Chapter 100
[Weirs, Major US Media Focus... "The brightest star at the MusicNet Awards was Weirs."]
[Weirs and James Blake's joint stage, foreign media pours in praise.]
[Weirs, surpasses 10 million views for 'MusicNet Awards' stage in just one day. Higher view count than the Grand Prize winner 'Cross.']
Weirs's awards ceremony stage created a bigger impact than expected.
The biggest reason was the joint performance with the big star James Blake.
But setting that aside, not just Weirs's fans but many K-pop fans admired and acknowledged that the stage itself was a well-crafted, successful performance.
As a result, the attention on Weirs rose even further, comparable to Cross who received the Grand Prize.
The perception was planted that they were not simply rising rookies who received the Rookie Award, but a group capable of challenging for the Grand Prize.
Of course, that didn't mean they had caught up to Cross all at once.
However, it was definitely a good sign for Weirs that comments about seeing Weirs in a new light continued to appear on K-pop communities.
And then.
'Is this the biggest achievement?'
I checked again the screenshot that Eugene Kim had shown me last night with a flushed face.
In the screenshot, a large photo of James Blake and Weirs's stage could be seen in the middle of Billboard's main page.
The awards ceremony stage with James Blake was featured in a Billboard article. And not just anywhere, but displayed as large as a door in the middle of the website's main page.
'We may not be the main characters... but it's true that our faces made it onto the Billboard main page.'
Actually, the main character of the article was James Blake, not us. The content was about James Blake breaking his long hiatus and performing a joint stage with a Korean idol group at the awards ceremony.
Regarding Weirs, they were briefly mentioned as a famous Korean idol group from an audition show, and that was all.
Still, having my face up on the Billboard website was something. Perhaps because of this, I heard that Weirs's songs were slowly climbing the overseas K-pop charts.
'I wonder if our overseas recognition went up even a little.'
Other foreign media besides Billboard also covered the joint stage of James Blake and Weirs.
So maybe it was okay to expect at least a tiny bit. Anyway, that was the extent of my thoughts on the awards ceremony stage.
'Why are they acting like this?'
It would be nice if only good things happened.
But along with the good things, bad things also occurred.
That was Cross's fandom starting to keep Weirs in check.
It started like this:
- Weirs got the last stage of Part 2? Isn't this a bit problematic? All the other rookie groups performed in Part 1. No matter how Weirs is from MusicNet, pushing them up this hard is too much... Honestly, even being a Grand Prize candidate was already nonsense.
└More than that, wasn't the joint stage forced? What connection do Weirs and James Blake have to perform together? It seems like they just decided to give Weirs a boost at the awards ceremony.
- I knew they were getting pushed because they're from MusicNet, but I didn't think they'd do it so openly even at an awards ceremony.
It was right after the awards ceremony ended that complaints about Weirs started to leak out from within Cross's fans.
There were several reasons for this.
MusicNet invested too much in Weirs's stage alone, the joint stage itself was possible because MusicNet pushed for it, the fairness of the awards ceremony was questionable, and so on.
It was a very petty incitement for the fandom of the Grand Prize-winning singer to do to a junior group, but they also had their reasons.
It was the fact that Weirs's stage received more attention than Cross, who received the Grand Prize.
That was what rubbed Cross's fans the wrong way.
'Don't tell me they issued orders or something.'
I recalled the face of Cross's leader Jinhyuk that I had seen at the previous awards ceremony.
After our stage ended and we met again, Jinhyuk looking at me with subtle eyes of vigilance.
And the meaningful words he left me with at the very end.
After that first meeting at the awards ceremony, Jinhyuk had become a slightly uncomfortable person to me.
'Anyway, it is concerning.'
While it felt strange to become the target of vigilance from a group like Cross, at the same time, I couldn't help but be concerned.
'Will we meet again at the music festival?'
An event that idol groups cannot avoid.
The year-end music festivals of the three broadcasting networks.
That music festival was now only a few weeks away.
***
"Haa, there's really no time to rest."
Baek Si-hyun, who got into the car, let out a small sigh and spoke to me.
"This month... it can't be helped."
I gave a short reply and leaned back against the car seat.
We were on our way to the next schedule after finishing one group schedule.
Looking out the window, I could see the already darkened sky.
It seemed like we'd be returning to the dorm around dawn again today.
As the end of the year approached, we had been handling schedules like this for a while.
Every day, there were 2 to as many as 3 schedules.
Come to think of it, we seemed busier now than during album promotions.
Part of it was because Weirs was doing well, but thinking about it, it was probably more because of the year-end music festival.
On top of various schedules, we also had to prepare for the three broadcasting networks' music festival stages.
At this time, even two bodies wouldn't be enough.
"Still, if practice ends early today, we might be able to rest a bit."
"Aah... I really hope it ends quickly."
The place Baek Si-hyun and I were heading to right now was StarRoad Entertainment.
It was to prepare for the MBS Music Festival stage, which was now only a week away.
A stage where a total of 3 groups would form one team and prepare together.
For this stage, 3 rookie boy groups would be covering a senior group's song.
And that senior's song was coincidentally Cross's song.
'That means we can't do this half-heartedly.'
Of course, even if it wasn't Cross's song, I had no intention of doing it half-heartedly, but since we were covering Cross's song, we absolutely couldn't show a sloppy performance.
The moment we made even a small mistake, we'd immediately be screenshotted and mocked by Cross's fans.
'Why out of all the senior idols, it had to be a Cross song.'
Even without the previous incident, Cross's songs were never good choices for covers.
Basically, Cross was a group that had competed with performance skills since their debut, so the choreography difficulty was on the higher side and it was very difficult to pull off live.
So fans even had a strange pride that only Cross could handle their songs.
Having to cover such a song, even if we did well, we'd barely break even, and if we didn't, it was a straight ticket to hell.
'Still, if they tell us to do it, we have to... what can we do.'
Our position right now was just a first-year idol group that had to do what the broadcasting network told us to do.
Naturally, there was no way we had any right to refuse.
That is, unless a rookie group wanted to pick a fight with a broadcasting company.
'Still, it's a relief we have comrades.'
It wasn't just us suffering; two more teams were sharing this suffering with us.
It seemed to provide at least a little comfort.
Thinking that, Baek Si-hyun and I arrived at the StarRoad Entertainment building, and on our way to the practice room, we naturally saw two people hanging out in the company lobby.
"Hey! Hey!"
"Stop stop! This is our area."
"They're noisy already."
"It hasn't been that long... wait, actually, we keep seeing you hyungs!"
The one team that would be on the music festival stage with us was the two members of Zeus who were making a racket in the company lobby right now, the Bu brothers.
"Since you've come here, you must follow our control..."
"Si-hyun, let's go first."
"Huh...?"
"Seonwoo Rin! Come with me! You don't even know the way!"
"Then come quickly."
Like that, I led the Bu brothers and headed to the practice room inside the company.
As expected of a famous agency, there were bigger and better practice rooms than our company.
"Blackjack hasn't arrived yet, right?"
"Yeah, well, there's about 10 minutes left until the meeting time."
"We came a bit early."
Weirs, Zeus, and the last team, Blackjack.
These three groups with 7 members would form one team for this performance.
While waiting for the Blackjack members who hadn't arrived yet, I caught up with the Bu brothers after a long time.
"Looks like you two are the aces in Zeus."
"We're not aces, but well, we're confident in learning dances quickly. Isn't that why you guys were selected too?"
"Si-hyun said he wanted to do it. I was dragged out."
"You say that, but you're trying to get first place again?"
Bu Ji-seok said with a smile at my words.
First place... come to think of it, gathering with these members after so long, it was impossible not to think of the audition days.
"When was the last time these members were on one team? The second round of the competition?"
"That's right, the competition song was 'Girl of the Blue Sea'."
Recalling that time, the name Yuwon also came to mind, but I didn't bring it up out loud.
"It's amazing that we debuted and are preparing a stage together again..."
Baek Si-hyun, who had been listening to our conversation, muttered softly as if recalling old memories.
"Yeah. It is amazing. It would have been even better if the song we're performing wasn't a Cross song, though."
At Baek Si-hyun's words, Bu Ji-seok responded, and I nodded and stood up from my seat.
"Alright, let's get up."
"Huh?"
"Suddenly?"
The Bu brothers looked at me with puzzled eyes.
"We rested, so now we have to start practicing."
"Huh? The Blackjack people haven't even arrived yet?"
"Are you going to play around until they come?"
"Ugh..."
"Don't make weird noises and get up quickly."
At my words, Bu Ji-seok and Bu Ji-hoon made strange noises and stood up from their seats.
Baek Si-hyun was already stretching next to me since I stood up.
"Si-hyun... you're used to this?"
"W-well..."
"He's already been tamed."
I spoke to the two who were looking at Baek Si-hyun with pitiful expressions.
"Alright, I'll give you exactly 3 minutes to stretch."
"N-no!"
"We're not trainees anymore! This isn't the audition dorm...!"
Seeing the two of them rebelling reminded me vividly of the old days.
'Right, this is how practice should be.'
"Now, one call and wake up. Two calls and get ready."
"Noooo!"
"Ugh!"
***
We had been practicing while waiting for the Blackjack members, and it was only about 30 minutes after the agreed time that we could finally see them.
"Hello!"
"Our previous schedule ended late, so we're a bit late..."
"You were already practicing."
The three Blackjack members entered the practice room with bright smiles.
Seeing the three of them enter the practice room, I felt an uneasy sensation.
Whether they were overly sociable or completely clueless.
The three Blackjack members arrived at the practice room and leisurely started preparing to practice.
"Were you following the choreography? Cross's choreography is really difficult, right?"
"We looked at it a bit in the car, and it's really intense."
"Let's take a little break before starting, shall we? How about resting for 30 minutes?"
I could see the Blackjack members chattering away next to us.
Baek Si-hyun and the Bu brothers were watching the Blackjack members while glancing at me for my reaction.
"Since everyone's gathered now, let's talk for a bit."
When I spoke, the Blackjack members scurried over and took seats in front of me.
'I didn't say to sit down.'
I sighed looking at the Blackjack members sitting and watching us, then sat down myself.
Soon, we were sitting in a circle on the practice room floor.
"Then let's introduce ourselves..."
"Hey! We all know each other. Who doesn't know Weirs and Zeus? You four know all our names too, right?"
The Blackjack member cut off my words and spoke.
His name was... Chanhyung, I think.
Of course, I didn't originally know it; I had memorized the names before coming today.
Next to Chanhyung were members named Dojin and Won.
"When did Weirs debut? Was it April? And Zeus debuted a bit later than that, right?"
Chanhyung suddenly brought up when we debuted.
Even as we looked at Chanhyung without saying anything, he continued speaking without hesitation.
"We Blackjack debuted in January. If you put it that way, we're the most senior, right? Right guys?"
"I guess so."
"Hey, we debuted in the same year, there's no senior-junior between us, hyung. Trying to establish hierarchy right from the start again."
'What are they trying to do?'
I quietly watched the three Blackjack members doing their own thing, and then, unable to hold back any longer, I spoke up.
"Anyway, we need to start practicing right away, did you look at the choreography? Cross is 6 members but we're 7, so there might be some issues with the formations..."
"Ah! Don't worry. The choreography is usually handled by Won here in our team. Won will take charge this time too. Right?"
"If hyung tells me to do it, I have to do it. So shall I take the lead and start the practice?"
'Oh my...'
Watching them quietly, it felt like this would never end.
I exchanged glances with the Bu brothers and then nodded.
'Sortie, Bu brothers.'