Lumi was beyond ecstatic hearing the last few words of encouragement from Mr. Rockern. She hummed Shadow Season throughout the whole car ride back to Daniella's place, giggling at anything that moved outside the car windows, and giving me an occasional bright smile.
Her joy was so cute and bubbly and infectious Daniella could not even focus on driving. She was a stable driver, but I found myself jerking to the sides of car doors as she gushed on about how proud she was about Lumi's performance.
"That was exceptional, ice cream," she had said, staring with a little too much intent at the rearview mirror and not at the road in front. "That was a crispy hazelnut smooth buttermilk extra-large milk chocolate glazed strawberry ice cream. You were phenomenal."
"I have no idea what you just said, but please focus on the road," I told her. "An accident is nothing to be proud of."
Of course, she ignored me and rambled on.
"I'm so proud of you, ice cream! I'm really feeling this whole teaching thing. Oh, I want impart all my knowledge to you, like icing on a cake."
I did not understand the analogy, but Lumi did. She giggled at Daniella's words and responded with gusto. I had to use our telepathy to follow along.
"Yes, yes! Add some sprinkles, too!"
That meant she wanted more than all her knowledge, but some secrets tips and tricks as well. I hugged her, trying to calm her excitement. Maybe this big day was too successful. Maybe we ignited too much of her passion.
I raised an eyebrow towards Daniella, hoping she would notice. I did not want her to feed Lumi's energy too much. While the reception at the park towards Lumi's singing was great, the probability of her going viral was still rough to say. We maximized her chances but... I did not want to see her sullen and disappointed if she was not.
Daniella did not notice, much to my stroke of dismay. She and Lumi continued to chat about the performance, what they liked, what she did well wrong, et cetera. And as I watched the glow on Lumi's face as they talked and talked, I could not bear to stop her. I zipped my mouth and buried my worries down.
Why was I the one getting cold feet instead? I was supposed to have absolute confidence in Lumi, just like she had with me. I did have absolute confidence with her. But the happier she was, the more I wanted to keep her that way.
I sat with my thoughts swirling in silence as we reached Daniella's place. As we exited the car, Lumi shot me a look of concern at my silence. But I held a hiding smile, and she heeded no more attention. She ran to Daniella as they led the way up the elevator before me.
While my worries still remained frantic in my head, the rest of the day was smooth. I had made them a quick lunch as they happily played together. Lumi had a growing interest in the piano and Daniella taught her some of the basics from identifying notes. I could see how it could be beneficial to her singing, so I was not angry to the fact that she was stealing my time with Lumi and her attention.
I saw on the sofa, meditating for a while. But the urge to know was too strong. I lost the battle with my anxiety and headed to the study with the Pineapple notebook. I needed to know if the recorded performances of Lumi's singing today gained any traction or not, or else I would not be able to sleep tonight.
I flipped open the stream and headed into the website MeTube. It was the fastest growing social media platform today. In my past life, the short-form video sharing platform Click-Clock overtook this title, but in this life, it was far from being developed yet. I would have preferred Click-Clock to MeTube as the potential to grow viral was greater with the use of hashtags.
All the recorded videos of Lumi's performance could contribute to a fast rise in her popularity. But on MeTube, we'd have to pray one video landed on the algorithm to the front page. Doing so, I inputted MeTube into the search bar and entered the website.
I scrolled down, but there was no video of the sorts on the home page. I bit my lip. Maybe I should not have tried to check up on things, it only fueled my anxiety. Yet I unrelented. I took to the search bar and tried to find videos of Lumi's performance today.
And dear lord was I glad I did.
I saw three videos at the top of the search results, all with thousands of views much to amazement. I knew those analytics was quite good for videos only published only a few hours ago. I clicked in one titled [this little girl's singing made me cry] and found the reason why.
These were students who made and published their covers. Because they were music students and could sing, they had a solid fanbase. I clicked on the other two videos at the top of the search results. They were same, released by a cover artist.
[little girl busking at the communal park at the Royal Institute of Music]
[little girl's heartbreaking cover of Shadow Season]
As I navigated between the pages, I noticed something strange, something peculiar, exhilarating even. I refreshed the pages half a dozen or times or so before I could confirm it. I rubbed my eyes, my breathing heavy, my heart a blazing storm of both relief excitement.
With each refresh, hundreds of new comments were made to the videos. Not views, but comments. I knew the views must be increasing at an even greater rate. I returned back to home page, and sure enough, there were the videos, plastered all over.
Daniella and I expected Lumi to go viral overnight, two days at most. The thought of landing on the front page in a mere matter of a few hours never even crossed our minds.
The excitement could not be continued in my shout.
"Dumpling. Don't be ecstatic yet, but you're on fire."