Chapter 304

Chapter 304

“Hehehe!”

Big Sejin burst out laughing while he was sitting in the living room. On the smart TV screen were three grown-ups swinging their capes about.

[※♡Magical heart bullet!♡※]

I stared. It was an edited WeTube version of our penalty performance. Playing our cover of a children’s anime in the living room for all to see was not so different from a public execution.

“Turn it off,” I said.

Otherwise, Eugene will run out here and grab you by the collar.

“Oh, come on. I love it. It really shows your dedication.”

Big Sejin simply grinned.

“I’m pretty dedicated myself, you know. Too bad I didn’t get to participate!”

“You were in a jungle, remember?”

While we’d been traipsing about in our capes, he’d filmed an exclusive ad and made a variety show appearance.

Oh, listen to him. Though, of course, I knew that he was the sort of guy who really would feel disappointed about this.

“Exactly. If this show had come only two weeks later, I’d have made time for it somehow…”

He glanced at the TV with a disappointed look on his face.

“People really seem to love it.”

This was the truth. There was no denying that.

[The youngest TeSTAR members go all out LOL]

[Millennials taught a lesson by Gen Z haha (these are all idols, by the way)]

[The evergreen Park Moondae proves himself once again (photos)]

[Today on T-Holic’s Show Business… TeSTAR makes us all lose it]

The personalities we’d built up during the debate had gathered explosive momentum through the penalty, and the buzz was incredible.

The credit is ours now. Our success would be attributed not to the show, but to us, the guests. My goal had been accomplished, but…

“Look, Moondae. They’re asking if one of your hobbies is to watch magical girl anime.”

“You think?” I said.

“Hehehe!”

I was feeling rather embarrassed about having done a performance like that at my age.

With “POP☆CON,” at least, everyone’s tried dancing to it at least once. Thankfully, as time passed, more people began to marvel over the performance itself or announce that they were addicted to it.

It’s well-made, to be sure. It would have been a blotch on our reputation if the performance had been silly, but we’d given the audience the impression that we were artists, not simply entertainers. And I liked that.

- Can we have a digital release, please?

- If you don’t release this officially, you’ll be disrespecting the memories of everyone born in the nineties. I’m serious LOL

- They stayed on a single key thanks to Park Moondae. That’s the importance of a main vocalist for you

I saw compliments regarding my role and Cha Eugene’s as well, but it was mostly Kim Raebin who got the attention for his talent, as expected.

A short interview had been included after the penalty video as a bonus, and Kim Raebin had given a very honest response about the arrangement process in it.

[Moondae (edit) suggested a very meaningful song, and working on it was fun. I really appreciated the opportunity.]

[(edit) It took a total of five hours!]

- He made an arrangement for a twenty-year-old anime theme song in five hours?

- Wow, Kim Raebin did all of that himself?

- And Park Moondae was the one who suggested the song LOL He really was serious about this

- He must be a genius. He arranged a track in a day

A lot of the hype came from people who were moderately interested in TeSTAR and had watched the variety show because of them, but even the fans seemed a little surprised.

- What is going on with Kim Raebin? I knew he was a genius, our little medieval rabbit, but I’m starting to think he might not be human at all

└ Well, that kind of is true, since he’s a rabbit

└ LMAO

- Do you think Raebin should continue only being an idol? I think he deserves to be made president or something

They hadn’t expected him to be so good. He had taken an old children’s anime theme song, and one that could easily seem silly because it was a magical-girl-themed one, and modified it all by himself. It impressed everybody.

Most of the tracks were co-produced by him, so people didn’t really focus on how good he was at it.

“Raebin, take a look at this! They’re calling you a genius!” Big Sejin said.

“I’m grateful for the generous compliments, but I’ll keep on trying to do better!” Raebin said, responding immediately like he was some kind of robot.

There was a grave look on his face, too, which suggested he had also seen the reactions on the internet, and it seemed to have made him even more uptight than usual.

Well, he always does a good job, that much is true. These reactions were actually well-deserved. Kim Raebin’s abilities, as far as this industry was concerned, were uncommonly incredible. His composing ability, in particular, which wasn’t displayed as a stat, was without match. He even had the trait Maestro, which made him very fast when hard at work. He could follow any instructions he was given.

Isn’t he the perfect employee in the eyes of modern society? Though he could be a little tactless… Even that could be a good thing, since he was diligent and honest.

Come to think of it, I was pretty lucky, wasn’t I? Back when I’d been on Idol Inc., I’d been eager to debut and unaware that a wild future full of consecutive status abnormalities awaited me, which had led to me failing to evaluate the long-term value of each of the members. Now that we’d debuted, however, I was starting to realize that it was a miracle that we’d come upon such a well-matched team composition with so much talent on a survival show.

I expected at least a couple of them to be duds. I shrugged. In any case, we had secured our popularity for the second half of the year, since we’d gone up against T-Holic and managed to hold our own. Now all we needed to do was maintain the status quo until the end-of-year awards ceremony season.

Chungwoo smiled and said kindly, “I guess our promotional cycle is close to being over. Good work, everyone.”

“You’re right.”

Our scheduled work within the country was coming to an end, with no new ads or events on the horizon. The only things that remained were their concert and preparations for the next album. It was a neat success.

“I guess Raebin will do some great arrangements for our concert tracks, too!” Big Sejin said.

“I’ll do my best to meet your expectations!” Raebin said.

The mood between us was good. There were no pressing issues at hand, and we were now riding the waves of our success after getting so many great reviews following our appearance on that TV show. I nodded and flicked through the channels on the TV.

Time to relax and enjoy it. The big tasks were over and done with, so I thought this would be fine. One among us, however, wasn’t as relaxed or at peace as the rest. From his point of view, he still had something big looming on the horizon.

***

Not long after that, we took a few days off after our final domestic event was over. There came a knock on my door.

“Moondae, have you seen Raebin, by any chance?”

“Hmm.”

Ahyeon, who came in after knocking softly, spoke in a cautious tone.

The question’s odd, though. He was asking me about Raebin’s whereabouts.

Tearing my eyes from the proposal I’d been drafting, I said, “No. Why do you ask?”

“Oh, well… He hasn’t been coming back to our room very often lately.”

This explanation did not clear up much. Ahyeon was roommates with Raebin. Both of them liked to stay in their room, which probably meant they saw plenty of each other. It was strange that Raebin wasn’t staying in his room as much. He wasn’t the sort to leave the dorm all that often.

“I haven’t seen him today, either. Why don’t we ask him?”

“I-I think we should. One second!”

“No, wait.”

I have my phone in my hand. Why go back? I stopped Ahyeon from returning to his room and sent a text using my phone.

[Where you at?]

There was no response.

“…?”

He usually responded quickly and politely, in the space of five seconds or so.

“Hmm.”

“H-he isn’t answering?”

“No.”

I called him. He wasn’t picking up, either.

What’s going on? There was a chance he’d left his phone somewhere and was on the indoor balcony in the dorm or something… But if he wasn’t in the dorm, then he'd have gone out.

Has anyone seen him go out by himself before? I immediately went out to the living room and asked the others if they had seen Raebin. Eugene and Big Sejin were not in, which left Chungwoo and Bae Sejin.

“Raebin? I don’t think I’ve seen him today, come to think of it,” Chungwoo said. He’d been in the living room, and seemed puzzled, too.

As for Bae Sejin, he avoided eye contact. “I… haven’t left my room today.”

I said nothing.

“Uh… What’s this about?”

“We can’t seem to find Raebin.”

I now understood what had happened. Raebin had basically vanished without a word. Even if we were on hiatus, this was rather strange. He wasn’t Eugene, for example, and there was no chance he’d leave without telling us or refuse to pick up his phone.

“He didn’t answer his phone?”

“No. We’re thinking we’ll give the agency a call.”

I checked with Ahyeon one last time. “When was the last time you saw Raebin?”

“Yesterday evening. I didn’t see him after that…”

“What about when you went to bed?”

“I-I didn’t see him. I slept early… Sorry. I’m his roommate, so—”

“It’s not something you need to apologize for,” I said.

“That’s right! You don’t need to apologize!” Bae Sejin said.

Leaving him to console Ahyeon, I picked up my phone to call the agency. However, a call came before I could.

[Kim Raebin]

“…!”

He was calling back.

“Huh? That’s…” Ahyeon said.

“Raebin?” Bae Sejin said.

“Yes.”

I immediately took the call, and Raebin began talking all at once.

“I noticed you’d called. Sorry about that!”

“It’s fine. Where are you right now?” I asked.

“Huh? Oh, I’m at the agency! The recording booth.”

Chungwoo said quietly, “Raebin, you should have told us, even if it’s an off day. Nobody saw you today, and we were worried.”

“Today—”

He went silent for a moment. Huh?

He soon apologized energetically, however.

“Sorry about that! It was short-sighted of me!”

“No need to apologize… Hope your work goes well.”

“Of course!”

Raebin only hung up after a few polite thank-yous.

Bae Sejin sighed and muttered, “So it was no big deal, then.”

“I guess so,” I said.

“Raebin must have forgotten to tell us because he was working.”

The members concluded that he must have hit upon some inspiration or other, and that was why he’d run off without warning.

Is that it, then? I shrugged and went back to my room to finish my proposal.

A few hours later, in the evening, Raebin came in wearing glasses and bowing his head.

“I looked into our future plans at the agency. I don’t get to have such long stretches of free time often, so I couldn’t miss the opportunity!”

“Sure.”

“Sorry if I worried you.”

“D-don’t mention it. I was worried something made you uncomfortable, and you were avoiding coming back… If anything like that comes up, p-please tell us,” Ahyeon said.

“Nothing’s making me uncomfortable at all. Please tell me as well if I make you feel that way!”

The two exchanged very considerate words between them.

So there’s no problem, then? I tried to shrug and pass them by, but then I noticed Raebin’s face up close.

Wait… Why does he look so tired? It was easy to notice because he didn’t exactly have soft features.

Hmm. He often worked on audio in the dorm, too. A bit of tinkering with a track wouldn’t have had such an effect on him.

Wait, don’t tell me… I stopped him as he was about to leave after talking with Ahyeon.

“Raebin.”

“Yes?”

“Did you stay up the whole night working?”

“…!”

“Ahyeon didn’t miss you because he slept early. You didn’t come in at all.”

“W-well…” The look on his face was one of obvious guilt. He hesitated, but soon offered cautiously, “I was so focused that I didn’t realize how much time had gone by. That’s why I didn’t tell anyone where I was. Sorry.”

He’d never been a good liar, so he ‘fessed up immediately. In our line of work, sleepless nights were common, and I suspected he could handle things just fine. But what bothered me was that it wasn’t necessary at the moment.

“What were you working on?”

“Tracks for the concert and our next album!”

I decided to sound him out. “You don’t need to work so hard right now. We’ve got time.”

We had quite a bit of time left until the concert, and even more until the next album.

“You work fast, so there’s no need to stay up all night to—”

“I can’t rely on that!” he said.

“…!”

He seemed shocked at himself for having cut me off. “S-sorry! I want to be ready, since I might not be as fast this time…”

So he hadn’t been driven by sudden inspiration after all. He felt burdened.

“All right, then. Don’t push yourself too hard.”

“Right…” Raebin nodded and slowly returned to his room.

Ahyeon watched him go without moving. Lines of worry were written all over his face.

“Does it bother you?” I asked.

“Yes.” Ahyeon seemed to have come to a similar conclusion to mine. “H-h-he seems to feel very pressured… I felt that way once.”

“Hmm. Right.”

Of course, he was worried about his next projects, since everyone on the internet was praising him as a genius. He was always worried and on edge before every album release.

Still, he’s done well so far. This would pass. In time, he would recover his confidence after seeing the results.

Telling him not to worry now will only make him find more reasons to worry. I decided to let him do as he liked for now.

Things were slightly different this time around, however, since a blind test of the tracks arranged for the concert… disqualified Raebin’s submission.