The Road to A - 2
The crackle of radios flew back and forth in a frenzy.
The relay station here. Channels 1 through 37 are connected without any issues.
Did you manage to fix the audio noise problem at Gwangju First Street Theater?
Yes! It was just normal wear and tear on the equipment. We replaced the speaker right away, and it’s working fine now.
This is headquarters. Then we’ll begin receiving routine reports in order from channel 1 through 37.
Channel 1, Seoul Mapo Major Theater, no issues.
Channel 2, Seoul Seocho Violet Hall, no issues!
Channel 3, Seoul Gangseo Ddeulkukkot Cultural Center, no issues.
Channel 4, Seoul Yongsan 2000 DB, no issues.
Channel 5, Seoul Jongno Memory Theater, no issues.
...
...
...
Channel 36, Busan Jung-gu Diamond Performance Hall, no issues.
Channel 37, Jeju Blue Sky, no issues.
Excellent. If any emergency arises, please come in on headquarters channel 0 and let us know. Also, please review the fire evacuation routes at each hall, performance venue, and theater once more....
Thirty minutes before the livestream.
Representative Baek Su-cheol paced anxiously in the waiting room of Studio 3D, Room 2. There was nothing he could do while countless outsourced staff and partner vendors hurried around him.
He covered his face and cried out, “Oh no, oh no, oh no—!”
The general affairs manager, Park Young-su, who was sitting beside him, tilted his head. The thin hair left on his scalp swayed like jellyfish tentacles.
“Sir, why are you shaking like that?”
“Put yourself in my shoes. Wouldn’t you be shaking?”
“Well....”
“My kids are about to start the livestream! How am I supposed to keep from trembling?”
“Ye-seo, Ah-young, Aeri, and Do-dam all seem perfectly calm.”
“Them! Them, of course, they’re the ones getting the full favor of Bigman now, so they’ve got the nerve for it! They’re on broadcast all the time too.”
Ignoring the absurd excuse, Park Young-su wiped the sweat from his bare head.
“Still, it’s warm in here. Are you sure the air conditioner’s on?”
“Ah, this place runs on central heating and cooling, and it’s a little lukewarm. Even the last time I walked around here with the PD, it was hot.”
“Will Ye-seo be all right? She said it gets incredibly hot when she’s wearing the tracking gear.”
“It is summer, so I’m a little worried. They probably turned the air conditioning up a bit more over there because of the soundproofing too.”
“Still, it is July. The thirtieth, too.”
Baek Su-cheol muttered at the date.
“Heh. Back when we went to reserve Colorful Star in June, it felt like the day would never come. Then blink, some insane set of laws passes, Bigman descends from on high, and now we’re doing another livestream.”
“Yeah.”
One billion won.
Bigman.
Big Plan A.
Big Plan planning broadcast.
Countless memories passed by.
Baek Su-cheol and Park Young-su had worked with many partner companies over that time. They had also coordinated and negotiated from the side for the sake of the members’ broadcast planning.
They had truly been moving nonstop.
It felt like going back to a chaebol conglomerate.
Back to before they had been so absurdly cut loose in the restructuring, and even more than the days when they had stayed on desperately just to protect what remained.
It had been a pure, passionate time.
“...”
“...”
Time that had stopped had started moving again.
A time when they, once failed stragglers, were brought back to life.
That was why the two of them fell silent as they remembered.
“...”
“...”
At last, it was Baek Su-cheol who spoke.
“We were busy.”
“We were.”
“At first it was fixing Ah-young’s settlement issue.”
“My heart was pounding. What if the ten hundred million was a scam?”
“Then the tax issue and the remaining payment for the 3D modeling got settled.”
“Lessons started up again too.”
“Damn it, that’s embarrassing. We were so incompetent, man.”
“We? There was only one boss.”
“Oh?”
“Heh heh....”
Park Young-su wiped the sweat from his smooth scalp once more. It traced the smile at the corner of his mouth and the lines at the edges of his eyes before dripping down in cool beads.
“It really was busy, wasn’t it? How did we even get here?”
“...”
Baek Su-cheol gave a snort of laughter.
“That Ah-young, you know.”
“Yes?”
“She still worries about it.”
“About what?”
“That thing, back at Live Future. The 100 million contest.”
“Ah—”
Park Young-su slapped his forehead.
It had been right after the restructuring.
After the chaos had died down, around half a year after they had signed a creator contract with Live Future with gritted teeth and no other choice.
In February that year, Live Future held a performance contest for all creators. The winner would get banner exposure and prize money worth 100 million won.
Aki had entered alone.
And she had been eliminated quickly. A VTuber with no 3D model and no proper working environment had nothing to show except low-quality song covers.
Park Young-su said, “Ah, right. I forgot about that.”
“See? Nobody cared about it anyway.”
“Everyone else was swarming in from all over just to grab the prize money, so there was no way we could compete. Live Future was mostly focused on female streamers to begin with.”
“But Ah-young thought she’d lost because she wasn’t good enough.”
“Good heavens. She’s still been worrying about that?”
Baek Su-cheol nodded.
“That she couldn’t sing, couldn’t perform, couldn’t show a dance. After that, the lessons got cut off, the 3D model got stalled, everybody left to work part-time jobs... she thought that was why.”
“...”
Baek Su-cheol covered his face.
“It’s all my fault.”
“...”
Park Young-su pretended not to hear the sound of him swallowing back a sniffle beside him. He was pathetic and ridiculous, but it was precisely that human side of him that had brought over the people from the parent company.
“I hope today’s performance goes well.”
“...Yeah.”
The two men sat quietly in the lukewarm room.
***
15 minutes to standby!
“!”
“!”
“!”
“!”
A bright radio call rang through the waiting room. The ABCD members, seated apart, all lifted their heads. Over their comfortable clothes, they were wearing their tracking gear.
Aki and Ye-seo checked each other’s clothes and made final adjustments.
“Ah-young, do I look all right anywhere?”
“Yeah. How about me?”
“Hmm....”
“...”
“Yeah, you’re fine. But your waist is really thin. Is that because of the band? Wow.... So this is what an idol trainee looks like.”
“Hehe.”
Aeri touched a finger to her cheek. She looked every bit like a 26-year-old girl striking a cute pose with one leg lifted prettily.
“Berry Ring! Is it time to show off my Miracle Lovely Cutie Magic? What if our boomerangs get hit by Berry-li Lovely Magic and end up all pink and dazed and helpless~?”
“...”
Do-dam, who was tying up her bobbed hair nearby, stared at her. Then she said, with a hollow look on her face, “Wow.... So you’re really going to keep pushing that concept, unnie?”
“Huh? Why?”
“No, I thought it was just for Berry-li Land.”
“Dehehet, there’s no way such a cute and innocent girl would only show one cute side~”
“Ugh, damn. That dehehet. What the hell.”
Do-dam said, “At the start of the broadcast you were pulling some weird American-style gags, and now you’ve completely settled into a concept. You even gave up that weird meme-introduction show.”
“...”
“What, you want to bury that as black history now?”
“T-that’s....”
Aeri bumped her fingertips together.
“Once I actually tried it, people seemed to like this side better....”
“Fair.”
Do-dam nodded.
“Back in Live Future’s obscure little days, no matter what you did it felt like talking to a wall, so the burnout was real.”
“Right?”
“But I feel like your concept now would give me burnout too.”
“Could you call it a Berry-li with a full professional sense of duty? Dehehet.”
“Unnie, you’re getting smile lines.”
“Wha, what?!”
Aeri hurriedly checked the mirror in the waiting room. But in the glass, all she saw was a taut, radiant 26-year-old beauty.
“I don’t have any.”
“I lied.”
“...”
10 minutes to standby!
“...”
“...”
Do-dam looked at Aeri.
“It’s weird that I’m not nervous at all. During the showcase, I was so tense I actually kind of pissed myself.”
“Really?”
“Yeah, for real. I went straight to the bathroom after it ended.”
“I had no idea....”
“The second I got to the bathroom, I was like, holy shit, full-on gushing!”
“Hey! Bad words! Don’t curse!”
“Cursh-wuhth-tehch!”
“You little....”
“You little....”
Between the two of them bickering away, Ye-seo came over with a wry smile.
“I guess we’ve all been trained by Big Plan for so long that this feels normal. We’re always doing things at some huge building, putting on one event after another, so compared to tens of thousands of viewers, maybe our brains are just fried.”
“For real, lol.”
“Honestly, it feels like we’re just going on a broadcast right now.”
“For real, lol.”
“Do-dam....”
Aki tapped Aeri’s shoulder.
“Unnie was so nervous she couldn’t say anything. She was shaking like crazy and muttering the Lord’s Prayer....”
“Aigoo....”
Do-dam reacted to that.
“Wow, this is my first time seeing someone get embarrassed while saying ‘aigoo’ in real life. You get full marks for otaku speech.”
“Do-dam....”
5 minutes to standby! Members, please come up!
“...”
“...”
“...”
“...”
Aki tied up her hair.
The rough feel of the tracking gear was familiar. Big events were familiar. So were the many viewers. And so was the sense of responsibility rising in her chest.
That was why she wasn’t nervous.
Instead, she was excited.
Excited to show them.
To show the viewers.
To show the fans.
To show him.
“I’m really glad.”
Aki smiled.
“Let’s put on a fun performance.”
At that, the others reacted.
Do-dam nodded like an exaggerated robot, Aeri clasped both hands together and clenched her fists, and Ye-seo grinned with easy warmth.
“Okay, roger that.”
“Let’s go!”
“Yeah, let’s do our best.”
They headed for the studio.
Their steps were light and lively.
Her heart pounded.
Tap, tap.
As they moved toward the stage, lights began to sparkle one by one in Aki’s eyes.
The lights of the stage, the screens, the radios, all of it spilling brightness into the room.
One.
Two.
Three.
They were heading toward an ark overflowing with emotion.
A dark world.
A ship carrying our own light set sail.
It was a small world, but....
For Aki, it was the only stage that had ever accepted her.
...
The stage he had prepared for her.
We’re starting the livestream!
At those words, all the members naturally struck their poses.
-5!
-4!
-3!
-2!
-1!
***
The lights in the cultural center went out.
The audience murmured with anticipation. All around them, only blue, pink, yellow, and scarlet cheering sticks glittered in the dark. On the screen showing the livestream, mysterious colors bloomed like an aurora.
And then.
Her voice rang out.
She was the one I had to keep watching.
...
[Running toward the light—!]
The people stood up.
Cheering sticks and towels in their hands.
“!”
“!”
“!”
To make the greeting they had been unable to answer at the unfamiliar showcase.
[We are—!]
The audience drew in a breath. When the hundred people gathered in the cultural center all did the same thing, even that tiny breath made the whole space tremble.
Then they shouted at the top of their lungs.
ABCD—!
The room shook for a brief moment.
A surge of heat spread outward, hot enough to touch skin.
As though answering that cry, the aurora on the screen merged into a single white light.
[ABCD—!]
That light.
It burst toward me.
And in that light.
A girl in yellow was smiling.
-Chief!
...
I murmured, “I’m cheering for you.”
---