Chapter 6
Jin who loves you all! (Happy day) [ . ]
A Bubble preview popped up on the screen with the notification. Lee Hyean, a 7-year Give fan of Sparkle, clutched her phone as if she had won the lottery.
“Oh my…”
Sparkle, the idol group she had been a fan of for 7 years since she was twenty, and among them, Hyean’s favorite was definitely Yoon Jin. Did she have a different favorite before? No. Oh, did she have one but it changed? No, there wasn’t one from the beginning! My beginning belongs to Yoon Jin!
With an overwhelmingly happy feeling, Hyean screamed internally while holding her phone. If she hadn’t been at the company, Hyean would certainly have crawled around the bed and floor to express her joy. This was because there had been no news for over a week after the article about Yoon Jin collapsing.
‘Just a dot… Is he joking? So cute… incredibly cute…’
So damn cute it was driving her crazy. Hyean maintained a calm expression and loosened her tie slightly. Her hands were drenched in sweat from the sudden excitement and joy. Other employees across from her were starting to notice her frozen expression, but that wasn’t important to her.
He sent just one dot as a joke, so Yoon Jin would surely send another Bubble soon. Before that, it would be a loss if she didn’t use her three allowed replies. Hyean moved her fingers quickly.
[Jin what’s with the dot ㅠㅠㅠㅠㅠ So cute ㅠㅠㅠㅠㅠ]
[You don’t know how surprised I was when I heard you collapsed, are you okay now? Are you eating well? Are you taking your medicine properly?? Our Yoon Jin needs to rest properly ㅠㅠㅠㅠㅠ You know we’re worried, right?? Taking care of your health is the most important!! If you’re sick, it’s okay not to do anything, it’s okay not to do the W Live. We’re always happy as long as you’re healthy.]
[I’m so happy to get a Bubble after so long. I’ve been really stressed at work, but this gives me strength! I hope Jin gets strength too!]
A bit shorter than usual, but after sending the quick replies, Hyean looked at her phone with satisfaction. The characteristic of Bubble was that the number of characters you could send increased with the duration of the subscription you purchased, and Hyean was already a user who could send the maximum character count, so she usually left messages twice as long as this.
Fortunately or unfortunately, since Yoon Jin’s Bubble didn’t arrive immediately, Hyean logged into SNS to share this joy.
“I’m going to focus for a while, so if you need me, don’t come to my desk, just send a message.”
“Understood.”
After warning her employees to ensure comfortable fangirling, Hyean comfortably placed her cursor on the blue input field. The sound of rapid typing echoed quietly, and the employees also hastened their hand movements. Of course, unlike Hyean, they were rushing with work.
Jin Sunflower, a nickname roughly created by changing the ‘sun’ in ‘sunflower’ to ‘hye’ from her name next to Yoon Jin’s ‘Jin’, was a major account that ranked within the top few among the many Sparkle fans. With overwhelming drive and financial power, this account took the lead in events for Sparkle whenever they occurred, and rarely accepted donations.
Other fans had to beg and plead to participate, and only occasionally would she reveal her account, even then accepting no more than 100,000 won. It wasn’t a fundraiser for collecting money, but for including other fans’ names in the events.
[I got a Bubble from Jin~~~ Days felt like months ㅠㅠㅠㅠㅠ I’m curious about so many things, whether his condition has improved, if he’s eating well, sleeping well, if there are any other pains, but when I saw him send just a dot, I almost died from how cute it was… #YoonJinBubble #Sparkle]
As Hyean posted, other accounts following her sympathized and laughed merrily. They seemed just as pleased with Yoon Jin’s long-awaited Bubble, as many people appeared to be online despite it being a weekday lunchtime.
Yoon Jin had one of the smaller individual fandoms in Sparkle. While almost no Sparkle fan disliked Yoon Jin, few people had him as their favorite. Many fans had another member as their favorite and kept Yoon Jin as a secondary favorite or a soft spot because he took good care of their favorite member.
Because of this, there were even people who wrote absurd hate comments against Yoon Jin, saying he was just an idol with a good voice but mediocre singing and dancing skills, getting by on just being nice.
‘That’s complete bullshit.’
In Hyean’s opinion, Yoon Jin was like sugar water. Although he might seem like ordinary water without any taste at first glance, if you just take a sip, he becomes sweet sugar water you can’t take away from your mouth. Therefore, she just felt sorry for those who didn’t know his charm.
Hyean, who had been sharing joy with others, questioned why the Bubble notification hadn’t rung after 5 minutes, 10 minutes.
[I thought Jin would send another Bubble… Is it just my phone not receiving it?]
[That dot he sent was a joke, right? Could it have been sent by mistake? I replied 3 times thinking another Bubble would come…]
‘Me too…’
As time passed, the mood on SNS changed from joy to questioning. Accordingly, Hyean kept turning on her silent phone and even checked if the Wi-Fi connection was working well.
Yoon Jin had always treated fans kindly, to the point where you could tell just by looking at the name he had set in Bubble. During periods without activities, he would send morning greetings whenever he had time, and on days he couldn’t, he would instead send good night messages. He would send selfies when fans said they missed him, and when fans sent him “praise jails,” he would respond with equally full messages of gratitude, touching people’s hearts.
He bragged about the members so often and occasionally uploaded pictures with them that even fans whose favorites weren’t Yoon Jin subscribed to his Bubble in case their favorite’s picture might be uploaded together.
[It shows as read… but why is there no message? Did he just step away for a moment? This grandma is needlessly worried about such things ㅎㅎ Just in case, I should send my last one ㅎㅎ…]
When “Jinjinbara,” a major account similar to Jin Sunflower, posted, more and more worried messages appeared. As time passed, frightening delusions blossomed, and Hyean calmed her mind by looking at other fan posts. After about an hour, the notification Hyean had been desperately waiting for rang.
Jin who loves you all! (Happy day) [ dot ]
And that was enough to confuse many fans, including Hyean. My baby, who is like an angelic model with a nickname like Mother Jin-resa, had sent just a dot for the second time in a row on Bubble.
[I asked Jin to send another dot if he’s okay, and a dot really came… How should I understand this…?? Even if we ask Jin to send just a dot, he wouldn’t really do that… It definitely doesn’t seem like he’s okay ㅠㅠㅠㅠㅠ I’m so worried my heart is pounding ㅠㅠㅠㅠㅠ #YoonJinBubble #Sparkle]
* * *
Yoon Jin moved his fingers diligently to see what kind of Bubbles ‘William’ had been sending and how he had been conversing with fans. However, no matter how much he scrolled up in the chat window, he couldn’t see his own messages, only the fans’ impressive gushing skills stood out.
Yoon Jin, who hadn’t yet become familiar with his phone, found it difficult to use all the functions in the app. It was inevitable for him, who didn’t particularly like inefficient tasks, to use the all-powerful green search box again. But no matter how much he searched, he only found posts about how fans use Bubble, not how celebrities use it, what Bubble content is like, etc.
“Ah, is uploading conversations from here prohibited?”
And the reason became quickly apparent. Conversations shared in the paid Bubble app were prohibited from being uploaded to other sites. Yoon Jin had no choice but to go back to the app and look for the messages himself.
While he was searching diligently, more messages piled up in Bubble, and Yoon Jin skimmed through a few that caught his eye.
[Jin, if something’s wrong, shake a carrot. A dot is fine too ㅠㅠㅠㅠㅠ I love you always!]
[Oppa, are you doing okay?? I’m so worried… Is nothing wrong? I miss you so much ㅠㅠ]
[Jin oppa, is something wrong? If not, please send another dot!! Please!!!]
[Jin, if nothing’s wrong, send anything… another dot… anything ㅠㅠㅠㅠ I’m so worried ㅠㅠㅠㅠㅠ]
Since long sentences took time to read, relatively shorter posts caught his eye, and they were requesting him to shake or send a dot, carrot, cucumber, bell pepper, anything.
Yoon Jin, who hadn’t seen the internet for 7 years, had no way of knowing the true meaning of “shake a carrot” or “send even a dot.” Therefore, he sent another dot without knowing its meaning. Everyone was begging so earnestly, and there was no reason not to do that much.
Of course, Yoon Jin had genuinely sent a dot because he was fine, in response to “please send a dot if you’re okay.” Therefore, he had no idea what kind of commotion these two dots had caused.
At that moment, with an urgent door lock sound, someone entered the dorm with a clatter. Startled, Yoon Jin left his room to see Sanggu’s pale face.
“Huff… huff… Yoon, Yoon Jin-ssi! Are you okay?! Nothing’s wrong, right?”
“Huh? No, what?”
Sanggu, who was much larger than Yoon Jin, approached almost crawling and grabbed his shoulders. He was drenched in sweat despite the cold weather, having run so much.
“I’m sorry! I should have been more attentive… I should have…”
“No, first let go of this…”
“To Yoon Jin-ssi in this state, without proper explanation… just making requests… I’m crazy, really crazy…”
“Sanggu!”
In his confused state, Sanggu unconsciously tightened his grip on Yoon Jin’s shoulders. Although the strong hold was painful, Yoon Jin was more concerned about his condition. Worried that he might have hit his head somewhere, Yoon Jin shouted in a low voice, just as he would call Guonnu.
Startled by the sudden call, Sanggu opened his eyes wide and stared blankly at Yoon Jin. After removing the weakened hands from his shoulders, Yoon Jin bent his knees to match his gaze.
“Calm down and tell me what’s going on. Otherwise, I won’t know what you’re trying to say.”
“Ah… hiccup…”
His shoulders, as broad as his large build, twitched along with his hiccups. Despite his physique, his eyes rolled timidly, making Yoon Jin laugh lightly. It was like seeing an innocent version of Guonnu.
“So can you tell me what’s going on?”
“Yes, hic. Hiccup… Um… I’m sorry.”
“What are you so sorry about since earlier?”
“I, hic… asked you to do Bubble, hick… and…”
“Why is that a problem?”
Having been looking at that Bubble app until just now, Yoon Jin couldn’t understand Sanggu’s words even more. If it was something he should do as a celebrity, then it was certainly something a manager could reasonably ask, and it wasn’t such a difficult task to begin with.
“I… I thought I knew Yoon Jin-ssi’s condition well…”
“And?”
“I just assumed Yoon Jin-ssi would naturally know how you used to talk with fans, that you would do it like before…”
“Ah…”
After carefully interpreting Sanggu’s expression, words, and the situation, Yoon Jin came up with a simple answer. He clearly thought he had ordered an idol suffering from amnesia due to psychological shock to communicate with fans without explaining anything. Looking at the dejected man in front of him, Yoon Jin found it a bit absurd.
‘He must think I put a lot of thought into sending one dot.’
Author: Hyacinthus B
Hyacinthus
