Saebyul Family Reactions
The YouTube premiere opened exactly as the trailer had promised: the awkward silence between Son Jin-uk and Jeong Su-yeon, who had arrived first at the restaurant for the pre-meeting.
A compact camera mounted on the table cut back and forth between their faces while the subtitle “Awkward… so awkward” floated between them in the dead quiet.
Naturally every actor and staff member watching together in the conference hall turned to stare at Son Jin-uk and Jeong Su-yeon.
Jin-uk scratched the back of his head with an embarrassed grin.
“Why’s everybody looking at me like that? What was I supposed to do? That was the first time I’d ever actually talked to Su-yeon.”
Everyone smiled and turned their attention back to the screen.
Joo Hyun-seok PD clearly had no intention of recycling the trailer footage; he cut quickly through the restaurant pre-meeting in a tight ten-second montage, then used flashy editing to tease the highlights of the two-day camping trip, stoking anticipation.
Watching it, CEO Jeong Hyeok nodded in pure satisfaction.
Joo Hyun-seok really is the top PD in the industry. Editing that sharp plus a cast this stacked dropping on YouTube—fans are going to lose their minds. Hell, not just fans. Regular viewers are going to pour in too.
He leaned over and whispered to Gong Min-jeong beside him.
“Min-jeong, what’s our subscriber count right now?”
“We broke 1.7 million this morning. Last check before the variety show went live was 1.73 million. Once this finishes airing, I honestly can’t even guess how high it’ll climb.”
Jeong Hyeok nodded at her confident answer.
Anything done with real affection just works better.
He already knew Min-jeong’s connection to Yeon-woo went back to the actor’s first YouTube appearance on Find My Fan. That was why he had handed her the in-house content planning. And because she was a genuine fan, her insistence that “the freshest concept is simply the existence of actor Ryu Yeon-woo himself” had been oddly brilliant.
If I’d been the one planning new content, I probably would’ve forced some weird gimmick just to look different.
Jeong Hyeok smiled at her with quiet approval.
Looking back, the very idea of an entertainment company’s own YouTube variety show already carried raw novelty. If they had piled experimental concepts on top of that, the whole thing might have flopped. Following Min-jeong’s argument at the planning stage—sticking to the most proven variety format, the so-called “comfort food” structure—had been the right call.
While Jeong Hyeok was still analyzing the format, the show moved past the members’ casual small talk on departure day and into the car games that followed.
He watched the variety show and checked real-time comments at the same time.
Meanwhile Yeon-woo, who had been scanning the comments just like Jeong Hyeok, narrowed his eyes.
Past life, actor, saved the world? That comment feels like it knows something… Looking at the IDs, Japanese users? Hmm. I should dig into that when I have time.
And so Yeon-woo planted suspicion in completely the wrong place, while a pair of innocent otaku stood on the brink of being investigated by professional operatives who could go toe-to-toe with the NIS.
Subscribers who had watched the video began sharing the link with friends.
Word of mouth pulled in more viewers, and the YouTube algorithm began pushing Saebyeol Family hard.
As subscribers and live concurrent viewers climbed, the people watching the live stream on the channel burst out laughing the moment the quizzes and mini-games ended and the group arrived at the lodging for the song-guessing game.
The live chat window flooded with laughter.
On screen, Yeon-woo and Jeong Cheol-min continued to struggle through the song questions.
Then the final track played. Yeon-woo finally shot to his feet with a triumphant look and nailed the answer.
“This is the title track, right? Axis’s Universe.”
“Team Beyond the Stream: Han Byeol. Correct!”
Watching from the lodging, Dong-ha and the rest of Axis erupted in cheers.
“That’s our hyung-nim for you!”
“What’s with that tone? Anyway, we should leave a comment from the official account.”
“Oh, should we? Do we need company permission for that?”
“Come on, for one comment? We’ve been around long enough.”
At Jae-won’s words Dong-ha nodded and started typing.
Other subscribers immediately piled on with replies and likes.
That opened the floodgates. Other YouTube channels that had been hanging back started dropping comments of their own.
Axis might have left theirs out of pure gratitude, but YouTube was a battlefield for every extra subscriber. If a video was exploding in real time, sliding a spoon onto that table was simply common sense.
Even official broadcaster channels joined the comment pile-on. Individuals started sharing the video across countless group chats, and countless scattered bits of hype rolled together into one massive snowball.
Near the end of the week’s episode, Gong Min-jeong checked the subscriber count again.
She could not believe her eyes.
The video had not even finished yet when she raised her voice.
“Our channel just broke two million subscribers in real time!”
Everyone in the room reacted at once.
“Huh? Wasn’t it just a little over 1.7 when the show dropped? That fast is even possible?”
“We still haven’t gotten the Silver or Gold Play Buttons yet, right?”
“Insane. Two million.”
Yeon-woo knew about the buttons YouTube sent out.
And after that comes the Diamond Play Button at ten million, right?
Looking around, he could see everyone was genuinely fired up by a result that showed up as a clean number.
Makes sense. All the past hit projects were actually LN’s achievements. Saebyeol only just founded the company—we haven’t really posted anything of our own yet.
Of course every staff member knew the actors under the label carried massive name value. But there still was no flagship project under the Saebyeol Entertainment or Saebyeol Media banner, and the CFs were only contracted—actual shoots had not even started—so there was nothing concrete to point to yet.
Yeon-woo looked around and raised his voice.
“While we’re at it, let’s keep running new content on the YouTube channel and go for the Diamond Play Button!”
The staff answered as one.
“Diamond Play Button!”
“Let’s go!”
In truth Saebyeol was an actor management company, not a YouTube channel, so chanting “Diamond Play Button” together felt a little strange. But Saebyeol was both a management company and a media content producer. Having a powerful platform that could directly serve self-produced content meant the YouTube channel would only grow more influential over time.
The age of one-way broadcasting dominated by networks is fading.
Ironically, LN’s biggest successes had not been the drama that scored exceptional ratings on a generalist channel or the domestic film that drew ten million viewers.
It was the ones that stepped outside the mainstream that hit the hardest.
The low-budget indie film Sketch had done it. So had the Korean fantasy series White Blood, locked into an exclusive Netflix deal.
While Yeon-woo was lost in thought, the variety show moved to the moments just before bedtime.
Then PD Joo began secretly calling the members into a room one by one.
While Yeon-woo was out running a drone airlift operation with Han Hae-un to retrieve snow chains and a report, the production team prepared the bedtime mission.
Outside, Yeon-woo memorized the entire report and burned it. Inside the lodging the other members were summoned one after another to PD Joo’s room and each received a single item.
On screen PD Joo handed Han Byeol a car air freshener and explained.
“From now on I’ll be giving each of you one ‘car-related item.’ You have to keep it intact until tomorrow without the other members noticing, then turn it in. Only then do you get breakfast.”
Han Byeol took the air freshener and panicked.
“What do I do? Where am I supposed to hide this?!”
“That’s for you to figure out, Han Byeol.”
She hurried out, looked around frantically, then ducked into the bathroom. She set the freshener next to the one already there, camouflaging it as something that had always belonged to the lodging, and walked out with awkward steps.
The other members had already decided the snow chains Yeon-woo had brought from somewhere must be the mission item. Only after Yeon-woo finished burning the report by the campfire and came back inside was he finally called into the production room.
Watching that, the actors in the conference hall shook their heads.
“I was completely sure those snow chains were it.”
Son Jin-uk said it, and Jeong Cheol-min nodded.
“The theme was car accessories and he suddenly shows up with snow chains, so of course I thought the same.”
But the item Yeon-woo received from PD Joo on screen was a “Hi-Pass card.”
“Hmm? This is small and thin—should be easy to hide.”
PD Joo shook his head.
“The others didn’t get anything that big either. And since it literally says ‘Hi-Pass’ on the card, if anyone finds it you’re completely cornered.”
“What if I just put it in my wallet—”
“Wallets are banned.”
“Damn…”
When Yeon-woo opened the door and stepped out, the members who had already received their missions were waiting right there.
Watching the scene now, Yeon-woo nodded as he recalled the past.
Right. I got mine last, so everyone was already waiting. The second I stepped outside I’d get body-searched. I was racking my brain over what to do.
Son Jin-uk and Jeong Cheol-min immediately charged in to search him.
And the next sequence made every staff member and actor in the conference hall—and every subscriber watching across the country—doubt their own eyes.
Even the actors were seeing the edited version for the first time; none of them had figured out how Yeon-woo had hidden it during the actual shoot.
“What the hell…? He hid it like that?”