It's Not a T-shirt, So It's Fine, Right?
Märchen's YouTube growth was getting out of hand.
Of course, the channel had been growing at an alarming clip even on an ordinary day, so it might seem strange to act surprised about it now. But even measured against Märchen's usual trajectory, the present situation was one that could only be called out of hand. Back when I'd hung a promise on hitting 150,000 subscribers, the surge then had been nothing to scoff at — and this was keeping pace with it.
I had a fair idea of the cause. Yesterday's stream, no doubt.
A maid-concept broadcast, a cooking segment stirred in, the news that I'd signed with AY Entertainment folded through the middle, and an MV premiere laid on top as the final stroke of the brush. Call it a legendary stream and you wouldn't be wrong.
…Personally, I still thought the twenty-four-hour birthday stream was the far better piece of content. On buzz, though, the maid stream was several moves ahead, and thanks to that buzz the subscriber graph — whose slope had been gently flattening — steepened all over again.
Was growing fast even a problem? Of course not. On any normal day I would have been shouting Even better!!!
…If it had been a normal day.
The problem was this. Project the current pace forward, and there was a real chance I'd hit 300,000 subscribers on Thursday — my regular day off. The day the MV premiered.
"This is a problem…."
The words slipped out before I knew I was saying them. And yes, it was a problem. There was a reason I'd set my day off as the premiere date: to strip away anything that might so much as nick the MV's early views or the album's early numbers, because the better those early numbers, the more solid my footing became. The manager had also cited a handful of other circumstances — the sort that were a little too awkward to lay out to my face.
So if at all possible, the correct move was to leave the stream dark on Thursday. …It was the correct move.
Even so, a streamer missing the moment she crossed 300,000 subscribers felt wrong. I'd already missed the quarter-million. Show the viewers I was going to miss 300,000 as well? Some of them definitely wouldn't take it kindly. And setting all of that aside, I simply wanted to be there.
…What do I do?
Of course, there was a chance I wouldn't hit 300,000 on Thursday. No — more than a chance. By common sense, by logic, by reason, the odds of the premiere time and the 300,000 mark lining up with that kind of precision were extremely low. So perhaps I was only borrowing trouble.
And yet, how to put it…. It felt as if the god of streaming meant to lead me straight into that future. As if life, as a rule, never goes the way you want it to.
"Mmm…."
I set both choices on the scale in my mind. If Thursday looked like a 300,000 day, what then — go live, or stay dark? Once the MV dropped, 400,000 would probably arrive in no time…. So did I let the 300,000 milestone pass quietly and pour everything into a 400,000 celebration stream instead? Or nudge it a little and celebrate at 330,000?
Little by little, the scale tipped toward not streaming.
"…No. That's not it."
And then a variable entered the picture.
Until now — vocal lessons, the MV shoot, recording — I'd been too busy to do that again, even on my days off. But if I was ever going to, I needed at least one weekend with the stream off. Which meant the option of going live on Thursday and pushing my day off to the weekend suddenly had merit. On top of that, it nagged at me that Yeryeong would be back in school before long. If I was going to do that, next week was best.
In the end, the balance broke for good.
…I ought to run this by the manager, shouldn't I?
The plan I'd drawn up was extremely simple.
If Thursday looked like it would hit 300,000, I'd start the stream early. If it didn't, I'd start it anyway. Then, on stream, I'd thrash however I had to in pursuit of 300,000. And whether I actually hit it or not, I'd end the broadcast just before the MV began and funnel the viewers into the premiere.
That way, I figured, the early numbers would take a positive hit rather than a negative one. And if I signed off without ever reaching 300,000? …Nothing to be done. At least the viewers would be left with the impression that I'd tried. Doing nothing and doing something are not the same thing.
So I called the manager and told her what I intended to do.
"I understand what you're saying. …This is only my personal opinion, but I still wouldn't particularly recommend going live that day."
"Figures, huh…?"
"The moment the premiere video goes up, the person who wrote and composed the song will be revealed. And that will draw far more attention than yesterday's news about the MCN contract, or the MV announcement."
Going live in that situation — before the MV was even out?
A catastrophe that could make yesterday feel like children playing. Would I even be able to run a broadcast under those conditions? No. The odds of the broadcast falling apart were high — high enough that even follower-only chat couldn't hold the line. Which was why, she told me, they had deliberately left at least a small gap between the MV release and my stream.
Right. It was consideration, for me. And here I was, announcing that I meant to kick that consideration aside with my own two feet.
But in the end, the one who had to accept that consideration wasn't the manager. It was me. And the manager knew that perfectly well.
"If you're set on it, though…. So long as you end the stream before the MV premieres, the way you said, I won't try to stop you."
She added it to take some of the weight off my choice. I turned it over for a moment. Then I made up my mind.
Märchen's signature special: digging her own grave with her own two hands! Graves dug to date — an absurd number! So one more? Hardly a problem, right?
And so it was decided that I would stream on Thursday as well. The arrangements to move Thursday's day off to the weekend were already in place.
Which meant… it was time to prepare that.
The moment the call with the manager ended, I went straight into the Medongbu group chat.
And I spammed the room.
"Oh, thank god."
If I locked the dinner in for Saturday, then…
…Hmm.
I slipped quietly into my room and eased the custom zip-up hoodie out of the box where it had been sleeping. I stared at it as if we were locked in a staring contest, then gave a small nod.
This isn't a T-shirt, is it?
Good. The date for the second Medongbu dinner was set!
Then maybe it was time to start getting ready for a stream. I'd hit 250,000 YouTube subscribers, and just letting that pass without a word felt a little wrong….
…The messages seemed to be stacking up at a terrifying pace, but I did my best to ignore them.
"Yes. This is Märchen, quarter-million YouTuber. Good to see you."
I said it in a voice to match the quiet music — calm, a little more grown. Mm. It was my voice, but it was genuinely pleasant to listen to.
…Even so, a bright, high-energy voice still suited me better.
Some people, it seemed, did not agree.
"August is nearly gone, and summer with it, isn't it? The season they call high skies and fat horses — autumn — will stop by for a moment, then hand the baton straight to winter."
I'd take warm and brisk over hot and freezing any day. It was a shame past all telling.
"But as the title says, things are beautiful precisely because they fade without a trace. That's why I would dare to say that of the four seasons, autumn is the most beautiful. …And we can hardly let a season that beautiful slip by in vain, can we?"
…For real? I frantically looked up the start of autumn on my phone.
"It really is? Wow. The weather bug is serious. Reality really is a broken game…."
A speedy bug-fix is one of the conditions of a god-tier game, after all.
"Anyway! They call autumn the season of high skies and fat horses, but there's another phrase just as famous, isn't there?"
The season of reading.
"Today is a special: reading, in preparation for autumn."
Time for my debut as a literary-girl streamer!