Chapter 348

Chapter 348

TeSTAR’s new release was a hot sensation from the very first performance. I decided to look into how our performance had gone down in the US, where the show had been broadcast. I typed the words “You Got a Chance” into the search window. It was the name of the show we’d been on.

When I saw the auto-complete feature adding on the words “who are the guys in jumpers,” I nodded to myself with satisfaction.

Perfect. We’d done precisely one stage on the show that was apparently an American favorite, and we’d made a good impression while there. This was why our first exposure through a major show was so important. There was a reason we’d pulled out all the stops and included every trick in the book.

“The comments asking why we’re not an actual band are getting the most likes. I guess we were really convincing when we pretended to play instruments. They all seem so surprised!” Big Sejin said.

“Even so, they seem to have caught on that we included a similar genre in the bridge by using the same effects and instruments from the movie,” Raebin said.

“Wow, you’re right. I don’t think people really have anything bad to say about the song,” Big Sejin said.

“Someone on here is asking who Chungwoo is. Can I answer?” Eugene asked.

“Let’s hold off on that for a bit, Eugene.”

As people had connected us with the movie, there was a huge variety of different comments and reactions, both in favor and against. I welcomed all this. Buzz of any description was precious. It would naturally lead more people to see the music video, and there would be a huge influx of users on global music streaming sites.

This level of exposure is impossible to get in Korea for us now. We were following the pattern of what happened when a group caught traction through a performance. It seemed that this was the same in every country.

- How were they trained? How is it possible for them to pull this off? K-pop artists are trained, right?

└ They’re from an audition show—in other words, they are not the beneficiaries/victims of the soulless industrial K-pop system!

There were some people out there mixing the truth with odd statements. What effect this would have, I wasn’t sure, but I planned to make use of it, too, anyway. Because the majority liked what they saw, the reactions in Korea seemed to be very happy as well.

- They are so good

- How does it make sense that this was done live without any post? I’ll bet the fans are feeling so full right now without even having to eat. It’s f*cking amazing

- How did they do the tumbling move after the cannon firing? I would have broken my neck

Even people who would not have usually bothered to click, thinking the fans were hyping it up, were drawn in to see what was going on. This was amazing for us. Our performance was good enough that we were able to meet the high expectations of those who had clicked in. This meant the members who had all but collapsed after the performance, complaining they couldn’t breathe, abruptly changed their minds about it.

“We did pretty well. I mean, even the fingers are in sync. Did you see that?” Big Sejin said.

“Y-yes. E-everyone has great energy… The performance was every bit as good as the song, and they melded perfectly,” Ahyeon said.

“Yes! I was so cool on that stage!” Eugene said.

Cha Eugene’s mastery of Korean was growing by the day. It seemed that the members had fully accepted the truth after seeing the performance and the internet’s response with their own eyes.

And I think it’s only going to continue like this going forward. I nodded, satisfied.

The Tnet comeback show and our performances on Korean music shows only helped all the more in pleasing the public.

The B-side song is doing well, too. We’d put a lot of work into the modern noir thriller concept that utilized a black cat theme. It would have been a waste to cast it aside after changing concepts, so we’d used it for our B-side song.

Unlike the action-packed and belligerent title track, the B-side had a graceful side to it. Even the people who had been slightly disappointed by the concept of the title track liked the B-side. Of course, those who hadn’t been disappointed liked the second song, too.

- I love both. Agent TeSTAR and gentlemen TeSTAR in a single promotional cycle! Talk about killer efficiency

- Thanks guys. This is a feast (munching sounds)

The members’ faces seemed to glow from within every time we sat down to see what was being said online.

“Our most recent stage is getting great reviews, too.”

“Wow. I was so tired, but I feel all that evaporating!” Big Sejin said.

Realistically speaking, we’d elicited the best response from the public we could hope for. As we were from a survival show that had been the topic of much discussion, the past few years had been eventful, to say the least. And it was rare that we experienced a response that was essentially nice, soothing warm water instead of a scalding hot bath or an icy one.

The comments on articles in the general news section online also had nothing but good things to say about us.

- Now this is what you call enhancing national prestige! A unique Korean haetae style! TeSTAR’s spreading the word about these righteous creatures!

The industry as a whole was always starved for attention, and this level of praise was like an addictive drug. It was this sort of response that gave young people hope and made them decide they wanted to become an idol themselves someday.

Around this time, articles about our independent label finally began to appear as well.

[TeSTAR’s new label ORBIT has been founded… “Will encourage and develop its artists”]

Chungwoo smiled when he saw the article.

“Orbit, huh?”

“Yes.”

I had named it, though not because I’d particularly wanted to.

These bastards were trying to give it a name that was just too grand. The agency had suggested Supernova at first.

Why try to grab attention with the name? I didn’t think there was any need for us to draw too much notice to the label, since we were still affiliated with the agency. So I had ensured we tempered ourselves and chose an appropriate name.

“I think it’s perfect. It reminds me of planets and the like. It’s a great name.”

“Thank you…” I said.

Regardless, the fans were happy, and so were the people who invested in stocks.

- This group is doing great, what with the Hollywood movie and all. My hopes for them remain high

- TeSTAR is great! Good thing I jumped in before the stocks rose any higher. I’m holding on to these until the end of the year :)

We saw great translated reactions from overseas audiences circulating through the internet all weekend long, and the fans were happy to have so much content to consume.

The public were already excited about the SongBoard Charts, which would be revealed next Thursday, and most were of the opinion that we had the cat in the bag.

- I mean, come on. It’s too early. They only appeared on a single American variety show…

- I have a feeling they’ve hit another high point in their career, but don’t let your guards down, guys. We still have work to do!

- Wait, why are there so many new accounts translating TeSTAR content?

Many of the dedicated fans seemed uncomfortable with the situation, but as they also grew excited, the internet became a mess of happiness, expectation, worry, and confusion. Some of them naturally speculated about what we’d do next.

- I guess they’ll go back to the US after the music shows

- Yeah. I saw an article about that. Apparently, they got a lot of offers from the US

- LOL after all that attention-whoring just to get with Limestone, now they’re doing their best to go to the US

└ Sorry, what? Your fav idol essentially offered themselves in a bundle to generate more sales, but it had no effect at all. TeSTAR, on the other hand, is getting rave reviews in the US. Feeling inferior much?

└ LMAO

It had reached the point where trolls were finding no traction at all Bae Sejin spoke in a trembling voice.

“I’ve never seen… people be so uniformly friendly before.”

“I know.”

The entire country seemed to love us, and it felt like we might become the national favorite at any moment. The reaction to the music video reveal had been amazing, and it had already been a week, with no signs of it slowing down. Anyone with eyes could see that everything was coming up roses for us.

“Yeah. This is amazing.”

“Y-yes…”

As the members spoke, however, the smiles on their faces seemed fixed in place. Rather than relaxed, they looked on the verge of breaking into a cold sweat—like they could see the gates of hell opening up on the horizon. I knew what the cause was.

“But we’re going to destroy all that with our own hands soon, right?”

“Yes,” I said, nodding. “Enjoy it while you can.”

“Yeah…” Ahyeon said.

They returned to their phones, doing their best to enjoy the sweet taste of public praise while they still could. A few days later, that sweetness turned bitter.

***

There was still a while to go before the SongBoard Charts would be released. It was Monday, and the start of a new week, when a new article appeared.

[TeSTAR shows up on popular American variety show… How long will their incredible success last?]

It was the sort of article people would click on thinking we were appearing on an American variety show again. Reading the article in full, however, would reveal exactly what variety show we were appearing in this time.

Don’t Mess It Up

It wasn’t very well-known in Korea, but those who knew, knew.

- Oh… This show is so janky. They do weird challenges and stuff. I don’t like it at all…

It was the sort of variety show that gave people difficult tasks to perform so that they would fail, or picked on guests to see their reaction. In other words, it was a B-list show.

- This isn’t a show for popular celebrities. Why are they appearing on it?

- This is going to destroy the high-class reputation they built up with the movie and their first performance… Ugh…

TeSTAR would be appearing in a single corner on this particular show. There were usually ten teams in one corner, and all ten teams would appear for only seventeen minutes.

It seems like the most ill-informed decision of all time. And this wasn’t the end to how ill-advised this was. A fairly sophisticated and famous talk show was broadcasting at the same time. Most idol groups with global popularity, VTIC being the most prominent among them, had performed on this show.

In other words, we had turned down that one and chosen this cheap show instead. It wasn’t hard to guess how people would react.

- Are they nuts?

- Why would they appear on this show? I just don’t get it.

- LOL I’m dying of frustration right now

A K-pop idol had never appeared on this show, not even once. One of the production team had even made a racist comment in the past, leading to their dismissal, and it felt like a truly small time TV local show. There was no way they were going to treat us nicely.

- Phew…

- LMAO

After the news made the rounds on the internet, we inspected the results.

“Hmm… It seems quiet.”

“Yeah.”

Everyone had completely ignored the announcement, as if the news hadn’t dropped at all.

Just as I thought. If people admitted to themselves that this was an embarrassing mistake on TeSTAR’s part, it would put an end to their living vicariously through our success, and they would feel like they had lost. It didn’t match the national pride they were feeling at the moment, so they were pretending they’d never seen it in the first place.

“The fans seem quiet, too.”

There was a good reason for this.

They’ve decided to wait and see. They were very upset, given how well TeSTAR had been doing recently, but had chosen to remain silent, not wanting to do any harm. The schedule had already been arranged, and it was an American variety show to boot. It would be hard to find a substitute, and making a fuss and possibly getting it canceled would benefit no one.

Overall, the buzz suddenly died down, as did the endless praise and excited reactions. It was as though a candle had been blown out. The only activity that remained were videos from jingoist channels which liked to force stupid conclusions to console themselves and were no help at all.

It was rare to offend the public and suffer no backlash for it, but I got the feeling it might actually have felt better to have just experienced backlash. Even Bae Sejin, who knew why we were appearing on the show, was staring at a channel that translated overseas audience reactions with a sad look in his eyes. The uploads had stopped.

“Hey,” I said. “I know. I know we need to!”

We’d discussed this step in advance. K-pop was no longer an unknown genre in the US, and it had a solid fan base to boot. This was a good thing, of course, but typically it was the groups who were already popular who remained popular.

We did a collab with the Limestone movie to avoid that. Going in the same direction as everyone else would not allow us to devour the entire pie that we’d secured for ourselves with that movie.

Bae Sejin seemed to snap out of it and nodded. “We… just need to follow our plan.”

“Correct,” I said with a shrug. I patted Eugene, who was standing next to me, on the shoulder.

“He’s got it all figured out. Remember, he’s an American.”

“Yeah. Trust me! I got this!”

“I told you I trust you!” Bae Sejin protested.

I left them to talk and turned to Ahyeon, who had also paused in the middle of watching something. I had the feeling that the sudden change in mood would bother him, given how much work he’d put into this promotional cycle. To my surprise, he gave us a thumbs up.

“I trust you, Moondae!”

“Huh? Oh… Thanks,” I said.

“Yeah!”

Well, okay then… Now for the final check. Rolling my shoulders, I checked the top comments on our first performance, which were still intact. A lot of them mentioned me.

- I was lying in bed, but as soon as Park Moondae started singing, I sat right up. LOL He’s nuts

- His voice is good enough to be a studio recording. It’s so unfair to other groups—this boy be competing with his voice!

└ LOL

- Amazing singing from our main vocalist. My ears are melting with pleasure

It had been so worth it to invest that extra point. I thought of my status window, and the singing stat, which would be at S+. I’d put my final point into my singing stat. If I’d put it into dancing, it would have gone from B+ to A-. But I hadn’t done so because I’d seen what the stats actually felt like by watching others, and had been certain that the S+ rank was basically perfection. For example, there was a member whose charm stat had finally reached S+ thanks to our recent album.

[Name: Cha Eugene]

Charm: S+

Now people would stare at him even if he was told to narrate a random song on the street. Even the slightly unpredictable side of him had now become a selling point. There was another person in a different group who had an S+ in a different stat.

I frowned.

[Name: Cheongryeo (Shin Jaehyeon)]

Dancing: S+

It was Cheongryeo. His S+ stat meant he was perfection when it came to playing the center role in K-pop choreography. There was a charisma and power that came with the perfect dance performance, delivered with precise strength and nuance. He would probably make a rag-tag group of people with rank C or D stats look good if he danced with them.

Considering that the EX rank seemed akin to something straight-out of mythology or legendary, S+ was probably the final level of what a human could accomplish. Raising my singing to S+ had been the best bet if I wanted it impossible for my singing to fail.

Singing talent isn’t something I can pass up. There was another reason that I hadn’t bothered to raise my dancing stat. I wasn’t operating solo, but in a group.

There are already so many members who can dance well. I wasn’t going to be in the center for a dance break or anything. A B+ in dancing was not a problem when it came to executing the group dance.

I needed to make myself stand out more at what I’m good at. Enhancing my own role, even by just a little, helped increase the quality of the group as a whole.

The others had all done the same thing. I looked around me, looking quite satisfied. They had all finished with poking around on the internet for the day, and just the sight of them was reassuring to me. It was time to make use of my S+ singing once again.

We’ll make this recording a success no matter what and then—

“Wow. One of the members of the production team apparently uploaded to the internet that our agency specifically requested that we come on the show. Amazing, huh?” Big Sejin said.

I paused.

Sons of b*tches. I’ll deal with you after filming is over.