The Number One Star in the Interstellar Era

THAT night, another topic involving the newcomer Astrid Townsend trended again on [Cyberspace]. But this time, he wasn't the target of criticism from people. It was someone named Jesse Norris.

A gossip account – [Harlequin News] – had written a post about the two people. This gossip account could be considered as one of the few that had a good reputation. They didn't post things just for the sake of drama. Most of the articles they posted turned out to be the truth so their contents were known to be very reliable.

They also didn't have the habit of discriminating against small celebrities. That meant that they would post entertainment related news as long as they considered it be news worthy. Not only that, their reports were always done in an entertaining fashion. This was the reason why they had quite a number of loyal supporters that always tuned in to whatever news they posted.

And this was their latest post;

[Harlequin News v: A newcomer – we will refer to him with the capitals AT – made a buzz this past weekend for all the wrong reasons. And no fault of his own, mind you. After the release of a certain web drama's 100th episode trailer, some accounts seemed to praise him rather excessively.

I must admit, this harlequin was very skeptical when I saw those comments. With my long years of experience, I could just tell that something was amiss. And lo and behold, it didn't even take an hour for me to be proven right. Someone was indeed doing something behind the scenes, controlling the threads, machinating everything.

The principled Ellis Payne was kind enough to not mention the name of the perpetrator. But do you know what this harlequin had found out today? This person, no, this villain, rather than regretting his decision, he hired people to accost AT. Thankfully, a good Samaritan helped AT out and saved him.

What could have happened if this good Samaritan wasn't there? Would a nice young man be forever scarred because of this bad experience? This harlequin is not as nice as Miss Payne. I think it's high time that we name this villain and let him be persecuted, don't you think?]

Then, the name was mentioned on a pinned comment right after this article.

Jesse Norris. That was the name.

As expected, this post had caused a ruckus. Because even thought Astrid's name was not directly mentioned, anyone who read that trending topic this past weekend would know that it was him the harlequin was referring to.

The people who were privy to the issue were very indignant after reading this. Especially those who commented negative things during that fiasco this past weekend. It might be because of their guilt, but they reacted rather violently upon reading the article.

[Does this person not have a heart? How can he do such things?]

[Unless you tell me that Astrid killed his parents or anything similar to that, then, I don't understand how he could do such a vile thing.]

[Shouldn't this person be sent to jail or something? What if he does this again? Or worse, what if he straight up commits murder?]

Comments like that continued on, expressing their desire to seek justice. After a bout of those, the next couple of comments discussed who 'Jesse Norris' was. And, of course, some of them happened to be students of Redwood Academy.

[I know this Jesse Norris. He's a first year at Redwood. If I remember correctly, last week, he and Astrid Townsend had some kind of altercation. It was all over the campus forum.]

[Oh, I have a copy of that video. Here it is.]

And the video of the argument between the two was attached after that comment. Finally knowing the reason why this Jesse Norris was so antagonistic towards Astrid, the people became even more enraged. Add that to the new people who joined in with the 'fun', and this topic soon started trending again.

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Astrid read the comments and some were truly quite, well, bloody if he might say. He didn't want to go into detail, but let's just say some comments were even telling him to, well, off himself.

He would have felt guilty about it if not for the fact that this Jesse Norris probably wouldn't bat an eyelash if the same thing were to happen to Astrid. The other would probably even celebrate. After all, he did ask people to do that kind of thing to him just so he could somehow have leverage against him.

He closed his Terminal and no longer cared for it. After all, at this point, everything was already a foregone conclusion.

"This harlequin guy is quite good," he said before turning to Ellis and asking, "Do you know him personally?"

The both of them were in his apartment. Because of what happened today, they decided to have dinner together here and discuss what they should do with the situation. It was a good thing that they were thinking of the same solution. That was to let the public condemn Jesse.

In this way, the other would be too busy fixing this mess to even think of doing something stupid again. And it would also be a kind of punishment for him.

With them, not being directly related to this 'condemning', they would appear more like the victim in this whole situation. After all, if they went and directly named Jesse, some 'allies of justice' might think that they were being too much. This way, no one would point fingers at them.

"Yes, we worked quite a bit before I had gone to my 'retirement'," Ellis said.

The other was only a small reporter back then. Who would have thought he would find his calling in making gossip post? She knew of the other's character, that's why she decided to give him this scoop. Because she knew that harlequin wouldn't embellish it and just tell it as it was.

Reading his article, the other was still as flamboyant as ever with his words. The two of them could probably work again. Having a reliable gossip account behind Astrid would definitely help in some situations in the future.