The Benefactor
For Jeon Gyeong-won, browsing communities and watching MeTube was one of the few pleasures that got him through a hard day's work.
And lately, the channel he'd been glued to belonged to one man.
It belonged to a singer whose songs he loved so much that he'd become a devoted fan in a single heartbeat: Kim Se-jun. The first time Jeon Gyeong-won heard that voice, he had fallen completely. He'd subscribed to the MeTube channel, and Se-jun's tracks had long since taken over his playlist.
Naturally, the instant the first album dropped, he'd hunted down every track and watched every music video. And the moment he did, Jeon Gyeong-won couldn't believe his own eyes.
A familiar woman in the music video. And the name Lee Ye-eun, credited on a song called Spring Rain.
"...Is this real?"
He rubbed his eyes, then rubbed them again. It was her. The woman he knew better than anyone.
His eyes welled up in an instant.
He hadn't seen her since last year, but he had never stopped missing her, never stopped being grateful. She had been his first love — though calling her that felt like too much, like a word he didn't deserve.
My benefactor.
Without her, he would have been rotting in a prison cell, dying a little more every day.
Old memories rose up, and Jeon Gyeong-won's eyes filled again. He wiped his face with his sleeve.
This was no time to sit around drowning in the afterglow. She had achieved the dream she'd told him about so many times. He had to help her — however he could.
He began writing a post on the community he frequented, hoping that even this small act might be of some use to the woman who had saved him.
"An incident?"
Kim Se-jun muttered it under his breath and tapped the next link Ha Dong-jun had sent him.
An incident, out of nowhere? In the future he remembered, Lee Ye-eun had never caused any kind of incident at all.
Has the future changed?
Unease sat in his chest as he stared at the screen — and then, slowly, a smile began to spread across his tense face.
An incident, all right. But it was the kind of incident nobody could have seen coming: a stroke of pure, rolling luck.
The link Ha Dong-jun had sent led to a post on a community board.
A quiet, unadorned title. And the writing that followed it was honest and deeply felt.
It was a long post, poured out at length. Put simply, it was a testimony to Lee Ye-eun's good deeds.
It told of a volunteer who had pulled him back when he was on the verge of going down the wrong path at the orphanage — a woman who had comforted him by singing to him. Without her, the writer said, he would have been in prison, or already dead. He closed with a deep, unguarded thanks, and a promise that he would always be cheering for her.
He had even attached several photographs, in case anyone dismissed his words as a lie.
"That's something else."
Kim Se-jun let out a breath of genuine admiration when he finished reading. Whether the writer had left it out on purpose or simply didn't know the private details of Lee Ye-eun's life, there was not a single mention of her parents. The fact that she had carried the wound of losing them in an accident, and still gone out to volunteer for children in a situation so much like her own, was enough to command real respect.
And even the netizens, who knew nothing of that wound, were deeply moved by what she had done.
Praise poured over Lee Ye-eun, and Kim Se-jun burst out laughing. Then, on a hunch, he checked the portal's real-time search rankings — and he couldn't hold the laugh in at all.
NO. 8
Lee Ye-eun
Eighth. Lee Ye-eun. Her name was already sitting on the real-time search list. And it didn't stop there. Journalists hunting for a good story had already begun putting out articles about her volunteer work.
"Good."
It was an incident he hadn't seen coming at all, but Kim Se-jun nodded, thoroughly satisfied. This was going to be a powerful tailwind — the kind that could carry the whole album to success.
He opened the Music In app and checked the chart. The song holding first place was still sitting there, unshaken.
It's possible. And...
His eyes snagged on second place as well. Filling both the top spot and the one beneath it with his own songs might not be impossible after all.
The next day, Kim Se-jun went to the company building at Lee Hae-jin's summons.
"Oh? Hello."
"Ye-eun."
She had been called in as well. He found her just outside Lee Hae-jin's office, about to open the door. They exchanged a brief greeting and went in, and Ha Dong-jun spread both arms wide at the sight of them.
"Lucky charms! Our lucky charms!"
He beamed as he welcomed them, and even Lee Hae-jin, seated in his chair, wore a look of deep satisfaction.
"Ye-eun. What happened?"
Lee Hae-jin asked it in a warm voice, and Lee Ye-eun fidgeted with her fingers, clearly embarrassed.
"It was just volunteer work I'd been doing steadily for a long time. I honestly never imagined anyone would write a post like that."
The answer seemed to please both men. Lee Hae-jin and Ha Dong-jun nodded hard.
"So our lucky charms have been living good lives, is that it? That's why fortune's dropping into our laps?"
"That's not it. I just..."
Lee Ye-eun's face went red as she trailed off. Lee Hae-jin asked the next question carefully.
"Not that I think you would — but you didn't cook this up or anything, right?"
"No. Absolutely not."
"Do you know who posted it?"
"Yes. I recognized him the moment I saw the photos."
"When did you start volunteering?"
"A little after my parents died in the accident... I wanted to comfort kids who were hurting the same way I was..."
The last answer hung in the air, and the office fell quiet. After a moment, Lee Hae-jin spoke again.
"Mm. All right. The response right now is excellent. This is a golden opportunity Ye-eun created. Se-jun — don't let this one slip. Let's ride the wave while it's coming in."
"Yes, sir."
Kim Se-jun, who had been listening from the side, nodded. He had not the slightest intention of letting an opportunity like this go.
"And Ye-eun — you've got an interview lined up, so get ready."
"Pardon?"
"An interview came in. Spring Rain's numbers aren't bad, and the music video's getting a solid response. On top of that, after this, the press is pretty interested in you."
"Ah... yes."
At Lee Hae-jin's explanation, Lee Ye-eun ducked her head, shy. Kim Se-jun watched her and smiled, thoroughly pleased. The more the public talked about her, the better it was for him. In the short term, Spring Rain's numbers would climb. In the long term, it would help when they reached for the world.
"And Se-jun's going on BBS's music show this week — they added Spring Rain with Ye-eun, so keep that in mind."
"Yes, sir."
He'd expected that, too. The network would have had a hard time ignoring Lee Ye-eun's sudden heat.
"It's rare to get two stages on a single broadcast. Se-jun's really made it, huh."
Ha Dong-jun said it with something like pride, and Kim Se-jun waved the praise off.
"That was all Ye-eun, wasn't it?"
"Bringing Ye-eun to our company, asking to put her on the album as a feature, deciding to put her in the music video — that was all your plan. None of this happens without you."
Ha Dong-jun turned his gaze to Lee Ye-eun, a small smile on his face.
"Ye-eun, you ought to be pretty grateful to Se-jun."
He'd said it as a tease, and he laughed — but Lee Ye-eun answered with a look more serious than anything they usually saw from her.
At an expression he almost never saw on her, Kim Se-jun gave a small nod.
Time passed, and the day of the music show taping arrived. Kim Se-jun stared at his phone and clenched both fists.
His title track, Spring Breeze, had climbed as high as fourth. Spring Rain had risen to ninth. The remaining two tracks were gaining ground by the day as well.
"Thank you, Ye-eun. This is all thanks to you."
He said it to Lee Ye-eun, who was in the waiting room with him, and she shook her head.
"That's not true."
"It is. Your interview was a huge topic, too."
Lee Ye-eun's interview. She had held nothing back. She had laid out everything — why she volunteered, and when she had started. In other words, that she had lost her parents in an accident, and that she had wanted to comfort children who were hurting the way she had hurt.
The interview sent out a wide ripple. Pity, sympathy, reverence — people poured every shade of feeling into her, and because of that, the public's goodwill toward Kim Se-jun and Lee Ye-eun overflowed.
Kim Se-jun was still basking in that thought when Lee Ye-eun called to him in a trembling voice. He looked at her and huffed a quiet laugh.
"Oppa... what do I do..."
She was stamping in place, her face gone pale, shaking from head to foot.
"It's all right. Everyone's like that the first time."
The terror of a first stage had her in its grip. She murmured it again, barely above a whisper.
"Oppa..."
"Yeah?"
"I think I'm going to throw up..."
First-stage nerves. It was a feeling he knew intimately. Her face had gone past pale and into white, and she asked him again.
"Oppa, what do I actually do?"
It was nothing like the woman who would one day have fans wrapped around her finger with a single perfectly timed expression, and Kim Se-jun burst out laughing all over again. She could look like this now. He already knew that the moment she stepped onto that stage, she would do better than anyone.
Lee Ye-eun watched Kim Se-jun's stage from the wings.
He had gone up ahead of her to sing the title track, Spring Breeze, and her vision had gone dark with nerves. He sang it perfectly. The audience was gone for him, swept up completely, and the sight of Kim Se-jun delivering a stage that polished made him look impossibly large in her eyes.
She started toward the stage on shaking legs, her heart hammering as if it would burst.
Ah... what do I do...
It felt as though it wouldn't be strange at all if her heart simply gave out and she died right there. Cold sweat beaded on her forehead — and then she remembered what Kim Se-jun had told her.
She lifted her eyes to his face. He was looking back at her, a quiet smile on his lips.
The moment she saw him, the panic receded as if it had never been. Her narrowed field of vision opened wide, and Lee Ye-eun's eyes went round.
The audience, their eyes shining as they looked at her. And underneath the nerves, shoved aside, a thrill rising from deep in her chest.
Lee Ye-eun let out a long breath.
The sound of it — deep enough to be a sigh — rolled out through the microphone. And then their stage began.
Lee Ye-eun and Kim Se-jun's broadcast stage won enormous praise from the audience in the hall and from viewers at home. The proof was in the charts, climbing with a kind of frightening speed. And then, in early April, with the air already thick with spring, the upset finally arrived.
The impregnable fortress that had never once fallen came down — and a new legend announced itself.
Kim Se-jun's Spring Breeze took first place. And Kim Se-jun's other song, Spring Rain, rose to second.