Chapter 137:
Chapter 137
Let’s do one thing.
[Personal channel? Are you crazy? Do you want to ride the high-pass with the fandom?]
Jin moved quickly and brought the lens close to Kim Joo-young’s face. Of course, Kim Joo-young couldn’t see Jin, but he bowed his head at the same time as the lens was attached, making the timing perfect.
“…It’s nothing.”
The members narrowed their eyes and looked at Kim Joo-young.
“…Guys, sit up straight.”
Kim Myung-jin, who had been listening to the commotion, looked at the members through the room mirror.
‘I knew something was weird lately.’
The members who had taken on dance variety shows, dramas, and fixed MCs, Lee Joo-hyuk and Park Jin-hyuk, didn’t have any official schedules yet. But they were busy working on songs, giving songs to other singers, or appearing as producers on audition programs. They were gradually expanding their position as composers.
‘Kim Joo-young didn’t do anything…’
The members didn’t force Kim Joo-young to do something like composing that he wasn’t interested in. The company said they would support whatever activity Awi did after Black Rush’s temporary disbandment.
So he came up with his own idea of a personal YouTube channel… Ian crossed his arms.
‘I don’t blame him.’
Kim Joo-young hadn’t been idle all this time. He had been doing fan service on Y-app live broadcasts, and recording his own choreography in the practice room and uploading it to Awi’s official channel.
But the other members were on TV media, and they had visible results of their self-development, while he had nothing to stand out, so he must have felt relatively anxious.
‘He would be good at eating shows…’
[But not a personal channel.]
There were some people who had a strange obsession with reporting in real time who came and didn’t come to the fan cafe, or who did and didn’t do Y-app broadcasts.
There were also some opinions that why Kim Joo-young was the only one who turned on Y-app broadcasts, what the other members were doing.
What if Kim Joo-young opened a personal YouTube channel instead of a group video channel?
[That’s no joke. The haters are already saying why he has personal content and why they don’t do it for our bias. They’re causing a fandom split and a mess.]
‘Well… I can’t blame them.’
They didn’t care about the opinions that they had fallen behind in fan service because they hadn’t come for a few days. They became popular and got full. They were just a minority among many fans anyway.
‘But YouTube… How can you not read the comments?’
The company was sending out enough self-produced content through Awi’s official channel, but they were distributing individual portions evenly. They were taking a strategy of cutting off the source of complaints because someone would say something if one member had more content than others.
Because Awi’s fandom size was as big as the group fans, but also as big as the individual fans. If you’re an individual fan, you’ll be resentful that my member doesn’t have YouTube but why does he do it for other members.
‘If you look closely, he’s the weakest mentally among us.’
Ian didn’t want to oppose Kim Joo-young’s YouTube challenge. Honestly, there wouldn’t be many people who would object to opening a personal channel compared to the size of the fandom. But the loud minorities were more vicious than they imagined. The biggest problem was Kim Joo-young, who would be exposed to hate comments in the process.
[YouTube has a lot of problems anyway. Not just domestic fans. Foreigners are also fierce. Who has more content and boycotts and reports the member with more content? It’s a mess.]
They got rid of article comments because of hate comments, and they were also getting rid of real-time reaction windows. But YouTube is a foreign site, so it can’t be without comments. And if you block the comments, that would cause more backlash.
As they lived together, Jo Tae-woong was also weak mentally, but he was quick to shake it off. But Kim Joo-young was like a time bomb that hid it and exploded all at once.
“Guys, good job today.”
“You too, hyung.”
The van that carried Awi stopped at the underground parking lot of their dorm.
“Joo-hyuk, wait a minute.”
“Yes.”
Kim Myung-jin, who followed the members down, called Lee Joo-hyuk. He grabbed Lee Joo-hyuk’s shoulder and whispered in his ear.
“First, talk to each other, and contact me or Dong-soo hyung, okay?”
“What do you think, hyung?”
“YouTube? I don’t know if you guys are five years old or something… I think it’s too early.”
“Right?”
Lee Joo-hyuk sighed softly as he looked at Kim Joo-young’s back.
***
“Guys, I’m hungry. Should we open some cup noodles?”
“Sure.”
Park Seo-dam quickly agreed to Lee Joo-hyuk’s suggestion. Lee Joo-hyuk and Kim Hyun went to the kitchen first.
“Should we ask Joo-young?”
“Yeah.”
They filled the coffee pot with water and boiled it. Meanwhile, the members took out cup noodles from the cupboard and tore the plastic.
“So, why did you talk about YouTube channel?”
Ian lifted his head as he poured the soup into the cup noodles. All the members stopped what they were doing and stared blankly at Park Jin-hyuk.
As expected, Park Jin-hyuk brought up the main point before the water boiled. Lee Joo-hyuk’s plan to casually ask while eating late-night snacks was gone.
“What if we try it once?”
Lee Joo-hyuk looked at the members’ faces and answered. Park Jin-hyuk laughed with a deflated sound.
“Look at him. He’s already thinking of going solo.”
“No, that’s not it.”
“What do you mean, that’s not it? Saying you want to start a YouTube channel is like saying ‘I care more about my solo activities than the group.’ Isn’t that right?”
“Well, I guess so.”
Kim Joo-young chewed on his wooden chopsticks.
The members knew what Jin had said. As they waited for the cup noodles to cook, they each said a word.
“Honestly, I think Joo-young’s mukbang or cookbang would be fun.”
“His cookbang got good feedback before. His mukbang also has memes going around saying he eats deliciously.”
“But Joo-young hyung, why did you suddenly bring up YouTube? You’re not really thinking of going solo, are you?”
Kim Joo-young groaned.
“I’m just anxious because I’m not doing anything.”
“Can’t you just work on songs?”
“That’s not easy. It’s different from listening to the songs you guys work on and making them from scratch.”
That was true. The members nodded silently. As Park Jin-hyuk picked up his chopsticks, the others also peeled off the paper lids of the cup noodles and blew on the steam.
“First of all, what you need to fix is that you’re not doing nothing. The situation is what it is, so we’re doing some solo activities, but we’re also going to do our Refac comeback.”
“Right. We also prioritize our group schedule for our solo activities and do them briefly. The company also emphasizes that the group should come first…”
“Hey, guys.”
Kim Joo-young knocked on the table as if to knock. Jo Tae-woong, who was about to eat his noodles, stopped with his mouth open.
“I haven’t even said I want to do it yet.”
Was that so? Ian smiled awkwardly and clinked his beer can with Park Seo-dam.
Kim Joo-young wasn’t serious either. He had no guarantee that his YouTube personal channel would do well, and unless he produced some interesting content, the only people who would watch his videos would be his fans. That wouldn’t be much different from the second Y app.
“I’m just thinking about it. I haven’t made up my mind yet.”
In an instant, Jo Tae-woong and Ian finished their noodles and broth, and looked at Kim Joo-young who seemed a bit down.
“Honestly, YouTube? I won’t oppose it.”
“Me too, if you want to do it, do it or don’t…”
Kim Hyun put down his chopsticks.
“It’s too soon now. I have a hyung I knew from my trainee days who started YouTube recently. He didn’t get good feedback when he started either.”
“Serenity?”
“Yeah, him?”
“He made it to the real-time search rankings, didn’t he?”
That was beside the point. Park Seo-dam emptied his beer can and opened a new one. The youngest one had the strongest alcohol tolerance. Ian drank his beer quietly with Park Seo-dam.
“Anyway, he’s out of contract and doesn’t have a chance to renew it, but we’re almost three years in now?”
“It’s too fast. We should at least wait until next year or so to think about personal channels.”
Kim Joo-young shrugged his shoulders.
“I got it. Just eat your noodles.”
“Noodles? They’re already asleep in my stomach.”
Park Jin-hyuk showed him the empty cup of noodles and spoke in a stern voice. The members laughed lightly as Lee Ju-hyuk summed up the situation.
“Let’s just focus on our Refac activities for now.”
***
As soon as Lee Ju-hyuk entered his room, his phone in his pocket vibrated. The caller was Kim Myung-jin.
“Yes, hyung.”
(Is the talk over?)
“Yes, is Dong-soo hyung there too?”
(He is.)
He heard Park Dong-soo’s voice over the phone. Lee Ju-hyuk flopped down on his bed.
(Why did Joo-young say he wanted to do YouTube?)
“It’s because of his solo activities.”
(Ah, I see…)
Park Dong-soo sighed. The thing he had worried about when he was arranging the members’ solo schedules had happened in reality. But it was better than having no motivation at all.
(If he does it, I’ll support him… but it’s too soon.)
“Joo-young wasn’t that serious about it either. He just said ‘Should I try it once?’ That’s all he thought.”
(Really? Then that’s good. If he does YouTube now, the fandom… ugh, we’ll think of other ways for Joo-young to do activities, so don’t worry.)
Park Dong-soo wasn’t that worried. The Awi members were not indifferent to each other, and they noticed even small changes and tried to solve them together, so many cases were settled at Lee Ju-hyuk’s line. ‘Rigging’ was like that at debut, and as they got older, the members were more careful.
(I’m sorry to leave it to you. This is something the company should do… Anyway, you must be tired, so sleep well.)
“Yes, hyungs too.”
Lee Ju-hyuk felt uneasy as if he had stopped Kim Joo-young before he had made up his mind.
Wait a minute, if creating is hard, wouldn’t it be okay to mix things up? Lee Ju-hyuk jumped up.
“Hyung, can we still do something spontaneous?”
(Juhyuk, you have to tell me more. I’m already scared.)
Park Dongsoo whimpered as he was about to hang up the phone. He still had nightmares about the ‘Jujak’ rehearsal scene.
“Oh, it’s nothing big. I just want to add something to our Refac activities. Is that okay?”
(That should be fine, what are you going to do?)
“I have an idea, but… I’m not sure if Juyeong will like it. I’ll talk to him first.”
(…Okay, do you need anything else?)
“Some people who can edit videos?”
***
The next morning, Kim Juyeong was woken up by Lee Juhyuk while he was still deep in sleep. Lee Juhyuk barged into Kim Juyeong’s room and shook his body.
“Juyeong, wake up. Let’s go to the company together.”
“Huh?”
“Get ready. Now.”
Lee Juhyuk said that and left for the living room. Kim Juyeong was left alone in his room, staring blankly at the door. He never woke him up like this before.
“…What’s going on?”
He does as he is told. Kim Juyeong got out of bed and tidied up his bedding. Then he washed up and put on some clothes.
He followed Lee Juhyuk to the van and sat next to him with a nervous look.
“What’s going on?”
“You know how to use MIDI, right?”
“Uh… I learned it before, but…”
“You have one job to do.”
Lee Juhyuk kept silent until they entered the studio. Kim Juyeong shivered as he walked into the studio with him. Lee Juhyuk showed him the laptop screen right away.
“These are our Refac songs. Why are they here?”
“You have to mash them up.”
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