KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK
The sound of hurried banging on the door echoed through the hall as Ken knocked on his neighbors door. In his other hand, his phone was vibrating constantly without break, as if it was possessed.
"What's wrong!?" Tara swung open her door, seeing a frantic Ken standing in front of her.
"Something is wrong with my phone, it won't stop buzzing. What did you do?" He said holding it out in front of him.
"Hmm? What are you talking about?" She queried, grabbing the phone from his hands. In an instant, she felt the phone in a constant state of vibration. For a moment she thought that something must have glitched in order to cause this.
But her face changed the moment she unlocked the phone. Notifications began pouring in like crazy, threatening to overwhelm the phone's processor.
"What the hell?" Tara muttered, opening up Instagram. She quickly turned the notifications off, but that wasn't enough. It wasn't until she did the same for both facebook and twitter that the phone was now silent.
Ken was already getting a ton of engagement on his new profiles, but she was unsure why. All she did was post the photo of Ken and a few of the Yanks players with the caption "Met some of my hero's yesterday. Thank you for the memories."
She had also tagged a few of the players, but hadn't expected anything else to come of it.
However, opening up the post, she saw that both Masaru Tanaka and Alex Cole had responded to the post, bringing with them a wave of fans from their own accounts.
"Did you figure out what was wrong?" Ken asked, relieved that his phone had stopped vibrating.
"Yeah… Masaru Tanaka and Alex Cole replied to your post." She said, handing him the phone once more.
Ken took his phone back, looking a little confused. Why would Ma-kun and Alex replying to his post cause his phone to act up? It made no sense.
alexcole45: @AceTakagi is the real deal. Number 1 draft pick of 2023 I'm calling it now.
masaru_tanaka.official: Youth baseball is truly promising. Next time I see you, I want an autograph @AceTakagi.
"What's this about?" Ken muttered. He felt a warm feeling after seeing what these professional pitchers had said about him.
"Look how many likes your post has." Tara said, pointing to the love heart in the bottom of the photo.
"21 thousand!? What the hell?" Ken almost dropped his phone seeing the absurd number.
Steve who was beside Ken suddenly felt weak in the knees. He thought that he was popular with 226 followers, but Ken had blown him out of the water after only having an account for an hour.
"This is unfair…" He sulked.
"It looks like you made quite an impression on them if they're replying to you. Usually they ignore it when people tag them in posts." Tara replied, scratching her head. Even she didn't expect things to go this way.
"Tara… Please also be my Manager." Steve said. The guy was on one knee, holding up his phone as if he was proposing to her.
She completely ignored his antics, deep in thought. "How many followers do you have right now?"
"How do I check that?"
Instead of telling him, she grabbed the phone and went back to his profile to check.
"5400… That's pretty good for now."
Steve felt as if he'd been shot by a few arrows after hearing the meager assessment of "Pretty good". Tears began to stream down his face as he contemplated his whole world view in the next few moments.
"Let's aim to increase that by the end of the year. With any luck, we can ride this wave and get you verified. From then on, it will be a gradual process to grow your presence online."
The way Tara spoke sounded as if she knew what she was talking about. Ken could only nod every now and then, completely trusting her judgment, not that he had a choice in the matter.
"Oh, we should probably tell the University your social handles. As long as you perform well, the they will probably tag you in some posts during the season. That should get you some more exposure and increase your follower count."
"Okay… I'll be in your care."
With everything now sorted, Ken and Steve returned to the cafeteria in silence. Ken was contemplating the timing of the system mission and just how much influence it had on the world around him.
'First it was Daichi being adamant to stay in Japan, and now this Social Media situation? Is it all just coincidence?'
Meanwhile, Steve was sulking. His earlier boasting seemed ridiculous and he was currently filled with jealousy. But he froze in the next moment, as if suddenly coming to a realization.
'Why do I care about such a thing?'
After a few moments, he let out a small laugh and threw it to the back of his mind. He wouldn't ever talk to so many people in his life time. Even the 256 friends he had, he only spoke to his family and Ken in addition to a couple of people from school.
After this revelation, he felt much lighter. In fact, looking at Ken who seemed rather depressed, he felt like he was much better off.
'I guess its tough being so popular.' He thought, giving Ken a nudge.
"You all good man?"
"Hmm? Yeah I'm fine, it was just a bit of a scare you know. After all, who wants to get so popular overnight?" He said in reply.
However, in the next moment he froze on the spot. There was a wisp of information that tugged at his mind, as if it was something important.
"Dude, what's wrong?"
Ken ignored him, closing his eyes as he accessed the memory recall feature of his Academic trait. He poured over distant memories from his previous life.
In the next moment his eyes snapped open in realization.
'The NIL deal…'