Chapter 88

Chapter 88

The teams for the horror segment of our extreme trip were assigned in a surprisingly logical manner.

“So it’ll be groups of two, two, and three.”

“Phew...”

The scaredy-cats looked relieved to hear they wouldn’t be going in alone, especially Raebin.

“S-so, how should we split up?”

“I’d like to go with Chungwoo!” I said before anyone else could speak.

“Me too!” Raebin chimed in.

Chungwoo’s popularity was spiking suddenly.

To be fair, he is rather trustworthy when it comes to things like this.

Chungwoo glanced around, then chuckled and said, “Haha! Well then... How about I go with Raebin and Moondae?”

“Thank you!”

“Hey, that would be no fun! You should be on a two-person team, Chungwoo, to make things more fun!” Big Sejin butted in, attempting to ruin things for us.

That bastard. I’d probably been right in thinking he was only pretending to be scared when we were watching that horror movie together.

“Hmm, you think so?”

“Of course!”

Because Big Sejin had managed to successfully persuade Chungwoo, it was decided that whoever won at rock paper scissors would assign everyone’s teams.

“Well, well! Look what we have here.”

F*ck.

The most unbelievable part of it all was that Big Sejin was the one who won.

Isn’t the person who suggests we play a game to decide supposed to get the short end of the stick? Grinning, Big Sejin formed the teams before anyone could blink.

“Yeaaah!”

“Let’s go! Let’s go!”

I was forced onto the same team as Big Sejin and Eugene, a ridiculous combination of personalities if there ever was one. I was afraid my eardrums wouldn’t survive and we hadn’t even entered the building yet.

I managed to ask Eugene, “You aren’t scared of horror movies, are you?”

I’d expected him to be scared of gross things, not ghosts, but the way he was nervously dancing from foot to foot now, it was like the floor had turned to lava.

“I’m fine with watching, but I hate real ghosts! Only fake ones are okay!”

But this is as fake as it gets, isn’t it? I knew logic wouldn’t be of much use with Eugene, so I decided to leave it. I asked Big Sejin, “Why’d you choose me?”

“Well... you could say I did it so I would have a clear conscience. I wanted to be on a three-man team, but if I chose anyone brave to be on it, it wouldn’t be fair to the others! So I decided the three of us cowards could show the viewers just how brave we can be!”

He was full of sh*t.

Hmm... I mustn’t forget we have cameras attached to our foreheads.

“Let’s just... get a move on.”

“Yeah. Let’s go!”

“We should hurry...”

We needed to figure out the path that would take the least amount of time to complete.

“But Moondae, where do you think the ‘suspicious omens’ are?”

That was also a problem. Each team had been given a mission to complete in the haunted house—we had to discover at least one of these ‘suspicious omens’ and take a picture.

“They said we’d get rewards if we found a lot of them! Let’s explore and give it a shot!”

“I like that idea!”

Even Eugene chimed in to agree, apparently tempted by the idea of gifts and going exploring. This was no good.

“In that case... let’s go down the corridor and in through the smallest door,” I suggested.

“Ah!”

My reasoning was that the staff were probably waiting to scare us in the biggest and most conspicuous room.

“Clues like this are usually hidden. We’ll have to start by looking in the most unlikely places.”

“That’s a great idea! Since you came up with it, you’ll be taking the lead, right?”

I felt the serious urge to just quit, but being at the front of the group was better than the back, at least, so I chose the lesser evil. “Fine.”

“Wow, Moondae is so cool! I’m scared, so I’m taking up the rear!”

Big Sejin didn’t seem to think it wise to allow Eugene to be at the back. I could tell he wanted to get his fair share of screen time when the jump scares started.

“Now then, let’s go!”

“Let’s go!”

I silently walked down the corridor. The interior was made of wood, and the stink of mold filled my nostrils.

“Moondae! Look, blood!”

I nearly swore. Turning my head, I said through gritted teeth, “Don’t shout.”

Big Sejin looked apologetic. “Okay. I’m sorry— Yikes!”

“Oh my god!”

I turned back to the corridor and found a woman standing in front of us. She was dressed like a servant from a movie set in the fifties, but she was missing both her eyes and feet and was covered in blood.

“Yaaaargh!”

“Nooo! Run!”

I sprinted into the next room with the other two hot on my tail, both screaming bloody murder, and I very quickly realized we were off to a terrible start.

***

By the time we made it outside, the sun was already setting. It had taken a full hour to escape that atrocity of a house.

It was supposed to be a twenty-five-minute course. I couldn’t even begin to imagine how embarrassing we’d end up looking on the show.

“My throat hurts.”

“Yours too?”

The two others, who’d screamed their lungs out, were gulping down sports drinks given to them by the production team. Big Sejin deserved it, of course, since his screams had been partly for show.

Ahyeon seemed concerned that my idiotic team had taken more than twice the expected time to complete our course and came over to speak to us. He’d been paired with Lee Sejin and together they’d taken three pictures and found the exit in twenty minutes flat. It was humiliating for more reasons than one.

“W-w-was it all right?”

“Well... It was something.”

This was one thing I truly couldn’t understand anybody paying money to experience.

Or being paid to do, for that matter. If we were receiving minimum wage or something similar for doing this, I didn’t ever want to go back.

“Moondae did all the hard work. Thanks, man.”

“Thank you!”

Perhaps because everything had been caught on film, none of the assembled guys were making any absurd claims about how they’d handled it better than anyone else. I nodded slowly.

At least we’d taken the pictures we needed, which was better than just fleeing.

“Phew...”

“We’re back.”

Chungwoo and Raebin, the final team, returned in only thirty-five minutes and the director got busy blabbering instructions again.

“Good work! Now it’s time for dinner!”

“Wait... don’t tell me dinner is something extreme, too?”

“Of course it is!”

“Oh no...”

There would have been a riot were it not for the cameras, but all the members did was groan in response.

“It’s an extreme dish... whole pork barbeque!”

“Oh my gosh!”

“Barbeque!”

Thankfully, the production team wasn’t completely clueless. They seemed to understand that we needed a break. Before long, a small skewered pig was set to slowly turn over a fire.

Looks like it was already cooked. Based on the intensity of the fire, it was only meant to keep the meat warm. In any case, most of us were made happy by the mouthwatering sight. Only Raebin still seemed out of it.

“This is going to be amazing!”

“Thank you!”

The meat wasn’t nearly as good as it had looked, but meat was meat… Still delicious.

***

Our reward for completing the photo mission in the haunted house was animal pajamas.

Another set to add to my wardrobe. I’d already received more than five pairs of them. Since we’d been given seven total, it probably meant that all of us were meant to wear them together.

That’s not difficult. Eight o’clock found us all sitting around the living room of our lodgings wearing our matching outfits.

“Seems like we get to wear these together thanks to the three scaredy-cats.”

“I like it.”

“I-it’s cute.”

The members were praising the outfits just in case they turned out to be product placement—they were already consummate professionals. In any case, we were allowed to have free time until bedtime. This didn’t mean we could really do whatever we wanted, however.

They’re giving us freedom as in, freedom to come up with our own content. Whether we played with the karaoke machine or a board game, or even wrote letters to each other... We just had to make it look as though we were relaxing and having fun.

“Hmm. This is boring, isn’t it? Why don’t we play Truth or Dare?”

Like that, for instance.

“T-truth or Dare?”

“Yes. They even have a lie detector here.”

“Yeah? That sounds like a good idea.”

That was when Raebin, who’d been obviously mulling over something, intervened. “Hmm. We had a lot of fun today, so why don’t we do something productive in the evening?”

The word productive sent alarm bells ringing for all the members.

“Productive?”

“Raebin, are you suggesting we make something?”

“Yes!”

There was a brief silence. To my surprise, it was Lee Sejin who spoke.

“Make what?”

“A new song.”

“W-what?”

“A n-new song?”

“There’s actually a song I’ve been working on recently. I brought some portable recording equipment just in case we would need it.” Kim Raebin excitedly retrieved his backpack.

Everyone started trying to talk him out of it at once.

“Wait, Raebin! We don’t want to release any spoilers to the audience just yet!”

“Yeah. We should do this sort of thing after our promotions are over.”

“You think so?”

Raebin lowered his phone, looking taken aback. He apparently hadn’t foreseen this reaction at all.

He may be lacking in the social department, but he’s no idiot. I decided we should let him have his say.

“You don’t mean a title song for the next album, do you?” I asked.

“Oh, of course not!” Raebin wore an expression that told me he finally understood everyone’s reactions. “I was thinking this could be a song for the fans!”

“Oh!”

This particular suggestion was impossible for any of us to shoot down. If we reacted negatively, we would be opening ourselves up to potentially malicious editing—an edit that painted us as not wanting to make a song for our fans. It was no longer the production team we were worried about, of course, but rather malicious people on the internet.

[Here’s a scene from today’s TeSTAR reality show episode]

[Divided opinions on TeSTAR’s recent comments—what’s your take?]

I could already picture such posts taking the community sites by storm.

Thankfully, Big Sejin spoke right away. “A fan song? That’s a great idea. I’ve always wanted to make one!”

I decided to play along as well. “Sounds fun. The timing is right, too.”

“Not a bad idea.”

“I l-l-like it.”

Raebin looked pleased by the sudden switch in tune. “Thank you!”

He probably hadn’t intended to do so, but this was the only time that I’d ever seen Raebin manipulate things to get his way.

***

It was a peaceful weekday afternoon and TeSTAR’s fans were enjoying themselves re-watching the variety of content that had been released during their promotional cycle.

- I think this is the most accurate interpretation of the music video on WeTube (link)

- A reaction video to “Magical Boys” from some classical musicians!

- Can anyone tell me which music show they performed “High Five” with the red baseball jackets on? T_T

└ Music Bomb, last week!

└ Oh, thanks T_T

Ever since TeSTAR had defeated VTIC on Inki Music, internet trolls had been desperately trying to start a fight between their fans and VTIC’s, but it hadn’t become a huge issue.

VTIC had already completed their promotions in Korea, so their fandom could afford to ignore such pot-stirring. Thanks to this, the TeSTAR fans were enjoying a period of relative calm when they all began receiving notifications alerting them to a new post from the TeSTAR account.

I wonder who it is? The members posted quite often, so the fans clicked the notification without much anxiety.

[Please accept my feelings (WeTube link)]

My feelings? Huh? This... isn’t about one of them dating, is it? The fans grew slightly worried and confused. Then, to their amazement, they were greeted by a thumbnail showing the members wearing animal pajamas.