Episode 18: I Really Hope We Make It Big
The web novel Jin-ah serialized under the pen name ‘PineBudLover’ was a girl group entertainment story.
The synopsis read:
-Born with innate talent, a natural idol, Baek Ah-jin.
Becoming a trainee at a struggling entertainment agency.
Real management to revive a girl group on life support.
“…Real management to revive a girl group on life support…”
As I read the synopsis aloud, Baek Ah-jin—no, Baek Jin-ah—blushed, uncharacteristically shy.
“Hyun-jong-ssi, if you read it out loud like that, it feels like I’m not myself anymore.”
“But this has pretty good views, doesn’t it? A 200-chapter series with 3,000 views on the final chapter—that’s impressive! Since it’s paywalled, that means over 3,000 people paid to read it till the end. If you add up the views from the first chapter… wow…”
Starting from chapter 26, it was paywalled, and early chapters even had over 10,000 purchases.
Assuming an average of 5,000 purchases for 175 paywalled chapters: 5,000 × 175 = 875,000.
At 100 won per chapter, 875,000 × 100 = …
“What… 87.5 million won…?”
Serialized over nine months, that’s nearly 10 million won a month.
As I stared in shock, Jin-ah shook her head modestly.
“No, after the platform and management fees, I get about 44%.”
“Still, that’s over 4 million a month…”
“Well, I serialized on multiple platforms, so… probably closer to 10 million a month.”
“Whoa, that’s insane! It ended a year ago, so you were making this in your second year of high school? That’s crazy!”
Ah-hyun, who’d been listening quietly, finally grasped it, furrowing her brow.
“Wait, wait. You’re saying Jin-ah earned 10 million won a month from a novel?”
“Yup.”
“Novels make money?”
“Apparently?”
Seung-ah, equally stunned, turned to Jin-ah.
“What?! You’re for real?! Your side gig is being a writer? No, wait, you started this first, so your main gig is writing, and your side gig is being an idol!”
“No, unnie, calling me a writer makes me feel like I’ve wasted half my life out of embarrassment. Just call me a scribbler.”
“No way, this is huge! Huge! Author Baek Jin-ah!”
Seung-ah excitedly tapped my shoulder, squealing.
Ah-hyun, still dazed, looked at Jin-ah and threw out a quip.
“Jin-ah unnie, buy me a whole chicken.”
“Why am I suddenly your unnie’s unnie?”
“If you’ve got money, you’re everyone’s unnie or oppa. I’m calling you unnie from now on.”
“Ugh, it feels weird when unnie calls me unnie. Want some chicken?”
“No, I was kidding. Who eats chicken this late? I’ll gain weight.”
“Then why be an idol? You could’ve just kept writing and made more money.”
Jin-ah began sharing her Free Sense debut story.
Unlike Seung-ah, a former trainee, and Ah-hyun, who’d dreamed of being a singer since childhood and joined kids’ auditions, Jin-ah, who joined during their second mini-album, never aimed to be in a girl group and wasn’t a trainee.
Her reason for auditioning for Free Sense was as absurd as why I became a manager.
“When I was in elementary school, I was a huge ‘Perfume’ fan. I wrote fanfiction about them, and my classmates said it was fun and told me to post it on a blog.”
The response was better than expected.
Not just her classmates but ‘Perfume’ fans and random netizens visited her blog, praising her work.
That’s when Jin-ah realized she had a knack for writing.
She was more into girl groups than boy groups.
She wrote fanfiction for her favorite girl groups, and when she entered high school, she started creating original stories.
While practicing, she discovered a web novel platform where anyone could publish.
“I read some of the top stories and thought, ‘I could do this.’”
The hot genre at the time was entertainment stories.
Drawing on her fanfiction experience, Jin-ah started ‘SSS-Class Legendary Trainee’, following the trendy “SSS-Class” title format.
“I wrote it for fun, but it hit the bestseller list. Then a publisher sent me a message offering a contract, so I signed one.”
Ahh, this is what they call a ‘talent bug’.
She’s great at drawing and writing—definitely born for entertainment.
Jin-ah suddenly adopted a storytelling tone, like a children’s book narrator.
“But then, oh my, I hit a wall.”
Writing solely based on her fanfiction know-how without real industry experience, she lacked professional knowledge about the entertainment world.
Researching online had its limits, and some readers found her work fun but unrealistic and contrived.
“So, I thought, I’ll become a girl group member myself. I asked a neighborhood unnie I’d been close with since I was a kid, who was a trainee, how to become one.”
A sudden Gangwon-do accent?
Anyway, that unnie recommended the Free Sense new member audition.
I’d heard about Jin-ah’s audition from Team Leader.
“Her singing was terrible, but we thought we could train her. Her dancing was awful too, but she had something charismatic. Yet, she didn’t seem to have any drive or passion. She came to the audition completely unprepared—no MR, nothing. Who does that?”
“So how did she get picked?”
“It came down to visuals. There were only three candidates, including Jin-ah. The other two were decent at singing and dancing, but their faces just weren’t it. Me, CEO Jung Han-yong, and the team leader now managing GraceOne judged it, and we unanimously chose Jin-ah.”
In the end, it was her visuals.
She had a magnetic charm that wasn’t quite ordinary, a dreamy aura despite seeming aloof, and an inexplicable confidence despite her apparent lack of effort.
“CEO Jung loves quirky types. He believes idols need a bit of craziness, so that’s how it happened. But once we trained her, she improved quickly.”
A novel she wrote for fun became a bestseller, and an audition she tried for experience led to her debut.
Reality check?
The arts and entertainment world is truly dominated by talent freaks.
I wasn’t the only one feeling relative deprivation.
Hearing Jin-ah’s debut story for the first time, Seung-ah and Ah-hyun let out hollow, bitter laughs.
Both had clawed their way through countless trainees to debut, yet here was someone who’d taken an even faster shortcut.
“Haha… Why did I work part-time jobs to pay for vocal and dance lessons? I should’ve just tried out for the experience…”
“Unnie, I won a vocal audition and barely made the debut team because I couldn’t keep up with the choreography.”
“Yeah, that’s right.”
“Life, huh.”
Despite their dejected reactions, Jin-ah didn’t act humble or fake modesty.
She simply took both their hands and said,
“I’d be nothing without you guys. If it weren’t for you, I’d have given up already.”
“What did we even do? You’re the one suffering by joining a failing team.”
“I’m quick to cut ties. If this team was hopeless, I’d have bailed long ago. We’re gonna make it.”
Saying this, Jin-ah stared at me intensely and continued,
“Hyun-jong-ssi says to trust him. So if we fail, it’s all his fault.”
“That’s how it works?”
“It’s fine. You’re doing great, Hyun-jong-ssi. Very reliable.”
“Thanks. That’s both flattering and a lot of pressure.”
“Pfft!”
What’s so funny?
Seung-ah laughed, tapping my thigh.
Then she lay down, resting her head on Ah-hyun’s lap, letting out a languid sigh.
“Haa, I really hope we make it big. I want to make it big.”
Ah-hyun patted Seung-ah’s shoulder reassuringly.
“We will. Oppa says to trust him. If we follow and still fail, we’ll curse him for life.”
They’re piling all the pressure on me.
This is getting bigger than I expected.
I joined VIP Entertainment with the simple goal of meeting GraceOne and Min-young in person.
I haven’t even achieved that, so why am I working so hard?
Why am I taking risks against the company’s plans?
Has a month on the job instilled some sense of duty or professionalism?
Why, you ask?
Because I know the outcome.
If you know the winning lottery numbers, how can you not play?
I may not know all six digits, but I’m confident I can at least break even.
Heck, I’m sure I know at least four.
So I’ve got to go for it.
It’s not just about knowing the outcome, though.
If Free Sense’s skills or personalities were trash, I wouldn’t be rolling up my sleeves.
And one more thing.
“Guys… I don’t want to manage a boy group. Not that I see you as women or anything weird like that… Just, I don’t want to deal with male idols. I just don’t. I want to keep working with you guys.”
One beer, and my true feelings slipped out.
Seung-ah sat up from Ah-hyun’s lap, patted my back with an understanding look, and comforted me.
“We’ll do better.”
“Yeah, I’ll do better too.”
“Hyun-jong-ssi, I don’t want to publicize my writing, but if it’ll help our team, I’m okay with it.”
“Great, we could even ask the company to make a press release. Your readers don’t know you’re actually in a girl group, right?”
“Nope. They probably think I’m a guy.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. The site I serialized on has mostly male readers and writers, so they’d assume I’m male.”
A bestselling teenage girl author hiding her identity.
Her reason for joining a girl group? To gain real-world experience for her novel.
This is good. It’s got drama.
This could generate some serious buzz.
Fans and the public love dramatic stories—street castings, fast-food restaurant ulzzang part-timers, or passing an audition on a whim.
“But revealing this on a variety show would make a bigger splash than a news article… Should we save it for later?”
“I don’t mind. Do whatever you think is best, Hyun-jong-ssi,”
Jin-ah said, shoving the PineBud-filled cup toward my mouth again.
I clamped my lips shut and mumbled through them like a ventriloquist.
“Stop it. I burped, and it smells like pine trees…”
“Hey, hey, that’s how it starts. By tomorrow, you’ll miss this flavor.”
“Be honest. You like mint chocolate, don’t you?”
“Ew! Why would I eat toothpaste? I’d rather pour chocolate syrup on 2080 toothpaste than eat mint-choco!”
“Why’re you getting mad? You drink PineBud but diss mint-choco?”
Jin-ah flinched back, staring at me like I was a roadkill pigeon.
“What? Hyun-jong-ssi, don’t tell me you like mint-choco?”
“Nah, I’ve never even tried it. Just thought it might be your vibe.”
“What do you take me for?”
Jin-ah shook her head in disgust.
Ah-hyun’s eyes narrowed coldly.
“What, so I’m not human then?”
“Why? Unnie, no way… you’re a mint-choco fan?”
“Yup. When I go to Baskin-Robbins, mint-choco’s a must.”
“Oh my God.”
“Hey, mint-choco’s always in the top five flavors at Baskin-Robbins.”
“No way. That can’t be true. Impossible.”
“Wanna bet? Loser cleans the fridge tomorrow.”
“Deal.”
Jin-ah was adamant it couldn’t be true, but a quick search revealed mint-choco was, shockingly, third place.
It varied by season, but as Ah-hyun said, it was consistently in the top five.
Jin-ah’s soul left her body, and Seung-ah, watching, was equally stunned.
“Hyun-jong-ssi, what is this world coming to?”
“Whoa, mint-choco’s that high? I don’t love or hate it, but I didn’t expect it to rank like that.”
Having finished discussing our big plans, we moved on to silly debates about tangsuyuk dipping styles and drained the rest of the drinks.
Up until now, I’d kept some distance while working with the members, but I was finally showing my true self, like I would with friends or family.
The members were the same.
The alcohol brought out their relaxed, natural sides.
Ah-hyun played her playlist on her phone, humming along, while Seung-ah’s face stayed lit with a goofy puppy-like smile.
Freed from their gloom, the members’ true selves were charming and beautiful.
At least until Seung-ah got drunk.
“Oppa, oppa! I’m so good at handstands! Wanna see?”
“Uh, uh… you seem a little drunk…”
“I’m not drunk! Beer goes down like water!”
“You had soju too…”
“I’m gonna do a handstand, so record it!”
Seung-ah, already in another dimension of energy, giggled wildly, leaned against the wall, and did a handstand.
I started filming.
“Whoa, not bad!”
It wasn’t a textbook handstand supported by her arms alone, but her approach and upright posture were pretty impressive.
Except for the fact that her loose T-shirt slid down, exposing her bra.
“Oh my God!”
“Wow… what is our unnie doing…”
“Good thing it’s not a no-bra situation.”