Chapter Text
Youtube was a great place to waste your damn time. No, really, Donghun hated the platform. Yet, he had his own channel, which had amassed over half a million followers in about 3 years and he spent his time watching other youtubers. Wasting his damn time, really. He was juggling a lousy job, uni, and a failed youtube career all at once and for what? The adsense didn’t pay enough because he wasn’t out there making 10+ minutes videos or dissing other people (even though he wanted to do that like 99% of the time). He did covers of songs and no, youtube hadn’t paid for his recording equipment, his Regular People job had. He worked at a fucking McDonald’s joint and the reason why it wasn’t too bad was because he’d met Yuchan there, also a uni undergraduate, and the kid was everything good. He had gotten along with him right away due to common life situations and interests. He even had his own youtube channel where he did covers like Donghun but also vlogged every now and then. Donghun liked his channel and his silly vlogs too. Also, Yuchan became his friend at McDonald’s when nobody else would. He knew he was a genuinely nice person on and off cam.
And no, Donghun didn’t have temper problems, like, fuck you? He was actually pretty loving and a slut for cuddles. It was nobody’s business if his damn face looked like he was sad. He wasn’t sad. Yuchan was literally his lifeline at that weird point in his life, since youtube paid him enough to maybe get food for two weeks per month and he was starting to question whether going to uni after getting discharged from the military had been a good idea.
“What will we be singing hyung?” He’d asked excitedly as Donghun got his recording stuff from the closet. Donghun shrugged. They’d decided to try doing some collabs, see if their channels grew and they started making more money out of that capitalistic hellhole website.
“I don’t know, we’ll pick in a minute.”
“You play an instrument?” Yuchan scanned the room for instruments that weren’t there “You never told me.”
“That’s because I don’t.” Donghun snorted “I can pluck the strings of a guitar but it’s shit. I don’t even own a guitar.”
“What’s this then?” Yuchan grinned holding a small plastic toy guitar with the Bare Bears stickers in his hands that he had just pulled out from under Donghun’s bed where he’d stored it and forgotten it until that moment.
“I won that at a fair a couple years ago.” He snorted “Why are you snooping under my bed?”
“Looking for secrets.” Yuchan grinned cutely and Donghun just didn’t have it in him to get mad at the boy especially not when he started to pluck at the cheap strings and singing a kids’ song. Donghun cackled “Too scared of touching the boxes your have there though” he said after finishing his rendition of the song. He sang well but the instrumental was rubbish “they’re dusty and gross.”
“Yeah, you better not touch them. That’s where I keep the bones of my dead enemies.” Donghun said nonchalantly and Yuchan, having known his weird humour for a while, laughed heartily. Donghun chuckled too “They just have books and junk that doesn’t fit anywhere else.”
“Boring. It’d be more exciting if it was the bones of your enemies.” Yuchan grinned and then he put the plastic guitar on the bed beside him “So, the song.”
“Yeah, the song. You can pull pretty much anything” he said as he set up his stuff, ready to start recording and turned on the laptop before going back to the microphones and the lights “and so can I.” He added as Yuchan chuckled “So, it’s a matter of picking one we both like.”
“Could it be one in English?”
Donghun groaned. His English pronunciation was kind of rubbish.
“We can give it a go. Gotta practice first though. My pronunciation is shit.”
“I’ve been into Counting Stars by One Republic lately.” Yuchan said and Donghun hummed. Yeah, he knew that song. It was nice.
“We can give it a go.” He agreed and Yuchan grinned getting off the bed to finally go make himself useful and look up the lyrics to the song.
In short it took them hours to record and edit a 4-minute song cover because they had to memorise the lyrics and the correct pronunciation before finally coming around to recording a version that came out smooth and felt. The frustration of the failed attempts of their duet added to the feeling of the song, really.
That was their first collab video and Donghun usually just smiled, waved at his listeners/viewers, said the song’s title and original artist’s name, and wished they enjoyed his cover. Then he edited the audio and added the cover to his soundcloud account for download. He got a mood-boosting number of downloads from his tracks. It didn’t pay the bills, but it made him feel validated which was also important.
He didn’t get much hate and when he did, he just ignored it and let his fans deal with it.
Yuchan had addressed the haters at one point by doing a dance cover, wearing shade shades a cowboy hat and denim pants with an ugly leather belt, shirtless and with hearts stuck over his nipples and pulled all the meme dance moves he could think of to the sound of a nightcore version of Keith Ape’s It G Ma.
It’d gone viral.
He’d passed the million subscribers in the blink of an eye because of that crackhead shit.
Donghun just couldn’t care. Sure, he could be a crackhead too, but he didn’t want to address the haters. They didn’t deserve his time. Plus, see? Even this guy with over a million subscribers was still working with him at McDonald’s, so it really wasn’t profitable to be a youtube singer unless you posted every day at least three times and ain’t nobody got time for that amount of editing.
It was 3am when they finished recording and they were working the morning shift the next day (that day, mind) so they decided to Caffeinate, pull an all-nighter and hope for the best.
(McDonald’s workers life and the demonic 5am shift. At least the joint they worked at didn’t have drive-thru, or they’d probably be pushed into that shit too.)
So, they decided to just watch funny videos to keep themselves entertained until they had to get out in a couple hours to start working.
“Oh, hyung, do you know ‘Jun’s Tips’?” Yuchan cackled wildly as they sat in front of the computer after their third cup of coffee. The red bull cans were sitting ahead of them, waiting for their turn.
“Never heard of it.” Donghun downed the rest of his coffee and pushed the mug away “What do they do?” Donghun asked casually as he watched his number of subs grow thanks to the collab with the talented cutiepie ‘Kang Channie’. The viewers had loved it and Yuchan had posted it on his channel as well, linking ‘Lee Donghun’ (yes, his channel’s name was boring and not cute at all) and Yuchan said in the video that ‘Yes, we’re posting the same video on both our channels because youtube doesn’t pay well and we have to work outside of it so we don’t have time for more editing! Enjoy the same content twice!’ then he’d grinned and threw a peace sign that made Donghun laugh.
Honestly, people were equal parts in love with their duet and with Donghun’s laugh because it was the first time they heard it or saw it. He never laughed when he was alone, and his smiles were always just out of courtesy. This time he was with a friend though. A jolly one at that too. Donghun thought that maybe he should laugh more often but, really, when he was alone he just didn’t feel like it and he hated being fake on cam for views.
(Call him hipster all you like. He was keeping it real.)
“It’s this guy!” Yuchan cackled as he typed the name on the browser with laughy fingers “He does like, here” he’d gotten it. Over a million and half subs, that guy had! More than he and Yuchan had combined!
The channel description read:
“Hi! I’m Park Junhee and I like to try to do things to make people’s lives happier, more beautiful and more enjoyable! <3”
Donghun’s caffeinated brain and eyes thought the channel’s dp was a cat for a solid 3 seconds before he realised it was a human being. It was a guy with dyed blonde hair grinning from ear to ear.
“Okay” Donghun snorted as Yuchan subscribed him (Lee Donghun) to Jun’s Tips without asking if he could. Donghun didn’t complain “what does he do?” He asked again “Looks like one of those diy and stuff channels.”
“Oh, hyung, he’s a lot more than that! Don’t judge a book by its cover!” Yuchan was losing his shit as he scrolled down the videos, certainly to look for a specific one he found particularly amusing “Here!” He cackled as he clicked a video titled:
“DIY Cloud Lamp! [Easy-ish…]”
“Ish?” Donghun raised an eyebrow as Yuchan put the video in full screen mode. It started with ‘Jun’ smiling and waving at the camera as he excitedly told his viewers that he’d seen pictures of that lamp in many places and saw some videos teaching how to make it and thought it was really pretty. Donghun’s first thought was that the guy had a cute smile and that most likely had influenced the crazy number of subscribers he had.
“Today I’ll try making my own Cloud Lamp!” He said in the video, his voice was gentle and pleasant, and his excitement didn’t seem forced at all “I have a really good feeling about it!”
“He always does!” Yuchan had tears in his eyes and Donghun really didn’t know what he was finding so funny about that guy and his Cloud Lamp DIY. The video had a total of 7 minutes and Jun had gathered the materials he needed along with the paper lamp, including a hot glue gun and some popsicle sticks along with cotton. He said that the tutorial said pillow stuffing, but he’d just gotten a ton of bags of regular cotton from the supermarket because it was close enough and also fluffy!
“Okay, why are you showing me DIY vid—” Donghun was going to ask why exactly Yuchan was finding the video of a guy making a cloud lamp so amusing when it looked so average until he saw the guy test the hot glue gun and shoot hot glue directly onto his own neck and gasped in horror. The guy gasped too and there was a jumpcut. His neck was red and shining from whatever he’d rubbed there in the scene after the cut. Probably burn ointment of some kind.
“Uh, so that can happen!” Jun said with a smile that absolutely did not show any pain “Please remember to point the hot glue gun away from you at all times!” He winked at the camera and pointed. He succeeded in pointing but the guy kind of winked with both eyes and Yuchan was crying laughing.
Donghun snorted.
No way.
That Jun guy had to be doing it for the views. There was no way he could be that clumsy for real. Then he unfolded the paper lamp after getting it out of the plastic wrap it’d come in and looked for the stretching piece. It was missing.
“No way, he got it out.” Donghun scoffed and Yuchan shook his head and played the scene again. You could see the plastic wrapper clearly and it was sealed. He’d had to rip it open. The stretching piece had never been there.
“Okay, so we don’t have a stretching piece…” Jun said, and he pursed his lips and scratching the nape of his neck genuinely thinking.
“Maybe with wire of some kind he could…” Donghun suggested to nobody in particular. Yuchan was just too far gone in his caffeine high and wheezing wildly. It was funny but not that much. Unless they hadn’t reached the funniest bits yet, whatever that meant.
“Oh, I have some leftover wire!” Junhee said happily and Donghun smiled at him and there was a jumpcut and he had the wire with him in the following scene.
“We’ll watch the wire video next!” Yuchan cackled “Oh God, wait, you’re not, you’re not ready for what will happen, hyung!”
Jun then proceeded to try to keep the paper lamp unfolded with the wire. It ripped the paper on both sides and looked messy as hell but he somehow managed to keep it unfolded despite it looking kind of oval instead of round.
“Well, it’s supposed to be a cloud and clouds aren’t round…” Donghun chuckled and Yuchan had a coughing fit as Junhee as if on cue said:
“Well, it’s supposed to be a cloud and clouds aren’t round so I guess it’s okay!” He clapped his hands and picked up the disgraced paper lamp looking at it and nodding “It’s good, we can still work with it!”
Donghun was probably too high on caffeine too. He was about to pull the x-files theme song up because that shit was wacky as hell. He’d guessed what’d he do and say twice already. He was on his first red bull can, sharing it with Yuchan because they were too lazy to open two at the same time.
Then they saw Jun pop all the cotton bags open and suddenly his working table was full of cotton.
“Why did he open all the bags?” Donghun asked.
“It’s easier to just open all the bags now” Junhee said as if replying to him and Yuchan choked on the red bull and spat all over Donghun’s desk “because my fingers might get glue on them and it’ll be harder to open them then!”
“God, don’t tell me he’ll get hot glue on his hands.” Donghun winced and Yuchan was too busy laughing to respond.
And that was exactly what happened. He shot the hot glue onto the paper lamp and started gluing massive chunks of cotton to it with his bare hands.
“Use the goddamn sticks, idiot!” Donghun exclaimed in frustration pointing at the forgotten sticks as Junhee got his hands full of hot glue. There were a bunch of jumpcuts and it was sped up as he glued the cotton to the lamp with his bare hands like a goddamn idiot wincing and smiling regularly and finally ended up with the lamp glued to the table.
“Oh…” he said quietly crouching to see what was happening. His hands were red and full of glue and Donghun wanted to reach over the screen and smack him “it’s stuck… I guess that can happen too… maybe that’s why you need the popsicle sticks!” He grinned and Donghun slapped his own forehead as he saw him try to peel the lamp from the table with the popsicle sticks. They got stuck on the glue instead “Okay, maybe that’s not what they’re for… well… I guess I’ll have to get some scissors.” Jumpcut. He returned and there was now a chunk of cotton glued to the table and he’d glued more cotton to the bottom of the lamp “Um, I guess it’s done!” He said happily showing off his messy creation with his hands covered in glue and a red glue burn on his neck “It doesn’t look bad, does it?”
“All things considered” Donghun offered with a sigh “it doesn’t. You on the other hand…” And Yuchan laughed.
“Wait, now’s the real deal! Wait for it!” Yuchan wheezed pointing and they kept watching the remaining 2 minutes of video.
“Oh, we need light too! I forgot that! Sorry!” Junhee said with a grin and there was another jumpcut and he returned with a regular incandescent lightbulb, not a led light bulb, and it seemed like he’d just pulled off the lampshade off some old lamp he had lying around “This should do.”
“Aren’t these cloud lamps supposed to go in the ceiling?” Donghun snorted as he saw Junhee struggle to shove the cloud disgrace over the lightbulb.
“Don’t question him, he knows what he’s doing!”
He clearly didn’t.
Donghun had thought he was being clumsy and messy on purpose for the first 5 minutes, but his smile was just too sincere and he’d seriously gotten hurt. He really was trying his best to do that, he was just failing miserably. He finally managed to shove the new lampshade over the lightbulb after struggling to poke it through the paper lamp’s ripped hole. The cloud tipped to one side and the lightbulb was clearly touching the paper.
“Now we turn it on!” Jun said happily looking at the lamp on the table with the cloud lampshade askew. Then he grabbed it and walked over to the back where he had a power socket and put the lamp there on the floor before going over and turning off the filming lights and the ceiling lights. Donghun had a horrible feeling about it as he saw the guy’s shadow walk over to the cloud lampshade. He accidentally kicked it and apologised, giggling even though it was completely dark and he couldn’t be seen.
“He’s a damn dork.” Donghun snorted and Yuchan covered his mouth to muffle the sound of his laughter.
“Get ready, hyung!” Yuchan wheezed covering his mouth again and Donghun braced himself for whatever was about to happen.
For around 15 seconds, Donghun didn’t see what was so funny. The lamp turned on and the cloud was lit, illuminating the kneeling man beside it who was grinning happily at the success which turned out to be extremely short-lived.
“It works! I’m so— oh shit! OH SHIT!” He panicked as the sound of something bursting echoed in his room, inside the lamp, and it suddenly caught fire.
Donghun watched in complete horror as the lamp erupted in flames and Jun panicked, getting up and looking around to get something to put out the fire. He wasn’t in the dark anymore despite the lights being off. It deadass looked like he was doing a ritual and summoning some shit.
“Please don’t douse it with water.” Donghun pleaded holding on to the edges of his desk as Yuchan wheezed.
Donghun sighed deeply as he saw Jun pull out the plug from the power socket and then yelp as the flames grew higher before yanking off his shirt and, half-naked, started hitting the flames with it before covering it and ending in darkness. There was a jumpcut. He turned up with all the lights on in the following scene and a fresh shirt on. He was smiling at the camera, but the embarrassment was clear on his shining eyes.
“I am leaving the footage of me putting out the fire” he explained “to show you how you should deal with electric fires. First cut the power of the object that’s catching fire if you can reach the cable safely and then you cover the flames or use a fire extinguisher. Never throw water because water may spread the fire!” He said looking very serious.
Donghun chuckled.
He was giving solid instructions. They’d received training at McDonald’s and knew the procedures on how to deal with different kinds of fire.
“About the lamp…” he paused a little a pursed his lips “it kind of worked, didn’t it? It wasn’t a total failure!” He exclaimed cheerily “Well, I think I should have written down the instructions so that I wouldn’t forget half of them… I’ll be leaving the actual instructions in the description. This video isn’t a tutorial.” He pursed his lips and paused again “I guess it can be a tutorial on how to put out electrical fires…” he chuckled awkwardly and rubbed the nape of his neck before adding a jumpcut and looking at the camera with a grin again “And that is all for today, my friends! I wish you all the best! Next time it will be better for sure! So until then! Bye-bye!” Then he sent a flying kiss with his hand to the camera and once again tried to wink and yet again it looked like he was winking with both eyes.
Donghun was completely stunned.
That was the weirdest fucking lifestyle/diy video he’d ever seen in his life.
In 7 minutes, the guy had shot hot glue onto his neck, coated his hands in the same glue, glued a lamp to a table, exploded a lightbulb, set a lamp on fire and pulled off his own shirt to put out the fire.
It simultaneously felt like it was a whole feature film and a vine.
“I don’t know what to say.” Donghun said, honestly, sipping on the red bull “I feel like… like I’m having an out of body experience.”
“I feel you!” Yuchan cackled, wiping his eyes “Wait, they made a vine out of the video!”
And sure enough, Donghun had been right. In 6 seconds, they’d managed to capture the essence of the video: smiling guy trying to make a cute lamp and ending up swearing and putting out a fire with his own shirt.
“Want more of Jun’s tips?”
“Tips on what not to do.” Donghun chuckled “Yeah, give me more of this crackhead.”
They watched what Yuchan had called the ‘wire video’, which was actually called Valentine’s Day DIY Cute Wire Roses Gift Idea and again for a moment at the beginning, it really looked like he knew what he was doing with the wire and the pliers, but he didn’t. He didn’t know what he was doing. At all.
Donghun was amused, sure but he was also frustrated because it was obvious that the guy was trying his best and he had looked at the instructions on how to do what he was about to do because he could enumerate them (the cloud lamp was kind of an exception because he’d probably failed to understand that the popsicle sticks were meant to keep your damn hands away from the hot glue). He just seemed to have the memory of a goddamn fish and forgot them halfway through as the accidents kept happening. He simply could not follow the instructions. Donghun watched frustrated as Yuchan wheezed, Jun, Park Junhee, that messy ass lifestyle youtuber, poke himself repeated with the wire on different parts of his body, but mostly his arms, chest and face as he twisted the wire with the pliers.
(“Oops.” Which seemed to be one of his catchphrases, really “I hit somewhere that’s not appropriate for youtube!” Then he giggled and Donghun snorted before chuckling.
Oops was not something you say after poking yourself in the nuts with sharp wire.
Donghun was impressed at his resilience.)
The result was horrible, and those things only looked like roses if you had a really open heart and squinted a lot. He was happy with the result despite the several red marks covering his arms and cheeks and finished by saying:
“If it’s done with love, it doesn’t matter if it looks… well, not exactly like roses.” He giggled at the twelve (12) twisted-wire roses.
(Yes, he’d really done that many. Yuchan said that some jobless person had bothered to count the times he poked himself with the wire.
Exactly 55.)
“I wonder if he gave that shit to anybody” Donghun snorted and Yuchan cackled and shook his head.
“He didn’t, they turn up in a later video. He used them as decoration.” He explained as they watched Jun do his usual goodbye scene, adding a ‘Happy Valentine’s Day!’ in the middle and again, sending a flying kiss and winking…with both eyes.
“He winks with both eyes.” Donghun shook his head as Yuchan nodded in his wheezy laughing fit.
They ended up marathoning a bunch of Jun’s Tips videos until they had to leave. He had dozens of videos so Donghun just let Yuchan show him the most iconic ones.
(Jun had actually tried to make an Easy-Peasy Microwave Mug Chocolate Cake but 1) he hadn’t used a mug because he didn’t have any at the moment since he’d broken the last one he had that morning 2) he’d used a glass – yes, a glass glass – and 3) he hadn’t cracked the egg and only noticed he was supposed to do that when it exploded inside the microwave and the glass naturally shattered as well. In his stress he’d obviously tried to pull out the shards and the mess that had come out that experiment with his bare hands. There was a jumpcut after he sighed at the disaster and he kept his hands suspiciously out of sight and didn’t send any flying kisses with his hand that time.
Donghun then wondered what the viewers had to say about it and was shocked to see that the positivity by far outweighed the negativity and when anyone dissed him and called him fake (Donghun spiritually apologised for being sceptical at first) everyone else just did what Yuchan did when Donghun had doubted his honesty, and pointed out the evidence that he wasn’t fake. He was genuinely just horrible at that kind of stuff, but he was trying his best to teach people things that would make them happy.
His positive attitude despite his clear lack of diy skills was seriously admirable. As was his persistence in continuing to make that kind of content.
“I just wonder how on Earth he’s still alive, really.” Donghun said and Yuchan cackled “Wait, I’m gonna comment.”
“Don’t be mean, hyung!”
“I’m not gonna be mean.” Donghun promised and he meant it. He just wrote.
You’re an inspiration, Park Junhee. Keep the smiles coming.
“Aw, that was actually sweet, hyung!” Yuchan grinned at the comment “I mean, that’s what a lot of people say.” He scrolled down the comments’ section and it was true. Many people genuinely liked Junhee for his smiles and his positive attitude despite constantly failing and they said that. There were plenty of ‘Fighting! Next time will be better for sure!’ and then the non-believers who were promptly shut down by everyone else. Jun’s videos mostly had more views than the channel had subscribers and that really said something about the creator. He was charismatic in his dorky way and he drew people in with his smiles and persistence.
Making burgers the next day would be an extraordinary experience. Donghun could hardly wait to flip burgers as ‘Next time it will be better for sure!’ in Junhee’s voice played on repeat in his head.