White Blood: Week Two Reactions
Jeong Cheol-min had spent more than twenty years as an actor, starting out as the youngest member of a theater troupe in Daehangno — but he had never experienced anything like this.
He had gone into the academy that morning as usual, then headed downstairs when hunger struck, intending to grab something from the convenience store. That was when a group of girls who looked like high school students came running toward him.
"Excuse me — you're Dipangdal, right?"
"Can we get a picture with you?!"
Startled, Jeong Cheol-min pointed at himself.
"Uh — me?"
"Yes!"
"Well… sure."
Of course, posing for a photo was hardly a hardship. Lining up with the cast for pictures after a small-theater performance was part of theater culture, and ever since his brief appearance in Sketch, parents and students who visited the academy had occasionally asked for photos too.
Click.
"Oh my god! Can we get one more with the rear camera? Hey, take one of me."
"Okay, then you take one of me after."
They had already worked out the order between themselves. After being swept into several more shots, Jeong Cheol-min hurried back up to the academy before the people hovering nearby could start gathering in earnest.
"Haah… I never did get that triangle kimbap."
He had planned to just grab a quick triangle kimbap to hold him over, but it looked like he would have to order delivery instead. Still, even without the kimbap, Jeong Cheol-min somehow felt full.
He picked up his smartphone and placed a call.
Bzzz.
At home, Yeon-woo had been reviewing variety-show offers for fan service when the phone vibrating on the table made him pick it up.
"Hmm? Calling this early? Yes, Teacher."
"Take on one good student and your whole life blooms. I couldn't even make it to the convenience store."
Jeong Cheol-min's words over the line were a jumble, but Yeon-woo roughly understood what he meant. He let out a short laugh.
"Dipangdal's only just appeared on screen, though?"
"That's what I'm saying."
"I still go to convenience stores just fine… Teacher, are you already catching celebrity disease?"
Yeon-woo's voice was full of laughter, and Jeong Cheol-min, knowing it was a joke, laughed too.
"Haha. No, you brat. I'm telling you, they really looked like they were about to swarm me."
"Wear a mask when you go out from now on."
"I really should."
After wrapping up the call with Jeong Cheol-min, Yeon-woo searched for Dipangdal on his phone. The later episodes had not been released yet, but a scene from episode six — the final installment of week two — already showed signs of becoming an internet meme.
That was the line Dipangdal delivered the moment the taxi door flew open after a breakneck chase. And right after it came Yeon-woo's utterly baffled expression, capped by his final line: "What the hell are you talking about?"
Netizens had started floating question marks over Yeon-woo's head and remixing the still, and already, whenever a user posted something off-topic or completely out of left field on a board, people were dropping the meme as a reply or a comment.
These days, for any media content to truly take off, short clips from the main work — or the memes people called "stills" — had to catch fire. That applied not only to variety shows and YouTube channels but to films and dramas as well. Even people who had never cared about a movie or a series would stumble across them naturally while browsing communities or trading messages with friends, and the reach was greater than any advertisement.
"Not that we planned for it while we were making it."
Predicting what would become a meme at the production stage was nearly impossible. But as Yeon-woo scrolled through the internet, he nodded to himself.
"If you make it well, the reaction will break out somewhere. Everyone worked hard, too."
He hit play on Netflix again to watch the remaining stretch of the episode.
"Get in — now!"
At Dipangdal's gesture, Yeon-woo and the others scrambled into the car. As they peeled out in a hurry, Akenaton looked at Dipangdal and spoke.
"We're being hunted by the White Blood Army. If you get mixed up with us, you're only going to bring trouble on yourself."
"I don't care! You're heading upward, aren't you? Take me with you."
Dipangdal had overheard the passengers talking in the back seat that morning as they entered the city — talk of passing through Cardiac and climbing even higher.
Do-jin tilted his head at Dipangdal's words.
"More cells wanting to go up than I expected. But love? What kind of nonsense is that?"
Dipangdal pointed to a photograph hanging in the cockpit.
"I have to see this friend again. No matter what it costs me."
Do-jin studied Dipangdal's eyes in the rearview mirror for a long moment, then nodded. The desperate hunger in that gaze was full of sincerity.
"So you're saying you're leaving everything here behind anyway."
"Yes! Of course!"
Do-jin nodded — then drove his foot hard into the left rear door of the speeding taxi.
Bang.
The door sagged, hanging as if it were about to tear free.
"Hup—!"
Dipangdal sucked in a startled breath at the sudden violence, but Do-jin just grinned.
"What's the matter? You're ditching it anyway. I'll be right back."
With that, Do-jin ripped the dangling rear door free with his bare hands, flung it onto the road, and leapt out of the car. He landed on the sliding door as if it were a skateboard, riding it down the street.
Screeeech—
Sparks flew as the door scraped against the pavement. Do-jin held his balance, then launched himself toward a Level 3 White Blood soldier's hoverbike closing in from behind. The combined speed of the sliding door and the pursuing bike sent him flying; in one motion he drove his sword through the soldier's chest and seized the hoverbike.
"Good. Now we've got another ride."
The other Level 3 White Blood soldiers trailing behind swung as one to chase him.
"I'll have to shake them first. Narrator — find me a route that loses these guys and gets me back to the others."
"Head up the overpass on your right."
Do-jin looked right and saw the elevated roadway running above the taxi carrying his companions. He opened the distance between himself and the group, the enemies still glued to his tail.
"Thermal energy detected."
At the Narrator's warning he glanced back — the soldiers had drawn laser weapons and were taking aim. The instant they fired, Do-jin raised his sword, deflected the beams, and wrenched the bike's handlebars hard enough to bring it to a dead stop. He watched the White Blood soldiers hurtling straight at him without slowing, then poured energy into his blade and swept it in a wide horizontal arc.
A powerful crescent of force blasted from the sword and bisected the oncoming soldiers top from bottom in a single stroke.
"…Huh?"
He had meant to knock them away with a sword wind the way he had the pterosaurs in the desert. The unexpectedly fierce sword aura that erupted instead left even Do-jin stunned.
"Why is it doing this? Did the gem make me stronger?"
There had been no real combat since he acquired the purple gem, so he had not realized he had grown.
"So it doesn't just heal my body."
"The vehicle carrying your companions is pulling away."
"Ah — right. Better get back."
Do-jin gunned the bike again and searched for the taxi passing beneath the overpass. Spotting it, he leapt straight off the elevated road and miniaturized the hoverbike midair.
Whoosh—
Thud.
He landed on the taxi's roof, then dropped through the gaping left doorway and sat down.
"Mister, you really love riding on roofs!"
"…I don't particularly enjoy it."
After that, they shook off the White Blood Army's pursuit through one twist after another and finally reached the airfield. Dusk was already settling, and the field looked deserted.
Then Akenaton pointed to a small spacecraft at the far end of the strip.
"That one. The light craft I reserved."
"Good. You know how to fly it?"
"Pardon? I do not!"
"……"
Do-jin stared at Akenaton with a look of pure disbelief.
"…Does it fly itself, by any chance?"
"No. It requires a pilot."
"Then where's the pilot?"
"I booked one for tomorrow, of course. Who could have known we would need to leave this quickly?"
Akenaton was entirely right. Nothing had gone wrong on the way into the city center — no one had expected the White Blood Army to come crashing in so suddenly.
"Akenaton. Your tone's gotten a little disrespectful, hasn't it?"
"Good heavens, my god. Surely not."
From the taxi's cockpit, Dipangdal tentatively raised a hand.
"…Um. I do know how to pilot, to some degree."
Akenaton's face lit up.
"Oh! You truly know how?"
"Yes. I learned it during passenger transport training. It was a while ago, though."
Do-jin nodded and climbed out of the car.
"I don't know if this place has traffic laws or not, but you don't need any of that — just knowing how to fly forward is enough. If the White Blood Army comes after us, all we'll be doing is going straight anyway."
Do-jin and the others boarded the small spacecraft, which looked like an oversized jet. Dipangdal settled into the cockpit, flipped a few switches, fired the engines, and nodded.
"This is a model I can fly."
Then the whine of engines came through the open cargo bay at the rear.
Wheeeeng—
"Sounds like the White Blood Army's closing in."
"Then we leave at once!"
Dipangdal hit the switch to seal the cargo bay and lifted the craft into the air.
Hummm—
Hissss—
Below, White Blood soldiers could be seen firing lasers, but the ship's barrier was absorbing the hits.
"It's a cargo hauler, after all — this much won't even scratch us."
Boom.
Crackle-zap—
The words were barely out of his mouth when a small explosion sounded somewhere — something had taken a bad hit.
"Won't even scratch us, you said?"
"…Uh. Flight systems still look fine. Accelerating now."
Jeong Do-jin, Ella, Akenaton, Dipangdal — and the Narrator linked to Do-jin by comms. With every member aboard, the small spacecraft shot toward the sky.
The screen cut to black, and week two of White Blood came to an end.
It was not only Dipangdal's meme-ready line that was landing well online. Other moments were drawing solid reactions too.
The response on Yeon-woo's fan cafe, Woo's, was naturally glowing, and the broader community reaction was friendly as well.
Then a message from Executive Director Yoon Mi-yeon appeared in the production team's group chat.
Reading the message, Yeon-woo smiled with quiet satisfaction.
"Not just the global top ten — we need to go higher than that."
The declaration he had thrown down at the first table read — that he would shoot this with the resolve to take global number one — had not been empty bravado.
He had meant every word.