Chapter 72

Chapter 72

I’d heard that the music video for Magical Boys had been released at midnight the day before. Not that we’d had any time to see how people had responded to the release. Proof of how busy we’d been was in the sleepy nonsense Eugene was now mumbling.

“Huh...? Are they done with our hair already?”

“They finished a while ago. We’re in the van.”

“Oh...”

Eugene said faintly, before promptly falling asleep again. Things had been hectic since the night before, as we’d been shuffled from place to place, polished and dressed to the nines, before filming for something, and then doing some interviews...

We hadn’t slept properly for almost a month now. It wasn’t at all surprising to me that one of our members had completely lost track of where and when he was.

“Th-the showcase is next, right?” Ahyeon asked uncertainly.

“That’s right!” someone replied.

Ahyeon gasped. He seemed to be very nervous now that the start time was drawing ever closer.

“Uh, let’s show them all what we’ve prepared over the past month, guys. Our hard work will show,” said Chungwoo, encouraging somewhat stiffly.

“Sure thing!”

“R-right!”

The members who were awake responded.

Raebin, who was sitting beside me, muttered quietly, “To be honest, though we did spend the majority of our time practicing, it’s hard to say we got a lot of it in objectively speaking...”

I stared at him without saying a word and he quickly changed his tune, going on quietly, “...but then again, we practiced more than enough to put on a good performance.”

“Yeah.”

Though Raebin wasn’t a social butterfly, at least he could take a hint.

***

Most of the journalists present at the showcase had high expectations—though that was mostly for the popularity of the event, rather than TeSTAR’s actual performance.

Any articles that come out about this are guaranteed a lot of views. Even if things go south, it doesn’t matter to us. Both photojournalists who were there to take pictures and journalists planning to write articles eagerly waited for the event to begin. Sitting both in front of and behind the media were the shareholders who’d bought Idol Inc.’s infamous stock packages.

Most of them had brought slogans and other similar props. They came in all different shapes and colors since no official light sticks or goods had been released yet. Regardless, the fans’ excitement was palpable.

As an air of enthusiasm permeated the audience seats, the lights burst to life above the dark stage, and the opening sequence began.

High five!

TeSTAR was wearing the same baseball uniforms that featured in the music video, and as they performed live for the first time their choreography was now even more precise.

My feet are moving

It’s like they’re dancing!

They’re dancing toward you

Tan tan taradara ta-an! Yeah!

There was frequent jumping in the choreography that was well-suited to the song’s exciting beat. The audience was drawn in all the more each time they spun or kicked out in time with the whistling.

They’re good. The song’s great, too! The members were also playing around during the bridge, doing rock paper scissors and waving cutely at each other.

They don’t feel like rookies at all. Idols from audition shows seem to be better at this sort of thing. The journalists were impressed and spun these positive impressions into exaggerated headlines.

[TeSTAR Proves Their Mainstream Popularity with “Hi-five”]

[TeSTAR Hits a Homerun with Opening Song!]

In the meantime, the TeSTAR members left the stage after completing their opening number, and an emcee appeared in their place. His was a face everyone present was very familiar with.

“Hello, everyone!”

“Whoa!”

As the fans were both disgusted and excited to see the same emcee who had hosted Idol Inc., TeSTAR was frantically changing into new outfits below the stage with the help of the staff.

“Ow! My head!”

“This baseball uniform is so hard to take off...”

TeSTAR ran back to the stage, now wearing school uniforms complete with fancy designs on the shoulders. As they did so, the emcee deftly held the crowd’s attention.

“It’s been a while. I’m so happy to see you all, shareholders! What did you say? You’re not happy to see me? We go way back though, don’t we? We haven’t seen each other for three months. Not that I’ve actually met any of you, of course.”

Laughter, playful catcalls, and cheers filled the air. The emcee smiled and began to introduce the next performance.

“Time to meet your stocks once more, everyone. They’ve risen to the moon!”

The stage lights came back on and TeSTAR smiled as they began to dance to the prelude of the next song. It was Shining Star.

It hadn’t been that long since the show ended, but the audience was suddenly filled with a weird sense of nostalgia. It was a strange feeling to see the TeSTAR members singing the song, each taking turns singing the lyrics. It felt like the epilogue to a happy ending and the crowd smiled as they enjoyed the music.

The one to shine on stage today is me!

Yes, your shining star is me!

“I’m waking up with a radiant gleam!”

“...!”

Toward the end, the crowd even began to join in singing. TeSTAR was pleasantly surprised and continued to sing with huge smiles on their faces. Even some of the journalists who’d watched Idol Inc. nodded along to the beat.

Not everyone was pleased to see them singing this song. In fact, some of the audience wore sour looks on their faces.

They think this song belongs to them, do they? They redistributed everyone’s parts and have the audacity to look so excited about it, too. These were the fans whose biases had been disqualified from Idol Inc. and who had come to the showcase with suspect intentions.

Most of these fans, of course, were generally happy with the performance, since they had at least one member in TeSTAR they were hoping to see win, even if they weren’t their first pick, but there were always exceptions.

“We just sang what we’re calling the Challenger version of Shining Star! Thank you!”

The problems began when the next song ended and the members took a moment to chat on stage.

“I really wanted to sing this version of the song!”

“Of course! Congratulations, little Cha Eugene.”

“Hehe.”

Eugene was excited to have performed a different version of Final, the song he’d sung during the finals of the show. The other members seemed to be indulging him more than usual, what with all the cameras pointing at them.

The journalists didn’t ask any especially malicious questions, either. There were, however, slightly pointed ones, and a few comments that were actually loaded questions.

“You all look very close. Which of the members do each of you feel most awkward around?”

“Hmm. You finished the album preparations in a very short timeframe. How was it possible?”

“VTIC made a comeback on the 12th, only a few days ago. Do you have any thoughts on this?”

These were all questions they’d been expecting, however, and Chungwoo and Big Sejin took turns smoothly neutralizing the threats.

“We’re all in the process of getting to know each other! We have a strange sense of comradery thanks to our time on Idol Inc., though... It’s actually quite surprising how quickly we’ve grown to be good friends!”

“Our agency had already laid the groundwork for the album, so we were able to move forward quickly with preparations. We’d like to take this opportunity to thank Director Gwak Singyun and the staff.”

“If we get to meet VTIC, we’d love to get our copies of their album signed! Meeting them is on my bucket list!”

The survival instincts they’d all honed while filming the show in order to protect against the evil editing were coming through for them. One of the questions was even the perfect opportunity for them to talk about their music.

“You selected two title tracks. Is there anything that sets Hi-five, which you performed earlier, apart from Magical Boys?”

“Oh.” Chungwoo was about to answer the question, but after a moment of thought he handed the microphone to Moondae, who’d been the one to come up with both ideas.

It’s not a strange question, so I guess Moondae can handle it. He had only good intentions, but Park Moondae wasn’t the sort of guy who enjoyed giving interviews.

Damn, he thought. He couldn’t just reject the microphone, however, so he accepted it without fuss.

“Magical Boys...”

At that moment something translucent was launched from somewhere in front of the stage, hitting Moondae on the arm.

“Oh! Careful!”

Chungwoo reacted instantly, pulling Moondae back, but whatever it was had been flung quite hard, and thus it was impossible to avoid it completely. Moondae stared down at his arm, which was now soaking wet.

Someone threw a water bottle. Water was dripping from the fancy epaulet on his jacket and down his sleeve. His forehead felt cold, which probably meant some water had splashed on his face, too. His elbow ached a little.

They threw it really hard. A shocked silence fell over the theater. People were murmuring among themselves, muttering worried comments, and a few had even screamed. The journalists, on the other hand, were in heaven.

Would you look at that? Thank you, whoever that was! Moondae quickly analyzed the situation.

There are no chemicals added to the water, at least. His forehead felt fine, which meant it wasn’t acid or alcohol. There was probably only saliva from whoever had thrown the bottle mixed into the water, at worst.

I won’t make a big deal out of this, then. It took him only about three seconds to process what had happened and during this time he shook the water from his arm. Discerning what to do next so quickly was only possible because he’d spent his teenage years on his toes, always having to assess his surroundings.

Park Moondae grinned.

“Good instincts.”

“I think they could guess how I was going to answer that question.” He shrugged off his jacket, revealing a white school uniform shirt that the fans had already seen in the music video for Magical Boys. “I was going to say that you can find out by watching the performance for yourself.”

“Oh!”

The members quickly understood what Moondae was doing and threw aside their own jackets.

“Since there’s such an urgent demand, we’ll perform it for you right now. Here it is—Magical Boys.”

Park Moondae took up his microphone, sweeping aside the damp hair on one side of his head. The sound of a music box filled the theater.

♬♪♩♪-

♬♪♬♪-

♪♩-

Standing amid dreamy purple props, Park Moondae began to sing, heedless of his damp hair.

I met you tomorrow

But I’ve been thinking of you all day

My dreams are as blue as the sky

The fans attending the showcase promptly forgot about the water bottle incident.

***

The TeSTAR showcase lasted for about an hour, making it rather brief, as was usual for these sorts of events. Before it was even over, however, articles and reviews were reaching the internet.

A few articles mentioned the water bottle incident, of course.

[TeSTAR Shows Off Dreamy New Song “Magical Boys” Amid Spray of Water]

[A Professional’s Composure Turns Hazard Into Part of the Performance]

These articles all featured pictures of Park Moondae wearing just a white shirt and shaking the water from his hair. There were also pictures from an assortment of angles featuring him casting aside his wet jacket. The water droplets flying from his epaulet scattered in the light, enhancing the beauty of the pictures.

Some photos showed the exact moment the bottle hit him, but most were screenshots taken from videos and tended to be low quality in comparison. All of these images did incite a strong reaction online, however.

- What sort of asshole throws a water bottle at a freshly debuted idol?

- They were aiming for his head LOL. If Chungwoo hadn’t pulled him back, it would have hit him smack in the face

- They must be out of their mind

- Did they catch the person responsible? Please tell me they were arrested

- Holy sh*t. So this asshole took a seat at the showcase? A seat that could have been mine? They don’t deserve to live

The fans were angry, but also deeply relieved that Park Moondae had handled it so well.

- That could have ended very badly T_T I’m so happy Moondae handled it like such a pro

- He must have been so shocked. But he didn’t show it at all and dealt with it so smoothly... He’s incredible

- Heh. I think Park Moondae is just really that tactless. I’ll bet he really thought somebody threw the bottle to get him to hurry up. The way Idol Inc. portrayed him was dead accurate

└ Dude. There’s a time and a place. Get lost

- The members all took off their jackets the moment they saw what Moondae was doing. It was so touching. They have great teamwork

The drama WeTubers didn’t miss their opportunity to post regarding the topic and as a result, the trending videos section briefly featured titles such as the following.

[The water bottle that hit the first-place Idol Inc. winner]

[First-place idol gets hit with water spray at his own showcase!]

Hilariously, because Moondae had responded so professionally, all the attack did was function as an extremely effective marketing campaign for the group.

“Cheongryeo, did you see this?”

The news even reached the ears of VTIC, who had just finished their first week of album promotions.