Chapter 173

Chapter 173

This suggestion took me by complete surprise.

A subunit stage with Cha Eugene? We had a concert scheduled, this much was true, but unlike the setlists, which had been all but decided, we hadn’t made any final calls regarding subunits.

Some are even of the opinion that we don’t need them, since we have solo tracks. The suggestion was to use a group ballad performance or two in their place, but I did prefer subunits more personally—those were probably more exciting for our eagerly waiting fans. I looked at Eugene, who was waiting for my answer, and grinned.

“No.”

“What? Why not?” he asked, looking betrayed.

Aren’t you funny? I shrugged.

“Why do you want to do a subunit stage with me?”

“You’re good! We’ll look great together!”

“I don’t know if that’s true. You’re a great dancer, and I’m better at singing. That tells me we’d probably not be a very good match.”

“We can practice!” He said it like it was that easy.

You’ve pretty much fully adopted the Korean way, huh?

Eugene looked indignant, which was rare.

I put down my phone and crossed my arms. “You chose me as a roommate so you could suggest this, didn’t you?”

“Yes!” He nodded eagerly, apparently having no intention of hiding it.

Maybe he was thinking of how we did the subunit performances with our roommates last time. I stared at him without answering, and he seemed a little put out.

“Your performances are fun… I want to be in them.”

Hmm. His argument isn’t changing, at least.

“My performances are fun?”

“Yes… Can I speak in English?”

Why are you asking? You’ve been using English all the time lately. I nodded, and Eugene explained himself in English.

“I’ve been thinking this since our Idol Inc. days. Your ideas are really great. I want to go all in on one of those ideas at our upcoming concert!” Eugene’s eyes gleamed as he pointed at me, then at him. “I’m the best dancer, and you’re the best vocalist! I guarantee it’ll be an amazing performance if we put in a little work!”

I hadn’t expected him to rate me so highly.

Come to think of it, he did ask me to perform with him next time even during Idol Inc. I thought it absurd at the time since I didn’t expect there to be a next time. But perhaps he’d been looking a little farther into the future. Gosh. Maybe I should explain to him why this is a bad idea. He was so confident, saying he was the best dancer when there were three dancers on the team.

If I refused him without giving a good answer, he would continue to beg me, unable to understand my reasons. I massaged the back of my neck and said, “First of all, we don’t even know yet if we’ll do subunits at all. You know that, right?”

“But subunits are great! Let’s just do them!”

“No. We need to consider which would be better and everybody else’s opinions. We’re a team, after all.”

Eugene looked unhappy, but he seemed to understand this much at least. I continued, “Our positions are too different. When our strengths are so different, if we perform less than perfect as a subunit, it might mean we’ll fail to meet the fans’ expectations.”

“I’m not worried. We’re good! Let’s give it a shot!”

You might not be worried, but I am. We would gather a lot of attention as the first-place and second-place winners if we were to organize a subunit by ourselves. That alone would piss off some of the other members’ solo stans. And if we failed to meet their expectations on top of that, we stood to gain nothing from the performance at all. In a word, there was no good reason for me to do a subunit performance with him.

“Challenging ourselves is great, but this is work. This isn’t school, and we can’t challenge ourselves without any thought for the risks. We need to be more careful.”

Eugene now looked upset. I hadn’t seen him this discouraged since Idol Inc.

I guess he had ambitious plans.

In the end, I shrugged and said, “So if we decide to have subunits at all, and we have a genuinely good idea… why don’t we discuss this again then?” I wasn’t completely vetoing his suggestion, but merely postponing making a decision about it.

It’s not a good idea to stomp all over him. Giving Eugene a reality check wasn’t bad, but there was no need to discourage him completely. Perhaps he really would come up with a fabulous idea.

As expected, Eugene grew excited again. “Great! I have a lot of inspiration! Lots of it!”

He probably meant he had lots of ideas to share with me.

“I won’t be taking more than three suggestions from you each day.”

“Um… Got it!” He snapped his fingers, and that seemed to be the end of the conversation. “I know! How about an underwater performance?”

I was wrong.

Think about our concert budget, would you? Maybe I should have left him feeling sorry for himself. I briefly regretted my decision. I had no idea, however, that a fuse would be lit by something even more trivial than this subunit idea.

***

A few days later, TeSTAR’s new roommate content was uploaded to WeTube. We made it so only those who had membership to the channel could see it a week earlier than everyone else, but there were many pirated copies going around regardless. This was largely thanks to how famous we’d become, but each pirated video got lots of views for a reason.

- Goddamn it, that’s hilarious

It was extremely funny. As was the case with most self-produced content made by idols for the fans, most TeSTAR content on WeTube recently was sweet and heartwarming, and less on the exciting side. Starting from the most recent episode, however, a different director had been placed in charge. The spicy nature of TeSTAR’s reality content from back in TeSTAR’s debut days was back.

As T1 changed up TeSTAR’s self-produced content, they’d also brought in the production team that had been responsible for the reality content immediately after our debut. They eagerly showcased and enhanced each member’s charms, created fun scenarios, and added twists to the editing.

[Bae Sejin (investment addict): (I’ve invested it all. Now all I have is two coins...! Coins are all I have now!)]

[Seon Ahyeon (owns several buildings): “Uh... It says here I sh-should take three coins from Sejin.”]

[Bae Sejin (freshly bankrupt): (Shocked)]

What was more, the game featured many unexpected twists and turns. As a result, the comments were all filled with laughter in both Korean and English.

- Guys, this vid is legit. I nearly threw up, I laughed so hard

- They keep bankrupting each other LOL. Guys, tone down the plots. Why do you keep selling and taking so many risks? LMAO

- (19:41) Look at the way they react when Cha Eugene beats the 1/216 odds and gets the highest possible amount LOL

- Ryu Chungwoo and Bae Sejin are terrible at this haha

└ I guess they’ve been making real money since such a young age, they’re bad at games about making fake money (pity emoji)

└ LOL don’t make them sound like they were child laborers or something! One is a former national athlete, and the other is a child actor!

The fans demanded in the comments that the illegal uploads be reported, but they were secretly happy since the video was so fun.

- Hey, this is probably great for getting m*ggles interested in TeSTAR... Or is it just the idol fanatic in me talking? (thinking face emoji)

- This content is meant to be promotional in nature anyway. They shouldn’t have paywalled this and just released it T_T

- This is so fun... I love you guys

- You’re wasting your life if you don’t get into such a fun group immediately. TeSTAR will bring laughter back to your life. Check them out on WeTube right away!

- Lee Sejin makes a cute gesture to keep Bae Sejin from passing out after his bankruptcy… (GIF)

The director made even the roommate assignments that followed pretty interesting.

[Cha Eugene: “Wow! Moondae! We’re roommates!”]

[Park Moondae: “Uh… wow?” (confused, but grateful)]

The small reactions from each member were all portrayed in the most favorable light possible. Eugene and Moondae had almost never been grouped together like this since their debut, and people found the idea of them together quite fun.

- Cha Eugene probably chose Park Moondae because he was right next to him LOL

- Moondae probably expected Eugene to choose Raebin. Look at his face LOL

- Moon Puppy, Cha Kitty! What a combo. We haven’t seen nearly enough of that, give us moar! (I’m talking very loud, if you didn’t notice)

- Holy sh*t, Park Moondae is such an introvert but he still replies to everything Cha Eugene says. I’m f*cking touched. I love it

- The Incheon Tibetan fox is shriveling up in the rays of the super-friendly boy from California

Fans of TeSTAR as a group and Moondae’s personal fans mostly liked this arrangement, since they made an impressive, fun team. Some weren’t as happy, however—the oldest solo stans of Eugene, who’d been around since the very early days of the third season of Idol Inc.

- Ugh, it’s disgusting to see people making such a fuss for their favorite idol. Just leave them be, damn it

- I guess they’re still the sensationalist idiots they’ve always been... I wish their kind would die out

- Moondog has been openly unpleasant in the past, but his fans are all about trying to make him look good. Remember the summer package? Is CE next? LOL

Their argument was that Moondae had been rude to Eugene, and this video had been edited to make him look friendly. This wasn’t the majority opinion of Eugene’s fans, of course.

Eugene’s successful debut had made them less aggressive, and as they mixed with newer fans, they’d become a little more open. However, there were still some who secretly questioned whether Moondae deserved to take first place on Idol Inc.

These people didn’t really take kindly to Moondae’s personal achievements. It was because of this that such hate comments sometimes surfaced in public communities, not just on anonymous sites and private accounts. Things were no different from usual in this respect.

- What’s up with these idiots?

There was a difference this time, however, in that Moondae’s fan no longer needed to be patient.

- (screen capture) Hey CE’s obsessive solo fans are back. You guys are the ones responsible for him getting second place, LOL

- Those idiots can’t seem to break free of their inferiority complex

- I’ll bet CE would be sickened to learn that scum like you are using his photo for their profile haha

- He’s brainless. Can’t seem to keep his tongue in check. That’s why he doesn’t get solo appearances on variety shows. But you can’t hold M responsible for that T_T

The Moondae fans had been forced to content themselves with quiet battles fought in the shadows during Idol Inc., since Eugene’s fandom had been at the top of the food chain without question since the beginning. But the situation had changed now since Moondae had done so well for himself after debuting.

His good looks and performances had slowly grown better and better, making it obvious that more and more people were becoming his fans. What was more, every variety show appearance he’d done was a hit.

Even his photocards from their most recent album were similar in market price to Cha Eugene’s. So perhaps it wasn’t surprising that Park Moondae’s more expressive fans began to think to themselves,

We’ve grown enough to take these guys on now, haven’t we? Once they began talking back, the barrage of criticism and anger was unstoppable, like a dam breaking. Eugene’s akgaes didn’t simply sit by and take this, either. Some deleted their comments and vanished, but others went private and reacted even more aggressively.

- I can’t say what I want to say on my account? They don’t have to read my posts. Who do they think they are, the internet police? LOL

- They talk like they like every member, but they secretly oppose streaming solo tracks. I mean, wow. Both the idol and his fans are shady as hell

- Ugh, look at them, thinking their idol is somebody now! Well, congrats on becoming the favorite of old grannies and graybeards who don’t spend any money! (clapping hands emoji)

It was complete chaos.

- Those bastards did all kinds of shady sh*t to protest whenever Eugene didn’t get center position for the chorus. They even organized fax attacks! We need to drive them all out while we can

- Moondae’s akgaes have a public chat, don’t you? Don’t deny it, haha. Did you like generating all those fake rumors? (screen capture)

As they did their best to expose each other, even rumors and fake proof were being shared.

- Let’s just be happy, all right?

- I’m blocking all of this stuff. All I want to see is fun updates on the members!

- Everyone involved in this nonsense, just stop being their fans, please

Many fans who weren’t involved noticed what was going on and were sickened or simply ignored the whole mess, but there were still quite a few who offered their opinions.

- CE’s akgaes did take it a little too far. They were out of their minds

- Moondog akgaes also curse CE and all that sh*t. They’re all scum, to be honest. What did the idols do to deserve that?

- Cha Eugene should have just been given first place. That’s where everything went wrong, since it gave them something to be indignant about LOL

If things were to get a little more out of hand, it would only be a matter of time before the strife spread to social media and populated trending community posts.

Well, f*ck. It was at this juncture that Moondae noticed what was going on.

“Eugene?”

“Yes!”

“Let’s do a W Live.”

After a brief call with the agency, Park Moondae hosted a livestream with Eugene. At this point, less than twelve hours had passed since he’d noticed what was happening.