𝐇𝐄𝐀𝐑𝐓𝐒𝐓𝐑𝐈𝐍𝐆𝐒 || Kazu x Scara

Chapter XVIII

~*~

The door to the band space flew open. On the other side a tired, panting Thoma could be seen with his eyes widened in shock. The other members looked at him, startled by his sudden intrusion.

Thoma held up his index finger, as if signaling 'Wait a second,' while catching his breath.

Kazuha carefully placed his guitar down and he went up to his friend to check up on him. Thoma held out his phone and excitedly yelled, "We got a gig!"

On his phone screen, he had a tab opened that showed the band's social media account. Kazuha looked at the number of followers they had. The number was so surprising that Kazuha unintentionally cursed, "Holy shit! When did we get so many followers?!"

The other members huddled around Thoma and they also gasped after seeing the number. They had reached 1,800 followers. To them, this was a lot. The account was made a little over a week ago and before their performance at the competition, they had no previous exposure. So to have a big following in such a short amount of time came as a surprise to them!

"What happened?!" Tighnari inquired.

"Well, if you would all back up maybe I could explain," Thoma said in a passive-aggressive tone.

Everyone immediately backed up but mostly out of fear of Thoma. He rarely speaks in such a tone so everyone was a bit scared. Thoma pulled up a chair and he sat down while crossing his ankles. "So after I made the account I told an old friend of mine and Kazuha's. She happens to be good friends with Blitz so she asked me if I wanted her to ask them if it was possible they could mention us on their story so we could get some exposure. I obviously declined because I wanted us to earn our followers, not get them just because a more popular band mentioned us. Our friend respected that but she still followed our account which was fine. However, I think people already knew she was a good friend of Blitz so some people made the connection and began to follow us since she showed up on our followers. Still, it wasn't a lot. Maybe about thirty people?"

Thoma scrolled through his phone to open a chat and he continued, "Then, this person approached me in our DMs and asked if we recorded any videos of our performance since it might help us gain more followers if we post it." Thoma held out his phone and showed everyone the chat. "I said that we didn't and she told me she was at the competition and was really interested in us so luckily, she recorded our performance. She said she was willing to send me the video and I could post it as long as I mentioned her in the caption. I immediately agreed and thanked her so she sent the video. I posted it and mentioned her like she told me to."

Thoma pulled up the post on his phone and passed it to Kazuha so he could show the other members who were on the other side of the room. They all watched the video that surprisingly had good visual and sound quality. The caption read, 'Here's a video of our performance recorded by the lovely," and then the tag of the girl was inserted followed by an exclamation point. The members couldn't help but smile, thinking, 'This is so Thoma-coded.'

Thoma continued, "That's when the followers started rolling in. We received good feedback and praise from the public. So I was really happy. I thought 'Yay, we have some fans!' Just when I thought it couldn't get any better, a venue contacted us through our DMs. The venue is holding a small festival for teen bands and they asked us if we wanted to be a part of the setlist. I was a bit suspicious at first because I wasn't sure if this was legitimate or not, but after stalking their account and doing some more digging I found out this is an annual thing they do and it's a festival that gets a lot of publicity. I accepted their invitation and now we have a spot in a festival in three weeks!"

The members all looked at each other with a mix of surprise and exhilaration. "I can't believe it! Well, I can believe it we are talented but still...! This is amazing!" Kazuha excitedly exclaimed.