The man was reading a webtoon.
It was called ‘Magical School Kids.’
It was a popular webtoon a few years ago.
When he was in high school, every Tuesday, people would greet each other with ‘Did you see MagiKids yesterday?’
It was a webtoon that enjoyed the highest popularity, but now it was getting bashed for its absurd plot and ruined characters.
It used to have no ratings below 9.9, but now it had a miserable average of 7.2.
The latest episode’s comments were full of irrelevant and negative remarks.
-Let’s milk the author until he dies lol
-Today’s weather is minus 3 degrees. Be careful of the cold!
-Everyone, did you know that you should wash strawberries with a toothbrush?The man was a loyal fan of that webtoon.
It had been his source of strength throughout his high school life, so he always gave it 10 stars and a like, no matter what the content was.
But he couldn’t do that for this episode.
‘What the hell…’
He looked at his smartphone with a dismayed face.
He didn’t notice the people around him staring, as he made a horrified expression.
-Magical School Kids 592 [End]
The final episode’s rating was 1.0
Usually, when a webtoon ends, people tend to give generous ratings out of nostalgia, but 1.0 was too low.
The problem was that it deserved it.
In the final episode, the protagonist and his friends faced a horde of evil and met a terrible death.
The comment section was exploding, and various communities were flooded with posts titled ‘Today’s MagiKids Ending.jpg’.
The man opened his eyes in disbelief.
What had happened?
Why…
Tears welled up in his eyes.
He couldn’t believe it as he scrolled down.
The characters he had loved for years were all dead.
Some of the minor characters even disappeared into dust without a last word.
Of course, if this had happened during the serialization, there might have been a chance to fix it.
But the word in front of his eyes was ‘End’.
It meant it was over.
He didn’t care about the people watching him, as he burst into tears.
Everything around him was gray.
He wished it had ended differently. Why did it have to end like this?
Eunho, Eunsung, Jieun, Teacher Park…
Did they deserve to be sent off like this?
He felt ashamed to cry over a webtoon, but it had been his companion during hard times.
He had gained strength from watching the friendship and love of the characters in the webtoon.
But someone had taken it all away from him.
‘If only I were the author…’
The transfer student who learned the solution to this phenomenon tried various methods right away.
He used his brain to keep the other person at school, but his plan was ruined when the other person chased him, saying he had something to give him.
He tried to avoid the situation by taking a different route, but what was bound to happen happened.
On a different road from the original work, a young girl was crying.
But despite the changed content, the development was the same.
A car was coming while the child was crying, and the protagonist jumped in and was paralyzed by the villain’s magic.
The story was still going as it was.
Before he could stop him, the protagonist ran to the road without hesitation, and soon he was paralyzed by the villain.
A car approaching.
And the transfer student used the ‘magic to lighten clothes’ that he learned in class today and ran at an amazing speed.
He succeeded in saving the protagonist.
When Ra Eun-ho thanked him for a long time, creating a warm atmosphere, the other person picked up the phone that fell on the floor.
“Is this your phone?”
“Yeah, it is.”
Just then.
The phone vibrated and a message appeared on the screen.
[Notification!]
[You have successfully saved ‘Ra Eun-ho’ from today’s accident.]
His face hardened at the sight of the strange text.
Soon, various questions followed, and Raeunho glared at him.
“Who are you?”
In the tense atmosphere…
***
One of them was sitting nervously, while the other was gasping for breath.
The face of the one who was sitting changed into a fierce expression.
[What are you?]
The moment the ‘transfer student’ opened his lips to speak.
Right then.
The screen switched.
A white screen with the logo ‘EverDream’ appeared.
A cheerful narration sounded in front of the people who were looking with stunned expressions.
[School uniforms are comfortable! EverDream~]
At that moment, everyone who was watching the ad had the same expression.
“…”
EverDream’s SNS CF ‘Magic School Edition’.
It was the ad that won the excellence award at the TV CF Awards in 2014, and also became known as the ‘annoying ad’ on the internet.
***
[The video that is getting cursed on the internet right now.metube]
It’s a school uniform ad by EverDream… I really want to kill the bastard who planned it
Just watch it once and tell me what you think
-Ah shit
If I were the author, I wouldn’t have ended it like this.
That’s what I was thinking when it happened.
Suddenly, something strange started to happen.
The lights in the subway went out one by one from afar, and then the car he was in also plunged into darkness.
And then he lost consciousness.
***
The man who opened his eyes again was bewildered.
He was sitting in a classroom of some school.
It was break time and the students were chatting.
He looked around with a flustered face and was shocked.
The face reflected on his phone screen was younger than his current one, but that wasn’t the only reason.
The familiar classroom scenery.
The navy blue uniform and red tie that he had seen somewhere before.
‘Could it be…’
As he sensed the identity of this place, a shadow fell over him.
It was a tall and handsome high school student.
When he smiled, the surroundings brightened up.
He had such an outstanding appearance that he would be the perfect visual for a Korean version of a high-teen movie.
He was literally the protagonist.
The protagonist of the webtoon Magic School Kids, Ra Eun-ho.
“Hi, you’re the transfer student, right?”
The class president sat next to him and grinned.
“The homeroom teacher told me to take good care of you. You might have a hard time adjusting since you came from a non-magic school.”
“…Huh? Uh.”
“If you have any problems, just tell me. I’m not very good at studying, but I’m confident in taking care of people.”
As they exchanged awkward greetings, some of Eun-ho’s friends came and nudged him.
A boyish-looking student said, ‘Basketball, anyone?’ and they got up from their seats.
For a while, the man who had suddenly become a ‘transfer student’ stared blankly and tried to sort out the situation.
This was the world of the webtoon.
He didn’t know if he was dreaming or hallucinating, but the transfer student decided to find a way out.
And then he remembered something.
The protagonist’s legs were still fine.
He grabbed his phone and checked the date. It was April 2012.
He knew it from binge-reading the webtoon several times.
It was before the accident happened.
Eun-ho’s traffic accident, the author’s first blunder.
He was hit by a car while trying to save a young girl disguised as a villain, and became lame.
Eight months later, in December 2012, everyone died.
As he was immersed in his complicated thoughts, a mysterious message arrived on his phone.
[Mission: Save the protagonist ‘Ra Eun-ho’ from today’s accident!]
[Reward: Return]
That was the only way for him to go back.
-LOL I was going to comment but I see someone had the same reaction as me
-What is this, seriously? Ugh, this is BS
-So what’s the story behind this…??
-LOL who came up with this idea, really?
-LOL I don’t think I’ll ever forget this for the next few years. Everdream LOL I was speechless…
-Looks like another meme came out
-Please… give me the rest of the story…
-LOL they did a great job. Who’s the director?
The SNS ad that started off mildly got a huge response on the internet in less than three days.
It was thanks to word of mouth.
The people who first watched it out of curiosity spread it around with the mindset of ‘I can’t be the only one who suffers!’ and the ad became known in no time.
As a result, Everdream was used as a meme like the cafe logo of a certain sitcom for a while.
It was an unexpected outcome for both the advertiser and anyone else.
Of course, it wasn’t just because of the story of the ad.
It was a comprehensive result.
Above all, the director’s skill was great.
Yu Geon, who had been active in the independent film scene, pulled out the video almost like a short film.
That was the reason why it caught people’s attention.
Any scene could be captured and called a drama without any discomfort because of the quality.
And also, a fresh format that had never been seen before.
There were some crazy ads with stories coming out slowly, but the dramatize concept of the ad was still a new format for consumers.
And lastly, it was the acting of New Black that backed up the story.
Because of that, the two members of New Black who performed brilliantly in the ad video also got a positive response.
-Wow LOL he’s so handsome, who is he? I got a forced memory correction
-222
-Yeah, it feels like a non-existent first love
-LOL they’re those guys, the ones who came out in Jusehan
-Jusehan??
-The one who played the class president and made the shot
-I watched the ad and it was the best thing I’ve seen in a while…LOL
-But did they learn some acting…?? I thought they were unknown rookie actors when I first saw them, especially the one who played the transfer student
-Yeah, me too
And there was someone who was smiling while watching all these reactions.
‘The response is good.’
In the office of the 3rd team of the clothing business division of KG International, team leader Woo Hee-seon was smiling.
She had a feeling from the internal presentation.
Unlike Blink’s ‘Girl Detective Team’ which had good quality but bad acting, New Black’s ‘Magic School’ showed synergy with the acting that exceeded expectations and the directing that was stimulated by it.
She thought it could be submitted to a short film festival.
And it also achieved the goal as an ad.
Brand awareness.
Just like the donut ad that gave a deep impression with the irrelevant Antarctic background scene, this ad imprinted the brand Everdream on people.
She didn’t emphasize the functional aspects of the uniform, such as elasticity, that she intended when she first planned it, but it was a more successful result than then.
Above all, the response from the teenagers who wore the uniforms was good.
She smiled as she looked at the ad video that was spreading more and more on SNS.
The news from everywhere was good.
The reaction of the upper line to her decision to select the ad model was also good, and the news that came through a friend who worked in the personnel department was also good.
There was a tailwind blowing from somewhere.
‘They must be busy too.’
She smiled as she thought of New Black, the ad model. They must be quite excited.
The name New Black was known to the teenagers who were interested in idols.
“Ah! I saw that.”
She gave him a look to be quiet when the boy pretended to know.
He soon smiled.
The two friends showed the video to their other friends with one mind.
Immediately, they reacted like they did when they first saw it, with angry faces saying, ‘Ah, what is this? What’s the story behind it…?’
“Ugh, what is this.”
“Hey, who are they? They’re so handsome, really.”
“They’re the ones who played basketball on Jusehan.”
“Oh, him? Wow. I didn’t recognize him.”
Soon, her friends started talking about New Black, the rookie boy group.
And.
The girl who pretended not to know, the fan cafe nickname ‘PowerwSoufflé’, smiled contentedly from behind.
‘They don’t know.’
That she had an album in her house with a message written by Seonwooju himself, ‘Please forget the World Cup joke…’
PowerwSoufflé, who was subtly promoting New Black during the conversation, smiled quietly.
It was a perfect cosplay of a normal person.
***
I want to make a program like a documentary called ‘New Black 3 Days’.
I want to show how much can happen in three days.
Actually, I thought I would get a reaction from Jusehan, but I didn’t think about the advertisement at all.
It was our first advertisement, so it was meaningful, but it was only distributed on SNS, so I didn’t expect much from its impact.
But when I saw the advertisement for the first time, I opened my mouth wide at the quality.
It was so well directed that we watched it without a break.
I found out later that the director who directed our CF, Yu Geon, was famous in the industry for his screen quality.
Thanks to that, ‘Night Sea’, which started with a great score of 89th on the first day, rose to 59th in three days.
It was still lower than Something, which didn’t seem to come down from the top 20, and Fireworks, which stayed in the early 50s, but considering that it had only been released for three days, it was an encouraging result.
How happy I was for three days.
If there were sad or depressed people, I wanted to hold their hands and share the emotions I was feeling now.
This feeling, you wouldn’t know unless you experienced it.
The emotion I felt from the fact that all three songs in the top 100 of the music chart were either made by me or I participated in making them.
Maybe I’ll be proud of it for the rest of my life.
And, I wasn’t the only one who felt that way.
“What if we make it to number one?”
We all laughed at Junghyun’s words. But he was very serious, eating jelly.
“I’m serious. Really, if we get a documentary and a Chuseok special, we might go up more.”
“Hyung, this is already amazing. Did you see the articles?”
“Yeah. My dad called me last night and asked me if I had any thoughts about being a chicken ad model.”
“What did you say?”
“I asked for a lot of money and he hung up.”
We all laughed as we imagined the situation.
I looked around with a smile for a while.
We were in the conference room of HBS MTV broadcasting station.
It was the day of our second pre-meeting.
"But they're really not coming."
Bijoo said with a worried tone.
"It's been like 30 minutes since they said the meeting would start."
"I know, right?"
As the members were shaking their heads in disbelief, I was the only one who knew the truth and smiled secretly.
The younger ones didn't know, but there were hidden cameras all over the place, filming us. The PD and the writer were watching from somewhere else.
-So if you have something you want to try with your siblings, feel free to write it down. We'll review it.
That was the question I got at the last meeting, and it was my proposal.
It was a timid revenge for the surprise camera I got during the school uniform ad.
As I was waiting for the fun to come, the TV turned on.
"Wow, what is that!"
The younger ones were startled as if they had seen a ghost and looked at the TV screen.
At first, they had a nervous expression, but soon their eyes widened.
"…What is that?"
"Why is that here?"
It was because of the video that was playing on the screen.
The production team's voice was heard.
-What kind of person is Ui-in usually?
On the screen, the interview we had at the company was playing.
They all reacted with ‘What, why is that here…?'
Soon, Bijoo and Rihyuk, who noticed something, turned their heads to me.
The other members also realized what was going on.
"That wasn't the documentary team that filmed that?"
"No."
I gave a bright smile to the younger ones who blinked in surprise.
"That was the reality team."