Chapter 98
Chapter 98
Wonseokit.
A 10-member large group ambitiously launched by HoF, a major company considered the originator of idol agencies.
They stacked up dislike points from the very start with a debut song that scolded people not to ignore them when no one was ignoring them, and then, as if they'd gone off and joined a monastery during their hiatus, they took a sharp curve into a concept singing about the beauty and peace of the world.
Still, a major company is a major company for a reason. Thanks to HoF's insane capital grabbing them by the scruff of the neck and hauling them upward, they somehow crawled their way into the rising ranks.
And now, in their third year... they had become a group with never-ending ambiguous controversies.
Not school violence, but past stories that were somehow off-putting, the existence of a non-celebrity girlfriend, minor character controversies like littering on the street, etc.
Nevertheless, their insane variety sense shown in their own content and their intense performances on stage were the driving force that kept many fans holding on.
'Ssipdeonkkum' was one of those fans clinging to that tenacious lifeline.
Far from pretending not to know about Wonseokit's controversies, he openly criticized—no, condemned—them, and for a solid three years had been hearing "if you're going to hate on them like that, just unstan" so often his ears were calloused. He was a so-called aca-fan, a fan who hates and loves at once.
Whenever he was told that fangirling like that meant he'd be better off unstaning, Ssipdeonkkum consistently replied:
'Then bring me kids who are as good on stage, as funny, and as handsome as the Wonseokit ones.'
Of course, when he clapped back like that, it was routine to hear another earful about how he had "major beer goggles on," but Ssipdeonkkum had no intention of admitting it at all.
It wasn't beer goggles; he firmly believed there was genuinely no group like Wonseokit.
However, his pride had already... the previous year became the last memory.
The reason was simple.
Because he had witnessed the title of 'stage genius,' belonging to the Wonseokit he so revered, being pathetically crushed by a mere trainee who had only appeared on a survival program.
[Cucumber Sparkling Ade 'NICE ZOMBIE']
Even though it was a stage that included four hopeless cases he couldn't bear to watch with open eyes, Ssipdeonkkum replayed that video over and over again.
Honestly, the only part he wanted to see was the vocal part, but the reason he still watched it in full was to feel a more dramatic sense of emotion.
'......It's literally just his own song.'
Ssipdeonkkum didn't consider just singing well and dancing well to be stage presence.
What he considered stage presence was this: 'How well do you suit the stage?'
Therefore, in theory, a stage that was better than the original song couldn't exist. If there was one, then the original artist must have been subpar.
In other words, this meant.......
He reached a conclusion.
'This kid must just be a once-in-a-lifetime prodigy.'
Instead of tearing down his own idol, Ssipdeonkkum chose the method of hyping up Seo Cha-gyeom.
And whenever Seo Cha-gyeom appeared on his feed, he immediately blocked every instance. Because whenever he saw him, a weirdly unpleasant feeling and something like jealousy crept in.
So, when <MAKE100%> was swept up in controversy, he actively participated in the demands for the show's early cancellation, pretending it was for Seo Cha-gyeom's sake.
Since it felt like if 'that Seo Cha-gyeom' failed, his torn pride as a Wonseokit fan would be restored.
And now.
"......Eut-choo!"
He was at the scene of HAZERD's debut showcase.
In order to confirm with his own two eyes that Seo Cha-gyeom was failing.
......Was what he said, to be honest, it wasn't.
He just came to his senses and found he'd already bought a bunch of albums to apply for the showcase, and thanks to that, he easily surpassed the application cutoff and ended up winning a spot.
Since he'd already won, it felt like a waste not to come.
'Let's see how good you are. With my own eyes.'
Muttering with a prickly heart as he waited for entry to begin, he finally cut through the cold air and stepped inside the concert hall.
At the same time, a prettily packaged welcome kit was placed into his hands.
The packaging was just like a board game.
'Wow, the wrapping's pretty. Resellers are going to swarm this like crazy.'
Seated in his spot, Ssipdeonkkum carefully, cautiously checked the contents in case they might get scratched. Inside were a photo card pack, a cheering stick, and a slogan, all neatly placed.
'Oh, photocards.'
Opening the pack, Ssipdeonkkum thought without realizing it.
'Please be Seo Cha-gyeom!'
But what appeared was a group photo card set with all six members included.
It wasn't random.......
'......What did I just think to myself?'
Aha, Seo Cha-gyeom definitely has the highest market price, so my inner money-hungry gremlin just briefly acted up, that's all!
Making that excuse, Ssipdeonkkum carefully placed the contents back into the box preciously.
And as he was idly fiddling with his phone.
A message notification popped up. It was a friend he'd gotten to know through Wonseokit fan activities.
[Dude lol that's you right?]
[Look behind you, I'm here lolol]
Startled, he reflexively turned around and saw a friend sitting a few rows back waving cheerfully, smiling.
Feeling awkward for no reason, Ssipdeonkkum smiled awkwardly and hurriedly typed back a reply.
[nono just bored since nobody to watch these days came back, thought I'd drop by and check it out, didn't expect to see u here lol what a coincidence lmao what about you what brings u here lol]
After hitting send, it felt like an overly lame excuse.
As he thought, 'I should've just owned it coolly!', he countered himself again with, 'Own what?'
[Coincidence my ass lol there's a ton of other fandoms' big-name accounts here rn]
[It's just a festival lol basically a K-pop unity fan meeting level lmao]
'A festival, my ass.'
For some idol groups, this would be no different from a declaration of war.
A dry laugh escaped him, but it was definitely awe-inspiring.
'Hmph. Still, how many of these people will actually end up staying as real fans?'
Mid-tier companies lack staying power, so this is definitely their peak. Sure, right now the so-called 'Chatibaek' line of Seo Cha-gyeom, Han Neuti, or Baek Gyeonwoo is getting a huge amount of attention.......
That was when it happened. The murmuring around him began to grow louder.
Having experienced many showcases, Ssipdeonkkum intuited the reason as soon as he saw the time.
7 PM.
'The digital chart rankings are out.'
The digital release had already been unveiled an hour ago, at 6 PM.
He was going to hear it soon at the venue anyway, and more than anything, Ssipdeonkkum, who didn't want to contribute to their digital chart ranking, had deliberately postponed listening to it.
'Did they even make it into the Hot 100? Or not even that?'
Getting unnecessarily curious, he asked the person sitting next to him.
"Excuse me, what rank is it?"
"99! Daebak!"
Hmph, 99th. Barely scraping in.
At the number being even lower than he expected, Ssipdeonkkum internally sneered.
"Hot 100 is 21st!"
'......?'
"You just said 99th, right?"
"That was the Top 100!"
Top 100 and Hot 100.
Anyone who was a fan with a passing interest in the Lemon Chart couldn't possibly not know the difference.
Top 100 was the ranking combining daily and real-time figures among all songs, and Hot 100 was the real-time chart among the latest songs released within 100 days.
Simply put, entering the Top 100 was far more difficult.
Even Wonseokit's best record was entering Top 100 at 83rd, wasn't it?
'I-it must be the empty house effect!'
Ssipdeonkkum swallowed dryly. His heart began to pound anxiously.
And he hurriedly went onto NeoTube to find the music video he'd been deliberately ignoring and holding back from. Because an unbearable fear had suddenly washed over him.
'What if they get bigger than Wonseokit!!!!'
Please, let the song be crappy.
Let the music video be tacky too.
And the members... yeah, let them just have handsome faces and actually be talentless mannequins who are all show....... Let them be handsome but boring as hell.......
Chanting all sorts of negative prayers, Ssipdeonkkum plugged his earphones in with shaking hands and pressed the play button on the music video.
[HAZERD(HAZERD)―'MAZE' MV]
The music video naturally opened with Seo Cha-gyeom.
Inside a dark and cramped room where all sorts of objects were messily strewn about, Seo Cha-gyeom sat in front of a desk.
The blue light of the monitor brightly illuminated Seo Cha-gyeom's face, who was wearing horn-rimmed glasses.
'......A nerd?'
Clearly, his appearance was pointing to a stereotypical nerd concept.
But a glimmer that couldn't quite be hidden by the fatigue-mussed hair, horn-rimmed glasses, and shabby background could be felt. So much so that the lightly painted dark circles under his eyes seemed pitiful.......
Soon enough, Seo Cha-gyeom placed both hands inside his glasses and firmly pressed and rubbed his eyes.
'Like a grooming cat.......'
At that moment, his elbow, which had moved absently, lightly bumped a CD stacked precariously on a corner of the desk.
Seo Cha-gyeom let out a sigh, then leaned his waist over while still seated in his chair and roughly picked up the CD that had fallen on the floor.
However, he didn't realize the fact that he had picked up something completely different from what he originally intended to grab.
Seo Cha-gyeom pushed the CD he had picked up into the CD-ROM drive.
Along with the sound of the drive spinning, the cold light of the monitor that had been illuminating his face all along shifted to a warm and ominous orange glow.
Only then did Seo Cha-gyeom notice something was strange and checked the monitor.
On the screen was a game title screen.
'It's the exact same as the album cover design.'
As if he couldn't figure out what was going on, Seo Cha-gyeom moved the mouse and clicked the 'X' mark at the top right of the screen.
But the program didn't close.
Click, click, click.
Even after multiple clicks, the screen remained utterly unmoving.
In the end, Seo Cha-gyeom, out of frustration, moved the mouse cursor over to [START].
Click.
And then.
[No take―backs!]
As if it were a warning, the red, intense text filled the entire screen of the music video.
And the scene shifted.
Inside the room... it was still dark and cluttered in appearance, but.
Seo Cha-gyeom had vanished.
"......!"
Ssipdeonkkum jumped in surprise.
He wasn't particularly surprised by the music video; it was because, at that timing, the intro to the song presumed to be the title track started playing.
'C-crazy? Is this rock?'
Crackling noise briefly raked through his ears, and right after, the intense electric guitar exploded as if bursting out.
If this song had come up through a random algorithm, it was an impressive enough start that he would have immediately checked the title.
One thing was certain: they weren't aiming for... the general public.
And this was, in Ssipdeonkkum's judgment, a wise decision.
'The general public doesn't listen to boy group songs anyway.'
Even within the male idol sphere, easy listening was already oversaturated.
In the first place... the reason a prejudice like 'male idol songs are noisy' formed was because songs that weren't noisy disappeared without a sound or a whisper.
'Besides, having a guy like Seo Cha-gyeom do easy listening is a waste of resources.......'
Since Ssipdeonkkum was a listener with somewhat prejudiced views against easy listening, HAZERD's title track deeply resonated with his heart.
The harmony between the melody line that clung increasingly pleasantly to his ear the more he listened and the refreshing-feeling synthesizer, despite the intense beat, made it seem like it might just catch on with the public after all.
After that, the music video's development flowed into the story of Seo Cha-gyeom, who had been sucked into a game called [HAZERD MAP], struggling desperately to figure out the game's strategy and escape.
The problem was that the genre of the game absolutely couldn't be pinned down to one.
It was understandable.
Baek Gyeonwoo aimed a gun at Seo Cha-gyeom, and when Seo Cha-gyeom, who had raised both hands up, blinked his eyes, the gun transformed into a pink-wrapped chocolate bar.
When he accepted the chocolate, Kim Yuri appeared, and if he selected one of the choices composed of his rap part, noise would flicker across the screen and Kim Yuri would switch into Han Neuti.
When he went into a building with Han Neuti to avoid zombies, a warning message demanding rent would appear and Kim Sanho would appear, and after rolling the dice there... a 'PERFECT' text would appear and he would wander through a rhythm game with Jeong Sowol, in that fashion.
As many as five concepts switched without warning, yet the video wasn't scattered at all.
This was because the overtly maximalist backgrounds, the unique and playful scene transition effects, and the appropriate use of unified objects made the five concepts each feel not like different games, but like mini-games within the game called [HAZERD MAP].
And at the D-bridge, the identity of the game was finally revealed.......
This game was precisely that 'maze' he had seen in the timetable.
Seo Cha-gyeom, having figured out it was a maze, frantically ran through the maze avoiding the members to find the exit within the time limit, but in the end, the exit door closed right before his eyes.
And showing the 'HAZERD' sign hanging on the firmly shut door, the music video ended.
'......Honestly.'
Ssipdeonkkum stared blankly at the screen for a moment.
What this music video was trying to say was clearly just one thing.
'Once you enter the fandom, you won't be able to get out?'
The reason they went so far as to tie them under the category of a game and create five concepts without unity was likely also to hint at the chameleon-like multifaceted charm the group would show in the future.
Ssipdeonkkum felt a sensation wash over him as if all the puzzle pieces had finally clicked into place.
And he let out a chuckle, a dry laugh.
Because it was only upon watching the music video that he admitted he himself had been standing in the very middle of the maze for a long while now.