Learning to Be Fans
“Look at me. I forgot we were supposed to go grocery shopping.”
Ha-eun's aunt lamented as she peered into the completely bare refrigerator.
“Maybe I should just order delivery.”
“Oh, then—”
I was about to say I'd just head home when she trailed off.
“Auntie!! Then let's order tteokbokki!”
Ha-eun beat me to it by a split second.
“Tteokbokki? Yeonjae's here too—let's order something nicer.”
“Yeonjae loves tteokbokki too! Right, Yeonjae? You're okay with it, right??”
“……Yeah.”
Who could possibly say no to a face like that? I averted my eyes from the manic gleam that flared in Ha-eun's the instant the word tteokbokki was spoken. Terrifying…
“Then let's get tteokbokki. Do you know a good place?”
“There's one with a new menu item out!”
Bubbling with excitement, Ha-eun huddled with her aunt over the delivery app, chattering away. I gazed at her, wholly absorbed in picking a menu, with quiet desperation.
Ha-eun, please remember I exist.
Abandoning your friend the moment food catches your eye. What shallow friendship is this?
I sighed inwardly, still rooted to the sofa.
Not that I was sitting alone. Someone was beside me, quiet as the air itself.
Ha-eun's cousin. The girl who had asked for my number.
“…….”
“…….”
This is killing me.
The silence blanketing the sofa was growing heavier by the minute.
I should've turned right around and gone home when I had the chance.
The moment I'd run into the girl in front of the villa, I'd frozen solid. She'd likewise stared at me, stiff as a statue, and while the two of us stood there stammering uselessly, of all people, Ha-eun's aunt had appeared. When she told us to stay for dinner, I was dragged all the way inside without a single chance to refuse.
Lee Yeonjae…?
Ha-eun's aunt had apparently already known I was her friend, but the girl, it seemed, had not. The moment we stepped inside and I pulled off my mask, she'd murmured my name with a face drained white.
When she repeated it, looking faint enough to keel over on the spot, Ha-eun belatedly introduced me—whether out of panic, I couldn't say. She rattled off a whole list of things to keep strictly confidential, but none of it seemed to be actually reaching the girl's ears.
Should I say something?
It felt too quiet, so I shot a glance at the girl beside me—then immediately snapped my gaze back to the front.
I'll just stay very, very still.
She was wearing the face of someone who wanted to die on the spot.
“Um…”
It was a long while before she found her voice.
“I was truly so rude this morning….”
“It's fine. I'm the one who should apologize. I was startled too.”
“No. Please don't apologize….”
The girl's face went from pale to utterly ashen.
“I'm so sorry, but could we just pretend it never happened? I'll reflect on it for the rest of my life, I swear… If you'd just keep it a secret from those two….”
The words sounded like something out of a criminal's mouth, which flustered me a little, but I readily agreed.
Well, I already gave the mask I was wearing this morning to Euntaek anyway.
She'd lost a mask she liked; no wonder she was beside herself.
Only after hearing my answer did the color return to her face.
“I'd heard ages ago that Ha-eun was friends with the actor Lee Yeonjae, but I had no idea you two still kept in touch.”
“Please, speak casually with me.”
The actor, she'd said. At the awkward title I asked her again to relax, and she managed an uncomfortable, “R-right. Sure, Yeonjae.”
The girl—Hwang Yeonju, she introduced herself—explained that she was a third-year high school student at the school nearby. After a few exchanges, the awkward air gradually thawed.
Right on cue, the tteokbokki arrived.
“I'm sorry to feed you delivery when you came all this way. Next time you visit, I'll cook you something good myself.”
“Not at all. Thank you for having me over.”
Ha-eun's aunt gazed at me fondly.
“How can a boy be this sweet and well-mannered? I wish he were my son.”
“Mom. Stop being embarrassing.”
When Hwang Yeonju chided her, her mother huffed that she couldn't even pay a compliment.
She treated me not as some celebrity off the television but as Ha-eun's friend, and privately, that put me at ease.
“Thank you for walking Ha-eun all the way here. There are a lot of delinquents hanging around the neighborhood these days.”
“Really?”
“Kids in school uniforms smoking, spitting—honestly. I've reported them any number of times and it never gets better.”
Ha-eun's aunt sighed, and I set my chopsticks down with a matching look of concern.
I'll see Ha-eun all the way inside her own home from now on.
It just seemed like the only way my mind would rest easy. I told her aunt I'd make sure she got home safe every day for the next week, so she shouldn't worry.
“Yeonjae, I can get home fine by myself. You don't have to—”
“Here's a glass noodle. Eat it.”
“Okay!”
When I fished a noodle out of the tteokbokki and held it out, Ha-eun accepted it with a blissful face. Watching her scoop up a rice ball drenched to overflowing in tteokbokki sauce, I could tell she'd already forgotten whatever it was she'd been about to say.
Can it really be that good?
That so much tteokbokki could vanish into such a small body was a genuine mystery.
“It's a relief to have you around, Yeonjae. Really, thank you. Raising a daughter, you have no idea how anxious it's been lately. I keep worrying someone might bother our Yeonju on the street.”
“Mo-Mom.”
Hwang Yeonju's face went pale all over again.
“And you—if anyone asks for your number or whether you have a boyfriend, you refuse them right away. Understood?”
“……I get it, so please stop.”
Hwang Yeonju screwed her eyes shut. I felt awkward myself and looked away, and so the dinner came to an end with only Ha-eun truly happy.
Fortunately, the tteokbokki wasn't the only thing I gained that day.
It turned out Hwang Yeonju was a seasoned veteran of idol fandom.
She'd apparently even been active as a Top-seed fansite master, but since I had no idea what that phrase meant, I kept quiet.
“Yeonju-unni says that when an album drops, streaming comes first. She says if we have a spare phone, we can stream on that too, but since we don't, let's skip that part.”
“Got it.”
Thanks to the fandom guide Hwang Yeonju had so painstakingly written up for us, the fog of cluelessness lifted. Neither Ha-eun nor I knew the first thing about supporting an idol, and we'd been planning to study it piece by piece—her guide made everything vastly easier.
“What's a toploader?”
“I think it's something you decorate with photocards inside?”
And what on earth was a photocard?
My head was starting to swim.
“Probably short for photo card. Wait, do they sell No Bi's separately? Where do we even buy them?”
Ha-eun asked brightly, but I had no answers either.
I need one of Euntaek's too….
Searching each term on the list one by one, I gathered that photocards were randomly included inside albums, one per copy or so.
“Huh, it says random shipping. Ugh.”
“Then I guess we should just buy a lot of albums.”
“What do we do? Should we just ask No Bi to give us his? If I ask, he's a hundred percent not going to, so you go use your aegyo on him.”
“Ha-eun, focus.”
After much deliberation, we decided each of us would buy just one album to start. We left the rest for tomorrow's follow-up meeting and stepped out of Ha-eun's house.
A huge silhouette stood in front of the villa, and I flinched for a second.
“There you are, sir.”
“Jinbae-hyung, why are you waiting outside?”
It was freezing out; he could have waited in the car. Jinbae-hyung, the tip of his nose faintly red, smiled.
“It wasn't safe.”
Unless he'd expected Ha-eun herself, this street looked far too peaceful to warrant that word. I almost asked him whether he couldn't see that enormous streetlight right there, but I let it go.
“Shall we head to the car?”
“Yes. Thank you for coming out.”
Hyung laughed and said I was being oddly formal about it. The warmth radiating from the huge figure standing beside me felt solid and reassuring.
After that, Ha-eun and I threw ourselves into preparing our fandom support with real diligence. Whenever we hit a wall, we contacted Hwang Yeonju, and watching her answer every single question without a single hesitation, I found myself genuinely impressed.
The more I learned about how fans expressed their love for the people they admired, the stronger that feeling grew.
“People are really incredible….”
“They are.”
“I had no idea there'd be this much to keep track of. Hah, honestly, reading an anatomy textbook might be easier than this.”
Ha-eun pulled a tearful face, begging to go study instead. I, too, ached to get back to my script, but I stayed put like a good boy.
“There's a limit to what the two of us can manage anyway, so let's just do what we can. It's to cheer Bihyuk on.”
“Do you really think No Bi will feel like we're cheering for him if this is what it takes…?”
I couldn't quite bring myself to answer Ha-eun's murmur with a confident yes. Because even as we studied fan culture one video of toploader decorating at a time, the thought kept creeping in—is this actually right?
So we decided to recruit a different helper.
I explained the situation over the phone and asked Sehyun-hyung for his help. A beat of silence traveled through the receiver—then came a burst of outright howling laughter.
—Hahaha! I can't. Hey, who on earth studies to be a fan? You're genuinely unbelievable. I knew you were something else, but this is beyond words.
“Stop laughing and just help me, hyung.”
—Liking someone is being a fan. You don't have to grind your way there with a textbook.
Sehyun-hyung told us that true fandom only comes from doing it with a joyful heart.
—I always knew you weren't a normal kid, but apparently your friend isn't exactly ordinary either.
At his remark that birds of a feather really did flock together, I pursed my lips. Beside me, Ha-eun, who'd been eavesdropping with bated breath, scrunched up her face too.
“Excuse me, sorry to jump in out of nowhere! But if you say it like that, won't the person listening feel bad?”
—Oh, is that Yeonjae's friend?
“Yes! Hello! I'm Park Ha-eun!”
Having introduced herself with pointless brightness, Ha-eun promptly flared up again.
“That's right, so don't treat me like I'm the same as Yeonjae!”
“…….”
So that's what you were angry about.
My sense of solidarity crumbled into dust. Oblivious to my quiet, wounded stare, Sehyun-hyung laughed and apologized.
—Fine, fine. Sorry, sorry. But seriously, you two need to relax. Bihyuk is going to be over the moon just knowing you're thinking of him like this.
“We still want to support him properly.”
Ha-eun murmured, her voice low and earnest.
“Yeonjae and I promised back in elementary school that we'd be No Bi's number-one fans. As his number-one fans, we wanted to do everything other fans do for him….”
—Aww, is that right?
Sehyun-hyung's voice turned as gentle as someone soothing a child.
—I get where your hearts are, truly. But remember, I've been in Bihyuk's seat before. Right now, that boy probably can't even tell whether his food is going into his mouth or his nose. The other members will be the same. They've been running toward this debut for years.
I knew. That was exactly why Ha-eun and I had prepared all the more.
Because we wanted those years of effort by Noh Bihyuk and Lee Euntaek to feel that much more worth it. We didn't want to wave it off with a few careless words—we wanted them to know, beyond doubt, that we were cheering for them with everything we had.
Sehyun-hyung went quiet for a moment after listening to us. Then he spoke.
—Then how about we do this?
The night before the long-awaited debut showcase.
Noh Bihyuk and the members were trembling in the practice room like leaves.
“We debut tomorrow, right? That's actually happening?”
“I'm gonna throw up….”
“Then throw up now. You can't do it on stage tomorrow.”
After that dependable piece of wisdom from their leader, silence settled over the room for a moment.
Just then, the manager approached Bihyuk, saying a gift had arrived addressed to him.
“Who sent it?”
“Those friends of yours from before. I told them to come inside, but they just handed it over and left.”
The faces of Lee Yeonjae and Park Ha-eun floated up in Bihyuk's mind at once.
Little rascals. So the two of them were conspiring about something.
Snorting a small laugh, Bihyuk took the box.
“What is it? Is it food?”
“Ah, I get to look first!”
No time even to grab a knife with the members crowding him, Bihyuk tore the box open with his bare hands. Moments later, the members peered inside—and their eyes went wide.
“……What is all this?”