Chapter 82

Chapter 82

Chapter 82 We're All MeTube Stars (5)

“Another decoration has been added.”

That was the Elder's impression upon entering the coffeehouse and seeing the newly hung MeTube icon.

Business registration certificate,

‘Pay for coffee with money.’,

‘Act like a human being when customers are present.’,

100,000-subscriber Silver Icon

There were now four frames hanging in a long row on the wall.

“One gets added every time there's an incident, so maybe they're kill marks.”

“Well, I suppose you're right. It's not as though earthshaking events have only happened once or twice in this tiny coffeehouse.”

“I'd say you and Sani account for about eighty percent of them.”

“I merely came here to drink coffee. You're the one who always turns things into a big affair, heh heh.”

“Well, I'm satisfied with this one, at least.”

A hundred thousand subscribers, no less, and achieved in only a month.

The icon-shaped plaque MeTube had sent us showed just how difficult reaching one hundred thousand subscribers truly was.

And it wasn't only the subscriber count that had increased. Every video I uploaded averaged over a hundred thousand views, and my daily earnings had risen to two hundred thousand won, long since surpassing the monthly salary of an average office worker.

Wasn't that an absurdly excessive return for the labor of sitting still and reading novels?

There was no way to explain it except as good luck.

And conversely, our coffeehouse had one being plagued by truly dreadful luck.

-Jingle.

“Waaaaah! It didn't go up again today!”

Speak of the tiger and it appears. Sani came in crying and immediately clung to me.

“Jinseong has to do something! At this rate, I'm going to fail!”

“How many do you have now?”

“Seventeen! Waaaaah!”

Seventeen.

That was the total after adding me, Lia, the Elder Nine-Tailed Fox, and all the customers who came to the coffeehouse.

Despite carrying his phone around with his own video playing and diligently pitching his channel to people one by one, the number hadn't increased at all.

“If you keep uploading consistently, it'll grow. Just keep filming.”

“It's already been a month! Lia has one, two, three, four... there are five digits, so that means thirty thousand people!”

This was awkward. I hadn't expected the day would come when the strategy of saying, ‘If you keep at it, it'll grow eventually,’ would stop working.

There were actually several reasons Sani's channel had fallen so far into the abyss.

The biggest was that his channel had once been deleted after being classified as belonging to a minor, and the second was that most of the videos he'd reuploaded had also been made private after accumulating repeated reports.

The reason for all those reports was simple.

(Sob, sob, a fox transforms into a beauty... Waaaaah! A raccoon dog becomes a scholar...)

“Look at this! I'm uploading every day like this, but the views still aren't increasing!”

Was it because the sorrow of being unable to relive his glorious past(?) had finally exploded?

In every new video he filmed, Sani was sobbing miserably.

Even I would've pressed the report button. No, perhaps someone had already contacted the police.

To anyone watching, it looked exactly like a horrific scene of child abuse, with a child being forced to film videos under pressure from his parents.

“At this rate, I won't even be able to pay back the pork cutlet and jajangmyeon I ate on credit. MeTube will fail, I'll fail too, and I'll end up living on the street.”

“But you didn't have any money to begin with.”

“I didn't have money, and now I have debt too! Waaaaah!”

“I'll pretend it never happened.”

“Really?”

“But didn't you even stamp a contract? There's a witness too, so how could it simply never have happened? That would be like trying to cover the sky with your palm, tsk tsk. You're supposed to be a divine beast guarding the Divine Tree, yet you can't even keep a single promise?”

“Elder.”

“Heh heh, did I say something wrong?”

“Waaaaah!”

This was troublesome. At this rate, I'd be stuck with Sani crying at me all evening.

I needed a solution. An extraordinary solution to protect my precious leisure time.

“Then how about copying someone?”

“Sniff... Copying who?”

“Try doing something similar to other people whose videos get lots of views.”

“Is that allowed?”

“Wouldn't it be fine as long as it's not exactly the same? That's basically what I did too.”

Of course, it wasn't exactly an admirable method.

No matter how much people said imitation was the mother of creation, copying the results of someone else's efforts inevitably led to arguments over how much imitation was too much.

Fortunately, Sani had nowhere near enough skill to copy a video closely enough to be suspected of plagiarism.

“Lia's views started doing well after the Go mister appeared! I'll have the Go mister appear too!”

“Huh?”

He wanted to grow a channel with only seventeen subscribers by relying on a guest? And his very first guest would be National Champion Han Seun, who was at the height of his popularity right now?

“No, that's not what I meant by copying... And National Champion Han Seun is busy, so how about using someone else instead? There's the Elder Nine-Tailed Fox too...”

“Sani TV is already on the verge of death! Only the Go mister who's always on TV can save it!”

As frustrating as it was, every word was correct. If he was capable of making such perceptive decisions, I had no idea why he'd spent all this time filming videos the way he had.

But it would be a nuisance to National Champion Han Seun. A very big nuisance.

“No, still... Elder, please say something too.”

“Heh heh, didn't I just tell you? You're the one who always makes things bigger. Handle it yourself. I don't think I'll be much help.”

“The fox is right! The fox is boring, so he won't get any views! I need that Go mister over there!”

On the television Sani pointed at, National Champion Han Seun happened to be giving an interview surrounded by famous celebrities.

“But if he's that busy, he won't be able to come even if you ask, right? Let's look for someone else instead. If you're going to dance and sing, wouldn't a singer be better?”

“Ooooooh! That's it! I'll ask a singer in the comments!”

Somehow, disaster had been averted.

Though there was no chance a singer would agree to guest on a channel with fewer than twenty subscribers.

_______________

RTM Entertainment Headquarters.

The building was rather shabby for an entertainment company, but since celebrities were technically signed there, large printed faces were displayed here and there.

And standing outside the building, unable to bring himself to go inside, was a shabbily dressed young man.

His hair had grown thick and unkempt past his neck, as though he hadn't cut it in ages, and the collar of his shirt had stretched badly from long wear.

Yet the face hidden beneath his messy hair was strikingly handsome, completely at odds with his shabby appearance.

The young man carefully watched the people hurrying in and out of the office that morning, then hesitantly approached a middle-aged man.

“Um, Manager Hyung.”

“Who? Oh, Wooju? What brings you here? You didn't even call.”

“I kept calling and sending KaTalk messages, but you didn't answer.”

“Ah, sorry. I've been busy managing the rookies lately. So, why are you here?”

The middle-aged man he'd called his manager didn't look pleased to see him at all. In fact, he even glanced openly at his wristwatch, subtly signaling that he didn't have much time to talk.

“I was wondering if I could get this month's activity allowance.”

“Activity allowance?”

“You said when I signed the contract that I'd get five hundred thousand won a month for activity expenses...”

“Oh, that? Hey, that's classified as an activity expense, so it only comes out if you actually have some schedule booked. They don't just hand it out automatically. It's all written in the special provisions. Didn't you read them?”

“What?”

“Here, here. Since you came all this way, go buy yourself a meal. Get home safely. I'll let you know when a schedule comes up.”

The manager took two ten-thousand-won bills from his wallet and handed them to Wooju.

“Hyung, I really don't have rent money this month. You told me to come up immediately, so I haven't even found a part-time job yet.”

“Damn, hold on. I'm getting a call. Yes, yes, Producer. I'll leave right away.”

The manager started getting into his car while answering the phone, then stopped and came back to Wooju.

“Wooju, try appearing as a guest on some MeTube channel or something. The subscriber count doesn't matter. If you send me the paperwork, I'll talk to the higher-ups and get it registered as a promotional schedule. That's all I can do for you right now. You understand what I'm saying, right?”

“Yes...”

“Right. Keep practicing your singing! You're going to make it, man. Fighting!”

With encouragement he didn't mean, the manager said goodbye and disappeared, leaving Wooju behind.

The reward for taking the subway from dawn and waiting outside the office was a mere twenty thousand won.

‘Still, twenty thousand won should last me about a week.’

There was no way twenty thousand won could last a week in Seoul, where a single meal could easily cost more than ten thousand.

But like any starving musician, Wooju had become accustomed to surviving an entire day on a single packet of ramen.

‘More importantly, I can't even find a part-time job. This is bad. What do I do?’

The relief of having money for his daily bread lasted only briefly before cold reality closed in on Wooju.

Since he never knew when a schedule might suddenly appear, jobs with fixed shifts were difficult, and his contract prohibited him from doing rough work with a risk of injury, such as loading and unloading parcels at delivery companies.

With those two categories excluded, there were practically no jobs he could do.

On top of that, it was becoming increasingly difficult to trust his manager's claim that he'd receive activity money if he appeared as a guest on a MeTube channel.

After all, before he'd moved to Seoul, he'd repeatedly been told to prepare himself because his schedule would supposedly be so packed he wouldn't even have time to sleep.

Still, it was hard to blame the manager entirely for avoiding him.

In the end, the person who had caused this mess was Wooju himself.

Wooju opened his phone and searched his own name.

-Thought He Swallowed a CD... Reality Worse Than Lip-Syncing?

-Off-Key Notes, Broken Rhythm—Fans ‘Baffled’ by Shocking Live Stage

-Perfect Looks, Disappointing Skills, Live Performance Falls Apart

-What Happened on Stage? Controversy Explodes over Disastrous Live Performance

-Live Broadcast Leaves Viewers Doubting Their Ears—Wooju Swept Up in Singing Controversy

Those were the scars left behind after he'd disastrously failed the live performance on the only music program where he'd managed to get a filming opportunity.

‘Who would invite me as a guest after this?’

But there was always a way out.

-Ding.

@SaniTV left a comment on the video ‘Sunset in Hwanam-dong (Wooju)’: ‘Are you a singer? Then come to my channel as a guest. We'll sing and dance together!’ (1 minute ago)

‘Huh?’

The comment he hurriedly checked clearly contained an invitation for him to appear as a guest.

Unfortunately, however, it seemed to be nothing more than a child's prank.

The SaniTV channel contained only a few videos of a child who looked barely old enough for elementary school singing strange songs and doing odd dances.

It even had only seventeen subscribers.

Just as he clicked back with a bitter taste in his mouth,

‘Wait, holy crap... Isn't that a Hudson 483 microphone? The filming setup is insanely good.’

The filming location was far too polished for what looked like a child's joke of a MeTube channel.

‘I've got nothing to lose. Maybe I should at least contact them. Yeah, they said the subscriber count doesn't matter.’

Anything was fine.

As long as he could get a contract stating that he would appear as a guest, he could immediately receive five hundred thousand won from the company.

He didn't care if he ended up playing along with the whims of some rich family's child. If he couldn't pay his rent, he was going to end up on the street anyway.