Chapter 54

Chapter 54

As I stood there stunned by the number of ads, our little expedition grew in size.

“Are you guys going now? Take me with you! Some of the stations overlap with my ads!” Big Sejin announced with a grin.

“We’re supposed to keep our teams a secret. Why don’t we take someone from another team with us?”

“Eugene?”

“Yes.”

“That sounds fine. What do you say, Moondae?”

“Sure.”

“Okay!”

At that point, a quick, quiet visit to the stations was already out of the question. What surprised me was that Ahyeon said he couldn’t come with, looking disappointed as all hell.

“I-I’m supposed to go on a t-trip with my parents...”

“Yeah?”

If that were the case, it would be pretty weird for me to stay at his place while he was away.

“Oh, should I stay at someone else’s, then?” I asked.

“N-no! You can stay!” Ahyeon cried immediately. “I-I’ll give you the keys.”

“Uh, thanks,” I said, uncertain why he was choosing to trust me so easily.

I took the keys reluctantly, and he suddenly confessed, “I-I was going to ask if you wanted to come along...”

I had no idea why he wanted to take me along on a family trip. Had his parents even agreed to it? “I’m okay, but I appreciate you thinking of me.”

“O-of course.”

Going on an advertisement tour with Raebin was preferable to going on a trip with someone else’s family. I was relieved that I’d narrowly avoided traveling with Ahyeon’s parents, who I’d only met once.

“See you when filming starts again!” Big Sejin called, waving at Ahyeon.

All of us saw him off. As soon as he disappeared into his parents’ car, Eugene appeared.

“I’m so excited, guys!” he said, his eyes glittering as he swung his backpack around wildly. I already felt tired.

There goes the rest of my day. I silently mourned what could have been a day of blessed rest.

***

The first thing we did was immediately veto traveling via public transport. We’d already tried that once before

“We’d have to make a run for it before we even got through one station.”

“Yeah.”

Eugene seemed disappointed, but his mood recovered quickly. Riding in a taxi seemed just as interesting to him, though I had no idea why.

In any case, our first destination was Yeouido Station, which was located closest to the studio.

“Let’s take photos.”

Visiting this first station wasn’t too difficult, since it was only me and Raebin whose ads had been put up there. We each took photos and immediately got out.

A couple of people seemed to recognize us when we removed our masks, but this station was mainly frequented by office workers, and it was a weekday morning. There wasn’t too much foot traffic for us to contend with.

“Nice!”

The other guys seemed excited like they’d just completed some secret quest. As we got back into a taxi, I suddenly began to wonder.

What’s the point if we do things this way? If nobody actually saw us, then nobody would know that we’d visited the ads. We couldn’t very well upload our own photos.

Should I leak them, pretending to be a fan? But this turned out to be a pointless worry.

A ruckus started up immediately at our next stop—Express Bus Terminal Station.

“Whoa!”

“Cha Eugene! Guys, it’s Cha Eugene!”

“Wait, is that them? From Idol Inc?”

“They must be here to see the ads. Oh my...”

We heard all of this clamor break out at the same time the moment we got within three meters of the ads at the station.

None of us had even removed our masks, yet. Having learned from our previous mistakes, we were all wearing hoods and hats as well. I had no idea how they’d recognized any of us since not even our hair was showing.

A humongous crowd formed. I could even make out people approaching at a run from the direction of the underground shopping complex adjacent to the station.

Now we’re being a public nuisance. This sort of situation could very quickly end in disaster.

We need to run. After exchanging a few glances with each other, we hurried out of the station. We weren’t able to take any photos.

I guess no disguise is going to help us now.

Painting for air, we’d just thrown ourselves into a taxi, when we almost immediately noticed another taxi was following us.

“That taxi is trailing us, right?”

“The person in the passenger seat is holding a camera,” Raebin confirmed.

We exchanged grim looks. The driver quipped that we must be up to something fun but soon shut up after he realized that we weren’t in the mood for jokes.

This isn’t good. Our ad tour had already run aground. Somehow managing to lose our tail, we were forced to come to terms with the situation.

“We’ll have to go separately, guys.”

“Yeah.”

“Okay...”

“Let’s all wear animal masks!” Eugene suddenly cried, cutting through the grim atmosphere.

“Animal masks?”

“Yes! They’re cute and people won’t recognize us!”

Big Sejin was the first to react.

“Wait... there’s a rental near Gangnam.”

“Wow!”

“The price seems doable! It’ll only cost fifty or sixty thousand won per person!”

You call that doable? But the idea wasn’t bad. I sighed and added, “That’s nice and all, but we should still go separately.”

“Huh?”

“But why?” Eugene asked.

“Well, if the four of us walk around in those masks, we’ll only attract more attention...” Raebin replied glumly.

“Oh.”

Everyone understood the problem right away.

“Well, let’s go rent the masks together, at least. Does that work?”

“Okay!”

“Okay. Sir, here’s where we’d like to go...” Big Sejin said, informing the driver of our new destination.

In less than twenty minutes, we’d arrived at a party goods shop located in the corner of a shopping complex.

“I want this one!” Eugene quickly grabbed a mask that would cover his whole head and went to the counter, overflowing with excitement. It seemed to be a white tiger head or something.

“That was fast.”

“Let’s quickly pick ours, too.”

An employee came over to us as we considered our choices, his eyes glittering. “Uh, do you mind if I ask for your autographs?”

“Of course not.”

We asked him not to upload anything to the internet today, just in case, and then gave the guy our autographs. It was very awkward.

“I want this one.”

After we were done, we picked out our masks with the employee watching. Big Sejin chose a huge bear’s head, and Raebin chose a rabbit. It was obvious they’d taken their fans’ preferences into account.

I guess I’ll have to go with this one, then. I reluctantly picked up a mask. This was the first time I’d put one of these things on since I’d done a part-time gig as a mascot five years back.

This isn’t going to be easy. I felt tired already just thinking about going around with this thing on my head. I decided to start by searching out a new route.

***

Park Moondae’s fansites didn’t stop at encouraging people to vote for him. In order to gather more votes via text during the final team battle, they put up ads on every mode of public transportation in the city of Seoul.

They planned and designed bus wraps, cinema ads, and all sorts of other ads, but given the short timeframe they’d had to prepare in, only the subway station ones had gone up so far. There also happened to be a young woman who’d secured a large billboard located in the underground shopping complex attached to Gangnam Station.

It looks great! She’d gotten a beautiful shot of Park Moondae poking himself in the cheek with one finger during the press conference and had decided to use the photo for this ad.

Good thing I held on to that photo. At Jamsil Station, she’d used a full-body shot of Moondae in his superhero suit from the second team battle, uploaded onto a digital poster. She was planning to go visit that one next.

I wanted to do one more. She tried to tamp down her disappointment as she looked at the ad opposite to hers, which featured Seon Ahyeon. She’d wanted that spot. There had been a post a few days back about how Seon Ahyeon’s fans had all but rented out the entirety of Ahyeon Station and covered the place with ads, including the platform screen doors and exits.

They should have left Gangnam station alone if they were going to take over an entire station like that. She’d raised plenty of money for these ads, so she hadn’t had to use the personal funds that she’d set aside for this purpose, which added to her disappointment since she hadn’t been able to put up more despite having the money.

Well despite all that, the colors are perfect. She took another picture of the ad with her camera.

Her friend, who’d gone to get some coffee, walked over to her and remarked in an amused voice, “Hey, look over there!”

“Huh?” She turned to look where her friend was pointing with her straw and watched as someone wearing an enormous puppy mask waddled up to the ad.

A Welsh Corgi? She stared, surprised, and noticed the corgi was holding a sketchbook.

[Debut Park Moondae]

“What in the world?” she burst out laughing. She moved aside for the person to have a clear shot. A few people who’d been inspecting the ad were giggling at the sight of the corgi mask as well. It seemed he’d chosen a yellow puppy mask to match Moondae’s current hair color and nickname. It was pretty cute, the sight of such a tall person waddling around wearing a huge puppy head.

“Would you like me to take a photo of you?” her friend said to the person as he stood quietly in front of the ad. He nodded and held out his phone.

There are some really hilarious people in this world, huh? Unable to hide her amusement, she spoke to the guy. “Can I take a picture of you and put it online? Your idea is amazing!”

The Welsh Corgi nodded eagerly. She quickly snapped a photo and uploaded it to her fan account.

========================

[I came to see the ads and met a fan wearing a Moon Puppy mask! :D

(Photo) (Photo)]

========================

It was the sort of post people tended to enjoy, and the shares and likes surged in no time. In the meantime, the Welsh Corgi took his phone back from her friend after she’d taken a few photos for him.

“It was nice meeting you!”

The Welsh Corgi bowed to them, then waddled off. Snickering, she left the other way with her friend, off to get on Line 2. She planned to eat lunch near Jamsil Station and check out the ad there as well. They chose a nice restaurant nearby, ate, then went to a cafe. While they waited for their drinks, her friend laughed and showed her something on her phone.

“Take a look! That corgi guy from earlier apparently went to Jamsil, too. Here’s another photo of him.”

“Wow, that’s dedication. It must be hard walking around with that thing on his head. I’ll bet Moondae will be amused to hear about this.” She checked the photos she’d uploaded on her social media.

The Welsh Corgi had apparently been visiting various stations all morning and through lunchtime, taking photos in front of every ad.

Did this guy come into Seoul just to do a one-day tour of all the ads? It wasn’t unheard of for out-of-city fans to do this, even if it wasn’t too common. The mask, though, was a novel idea.

As she swiped through her photos, she noticed something as she looked at one she’d taken earlier. She froze as she looked closely at the one of her friend taking a picture of the guy.

“Huh?”

“What is it?”

Her voice shook as she asked, “Uh... when you took the photos for the guy earlier...”

“Yeah.”

“D-did you see his phone?”

Her friend tilted her head, puzzled. “Well... it was just a smartphone. It was a bit dated, I guess. It didn’t even have a case… Wait a second!”

Her friend had realized the same thing she had. In the meantime, she hurriedly searched for footage of Moondae, not waiting for her friend to finish.

The phone model. She checked her own photo against an image where his phone was visible. The Welsh Corgi’s phone... matched the one in Moondae’s livestream exactly. She felt chills all over.

“Whoa... whoa... wait a minute!”

“Is this for real? Seriously? For real?”

“It’s... uh... I don’t...”

While neither of them could manage more than stammering weakly, their phones both buzzed with a new notification.

========================

[HOLY CRAP guys the guy in the corgi mask is Moondae! F*ck f*ck f*ck! He just took off the mask OH MY GOD

(shaky photo) (photo of Moondae without the mask)

========================

Attached to the post was a picture featuring only the upper half of Park Moondae’s body, smiling as he stood in front of an ad at Sinchon Station. His hair was damp with sweat as he held the mask in his hand. It was the same mask they’d seen that morning.

They sat in silence, jaws slack, until an employee brought them their iced americanos.

“Enjoy.”

As they sipped mournfully at their icy drinks, regret ate away at them.

I should have asked him for a handshake, at least! Though happy about their lucky encounter with Moondae as his biggest fans, at the same time, they felt sick from disappointment.

“We need to go to a fansign when he does one.”

“Yeah. No matter what.”

They sat in the cafe, determination burning like a raging fire in their guts.