Trust the Fans
I couldn't quite predict what she was going to say, so a flicker of wariness rose in me.
Ha Ji-hyun spoke with the gentlest of smiles.
"Trust the d— the fans, please."
"I'm sorry — the what?"
"The fans. Your fans will search and watch so hard they'll get the two videos tangled up together. Then the views climb on their own, and it's that much easier to get picked up by the algorithm!"
She said it with such unshakable confidence I was almost sold. But the claim was a little light on realism.
Fans? I have fans?
A child actress with two brief appearances. Fans took five years minimum, didn't they?
Still, I didn't contradict Ha Ji-hyun, who clearly believed I had them. No point draining the energy of someone working this hard.
What mattered was that we'd kept our promise. If the views came, great. If they didn't, so be it.
"We did it! We're on In-geup-dong!"
...I really didn't think this would actually work.
Our prayers have FINALLY been answered!!! Get over to Hangil Entertainment's WeTube RIGHT NOW!!!
Dad's Screening 7% ratings promise — KEPT! Lee Su-a sings UNANSWER's "You Probably Don't Know What Heart Is in This Song but Someday I Want to Tell You chapter 1"
Even if you're not a Poolmosae, click the video I linked!!! See with your own eyes why we begged for the full version!!!
Apparently more people had wanted that cover than I'd expected. The moment the video went up, the people nicknamed Poolmosae — Full-version Parrots — ferried it across every community they could find, and it gathered a fair amount of heat.
On top of that, Oh Na-yoon and the members of UNANSWER filmed reaction videos and shared it on their personal social media, moving with real energy. Even if from their side it was just striking while the iron was hot, the ripples carried my name a good deal farther than before.
Still, though. In-geup-dong?
The last video I could explain — it had gone up on the network's official account and ridden Go Jin-gi's popularity. This time, I wasn't so sure.
The original was sitting at number one on the charts, and Oh Na-yoon and the rest of UNANSWER had joined forces to pump out content, but had all of that really been enough to put my cover on In-geup-dong?
"I was right, wasn't I? Your fans really came through!"
Ha Ji-hyun was beaming, even with a face worn thin from a morning of press calls.
We hadn't exactly used the cover as movie promotion, but the moment it hit In-geup-dong, articles started mentioning the film alongside it. A few reporters grilled us on whether I'd actually sung the whole song through, whether it'd been touched up with a little machine processing, and what we thought of all the comments telling me to debut as a singer.
Gwon Du-il's will on the matter was unshakable.
He said it to the press with his chest out. Then he came back and murmured to me, a little quieter,
"Of course, if you ever wanted to, I wouldn't stop you. Acting's the most fun right now, but that might change when you're a little older."
I just smiled.
I know what I'm good at, and I know what I love. I'm grateful people like my singing. That doesn't get to steer me. Right now, I was going to act, and I was going to change my mother's future. That was all.
"Hey. You wanna be this ajumma's apprentice?"
"Me? I only started today?"
"Exactly. Wanna be my apprentice?"
Park Young-ja, the pansori master who was an old acquaintance of Director Hong Il-beom, squeezed my hand tight.
"I'll treat you better than Il-beom ever could! Stick with me twenty years and you'll be Intangible Cultural Heritage — people'll call you a master."
"Wow, really?"
"You bet! This ajumma guarantees it!"
I giggled and slipped my hand free.
"I'd still rather act, though. Acting's the most fun."
"Tsk. Fun's for hobbies. You take what you're good at and make it your living — that's how you live happy."
"I'm good at acting too! When the movie comes out, you have to come see it."
Park Young-ja looked truly disappointed, and Lee Ok-dan, who'd come along for the interview, stepped in to mediate.
"Unni, are you trying to poach our actress right in front of me? Absolutely not."
"Ok-dan, you saw how good she is."
"Of course I did. And that's all? I saw her act, and I saw her sing. If she's good at everything, isn't the right thing to let the child do what she wants?"
"Aigoo, but still, what a waste..."
Lee Ok-dan led the still-reluctant Park Young-ja into the inner room, leaving me a little wave that said I should rest.
"Su-a. Water."
I took the cup Gwon Du-il held out, drank, and looked around Park Young-ja's house.
It was a home built near a quiet stretch of mountain, with a wide yard and high walls — high enough, I suspected, to practice singing without the neighbors filing a complaint. The living room looked like any ordinary family's, except for the folk paintings and taenghwa hanging here and there, and the small Buddha statues tucked into corners. In one of those corners sat something like an altar. I leaned in to study it, and Gwon Du-il tugged me gently back.
"I'm only saying this just in case, but you can't go touching that kind of thing."
"What kind of thing?"
"Huh? That's..."
I'd asked without much thought, and Gwon Du-il floundered. That was the face of a man thrown off because I didn't know what I was looking at.
I narrowed my eyes. Time to do a little detective work.
Before we came, I'd heard that Park Young-ja had been born into a Sesheupmu family — hereditary shamans — but the line had broken a generation back, and she'd learned pansori instead. The moment that came up yesterday, Gwon Du-il had shown up today in place of Lee Won-seok, who'd originally been scheduled to come with me.
He hadn't startled at the taenghwa or the altar. But every time I drifted toward them, he stuck close and steered me somewhere else.
What did Mom tell him?
"Oof! That general looks terrifying. Su-a, Uncle's scared, let's go that way, yeah?"
The way he was making a scene over a painting just to change the subject pretty much confirmed it.
I glanced up at the general in the taenghwa, staring down at me with blood-red eyes, and said it lightly.
Gwon Du-il went rigid. I smiled, just a little.
"That's a secret from Teacher Park."
Gods simply stay where they are. Humans are the ones who move. So pinning a human's actions on a god is cowardice, I think.
I don't deny that gods exist. I just don't believe they exert some enormous influence over people. Some acts are simply what that human chose to do.
A god can be a motive. A god can never be a reason.
...I could work this into Cheon-young, couldn't I?
"Where's my script and my notepad?"
"Ah — here."
I pulled the notepad from the bag Gwon Du-il handed me and wrote the thought out in full. Then I laid it against the script and refined Cheon-young's way of speaking, the small, precise movements. I annotated every scene she appeared in, thoroughly, and when I finally lifted my head, three pairs of eyes were looking down at me.
Park Young-ja murmured it with a hollow look on her face.
"Guess she really does have to act."
"Right?"
Lee Ok-dan nodded, thoroughly pleased. Gwon Du-il sat me up from where I'd been lying on my stomach. When had I even lain down?
Park Young-ja took the script from my hands, skimmed it, and looked at Lee Ok-dan.
"Have you been taking this kid around gut rituals?"
"No, not yet. We were going to if we needed to. Why?"
"You don't need to. If she just does what's written here, she'll look more convincing than most half-baked shamans."
Two of them stared at me like I was some kind of marvel. One of them couldn't sit still. I just grinned, the picture of innocence.