The Number One Star in the Interstellar Era

"WHAT do you think? I told you, you will enjoy this episode," Astrid said as he turned off the projector.

When he didn't receive a response, he turned around and saw that Reas had a serious expression on his face as if he was pondering the greatest mystery of life. He chuckled when he saw that. He sat down next to the other and nudged him.

"What's wrong? Are you so surprised seeing Lauren as a merman that you can't even form words?" he teased.

Reas only glanced sideways at him before standing up. "I'm going for a run."

After announcing that, the other quickly left the apartment. Leaving Astrid with a question mark on his face. Then, he laughed after a while.

"How cute."

-----

Reas, who began running on the road as soon as he left the apartment building, was feeling troubled. When Astrid told him that he would enjoy the episode, he didn't really think much. After all, he had already seen most of the things that happened in the episode from the live broadcast. But when the mermaid show started, enjoyment was the last thing on his mind.

He was distracted by how much skin Lauren was showing. More than that, he was annoyed by how much affected he was by it. To the point that his eyes were glued onto Lauren for the rest of that mermaid show.

He knew that he couldn't hide that in his expression and his brother would surely notice it, that's why he ran out of the apartment before it happened. Because he probably wouldn't be able to handle the teasing his brother would dish him. He would most likely react in a way that would make Astrid teased him even more.

Reas didn't want that to happen because he felt like he would come into a very important realization. Something that he was yet neither ready to face nor accept.

He, himself, couldn't understand why he felt this way. It's not like these feelings were something bad or something to be ashamed of. But still, he couldn't bring himself to be honest with his feelings.

The logical part of his brain was telling him that this rejection he's feeling was normal. After all, how could he have a deep emotional attachment towards someone he barely knew.

The only reason he could possibly feel that way was because he was attracted to Lauren's physical appearance. Reas couldn't accept that he was that kind of shallow guy.

He took a deep breath. He knew he was going around in circles by thinking like this and doing this wouldn't really give him any proper result. Then, there's only one thing he could do.

Get to know Lauren properly.

If he still felt the same after that, then wasn't the answer already pretty obvious?

With that conclusion, Reas was properly able to run more smoothly.

-----

Astrid didn't wait for his brother and just went to bed. But he went to sleep, he decided to open [Cyberspace] and check on people's reaction on this episode of [Fieldtrip].

Thankfully, it was mostly positive. Praising the three of them and even wanting them to appear in a film or drama that had a similar concept. There were also a lot of screenshots of the three of them.

Of course, there were some malicious comments here and there. But that was only natural. It would be even more surprising if there wasn't one.

When he first opened [Cyberspace] and saw his personal page, he was a bit surprised to see that his followers increased again. It was now nearing five million. Granted that, it had been steadily increasing since the released of [The Sleeping God]. But because of this variety program, a lot of people began to follow  him again.

Back to the comments, a particular one attracted his attention. It was a comment looking for 'Brother White'. Since this post was under the hashtag #Fieldtripmermaids, he could only assume that this 'Brother White' was referring to Wulfric.

After reading that, he suddenly realized that he hadn't read a single comment from @astridsnumber1fan. When usually, his comments were the first ones Astrid would usually see whenever there's a trending topic related to him.

Did Wulfric not watch the variety show?

Oh, well. He was probably busy. Frankly speaking, it was already a miracle that the other could spend that much time following all his entertainment activities despite being a general.

Still, some small part of him was disappointed that he didn't get to read Wulfric's comments about this variety show.

Then, as if to cheer him up, a new notification appeared on his [Cyberspace] account. It was to let him know that an account he was paying attention to had posted a new post. 'Paying attention to' was a [Cyberspace] feature that let a person know whether someone posted something without you directly following them.

That's what Astrid did so he could know whether Wulfric posted something without alerting the other that he actually knew that he had a, for the lack of better word, a stan account.

And yes, right now, he was reading what Wulfric just posted.

[@astridsnumber1fan: The mermaid show was great! Of course, it would be. Why? Because Astrid was there! Have you seen a more beautiful merman than him? I just wished that he had worn a shirt or something. It's just my selfish wish. But I don't really want you to show that much skin. There are a lot of perverts out there, you know? But I understand that this is your job and I don't really have any say in it. Still, it makes me a bit sad.]

Before Astrid could even react to that post, he suddenly received a message notification. And he didn't know if it was coincidence or not, but it was from Wulfric.

[Wulfric: I watched <Fieldtrip>. You were amazing! The mermaid show at the end was particularly great.]

Reading this after reading that post was a bit awkward. But Astrid understood one thing – that the post from [Cyberspace] was what Wulfric truly felt.