Hours of Effort
For a while, things had gone quiet.
The video of my confrontation with an armed criminal rode the mainstream press and blew my subscriber count past a hundred and twenty thousand in a single stroke. From there it kept climbing, until YouTube showed a hundred and sixty thousand. Then it stalled—until something I never saw coming.
"Are you even listening? Anyway, the reaction right now is insane. Since it's already like this, why don't we just film a bunch of other dance videos and upload those too?"
Yoonjae's voice, wound tight with excitement, hammered at my ear. Even so, my head was somewhere else entirely. The number on the screen read 187,357.
It had jumped enormously in a single day. Barely five hours had passed since Yoonjae finished the edit and put the video up, and already the response was huge. Views stood at five hundred and twenty thousand.
The most-watched thing on my channel was still the duel with the knife-wielding culprit, at 2.31 million. Next came the video where I'd gotten tangled up with feminists and talked through military-service bonus points and the claim that policewomen were useless, at 1.42 million. Set beside those, a video clearing five hundred and twenty thousand views in five hours was running genuinely hot.
So this is the power of K-pop? There are English comments everywhere.
I knew K-pop videos and dance covers pulled huge numbers on YouTube. I just hadn't expected a reaction this big from merely being filed under that category.
"That's not it. This is proof of how exceptional your talent is, Hani. K-pop dance covers are a dime a dozen. So why, out of all of them, did people choose yours?"
"......"
"Of course, my editing is outstanding—ahaha, kidding. You've got star quality. A pull that draws people in just by being on screen."
The praise kept rolling after that, until the embarrassment got bad enough that I had to wave him off and tell him to stop. Come on. I wasn't anyone that impressive.
Still, I decided to take his suggestion seriously. Even a rough look said this was content that would clear a million views without breaking a sweat. If there was a format that could keep delivering numbers like that, grabbing onto it was the obvious move.
"You didn't use Yerin's art for the thumbnail this time."
"For content like this, live footage just works better."
He had a point. The thought reminded me to wrap up with Yoonjae and call Yerin. We'd talked two days ago, but she'd seemed a little busy, and I'd hung up quickly. It had been nagging at me.
"Unniiii!"
"Oh—yeah. Have you eaten?"
"No. More importantly, do you realize this is the first time you've called me first?"
Huh? Had I?
I hadn't been paying attention, so I hadn't noticed, but digging through my memory, it did seem that way. Even when I reached out first, it was a message, or an invite to a chat. An actual phone call, started by me, might really have been a first.
"Is that such a big deal?"
"Of course it is! It's an incredibly important issue!"
Her energy was through the roof. When I asked if something good had happened, the answer came back in a single burst.
"Your dance, unni! Kyaaaa!"
"C-calm down. What's gotten into you?"
She was so happy she couldn't stand it, she said. She'd caught the live broadcast too, but the moment the video hit YouTube she'd put it on repeat for a solid hour—and in the process, she'd fallen for me again.
A chill ran through me.
She had to have misspoken. Right? Or maybe, among kids these days, it was just a word you could toss around as a light joke.
Anyway, we talked about the view count on today's upload, and when her earlier answer came back to me—that she still hadn't eaten—we decided to get lunch together. Fortunately it was the school's foundation day, so Yerin was off. Gangnam was only about twenty minutes by subway, close enough that meeting on her side was no burden at all.
Between the usual YouTube thumbnails and how much she helped us at the Ladies Cup last time, I still haven't properly paid her back.
You can't put a price on everything, but even a rough tally said the help had been enormous. Meals for four people across five days, plus every living expense that came with them. Desks, chairs, computers, and equipment set up for practice—not cheap, not secondhand. All of it new, and all of it high-end. Yerin had offered that as if it were nothing.
She seemed to dodge any talk about herself, so I hadn't pried. Even so, a relationship where I only ever took couldn't exist. Better to keep making these small, ordinary gestures of thanks, and keep making them.
"Oh? Hello!"
On my way out I spotted the grandmother I'd helped collect empty bottles the other day. The moment she saw my face she greeted me warmly. A glance showed the cart she pushed was completely empty today. The haul must have been thin.
"Grandma, try this. It's good when you get a little hungry."
"Hm?"
I handed the puzzled woman a chocolate bar—the kind I kept as emergency rations for when I was short on time running between the gym and the academy.
I am a thoroughly prepared man!
The truth was that every other woman carried a handbag, and it felt strange to be the only one who didn't. Carrying one around empty felt just as strange, so I'd taken to keeping a few snacks in it.
"All right. I'll eat it gladly."
"Don't push yourself too hard. Take it easy!"
We traded a few more words, then parted. Both of us had somewhere to be. I came out onto the main road, caught a taxi, and the rest of the way didn't take long.
"Unniiiii!"
The moment I stepped out of the cab, Yerin—waiting at our meeting spot—came running, waving hard. A little over five-foot-three, a face that read cute from head to toe, and she didn't so much as slow down before diving straight into my arms.
"......"
"Hehe."
It was exactly what Mia did. I stroked her hair a few times, peeled her off, and led her to the restaurant I'd looked up beforehand.
Today's menu was Korean-style pork cutlet, the sweeter, Western-leaning cousin of tonkatsu. I cut it for her while she strained and groaned, then swapped our plates. At my overflowing manners, Yerin's eyes sparkled.
We'd been eating for a good while when she suddenly brought up something I hadn't expected.
"Unni, you know how we said we'd go on a trip once vacation starts."
"Huh? Yeah, we did. You said you were making plans, right?"
I remembered hearing it at the housewarming. When I agreed, she went on, bright with it.
"Winter break isn't until December, though, and that's way too far off. So I was thinking we could go the weekend of the second week of November. Do you have time?"
"Huh? W-wait a second..."
I'd been listening without much thought, and the specificity of the date threw me. I pulled out my phone to check.
The weekend of the second week of November. The audition was the first week, and the only thing anywhere near it was seeing Lac off on Wednesday, the day he enlisted. So—send Lac off Wednesday, then leave late Friday afternoon?
"It's open, I guess. But will Mia be all right?"
"It only matters if you're all right, unni. If Mia unni can't make it, the two of us can just go. We'll take her along next time."
"That's not how it works. We said we'd go together."
"Tch!"
Yerin pushed her lips out, openly disappointed. Pleading wasn't going to get her anywhere, and in the end she nodded and gave in.
"Okay. Then I'll ask if she has time and let you know."
"Yeah. You really do take on a lot, Yerin."
Drive like this, from a high school sophomore. What had I even been doing at that age? Back when I was a second-year, I remembered flipping through novels and comics in class, then heading straight for a PC bang the moment school let out.
Hmm. Looking back, it had been fun at the time, but the regret lingered. I should have lived a little harder. Then again, regret was something everyone carried.
It's a late regret. It's not too late even now, so I'll stay faithful to what's in front of me.
I saw Yerin off and went home. I'd been poking around YouTube for a bit when Mia got in touch. She said she'd make the time no matter what, even if she didn't have any. And just like that, the trip on the second week of November was set.
Next month's schedule just got a lot tighter.
Having things to do, whatever they were, struck me as a good thing.
Once this month's YouTube payout comes in, the travel costs won't be a problem either. Anyway, where are we even going?
Yerin had said she'd handle the planning, and curiosity tugged at me. The sea? The mountains? Some old historic site? Which way was she even thinking?
At first I almost asked. Not knowing, though, carried its own quiet anticipation, and it set off all kinds of pleasant imagining, so I decided to leave it alone. Come to think of it, a trip with people who weren't family would be my first since I'd broken up with my girlfriend in my mid-twenties.
I hope it's a good time.
Mia and Yerin. Both first meetings had been awkward and strange, but by now they were among the most important ties I had. A trip with the two of them. Nearly a month still remained, and I was already looking forward to it.
The high from the trip didn't last.
Practice, and more practice. Only practice was going to secure any future I had.
"That's it—soft wrist turn from there! No, that kills the feel. Don't cut it; carry it through! Yes, ease off to the right and extend that leg!"
For this audition at JYC Entertainment, the academy said three of us would be going, including me. The other two were young—sixteen and seventeen—and the way they threw themselves into it was something else. The moment school ended they came straight to the academy and danced and sang until eleven, sometimes midnight. Watching kids that young already working so hard was almost blinding.
"Unni, you're going to pass. You sing well, you dance well, and if you're this pretty on top of it..."
"No, come on. For an idol, age is what matters in the end. You two are young and talented, with real futures ahead of you. You'll be the ones they pick."
"That's not true. You're still plenty young, unni!"
There were girl-group members on the older side, sure, but twenty-four was definitely not a small number. All the more so for someone who wasn't a trainee at an agency already closing in on debut, but stuck at the level of an ordinary academy.
"Even so, you can do it, unni. Let's both give it everything we've got."
"Y-yeah... Thanks."
The truth was, I had not one shred of interest in debuting in a girl group. I was only here for the free lessons, and because passing the audition by some stroke of luck would also net me a nice little fee. How was I supposed to explain that without it sounding awful?
Anyway. Audition prep, full tilt. Broadcasts, a steady four or five hours every single day. And morning workouts at Myung-hoon's Gym, never skipped. Time, spent to the brim.
And at last... that day arrived.