Chapter 207

Chapter 207

It was an eventful month, to say the least.

“Excuse me, can we get this draft of our choreography approved?”

“I’m sorry, but if the lyrics are edited like this, it will be mismatched with the rhythm in quite a few places...”

“The outfits for the concept photos are out.”

The countdown to promotions had begun, but there was no end to the corrections that still needed to be made. As the comeback date drew closer, the staff seemed to be working at a fever pitch. The highlight, of course, was the music video. We’d come to the conclusion that the editing would not be finished on time, no matter what we did.

That was terrifying. We changed the schedule around so that we’d released the digital track on Tuesday, the day of the comeback, and then would reveal the music video by Thursday at midnight. It left a bitter taste in my mouth at the time, since it didn’t seem like the ideal outcome, but had an unanticipated positive side effect.

The digital release going first meant the song was able to establish itself in the charts without any bias. While the steampunk Joseon theme in the music video was fun, it wasn’t entirely familiar to their audience. This level of uniqueness, if it had impacted the impression that the song itself made on people, could have wreaked havoc on its mass appeal.

Instead, all anyone had seen was an interesting teaser before hearing the entire song by itself, allowing them to enjoy the song and its charm without any hurdles. As a result, it was currently fluctuating between fourth and fifth place on the country’s biggest music chart.

[#4 Spring Out / TeSTAR] ▲1

I’d frankly expected it to sit at #10 or lower, but it was doing surprisingly well. Will there be even more streams once we do a few performances and make the rounds on variety shows?

So for this comeback, we’d doubled down and organized quite a few appearances on larger variety shows in Korea as a team, also allowing us to capitalize on the popularity we’d gained from our own reality show.

Something to look forward to. Of course, for the sake of a peaceful continued existence in the agency, the most important part would be the global reaction to the new song. I didn’t even expect that we would make it onto the main SongBoard chart.

We haven’t gained that much recognition yet. If we were aiming for that, we should have released the song on Friday in the US as well, so that our results for the first week following our comeback would be reflected in the charts entirely. It wasn’t possible to pull everything together within three weeks.

Damn it. And there was only a very slim chance if we aimed to land on the album chart. If we wanted a place on a song chart, we’d never get anywhere without an overseas fandom the size of VTIC’s. As such, since we were only releasing one song, we wouldn’t be able to measure our global growth by somehow landing on the SongBoard Chart.

We’ll focus on proving that our global recognition has become stronger. An increase in the amount of TeSTAR searches in global search engines, view counts per country, and the scale of the tours would be how we did this. And the reaction video that we were making now would be a great piece of WeTube content to help us along in that goal.

“Oh, it’s starting!”

“Woohoo!”

The members were chatting eagerly despite their eyes looking incredibly weary. They deserved credit for that much.

Maybe that’s thanks to the money. Their first quarterly pay for the year had come in a few days ago, and it had exceeded our first pay, which had been paid to us over half a year since our debut. Bae Sejin had been shocked to find out that he’d been able to pay off his mortgage.

Regardless, I clapped as enthusiastically as I could, staring into the monitor. The music video began where the teaser had left off—that is, with the overturned train.

I’m… fancy, messy, sneaky. I’m collapsing

After a low-toned rap that sounded like narration, the train abruptly exploded. Cha Eugene burst out of the explosion unscathed, snatching a newspaper out of the air as he passed, all while wearing a wide grin. It was the same newspaper Park Moondae had been reading in the teaser.

“Whoa!”

“Amazing.”

“Yeah!”

While Eugene, who was sitting next to me, excitedly agreed that he looked amazing, the Eugene in the video was running toward the city, progressing the storyline. A slow, rhythmic melody—the intro to the song—began.

I let go, relax, and enjoy it

I’m in cozy driving mode

I’ve been through it all, the fame, the pain

On screen, a unique sequence that mixed science fiction, modernity, and Joseon played out, depicting an exploration of some kind. In a word, it was similar to a Western-style adventure, but we’d made sure that the story wasn’t the only focus.

It’s just a music video, after all. We’d made sure to insert some amazing shots of the choreography alongside footage of fanciful interiors and flashing wildernesses. We’d also requested that the story be given some attention too. Though Eugene was the first to appear in the video, the other members would emerge in turn, continuing where the previous person had left off.

“Wh-why is Sejin wearing a monocle?”

“Oh, you know how I used to be the nine-tailed fox? It’s meant to highlight how enticing my eyes can be. That sort of idea.”

“Cool,” I said.

“Whoa, now. Moondae, try to sound a little more sincere!” Big Sejin joked.

“Wow. That’s so cool,” I said, with a similar level of enthusiasm.

We made sure to say the lines we’d agreed upon ahead of time. It would be no fun if we simply oohed and ahhed, though we did our fair share of that, too.

“Wow, Bae Sejin!”

“Y-your acting is always on point!”

“Ahem. It’s not that good.”

Bae Sejin pushed on a panel that was analog in form, and the train repaired itself, the gears churning. Ahyeon’s praise was for this scene.

“We had no actual props whatsoever in that scene, but you managed to give a performance like everything was real!”

“Yeah. When Sejin was doing that scene, there was nothing but a green screen behind him, guys.”

He’d acted in front of a green screen with only a stick to aid his focus. Us saying this sounded like an indirect boast about the level of technology that had been used, but this wasn’t actually the case. There had been no time to build an entire set, so we’d chosen to utilize computer graphics, which meant we were able to make up for time constraints using money.

I’ll bet the company who handled it went through hell, too. The fancy CGI scenes had been given to the member who could act like everything was real—Bae Sejin.

“I’m glad it all turned out well. I’ll continue to do my best.”

“Wow!”

Bae Sejin bowed to the camera, his face flushed pink. The public was being a lot nicer to him recently, and he seemed to be more at ease because of it. They continued to film their reactions in this way.

“Look! Kim Raebin doesn’t have the moves!”

“That’s not true! I was a goblin, so the director asked me to refrain from dynamic moves for a more mysterious appearance!”

Soon the song and the video climaxed, and an important scene that featured Moondae and Raebin met in the coal mine. The song transitioned from a slow reggae to a powerful, deep Moombahton.

I know what I lack

What I need is to feel

It’s time

for a powerful thirst to take over

The meaning behind the story slowly revealed itself as it unfolded. The train had been derailed in order to stop any supernatural entity who had come to the city in order to receive their citizenship. The members, who all had their own reasons for wanting citizenship, were trying to capture the man responsible. Anyone who had seen the teaser would probably have guessed by now, but the perpetrator was Chungwoo.

No oh, no-oh no-oh

The thirst is taking control

The members on screen soon found themselves face-to-face with Chungwoo in the dead of the night, the leader staring down at them arrogantly from up high.

“Cool!”

The scene was layered together with neat CGI, and it had just the right level of polish. It could have looked like a low-budget film if executed incorrectly, but the money we’d poured into it had done its magic.

It was quite interesting that opinions about the scene differed. The most popular theory was that it was a metaphor for discrimination. The basis for this was as follows.

- The members, shown to be powerful, mysterious beings in “Present,” must strive to be acknowledged as members of human society.

- This video is set in a modern era where human rights have not yet been fully explored or recognized, and it smoothly incorporates a discussion about discrimination.

- Just like in “Present,” it has a story, which makes the point even more clear.

- Ryu Chungwoo discovered that he was a supernatural entity in “Present.” He denies receiving supernatural entity citizenship and becomes a rebel instead.

- This points to internalized discrimination.

- In other words, this music video is a criticism of discrimination.

We hadn’t actually thought too deeply about it, but it was surprising just how much people were able to figure out about the ideas we’d considered including in the video and so quickly, too. Though, of course, it was interpreted slightly differently from how we’d intended it to be in the end.

[Shocking use of supernatural beings? Foreigners are shocked by TeSTAR’s new music video!]

[Is this a response to Asian discrimination they experienced in the US? A review of TeSTAR’s new song]

We were filming the reaction video so late, so I’d already looked through some of the responses to the music video online. I could remember everything I’d seen without difficulty. In any case, the climax scene suggested that there was a battle happening between the members and Chungwoo, followed by an intense piece of choreography.

Oh, that’s my part up next.

The day’s sensations sink in

Enjoy it, the moment, the attention, the anticipation

Right now, without warning,

it springs out

Several cuts of Chungwoo spinning an ebony gun around on his finger before firing it were included at the most impactful moments.

“That is so good!”

“Chungwoo, you’re so cool!”

“You’re such a boss. What a badass!”

“Hmm, is that so? Haha,” Chungwoo laughed awkwardly. He seemed to have been really happy with the results during filming. I had a feeling he was looking into picking up filming as a hobby, but I decided not to bring it up in that moment.

“Wow! But this is six against one. I guess that’s a bit unfair, isn’t it?”

“No! I like winning! It doesn’t matter as long as we win!” Eugene exclaimed.

I’ll have to ask them to edit this out.

The music video had a more varied dynamic than our previous songs, which supported the dramatic choreography well. It ended when the beings defeated Chungwoo. Eugene grinned, however, and came forward, and an instrumental break began, which wasn’t included in the digital track. He put an application for citizenship into Chungwoo’s hand.

Tuck in, tear it up, enjoy it

Now, spring out

Swallow your bitter self up

To your heart’s content

The song started up once more, playing out the end of the song. The members casually commented as though they were seeing this for the first time.

“Nice.”

“I-I think it turned out great!” Ahyeon said.

“I’m amazed everything came out exactly as we planned it!” Raebin said.

“Thank you, Mr. Director! And thanks to the Loviewers who watched the music video!”

“I hope it’s a hit!”

We said this just to be polite, even though we knew that this music video was the most popular one we’d released yet, based on view count alone.

[“Whoa!”]

[“Yeah! Haha.”]

A post-credits scene that lasted a few seconds played, showing everyone running around after acquiring their citizenship. I believed it was safe to say we’d gotten plenty of footage for our reaction video.

“Now then, everyone, we’ll do our best this time as well. Please give our comeback lots of love!”

“See you soon!”

The cameras were turned off. As the staff packed up their equipment, the members instantly shed their perfectly crafted masks, revealing how tired they were again.

“Phew…”

“Do you think we’ll be able to stay awake tomorrow?”

It was currently 1:30 in the morning. Considering we’d have to leave the apartment for makeup in just two and a half hours, we’d have to sleep right away. But we hadn’t done a final practice of our choreography yet, which meant we wouldn’t be getting any sleep at all.

“Hang in there, everyone.”

“Right.”

We had no other choice, but I thought it was nice that we would spend less time going from place to place, at least.

Isn’t it about time we relocated our dorm? I wanted to live in the heart of Seoul. Judging from the amount we had recently been paid, we were probably worth the investment.

Maybe I’ll try to talk to them about it, depending on how we do with this promotional cycle. I decided to wait for the perfect timing, so we could secure the best location and conditions, then pushed the thought aside for the time being. We were just too busy.

The very next day, however, we were asked about this very topic.

“TeSTAR, what would you say about moving your dorms to a better location?”

“Huh?”

It wasn’t an altruistic suggestion stemming from the agency’s genuine concern for their exhausted artists, of course. The chief manager adopted a sad expression, which looked pretty fake, as he said, “Well… we’ve been getting a lot of complaints from the other tenants in your apartment complex.”

Oh.

“There are some weird people out there, you know. They keep on trying to get into the complex, and management can’t handle it anymore…”

Right. I had been wondering when this would become a problem.