CRANK 8

I furrowed my brow deeply. He hadn’t even debuted that long ago; was he already taking his fans for granted?

“That’s still a broadcast, regardless, and the fans must be waiting.”

“Ah…. You’re right.”

Woo Dobin rubbed the back of his neck.

“I should do it in a proper place. It’s dark in the car. You wouldn’t even be able to see my face well. And what would I do about the camera?”

“With a phone selfie…”

“That won’t do.”

“I guess you’re right, huh?”

“Yes.”

In other words, I had said that to imply he should feel appropriately sorry toward me and hurry off to his agency office. I meant he should stand in front of a camera set up by staff, under bright lights, and wear some proper clothes.

“Then, may I do it here for a moment?”

“…What?”

Woo Dobin, who had gone as far as the foyer, came back into the living room with long strides and placed his wallet and phone back where they were.

“Everything you said is right, Sunbae. It’s dark in the car, and the phone doesn’t stay steady.”

“That’s…”

“And now that I think about it, I was planning to announce today that I’d been cast in the movie in Lim Han Sunbae’s place anyway.”

“Already?”

“The news has already spread to the media. You know how fast news about drunk driving spreads.”

“Ah….”

“So I think it would be good if you appeared with me.”

“…What?”

Woo Dobin skillfully secured his phone on the table. Then, he sat on the floor and leaned his back against the sofa. After operating his phone a few times, his handsome face filled the screen.

“Let’s do it together, Sunbae. Okay?”

So, what on earth… what? I stood in the foyer, blank. I couldn’t understand what Woo Dobin was talking about at all.

The car is dark, the phone doesn’t stay steady. He was going to announce his casting in the movie in place of Lim Han today. News of the drunk driving spread quickly….

I could understand those things. But what on earth? What are we doing together?

“…What?”

Woo Dobin didn’t miss my mutterings, which had burst out as if I were talking to myself.

“The live broadcast. It would be much better if you appeared with me, Sunbae. It would also naturally serve as movie promotion.”

Woo Dobin even went as far as coming over to the foyer and pulling me along. Suddenly, I was sitting awkwardly next to him.

“W-wait a minute.”

“You don’t have a channel, right, Sunbae?”

“…A channel?”

“There are individual channels for this.”

“…I don’t have one.”

“Many people don’t. Actually, idols tend to use this more.”

My body stiffened at the word ‘idol’ coming out of Woo Dobin’s mouth. Idols do this a lot? Surely ‘Sunset Beach Angel’… didn’t have this kind of stuff.

“Some actors aren’t really familiar with it.”

“I, I’ve done it, too. When I was… greeting for a movie.”

“Ah, right. That’s usually how many people do it.”

I had flared up without realizing it, but Woo Dobin brushed it off smoothly. He kept operating his phone. He even had a call with someone who seemed to be his manager. It seemed he was roughly getting permission to broadcast from here.

“Then, may we start in ten minutes?”

“No, I mean, what? The live broadcast? Right now?”

“Yes!”

Woo Dobin answered refreshingly.

“I’m appearing too? Fans are going to see this?”

“Yes, that’s right.”

“Doing it so suddenly like this…. No, wait a second. I need to contact my manager first. And my makeup… no, I haven’t even washed up.”

Woo Dobin burst into laughter in front of my incoherent rambling.

“You look incredibly handsome even now, though?”

“That’s not the point….”

“People don’t usually do it so stiffly, originally. Idols sometimes turn it on when they’re eating a meal to communicate with their fans.”

“…Eating?”

“Yes, yes. Fans actually like things like that more. It feels more intimate, you know.”

I closed and opened my eyes slowly. Only then did I feel like I understood why Woo Dobin had wanted to do the broadcast in the car.

The live broadcasts I knew were far from intimate. Except for the fact that the medium was a mobile phone, they were no different from ordinary broadcasts.

“So that’s how they do it too….”

Since we live in an era where communication is so important, I thought it could be like that. No, if that were the case, I shouldn’t have stopped him. I should have just left him alone to do it in the car. What a mess this is, all because I interfered.

“Five minutes left, Sunbae.”

“…Yes?”

Woo Dobin moved his body and pressed his shoulder against mine. I jumped up from my seat.

“I’m not doing it. If you’re going to do it, do it alone.”

“But I’ve already posted the title?”

“What?”

“The fans are already chatting.”

“No….”

“There are tons of people looking for Hoyoon Sunbae. They say they’re very curious about how you’ve been.”

“Why would you do that on your own…!”

If it had already been revealed to the fans, I couldn’t back out. I bit my lower lip painfully. It was extra puffy today, too! Because of this bastard, nothing was going right.

“They say they’ve already spoken with your manager, too, Sunbae?”

“With Youngjun?”

“They all agreed it would be good for the movie promotion…. Since the atmosphere is a bit grim after Lim Han Sunbae was booked…. Let’s approach it in a friendly way like this.”

“Why do that without me….”

“Sunbae, one minute left!”

You crazy bastard! I felt like I wanted to scream. Unlike his urgent tone, Woo Dobin was looking up at me with a relaxed expression.

“Sunbae?”

Ignoring Woo Dobin’s words, I went straight to the bathroom. I opened the door as if to break it and looked in the mirror. Fortunately, it had gone down a lot more than during the day, but it was still slightly swollen. My hair was disheveled, and the clothes I was wearing were a roomy sweatshirt and pajama pants.

In a rush, I turned on the cold water and slapped my cheeks repeatedly. Ah, fuck…. If I stay with that bastard, my mouth is going to turn into a gutter.

“Sunbae, we’re starting~.”

Woo Dobin stretched out the end of his sentence in a creepy way. Since there was no time to change clothes, I wiped my face off roughly and hurried to the sofa.

“Hello, this is Woo Dobin.”

Woo Dobin was already staring into the phone. It was such a gentle voice that you couldn’t believe it was the same person who had been stretching out his sentence just a moment ago.

Could it be that he’s the only one who went to a salon to get makeup done? I glanced sideways at Woo Dobin. Even from a distance where I could see every single piece of fuzz, I couldn’t feel any traces of makeup. Yet, how is his face that polished?

“This is Hoyoon Sunbae.”

Without any warning, Woo Dobin turned the camera toward me. I opened my eyes wide and then greeted him stupidly.

“Oh, hello. This is Park Hoyoon.”

I even bowed my head down.

“Come over here, Sunbae.”

Woo Dobin pulled me to his side. We were filling the screen, now switched to selfie mode. He must have fixed it well, because the phone wasn’t shaking.

“Since we turned the broadcast on in such a rush… I’m not sure if it’s working well.”

Beside Woo Dobin, who was conducting skillfully, I was just rolling my eyes around.

“Sunbae, did you wash your face?”

“Yes? Yes.”

“There’s some water on your face here.”

Woo Dobin’s hand approached without hesitation and lightly brushed my bangs. My cheeks stiffened at the unfamiliar physical contact. I couldn’t say anything because we were on air….

Woo Dobin even brushed off the water droplets on my face with his thumb before turning his gaze back to the camera.

“We need to look at the chat, but…. Sunbae, do you have your phone?”

“Yes? Yes, yes.”

“Could you install this app on your phone?”

There wasn’t even time to be annoyed by my own stammering, foolish words. I hurriedly took my phone out from inside my clothes. When I searched for and installed the app as Woo Dobin said, I could see our broadcast without much difficulty. Since it was the number one trending broadcast in real-time.

“So that’s how it comes out….”

As I admired it blankly, Woo Dobin laughed out loud.

“Do you see the chat there?”

“The chat?”

“Yes, that. You can press that icon.”

Soon, the screen was filled with text. The text was moving very quickly.

“Is this the chat?”

“Yes, these are the messages being sent in real-time by the people currently watching this broadcast.”

“Ahhh….”

It was moving upward too fast for me to read it properly, but I could tell that the word ‘cute’ was appearing an enormous number of times.

“Hoyoon Sunbae is cute, right?”

Woo Dobin smiled with great sociability.

“Sunbae, they’re asking you to stop looking at your phone and look at the screen.”

“Yes, yes?”

I must have been looking at my phone as if I were about to be sucked into it while reading the chat.