Chapter 85

I think it would be great if I had the ability to stop time.

If I did, I would pause time for a moment and calm my mind.

“Hahaha!”

There are also some I’d like to give a good scolding to one by one.

“Surprise, it’s a huge success!”

“Wow, this is so much fun.”

“Really, there’s no fun in this. Did you see the look on your face just now? You were just blinking in confusion for a moment.”

“…Bro, Universe bro. Are you okay?”

Surrounded by my younger brothers, I was dazed.

Why is it like this?

It’s like in those drama clips where everyone is laughing and chatting, but a long-haired man is just letting his hair fly in the wind.

Right now, my face was exactly like that.

I glanced at the members who were laughing and chatting beside me and looked at the phone screen.

- Hahahahaha

- Universe hahaha

- Hahahahaha

If I counted the number of ‘k’s in the chat window, it might rival the number of all the grains of sand in the world.

I took the phone from Beju and brought it close to my face.

At that moment, the chat suddenly stopped.

What’s going on?

I checked if there was anything strange about my face in the screen and then smiled and greeted them.

“Hello, everyone. How have you been?”

After a long silence, a comment finally appeared.

- We’re glad too..☆

I couldn’t help but smile.

I glanced at the exploding chat window and handed the phone to Jung-hyun.

While he was using his long arms to fit us all in the frame, I quickly reviewed the situation.

Did I say anything wrong?

I tried to recall if there was anything that could cause a problem, but fortunately, there wasn’t.

And Seok-hwan hyung, who was watching us from the side, had a relaxed expression.

Now, the problem was.

“Before we have a fun chat with our fans, I need to have an honest and straightforward talk with my brothers.”

It was about dealing with the traitors.

“Where’s our second?”

“Me, me?”

I smiled at Beju, who flinched, and put my arm around his neck.

“People say that even a trusted ax can strike your foot. Did you betray me?”

“Bro, this is a misunderstanding.”

“What kind of misunderstanding?”

“I didn’t volunteer to do it because I wanted to…”

I gave him a friendly smile.

“Of course, our second wouldn’t say he wanted to. Come on, spill the beans. Who told you to do it?”

“It’s….”

Beju’s eyes quickly scanned the members.

Then he shook his head as if he couldn’t say.

“I can’t. I can’t say.”

“Was it Lee-hyuk and Ji-ho who encouraged you?”

“Eh.”

“I saw your eyes just now. They were scanning those two.”

The ability to mimic actions is really useful at times like this.

I can clearly see the direction in which the other person’s pupils move.

As expected, they tried to deny it.

“It wasn’t us.”

“Yeah, how could we suspect our cute younger brothers?”

These two are definitely up to something.

Usually, they bicker, but when they unite like this, it means they did it together.

I chuckled.

“Alright, the one who confesses first, I’ll help.”

“Eh….”

“I’m counting to three. One, two….”

“I’m sorry, Lee-hyuk hyung!”

Ji-ho quickly snitched.

“Lee-hyuk hyung said it would be fun.”

“No, it wasn’t.”

Lee-hyuk protested.

“He suggested it first.”

“Sure, you suggested it, but hyung came up with the idea. He said doing a time capsule would be fun.”

“Wow, you said you wouldn’t betray us.”

“I need to survive too. You know how narrow-minded and vengeful Universe hyung is.”

I watched the two bicker cutely and then suddenly faced a predicament.

“Hey.”

Everyone burst into laughter.

Confused, I looked at the phone in Jung-hyun’s hand, and the chat window was once again flooded with ‘kkk’s.

“This is a frame-up, everyone.”

The atmosphere didn’t seem to believe me.

“No matter what I say, you won’t believe me, right?”

Raindrops fell from my heart as I read comments like ‘yep’.

Damn.

My image is ruined now.

No, wait.

When was it ever not ruined?

While chatting happily with the fans, I also heard the full story of what happened from Seok-hwan hyung.

SNS live broadcast.

After the music show ended, the company prepared this for fans who were curious about us.

It was a fresh content format.

Usually, when idols communicate with fans, they just leave a post on the fan cafe or chat a bit.

Doing it like an internet broadcast was a novel approach.

Of course, regardless of the familiarity of such a format, the satisfaction with the live broadcast was extremely high.

- What are you doing now?

- I want to see the school uniforms in more detail!!

- Guys ㅠㅠㅠㅠ

- Uaaaaaaa

- What are you going to eat for lunch??

Even though we couldn’t see each other’s faces, it felt great to communicate with the fans like this.

Fans are all the same.

Whether they come to offline events or support us from afar, they are all precious to us.

That’s why I felt a great sense of loss.

Surely, there were people who wanted to talk to us but couldn’t due to personal reasons or other circumstances.

I couldn’t know what they were thinking or what they wanted to say.

So, I was glad to have this opportunity through the broadcast.

While the fans were busily chatting, I said,

“We did a good job filming, and we have some time left because of the standby, so please ask us anything you’ve been curious about. And….”

We all smiled and said,

“Let’s have fun with us today.”

“Let’s have fun!”

As we continued the ‘Ask Us Anything! Part 2’ after the first fan signing event, about 30 minutes had passed.

At first, the number of people was pitifully small.

Being a rookie group, it was inevitable that the number of viewers would be low.

But then, something strange started to happen.

The number of people gradually increased, and the comments started to pile up.

It wasn’t that we couldn’t read the comments; it was that some of them were in languages we didn’t understand.

Or rather, it was correct to say that we couldn’t read them.

While I could read quite a few, my brothers often tilted their heads in confusion at some comments.

Beju whispered in my ear.

“Hyung, the chat room.”

He had a puzzled look.

“Why are there Japanese and Chinese comments?”

* * *

[Leader of NewBlack Unwittingly Reveals Inner Thoughts During Live Broadcast]

(Captured Images)

The subject is NewBlack’s Universe!

It was his first live broadcast, and he didn’t know about it.

He had been busy with ad photo shoots for a few days and hadn’t checked the fan cafe.

[Comments: 9]

- Hahahahaha

- Is this a hidden camera??

- Even if it’s staged, it would take a minimum of acting skills to react like that ㅇㅇ

- The blank expression is hilarious ㅋㅋ

- It’s so funny ㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ

- Wow, but he doesn’t usually swear, does he? It would be hard to try a hidden camera on a live broadcast.

- Entertainment companies have been doing live broadcasts like this since Sixty.

-[Author] When I talked to Manager Yoon, he mentioned that Universe is very careful about slip-ups. At a fan meeting, he was scolded by the manager before debut, so everyone is careful even in private ㅇㅇ

- It’s probably staged, ㅋㅋㅋ

Hong Seo-young, the public relations team member, scrolled through her laptop.

But the comments ended at nine.

Considering how recently it was posted, it wasn’t a bad response.

It didn’t go viral on various communities like the penguin dance, but it seemed to have sparked a small topic.

She felt proud.

When asked to create content for NewBlack and their fans during the break, this was what she prepared.

SNS live broadcast.

Initially, she considered an internet broadcast platform, but the company meeting results were not good, and the PR team thought it didn’t match NewBlack’s image.

So, they decided to do a live broadcast on SNS and post edited highlights for fans who couldn’t participate.

And.

The result was very good.

“What are you looking at?”

Her colleague, Nam Daeri, who had just finished brushing her teeth, sat next to her.

“Monitoring the fan cafe.”

“Oh, that live broadcast? The response was good. A reporter just called and asked if Scarlett has similar plans.”

“Scarlett is doing it too?”

“No, they have many places to go.”

Hong Seo-young smiled wryly.

It was true.

Scarlett, being a top-tier group, often gets called for variety shows and other broadcasts, so they didn’t need this kind of content.

This was a special case for NewBlack.

After successfully completing their first album activities, the fandom had grown significantly, and communication was needed, but they weren’t being called for broadcasts yet.

“And the team leader probably won’t approve it. This requires the singer’s capabilities, and if it wasn’t for Universe, NewBlack wouldn’t have been allowed.”

That was also true.

Live chat wasn’t a preferred content format for the agency.

Broadcasts can be edited, but live broadcasts can’t be fixed once they go wrong.

“They don’t slip up, though.”

Nam Daeri said.

“Ji-ho and Jung-hyun might be a bit risky, but mostly within acceptable limits. If it seems like a problem, Universe cuts it off. Like the time he cut the caveman puppet, right?”

“…”

“We almost had a big problem too.”

Recently, a boy group that appeared on a variety show tried to be funny by doing blackface and got a lot of backlash from overseas K-pop fans.

There were nearly 3,000 comments on overseas sites.

What would have happened if NewBlack had worn that puppet?

Hong Daeri smiled wryly and changed the topic.

“By the way, it reminded me of something.”

She called her colleague.

“Do you want to see something?”

“What, the live video from earlier?”

“Yeah, something caught my eye.”

Hong Daeri played the recorded video.

“Isn’t the chat window a bit strange?”

“Hmm, I don’t know… Oh?”

Nam Daeri tilted her head, noticing something odd.

“Why are there Japanese comments?”

“I kept finding it strange too. I talked to Manager Yoon earlier, and he mentioned it too.”

“It’s too early for overseas reactions. There would need to be a reason for it.”

“I have a guess.”

She searched and showed it.

“There’s an SNS post from when we promised to do the penguin dance in Myeongdong. It seems to have gained some attention.”

“Wow, how many retweets does this have? There’s a K?”

At that moment, the penguin started dancing automatically.

They couldn’t help but laugh at the unexpected video.

The emperor penguin dropping its crown while dancing vigorously.

“I’m going crazy because of these guys. Really.”

“This is a direct hit when you’re feeling down. I save it on my phone and play it when I’m feeling blue.”

Nam Daeri, who was looking at the SNS post with AI translation, asked,

“So, this is how foreigners got interested?”

“I don’t know.”

“It’s surprising. I can understand the Japanese, but the Chinese can’t use foreign SNS, right? How did they get in?”

It was a mystery.

But one thing was certain.

While planning the live broadcast to connect online fans with NewBlack, she found an unexpected clue.

It might seem trivial, but she felt something.

A little while later, her colleague asked,

“What are you doing now?”

“I’m going to request foreign language subtitles.”

“Will it work?”

But regardless of what the other person said, she started writing a proposal.

It was about adding English subtitles, as well as Chinese and Japanese, to reality shows and live broadcast highlights produced by the company.

Honestly, it was unlikely to be approved.

The acting team was already complaining about the budget for the first album, and additional costs were out of the question.

But she was following the PR team’s philosophy of ‘rowing when the tide is high’ and just trying.

‘They’ll probably say no anyway.’

When she submitted the proposal with that thought.

Less than a day later, it was approved by the team leader and production manager Jo Gyu-hwan.

With the addition of Chinese and Japanese subtitles.

* * *

Today, we are once again immersed in events.

We’ve been singing at a beach festival in Busan and a regional festival in Gyeongsan since this morning, and now we’re heading back to Seoul.

Not to the company, but for a performance at a youth cultural festival.

I’m completely drained.

It’s a tight schedule.

We’re doing well as rookies, but even considering that, it’s a bit excessive.

It’s all thanks to that day.

The day the event agency team leader promised to thank us for our performance at TeenSpirit.

I thought it was just talk.

I didn’t expect him to keep his promise and recommend us whenever the event organizers asked, “Is there a good rookie we can call?”

It was a good thing overall.

The only downside was that we had less time to practice other things.

I looked at the storyboard for the school uniform commercial we were shooting in a few days.

The paper trembled due to the car’s vibrations, but my gaze remained steady.

#12.

[VIDEO]

A teacher stands at the front of the classroom, holding a piece of chalk.

[AUDIO]

Teacher: The magic we will learn today is levitation, which makes the body lighter.

The content was simple.

It was about showing the practical aspects of the Everdream brand’s school uniforms, such as being light and highly elastic, through magic.

It was about five students accidentally casting a spell on their school uniforms during a practice session.

It was a fun and interesting material.

But there was one very interesting setting.

“Hyung, what are you looking at?”

“…What?”

I was so focused on the storyboard that I didn’t notice Ji-ho’s face right in front of me.

I rubbed my eyes, which suddenly felt tired, and answered.

“I was looking at the commercial storyboard.”

“What, why did you rub your eyes as soon as you saw me?”

“Oh, my eyes are just tired.”

“…”

“It means you’re glowing, Ji-ho.”

“Really?”

Lee-hyuk, who was watching us bicker, shook his head while looking at ‘First Steps in Japanese’.

The car was quiet.

Beju was dozing off with headphones on.

Jung-hyun was sleeping with his shoes off.

It was a natural result after two events since this morning.

With a tired smile, the energetic maknae massaged my shoulders.

“Feels good?”

“It feels amazing.”

Ji-ho glanced at the storyboard and asked.

“Is something not going well?”

“Well, I’m a bit worried because we have more lines than I thought.”

“That’s a good thing, isn’t it?”

“It’s a double-edged sword. I see that quite a few supporting actors are appearing, and if we mess up….”

“Ah, I see what you mean.”

The thought of the director and staff’s faces turning sour and the supporting actors sighing deeply was terrifying.

Ji-ho said,

“But the lines aren’t that heavy. If we practice, we can do it.”

“What’s with you comforting me?”

“I may not be good at singing, dancing, or rapping, but I’m the best at acting.”

“Is that so? Our maknae is an acting senior.”

As I stroked the head of the acting senior, who was beaming with pride, he suddenly asked,

“By the way, I might not be the best.”

“Huh?”

“Hyung might be better.”

“Nah.”

With a disbelieving look, Ji-ho said,

“Don’t you remember last year? When Hyung joined as a trainee, you said you couldn’t dance and lied about not being good at singing.”

“…It wasn’t a lie.”

There was a misunderstanding.

Ji-ho asked me,

“Hyung, are you good at acting?”