A few minutes later, Tara appeared with her blond hair now brushed and tied up in a ponytail behind her head. It seemed she hadn't had enough time to put on makeup, but to Ken, she still looked rather pretty.
"Ahem. Let's go get some breakfast then." Tara announced, her bag slung around her shoulder.
The two then proceeded to the cafeteria. The woman was yawning a few times on the way, making Ken realize that he had probably woken her up from her sleep.
"Sorry for waking you, were you up late studying last night?"
Tara scoffed, "Not everyone is addicted to studying like you."
"Hmm?" Ken raised an eyebrow. He didn't remember mentioning to Tara that he studied every night, so how did she know?
Tara covered her mouth, realizing that she messed up. "Um, I mean cos you know… You're from Japan."
However, now her words just sounded racist, leaving her feeling even worse. "I—Argh damn it… Steve complained to me that you make him study every night." She admitted, choosing the lesser of two evils.
"Oho? Do you two chat a lot then?" Ken asked, his features turning frosty.
Tara shuddered. Even though they had not signed a contract or anything, this man was her boss. With the amount of fame and attention he was garnering online and his abilities, it was basically guaranteed that he would enter the Majors after college.
If she messed up and caused him to become estranged, she would regret it.
"W—We talk a bit. But it's completely professional."
"Yeah… Sure it is." Ken shook his head, feeling exasperated. From how both Steve and Tara were acting, it was clear that there was something going on behind the scenes that he didn't know about.
Just over the weekend Ken had caught Steve muttering in his sleep about Tara, several times at that. This in addition to how she was acting right now caused his intuition to tingle.
When they finally sat down at the table, Ken decided to address it head on.
"Look, you and Steve are adults. What you do outside of class is none of my concern. Of course this changes if it begins to effect our professional relationship." Ken stated seriously.
"The last thing I want is to lose such a capable manager because of something like this."
Tara's expression faltered as a look of guilt and other emotions flashed across her face. However, she smiled softly, "It's okay, this is my dream job. I'll do whatever it takes to keep things professional."
Ken wasn't expecting such a response, but the result was the same.
"Right, the coach approached me about something. I wanted your opinion."
Ken then explained everything, sparing no details.
"Absolutely not!" Tara stated, just about crossing her arms like a stubborn toddler.
"Hmm? Can you tell me why?" Ken asked, genuinely curious.
"Well first off, they want to use you for advertising. Not only do they not allow you to receive any brand deals or market products, but they want to take advantage of this loophole and not give you anything in return. Basically, you'll be used as a tool."
Tara seemed quite passionate about this, leading Ken to have his doubts on the school board's motives. From what the coach had said, Ken didn't mind doing them a favor, but he didn't realize it was as deep as this.
"But they said they would put more funding into the baseball program." Ken retorted.
Tara scoffed, "They have the number 1 high school recruit, of course they would want to allocate more resources and grow their baseball program. Even if you didn't do anything, they would capitalize on your name to draw more prospects. This means they'd need to increase the budget."
Ken frowned deeply, his mind returning to this morning in the coach's office. From the coach's expression, Ken felt that the guy was being sincere, so he likely wasn't involved in the scam, or at least didn't understand the full extent.
"You need to understand that we're building a brand here. While you might not be able to profit from it in college, once you enter the MLB, your brand will be your 2nd meal ticket." She stated.
Ken's mouth twitched. Of course he knew that the NIL deal would be coming in July of next year, but he couldn't say anything.
Tara's words made a lot of sense. He hadn't realized his own value in the eyes of the school, especially since just his name would bring both spectators and potential recruits in the future.
It seemed that they wanted to leverage his name and fanbase, using him as a tool, just like Tara said.
"So what, do I just refuse to help them? Won't they retaliate somehow?" Ken asked, feeling a little trepidation. The last thing he needed was to start drama with his new college.
Tara shook her head, "We'll give them some terms. Is there anything that you want? Remember you have all the leverage here. Not only does your fanbase dwarf theirs, you're also someone they don't want to lose by any means."
Ken thought for a few moments before a smile crept onto his face. "There is one thing…"
Things moved fast and in only a few days, their demands were met.
As the Bobcats team sat down for their usual film session ahead of their next road game series, Coach Brown addressed the players.
"Alright, we've got 4 games in North Carolina against Davidson this weekend. We'll be going over some of their games from last week in this session, so I need you all to pay attention if we want to continue our hot start." He said, wearing a serious expression.
"But, before that I have an announcement to make."
Hearing this, the players looked at each other with confusion. It seemed that not even Tristan the captain knew anything about this so-called announcement.
Ken on the other hand was wearing a grin, his eyes twinkling with amusement.