Chapter 106

Chapter 106

Bae Sejin’s name change got a fair amount of attention but didn’t cause any trouble. It was just his surname that had changed and a lot of people had already been using the name to differentiate between him and Big Sejin anyway. As a result, it didn’t feel all that awkward.

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[No way guys, actor Lee Sejin’s name was actually changed to Bae Sejin]

: His mother’s surname is Bae, haha. He’s changing his name to honor her since she raised him as a single mother. It’s hilarious though—his nickname became his real name LOL! (link to article)

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- Huh? Is this for real?

- That’s cool haha

- That’s a novel way to show respect to your mom

ㄴ LMAO

- Well, all family reasons aside, maybe it was because of the confusion of having two Lee Sejins in TeSTAR. We can’t keep calling them A and B, can we? Haha

- This will keep the fans from mixing them up haha

Not all fans, however, welcomed this change. Bae Sejin—Bae referring to his time as an actor—had been a nickname created by the viewers of Idol Inc., not necessarily his fans, as a way to sarcastically emphasize that he was an actor rather than a singer.

The negative connotations behind the nickname had all but disappeared with time, but the fans still remembered how it had come about. They couldn’t embrace it wholeheartedly. After reading the article in its entirety, however, a subtle shift in attitude to the name change, so that it was now regarded as a positive thing, spread among the fans as well.

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[...] According to the agency T1 Stars Entertainment, Bae Sejin said, “I know that I already have a nickname which matches my new name. It’s quite amusing honestly and I decided to think of it as an opportunity. I hope that our fans will come to see the nickname in a new light.”

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The fans could read between the lines and see that Bae Sejin was determined to defeat any negative connotations attached to the nickname.

- From now on, we’re going to think of his new name as a gift from his mom

- I never used that nickname, since I was afraid Sejin might be hurt. But here he is, telling us we can use it...

- There’s a bunch of idols out there who have no respect for their fans. But Bae Sejin is good to both his mom and to us T_T (Kisses)

- Hmm. I didn’t like that they decided to change Little Sejin’s name and not Big Sejin’s and that they changed it to that nickname. But the article kind of explains things. I think Sejin’s a much stronger person than I knew him to be.

The general TeSTAR fandom, as opposed to Bae Sejin’s personal fans, simply saw it as a good change since it would clear up confusion. They also found it cute and rather interesting that his new name lined up with the old nickname.

Most people didn’t refer to either of the Lee Sejin’s by their real names all that often anyway, to avoid mix-ups, so they didn’t find adjusting to the new name difficult. Big Sejin’s more obnoxious fan accounts, however, did make a little unpleasant noise for a brief moment.

- Lee Sejin’s finally got his name back! I f*cking hated having to search his nicknames all the time.

- Big Sejin likes to laugh things off too much. He’s perceptive, too, which was why he came up with a nickname for himself so as not to upset that actor guy. It really pissed me off LOL. But he changes his name now and people suddenly love him for it? What the hell, eh?

- He shouldn’t take credit for being considerate now when it was our Sejin who adopted a nickname all this time

But these reactions petered out in almost no time at all. And so, just as TeSTAR and the agency had wanted, the new name was accepted without much in the way of repercussions, as if it had been his all along. By the time Bae Sejin’s renaming had faded into old news, the comeback was just around the corner.

***

“Finally.”

A graduate student who’d finally managed to get out of the lab after two sleepless nights spent there without break trudged through her front door. Her dog was napping in the living room, but she couldn’t sleep yet.

I need to watch the TeSTAR music video. It had been released at midnight yesterday, but she still hadn’t gotten the chance to watch it. All she knew about the new song came from the teaser video that she’d seen several days prior.

The teaser had only been a simple series of short clips, similar in content to the concept photos, strung together with a single melody—it hadn’t contained much in the way of hints. She was dying to know what the music video was about, but since she was late to the party already, she’d decided to just wait and watch it on a bigger screen and thus resisted the urge to check it out until she got home.

She washed her face with cold water and then immediately sat down in front of her computer. Her heart was racing as she opened WeTube. She didn’t have to do much more than that—the video she was looking for was already onscreen, front and center in the Trending tab.

[TeSTAR | Airplane | Official MV]

“Woohoo!”

It was time to watch it.

Finally! She ignored the contents of the thumbnail entirely and clicked into the video. The first thing she saw was the white flooring one might find in a school corridor, floating surrounded by a blue sky.

It was fantastical, the sort of thing one might expect to see in an abstract painting, and it was oddly reminiscent of the “Magical Boys” concept.

Before she could really get a proper look at it, however, the scene vanished, replaced by a dark corridor that overlapped and replaced the previous corridor perfectly.

Huh? The dark corridor was dripping with water, the moisture coming from everywhere. Green, glow-in-the-dark graffiti and blinking emergency lights were visible but distorted by the flowing water so they glinted strangely.

Then someone appeared at the end of the corridor. The dark figure rushed toward the viewer with one hand on the wall. She only got the barest glimpse of his face before the figure suddenly covered the camera with his palm.

There was silence and the screen went black. Then came a sound she truly hadn’t expected to hear—the strumming of an acoustic guitar.

It was completely unexpected, the sound chillingly clear and wistful. The hand could be seen releasing the camera, revealing a blue sky filled with white clouds. An old school lay beneath the wide open sky, but it didn’t look like it was in ruins. Situated between mountains and trees, it looked like something out of a romantic teen novel.

A moment later, a boy was shown standing in front of the main gate. He seemed to hesitate for a moment, his back to the camera, but then grabbed the handle and started tugging the gate open slowly. Then a clear, pleasant voice began to sing.

My heart is trembling

I need to let it all fly

Fly away without a trace

I’m opening the window

I’m going to send it flying high,

The paper airplane I made today

The boy ran into the corridor visible beyond the door, and the camera turned slightly in order to show his side profile. It was Park Moondae. Bold drumming started up.

Thump! Thump! Thump!

Music played by a live band accompanied by a violin began to play over that, filling out the soundscape. The instruments and music were of an older style that might have been popular in the early 2000s, but the song managed to be a retro throwback without feeling old-fashioned thanks to the modern beat and the synthesizer that underpinned the whole arrangement.

In the meantime, Moondae arrived at the end of the corridor, where a door awaited him, and threw it open. It crashed against the wall with a loud thud, revealing a dorm room. The boys inside looked at the camera, their eyes wide with confusion.

The genre of the video seemed to have shifted, depicting a normal slice of school life all of a sudden, as the members onscreen took classes in a small rural school and just enjoyed their daily lives. They were seen doing the choreography in every new part of the school shown. The desks, pushed into the corner haphazardly, as if the students were responsible for putting them away themselves, contributed to making the scene look even more genuine.

My god. The graduate student was already completely smitten with the combination of wistful teen spirit and nostalgia, but that wasn’t all. Different imagery began appearing in the second verse. As the members all interacted with the world around them, both within the school and the forest, they began to experience oddities.

For instance, when Seon Ahyeon turned on a water faucet near the field, glittering soap bubbles poured out instead of water.

“Whoa...” the graduate student involuntarily gasped.

The scene depicting the shining balls of light floating in the breeze around Seon Ahyeon was truly a work of art. Viewers were being shown most of the member’s first encounters with their respective abilities, which had been showcased in “Magical Boys.”

But what about Moondae? She was starting to worry that he was going to be left out because he’d already been in the opening, but then Moondae appeared on screen as well. He was about to follow his friends in leaving the music room after class, grabbing the handle only for an odd symbol to appear on the door. Then the door clicked as it locked automatically.

Oh my gosh! As the graduate student bit back a scream of delight, the music video raced toward its climax. The seven boys came up with a plan to use their abilities to sneak out of the school after curfew. At night, when the sky was full of stars, their playful escape began.

Big Sejin closed his eyes, sensing that the corridor outside was empty. Cha Eugene wound up a handful of tiny teddy bears, making them as big as humans before hiding them under the sheets.

Kim Raebin was about to use his compass to carefully open the window but ended up cutting a neat hole through the glass instead. He turned to his friends with a stunned look on his face. After some minor difficulties, the boys finally managed to sneak out of the school building. Then it was time for the final chorus.

Don’t hold on, let me go instead

The joys

The sorrows

When they pile up anew

I’ll send another one on its way

An airplane for you

Airplane

Modern electronic instruments played in the drop, and a group choreography scene shot in a field under a star-lit sky came next. When the complex set of moves came to an end, they stopped dancing and took off at a run. There were no cuts this time, the story continuing in one smooth take.

[Hahaha!]

The drums petered out as their laughter could be heard over the accompaniment. The bridge was slightly altered this time, giving the song a softer finish.

Go far, fly high

My heart is traveling afar

Go beyond the Milky Way

And become a shining star

Ryu Chungwoo laughed and fired a toy gun into the air. There was a ringing blast, and the bullet exploded into fireworks, decorating the night sky.

I gather my hands, pray again

That we can finally meet

Beyond the line that separates us

Our hands touching, in a meeting sweet

The boys continued to laugh loudly as they ran and the camera was focused on them for quite a while as they grew smaller, disappearing into the distance.

Wow... That was fantastic. The graduate student slumped in her seat as all the tension drained from her body, fingers wobbly as she typed frantically at her keyboard. She felt fantastic but she was also completely sapped of all energy.

However, the video wasn’t over yet. As the music ended, the screen went black. It was now showing a classroom window in the middle of the night. The view outside the window, however, was completely black, with no night-washed scenery or stars. Lights suddenly flashed on within the curtains.

They were covered in the glowing graffiti from the start of the video, and the faint light they gave off revealed that someone was slumped over near the windowsill. It was a scene familiar to any TeSTAR fan.

This is the scene from the “Magical Boys” teaser! It was the same setup. This time, though, nothing magical happened.

[...]

The video ended just like that.

“Phew!”

She gave a drawn-out sigh.

That reference toward the end... But no, before thinking about that, the video was amazing! The song, the choreography, and even the styling had been top-notch. Her exhausted state, however, prevented her from formulating a detailed opinion—only vague chunks of emotion floated about in her mind.

The thing to do in moments like this is look into what everyone else is saying! This way, she could channel her enthusiasm without having to use her brain. She excitedly scrolled down to the comments and froze when she saw they were all in English.

This was because WeTube gave English comments precedence. There was only one Korean comment near the top.

- Any fellow Koreans? Love you, TeSTAR! (tears of joy emoji)

She stared silently. Then she decided to make a social media account of her own.