Chapter 172

Chapter 172

Allow me to explain what was going on. This time, we were playing a land expansion board game that used cards to decide our new room arrangements.

“Now, then, Yeouido belongs to my Beet Coin Faction! Everyone hand me a coin!”

“Huh? What?”

“Already? You’re very good at this, Sejin.”

“Haha! Thank you!”

The strange game was complicated and took a long time to play out a full game. Most importantly, it had very little to do with deciding roommates. As it turned out, it was a new board game made based on the IP belonging to the game we’d collaborated with, 127 Section.

T1 probably arranged this product placement. I was used to this sort of thing now. In any case, the production team wanted us to play this board game to decide our roommates, so they let us pick who we wanted in descending order from whoever had the highest score.

And the results were now out.

“And Eugene’s... ‘Flame Bike Gang’ has thirty-six lots, which puts him in first place!”

“Yeah!”

“Ugh, it was so close!”

Eugene had nabbed himself a last-minute victory.

Three sixes in a row? Eugene’s unbelievable luck had everyone screaming like they were in a gambling house. They didn’t even care who actually won in the end. As for Eugene... He chose me as his roommate without a moment’s hesitation.

“Moondae, I choose you! Let’s have fun!”

But why? When did we get close? If another roommate was picked I could share the burden, but that choice wasn’t mine, either.

“Hmm... So Eugene, your choice of room is...”

“Number one!”

It was the room for two.

“Wow, Moondae! Back to room one! Congratulations!”

“Wow...”

I didn’t like it one bit—not that I was stupid enough to show it, of course. Though I couldn’t bring myself to sound excited, I was still giving Eugene high fives, patting his shoulder, and ensuring my body language was open and friendly.

When it comes to Eugene’s fans, it’s best to let sleeping dogs lie. They couldn’t take a joke. If I did something to show my displeasure, they would make me out to be some sort of villain. I tried to keep calm and think of the advantages of sharing a room with him. Are there any?

“And Sejin, you’re in second place. Who do you choose?”

“Right. My choice is... drumroll, please! Our amazing Raebin!”

“Oh! Thank you!”

“Haha! Oh, I think we should go to the three-person room.”

“Uh, Moondae’s in third place, so we’ll skip him... Raebin is fourth, so it’s his turn. What would you like to do?”

“I’d like Seon Ahyeon to join us as the last roommate!”

“M-me?”

“Yes! I have a few things I want to ask you after the last time we shared a room...”

I tried to think of something while the others were deciding on their roommates, but I couldn’t think of anything. There was one thing I knew for sure, though.

“Let’s have some gummies!”

“Sure.”

I wouldn’t get to go to bed early for a while. And as it turned out, this assumption was completely right.

***

A few days later, we were in the waiting room at a music show. The stylist who was attaching the accessories to my costume said, “Are you all right, Moondae? You look kind of out of it.”

“I’m fine.”

I wouldn’t have been all right, however, if not for the Energy Drink trait.

Cha Eugene, that bastard, didn’t go to sleep until two o’clock last night. I could live with that. Everyone had different sleep schedules. The problem was that he was very active right up until going to bed, and talked to me the whole time.

I’d actually taken some precautionary steps in advance.

“I’ve been trying to keep my energy up... So I want to rest in bed unless I’m exercising.”

“Oh... Are you struggling, Moondae?”

“No. I’m trying to save my energy. So I’m going to need to stay in bed most of the time, all right?”

“Understood!”

I’d been worried he’d bombard me with questions, but he didn’t ask a single one. He paid attention to what I said, too—at least the part where I said I needed to stay in bed.

“Wow! Take a look at this!”

When I had peered out from my covers, Eugene was there holding his phone, showing me a video of a husky who was howling in response to a baby’s noises.

“Isn’t this cute? A baby and a dog. The combination never fails to make my day.”

“Right. That’s nice.”

When I had given him this answer, I had no idea that he would keep this up until two in the morning, when the next day had a pre-rec for a music show.

“Hey, Moondae! Check out this hippo—”

“Enough.”

I had to tell him three separate times that we should sleep before he finally went to bed. If he’d kept it up any longer, I’d have socked him over the head to put him to sleep.

He’s driving me nuts. He didn’t do this every night, of course. Sometimes he slept early, but it was never predictable. Based on the way he was acting, he was heeding my words in his own way. The only problem was that he never seemed to remember anything that didn’t strike him as important.

Should I scare him or something? This was a joke, of course. The moment Eugene showed any sign of being cowed it would sow the seeds for rumors of dissent in the group. This wouldn’t have been a concern if only I hadn’t left evidence of my dislike for Ryu Chungwoo just a few months ago in a variety of videos—namely, the ones included in the summer package.

That would not be good. So for now, I would be patient. Given the way things were going, however, the current roommate assignments would last for at least half a year. I wasn’t sure that I could keep my displeasure off my face for that long.

How did Chungwoo put up with him? On second thought, Chungwoo had Big Sejin with him, who probably attracted most of Eugene’s chatter.

“Hey! Cookie?” Eugene shouted.

“I’m fine.”

“They’re good!”

“You enjoy them.”

Eugene was talking to me far more often now, even outside the dorm. If he felt as though we were better friends now that we were roommates, but I begged to differ.

“TeSTAR, let’s get moving. You need to be on standby!”

“Yes!”

We were the next artists to record. I put aside all my concerns about my new roommate and decided to focus on my work for now.

I could hear the crowd cheering through my earpiece. The tiny thing blocked out most outside noise, and the faint buzzing that still made it through was oddly exhilarating.

It forces all other thoughts out of your head. With songs that were packed with complicated moves, in particular, the feeling of surging adrenaline really helped. But with songs like this one, which were far less demanding, it was best to keep one’s mind sharp.

If I just went with the flow, the song often ended up feeling bland. Because it was an easy song, more effort was required to make sure it didn’t come across as boring.

A slight pause... then the gesture.

Cool wind, sweet coffee

Add plenty of syrup

We’re the same, you and me

Take a seat

The camera’s recording light flashed as it captured me cupping my chin, perfectly charismatic.

Oddly smooth. The transition from thought to action seemed faster and more natural than before.

Is this the charm stat in action? I found tracking the changes interesting. I added a few freestyle elements—switching up my expression or mimicking glasses with one hand, and I was able to nail the timing over and over without hesitation.

Whoa. Pretty cool.

Now just relax

(Hold on a second)

I’m coming to pick you up

We leaned against each other’s backs as we sat or stood for the end of the song.

“Thank you!”

“Thanks!”

The members didn’t look tired at all as they bowed and left the stage.

“Let’s see how we did!”

“Watch out, don’t trip on that cord!”

There had been a pretty feisty dance break toward the end of the song, but it hadn’t been enough to leave us out of breath.

And the B-sides are ballads, too. The interesting thing was that our music was more popular than ever, even though the difficulty of the performance was not as great for us.

A manager rushed over to us as soon as we were done monitoring the footage and shouted, “Guys! ‘Picnic’ is trending again! It’s seventh on the twenty-four-hour chart!”

“Wow!”

This was incredible, considering it had only been five days since its release. Even if a single person repeatedly played the song, the counter went up only once per person every twenty-four-hour period. VTIC had been the only other boy idol group to reach such record-high popularity this year.

This song is more than twice as popular as “Present,” from our previous album. The speed at which it was picking up was similar to Youngrin’s, whose songs were much more mainstream. This meant the song was one hell of an easy listen.

Big Sejin was quick to point out, “It’s because Raebin did such a great job arranging it!”

“Y-yes. The song is really good!” Ahyeon agreed.

“Oh, d-don’t say that! I think it was the combination of a great demo and your opinions that made it possible!” It was like he was delivering a winning speech or something.

He seems far less worried now. Kim Raebin was grinning, looking much more relaxed than a few days ago. His face is still pretty intimidating, though.

“Make lots of songs! Give me some,” Eugene said.

“You can’t churn out songs like a factory. It takes a certain—”

“It takes a long time? Is that what you mean?”

“No, I wasn’t done! That’s not it. What’s the word for it in English? Uh....”

I sighed. “Inspiration?” I offered.

“Thanks, Moondae!” Kim Raebin said.

“Thank you!”

Watching them bow to me, I began to wonder if Eugene had just picked me as his roommate to use as an interpreter every now and then. This was a pretty compelling theory.

“Guys! It’s time for the ending stage!”

“Oh, right!”

In any case, comeback week was extremely busy, and I didn’t get much time to organize my thoughts. It was only a few days later, during the free time allotted to us right before bed, that I figured out what Eugene was really plotting.

***

[No weather forecast is getting in my way. I want to see you today.]

Things were a little slower on a late Monday night. I was lying in bed, watching a fancam. It was an official portrait-mode video uploaded by the music show we’d filmed on Friday.

[(K-cam) TeSTAR Park Moondae fancam “Picnic” 10182X]

The thumbnail featured a closeup of me cupping my chin, and the views were already stacking up. It seemed some communities had been comparing it to the first fancam of me on Idol Inc., leading quite a few people to see it.

It was the one from my evaluation, where I performed “Shining Star.” I finished watching the current fancam, a little embarrassed as I read through the comments, many along the lines of Park Moondae is a deep-learning AI puppy.

I really have gotten a lot better. The highlights in my performances were more noticeable, and the feelings I was trying to express were clear to see without being awkward or uncomfortable to watch.

Hmm. My past self would probably see a lot of worth in this version of Moondae. I supposed a little bit of self-praise was in order. That thought was momentarily banished when the next video auto-played.

[(K-cam) TeSTAR Cha Eugene fancam “Picnic” 10182X]

It was a fancam of Eugene from the same day.

This guy’s a real monster. His movements weren’t just natural—each one had an odd allure to them.

Hmm. I guess you could say he has umami. He wasn’t just a good dancer. He made the choreography come alive.

I guess he’s worth studying. I let the video play for a moment, and a head popped up in the corner of my eye.

“Hey! Are you watching a video of me?”

“Yeah. You’re good.”

“Hehe.” Eugene looked excited. English came tumbling out of him. “How do you like it? Are you watching it because you enjoy watching me?”

“Yeah, and I thought I could learn a thing or two by comparing your dancing with mine.”

“Wow!”

His eyes gleamed. Then he slapped my bed and said in English, “Moondae! I think we could exchange a few tips. What do you say? You teach me to sing, and I teach you to dance!”

“Yeah?”

“Yes!”

I was about to write this offer off as no big deal since he probably wasn’t that good at teaching anyone. That was when Eugene finally got to the point.

“Why don’t we do a subunit performance together at our next concert?”

Well, what do we have here?