.
And calling Shiba "Aizen's ex"?
If Shiba Kaien could hear that from the grave, he'd claw his way out just to start swinging.
Still, Alex understood why it was catching fire. The public assumed Rebeca's role had to be important, because Rebeca herself was important in the cultural imagination. People wanted casting to mean narrative weight. They wanted symmetry. They wanted the romance they could talk about without having to explain the deeper politics of Soul Society.
They also couldn't resist connecting Rebeca to Aizen because Alex had a history. Old iconic pairings lived on in the audience's memory like unfinished songs, and once a pairing became legend, people started trying to force it into every new story that involved the same faces.
The truth was smaller and, to the internet, almost offensive.
Alex had cast Rebeca for impact, not longevity. A high-end cameo. A beautiful presence designed to flash across the screen and vanish. One episode, maybe less. A role meant to leave an afterimage, not a footprint.
Letting the "goddess" play something disposable?
Most people couldn't imagine that kind of audacity. They'd call it arrogant. They'd call it disrespectful.
Alex's private response to that was simple.
Yes.
And now you're seeing it.
He also had no intention of correcting the internet. Let them build myths. Let them argue. Let them fight over shadows. Mystery was free marketing, and people loved doing the work themselves as long as no one interrupted their fun. Marvel had built an empire on weaponized ambiguity. Alex wasn't reinventing the technique - he was simply using it with colder efficiency.
…
Rebeca, however, wasn't content to be a mystery.
Her message arrived that same night, casual in tone, sharp in intent. She asked what he thought of FANSE's analysis.
It wasn't subtle. Not really.
It was a probe, a careful test of the door: Could we adjust it? Could we make it true?
Because, in her mind, it wasn't just about prestige. It was about immortality. What actress wouldn't want her character bound to Aizen - etched into the story's mythology, fused to the most magnetic villain in the entire arc?
Alex stared at the screen for a long moment. Not annoyed. Not amused. Just empty in a way that made his head feel too quiet.
If he rewrote Aizen's past into a revenge romance, the character's aura would collapse. The myth would shrink. The menace would become ordinary. Aizen wasn't terrifying because he was wounded. He was terrifying because he didn't need to be.
Alex typed back something bland, something safe, something that gave her nothing to hold onto, then locked his phone and let the silence settle. He could feel the story's balance in his bones. He wasn't going to trade it for a trending topic.
Not even for her.
…
A few days later, the set shifted again.
Megan wrapped.
The announcement came with the low-key warmth of a crew that had learned to like her faster than they'd expected. There were handshakes, quick hugs, photos taken on phones that would never be posted but would be kept anyway. Alex made a point of being present for it. He didn't delegate the goodbye. He didn't let it become just another exit.
Whatever else he was, he understood something fundamental: respect was a currency you didn't fake, because the industry always noticed who paid it and who didn't.
He drove her to the airport himself.
In the car, Megan looked out the window for a long time, then finally spoke with the softness of someone pretending to be casual about something that wasn't casual at all.
"Alex… when you come to the States to shoot a film," she said, "just stay at my place."
He didn't answer immediately. He didn't need to. Some agreements weren't signed in language. They were signed in the pause where both people chose not to pretend.
At a red light, Megan's phone buzzed. She glanced at the screen, and for the first time in days, her expression faltered. It wasn't dramatic. Just a small fracture - a reminder that outside the set, she still had a life that didn't care about spotlight.
She declined the call, but not before Alex caught the name on the screen: a lawyer.
Megan set the phone face-down like she was burying it. When she spoke again, her voice carried a new edge, one she usually kept hidden behind charm.
"My ex is being difficult again," she said, and the sentence was carefully controlled, like she was refusing to let emotion take the wheel. "It's… paperwork. Custody stuff. Nothing you need to deal with."
Alex didn't ask questions. He didn't offer solutions he couldn't promise. He simply nodded, storing the information the way he stored everything: quietly, precisely. He understood loneliness in a different way now - not as a romantic mood, but as a practical reality. You could have a full schedule and still go home to a silence that felt like punishment.
As they neared the terminal, Megan's earlier warmth returned, but it had shifted. It wasn't just flirtation anymore. It was urgency disguised as invitation.
"Do you really have to leave so fast?" she murmured, leaning slightly closer. "We could… get a room near the airport and - "
Her breath brushed his ear, warm enough to make discipline feel like a joke someone told a long time ago. Alex's grip on the steering wheel tightened for half a second, a physical act of restraint that made him aware of his own limits.
He'd learned enough from her in a short time to understand the truth beneath her smooth exterior: she wasn't playing a game. She was a divorced woman raising a child alone, starved for tenderness in a way fame could never fix.
And if there was one thing Alex considered himself dangerously good at, it was giving people exactly what they craved - especially when they tried to pretend they didn't.
Inside the terminal, eyes followed them. This wasn't Megan's home turf, and the attention here had a different texture - less awe, more curiosity, more opportunism. She kept her smile in place anyway, professional down to the last breath.
But what truly confused her wasn't the stares.
It was something else entirely - something private, absurd, and inexplicably persistent.
Something Alex had insisted on during their most intimate moments, like it mattered, like it pleased him in a way she couldn't translate.
"Odosan."
Megan had asked him what it meant once. He'd dodged it with a grin and a kiss. She'd let it go because the world was full of oddities, and this one was harmless - until she realized how satisfied he looked every single time she said it.
Now, standing at the edge of departure, she studied him as if trying to read a man she'd only met in fragments.
"You're impossible," she said, quiet enough that only he could hear.
Alex watched her walk away with the controlled grace of someone used to leaving before the ache could show. When she disappeared beyond the security gates, he stood there for a beat longer than necessary, the hollow place she left behind briefly audible beneath the airport's noise.
His phone buzzed again - another notification, another thread, another argument about Rebeca's "importance," another person swearing they'd decoded Aizen's heart as if the world owed them an explanation.
Alex slipped the device back into his pocket without looking.
The internet could keep theorizing.
Let them turn still images into myths. Let them fight over what they wanted the story to be.
Because Alex knew the truth that mattered: the loudest wars were never fought on-screen.
They were fought in the quiet choices people made when no one was watching - and in the private scars they tried to hide behind the roles they played.
_________________________________________________________________________________________
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