An Encounter on the Metro - Chapter 12
Second Chances
“Sarangeul haetda uriga manna~” (Call Ringtone - Love Scenario – iKON)
Ari’s phone rang just as she boarded the metro on her way to the café.
“Puttiii! WE MADE IT! I knew my best friend’s talent was too good to be hidden!” Maya’s voice was practically shouting through the speaker.
Startled, Ari gripped her phone tightly, shifting her sling bag.
“Calm down… what happened, Maya?” she asked.
“What do you mean calm down?! We got 1.2k views on the music video! Don’t even get me started on the promotional Shorts!”
“Wait—really? You’re not pulling my leg?” Ari asked, her pitch unusually high as her heart began to race.
Maya rolled her eyes, her smile audible through the phone. “Really!! I’m posting the stats on the Instagram page I created for our songs. Check for yourself! Anyway, gotta run—manager’s back. I’ll call you later!”
Tut tut. The call cut off.
For a moment, Ari stood frozen, the faint hum of the metro and low chatter of commuters silenced into the background. She quickly unlocked her phone and headed straight to Instagram.
Wow… they really had so many views. Her lips curved upward, betraying her delight.
The Putti Sings channel, which had started with just 65 subscribers — mostly acquaintances and friends — had crossed a thousand views in under 24 hours. Comments mentioned that many had discovered it through the YouTube Shorts Mira had uploaded earlier and through the promotional posts on her Instagram account.
______________________
Ari brushed off her daze with a deep inhale as she entered the café.
Just as the door chimed to welcome her inside, Ravi practically launched himself at her, nearly knocking down a chair.
“Ariii!!! We made it, buddy!” he yelled, sprinting toward her.
Ari dodged just in time, laughing. “Watch it, Ravi—you’ll break something!”
Inside, she was greeted by grins and cheers that reflected pride and genuine happiness.
Rams chuckled from behind the counter, pretending to scold. “Be careful not to damage the furniture—or you’ll pay for it!”
Maya, beaming proudly, added, “To celebrate our debut, I say we make Putti’s song our café’s opening track every evening.”
“Yes! We should totally do it!” Ravi chimed in. Dramatic enough, pretending to wipe imaginary sweat from his forehead, he added, “It’s our team’s blood, sweat, and tears—it deserves to be heard!”
Ari chuckled, looking at all of them — her little mismatched team of dreamers.
They really had worked hard for this.
____________
As expected of Maya, the creative marketer of the group. Her idea worked wonders. Within a week of playing the track every evening in the cafe, regulars began asking about the song, new visitors hummed along, and a few even subscribed to the channel right at their tables. The subscriber count soon reached 150, and the café’s Instagram page started gaining steady traction.
Encouraged by the growing attention, Mira reached out to Maya the following weekend. “We need more content and a marketing strategy to increase the viewer count,” she said. “But I don’t want to rush Ari into making new originals yet.”
“Maya agreed with her — creativity needs space. Together, they hatched a plan: Rams would record instrumental covers, and a few local bands who wished to collaborate could promote their work on the channel for free. Each would be tagged through the café’s official page, building a shared space for artists to grow together.”
The plan worked better than any of them expected. Views climbed steadily, comments poured in, and soon Putti Sings had become a small but glowing corner of warmth on social media.
Business at the café picked up too, much to Rams’s surprise. The combined buzz from Putti Sings and the café’s online tagging made them a local favorite. Rams eventually had to hire three additional waiters and two chefs to manage the growing crowd.
As the day thinned out and everyone bid their goodbyes with wide grins, they realized something — perhaps their passions, once ignored as mere hobbies, wouldn’t gather dust anymore.
Mira, who had buried her love for design behind back-end code and system updates.
Maya, who had once dreamed of creative marketing but ended up in logistics under a misleading job title.
Ravi, who had long given up on starting his own recording studio for the “security” of a paycheck.
Rams, who had let his guitar gather dust in the corner as he became consumed by business.
And finally, Ari — who had hidden her voice behind layers of self-doubt and filial guilt, afraid that following her heart would be selfish.
Together, they began their journey to rediscover their passions.
-TBC-
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