BEHIND THE SCENES

chapter 97: a murky view of the future

<OST: I Wanna Say To You - Suzy>

"Have some salad, oppa."

"Thanks."

"You..." Jennie hesitated a little, as she pretended to busy herself with cutting her steak. "How do you feel, eating out? It's not too daunting for you, is it?"

Yoongi shook his head. "It's a little unfamiliar, but I think I could totally get used to it."

Jennie smiled brightly. "That's right. It's nice to come out for a good meal once in a while - delivery food isn't great for you, and it's a hassle to be cooking all the time, you know what I mean?"

Yoongi nodded slowly.

"So..." Jennie pursed her lips as she put down her fork and knife, and looked up at Yoongi who sat across her at the table. "What are your plans from here?"

"Hm?" Yoongi looked up from his plate as well. "My plans?"

"Yeah, you know-" Jennie said with a little shrug. "Regarding your career...?"

Yoongi let out a deep sigh as he slowly put down his cutlery too, placing his hands on his lap. "I don't know."

"I knew you'd say that," Jennie said as she nodded slowly. "That's why I already thought of another plan for you."

Yoongi raised his eyebrows in surprise.

"Well, you see..." Jennie smiled knowingly. "All this while, you've been looking to go back into film directing by working under a company. But have you ever thought, what if you start your own business?"

Yoongi was baffled by Jennie's suggestion. "Start... my own business...?"

"Mmhmm-" Jennie hummed. "You don't always need to work for someone in order to succeed. Look at how connected the world is today - international success is much simpler than it was beforehand, because we now have social media, we have media platforms like YouTube, where you can upload videos, there are so many ways you can succeed on your own."

"But that's..." Yoongi frowned, looking highly skeptical. "That's crazy difficult. And it takes a whole lot of skills in order to succeed on your own... and besides that, you also need a little stroke of luck... which, if you haven't realised by now, I don't have."

"Come on, luck is just a false concept that has been engraved in our minds for too long-" Jennie brushed it off. "I believe that with creativity and grit, anything you want to achieve... is possible."

"Even if I said I wanted to fly?"

"Yeah, see?" Jennie raised her eyebrows. "Aeroplanes only started existing in the early 1900s - before that, people probably mocked the idea that humans would be able to 'fly' one day. If the Wright brothers thought like you, do you think we'd have aeroplanes these days? No."

"But that's different, I'm not them, I can't-"

"Why don't you just give it a try?" Jennie proposed. "I'm not forcing you, but I'm highly encouraging you to give it a go. Because I believe in you, and I think you have a high chance of succeeding. Those companies don't see the potential in you, so why don't you let the internet judge for themselves? Ultimately, they're the consumers of online content, after all."

Yoongi just stared.

"I've already thought of an idea for your YouTube channel name - MinTube, how does that sound?" Jennie laughed. "Or if you don't want something that sounds so narcissistic, maybe Mini Productions? Where you can do mini webdramas of some sort or-"

"But... how?" Yoongi frowned. "Let's say, I say okay. Then where do we go from here? How do I even begin? I don't know a single thing about starting my own business, I don't know anything about editing videos, I don't even have any connections to people who know how to do such things. How am I supposed to do this all by myself?"