Chapter 83

Chapter 83

The anger directed at the agency for not providing the group with a fandom name, color, or official light stick spread like a forest fire.

I guess it was only a matter of time before that dam burst. I wouldn’t have been surprised had this happened earlier, but I could only assume the fans had chosen to keep their mouths shut since the songs had performed so well and they hadn’t wanted to get in the way of that.

In any case, this seemed to have raised some alarm bells in the agency’s planning division. The agency meeting that we were supposed to have later that night was canceled.

“Congratulations!”

Instead, we were given a small party at the dorm for reaching the top of the charts. It wasn’t anything fancy, just a few boxes of fried chicken paid for with the agency credit card. What was actually surprising was that they provided beer.

“Since we won first place, I thought some beer would be okay. Let’s not drink too much and clean up after we’re done,” said Chungwoo, having gotten the agency’s permission for us to drink.

“Okay!”

Then he gulped down an entire can. He looked like a guy with a high tolerance for alcohol, so I wasn’t too concerned.

The two underage members were given soft drinks, of course. Ahyeon actually consoled the two of them, perhaps not wanting them to feel left out.

“W-we’ll definitely drink together next year!” Eugene replied with his paper cup between his teeth, apparently preoccupied with the flavor—he hadn’t had any for a long time since he’d been on a diet.

“I can’t...”

“H-huh?” Ahyeon asked.

“He’s from the States, remember? He can’t drink until he’s twenty-one,” Raebin explained.

Big Sejin, opening a can for himself, grinned and said, “Hahaha! What does that matter? We’ll be drinking in Korea, not in the States!”

Both Raebin and Eugene looked as though they’d been told an earth-shattering secret.

You guys get along well, huh? I was on my phone, an open can of beer in my other hand. I needed to understand what had happened.

How in the world did we get first place? The last I checked a few days ago, it hadn’t even been on the cards. I hadn’t bothered to look again since this week’s rankings had already been counted.

After searching around a little, I realized what had happened.

Three things went down all at the same time. First was the early reveal of the variety show, which had led people to the music video as well as our song on the streaming sites, pushing us up the charts slowly. Then there was the addition of more fansigns. Our albums were selling really well because people were trying to get into the additional fansigns that were scheduled.

Now people need to buy even more albums just for a chance to attend. The number was up to 180 now and I broke out into a sweat just thinking about it.

I’ll worry about that later. I have no idea how I’m supposed to make it worth their while now… In any case, these two factors coincided and produced an unexpected synergy. In addition, the fans had noticed the changing tide before we had and worked hard to rally people to vote for us. What was more, VTIC’s promotional cycle had ended, meaning their votes had inevitably gone down.

Then came the third and most crucial element. The Sunday music show Inki Music had recently revamped its ranking system. In the process, the data collection date had been pushed back from Monday to Wednesday, which meant this week’s tally included our increased sales. The album sales had included all the sales we’d generated from the fansigns and thus the gap between our score and VTIC’s had widened.

That’s some crazy good luck. This was how we’d managed to beat VTIC by only a hair—there had been only a seven-point difference. I found myself gulping down my beer without my realizing it. I couldn’t believe we’d pulled it off. It’d been a ton of hard work, of course, and that only made the victory all the sweeter. What was more, my little experiment had been a success.

“You want more?”

“Yes.”

Lee Sejin handed me another can and I called up my status window. The guys around me were laughing loudly. They were watching the encore performance video with all the captions on the TV. In contrast to their obvious enjoyment, tempered with just a little embarrassment for their flustered response to winning, the status window was clean and cold.

[First Place Reached!]

You reached first place on the public TV music show “Inki Music”!

Time cap: Satisfied (Perfect)

Status abnormality: “Get First Place or Die!” removed!

: Reveal the Truth ☜ Click!

This “reveal the truth” button was my reward for successfully removing the status abnormality and I needed to accept it in order to see the negative effect lifted. In other words, the content of the pop-up window would not be applied until I’d received the reward.

I’ve done plenty of thinking about this already. The faster I removed a status abnormality, the faster the next one arrived. This meant I’d likely still have the threat of death looming over my head, no doubt in addition to the difficulty spiking like crazy. It was best to stall for as long as I could before the deadline.

I’d been thinking hard about how I should go forward, considering what my last mission had been in addition to everything else going on. I was happy that the simplest of my guesses had turned out to be correct.

Now I feel much less worried. For at least the next three hundred days, I could keep an eye on the situation without fearing dying. Another thing I’d deduced was that the status window wasn’t likely to be a sentient, malicious being, but rather some kind of inanimate system.

If it was malicious, it would have threatened me to accept the reward already with a pop-up or even forced me to do so against my will. Nothing of the sort had happened, which meant there was probably actually an end to this string of status abnormalities. Most games had an ending, after all.

Though maybe it’s just wishful thinking on my part at this point. I was growing more optimistic, now that I was able to have a drink after solving one of my problems, at least. In any case, now that I’d delayed the onset of a new mission, I would take things slowly and keep an eye on the status window. I gulped down a few more mouthfuls of beer.

“M-Moondae.”

“Yeah?”

“Y-y-you’re drinking a little fast, don’t you think? I-it’s not good for you.”

“Oh. You’re right.”

Maybe I shouldn’t be emptying a can each time I took a drink. Sucking on my bottom lip, I shoved the can aside and picked up a piece of chicken instead.

“I-I saw in a video... th-that y-you like chicken.”

“Me? Oh, you mean what I said at the fansign.”

“Y-yes,” Ahyun said, nodding and smiling.

“E-enjoy!”

“I will.”

“E-eat... eat lots!”

He seems a little drunk already. He hadn’t even emptied a single can yet. He apparently didn’t know how much was too much for him. Maybe he hadn’t drunk much before?

I handed him a soft drink. Then, thinking back to the fansite master I’d met at the first fansign, I tore into my chicken.

She was good at calibrating colors. She’d uploaded a lot of content about me while Idol Inc. was airing and I felt like I owed her something. I’d have to look into her camera more often the next time I saw her.

“Wow!”

“Oh man, we look so stupid in this! Hahaha!”

The others had moved on from the encore performance video and were playing a clip from the full episode of Day in the Prank Life on the TV screen.

[※Yikes!※]

On screen was a close-up of Eugene screaming after seeing the bird lose its head.

“Ahahaha!”

Even Eugene himself was doubled over laughing, tears in his eyes.

It really is funny. They’d edited it just right so that nobody would think the prank was too cruel. And what was more, the meal we shared at the end was portrayed perfectly—in a heartwarming way.

[※You must have been scared. Please eat as much as you like!※]

[※TeSTAR ate※]

[※five kilograms of Korean beef that day...※]

[※The production cost was worth it - Production team※]

The members gasped in shock.

“F-five kilograms?”

“No wonder I weighed more the following day...”

“It’s fine. We lost all that weight during our schedule.”

“Yeah.”

A few of our more anxious members sounded concerned, regardless.

“Still, I didn’t think we’d eaten that much.”

“It must have cost a lot.”

“It’s okay...” I said.

The captions seemed to suggest that they’d fed us at a loss, but the reality was no show operated at a loss.

I took the remote from Big Sejin and scrolled through some of the related suggestions.

[TeSTAR eats 5 kg of Korean beef | Unedited | Day in the Prank Life EP 2]

“That video alone probably paid for our beef and then some,” I said.

The view count was already well over a million. The members marveled as they nodded.

“Why don’t we do some mukbangs? I think we could do one eating everything we’ve wanted to eat but couldn’t, you know?”

“Let’s put Moondae in the center!”

“C-center!” Ahyeon shouted.

Who had given him more beer? Thankfully, they soon moved on from this topic.

“I want to keep watching!”

“Oh, right! Let’s keep playing where we left off before Moondae interrupted us!”

They started snickering among themselves and resumed the video with great excitement.

Come to think of it, they all seem a little drunk. Even the minors seemed to be matching vibes with the rest of us, even if they hadn’t consumed any alcohol.

Well, they’re having fun at least. I’ll leave them be. We’re in our dorm, so it shouldn’t matter. I decided to continue reading through comments on my phone, just as I’d been intending to do.

- You fed them so much Korean beef... Thank you so much!

- Cha Eugene is so good at watching horror movies, but he’s stupid scared of real pranks. It’s so cute T_T. Aww, little Cha Kitty, are you scared of some birdies?

- This was just as hilarious as the early reveal suggested. I even got some muggle friends who don’t know Idol Inc. to watch LOL

- Moondae’s picture of Ahyeon is better than the one I took... Moondae 1: Me 0 T_T (retouched photo)

That last comment was from an account that posted a lot about Ahyeon and took photos of him. And I remembered taking the attached photo of Ahyeon a few days ago, though I hadn’t thought I’d come across it on the internet.

Our onscreen feast was coming to an end, and a few extra scenes were playing.

[(Drum beat)]

[*Secret post-credits scene*]

First up was a short clip of TeSTAR taking a bunch of photos, cameras in hand.

[※And as a result...※]

A handful of terrible photos appeared next. There was a bird that looked like an alien creature, so shaky was the photo, a picture of some feet—presumably because the person who’d taken it had taken a tumble—a random sky photo, and even a photo of the water that was slanted sideways.

This was accompanied by captions.

[※None of them were salvageable...※]

“Hahaha!”

“I’d never taken a photo with a camera before!”

“We wasted the film, I guess.”

While the other members made their comments, new captions appeared.

[※But there’s always an exception※]

A handful of pictures of a blackbird rising out of the water and a blue one swinging a stick were shown followed by some scenery shots of the reservoir. They were clean and well-taken, in contrast to the earlier ones. Then, at the end, there was a shot of Ahyeon, smiling in the sun. This was the original copy of the retouched photo that Ahyeon’s fansite master had uploaded earlier.

“Huh?”

“That must have been Moondae,” Lee Sejin said sulkily.

The captions soon confirmed as much.

[※All these photos came from a single camera.※]

[※Here’s the person who took them ↓※]

A clip of Park Moondae taking a photo of Ahyeon was shown, then a staff member appeared on screen. Though his voice was distorted, the captions described him as the camera director.

[※How did he take such a good picture?※]

[※He’s seriously so good at taking photos. (Visible confusion)※]

A variety of staff were shown on screen, marveling as they addressed the camera.

[※Park Moondae: surprisingly good at photography (according to the camera director)※]

[※* Approved by Day in the Prank Life※]

A digital seal of approval appeared on screen, then the video ended. I hadn’t even suspected that they might include this scene and somehow turn it into something interesting, too.

Big Sejin started making a dramatic fuss. “Oh man... Now I’m hurt. Moondae doesn’t treat all his friends equally. He’s partial to Ahyeon. He should be taking great photos of all his other lovely friends, too, don’t you think? To prove he’s really our friend.”

I stared at him.

“I’ll just keep talking if he doesn’t say something. He should just give up and promise to upload a picture of me, too—”

“I’ll upload one for you tomorrow. Cut it out.”

“Okay,” he said cutely.

He was too drunk for me to talk sense to. Afraid he’d start talking to me again, I pretended to focus my attention back on my phone. The enhanced photo of Ahyeon I’d come across earlier was still on my screen.

It came out well, just like I expected. If I were to sell this, I could charge more than the usual price, to be honest. I’d forgotten about the photo after returning the camera and hadn’t been expecting to see it.

Well, it’s nice to be recognized for your talents, I guess. There was nothing bad about being good at photography. Relaxing, I kept on scrolling through my social media feed. Then I spotted a popular post uploaded by a Park Moondae fan.

- I’ve always noticed this about Park Moondae’s photos on social media, but he’s a really great photographer. He’s no good at selfies, though T_T

Well... because I’ve never really taken selfies before? I realized suddenly that my skills were only benefiting the others. I’d have to look into how I could improve at taking photos of myself.