Brisket Craze
Brisket Craze
[Is Seong-hwan Tube's view count for real lolllll]
[It's getting linked on Reddit and Ochen]
[But doesn't the video feel like it got cut off halfway?]
[What the hell is brisket that everyone's going nuts?]
The moment I opened my eyes in the morning and checked the reactions across various communities and social media,
it was total chaos.
Everywhere I looked, people were talking about my Qtube channel.
Even the Internet Broadcasting Gallery—a major community notorious for its toxicity—
had been burning through bait threads about me
from the crack of dawn when the video was uploaded until now.
"See? Noona was right, wasn't I?"
"Yeah... it's insane..."
My subscriber count was on the verge of hitting 4 million,
and the view count had already passed 3 million.
Seeing it tagged #1 on Trending gave me a strangely sentimental feeling.
What on earth was it about a brisket-making video
that had people going this wild?
And all this at the crack of dawn, mind you—
not even uploaded in broad daylight.
It gave me goosebumps, kind of.
"Now Seong-hwan knows what kind of feeling noona had, huh?"
"It's seriously spine-chilling."
It wasn't the scary kind of goosebumps.
This was euphoria.
Euphoria from the comments and reactions of subscribers
going wild over a video I filmed and uploaded myself.
So this was why people did Qtube.
I should've started a little sooner.
For reference, the viewer count kept going up every time I hit refresh.
The first time I saw it, I genuinely thought it was a glitch.
"As a general rule, it's better to just upload videos and not read the comments."
"Because of hate comments?"
"That too, but mostly because there are a lot of people who make weird nitpicks."
That was right.
Qtube was a battleground of knowledge, densely packed with
every kind of Ph.D., world-shaping genius,
and armchair expert you could imagine.
There was no telling whether any of them actually knew what they were talking about,
but it was a gathering of people who would even pick fights with university professors and fairly prominent intellectuals.
I'd watched plenty of videos and read comments myself,
and the number of times I'd furrowed my brow wasn't just once or twice.
That wasn't constructive criticism—it was closer to a mental disorder.
They weren't critiques or advice genuinely meant for the creator's success;
it was a place for them to push baseless arguments just to vent their own stress.
"I'll do as noona says."
"Yeah. Good boy, good boy."
Her hand, having started by stroking my hair, traveled down to my cheek
and roamed here and there—A-ra's touch felt so good.
So this was why dogs and cats stay still when you pet them, I thought.
After soaking in the feel of A-ra's hand for a while, I got out of bed.
I had to make breakfast and get to school, after all.
"Haaah-aam....."
I let out a big yawn and stretched.
I didn't have any elective courses today, so I could afford to leave a bit leisurely,
but I still had to get A-ra's meal ready.
Before I started making breakfast, A-ra
had apparently been perfectly fine without eating in the mornings.
But ever since I'd started cooking, she'd said that if she left for work without breakfast,
she'd get so hungry she'd tear up.
Wasn't that just the cutest thing?
I had A-ra's stomach completely wrapped around my finger now.
This morning's breakfast was curry.
Smoked curry with the leftover brisket
from yesterday tossed in.
I was surprised to find that the combination with the spices wasn't bad at all.
I'd once heard about mixing curry into pulled pork,
so I applied the concept to brisket, and the result was something good enough to sell.
It seemed like it wasn't just my imagination, either,
because A-ra's eyes were practically glowing as she said how good it was.
"Don't you think we could sell this?"
It was a sentiment I'd had while eating too.
This could be sold.
Guaranteed success-level good.
If I made a lot of money through Qtube, trying my hand at a franchise once might not be a bad idea either.
I didn't know how to run it, so I'd just ask the Director for help.
Wait a second...?
Wasn't this basically being a complete leech...?
***
"Make sure you wear a mask when you go out."
"Got it. Have a safe trip."
I saw off A-ra—she'd emptied two bowls of curry and was heading to work with a blissful expression—
then sat down on the sofa and opened up the community forums.
Same as earlier,
most of the reactions were to the first videos I'd uploaded.
The next most common posts were people sharing where to buy brisket
or discussing the ingredients.
"Whoa... to all the shop owners selling brisket and beef brisket cuts, I sincerely apologize."
Some shops had already been stripped bare,
like farmland ravaged by a plague of locusts.
Even the small, quiet vendors who'd been selling brisket under the radar, almost as if on a 'goroshi' blacklist, were getting cleaned out one by one.
"Should I stir the pot a little?"
This was pouring gasoline on the fire of a community already ablaze.
Sure, I'd decided not to read Qtube comments,
but the Director had said that occasionally making an appeal on community boards was fine.
I snapped a selfie with the interior of our house visible behind me,
wrote a message saying thanks for enjoying the video,
and posted it to the community.
"Oh, reactions are already rolling in."
[Wait, is this real?]
[Cinematography was insane, legendary, and hella fun]
[That's not how you're supposed to do brisket]
[Any plans for Eun-ji and Yeji to appear?]
ㄴTelling a married man to feature other women, the nerve of you lol
I giggled to myself while reading the comments.
It hadn't even been that long since I posted it, and it was already the #1 real-time post.
Did I secretly have a bit of an attention-whore streak?
I hated being the center of attention in public,
but getting noticed online actually felt pretty good.
I kept scrolling and reading posts as I hit refresh.
Of course, it was impossible for everyone to like it.
A few hate comments had sprung up under the bait threads.
One guy left a profanity-laced rant, saying he was annoyed to death by this uninteresting topic
and asking if I had to pour oil on the fire.
"Well... if it were me, I'd have been annoyed by a boring topic too."
I understood.
The whole reason you'd visit a humor site in the first place
was to see funny posts.
So seeing some guy's selfie sitting at real-time best #1—how absurd must that have felt?
It was about time to head to school anyway, and I'd finished going through everything, so I got up.
I tossed my phone onto the sofa and pulled off my top.
***
With a mask and glasses on, no one could recognize me.
So this was why they said disguising yourself was important—enough that people talked until their mouths went dry.
I'd checked myself in the mirror,
and even my whole vibe felt so different that I got the feeling it wasn't me.
I should use this to mess with Jeong Hwan-yi and Lee Min-ho.
I arrived at the lecture hall, opened the back door, and headed for the very last row.
Jeong Hwan-yi and Lee Min-ho had already arrived and were staring down at their phones.
Since they had their earphones in, they only noticed
I'd arrived after I'd already taken my seat.
"What. Are you in disguise?"
"Superstars really are built different, huh."
"What, how did you guys know?"
"How did we know? What do you mean, how? Dude.
Is there anyone else besides you and us who'd sit here?"
Good point.
Out of our entire first year with only six male students,
the only one who'd sit next to these guys was me.
I clicked my tongue and took off my glasses and mask.
"Anyway, the video turned out really well."
"I filmed that myself."
"Whoa... so it really is all about the camera..."
"It's about skill, you know?"
"Alright, so how much was the camera?"
"....8 million won?"
"With that budget, even I could capture something like this."
Lee Min-ho showed me the video he was watching.
It was my video, on my channel.
It was the scene where I was spritzing the brisket with apple juice every hour as it smoked on the grill.
"But seriously, do you really have to spray it diligently every single hour?"
"If you don't do that, the moisture completely dries out and it gets all crumbly."
"Whoa...."
Jeong Hwan-yi and Lee Min-ho looked at each other
and audibly gulped.
These little shits... no way...?
"Seong-hwan! Make some brisket for us too!"
"Please!"
"I have to film for Qtube—do you think the menu can be a repeat? Pick something else!"
If I hadn't had the excuse of Qtube, I'd have been in big trouble.
I shook my head like it had a motor attached and told them absolutely not.
"Absolutely not. If you ask for brisket again, your guest appearance is canceled."
"Aww.... that's so mean."
"But we really wanted to try it..."
The two of them looked at me with eyes full of sadness bordering on despair,
and I started to feel a little sorry for them.
I'd originally planned to film with these two first,
but since I'd filmed A-ra before them, hadn't I promised to do anything they wanted as an apology?
"Fine. I'll bring the leftovers tomorrow, or whatever—just make do with that."
"Oh... the leftovers that A-ra-nim left behind?"
"There's a little left."
I'd sealed it with the vacuum packer A-ra had bought me and stashed it in the freezer.
All we'd have to do was slice it and reheat it,
and we could enjoy piping-hot brisket again.
"Thank you!"
"I love you!"
"Gah! What do you two grown men think you're doing?! Get off!"
If it had been only Lee Min-ho, I'd get it,
but Jeong Hwan-yi also threw his arms around me, which made me jump in alarm.
They must have really, really wanted to eat the brisket.
"Of course I wanted to eat it! The fact that every brisket seller is sold out right now says it all, doesn't it?!"
"Even the beef brisket cuts at stores like Costco and butcher shops are completely cleaned out."
It looked like this was the second coming of the effect
from the tomahawk steak A-ra had made on her channel not long ago.
Stuff like Boeuf Bourguignon was hard to follow,
but a tomahawk steak and brisket were the kind of thing worth attempting at least once.
"Next time, if you two promise to be the ones spritzing the apple juice, I'll make it for you once."
"Really? Promise?"
"Yeah, yeah, okay, got it, so keep it down. The professor's here."
To think the ever-diligent Jeong Hwan-yi had become like that...
What on earth was this brisket thing, seriously...
I let out a sigh looking at the two of them
and gave a bitter smile.
***
Jeong Hwan-yi, Lee Min-ho,
I'm sorry.
The brisket I'd meant to give you two
no longer existed in this world.
I'd completely forgotten to go grocery shopping, so we had nothing to eat.
So I opened up the brisket I'd so carefully stored in the freezer
and served it to A-ra alongside curry.
I felt sorry for not being able to make a proper meal,
but A-ra polished off the remaining brisket and curry with a happy face,
and so, the moment that would have made A-ra cry never came to pass.
"Haaaah...."
"Do you have some kind of worry?"
"No... it's just that brisket seems to be really popular these days."
"Oh right. Eun-ji and Yeji were both going crazy about wanting to try it too."
A-ra giggled softly as she stabbed the brisket deeply with her fork.
Anyone who saw her eating it so deliciously like that
would want to take a bite at least once.
"So, they asked me if you could make it for them, just once?"
"I don't mind either way... but what did you tell them?"
"I hammered it home that there's no chance in hell! Because the things my husband makes are for me to eat, and me alone."
As she said that, A-ra gave a bright smile.
Seeing that smile, I couldn't help but let out a bitter laugh.
Putting aside the issue of Eun-ji and Yeji for now,
how on earth was I supposed to make excuses to Jeong Hwan-yi and Lee Min-ho...?