Chapter 121

Chapter 121

The W Live stream, which was the first in a while for TeSTAR, began with a close-up of Cha Eugene and Big Sejin, whose eyes were glowing happily.

[“Is it working?”]

[“Yep!”]

The two watched as excited viewers began flooding the chat, then made small talk as they stepped away from the camera. This allowed an unobstructed view of their cooking attire—namely, aprons and latex gloves.

[“Hi Loviewers!”]

[“Hello!”]

They bowed and then squinted at the screen, reading comments.

Cha Eugene found a Korean message and waved.

[“Nice to see you too!”]

[“Haha, same here! As for why we’re streaming today... It’s to cook these chickens!”]

Big Sejin swung the camera around, showing two raw chickens, made paler by the selfie filter.

[“Can you see the chickens? I actually ordered them for Moondae’s birthday!”]

Big Sejin continued speaking as if he hadn’t noticed the question marks now filling the chat.

[“We’re going to make a delicious meal for Moondae and then have a year-end party!”]

[“Chicken soup for the soul! Chicken soup!”]

- Whut?

- They’re cooking those?

- Can you even cook? T_T

- I didn’t think they’d really be making chicken soup. LOL

The two laughed, in high spirits despite the worried comments.

[“If it turns out terrible, we’ll eat it and order something yummy for Moondae and the other members!”]

[“But we’ll do a good job this time!”]

Cha Eugene’s unfounded confidence only made the viewers even more anxious.

- Please call Moondae over to help you

- Guys, I don’t think this is a good idea

- They’re cute, but I’m afraid

The two of them were definitely more impervious to negative comments than some of the other members. They completely ignored messages like “This is boring” and “Don’t get cocky T_T” just letting the fans’ reactions run off them like water off a duck’s back.

[“Oh, Moondae! The others will be back soon!”]

[“That’s right. They’ll be a bit late because they’re working. We’re going to cook the main dish, and then we’ll make some simpler ones together!”]

This was a lie, of course. Their choreography had been altered slightly, which had required a lot of additional practice to master, meaning retiring for the day had been delayed a couple of hours. Cha Eugene and Big Sejin had managed it before anyone else and left early, which meant they were able to start the stream on time.

The other members had no idea, however, that the two of them were currently doing a cooking stream on W Live.

[“Here we go, then!”]

[“Yay!”]

Things went immediately downhill from there. Eugene, remembering the pot he’d burnt black the last time he’d tried cooking with Ahyeon, managed to get the heat just right. But problems arose elsewhere.

[“Wow! Next is... cumin!”] Eugene said.

[“Huh? Cumin? I’m sorry, but we don’t have any fancy spices like that in our dorm. We can just use red pepper powder instead!”]

[“Great! Let’s add honey, too!”]

[“Honey sounds good!”]

Even though they had a perfectly fine recipe to work off of, they began to just improvise however they pleased. The chat was filled with confusion and laughter.

- No!

- Put that honey down

- Don’t you have any chicken stock? Guys! T_T

- Well, delivery is pretty good these days

- The chat is going so fast, I can’t read anything. LOL

As the fans expected, the result was a broth that tasted... interesting.

[“Wow, it’s done!”]

[“Let’s have a taste…”]

The two excitedly sampled the soup and immediately found themselves speechless. The chat was flooded with laughing emojis. They smiled and nodded at one another, the picture of two people who’d just tasted something gross.

Big Sejin hurried to explain, sounding discouraged but determined before anyone could criticize them for wasting food.

[“Haha! We’ll eat this... hot mess ourselves. You don’t need to worry that we’ll let it go to waste!”]

[“I’m okay with that.”]

Big Sejin watched as messages ranging from dissuading them from eating it to laughing at them scrolled past. He shrugged, speaking to the camera again.

[“Why don’t we order some chicken—”]

At that moment, the door of the dorm opened and the other members returned.

[“There they are!”]

[“Welcome back!”]

Eugene was the first to rush from the kitchen. Big Sejin put his finger to his mouth in front of the camera before attempting to hide the pot. He was unsuccessful, of course.

The next person to speak was the recently returned Moondae.

[“What are you doing?”]

[“Huh? Oh! Haha! We’re doing a W Live! Say hi to the Loviewers, Moondae!”]

[“Oh.”]

Park Moondae paused in his questioning and bowed to the camera.

[“How is everyone?”]

Countless greetings flew by in the chat. Park Moondae smiled softly and nodded.

[“Hello, everyone.”]

[“I’m Moondae!”]

Big Sejin loudly, with flawless timing, mimicked the way Moondae often started his posts on social media, causing Moondae to shoot him a cold glare. A few of the other members who’d been coming into the kitchen hurriedly covered their mouths and ducked, hiding their amusement.

Goddamn it, Park Moondae thought. But the chat seemed happy enough.

“LMAO” and puppy emojis filled the chat, and Moondae decided to be patient with Big Sejin’s sh*t for today.

It’s not hard to make them happy, is it? He decided instead to turn his attention to the pot.

[“Everyone, what were these two up to?”]

The chat was filled with a flurry of comments trying to cover for them, interspersed with a few that were eagerly tattling on them.

- We had some fun together!

- They just talked!

- Nothing, just chatting

- Eugene was being cute for us T_T Show us something cute too, Moondae

- They cooked LOL

- Sejin, he...

- Nothing happened, okay?

Big Sejin casually patted Moondae on the back, snatching the camera away from his curious eyes.

[“Us? Oh, we were just talking with the fans. Isn’t that right, Eugene?”]

[“That’s right!”]

Cha Eugene smiled broadly.

[“And we cooked as well!”]

[“Oh no.”]

Big Sejin’s face fell. Raebin was standing in the background of the shot, looking puzzled by the entire situation.

[“You’re wearing aprons. You didn’t think he wouldn’t figure it out, did you?”]

The fans laughed hysterically in the chat. Moondae immediately turned on the pot that Big Sejin had subtly been trying to hide.

[“Don’t tell me this is meant to be... chicken soup?”]

[“It is.”]

[“It’s the end of the year, and it was your birthday recently, so we thought we’d make you something. But don’t worry, we’ll just order some fried chicken for you instead. We’ll eat the soup ourselves!”]

[We’ll eat it!]

Moondae scowled at the soup suspiciously, then tasted the contents of the pot. He grinned.

[“You guys didn’t follow Eugene’s mom’s recipe, did you?”]

[“We took some creative liberties.”]

[“We added honey.”]

[“Yeah. I can tell.”]

Moondae tutted, then put the pot back on the countertop. Then he began taking things out of the fridge, adding them to the pot as he went.

[“Wow, Moondae!”]

Big Sejin’s voice was quite loud.

[“Please make it tasty!”]

Eugene had a wide grin on his face. Big Sejin and Eugene immediately began to shower him with praise, realizing what was going on.

The next person to speak was Ahyeon.

[“I-I’ll h-help, too!”]

[“Yeah? Taste this for me, then.”]

[“O-okay!”]

Not understanding that Moondae had meant for him to refuse, Ahyeon brought a spoon over and tasted the broth. The expression on his face seemed to be the human embodiment of both a question mark and an exclamation point.

[“I-it’s good! B-but it tastes like... uh…”]

[“Spicy braised chicken?”]

[“Y-yeah, that’s it! That’s the one!”]

Indeed, the chicken soup was gone—replaced by a perfectly palatable spicy braised chicken dish. The fans began to buzz in the chat at this shocking revelation, but Moondae seemed perfectly unbothered by the unfolding events.

[“That’s good.”]

He turned to the smartphone camera and explained kindly.

[“It had honey and red pepper powder in it... so I added soy sauce and red pepper paste and turned it into a Korean dish. The broth has boiled down a bit by now, so this seems just right.”]

[“No way! This is so good! This is delicious, guys. How did he do it? Is Moondae a magician?”]

[“Wow! So it’s a success!”]

Moondae stared at him, judgment in his eyes. He had temporarily won their admiration, not that he’d really wanted it. But the contents of the pot were not nearly enough to feed all of them for dinner, so the members produced a grilling pan and barbecued some pork belly.

[“This time we’re going to nail it!”]

[“I’m good at cooking meat!”]

Surprisingly, Cha Eugene and Big Sejin actually had some skill at grilling meat, and they were able to make up for the fiasco that was their chicken soup.

[“This is really good…”]

[“This really feels like an end-of-year party. I like it!”]

Bae Sejin and Chungwoo, who’d cleaned up the kitchen without being asked, seemed to be enjoying the meat as well. Both of them felt a little weird about eating the mysterious chicken dish since it was originally supposed to be chicken soup.

The pasta that had been added seemed out of place with the spicy braised chicken, but it tasted all right as long as one thought of the lumps of pasta as pieces of hand-pulled dough.

[“Chicken soup…”]

[“You tried making it again, huh?”]

These words immediately set the chat ablaze. People were now demanding to know what Chungwoo meant by “again.”

- There has to be a story behind this

- Explain why they vibe like they’re used to chicken soup attempts

- T_T Please share

[“Of course, we’ll share!”]

[“It happened on the 15th, which was Moondae’s birthday…”]

TeSTAR described Park Moondae’s birthday shenanigans while enjoying themselves, all while ignoring any unpleasant questions. To them, with all their ups and downs, such an open and real-time back and forth between them and the fans had been rare. Even casual fans tuned in after hearing about the stream, and the viewer count continued to rise.

Only after over two and a half hours of the stream had passed did the members spot a certain question.

[“And the next question is... ah, here’s one. ‘Was Ahyeon’s somersault on KBC improvised or rehearsed?’”]

This question had actually been asked many times right from the start of the stream, but Eugene had been too focused on his cooking and his reading comprehension wasn’t good enough to read long Korean messages if they scrolled past too quickly.

As for Big Sejin, he’d ignored them on purpose. He knew that replying to the question when everyone was here would have a bigger impact and the resulting screen captures and clips would look better.

Chungwoo, who’d grown cheerful thanks to everyone’s upbeat mood, smiled before answering.

[“Oh yes, that! It was improvised. Ahyeon was really amazing!”]

[“Yeah!”]

[“Oh, you want the details? Well, our earpieces stopped working as intended midway through the performance…”]

The members happily described the situation in detail, while Moondae and Big Sejin occasionally stepped in to steer the conversation away from any sensitive topics.

[“And those two supported Ahyeon from the back! What happened after that, Ahyeon?”]

[“I-I felt I c-could do it... So I-I gave it a shot!”]

[“It was really something else, but not at all what we had planned. Ahyeon won’t be trying such things again unless he can be sure it’s safe. Isn’t that right, Ahyeon?”]

[“Y-yeah! S-safety first!”]

TeSTAR soon moved on to other topics and chatted for about half an hour before ending the stream. As was to be expected, the first screen captures to hit social media were regarding the accident on stage.

========================

[TeSTAR’s improvised performance on KBC was due to an accident after all]

: They talked about it on W App themselves

(Screen captures with captions)

========================

- So it was all true?

- What kind of training does Seon Ahyeon have?

- People were laughing at the fans and calling them delusional. LOL

- Is Seon Ahyeon a god?

- I thought it was amazing that they managed to hide him slipping so well. This seems so unreal

- Wow, so it was all spur of the moment, not planned...

- What are the chances they just lied because people started talking about it?

└ There were so many staff watching the rehearsals. Why would they lie about this?

└ TeSTAR is too popular to need to lie like that haha

└ Leave them be. I’ll bet they’re a fan of some nugu group like Onyx

It was shocking to everyone online that the most unlikely possibility had turned out to be true. The news spread throughout WeTube as well as all over social media.

[TeSTAR covers for accident on stage—far-fetched theories were correct]

[The idols who survived the audition show can survive anything]

[The shocking dance skills of the third-place winner of Idol Inc.]

The fairness controversy regarding TeSTAR had already well and truly lost steam, but this new wave of articles saw them shaking off any remaining traces of it cleanly. The Rookie of the Year award controversy was sunk so thoroughly that no one cared about it anymore.

- Our boys are geniuses after all...

- Idols are all about stage performances. But TeSTAR is also cute on top of that. How can you not love them?

- Let’s capitalize on the good press, boys. I’m going to tell everyone how cute they are T_T

The TeSTAR fans eagerly shared the more heartwarming moments from the W Live, but it was of no use. People were already too used to the more provocative headlines that followed TeSTAR around.

Feeling slightly embarrassed, the fans stopped trying to talk about the cute chicken soup incident with the m*ggles. In any case, it was all but guaranteed that they would receive the Rookie of the Year award at the important awards ceremonies to come in January.

As well-performing idols who had set themselves apart from the rest with their exceptional skill, they would be performing at the New Year’s Eve show as well. They encountered an unexpected but welcome face there.

***

The MBS Gayo Daejejeon went to air on December 31.

“Thank you!”

After our first performance for the night was over, we suddenly found ourselves with a lot of free time on our hands.

The MBS live show lasted for four hours. TeSTAR’s performances were scattered throughout parts one and three. This didn’t mean they were allowing us to sing two of our own songs, though. The performance we’d just given was a cover—only the first verse of an idol song released in the 2000s.

Worse still, we were only allowed three minutes in part three, which meant we needed to cut down the second verse of our song significantly. Considering how well TeSTAR had done this year, I doubted any other show would treat us any worse than this.

I’m not sure if they’re discriminating against us because we’re a product of cable TV or because of our agencies. It was probably a bit of both.

“At least we have plenty of time to change, which is nice!”

I nodded.

On the positive side of things, we did avoid the worst outcome. I was, of course, referencing Imjingak Resort, which is where this particular show was often held.

“That’s right. We don’t have to perform outdoors, either,” I said.

“Y-you’re right,” Ahyeon agreed.

It would have been quite the miserable sight, us performing in our summer school uniforms in the middle of winter. We were walking through the broadcast station’s corridors, chatting like this, when someone called out to us.

“Wow, it’s TeSTAR! Can I have a signature?”

I knew that voice. The members’ eyes widened in shock when they turned and saw who it was.

“Whoa!”

“No way!”

Shockingly, it was Goldie #1, Ha Iljoon, who’d spoken to us.

“Hey, hey! How have you been?” Goldie #1 said, waving at us from where he stood in a group of people.

A few of the members grinned and walked over. I spotted another face next to Goldie #1 that I recognized instantly.

“Ah...”

It was Choi Wongil.