Can an Extra Become the Protagonist?
"How far along is the press release distribution?"
At Jegal Rok's question, Director Jjang scrambled to answer.
"Team Leader Hong has pushed out the basic cast profiles along with a summary of the plot."
"Show me."
Jegal Rok picked up his tablet and scrolled briskly through the screen. Once he had a rough grasp of the current promotional situation, he rose from his seat.
"Pass this along to Team Leader Hong. Triple the existing volume of articles—minimum. That's all."
With those parting words, Jegal Rok stood. A few seconds later, a scream so enormous it carried past the executive producer's office door rang through the floor.
"Three times?! THREE times?! THREE TIMES?!"
Walking away with that shrieking at his back, Jegal Rok murmured to himself.
"This is going to be fun…."
A smile spread across his irritable face. The golden age of new media he had been anticipating seemed about to arrive ahead of schedule.
The official trailer had finally gone up. Thanks to the press releases that had been scattered a full week in advance, the initial buzz was considerably higher than expected. Comments were already rolling in—and not a single episode had even aired yet.
"A thousand views in one hour!"
I stomped my feet against the floor as I refreshed the page. A smooth start. When I ran a search across other social platforms, there were already people showing interest.
And here, too, the news of Pachehi reached Citizen A—a web addict so thoroughly steeped in media that her entire life had been pickled in it.
"What's this, then?"
Drama-watching as a hobby, drama-watching as a special skill. It was no exaggeration to say she had consumed every form of media in existence—a certified Tritter celebrity.
Ae-ta-mi of "Anytime Media"—Ae-ta-mi for short—had no choice but to learn about the Pachehi trailer as well.
"Look at them buying ad placements for the trailer…."
Typical of the drama scene these days. Muttering this with cool detachment, the addict known as Ae-ta-mi skimmed through the articles. Better to speed-read than waste time on a useless video.
"Pure shoujo manga meets K-grit? Hmm…. The premise itself is fairly fresh. Fine, I'll grant it."
The JC ENM touch was unmistakable. The intention to court a younger audience was completely transparent—and the sheer volume of press releases was staggering, too.
"A ten-minute episode? What kind of drama is that? Even an aesthetic influencer's vlog runs longer."
And yet, it did feel like a slightly different breed from the usual web dramas. Ae-ta-mi, who had always hated that "lesson-by-beatdown" content being passed off as "drama," decided on a whim to share the trailer on her own Tritter account.
She had no particular expectations. She simply hoped that, starting with Pachehi, videos with actual substance would start getting made into web dramas. That was all.
The view count on the InTube video climbed in real time. Ae-ta-mi clicked on the trailer as well.
With the burbling pop of soap bubbles, a soundtrack swelled—restless, fluttering, intoxicating.
Can an extra become the protagonist?
The short trailer was over in a flash. Ae-ta-mi pressed replay, thinking:
"Huh. The quality's actually not bad."
That was the most praise she could offer at this stage. It was only a one-minute video, but it was genuinely entertaining—because it had taken the school-genre clichés so often dismissed as juvenile and twisted them inside out.
Smiling, Ae-ta-mi scrolled through the comments.
"But seriously, who is this actress?"
Even Ae-ta-mi, who had devoured every drama under the sun, didn't recognize the face.
Those natural dead-fish eyes she shows in the trailer.
She had to be a rookie with at least a few credits to her name. If there was one thing the addict Ae-ta-mi's eyes couldn't be fooled on, it was this.
"…She has no filmography?"
And yet, oddly enough, the lead actress had nothing listed.
Han Yeo-reum. Ae-ta-mi sounded out the name once—a name that meant summer. Then she checked the premiere date for Episode 1, sitting right beside it.
"Next Friday."
Hmm. With a curious glint in her eye, Ae-ta-mi marked the drama's air date on her calendar.
It would be her first time waiting for a web drama, too—but somehow, she wanted to.
The Pachehi trailer finished with 39,000 total views, 88 comments, and 171 likes.
The week flew by. Pachehi, which had been quietly gathering buzz, released its first episode.
The video opened in front of the school gate.
"…What… is this?"
Cherry blossoms scattered amid over-the-top CG effects. Sparkles—the kind you'd only ever see in a shoujo manga—drifted through the air alongside them.
Chae-won tilted her head once and calmly tried to assess the situation. Looking around, she saw students passing by in pastel-tone uniforms that had nothing to do with the Korean sensibility.
"Hey, wanna grab parfaits after school?"
"Damn it…. If only we were a little stronger. Why did we have to lose in the prelims?"
"My high school debut, finally~. I'm kinda nervous-excited, I guess?"
Had you overheard it in real life, nine out of ten people would have said, what on earth are you talking about? Conversation, once again, far removed from the Korean temperament.
Chae-won blinked and lowered her head to check her own outfit. She was wearing the exact same uniform as the passing students.
Just one thing was different: the skirt. Unlike the pastel-toned skirts the other students wore, Chae-won alone was in a dark-colored uniform skirt.
"Oh, it's a dream."
Chae-won reached her conclusion quickly. She neither panicked excessively nor caused a scene—simply a deadpan, ordinary citizen.
"It's a dream, so there's no reason to go to school."
She began walking in the opposite direction from the students streaming toward the main gate. She had made it just a few steps from the school when—
Flit—
With the sound of a page turning—
"…."
—she was back where she'd started.
"Hey, wanna grab parfaits after school?"
And the exact same scene repeated itself.
"…?"
Chae-won found it a little odd, but she didn't panic. It was a dream, after all.
Her second choice was to simply stand still. Once again came the Flit— of a page turning. Cherry blossoms swirled again, and the same lines rang out again.
"…What is wrong with this dream?"
Aside from Chae-won and her dead-fish eyes, everything around her was a riot of flowers. The background students were as full of life as any shoujo manga extras.
Only then did Chae-won's face stiffen.
Her third choice was to try approaching the school. The moment Chae-won took a single step—
Clang—
The gate slammed shut. And then, as if someone had been waiting for precisely this moment, a figure burst onto the scene.
"Aaahh…! I'm late! I'm so late!"
Pink hair, a slice of white bread clamped between her teeth, sprinting toward her. Korean students might force down rice and seasoned seaweed their mothers shoved into their mouths when running late, but nobody runs with toast in their teeth.
Chae-won, contemplating all this, nimbly sidestepped just before the collision—
CRASH!
The pink-haired girl went down in spectacular fashion. Only then did Chae-won approach her, extending a hand to help her up. But then—
"Eep…!"
With a whooshing wind sound effect, Chae-won froze. A torn piece of the white bread, dropped from the girl's grasp, rolled roughly across the ground. Chae-won checked the name tag of the student who had just delivered a line straight out of a horror film.
"…Hina?"
"Huh? You know Hina's name?!"
The moment she confirmed the name, Chae-won faltered. An ominous premonition swept past her like a chill wind. This world was removed from the Korean sensibility in far more ways than one. Even the names didn't fit.
And at the same time, a single hypothesis surfaced in her mind.
"…Where am I?"
"Where? School, obviously!"
Hina scrambled to her feet with an adorably exaggerated motion, dusted off her skirt with a few vigorous pats, then put on a look of wide-eyed alarm.
"Oh nooo! Silly me, get it together! I'm late! See you later, then!"
Hina scurried off again as if about to vault clean over the school wall. Left behind in her wake, the girl finally turned to look at the nameplate bearing the school's name.
♥ Present High School ♥
For all that it bore the name of the most ordinary high school imaginable, bright red hearts were engraved on both sides of it.
No way.
"This is—right now—"
Only then did Chae-won's mouth fall open, her face a portrait of pure disbelief.
"This is a shoujo manga?!"
With that short groan, the title surfaced on the screen.
The Cherry on Top of the Parfait Belongs to the Heroine!
🍒
"Huh. This is actually pretty fun?"
Ae-ta-mi was laughing as she watched the video in real time. It exceeded her expectations. Nothing like the beatdown-slop pickled into every corner of InTube.
"That's JC for you. Old money, old power. Respect."
Even among web dramas, this was a different dimension entirely.
Ae-ta-mi made up her mind: she would watch Pachehi live, every week, until the finale. She turned her attention back to the scene unfolding on screen.
At some point, Chae-won of the dead-fish eyes had made her way to the school rooftop, where she stood sighing at the sky.
"…What actually happens if I drop out of here right now?"
The plight of an ordinary person forcibly conscripted into a shoujo manga was on full, glorious display.
That bright, pink-saturated shoujo manga everyone had read at least once as a child—the show conjured up that nostalgia, then paired it with a lead character tuned precisely to the dry, cynical sensibilities of modern adults. The combination brewed an ironic sort of humor.
And then—
"You're the reason I woke up."
A rebellious, unfamiliar voice cut in.
The camera angle climbed, following the sound upward. There, perched atop a shipping container installed on the rooftop, someone sat looking down.