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[[𝐏𝐥𝐚𝐲𝐥𝐢𝐬𝐭] Gazing at the Milky Way in the Night Sky | Guitar Instrumentals to Listen to on a Dark Winter Night].

Myeongjeon stared at the video's title. Gazing at the Milky Way in the Night Sky… A Dark Winter Night… It was positively overflowing with sentiment. But what did this have to do with him that made Iseo thrust the video in his face?

“My song is in this?”

“Yeah. You didn't know?”

Iseo asked in surprise. YouTubers were famous for so-called “one-sided collaborations,” but apparently the playlist YouTuber she listened to sent emails beforehand and did all sorts of other things. So she trusted them quite a bit and supported them too…

“More importantly, you're saying my song is in that video.”

“Yeah.”

“Then aren't they thieves? Shouldn't I sue them for copyright infringement?”

“Uh…”

Iseo briefly opened and closed her mouth, then scratched her head. How was she supposed to explain this? There were parts of things like this that were difficult to make someone understand.

“First off, ‘PL’… They call that a playlist. Those people don't make money—no, they can't make money.”

“What do you mean? They uploaded the video and got views. If they meet the requirements for monetization, don't they make money? By stealing someone else's work.”

“That's not it. YouTube does this thing… I don't know exactly how it works! It identifies the song, and if it determines that the song isn't theirs, it holds onto the revenue and gives it to the original copyright holder.”

Seeing Suyeon's expression of complete incomprehension, Iseo felt a little helpless.

“That's possible?”

“Well, apparently there's something like that. They run some kind of AI or whatever, an algorithm or something, and make that determination, then send the money back to the copyright holder.”

Myeongjeon felt even more baffled. How could a company know all of that and identify which song in his video belonged to whom… A sudden cold wind brought them back to reality.

“Ugh! It's cold. Let's go somewhere.”

“Yeah. Anyway… Oh, there's a Starbucks over there.”

Iseo watched Suyeon take off her coat and lay it over a chair. She looked a little different from the way she usually dressed.

Ever since they met in October, Suyeon had always worn things like Adidas tracksuits or hoodies. But today, she was wearing a thin, slightly form-fitting black turtleneck knit top and a black long skirt with a slit.

‘Has her taste gone back to the way it used to be? But that doesn't seem quite right, either.’

Iseo remembered that Suyeon used to wear much flashier clothes. Much tighter, with a lot more skin showing… Suyeon had mainly worn clothes like that—clothes that, if she posted pictures of them on Instagram, would make men swarm her and send her pictures of their dicks.

Iseo stared blankly at Suyeon, then sensed something strange. Had a certain part of Suyeon's body gotten slightly bigger…?

Was it just her imagination?

“Do my clothes… look strange?”

“Huh? No, no, no… They look good on you.”

Perhaps Suyeon had noticed Iseo staring blankly at her. She asked in an embarrassed voice, and when Iseo said no, Suyeon twisted a strand of hair around her finger and began speaking.

“I never intended to wear something like this… But Mom bought it and kept going on about how I should please wear it at least once. So I had no choice but to wear it out.”

“You can pull it off. Seriously, you bought clothes like this and wore Adidas every day? That's a waste in itself. A waste to humanity.”

“I don't think it's quite that serious.”

When Iseo made a bit of a fuss, Suyeon looked at her as if she were pathetic. Iseo shrank under that gaze, but felt she still had to say what needed to be said, so she opened her mouth again.

“No, we're going to be in a band now, right? Star quality is important in a band, and so is appearance, isn't it? You can't go around wearing only shabby clothes like that. You have to wear pretty clothes and show some sex appeal up front, too…”

At Iseo's words, Myeongjeon let out a quiet sigh. Seriously, why did his “mother,” this girl, and everyone else keep emphasizing his “femininity” and all that?

“That sort of thing isn't particularly important. Think of Robert Fripp of King Crimson. He just sat in a chair and played guitar, and still created such a great band.”

“Wh-what Fripp? Pork ribs?”

Iseo babbled nonsense, unable to understand what he was talking about. What was he supposed to do with a kid who didn't even know this band? Should he set aside a day and give her a lecture on the history of rock or something?

Myeongjeon tilted his head slightly. He knew very well how much a band's visual appeal affected its popularity. Besides, there was no helping the fact that the body he possessed was female.

Still, wouldn't it be okay to delay that as long as possible? As someone who used to be a man, surely that much was acceptable.

“Anyway, I still don't understand what you were talking about earlier. What do you mean, money comes to me even if that person uploads it?”

“Uh… Anyway, there's something like that. You have to register something, I think… I only looked into it a little at the beginning of this year. Anyway, those people can't make money, okay?”

Iseo launched into a lengthy explanation. YouTube had something called Content ID, and if part or all of a video matched content registered with Content ID, the revenue went to the copyright holder, and so on.

“But I don't remember registering for that.”

“…Really? Don't they email you when you've met the eligibility requirements and tell you to register? Have you not checked your email?”

“Why would I check it? There's no one who'd send me email, anyway.”

Surprisingly, Myeongjeon was fairly familiar with how to use email. He had dealt with plenty of documents and communications that had to be exchanged through email.

But knowing how to use something and being familiar with it were two different things. Unless someone asked him to check his email, Myeongjeon never checked it.

“These days, all that stuff comes through email. Even contacts and things like that. Check your email now, at least.”

At that, Myeongjeon opened his inbox. Even though he had never opened it before, he noticed that several incoming emails had already been marked as read.

“…What is this?”

He had never checked his email, yet some of the messages were marked as read… When he clicked on several of them, they turned out to be emails related to Content ID. They appeared to show that documents had been exchanged back and forth, and even the bank account number listed was his.

Myeongjeon tilted his head a few times, then thought of the only person who could have done this.

‘It must have been Ms. Lee Hyein…’

The only person who could know all sorts of information about him was Lee Hyein, Ha Suyeon's mother. Who else could have known? Well, perhaps some Chinese hacker knew some of his information too…

As Myeongjeon thought about it, he remembered something from before. Lee Hyein had said something like, “Suyeon, are you managing your YouTube channel properly?” When he had replied that he didn't know, she had offered to manage it for him.

“Mom might have registered something like that for me…”

“Your mom? Well, your mom did look incredibly young, Suyeon.”

Was being young-looking related to any of that? Thinking that, he skimmed through his inbox. There weren't actually that many emails piled up.

“What's the name of the channel?”

“[A Collection for Me to Listen To].”

When he searched for it, there was an email sent from an account with that name. The message said something along the lines of, “Your music is so good. Would it be possible to use it in a playlist?” It had been sent not long after he uploaded his second song.

“Those kinds of YouTubers usually just use things without asking. Since the revenue doesn't go to them, they think that uploading our music is advertising! They probably even think they've done you a favor.”

“Those rude bastards.”

Iseo flinched for some reason, and Myeongjeon thought. The old broadcast-station producers used to be like that. “You should be grateful that I brought in these entertainer bastards and promoted you. How dare you ask me for money, fuck~” Something like that.

Even so, there had once been a time when people had to somehow pay even the drinking bills of producers who said such fucking things. For women, sexual harassment and sexual assault had been the norm. Thinking back on those days, the world really had gotten better…

Myeongjeon ran a hand back through his heated hair and checked some of the other emails. Policy changes, subscription notifications… There was a lot of strange stuff in here.

“Huh?”

As he checked the unremarkable emails, one subject line caught his eye.

“A Collaboration Proposal from White Room on YouTube…?”

* * *

Junhong checked the email he had sent a while ago once more. It was still marked as unread.

“Ah, I think I could pull in quite a few views if I collaborated with this person. Why haven't they read it?”

“Isn't it because you sent it by email?”

“But email's all I have~! If she's a high school girl who does YouTube, wouldn't she check her email every day?”

At the editor's negative remark, Junhong gave him a light jab, then opened the other person's YouTube channel again. It had around ten thousand subscribers, and its growth was quite impressive. But that wasn't what caught Junhong's attention.

‘Her guitar playing is absolutely insane.’

Judging from her voice and physique, she couldn't be older than her mid-twenties, even with the age estimate pushed as high as possible. But her guitar skills were enough to astonish even Junhong, who could be said to have made a name for himself in the session-player scene.

‘No, she might even play better than I do.’

Some of the comments read, [She plays well, but is this really worth making such a fuss over? Hmm…], and [Is it really that impressive? Hmm…], but Junhong knew.

What separates a beginner from an expert isn't flashy playing, but fundamentals.

And this channel didn't show off techniques packed with empty style or flaunt flashy skills like an ordinary cover channel. Instead, it focused solely on how to reproduce cover songs more faithfully to the original, or how to best preserve the original song's character.

Junhong liked that. He liked the original songs well enough too, but what he liked even more was the guitarist's attitude. Respect for the original, devotion to the fundamentals—a true, authentic guitarist.

“It'd be great if this person appeared on my channel. It would promote her too.”

Junhong's main job was as a guitar session player. YouTube wasn't his main profession but a side gig, though he had around 150,000 subscribers thanks to his various covers and useful guitar lessons. He had enough reach to promote someone, at least.

‘We need a star who can bring a fresh wind into the scene. Could this girl become that star…?’

Thinking that, Junhong checked the email once more, wondering when she would reply.