# Chapter 14
***
At first, he just intended to do a camera test. But when the setup time passed 30, then 40 minutes, his stubbornness kicked in. Even if it’s unwatchable, so be it! And so, after about an hour, Hwiseo put his face in front of the camera.
[LiveQ] BLEN Live: Hello, this is Lee Hwiseo.
Hwiseo held a tablet in his hand and watched himself on the screen. The comments were supposed to appear around here.
“I can’t see the comments. Is this working correctly?”
After staring intently at the screen for a moment, comments began to appear.
“Hello. This is Lee Hwiseo. What? You can’t hear my voice? It’s cutting out?”
Hwiseo tapped the laptop. While at it, he also lowered the lighting a bit. He stared at the screen for a while, which was being flooded with “OMG” and heart emoticons. Then belatedly, he bowed his head and waved his hand gently.
“It’s been a while since I’ve greeted you. Have you been well, Blending everyone? I feel like I haven’t shared any news for too long.”
He wanted to read the comments, but perhaps because he wasn’t used to it, they weren’t registering well. Actually, there wasn’t much text to read. There were about a thousand viewers, and surprised by the sudden livestream, they were just posting short exclamations. Twisting his left ear, Hwiseo recalled the script the manager had mentioned. Sitting alone in a room and having to speak as if conversing felt awkward.
“First of all, I’m doing well. You’re asking if the sun rose from the west? It rose from the east. By the way, Venus rises from the west.”
└What am I watching right now????
└OMG what happened to your face?
└It’s not cutting out now
└Am I dreaming
└Wow wow wow wow
└Hwiseo Hwiseo Hwiseo Hwiseo
└Those who can’t hear, turn up the volume
“These days I’m resting and doing well. A survival check-in, you say? That makes sense too. Yes, I’m alive and well. I didn’t expect so many people to visit.”
The comments changed from exclamations of surprise to inquiries about his recent well-being. Following that, a stream of compliments about his appearance flowed in. In situations like this, he remembered being told it’s less off-putting to say “thank you” than to be modest. So he responded with “thank you, I appreciate it.”
└That lamp stand in the back is pretty, where’s it from?
└Lee Hwiseo is aliiiive!!
└Is that face for real?
└He got plastic surgery
└Random Venus commentㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ
└Why am I the only one aging normally?
└Insane, how is that face 27 years old?
“The lamp stand? I’m not sure where it’s from either. I’ll check the brand and get back to you.”
He made quite a fuss flipping over the shade of the lamp stand on the low wooden cabinet against the wall behind him, lifting the base to look at the bottom, and even unplugging the cord to pull it closer. Not entirely sure, he tilted his head as he told them the brand. Then, seeing the comments, he brought his face close to the camera and asked, “Plastic surgery? Me?”
“I haven’t had any plastic surgery or procedures. I look like I have? Ah, I shouldn’t read such comments aloud? Well, I guess truth isn’t important to those people. Maybe they just want to see me flustered? Why? Ah, you’re saying they want to see me get flustered and make mistakes. And that’s not all? I suppose you don’t need a reason to be malicious. They’re just bad people.”
As he concentrated on reading the comments, he seemed to be spacing out and talking to himself. When he asked, “Is this normally how you space out?” the comment section was flooded with laughing emoticons, “ㅎ”s and “ㅋ”s. Laughing along, Hwiseo found it fascinating that he could have this back-and-forth conversation with strangers.
“Ah! This is something I really wanted to address. About me being a bully. It’s okay, I’ll read this last one. I heard those rumors too. But I’ve never met anyone related to the drama. Not even the director. If I wanted to make demands, wouldn’t I need to meet them or at least have a phone call? I don’t have their phone number and have never met them. What? Someone said I only drive imported cars? Lies are always so specific, aren’t they? I guess they add all sorts of details to make it seem real.”
└Still a bully
└Don’t read hate comments, reading them out loud only encourages more —
└What’s that guitar in the back?
└Not a fan but respect for your face
└Why is your face so handsome?!!!!!!!
└Please do lives more oftenㅠㅠㅠㅠ
└I’m the only one aging, I’m the only one getting old…
A guitar was visible peeking out from the corner of the screen. Only the guitar head was slightly visible, but it was impressive that someone recognized it. Hwiseo got up from his seat, brought the guitar back, and sat down. Muttering how they could have seen it, he plucked the guitar string with a twang.
“You’re watching on a TV connected to this? I’m so bad with technology that it took me forever just to set this up, so that’s impressive. I want to say the guitar isn’t just for decoration, but honestly, it does partly serve that purpose.”
Hwiseo naturally started to play the guitar but hesitated. He felt like he was going with the flow of consciousness too much. He picked up the guitar because he didn’t know how to continue the conversation, but he wondered if this was really okay. Fortunately, he didn’t have his phone right now; otherwise, the manager would have called and made a fuss.
Hwiseo knew many songs he could play. But he wasn’t sure if those songs existed in this world too. If the song he played didn’t exist here, then Hwiseo would have almost become a plagiarist. He cast a meaningless gaze into the void and racked his brain about what to do.
└Even just sitting still is entertaining
└Thought I’d left the fandom but guess not
└ㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋHad a drink?
└Play the school bell song for us
└He even plays guitar??
└Preservative-face that puts rookies to shame
└OMG Lee Hwiseo?
“You want me to play the guitar? Then I’ll let you hear an original song. Alcohol? I didn’t drink. But the guitar strings aren’t standard gauge, so my fingers hurt a bit, keep that in mind as you listen.”
He hurriedly glossed over a comment about practicing during his break. Clapping emoticons appeared in the chat. Though he couldn’t hear the sound, it felt like they were cheering him on. With a grin, Hwiseo adjusted the treble and bass strings of the guitar to set the pitch.
***
Kyungjin was lying on her bed, watching the video on her phone. After discovering Lee Hwiseo by the Han River, the BLEN videos she looked up out of curiosity turned out to be an ant lion trap. More precisely, Lee Hwiseo’s beauty was like a sticky flypaper trap. People cursed at Lee Hwiseo, saying he looked like a wooden doll and questioning what kind of idol gets married and has a child, but those were all comments from people who hadn’t seen him in person.
“His face is this interesting, what are they talking about?”
Just then, a Q-app live notification popped up. It was an app she had downloaded just in case. Other members broadcast frequently, but most of the time she stopped watching because they were boring. The notifications kept coming and were annoying, so she clicked on the app intending to delete it after this.
“Huh? Lee Hwiseo live?”
And sure enough, Lee Hwiseo’s face filled the screen. Kyungjin jumped up from her bed and went to her desk to turn on her computer. Bigger, she needed to see him bigger. Her hands moved urgently. While the computer was booting up, Lee Hwiseo waved his hand gently on the phone screen. Kyungjin’s heart raced. It was mind-boggling that such beauty existed in the real world. When he briefly moved away from the camera to find the lamp stand manufacturer, there was an outpouring of resentment toward the commenter who asked. Why would you ask that? Soon, when that same commenter changed the subject, asking people to look at Lee Hwiseo’s proportions, praise immediately followed.
[Vibia? Bebia? Something like that brand, but I didn’t buy it myself, so I’m not sure if that’s right. Plastic surgery?]
Kyungjin contentedly looked at the face that filled the screen. But when she saw comments asking about the bullying rumors, she got angry. Usually, these live broadcasts are watched more by dedicated fans than passersby, so malicious comments appeared sporadically and quickly disappeared through self-regulation. But seeing how these comments kept steadily coming, she had a reasonable suspicion that there were fans of BLEN—excluding Hwiseo.
They constantly criticized Hwiseo, blaming him for the lack of success of the rest of BLEN’s members. Kyungjin, who was already angry at their tyranny, rolled up her sleeves. Bullying? What nonsense. Report, how do you report these? This was her first time properly watching, so she didn’t know. While briefly looking up how to report comments on Q-app, she heard the sound of guitar accompaniment.
[A lost puppy in front of the supermarket when I was young
Adults say to guard the house
The puppy that goes awooo is Nureongi
So cute, why should he guard the house?
As soon as I open my eyes in the morning, I run to the supermarket
Nureongi, the cute puppy
If I could stroke your fluffy fur
If I could hold your chubby body
Let’s be friends like in our dreams
I keep thinking about you, cute puppy
You’re cute, you’re really cute
Tonight too, I’ll sneak out and secretly find you
My heart that wants to see you, mm
Because I can’t help it, I peek around
Your face like milk with a spoonful of honey
Cute puppy, so cute]
What did she just hear? Lee Hwiseo could sing this well? She wasn’t the only one who thought so. The comments seemed to slow down briefly, but once the song ended, they resumed at their previous pace. By the end of the broadcast, the viewer count had exceeded 10,000.
Kyungjin had heard something too. It seemed to be about how cute Nureongi was. But like the comment reactions, what lingered in her ears was Hwiseo’s voice tickling her ears and the chorus of “You’re cute, you’re really cute” that kept ringing in her ears like the sound of an angel’s trumpet.
Author: Hyacinthus B
Hyacinthus
