Flash Mob
"Mom. I should get going."
"All right. Do well at the shoot tomorrow."
Cheil Hospital, operated by Cheil Electronics. In the VIP private ward, Lee Hwayang watched the door long after Seol Soyoung had left, her gaze vacant.
For reasons she still couldn't quite pin down, her daughter had finished her first project and plunged straight into filming the next one. Lately, Soyoung's schedule had grown busier than even her husband's. She still made time to visit the hospital regularly, but more than once she had dozed off mid-conversation. Just now, in fact.
Lee Hwayang had tried telling her to take it easier, but Soyoung insisted she was enjoying every minute of it. There was nothing more to say.
And yet something else kept nagging at her.
Once again, the drama starring Soyoung had been written by none other than Writer 927. Fly High, already two episodes in, was drawing the same overwhelming praise as his previous work. With the recognition her first role had already earned her, the peak rating for episode one had hit a staggering twenty-eight percent. At this rate, by the time the finale aired, another unprecedented drama was all but guaranteed.
What unsettled Lee Hwayang was the character Soyoung had been cast as — the protagonist, Bomi.
Bomi resembled Soyoung in too many ways. Her dream of becoming a star had been shaped by the childhood accident that took her mother. Her singing voice was overwhelmingly powerful, but her dancing was overwhelmingly terrible.
Before she quite realized it, Lee Hwayang had begun seeing Bomi and Seol Soyoung as one and the same. Of course, only two episodes had aired. It might have been nothing more than a fleeting impression.
And then there was this…
Fly High — Full Cast Dance Practice Making Film 4
Lee Hwayang had never bothered with YouTube before. Now she watched it for Soyoung's sake. On screen were the idols appearing in Fly High, along with Baek Junyeong and Seol Soyoung. Of course, the only person Lee Hwayang's eyes sought out was her daughter.
She had a rough sense of Soyoung's dancing ability, but the skill on display in the first making film was even more disastrous than expected. The comments had been cruel enough to mock her daughter outright.
But with every new film uploaded, Soyoung's dancing improved so clearly it was impossible to miss. Watching her daughter throw herself into every practice with total seriousness, growing steadily better each time, Lee Hwayang found that the early jeering comments had vanished. All that remained now were words of encouragement and support.
As Soyoung's mother, she should have been nothing but proud. And yet…
Why did a corner of her heart keep aching?
"What on earth is he after?"
Lee Hwayang let out a long, heavy sigh. Lately, nearly everything that complicated her feelings traced back to something Writer 927 had done. Why craft a character so similar to Soyoung? Why upload those videos to YouTube? She simply could not grasp his purpose.
"Ha… well. Never thought I'd live long enough to shoot something like this…"
Watching the lights and cameras being set up on location, Go Dongbin laughed as if he couldn't quite believe it.
"I feel the same. This shoot is… definitely on a much larger scale."
Na Yeongjin shared the sentiment. They were standing inside Hanaro Department Store, looking down over the central plaza — the filming location for episode thirteen of Fly High. The reason the plaza had been chosen was simple: Writer 927 had selected Hanaro Department Store for product placement.
"By the way — are we really shooting without controlling the crowd, like we discussed beforehand?"
"Yes. He wants the atmosphere as natural as possible. People walking through, people stopping to watch — he considers all of it part of the drama."
"And the real problem is that he wants the whole thing in a single take."
Go Dongbin's smile turned bitter. Whether the actors botched the choreography or their expressions looked stiff, this shoot would happen only once. That was the order handed down from Writer 927.
Framing a flash mob was hard enough on its own. Now he also had to account for the movement of every single person on site? From a cinematographer's standpoint, his head was about to explode.
"You called for us?"
The assistant director and CEO Baek Junyeong approached together. Go Dongbin turned to Baek Junyeong at once.
"I wanted a final check on the shot composition. Haneul and Yonghun join in centered on you, then Dahye and Soyoung — is that right?"
"Yes. After that, our kids come in one after another."
"How many people total from JYB?"
"Hmm… roughly forty?"
"Right… got it. The plaza is wider than I expected, so we'll position them along both sides here…"
After a brief final huddle, Baek Junyeong — the one who would kick off the shoot — strode into the central plaza with an arrogant gait. His outfit clashed absurdly with the sleek elegance of the space: the pure white work clothes of a professional chef.
Alone at the heart of the foot traffic, he held a box in one hand. The words FLY HIGH were printed across it in enormous letters. Baek Junyeong raised the box high so everyone could read the name, then set it down and drew out what was inside — a cassette player.
He pressed play. At once, the opening notes of a song began to fill the vast plaza.
I was watching the central plaza in secret from the second-floor terrace of the department store. I had come to see how this shoot would unfold for myself. With CEO Baek Junyeong's entrance, the filming of Scene 71 began.
Bomi and her friends needed extra credit for college applications, so they entered a well-known dance competition held outside the school as a team. Only six teams that passed the promotional video round would be allowed to compete. Brainstorming ideas for a video that could dazzle the judges, their homeroom teacher Jin Deokchun — watching an old clip of himself dancing that had once gone viral — proposed a flash mob.
The problem: a flash mob required a lot of people. Fortunately, the students of Cheongryong Arts High were more than capable of handling even difficult choreography. Using the weaknesses they had casually learned while attending the same school as leverage, Bomi and her friends blackmailed them into joining.
And so, starting with Jin Deokchun — or rather, CEO Baek Junyeong — music flooded the entire plaza.
The theme song of Fly High. Fly High.
When I asked CEO Baek Junyeong to write this track, I made one request: as the song that would run through the whole drama, I wanted something bright and hopeful — something that made a listener's heart race.
He had delivered. The opening swelled with the resonant sound of multiple grand violins.
I fly high~ above that sky~
It began with lyrics full of dreams, carried on Seol Soyoung's clear, soaring high notes. Matching those lyrics, CEO Baek Junyeong — standing alone in the plaza — launched into dazzling choreography. Around him, people joining the flash mob began to gather one by one.
Someone in a black business suit. Someone in military uniform. Someone in a police uniform. Someone else…
Every one of them wore something distinctive, each outfit expressing a personal dream that fit the song's theme.
"What's going on over there?"
As dozens of people in the plaza danced the choreography to Fly High together, the footsteps of passersby gradually stopped. Before long, a crowd had ringed the plaza, faces bright with curiosity, watching the leads and supporting cast at the center of it all.
I watched the strange, wonderful spectacle and grinned.
Not bad at all.
It looked far better than I had first imagined. Director Go Dongbin, directing the shoot from a distance with total focus, was probably thinking the same thing.
"So this is where you were."
Just then, Executive Director Yoo Yeonjung walked slowly toward the terrace where I stood.
"Director Yoo? What are you doing here?"
"Same as you, Writer — just watching. I was looking for a good spot to see the whole plaza, and it seems we had the same idea."
Ugh…
That was a slightly terrifying thing to say.
"You're something else, Writer."
"What do you mean?"
"Getting JYB's people to move like that for free. From CEO Baek Junyeong's perspective, putting them into this flash mob was a solid promotional opportunity for JYB — so of course he wouldn't refuse."
"…?"
"On top of that, you turned the product placement itself into the filming location and squeezed maximum efficiency out of it. And because you shot in a public place with heavy foot traffic, without any crowd control, you pulled in free publicity for the drama as well."
"……?"
"Heh. Look over there."
Yoo Yeonjung pointed. People were filming the dancing leads and supporting cast on their phones with total dedication.
"If those videos spread through the communities, they'll generate enormous publicity — and real impact."
"Uh…"
"It gave me chills, honestly. Exactly how many moves ahead are you thinking?"
"No, I—"
"Don't tell me you planned all the way to this when you first conceived Fly High? Ah — please forget what I just said. If I keep talking, I'll only get in the way of the grand design Writer 927 has drawn."
Yoo Yeonjung smiled like a fox.
Right. Nothing I could say to that.
Anyway.
So… that was the scale of the picture I'd been painting without even realizing it. Impressive work, Writer 927.
……?
But that guy isn't actually that smart, is he?