Chapter 1211: Soaring (11)

Wang Jiho’s heart pounded.

At last, the trailer for my movie is airing during the Super Bowl…!

The first thing Wang Jiho did was check his members’ faces.

His eldest member and underling members shouted with expressions of pure excitement.

“Jiho’s movie trailer is finally…!”

“Now that’s what I’m talking about.”

“Sir, can you see this? The son you struggled to raise even with all your money has been raised splendidly through the power of my heart, Sun Wooju’s heart.”

“I contributed about seventeen percent too. Heh.”

Seeing them make such a ridiculous fuss as though it were their own achievement made Wang Jiho feel both shy and embarrassed.

He waved his hands dismissively.

“Why are you making it embarrassing?! I’ll probably be in the trailer for three seconds at most, and because of you guys, I…”

“Jiho. Be quiet. We’re trying to watch the trailer.”

“Yeah. Sit still.”

Mean members.

He pouted and turned back toward the screen.

Boom—

Tense background music.

A squad of special forces soldiers raced down the corridor of a research facility.

[Edwin Night.]

A man called the protagonist’s name.

A dark laboratory.

Inside a massive tank, a man connected to tubes floated with his eyes closed.

“Is that Marek? The villain from the first movie?”

“I don’t think so. Isn’t he a new villain?”

While the Hollywood staff murmured among themselves, the special forces soldiers stormed into the laboratory containing the tank.

The narration continued.

[You probably thought you had finally found peace.]

The protagonist appeared, relaxing at a resort with his lover.

[But that peace is nothing more than a waking dream, destined to crumble like a fleeting illusion beneath the midday sun.]

Back to the laboratory.

The special forces soldiers froze in horror at the scene inside.

[What the…]

Scientists in white coats lay collapsed in pools of blood.

[Oh, Edwin Night.]

The villain’s voice echoed through the darkness as the screen briefly went black.

[It is time for the nightmare to come for you.]

The man wearing an oxygen mask inside the tank suddenly opened his eyes.

Eerie white pupils.

As though resonating with him, the special forces soldiers shuddered. Their eyes turned white, and they began aiming their guns at one another.

Ratatatatat—!

The screen went black again.

In the darkness, the Korean American staff shouted excitedly at one another in English.

“Is that?”

“Oh my God! Nightmare…”

Jiho nodded at the villain’s name.

Nightmare, the main villain of the third movie.

He was one of the many villains who appeared as Edwin Night’s archenemies in Wonder Comics.

A former British MI6 intelligence agent active during the same era as Edwin Night Senior, the protagonist’s father, he had defected after gaining the superhuman ability to control people’s minds.

Unlike the protagonist, who possessed absurd combat skills, his physical abilities were completely ordinary. He was the type of villain who pressured the protagonist psychologically instead.

Not that I really have any scenes with him…

While Wang Jiho recalled the rough outline of the movie that the director had told him, the trailer began moving faster.

It was not especially long.

Since the film was not scheduled for release until the end of the year, the trailer was closer to a teaser made from the footage they had completed so far.

[Everything you have protected until now…]

The residents of the secluded village where the protagonist lived charged toward him, the whites of their eyes showing.

[…will turn their guns on you.]

The protagonist was tracked by satellite.

Wearing an oxygen mask, the villain strolled leisurely through an intelligence agency, taking control of the minds of everyone who tried to attack him.

“Wow.”

“This actually looks really good.”

Then the protagonist appeared lying in a beautiful flower field.

It seemed that those placed under the villain’s mind control saw beautiful illusions.

[At the end of this endless dream, you will have to choose.]

The protagonist ran onto a rooftop with a handgun, only to be met by a dizzying sight.

At the top of a skyscraper, his lover stood on one wall with white eyes, while his comrades stood in a line on another.

They looked ready to leap the moment the villain gave the command.

Everyone watching the trailer swallowed.

[Who you will save.]

Then the protagonist reached out and screamed, “No—!!!”

Just as everyone leaned forward—

【 SECRET AGENT III: NIGHT WALKER 】

The powerful title logo appeared, and the Korean American staff clutched their heads with cries of “Ahh!”

Unlike them, the members beside Wang Jiho looked dumbfounded.

“What? Where was our kid?”

“Jiho wasn’t in it?”

“Hold on. Don’t they have something like a viewer message board here? If they do, I’m writing an eight-thousand-character complaint immediately…”

At that exact moment.

The dark screen brightened again, and an extra scene began playing like a post-credits clip.

Tap—

In a Korean-style garden filled with fluttering peach blossoms, the battered protagonist trembled.

Step. Step.

Dress shoes approached him.

Edwin Night raised his head and groaned when he came face-to-face with someone who looked exactly like him.

“Is it a nightmare?”

“Did the villain get him? What is this?”

Then—

[Did you have a pleasant journey here?]

The face of the figure speaking in a playful voice slowly melted away, revealing someone else.

Beneath the peach blossoms stood a young man in ash-gray martial robes.

Dressed in clothing with distinctly Korean lines, he looked down at the protagonist and smiled.

“Oh!”

“Whoa!”

A cheerful smile.

The shapeshifter known in the comics as the Shadow Master grinned and held out his hand.

[So, are you ready to walk through the night?]

His smile was like a demon tempting someone to sell his soul.

No one knew exactly what walking through the night meant, but it clearly was not a decision to make lightly.

After a brief hesitation, the battered protagonist clenched his teeth and took the offered hand from where he lay sprawled on the ground.

[Damn it. Whatever.]

The screen went black as the two men clasped hands.

The words “Coming in 2019” appeared, and the broadcast immediately moved on to another commercial.

The moment the superhero movie trailer ended, everyone surrounding Wang Jiho clenched their fists and leapt to their feet.

“Wooooooow!”

“That presence was insane!”

“Wow. Jiho must have a pretty substantial role! Social media is already exploding in real time!”

“This is crazy. I need to get Jiho’s autograph in advance.”

While the Sound of the Sun staff bounced around, loudly declaring that they needed his autograph, actors including Lee Gyeonwoo and Yeo Eunseon, who had been grilling meat, looked at Jiho in surprise.

“Jiho, your acting has improved again. You startled me.”

“His ability to seize the scene was incredible… Wait, your meat is burning!”

“Ahhhhh—!!”

As acrid smoke poured out and the actors started coughing, Wang Jiho’s gaze remained fixed in one place.

“Jiho!”

His members charged toward him.

“You did us proud!”

“Our youngest is amazing! You’re seriously the best! How did you create that much impact in such a short moment? Is it because I raised you so well?”

“Jiho, you really did a great job.”

Surrounded by his members, the youngest let out a delighted giggle.

Hehe. This is what I wanted!

He loved the hands patting and ruffling him from every direction.

As expected, he was destined to spend his entire life being cherished as the youngest.

“Now! Praise my greatness!”

“After witnessing Wang Jiho’s divinely possessed acting, my vision was restored, improving from 2.0 to 5.0. These days, people from Mongolia ask me for my secret.”

“Kyaha!”

“Seoul Cyber… No, after seeing the world’s greatest acting skills, my whole life has changed~~”

“Kyahaha!”

Jiho smiled blissfully as he listened to their ridiculous praise.

Ah, this is nice.

There had been more than one occasion when he had felt ready to cry alone on an unfamiliar movie set filled with foreigners.

Now that his members were praising him, he felt strength surging through him.

“I did well, right?”

“Of course.”

His eldest member smiled proudly.

“The original really is different. You’re much better than me.”

“Ah…”

“??”

“I forgot you were in it too.”

People online were already making a huge fuss over the Secret Agent 3 trailer, but Wang Jiho could not allow himself to celebrate too easily.

His acting might be superior, but there was a monster who stole all the attention at the crucial moment.

Wang Jiho whined.

“Aw, once Wooju appears, everyone’s just going to talk about him.”

“That’s not how it works. We’ll both become a hot topic. If Godzilla and King Kong fight, do people only talk about Godzilla?”

“That’s true, but…”

For some reason, he had a feeling this member’s impact would be no joke either.

Just as he found himself wanting to beat Wooju in sheer buzz for once—

“I doubt my scene will be anything that dramatic.”

At Wooju’s humble statement, Wang Jiho had an immediate premonition.

I should prepare tteokbokki.

After the trailer for Secret Agent 3, featuring Jiho, finished airing, the commercial break ended and the game resumed.

“Ah! Those idiots!”

“Aaaagh! What’s the point of having possession if you play like that?!”

Watching the game with Korean Americans was entertaining.

They would speak in Korean, but whenever they got excited, they rapidly switched into the English they used every day, making it impossible to understand a single word.

Then, at truly decisive moments, Korean would burst out.

“Fuck! Seriously!”

“Those sons of bitches! Look at that!”

I had felt the same way while watching baseball with Junghyun, but sports really seemed harmful to both mental and physical health.

While the New England team repeatedly shut down the Los Angeles team’s offense with solid defense, those of us who did not understand American football very well ate meat and chatted about movies.

Lee Gyeonwoo asked,

“What’s the production budget for Secret Agent?”

“How much was it again? I think it was around two hundred or three hundred million dollars.”

At Jiho’s answer, all of us gasped.

Biju blinked.

“Wasn’t Sound of the Sun fifty million dollars?”

“Yeah.”

That alone was considered one of the largest budgets in Korean film history, yet this one was five times greater.

Director Kim Bora said,

“Well, Secret Agent is the flagship of its franchise. Spending around three hundred million makes sense. The CGI costs alone must be enormous.”

“But what exactly is Jiho’s character? Shadow Master? What kind of character is that?”

“Ah, well…”

Jiho scratched the back of his head.

“I want to tell you, but I signed a confidentiality agreement. If I spoil even a little of the movie, I’ll get fired.”

“Ahh~”

We nodded too.

“We don’t really know either.”

“Even the other NewBlack members don’t know?”

“We were the ones who told him not to tell us.”

The best way to keep a secret was not to know it.

What if we mentioned one or two things about Jiho’s movie during an interview or in public, thinking they were harmless, only to discover that the studio considered them confidential?

We did not want to create trouble for our youngest member in his first Hollywood movie.

“So unless it shows up in a blog search or on MyTube, we don’t know much either.”

“It’s surprisingly fun to guess.”

Besides, MyTube would soon be flooded with content titled things like “Complete Breakdown of the Secret Agent 3 Super Bowl Trailer!”

Once we explained that, the curious members of the Sound of the Sun team accepted it cheerfully.

Then, while we searched through the flood of online reactions to the Secret Agent 3 trailer—

“Wooju! Biju!”

“Everyone, come over here!”

The Hollywood staff called to us while we were reading English posts about Jiho on our phones.

“It’s starting soon. The halftime show!”

“Really?!”

We had watched plenty of performance videos before, but this was our first time seeing one live.

[The National Football League! Welcome to the Super Bowl LIII Halftime Show!]

More than seventy thousand spectators roared inside the Atlanta stadium.

The sound from the venue came vividly through the surround speakers.

[Woooooooooo—!]

Amid majestic music, a man in a glittering jacket descended from the sky like an angel.

It was Logan Smith, the singer performing at this year’s Super Bowl.

The man regarded as the most successful male solo artist raised his microphone and shouted,

[Hello, Atlanta—!!]

The sparkling melody of one of his hit songs, The Shooting Star, began playing as a dazzling stage unfolded.

“Oh…”

“Wow.”

Even in America, a country considered to be at the cutting edge of stage technology and direction, this performance represented the absolute pinnacle.

The greatest show on earth unfolded, designed to seize the eyes and ears of the audience during the brief halftime window.

“Wooooow.”

Our eyes sparkled as we watched.

It looked incredibly fun.

What would it feel like to receive cheers on a stage watched live by more than a hundred million people?

“Hyung, hyung.”

“Yeah?”

Jiho stood there with glittering eyes, the underlings behind him wearing the same expression.

“I don’t care if I never win a Grammy. Let me do that. That.”

“That? The halftime show?”

“Yup.”

“…”

I thought about it seriously.

“Jiho.”

“Yes.”

“I’ll just help you win lots of Grammys.”

Everyone burst into laughter at my firm reply.

At the same time.

North American social media was in an uproar over Logan Smith’s halftime show.

-Crazy.

-He may still be relatively young, but he has already reached the level where he deserves to be called a legend. He is truly a master.

-I waited weeks for this.

-The stage itself wasn’t that entertaining. His live vocals were simply incredible.

-It was boring.

As always when a Super Bowl halftime show aired, all kinds of opinions poured out, including comparisons to the previous year.

It was a stage that inevitably drew judgment unless the performer delivered something extraordinary.

Nearly a hundred and twenty million viewers were posting their reactions on social media in real time.

[Thank you!]

Even after the bare-chested singer, drenched in sweat, announced the end of the halftime show, the internet remained filled with discussion about it.

While everyone else talked about the halftime show, North America’s Souffle Cloud Brigade was interested in something else.

-DID YOU SEE JIHO??????? THIS IS ACTUALLY INSANE

-Who is a fan of that adorable top actor appearing in Secret Agent 3? Me. It’s me.

-SO CUTE

-Behold. This is my precious little prince. That radiant face! Those clever eyes!

Brightly edited GIFs of Jiho from Secret Agent 3 were appearing across social media timelines in real time.

Their hearts pounded.

It looks like he has a decent amount of screen time!

When they first heard that Jiho would appear in the movie, they had assumed he would be little more than a cameo or a minor supporting character who briefly showed his face.

Judging from his screen time in the trailer, they no longer needed to worry.

His impact was incredible too.

They did not know exactly what role he would play, but it was clearly something worth anticipating.

“Hmm.”

The Cloud Brigade narrowed their eyes while searching.

There are a few hate comments.

The Cloud Brigade did not quite understand it, but some Chinese and Japanese viewers were furious that the scene had such a distinctly Korean atmosphere.

…But Jiho is Korean. And it’s not as though the character was established as having any particular nationality.

Normally, hate comments made people angry enough to argue back.

From an American perspective, however, it was difficult to understand why they were angry in the first place, leaving them more baffled than outraged.

They simply posted supportive comments to push away those fuming under Jiho’s social media posts.

The only comments that were somewhat irritating were…

-He was cast because of NewBlack’s name recognition. His acting is terrible.

-Why did they cast this nobody? Everyone knows Sunny, but no one even knows this kid’s name.

-Please don’t ruin my movie.

-If they wanted a boy-band member, they should have cast Moonlight instead. Why K-pop?

They were pretending to be ordinary viewers, but the Cloud Brigade knew exactly who they were.

These people really never change.

Did they honestly think creating ordinary-looking alternate accounts would keep anyone from recognizing Moonlight’s fandom, Sunshine?

They had been nearly hysterical ever since Wooju won a Grammy.

Even during the nominations, Sunshine had organized a massive hashtag campaign demanding that Moonlight receive Best New Artist, only for the group to fail to earn even a nomination.

Then the leader of NewBlack, whom they considered a rival, went on to win one of the Grammy’s top awards.

At that point, Sunshine seemed unable to survive mentally unless they posted hate comments every day.

-NewBlack is a boy band and our boys are a boy band too, so why is only Moonlight being discriminated against?!

They continued attacking with that logic.

And it isn’t just the toxic fans.

After Moonlight appeared on NewBlack’s reality show, relations between the two fandoms had seemed to improve slightly.

But recently, even among the relatively normal fans, the number speaking badly about NewBlack had increased.

Of course, from the Cloud Brigade’s perspective, their offensive power was almost laughable.

In raw numbers, Sunshine and Souffle were roughly equal in North America.

The problem was that the other side had no unity.

Hm? Why did they suddenly go quiet?

The hate comments Moonlight fans had been pouring out abruptly stopped.

As the Cloud Brigade wondered what had happened, the television showed the Super Bowl audience.

[Oh, there are Moonlight’s Colin Evans and his new girlfriend, Megan Keener!]

A blonde beauty famous as the granddaughter of Wall Street tycoon Jared Keener and as a privileged model chewed gum beneath a baseball cap.

Colin Evans kissed her cheek and smiled like a happy potato.

Perhaps because of that, Sunshine began to stir.

North American fandoms generally did not interfere much in singers’ dating lives, but this case was slightly different.

-I liked Colin better when he was with Kelly.

-Bring back Colly.

-Why is he dating someone with such a bad reputation???

-Kelly is smart and genuinely a good woman… Megan looks completely empty-headed.

Couple fans cried out for Colly, the couple name for Colin and Kelly.

-Why is Colin the only one dating so publicly when everyone else is keeping quiet??? He’s hurting Moonlight as a group.

-That’s because Colin is an alpha male. If you’re jealous, tell Jacob to become popular too.

-You’re wrong that it’s hurting them. Moonlight’s buzz has skyrocketed since Colin started dating Megan. Getting attention is a good thing.

-What do you want him to do when Colin is just that charming~~

-I’m so sick of Colin Evans fans. Whenever we get involved with them, it always turns ugly.

-Really? Then who should leave the group? Your unpopular favorite? Or my man, the hottest and most popular member?

A war of nerves broke out between fans of the other members, who accused Colin of harming the group with his loud scandals, and Colin’s fans.

The Souffles merely watched while munching popcorn because Sunshine was too busy fighting among themselves.

Social media filled with talk about the boy-band member having a highly public romance with a model rumored to date only men who already had girlfriends.

And then there was Kelly Nelson, who continued to remain silent.

The Souffles shrugged as they watched the trio attracting the attention of Hollywood gossip outlets.

It would be fun if Kelly Nelson released a song.

Dopamine surged through the Cloud Brigade’s brains.

Watching Sunshine’s headquarters burn was incredibly entertaining.

Then—

-What???? Everyone, look at the TV!!! Wooju’s on

Dopamine, serotonin, and endorphins began flooding the Cloud Brigade’s brains all over again.

Lightning struck the enemy’s headquarters while money rained down on their own home.

This was the very definition of a blissful fandom life.