The Community Uproar - 4
Out of the 250 million won settlement,
I want to reinvest 100 million into the company.
Aki’s shocking declaration.
The senior staff and the representative both fell silent. They thought they had weathered every storm a startup company could face, but they had never imagined they would be hit with something like this.
The situation itself was strange.
Representative Baek Su-cheol shut his eyes tight.
In the end,
it was the company’s incompetence.
“...”
“...”
“...”
Aki swallowed hard.
Her fingertips trembled,
but she bit her lip and held on.
“...”
For the first time in her life,
she was walking into a negotiation carrying money in the hundreds of millions.
The other side was the agency that had chosen her.
It was, in a sense, like a convenience store part-timer helping the store manager cover operating expenses. She even felt a little regretful, as if she were being arrogant.
...Was this too much?
No.
She would make this project succeed no matter what.
That was the mindset she had come here with, the reason she had asked for this meeting.
Even if it was a road that had already failed once....
If I want to start over properly as an idol, together with everyone else, this is something I absolutely need. Let’s think of Bigman’s 1 billion won as something I received for that.
Bigman, right?
This is okay, right?
I’m going to do it?
I really am going to do it.
“...”
Her mind was already made up.
She had hesitated again and again, but in the end, she had decided.
The first to react was Park Young-soo from accounting. He brushed a hand over his dyed hair and said, “If Ayoung has made up her mind, there’s a way to make it work.”
“What kind of way?”
“First, the important thing is what form of investment you’re thinking about.”
“Which method is better?”
“That depends on your goal. An investment that expects a return takes longer and the contract gets a lot more complicated, but in exchange, you’d get the kind of return you want... A fee-free loan, on the other hand, has a simpler contract structure, but it’s basically just a personal loan with no interest, so you’d only get the principal back quickly.”
“...?”
Investment,
or fee-free loan.
It was a choice with different lists and returns.
Aki tilted her head for a moment, lost in the difficult vocabulary.
“I don’t really know ab, about returns. I wasn’t thinking about the company or interest or anything... I just...”
“Then?”
“I just wanted it to go toward our lessons and 3D prep. If we don’t do it soon, we’re in trouble. ...And once the urgent fire is out, I’d like to get the money back as quickly as possible, too.”
“...”
It was all about the remaining balance.
The ABCD members’ lessons had already been left untouched for three months.
The 3D modeling had been complete and then left untouched for three months.
The training instructors had also started talking about canceling their contracts.
Park Young-soo had nothing to say.
“...Right. We do need money right away.”
Listening to all this, Baek Su-cheol cracked his neck. As a startup CEO afflicted with a serious case of artistic delusion, his passion flared to life.
If this still doesn’t work, I’ll be the laughingstock of the century... but we’re already all running toward the fire together. If I stop, we all go tumbling down.
He slapped the table with a flourish.
Smack!
“A talent is putting up personal assets to help fund the project. No, scratch that - this company was going to die anyway if it wasn’t for Ayoung, so what can’t we do? One hundred million? If the principal can’t be returned, I’ll go bare-chested and drag it back myself, so don’t worry about a thing.”
Aki nodded.
“Yes! Please take good care of me.”
As they prepared the contract form,
they made a few things clear to each other.
Park Young-soo said, “For now, let’s keep this contract confidential. A company that’s running on a talent’s personal assets.... In the short term it may look desperate, but in the end I think it’d be bad for the broadcast image.”
“!”
Aki nodded.
They also included the no-interest loan conditions.
“The company will borrow 100 million fee-free, and if revenue exceeds 100 million within six months, the principal will be returned immediately. And this money must be used only for ABCD project operating costs. Under these conditions, there shouldn’t be any legal issues.”
“Yes!”
Aki filled out the contract.
And so, with 100 million as collateral,
she demanded the possibility of making a dream come true.
“...”
Even while writing the contract, her hands shook violently.
Somewhere in the back of her head, cold reason was shouting.
I’m doing something stupid right now.
But...
her heart shouted louder.
Still, I’m going to be an idol.
*
On the way back to the ABCD members’ dorm.
Operations manager and team lead Go Min-young drove Aki back in the car. Just before Aki got out, she let out a sigh and said, “Huu... Ayoung, I’m sorry.”
“Huh?”
“Even though I’m the manager, I haven’t been able to help much because I’m busy with company work. And because of the kids, I ended up making it so you had no choice but to give up everything.”
“...”
“I sent the girls a text telling them not to say anything about money problems for a while. If they start talking about it carelessly...”
Aki gave a small, cheeky smile.
“...”
She did not need to hear the rest to know what came next.
This was a situation that could shake the bond the members had spent a year building. Emotions didn’t always listen to reason.
I can’t even make sense of why Bigman gave me 1 billion won.
Like Go Min-young said, it would be better to let some time pass before bringing it up.
So Aki waved and said, “Manager, see you again tomorrow.”
“...Yeah. Sleep well.”
Vroom—
The brake lights glowed red as the car disappeared.
Far beyond the alley where the officetel stood, out of sight.
Aki stood there blankly and watched it go.
Then she looked at her phone.
The balance is almost cut in half now.
It had been 250 million won that morning,
and even that had already felt like something from a dream....
[Balance: 150 million won]
One hundred million won had
left Aki’s hands for the sake of everyone’s dream.
It was money that would come back eventually, but for now it had vanished.
She still couldn’t believe it.
She had grown up in an orphanage in Japan,
then been adopted into Korea and naturalized there.
The very idea that she could spend 100 million won had once been fantasy.
...I already spent 100 million in just one day.
Now what.
What do I do....
This is bad.
I wanted to brag to Mom all day that I made money as an idol.
Was I even really an idol to begin with?
“...”
Not yet.
How can someone be an idol if they haven’t stood on a stage?
Aki thought she was being stupid. After all that money, she was still going all in on her dream.
For my own dream....
So she picked up her phone again. On the screen, a reservation button on some website glittered like a glass slipper.
“...”
Back when she was a K-pop idol trainee,
there had been a lesson site she had abandoned because the fees were too expensive.
Vocal training,
idol-level performance courses,
and even training designed for broadcasters....
The finest curriculum in the industry. Separate from the company’s group lessons, these were the kinds of classes she had truly wanted to take for herself.
The group lessons and broadcast schedule can still be adjusted even after the 3D debut, so if I rearrange things, I should be able to make it work.
[Total cost for short-term comprehensive lessons: 60 million won.]
“Wow....”
If she added pronunciation correction for her weak speech and lessons for content creators, she had no idea how high the total would climb....
“Huu.”
The rest of the money, too, for my dream....
Now, to become the best virtual idol.
Aki pressed the button.
Click—
Ah....
[Balance: 90 million won]
Her balance had dropped again.
Still, she did not regret it.
“...”
Even so, one tear slipped down her cheek.
*
Friday evening.
I was building a sandcastle on Haeundae Beach. Under the slowly sinking sunset, it didn’t feel bad at all to be a grown man building a sandcastle by himself.
My mind feels relaxed.
A sandcastle inspired by some medieval castle or other.
While I was putting the finishing touches on that masterpiece,
a few women approached from the side and said, “Um... can we post this on SNS? It’s so well made that we’d like to keep it in a photo.”
“Sure.”
“Hey! Guys! He said it’s okay!”
“Whoa, amazing! You’re really good at this.”
I dusted off my hands.
“Do you want me to take a group photo for you?”
“Huh? Oh! Thank you!”
One of the women handed me her smartphone.
Since it was a recent model, the image quality was pretty good. So I called up the memory of the time I’d followed a photographer around.
Wasn’t group-photo composition supposed to look prettier if you did it like this...?
Relying on my hazy memory, I said, “I’ll take it when I say three, two, one!”
“Okay!”
“Three, two....”
At that moment.
Some lunatic suddenly sprinted in from the side.
“Kyaaaah!”
“?”
“?”
The idiot threw his whole body at the sandcastle and destroyed it. Then, with a giggling voice, he shouted while holding up his phone, which was live-streaming.
“Did it, right? I did it! I demolished the sandcastle, so hurry up and send me 50,000 won!”
“...”
“...”
Before I could even say anything,
the guy bolted off into the distance.
The women vented their disgust, looking like they had just seen the most pathetic bastard in the world. I gave them a perfectly ordinary sunset group photo instead.
“Wow, you really know how to take pictures.”
“Send that to me too.”
“I’m posting this right now!”
“Thank you!”
I waved casually at the women as they left.
“...”
Huh.
A lunatic blinded by pocket change
who pulled a stunt for attention.
Not what I wanted, but...
a group of people happily receiving a sunset photo.
It was not a bad feeling.
“No wonder people say the beach is full of unexpected encounters. Internet broadcasters are all like—”
Ah, right.
Aki-chan.
She said she was coming back today.
I kept forgetting.
She streams during the day, so she’s probably already done. Should I watch the archive? Do announcement streams even leave archives up? I can’t quite remember...
I sat down on the sand.
Then I lay back with the eco-bag I’d brought along stuffed with a few random amusement-park trinkets under my head.
“Whew.”
I turned on my phone,
made the sky my ceiling,
and opened the streaming app.
There was only one channel saved to my favorites.
《● Live Now: Aki-chan Announcement Broadcast》
-Current viewers: 7,417
“!”
Oh, she’s live.
It had only started a minute ago, and they were still adjusting the screen.
The short-term buzz from the 1 billion won incident did increase the live viewership. I wonder what kind of announcement this is...
I entered her channel.
*
“I’m the A of ABCD! A star in your heart! Aspiring idol Aki-chan!”
Still in 2D, Aki-chan waved her yellow side tails back and forth as she greeted everyone. But most of the comments were still about the 1 billion won incident.
Hadn’t she never even settled on a fandom name,
just a wandering ghost of a VTuber?
“...”
Aki-chan did not react. But maybe she couldn’t hide her nerves, because her pronunciation kept threatening to slip.
“Th-thank you all for com, coming today! Ev-everyone, thank you so, so much!”
“...Actually, I came here with an important announcement.”
“We’re going to decide our fandom name!”
Aki-chan went on as if she had never heard a word about the 1 billion won incident.
“We’ve already known each other for a year, right? So I thought we should start by deciding on a fan name together.”
“I wrote down a list, don’t-cha know? One moment...!”
Aki-chan brought up a few items on the screen.
1. Ace
2. ACE
3. Ay-ce
“Is there anything you like out of these? We’ll go straight into voting!”
Since this was essentially a concept vote,
people laughed and overwhelmingly picked number one.
Aki-chan’s fan name became “Ace.”
Aki-chan smiled brightly and said, “Then, from now on, we’ll be....!”
At that moment, the chat erupted.
Messages came rushing in like a sudden wave.
But it really was Bigman.
For real, the username [Bigman] appeared among the live viewer list.
“!”
Aki-chan went quiet for a moment.
“...”
She thought it over.
“...”
But she did not mention it.
“...So, Ace, everyone!”
“I really... prepared a lot of th-things. I was going to show you from now on....”
And then.
Bigman answered with a donation.
Bigman donated 2.5 million won!
Cheering you on! Please don’t worry about me. It’ll go to the other members too.
Aki-chan smiled a little awkwardly, but with relief underneath it.
“...Thank you so much for the donation! Ah, and please keep cheering us on.”