Unstoppable Troll - Chapter 6

People think that Jaehyuk is a YouTuber who plays games that usually stays up late and wakes up late. However, what they didn’t know is that Jaehyuk starts his mornings early, unlike most people. He eaten a simple breakfast of cereal and fruit, puts on a light knit sweater and jeans, then heads out of the house. He goes down to the underground parking lot and gets into his all-black SUV.

Fans speculated that since he is good at games, he might drive a low, sporty car in bold colors. However, Jaehyuk, who holds strange beliefs like “men need to exercise,” insisted on driving a large SUV that could accommodate more than just his size, with the concept that “SUVs are the way to go.”

The black SUV is reached the stop 15 minutes away from its owner house and parked on a lower floor of a modern high-rise building with a vast area and mostly glass façade. This is where Jaehyuk’s one-man company is located. Although Jaehyuk is the only streamer, there are seven staff members taking care of him, so the office still needed a certain size.

While the building was easily accessible and spacious, it seemed grandiose for a company with only seven employees. New employees that joining the company initially thought they would only use half of one floor of this grand building. But to their surprise, Jaehyuk’s company was the only one in the entire building. More precisely, the building itself belonged entirely to Jaehyuk’s company.

One might think it’s too extravagant for a small company with just seven employees to monopolize such a large building that could accommodate over ten startup companies. But since the building owner chose to lease solely to Jaehyuk’s company, no one could say anything about the arrangement. After all, the building owner was Jaehyuk’s father.

While streaming or out and about, Jaehyuk typically just wear hoodies, eschewing flashy brands. Yet, with his low-key style, he still resembles the overlooked scion of a prominent wealthy family.

He was enjoying his father’s care by having the entire spacious building to himself, although he was oblivious to the extent of his father’s generosity. In fact, he did not even recognize it as generosity. By simply paying a monthly rent of 1 million won to his father, he simply just thought that the building was so big, without a care in the world. Even if his father got upset and decided to rent the space to other companies, Jaehyuk would likely interpret it as a savvy move into real estate ventures. With a nonchalant demeanor and thought, he would casually relocate the company’s possessions.

Jaehyuk finished parking hastily and made his way to the building’s entrance. Several employees who were enjoying coffee at the lobby mini café hurried over, forming a circle around Jaehyuk and enthusiastically congratulating him on his trending topic about the game he played with Song Eungyu.

Among them, the happiest was Shinshik, who was in charge of Jaehyuk’s schedule. He excitedly mentioned that their subscriber count had increased a lot in just one day, sticking close to Jaehyuk’s side and praising him like a top idol without hesitation.

Shinshik was Jaehyuk’s personal manager during his professional gaming days. Jaehyuk initially rejected the idea, stating he wasn’t a celebrity and didn’t need a manager. However, he eventually relented due to his father’s plea to take on a manager without having to pay by himself. Over time, Jaehyuk grew to trust Shinshik’s professionalism, and now he has brought him on board as a permanent part of his team.

Officially, Jaehyuk held no specific position in the company, feeling awkward being called titles like CEO Ha Jaehyuk or President Ha Jaehyuk. Thus, he simply added “님* (nim)” to his title, so that everyone referred to him as “Jaehyuk-nim.” This rule applied to everyone, so even team leaders or managers had their titles only on business cards, while everyone in the company addressed each other comfortably using their names followed by “님 (nim).”

*TL/N: 님 (nim) is a honorific suffix used after a person’s name to show respect or politeness. Can be translated as “Mr.” or “Mrs./Ms.” when addressing someone formally. It’s similar to “-san” in Japan.

“Jaehyuk-nim, you truly are a talented person.”

“It’s just luck, really.”

“Luck is also a skill. There’s an old saying that goes like that. Skill is luck, luck is also skill*. Whoever has these two, can possess everything!”

*TL/N: It implies that both skill and luck play important roles in achieving success.

Of course, it was an old saying he had never heard of before. With Shinshik being chatty, Jaehyuk always have to make quick escapes despite having a good sense and wit. And now is the perfect timing. Jaehyuk hastened his steps and slipped into the meeting room.

Even as a sole proprietor of a one-person agency, sustaining a livelihood through game streaming alone proved an insurmountable challenge. To captivate and grow an audience, diversification became imperative, Jaehyuk as a YouTuber also understood how important it was. Therefore, on Jaehyuk’s channel, in addition to gaming videos, there were also vlogs of daily life, videos reviewing trendy foods or products in a simple manner, and all being uploaded one by one.

Due to Jaehyuk’s captivating looks and body, his vlogs and review videos easily raked in over 3 million views each month, making them an essential part of contents lineup. Alongside the influx of ads and sponsorships that flooded Jaehyuk’s way daily, the weekly team meetings became an indispensable routine.

“Dongju, don’t you know that shorts* are trending these days?”

*TL/N: YouTube Shorts, like IG Reels.

“Of course I know. But Hyemin, it’s better to use shorts for promotional purposes. Doing this as one of main contents is a bit…”

To be speaking, Jaehyuk preferred to keep meetings brief, never exceeding an hour. Strangely, it was his employees who displayed a fervor greater than his own. His gaze shifted towards the passionate Planning team led by Jung Hyemin and the dynamic YouTube editing team under Ju Dongju, engrossed in hours of impassioned debate. Succumbing to the tedium, Jaehyuk retrieved his phone from the conference table, opting to engage in some casual internet browsing until the two teams could reconcile their differing viewpoints.

CURV Song Eung-gu.

It was the first thing that popped up as soon as he opened the green app (Naver) — the name he had searched for before going to bed to check the media responses after yesterday’s livestream.

[Showing results for Song Eung-gu.
Search instead for Song Eungyu.]

Seeing that the searching results were giving a refer and the original profile name was Song Eungyu. Ha Jaehyuk concluded that Song Eunggu was a nickname that fans jokingly called.

‘No wonder, that name doesn’t suit his face at all.‘

Jaehyuk wasn’t particularly trying to search for anything, so he pressed randomly on the first image of Song Eungyu that was on the search bar results. Just like the hottest idols these days, various pictures of Song Eungyu poured out. A fair and attractive gorgeous visual. Compared to the tall member beside him, he looked small in stature, but his height on his profile was 180. It was obviously not short.

Lately, his stage outfits seemed to be jumpsuit, with many pictures of him wearing jumpsuit in different eye view. Normally, one might think such clothes wouldn’t suit someone with anything less than a good physique, but it seemed Song Eungyu pulled it off well overall.

His stage expressions exuded so much force. The cute innocent eyes in the photo that viewers sent yesterday were now burning fiercely like they could devour the camera. It was like a cat turning into a jaguar.
‘As expected from an idol.‘
The foolish demeanor from yesterday was nowhere to be found when Song Eungyu on stage.

A viewer posted a clip from a reality show to forum, with titled [look to the right on the screen and suddenly turn your head to the right, Song Eungyu.MOV], it was so cute and funny that even someone who wasn’t a fan of Song Eungyu couldn’t help but burst into laughter.

“Look to the right! Look to the right, hyung!”

“Huh…? To the right…?”

In the video, CURV went to a PC room together to play a classic FPS game that used to be popular in the old days. Song Eungyu, who seemingly playing the game for the first time, leaned forward to look at the monitor, appearing awkward in the middle of it.

“No, hyung, why are you looking at me? I mean for you to look at the right side of the screen.”

As one member instructed Song Eungyu to look to the right, instead of looking to the right in the game, Song Eungyu just casually turned his head to the right to gaze at the member sitting next to him.

The bewildered member nudge Song Eungyu’s cheek, prompting Eungyu look back at the monitor. Eungyu wore a blank and bewildered expression, giving off an air of endless airhe— innocence.

Chuckling, Jaehyuk, who recalled yesterday’s video, scrolled down to see another clip but ended up mistakenly clicking on the news tab, where he stumbled upon an article mentioning himself, by a post from Song Eungyu’s SNS just a few hours earlier.

[song_silver_kyu Athlete Jaehyuk, it was really fun. Thank you so much. Oh, and Linears*, how does this pink cat ear headset that Chanhee lent to me look? Is it suits me?]

*TL/N: the group name is CURV (curve) and the fandom name is Linear…

In a somewhat stiff tone, Song Eunkyu, known for his cuteness despite being jack of none, had posted a selfie wearing a noisy, bright pink cat ear headset, which was a quintessential idol look. From Jaehyuk’s perspective, it was a headset that would never should be used in their right mind.

If anyone he knew had posted a selfie wearing such a headset, Jaehyuk probably would have made a face of disgu— disapproval. However, Song Eungyu seemed to pull off such things with ease, leaving Jaehyuk scratching his nose awkwardly. Yet, he couldn’t help but frown slightly at how fine Song Eungyu to be able suit with those things.

Athlete Jaehyuk.

However, the words written by Song Eungyu made the slight frown between Jaehyuk’s eyebrows ease a bit.

It was truly a title he hadn’t heard in a long time. It felt like it was probably the first time since his days as a player had ended. Now, being called either Ha Jaehyuk, Jaehyuk oppa, Jaehyuk hyung made the address from Song Eungyu feel quite unfamiliar and somewhat tingly.

Please kindly tell me if I made any mistakes! Thank you.