Exploding Popularity

VitaQua's new commercial was trending at #10 on the real-time web searches fifteen minutes after the TV commercial was launched.

An hour later, it rose to #6, and had maintained at #3 as the next day dawned.

Yeo Ri was woken up by the loud blaring of her smartphone as endless phone calls rolled in.

It was about 7 a.m., which was not a usual time for her to be getting any calls. Even Mrs. Choi would not usually call her for business until it was about 8 or 9 a.m.

Yeo Ri blearily picked up the noisy machine, her eyes still closed and dazed with sleep.

"Yeo Ri!"

Min Chae's ear-piercing scream greeted her ears.

"Yeo Ri, have you gone online yet?! Things have gotten so crazy!" Min Chae shrieked excitedly.

"What...?" Yeo Ri mumbled lazily. Min Chae's voice had been so loud that even Gun who was sleeping soundly next to her was startled awake. She flashed him an apologetic smile and patted him, as though telling him that nothing was wrong.

Upon realising that Yeo Ri was on a call with her best friend, Gun relaxed and went back to sleep. His first class starts at 10, so it was fine for him to sleep in for a little bit.

Yeo Ri slowly crawled out of bed before paying attention to Min Chae again. Rubbing her eyes, she stifled a yawn. "What is it, Min Chae-ah?"

"Online! You're all everybody is talking about right now!" Min Chae exuberantly said, urging her friend to check.

"What?" Yeo Ri could not help but mutter in disbelief. It was so early in the morning; she couldn't understand why Min Chae couldn't wait until later to talk to her. However, she kept this thought to herself and walked to Gun's laptop. She pulled out the browser page and skimmed through it to humour Min Chae's request.

However, what she saw almost made her drop her phone.

"Have you checked yet?" Min Chae's voice rang, snapping her out of her stupor.

Yeo Ri frantically scrolled through the trending list.

...

[#3 VitaQua girl]

...

[#5 VitaQua commercial]

[#6 VitaQua]

...

...

"Wh—?!" Yeo Ri let out a flabbergasted gasp.

With her heart thumping, she shakily clicked on one of the trending searches. It redirected her to the comments section of the video, where thousands of comments flooded her screen.

[Anonymous: The VitaQua commercial girl is so cute. I think I fell in love.]

[Anonymous2: I know, right?! That charming smile! Ahhhhhhh!!!!!]

[asdfghjkl: Me too! Does anybody know who she is? Does she have a boyfriend? ...asking for a friend!]

[kpopstan101: Is she a new artist? How come I've never seen her before? Pls reply if anybody knows other works she's in!]

[qwerty: Aaaaaaaaah I can't get enough of that smile!!!]

[NunaMarryMe: Keke I went to buy that drink because of the VitaQua girl but when I got to the convenience store, it was sold out kekeke]

[Anonymous3: kekeke that's probably me kekeke I bought as many as I could afford. D Corp, isn't it about time to tell us who the girl is??? kekeke]

...

..

.

"What..."

Yeo Ri could only utter that one word speechlessly as she scrolled through the comments.

There were so many that she could not help but feel it was surreal. Even when she checked other social medias or forums, they were all discussing the same thing: her!

She was not being narcissistic; although Jae Ha was also in the same commercial, Yeo Ri knew she was in the center of attention seeing as many people had posted screenshots of her face from different points of the commercial.

Her face flushed. She was garnering so much attention that she did not know how to handle it.

Silently, she closed all the tabs and shut the laptop down. Almost too calmly, Yeo Ri swallowed her saliva and raised her phone back against her ear.

"Sorry, Min Chae-ah... I'll call you back later."

Once she hung up, Yeo Ri stumbled back into bed and hugged her pillow closely. She buried her face into the pillow, muffling her voice as she screamed loudly.