“Hello. It's Chanhwi. I just finished practice, and I'm finally heading home. The time is...... already past 9 p.m.”
Chanhwi kept talking to the smartphone filming him in selfie mode.
“Fortunately, I don't have work today, so I'm going home to get some rest. Oh, the guy behind me is my friend Yujin, who practices with me. Hey. What are you doing? You're not in the shot. Come closer.”
Yujin, who had been walking cautiously behind him in case the camera caught him, shook his head from side to side.
“He's the one who suggested we start NeoTube first, but he's acting strangely shy?”
***
“Yes. Hello, everyone. We're practicing choreography right now.”
“Everyone, today we're......”
For a while, Chanhwi was completely absorbed in NeoTube.
He filmed NeoTube videos at every opportunity, enough that everyone at the agency knew about it.
Today, he was walking around the agency while filming something else.
CEO Kim Dae-myeong and the two trainers spotted him as they passed and exchanged a few words.
“He's really fallen for it. Completely.”
“What's wrong with that? They're fresh-faced. It's nice to see.”
“CEO. But are they allowed to do that?”
When vocal trainer Park Mi-yeong raised the issue, CEO Kim Dae-myeong pointed out the obvious with an incredulous look.
“You two do it too?”
Vocal Boost Park Mi-yeong: 243K subscribers.
Dance Star Jang Ji-su: 171K subscribers.
Both of them made NeoTube videos whenever they had spare time, no differently from Chanhwi.
Moreover, since both had once made names for themselves onstage, their NeoTube channels were doing fairly well too.
“No, they're trainees. Is it okay for their faces to become known already?”
While Park Mi-yeong asked, Jang Ji-su checked the comments on Chanhwi's NeoTube channel.
[An Idol Trainee's Journey Home]
└He is handsome enough to be a trainee.
└Is he just a trainee? Or is he on the debut team?
└There are only two trainees. Does calling them a debut team even mean anything?
└He should spend that NeoTube time practicing more.
└There are only two of them. When will they ever debut?
└They're even recording all this for NeoTube. Upvote if you want to see them fail to debut and give up on their dreams, lol.
For now, the comments contained only a little interest and some criticism.
If this continued, it seemed likely to do nothing but hurt the kids' morale.
“Leave them to it. They must be doing it because they want to.”
The CEO spoke in an indifferent tone and walked away, but the trainers could not do the same.
‘How can we help them?’
The boys had not even been there a month, but they were talented, and they were putting in this much effort because they wanted to work hard. The trainers wondered whether there was anything they could do to help.
“......What are you doing?”
In the middle of their deliberation, Park Mi-yeong noticed Jang Ji-su fiddling with his smartphone and asked out of curiosity.
“I'm adding our kids' NeoTube channel as a related channel on mine.”
“It has a feature like that? Huh, my name is there too?”
When Park Mi-yeong, who had more subscribers, reacted with surprise, Jang Ji-su spoke as if aggrieved.
“Good grief. No wonder I wasn't getting any traffic from your side. We started together, but you've been the only one benefiting?”
When a channel was registered as related, its subscribers often flowed into the related channel.
Until now, plenty of people had moved from Jang Ji-su's channel to Park Mi-yeong's, but Park Mi-yeong did not know how to register a related channel, so none had flowed the other way.
“Well, you should have taught me how to do this.”
“Give me your phone. I'm going to add mine and the kids' channel.”
While the two NeoTube veterans did their bit for their students.
CEO Kim Dae-myeong returned to his office and used the internet to visit a fan café.
It had once been the fan café of a successful idol group, but decades after the group's retirement, it had become an old café visited only by die-hard fans.
“The kids I'm training have opened a NeoTube account. Please look after them.”
After uploading the post with a link, Kim Dae-myeong returned to his work as if nothing had happened.
However, none of those three knew what kind of ripple their actions would cause.
***
[Has Anyone Seen Vocal Boost Park Mi-yeong's Related Channels?]
There weren't any related channels before, but Dance Star Jang Ji-su and another channel suddenly appeared there? Anyone know why?
└Jang Ji-su had already added Park Mi-yeong as a related channel. A lot of subscribers moved from that side to Park Mi-yeong.
└Yeah. She's finally returning the favor for once.
└So Jang Ji-su has just been giving all this time without getting anything back? Lmao.
└But what's the channel under Jang Ji-su's? They look like trainees.
└It's on Park Mi-yeong's channel too. What is this? Are the two of them at the same company?
└Yeah, they are. I've been a Beat fan for 20 years, and Kim Dae-myeong posted the kids' channel link in the Beat fan café yesterday, saying he was training them. Park Mi-yeong and Jang Ji-su are both at DM Entertainment.
└No, honestly, the fact that you've been a Beat fan for 20 years is more shocking than these kids.
└Oh my, a fandom ancestor.
└No, stop focusing on me and go support the kids' channel.
“What's going on?”
Yesterday, they had not even had 900 subscribers, but today, the number had suddenly risen to 3,000.
“Why so suddenly?”
Only after scanning through the comments with a face still full of puzzlement did I understand the reason.
“Oh, the trainers......”
The fact that our trainers were NeoTubers too was quite unexpected.
Even more unexpected was the fact that the CEO had posted about us in his own fan café.
“Let's repay them somehow later.”
As I considered how best to repay them, I started searching for the next subject for a NeoTube video.
[Trainee Introductions]
[A Starry Journey Home]
[Idol Trainees: Choreography Class and Vocal Practice]
[A Trainee's Tour Inside the Agency]
[PTS ‘ON’ DANCE COVER]
[Park Jeong-sin ‘Wildflower’ COVER]
In the three weeks since starting NeoTube, we had uploaded six videos.
Could I say the best responses went to the first self-introduction video we uploaded and the two videos showcasing our skills?
‘It would be nice if we had something that could really take off.’
Frequently uploading simple vlogs or cover videos was not bad, but they lacked the power to create a sensation.
I had been pondering the matter in the practice room for half a day when the CEO came in.
“Are you two doing well?”
“CEO!”
As CEO Kim Dae-myeong entered the practice room, Yujin and I snapped to attention.
That reaction was only natural when the decision on whether the two of us would debut was in his hands.
Besides, to Chanhwi and Yujin, CEO Kim Dae-myeong was practically a revered senior before he was their CEO.
He might now be the CEO of a small or midsize agency, but he had once been the leader of Beat, a first-generation idol group that sparked the Korean Wave.
That great senior suddenly asked us a question.
“How many days has it been since you joined us?”
“It's been almost a month.”
The sudden question made both of our hearts pound at once.
Could we finally debut?
But his next question came out of nowhere.
“Have you taken any time off during that month?”
At that question, Yujin and I looked at each other and silently asked, ‘Have we ever taken a day off?’ before shaking our heads.
There were days when I did not go to my part-time job because the restaurant expected few customers, but we had never taken a break from practice.
“Take these.”
As though he had expected that answer, CEO Kim Dae-myeong handed us two tickets.
“It's a concert by a junior I know. Go have fun. It'll probably be a good learning experience too.”
We looked at each other again and tilted our heads.
Out of nowhere, we had been given a vacation.
***
“There are so many people.”
Even before the concert began, the visible part of the line alone appeared to contain more than 500 people by a rough estimate.
That was only natural, since Yujin and I had come to Im Chang-won's solo concert.
Im Chang-won.
An all-around entertainer famous enough to rank among the top five in South Korea.
It made me wonder what kind of connections CEO Kim Dae-myeong had that he could call someone like that merely a junior he knew.
“You know Senior Im Chang-won?”
Yujin nodded at my question.
The fact that even this guy, who knew nothing about the ways of the world, knew Senior Im Chang-won said it all.
“But do we have to keep these sunglasses on?”
I gave a wry smile at Yujin's question but nodded.
It might have been a needless concern, but the company had given them to us and told us to wear them in case our faces became known.
With this many people around, no one would have time to recognize us even without going this far.
Even so, wearing them was a condition we had agreed to in exchange for our outing, so it was best not to take them off.
A short while later, we entered the concert venue, took fairly good seats, and waited for the show.
“Why are you fidgeting so much?”
Yujin's feet were tapping so fast that I could feel the vibration from the seat beside him.
At my question, he turned to me with his face flushed in excitement and spoke.
“This is my first time coming to a concert like this.”
“Is that so?”
Tickets were notoriously hard to get, but I would have thought anyone interested in idols had been to a concert once or twice.
‘Come to think of it, why did he decide to become a singer?’
That was something I had not known before my regression and still did not know now.
He kept his personal life so thoroughly hidden that someone had once called him a musical genius who had dropped straight out of the sky.
At times, his complete ignorance about singers and idols had made me wonder whether he was truly interested, but the excitement on his face now told me that he was.
“What am I supposed to do at a place like this?”
He seemed to be asking about concert etiquette.
“Listen closely. At a time like this, when you see the singer, you scream no matter what.”
“Scream?”
“Yeah. Waaaah. As loud as you can.”
As I spoke, I turned on my smartphone camera.
-Hello, everyone!
Right then, the singer we had been waiting for, Im Chang-won, came out onstage.
“Hurry!”
“Wa, Waaaaah!”
But I had told him to scream. I had not told him to stand up?
At my urging, Yujin suddenly shot to his feet and shouted at Im Chang-won at the top of his lungs.
“Waaaaah......?”
Yujin's behavior was so abrupt that the nearby audience members stopped shouting and stared at him in surprise.
“......?”
Im Chang-won also looked our way as if he had spotted an odd fellow.
“Waaaaah.......”
Even Yujin, who had been shouting with all his might, seemed to notice that everything had gone quiet. He looked around and quietly sat back down.
Then he began punching me over and over.
“Heh. Hey, that hurts. No, you're the one who suddenly stood up, so why are you hitting me?”
-We've got an energetic fan here? Everyone, try cheering like that too.
Im Chang-won smoothly carried on with the show, joking naturally.
But it appeared that we had caught his eye.