"Ugh, this is so annoying."
"Sol-ji, why? What happened?"
"I don't know."
Lunchtime.
Lee Sol-ji of Class 1-7 pouted as she answered her friend's question.
Anyone could take one look at her face and tell something was wrong — it was written all over her in irritation.
"Haah."
"....."
Lee Sol-ji was, by most measures, one of the more dominant personalities in her friend group.
Her friends could only sit there, reading the room.
"Ugh, Mi-hyeon unni said she wants to see me after school. I'm so screwed."
"What?"
"Jo Mi-hyeon sunbae?"
"Yeah."
The moment Jo Mi-hyeon's name came up, the faces around Sol-ji turned serious too.
Jo Mi-hyeon — a second-year at Chorok High School, in the same club as Sol-ji.
She had a reputation fierce enough to make even the wilder first-year girls tremble.
She was the kind of upperclassman you were better off not knowing at all, but if you got on her bad side, your social life at school — or really anywhere in the neighborhood — was as good as over.
"Why did she suddenly want to see you?"
"She found out I texted Chan-ho oppa. Ugh, it's not like I was hitting on him — I just wanted him to introduce me to one of his friends who seemed decent."
"Seriously?"
"What are you going to do?"
Sol-ji's friends shuddered at that.
They all knew how obsessively Jo Mi-hyeon clung to her boyfriend Kim Chan-ho. They knew exactly how vicious she got with any girl who so much as brushed up against him.
"Chan-ho oppa wouldn't have said anything, so who the hell snitched. God, I want to kill them."
Sol-ji buried her face in her hands, expression bleak. With no idea how to explain herself, she had no choice but to look for someone else to blame.
"Did you tell anyone else?"
"I don't think I did... oh wait!"
Sol-ji's eyes shifted.
Kang Da-hyeon from Class 1-2 — someone Sol-ji had been drifting away from lately, keeping her distance for reasons she couldn't quite name, though they'd been close until recently.
When Sol-ji had texted Kim Chan-ho, Da-hyeon had been right there beside her, saying it made her nervous and that Sol-ji probably shouldn't.
"That two-faced little bitch."
She'd already been getting on Sol-ji's nerves for ghosting her out of nowhere, and now this backstab.
Honestly, Sol-ji had been mildly annoyed with her even back when they were still hanging out. She'd noticed how the guys around them always seemed to want to get closer to Da-hyeon.
On top of that, the older girls liked having Da-hyeon around too, just because she was pretty.
Sol-ji had worked so hard — always putting herself out there, on Facebook, at school, everywhere — while Da-hyeon never once made the first move to hang out with anyone.
And yet somehow Da-hyeon came across as cool and aloof rather than standoffish, which only made her more appealing. Sol-ji found her insufferable, and was starting to regret ever being the one to approach her first.
"Let's go. Now."
"Huh?"
"Where are you going?"
"She needs to take responsibility."
Sol-ji got to her feet.
The other girls, as was the nature of their group, had no real choice but to follow along, even as they nervously gauged the situation.
***
"Hmm....."
Classroom 1-2.
Lee Ji-hoon was deep in thought.
'What's the best use of the money I have right now?'
He'd been considering recording at home, but several practical problems kept getting in the way.
There was the soundproofing issue, for one, and the financial side of things, for another.
In 2015, not many people had jumped into NeTube yet, which meant the equipment market hadn't really taken off — even used gear came with a surprisingly steep price tag.
'At this rate.'
He'd probably have to rent a self-recording studio to lay down tracks.
But compared to home recording, where a one-time investment paid off indefinitely, studio rental meant ongoing costs — and that was a financial strain he couldn't ignore.
Tsk.
Ji-hoon chewed his lip as he turned it over in his mind.
But in the end, no investment meant no results.
He needed to figure out how to improve his odds, even by a little.
"Hm?"
His eyes landed on Kang Da-hyeon.
She'd finished lunch early and was heading back to the classroom — but now she was being steered outside by a group of girls.
"What are you talking about?"
"You told Mi-hyeon unni, didn't you?"
"I'm asking what you're talking about."
Just outside Classroom 1-2.
A group of girls had surrounded a high schooler with dyed blonde hair.
"I didn't say anything. I don't even talk to that unni normally."
"Cut the crap. I'm meeting Mi-hyeon unni later and you're coming with me. I'm about to get destroyed, so you're going to help me explain."
"I told you I didn't say anything. Why should I go?"
Da-hyeon's voice was flat and even.
There were girls all around her, and Sol-ji was pressing in with a sharp, threatening tone — but Da-hyeon's eyes didn't waver.
Murmur, murmur.
Lunch was winding down. Students were trickling back, and more eyes were turning their way.
Even so, Sol-ji had no intention of backing off. She was convinced that if she fumbled the explanation later, things would go very badly for her.
"I've been letting this slide, but now you're really pushing it."
Sol-ji glared at her, leaning in harder.
"Hey. What's going on here?"
"Huh?"
At that moment.
Ji-hoon stepped out of the classroom and walked toward the group.
The unspoken rule was that guys stayed out of girls' business — and the girls had always taken that for granted.
But Ji-hoon didn't play by that rule.
"Uh... uh."
The expression on his face was something a high school girl almost never saw from a boy her age — not from someone who was used to being liked, to being treated well. It was cold in a way that didn't belong on a face like his.
The whole group, Sol-ji included, froze.
"....."
Da-hyeon wasn't frightened, but she was caught off guard all the same, and went still.
"J-Ji-hoon."
Sol-ji said his name, staring at him.
A tall, good-looking guy had appeared out of nowhere.
She'd been meaning to make her move before anyone else could — and now he was looking at her like that.
"Why are you out here harassing someone from my class?"
"We're not harassing anyone. There's a reason for this."
"What reason?"
"Huh?"
Ji-hoon's voice was firm.
Sure, there was probably some reason behind any fight or argument.
'But.'
Even so, surrounding one girl like this and threatening her was crossing a line, whatever the reason.
"I don't care what reason a bunch of girls who gang up on someone like this might have. Not even a little. You heard me — go."
"....."
"And please — you're in high school, not middle school. Get it together. This isn't a school just for people like you. There are kids here who are just trying to get through the day without any of this. Go on."
Ji-hoon waved them off with a flick of his hand, shooing them away.
"Hh—"
Sol-ji's eyes were glistening. She'd never heard words like that from a guy her age — and especially not from someone she'd actually liked.
"Sol-ji, I didn't say anything. But there's something I've been wanting to say."
Da-hyeon, who had been silent through all of it, finally spoke.
"Don't contact me anymore. I'm done hanging out with you."
"....."
Da-hyeon put a period at the end of a relationship that had already been cracking.
"Let's go."
"Huh?"
Ji-hoon reached out, his arm passing over Da-hyeon's shoulder to rest against the wall behind her.
Not touching her — just close enough to shield her.
"....."
Da-hyeon walked slowly back into the classroom beside him.
***
"Oh wow."
"They must be a couple from Chorok High."
"He's so good-looking."
"I mean, the girl's pretty too."
"Should I post this on Facebook?"
"Don't."
The girls whispering among themselves were students from a nearby high school, gathered at a burger place close to Chorok High.
Ji-hoon and Da-hyeon were sitting across from each other.
"....."
"Did I order too much?"
Ji-hoon set down a tray loaded with a burger, fries, a Coke, chicken nuggets, and cheese sticks, then looked up.
He looked perfectly at ease. Da-hyeon looked like she had a lot on her mind.
"Um."
"Eat."
"....."
"Haven't had a burger in a while. It's good."
Da-hyeon started to say something, but Ji-hoon just took a bite of his cheeseburger.
She had no way of knowing, of course, that the "while" he meant was closer to ten years.
"Thank you."
"That's the third time you've said that."
"Sorry."
"Nothing to be sorry about."
"I feel bad that you got dragged into my mess."
"It wasn't your mess. Nothing even happened."
Da-hyeon felt guilty that Ji-hoon had gotten involved in something that was her problem.
But to him, it genuinely hadn't been a big deal.
Back in Japan, the difficult customers hadn't been quite so bad — but in Nonhyeon-dong, there had been no shortage of women who seemed to have been raised feral and then barely civilized. He'd gotten through all of them. A few rowdy high school girls were nothing.
'Hmm.'
Still, Ji-hoon felt a small twinge of regret.
Chasing the girls off had been the right call — but had he gone too far with that line about people like them? Every face in that group had darkened when he said it.
"....."
Ji-hoon didn't know it, but Da-hyeon — who had been part of that group until not long ago — was quietly sitting with those words too.
"I was already planning to stop hanging out with them."
"Huh?"
"I had some misunderstandings in middle school and drifted apart from my close friends. I ended up on my own for a while. I didn't want that to happen again in high school, so I just... went along with whoever talked to me first."
"I see."
"But at some point I stopped wanting to be around them. Setting them aside — watching the second-years do their thing was kind of scary. And I started feeling bad about it. For my parents."
"That makes sense. And you've been working hard at school lately."
"....."
Da-hyeon's tone had the ring of someone making excuses. Ji-hoon answered plainly. It wasn't like that kind of thing didn't happen when you were just trying to make friends.
'Even I...'
Ji-hoon's mind drifted back.
To the years he'd spent working as a host in Nonhyeon-dong, Gangnam.
He'd never imagined himself smoking in high school — and then he'd picked it up. He'd started swearing constantly. He'd even gotten into illegal sports betting for a while, though he'd eventually quit.
It was just what happened when everyone around you lived that way.
Which was why most forms of teenage rebellion looked almost quaint to him. And when he thought about it — who was he, a former host, to be lecturing anyone?
"Do you think I'm pathetic?"
"No. If anything, the fact that you were trying to get out of it is impressive."
"....."
Ji-hoon said it simply, and popped a cheese stick into his mouth. Prices really were cheaper back in this era — there was something genuinely satisfying about that.
"Can I tell you something?"
"What?"
"What university you're studying for."
"...... Huh?"
Ji-hoon blinked, caught off guard by the non sequitur.
"Yeah, go ahead."
'Why would anyone...'
Was there really a life goal in the world that required asking permission before sharing? Especially not from a parent, but from a classmate?
"I want to study nursing."
"Nursing?"
"Yeah."
Not an unusual choice. Ji-hoon smiled.
"Nurse. That really suits you."
"You think so?"
Da-hyeon's face lit up.
"Ah....."
"Hm?"
"Oh — no, never mind. Ha ha ha ha."
Slurp.
Ji-hoon laughed awkwardly and took a long pull of his Coke.
She'd probably taken it as a comment about the profession itself suiting her as a person.
But what Ji-hoon had actually done, the moment he said it, was picture Da-hyeon in a nurse's uniform. Slim, fair-skinned, small-faced — it really would suit her.
'What is wrong with me.'
Blushing over a mental image of a seventeen-year-old in a nurse's uniform. Had his body getting younger dragged his brain down with it? That couldn't happen.
"Nursing's a good career, and it takes serious studying — your parents must be happy about it."
"My parents....."
Da-hyeon pressed her lips together.
"I don't want to talk to them about it."
"Why?"
She was quiet for a moment, then spoke.
"My brother is quite a bit older than me. He's in med school down in Busan."
"Really? That's impressive."
"Right now it's just me and my parents at home — he has his own place. I happened to mention once that I was thinking about nursing school, and..."
Another pause.
"They asked if I wanted to be a nurse because my brother was going to be a doctor. That's not it at all."
"Ah....."
Ji-hoon scratched the back of his head.
She looked genuinely bothered by it.
"Why did you start thinking about nursing? It's a tough field."
"My grandmother passed away when I was in middle school."
"Oh. Yeah."
He hadn't expected to end up this deep in her story.
"She was hospitalized before she passed. Her health was bad, so it was hard for the family to be there all the time. She'd get frustrated and take it out on the nurses sometimes, honestly. But there was one nurse who always came in smiling, always took care of her so gently."
"....."
Whatever the memory was, it made her smile.
"One day when my grandmother was feeling a little better, she took that nurse's hand and said she was so sorry, and so grateful. And the nurse just smiled and said it was okay, that she hoped she'd get better soon. She looked like an angel to me. That was when I thought — I want to be like that someday."
"Yeah?"
Ji-hoon was listening with a quiet, serious expression.
"But it's not like I can just sit down and explain all of that to my parents."
"I mean... your parents aren't dismissing you. Or your dream, I mean. It might have just been a throwaway comment. Though maybe I'm speaking out of turn."
"No, it's okay."
Da-hyeon smiled, her expression lighter. Getting it out seemed to have done her some good.
"That's really something."
"What is?"
"Not just that nurse — but the fact that you saw that and thought, I want to be like her. I want to be that. I think that's admirable, Da-hyeon. You seem like a good person."
"...... Yeah?"
She looked down, a little flustered, and finally reached over to pick up a fry.
"I wonder how Sol-ji's doing."
"She'll be fine."
Before they'd come here, Da-hyeon had filled Ji-hoon in on what Sol-ji was dealing with — that she'd apparently gotten on the wrong side of a scary upperclassman.
"Jo Mi-hyeon sunbae is genuinely frightening, though."
"Pfft—"
"Hm?"
Ji-hoon choked on his Coke.
"Jo Mi-hyeon? Second-year Jo Mi-hyeon?"
"Huh? Yeah."
"....."
Ji-hoon's expression went serious.
He knew exactly who that was. He also knew she was a year above him at the same school.
He'd known, and he'd been keeping his distance.
'Jo Mi-hyeon.'
A regular at the room salon where he'd worked as a host in Gangnam.
Even among the room salon women who turned into a different person after a few drinks, she'd had a particular reputation for being vicious. Ji-hoon had wanted to flip the table on her more than once — she'd been one of several reasons he'd eventually looked into moving to Japan.
The way she'd treated him back then, acting like being a year older at the same school gave her the right to walk all over him — even now, just thinking about it made his skin crawl.
'This is a problem.'
A genuinely good girl like Da-hyeon getting tangled up with someone like Jo Mi-hyeon — that made no sense.
'For a while...'
Ji-hoon decided he needed to stay as close to Da-hyeon as possible at school, at least for now.
***
"Hmm....."
He usually preferred eating dinner with his family, but tonight Ji-hoon had eaten with a classmate. Now he sat at his desk, turning something over in his mind.
[Da-hyeon: aren't you going to set up your profile pic?]
[Me: tell me how]
[Da-hyeon: lolololol what are you saying]
"....."
It seemed like he and Da-hyeon had gotten a little closer. She was a good person — staying close to her couldn't hurt.
But right now was thinking time.
Ji-hoon flipped his phone face-down.
"Ugh."
The reason he was sitting here agonizing was that he had a particular kind of decision paralysis when it came to things like this.
This was the moment to choose the name he'd use as a creator going forward.
Something with impact — wasn't there anything like that?
"Okay, so."
It needed to roll off the tongue, feel approachable. And it should have something to do with him.
NeTube's audience skewed young right now — so with that in mind?
"....."
— Name: Hoonihuni.
"Ugh."
Ji-hoon cringed the moment he wrote it down.
"....."
Then he shook his head slowly.
But he couldn't think of anything better.
It was easy to say, and it came from the hoon in his name, Lee Ji-hoon. He had no hard evidence for it, but it felt like something teenagers and people in their early twenties would take to.
"Alright. Let's go with it."
Ji-hoon set up his NeTube account, his Nekodong account, and his Fakebook account.
His life as a creator — it was starting now.