Chapter 96
Chapter 96
[STAGE 'KIM YURI']
Kim Yuri's teaser opened with a high school hallway bathed in warm sunlight.
The frame bobbed up and down as it moved forward, then came to an abrupt halt and locked in place when Kim Yuri appeared around a corner.
Neatly dressed in school uniform, Kim Yuri walked down the hallway without a care... until the moment he spotted the camera, at which point he frantically backpedaled and vanished behind the corner again.
After that, several cuts flickered past rapidly.
Kim Yuri sneaking glances at the camera, then hiding his face behind an upside-down book as if nothing had happened; Kim Yuri spotting the camera on the sports field and sending an awkward hand greeting, only to get hit in the head by a stray basketball....
At the end of the clip, the same hallway from the first scene reappeared.
This time, however, it was different.
Instead of sunlight, the glow of sunset flooded in, and Kim Yuri faced the camera without dodging—boldly... no, awkwardly.
His eyes seemed to waver for a moment, then he bravely looked straight into the lens.
The music faded out, leaving only Kim Yuri's voice crystal clear.
[Hey, you know... tomorrow....]
The screen was dyed pink, and the teaser ended.
Even though the concept could easily have come off as cringey, reactions were full of praise. Kim Yuri's slick yet somehow heart-fluttering aura made even the cringe feel like part of the concept.
The people who had been screaming that their hearts were racing now turned seriously back to speculation.
―The uniforms are nice and all lol but why is the concept all over the place
―Kim Yuri's line is actually "Hey, you know... you wanna squad up tomorrow?" vs. what Baek Gyeonwoo fired was actually a love bullet
―Track 2 is usually the title track and this was the second one released, so looks like the title will have this kind of concept too, yep yep, rookies should do stuff like this
―Ah... boring, a love song...; the scale's tiny as hell now...
People continued their guesses as they waited for the next one.
The third teaser to be unveiled was Han Neuti's.
And people... were thrown into chaos once again.
―???
―What was that at the end?
―Is this a hotpot concept? White broth, red broth, total chaos
The backdrop of the teaser was an ordinary convenience store interior.
Except its state was anything but ordinary.
The shelves had collapsed, merchandise lay scattered in a mess, and shards of broken glass were everywhere.
The camera panned across the floor of the wreckage before closing up on a small lollipop among the debris.
Moments later, someone's hand entered the frame and picked up the candy. The angle slowly tilted upward to reveal the hand's owner.
It was Han Neuti, dressed in a heavily worn-out blue jacket.
Han Neuti, utterly unfazed by the chaos, unwrapped the lollipop and popped it into his mouth.
[Bang!]
At that instant, a deafening noise rang out, and a muffled roar began to sound.
Hearing the noise, Han Neuti glanced up at the ceiling, the lollipop still in his mouth, his expression a mix of irritation and exhaustion.
The camera spun around and showed the convenience store entrance behind Han Neuti's back.
There, multiple zombies with pale skin, unfocused eyes, and grotesquely twisted forms were pounding wildly on the glass door, trying to force their way inside.
[Thud! Thud!]
The glass door shook precariously, as though it might shatter at any moment.
Han Neuti let out a long, weary sigh.
He slowly turned his head to face the zombies beyond the glass door and took the lollipop out of his mouth.
[Clang!]
With a sharp, shattering noise, the screen went black.
―...Our kid is going to survive this, right?
―How is Neuti so good at acting? Totally unexpected, I thought he'd be a complete dork (acting-wise only)
―No but seriously what is the concept here—Baek Gyeonwoo is a sniper, Kim Yuri is a romance male lead, and Han Neuti is zombie apocalypse? What kind of world is this wtf
―Fine, Baek Gyeonwoo and Han Neuti can be like that, but isn't Kim Yuri way too disconnected from the others? ...Wait, could it be that I'm the zombie?
―He got even more handsome in the meantime boohoo where did my stray kitty go
―Rei hyung, it's Minsu, congrats on debuting
Faced with a concept that was utterly impossible to pin down, fans tore their hair out as they waited for the next one.
The next teaser to be released belonged to Jeong Sowol.
There was something about Jeong Sowol's teaser that caught the eye even before the content itself—the screen was in a 4:3 aspect ratio.
The high-contrast, vividly saturated color grading, distinctively trendy in a bygone era, also caught the eye.
Within that frame, an alarm clock began screeching raucously, and the video started.
Soon the focus shifted to the bed beside the alarm clock. Jeong Sowol's arm emerged, fumbling for the off switch, and with a 'click' the alarm cut off.
Then the music began to play.
What followed was simply a series of scenes from Jeong Sowol's utterly mundane daily life.
The only peculiar thing was... every single one of his actions was perfectly synchronized with the rhythm of the music.
He placed two slices of bread into the toaster and pushed the lever down—a 'clunk' sound, and the beat briefly subsided.
Then, exactly four beats later, the golden-brown toast popped up into the air with a 'ding!' sound effect.
Jeong Sowol, as if he had been waiting, held out a plate at the perfect moment and caught the toast. At that instant, the word 'perpect!' flashed on the screen in magenta lettering.
At the very end of the clip, Jeong Sowol stood in front of a crosswalk wearing headphones, waiting for the signal to change.
The 'ding-dong' sound signaling the green light rang out, and Jeong Sowol began crossing the street with a light step.
The moment his foot touched the sidewalk on the final beat, the word 'PERFECT!' once again appeared in large text, and the video ended.
―Looks like an old cell phone CF
―This is insanely addictive though
―What are we supposed to do if you make a 24-hour version of the teaser
―Wow this has the best vibe ever lol, it's such a waste to just use this concept as a throwaway teaser
Jeong Sowol's teaser was well received across multiple communities thanks to its crazy addictive quality and the power of nostalgia.
And the people who had barely managed to escape that drug-like addiction were finally reminded that he was the protagonist of 'Gwaenchanayo'.
―Wow but the vibe is totally different from the 'Gwaenchanayo' days
―Is this retro? y2k? kind of vibe his personal taste, or did the company make him do it... ugh I wanna see the reality show so bad, I'm curious what their personalities are actually like
―He looks exactly like the character on the pajamas he's wearing (photo)
└Ah I totally adored that characterㅠ the nostalgia
Moreover, by this point, people had realized something.
―Looks like the kids have a game concept
That each member was playing a protagonist from a different game.
―Baek Gyeonwoo—FPS, Kim Yuri—dating sim, Han Neuti—survival game, Jeong Sowol—something like a rhythm game, right
―Ah right, that's why the title was 'STAGE' and not 'TRAILER' lol
―Then what kind of games are the other two?
―Can't we have two dating sim guys? Chaegyeom, just let me romance you once...
―Then is Kim Harok's son a puzzle game? lol
And Kim Sanho's teaser, which was released next, began not with the classic style people had predicted, but with a light, jazzy tune.
An enormous board game spread out across a completely white background.
On each space, a famous city name or an instruction was written, and at the center, 'HAZERD' was stamped like a game logo.
Next, what appeared on screen were two transparent red dice tucked between someone's fingers.
The dice were soon cast, tumbling across the surface until they struck the tip of a dress shoe and stopped at six and six.
The camera then panned upward to reveal Kim Sanho, dressed in a deep navy suit.
From then on, Kim Sanho moved across the giant game board as though he were a game piece, and each time the space he stood on changed, a different effect rained down from the sky.
Gummy bear-shaped jellies in various colors, confetti, buttons, and so on.
And when he returned to the space marked 'GO'.
This time, bills began to rain down.
Kim Sanho stood among them without the slightest waver, looking up indifferently at the falling banknotes.
He then reached out and snatched one fluttering bill.
The camera closed up on the bill caught between his fingers.
At the center, a single word was clearly stamped in thick, black gothic font.
[HOOKED]
And the video ended.
People zeroed in on his suit fit before they did on the board game concept.
―The genetics are insane, look at that stature
―Please give me both the son and the father
―The camera takes freaking forever to pan up
―Warning: overwhelming presence from existence alone
―No but you guys were literally just guessing what game it is, and now that it's out you're not talking about the game at all, why
With Kim Sanho's teaser fully unveiled, people began to wait for the very last one remaining—Seo Cha-gyeom's teaser.
However, that wait did not consist solely of pure anticipation.
―He already hogged the protagonist spot in the prologue, he's not gonna pull another solo special act, right, no way
The basis for the suspicion was clear.
In the previously released timetable, all the other members' content titles followed the format [STAGE '(Member's English name)'], but Seo Cha-gyeom's alone was different.
[PLAY 'SEO CHAGYEOM']
Not 'STAGE', but 'PLAY'.
A title that anyone could see hinted he alone would be given a different role.
This special treatment even had Seo Cha-gyeom's own fans worried.
―If only Chaegyeom sticks out too much it'll be bad for the whole group
―We don't want blatant favoritism eitherㅠ Please just come out similar to the others, I'm begging you
―We're already satisfied that he got a protagonist-only narrative in the prologue... please let it go normally...
And just as they feared, the released teaser for Seo Cha-gyeom was different right from the running time.
Whereas the other members' teasers were around 30 seconds long, his alone exceeded one minute.
There were certainly fans of Seo Cha-gyeom who cheered at the fact that the video was long in itself, but there was also a faction that expressed concern over the blatant disparity in screen time.
And at that moment.
Ahn Jiwon, sitting at his desk and staring down at his phone, clearly belonged to the latter group.
'It seems like they're making a mistake.'
He was one of the people who had been checking Sorasum's teasers without fail since January 1st.
Not out of fan loyalty. It was because he was curious about what kind of strategy Sorasum, who held the card called Seo Cha-gyeom, would actually unfold.
'I thought they had some brains....'
The 'prologue' teaser was clearly aimed at noise marketing, so a strategy that pushed Seo Cha-gyeom to the forefront had been valid.
If they had distributed the focus to other members, the team's entire image could easily have ended up branded as a "manipulation victim group."
But going any further than this was beating a dead horse.
'Are they trying to do Seo Cha-gyeom and the kids?'
Ahn Jiwon hit play with a rather cynical eye.
Seo Cha-gyeom's teaser began by showing a door with a sign on it. The lettering on the sign was their group name, which had already become familiar: 'HAZERD'.
A hand soon appeared from outside the frame and grabbed the doorknob.
Click.
The door opened, and after a shot of Seo Cha-gyeom entering the room, the camera switched to a side-view perspective, like a side-scrolling game.
In the midground at the center of the screen, Seo Cha-gyeom walked to the right, performing light movements in time with the flowing song.
And the background that passed behind Seo Cha-gyeom was... none other than the spaces from the previously released teasers of the other members.
The desolate city, the sunset-lit school hallway, the convenience store where zombies pounded on the glass door, the vividly colored crosswalk, the game board where bills fluttered.
In the midground of each screen was the member who was the protagonist of that respective backdrop, while in the far background, the other members were blended in like background elements.
The artistic direction was so striking it felt as though Seo Cha-gyeom, who had become the player, was clearing each different game stage.
Having passed through the five stages as if marching in place at the center for a long while, Seo Cha-gyeom finally, at the very end of the video, truly began to move to the right.
He headed toward the right edge as though meaning to exit the frame... but then.
[Thud!]
With a dull sound, he fell backward as if he had collided with something.
The screen immediately switched to Seo Cha-gyeom's first-person point of view.
Before his eyes was a firmly shut door.
As the frame reflected the door with an oppressive feeling for a long moment, a shadow fell over it, and the video came to a close.
And Ahn Jiwon realized.
'Ah, so that's why it's 'PLAY'.'
That Seo Cha-gyeom was not simply a main protagonist, but the role of a player exploring the other members' stages.
Of course it was true that Seo Cha-gyeom was at the center, but his role in the teaser was closer to a medium that illuminated and connected the worlds of the other members.
If anything, it almost felt like his presence was the smallest.
'If it's something like this, well....'
Ahn Jiwon checked the community reactions out of habit.
Indeed, the complaints about the disparity in screen time had noticeably quieted down.
Instead, every so often, the wistful voices of Seo Cha-gyeom's fans caught his eye.
―I was looking forward to what kind of game Chaegyeom would be, so sad
'You can't satisfy everyone.'
As Ahn Jiwon thought that and shrugged his shoulders, a new post notification arrived from the Sorasum channel.
He clicked in right away to check, and it was the tracklist.
Naturally, the first thing to catch his eye was the title track.
[track 6. MAZE (title)]
Unusually, the last track was the title.
Ahn Jiwon read the title aloud.
"Maze?"
And he fell into thought for a moment.
A maze, huh....
'It suits him really well. That hyung.'
Ahn Jiwon let out a small scoff of a laugh and then opened the calendar app on his phone.
He added a new D-Day.
[January 21]
"Hm."
After hesitating briefly, he soon entered the name for the D-Day.
[Debut]