March 18, the day the members belatedly heard that the extension had fallen through.
With less than a week left before Saven’s concert, Mwave and Shock Entertainment officially announced the group’s disbandment.
[Project Girl Group Saven to Disband at the End of This Month Without Activity Extension (Comprehensive)]
In other words, Saven’s concert had become their final event before disbandment.
The fans now knew exactly why Mwave’s parent company, LE, had kept taking an ambiguous stance on Saven’s disbandment while stoking hopes for an extension.
The articles saying there was a possibility of an extension if Gocheok Dome sold out.
The fan goods, the so-called MD, that were sold online first without limited quantities, on top of the merchandise shop at the concert venue.
The official news of Saven’s disbandment, seemingly announced deliberately after the concert refund deadline.
LE had been looking at the fans purely as money.
[There’s still a real possibility of an extension, seriously]
[When you see how they work, all you can say is that they’re morons]
[Can’t the companies get on the same page...?]
[The girls must be having such a hard time too...ㅠ I feel like dying]
[Honestly, I knew this day would come]
The fans, expressing all sorts of reactions, had no intention of sitting still.
After saying they should at least do something, the fans stayed up all night and released a statement.
A demand for positions from each member’s agency, as well as Mwave and LE.
Coordinated protest trucks, coordinated SNS action, coordinated fax campaigns.
Cancellation and refund requests for MD purchases currently being paid for.
But naturally, the disbandment was not going to be reversed.
Because LE, which had experienced incidents like this countless times, knew.
That once time passed, the outrage would inevitably cool.
The world was overflowing with issues to talk about.
Above all, LE had a very simple justification.
They had merely proceeded according to the contract, reflecting the intentions of each agency.
The important thing was that they had deceived the fans, but they blurred the essence of the matter as if the real problem were the agencies’ desire to disband.
And LE continued on with a policy of complete non-response, insisting they bore absolutely no responsibility for the disbandment.
LE’s shirking of responsibility had a direct negative impact on the members.
[You’re saying the members will be hurt if we boycott?]
-Then wouldn’t it hurt them more if fans who’ve been with them for almost two years did nothing like pushovers when a trash article like that comes out five days before the concert?
[We’ve added content to the statement]
-An expression of intent to boycott derivative groups, redebuts in existing groups, and solo activities, along with wording supporting the seven members as one group, and a strong demand for an extension from each agency.
It was a declaration of boycott, saying that if the members left Saven, the fans would not support them—would not even look at them.
Since LE would not budge anyway, they were latching onto the members instead.
And as if the timing had been coordinated, a few rumors conveniently began circulating through communities.
[They say Top East was strongly against it]
-I heard it from an acquaintance who works at Shock Entertainment.
[Honestly, the big three agencies probably didn’t care about the extension]
-They already have a huge talent pool, so they’d be fine without them ㅇㅇ
[Why Top East is the most likely culprit]
-Honestly, Dohee’s specs are absurd for the idol industry, and Seoyun is the kind of kid who would’ve debuted no matter what even if she’d gone to one of the big four. In other words, Top East can’t do without those two. On top of that, it’s been a long time since they launched a girl group after Pastel Love, so of course they’d be in a hurry.
The story was that the extension had fallen through because of Top East.
[Exclusive) Saven to Disband as Scheduled Due to Differing Positions Among Agencies]
And then came an official article saying the agencies had been divided for and against, which added credibility.
Thanks to LE’s planned muddying of the waters, a few malicious fans quickly began to split apart.
[Yeeun and Hana ended up stranded like eggs in the Nakdong River]
-All because Top East stubbornly insisted on launching a girl group lol
If those two go back to tiny agencies, things are gonna get iffy, but the members from the big three agencies can’t fail because of their concrete fanbases, sigh...
The Top East members are so damn selfish
[If they disband, I’m supporting every member except the Top East ones]
-Don’t try to break my principles
└It’s an agency where my bias wasn’t in the first place;; I’m in favor too
└Support them or don’t, the Top East girls will do fine without you lot anyway
└Lol seeing bastards act like this when Dohee made that fan song and even worked on a track in the middle of her busy schedule just so she could see us one more time makes me want to puke
This was all the more effective because the fandom had been born from a survival program.
Of course, as if to refute those rumors, new rumors followed.
[They say Hana and Yeeun are both discussing a transfer to JS]
-There’s talk that JS made buyout offers to Hana and Yeeun’s agencies
If it goes through, they’ll probably redebut as girl group members with Sera
[So JS didn’t want an extension either]
-Well, considering how much money JS makes overseas, would they really give up someone as buzzworthy as Sera and form a new girl group? Even if they split the money with LE and Shock Entertainment, how much would that even be? More importantly, if it’s Sera, Hana, and Yeeun, that’s basically a Saven unit.
These, too, were posts intentionally put up by Top East as rebuttals based on the truth.
Fortunately, the content worked, and the controversy over Top East supposedly opposing the extension died down a little.
But the atmosphere had already turned into a swamp.
And the place where Saven and their fans should have shared a beautiful final moment and brought everything to a close seemed to have been ruined in the end.
* * *
“Want a drink?”
I brought over the drink unnie liked to have.
Seoyun unnie, who had accepted a drink she normally wouldn’t even touch before going onstage because of her nerves, gave a faint smile.
“Do you remember our first time at Jeodol? Back then, Naeun unnie was the one who was really nervous. Not me. But as time went on, maybe because the pressure built up, I ended up like that.”
I remembered.
At first, Seoyun unnie had only been busy teasing Naeun unnie and me. She wasn’t the nervous type.
“Try being more like me. Every stage is perfect, so there’s no reason to be nervous.”
“Perfect, my foot. That’s just your delusion.”
Seoyun unnie chuckled.
“But today, strangely enough, I’m not that nervous either. Weirdly.”
“Well, being weird is your passive skill, Ms. Seoyun.”
“Enough. Go check your in-ears.”
“Yes, ma’am~”
I nodded and looked around the waiting room for a moment.
Yesterday, and the day before yesterday too.
Protest trucks sent by the fans had been coming and going in front of the Shock Entertainment building.
News of our disbandment, and LE’s atrocities, had filled the front pages of entertainment newspapers.
Comments saying they wouldn’t come to the concert and malicious replies had appeared on my personal SNS.
And comments saying they would support us until the very end had appeared alongside them.
And still, we filmed the last behind-the-scenes footage, took photos to upload to SNS, checked our in-ears and electronic devices, and had our makeup and outfits touched up.
It was still an ordinary scene.
‘Do the fans still feel the same way?’
Even if I tried to stay composed, it was true that I felt anxious.
‘I guess I’m no different either.’
With my heart pounding, I left the waiting room corridor and headed outside, where the audience seats were visible.
When I passed beyond the stage’s temporary wall, I could see the stands behind it.
Gocheok Stadium. The place was filled with an astronomical number of fans, easily reaching twenty thousand, to the point that hardly any empty seats could be seen.
The chilly wind of early spring and all sorts of excited sounds echoed and swirled around.
It was a resonance that made me feel refreshed on its own.
My heart continued to pound abnormally.
For some reason, tears welled up in my eyes.
Worried I’d get scolded by the makeup artist, I wiped them away as if brushing off the tears and then ran at full speed back toward the waiting room.
My hair wouldn’t get ruined that much from this, right?
If it did, the hairstylist would scold me.
But even if it got ruined, I’d still be pretty, so it was fine.
In any case, once I ran into the waiting room, I needed something—anything—to calm this chaotic heartbeat.
Because I burst into the waiting room, I ended up drawing the full attention of the staff and the members.
It looked a little uncool, but sometimes, like now, emotions got ahead of me.
The members and I really were no different.
Except that I was a little prettier.
“Th-that... that! Should we do our chant now?”
For once, I kept wanting to shout that cringeworthy Saven chant today.
* * *
The high school girl who was an all-fan of Saven fidgeted with her fingers for no reason.
The people around her were filling their seats, but the atmosphere was definitely strange.
‘I-I have to enjoy this.’
She had resolved not to come to the concert in order to forget Saven, but at the thought that she would never be able to see them again, she had to put that resolution aside.
Were the people beside her the same?
She took her light stick out of her bag and repeatedly switched it on and off without any meaning.
Below it, a newly bought keyring dangled.
‘This one was cheap... so there’s no point refunding it.’
Even knowing that, she wanted to keep at least one piece of their final memories.
She subtly covered the keyring with her hand in case the people around her saw it, then glanced at the person beside her for no reason, wondering if she might suffocate.
Fortunately, the concert hall finally darkened.
At the same time, the electronic display shone brightly.
The opening VCR began to play.
An English phrase appeared along with the sound of fireworks.
The theme of Saven’s concert this time.
Saven days a week.
Together with Saven every day of the week, every week.
She had thought it meant they would always be together from now on too.
It wasn’t wrong.
‘Because it meant I’d think of them every week...’
In a way, it was a title fitting for the end.
After all, interpretations could be better than dreams.
The high school girl no longer had room to worry about that and poured all her attention into the VCR.
A city appeared, with the earth and sky reversed.
Dohee was walking down an empty road, and the members were each scattered, walking alone.
A lonely and solitary feeling.
The members each discovered something and ran toward it.
Then the members’ faces appeared on the screen, split into seven sections.
When their hands touched the symbols, light burst out, and the members appeared.
In that sense, there was nothing particularly special about the VCR.
Instead, it was the members who had appeared.
Seeing the members smile innocently and point toward the fans in the audience, she could only smile along.
If something was truly pretty and cute,
she could not be angry.