3000 Stars

Trendy

"I saw you liked Yoongi's photo," Hoseok said.

Taehyung fixed his eyes straight ahead, refusing to look at his friend. Their teacher was only reviewing material for the test, but Taehyung had no desire to talk in class. It was disrespectful, and word always made its way back to their parents. Besides, Hoseok always wanted to talk about terrible things.

"Taehyung!" Hoseok hissed.

Taehyung turned toward him slowly, mustering his scariest scowl. "What?"

"You haven't liked a photo in months!"

"And?"

"Why his?" Hoseok demanded. "You don't like mine!"

"You don't need any power ups," Taehyung said.

"Yes I do! I join the league tomorrow! I need every power up I can get!"

"Take better pictures, then."

"You're terrible," Hoseok grumbled, slumping in his seat. Taehyung returned his gaze to the front of the classroom, glad for the reprieve. He didn't want to get called out for talking in class. That could ruin his afternoon, if not the rest of his week. He needed to focus-- tests were coming up, arena or no arena.

"I bet you just did it to spite me," Hoseok muttered. "Jerk."

Taehyung nodded. There was no use denying it. He did a stellar job of making his friend angry. Luckily for him, Hoseok didn't hold grudges for long. And he might check his friend's post and see if it was actually worth a star.

On a whim, he flipped his phone over and turned it on, carefully tucking it under the desk as he opened the app. Yoongi had posted a new picture-- a joint selfie with Namjoon. It had 377 stars, but as Taehyung watched a small graphic of a yellow star float up over the picture, and the number changed. He flicked the photo up and down, considering the photo. It wasn't much different than many of the other photos people posted to FaceUpp. Why waste a vote on it? It was even captioned 'skipping school with my best friend'. No originality. This was not a photo that would give him high powers for the day.

Had Yoongi meant what he said about wanting to catch V's attention? If so, why wasn't he making more of an effort with his photos? V would never be interested in something so mundane. Taehyung turned the phone off and shoved it in his pocket, surprised at his disappointment. What did he care? Yoongi could deal with the consequences of his own actions. It wasn't Taehyung's responsibility to help him do what he wanted to do.

Besides, V would never want to see someone like Yoongi.

...Right?

***

Yoongi was a frequent poster. By the time they sat down for lunch, he had posted three more photos, each receiving the same small amount of stars as the first. In the meantime, Taehyung found himself grinding his teeth in frustration at the response to his photo. 2,543 stars? How was a black screen worth that much? Who was playing games behind his back? He snapped a picture of the toe of his shoe and posted it. There. That would show them. There was no way he would give in. He would not be famous.

Not again.

"Har har, Tae," Hoseok said from across the table. "People like shots like that."

"No they don't," Taehyung said.

"Yeah," Hoseok sighed, "they do." He turned his phone around, displaying the screen. "Look. The entire trending list of new 10-Ks is full of pictures like yours."

"So? Maybe I'll be ignored for it," Taehyung said.

Hoseok just shook his head and rolled his eyes, returning to his food. Taehyung took the chance to look around, wondering if Yoongi went to the same school. Sure, they had been skipping, but students couldn't avoid school forever, could they? When he didn't see any of them, he returned his gaze to his phone, only to be startled by a hand on his shoulder.

"Hey," Jeongguk said. "I saw your new photo."

Taehyung gritted his teeth. "Uh-huh."

"Are you sure you don't want to enter an arena? You'd be amazing."

"I'm sure," Taehyung said, without lifting his gaze. He didn't want to know if Jeongguk was throwing around his power like he usually did, spinning two or three balls of energy around his head and body to show off his powers. Jeongguk was no 10-K, but his scores were consistent enough. And he loved the arena.

"Aww, hyung!" Jeongguk whined, flopping down beside Taehyung. "Please? I wanna know what would happen!"

"Nothing would," Taehyung said. "It's that simple."

"Pleeease?" Jeongguk said.

"No."

Jeongguk whined again, flopping across the table and stretching a hand out toward Hoseok, who ignored him. Taehyung watched out of the corner of his eye as the young man huffed, pouting. A ball of purple energy zipped past, casting colored streaks of light across Jeongguk's hair.

"I don't get it," Jeongguk said. "You could go so far. Why do you refuse?"

"I didn't join this for you," Taehyung said.

Jeongguk sighed, slumping onto his arms. It was the end of the conversation. But Taehyung opened FaceUpp again, staring at Yoongi's latest picture. Falling Orange leaves on bright green grass. The caption: 'someday I'll find you.'

Stubborn idiot. 

I'm listening to POP/STARS a lot lately. I think it's going to bleed into this work. We'll see. Here's my first question: How obvious am I? There's something going on, but if I give it away too soon this might get boring. Did I do that? I'd love to hear your theories! 

Thank you so much for reading, and thank you for the votes! I'll continue to work hard to make this story a good one! 

On an aside, there are some formatting forays in the chapters ahead, so please be sure to let me know if they glitch and you can't read stuff properly. This is a social media au, and what would those be without a few pictures? I hope you'll look forward to them, starting around chapter 5!