It’s My Responsibility - 1
It was Sunday evening when I heard the news. I was shelling garlic at the convenience store’s outdoor table when A-young called out to me in a rush from behind.
“Taek oppa!”
“?”
I turned around.
A-young had opened the break room window on the second floor and was frantically waving me over. Her expression was as grave as could be.
“Taek oppa! Come here! RD is... is suspending activities!”
“....”
That’s serious enough, all right.
I put the garlic I’d been shelling into the basket, washed my hands at the sink, and went up the stairs. In the meantime, I pieced together the situation in my head.
Step, step.
“....”
This would be a decision from Arc Network’s upper management.
With a huge M&A market now open, trimming off smaller existing businesses and building a bigger war chest was a rational choice.
So Arc Network finally decided to consolidate its VTuber company. If they made a public announcement of activity suspension, that means they’re not quietly restructuring from within, but moving toward a sale.
That was how VTuber companies worked.
For one reason or another, a lot of their infrastructure ran independently. So they probably installed a figurehead CEO, kept the money flowing, and operated it more like a partner company than a real subsidiary.
An expendable business they could walk away from whenever they wanted.
A subculture test-bed standard.
And now was the time to pull out.
To make room for acquisitions in other sectors.
Are they stripping the budget out fast and trying to dump the IP for a song? No wonder the company’s activities have come to a complete stop.
I could roughly guess what was going on.
By the time I reached the second floor, I knocked on the break room door.
Then A-young yanked it open in a panic.
“Th-there!”
A-young was clearly in a state of confusion. She pointed at the laptop she’d been looking at just a moment ago and broke out in a cold sweat. Her face had gone completely pale.
“O-oppa! W-what is this...?! W-what, w-what, w-what happened?! Do Bigman’s you know what this is?! Is this another big problem?!”
“....”
It was the kind of fear that looked like the world was collapsing.
A desperate appeal to Bigman.
Her hand, pointing at the laptop, was trembling. On the screen were internet posts compiling RD’s activity suspension announcement.
Countless people were repeating the same lines: “VTubers are dead,” “the market’s collapsing,” “it’s over now.” Ignorance became fear. They were losing their reason and running wild.
She must have been rattled after reading those posts.
In a small VTuber market, this was bound to happen sooner or later. But to A-young, it must feel like the industry’s immovable number one was falling apart...
Seen that way, it was understandable that she’d be scared.
Still.
I said to the overly frightened A-young, “Calm down. It’s probably not as serious as it sounds. At the very least, it won’t put you or the company in danger.”
“Ah, okay.”
A-young’s expression softened at once, and she nodded. Then she let out a relieved sigh and patted her chest.
“Whew, I thought something really terrible had happened.”
“....”
The change had happened in barely two seconds.
I froze for a moment. For an instant, it was so abrupt I almost wondered whether I’d used some kind of hypnosis app on her. I even glanced at my right hand.
But there wasn’t a phone with a hypnosis app turned on in it.
“....”
“?”
I looked back at A-young. Color was already returning to her face. Her hands were still faintly trembling, but she was much calmer than before.
A-young asked me, “W-why?”
“No, it’s just that you calmed down so suddenly. I was a little surprised.”
“Well, Taek oppa... it’s Bigman saying it.”
“....”
So that was it.
One word from Bigman, and even a heart terrified that the world was about to fall apart could settle down.
That was what she meant.
....
It was more trust than I’d ever imagined. A weight heavy enough to restore somebody’s shattered world with a single sentence.
I flexed my hand open and closed.
It was a heavy responsibility.
“....”
I turned my head again and walked toward the laptop A-young had left open. I skimmed the news articles and the company announcement displayed there.
“....”
Because it had come from the community, there were all kinds of extra commentary and personal takes attached to it.
Stripped down to the facts, it was simple.
1. Arc Network expressed its intention to sell Studio Romance.
2. The two first-generation members who had been on hiatus had already made it known internally that they intended to graduate. They would move on to other fields.
3. The four second-generation members who were still active decided to wait until the company was sorted out. Their VTuber status would be retained.
4. As a result, Studio Romance, RD’s agency, was suspending activities indefinitely until a decision was made on the company’s acquisition.
In other words...
The budget had been cut loose in a tail-shedding move.
Internally, things had been a mess for half a month already.
The big companies were all saying, “We’re not buying it, no way.”
And the company had gone into a full Please, someone buy us! mode.
In effect, it was being treated like toxic inventory on the market.
You could call it a brutal situation.
If it had been some other sector, even a small one, acquisition talks would have been flying everywhere. But because it’s VTuber, they’ve ended up like a duckling left behind on the riverbank.
For the end of what had once been Korea’s number one VTuber agency, it was a bitter ending. This was probably how it had always gone at the end of the chapters I’d carelessly skimmed past.
And then...
“....”
I looked to the side.
A-young was standing there.
“....”
“Oppa?”
She tilted her head when she noticed me staring.
For a moment, all kinds of thoughts flashed through my head.
Then I shook them off.
....
No.
Not now.
I looked at A-young and gave her only the facts, plain and simple.
“Romantic Drive is beyond recovery. Arc Network has fully let go of all rights, including the IP. It’s practically a signal of abandonment.”
“....”
“At this point, the only corporate VTuber in South Korea is ABCD. Even the independent VTubers are in a pretty uncertain position for various reasons.”
“....”
“You don’t need to worry about being the sole survivor. No matter how much Big Plan grows, it’s still a subculture market, so the mainstream establishment isn’t going to come after it.”
“....”
“That’s the situation.”
The ones who survived only grew stronger.
Even a fool could understand how big an advantage it was to be the market’s sole survivor. Add Big Plan’s unusual structure into the mix, and it was practically a monopoly.
The odds are low, but maybe it could even grow past its deficit structure.
“....”
But...
I didn’t say whether that was good, bad, a windfall, a setback, favorable, or unfavorable.
It was A-young’s judgment to make.
“....”
When I finished, A-young stared blankly out the window.
“....”
“....”
It was already dark outside. Beyond that window, countless lights moved through the city. We were only one of those lights ourselves.
After a moment, A-young said, “When you...”
“Yes?”
“When you gave me one billion won.”
“....”
“After taxes, I had 250 million left.”
“Yes.”
“And I said I reinvested 100 million and spent 50 million on lessons.”
“I remember.”
“I did that because I wanted to become the best VTuber.”
“....”
“It’s funny, right? I wanted to be an idol, but I became a VTuber instead. And yet I still wanted to be number one in that world, too. I’m an idiot. A real...”
“....”
I stayed silent. But it wasn’t agreement.
I was simply listening to what A-young wanted to say.
Her words continued.
“A long time ago, at a Japanese orphanage...”
“....”
“A super-famous company idol came to visit. The kind who’s always number one on the charts... they were filming something.”
“Yes.”
“I was a total mess back then. But that older sister, with her golden hair shining, hugged me tight. She even praised me and said, ‘Aki-chan is cute, isn’t she~?’ She sang for me, too. For a little orphan kid with snot running down her face...”
“....”
A-young gave a small snort of laughter and tapped the table with her hand.
Tap.
“It was probably staged. She was a professional, after all.”
“....”
“But back then, I thought she was like an angel. And I decided not to believe she was being fake about it.”
“I see.”
Before A-young was A-young.
There had been a little kid named Sakurai Aki. That child had an idol. And she believed in that mask, not because she was foolish, but because she believed in hope.
“Yeah. So I wanted to become like that older sister. I even promised her I’d become the best idol someday.”
“....”
“I did promise...”
Promised.
Her life had begun with a promise.
“But idols are hard to become, you know. If you’re even a little too old, you get rejected... no matter how much you try, if you end up with the wrong agency... you disappear.”
“....”
Her mouth twisted around the words, making them blur together because they were too painful to say clearly.
But the conclusion was clean enough.
“...So I became a VTuber.”
“I see.”
“Yeah.”
A-young murmured, “I did want to become the best VTuber.”
“....”
She smiled bitterly.
“But now that it’s turned out like this, I’m not all that happy.”
“....”
“Why do you think that is?”
....
Instead of the best idol, the best VTuber.
Strictly speaking, that goal had been achieved splendidly.
In capitalism, there was no achievement bigger than survival.
From here on out, this field’s glory and attention would be monopolized.
She had kept her promise.
A-young’s dream had come true.
“....”
And yet she couldn’t be happy.
I thought I knew why.
I looked out the window.
“....”
Deep night.
The dark city.
Cars passing by below.
One by one, the lights filling the night view went out.
What remained now was only the place where A-young and I were standing.
“....”
“....”
Our first meeting had begun amid a brilliant nightscape, but in the end, what was left was a dark one. That was why I couldn’t celebrate this success.
If a hundred people competing with you were all swept away and killed in a natural disaster, and you became number one in the industry by default, could that really be called achieving your dream?
Was surviving alone truly A-young’s dream?
“....”
And then there was one more question that flickered through my mind.
If Arc Network decided to abandon RD completely, then why was Arc Network still trying to sell it?
Honestly, from a conglomerate’s point of view, it would be more profitable to just throw away a VTuber company. Rather than dragging things out with sales talks and negotiations, it was better to dismantle it quickly.
Cards you’re going to discard should be discarded fast.
That was the core strategy of investing.
“....”
And yet someone was still trying to sell it. Even if they couldn’t reverse the budget withdrawal, they had chosen not to abandon the company and instead put it on the negotiating table.
That wasn’t the strategy of an ordinary investor.
Even if they were a predator, it was the stance of a predator trying to protect its own pack.
But what kind of conglomerate chairman is this, anyway? If some weak predator sitting in the middle of the pack were to act like that...
It was stubbornness that was wildly irrational.
And yet that was exactly why RD was still holding onto the IP.
So someone else could take it in good shape.
Neatly packaged.
As if they refused to concede even that much.
That fixation and stubbornness...
...felt strangely familiar.
*
Arc Network Investment Strategy Office.
Jeong Yu-ri, team leader of Team Two, let out a sigh.
The stacks of investment proposals and financial tables piled up in one corner of her office had been neatly cleared away. Even her team members had been moved to other departments to help with their work.
She was basically handling everything alone, like a traveling peddler.
“....”
With one exception.
Everything else had been sold.
She had negotiated it herself and sold it off. She had sorted through the small businesses that had once received investment under Arc Network’s umbrella. She had negotiated at lightning speed with this company and that one, steering every deal toward a direction that was mutually beneficial.
But.
Exactly one thing remained.
It was a VTuber company.
Jeong Yu-ri put a hand over her face.
In a boom market overflowing with such high-grade assets, where the hell am I supposed to find a lunatic willing to buy a VTuber company...
Executive Director Go had been pressuring her, saying, “Clear it all out.” The strategy office director and the division head had also been pressuring her, saying, “If it won’t sell, dismantle it.”
And yet she still had to sell it.
- Yu-ri, do not throw away the cards in your hand. You must take responsibility and sell them at a proper price. That is the final responsibility of a hunter who has taken hold of another man’s property.
- Miss, forget what the chairman said. It’s better to throw away what should be thrown away. How are we supposed to live if we keep thinking about the prey’s feelings?
It was stubbornness born from the words of two people she both
loved
and hated.
“....”
Jeong Yu-ri covered her face with both hands. She still found herself disgusting for acting like the descendant of a chaebol family. And yet she couldn’t give up.
“I’m not even the chairman, so what is this pointless stubbornness...”
At that moment.
The office phone rang.
Ring-ring!
“!”
Jeong Yu-ri answered. And then she had no choice but to be surprised.
- Pleased to meet you.
“Who is this?”
- This is Bigman.
“....”