Secretly
In front of the shabby rooftop room, Seonwoo Taek and Aki sat side by side. Each held a can of soda as they watched the evening city lights come on one by one, the dark skyline slowly filling with brightness.
Between them sat a merch box marked with an A.
“...”
“...”
Aki was the first to speak.
“I told you before, manager. I used to live in Japan, and that I got naturalized, right?”
“Yes.”
“Um... then you probably know I’m an orphan.”
“Yes.”
“Then... can I start there? I mean, if you don’t mind hearing it...?”
“I’m fine. Please say as much as you want.”
“Yes...”
Amid the countless lights, a girl’s story began to glow faintly.
The beginning of the story was plain. It moved calmly, monotonously, as if she wanted to get through it as quickly as possible.
“I don’t remember much from when I was little. I just woke up in an orphanage. What I remember isn’t really... much. I just drifted around wherever I could, and somewhere along the way, I ended up liking idol music.”
“...”
“And then, really, by chance, I got an opportunity.”
Aki had obtained a magical chance on her own. She applied for and passed the K-POP Talent Development Exchange Program. It felt like the pumpkin carriage in an old fairy tale.
She climbed into that pumpkin carriage and raced to Korea.
But...
Her brief life as an idol trainee ended in failure.
“It turned out they were just, you know, a fake group set up to make some kind of sham company or something. They never even planned to debut us from the start. Then there was news about it, and the dorm vanished too.”
“...”
“After that, I didn’t want to go back to Japan, so I kept looking around... and that’s when I met Mom. I’d been going to the community center a lot to get meals there. Mom heard my story then and adopted me.”
“...”
A guardian she had met by chance.
With her help, Aki managed to stay in Korea.
But her hardships still didn’t end there.
“For years after that, I kept submitting applications to different companies. But once you turn twenty, they say you’re already too old to start as an idol trainee... They said there were already plenty of Korean dance singers who were better at it, so they turned me down.”
“...”
“But they didn’t care about age or nationality for VTubers. So I applied. Then... the company situation got bad again...”
“I see.”
Seonwoo Taek nodded.
In ten minutes, a twenty-three-year life full of other people’s rejections had been neatly condensed. But Aki’s eyes only began to shine after that.
“Then when I started streaming! All of a sudden this incredible person came along and donated one billion won...!”
“...”
The meeting with Bigman.
The one-billion-won donation incident and its aftermath.
The ABCD project, set in motion again.
The story grew long and expansive.
Of course, she left out the other members and the internal meetings, but at the very least, she spoke about every feeling she herself had gone through.
“Amazing, right? I really could become an idol!”
“...”
“So then! I reinvested one hundred million won back into the company...! So we could bring back the 3D models, and do lessons too!”
“...”
“Phew... I talk a lot, don’t I? But I really wanted to tell someone this story.”
“That’s fine.”
“So! With the rest of the money, I paid for lessons I couldn’t afford before...”
For her,
idols were life.
“...”
Listening to that fanatical passion, Seonwoo Taek opened and closed his mouth several times, but no words came out.
Meanwhile, Aki kept waving her hands and feet as she talked.
“Ah, and also... sorry, there’s more I want to say!”
“Take your time.”
It had only been a month.
But she had spent more than thirty minutes telling him about it, pouring every emotion she had into the tale. By the time she finished, she was breathing hard.
“S-so... whew... where was I again?”
“You said you could finally show your membership and music.”
“Ah, right. I said everything, then. That’s what happened. So, from now on I’ll be active properly. Um... I mean, I was already active properly, but, uh... you know...”
“...”
Seonwoo Taek nodded quietly.
“I understand. You spent time with no clear activity, and then once real results started coming in, it felt like your actual life was beginning.”
“!”
Aki nodded hard.
“Yes! Exactly!”
“I see.”
They nodded at each other in mutual understanding, then fell silent.
“...”
“...”
After a moment, Aki spoke awkwardly.
“Sorry. I kept going on about old stories. I got too excited talking by myself.”
“It’s fine. Please say as much as you want.”
“Manager, you always say that.”
“Pardon?”
“Whatever I do, you understand it. You don’t pry any more, and you just listen to everything.”
“...”
Aki fidgeted with her fingers.
“S-so... um. Ah...”
“...”
“I just wanted to tell you everything, Manager.”
“Is that so.”
The story broke off again.
“...”
“...”
A little later, Seonwoo Taek spoke.
“Ms. A-yeong. But telling me all this...”
“Yes?”
“Isn’t it a bit dangerous?”
“Huh...?”
As if she truly didn’t understand, Aki tilted her head slowly.
Seonwoo Taek answered as calmly as ever.
“If you’re a VTuber, revealing your identity is risky, isn’t it? You share an office or studio, so if things go wrong, the identities of the other members in the same company could be exposed too.”
“Manager, you watch VTubers...? That’s unexpected.”
“That’s not the important part.”
Seonwoo Taek went on.
“I’m grateful that you trust me, Ms. A-yeong. But I think telling just anyone something like this... is a little dangerous.”
“...”
“You don’t have to tell someone your entire life. Even so, I can tell you’re passionate and earnest.”
“...”
“So...”
“So?”
“I’ll just pretend I didn’t hear this today.”
“...”
Aki let out a small laugh.
“It’s not ‘just anyone.’ It’s because it’s you, Manager, that I told you.”
“...”
“If you were a careless person, on the first day you’d have started by asking, ‘Which group are you in?’ ‘When are you debuting?’ ‘Sing something for me.’ ...Something like that.”
“...”
Somehow, there was a deep, absentminded sense of grievance hidden in that. It sounded like something she had actually experienced somewhere before.
Seonwoo Taek muttered for a moment.
“That...”
“So!”
“!”
She spoke clearly and carefully.
“That’s why I wanted to tell you.”
“Why is that?”
“...”
Aki picked up the All-Star box.
Then she stepped closer to the seated Seonwoo Taek and handed it to him. It was a small gesture, but it carried a strange tension.
Once again, she made her declaration to him.
Careful not to let her pronunciation slip.
“Because I came to believe in Manager Seonwoo Taek, who gave me space without saying a word, told me he supported me, and really supported me. So please take this and make me a promise.”
“...”
Seonwoo Taek asked,
“What promise?”
Aki smiled brightly.
“Keep cheering for me.”
“...”
“I won’t hide my dreams from you, Manager. I have confidence now. Please keep treating me like a friend.”
“...”
It was frighteningly honest, and frighteningly trusting. It was the kind of trust you should never hand over to someone you’d known for less than a month.
Seonwoo Taek hesitated.
Then he let out a sigh and said,
“That’s too heavy.”
“What is?”
“I’m light because I work out.”
“That’s not what I mean.”
He spoke quietly.
“A person’s sincerity. It’s too heavy for me to carry. I don’t even show you everything about myself. I just... want us to stay a normal manager and part-timer.”
“...”
Aki smiled brilliantly and pushed the box toward him with more force.
Among people who called themselves ordinary,
did anyone truly exist who was ordinary?
“Then all the more reason you should carry it, Manager.”
“Pardon?”
“My mom used to say this.”
Her eyes sparkled as if she had discovered something precious.
“She said that a person who can receive someone’s heart as something heavier than money is hard to find even if you search the whole world. And she said there’s no one else who can make a place where you’re allowed to exist. She said she’d never met anyone like that in her fifty-seven years of life...”
“...”
“Hehe, I found one. It only took twenty-three years.”
“...”
Twenty-three years of faith.
With a slightly trembling hand, Seonwoo Taek accepted the box. Then, looking at the part marked A and the VTuber name Aki written beneath it, he read it quietly.
“Aki...”
Her real name before the change was RP.
She was a strange VTuber.
The strange VTuber answered.
“I’d always dreamed of it. Of performing as an idol under my own name. But in Korea, my name changed to A-yeong, so... I wanted to try it once.”
“...”
Aki was still the idol trainee Aki. She had been waiting all this time for someone she could truly open her heart to.
*
The red-pill injection stung a little.
It was even more disorienting because it had come so suddenly.
Talking about Mom is cheap...
Excessive innocence and sincerity could probably be a kind of emotional violence too.
I stood there holding the All-Star box.
“...”
She had given it to a convenience store owner.
Not to Bigman, because she didn’t know I was Bigman.
And she had done it even though we’d known each other for less than a month.
This feeling was unique.
It was faith that had crossed a person’s life to reach me.
It was too precious, which made it frightening.
“...”
I looked at Aki.
She was smiling brightly. Even after speaking about something so emotionally deep, she didn’t look tired at all.
She looks more excited, if anything.
I said,
“How am I supposed to repay this?”
“Huh?”
“In such a short time, I’ve received something too great. If I don’t even the balance...”
“...”
Aki gave me an incredulous laugh, then said,
“Manager.”
“Yes.”
“Company, home, dreams... places where you’re allowed to exist are rarer than you think. You have to value them.”
“...”
“So you don’t need to pay me back.”
“...Yes.”
That was a sharp answer from someone who had grown up in an orphanage.
In those few words, I could see the source of all that passion from earlier.
I nodded.
“Thank you.”
“Um... and also.”
“?”
Aki’s face flushed slightly. Then she clasped her hands behind her back, twisted her body shyly, and said in a creeping little voice,
“P-please subscribe to my channel and like the videos. I’m active on Pazijik...”
“...”
“And if you can, the other members too...”
“...”
I’d already done it.
But that had been as Bigman.
If I reveal that now, it’ll just get emotionally confusing. Bigman is too large a presence.
As Manager Seonwoo Taek, I answered,
“I definitely will.”
“Really?”
“I’ll also join the membership.”
“Wow!”
“I’ll buy the music too.”
“Ooh!”
“And I’ll buy all the merch.”
“!”
Aki clapped her hands and laughed brightly.
“Thank you! I’ll work hard! I’ll keep working hard at my part-time job too!”
“...”
Did she know?
That because of that declaration, I’d have to buy the same merch twice.
If I count the box I received, Aki-chan boxes make three in total... one for display, one for storage, one for decoration.
Aki hurriedly said,
“A-ah! You have to keep this conversation secret, Manager! My VTuber work is a secret!”
“Yes, I absolutely won’t tell anyone.”
“Phew...”
Personally, if she really wanted to keep it secret, I thought she should start by taking out the yellow dye. It suited her, but it was hard to hide.
But that, too, is part of who she is.
“...”
In the end, I had met not as Bigman, but as Seonwoo Taek, the idol trainee Aki-chan.
“...”
Was that a hasty choice?
A little unease washed over me.
It was my first time cheering for someone else’s dream in a loop.
Come to think of it, this is the first time I’ve ever been this deeply tied to anyone else...
It was the first time.
Throughout every loop, other people had only passed by.
Because I was a regressor.
But this loop’s Seonwoo Taek had gone deep into someone else’s life. As a friend called the “manager who cheers for her.”
It was already beyond the level of soothing a regressor’s thirst.
“...”
There were forty-eight days left.
Time was still moving forward.
Inside the shrinking number, my heart was slowly expanding.
This was, perhaps...
“Manager.”
“!”
I looked up.
Aki spoke in a relaxed voice.
“Let’s eat dinner together.”
“Yes.”
It was a simple exchange, but within the blessing of truth, there was a clear, relieving joy.
*
Even though the stream had been running for a while, DoDa still hadn’t started the game and was only chatting.
“But honestly, these days, faster-ending FPS games are more fun. It’s better to grind ranked for an hour or two, then turn on a console and play a single-player game. Mobile? I do play mobile sometimes, but lately the stories in mobile games have been too hard to follow...”
DoDa ignored all of it, swaying her shoulders as if dancing and pretending not to notice. The sound of jerky being chewed echoed briskly and cheerfully.
“Sniff, it’s good. Today’s jerky is...”
“!”
DoDa answered.
“Ah... that hundred-player thing. You mean the punishment thing. I was thinking of just grinding ranked all weekend, but I decided to change it a bit.”
“Not giving up...”
DoDa tore open the jerky.
“Wouldn’t it work if I just did all hundred at once?”