FULL NOVELXO
Chapter 119
While Siren’s fan was squealing in excitement that she received a reply, posts with Siren hashtags continued to increase. No matter how fast Siren’s typing speed was, the speed at which they replied couldn’t beat the speed of the inpouring comments. Still, the Siren members continued to reply to messages at a constant speed from the very beginning to the end.
—[#Do-Seung] I focus on working out my chest when exercising. But since I can have a round shoulder if I only develop my chest, I do my back exercise the very next day. Hahaha
—[#Dong-Jun] My favorite food is malatang! I originally liked steak the best, but I fell in love with it when I ate malatang for the first time last year. Hehe But cilantro in malatang...? Hm...I suppose everyone can have different taste buds haha
Even if one weren’t a Siren fan, they would be able to easily recognize that Siren members were doing their best to reply to as many comments as possible by the speed of their replies. The total number of replies they made after an hour of MP was 120. Though the total number of replies fell far short of their original goal, many people were still shocked by their efforts.
—Damn, why is Siren so serious about MP?
—I have never seen any group reply to so many mentions
—Is the whole group addicted to Bluebird?
The fact that they made 120 mentions in an hour meant that they replied to at least two comments every minute. Furthermore, it was the highest count among all other groups.
—These guys are just crazy
—They must be too used to survival now ahaha
—Why are these guys even competing for things like this :(
Because it was very impressionable that Siren made 120 comments, Bluebird filled with stories about Siren for a while.
After Tae-Yoon sat in the practice room and checked everything that had happened, he turned off his phone and thought, ‘Ah, my fingers are going to break.’ That day, Tae-Yoon realized that it was possible to get muscle aches in fingers from overstraining.
***
After the MP, my group members collapsed with their phones on top of their palms.
“Ha, I gave it my all.”
“My fingers hurt so much.”
“I think electromagnetic waves really circulate through the human body. The ends of my finger are jittering.”
Because they had been so hyper-focused while doing MP for an hour, they seemed to have lost all their energy. I also massaged my fatigued fingers and sat besides them. I didn’t know how they felt, but as for me, I started MP with the intention of making more replies than any other group.
But as I began to reply to the mentions, I felt a strong feeling that I couldn’t reply sloppily to any of them. Thus, rather than trying to make as many replies as possible, I changed my mindset to reply to as many people as possible. Thanks to this mindset, we were able to get more mentions than any other group.
‘...This is fun.’ Though it was my first time communicating with fans online, I thought it was quite enjoyable. There were many questions that made me wonder why anyone would be curious of such a thing, but at the same time, it made me realize how much they liked us and that they would be curious about such trivial things. And because we were replying to questions in an environment where everyone was supportive and encouraging, it felt like a healing experience.
'Where else will I get attention like this?’ I wondered. My tense nerves due to the upcoming final performance seemed to have softened a bit. We were still recovering from the MP when the practice door opened.
Creak.
“Are you all done with practice?” Ms. Seung-Yeon and Ms. Hyuna came inside. “It’s about time for the live broadcast now. You all have to hurry up because you can’t do the broadcast in your present conditions and have to get your makeup and hair done.”
“We only have an hour left. Why don’t you all move back to the hotel, and after you guys take a shower, you can change into your outfits and get your makeup done.”
That made me realize we couldn’t be resting here like this. In one hour, we would have to do our live broadcast.
“That’s right.”
“Everyone, get up!”
Everyone got up simultaneously. Then, we quickly took our belongings and got into the car. All day long, we practiced, did MP, and would have to do a live broadcast now. It really wasn’t an easy day, but for some reason...I felt fine. It seemed I was surprisingly well suited to the idol schedule.
***
The Showcase 2’s staff, including Park Soo-Chul, visited the concert hall where the final performances would take place. This place could hold a total of 5,000 people, and though this number sounded small compared to the concert halls first-tier idols rented, it would probably feel immense for the casts of The Showcase 2.
“Will they feel intimidated by this size?”
“Come on~ If they can’t perform at this level, they aren’t idols.”
“Yeah, that’s right.”
Yet, since they were all idols in the end, the staff thought the cast would be able to overcome this new challenge. Furthermore, it wasn’t like 5,000 people were really coming to watch. Since this content was more like a broadcast show than a concert, they had decreased their audience count to 3,000 to ensure safe distance and install heavy equipment. There would probably be no majors problems.
“Did you install all the camera devices properly?”
“Yes, it’s done.”
“And did you prepare the LED according to each group and all the special effects?”
“Yes.”
“Is the director coming tomorrow?” contemporary romance
“Yes, he’s coming."
“Haa, seriously. That old boomer is coming? He should just rest on days like this. He just likes the attention and coming out on cameras.”
“Well, what can we do when he says he’s coming?”
“...Yeah.”
Park Soo-Chul pressed his temples by habit.
“Anyways, good luck on the organization. Report to me if there’s anything out of the ordinary, and I will move to the hotel. I will have to observe the situation there.” Park Soo-Chul turned his feet and was about to escape when he was called back again.
“Ah, Producer Park Soo-Chul, you know how we said we would start a reality program after the finals?”
“Yeah, what about it?”
“Are we really going to start immediately afterwards?”
“Yeah, we have to. We might even have to go almost completely live at this rate.”
“But what if the company from the winning team doesn’t cooperate?”
“...What?”
“Well, you know the two teams who have the highest possibility of winning both don’t come from reliable companies.”
“The winning team is naturally going to move to a joint company according to the contract. Is there anything they could do to stop that from happening?”
“They could try to resist stubbornly and say they changed their minds or something.”
“That will...be really bothersome.”
“Then, what do we do?”
“If that happens...” Park Soo-Chul seemed to ponder about this a bit and said, “We would have to fight at court, and their debut process would get quite messy."
Sigh.
Park Soo-Chul headed outside while sighing and saying, “I’m really going now.”
“Yes, have a safe drive.”
Park Soo-Chul moved back to the hotel and thought about what the composition writer told him.
“TH Entertainment or WD Entertainment...hm...” It definitely appeared that things could get a bit messy after the finals.
***
The live broadcast we did in our hotel rooms ended. Each team utilized Utube Live to do their live broadcast while turning off the monetization option.
‘Overall, it was ordinary.’ It was a broadcast that ended without anything that could turn into a big issue. Because we couldn’t leak the name and location of the hotel we were staying, we did our live broadcast with the curtains hiding the windows. Fortunately, the broadcast ended safely without any accidental leak of confidential information.
“It was my first time seeing Yeon-Hoon go off-pitch.”
“...Don’t make fun of me...!”
“I didn’t. I was just surprised.”
“Hmph!”
The only notable part was that Yeon-Hoon went off-pitch while singing live and seemed to have felt a great amount of embarrassment because he had only shown a perfect performance until now. The situation was funnier because it happened not in the middle of the song but right when he started his song.
“Yeon-Hoon, the clip of you going off-pitch is already circulating around~”
“Ahhh! No!”
Dong-Jun kept replaying Yeon-Hoon’s video.
[A!!!! s we go...]
[Ah?]
[Pft!]
[Hahaha!]
Yeon-Hoon going off-pitch on the first note rang across the hotel lounge.
“Dong-Jun...you are so...mean...” Yeon-Hoon put his face down over his arms and pretended to cry.
“But the responses are so good~”
“...Really?”
On the phone screen that Dong-Jun showed, there were quite many responses that were positive.
—hahaha, Yeon-Hoon so cute haha
—He looks sooo shocked
—Our soft peach is surprised
The majority said that Yeon-Hoon was cute or funny.
“Just enjoy the situation~”
“Haaa...okay...”
That was how our chat about Yeon-Hoon ended. It was then Do-Seung interrupted our conversation.
“What are we going to do now? Are we going to sleep immediately or practice a bit more?” Do-Seung asked. Since the live broadcast had been one hour and thirty minutes long, the current time was 8:30 p.m. It was a strange time to go to sleep, eat dinner, or practice.
It would be terrible if we got aches because we strained ourselves the day before the performance. Yeon-Hoon thought about this for a bit and said, “Since we all came to a hotel, let’s rest for now. We can do our final practice early in the morning tomorrow!”
“Really?” The first one to respond that we won’t have any more practice for the day was Dong-Jun, and he said, “Then, I want to quickly wash myself!”
It seemed Dong-Jun had been wanting to use the bathtub all along. It was understandable since there was nothing better than a warm bath to relieve one’s fatigue. Do-Seung opened his laptop with his headset on, and Woon took out his glasses and lay on the bed with his phone.
Yeon-Hoon said, “I am going to sleep a bit. Please wake me up after thirty minutes,” and took a nap. That was how I remained in the suite's living room all by myself. Of course, it wasn’t like I had nothing to do.
—Please come down to the parking lot.
I still had my promise to Kang Hyun-Sung to fulfill. After glancing at my members, I put on my mask and hat and carefully left the hotel room. “Then, I will just go out for a walk around here.”
“Don’t be too late.”
“Don’t go anywhere dangerous~”
“Please get melona* on your way back!” [1]
“Hey, Park Dong-Jun!”
“Ignore what I said about melona...”
“Okay, I will be back soon,” I told them.
I shrugged off what my members said, walked outside the hotel room, and went down to the parking lot.
‘What?’ I stood in surprise when I saw that Kang Hyun-Sung was already waiting for me with his car. I had been worried about where we would go on my way down, but it seemed this guy planned to go on a drive with me.
“Why don’t you get in the car? We don’t have anywhere to go anyways.”
“...Ah, I really don’t want to.”
“...What?”
‘Ah...’ Without intending to, I blurted out my true feelings.
1. Popular ice cream name ?