Chapter 202

Chapter 202

The first day of the encore concert ended successfully, as planned. Everyone’s reactions to the subunit performance were great as well.

- Please give us the digital tracks T_T

- The only redeeming thing to come from Idol Inc. is that we get to see these two on the same team. Close down the show now. It’s served its purpose

- Park Moondae’s vocals with Cha Eugene’s dance—this belongs in the K-pop Hall of Fame (just a gushing fangirl, carry on)

- Cha Kitty always talked about performing with Moondae, and now I know the reason. He’s a genius

There was the occasional troll attempting to compare us to the other subunits, but they didn’t gain much traction. While I preferred to avoid indulging in self-praise, I believed this was because we’d been first place and second place on Idol Inc. Given the composition of the subunits, the fans of the others probably wanted to avoid picking unnecessary fights if possible.

People don’t like starting fights they can’t win. Given how the subunit performances had all been of high quality, people tended to just acknowledge that TeSTAR was good regardless of the subunits and move on. The fan communities were at peace, as a result, with people each flocking to the performances they liked most and refraining from fighting about them.

- Today was so amazing

- I was crying as soon as the opening VCR started

- Let’s get a dinner show with TeSTAR. I want a promise! (Concert group photo)

Park Moondae and Cha Eugene’s solo stans were the most at peace they’d ever been, so the vibes were celebratory. This meant I was the only one involved who was actually anxious.

“Moondae! I’m going to shake the chandelier tomorrow!”

“Right. Goodnight.”

Eugene had suggested this impromptu change to the performance about five times already. Acknowledging him, also for the fifth time, I left our bedroom.

“Where are you going?”

“I’m taking a bath.”

I crossed the living room and closed the bathroom door behind me. This was the only place I could sit for a few hours alone without raising any alarm.

“Phew.”

I sat on the edge of the bath. In truth, I’d seen the pop-up appear as soon as the concert ended. I’d simply refrained from checking it until bedtime so that our simple nighttime schedules, such as the behind-the-scenes interview, were not affected.

Not that checking it will require me to do anything right away. I had time left, so I could take things slow if I wanted. But then again, the idea that this might be the last status abnormality made it hard for me to delay looking at it any longer.

I’ll look at it now. Status window. Notifications. The pop-up that I’d noticed earlier in passing reappeared.

[A Success!]

You successfully managed to meet an audience of 200,000 people!

Time cap: Satisfied (Successful)

Status Abnormality: “Grow Your Audience or Die!” removed!

See Your Choices ☜ Click!

So I’d succeeded. It was now certain. I sighed, the tension leaving my body. The odd sensation had me massaging my temples. Now all that remained was dealing with the damnable “reveal the truth” button.

But wait.

“…!”

Make Your Choice ☜ Click!

The text was different this time.

Choice? The moment I saw this, my mind naturally cooked up a hypothesis.

Is it the choice between living in Park Moondae’s body, and returning to my old one? This seemed to be the most likely and appropriate reward for clearing the final status abnormality. But it seemed too good to be true, and too sudden. My excitement cooled.

A bit late to offer that, isn’t it? This strange system had moved things along in a game-like style ever since I’d entered Park Moondae’s body. It seemed strange to think it would hold back such a reward until now, only to offer it as a surprise. Ordinarily, a game would have dangled this reward in front of the player before even hitting them with a status abnormality.

And even if this isn’t a game… That would be the most efficient way to do things. It would be much better motivation to promise a clear reward at the end, rather than threatening me with death every step of the way.

What other possibilities are there? I tried to think of what else it might offer me, but I couldn’t really seem to come up with anything all that likely. I would really have to take a bath, at this rate. My head was aching. I felt the brief urge to drink, but ignored it and left the bathroom.

Whatever it is, I’ll think about it tomorrow. I needed to make sure we did a good job of wrapping up the final concert first. I would erase anything from my mind that could affect my physical and mental condition.

Time to get some sleep. I was about to head back to my bedroom when someone waved to me from the kitchen.

“Huh? You’re not sleeping, Moondae?”

It was Big Sejin.

“I took a bath.”

“Oh. That sounds nice.” He grinned, then poured a cup of cold barley tea from the bottle he was holding and held it out to me. “Want a cup? My mom gave it to me yesterday.”

The color reminded me of beer, oddly enough. I took the cup wordlessly, and Big Sejin continued with a smile, “Oh, right. Your subunit performance was amazing. You did great with Eugene, too. That’s our Moondae for you!”

There seemed to be an odd nuance to his words, however. Was he thinking back to his own subunit performance with Eugene? I thought back to that time.

“Just concentrate on making the performance itself incredible, so people won’t even feel the need to compare the two of you.”

I’d given him that advice at the time. But then I’d gone head-to-head with Eugene in my performance, so I supposed it wasn’t surprising that he was bothered. This was just a matter of how things were framed, however.

“I managed to choose the right elements to emphasize, that’s all,” I muttered nonchalantly, gulping down the cold tea. “The musical theme was the only thing that would have worked out for me, no matter how well I sang.”

I was essentially telling him that I’d focused on my form, just as he’d done with Eugene.

My trait helped quite a bit, but I can’t explain that to him. I decided to give him a chance to put an end to the conversation, though.

“Your subunit was good, too. The shadow performance was perfect for what you were trying to do.”

“…!”

A wry smile, perhaps of embarrassment, flitted across his face. I could understand why he’d brought up the subject, even if he probably knew in the corner of his mind it wasn’t necessary. He jumped at the opportunity to change the subject.

“Haha… Yeah, I did my best. It’s great that all the practice paid off.”

“Yeah.”

Bae Sejin was practicing like his life depended on it. If the performance turned out to be a dud, he might have tried to kill you. Though I suppose things went well thanks to Raebin, who’s not the most perceptive person in the world, but always works hard.

Big Sejin grinned. “We should try doing a performance together next time! We’ve never been in a subunit together after debuting.”

Our positions in the group had no overlap. I had no reason to want to work with him. He was probably just saying this to sound nice.

“Moondae, you just thought to yourself it isn’t necessary, since we don’t have any overlap in positions, right?”

“…!”

“Haha! I must be right!”

“No…”

Bastard, how did he know?

Big Sejin laughed quietly, then calmed. “Hem. But if the opportunity comes, I don’t doubt we’ll do great.”

“Probably.”

“That’s more like it!” Big Sejin put the tea back in the fridge, then said hesitantly, “I have a lot to be thankful to you for. I’m always grateful to have you on the team.”

“Don’t mention it.”

“You always say that when someone compliments you!” Big Sejin laughed and bumped me on the shoulder.

Hilarious.

Apparently, he’d gotten a bit emotional as well, since it was our first concert in Korea in a while.

In any case, I feel a little better. Though it hadn’t been his intention, talking about the performance kept me from dwelling on pointless thoughts, which was nice.

“I’m going to bed,” I said.

“Yeah. Here’s to another great day tomorrow!”

I fell asleep right away. Nothing unexpected came up. And the next day, the encore concert came to an end amid the roaring of the audience.

“Thank you!”

“Oh my gosh! This outfit is too tight!”

“First of all, guys, gather up your things…”

“W-we’re supposed to take a group photo?”

The trivial tasks that followed a concert were soon taken care of, and we had a simple wrap-up party with just us members in the dorm, after ordering some delivery. We’d already had a big celebration after our tour ended, when we returned to Korea.

“No drinking!”

“Hey, I haven’t even touched a bottle.”

I was handed some non-alcoholic beer. It felt pretty odd to have a drunk guy take my beer from me.

When the timing was right, I retreated to the veranda, pretending to want some air.

“Phew…+ Status window notifications.”

The pop-up I’d seen yesterday returned. It was finally time. There were essentially no official group activities scheduled until our next comeback. That left me with little more than a month, of course, but this was a good time to see what was in store this time. It gave me some time to cope with whatever it was, after all. I’d realized something recently.

If I click this button, I’m going to get another pop-up showing me what choices I have. This was a pretty solid hypothesis, considering how the UI had behaved so far.

In that case, it’s better to find out quickly so I can think about my options. I swallowed, then pushed the button. My finger moved and was met with thin air, and though I felt nothing, a new window appeared, just as I’d foreseen.

[Choices]

: Reveal the Truth ☜ Click!

: Acquire Coin ☜ Click!

* Only one selection available

“…!”

I didn’t get to choose which body I would live in after all. And one of the options available to me was a familiar one.

The truth. This was no doubt more of the unpleasant flashback-from-the-past sort of thing that I’d seen in the past. The significance of the choice being given to me lies in the new option underneath.

Coin? What did that mean? The word wasn’t intuitive at all, and my brain kicked into gear. The first thing I thought of was that it was a type of currency.

Does this mean there’s going to be a shop? This was also a common idea in web novels—a shop that only I could access through the status window. It seemed likely, but the information given to me was too abstract. The only other thing I could think of was cryptocurrency.

“F*ck.”

Everything remained ambiguous to the end. I glared at the window, but the choice had all but been made for me. I moved my finger toward it.

[Coin obtained!]

It was the most reasonable decision.

The truth… is too risky. I had no idea what it would show me. The choices were to reveal the truth or acquire a coin. Whatever this coin was, it was an object I could own, which meant it wouldn’t disrupt the status quo.

This was the right choice. I looked at the window, wiping sweat from my forehead. It was reasonable to assume that I would now be given an explanation about what I could do with the coin. The pop-up that appeared, however, was a very familiar one.

[Alert!]

Status Abnormality: “Become a Star or Die!”

“The hell?”

It was another f*cking status abnormality.

Sons of b*tches! I felt dizzy. This wasn’t the last time! How long would I have to keep this up? On the other hand, however, I felt an odd emotion—relief.

This… is also kind of maintaining the status quo. I could live at least another year exactly the way I was now. I would consider myself nuts for thinking this tomorrow, but there was a strange comfort in knowing change had been postponed, and I could continue my current way of life.

“Damn it.”

Clenching my teeth and trying to resist feeling too relieved, I glared at the window.

What the hell does it want with me? That was when the pop-up suddenly distorted

But wait.

Status Abnormality: “Become a Star or Die!”

The text was crossed out before vanishing.

“Huh?”

The strangeness didn’t end there. Another pop-up dinged.

Status abnormality: “Get First Place or Die!”

It was one I’d seen before.

“Wha…?”

More appeared.

“Get First Place or Die!”

“Receive a Daesang or Die!”

“Perform or Die!”

“Be the Best or Die!”

“Debut or Die!”

What the f*ck is going on? The status abnormalities were all crossed out one by one and deleted. They blinked in and out of existence, being replaced with new ones as if someone was hacking the system. This went on for a while, the dings noisily piercing my ears.

[Alert!]

Status Abnormality: “Grow Your Audience or Die!”

The pop-ups finally stopped appearing, stopping at the same status abnormality as before. The description was different, however.

[Grow Your Audience or Die!]

: Perform for 400,000 people or more as your audience within the given timeframe or Park Moondae dies.

Audience counter: 0 / 400,000

The number had doubled, and the description now specified a name.

Not just death. Park Moondae’s death. How was I supposed to interpret this? First, there had been the coin reward, which I couldn’t make sense of, and then this chaos with the status windows. No amount of thinking was of any help, since I hadn’t been given a single clue that could help me figure things out.

I sat on one side of the veranda, just trying to cool my head. I felt the urge to smoke a cigarette but resisted.

“Phew.”

I came to a conclusion as my body was beginning to grow cold.

Two things I know for certain. The first was that I had a new status abnormality, that wasn’t actually bad. A simple two-month-long tour had been enough to net me 200,000 audience members. The tour coming up in the second half of the year was going to be bigger, and I already knew that alone would help me meet the new requirement.

The various events we’re going to do will only make it easier, too. I decided not to worry about that for now. And second… I did have someone I could ask about the situation. In fact, since his information turned out to be wrong, I had the justification to initiate an interrogation of sorts.

“F*ck…”

The idea wasn’t pleasant, but I had no other choice. I pulled my phone out of my pants pocket, found the text message with the dog photo, and hit call. It didn’t take long for him to pick up.

“Hello.”

Unsurprisingly, I had called Cheongryeo.