Friday, 20 September 2001.
ZAGE Hub, Korea.
Zaboru had arrived in Korea the previous day after receiving another urgent request from Team Dynasty. The Korean development division was currently preparing one of ZEPS 4's major release games, but a technical problem had blocked progress across several important systems.
As usual, the reports made the issue sound far more terrifying than it actually was.
After inspecting the project, discussing the problem with the lead developers, and testing several possible solutions, Zaboru managed to identify the real cause within a few hours. The problem came from several systems attempting to access the same memory resources in different ways, creating instability whenever certain effects appeared together.
By Friday afternoon, the blocker had been removed.
The programmers could continue working, the artists could finally test their assets properly, and Team Dynasty's production schedule no longer looked as though it were about to collapse.
With the immediate problem solved, Zaboru prepared to return to Japan. However, his flight was scheduled for the following morning, leaving him with one free evening in Seoul.
Instead of staying inside his hotel or returning to the ZAGE Hub office, he decided to walk around the city.
Seoul had become extremely familiar to him over the years. He frequently travelled to Korea to handle matters involving Team Dynasty, Red Falcon, AKAI, ZAGE distribution, esports, animation, and several other projects. Because of that, he no longer felt like an ordinary foreign visitor wandering through an unfamiliar city.
The streets were lively that evening.
Bright advertisements covered the buildings. Restaurants remained crowded, internet cafés were filled with young gamers, and small music shops played the newest Korean songs loudly enough for anyone walking nearby to hear them. Large screens displayed colourful music videos featuring handsome young men and beautiful women wearing carefully coordinated outfits.
Zaboru slowed down.
There seemed to be boy bands and girl groups everywhere.
Posters covered shop windows. Music programmes played on televisions inside cafés. Groups of students discussed their favourite performers while carrying magazines and collectible cards. Even several clothing stores displayed outfits clearly inspired by popular idols.
Zaboru sighed with an amused smile. "They really evolved quickly."
The entire cultural movement had begun much earlier in this world because of one strange decision he made several years ago.
In 1997, ZAGE released Dance Dance Revolution 2.
Rather than filling the game only with ordinary dancers, Zaboru had introduced several fictional Korean boy bands and girl groups inspired by famous performers from his previous life. Super Junior, BTS, TWICE, BLACKPINK, and several other groups existed inside DDR 2 as stylised fictional characters.
Naturally, nobody in this world understood where those designs came from.
To them, the groups were entirely original ZAGE creations.
The characters had fashionable hairstyles, carefully coordinated outfits, polished choreography, distinctive personalities, and an image that felt completely different from the music groups Korea already had at the time. Players could select them as dancers, unlock music videos, follow small character stories, and perform routines inspired by songs Zaboru remembered from his previous life.
Unfortunately, his memory of Korean music was far from complete.
Zaboru had never been the most dedicated K-pop fan. He mostly remembered major title tracks, famous choruses, memorable dances, and the songs that had become impossible to avoid online. He could not reproduce every album or obscure B-side song despite he had Deep Memory Dive.
But that had been enough.
A few famous songs, several iconic concepts, and polished choreography had completely changed the direction of Korean popular entertainment.
When DDR 2 launched, Korean players became obsessed with the fictional groups. Young people copied their hairstyles. Dance clubs practised their choreography. Fashion stores began creating similar outfits. Music producers noticed that audiences were responding strongly to coordinated groups with distinctive visual identities.
Soon, real entertainment agencies began forming their own boy bands and girl groups.
Some focused on strong vocal performances. Others emphasised dance, visual presentation, or personality. Several agencies created long training programmes designed to transform talented teenagers into complete entertainers.
Even Park Woojin, the Korean and Chinese regional supervisor who also served as CEO of Red Falcon, had entered the entertainment industry. What began as a small experiment connected to ZAGE's music and dance projects had grown into a serious agency managing multiple singers, actors, dancers, and idol groups.
By 2001, the results were visible throughout Seoul.
Korean popular music had developed several years ahead of the timeline Zaboru remembered.
Zaboru continued walking as a new song began playing from a large screen above the street. A girl group danced in perfect coordination, wearing bright but elegant outfits while the camera moved quickly between each member.
Several teenagers stopped to copy the dance.
What surprised Zaboru was that they were not alone.
An elderly man standing near a small food stall watched the screen with great seriousness. After studying the movement for several seconds, he cautiously lifted both arms and attempted to follow the choreography.
His first movement was late.
The second was completely wrong.
By the third, he had accidentally turned in the opposite direction from everyone else.
The woman operating the stall laughed at him, but the old man refused to stop. He repeated the movement with even greater determination, nearly losing one of his slippers in the process.
Zaboru covered his mouth and chuckled.
A few metres away, a little boy was attempting to imitate the same group. His movements were even less accurate, but he performed them with complete confidence, occasionally looking toward his mother to make sure she was watching.
When the chorus arrived, the old man and the child unknowingly performed the dance at the same time.
Neither one followed the choreography correctly.
But both looked extremely happy.
Zaboru stopped walking for a moment and watched them.
"This is nice," he thought.
That was the side of popular culture he genuinely loved.
Music could cross age, class, and background. A stylish dance created for teenagers could make an old man laugh. A song performed by celebrities could become something a small child shared with his mother. People who had never met could recognise the same movement and enjoy it together.
The city felt alive.
Still, the sight also awakened several uncomfortable memories.
Zaboru remembered the darker side of the K-pop industry from his previous life.
Behind the bright music videos, perfect smiles, and carefully prepared performances, many idols had experienced exhausting schedules, restrictive contracts, severe public pressure, unhealthy diets, sleep deprivation, online harassment, and almost impossible beauty standards.
Some agencies treated young performers less like human beings and more like products that had to remain profitable.
Trainees sometimes spent years practising without knowing whether they would ever debut. Those who succeeded could lose control over their privacy, relationships, bodies, and even personalities. A single mistake could become a national controversy. A small change in appearance could trigger thousands of cruel comments.
The performers smiled on stage because smiling was part of the job.
The audience rarely saw what happened after the cameras stopped.
Zaboru's amusement gradually softened.
He did not regret introducing the culture earlier. Looking around Seoul, he could already see how much happiness, creativity, fashion, dance, and economic opportunity it had produced.
But he did not want this world to repeat every mistake from his previous one.
"If possible, I don't want that darkness to happen again," he thought.
Preventing it completely would be difficult.
Entertainment industries naturally created competition. Fame attracted money, and money often attracted people willing to exploit others. Even if ZAGE and Red Falcon treated performers well, other agencies might eventually introduce harsher systems to produce idols faster or more cheaply.
Zaboru could not control every company in Korea.
But he could influence the standard.
Red Falcon's agency could offer healthier contracts, reasonable working hours, education for younger trainees, professional medical support, psychological counselling, regulated diets, and clear protection against exploitation. ZAGE's platforms could also establish stronger rules for harassment and invasive media behaviour.
If those standards became successful, other agencies would eventually feel pressure to follow them.
Not because they had suddenly become kind, but because performers and their families would prefer companies that treated them better.
Zaboru smiled faintly.
Sometimes kindness needed to become a competitive advantage before businessmen learned to value it.
He made a mental note to speak with Park Woojin before leaving Korea. Red Falcon's idol division had grown much faster than expected, and Zaboru wanted to examine the contracts, trainee conditions, schedules, and management structure personally.
He did not expect perfection.
He only wanted to prevent the industry from building its success on broken young people.
The song above the street ended.
The old man raised both hands proudly as though he had completed the entire choreography perfectly. The woman at the stall applauded sarcastically, while the little boy copied the old man's final pose instead of the actual dancers.
Zaboru laughed again.
"Still, this is really amusing."
He continued walking through Seoul, surrounded by music and colourful advertisements. Everywhere he looked, he could see the influence of DDR 2. Dance studios advertised idol classes. Clothing shops sold outfits inspired by music videos. Young groups performed in public spaces, hoping to attract the attention of entertainment agencies.
Some were clearly talented.
Others possessed more confidence than ability.
Zaboru appreciated both kinds.
As he passed another large screen, a boy group appeared wearing dark suits while performing a sharp, dramatic dance. Several young women nearby immediately screamed when one particular member appeared in close-up.
Zaboru glanced at the screen and nodded. "Well, he is handsome. I understand."
A few minutes later, another group appeared wearing bright streetwear and performing a more energetic routine. Zaboru recognised several movements he had originally adapted from performances in his previous life.
Seeing them return through an entirely different group felt strange.
He had planted fragments of a future culture inside a dancing game.
Now Korea had taken those fragments and transformed them into something that no longer belonged to him.
That was probably the healthiest kind of butterfly effect.
He wondered whether the real versions of BTS, BLACKPINK, TWICE, Super Junior, or the other groups he remembered would still appear one day. Their names and concepts already existed as fictional DDR characters, so their real lives would inevitably follow different paths.
Perhaps some of the original members would still become singers under different group names.
Perhaps they would enter acting, business, sports, or completely ordinary careers.
Perhaps some would never meet at all.
Zaboru shrugged.
"That isn't my business. Let the butterfly effect do whatever it wants."
As he continued walking, another thought entered his mind.
He had already demonstrated singing ability on several occasions, and with his physical control, memory, and coordination, learning professional choreography would not be especially difficult.
Zaboru imagined himself appearing on a stage beside one of Red Falcon's idol groups, singing and dancing while the audience screamed.
The image was ridiculous.
But not entirely unpleasant.
"Maybe I should sing and dance too," he murmured.
Then he imagined Ayumi's reaction.
The mental image made Zaboru chuckle.
"Well, let's think about that later."
For now, he simply enjoyed the walk.
Korean music followed him through the streets of Seoul while people of every age copied the dances, discussed their favourite performers, and unknowingly participated in a culture that had arrived years earlier because Zaboru once decided that Dance Dance Revolution needed fictional Korean idols.
It was bright, energetic, and full of possibility.
Zaboru only hoped that as the industry continued growing, the smiles on its stages would remain real.
To be continued.
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