“Perfect. The youthful glow is back.”
In front of the mirror, Misaki traced her fingers across her flawless, porcelain-like cheeks, letting out a blissful sigh. The reflection was that of a vibrant beauty in her early twenties. Yet, Misaki’s official age was due to be forty-five next month.
The secret to maintaining this youth was neither high-end cosmetics nor the latest in aesthetic medicine.
It was ‘Life Link’, the world’s largest SNS platform. A few years prior, a revolutionary system had been integrated into the app. This was the ‘Life-Convert Function’, which converted approval from others—in other words, “Likes”—into faint bioenergy via a dedicated smartwatch device, enabling a physical charge of one’s “youth” and “lifespan”.
A ten-thousand-Like count granted roughly one day of lifespan extension and cellular rejuvenation.
Misaki was a top influencer, boasting three million followers. A glamorous daily life, dinners at restaurants impossible to reserve, limited edition high-brand items, and a perfect appearance. Each time she pressed the post button, “Likes”, a mix of envy and jealousy from around the world, would rain down, rejuvenating her body from the inside out.
In this day and age, “Likes” were life itself, more valuable than money.
“Today’s post is flawless. This will extend my life by another week.”
Misaki drank a glass of mineral water as she scrolled through the notifications for her latest post. In contrast to the glamorous world on the other side of the screen, her actual room was cluttered with photography equipment and unsorted cardboard boxes, leaving barely enough space to step.
She had professional food coordinators arrange and photograph the meals, while she herself merely consumed bland, calorie-counted supplements. The photos of overseas trips were high-grade AI compositions. She would wear the high-brand clothing immediately after hiding the tags, and return them the very next day.
She would tell any lie to earn “Likes”.
Recently, a new teen influencer, ‘Rina’, had been rising, and Misaki’s engagement rate had begun to gradually decline. There was a sense of urgency. Maintaining youth constantly required more and more fuel, in the form of “Likes”.
Misaki took extreme measures. She exposed the cheating scandals of others anonymously and posted “statements of expression” that cleverly looked down on the vulnerable. Anti-fans would gather if it became a flame war, but simultaneously, blind fans would rush to her defense, and the comment section would turn into a battlefield. As a result, both impressions and the “Like” count would skyrocket.
“Fools. All that energy from their rage, pretending to act on a sense of justice, it’s all becoming fuel for my youth.”
Upon activating the charge device, after a sharp pinprick of pain, a sweet current of heat coursed through her veins. Her vision cleared, and fatigue vanished. This omnipotence. It felt as if she had become a god.
The collapse arrived without warning.
One morning, Misaki woke up expecting the warmth of the device, as always. But her body felt leaden. Her vision was severely blurred, and she felt an agonizing pain in every joint.
“…What is this? A cold?”
Crawling, she picked up her smartphone and opened the ‘Life Link’ app.
The screen, which should have been overflowing with tens of thousands of notifications, was blank.
In the center, sterile red letters rose up.
‘Notice of Permanent Account Freeze’
“Wh…? This can’t be real.”
Tapping the text revealed the details.
‘Due to repeated community guideline violations (including but not limited to, the spread of malicious false information, defamation and incitement of others), this account has been permanently frozen. No objections are accepted.’
The blood drained from her face. Permanent freeze. That meant she could never again cash in “Likes”.
But the real terror was the text that followed.
‘Pursuant to Article 14, Paragraph 3 of the Terms and Conditions, all life charges obtained via non-authorized means through “Likes” are hereby invalidated. Consequently, the invalid lifespan and rejuvenation effects will be immediately subjected to 【Forced Conversion (Forfeiture)】, retroactive to past acquisitions.’
“Forced conversion…? Forfeiture, wait, hold on, this is a lie, I didn’t read this—”
Baki!
A sickening sound echoed in the room.
It took her several seconds to realize that it was the sound of her own spine deforming.
“Aaaahhhh!”
A scream tore through her throat. Intense pain ravaged her entire body. Looking at the back of her hand, the firm, youthful skin lost all moisture before her eyes, deep wrinkles were etched like a mesh network, and dark age spots appeared one after another.
Twenty years’ worth of aging, which she had forcefully hidden under the plating of “Likes”, came rushing back in a matter of seconds, complete with interest.
“No! My hair! My hair!”
Her lustrous, long hair fell out in large clumps with a rustling sound. The remaining hair instantly turned into white, dry, dead grass. Muscles withered rapidly, and skin sagged, succumbing to gravity.
“Help! Someone, an ambulance! No, followers! My followers!”
Misaki crawled along the floor, reaching the vanity.
Reflected there was the form of a withered, mummy-like old woman, likely well over eighty years old. A hideous monster with eyes bulging in terror and despair.
“A lie… This isn’t me… I have three million fans…”
With trembling, stick-like fingers, she tried desperately to open her alternate account. She had to call for help. She had to broadcast to the world what was happening to her. It could be sympathy or controversy, anything to collect “Likes”, then perhaps her life could still be connected.
But fixed at the top of the timeline she opened with her trembling fingers was a single live-stream video.
The title was 『【WARNING: SICKENING CONTENT】Faux Influencer Misaki, Forced Conversion Right Now lolw』.
The streamer was that new influencer, ‘Rina’.
In the video, Misaki’s own form, currently crawling across the floor and turning into an old woman, was vividly captured from an ultra-small drone camera planted in the gap of the room’s ventilation fan.
‘Ew, this is too gross, impossible’
‘It was all a lie until now?’
‘You got what you deserved lol’
‘The lifespan forfeiture is brutal’
A waterfall of mocking comments.
And in the bottom-right corner of the screen was a counter spinning at a terrifying speed unlike anything she had ever seen.
【Current Likes: 28,502,890】
Misaki let out a wheezing scream from her toothless mouth.
Someone was making a magnificent entertainment out of her ruin and death, making a killing on an immense “lifespan”. She, the embodiment of approval-seeking, had in the end become a sacrificial victim to satisfy another’s approval-seeking.
Dokun. Her heart made one last massive leap.
In her fading consciousness, what Misaki saw was the red lens of the drone approaching with a buzz, coldly attempting to frame her wretched dead face in a close-up.