"Got blocked... Ah! I see!"
Mikki Rocket repeated it with a blank look, finally Reacting to what had just happened.
Then she turned to Kitasan Black, her face full of guilt, and hurriedly apologized.
"I'm sorry, Kitasan Black. I shouldn't have called your name so loudly and caused you trouble."
"Well, it's okay. Mikki-chan, you don't need to care about it so much."
Casually taking off her hat to wipe away the sweat, Kitasan Black smiled and waved her hand reassuringly.
"We didn't know things would turn out like this either. And didn't we get on the train without any trouble in the end?"
"Th-That's true."
Mikki Rocket nodded slightly, then could not help sighing.
"Come to think of it, Kitasan Black, you're really incredibly popular now. I never thought just calling your name once would cause such a huge commotion."
Hearing that, Kitasan Black's heart stirred.
It was not as though she had never cared about popularity before.
When she had first debuted, she would lie in bed every day with her phone in hand, going back and forth through her accounts on various platforms and watching the follower counts.
Whenever the number of followers on an account went up, she would get immensely excited, enough to chase away much of her sleepiness.
If the count went down, she would have trouble sleeping too—but not from excitement. It was because she felt dejected.
She paid attention to it during races as well, even more so.
Pre-race publicity, the Paddock, the commentators' attention, their commentary... all of those reflected popularity.
If she was popular enough, she could hear her own name everywhere.
Otherwise, she would have to wait a long time before seeing a poster of herself or hearing people talk about her.
But at some point, she had inexplicably