The birth of fandom, "Gaia"

Somewhere in the Seoul;

A woman was browsing the internet at her apartment. Her name is Kim Ga Yun and she's an editor at Webtoon Entertainment, which is a subsidiary of Naver Corporation. It is the same woman whose YouTube video got viral.

During the past few weeks, she had the time of her life. Usually, she was only a person who enjoys listening to kpop songs, not a particular fan of anyone.

In her free time, 27-year-old Kim Ga Yun runs a YouTube channel where she mainly uploads her cooking videos.

She was running the channel for the past year, started for fun, and until a few weeks ago, her subscribers' count was 115 but now, it was tremendously grown to more than 40,000 subscribers. She's a good cook, alright. So, the new subscribers became regulars too.

Kim Ga Yun went to youtube and clicked on the most popular video. A trace of surprise was seen on her face, "wow, it already reached 5 million views? How long had it been? Barely four weeks. Hmm…"

She scrolls down to the comment section to read new popular ones. "A teaser?"

A lot of them were asking her to react to the "Home" teaser uploaded by Genesis.

"What is this?" She wondered as she scrolls down further. Realization dawned upon her, "Oh, this youngster is going to debut, huh. Well, Let's see…"

She typed in the search box and clicked on the first video that has barely about 110 thousand. And it was uploaded about four hours ago.

At first, she thought the numbers were great for a person who's just going to debut but when she saw the other stats, she was a little bit confused to see nearly 30 thousand comments, 20 thousand likes, and 24thousand dislikes.

"Is the video too bad or something? Why so many dislikes?" She couldn't understand it but one thing she did understand was that one of every two people who watched the video either liked the video or disliked the video. She became curious about it and clicked on the video.

What appeared was just the space that sci-fi movies usually show it. "What the hell is this?" Her first impressions weren't great.

However, soon, her expression changed as Jun appeared. "An alien in search of a home? Cool concept and great graphics too but more than that, he looks so handsome. Let's see what people think..."

She naturally minimized it and scrolled down to the comment section. "Eh?"

Several people are bashing Jun for betraying ZC Entertainment. He trained there but is serving Genesis, which is its competitor.

Some others are complaining that there's too much CG. Some are commenting that there's nothing in the video to even watch. Some more appeared to be in support of Jun, complained against Genesis for trying to insult the youngster, branding him as an alien due to his green eyes.

In several parts of the country, except for international schools and cosmopolitan neighborhoods, having different eyes whether it's blue or green, it's a fact that Korean-born children are considered outcasts by their fellow classmates or even the people living in the neighborhood. The mildest treatment they can receive from these stereotypical people is being termed as a mixed race.

And the minds of the teenagers and young adults were too complex to understand. Some people will be more understanding towards a situation while some are too sensitive that they will raise a ruckus for every little thing.

Kim Ga Yun often sees this kind of reaction in several music videos. So, she didn't care much about it.

Instead, her focus went back to the video. She played it again, and mumbled in the end, "When looking deep, the video has a sense of mystery."

Soon, she made a reaction video, telling her opinion on it, and uploaded it for her subscribers.

***

Meanwhile, at the dorm, Jun appeared to be a little bit disappointed as he was watching the video for the nth time. Of course, it's not because of the number of dislikes at all. He knew that those numbers will eventually be removed by Youtube. Even if it doesn't happen, he won't care about it. The things that matter for him are the view count, the album sales, position in music charts, and awards.

But, right now, he was a little bit down, remembering his hard work during the mv shoot.

Letting out a deep sigh, he spoke to himself, "Can't believe they made me work so hard just for a couple of scenes. What about the rest of them? Of 19 scenes, only 2 scenes made it to the introduction video. Editing is really cruel…"

*Buzz* Buzz*

His mobile phone vibrated at the moment, receiving a text message from an unknown person.

He looked at it.

"Hi, I'm Chu Sahee. We participated together at Treasure Campus."

"Just want to say that your album teaser looks amazing. Good luck."

Jun tried to remember the name but nothing came to his mind. He doesn't know how she got his number. Nevertheless, he sent a thank you in return for supporting him.

After putting aside the phone, he mumbled, "this is the eleventh time I got a message from the contestants of the show that I don't know. Of them, nine are even females. I wonder who gave them. Is it Yuna or is it Euijin? They were the only ones that I gave them. Anyway, let's think of it, later. Let's go shopping. The fridge is almost empty."

Jun took the company's card for the group from Hanbin and went out grocery shopping with Daniel.

He actually expected to be recognized by the people around but sadly, no one seemed to be caring about others. Both of them quietly shopped around and returned to the dorm.

Meanwhile, at the CEO's office, CEO Hwang and YG were discussing the reactions.

Despite what people say, the people in the higher management including CEO were greatly satisfied by the response of the audience, although they were irked by some articles like one that states whether the company is trying to gamble with a brand new storyline concept that didn't exist until now and another one states that Genesis is poaching an artist trained in its rival company.

CEO Hwang decided to take a hard stance on such matters. They didn't hesitate to release a piece of news about suing the people that trying to defame their company's reputation.

During the next two days, Jun almost spend his day watching the teaser and reading the comments.

While he looked like he doesn't care still, he's a human too. Negative reactions hurt him a little bit.

June 20, 2018;

As it was noon, Jun became anxious as he sat before the television. It was the day of the second teaser, which is MV's.

After receiving the confirmation, he went onto the company's channel.

Unlike the before teaser, this time, the thumbnail shows Jun's face. He was closing his eyes with his chin raised.

Jun clicked on the video. It was only 20 seconds this time.

The scene opened with the continuation of the last teaser. He was standing at the top of the handrail, looking down at the city.

And his vocals appeared in the background.

"You make me feel so, mmmh"

The scene quickly changed to Jun sitting on his knees with dozens of pillars around while he was just singing mmmh in the background.

Then, it gave a glimpse of a five-second dance in the water, after that, the scene once again changed to an apocalyptic world where he was dancing on the road along with background dancers in white tight suits.

The movements were a bit sexy indeed. Jun couldn't help but comment as he looked at the background, "man, I didn't expect they would pull off like this. It's a normal road at Daejeon that I shot at but here, the scenery completely changed."

The video ended with the song title, MMMH in red while he sang, "I said, I said."

Meanwhile, at Webtoon Entertainment, Kim Ga Yun clicked on the video with anticipation. After watching the second teaser, she nodded with a smile, "He's sexy indeed. I guess he's someone that can be rooted for. It's still a mystery how the actual song will turn out, but since I benefited from his performance, let's take a gamble and tried to promote it as much as I can during the next four days. Is there any fan club? Let's search…"

And this small event entirely changed the course of life, probably for the best.