Chapter 133

Chapter 133

Park Moondae’s fansite master gasped. She instantly clicked on the W Live notification.

Real-time live chatting at this time? Though TeSTAR tended to be regularly active on social media, even between promotions, she hadn’t thought they would go live right after a concert. It hadn’t been more than an hour since it finished, either!

They must be so tired. Considering the setlist, which had been extremely demanding, she was pretty worried. That didn’t keep the smile from spreading across her face, however.

I get to see TeSTAR again so soon! It felt like the emptiness that usually hit following a concert was being staved off. The video took longer than usual to load—perhaps there were a lot of people trying to watch—before the video finally began to play.

TeSTAR was sitting around a table filled with delivery food.

“Oh, they’re coming in!”

“Can you see us?”

The members were waving and saying hello, all with party hats on their heads!

That’s so cute! They’d obviously donned them because this was meant to be a wrap-up party after the concert. With a content smile on her face, she quickly searched out Moondae’s face in the crowd. She thought she could see traces of the Tibetan fox in his expression. He looked a little disappointed or sad.

Moondae’s too much of a pro to sulk over a party hat... The fansite master pondered this for a moment, but she soon realized the reason. A closer inspection revealed that each cone hat had words written on them in crayon, presumably by the members themselves.

Moondae’s hat read “Congrats! You cried two days in a row!”

She whimpered to herself. He was too cute to handle. The other members had playful messages of their own, “Loading abs” being one of them, but Moondae’s sulky face was almost deadly in its cuteness.

Clamping a hand over her mouth, not wanting to look like a lunatic on the train, she didn’t realize that it was completely unnecessary. Half the people in her car were going home after the concert. Every other passenger was either groaning or unable to contain their joy in some way.

The W App chat quickly filled with messages asking about the words on the party hats or fussing over how cute they were. The TeSTAR members waved, reading the chat and watching the number of viewers go up, before finally responding. They seemed a little embarrassed, but also like they were enjoying themselves.

“Oh, the messages? Haha... You noticed right away.”

“Yes, that’s right! We wrote them for each other!”

“I like mine! Moondae wrote it!”

Eugene lifted his hat off his head to show the camera, which read, “Just one more wire ride... please!” The message was adorable, and Eugene seemed to think it encapsulated his energy.

Eugene’s cute, too, the fansite master admitted generously. She was willing to accept the youngest member who seemed to get along well with Moondae.

Moondae grinned.

“Glad you like it.”

“Hehe.”

“Speaking of which, I’d really love to know who wrote the message on my hat…” Moondae asked, wearing an unamused expression.

“Hahaha! It was all of us together, of course!” Big Sejin answered with a wide grin.

“Oh! It was Lee Sejin!”

“Hey, Eugene!”

Their quarreling was sweet to watch. She focused her attention on the screen with bated breath.

Chungwoo smiled as he spoke.

“So, everyone, how did you like the concert today—”

The video suddenly cut out.

[The stream has ended.]

That was sudden. None of the members had been touching the phone, either.

Huh? Is it a bug? TeSTAR seemed to be confused as well.

Another notification appeared before long.

[Inviting the Loviewers to TeSTAR’s concert wrap-up party! (Again) ♡ >_<]

The members had taken off their hats, perhaps in their confusion, and they sighed with relief as the stream successfully began anew.

“Phew! There seems to have been some kind of problem!”

“Hello again, Loviewers!”

“I hope there aren’t any issues this time.”

“Of course, there won’t be! Let’s continue on, shall we? Raebin, take the floor!”

“Yes. We’re holding this stream hoping to entertain our Loviewers on the way home from our concert—”

The stream cut out again, this time not even lasting a full minute. A bad feeling settled in the fansite master’s gut. A new stream began right away this time.

“I wonder what the problem is?”

But the quality of the video was terrible. TeSTAR was extremely blurry, and they were whispering, standing close to the screen.

“We didn’t do anything wrong, did we?”

“Wh-why don’t we t-try on a different phone?”

“...think we should just focus on streaming our voices, at least. I think the app itself must be having some issues right now—”

The stream ended before Moondae could even finish his sentence.

“F*ck!”

After a recent update to the app, many idols had experienced issues. It seemed to be TeSTAR’s turn. The fansite master checked if there were any announcements for the app, but there was no mention of any problems with the servers.

Right... They don’t do announcements, do they? She was left speechless by how consistently the app developers neglected their users. It took five more minutes before TeSTAR could try again. They seemed to have followed Seon Ahyeon’s advice and tried on a different phone.

There were crying emojis in the title now.

[TeSTAR’s concert wrap-up party... Please let us stream (crying emoji)]

This time the stream seemed to be coming through clearly.

Is it finally working this time? She relaxed for a moment, thinking that it had been a good idea to switch phones. But the audio wasn’t working this time.

[(An excited Cha Eugene)]

[(Kim Raebin asks a question)]

[(Bae Sejin reads the chat)]

[(Ryu Chungwoo is confused)]

Park Moondae left the screen, then reappeared with a piece of paper that had a message scrawled on it in crayon.

- You can’t hear us?

The chat exploded.

Big Sejin drew a sad face over the paper, his face neither smiling nor sad.

- (Crying face)

The members tried one more time. They were slowly losing steam.

“Nice to see you again... everyone.”

“Hahaha…”

“I guess you can actually hear us this time.”

The stream actually seemed to be working.

“Seems like it might be stable now!”

“Uh, our screen seems to have a bit of an error, but…”

“It might cut off again if we reset it, so let’s just keep it this way for now.”

“Agreed!”

Most of the members nodded in response to Ryu Chungwoo’s careful suggestion. They would be out of options if they restarted the stream, only to see it end with an error again.

“Now then, why don’t we each talk about the most memorable moments of the concert!”

“Me! I’d like to go first!”

“All right, Eugene, you can go first!”

TeSTAR finally began to talk about the concert, looking excited to speak.

“The ropes were fun to use!”

“Oh, is that right? Is that why you kept on cracking them during practice?”

“No, nobody got hurt!”

“I mean the ropes, silly.”

“No. Kim Raebin’s the one who’s silly!”

“I’m not! I took a certified IQ test!”

They had no idea, however, that the majority of the viewers had been disconnected, with the exception of a tiny few. It wasn’t due to an error that the chat wasn’t as lively as before—the viewer count had decreased.

Most Loviewers were being shown an error screen or an infinite loading screen and fretting themselves to bits. Moondae’s fansite master was among this number.

[A temporary error occurred. Please try again later.]

The few who actually managed to continue watching the stream—nasties among them—gloated and shared what was happening in the stream on social media.

- Wow, TSuns are having fried chicken. I have to tell them they must be out of their mind to be eating so late T_T

- E and R were sent outside to check how many people came while they were doing the rehearsal. I guess R and that one actor got a kick out of ordering the younger and better-looking members around, huh?

Troll posts that would normally have been ignored were suddenly being shared and quoted.

“Ugh...”

The fansite master felt a deep rage boil inside her, for the first time since the controversy over the Rookie of the Year awards. There were countless others in the same situation as her, and the W App social media account was suddenly bombarded with a truckload of complaints, as was to be expected.

- Do something about the TeSTAR situation

- Give us back our idols T_T

- Do you even maintain your app? Every idol has had errors since the update.

- It’s f*cking errors constantly. And you don’t ever apologize, you assholes

- WHY (angry face emoji)

W App maintained a stony silence, however.

I knew to expect this, but still... They hadn’t apologized even after five separate errors had occurred during a W Live one of the VTIC members had done. Most errors were straight-out ignored unless it was something that broke the functionality, like the chat becoming unusable, for instance. Perhaps it would actually have been stranger if W App had spoken up at this point.

I guess I won’t get to see Moondae live this time... She kept trying to click the W Live thumbnail, wondering if she might get lucky and be able to access the stream, but nothing happened. By the time she got home, the stream had ended. The recording would be uploaded tomorrow at the earliest, or after a week at the latest.

If the error was really serious, we might not even get the stream upload at all—but no! That can’t happen! It was better to ignore any further ominous premonitions.

“Phew...” With a deep sigh, she let herself into her home.

I’ll take a shower, then look through the fancams. She’d just attended a fantastic concert. There was no need to be upset over the buggy stream.

Yes. It was amazing. Her mood improved quickly when she thought back over the two-day concert she’d enjoyed so much. By the time she grabbed her phone again, a new notification was on her screen.

It was a social media post from TeSTAR. It had been uploaded by Park Moondae, no less!

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

Hi Loviewers

It’s me, Moondae (puppy emoji)

Here’s a recording of today’s W Live. We really wanted to speak with everyone, but sadly didn’t get to. We’ll be back soon. (Clumsy fox drawing)

(Video)

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

The attached video was a recording of the entire W Live stream! In fact, Moondae had propped his phone up next to the phone they were attempting to stream with, just in case. And he’d turned the camera on.

The moment the stream ended, and they realized what had happened, he’d uploaded the video. Since it had been filmed on a separate phone, it wasn’t against W App rules, either.

My goodness... She buried her face in her pillow. She was at a loss thinking about what an amazingly intelligent idol Moondae was. When she turned to his post again, she noticed something that she had only glanced over earlier. It was the drawing of a fox, drawn awkwardly with a crayon.

This is absolutely bonkers! My god! Considering Moondae’s terrible drawing skills, he’d probably practiced a ton to arrive at this result.

He was listening to the fans who complained that there was no Tibetan fox emoji! She was shaken to the core by this sweet gesture, and so was everyone else on social media. This didn’t just stop at Moondae’s personal fans. The other members had begun to upload photos of their concert practices and preparations for the wrap-up party in the comments.

This included cute tidbits of information as well.

- Holy sh*t, it was Bae Sejin who picked the huge bow for Moondae’s subunit! LOL! Ahyeon was thanking him for picking out something so pretty. I’m dying haha

- So Lee Sejin picked Loving the Wait? My bias has taste

- T_T Thank you for the pic of Raebin with a white shirt and the royal robe. Raebin, I love you

- Everyone’s only uploading other members’ photos haha. Okay, guys, we’ll be your fans equally

TeSTAR’s fandom was no longer as disappointed over the failed W Live.

***

“Hmm. Looks like they’re all enjoying it!” Big Sejin said.

“Phew.”

“You’re right.”

“I’m so relieved!”

I held back a sigh.

Why did the errors have such terrible timing? It wasn’t good to finish a concert on such a low note. Everyone needed to walk away excited and happy so they would come to the next concert and listen to the new album.

We’d managed to turn things around in the end, but the fact that our W Live had not gone as planned left a bitter taste in my mouth.

We rented out a space just for the stream, too. It was a real pity. I decided I would content myself with having managed to salvage the situation for now, since not everything could always go according to plan.

“Now then, why don’t we relax and enjoy ourselves?” Chungwoo said.

“Sounds great!” Big Sejin said.

“Let’s order chicken!” Eugene cried.

We’d returned to our dorm and changed into more comfortable clothing. We were going to continue our after-party here.

Our members have great stamina. They were probably getting carried away in their excitement, and because they didn’t have to be anywhere in the morning tomorrow.

I’ll hang with them for a bit, then go to bed early. Even Bae Sejin was picking out food to order, so it would be strange if I bailed out now. While they talked, though, I would get a necessary task out of the way.

Status window.

With the concert now finished successfully, I had some things to look over.