Knock! Knock! Knock!
"Oh!"
Slide.
A weekday evening.
Kim Mi-jeong, Ji-hoon's mother, stepped into his room.
In her hands was a plate of neatly sliced apple.
"Have some before you get back to it."
"Thanks."
Ji-hoon smiled and cleared a spot on his desk for her to set the plate down.
"What were you up to?"
"Studying."
A math textbook sat open on his desk, plain as day.
Usually when she came in with a snack, she'd find him at the computer gaming rather than at his books — but lately, things had been different.
"It's not even exam season. Aren't you pushing yourself too hard?"
"If you only study during exam season, you're already behind."
Ji-hoon said it without looking up from his book. It wasn't that his mother didn't know this — she just hadn't been setting her expectations very high for him to begin with.
"You should think about a tutoring academy."
"I'm fine. I'll let you know if I need one."
"Alright. It's nice to see you working so hard these days."
"....."
As his mother left with those parting words, Ji-hoon simply gave a small nod.
Thud.
"Ahem."
*Right.*
For a mother with a high school son, nothing brought more joy than watching her kid study.
Swish.
*Sorry, Mom.*
Ji-hoon pulled out the notebook he'd stashed in his drawer — the one he'd shoved in there the moment she knocked.
"....."
[NeTube. Nekodong. Fakebook.]
He had been studying diligently, yes — but just now, his mind had been turning over something else entirely.
"If the goal is to build a following through music, then..."
The world was full of talented singers. And even in 2015 — not quite 2025, but still — there were plenty of outlets for people to show off that talent.
But what made the difference?
Exposure. How many people you could get in front of.
First: promote through as many channels as possible, not just NeTube as the main stage.
Instagram hadn't yet overtaken Fakebook in Korea, so Fakebook was still worth leveraging.
And since he had a strong command of Japanese, he'd use the Japanese site Nekodong as well — not for revenue, but purely for reach.
In the end, it all came down to promotion.
Music itself was ultimately just a vehicle — a way to drive traffic back to him.
The goal was to grind away until he reached a point where fans existed simply because he did, where interest alone translated into income.
"So then, for now."
If he wanted to build a name for himself quickly through music content, targeting a niche would be the smarter play.
NeTube's Korean user base still skewed pretty young at this point.
What if he leaned into the doujin scene — covering Japanese anime songs, and for Japanese audiences, Korean idol tracks?
Younger kids tended to be the ones who got obsessed with foreign pop culture, after all.
"Hmm....."
*The problem is.*
It was still all hypothetical, but he had to think about the downside of fame too.
He'd thought it over, and his conclusion was clear: keep his face and personal details hidden, at minimum. There were too many unhinged people in the world, and on top of that, he had his mom and his little sister to think about.
A quiet laugh escaped him.
He thought back to his past life.
Working as a host in Kabukicho, Tokyo. When you hit number one in monthly sales, a photo of you wearing a crown got hung up on that busy street for everyone to see.
God, the embarrassment of it... an experience he had no desire to repeat.
Not that being a host and being a content creator were the same thing, of course.
*Right.*
There might genuinely come a time when showing his face was necessary.
But at the very least, he wanted to hold off until his younger sister Lee Ji-hyeon graduated high school.
***
"Oh, Song-i, hey!"
"Hey!"
Chorok High School, Class 1-2.
Han Song-i arrived and settled into her seat.
"....."
Han Song-i was a quiet student.
She kept busy enough shuttling between tutoring academies, but she had little interest in socializing — even within her own class. The only person she was genuinely close to was Choi Na-yeon, the class vice president, and that was about it.
*I'm so tired.*
Yesterday had been the earliest her academies let out all week, and yet she was exhausted — not from reviewing her notes, but for a different reason entirely.
*I was up crying last night. What a mess.*
She'd been binge-watching the Japanese anime Low-Q, recommended by her mutuals online, and had gotten so swept up in it that she couldn't sleep.
An anime fan through and through, she'd long considered a certain basketball anime her all-time favorite — but now she was on the verge of switching allegiances to a volleyball one.
"....."
A small smile crept across her face — the kind that might look a little suspicious to anyone watching.
She fidgeted with a Low-Q keychain she'd recently bought, tucked safely out of sight inside her bag rather than on display.
Thump.
"Oh."
Someone dropped into the seat beside her.
It was Kang Da-hyeon, a classmate.
"....."
Song-i tensed, wondering if her reaction had been noticed — but the pretty blonde girl wasn't paying her any attention at all.
*She scares me.*
Song-i had always been a little afraid of Da-hyeon.
They'd never had a real conversation, but Da-hyeon always wore heavy makeup and ran with a crowd of girls who had profanity on constant rotation.
Ever since the seating change that brought Da-hyeon closer to her, Song-i had been keeping a low profile.
Tik. Tik. Tik.
*Oh no!*
In her distracted state, she fumbled and dropped her keychain. It skipped across the classroom floor like a stone on water and skittered toward the back of the room.
What was she supposed to do? Someone might pick it up and make fun of her.
"Oh."
Someone did pick it up.
A boy, no less.
And not just any boy — the one all the girls in class had been talking about lately.
"Is this yours?"
"Huh?"
Lee Ji-hoon walked over to Song-i, holding up the keychain with its orange-haired male character.
"Huh? Oh — yeah."
"Here."
"Thanks."
He handed it back like it was nothing.
"You're into Low-Q?"
"What?"
Ji-hoon had said the anime's name first. Song-i blinked, caught off guard.
He'd come close enough that their exchange was barely audible — just the two of them.
"I watched it a while back. Really good."
"Oh? R-really?"
Ji-hoon smiled and headed back to his seat.
"....."
*Huh.*
Lee Ji-hoon had come back from summer break looking completely different — slimmer, and somehow genuinely good-looking. There was something almost refined about him with his glasses on, like a young nobleman or something.
Song-i, who was on the rounder side herself and also wore glasses, had been quietly paying attention to his transformation.
*I totally panicked.*
And now, of all things, he'd outed her as a fan — though thankfully without making it weird. If anything, the way he'd handled it was kind of cool. Still, her heart hadn't quite settled back down yet.
Clatter.
Thump.
"Oh."
Still not fully composed, Song-i knocked her mechanical pencil off the side of her desk.
"....."
Someone picked it up again — and this time, it was someone she really didn't want it to be.
"Here."
"Oh......"
It was Kang Da-hyeon. The girl Song-i had been irrationally afraid of on pure instinct alone.
"Th-thanks."
Song-i avoided eye contact as she mumbled her thanks, not quite able to look at Da-hyeon's face or her blonde hair.
"....."
"....."
*Hm?*
Song-i cautiously glanced up. Their eyes met briefly — but Da-hyeon's gaze had drifted downward, toward Song-i's chest.
Thump.
*Wait.*
Da-hyeon handed the pencil back and turned away.
Song-i had caught it clearly — at the very end, Da-hyeon had definitely been looking at her chest.
And for a noticeably long time, too.
*'.....*
Not that she had the nerve to ask a girl like that why, and it wasn't really a big enough deal to make something of.
Song-i was fairly well-endowed for a high school girl, but since she wasn't slim like the others, she'd always figured it didn't count for much anyway.
***
"Oh, really?"
"Yeah, it's genuinely great for building foundational concepts. Especially the explanation sections."
"I can see that. It looks really solid."
During break.
Ji-hoon was chatting with a male classmate.
"Thanks for the tip. Would it be okay if I asked you about books and stuff like this going forward?"
"Of course — just keep in mind I can't check my phone during academy hours, so I'll get back to you when I can."
"Hey, no rush. Reply whenever you're free. And thanks."
Ji-hoon smiled warmly.
The other student was Park Jun-woo — currently ranked first in the entire first-year class. Rumor had it he'd originally been aiming for a foreign language high school.
By the standards of a regular Seoul high school, Chorok wasn't exactly known for academic rigor, and Jun-woo's abilities were practically an ecological anomaly in that environment.
Not that it mattered much, since half the students had already mentally checked out of serious academic competition.
"I'm heading to the school store — want me to grab you anything? Your brain must be fried from all that studying."
"Oh — no, no, I'm fine."
Jun-woo waved him off.
"....."
*Careful, I'm starting to form a bias.*
Ji-hoon sat back down and saved Jun-woo's number, turning the thought over in his mind.
There was something to the idea that students who studied hard and stayed disciplined tended to have gentler, more agreeable personalities.
In Class 1-2, the two students who stood out academically were Han Song-i and Park Jun-woo. Ji-hoon had approached both of them with a smile. Jun-woo seemed to have the same general interests as most guys his age, while Song-i's love of anime had been a pleasant surprise.
*Maybe I should get to know them a bit better.*
Back in his Kabukicho days, one of the few people he'd actually been close to had been an anime fan, and Ji-hoon himself had spent his downtime watching anime on streaming services — so he had a decent enough knowledge base there. The unfortunate part was that all the series that had blown up after he'd gone to Japan hadn't aired yet. Still, he could always look things up.
*A little unfair to the others, maybe.*
It was a bit calculating, but Ji-hoon figured it was strategically better to surround himself with academically driven friends. People were shaped by their environments. The goal was to naturally build a world where high-achievers were the norm around him.
The fact that he was thinking this way at all said something — his ambitions were running well ahead of where his grades currently stood.
***
"Table five is done!"
"Nice!"
Saturday.
Once again, Ji-hoon was outpacing every other floor staff member by a wide margin.
"Right this way — oh?"
"Oh?"
In the middle of a packed weekend rush, he came face to face with a familiar one.
*Da-hyeon?*
Of all the people to run into as a customer. Not entirely impossible, but he hadn't expected to cross paths with a classmate in a crowd this size in Hongdae.
"Wait, is this a friend of yours, Da-hyeon?"
"Yes — I'm Lee Ji-hoon, her classmate."
"Oh, really? I'm Da-hyeon's mom."
"No way!"
Ji-hoon replied with a bright smile. Small talk, essentially meaningless — but sincerity was what counted.
"Mom, sit down."
"Oh?"
Da-hyeon sat first and reached out to guide her mother into the seat.
"Take your time with the menu and just wave me down when you're ready."
"Will do!"
Da-hyeon looked flustered. Her mother, by contrast, seemed entirely at ease.
"Oh? I didn't order a cola."
"It's on the house."
"On the house? Who's paying for it?"
"I am."
"Oh, stop it. I should be the one treating you. Make sure you ring up that cola when we pay. I'll be checking — don't let it disappear on me."
"Ah, haha."
Ji-hoon scratched the back of his head, wondering if he'd overstepped.
"....."
Da-hyeon, the actual classmate in this scenario, hadn't said a word — and her face had gone so red she looked ready to combust.
Neither a seventeen-year-old part-timer nor a woman in her forties had spared a single thought for how a teenage girl might feel about having her personal life casually put on display.
"Would you like a receipt?"
"No need. You're so bright and cheerful — nothing like my daughter."
"Thank you. And Da-hyeon is also — well, yeah, haha."
"Hohoho. Da-hyeon, aren't you going to say hello?"
"....."
"What's gotten into you? Say hi to your friend."
Da-hyeon looked at Ji-hoon and blinked.
"See you at school."
"......Yeah."
Ji-hoon smiled at his classmate and got in the first goodbye.
*Well.*
After the two of them left and he was clearing the table, Ji-hoon decided he'd made a small misstep.
From his perspective, his classmates were all endearing kids. But in her eyes, he was just another student her age.
Approaching someone you weren't even close to out of nowhere — that could come across as presumptuous.
And the next day.
"Ah, here it is."
Ji-hoon had stopped by the nearest Gyubo Bookstore and found the math concept book Jun-woo had recommended.
*Got to put in the work.*
Looking at the book, he felt his resolve to study sharpen again.
He'd need to get through a decent chunk of it at home before heading to work today.
"Oh?"
*No way.*
A girl with blonde hair, wearing a skirt that was just a touch short for the summer heat.
"......Oh?"
What were the odds.
Two days in a row, in two completely different places — Ji-hoon had run into Kang Da-hyeon again.