The Spiderweb of Standom

But who am I? Han Yeo-reum, winner of the Jury Special Award at the Seoul International Drama Awards, whose web drama Blu-ray sales had soared by 247%. Time to keep up a star's composure.

'Two official cameras were already rolling, and they still wanted to have a private conversation….'

I turned my back on them without a shred of regret.

'No point in getting tangled up with him in front of everyone. Better to just go.'

Whatever it was they'd wanted to say, I could hear about it in the waiting room tomorrow. Time to go film In My Bag.

Summer strolled down the corridor of Kyocera Dome, gazing into the lens without a trace of camera shyness. Manager ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠Ma smiled with satisfaction. He could already picture in his head how well the intro segment of the vlog was going to turn out.

"Huh? Isn't that Manager Ma over there?"

"…Come on. What would Manager Ma be doing here? The man belongs bolted to a wall in the JC office building."

"It really is him. Look behind her."

"No way that's Manager Ma. Just someone who looks like him—wait. Okay, that IS Manager Ma. Why is he here?"

One by one, the reporters' eyes turned toward Manager Ma. For the man who lived bolted into a corner of the office like a piece of furniture to have come all the way to Osaka was no ordinary occurrence.

"That's the female lead of Pachehi, right? What was her name…"

"Han Yeo-reum. Han Yeo-reum."

"Manager Ma is attaching himself to her staff? Is he out of his mind?"

A figure no one in the industry could fail to recognize when they heard the name JC ENM was filming a vlog beside a rookie actress barely out of her debut. The reporters exchanged wary glances.

'Exactly. This is why we came.'

Manager Ma had already accounted for every last calculation. Filming the vlog and uploading new in-house content was only part of it—the real point was to etch Han Yeo-reum's position, once again, into a gathering where every power player in the industry was present.

'When a Rising Star shoots upward, she inevitably has to step on someone to get there….'

Far off in the distance, Manager Ma's eyes met those of someone rehearsing on stage who kept sneaking glances toward this side of the hall. It lasted only an instant, but he saw the malice in it.

'How terrifying.'

The popular idol-turned-aspiring-actress, Ki Ju-ye.

The woman who'd had her Brand N modeling gig snatched away by Summer.

"…Does this tint even come out anymore?"

"Don't film that one! Not that one! Anything but that one!"

Despite my pleading, Manager Ma ruthlessly confiscated the tint. The camera lens caught the ancient tube being scraped clean down to the very bottom.

"Did you… use this in your past life? Or is it a family heirloom, passed down through generations?"

If I'd known this would happen, I should have packed my celebrity ego in with the luggage. My face burned. I swatched the tint Manager Ma handed back onto my wrist.

"Well, the color is still pretty, though?"

The editing will make it look cute, right? If I come out of this looking like Pathetic Yeo-reum, that's a problem.

I wrapped up the In My Bag filming in short order. Of course, today's schedule didn't end there.

Knock knock—.

A knock sounded at the door of the room. Since Manager Ma was busy holding the camera, I went and opened it myself.

"Han Yeo-reum!"

"Hello there."

It was Chu Ga-eul and Ju Jun-seo. Starting today, the three of us would be filming a reaction video watching the first episode of the Pachehi spinoff, which was uploading tonight.

'The production company was JC, after all.'

With JC's InTube channel uploading new original content practically every day these days, it seemed Pachehi wasn't something they could afford to leave out either. But there was one thing that had changed.

"8:55! The Pachehi spinoff starts now. Ah, I'm so nervous. You're nervous too, aren't you, Yeo-reum?"

"Watching it with you two makes it a little less nerve-wracking. Back in the day I was so anxious I downed a whole bottle of soju before I could press play."

"…How do you even take that in one shot?"

"No way. That's a figure of speech, surely."

"It's true. I can do anything I set my mind to."

The upload had been pushed back an hour. There was nothing to be done about it.

'Because of Do Gyeo-ul.'

Beyond the Closed Door was climbing at an alarming rate. No—that word didn't even begin to cover it.

To avoid being swallowed whole by a drama racing toward the 20% ratings mark, we'd changed the upload time of the reaction video.

'It's also a strategy to funnel Beyond the Closed Door's audience over to Pachehi.'

The end-of-term play had ended in my victory not long ago, but watching this, I felt anew just how vast the gap between Winter and me still was.

'No. I can't keep thinking like this.'

The camera was rolling. At some point the Pachehi logo had appeared on the tablet screen. I threw myself dutifully into my reactions.

Ae-ta-mi was sprinting through the live thread while watching the Pachehi spinoff in real time. The breezy teen-romance scenery of the absurd pure-manga world was lovely, of course, but there was something she liked even more: the sight of Chae-won, who'd spent the series in her white ankle stockings, back in the real world and bundled up in a puffer jacket.

"Adorable…."

On screen, Chae-won dragged Jun—whose arm was a head taller than she was—through the door of a bookstore.

Chae-won had shifted subtly from her Season 1 self. The relationship between the two now felt so natural and so close that the Pachehi fans gobbled up every crumb of subtext without even needing bait to be thrown. Far sweeter than having a story spoon-fed to you outright, after all, was the slow, agonizing squeeze of the juice.

From there the story unfolded exactly as the trailer had promised. A familiar, well-loved flavor. That was Pachehi for you. Apart from Pi Chae-won and Jun hogging the first three or four minutes with their short lovers' run, there was nothing about it that left anything to complain about.

"Ah, that was so good!"

Having finished watching, Ae-ta-mi switched off the tablet and let the afterglow wash over her.

"How does my girl have such a wide acting range…."

She couldn't forget the quiet, restrained Juliet she'd shown in Romeo and Juliet. The footage she'd saved flickered before her eyes. The overwhelming emotion she'd felt in that theater that night was still there, undiminished.

"I shouldn't be sitting around like this. Hurry up and finish the edit—"

Just as Ae-ta-mi got up to start editing the video, her phone buzzed.

Ziing—.

"Yeo-reum's going live!!!"

She jabbed at the notification, and there they were—the leads of Pachehi, lounging comfortably in a hotel room. As Yeo-reum's follower count had grown, so had the number of live viewers.

Between the chat messages flooding up the screen, the three of them answered the questions in the comments a little more smoothly than last time.

"Ga-eul's styling? Right, it's pretty, isn't it. You have no idea how many photos she's sent me asking whether she should cut her hair or not… Last night she went to bed, and the moment she closed her eyes, there was Ga-eul's face on the ceiling…?"

"Hey! Han Yeo-reum!"

The three of them looked even closer than before. Before she knew it, Ae-ta-mi had taken Ju Jun-seo and Chu Ga-eul into her heart as well, and resolved to watch the rest of the Pachehi spinoff and Jun-seo's next drama too. That was how stanning was supposed to work—spreading outward like a spiderweb.

'Otherwise you starve to death….'

Just as Ae-ta-mi was adding Ju Jun-seo and Chu Ga-eul to her mental list of beloved actors,

"You're saying we really look close? I think we've gotten even closer in the meantime?"

As Ga-eul read out a comment, the corner of Yeo-reum's mouth lifted, just barely.

"Yes. Tomorrow evening, all of us together—"

"Aw, come on~ Senior, you're a saint…."

Ju Jun-seo turned his head and stared straight at Han Yeo-reum.

By now, inside jokes had sprung up between the Pachehi team and their subscribers that only they shared. Just as the live stream was drawing to a successful close, Ae-ta-mi's phone rang out once more.

Ziing—.

This was exactly why she'd set keyword alerts ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠for 'Han Yeo-reum,' 'Pi Chae-won,' 'Pachehi,' 'Jeong Yeon-doo,' and the like. Ae-ta-mi quickly posted the details of Yeo-reum's outfit and smiled with pride.

"And if she's already doing this for a web drama, imagine what happens when she hits network television—"

And at that very moment, someone else was staring at that exact same post. She of the glittering manicure typed out a comment that was the precise opposite of Ae-ta-mi's reply.

Tap. Tap—.

The sound of long nails striking the screen rang out, sharp and grating.

"…So annoying."

The former Brand N model—an idol who would be attending the very same Music N Awards ceremony as Yeo-reum tomorrow. Ki Ju-ye.