Icarus
After Lunari's new-song teaser dropped, Kang Seong-min worked his way through every outlet he could find.
"Yeong-il really shanked this one."
The screen was a neat summary of the domestic music industry's take.
Mostly lukewarm from the major-label side.
The consensus ran VTuber-fandom bait, too maniac, commercially underwhelming.
"Heh heh heh."
The year-end awards weren't far off now.
When the numbers looked roughly even, the last impression was always what counted.
The girl group IG had debuted this year hadn't posted numbers on Lunari's level, but they'd been running since the start of the year, so the cumulative data wasn't bad.
Lunari's Mmnya was, timing-wise, the final release right before the awards judging window.
If her image took a hit here, the scales would tip hard one way.
And those high-nosed industry types weren't exactly lining up to hand a trophy to a VTuber.
Kang Seong-min drummed his fingers on the desk.
Our kids might actually snag Rookie of the Year.
Muse Family doing well was profitable enough, sure—but it didn't compare to an artist from IG Entertainment proper putting up results.
Especially Rookie of the Year. That award was something else entirely.
Rookie of the Year was the one prize an artist could only ever win once in their life.
A title that stuck forever, a line on the résumé that followed them for the rest of their career.
Just being a Rookie of the Year winner bought you a permanent edge in everything that came after, and the asking price climbed with it.
Ad rates, booking fees, the speed of fandom growth—every metric tilted in your favor.
Look at the past winners and the list was thick with people who'd gone on to top-tier status.
In other words, whoever took Rookie of the Year this year could reshape the market map for years to come.
"Heh heh heh heh."
Pocket the revenue either way, and maybe let our own kids walk off with the award?
This year's just coming up roses all around.
The grin wouldn't leave Kang Seong-min's face.
But buried in domestic chatter, there was one market he'd completely missed.
Overseas.
The new track hadn't even been translated yet.
And with Lunari having no overseas fanbase to speak of, there hadn't been any reason to look.
The VTuber angle was its own peculiarity, but a domestic entertainment company hadn't been careful enough to catch even that.
Meanwhile.
The thirty-second teaser video had quietly made landfall across the water in Japan.
A well-known Japanese kiri-nuki channel that clipped VTuber activity from home and abroad.
Clean translations, a good eye for the funny beats—Lunari's clips had shown up there now and then.
Optical motion-capture VTubers weren't common, so every day she ran content from the studio, the channel came looking.
Naturally, Lunari's Die-for-It Tonkatsu mukbang had been edited and posted too.
And the thirty-second teaser she'd announced that day had gone up as a bonus.
A short clip built for the short-form era, with a melody that stuck like glue.
Lunari's new-song teaser spread across Japanese social media and racked up hundreds of thousands of retweets.
Before long it was turning up on streams from big-name Japanese VTubers too.
An unusual case—stirring first overseas, against the flat domestic response.
And before the official release, the whole situation was slowly sliding into territory where nobody could easily call the numbers.
Ever since the day Han So-yeong had gone tumbling right in front of me, I'd started helping out with company work now and then.
Maybe because of that, the old titles—Composer-nim, Producer-nim, Yeong-il-nim—had all shifted to Do-yoon-nim, and the conversations had grown a shade warmer.
Was it just that an accident had given us an actual acquaintance?
Mm. No. Definitely not.
Even now, remembering the look on our manager's face that day still put a little fear in me.
The Han So-yeong I'd known until then was a workaholic.
If her attitude had gotten friendlier, it was probably…
my luck's fault.
"As expected, Do-yoon-nim… that terrifying insight… did you predict all of this?"
"…"
Han So-yeong was buzzing, her energy cranked all the way up.
"Things are looking seriously weird on the Japan side, you know? I think it'd be good to ask Yui-nim and set up a collab stream or something."
"Is that so…"
Yeah. Exactly this bizarre luck of mine.
What on earth was it this time.
The track wasn't even out yet—why were people reacting from across the ocean.
"That!! That's why Composer-nim poured all that time and money into making a teaser. C-could it be—you calculated that Japan would catch on first…?"
"No no no, no way."
"Terrifying…"
This person wasn't listening to a word I said.
Haa…
After Han So-yeong was hospitalized, I'd taken on a share of the work under the banner of helping out.
She'd said it was simple stuff, so I'd just knocked it out fast.
And then.
"I can't believe it! We switched editors and the whole channel's view-count growth is—!!"
"The other applicants were people with big studio résumés or film-major degrees. If it'd been me, I would've hired on experience!"
That was the admiration Han So-yeong had sent my way.
I hadn't even thought about looking at experience…
Out of five people, that one person's editing reels had just been the ones that caught my eye, so I'd picked them.
Well. It helped the company, so that was that.
At the time, I'd let it go.
But even after that.
"That live-commerce offer we turned down—the rate was above industry average, so honestly I really wanted to take it. But you said turning it down would be better…"
I'd just figured it wasn't a great menu for a VTuber to sell on stream.
Unless you were doing a close-up cam to show the food, it was awkward.
If it was something easy to imagine tasting, maybe. But it was cheese tonkatsu.
You'd have to show the cheese stretch and all that, right.
"Another mid-tier streamer took that live commerce, and a few days later a hygiene complaint hit the tonkatsu company and there was a massive refund crisis!"
"…"
And as time went on, the reports kept coming in.
"The merch company Do-yoon-nim turned down came back with a new offer thirty percent higher!!"
"The game ad Yui-nim ran was a smash hit! They hit number one market share after launch and sent a thank-you bonus!!! That was your recommendation too!"
No, seriously, what even was this.
They were good news, and it was a relief they'd helped the company, but.
"It's almost creepy… From now on I'll have to consult Do-yoon-nim on every important decision."
"That's a misunderstanding. I honestly wasn't thinking anything special."
"…!! So it's an innate sense…?"
"It was simple work, so I just processed it fast and it happened to turn out that way."
"That's even more impressive? Improvisation, fast and accurate judgment…!"
There was no getting through to her.
Once the image started hardening, every protest only made me look more humble.
Still, if there was one thing among the work I'd handled that you could honestly call a failure—
it was sinking a heavy budget into the Mmnya music video.
I'd gone with an expensive animation studio, and the quality had been satisfying enough.
On the VTuber side it hadn't been bad, but outside reactions hadn't been all that positive.
Up to now we'd been getting abnormal levels of attention.
This was the normal part.
I just got lucky.
—or so I'd been thinking, right up until yesterday.
"'Foresight' doesn't even cover it. I'm getting chills from Do-yoon-nim's insight now. The reason you put so much care into the animation production… was that you were aiming at Japan…"
There's no way.
It was a good thing, sure.
A good thing. But it was a lot of pressure.
"Ugh."
Anyway.
Domestically it looked like it was going to be lukewarm.
If we could at least recover some of the investment that had gone into making the animation from overseas, I'd take it.
"Do-yoon-nim, do you happen to trade stocks?? Any stock tips…"
"I don't even have an account."
Feeling thoroughly undeserving of the treatment that had flipped in just a few weeks, I hung up.
This was a fluke streak, pure and simple.
Please don't get your hopes up.
Falling from high up only hurts more—how far was this going to climb.
It was basically the same situation as my Mellow chart numbers.
Blackout Cat had slipped one spot from fifth to sixth.
Spotlight was stuck at twelfth.
The other tracks were all hanging around at ranks they didn't deserve either.
After tasting rankings this high—
this new song would probably crash.
Maybe it wouldn't even chart at all.
Maybe we'd just been doing better than our station allowed.
The saying that human greed has no end fit me perfectly.
Didn't think I'd ever care about this kind of thing.
Creeeak—
I hid my sulky mouth behind a mask and stepped out of the house.
I was heading to the convenience store for a new product anyway, and I wanted a hit of cold air while I was at it.
This food item was on the spicy side—probably because Yu Nari had been the only one eating the Die-for-It Tonkatsu last time and it still bugged her.
I can handle spicy just fine.
Whether it was genetic or not, I remembered everyone in my family being good with heat.
I reached the convenience store, made a straight line for the familiar fresh-food section, and found the item.
Was this about my seventh trip in and out of this place now?
At this point, with me already managing trips to the company, this was lying-down-and-eating-rice-cake easy.
"Just this, please."
See? Not even a stutter.
The fact that the evening-shift clerk was always the same person might have helped, psychologically.
Either way, the leave-the-room training Yu Nari had prescribed was definitely working.
Ah. There is one problem, though.
This clerk worked way too hard.
Natural predator to shy customers like me.
"Oh, you're getting this one. Ah! Want to take this drink too? It's spicy, so it goes better together."
Today, again, she came at me with a recruitment pitch.
"No, I'm fine. Just this, please."
"Ahh! I'm not trying to sell it to you—I bought it for myself, but wouldn't you know it, it was a buy-one-get-one. I've got one left over… I can't just throw it away. I'd really like you to drink it."
"…"
Hmm. Free stuff was hard to refuse.
I almost took it without thinking, then corrected course.
As a rule, you don't eat things strangers hand you.
"I'm really fine, thank you."
I declined, paid for only my own item, and that was that.
Mission clear for another day.
I headed home with my head held high.
Late night on Link.
Current viewers: 1,252
A veteran streamer's advice show was a popular Friday-night staple.
Stories of every kind poured in without regard for gender or age, and the streamer answered with crisp, cathartic advice.
With years of history behind it, the counseling stream drew all sorts of viewers.
A common enough story from a woman in love.
After hearing the rest, the streamer poked at the gaps in a routine, professional way.
"Huh? He wears a mask? Then you don't even know if he's good-looking, right?"
The convenience-store clerk answered brightly.
CCTV?
That was when I sensed something off.
After running counseling content for so long, I'd developed a nose for every flavor of villain—and that instinct was firing now.
"Does this person even know you exist? Have you ever actually talked?"
"Hmm…… so you haven't actually had a conversation, have you."
Cut—!
"Sss, that was starting to feel like it wasn't all-ages, so I cut it."
Was that an assassin trying to blow up the stream?
She'd barreled through her monologue, and the second the conversation went off-pitch, he cut her.
Judging by the churning chat, the viewers' dopamine had spiked hard.
Cutting it at a reasonable line—that was a win.
Every time I do counseling content, one or two weirdos like that always show up to put on a performance.