Starting with Kim Seoyun’s stomach growling, the members began expressing their hunger, and the PD shouted out the dinner mission. Preparations for dinner began.
[Hana: What do my babies want to eat! Unnie will make it all!]
But even choosing the menu proved far from easy.
[Harang: Really? Then I want rosé tteokbokki!]
[Seoyun: Oh my god, I love rosé tteokbokki.]
[Sera: I want galbijjim...]
[Yeeun: Uh... I...]
[Dohui: Yeeun unnie is going with me. Jeyuk-bokkeum.]
[Yeeun: Huh...? Why...? I want beef...]
[Dohui: Jeyuk-bokkeum sounds delicious~]
[Chaerin: (sighs) I’ll eat anything and enjoy it!]
The leader who would be taking charge of the cooking.
The members were too busy insisting on their own opinions, whether Hana glared at them or shot them a dirty look.
-They all have completely different tastes lol It’ll take forever to come to an agreement.
-Except for Chaerin, none of them have any sense lol
-Ah, why is Yeeun’s pathetic side so cute? I want to tease her ㅠㅠ
└Yeeun, ruled by the youngest... I’ve been thinking this lately, but Yeeun’s the real maknae. Dohui’s the unnie, for real.
-But doesn’t Dohui’s taste seem really manly?
└LOL seriously, our tastes are exactly the same.
Somehow, they settled on a menu through rock-paper-scissors, and things seemed to be proceeding smoothly.
But, as expected, the preparation process was chaotic.
The grocery-shopping team stopped by a supermarket to buy the ingredients, noisily roaming all over the place.
[Harang: Ah, I don’t really like jeyuk-bokkeum. Hey, should we just buy ingredients for tteokbokki?]
[Seoyun: (putting rice cakes into the cart) Okay. What are they gonna do if we buy rice cakes~]
[Yeeun: I don’t want to get scolded by Hana unnie and Dohui...]
[Harang: It’s okay. Unnie will protect you~]
Park Yeeun looked at Jeon Harang as if she couldn’t quite trust her.
Whether she noticed or not, Harang continued talking.
[Harang: More importantly, should we go for ice cream tteokbokki?]
[Seoyun: Oh, sounds good? Let’s go, let’s go. (running toward the ice cream)]
[Chaerin: Jeez... (putting the rice cakes back in their place)]
-Chaerin’s doing all the grocery shopping by herself lol
-How do these girls even live together?
-It’s a mess lol
Thanks to Chaerin managing to stop the members, they barely managed to finish shopping and return to the dorm.
It was the cooking team’s turn.
After receiving the ingredients, the cooking team began preparing the vegetables.
Hana was neatly trimming the vegetables.
-Oh, Hana gives off the vibe of someone experienced.
└Hana said she’s good at cooking.
└Yeah, she posts pictures of her cooking on Instagram sometimes.
-Kwon Hana. I hereby appoint you as the twenty-fourth candidate for my bride.
└Wow, hyung. I respect you.
-I wonder if Dohui and Sera are good at cooking too lol
The camera shifted to the side, accompanied by a comical BGM.
The cutting board was filled with vegetables that had been utterly massacred.
And a hand that continued massacring vegetables.
The camera slowly moved upward, accompanied by captions full of question marks.
Dohui was grinning brightly, while Sera watched her from the side.
-How did she butcher them that badly? LOL
-Ah, Dohui’s tiny little hands are killing me lol
-We finally found something Dohui can’t do... I majored in hotel culinary arts and am confident I can cook for her for the rest of her life. Dohui, won’t you marry oppa?
└Even if you were Gordon Ramsay, she wouldn’t marry you lol
└Fucking hell, then what do you do?
└I’m unemployed, so I’m just cheering her on lol
└Okay;;
-Inadequate cooking skills? Hey, Lee Dohui. As of today, you’re eliminated from my list of bride candidates.
└Thank you... Truly, thank you...
Of course, Hana wasn’t about to stand by and watch this. She appeared from off-screen, grabbed Dohui by the cheeks, and shook her.
After Seoyun went on to scold her, Dohui appeared on-screen.
[Dohui: Sniff... Mom used to praise me when I did it like this...]
“Holy shit... She’s so fucking cute...”
Just like Dohui’s home master’s reaction, the posts on the real-time timeline were also heating up.
-Lee Dohui. Congratulations. You have been reinstated as the first candidate for my bride.
└Dohui is so screwed...
-Ah, she’s seriously so cute lol Ah.
-What are we going to do about her looking for her mom? LOL Ah, I should’ve given birth to her. I should’ve been the one to give birth to Dohui!!!
-She’s a baby. A babyㅠㅠ
Of course, Dohui was only pretending to be pitiful, but the viewers had no way of knowing that.
Hana seemed to fall for it as well, soothing Dohui before finishing the cooking on her own.
-But why didn’t Sera cook at all??
└For real, she did it so naturally that I didn’t even notice lol
After they finished eating.
The members began preparing for bed.
Of course, the dorm was still noisy.
The dorm was filled with noise.
The camera focused on Chaerin, who appeared to be exhausted, lying on her bed with an eye mask on and headphones over her ears.
An interview scene was inserted.
Chaerin appeared with dark, hollow eyes.
[Q: You look really tired.]
[Chaerin: Ah, no, I’m not...(nods while saying that) I’m just... Ah... I’m really dying here.]
The PD continued with another question, laughing under his breath.
[Q: More importantly, I heard there’s something Chaerin really wants to say?]
Chaerin wore a bewildered expression, as if she were hearing this for the first time. Then, after checking something in front of her, she spoke clearly, as though reading from a script.
[Chaerin: Ah... Our debut song, ‘Rose Nebula,’ will be released in four days! Please show it lots of interest!...]
As soon as Chaerin finished speaking, a teaser for ‘Rose Nebula’ began playing.
Dohui’s home master had been so absorbed in the broadcast that she had lost track of time. When the teaser was inserted out of nowhere, she came to her senses and looked at the clock.
An entire hour had already passed.
“Ah, I guess it’s almost over.”
She had only been watching the girls play around, but she hadn’t expected it to be this entertaining.
The corners of her lips had been raised throughout the entire broadcast, and now the muscles there were stiff, showing no sign of relaxing.
“Is their next schedule the debut? Episode two will come out next week...”
Reluctantly, she decided to check the posts on the timeline.
[Today’s Summary]
Hana: A leader who cooks for everyone. Makes the kids work as much as she feeds them.
Harang: Noisy Kid #1.
Seoyun: Noisy Kid #2.
Dohui: Strangely noisy + too cute when massacring vegetables and acting adorable... I think I understand now why people call her DohuiDohui.
Sera: Dohui’s shadow. I genuinely have no idea what she’s thinking. Her personality and face are both catlike.
Yeeun: The real maknae. Yeeun is so lovable.
Chaerin: The victim... Even when she tries to read a book, they play music and scream in the room next door lol
-Summary appreciated.
-LOL I laughed the whole time watching this.
└Honestly, just looking at their faces makes me grin lol
-They all seem to have such different personalities lol
└Seoyun and Harang are exactly the same though...?
└??? Those two are basically one person.
-Ah, hurry up with the next episode. Ah, hurry up with the debut song. Ah, hurry up with the next serving of content.
Dohui’s home master liked the posts she related to and began making image edits from episode one of ‘SAVEN’s HAVEN.’
***
The day before the showcase.
“Yeeun, this move keeps getting out of sync. And I wish Harang would press her hand right against her face, too.”
They were standing on the stage where the showcase would be held, running through the rehearsal in advance.
After each stage rehearsal, they all gathered to monitor the footage, working on the details of the performance as well.
‘To think this huge stage is ours alone.’
Every time I stood onstage, my heart trembled.
More than anything, it felt like my chest was being squeezed.
Maybe that meant I was excited about tomorrow’s performance.
Though, strangely enough, it really did feel like my chest was being squeezed.
I brought a hand to my chest and tugged at the strap of my bra.
‘It really was being squeezed physically.’
At the beginning of the year, it had been fairly loose, but at some point my bra had become tight, creating a noticeable pressure.
In any case, the conclusion was that, just as my chest had grown, so had I as a person.
It was only now sinking in that tomorrow was our debut.
“Dohui, I think it’d be better if you took one step back here.”
Meanwhile, Seoyun unnie, who had been monitoring the footage, pointed at the screen and gave me feedback on the line that didn’t match hers.
‘She could just move forward herself.’
“Ms. Seoyun.”
I called out to Seoyun unnie in a formal tone.
“What?”
“We’re debuting, you know.”
“Yes, I know.”
Of course, Hana unnie wasn’t about to let even casual chatter slide.
“You two top-ists over there, focus.”
At Hana unnie’s words, I began pretending to be hurt.
“Gasp... Unnie, did you hear that? She called us top-ists...”
Seoyun unnie hugged me and spoke in a wounded tone.
“Oh my god... I’m totally offended. We’re in the same group, and we’re both part of Shock Entertainment...”
Of course, our infuriating expressions were an added bonus.
“Ah, they’re starting again.”
Hana unnie responded with obvious exhaustion.
“I guess we weren’t good enough for her... Sniff, sniff...”
“Hana unnie... We’ll do better... We’re sorry...”
Being the leader was no reason for us not to tease her.
“Ah, you’re so annoying.”
***
Blue Square in Hannam-dong.
Ilji Art Hall in Cheongdam-dong.
Yes24 Live Hall in Gwangjang-dong.
Together, these three venues were known as the Big Three showcase halls.
Each hall had an average capacity of around two thousand people.
But ‘SAVEN’s’ showcase was being held somewhere else.
[SAVEN]
[AURORA]
[SHOWCASE]
The faces of all seven members were emblazoned across the sign in huge letters.
The album title was written beneath them.
The enormous banner hung outside Olympic Handball Gymnasium, which had a capacity of five thousand.
That alone proved how much attention they were receiving, but a few fans who had been lining up outside the showcase venue since broad daylight expressed their disappointment.
“They could’ve rented a bigger gymnasium...”
They were also disappointed that the group wasn’t holding a show-concert instead.
“Exactly. The voting numbers were pretty similar to Season Two, too.”
It was a famous anecdote among hardcore idol fans that the project boy group Mono Rush had held a concert with twenty thousand fans at Gocheok Sky Dome instead of a debut showcase.
Of course, those numbers had been possible because boy-group fandoms had strong purchasing power, but Shock Entertainment, ‘SAVEN’s’ agency, was also confident that they could draw around ten thousand people.
However, their debut date had been moved forward so they could compete for the Rookie of the Year award.
They had only one short month.
Preparing a concert would likely deprive the members of sleep and push them to their limits, so the event had been arranged as a showcase out of consideration for them.
“Well, it can’t be helped. The preparation period was so short...”
“More importantly, did you buy the merch? It looks like it’ll sell out soon.”
“What? Sell out? More importantly, already?”
The performance was scheduled to begin at eight.
Normally, it was rare for merchandise to sell out, since plenty was prepared in advance.
Even so, by around four in the afternoon at the SAVEN showcase venue, every piece of merchandise except the light sticks had sold out.
The fans’ interest and attention continued to intensify, and the release of the music and the showcase performance drew closer.