Aaron Was Not A Stalker

Even if the people all around Hana Lee didn’t believe her—which was just Tristan since he was the only one who knew about her desires to become an Influencer—she didn’t let it stop her.

Hana thought about Phoebe’s words earlier as she looked down at her notebook. While she hadn’t been able to give it much thought and Tristan was a little more lacklustre about her idea… There was something good about being an Influencer right?

It wasn’t as bad as Tristan tried to make it out to be.

Hana flipped open her notebook and began to jot down the ideas that came to her mind. She quickly wrote the pros of becoming an Influencer and the skills that one learned as they continued down this path.

The first one would be… you get to learn photography.

[ Photography ]
The art of taking a photo.

Yeah, Hana didn’t have much to add to it.

She scratched her head with her pen and gave it more thought.

Photos, clips and videos were necessary now and the written text was already kind of prehistoric if it didn’t come with pictures.

All in all, even if it didn’t work out for Hana, photography was a good hobby right?

If Hana learned the ins and outs of photography, then she’d be able to focus on highlighting her good sides and create a noteworthy appearance. It’d be easy to make what kind of Influencer she wanted to.

Did she want to be cute and bubbly?

Something a little more risque?

Hana gulped and shook her head. She wouldn’t be able to pull that off, maybe someone else could, but not her.

“Alright, I need to learn how to take photos first.” Hana muttered underneath her breath and then thought about her current phone. It wasn’t the latest of its season, but it’s camera was good.

There was no way that she was going to buy a camera right now, she could hardly afford it! Her parents were going to question its necessity and then… nada.

“I guess this is why people work while pursuing their dreams.”

Hana rubbed her face and decided to pay attention to something else. There was bound to be something else!

One’s appearance wasn’t the only thing necessary for an Influencer unless you were just a model, she grinned slightly. These types of people needed to have great communication skills, one’s followers needed to find you trustworthy in order to have them consider your opinion.

She wrote this one down.

[ Social Skills ]
Talking to people, making them listen to you

There was a great necessity in being able to reach out to one’s target demographic and getting them to listen to you was a skill that not everyone learned. Hana Lee and her professor were already a good example. She wasn’t even paying any interest in Mr. Brown’s—

“Miss Lee,” suddenly came his voice.

Hana Lee looked up to see the displeased expression on the face of her professor and immediately winced. “Yes, sir?”

“Are you paying attention to what I said? I asked you a question.”

Oh, crap.

She didn’t hear it at all.

Hana ducked her head lightly and tried to look at Phoebe to no avail. Her friend was looking pointedly away from Hana to save her own skin!

Professor Brown just sighed and repeated the question.

“A business is currently experiencing a financial loss after an onset of unexpected events that affected the entire country… or perhaps let’s just say that it’s something that affected the entire world.”

The professor rubbed his chin as if speaking of a scenario.

“Say, a pandemic that caused most individuals to be forced to be separate from each other and thus lowered the productivity of this company highly reliant on people.”

“They plan to layoff at least thirty percent of their current employees in order to keep their business afloat and still adequately pay the ones remaining. What is the ethical take on this?”

Hana blinked. “I… I don’t think it’s a good idea. I’m not sure, but I think I read an article where people who remain after a layoff experienced a certain decline in job performance.”

“Is that so?”

She fiddled with her thumbs and gave him an awkward smile. “Something like that would just make the company experience more loss and increase their chances of bankruptcy. So even if it's a struggle, they should try to retain everyone? Maybe everyone gets the minimum living wage? Oh, have them work from home to lessen expenditures?”

The professor gave her a look, something around a sigh but then eventually nodded. "Alright, thank you for your thoughts, Miss Lee. You can take your seat."

Once she sat down, he continued.

"All of you are already college students, if not one of you can give me a comprehensible and adequate response, I hope that all of you reconsider what it means to be in university."

Hana wondered if there was something wrong with what she said.

Obviously there was.

Was it too naive?

The older man spoke again and pushed up his spectacles. "In less than four years, all of you will enter the workforce.”

It wasn’t only Hana who looked up at their professor’s words, she noticed the others did the same and they all had varying reactions.

Hana herself just bit on her lip.

“I know not all of you are eager to take a managerial role or will be placed in situations where you make a decision that affects the livelihood of your fellow men, but even in small situations, these can be applied. I hope that all of you will think about this."

It was a miracle that Hana and Phoebe survived all of their lessons until lunch time.

The two of them met up with Tristan Jay and the rest of their friends and started catching up. Or rather, started complaining about their professors and classes.

"Geez, who could have given a proper answer? I mean what was I supposed to say, lay off the majority of the people and buckle the company's purse strings?" Hana picked at her lunch and tried not to sound too upset.

It was just a scenario, but she still didn’t like it.

Phoebe sheepishly shrugged and smiled. "From the perspective of a business, it's a necessary thing. So I guess yes? Unless you could have justified the costs and risk bankruptcy."

“Sheesh, you guys are still going on about that?” Tristan Jay said. He temporarily paused from scarfing down his lunch to give them a look. “Isn’t there anything else to talk about?”

Right before Hana could retort, she was beaten to it by somebody else.

“Most of us are going to work at companies and businesses, Jay.”

“Are you seriously going to take the girls' side?” Tristan groaned and threw a look at the guy beside him. “You’ve betrayed all men everywhere.”

“Then what do you want me to talk about? My digital anime waifu?” Aaron teased him.

“Yes.”

“This man can’t appreciate 3D women.” Aaron glanced at her and gave a grin. “I’m so sorry, Hana.”

“There’s nothing to be sorry about.” Hana wrinkled her nose.

Aaron shrugged and glanced around the cafeteria, before his gaze lingered on someone. “Hey, I think I saw a cute girl, Tristan. At your twelve o’clock, look at her.”

“Not interested.”

Phoebe raised her head and followed Aaron’s line of sight. “Oh, it’s Sophie.”

“You know her?” Aaron did a double-take and intertwined his fingers. “I was kind of checking her StarCam last night. Are you two friends? She’s got like about 2k followers.”

Hana, who wasn’t as interested in the girl like Tristan, quickly looked up and stared hard at Aaron. “You mean she’s popular enough to stalk?”

“Woah, slow down and dial it back a bit. Don’t call me a stalker.”