The Stream Room’s Going to Explode! - 1
On the last day of May, after I finally finished wrapping up the contract ties with stubborn Live Future, the announcement I’d kept putting off at last went up.
Aurora Prism Entertainment Notice
Title: Notice Regarding the Platform Move and 3D Showcase
For the same reason, we wish to move toward a wider world. In addition, the 3D showcase will also be held on the new channel at [June 1, 6:00 PM]. For more details, please visit our official website…
The announcement said the 3D showcase would happen the very next day.
People laughed less at the content itself than at the fact that it was a classic small-time move to announce it the day before. That ridiculousness only made it spread faster.
*
Amid all that indifference and speculation, one of ABCD’s fans who had been cheering in silence up to then finally put his fingers on the keyboard.
Still...
Tap— they really were sincere.
June 1.
At a motion-capture studio on the outskirts of Seoul, the doors were locked and a sign reading No Entry Except Authorized Personnel had been hung outside. Inside, employees hurried back and forth in a bustle that filled the building with nervous energy.
As I sat in the quiet waiting room, I could hear voices moving busily through the studio beyond.
“We’ll recalibrate the cameras and run it again.”
“Clara, please extend your left hand all the way out!”
“Yes, yes…!”
“Good. Then let’s walk one full circle!”
“Yes!”
Aki lifted her arms and looked them over.
Even though she was only wearing light training clothes, her limbs felt heavy under the tracking gear. The compression bands restricted her joints, and even breathing felt strangely difficult.
This was borrowed from the studio. What if it falls off while we’re dancing? Is it different from the gear the company uses?
Worry kept rising in my chest. We had done adaptation training in group lessons with sandbags and the like, but now that the equipment was actually strapped onto us in this room, it all felt unsettling.
Berry was sitting nearby in her own tracking gear, her legs jittering nonstop. She buried her face in trembling palms and muttered an English prayer under her breath.
“Lord God our Father… please…”
“…”
“Please, help me…”
Anyone could see she was one breath away from shattering. The pressure of her first official event was clearly grinding her down.
She was the second member of the group, but her heart was the softest of all, so there wasn’t much to be done about it.
Still, she always pulls herself together and does well for lessons and streams. You can do it, Berry.
I didn’t say that aloud. If I said it to her while she was already in a near-meltdown state, even that would probably become another burden.
Instead, I looked to the side.
DoDa had taken off her tracking gear and was studying the group choreography video on her phone, lips pushed out in a pout. Her face was serious, but in her own way she looked relaxed.
“Aren’t you nervous, DoDa?”
“Honestly, I don’t think anyone expects us to deliver a perfect performance anyway. We just have to do our best, right?”
And yet DoDa kept biting at her lower lip.
It wasn’t even a proper live, just a showcase being thrown out there as our declaration on Pazijik, but…
It was the first time. The first time we would show our performance to the world.
“We’re five minutes from rehearsal! Everyone, please get ready—!”
“!”
“!”
“!”
Everyone looked up.
This was it.
That realization was suddenly heavy.
And even then, the only official performance we get to show is a single three-minute song…
Out of the four group songs we’d prepared, we could only show one. It was impossible to polish everything to perfection in just two weeks after the billion-won incident, especially after we’d had to restart lessons in such a rush.
A forty-five-minute live.
The rest of the showcase time would have to be filled with the members’ individual talents and concepts.
It was a mess.
Everything was rushed and clumsy.
But…
“We can only do it sincerely.”
That was all there was to it.
And just then, Clara and manager Go Min-young came into the waiting room.
Clara’s face was drained white.
On top of that, she had spent the last several minutes sweating through the equipment adjustments. It was the burden of responsibility carried by the eldest, who had practically been taking care of the members like a deputy manager.
She said, “All right, everyone. Let’s begin rehearsals now.”
I stood up, thinking of Bigman and the branch manager.
“Wherever you go, whatever you do…”
“I’m rooting for you.”
...Please cheer for us.
The members walked toward the studio.
Step by step.
Step by step.
With every step, it felt impossible to believe we had really made it this far.
To some people, this was only the starting line.
To others, it was a dream more desperate than a goal.
Even if we were “just” VTubers, it had taken a year and a miracle from Bigman to get us here.
“…”
“…”
“…”
“…”
CEO Baek Su-cheol was waiting in the middle of the hallway. He lowered his head slightly, his expression grave.
“I have no face to show you. I’m sorry for setting the schedule so hastily.”
“CEO…”
“If we wanted to avoid the Romantic Drive mega-collaboration and still rent the studio, today was the only opening we had…”
Clara answered without flinching.
“It’s fine.”
“!”
“Let’s do everything we can.”
Just as we always had.
And just as we always would.
*
“Then let’s begin… Stage Error!”
With bright EDM driving underneath it, the instrumental that had only ever echoed inside the company finally rang out into the world.
After so many false starts, the song was at last seeing the light of day.
…
At long last, the rehearsal had begun.
And the showcase would begin soon after that.
CEO Baek Su-cheol stood in the hallway, staring blankly at it all.
Then the publicity team leader, Jo Eun-bi, walked up to him.
“CEO.”
“Yes?”
“Did you happen to plan a promotional event on university campuses?”
“?”
What the hell was she talking about?
Why on earth would the publicity team leader be asking me that?
With that exact feeling, I turned to look at her.
But Jo Eun-bi’s eyes were full of bewilderment.
“This right here.”
CEO Baek Su-cheol looked at her phone. There was a photo being shared on social media. Food trucks and LED billboard trucks had been set up all over major university districts.
On the screens, the Pazijik relay broadcast of the official ABCD channel was playing live.
People lined up in front of the food trucks to collect snacks, while the same tag kept being shared again and again.
It was the kind of promotion you’d only expect from a major idol festival.
A grand-scale campaign meant to celebrate a rookie idol group just making its first public declaration of intent.
It was promotion that looked like something only a conglomerate would pull off.
“?”
CEO Baek Su-cheol tilted his head slowly.
With the studio rental and the purchase of the 3D tracking equipment, the company’s finances had once again been pushed to the brink. There was no time, and no resources, to plan an event this huge.
Who the hell…?
As the dazed CEO stood there, Jo Eun-bi asked him in a hurry, “Did you arrange this, CEO?”
“No.”
“Then who…”
“!”
Who else would it be?
At the same moment, the two of them looked up.
“Ah.”
“Ah.”
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