Chapter 93: Future Hopes (END)

“Just take your time and think about it.”

“You’ve just entered middle school, so it’s natural not to know yet.”

“Still, you need to decide on a career path so the teachers can write your student record accordingly.”

“……”

“If you find it hard to decide, asking friends or adults around you might help.”

“Okay…”

I was called into the teacher’s office and received some scolding and advice from my homeroom teacher.

After receiving a new questionnaire and bowing to the teacher, I left the office.

My mind is a jumble.

The single sheet of paper in my hand somehow started to feel absurdly heavy.

“A career path…”

What I want to do in the future.

What could that possibly be?

“So you came to ask your aunt? Oh my, our Jun is already old enough to think about his career~”

“Ah, seriously, stop with the kisses! I’m 14 now, how long are you going to treat me like a kid!”

“You little rascal, in your aunt’s eyes, you still look like a newborn~”

In a quiet cafe.

Following the teacher’s advice, I decided to ask the adults around me about my concerns.

The reason I used the word ‘decided’ here signifies the considerable deliberation it took to ask these specific people such questions.

‘Still, strangely, none of the adults around me are typical office workers…. Maybe I can get some advice.’

The problem is that these people are just too eccentric.

Even now, meeting like this, the thought ‘Is asking this person really the right answer?’ started popping into my head uncontrollably.

Pushing away my aunt who kept trying to cling to me, I sipped my iced chocolate latte.

The cold, sweet drink felt calming.

“Anyway, first, I wanted to ask about your experience, Auntie.”

“You used to do internet broadcasting, right? And then you were the CEO of a virtual idol company too.”

“Yes, I did.”

“It’s been a while since I heard talk about internet broadcasting~ It was really fun back then.”

My aunt smiled brightly, seemingly reminiscing about the past with a happy expression.

I heard she was in her mid-twenties back then.

When everyone else was getting jobs and working in companies, why did she choose the path of internet broadcasting?

That’s what I was curious about.

Hearing my question, my aunt chuckled.

“Just because.”

“Just because?”

“Just because I wanted to.”

“I saw someone’s broadcast and found it so fun, I thought, ‘I want to make people have fun like this too!’ So I just did it.”

“After that, the broadcasting and YouTube markets grew tremendously. Did you do it thinking about that?”

“Among the people broadcasting back then, probably no one started thinking about that.”

“In a way, it grew because of COVID, who could have predicted that?”

My aunt laughed as if finding it absurd.

Well, it’s true that the current size of YouTube and internet broadcasting is said to be due to the pandemic that broke out globally around the time I was born.

“Then how could you be sure you’d succeed with broadcasting…”

Then why did my aunt start broadcasting?

Even now, unpopular broadcasters don’t even earn minimum wage.

Besides, when my aunt was broadcasting, it was still a nascent profession with an uncertain future.

So how could she start broadcasting with such conviction?

“There was no conviction.”

“None? Then why did you do it?”

“I told you.”

“I just did it because I wanted to.”

“If I had to say, I was just lucky.”

Lucky….

Is this really helpful for career counseling?

Seeing my aunt’s serious expression, I felt a little dumbfounded.

“Ah, but there was an exception.”

“What?”

“Someone who predicted the market and had conviction in their work.”

“Someone like that exists?”

If such a person existed, wouldn’t they be a prophet or someone from the future?

As I tilted my head, Aunt Osorin smiled brightly.

“It’s the person closest to you.”

After that, I continued asking many people why they chose their professions.

Because they all chose paths different from a normal life through their own decisions.

Aunt Jina said this:

– I always wanted to create an MCN. First-generation broadcasters mostly started businesses or established MCNs. But just then, virtual became popular, and I took that chance to create one.

At the time, I received a lot of help from the child ed…, Sua, who was very knowledgeable about virtual. After establishing it, I found that this position surprisingly suited my aptitude.

And then COVID hit, the internet broadcasting market grew, the metaverse gained popularity, and naturally, the recognition of virtual increased.

Bom noona said this:

– Why did I become an actress? Well, obviously because I wanted to. There were times I only got minor drama roles, and of course, I felt anxious. But giving up hurt my pride too much, and my efforts felt wasted.

So I acted tenaciously. But skill isn’t the only important thing; luck is incredibly important too. If I hadn’t met Sua back then, I’d probably still be only doing dramas. Why does Sua call me sunbae? …There are reasons.

She said she was stubborn because she didn’t want to give up the dream she had since childhood.

Her parents who accepted her stubbornness and the older sister who paved the way for her film career were her greatest luck, she said.

Wooseok hyung said this:

– There was a time during COVID when we couldn’t even go outside, let alone debut. But you have to start preparing to be an idol from middle school, right?

So while I was discouraged, our company created an idol group unlike any seen before and hit it big. And when they announced auditions for male idols, I practiced desperately and barely managed to debut.

Because of COVID, regular idols couldn’t debut, but debuting online brought instant recognition. I was really lucky.

If it hadn’t been for virtual idols, if he had followed the path of a regular idol, it was questionable whether he could have debuted at all.

Age is crucial for rookie idols.

Yebin noona said this:

– If it weren’t for Sua, I wouldn’t be living like this. If you asked the 13-year-old me, I probably would have hit you for talking nonsense.

Thanks to Sua, I started writing, happened to win an award, and even got to write a drama script. Sua is a huge stroke of luck in my life. I live gratefully every day.

The old laptop Noona gave me someday.

Helping Noona with her work, she wrote a short virtual novel based on that experience, submitted it to a contest, and it happened to align well with the recent popularity of virtual, winning her an award.

‘Luck….’

Besides them, I asked countless other adults.

Grandpa Minseok, Grandma Hayeon, Uncle Wooseok, Hyeji noona, Dad, Mom.

They all unanimously answered that they were able to be where they are now because they had great luck.

And the person who brought that luck was just one individual.
Someone who acted as if predicting the future, always having conviction in her actions, an amazing person.

“Ugh…!”

My older sister, wearing her favorite yellow sweater, stands on her tiptoes, reaching for the top of the bookshelf.

Perhaps unwilling to step on a chair, she hopped lightly or stretched her short body, but her fingers couldn’t even reach the top shelf.

‘…They aren’t all teasing me, are they?’

Is this person really the one who brought great luck to so many people?

Is my sister really that amazing?

Harboring such doubts, I approached my sister, reached out, and took down the book she was trying to grab.

Startled by the sudden shadow, my sister looked straight up, her eyes meeting mine.

Smiling brightly in an instant, my sister greeted me.

“Jun! When did you get here?”

“Just now.”

“More importantly, if you can’t reach, use a chair or a stepladder.”

“That’s why Dad bought them for you.”

“Using that feels like losing.”

“Losing to who, exactly…”

Since she was young, my sister somehow had a tendency to attempt things beyond her physical capabilities and fail.

Does she think she’s over 170cm tall?

She pouts whenever we talk about height, so I don’t know exactly, but seeing as she’s a whole handspan shorter than me, she’s probably around 150cm….

It was hard to believe that this person, who showed such clumsiness, was the amazing individual receiving immense praise from those around her.

Taking the book from me, my sister handed me a drink, smiling broadly.

“What brings Jun to Noona’s workshop?”

“Need allowance?”

“Dad gives me way too much allowance.”

“I don’t even have anything to spend it on, it just piles up in my bank account….”

“He always gives it to me secretly behind Mom’s back, why does he keep doing this?”

“It was our dad’s dream to give his kids allowance, remember?”

“He couldn’t do it for Noona, so he’s doing it for Jun.”

“Even if you don’t need it, just say thank you~ and take it.”

“If you don’t accept it, Dad will probably cry.”

Imagining it after hearing my sister’s words, it seemed quite plausible.

“If it’s not allowance, then why did my little brother come looking for Noona~”

She couldn’t stop smiling, seemingly happy that I came looking for her.

She really is transparent.

Even this sister of mine is Byeolmuri’s Vice President and a very famous figure in the editing industry.

If she’s someone others acknowledge so highly, could I get a proper answer from her?

“Hoh, future aspirations.”

“So Jun has reached the age for such worries too~”

“Don’t talk like Aunt Osorin.”

“You don’t know what you want to do?”

“What about things you like?”

“…I don’t know.”

There are many things I’m good at.

But if asked whether I genuinely like them, I would tilt my head.

I tried various things to find hobbies and things I liked.

Sports, studying, art, music, etc.

I could do them all easily and understand them simply.

Lost in such thoughts, my sister spoke.

“From what I see, our Jun seems to have something he’s better at and likes more than anyone else.”

“Me?”

Something I’m good at and like?

What on earth could it be?

“At the last school sports day, you took lots of pictures of your friends with the camera, right?”

“Why did you do that?”

“I was the class president, and it was the last elementary school sports day, so I wanted to take pretty pictures of my friends…”

“Then what about diligently making props for the play during the festival?”

“If I didn’t, the festival everyone was looking forward to could be ruined.”

“Still don’t get it?”

My sister chuckled.

Then she turned on the phone that was on her desk and showed me the screen.

My picture was displayed on the screen.

“This is a picture of Jun being the cameraman.”

“This is a picture of you making props for the play.”

“This is a picture of you giving Bom sunbae the candy you cherished.”

“Why are you suddenly showing me pictures from when I was little?”

“Because from what I saw, Jjun looked so happy back then.”

Hearing my sister’s words, I finally saw my expression in the photos.

My expression while holding the camera and taking pictures of friends.

My expression while sweating profusely making props for the play.

My expression while handing Bom noona the candy flavor she liked.

In all of them, I wore an incredibly happy expression.

“Future aspirations.”

“A dream, you know, doesn’t mean you have to become someone like a jewel.”

“If there are shining jewel-like people in the world, there are also people who make those jewels beautiful.”

“Ah.”

“From what I see, my little brother seems to find happiness not in becoming a jewel himself, but in making someone else into a jewel?”

Hearing those words, the things the adults told me before came back to mind.

They are jewels.

But jewels cannot shine on their own.

They are rough right now.

But there is someone who cuts and polishes the jewel, shines a light on it, and increases its value.

The one person everyone called luck.

Only then did I understand their words.

“…Noona.”

“Hm?”

And now, I felt like I finally had a dream I wanted.

“Can you teach me video editing?”

My sister smiled brightly.

“Of course.”

(TN: Hope you guys had fun reading this one. This was the very first novel I translated and even though it had an abrupt ending, it’s one of my favs!!)