Chapter 59
The first music broadcast since debut.
The first confrontation between BlueRed and Weers on Music Station ended with Weers' victory.
First of all, in terms of the buzz after the music broadcast ended, the difference between the two groups was starkly revealed.
[Station Fancam] Weers Sunwoo Rin Fancam 4K 'HERO' Sunwoo Rin FanCam)
[Views: 230,637]
As soon as the individual fancam video was uploaded, the views rose terrifyingly.
At the current rate, Sunwoo Rin's fancam video was recording more than three times the views of Riki, who had the highest fancam views among BlueRed's members.
An even more encouraging piece of news was the influx of foreign fans due to the music broadcast.
Foreign fans' reactions, saying they had newly become Weers fans after watching the stage video of Weers, who didn't yet have a significant fanbase overseas, began to increase in real-time.
-From today, I am a fan of Weers. They perfectly pulled off the HERO stage.
-Sunwoo Rin's gaze is amazing. My breath hitched looking at his eyes.
-The future of K-pop, Weers will lead it.
-Amazing stage! Amazing performance! They don't seem like rookies at all.
The final destination of the newly influxed foreign fans was the communication video of Sunwoo Rin with his overseas fans during his National Idol days.
-Is this video perhaps a scene from a drama? If not, Sunwoo Rin's foreign language skills make no sense.
└This was an actual situation conducted live. He actually showed proficiency in 9 languages.
└This is truly amazing. He must be a genius!
While attention was once again pouring into Sunwoo Rin's fan channel 'Rin's Arsenal', who had taken a break from activities for a while after the audition until debut.
On the contrary, BlueRed's insincere attitude during the 1st place announcement at Music Station became a problem.
[BlueRed, unhappy expressions at A-Teen's 1st place?]
A post containing a single photo was uploaded to a community.
The repercussions quickly began to snowball.
-Isn't A-Teen a 1-year senior to BlueRed? A senior group won 1st place after a long time, is it normal for them to be sitting behind with sour expressions?
└Even if they aren't a senior group, doing that during a 1st place announcement is bad manners...
-A-Teen is up for contract renewal soon, and fans might not know if this is their last activity, so this 1st place must have been really meaningful. BlueRed ruined it.
-Anyone who liked A-Teen would know that BlueRed has ignored A-Teen since before? BlueRed is making a comeback after a year and a half, and they still haven't fixed that habit.
In a way, it was a trivial matter.
There had been cases where expressions were maliciously captured to intentionally create controversies.
Since it was BlueRed's first week of activities, they weren't even candidates for 1st place, so it wasn't a situation where they'd be tied to A-Teen.
However.
Along with the things BlueRed had done so far, the accumulated resentment from A-Teen's side began to explode.
-I absolutely won't see BlueRed take 1st place next week.
-Let's stop BlueRed from getting 1st place by any means. Looking at this stage, the Weers kids are better than BlueRed. Let's support them instead.
-Right, the Weers kids enthusiastically congratulated our kids from behind when they won 1st place. It makes sense to support Weers.
The fact that A-Teen's fandom, who were wrapping up their activities this week, decided to support Weers to block BlueRed's 1st place.
Could only be described as an unexpected stroke of luck for Weers.
***
Weers' first week of music broadcast tour since debut came to an end.
Compared to MusicNet's Music Station, which could be considered their home ground, the public broadcasting music shows treated Weers poorly.
An idol group from a cable audition, setting new debut records daily on the music charts and album sales, but rookies were still rookies.
On public broadcasting music shows, they either didn't give Weers a pre-recorded stage, or if they did, the stage quality was almost the same as a live broadcast stage.
'I wonder if the treatment will improve a bit if we make it to the 1st place candidates next week.'
The most directly felt thing by the Weers members was the waiting room.
Unlike Music Station, where they were given an entire spacious waiting room to themselves.
At other music broadcasts, they had to share one waiting room with another team, or even wait together with 3 or 4 teams in a space divided by partitions.
A reality that rookies naturally had to experience.
They knew that, but the fact that they couldn't even rest properly in the waiting room seemed to hit the already exhausted members as quite a harsh reality.
'How many years do we have to be active to get a single room? Please...'
'I need rest... I want to lie down and sleep...'
Even Baek Si-hyun, who rarely complained, was muttering like this.
After experiencing how grueling the music broadcast schedule was, I somehow felt a bit of respect for idol seniors.
Except for BlueRed, of course...
Anyway, the first week of music broadcasts was all over.
It was almost certain that they would make it to the 1st place candidates next week.
Anticipating slightly different treatment...
Today, we stood in the hallway with other rookie groups in the same boat, waiting for all the cast members to leave work.
"Still, it's nice that the Sunday music show ends early."
"Right, how long has it been since we left work seeing the sun..."
It was not even 4 PM yet. Kang A-jin and Shim Sung-ha were talking, enjoying the joy of getting off work.
"Well, to be exact, it's not a real clock-out."
It was Woo Jung-woo's single statement that poured cold water on the sparkling eyes of Kang A-jin and Shim Sung-ha.
"No, I'm just trying to get in the mood for once, ugh..."
As Shim Sung-ha muttered to himself, Woo Jung-woo pretended not to hear and spoke as if to tease him more.
"Wow! Today we have our first W App live at the company, and after that, our first fan sign event, right?"
"I know that too!!"
Looking at Woo Jung-woo, who was still teasing Shim Sung-ha like a child, I let out a sigh inwardly.
'It's good that he works hard... but why is he so childish at times like this.'
Woo Jung-woo was the type to actually gain more energy the more work he had. That was why he looked even brighter these days.
It was probably because of his experience of failing after his first debut.
It seemed like he felt a sense of stability only when he had a lot of work.
While we were waiting like that. A-Teen, a senior group, was the first to slip out.
When we bowed to the A-Teen members passing in front of us.
"Weers, you must get 1st place next week!"
"Fighting!"
"We'll cheer for you!"
For some unknown reason, A-Teen's members left words of support for us as they left.
"What... is this?"
"Well... did they think well of us?"
It was a bit perplexing, but anyway, we thanked the senior group for their support and sent off A-Teen.
"They're... coming."
As soon as someone from another group muttered, BlueRed walked out from the far end of the hallway.
BlueRed walked out quickly, ignoring the juniors bowing to them.
And today, I accidentally made eye contact with BlueRed's Riki, who was showing off his muscles to the fullest again.
Glance-
I saw Riki avoid my eyes and walk away, looking only ahead.
Only after all the senior singers, including BlueRed, finished leaving work did we board our car.
As soon as we got in the car, the topic of conversation for the laughing members was, once again, BlueRed's Riki.
"Hehe, did you see Riki avoiding his eyes?"
"You have to avoid monsters on your own..."
"As expected of Rin-hyung, fixing a person's personality with a single handshake. You're the best physical therapist."
After the handshake incident at Music Station, Riki's behavior of constantly avoiding me was still an endless topic of conversation for the members.
"Guys. You can talk like this inside, but you must never say such things when you go outside or when other people are around."
When the manager spoke with concern, the members answered energetically.
"Don't worry!"
"We'll never say such things outside."
"Still, you have to be careful."
Since the members were trained through National Idol interviews, they wouldn't make a mistake, but the manager still spoke as if giving a final warning and called my name.
"Rin, it's true that nothing happened with BlueRed since then, right?"
"Yes, we only greeted each other."
"Still, just in case..."
The manager glanced at my body through the rearview mirror and said with a sigh.
"When we're outside, everyone stay close to Rin and don't stray."
"Yes!"
Um, Manager-hyung? Am I some kind of human shield?
While I was feeling like I had somehow become a babysitter. The van we were riding in was rushing hard towards the company.
***
The second schedule of the day was exactly.
The W App live broadcast.
"Two, three!"
"Forever together! Hello, we are Weers!"
The members greeted in sync with my chant, and at the same time, a massive number of chats began to rise in the chat window in real-time.
-Guys!!! I missed you!!!!
-Waaa~~~ Weers!
-To think it's the first W App live broadcast...!
-You came right after the music show ended.
"It's the historic first W App broadcast!"
"Waaaaah!"
Actually, it had been a while since the W App channel was created, but the first broadcast was delayed until today because we decided we should all gather at the company and do it properly.
"There's a cake here too!"
Kang A-jin picked up the cake on the desk that read 'Congrats on Weers' Debut!' and brought it in front of the camera.
"Wow! The chat window is going up so fast that I can't even read it."
"How many people are in right now?"
"One, ten, hundred, thousand... Over ten thousand people came in as soon as we started!"
It didn't end at ten thousand; seeing the number of viewers steadily increasing, I thought it might reach nearly the 100,000 range.
"The firepower is really amazing."
"Rin-hyung, can you read the chat by any chance?"
"Hold on a moment."
I looked over the chat window, which seemed to go up 3 pages per second.
"Ah! They're asking us to explain the greeting."
"Hyung, you can see that?"
"Wow, even your dynamic visual acuity..."
Ignoring the members' words of admiration, I explained the greeting.
"Yes, our greeting is 'Forever together!'. Actually, Eugene's opinion was strongly reflected in the greeting."
"That's right, Eugene-hyung cried saying it had to be this..."
"W-what...?"
At Shim Sung-ha's slander, Eugene Kim was slightly flustered, but quickly managed his expression and answered again.
"Uh, it's also a line from the lyrics of this album's side track 'Our Spring', and rather than a cool and intense greeting, I wanted to create a greeting that could convey meaning to the fans."
"I think it's really great...!"
"As Eugene said, it's a greeting made with the resolve to be with the fans forever."
Agreeing with Eugene Kim's words, Baek Si-hyun and Park Han-hwi spoke.
"Definitely better than 'Let's expand to the world, Weers!'..."
"Shh...!"
When Kang A-jin tried to say the forbidden sentence that was one of our greeting candidates, I hastily covered Kang A-jin's mouth, but.
-Hahahahahahahahahahahaha
-Let's expand to the world Hahaha
-No... Let's go global is a bit...;;;;;
-Eugene, you did a great thing!
"Tha... that was just one of the many candidates."
"Right, it was definitely not the final candidate."
"It almost became the final one, though..."
Thinking back to that time still makes me dizzy.
'It's not like some corporate slogan.'
Fortunately, Eugene Kim's alternative matched the CEO's taste, so it was a relief.
The fact that they seriously considered that phrase was humor itself.
"Tha-that's not what's important. Actually, there's one most important piece of news on today's first W App live broadcast, right?"
I hastily changed the topic.
"Yes, right!"
"From now on, we need the fans' help!"
Looking at the other members eagerly chiming in, I continued speaking.
"That is... the recruitment for Weers' 1st generation fan club begins!"
"Waaaaah!"
Actually, the goal of this W App broadcast was to officially announce the fan club recruitment.
And.
"At the same time, the fandom name will be decided through your submissions."
"Please make it a good name!"
"We trust you...!"
The reason we left the fandom name to the fans was definitely not because we couldn't trust the company's naming sense...
Really...
-Wow! A fan club...! Finally!
-Guys, trust only us!!!
-We can make something better than Let's go global!
-Hahaha look at how desperate everyone is
After announcing the fan club founding along with the fandom name submission.
The first W App live broadcast ended with the fans' passionate response.
"We finished well, right?"
"A fan club, I'm looking forward to it!"
"Great job, everyone!"
When we finished the live broadcast and were exchanging greetings with the staff.
Suddenly, the surroundings quieted down, and a chilling aura lingered in the room.
"C-CEO!"
The agency's CEO, whom I had only thought of as a friendly-looking middle-aged man.
But ever since I heard he was a member of a chaebol family, he made me very uncomfortable, and he visited the office where the live broadcast was held.
"You all worked hard."
"Thank you, CEO!"
"I watched the broadcast well. But..."
The CEO, who greeted us with his characteristic laugh, suddenly trailed off and looked at us.
"Let's expand to the world, Weers. Was it really that bad?"
At the CEO's words, the members' gazes all focused on me.
'Bear the weight of the leader.'
'I only trust you, hyung.'
'If you don't speak honestly now, then in the future...'
The members' inner thoughts conveyed through their eyes.
I took those gazes to heart and answered confidently, looking straight into the CEO's eyes.
"I thought it was good. CEO."
"Hahaha. Right?"
I avoided the members' gazes, who were looking at me with absurd eyes, and thought.
'Min's university tuition, living expenses, and jeonse deposit...'
To live only honestly, the world was not easy.