Chapter 625
Chapter 625
A few hours ago.
‘Ah… what should I do?’
Ryu Gun-woo—the Keun-dal currently on leave—groaned as he scoured English-speaking websites. It seemed his English studies hadn't been in vain, as the text flowed easily into his mind.
Of course, he was looking for only one thing.
The Glastonbury Festival, where TeSTAR was performing.
He remembered when he had received the news from his older brother even before the articles were published.
He could still vividly see himself screaming about why the ticketing had to end so early last year.
‘Since it’s come to this, I was going to at least look for a real-time text broadcast…’
However, today was Friday, the day of the performance.
An emergency had occurred: the headliner had vanished right before the show due to an injury. To make matters worse, the headliner brought in as a last-minute replacement was something of a miscast, leaving the English-speaking community in a somber mood.
If things continued like this, the outcome was obvious.
Naturally, the absence would draw more attention, and the Friday performance itself would likely wither away as nothing more than a continuation of the pre-festival festivities.
Those who hadn't managed to get tickets seemed to feel this way with the somewhat desperate heart of a loser, but…
Suddenly, starting from the afternoon, some band had pulled off something insane on the main stage.
And who else could it be?
‘Hyung!’
It was the very group that had driven Keun-dal to scour English sites. TeSTAR!
TeSTAR had opened with a band live version of a movie OST—likely their most popular song in the English-speaking world—and then followed it up with an incredibly experimental, heavy hip-hop track.
They had even gone as far as transforming their latest title track into a style they had never officially released in an album before!
‘Aaaaah!’
There was no point in screaming about why they hadn't shown this in Korea or why a tour VOD wasn't being released.
Because even though there were few TeSTAR fans there to begin with, everyone was already screaming.
In the few YouTube fancams being uploaded immediately, the cameras shook visibly with exclamations of bewilderment and surprise like "What?", proving just how unexpected the choice was.
But what was even more surprising was this:
[This is the next song.]
They had pulled another fast one with the very next track.
‘Gasp.’
TeSTAR selected one of their previous title tracks, characterized by a bright, beautiful melody and soft, dance-like lines.
It was Promise.
[The keyword is 'Mermaid.']
It was a selection that felt almost as if they were teasing the audience.
From the perspective of the stereotypes prevalent on the global internet, it was a quintessential, textbook K-Pop stage.
Bright colors, wholesome and cheerful lyrics, and a smooth, polished choreography featuring water.
[You could say this is a song for a rainy day like today.]
[Yep, we worked hard checking the UK weather for June. So, this is a natural choice.]
And they even added such plausible-sounding excuses!
But by this point, people began to react enthusiastically to that very aspect.
Rather, they were consistent.
That attitude of not being fixed in one way, of seemingly doing whatever they wanted to do.
And yet, the quality of none of it dropped.
They knew what they were doing, and they did it well!
Everything looked incredibly experimental, and that 'experimentalism' itself was enough to make it seem like the band's color.
Pointless nitpicking didn't work either.
It was thanks to TeSTAR having already made a name for themselves on the English-speaking internet through their unique tour.
The defense held!
‘Wow.’
Keun-dal scrolled down excitedly.
If it had been a normal performance with the headliner intact, it might have ended as a modest event where people thought, ‘Oh, there are guys like this too.’
But there was no headliner.
Thanks to that, TeSTAR had sucked up all the attention during this peculiar period.
The story of the K-Pop band that suddenly appeared on the main stage and performed however they pleased became quite a hot topic on the internet.
By the time fancams were uploaded in the evening, the amount of mentions was enough to reach the top of search engine rankings.
‘Amazing!’
Keun-dal, who had now mastered advanced search engine techniques to some extent, looked back at the phenomenon with a flushed face.
It was a shame he couldn't go in person.
He even thought about wanting to see the situation through a shared vision with his brother, but that was an overstepping request and something difficult to do now…
‘I can't even see the Status Window anymore.’
He could only pick out the subtle changes in Ryu Cheong-woo, the person standing at the center during the most impressive song, while watching the fancams.
That presence was visible even through the shaky focus and noise.
[No more bad feelings]
That firm, clear, and calm momentum captured on the electronic display caught his eye.
‘It feels like… he’s surpassed his limits.’
As someone who was once a Status Window, he watched the scene keenly once more.
Keun-dal knew the news of Ryu Cheong-woo’s hiatus, but he wasn't that worried anymore.
[Bad feelings]
Somehow, he had a good feeling.
In that way, TeSTAR filled a setlist of over five songs with completely different vibes, changing their outfits just by putting on or taking off hoods, and stubbornly did everything they wanted to do.
Thanks to this, VTIC's headliner performance the following day received a somewhat peculiar kind of interest.
VTIC had instead become a stable point of comparison.
Originally, just being a K-Pop headliner was expected to be quite polarizing and received as a somewhat unconventional or different stage.
But this time, it wasn't like that.
There had been a K-Pop group on the previous day, and they had dropped such mind-blowingly unexpected song choices.
Paradoxically, it produced a strange effect where VTIC felt lacking in surprise.
It couldn't be helped.
VTIC had already taken a strong gamble just by appearing as headliners, and because of that, they had wisely removed more dangerous attempts from their options.
They had created a stage by appropriately mixing a composition familiar to the English-speaking world with their own conceptual individuality.
Under normal circumstances, it would have been a very successful stage and would have received praise in various ways.
In fact, good reviews were following, saying they were indeed worthy of being headliners and that they were heavy and cool, but the problem was the buzz.
If only TeSTAR hadn't been there.
In the end, all buzz is a double-edged sword, and a winner is bound to be decided.
His brother, TeSTAR's Park Moon-dae, had actually made this diagnosis instantly, but Keun-dal didn't know that much.
However, Keun-dal also had faith.
Faith that his brother would absolutely make good use of this situation.
‘Because Hyung was always like that…’
Even when he, as the Status Window, showed him absurd traits or status effects. He always found an exit and found a unique way to use them.
Recalling those times, Keun-dal felt an unexpected sentiment.
It wasn't longing, anxiety, or a sense of debt…
‘I think it was rewarding.’
A light sense of achievement.
He truly felt that if he hadn't been the Status Window, it would have been a really great situation. That is, if he had been a sort of helper!
Of course, that thought passed quickly, and what caught his eye were new English comments.
Posts clamoring for TeSTAR to release the Glastonbury version of the remix flooded in.
Like a kind of meme, TeSTAR's performance went viral.
And that began to be re-imported back to Korea exactly as it was.
“Good.”
Keun-dal smiled as he looked at those compliments.
It was a good feeling to have people who liked the same things he did.
Then, he accidentally opened a page he had visited before because it flashed by in the address bar.
“Ah.”
It was an SNS account that showed album sales.
It was a page he had looked at while they were competing with VTIC and had felt a bit discouraged by.
Of course, since the first-week sales period had ended a long time ago, it was meaningless now, but…
“Huh?”
Keun-dal blinked.
The change in figures was strange.
This was the sales volume from a few days ago.
And.
Today's sales volume.
A figure more than double that of the day before the Glastonbury performance was recorded.
“…?”
Even though it had been weeks since the album was released, sales had actually gone up.
For a moment, Keun-dal thought he had misseen it, but he soon realized.
‘Ah, it’s a promotional effect!’
He realized that this, too, was an effect of the Glastonbury Festival.
However, since the original title track and the remixed song from the performance had completely different vibes, it didn't seem to show a dramatic change in the graph.
‘Hmm.’
So he went back to the English page.
“Oh boy.”
Keun-dal’s head tilted at the intriguing posts, but…
Vrrrrt!
“…!”
He was startled by the vibration and immediately snapped back to attention.
It was a notification on his smartphone. He came to his senses.
‘This isn't the time for this!’
[<Notification> Break time is over!]
Seeing that the time was up, Keun-dal quickly turned off his smartphone.
As he had promised his brother, he no longer blindly entrusted his joys and sorrows to TeSTAR.
But at the same time, he didn't become dry by completely excluding them from his life.
He was still working hard today to maintain a balance and keep an attitude of monitoring TeSTAR as one of the pleasures in his life…
Actually, he had a lot to do today as well!
“Ah, just a moment!”
Keun-dal stood up from his seat.
During his leave, he now had something he was preparing for.
And at the same time.
TeSTAR was also in the middle of something they were preparing hard for.
Of course, they were enjoying a short pleasure before that.
“Oh, how about this? ‘TeSTAR, the Words of the Challenger that Echoed through Glastonbury’!”
“Coooooool.”
“I am honored!”
TeSTAR, lying in a van with the backrests tilted back so far it was practically a sleeper car, applauded each other.
“Hyung, you were amazing!”
“Thanks.”
Naturally, the MVP among them was Ryu Cheong-woo.
And he had something he wanted to say.